Lords Sitting of 12 June 1984

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

Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill: Division
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I have been asked to inform the House that the figure for those voting Not-Content in the Division last night on the Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill was wrongly announced to the House as 238. It should have been 237. I think that I owe it to myself to say that I read out the figure which was actually given to me.

The Combat High Boot
2.38 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: 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 why they are considering equipping British infantry with the combat high boot.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the combat high boot has been in service for some two years. Its principal advantage is that it extends further up the leg of the wearer than its predecessor, the ankle-length directly moulded sole boot. This feature is a major contribution to keeping water out; but additionally, it has a "bellows" type tongue, employs high quality chrome-tanned leather and is especially constructed to prevent water ingress via the welts, the seams and the lace holes.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very full reply, but I must confess that I am not at all in agreement with it. Is my noble friend acquainted with what I would describe as the ultimate boot, which is the Cairngorm boot surmounted by the Arctic gaiter? Is my noble friend aware that I have done extensive tests on those boots in the bogs of County Kerry over perhaps 120 miles, never once getting wet? I seriously question why the Army keep persisting in different types of boot when, in my book at least, the ultimate boot is the Cairngorm boot with the Arctic gaiter.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that we take steps to ensure that all the commercially available products are properly evaluated. But the combat high hoot, to which my noble friend's Question refers, has been tested not least in the Falkland Islands in 1982 and has been found to be very satisfactory.
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, despite the hilarity, would the Minister accept that, while wanting to keep him on his toes in this Question, we do not intend that he shall get too much of a kick out of it? Can the Minister say how the production costs of this new boot compare with the production costs of the old one? Can the noble Lord also throw some light on the following matter? The noble Lord has already confirmed to the House that one of the advantages of the new boot is that it is more waterproof than the old one. But some of us have been mystified by what appears to be the drainage system in the new boot and the claim that, should water get in, it lets it out more easily. We are wondering whether there is any connection perhaps with tap-dancing?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think that I shall need to study that question rather carefully. But the fact of the matter is that it is almost impossible, and in fact it is undesirable, to make a totally waterproof boot, because I am told that it is necessary for the feet to breathe. That means that it is not possible to construct the boot of rubber, for example, or of some other totally waterproof material. As I have said, this boot has been tried extensively and has proved to be very successful. As far as costs are concerned, I believe that the combat high boot costs us about £16 a pair.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, can my noble friend inform me whether any attention has been given to the comfort internally of these boots or whether, like ladies' shoes, they are more for appearance than for anything else?
Lord Trefgarne: No, my Lords; comfort is a matter of paramount importance and it is, of course, represented to us very strongly by those who have to wear the boots.

Degree Courses: Costs
2.43 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: 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 what are the latest average annual costs of providing first degree arts courses and first degree science courses in universities and polytechnics respectively.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, it is not possible to identify the costs of undergraduates separately, but the net institutional average annual cost per student in the financial year 1982–83, the latest year for which firm figures are available, was, for universities in Great Britain, about £3,600 for classroom-based students and £5,300 for laboratory-based students, while, for polytechnics in England, classroom-based students cost an average of £2,600 and laboratory-based students an average of £3,800. These figures are gross of tuition fees but exclude the cost of student maintenance awards.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, how do the Government justify the enormous disparity in the funding of the universities and the public sector of higher education revealed by the figures which the noble Earl has just given us?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, direct comparisons between university and polytechnic funding are notoriously difficult because of the different allocative mechanisms used for the two sectors. Such factors as the range of subjects and levels of courses in polytechnics and universities, and the latter's greater commitment of resources to research, go some way towards explaining the cost differential. However, given the difficulties inherent in such comparisons, the Government are more concerned with providing absolute levels of funding which are appropriate to each sector's effective and efficient operation.
Baroness David: My Lords, can the Minister give the reasons for the difference in the level of resources? Is it because of the staff-student ratio? Is it because of the salary levels? Is it that the universities have more lecturers at higher grades? What are the reasons?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should have thought that I had probably answered that question, but a number of factors underlie the differential in unit costs, all of which make legitimate comparison of unit costs harder. whether at an institutional or sectoral level. First, it is estimated in the July 1983 inter-sectoral comparisons paper that on average some 25 per cent. of total university resources are devoted directly or indirectly to research.
Secondly, certain very high cost subjects, such as medicine and veterinary science, are taught only in universities. Thirdly, unit costs will also be affected by differences in the mix of levels and modes within the total provision. For instance, there is an observed tendency for higher level courses to be more costly to provide.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I am not at all sure what he said in his two replies, but I shall read them very carefully? Can be answer one specific point? When will the Government start to fund research in the polytechnics?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, at the moment there is a working party of the NAB and the UGC looking into the level of funding for research in polytechnics, and that working party will report before long.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, as regards the comparison between the universities and the polytechnics, do not the figures show, as one would expect, that it is very much cheaper to educate art students, and. that being so, why it is very necessary to increase the number of science students? If it is finance that is worrying the Government about university expenditure, will they give an assurance that they will not cut down the number of art students, which potentially is very great indeed, purely on grounds of economy?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I can probably give that undertaking. It is a question of there being only a certain amount of money available, which will be used in the best possible way.

Doctors' Wives: Payment for Practice Duties
2.45 p.m.
Lord Winstanleys: 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 what was the result of the discussions in early March (announced on 14th February (cols. 125–6)) between themselves and the General Medical Services Committee on the reimbursement to general practitioners of the salaries of their wives, where the wife is employed full-time in her husband's practice on duties which qualify for such reimbursement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, the Department of Health and Social Security and the General Medical Services Committee have agreed that the related ancillary staff scheme should continue for a further year, until 31st March 1985.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the frankness of that Answer, which makes it clear that the Government intend to continue with this longstanding discriminatory practice. Will the noble Lord do what he can to persuade his right honourable friends the Secretary of State and the Minister for Health to meet some of these ladies, who I understand have formed themselves into an organisation? Will he also advise his right honourable friends that when they meet these ladies they will find that they are true professionals, highly trained and totally dedicated to the service of their husbands' patients? Is it not time that we did something to end this anomaly as to reimbursement for their duties?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am sure that what the noble Lord says about the dedication of these people is perfectly correct. I understand that the profession's representatives—and no doubt they could include the people to whom the noble Lord particularly refers—will be raising the matter shortly with officials. I cannot say whether it will be possible to make any improvement in the current arrangements, but at this stage I must say that I think it is fairly unlikely that, given the resources available and the competing demands upon them, that will be possible. However, I should not like the noble Lord to go away with the impression that the matter is entirely closed.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on the London Economic Summit.

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It may also be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Health and Social Security Bill will be adjourned for dinner at approximately 7.30 for a short period this evening, and that during this adjournment the consideration of Commons amendments to the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Bill will be taken.

Dangerous Vessels Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time.
Clause 2 [Application of Merchant Shipping (Liability of Shipowners and Others) Act 1900]:
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved the following amendment:
Page 2, line 37, leave out ("and") and insert ("or").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name. This is purely a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Walston: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Walston.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Betting, Gaming and Lotteries (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

London Regional Transport Bill
2.50 p.m.
Further considered on Report.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 45:
After Clause 50 insert the following new clause:
("Travel concessions.
It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that arrangements made for travel concessions under this Act as respects all areas within and in the vicinity of Greater London enable persons eligible to receive them in accordance with section 49(7) of this Act to travel for, as a minimum standard, the identical hours of the day as any similar arrangements made under any enactment prior to the appointed day.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is to insert a new clause dealing with travel concessions. It deals with only one point. The purpose of the amendment is that any arrangements made for travel concessions under this Bill shall, as a minimum standard, allow travel during hours identical to those in any scheme being operated prior to the appointed day. Noble Lords will recall that in Committee an amendment was agreed which changed the off-peak hours provided in the Bill. That amendment, which was carried, will in effect ensure that the reserve scheme will have the same travelling hours as the existing scheme in Greater London.
I am certain that noble Lords will agree that it would be regrettable and nonsensical if any scheme to be operated by the boroughs was below that standard. In other words, it would be wrong if that scheme had a lower standard than noble Lords have agreed shall operate should a reserve scheme become necessary. I hope that, as your Lordships' Committee has declared its view on the hours for the reserve scheme, the Government will give their full support to this particular amendment.
It must be kept in mind that Clause 49 will permit any single authority, or any two or more authorities, to enter into arrangements with LRT for a concessionary scheme. But the reserve scheme will come into operation only if any scheme of the boroughs does not meet the requirements for scope and uniformity. This amendment would ensure that one of the points of uniformity must be that as a minimum standard the hours allowed for travelling on concession shall be the hours operating under the present scheme, or as may he operating at the appointed day.
I do not think I need go into all the arguments which were so well advanced by my noble friend Lord Pitt at the Committee stage, when the Committee saw fit to approve his amendment for the reserve scheme. All we are saying in this amendment is that what is to be laid down as a definite requirement for the reserve scheme should be laid down for any scheme which may be operated by the boroughs in the form of uniformity that I am suggesting. I hope that it will be kept in mind that one million older persons use concessionary schemes in Greater London, and that in its recent report London Transport say that there are 250 million journeys a year under the scheme. It is a well-used, very popular scheme, and I hope not only that the House will agree with the amendment but that the Government will give it support.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy (The Earl of Avon): My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has said, the Government have accepted this type of amendment into the reserve scheme, and I am glad to say that we are going to stick to what the Committee wanted on this particular point. I do not cavil at all at what the noble Lord wants, but I should like to explain the difference that we have with him and why we do not want to put this into the Bill as he has stated it. As the House is aware, we have had quite a debate on this topic, and of necessity I shall therefore have to cover some of the same ground again.
Noble Lords opposite would doubtless agree that the essential feature of this amendment is that it seeks to impose on local authorities by statute the existing GLC concession travel scheme. The Government's policy is of course to adopt a more flexible approach. On the one hand, it preserves the discretion of local authorities to make their own decisions as to what travel concessions to provide; on the other hand, it provides a basic fall-back scheme which will come into operation only if the boroughs fail to agree on a uniform scheme. It is of course to this basic fall-back scheme that we have agreed the amendment.
I hope that on reflection your Lordships will agree that this is the best policy. As I have mentioned before in these debates, it has been the policy of successive

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Governments that local authorities must have discretion over the provision of discretionary fares schemes. That is why Clause 49 basically re-enacts the existing law, enabling local authorities in and around Greater London to make their own voluntary arrangements with LRT, British Rail and other operators in their area. In these circumstances we do not think it right to impose on local authorities the most generous possible scheme. I believe that what the noble Lord is proposing is unnecessarily rigid. Also, of course, we do not know what new ideas might spring up. As the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said, it is a flexible situation, and I would suggest that it is better for the local authorities to remain flexible.
The Government believe that the best approach is to maintain so far as possible the right of local authorities to decide the scope of the travel concessions they provide. They are obliged under the Bill to agree a uniform scheme, and if they do not the statutory scheme will come into effect. But even if that happens, it will still be possible for local authorities to provide benefits on top of the statutory scheme. In this way a reasonable balance will be maintained between the various interests involved.
What we have to bear in mind in our debates on these clauses is that the Government are embodying in statute, for the first time, a specific concessionary fares scheme which the local authorities in London will be obliged to finance; that is, if conditions are such that the scheme automatically comes into operation. I really think that that is going far enough.
The amendment states:
"the identical hours of the day as any similar arrangements made under any enactment prior to the appointed day".
That really is a flexible situation. Who can tell whether, on the appointed day, we shall have the best system? I suggest to the House that what the Government have suggested in this Bill on this topic is the right way forward, and I would ask the House to support it.
Lord Somers: My Lords, surely flexibility is not what is wanted here. It is not the various local authorities upon which this is being imposed: it is upon the regional transport authority itself. For instance, I hardly think that the noble Lord would think it appropriate, when one takes a journey from London to Cornwall, to have different fares for each county through which the line passes. The same applies in a smaller way here. It is the single fare charged by the transport organisation.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I should like to speak in two respects regarding this amendment. The first is to take up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, has made, as I do not think that he has quite understood the significance of this amendment. It is not a question of a variation in the fares. Each borough, as I understand it, will meet the cost of the concessionary pass for the person entitled to have that pass. In that way it will not matter what the fares are anywhere. Although, as I understand it, London Regional Transport would have their own fare structure, the concessionary pass cost would surely be met by the boroughs as it used to be in past days. I stand open to correction on that if I am wrong, but do not think that Lord Somers' point is exactly relevant.
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The other point that concerns me is the exact wording of this amendment. The words are:
"the identical hours of the day as any similar arrangements made under any enactment prior to the appointed day".
At the present moment we have this experimental scheme of an additional half hour early in the morning on the buses. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and I both agreed that that particular half hour is quite dangerous and is causing congestion, and that it is not necessary to have that very early morning concessionary fare.
Even at the moment it is not likely to be beneficial to London Transport as a whole to he tied to what is in operation today. If the authority wished to be particularly obstructive, between now and the day of enactment they could provide that the free concessionary pass could be used from 7 o'clock in the morning, and if we passed this amendment with its present wording we could find that the task of getting people to their work in London would be quite impossible. Although I agree with Lord Underhill's point that we require a minimum standard—and I definitely support the hours that have already been passed under Lord Pitt's scheme—the wording of this amendment could be quite dangerous and harmful to London Transport in the way it is set out here.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I have listened with interest to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. I can understand the points they are making but, frankly, I cannot understand the attitude adopted by the Government. If the House has decided that we should have, as a reserve scheme, certain hours, it seems not only ridiculous but unfair that should there be a uniform scheme, or a scheme by some of the boroughs, we shall have different hours from those on which the Government will insist being in their own reserve scheme. As I said in my opening remarks, that frankly is absolutely nonsensical and I cannot understand it.
In the light of the point made about the 30 minutes at 9 o'clock on the buses. I can see that the amendment is deficient and I shall consult with a view to bringing forward an amendment at the Third Reading which will be identical with that which the House says it wants for the reserve scheme. I hope that then the Government will accept it but I give notice that we shall be doing that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 46:
After Clause 50, insert the following new clause:
("Provisions for the operation of travel concessions by independent transport operators.
.—(I) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State —

(a) subject to subsection (2) below to consider any request received from a London authority in relation to the provision of travel concessions by an independent transport operator as defined in section 48(8) of this Act and, if he considers it appropriate, to direct such an operator to provide travel concessions to persons eligible to receive them in accordance with section 48(7) of this Act similar to those concessions which are from time to time available on services provided by London Regional Transport and the Railways Board;

(b) in relation to paragraph (a) above, if he considers it appropriate, to give directions as to the maximum payments which may be made by a local authority to an independent transport service operator for the provision of travel concessions under this section.

(2) No direction under subsection (1)(a) above shall be made by the Secretary of State for the provision of travel concessions by any independent transport operator unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that financial provision for them will be made pursuant to subsections (1) and (3) of section 49 of this Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Bill as drafted places no obligation on independent operators to participate in a concessionary scheme. It is to be optional whether an independent operator joins in an agreement with a local authority. Most independent operators—as I think noble Lords will agree—will require satisfactory remuneration if they are to get involved in such a scheme. Obviously they will be there in order to derive a profit from their operations.
The amendment provides that there shall be a new clause. It gives the Secretary of State power to direct an independent operator to provide concessionary travel, but this will only take effect at the request of a local authority. Noble Lords will recall that a similar amendment was brought forward at Committee stage. It is being brought forward again today in the light of the arguments which were used against the amendment at the Committee stage.
The noble Earl, Lord Avon, said—and I quote now from col. 183 of Hansard on 22nd May:
"If the local authority are prepared to pay for them, there seems to be no reason why such operators should not provide them."
I think we can agree there should be no reason; but if an operator does not want to provide them, yet the local authority says it wishes it and wishes to pay for it, we are saying that that independent operator should be directed by the Secretary of State so to do. Therefore the Government have no disagreement on the principle. They just do not feel it should be in the Bill. We believe it should be in the Bill because one could find an area where an independent operator is the only operator on that particular route. Then if the local authority wanted a scheme, and was prepared to pay for it, the Secretary of State should be in a position to direct the operator to provide it, bearing in mind that the operator is going to be paid for it.
The noble Earl also thought it should be possible for two such parties to reach agreement on charges for a scheme rather than to lay down in statute that that should he done. But the amendment will ensure that should there be a failure to agree, a scheme will still go ahead, in the same way that the Bill provides that should there be failure to agree on a uniform scheme for the whole of Greater London the reserve scheme will come into operation. What we are saying is, should there be failure to agree, the Secretary of State will have the power to give direction.
The Secretary of State under the amendment will also fix a maximum payment that will be made by the local authority if he considers it appropriate. The reference to the local authority which the noble Earl advanced at the Committee stage does not apply because the amendment provides that the Secretary of State shall direct an independent operator to provide travel concessions only on a request from the local authority; and the local authority shall pay the figure to the operator that the Secretary of State shall determine. This seems common sense and fair to people living in areas which may be covered only by operators that I hope the Government will accept this amendment.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, as the noble Lord said, I do not think there is much to this amendment but I was listening with some interest to his example and could not help thinking—when he said that if what is on offer is turned down we should need a statutory power in order to enforce it—why could they not go somewhere else in order to get it? I do not see what keeps them on that particular track. The House may like to bear in mind that when an operator applies for a road service licence—whether for the first time or seeking a renewal—it will be open to local authorities, the Passengers' Committee, and individuals, to make objections or other representations to the Traffic Commissioners under subsection (3) (c) of Section 31 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act. I believe we should put that on record.
It seems that the only justification for the new clause might be that it would provide a mechanism for limiting the charge made by independent operators to an amount which the Secretary of State considers reasonable. The Government consider that setting limits as to a reasonable level of reimbursement to cover the fare income forgone in operating a concession would involve an unnecessary level of interference in a private operator's fare structure. We can surely expect the operators and the local authorities to settle such a question among themselves.
The Government do not consider it necessary to compel private operators to provide concessions. It will be in both the operators' and the local authorities' interest to ensure that London's travel concessions can apply on the services of private operators with the minimum of fuss. If, as the noble Lord seems to fear, there is a large increase in the number of independent operators the extension of concessionary travel onto their services will he a natural and sensible development.
The position of the operator providing independent services is different. He has chosen to back his commercial judgment in the market place. He is not answerable to the Secretary of State, or to local authorities as the noble Lord said. If the public do not like his services they will not use them. As I said earlier, they can go somewhere else. If he was the only person providing a service on a particular route at a particular time, and his service was unsatisfactory, it would always be open to LRT, in performing their duty to have due regard to transport needs, to introduce a service of their own. Bus operators are in business to carry passengers and we cannot see that there is any reason for them to refuse income in the way that this amendment would seem to envisage. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with my explanation. I have tried to put our point of view over.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the noble Earl always puts his replies in a very persuasive way; but, when one analyses it, the noble Earl is not really seeing the points that are being made in this particular amendment. If ever there was a case for talking about integration this is it; but we must not use the word "integration" in this House because it is only understood apparently by non-governmental persons. Of course we should like to see agreement; but a Bill must provide that failure to agree a desired concession will be taken up and dealt with appropriately. The noble Earl said that if the

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public do not like it, they can go somewhere else. We are talking about concessions for aged persons. The independent operators may be the only service on that particular route. That is the real point of the amendment.
I do not propose to divide the House now, but there is still one further stage. I do not want to have a lot of amendments at the Third reading stage; but, frankly, on reading the noble Earl's reply very carefully, if there seems to be a possibility that parts of Greater London could be without concessionary fares because the only person operating is an independent operator, then I believe we have to be fair to the passengers, the aged people, who may be compelled to use that particular service. I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.10 p.m.
Clause 51 [Supplementary provisions with respect to the free travel scheme]:
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 51, line 5, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
("(5) Each issuing authority shall be obliged

(a) to issue permits to all persons eligible to receive them under subsection 49(7) of this Act without charge, terms, limitations or conditions;

(b) to make arrangements with the Post Offices for permits to be issued from each Post Office or sub Post Office in the area of that authority.")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the last amendment I shall put forward dealing with concessionary fares. This proposes the deletion of the existing subsection (5) and replacing it with the new wording as set out in the amendment. I should read what is in the existing subsection (5):
"The issue of such a permit by any issuing authority shall be subject to such terms, limitations or conditions as the authority may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, from time to time determine as respects any category of eligible London residents."
This means that there could be changes from the existing arrangements. While one agrees that there could be flexibility, it has already been stated that boroughs may be permitted to make charges. This amendment seeks to lay down that there shall be no variations from existing arrangements, either in the reserve scheme or in any other scheme, which may be put together by London boroughs. The Government have already intimated that there could be charges for permits. That does not apply at present. Should schemes be proposed by the boroughs which the Secretary of State may find acceptable, it would be most unfortunate if, dependent on where a person lived, there could be a charge for the issue of a permit or a permit be issued on varying or different conditions. We should remember that there are 33 London boroughs. It must be remembered, too, that journeys by bus or Underground do not stop at borough boundaries. Most persons have journeys which traverse a number of the borough areas.
Paragraph (b) of the amendment will make it obligatory on each issuing authority concerned to make arrangements for permits to be issued from each post office within the area of that authority. This, as noble Lords will be aware, is what happens under the
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present scheme. It works well and is well appreciated by pensioners and other persons. Older people find the arrangements most convenient, particularly as most of them use the post offices to collect their pension payments. Further, post office staff are well used to the system and in many cases they are even on personal terms with the applicants.
I hope that the Government will say that this is a sensible amendment. We do not want to have varying schemes. We do not want to find one borough charging for a permit and another borough not and we do not want to see the facilities of the post offices not used in any future scheme. I beg to move.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I am sorry that I am not able to support this amendment. I have a number of reasons for saying that. When I was chairman of the social services committee of Westminster City Council, we issued these concessionary fare permits from the local boroughs. That was before the scheme went over to the Greater London Council. We issued the permits without charge and I always thought that that was a mistake we made. We should have made some purely nominal charge, such as 50p, as I believe some other boroughs did, charging 50p or £1 in those days. The reason I say that is because it came very clearly to my knowledge that a great many people took up those concessionary passes although they were quite unable to travel and never did travel. Indeed, I remember clearly one case of a woman who said that she had taken it in case her chauffeur ever became ill and it would be convenient to have it. A number of bedridden people applied for passes and got them. We issued them and also in those days it will be remembered that there were no photographs on the passes so a pass issued to one person could have been used by anyone else. However, I shall not go into that aspect of it.
We issued permits by post. We first sent a written request to ask someone whether they would like it. They then wrote back and we sent them a free sticker. I know that, by the time we had paid three lots of postage on each of these passes, the cost in postage of issuing them in those days—I am speaking of some time ago—was over £6,000.
Councils certainly are not able to issue them for nothing. It is not appreciated that these passes cost money. People think, "I am getting it for free", but they do not appreciate that that means their council will be paying London Transport whatever the value of the pass is. I do not know what the current value of a pass is, but I suppose it must represent £100 or maybe more per year, because a travel card for an ordinary person to travel in London represents £190 per year for a two-section pass. It could be a major expense, and councils do not want to be buying passes for people who have no intention of using them. Therefore there must be some way of controlling who they are being issued to and ensuring that the people receiving them intend to use them. If people do intend to use them, it is the most marvellous thing in the world. It is far better than any amount of social services, it keeps them mobile and active. I am all for them, but I do not want to see the local authorities issuing passes to people who cannot ever get on a bus.

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I think that the second aspect regarding the Post Office is the ideal way of issuing permits. It is extremely practical, but again it is not free. At present, the Post Office has an arrangement with the Greater London Council and I am sure that, when the scheme goes over to boroughs, they will be expected to meet the Post Office charges. It is possible that boroughs would prefer to issue their own passes and feel they could do it more efficiently through their own social services schemes. It should be appreciated that because someone has a free pass it is no hardship to go to collect the next one from the council. The idea is to keep people moving around. I think that both paragraphs (a) and (b) of this amendment have disadvantages and, although I think the idea is interesting and things will probably go on in exactly the way that is suggested here, I should not like to see that made compulsory on the boroughs.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, made clear, the purpose of this amendment is twofold. In the first place, it seeks to remove the discretion of local authorities in Greater London to place any terms, limitations or conditions on the issue of certain concessionary travel permits. Secondly, it seeks to make it obligatory for local authorities to make arrangements with the Post Office for the issue of the permits.
On the first point I should make it clear that the ability of local authorities to impose any terms, limitations or conditions on the issue of concessionary travel permits as provided for in Clause 51(5) is not a new provision applying only to the reserve scheme. Your Lordships will notice that Clause 49(9) makes it clear that the term "travel concession" means the reduction or waiver of a fare or charge either absolutely or subject to terms, limitations or conditions. That subsection merely re-enacts in relation to LRT the powers which all authorities have under existing legislation.
I return the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, made about me, because his own persuasive powers led me to think that perhaps something was different. It is not: the provision merely re-enacts the powers which all authorities have under existing legislation. It would apply to any voluntary scheme as it does to the reserve scheme. I made clear throughout the debates on this subject at Committee stage that the Government believe it is important that as far as possible local authorities should have a discretion about travel concessions. It is, after all, they who have to pay for them and I believe it is only right that they should retain the power to impose any terms, conditions or limitations if they so wish. My noble friend Baroness Gardner of Parkes illustrated this forcefully to the House.
There is, however an important safeguard in Clause 51(5). The Government do not want the operation of the reserve scheme, if it is brought into effect, to be frustrated by boroughs making exorbitant charges. So the Secretary of State will be taking unique powers to make the imposition of any terms, limitations or conditions subject to his approval.
On the second point, I can appreciate, as did my noble friend Baroness Gardner of Parkes, the administrative convenience of travel permits being issued by
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the Post Office and I understand that the London Boroughs' Association have this possibility very much in mind in devising a uniform voluntary scheme. But I am sure your Lordships will appreciate that it would be very difficult for all the permits to be issued by the Post Office if the boroughs decided to impose different terms and conditions on their issue. In the circumstances, my Lords, I do not believe that it would be sensible to impose upon boroughs a view on how the permits should be issued: it should be left to them to devise their own arrangements.
I have gone into some detail on this amendment and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will appreciate what I have been saying.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I appreciate the point that the noble Earl makes about existing legislation. Before coming to the point about the different schemes, may I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that I live outside London but we have London Transport service facilities. Permits for aged persons are issued from the various council offices. There is a post office 100 yards from me but people have to get on to a bus and go to the nearest council sub-office to get their passes. That seems utterly ridiculous and unfair to pensioners. In the case of post offices, it is not just the Crown post offices which are concerned but also the sub-post offices, which is what we suggest in this amendment. They are all over the place, and most convenient, and we think we should use the offices of a public institution when they are available. The very arguments which the noble Earl used are the sort of arguments that we used against the whole idea of London Regional Transport taking over from London Transport—we are going to have multifarious different schemes of some kind where there ought to be one general scheme.
I can appreciate the point on existing legislation but will have a careful look at what the noble Earl has said about post offices. Is it sufficient merely that he hopes that the authorities will use the post offices, or is it not common sense that where we have a wide network of post offices, a public institution, they ought to be used for this sort of purpose? It may be that we shall come back at Third Reading with amendments of that kind only. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.22 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved Amendment No. 48:
After Clause 52, insert the following new clause:
("Penalty fares.
.—(1) This section and the three next following sections have effect in relation to—

(a) travel on a bus service to which this section applies; and

(b) travel on a train service to which this section applies; if an order under section (Operation of the penalty fares provisions) of this Act is for the time being in force with respect to the service in question.

(2) Subject to subsection (4) below, if at any time during his journey on any bus service to which this section applies on which fare tickets are issued in return for fares paid by persons travelling on that service a person so travelling fails, on being required to do so by an authorised person, to produce any necessary fare ticket for his journey on that service, he shall be liable to pay a penalty fare in respect of that journey.
(3) Subject to subsection (4) below, if a person travels on any such bus service on which fare tickets are not so issued without paying the fare (if any) properly payable for his journey on that service, or for any part of his journey on that service, he shall be liable to pay a penalty fare in respect of that journey.
(4) A person shall not be liable to pay a penalty fare —

(a) in a case within subsection (2) above, if he had no reasonable opportunity to obtain any necessary fare ticket before the time when he was required to produce such a ticket;

(b) in a case within subsection (3) above, if he had no reasonable opportunity to pay the fare in question before the time when he was found to have failed to pay it.

(5) Subject to subsection (6) below, if at any time during his journey on any train service to which this section applies a person travelling on that service fails, on being required to do so by an authorised person, to produce any necessary fare ticket for his journey on that service, he shall be liable to pay a penalty fare in respect of that journey.
(6) A person shall not be liable to pay a penalty fare by virtue of subsection (5) above if he had no reasonable opportunity to obtain any necessary fare ticket, or a deferred fare authority applicable to his journey or to any relevant part of his journey, at the time when he started to travel.
(7) A penalty fare payable by any person under this section in respect of any journey shall be an amount equal to—

(a) the minimum penalty; or

(b) the default fare for the journey multiplied by the multiplier; whichever is the greater; and any such penalty fare shall be payable to the person providing the service in question within the period of twenty-one days beginning with the day following the date on which the journey was completed.

(8) In subsection (7) above —

(a) "the minimum penalty" means £5 or such other (lower or higher) sum as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe; and

(b) "the multiplier" means ten or such other (lower or higher) figure as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.

(9) In any case within subsection (2) or (5) above the default fare for the journey mentioned in subsection (7)(b) above is

(a) where the whole of the distance travelled on that journey was not covered by any fare ticket produced by the person in question or by any deferred fare authority or other valid authority to travel, an amount equal to the full fare for the whole of that distance;

(b) where any part (but not the whole) of the distance so travelled was not so covered, an amount equal to the full fare for that part of that distance;

(c) where the whole or any part of the distance so travelled was covered by a fare ticket so produced showing payment of a fare lower than the fare properly payable for that journey or for the relevant part of that journey, an amount equal to the difference between the fare shown on the ticket and the full fare for that distance or (as the case may be) for that part of that distance; and

(d) where both paragraphs (b) and (c) above apply, the aggregate of the amounts applicable under each of those paragraphs.

(10) In any case within subsection (3) above the default fare for the journey mentioned in subsection (7)(b) above is an amount determined by applying subsection (9) above, taking references (however expressed) to a fare ticket produced by the person in question and the fare shown on any such ticket as references to a fare paid by that person.
(11) In this section "full fare" means, in relation to the whole or any part of the distance travelled by any person on a journey on any bus or train service to which this section applies, the single ordinary fare payable by an adult for travelling on that service for that distance or (as the case may be) for that part of that distance on a journey corresponding to the one actually taken (but treated, where it covers part only of the distance travelled on that journey, and also where the whole of the distance so travelled formed part of a journey made partly by way of another service, as a separate journey).
(12) The liability of any person under this section to pay a penalty fare in respect of any journey is subject to section (Exclusion of double liability) of this Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 48. In doing so, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 49, 50, 51, 52 and 53.
Amendment No. 49: As an amendment to Amendment No. 48, in subsection (8), paragraph (a), leave out (15") and insert ("£ 10").
Amendment No. 50: After Clause 52, insert the following new clause:
("Interpretation of the penalty fares provisions.
—(1) Section (Penalty fares) of this Act applies to any bus or train service provided by London Regional Transport or any subsidiary of theirs or by any other person in pursuance of any agreement entered into by London Regional Transport by virtue of section 3(2) of this Act which provides that that section is to apply to services provided in pursuance of that agreement.
(2) In this section and the three next following sections "the penalty fares provisions" means section (Penalty fares), this section and the two next following sections.
(3) In the penalty fares provisions —
"authorised person" means a person authorised by the person providing the service in question:
"authority to travel" means any ticket (other than a fare ticket), permit, voucher or other document authorising the person to whom it is issued to travel on any bus or train service to which section (Penalty fares) applies, whether or not subject to any terms, limitations or conditions as to its use;
"bus journey" means a journey on a bus service to which that section applies;
"bus service" has the meaning given by section 43(6) of this Act;
"deferred fare authority" means an authority to travel subject to a condition requiring payment of the fare applicable in the case of the person using that authority for the whole or any part of any journey on which it is used at the conclusion of that journey or otherwise as provided by any terms applicable to its use (whether or not it is also subject to any other terms. limitations or conditions);
"deferred fare" means the fare payable for a journey authorised by a deferred fare authority;
"fare ticket" means a ticket showing payment of a fare for travelling on a bus or train journey and authorising the person to whom it is issued to travel on any such journey for the distance covered by that fare, whether or not subject to any terms, limitations or conditions as to its use;
"train journey" means a journey on a train service to which section (Penalty fares) of this Act applies: and
"train service" means a service for the carriage of passengers by rail.
(4) References in the penalty fares provisions to the fare properly payable for a person's journey on any bus or train service to which section (Penalty fares) applies are references to the fare so payable excluding any deferred fare for the journey: that is to say, the fare payable by a person of the category to which he belongs for travelling on that service for the whole of the distance travelled on that journey, or for such part of the distance so travelled as is not covered by any deferred fare authority or other valid authority to travel that applies to his journey on the occasion in question.
This subsection applies in relation to references in those provisions to the fare properly payable for part of a person's journey as it applies to references to the fare properly payable for a person's journey.
(5) References in those provisions to any necessary fare ticket for a person's journey on any such bus or train service are references to a fare ticket required for his journey on the occasion in question which—

(a) applies to his journey on that occasion; and

(b) shows payment of the fare properly payable for that journey.

(6) For the purposes of those provisions, no fare is properly payable for a bus journey and no fare ticket is required for a bus or train journey if the person travelling on that journey has a deferred fare authority or other valid authority to travel that applies to the whole of his journey on the occasion in question.").
Amendment No. 51: After Clause 52, insert the following new clause:
("Supplementary provisions with respect to penalty fares.
.—(1) Section 25(2) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 (arrest of bus passenger without warrant) shall apply where a constable suspects with reasonable cause that a person has become liable to pay a penalty fare in respect of any bus journey as it applies where a constable so suspects that a person has contravened or failed to comply with a provision of any

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regulations having effect by virtue of that section (regulation of conduct of passengers).
(2) Section 5 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 shall apply in the case of any person who has become liable to pay a penalty fare under section (Penalty fares) of this Act as if —

(a)the reference in subsection (1) (offence of failing either to produce the correct ticket, pay the correct fare or give name and address to an officer or servant of a railway company) to his fare from the place whence he started (but not the earlier reference to his fare) were a reference to his fare from that place and the penalty fare; and

(b) the second reference to his fare in subsection (2) (power to detain person failing to give name and address) and the reference to his fare in subsection (3)(c) (offence of giving a false name and address) were each a reference to his fare and the penalty fare.

(3) If in any action for the recovery of a penalty fare payable under section (Penalty fares) it is established that the circumstances fall within subsection (2), (3) or (5) of that section, it shall he for the defence to show that any exception provided by subsection (4) or (6) of that section applies.
(4) It shall be the duty of London Regional Transport to secure that the requirements of the following provisions of this section with respect to warning notices are met in the case of every bus or train service to which section (Penalty fares) applies.
(5) In the case of a bus service, a warning notice meeting the requirements of subsection (6) below shall be posted in every vehicle used in providing that service or, where any such vehicle has more than one deck, on each deck of that vehicle, in such a position as to be readily visible to persons travelling on the vehicle.
(6) A warning notice posted in pursuance of subsection (5) above shall state—

(a) in the case of a bus service within section (Penalty fares) (2) of this Act, that persons travelling on that service who cannot produce a ticket showing payment of the correct fare for their journey, or for any part of their journey not otherwise authorised, may be liable to a penalty fare; and

(b) in the case of a bus service within subsection (3) of that section, that persons who travel on that service without paying the correct fare for their journey, or for any part of their journey not otherwise authorised, may be liable to a penalty fare.

(7) In the case of a train service, a warning notice meeting the requirements of subsection (8) below shall be posted—

(a) in every station at which persons may start to travel on that service, in such a position as to be readily visible to prospective passengers; and

(b) in every carriage of every train used in providing that service.

(8) A warning notice posted in pursuance of subsection (7) above shall state that persons travelling on that service who cannot produce a ticket showing payment of the correct fare for their journey, or for any part of their journey not otherwise authorised, may be liable to a penalty fare.
(9) Every warning notice posted in pursuance of this section shall state the amount of the current minimum penalty (within the meaning of section (Penalty fares) (7) of this Act) and indicate that a penalty fare may be higher.
(10) Any order under subsection (8) of that section shall he subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.").
Amendment No. 52: After Clause 52, insert the following new clause:
("Exclusion of double liability.
.—(I) Where a person has become liable under section (Penalty fares) of this Act to pay a penalty fare in respect of any bus or train journey ("the relevant journey"), no proceedings may be brought against him for any of the offences specified in subsection (2) below before the end of the period mentioned in subsection (7) of that section; and no such proceedings may be brought after the end of that period if either —

(a) he has paid that fare to the person providing the service before the end of that period; or

(b) an action has been brought against him for the recovery of that fare.

(2) The offences mentioned in subsection (1) above are —

(a) any offence under section 5(3)(a) or (b) of the Regulation of
Railways Act 1889 (travelling without paying the correct fare with intent to avoid payment) arising from the relevant journey;

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(b) any offence under byelaws made under section 67 of the 1962 Act (byelaws for railways, etc.) involving a failure to obtain or produce a fare ticket or authority to travel for the relevant journey; and

(c) any offence under section 25(3) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 of contravening or failing to comply with any provision of regulations for the time being having effect by virtue of that section by failing to pay the fare properly payable for the relevant journey or any part of it.

(3) If proceedings are brought against any such person for any such offence he shall cease to be liable to pay the penalty fare and, if he has paid it, the person to whom it was paid shall be liable to repay to him an amount equal to the amount of that fare.").
Amendment No. 53: After Clause 52, insert the following new clause:
("Operation of the penalty fares provisions.
.—(1) The Secretary of State may by order provide that the penalty fares provisions shall have effect, as from such day as may be specified in the order, with respect to—

(a) bus services to which section (Penalty fares) applies; and

(b) train services to which that section applies; and different days may be specified under this section with respect to bus services and train services.

(2) Any such order is referred to below in this section as an order activating the penalty fares provisions.
(3) The revocation by the Secretary of State of an order activating the penalty fares provisions shall be without prejudice to the power of the Secretary of State to make further orders under this section activating those provisions.
(4) An order activating the penalty fares provisions may provide that any provision of a local Act specified in the order (being a provision which appears to the Secretary of State to be unnecessary having regard to the penalty fares provisions so far as they have effect by virtue of the order) shall be suspended while that order has effect; and any such provision shall accordingly be treated, so long as that order has effect, as if it had been repealed.
(5) Without prejudice to subsection (4) above, any order activating the penalty fares provisions, and any order revoking any such order, may contain such supplementary, incidental and consequential provisions (including transitional provisions) as may appear to the Secretary of State to be neccessary or expedient.
(6) No order activating the penalty fares provisions may be made except at the request of London Regional Transport.").
We come now to a very important topic which we raised during our earlier consideration of the Bill and on which, following a number of representations from your Lordships—notably the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, my noble friend Lord Teviot and my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes—I then gave an undertaking to introduce Government amendments. I apologise for the number of clauses involved here. There are certainly very many more than I envisaged at that time, but the complexity of the different arrangements for paying fares, as well as the inherent differences in travel on buses and the Underground, has made this unavoidable.
The Government agree wholeheartedly with those noble Lords who have drawn attention to the magnitude of fare dodging on London Transport services and to the need to take this opportunity to put matters right. In 1982 fares evasion cost London Transport as much as £40 million. As a result of lower fares and simplified ticketing arrangements, as well as a publicity campaign, London Transport succeeded in reducing this figure to an estimated £25 million in 1983. Nevertheless, this is still a very large sum, representing almost a 5 per cent. loss on revenue received. And this loss, caused by relatively few defaulters, has to be met by the majority of honest travellers. It effectively adds 6 per cent. to the fares which they would otherwise have to pay. Clearly, this points to the need for steps to eradicate the enormous losses which currently take place.
As your Lordships are aware, it is the Government's aim to ensure that LRT reduce costs, improve efficiency and generally provide better value for money. London Transport are already planning for the introduction of automated fares collection and ticket issue. In the longer term, when the proposed new Underground ticketing system is fully operational, there will be automatic gates at central stations and open-barrier suburban stations. In these circumstances the opportunity for increased fares evasion is obvious. Indeed, I will go further and say that unless steps are taken to place a clear obligation on travellers to pay the proper fare for their journeys with an appropriate penalty if they do not, it will be impossible to achieve the savings which we want to see.
Before describing how the penalty fares system will work, perhaps I could take the opportunity to set the record straight on one or two matters which may be of concern. In preparing these measures, the Government have given very careful thought to the need to protect the civil liberties of the individual. It is for this reason that the measures include a number of safeguards for travellers.
In the first place, I would like to make it clear that the proposal before your Lordships is not, as was erroneously reported in some newspapers, for an on-the-spot fine. What the proposal amounts to is that, as part of the conditions of travelling on LRT services, travellers will be liable to a surcharge (or a penalty) if they do not pay the proper fare. What is involved, therefore, is not the creation of a new criminal offence with a fine being exacted other than in accordance with the due process of law; it is simply the creation of a new civil liability. Although it will be possible for the traveller to pay this surcharge on the spot, he will have 21 days in which to pay. If he chooses not to pay, then LRT's redress for the recovery of the penalty fare lies only in a civil action in the county courts. These new conditions will be prominently displayed at stations, on trains and on buses to ensure that travellers are fully aware of their liabilities. The new measures do not disturb the existing criminal law, under which it is an offence to travel with intent to avoid payment. I will return to this in a moment.
The second point I wish to make is that the proposals ensure that travellers will not be liable to pay a penalty fare if they had no reasonable opportunity to pay the proper fare or to obtain a ticket. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has authorised me to give an undertaking that the measures will not be introduced on the Underground until he is satisfied that appropriate equipment is in place to ensure that a reasonable opportunity exists for obtaining an appropriate ticket or authority to travel. The measures in these new clauses can only be brought into effect by order of the Secretary of State, at the request of London Regional Transport; and the measures can be revoked by the Secretary of State if unforeseen difficulties occur. There is no question that these provisions will come into operation on the appointed day for the Bill itself.
Perhaps I could now describe, quite briefly, the purpose of the five clauses under consideration. The
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first new clause (Amendment No. 48) provides that if a person does not pay the proper fare for the whole or any part of his journey, he will be liable to a penalty fare of either £5 or ten times the amount of the unpaid fare, whichever is the greater. There will be no liability to a penalty fare if the travellers had no reasonable opportunity to pay the proper fare or to obtain a fare ticket for the journey in question. The clause also defines the terms and method of calculation for a penalty fare. The second new clause (Amendment No. 50) provides that the penalty fare system will apply on all LRT bus and train services, on services of any subsidiary of LRT, and on services of any person operating under an agreement with LRT where that agreement states that the penalty fares provisions are to apply. This clause also sets out definitions of terms used concerning fares, tickets, journey and so on.
The third new clause (Amendment No. 51) contains supplementary provisions to enable the name and address of a traveller to be obtained if he is liable to a penalty fare and to extend the current powers of arrest, on failure to give a name and address, to the penalty fares provisions. This clause also places a duty on LRT to ensure that warning notices about liability for penalty fares, and about the minimum amount, are displayed at every station, in every train and on every deck of every bus. Any order varying the penalty fare will be subject to the negative resolution procedure in Parliament.
The fourth new clause (Amendment No. 52) provides that a traveller will not have a double liability for an offence relating to fares. If he is liable for a penalty fare no proceedings can be brought within a period of 21 days. Any liability to prosecution will be discharged by payment of the penalty fare within that period of time. On the other hand, if proceedings are brought after the 21-day period against a person for offences relating to non-payment of fares he will not be liable to pay the penalty fare.
The final new clause (Amendment No. 53) provides for the Secretary of State to bring the penalty fares provisions into effect by order, at the request of LRT, for bus services and train services separately. The clause also sets out provisions relating to revocation of the orders and the suspension of similar provisions in local Acts which appear to the Secretary of State to be unnecessary when the new provisions are brought into effect.
I have explained that these measures create a new civil liability for non-payment of the proper fare. This will apply equally to those who, for example, innocently override with every intention of paying, and those who travel with intent to avoid payment and who will remain liable, even if they do not pay the penalty fare, to prosecution.
The Government are well aware that extending sanctions in this way into new areas almost inevitably restricts the freedoms of some innocent people; and that the measures may be perceived as an extension of criminal sanctions. The Government have considered this aspect very carefully. We have been able to see no alternative to the approach embodied in these clauses if the provisions are to be effective in their purpose; namely, to help to eradicate the high level of fraudulent travel on London's public transport. At the

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same time, I and my right honourable friend will be taking careful note of the points made today in your Lordships' House. If these clauses can be improved I give your Lordships a firm assurance of my determination that this will be done and that the necessary refinements will be brought forward at Third Reading. I go further than that. If on maturer consideration further improvements are identified before these provisions come into effect, we shall seek to implement them in amending legislation. I hope, with these undertakings, we can now debate these important new measures with the seriousness they deserve. I beg to move Amendment No. 48.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Airedale): My Lords, I now have to call, as an amendment to Amendment No. 48, Amendment No. 49 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes had given notice of her intention to move, as an amendment to Amendment No. 48, Amendment No. 49:
[Printed above: col. 1004.]
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am not clear whether, in terms of the procedures of this House, if I speak on this amendment to the amendment I can then speak on the amendment itself. I will speak just to the amendment to the amendment at this moment, as I would prefer to reserve my other comments.
Lord Denham: My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Baroness. My noble friend can of course speak on both if she wants. Her amendment has been called and the debate is on that, but she can of course speak to the parent amendment as well.?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, do I have the alternative of speaking separately to both amendments?
Noble Lords: No.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I have to speak on both simultaneously. Thank you very much for that clarification. In that case, I shall deal with the amendment to the amendment first. I have suggested a penalty fare of £ 10 rather than £5 for several reasons. One was to bring it more into line with the penalty paid as a fixed penalty charge for car parking in the wrong spot. I thought that £10 was not an unreasonable sum. I also thought that it was more of a deterrent than the proposed minimum £5. But since putting this amendment down I have had consultations with London Transport and I think I am persuaded by them that £5 is a more practical figure at this initial stage. Their research has shown that people are much more likely to have £5 on them and the real intention is to enable people to settle this matter then and there, rather than to choose the 21-day deferred system for payment. So I think, as there is provision in my noble friend's original clause for a variation of this amount should £5 become completely out of date as time goes by, I would not press my amendment to the amendment.
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I should like now to go on to speak to Amendment No. 48. I welcome it and I am very glad that the Government have brought the amendment forward, particularly when I see how very complicated it is. Although I asked for this and thought it a fairly simple thing at the early stages of the Bill, it is quite apparent from the detail that has gone into it that it is far from simple. I can see that most of the complexity arises from the need to protect people and to introduce the essential safeguards. I welcome those.
The London Regional Passengers' Committee would also support the introduction of a penalty fares system provided these safeguards were introduced. The safeguard of the gravest importance is the ability in some way to obtain a ticket at the beginning of your journey, either a ticket or an authority to travel, which is what it is proposed to introduce in the areas where it will not be possible to get a ticket, so there will be at least a machine issuing one with an authority to travel and never a need to get on the Tube without this authority. I understand that it is possible for this scheme to be introduced on the buses very soon but that it might well be five years before the Tube scheme could come into being. Nevertheless, this is the time to produce the law in relation to this.
I welcome the fact that this will be a civil matter and that passengers will therefore have the choice of paying a standard fare or a penalty fare. The penalty fare will be for failure to produce the correct ticket and not just for failure to have one. At the present time LT can prosecute but in order to win the case they have to prove an intent to defraud. Under this civil matter it will not be necessary to prove any intent because it will not be a question of fraud; it will simply be a choice of civil contract to choose a standard ticket or a penalty rate ticket.
The present prosecutions are brought under the Theft or Forgery Acts, and this will continue. Where it is believed that there is a serious attempt to avoid payment of the fare, or a repeated habit of someone trying to do this, or a forgery such as altering a ticket, which is apparently quite a common occurrence nowadays where people will try to alter the date on a ticket to make it appropriate, it is prosecuted under the Forgery Act. This right will remain. Many people are afraid that this penalty fare will take away a degree of their liberty. I do not think they appreciate that at present it is an offence to travel without a ticket but that the means of prosecuting and bringing the person without a ticket to any point where he makes recompense for it is much more complicated and difficult.
A very important point is the one made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that notices will be displayed at all the stations and in the buses. I have asked London Transport to take up the matter with the International Public Transport Body, which has its home in Brussels, and to try to devise some type of international symbol. After all, these "on-the-spot fines", as they are called in other countries, or "penalty fares" as they would be in this country, are in operation now in so many places. In this country they are already in operation in Tyne and Wear on the Metro, where the minimum is £3, and in Manchester, where the penalty is five times the fare due. I could go through a great list—and perhaps other speakers may

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do so—of France, Brussels, Denmark, Norway, Holland and Germany. There is a great list of places where this type of structure is already in operation; and I think there is a need for an international sign, for example, in the same way as we have road signs, so that anyone getting on transport in any country operating this system will know that they must have a ticket for the journey; otherwise, they will be liable.
I would not wish to continue for too long, but I should like to mention that I have had a most extraordinary letter from one transport users' group who say, among other things, that when you are travelling on a bus—and they underline this comment—ignorance of the correct fare is the norm. I find that hard to believe. I find it even harder to believe that lost and even illegitimate passenger miles will be detrimental to London Transport. I find that the fear, as expressed in the letter, that a penalty fare will force people to change to car, bike or foot is rather unbelievable. I think that if London Transport really has so many passengers travelling illegitimate miles who will feel obliged to give up London Transport because they are going to have to pay a fare, we would be well off without those people right from the start. So although that letter has come, I really pay little regard to it.
There are people who are concerned as to what will happen to someone who is ticketless and perhaps has just been forgetful. In such cases that person will still have the right to defend themselves at the end of the 21 days. They can refuse to pay. They can go and present in a court the same defence as they have now. This will not rule out that alternative procedure. So I have no hesitation in supporting this amendment. I hope that it will be carried.

London Economic Summit
3.42 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister about the Tenth Annual Economic Summit which was held in London from 7th to 9th June. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about the Tenth Annual Economic Summit which was held in London from 7th to 9th June. Heads of State or Government of the seven principal industrialised countries were present, accompanied by their Foreign and Finance or Economic Ministers, together with the President of the European Commission, who was accompanied by Monsieur Ortoli
"I have placed in the Library of the House copies of the Economic Declaration and of declarations issued on democratic values, East-West relations and terrorism, together with a statement about our discussions on the Iraq-Iran conflict.
"I shall deal first with the political issues. The Summit considered it timely to restate the values which bind the Western democracies, particularly at the end of a week when we had been remembering
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the very different conditions of forty years ago. Too often, we have seen the Western case go by default while governments which deny democracy maintain an unceasing flow of propaganda.
"At British initiative, we had a thorough discussion of the problems posed by terrorism. There was unanimous determination to confront and defeat international terrorism whatever forms it may take. We identified a number of detailed proposals which will be followed up in the working group of experts from the Summit countries.
"On East-West affairs the Summit, having stressed the need for resolve and solidarity, stated our readiness for dialogue and our hope that the Soviet Union will react constructively and positively. We expressed our belief that East and West have important common interests: in preserving peace; in enhancing confidence and security; in reducing the risks of surprise attack or war by accident; in improving crisis management techniques; and in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
"We also discussed the conflict between Iraq and Iran. We expressed our regret at the breaches of international humanitarian law which this conflict has brought, and called for freedom of navigation to be respected. As to oil supplies, we were satisfied that, given existing stocks of oil and the availability of other sources of energy, adequate supplies could be maintained for a substantial period of time by international co-operation and mutually supportive action.
"The primary purpose of the Summit was to discuss economic matters. On these we reached the following main conclusions. First: The declaration pointed out that economic recovery can now be seen to be established in the Summit countries. It is more soundly based than previous recoveries, thanks to the firm policies designed to bring down inflation. But to sustain recovery, and spread its benefits further, requires unremitting efforts. We agreed therefore to continue and where necessary strengthen policies to reduce inflation and interest rates, to control monetary growth and reduce budget deficits.
"Second: As unemployment in our countries remains high, we emphasised the need for sustained growth and the creation of new jobs; the need to ensure that industrial economies adapt and develop in response to demand and technological change, including in small and medium-sized businesses; and the need to encourage active job training policies and the efficient working of the labour market.
"Third: On international debt the problems will be easier to resolve if world recovery is sustained and policies are followed which are conducive to lower interest rates. We reaffirmed the case-by-case approach. We agreed that with the strategy we have adopted the problems are manageable. We identified a number of matters which require further attention. Among them: that where debtor countries have successfully made efforts to adjust their economies, we will encourage longer-term rescheduling of their debts; that we should like to see

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even closer co-operation between the Fund and the World Bank, whose role should be strengthened; that developing countries should be encouraged to open their economies to increased direct investment from the industrialised countries and to substitute longer-term direct and portfolio investment for short-term bank lending.
"Fourth: The Summit urged all countries to reduce trade barriers and to liberalise and expand international trade in manufactures, commodities and services. We agreed to consult GATT partners with a view to early decisions on the timing and objectives for a new negotiating round.
"And fifth: We agreed on a new programme of research and co-operation, the better to establish and deal with the causes of environmental pollution.
"To sum up, the Summit expressed the clear view that the economic strategy we have been following is right and that we should continue to pursue it. We did not leave it at that. We set out in the declaration a ten-point action programme for the next twelve months. This includes a series of specific measures for reducing obstacles to the creation of new jobs; and records our agreement to seek to maintain and wherever possible increase the flow of official aid to developing countries, particularly the poorest, and to encourage more openness towards private investment flows. The declaration as a whole sets out a global approach to the economic situation and deals comprehensively and positively with current needs and problems.
"Mr. Speaker, this was a workmanlike and constructive meeting which achieved a very large measure of agreement on the basic objectives of our respective policies, on both the economic and political fronts".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.49 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Viscount for repeating the Statement. It is a long one, and the communiqué, or economic declaration, is even longer. It contains many respectable aspirations and long-term objectives, such as a call for early and positive results in East-West arms control negotiations, encouragement of the new GATT talks, a new world study on acid rain, a declaration on international terrorism, a plea to Iran and Iraq to stop attacking each other, and so on. These aims are unexceptionable.
It was stated that there is a readiness for dialogue with the USSR, but can the noble Viscount say precisely what action is proposed? For example, is the USSR to be approached to return to the Geneva talks on nuclear arms limitation? Again, is anything further proposed, apart from a general appeal to Iran and Iraq? Will this conflict be discussed with the USSR? I regret to say that there is a lack of clarity and objective in the Statement and in the communiqué.
Is it not also the case—and this is the most serious defect in the communiqué—that the major economic problems facing the world were shunted on to a sideline with vague words and feeble half-measures? Is it not the case that the very acute problems facing the world are unemployment, the US budget deficit and
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high interest rates, and that in spite of all the high-flown words the summit's positive reaction to these is deeply disappointing?
For example, does not the case by case approach to the debt crisis—although we welcome the help to Mexico—leave a large number of poor countries in a parlous condition, with no hope whatsoever of assistance? The Statement says that the problems may not be unmanageable. Is not that a pious hope against the background of the case by case approach? I noted that point 8 of the economic plan stated the need for "adequate funds for world financial institutions", and the work of the World Bank was praised. Can the noble Viscount say whether the funding of the IDA, and especially the attitude of the US to the IDA, was discussed?
Finally, can the noble Viscount tell the House how the conclusions of the summit conference will in fact help to reduce the appalling unemployment problem in Western Europe in a practical way? For example, what was the reaction of President Reagan to the fervent pleas which we understand were made for some action by the USA on interest rates? There is a reference in the Statement to a 10-point programme, but the 10-point programme was not explained. Will the noble Viscount be good enough to tell the House at least what were the two most important points of the 10 points?
Baroness Seear: My Lords, we on these Benches also wish to thank the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. Of course, there are in the Statement many things with which we certainly agree, such as the desire to reduce interest rates, the attitude towards Iraq and Iran and the desire to reduce war. With all these we would go along. But I am bound to say after listening to the Statement that, in the face of the acute and terrifying problems which are facing the world at the present time, it seems a remarkably complacent Statement to come from a summit of the leading countries of the world.
The two overwhelming problems, leaving aside the need to get back to the negotiating table with the USSR, to which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred, are surely unemployment spreading throughout the world and the debtor or low standard of living countries. We are living on a powder keg, so far as the debtor countries are concerned. A step by step, or case by case, approach sounds very fine; but surely what is needed is a recognition of the extreme urgency of this problem and of the need to find ways in which we can do something far more constructive and far more quickly. As the world surely knows, it needs only one or two of these countries to default and the whole economic situation would be in very considerable peril.
We also find the Statement singularly complacent to dwell so much on the strength of the recovery, while the level of unemployment remains what it is. The fact of the matter is that this Statement reflects a satisfaction with the monetarist approach to world economic problems which is very difficult to support. Surely it is clear that some sensible intervention is needed on the part of governments; for example, in our own country a determination at last to do

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something about capital investment in infrastructure, which would begin the creation of jobs.
The Statement talks about job creation. Surely it was realised at the summit and lower down, as regards job creation and job training, that job training without the realisation of a job at the end of it will not convince anybody and will not get any support. Unless there is Government intervention for job creation following job training, then job training, highly desirable though it is, will fail. We can only regret the complacency of the Statement.
3.56 p.m.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their questions on this Statement following the economic summit. I am also grateful to both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for accepting what they both described as the respectable aspirations of those who attended the economic summit. I am sure that is right. No one imagines that a short conference of a few days between economic leaders will solve the many problems of the world in detail. I do not think anybody expects that, and of course they did not do so.
On the particular points that the noble Lord raised with me, the first of which was the dialogue with the USSR, the willingness for further dialogue is surely very important. Of course, it is fair in this context to remember the Foreign Secretary's coming visit to Moscow, which was recognised by the summit and which indeed will give an opportunity to raise with the Soviet Union some of the matters which the noble Lord mentioned. There will be other opportunities with other leaders as well.
On the Iran and Iraq conflict, the countries did of course express to both sides their great concern at the continuance of the conflict. I do not think there is much more that they can do, except to urge both sides to realise the danger and to hope to get a wider acclaim in the world—and indeed in the Soviet Union—that this particular war is of the gravest danger to the world and to our supplies, and that it should come to a halt. I do not believe that the summit conference could do more than that; but that it most certainly did.
On the economic matters, and first the question of unemployment, it has to be said, both to the noble Lord and to the noble Baroness, that I think it is accepted in this country—and certainly in most others—that governments cannot by themselves deliberately reduce unemployment. It is the policies that they follow which will in the long run bring the markets which will provide the jobs. If they co-operate to that end, which they have designed and are determined to do, that is the best way to reduce unemployment. That, I believe, is the important contribution which the leaders made: that they are determined to work to that end, as they are on the question of high interest rates, and as indeed they are—I believe that this is also very important and I say it in answer to both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness —on the question of aid for the underdeveloped countries and the way in which that can be helped.
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As I said at the start, in a short time it cannot be possible to gain a great deal of detailed advance, but I believe that very solid ground work for future action and future work was laid down. I believe, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, that it was a workmanlike and constructive conference and it should be welcomed on that account.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, can the noble Viscount explain why, among all these superb aspirations, so far as one can gather there was absolutely no mention of the advisability of having fine weather and of being kind to one's mother-in-law?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, the noble Lord can have his little joke, but there were some very important discussions and I think that the House would wish to recognise that.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, we understand from the press—though we may be wrong—that President Reagan was reproached by some of his colleagues —though not, apparently, by the Prime Minister—about the maintenance of the enormous US deficit of some 200 billion dollars, and the consequent maintenance of high interest rates which, according to some, are destroying us all. Was he reproached by any, including the Prime Minister, for the principal reason for this deficit, which is his vast expenditure on nuclear armaments, such as MX, the new Trident programme, thousands of cruise missiles, "Star Wars", "stealth" bombers and everything else, which, unless for "first use", are useless from the long-term political point of view, and at the same time are economically disastrous?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, as I was not there I cannot say what discussions took place on the matters to which the noble Lord referred, but he has gone rather wide of the communiqué.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Viscount not aware that he is being less than fair in suggesting that this was just a one-off conference which lasted for a short period and that therefore it cannot be judged? This is the fifth conference which has taken place since the Government came into office and presumably it is the latest climax of the Government's policy. Is not the noble Viscount further aware that we have heard these pious hopes and platitudinous phrases five times since the Government came into office and that nothing has happened, except that unemployment has got worse and there have been a record number of bankruptcies?
May I ask the noble Viscount two practical questions arising from the Statement. He spoke about the international monetary crisis and the part to be played by the World Bank, and according to the communiqué by the IMF, too. May I ask the noble Viscount whether there were any discussions at the summit about the structure and policy of the IMF, which appears to be simultaneously impoverishing those nations that it is supposed to help and reducing employment in the industrialised countries because of the reduced purchasing power of those same developing nations? Secondly, the noble Viscount spoke about increasing official aid. How can he justify

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that when the official aid figure of Her Majesty's Government is now 0.35 per cent. of GDP whereas, when they took over, it was 0.52 per cent.? Is anything going to happen, or will there be the same story of pious hopes expressed in words but actions in the opposite direction?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, since the noble Lord has suggested that I have been somewhat less than fair, may I say to him that he is perhaps being somewhat less than fair in his suggestion that an economic summit attended by many different nations should be particularly concerned with the economic problems of this country. The noble Lord seeks to use the Statement on the economic summit as a criticism of this Government's economic policies. That he is perfectly entitled to do, though not necessarily on this occasion, because I am dealing with a Statement relating to the consideration by the governments of the western nations of these particular problems. We played our part in those considerations. I have shown how we sought to gain the co-operation of the other countries at the summit in order to achieve the economic progress which the noble Lord wants to take place.
The noble Lord then dealt with aid, which is a different matter. I personally believe that the aid given by this country, both direct Government aid and industrial aid, which is so often forgotten, is of a very considerable order and does not deserve the criticism which the noble Lord and many other people are inclined to level at it.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, as the existing simple economic policy for bringing down the rate of inflation has had the disastrous effect of rapidly and massively increasing unemployment, could the noble Viscount give us one good reason why the continuation of that policy will now bring down the rate of unemployment?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I would not wish to cross economic swords with the noble Lord, who in the past had considerable responsibility for many policies which were exactly the same as those which are being followed at present, a matter about which he will be very well aware. I do not have with me the details of many of the statements which he made, so I cannot quote them to him at the moment; but perhaps the noble Lord will accept from me that in the past he said that if inflation is allowed to rise again and that if costs are allowed to rise again, unemployment will not be reduced. In fact, jobs will be destroyed and the situation will be made worse. That is what the noble Lord said in the past. I believe that he still believes this to be true today.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Viscount does not wish to be deliberately unfair, but I would suggest that he is again being unfair to me in his answer to my question. The Statement referred to the objective of increasing official Government aid, whenever possible. I am drawing the noble Viscount's attention to the fact that this objective has been repeated six times and that each time it has been followed by cuts in aid. Can the noble Viscount give us any assurance that the words of the Statement which he has read out will be followed this time by appropriate action rather than by further cuts in official aid?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, if I have been in any way unfair to the noble Lord I regret it, because I have no desire to be unfair to him. Nor do I have any desire to cross swords with him about official Government aid. These, I admit freely, are aspirations in the communiqué. Despite the criticisms which are frequently levelled at this Government, as they have been levelled at the aid programmes of previous Governments, I believe that if one looks at both the Government's aid programme and at the aid given by industry all over the world, Britain has a very considerable record. I regret that instead of accepting that this is the position, we continue to run down what I believe to be a considerable contribution by our country.

London Regional Transport Bill
4.7 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I thought that we were discussing Amendment No. 48, and I understood that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, was not moving her Amendment No. 49 to it. If I am wrong about that, I hope that the noble Baroness will tell me.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, that is correct. I thank the noble and learned Lord.
[Amendment No. 49 not moved.]
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the provisions of these five amendments which in effect are five new clauses. I am also grateful for the issue of Notes on Clauses, which give a better understanding of the important points which are contained in the new clauses.
In general, both I and my noble friends welcome the scheme set out in the five amendments. As the Minister has explained, steps have already been taken by London Transport which have greatly reduced fraud during the past twelve months. The penalty system now proposed is, in effect, an extension of the activities which London Transport have been pursuing. I understand that the Greater London Council fully accept the principle contained in these five clauses which are the subject of the five amendments. I was pleased that the Minister made it clear that before the scheme is brought into operation on the Underground these machines will be installed to enable passengers to obtain a free deferred fare authority. This is very important, and I am glad that this point has been stressed.
The system must operate in such a way as to ensure that there are no abuses of power by those I have described as the authorised persons. In the interpretation clause, the first new clause, I find that an authorised person is "a person authorised by the person providing the service," which does not tell me a great deal. What type of rank is envisaged for this person? Will all ticket collectors be authorised persons, or will a special group or special squad of persons be appointed for this purpose?

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The Minister said that the provisions would apply to any operators acting under agreements as agents of LRT. Can the Minister say whether or not London Regional Transport, when it is formed, will take special steps in those directions? It could be that their overall control will not be so strict in those areas as it will be on their own network.
There are a number of points which need clarification. I hope that the Minister can deal with them. Some are technical points, but, as these five new clauses have only been introduced on Report, our only chance of taking any action in this House will be in a few days' time, on Third Reading. I therefore hope that the Minister will be able to deal with some of these points now.
First, what will happen to someone who boards the system without the correct ticket and arrives at the destination without incurring a penalty fare? Will he simply pay the excess or will he pay the penalty? What will he the position in respect of season ticket holders? Will they be covered by the term "authority to travel"? If not, what will be the position of a season ticket holder who begins a journey in the area covered by his ticket but ends that journey outside the area? Will not some provision need to be made for that kind of situation?
Also, will someone who pays the penalty fare within 21 days have a criminal record? Will any long-term record be kept of the names and addresses of those who incur a penalty under this scheme? What will be the position in respect of persons who genuinely lose their tickets? The authorised persons should be given sufficient powers of discretion to deal with such a situation. At present, if a travel card is lost, up to one duplicate is issued free of charge—but that provision does not apply to single or return tickets. Also, has consideration been given to what might be the position of the safety of LRT staff collecting the penalties? Will they work in pairs? Has there been discussion of the whole scheme (and in particular of that aspect) with the trade unions concerned? If not, will there be such consultation before any conditions, guidelines or rules are prepared?
If fares should rise, there must surely be some provision for reviewing the multiplier. At present, the maximum single fare on the Underground within Greater London is £1.30, which would give a maximum fine of £13. But the maximum single ticket on London Transport network as a whole is £2.60, and that would produce a maximum fine of £26. It will be recognised that these fines represent a substantial amount of money—and they could rise considerably should fares increase. Where a fine is not paid within 21 days, will the court have any powers to alter the amount of the penalty in the light of the points I have just made?
Finally, I presume that the system will apply also to British Rail if the rail network should come within London Regional Transport control. Is that aspect under consideration, or is it something for the future? A great deal of work would be required before this system could be supplemented or complemented by British Rail. These are technical questions, but they are put forward with a view to assessing whether or not
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amendments to the scheme are required. However, in general, we welcome the proposals—including these five amendments.
Lord Denning: My Lords, perhaps I may add a word on these new clauses. When I was very young at the Bar, I prosecuted many people who were charged with travelling on the railways without having previously paid their fare and with intent to avoid payment thereof. All the contest was on the word "intent". Often, an offender would have to be watched for two or three journeys to see whether it was just a mistake that he had not paid his fare. Or he might be watched to see whether he boarded several stations before the station for which he produced a ticket. The amount of investigation and observation undertaken by inspectors and by the railway police was enormous. There was also the cost or prosecuting the individual before the magistrates.
I welcome this clause, which is designed to meet a new system of issuing tickets and the like. I welcome it because instead of there being a criminal case to answer coming before the magistrates, there simply has to be evidence that the individual did not pay his fare as he ought when he could have done so. There are exceptions where the individual could not have paid the fare. The question of intent does not come into it. The individual can pay up straight away if he likes. If he does not pay, then he is not taken before the magistrates but he will receive a summons to go before the county court judge to pay the penalty. It is called a penalty but there is no punishment attached to it: it is just for the individual to pay the minimum amount—either £5 or I 0 times the amount of the fare, whichever is the greater.
If I may say so, this is a well-conceived clause. Perhaps there are certain details which remain to be made clear, as my noble friend has mentioned, but on the whole this new system of ensuring that people pay their fares is excellent and a great improvement on anything we have seen before.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I knew that if we waited long enough there was bound to be in this Bill something that we liked and could recommend. There has been much in this Bill that has been awful but, in our opinion, this is an excellent amendment and we are all for it. The noble Lord the Minister mentioned a figure of £25 million as being the sum being fiddled or stolen from London Transport. Personally, I believe the figure is very much higher than that.
The free deferred fare scheme is a wonderful idea because it will do away with that awful excuse: "I am sorry, but I could not buy a ticket because the ticket office was closed". The authorities then have to respond by saying, "We did a check on your station and found that the ticket office was open".
One point that worries me concerns season tickets, which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. It is a fairly well-known practice for a husband to borrow his wife's season ticket or for the wife to borrow her husband's season ticket, and to use it when the other partner does not need it. I have read through the briefing and the Bill but I can find nothing specific about the illegal use of season tickets. I should like to see some provision made in this respect because

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I consider that not only should the person who uses a season illegally be "done" but also the person who allows another to do so should be "done". I would ask the noble Lord the Minister to take this point into account.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I should first like to thank through my noble friend the Minister the parliamentary draftsman for having drafted all the clauses so clearly. I would advise anyone who is studying these clauses to start by reading Clause 5, then Clauses 3 and 4, and then Clauses 1 and 2. They will all then fit into place. I have received such a good briefing that, if I was terribly "bossy", I could answer all the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—but that is my noble friend's job rather than mine.
This provision comes not before time. We had the benefit of the wisdom of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who spoke of a former age when an inspector carefully watched an offender. Looking back on those days, I do not think that time and money can have mattered quite so much. I should like to take up the point made by my noble friend Lady Gardner. The sum of £10 is a little excessive and £5 is about the right quotient. It is an amount of money that one might hope people would have on them but it is still enough of a deterrent; £10 would be a little extreme. If one considers other places in Europe, one finds that the fine in Copenhagen is £11 and in Brussels it is £9. In Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, the fine is £11. In Athens, the fine is four times the fare due. In Tokyo, curously enough, the penalty is only twice the fare due. We are being tougher than that, but I believe that £5 is about the right figure.
I know that bus fares are by far the easier to deal with at the moment. There are not all that many people who do not pay their fares on buses. With one-man operation, passengers have to pass by the driver, and it is only if they make themselves very inconspicuous that they can avoid paying the conductor—hut it is the "over-rider" who is the one who will have to pay, and that is a very important point.
It is on the trains where massive fraud takes place. We all have to be put on our mettle. It will be tough for us all. I know that I often leave here with 15 minutes in which to catch a train at Victoria Station. I can do so in 15 minutes and sometimes in 10. But one must take the trouble to have the right change in one's pocket for the ticket machines because at this time of year at Westminster Underground station there could be 30, 40 or 50 people buying tickets with only one window open or the other window dealing with someone buying a season ticket. One then decides to pay at the other end. However, that will not be possible any more; and that is absolutely right. It will be unpleasant for many of us, but we must all grow up.
The point was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, concerning husbands and wives. London Transport passes have photographs on them. I do not think people can disguise themselves as their spouses. It is to be hoped that sort of fraud will not be possible—thank goodness! In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, referred to identity cards. London Transport have photographs on passes so that aspect should be fairly well looked after.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I was referring to season tickets and thinking specifically of the Underground.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, unless I am absolutely wrong, I believe that any form of season ticket from London Transport must have one's photograph on it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, it is a new requirement.
Lord Teviot: Yes, my Lords, it is fairly new, as my noble friend has pointed out.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I had a season ticket for a short time and I certainly did not have a photograph on it.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, the noble Earl is quite correct. If he had a season ticket which is partly for British Rail, and initiated by British Rail, it would not have a photograph on it. But if it was only for London Transport he would have to go into, say, Woolworth's, or wherever, to have his photograph taken and then stick it on the season ticket. There is not much more to say except that this is very much a new area. It is a new concept for all, although I was very surprised to see that Tyne and Wear and Manchester are already ahead of London. It is high time we followed. It will be tough but well worth it.
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, this particular group of new clauses has received a welcome from all parts of the House but there is one aspect which worries me. As the noble Minister and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, have made plain, we are moving from a situation in which criminal intent has to be proved, to a situation of strict liability. Therefore, as the Minister told us, the person who may became liable to pay a penalty fare includes the innocent "over-rider"—the person who intends to pay the correct fare but by mistake has not paid sufficient for the length of journey he undertakes. It also applies to the person who has lost his ticket.
What may happen to that person is made plain by Amendment No. 51. He can he approached by a constable who can ask him to disclose his address. If he gives his name and address to the constable but does not answer to the satisfaction of the constable questions put to him for the purpose of ascertaining whether the name and address are correct, the constable may then arrest him without a warrant. Under the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, which is now awaiting discussion in Committee, I believe he may be detained for 24 hours. Therefore, it is perfectly possible that a person who boards a bus and buys what he believes is a correct ticket, but fails to get it correct, or buys the correct ticket and loses it, or simply falls asleep and wakes up beyond the stop at which he intended to get off, may be found liable to pay a penalty fare. That might be prefectly all right; but he can then be arrested by a constable even if he gives his correct name and address because the constable is not reasonably satisfied that it has been given. He can then be detained for perhaps 24 hours without immediate access to a solicitor.
It may be that that is what the Government intend, but do we really mean, for this purpose, to

1023
contemplate creating that kind of situation? It appears to me to be far too draconian and I wonder whether the Government will address themselves to that, if not at this stage then on Third Reading, and see whether they want to extend the complete powers contained in Section 25 (2) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 to this situation, which is not criminal but civil.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, having briefly raised the subject of fraudulent travel on Second Reading, I should like to congratulate the Government on introducing these five new clauses and thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for his lucid exposition of them. I should also like to thank everyone who has spoken prior to me on these clauses because everyone has added a little to the collective store of knowledge in what is something of a grey area.
Taken as a whole the clauses go a long way to defining what I have just referred to as a grey area and I very warmly welcome them. I have one general reservation which relates in fact to their very great detail which will not be easy to convey to the public at large. London Transport has for many years enjoyed a world-wide reputation for the quality of its publicity; but I do not envy those members of its staff who have to set out to précis these clauses into a message which can be readily understood by the public at large. Explaining the new situation to Londoners will he an onerous task: as will be that of explaining it to foreign visitors—one of my own concerns—who contribute no less than £70 million per annum to London Transport's income, which is much more than the sum we are talking about in the context of fraud, almost entirely by using the spare capacity already provided in meeting the needs of Londoners. However, Londoners and foreigners will I think welcome the initiative described and taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, in this context.
As I have said, we have very detailed and specific legislation before us. It is legislation which, nevertheless, raises a number of questions. The new Clause 1(5) defines liability, in certain circumstances, to pay a penalty fare in respect of an Underground journey. I should like to ask the Minister whether this subsection applies to a traveller who surrenders his ticket at a barrier at the end of his journey with a view to paying the difference between the fare he has already paid, probably at a machine where he started his journey, and the fare due; both as defined elsewhere in these clauses. It seems to me wrong that he should be trapped in the penalty fare net and I would welcome a reassurance that he or she will not he trapped. Perhaps that is already covered by the "deferred fare authority" provisions in new Clause 1(3).
My next question relates to new Clause 1(7) and the definition of the penalty payable. This shall be "the greater" of the minimum penalty defined as £5 or a multiplier (say, 10 times) of the fare payable (say, 50 pence) for the journey. I have some faith and some doubt in lawyers. Both faith and doubt leave me to wonder whether someone will not go to the courts on the basis that the minimum penalty of, say, £5 and the multiplier option, in this case £5, are the same. Neither is the greater so neither shall be payable. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to confirm that this loophole
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does not exist in the subsection as drafted. To me it seems that perhaps it does.
My third question concerns travel card holders who, through human fallibility, forget their cards and thus cannot, when asked, provide evidence of an authority to travel. It seems to me to be wrong that they should fall into the penalty fares net. In this context, I believe that British Rail charge the applicable single fare for the journey concerned. The person who has lost his or her travel card is not seeking to defraud; he is simply a victim of his own forgetfulness. Will he be offered an opportunity, similar to that provided by holders of driving licences, to prove his authority by producing it within a specific period? If so, should that be written into the Bill?
Next I turn to the manpower implications of these clauses. A recent report in several London local papers quoted London Transport as having evidence that Londoners were becoming increasingly hostile to fraudulent travellers—a welcome development. Less welcome is the London Transport statement that it is recruiting more inspectors to cope with fraudulent travel. My hope is that the powers we are discussing will, by making spot checks and penalties more practical, lead to a reduction in manpower. Once the new system becomes established, it seems to me that London Transport could dispense with barriers at the commencement of one's journey.
On my last point, I come back to the welcome which I gave at the outset to these comprehensive new clauses. It seems to me that after due consideration other public transport undertakings may wish to enjoy the powers we are discussing this afternoon. If that happens, do the Government envisage a series of Private Bills to enable such other undertakings to take up the powers, or will they encourage such a development by bringing forward their own public proposals? These questions seek only amplification of the clauses before us. I feel that the new legislation is to a great extent overdue and should be speedily brought into action. I wish the Bill well and look forward to seeing its effects in practice.?
4.31 p.m.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I shall not take up much more of your Lordships' time, but I should like to ask the noble Lord one point about enforcement. I wholeheartedly welcome the clause as a whole. Especially with one-man buses becoming more and more usual, on bus journeys the driver can see that you do not get on the bus without paying something at least, but how on earth is he to check that you do not go further than the distance you have paid for? A single man cannot possibly be expected to keep a check on the distance that all his passengers go.
Baroness Denington: My Lords, I first of all apologise for the fact that I had to leave the Chamber for the past quarter of an hour. I had to attend the meeting of the Statutory Instruments Committee upstairs, which was the fastest ever and finished in record time. I returned to the Chamber to find the House still on the same clause, and I should like to say a few words about it. I welcome the fact that some action is being taken on this matter, but I think that perhaps I am alone among noble Lords here in feeling that the action is much too gentle, soft and tentative.

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I think I have mentioned in this Chamber before, perhaps on the same point, how very impressed I was with the system in the city of Hamburg. They do not spend any money at all on gates in order to check you as you go onto the platform. You can walk on and off freely; there is no apparatus. All those gates are exceedingly expensive. I wish we could move to such a system, where we do not have to put our money into that kind of thing.
I use the station at Clapham Common. I travel by the Underground unless I know that I can park my car, as I can when I come to the House. Young and athletic people come along, put their hand on the barrier and vault straight over it. The poor ticket collector yells after them, but they have gone and he cannot possibly catch them. They do that repeatedly, all the time. Why put our money into apparatus if we can possibly find a system that does not need such things?
With the Hamburg system you walk on and you walk off. When I was chairman of transport on the GLC I investigated it with a delegation of officers. We were trying to see the way forward in those days, when I was in County Hall. We tried every way possible to get the Hamburg people into a corner here or there, to talk to them, to break them down and to make them admit that their system was not very successful. None of us could do that. They all swore that they were certain that the number who escaped was absolutely infinitesimal. I forget the percentage, but it was point something or other—not to be bothered with.
They have a system of inspectors. It is true that their Underground system is not as extensive as ours, but it is extremely good and was being increased. They have a band of inspectors—comparatively few—and they have different tactics. On one day they will spread out with one on each station. On another day they will descend in a body on a platform of waiting people so that they can go through the lot. On other days there will he perhaps a single inspector or more inspectors on a train. There are all kinds of different tactics. Nobody knows what the drill will be on any one day.
The inspectors demand to see a ticket, because there are tickets. There are ticket machines, but no barriers to vault over, even if you feel inclined to vault early in the morning. If the person does not have the proper ticket, or is over-riding, he is invited to pay double the fare on the spot. If he does that, that is the end of it. If he does not, he has three days, and my memory is that within three days he can go to the local police station and pay the double fare. After that the amount increases. If you have not paid within the three days, you are in for a very heavy fine.
I think I have said this in the House before. All this procedure depends on having, as they have abroad but as we do not have in this country, an identity card with one's photograph on it. I should really like to know how this scheme would work in this country, and whether it would be worth its cost. How many people will not have paid within three weeks? Surely, if they have not paid, part of the system must be that they are followed up. They really must be followed up. However much will it cost London Transport to follow them up and to try to get them to court to recover the money? I should have thought it would be very costly. All kinds of investigations will be needed if we really
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mean business with this clause—and to very little effect. This is what worries me about it, particularly as the fine is so very small.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, did not maintain her £10, at least. She has given in and dropped the figure to £5. I just do not see how this would work. I really wonder. Are we expecting people to be so very honest that they will give their true name and address? I am sorry, but I do not have that faith in human nature today.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, if the noble Baroness would permit me to interrupt her, another reason why I dropped the £10 fine is that, if the penalty fare is not paid within the 21 days and the present system is followed where the person is prosecuted—it is rather a parallel to a car-parking fine, where, if you do not pay the fixed penalty, you can be prosecuted—the fine in court could be very much greater, as it could be now. I think the present maximum fine is £200. There could be a much heavier penalty if someone did not pay. This is really a lessening of the offence, reducing it to a civil status; but if they deliberately do not pay, of course, it will be a different matter.
Baroness Denington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that explanation. I now understand. Really, what I am saying is that I am glad that we are trying to do something, but I personally think, if we really mean business, that after a period of time there will have to be a revision of the scheme to make it much tougher. I wish that were not so, but, society being what it is today, that is how I feel.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will realise that, although this scheme has been welcomed by everyone on all sides of the House, including myself, there are nevertheless a number of very important points that have been raised for which I am sure he will also be grateful and which he will take away. I think that practically everyone was trying to be helpful with those points.
My noble and learned friend Lord McCluskey raised something of which not being a lawyer, was not aware, but which obviously opens up an enormously wide possibility of people being quite wrongfully treated. It may be that there is a simple explanation but I think it is a question which we should all be grateful to him for having raised.
I should like to make one or two points. I accept that ticket and fare collection is one of the most expensive single areas of transport. We have played about with it in relaton to the Underground, particularly in London, for many years now. I would certainly agree with my noble friend Lady Denington about the complexity of the machinery that is used. I, too, have been to Hamburg. I saw the open platform system and was assured that there was very little fare dodging in Hamburg. On the other hand, if I may just divert for a second, they have a great deal more flexibility —something that attracts me. For instance, if I were going on the Northern line up to Hampstead or a place such as that with a single ticket, I could break my journey and get back on again. I could get off and do

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some shopping in the Tottenham Court Road, for example and then get back on again, which of course you cannot do in London. So everyone has different ways of operating things and perhaps a new system of ticket issuing would enable such things as that to happen.
A question that worries me greatly, thinking particularly of the Underground, is, where will the ticket checking be done? Obviously, if Lady Denington's scheme of open stations were adopted, the checking, or a certain amount of it, almost certainly would be done on the trains themselves. But does the Minister envisage that most of the checking will be done on the trains or, if we still retain them, will be done at the barrier?
Lord Teviot made a point which was one I had thought of frequently. He spoke of the 15-minute journey from here to Victoria. I am sometimes involved in this on Monday morning. One flies down from Glasgow in an hour and 10 minutes and one gets to the ticket windows on the Underground station. There is no criticism of London Transport: they have plenty of windows open, but at certain times, particularly on a Monday morning, there are enormous queues, and one realises that part of London's charm is that people are queueing up at the windows with yen, dollars, kroner and all sorts of money. One looks at the queue. One has come down from Glasgow in an hour and 10 minutes and one has had to wait a fairly long time to reach the window. I must say that on occasions I have put 50 pence in the machine and got through on that. I must also say that with great nervousness I was upholding my £1 all the time to assure the ticket collectors that I was not trying to dodge the fare as I got out here at Westminster. I do not know whether you can ever overcome this anxiety of people, but it could raise very serious problems for those, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. "whose intent was to pay".
Will there be any consideration given for people in this 21-day period, since it is a civil case, who can say, "I can prove, or assure, or convince London Transport that there was full intent to pay"? I know that that could run into all sorts of difficulties and problems of delay, and that skilful people would perhaps carry it to a great length. However, as I say, practically everyone in the Chamber has accepted the necessity for this.
The other little point—and perhaps the Minister will think it slightly frivolous—is the question of where the inspection will be made. When many years ago I came down to London to the other place, I lived for a short period with a family. There were two very bright young pre-teenage boys in the family. They and their friends during one summer tried to travel over all the London Transport underground system, which I think is quite a well-known game. I do not think they did it in any way at peak hours or anything like that. They just started off in the morning and took a note of every station they went through over the whole system.
Incidentally, it makes me think that I have occasionally taken wrong trains and gone rather long ways round. It is a bit easier now with the zonal system, but there could be points at which you could go out of your zone, either through lack of knowledge
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of the system or because you went past your station, as I think my noble and learned friend Lord McCluskey said, because you just went to sleep.
I think these are questions that really should be looked at. We may be making a great deal too much out of them and using some of our own fears of perhaps quite accidentally falling foul of the system that we ourselves have introduced. I think there are certainly problems and questions that the Minister can answer in general just now, and perhaps at a later stage of the Bill he can come back with firmer answers to the slight worry that I think affects many people. However, the general acceptance of the scheme is obvious within the House today.
The only other point is that I suppose this will be the death of that marvellous, highly intellectual game we hear on the radio, "Mornington Crescent"!
4.48 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, may I thank all noble Lords and the noble Baroness who have taken part in this debate. Perhaps I may say at the beginning that, not particularly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, I would certainly not think that any of the questions or comments that have been raised this afternoon could possibly fall into the frivolous category. These are very important matters. Again I have to apologise to your Lordships for having brought such a complex series of amendments to your Lordships at this particular stage. I shall try to answer as many questions as I can. Those that I miss I will certainly answer in writing in the next 24 or 36 hours.
I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, first of all for not moving her amendment because, as she points out, there is provision in the amendments for the Secretary of State to alter, either by raising or lowering, both the figure of £5 and the multiplier of 10. I am grateful to her also for her suggestion that the International Passenger Traffic Office might perhaps look at the desirability and worthwhileness of producing a common, universally recognised sign that would indicate that a penalty fare system operates.
I must say that, as have a number of your Lordships. I have travelled in Hamburg and Geneva and also in Paris. It has never worried me and I have always managed to recognise that there is some kind of system. Exactly what it is I have not always been sure. So one just takes a little more care over that. I will return to that when I come to answer the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked a number of questions. I should like to say that I most grateful to him because he gave me notice some days ago of the area about which he had some cause for concern. He asked me about the authorised persons. I am not sure whether he was being specifically very serious when he quoted from page 5 of the Marshalled List:
"'Authorised person' means a person authorised by the person providing the service".
It is written in that way because an authorised person is not going to be an ordinary inspector or ticket collector. This will be a particular person. It could be a man or it could be a woman who will be specifically

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trained and will be authorised to undertake this kind of work by LRT, if they are poviding the service, or of course another operator who may be providing the service under a Clause 3(2) agreement. That is why we say the person providing the service in question. The authorised person—I can perhaps now for the sake of clarity call him an inspector, because we all know what that means—would have signed authorisations indicating the scope of his responsibility. He would have an indentity card to be shown to any passenger who so demands.
I was asked also about what would happen to a passenger who arrives at a destination without being caught. If someone boards the system without the correct ticket, the measures provide that if he fails to produce that proper ticket to an authorised person, he shall be liable to the penalty fare. It will perhaps make it more clear if I say that the authorised person need not necessarily be travelling on the train. He could be present at the ticket barrier or in a ticket office. Naturally, if no authorised person is available to issue a penalty fares notice, as the noble Lord suggests, the traveller will he liable to pay only the normal fare and the excess as he does now.
I was asked about season tickets being an authority to travel. I can confirm that the season ticket falls within the definition of an authority to travel. In the short term, since it will not be possible for season ticket holders to pay for the excess portion of their journey in advance, they will be able to do so on completion of their journey without incurring liability to a penalty fare. In the longer term, when the new Underground ticketing system is fully operational—it is hoped that this will take a much shorter time than the five years suggested by my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes—it will be possible for season ticket holders to buy a pre-excess ticket at the start of their journey to cover the intended over-ride portion.
There is no question that the penalty fares provision involves a criminal record. As I explained, or thought that I had explained, in introducing these amendments, the measures are not criminal sanctions but a new extension of a civil liability. Naturally, each case would be dealt with on its own merits. I suppose, however, that London Regional Transport may very well maintain a record of cases in the interests of good husbandry and good administration.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, also asked about loss of tickets and cited a travel card. Frankly, I have to say that if people lose their tickets, I am afraid that they may have to bear the consequences of the loss. Naturally, the authorised persons will be able to exercise discretion where they are satisfied that this is justified. It is true that travel cards of one month's duration or more may be replaced. This is possible because individual records are maintained. That does not apply to an ordinary ticket. Again, we have to bear in mind what my noble friend Lord Teviot had to say. My noble friend suggested that we may very well have to change our travelling habits. I think that that is so.
I have dealt with the point regarding the multiplier. To try to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, we felt that a multiplier of 10 was not an unreasonable starting point in relation to the fare avoided. Certainly in Paris there is a multiplicity of
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multipliers, if I can use that expression—12, 24 and 36 times. In Hamburg the penalty fare is 40 deutschemarks, about £10. There, the multiplier is 40 because they have a flat fare system. We are not suggesting that. Again, one takes the point that is made. I know that London Regional Transport will be interested to read and consider the suggestions that the noble Baroness has made.
The safety of London Transport staff was properly raised. I agree that one has to take this into account. I can give the assurance that London Transport has this point very much in mind. In the first place, the staff involved will be specially trained in dealing with people under these circumstances. Secondly, it must be remembered that the special team will be additional to the ordinary conductor or ticket collector. Normally, therefore, one would not anticipate their being placed in situations of having to act alone. So far as I am aware, there have not as yet been formal trade union discussions. I understand, however, that before these provisions are introduced, such discussions will take place.
I was also asked about special steps on non-London Regional Transport services. London Regional Transport will not be directly responsible for penalty fare arrangements on non-LRT services. The conditions of operation will be laid down in the Clause 3(2) agreements. I am sure that London Regional Transport will want to monitor its operation on those services.
I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, for the welcome he gave to the amendments and also for reminding us that the provisions are not an extension of criminal law. This is a civil liability. It should not only make its impact on the travelling public, who will be encouraged by these provisions to pay their proper fares, but may also mean some lessening of the workload in magistrates' and other courts.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked about the £25 million, suggesting that it was perhaps a low figure. Certainly in 1982, we know that the figure was of the order of £40 million. I did say that the reduction to £25 million in 1983 was an estimate. He also asked whether a season ticket exchanged between a husband and wife would attract the penalty fare. I am sure that noble Lords appreciate that season tickets are not transferable. Therefore, it would be an offence at present for such tickets to be used by other persons. If season tickets are used in this way travellers will he liable probably to a penalty fare but, again, taking up the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, this might be construed to be an intent not to pay. Of course, London Regional Transport would then have the opportunity to proceed to the court in the normal way.
My noble friend Lord Teviot gave a general welcome and emphasised the multiplier variation. That was interesting. What one wants in this system, of course, is to keep it simple and as readily understood as possible. No doubt, in the time ahead, some refinements in ticketing and in giving notice to passengers will be adopted. I should like again to underline his point about changing habits. I know that it is frustrating to have to wait in a queue. It is equally

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frustrating to have to stop pedestrians on a pavement to see if they have change of a pound note to put into a parking meter. But, we have to change our habits and we have to go with something approaching the right money and realise that perhaps travelling may take a little longer. That is one of the penalties that we have to pay and it is one of the restrictions that I outlined in my opening remarks.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, raised an interesting point, and as I am not a member of the noble and learned Lord's learned profession I am sure he will appreciate that I am not absolutely qualified to answer it. But I understand that there is nothing new in the reference to the power of arrest in the third new clause since these powers currently exist under Section 25 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 in respect of non-compliance with existing regulations. The power of arrest applies when a passenger fails to give his name and address. Such provision is clearly necessary in respect of the penalty fares provisions.
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, will the Minister allow me to intervene? I was suggesting to the noble Lord that under the previous law, as I understand it—I may be wrong—the police were arresting a person who was guilty or who might be guilty of a criminal offence. It is no doubt right that in certain circumstances the police have power to arrest without a warrant where a person may be guilty of a criminal offence. What this Bill does is to give the police the right to arrest without a warrant somebody who is not committing a criminal offence but somebody who, for example, has had his wallet stolen containing his ticket and who cannot therefore produce either the ticket or any other means of identification and who gives the police a funny name like "John Smith", which happens to be his name. It is possible for the police to disbelieve even the most honest people. It is well known that on one occasion when the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk of the Court of Session—and they did not look like the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk because one was small and round faced and the other one was tall and bucolic—announced to a policeman that that was who they were, in order to get past a police barrier, the policeman said "Well, I am King Kong!" That can happen to almost anyone; it can happen in the situation that I have outlined. Can the Minister not understand that?
5.2 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for explaining that to me. The short answer is that I do not know, and I might just as well say so here and now. If the noble and learned Lord will allow me, I will look into the matter and I will be in touch with him within a day or two, certainly before we return to the subject on Third Reading.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for having given me notice of some of the points which he wanted to raise. If I understood him correctly, he asked about the position of a person who intends paying the difference at the end of a journey. The relevant provision is contained in
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subsection (5) of the first new clause. As I indicated in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, when he raised a similar point, the purpose of the penalty fares provision is to ensure that people do not travel without having first obtained the necessary ticket. If they do so, they may become liable to pay a penalty fare. I appreciate that there may be many honest people currently travelling with every intention of paying the excess at their destination. But the fact is that this practice also provides an easy route for those intent on defrauding the system. That is why we need to take this action. However, I did mention that the system will not be introduced on the Underground until the Secretary of State is satisfied that adequate facilities are provided.
The noble Lord asked whether there was perhaps a loophole in the provisions in the event of the minimum and the multiplied fare being equal. I can assure the noble Lord that it would not be possible for a passenger to avoid payment of a penalty fare even if both amounts produced under the formula are the same. A payment of either the minimum or the fare times the multiplier will be required. So I do not think that there is any cause for concern there.
The noble Lord also asked about the travel card holder who forgets his travel card. I think that I have given an answer to that point, but perhaps it might be helpful if I repeat it. So far as I know, under the present arrangements if a person realises that he has forgotten his card he is supposed to purchase a ticket before the beginning of his journey. The cost of the ticket can then reclaimed. The same conditions will apply under these provisions. If a traveller arrives at his destination without any ticket he may be liable to a penalty fare payable within 21 days. No doubt if within the 21 days the traveller proves to London Regional Transport that he is the possessor of a valid travel card, they will take that factor into account.
I am sorry to learn from the noble Lord that he felt that Londoners were becoming increasingly hostile towards paying their fares. I think that that was what the noble Lord meant.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, I am sorry, but I meant to convey that they were becoming increasingly hostile to those who sought to avoid paying the fare.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining that. We must make sure that we do not provide as many opportunities as there are at present for people to avoid paying. London Regional Transport regard the introduction of the penalty fares provision as an important step in their overall plans. The noble Lord asked specifically: if other authorities want to introduce penalty fares what should they do? The answer is that, if they so wish, it will be up to them to seek the necessary powers.
The noble Lord, Lord Somers, asked who would enforce the penalty fare. It would be enforced by the authorised person—this special kind of inspector. Only those authorised personnel would carry the necessary forms and have the authority to make a penalty fare charge. It would not be within the province of drivers, conductors or ordinary ticket collectors so to do.
Lord somers: My Lords, Presumably there will not be one of those on every bus?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: No, my lords, there will not be one on every bus. The present system that is used on buses is that inspectors make spot checks. This is back-up by a small squad of plan clothes officials who are used, among other things, to follow passengers previously reported by staff as suspected of fare evasion. On the Underground the normal method of detecting fare evasion in through the use of traveling ticket inspectors checking passengers on trains and at barriers, and plain cloths staff are also used there.
I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady, Denington, who said that surely on a one-man operated bus people could not get in.
Baroness Denington: No, my Lords, it was not me.
Barness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, it was the noble Lord, Lord somers.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: Yes, I beg your Lordships' pardon: it was the boble Lord, Lord Somers. The noble Lord said that people could not get past the driver. It has not been unknown, in the crush of people getting out, for passengers to get in through the exit door, when it is open. So people can get on buses without going through the right door.
In answer to the noble Baroness, let me say that we expect a greater degree of honesty, particularly as London Regional Transport are going to provide the right kind of ticketing machinery and the right kind of barriers which will encourage people to behave lawfully. I have more faith than perhaps the noble Baroness.
The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael—and I am grateful to him for his general acceptance of these amendments—again described a number of different methods in different cities, and of course we will take note of what he had said. The noble Lord mentioned the long queues, and I think that in general terms I have probably answered his query. I do not think that he raised any other specific matter.
London Regional Transport is generally looking for a quite dramatic change in the method by which people buy tickets. There are co-ordinated ticket, different machinery and different system. At this moment in time I do not think it would be right to attempt to describe all the kinds of development that are currently undergoing evaluation and which may come about in the next few years. I very much regret having taken such a long time. This have been a very important debate in this Report state. Therefore, I hope noble Lords will forgive me for having been so long. With that, I beg to move Amendment No. 48.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Renton): My Lords, I understand that Amendments Nos. 50 to 53 have been discussed and, unless any noble Lord objects, I propose to put those amendments together.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth Moved Amendments Nos. 50 to 53:
[Printed earlier]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 64 [Initial membership of London Regional Transport]:
[Amendments Nos. 54 and 55 not moved.]
Schedule 1 [Constitution and proceedings of London Regional Transport]:
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No.56:
Page 63, line 12, at end insert ("of whom not less then one-third in proportion to the total number, shall be appointed from persons nominated by the Greater London Council and bodies appearing to the secretary of state to represent local authorities in Greater London.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords may remember that a fairly similar amendment to this one was moved at an earlier stage in the Bill. In fact, we felt so strongly about it that we insisted on going to a Division on it; a vote was taken and the amendment was defeated. Therefore, this new amendment, which is on similar lines and has a similar purpose, nevertheless reduces from two-thirds to one-third the proportion of those who we believe should be representative of the Greater London area generally. Noble Lords may remember that we suggested that the board should be composed two-thirds of those nominated by London boroughs, the GLC and boroughs outside London where Transport operates. We suggested the figure of two-thirds because that was the proportion of the cost which had to be contributed by the ratepayers of those boroughs towards any London Transport deficit.
Having listened to the Minister with care, we decided—and I said this on the last occasion—that perhaps two-thirds was rather a high figure. Two-thirds of a maximum of 12 would leave four people—one from each corner of London. But the Minister declined the figure of two-thirds, which would have meant eight out of 12. Therefore, we are suggesting that one-third of the membership of the board should not be appointed by the boroughs in London but should still be appointed by the Secretary of state from names given to the Secretary of State by those London boroughs or those areas where London Transport operates and by bodies which appear to the Secretary of state to represent Local authorities in Greater London.
I must emphasis that we are not suggesting that anyone other than the Secretary of State Should ask for a list of names from which he can appoint up to a maximum of one-third of the total membership of the board.
On the last occasion when we discussed this matter, a number of points were made. It was said, for instance, that someone who was dissatisfied with the operation of London Transport could always write to his Member of Parliament. But the Minister must be aware that in almost all cases when a Member of Parliament raises a particular point with a Minister

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concerning a nationalised industry, the Minister is able to say that he has no control over operational matters, and he usually declines to discuss the matter.
Therefore, we believe that it is very important in a city the size of London that there should be some people on the board, at the critical decision-making point, who have an intimate knowledge of the needs of London generally and particularly of certain areas within London. It is possible that every member of the board appointed by the Minister could live outside London. It would be unlikely but, under the terms of the Bill as it now stands, it could be possible. We believe that there is always that possibility. There should be some safeguard to the London ratepayers who will pay such a very large amount of the difference between the fares collected and the total running costs; we believe that there should be some representation of these Londoners not purely on financial grounds—although because they are paying, they should be represented, and that is not unimportant—but because an input is required from the people of London who will be using the system and who, if things do not go well, will be the victims of the London Transport system.
I hope that the Minister will look more favourably on this suggestion that one-third instead of two-thirds of members should he nominated from names submitted by London boroughs and the GLC, than he did last time. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords as, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, said, we had a lengthy debate on a similar amendment at the Committee stage. Of course, we have noted that the noble Lord's present amendment now provides for at least one-third of the board to comprise local authority nominees instead of at least two-thirds. In no other respect is this amendment different.
I made it clear at the Committee stage that we were not prepared to accept an amendment on these lines, whatever the figure. I said then that LRT were to be a nationalised industry and that it would be answerable to the Secretary of State and, through him, to Parliament. It will not be answerable to local authorities. The board is to comprise individuals appointed by the Secretary of State who have the relevant qualifications and experience referred to in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1. They will need to be able to manage a multi-million pound business which is one of the country's biggest employers of labour.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State must be free to appoint the person who he regards as most suitable for the job, without the sort of constraint which this amendment would impose. It would be quite inappropriate for his hands to be tied in any way, particularly by a requirement to appoint a proportion of local authority nominees.
More fundamentally, there is no reason why local authorities should have a privileged position in this respect. I would remind your Lordships that the Committee voted against this amendment, or a similar amendment, last month. It would be strange if this evening your Lordships changed course and required at least a third of the appointed board to be nominees
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of those authorities. As I have said on a number of occasions, we have specifically provided elsewhere in the Bill for local authorities to be consulted, or in some case informed, by LRT about matters which would affect them. The planning regime provided for LRT in the Bill is probably more elaborate and more open to public scrutiny and comment than that in any other nationalised industry. The Bill requires Parliament to approve an annual ratepayer levy order which will show clearly the level of LRT's grant and the contribution to be made by London ratepayers. It establishes a powerful new consumer body to represent the interests of users of both British Rail and LRT services.
I listened carefully to what the noble Lord. Lord Carmichael, said, but in all honesty I could not hear anything that was new to the arguments put forward last time. I think that the noble Lord will realise that we start from different viewpoints, and frankly there is no prospect of our reaching agreement on this issue. I hope your Lordships will also recognise the extent to which we have already sought in the Bill to make special provisions for local authority interests where appropriate. We acknowledge the important role which the local authorities will continue to have in influencing LRT. Where we differ is over the point where to draw the line. On the question of appointments we maintain that the Secretary of State must have complete freedom of choice.
Lord Carmichael of Kielvingrove: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will realise how disappointing his answer is. I agree that there is nothing new in the arguments I put forward, it is just the strength of feeling that we have towards this matter. It is true that we approach these things from the opposite ends of the scale. The noble Lord said that he did not see why local authorities should have more rights than other people to make these suggestions to the Minister. Our point is that the right they have as against other people is that they are paying a lot of money towards the upkeep of this transport. Therefore, it did not seem to us to be wrong, and in fact absolutely correct, that there should be some recognition of this and of the importance of their role in the whole matter.
I emphasise once more, as I tried to do last time, that there is no suggestion that local authorities should appoint people directly or in any way curb the Secretary of State's power. He is the one who invites names from local authorities under the amendment we have put down. He could invite 20 or 30 local authorities to submit names and it would give him a great deal of choice. I am disappointed. We may find at a later stage a way of raising the matter again. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 70, line 18, after ("may") insert ("manufacture and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I speak to Amendments 58 and 59 together.
Amendment No. 59: Page 70, line 20, after ("of) insert ("manufacturing or").
These two simple amendments refer to the insertion of a couple of words, but they are important. Sub—

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paragraph (1) of paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 provides that LRT,
"may manufacture and repair any spare parts and components or other supplementary machinery or equipment".
of theirs or their subsidiaries. Subparagraph (2) gives LRT power to repair their own vehicles and other equipment, and to do this also for other people, and for that purpose they may supply parts and components.
The purpose of the two amendments is that what LRT can manufacture for themselves and their subsidiaries they should be able to do also for other persons in addition to undertaking repairs for those other persons. In addition, it would give power to LRT to manufacture vehicles. Similar amendments were before us at Committee stage. At that time the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, expressed apprehension about these additional powers being given to LRT. I must draw attention to the fact that the following two subparagraphs in the schedule give considerable powers to the Secretary of State to approve proposals under subparagraphs (1) and (2), to modify them, or to lay down conditions, or to direct LRT to discontinue such activities.
The noble Lord made two other main points. I quote from column 1239 of 14th May when the noble Lord said:
"The present management of the London Transport Executive have accepted the restriction written into the Bill of their present manufacturing powers".
I know that the noble Lord would not wish to mislead but I am certain that he has been wrongly advised on this matter.
I have received a letter from the solicitor to the London Transport Executive. He had been asked—that is, the solicitor—by the board to send me a copy of a letter sent to the Department of Transport dated 5th June. That letter to the Department of Transport, after referring to the statement I have read and my amendment at the last stage, goes on—and this is from the solicitor of the executive of the London Transport Board to the Secretary of the Department of Transport:
"I have been asked to inform you that the London Transport Executive have never been of the view that London Regional Transport should not have power to manufacture for third parties. They believe that it is in the interests both of London Regional Transport and the third parties that such power should be available subject always to the constraints currently imposed on the Executive. That belief was discussed at a Board Meeting of the Executive this morning"—
that is 5th June this year—
"and confirmed unanimously. I have been instructed to write so to inform you".
The department was told that a copy of the letter was being sent to me. I would emphasise the words "unanimous decision".
The other argument of the Minister was that LRT's principal role is to run buses and trains and not to make them. But there was no argument advanced as to why what was proposed in the amendment should not be agreed, and from what I have just read out it is clear what not only political figures but the professional men of London Transport want to see in this Bill.
The statement made by the Minister was contradicted by a subsequent point. He said at column 1239,
"where it will be more efficient for LRT to manufacture particular items, either because they can do it more cheaply or because there are no other suppliers".
Then he advanced the case of escalator chains which, he said. "are not readily available elsewhere". The effect of the Bill as drafted is that if a market for the production of escalator chains should arise LRT would be unable to take advantage of it with a view to making its own production more profitable. That would he in direct conflict with the Government's own philosophy of increasing competition and efficiency in the public sector. LRT, with its still substantial transport engineering capacity, would be well placed to take advantage of new markets. I think it would be agreed that the line between manufacture and repair can be a fine one. The arbitrary exclusion of manufacture by the main public service operator in London will simply result in a less efficient use of engineering capacity.
At the Committee stage I referred to the fact that until 1967 London Transport found it necessary for buses to be specially made to meet London's particular conditions. It had been pointed out to me that the purchase of standard vehicles has caused a number of engineering and operational problems in the past. London Transport has a long history of undertaking manufacturing for outside bodies and of producing and adapting equipment and vehicles as required. No real argument has been advanced why the power to manufacture in the future should be ruled out.
The exclusion of the manufacture and sale of vehicles and parts to outside parties is an unjustified restriction on the ability of LRT management to use their engineering capacity in the most profitable way possible. If LRT are given this power, as suggested in the amendments, they would have to compete for outside jobs. This is something that should be written into the Bill and then left to the commonsense commercial decision of the LRT management as to whether they wish to utilise it or not at any particular time, bearing in mind all the while that the Secretary of State has power, and will retain that power, to refuse any particular approval of any proposal the board may wish to make. I beg to move.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I must confess that I was slightly in sympathy with this amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has put forward. I think that, before one goes too far, I should like to ask my noble friend when he replies to explain absolutely what manufactures are permissible by London Transport, because I gather the number is fairly small. One in particular is a cream which will wipe off graffiti. They patented and market, and I think distribute, that themselves. That seems entirely permissible and absolutely sensible, and should be allowed to continue.
I also agree with him that their purpose is really to transport people, and not particularly to make vehicles, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said, there is a thin line between manufacture and repair. I shall be grateful, when my noble friend speaks, if he will outline all these points in some detail.
Baroness Denington: My Lords, I too should like to support this amendment as strongly as I can and to endorse every word that Lord Underhill has spoken. I remember going round and meeting the men of London Transport; the drivers in particular and the people in the works. They were always emphasising how much better were the old buses that they themselves had made than any other buses they had to use. They had to use them; they were not allowed to go on manufacturing. There was always a search for better buses. In the early days when I became chairman and we had such trouble trying to get more buses on the roads, again the complaints came about the buses. They brought out some of the old buses that they themselves had manufactured because they were still so much better than the modern ones they could buy.
I do not know what the noble Lord's brief says he should say in answer to this, but I hope that he will not turn it down. If he is inclined to turn it down, I hope that he will take it away and have another think about it, because this is economically very important to the London Transport industry in London.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I can tell the noble Baroness exactly what my brief says. It says "resist", and that is what I shall do. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said, we considered the matter quite briefly at Committee stage and I made our position quite clear. I explained then, and I repeat now, that we regard London Regional Transport's principal role as one of running buses and trains and not making them. That is why we have deliberately narrowed down in the Bill the wide powers which London Transport have at present. The powers in paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 enable London Regional Transport to engage in any necessary manufacturing or repair activities for their own purposes short of actually being able to manufacture vehicles. This will permit them to make sensible use of their resources to carry out repairs for third parties. We believe that these powers are fully sufficient for LRT and quite consistent with their main function, which, as I say, certainly is not to carry out manufacturing processes for themselves or for outsiders but is to get on with running their own services.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, drew at some length on what I said at Committee stage when I stated London Transport's position on the manufacturing proposals. I stand today by what I said on that occasion. During the preparation of the Bill, London Transport officials had discussions with the Transport Department on a number of proposals about which they were then unhappy or of which they wanted clarification. These proposals included the manufacturing powers because of the important change which was then being made. It was made clear to London Transport that the proposals represented firm ministerial policy, but the officials were asked to confirm that little use was made of the present powers, and in particular that the reduction in manufacturing powers would not put at risk significant activities which were currently being undertaken. London Transport was able to tell us then that the proposals as they appear in the Bill would not cause any serious problems.
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These proposals have been in the Bill ever since it was first published. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, mentioned that London Transport had written to the department on the subject. I do not quarrel with him on that. Of course I, too, have seen the letter. I note the view which has now, after this time, been expressed by the board, but I still say that my own remarks were wholly justified at that time.
My noble friend Lord Teviot asked me if I could elaborate on what kind of manufacturing LRT could undertake under the provisions of the Bill. Spare parts, largely; things which they use for its own. or perhaps its contracted companies where they are not readily available. So far as this special cream that has been developed and marketed is concerned, I imagine that that would be perfectly allowable under the manufacturing provisions.
I have listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said and to what the noble Baroness said. We obviously do not share the same views about what is appropriate for LRT. Frankly, I do not really expect to be able to convince noble Lords opposite at this stage. We believe that LRT's powers are quite adequate to enable it to carry on their operations efficiently and to give other people the benefit of repair facilities. We certainly do not want this nationalised industry, supported by public funds, setting up a manufacturing base for third parties. It is as simple as that. I can do no more than say that we see its role as running buses and trains and not making them.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am very disappointed, particularly in view of the support given to these amendments, that the Minister is not moving on this. The fact that his brief says "resist" may mean that somebody decided to resist before even hearing any arguments. I hope that the arguments may have made the Minister appreciate that there is a case to be met. Paragraph 9(1) states:
"London Regional Transport may manufacture and repair any spare pans and components or other supplementary machinery or equipment"
that is very widespread—but only for itself or its subsidiaries. Why should it not do it for somebody else and use its engineering capacity—that is what we are really saying—in a commonsense business managerial exercise by the board?
We have brought in the point about the vehicles because it is felt that there may be times when in the future it may be desirable for LRT to do this in view of the special needs for special types of vehicles to cope with London conditions. The noble Lord says that there is no need to change the view expressed at that time. He mentioned discussions with the executive. I can only quote what Mr. I. E. King, solicitor to the executive, says in this letter to the department, of which, as I said, I have a copy:
"London Transport Executive have never been of the view that London Regional Transport should not have power to manufacture for third parties."
The decision which they made recently, as of 5th June, to confirm that view was unanimous. The political members of the executive and all the professional staff of the executive want LRT to have this power. That is not to say they will use it. That will depend on their managerial capacity and decisions. We have been told

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that there will be a board with great business experience and capacity. Let the board take the decision, but for Heaven's sake give it the power.
I do not think that at this hour on a matter of this kind I ought to divide the House, but there is here a deep principle of commercial judgment which the Government are refusing to allow to the board of LRT. I ask the Minister to take this back and consult the London Transport Executive, in view of its letter of 5th June, and discuss its views about this. If its view is really as set out in the letter—I think it must be—and it can give sufficient justification then the Government themselves may feel that they ought to bring forward an amendment at the Third Reading stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 59 not moved.]
Schedule 3 [The London Regional Passengers' Committee]:
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 76, line II, at end insert—
("( ) The Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 shall apply to the proceedings of the Committee.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, again this is an amendment that was moved at the last stage of the Bill. I make no apologies for it. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said in his reply that it was merely a further discussion upon another aspect of account-ability.
I do not think we on this side of the House are at all apologetic about trying to get accountability into any publicly-funded body or organisation. Our purpose in this amendment is that the public should have a right to attend these meetings. I emphasise that these are meetings of the London Regional Passengers' Committee, not the London Regional Transport Board.
If one looks at the principal part of the Bill to which the schedule refers, one sees that copies of minutes shall be sent to a certain number of people, but there shall be no publication of the minutes. Local authorities in the London area, which will be responsible for meeting a large part of the costs of the passenger transport, will not even be given a copy of the minutes. All the public will know about the procedures of the passengers' committee (which presumably is a committee to look after the interests of and provide services for the public) is that once a year an annual report to the Secretary of State shall be laid before each House of Parliament. I feel that this is quite inadequate and that something a bit more informative for the general public and the boroughs, who will be supporting the purpose of this committee and the purpose of the existence of the committee to provide transport for London, should be given.
We ask that the proceedings of the committee should be open to the public as under the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960. The Minister must know that laying a copy of a report before each House of Parliament in practical terms is not giving quite as much information to the public as my friends and I and noble friends in other parties
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believe they should have. I make no apology for once again trying to have a further discussion, as the Minister described it, on another aspect of accountability. I think accountability in a field that touches so many people's daily lives is absolutely and vitally important. Therefore, I beg to move.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I should like to support what my noble friend on the Front Bench has said, particularly when one bears in mind the history of the 1960 Act. Many of us who were active in local government at that time were involved in it. Many of us were apprehensive at the beginning, but many of the merits and attributes that came from it and many of its encouragements made it permissible and possible for ordinary people to enter committees of certain councils to see what was going on. It was not merely a check up to see what councillors and officers of councils were doing. I should have thought it highly desirable that this should apply—as my noble friend has said, bearing in mind that this one amendment has been quoted in a number of places—to the London Regional Passengers' Committee. That is what the schedule is headed. When one sees a heading like that—people have spoken about it in other places both inside and outside Parliament—one realises that it is one of the great bulwarks of democracy when the passengers, the Londoners themselves, can go into a meeting to see what is going on.
Someone has gone to the trouble to remind the Government that this ought to be done, so the Government ought to be pleased. It was not the intention to debar the ordinary Londoner or anyone else concerned with London passenger transport—mostly ordinary Londoners who are not necessarily councillors—from seeing how this committee functions. To do so is naturally right and proper.
There is a further aspect that I ask your Lordships to consider. Those of us who have been active in politics for 40-odd years, in local government as well as national government, know full well that there are so many people whose first introduction to the idea of democracy in action—whether the local authority, the local council, the district council or the county council, or even Parliament itself—was in our famous public galleries. They can sit, watch and listen to what is happening. One of the proud things about our Parliament is that anyone can come into our Parliament. They do not have to be British. Nobody asks who they are, what they are or from whence they came. All that is said is that if there is room they can go upstairs, sit down, behave themselves and listen.
I have read so many autobiographies and biographies of well-known politicians who have claimed that their first introduction to the British political system was going with mother or father, uncle or aunt, to the local authority to watch the great council in action—it might have been Swansea council or some urban district council. I believe that wherever we can we should make it possible for people to see committees in action, what we are really talking about is British democracy in action. Even if the Minister cannot say yes immediately—I understand the difficulties that confront Ministers in this House—I hope he will say that he believes that the Government think this is something worth looking at and that they will do that.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lords, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove and Lord Molloy, for explaining their support for this amendment. I am not surprised that we have had another debate under the general heading of accountability. Frankly, there is little I can add to what I said at Committee stage. I explained at that time that Schedule 3(4) paragraph 9 gives the passengers' committee the power to determine its own procedure to enable it to decide whether and when to open its meetings to the public. We regard this as the best way to proceed. None of the nationalised industry consumer councils is covered, incidentally, by the 1960 Act and we do not regard it as appropriate to impose a requirement on them.
I also explained at Committee stage that one of the existing consumer bodies, the London Transport Passenger Committee, holds part of its discussions in public but that the Transport Users' Consultative Committee for London which deals with British Rail, does not hold any public discussion at all. The two organisations have developed in slightly different ways over the years and it is inevitable that when the newly-created body comes into existence it will have to consider quite afresh a large number of questions affecting the organisation of its work. Undoubtedly among those questions will be how to conduct the more formal part of its proceedings.
I recognise the force of the noble Lord's argument. It may be helpful if I rehearsed again how we envisage the operation of the passengers' committee. Certainly we would not see it as a policy forming authority. We would see it as dealing with complaints and representations, commenting on London Regional Transport's plans and proposals. It will spend much of its time in detailed discussions with LRT and British Rail, and I have no doubt that both of those bodies will continue with the valuable liaison arrangements which exist at present. If the passengers' committee find that some of their work lends itself to formal discussion in public, I am sure that they will arrange their business in that way.
I cannot see that the proposals in the Bill in any way deny people their rights. Obviously, the committee will be able to arrange their public meetings with users, and so on. I do not think that it is really necessary to impose a statutory procedure on them. I have no doubt, since we have discussed this on more than one occasion, that views have been put forcibly and that I have expressed views. I shall expect them to take due note of that, and I have little doubt that they will in fact do so. Perhaps, while on this subject for the sake of completeness, I should make the point about the public proceedings of this committee. When the committee are conducting a hearing about a rail closure proposal they will be required under Clause 41(2) to do so in public. This merely continues the existing law. Nothing, therefore, has been added, and nothing taken away. With that explanation, I would invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, the answer that the Minister has given today is perhaps warmer than the answer which he gave last time, in that he suggested that the London Passenger Transport Committee would no doubt read the proceedings in
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this Chamber and would know that there was a certain feeling about it. I should have preferred the noble Lord to have made reference to the minutes of the meetings being made slightly more widely available, and to the fact that, unlike in the case of most of the other committees, the London boroughs are going to pay a certain amount of money towards the upkeep of public transport in London.
With the points that the Minister has made and the general reception that he gave, although far from totally satisfactory, I believe that, considering that we both look at the problem from opposite ends of the spectrum, he went a little further, at least in empathy than before, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 5 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
5.52 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 89, line 15, after ("sections") insert ("8(a), 30(1)(a),").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a minor drafting amendment to paragraph 11(4) of Schedule 5. It provides that the references in Clause 8(a) and Clause 30(1)(a) to agreements between LRT and private operators under Clause 3(2) arrangements are not to be treated as including agreements or consents for London bus services which were made under existing powers and are continued on a transitional basis alongside the new form of agreements.
The Clause 3(2) agreements referred to in Clause 8(a) and in subsection (1)(a) of Clause 30 are agreements relating to services which are under the control of LRT. Many of the existing London bus agreements and consents under the 1969 Act relate to services which are quite separate from London Transport's own services; and those services will not in practice be under LRT's control during the transitional period. It would be confusing if the drafting of the Bill gave the impression either that LRT would control those services or that LRT should act as if they controlled them. The amendment therefore seeks to avoid any doubt on the subject. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 62 not moved.]
Earl Attlee moved Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 91, line 7, leave out ("2nd December 1983") and insert ("the passing of this Act").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this amendment stands in the names of my noble friend Lord Tordoff and myself. It is a very simple amendment. It intends to substitute for the words "2nd December 1983" the words "the passing of this Act". It is in respect of capital expenditure. I was very nice to the noble Lord the Minister about his penalty fares: I should now like to be kind to him. I am sure that noble Lords opposite, like noble Lords on these Benches, do not like retrospective legislation. This particular clause is retrospective. If there is a very good reason, I think that it can be accepted, but I do not think that there is a good reason to do this.
We understand that up to today, the middle of June, there has been no significant capital expenditure by the GLC, and, as I understand it, the date 2nd December 1983—retrospective—was inserted in order to stop hasty, ill-considered and unwise expenditure. That has not happened to date, and I do not see why it should happen in the short time which would elapse between now and the passing of this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I shall briefly give my support to this amendment. It will be noted that I have not moved my Amendment No. 62, which was similar to that which I moved at the Committee stage. This amendment puts in the words "the passing of this Act", whereas my amendment used the words "the appointed day". The reference to the passing of the Act seems more common sense than one to the appointed day. I said at the Committee stage, in reply to the Minister, that I would get a list of all the capital schemes which may be affected. I am assured by the GLC that they have now agreed to fund a large number of British Rail schemes which otherwise could have been affected by this provision because they want to ensure their continuity in the short term, and that it will be possible for them to fund most other BR schemes through alternative powers. There is the principle of retrospection to which the House should give attention, and for that reason I support the amendment.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister to clarify whether this is a case of retrospection or whether that date was merely the date placed on the Bill at the time it was published so that people therefore knew it was as from that date?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for moving this amendment, because it gives me the opportunity to clarify the intentions of our own proposal. Paragraph 15 of Schedule 5 makes it clear that LRT are to be required to take over certain commitments entered into by the GLC for public transport investment with British Rail or operators other than London Transport. It makes equally clear that the requirement is not to apply to commitments made by the GLC after 2nd December 1983: that is, after the publication of the Bill. I would emphasise that nothing in the paragraph has been intended to prevent the GLC either from entering into new commitments after 2nd December 1983 or from making payments after that date, whether under old or new commitments. We are not in that sense constraining the GLC in anticipation of Parliament's approval to the Bill.
All that we have been saying—and I think this is what my noble friend Lady Gardner has in mind—is that, once the Government's intentions were made public, it seemed only reasonable that any further contractual commitments entered into by the GLC should remain their responsibility and should not be handed over to LRT at the appointed day. It would have been irresponsible if we had offered the GLC a blank cheque by providing for LRT to pick up any and every GLC commitment made after the publication of the Bill. I should add that legally enforceable contractual commitments to pay grants are not affected by the repeal of the GLC's powers to pay
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grants for public transport purposes. The obligations will remain, and expenditure by the GLC in fulfilling any such obligations will be lawful expenditure. This is because of Section 16 of the Interpretation Act 1978. At the same time, it would also have been irresponsible if we had repealed the powers which enabled the GLC to pay grant for public transport purposes, but had made no provision for commitments to pay grants which were entered into before the publication of the Bill but which might not otherwise be legally enforceable.
I hope therefore that the noble Lord will be able to accept paragraph 15 of Schedule 5 as a modest and straightforward provision setting limits to the commitments which will pass statutorily from the GLC to LRT. We do not believe that it carries the constitutional overtones that may have been implied when we discussed this matter during the earlier stages of our consideration. As I said during the Committee debate, this was designed to secure fair arrangements for the funding of sensible schemes in the run-up to the new system.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he said. I accept his clarification although I think he will admit that when one read the Bill it looked like restrospective legislation. I accept that it is probably not. I should like to read carefully what the Minister said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Jacques): Amendment No. 64. Here there is a correction to the page number. It should be page 97, not page 47.
Schedule 6 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 97, line 49, at end insert—(" . Section 35 (which relates to the grant of road service licences for certain excursions or tours) of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 shall have effect subject to the following amendments—

(a) in subsection (1), at the beginning, there shall be inserted the words "Subject to subsections (1A), (1B), (1C), (1D) and (1E) below"; and

(b) after subsection (I) there shall be inserted the following subsections:—

"(1A) If it relates to a service which would involve picking up or setting down passengers on any road in Greater London an application for a licence for a service of a kind described in subsection (1) above shall be treated as an application to which this subsection applies and subsection(1) above does not apply.
(1B) As regards an application to which subsection (IA) above applies the traffic commissioners shall grant the licence unless they are satisfied that to do so would be against the interests of the public on the grounds only that the use for the taking up or setting down of passengers of any place which may be so used would be prejudicial to the safety or convenience of the public.
(1C) In relation to an application to which subsection (1A) above applies and to any licence granted on it, section 33 of this Act shall not apply and sections 31 and 32 of this Act shall have effect as if section 31(2) to (4) and, in section 32(1), the works "and in particular to the matters mentioned in section 3 1(3)(a) to (c) of this Act" and paragraphs (a) and (b), were omitted.
(1D) In considering under subsection (1B) above whether the grant of a licence would be against the interests of the public or whether in accordance with section 32 of this Act it would he in the interests of the public to attach

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conditions to the licence, the traffic commissioners shall have regard to any objections or representations, which they consider relvant, which are made in the prescribed manner by the Greater London Council, any London Borough Council, the Common Council of the City of London and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and, where the proposed service involves any place within the City of London which may be used for the taking up and setting down of passengers, the Commissioner of Police for the City of London.
(1E) Notwithstanding subsection (4) of this section, section 50 of this Act shall apply to applications to which subsection (1A) above applies.".")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at this hour, and right at the end of the Bill, I am not going to repeat what I said in Committee because it is exactly the same amendment. I hope my noble friend will confirm that he is going to do something about this on Third Reading. Briefly, the amendment amends the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981, allowing bodies such as the police to object to licences being given on grounds of inconvenience or safety. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, before I speak to my noble friend's amendment, I wonder whether your Lordships will permit me, since we are in Report Stage, to correct something I said earlier in response to my noble friend Lord Teviot, when we were discussing the manufacturing clauses. I said, if my memory serves me right, that an example of LRT's manufacturing allowance was spare parts and things of that nature. I also suggested that the cream which they have manufactured for their own use would probably be allowed. However, I am advised that the type of things are certainly spare parts for buses, but also things such as escalator chains, as an example of an incidental item to the repair and service of their equipment, because these are not normally made. The narrower manufacturing powers which LRT will have will probably lead to the cessation of production of certain chemical products such as cleaning solvents, which they manufacture and sell in small quantities at present. I am afraid that I may very well have mislead my noble friend. I would envisage of course that London Regional Transport will no doubt sell the manufacturing rights or patents to an outside body. Under the provisions in paragraph 19 of the schedule, LRT will be able to complete any contracts entered into by the executive.
With regard to this amendment, I recognise my noble friend's concern which is shared by London Transport: notably that there is sufficient kerbside space for the potential operators of excursions and tours. We welcome the principle behind the amendment as I thought I had made clear when we considered it in Committee. Our discussions at that stage were mainly concerned not with the merit of the proposal but with the question whether it was necessary to anticipate Clause 44 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill, which of course as my noble friend pointed out, contains an identical proposal. I repeat that in our view there is no reason to fear that Clause 44 of that Bill will fail. However, in view of my noble friend's concern and the support that was expressed for the amendment at the earlier stage by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, we have given this matter further consideration as I promised and have decided to deal with it in the present Bill
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rather than leave it for the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill. If my noble friend will accept from me that we will bring forward an amendment for that purpose at Third Reading. I hope he will feel able to withdraw his own amendment this evening.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, first, I must thank my noble friend for coming back on the manufacturing amendment. I shall read all that he says very carefully before considering what to do. On this present amendment, I am very grateful to him for taking this back. All I can say is that I look forward to his amendment on Third Reading, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Health and Social Security Bill
6.6 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Glenarthur.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD JACQUES in the Chair.]
Clause I [Supply etc. of optical appliances.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Jacques): I must inform the Committee that if Amendment No. 1 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 2 to 11.
Lord Cullen Lord Cullen of Ashbourne moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 8, leave out subsection (1).
The noble Lord said: My noble friends on the Front Bench will no doubt regard this as a wrecking amendment. I consider it to be the reverse of that. The purpose is to prevent Her Majesty's Government from lowering or even wrecking the standards of optical services in this country. The Government's wish to increase competition and to bring down the prices of private spectacles would be achieved by subsection (2) and subsection (3) of this clause while maintaining the present high standards. With some qualifications, I support subsections 2 and 3 of the clause.
I have prepared quite a long speech enumerating the arguments against unqualified dispensing, but noble Lords who have taken part in, or listened to, these debates in the past will be well aware of the arguments and so I see no reason to repeat them today. However, I should like to remind your Lordships that it is not only opticians who are naturally against this idea: both the BMA and the National Ophthalmic Treatment Board Association are also opposed to it. The real issue before the Committee is whether or not it is in the public interest for those who need their vision corrected by spectacles to have their optical prescriptions properly dispensed by persons qualified to do the job. I am convinced that it is not only unnecessary but unwise to let unqualified persons

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loose on to the optical market, and it is against the public interest. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: It might help if I say at this stage, briefly, that some years ago I appeared for the prosecution in a case in which an unqualified person was convicted of obtaining money by false pretences, which consisted in his claiming to be able to test eyes and prescribe lenses for correcting vision. He had an elaborate box of filed lenses and he had books on the subject, but he had no training and no clue how to do it properly.
Therefore, two questions arise on this Bill. The first is whether unqualified people will be allowed to test eyes. I hope and assume that they will not be allowed to do so. I hope that is clear. But the next point that arises is this: will they be allowed to supply spectacles on a prescription given by a person fully qualified to test eyes? If that is so, what guarantee will there be that they were trained in the art of ensuring that the spectacles corresponded to the prescription? If the Government cannot give that guarantee, unqualified people should not be let loose on the public; it would be a retrograde step to let that happen.
Lord Ennals: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for the words he has just used. I believe this is a thoroughly retrograde step. One might assume from those noble Lords who support the case that somehow or other this is a step forward. It is a thoroughly bad step backwards. It is wrong in principle. It is absolutely clear that the British Medical Association, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, says—and I have had subsequent correspondence with the BMA—fully support the position of their optical committee, that optical dispensing requires a great deal more than the ability to read a prescription. It requires a knowledge—
Lord Orr-Ewing: May I intervene?
Lord Ennals: If the noble Lord insists
Lord Orr-Ewing: I am so grateful to the noble Lord for referring to this. I wonder whether he can give us the date on which the full committee of the BMA met to consider this current Bill, because I have not been able to find out.
Lord Ennals: I had a letter last week from the BMA in which they said that, with the many fields they cover, they delegate the responsibility to their committees and they fully support the decision that was taken and which was referred to by me during the debate on Second Reading. I thought it was better to have that matter clear, since I had been challenged on it by the noble Lord.
I believe this is going to be very bad for the people concerned and also very bad for elderly people, who are, after all, the vast majority of those who need spectacles. I do not think the British public really knows what is coming to it. A recent survey showed that a high percentage of the public was completely unaware of the changes proposed in the Bill. The survey revealed that less than half the population were aware of any Government plans to alter the
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regulations for the dispensing of spectacles. Even among spectacle wearers, awareness amounted to only 48 per cent., but only 3 per cent. had realised that the Government's plans meant that unqualified persons were going to be allowed to dispense spectacles. I mentioned a moment or two ago—
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: Will the noble Lord allow me to intervene?
Lord Ennals: No, I will not give way again. The noble Lord can seek to make his own speech. This Bill has been strongly condemned in other countries. Representatives of 43 national optical and optometric organisations in countries all round the world met recently in London and discussed the United Kingdom Government's proposals to permit unqualified, unregistered and untrained persons to carry out optical dispensing. They passed a resolution which said that they viewed with considerable concern the proposals of the United Kingdom Government to amend the Opticians Act 1958. They said that this measure would put the public at considerable risk of receiving inaccurate, inadequate and inappropriate optical dispensing at a time when world standards generally in its member countries are increasing. That is absolutely true: they are improving in other parts of the world. In the EEC, all countries have laws regulating optical dispensing, with the exception of Denmark. But Denmark is already discussing doing precisely that. In the United States, all states regulate ophthalmic dispensing to some degree.
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Ennals: Well, they do. Twenty-one states currently require full licensing of dispensing opticians, and more states are enacting similar legislation. The point I am making is that not only in Europe but in the United States the process is towards regulation—I repeat, "towards" it. The facts absolutely prove it to be so. Our Government are proposing action which would be retrograde; a backward step. They know it themselves, because the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—and he was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, during the Second Reading on 21st May this year—said at col. 1035 on 27th April 1983:
"Standards of dispensing in the United Kingdom are high. If the need for statutory registration was removed and untrained people could enter the field, standards would inevitably fall".
I would ask the Minister, when he comes to reply to what I hope will be a short debate, to say why the Government have changed their view since the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, made that statement in this very Chamber.
Lord Northfield: I am sorry to cross swords with my noble friend, but I strongly disagree with what he is saying and I think it is high time that most of us put on record our view about this. Could I deal first with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Renton? I know that he is an assiduous student of what happens in another place, but I think he must have missed the debate on 2nd May 1984 in another place when the Minister of Health dealt with precisely the point he has raised today. The issue is: what sort of protection will be given to people in relation to the quality of

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dispensing? The Minister dealt with that directly on that date in columns. 417, 418 and 419. He said, quite bluntly, that a lot of stories were being put about, rather indicating, as he said, that people would be selling glasses on garage forecourts and men who yesterday were selling ice-cream would today be selling spectacles. All this is nonsense. What he went on to make quite clear was that the Government are to lay down British standards not just for the spectacles but for the process of dispensing.
I want to make it quite clear that the consumer is to be protected under the regulations by the issue of British standards. I am sure that the noble Lord on the Front Bench will want to add to that. So please do not let us get into hysteria about the consumer being unprotected in the future. It is no part of the case of those who support the broad thrust of this Bill to criticise opticians. They do a good service, and nobody is trying to deny that. But what this subsection is doing is to allow unregistered sellers simply to provide spectacles once a recent prescription is produced.
What are the advantages of that? They are clear enough in all the papers that have accumulated over the last 15 years. I must say that I look back into the debates of 1958 in the other place, in which I took part, and in one of which I actually moved an amendment at that time, among many other amendments, to try to get the General Optical Council to control prices and to issue some guidance about the pricing of private spectacle frames. It was turned down on the grounds that opticians would behave themselves and were far too trustworthy to need that sort of control. But what has occurred since then in those 26 years of experience, which I seem to have lived through in a sort of nightmare on this issue, is the continuously-accumulating evidence that it is not true that we can trust to the absence of competition to keep this matter under proper control. We need competition to be brought in and the unregistered seller will be able to do that, provided also, as I say, that with British Standards behind him he can be controlled in the standard of service that he gives to the consumer.
We have had the 1976 Price Commission report which showed extravagant profits; the 1979 Price Commission report which showed enormous profits made by Dollond and Aitchison who have 25 per cent. of the market; the Office of Fair Trading report, which I hope we have all read, a devastating document which was produced in 1982, showing that gross profitability is over 55 per cent. in the large firms and over 50 per cent. in the small firms. Is there not room for competition in all this? With figures like that, there must be room for competition—
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: May I—
Lord Northfield: I do not want to give way, because I shall be too long if I do. The noble Lord has his name to the amendment and he can reply to me at the end. What the Office of Fair Trading report also showed was that the other problem in the opticians' industry is that many are under-occupied. They are protected by high prices and so do a small number of prescriptions every year. The Office of Fair Trading went on to find
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that if we could get some competition into this industry of selling spectacles, and could then get a smaller number of opticians increasing their activity by one-third, 45 per cent. or something like that—instead of being so well below average, getting up to average and beyond—there could be a reduction of no less than 24 to 28 per cent. in the final price to the consumer. That is by letting competition act, letting it sort out the industry and providing the service that comes after that competition has taken effect.
I do not want to go any further, but I should just like to make three other points. First, I welcome this Bill because it will do one other thing. It will mean that the unregistered seller will have on his counter on display standard spectacle frames. Then, when he gets a prescription for somebody suffering from presbyopia—namely, beginning to get old and needing magnification—he will be able to say "I do not need to send away for special spectacles. I have all this range from plus 1.25 to plus 2.5 dioptres". That will mean that, provided that a prescription is produced, he can sell over the counter these spectacles which are standard and which should retail for £10 a pair. I was horrified to see that a man who was doing this in the West End was recently prosecuted and fined. He was doing exactly that, with no harm to anybody. It is a scandal that that prosecution took place and that our law allowed the prosecution to stand.
My second point is that it will be important to make this system work, as is pointed out in paragraph 9.64 of the Office of Fair Trading report. It will be important for the patient to be given his prescription—not just to be told, "I have carried out your eye test and what sort of spectacles would you like?" He must physically be presented with his prescription, so that he can then leave the optician if he wants and can go to these unregistered sellers' shops.
So I have to ask the Minister very bluntly: Will the regulations which the Government propose to introduce include a requirement—and they do not at the moment—that the optician shall hand the prescription to the patient? That is absolutely crucial in making the new system work. I may say that it is the law in the United States that a patient has to receive his prescription, and it works extremely well.
My final point is about the effect of all this on the health service. There is a lot of talk that all this will lead to the National Health Service frame being taken off the market. That is not true. It will be on the market for people who are to get free spectacles—namely, people with very low incomes and children—and there is no reason why the optician should not continue to sell them. I want to ask the Minister whether he will be kind enough to confirm that the National Health Service frame will still be available for those people who want it, and that the approximate price will be a maximum of about £2 above the present price, because the subsidy on a national health frame and the lenses together is about £2. If the noble Lord will confirm what I have asked, I think he will put to flight a lot of the nonsense that is being talked about the effect of this Bill.
I welcome this subsection unreservedly. It is the end of long campaigning, so far as I and other noble Lords

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are concerned. Goodness knows how many years I have been raising the matter in this House alone, and one gets tired of waiting. For goodness sake! let us put it through tonight and not listen to any further nonsense about it.
Lord Somers: My Lords, after what the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has said, I hope that the Government will not decide to try bringing competition into the medical profession or any other particularly specialised profession, because it will not help them. I have recently had a good deal to do with optical specialists, as not long ago I had operations on both eyes for cataract. Therefore, I have had to have fairly accurate fitting of glasses and I can tell your Lordships that extreme expertise is needed to do it properly. Even the matter of fitting a frame is not merely a matter of grinding the lenses, making sure that they are accurate, and so on. Fitting the frame and making sure that it is in exactly the right position is a very expert job, and I entirely agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. I sincerely hope that the Government will not decide to bring in this irresponsible idea of competition just for its own sake.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: I hesitate to come in at this stage, but I simply cannot understand my noble friend Lord Northfield, with his passionate desire for free glasses at any old unregistered stall, though I support him on the question of a reduction in price. But the passionate declarations of faith in cheap spectacles of those like the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and others, appal me. It is all right for cheap reading glasses, but it is a different matter altogether where impairment of sight is concerned.
When noble Lords talk about taking a prescription to an unregistered supplier, they forget one very important and vital factor which the noble Lord who has just spoken has brought out. It applies not only to people with severe impairment—and my wife is in the same position as the noble Lord, but perhaps a little worse—it applies to anybody with an impairment of eyesight, because what people overlook is that the fitting of the spectacles is vitally important.
My optician recently had a case where a young lady came in who had had her spectacles supplied, but had not gone back afterwards for the fitting which the optician had stressed. That lady's arm was covered in bruises and the optician asked "What have you been up to?" She said "I can't help falling about". The answer was quite simple. The fitting of the spectacles on that young lady had not been checked, so she had the habit of falling about. For people with worse eyesight defects, the problem can be almost fatal. Anyone with a severe impairment of eyesight, especially difficult cataract cases, knows full well that a pair of spectacles that are slightly out of true can cause a fatal fall or some other disaster.
I am not overstressing the point. I am fed-up to the teeth with the passionate declarations about free enterprise which are made by some noble Lords. They overlook vital facts about one of the most precious gifts that we have—our sight. It is sad that doctors agree that health is not normally affected. I know for
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a fact that a person with a severe impairment of sight whose spectacles are slightly out of true can suffer from irritability, bad temper and mental strain which leads to bouts of depression. Therefore I warn noble Lords who are so passionate about free enterprise to be very careful about what they are doing. I strongly support the amendment. Although I support the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, on price, frames are not the whole answer: lenses are also vital.
Lord Orr-Ewing: May I deal with some of the arguments which have been advanced. As my noble friend suggested in his opening speech, I consider that this is a wrecking amendment. We have waited a very long time for some form of competition. As the noble Lord who has just sat down said, we are dealing mainly with reading glasses. We wish reading glasses to be more freely available on the market. Their numbers are not negligible. It is very difficult to find accurate figures but it is estimated that probably 1 million pairs of reading glasses are sold every year in this country. The average price is between £25 and £75. The noble Lord who opened the debate was wrong when he said that the majority of states in the USA do not allow some liberty over where reading glasses may be bought. The vast majority of the states within the states do allow reading glasses to be bought over the counter. They are all very carefully marked. Several samples have been sent to me. Every time I go to the USA I buy spectacles. They are beautifully wrapped and they are carefully marked. This particular pair are plus-4 dioptres, balanced glasses. We all need reading glasses at some time in our lives. There is a range in other cases I have seen, of 18 different strengths of reading glasses.
Lord Ennals: Will not the noble Lord accept that in the United States the trend is steadily more and more towards—
Lord Orr-Ewing: No.
Lord Ennals: Oh, yes. The facts are absolutely clear. I have the figures for 1st June 1984 which show that the number of states which are now moving towards the kind of legislation we are now seeking to abolish is increasing. The noble Lord is wrong.
Lord Orr-Ewing: I must confess that I do not have the figures for 1st June 1984; my research assistant is not so good as the noble Lord's. However, I know from surveys and from having read and re-read the publications of the Office of Fair Trading that a very large majority of countries allow competition in this field. What a benefit this would be for a great number of people. I am speaking not for the opticians for whom my noble friend so gallantly speaks, as the chairman or president of the Opticians' Federation. I am speaking for the vast number of people over the age of 45 in this country. When you are over 45 years of age you may for the first time need a pair of reading glasses.
I do not like the idea that you will have to take a prescription with you. I may have to go along with this because it is built into the Government's legislation, but I hope that my noble friend who is to speak on this issue will agree that a prescription for reading glasses is

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not necessary because most eyes are balanced. Even if the eyes are not completely balanced, the eye is an extraordinarily adaptable organ. As I said in my Second Reading speech, it is amazing how God designed our eyes and our brains to adapt to slight imperfections in one eye or the other. It is not just the eye but the brain which is involved.
I support the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, who said that when there has been an eye test it ought to be mandatory for a prescription to be given to the person whose eyes have been tested. However, that still leaves many people out of the reckoning. Shall we all have to carry our blood group, our TV licence number and God knows how many printed cards in our wallets and. in addition, our prescription? What is to happen in the case of the I million or 2 million visitors who come to our country every year? All of us lose our glasses at some time or another. If these visitors break or mislay their spectacles, will they have to have an eye test and then wait for their spectacles to be made up?
Why do the Government not allow people to go into a shop and buy perfectly well marked and carefully tested reading glasses? Nobody can fault them. It is agreed that the eyes can be in no way harmed by having the wrong reading glasses. A headache is the first sign that the glasses are not right.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, referred to the British Medical Association and said that they have left it to their Optical Committee. But the Optical Committee has not met. Only a few executive members of the Optical Committee have met. They have therefore condemned a Bill which has never been considered by the members of the Optical Committee as a whole. The BMA say that they back the Optical Committee. They are perfectly entitled to do so; but it is wrong to say that the BMA have studied this matter, have met in full committee and condemn this Bill. Unless the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. can produce chapter and verse as to when they met, whether they considered the Bill and how many people were present, I have to say that they decentralised it to their Optical Committee.
Lord Ennals: Although I do not have it before me, since the Second Reading debate I have received a letter from the BMA which confirms absolutely that what I have said is right. They fully and totally support their Optical Committee in the conclusions which they have reached. They did not need to say on what date they met and how they met, but the BMA have established quite clearly their support for the Optical Committee.
Lord Orr-Ewing: I should like to see a copy of that letter. Since I made the challenge. I regret that they did not send a copy to me. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will resist this wrecking amendment, and that we shall go on with a Bill which is not so free as I should like it to be but which will be an enormous step forward and which will be of tremendous benefit for everybody who needs reading glasses.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: The amendment is based upon an emotional fallacy. I speak entirely without passion. I do not care what you pay for your glasses. I buy mine in India or New York and they are
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perfectly all right. That is a privilege I enjoy because I have the opportunity to travel. It is an offensive fallacy that ordinary people can damage their eyes by using magnifying glasses which do not give them the best possible vision.
About a year ago I went to my oculist and asked him whether I really needed, because it is so expensive, to change my glasses. He said that I did not need to do so if I felt comfortable. He tested my eyes and said that I ought to change one pair if I wanted to have the best vision for reading. I changed one pair, though not the other—I have two pairs of reading glasses—and I cannot tell the difference between the two. However, the change cost me quite a lot of money. This oculist, one of the best in the country and also one of the best known, told me that not a single reputable oculist, whatever the BMA may say, believes that reading with a magnifying glass which is not carefully prescribed for you can do you the slightest possible harm.
My second point, which is very important, is that the noble Lord is perfectly right about the fitting of glasses. It is similar to the difference between having a good figure and going to the Fifty Shilling Tailor, as I used to do when I was that kind of age, and having a bad figure and going to an expensive tailor. I can wear any glasses, in any frame, in complete comfort. My wife paid so much for her last frames that I shall not tell the House how much they cost. However, it was worth it in her case. They are very light; she has a very difficult nose. It is a highly technical operation—nothing to do with optics—to fit them correctly. Therefore we must not believe that to wear glasses which we have picked up in the street or anywhere else—often I use other people's glasses—can do us the slightest harm. If they are uncomfortable we do not go on with them.
Let nobody under-estimate the importance of difficult lenses and the fitting of them into first-class frames. That is worth money. I object to my wife paying quite so much, but I do not mind her paying a good deal. I have never used anything except a National Health Service frame, and I shall be in a terrible state when they are taken off the market.
A noble Lord: They are not being taken off the market.
Lord Rugby: If I may refer to what was said by the noble Lord. Lord Somers, he confused the Committee by introducing a medical question with regard to spectacles when, of course, spectacles have absolutely no relationship to medicine whatsoever—and neither do the sales of spectacles. His particular prescription is probably for a major eye defect which requires very powerful lenses. It may have no relationship whatsoever to the low-power lenses, equal for both eyes, which the presbyopic person will require at about 45 years of age due to the ageing process, simply in order to magnify the printed word.
Reading spectacles are related not so much to the eye condition as to the size of the print. If the print is small, then the wearer will require a magnification of plus-2, say, at age 45. When that person is 60 or 70 years of age, he may need a 0.5 per cent. increase in magnification just in order to read. But he does not need his spectacles all the time; the question is simply

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related to the job which those spectacles have to perform. There is absolutely no reason at all why the elderly should, simply because of the infirmity of old age. have to carry an enormous price tag and a totally unnecessary eye test. when there are all the other various spectacles which people might need for the kind of major eye defects which come into the realm of ophthalmology.
Lord Molloy: Having listened to both this and the previous debate, I believe that the real issue is a simple one. I acknowledge the frustration and annoyance which one might experience when finding that a pair of spectacles costs more at one optician's shop than at another. In other words, the principle of "shopping around" seems to apply. I agree that opticians within a given area should be allowed to advertise.
How should we decide on this particular amendment? I had no idea what was wrong with my eyes. When I was about 45 years of age, I suddenly discovered that it was difficult to read. I thought that I had better have my eyes tested. Then I was told, "Aren't you lucky?". Look at me: I am purblind and have been for 20 years because, before the war, I went to Woolworth's to get my glasses for "a tanner". No one examined my eyes, and no one said there was any need: just so long as one could see, that was enough. We have to take full cognisance of that argument.
The second argument is that the unregistered suppliers of these glasses will have a vast range of prescriptions. Will that be true of every one? It seems to me absurd that there will be millions of sets of glasses. It is as if someone said to me tonight, "Do not bother to go to your opticians in Fulham—pop across to India because you will save a couple of bob by buying a pair there". It is that kind of absurdity which we have to recognise.
I do not know enough about the profession of eye-testing: all I know is that when I need glasses I consider it is wise to go to an optician. Speaking parenthetically, I, too, received a letter from a very responsible officer of the BMA stating that the comments which my noble friend Lord Ennals and I had made previously in this House on behalf of the BMA were acceptable to them and were perfectly accurate.
What should we do? The choice I have is this. I must either listen to the arguments which have been put by some of my noble friends who have no qualifications or I must decide whether I should listen to the British Medical Association and the opticians' association and take their advice. My answer is quite simple: my eyes are far too precious to dabble with and for me to take the advice of amateurs. In this instance, I will accept the decision of the experts.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Ferrier: I do not propose to repeat what I said on a previous occasion, but I support this amendment and everything that my noble friends and the noble Lords, Lord Ennals and Lord Wallace of Coslany, have said. To my mind, the trouble is that a lot of passion has entered this argument. One has only to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, or to my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, to realise that this seems to be a subject that is very worrying to people.
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I have looked back over the years, and I am sure I am right in saying that the position today is completely changed from what it was when the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, started his campaign.
Lord Northfield: Yes: it is worse.
Lord Ferrier: The situation is not the same as it was then. This Bill makes a muddle of our approach to the National Health Service Act. It amounts to fiddling about with it. I do not like it. I have said so before, and something similar has been said in another place.
One of the aspects that interests me is the Title of this Bill. If this amendment were not to be accepted—an I hope that it will be—then we would have to address ourselves to the Title. The Bill as it now stands does not line up with the Long Title. As for the Short Title—the Health and Social Security Bill—I feel that in terms of indexing Hansard there ought to be a reference to the fact that this Bill fiddles with the opticians' legislation. If this amendment were not to be carried, we would have to address ourselves to the problem of the Bill's Title. The reason is that the Bill cannot in every way be beneficial to health. It may be beneficial to the reduction of prices, and I think that is possible: but it can in no way result in better eye examinations or better lenses, or better dispensing.
I was interested by an experience I had the other day. When I lost my wife, I did not know what to do with a large collection of spectacles. My optician said to me, "Let me have the lot and I will label them all with the correct prescriptions and send them to Oxfam". I mention this only because it was interesting to me that one could make use of possessions that are no longer needed and that one could hand over spectacles to members of an extremely sensible, responsible and expert profession, who would then dispose of them in that way.
I myself do not go so far as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, but I feel most strongly that we must not allow our passions to be excited by this question. The agitation which arose a few years ago was in a measure necessary, and the result has been that prices have gone down and that competition is now operating as of today. We would he very unwise to think, especially when reference has been made to the report of the Office of Fair Trading, casting back in my memory, that it had the full story from both sides. I think my noble friend will be able to support that later. I support the amendment wholeheartedly and hope that the Committee will be sensible and eliminate subsection (1).
Lord Prys-Davies: I wish to support this amendment, and I will be brief. The standards of dispensing in this country are high. They are high because the dispensing optician has been well trained. Last year there were 257 students who sat the final dispensing examination of the Association of Dispensing Opticians. Of the 257, only 83 passed and 174 failed. If this Bill is passed the 174 who failed can next year dispense glasses on the open market. To allow that to happen in the case of those who have failed to equip themselves with the necessary skill and knowledge will lead inevitably to the lowering of standards, and that would be a retrograde step. That is why I support the amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I strongly support the amendment for exactly the same reason as the noble Lord has said. This particular amendment will perhaps be more sweeping than one would particularly want, because I agree with the noble Lord. Lord Northfield, that competition should be encouraged. However, I am deeply concerned because I understand that this is a paving subsection for doing away with the requirement for qualified dispensers. As I said on Second Reading, I fear greatly that with unqualified dispensers the restraint on making sure that the proper prescription is presented, and that it is a recent one, will not be there because they will not be professional people.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, who I am sorry to see is not in his place, obviously buys spectacles by the score when he goes across the Atlantic. What he does with them I do not know, except to demonstrate to us that he can get them cheaply, but he probably pays more than he would if he obtained a simple pair here at present prices, let alone better ones. Someone like that in a hurry, or anyone of your Lordships who all carry a tremendous impression when you walk into a shop, will be able to say to the young man or woman, "Look, I want that pair". They will say, "Where is your prescription?" You will say, "Oh, I do not have it" or, "This will do".
Having a lower standard of dispensing will mean that the specs will not fit. I have a doctor friend who is very much on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, and my noble friends who support him. Not long ago he bought some specs which clearly did not fit him. I tried them on. Our heads are roughly the same size and our eyes are about the same standard. I said. "This is all very well, but they are out of focus round the corners". He said, "That does not matter". I said, "What happens if you walk round a door?" He said, "That will be all right, I will just turn my head". The point is that he was so determined to prove that he was right, having bought them from a barrow in the East End, that anything would do.
The trouble is that people who get the wrong sort of specs, or even the right specs which do not fit, will not perhaps be so much a danger to themselves—although some of them will be—as, what is worse, a danger to others. They will bump into us. They will drive their motor-cars into us. If the Government could only say with the order which this subsection gives power to the Government to raise, "We are not going to walk back on the qualifications required for dispensers", I would be very happy to live with that and hope that when we see the orders we shall be able to make sure that they are up to standard. If my noble friend cannot give the undertaking that the qualifications of dispensers are to be maintained, I very much hope that my noble friend who moved the amendment will take us into the Division Lobbies and that we shall defeat the whole subsection.
Lord Monson: What one or two noble Lords on the Conservative Benches may not realise is that acceptance of this amendment would be entirely contrary to the Government's stated principles. I am sure that the Minister will agree that since 1979 numerous senior Conservative spokesmen, including, I believe, the Prime Minister herself, have said time and again that it is the purpose of this administration
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to give ordinary people more scope to make decisions about matters affecting their own future without the interference of busybodies or bureaucrats. Acceptance of this amendment would totally fly in the face of that principle.
Lord Banks: It seems to me that British standards for dispensing are not really an adequate substitute for qualification. I share the misgivings expressed just now by the noble Lord. Lord Mottistone, on that point. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, reminded the Committee that during the Second Reading debate I quoted the words of the noble Lord. Lord Trefgarne, just over a year ago in this House when speaking for the Government. I want to return to those words because they put the case for this amendment so well.
Your Lordships will remember that in the few words quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, thought that if untrained people could enter the field standards would inevitably fall. That point has been echoed by many noble Lords tonight. I quoted the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who said:
"Unskilled dispensing is probably not harmful to the eye. However, unskilled dispensing could well result in less than optimal improvement to sight and could perhaps act as a contributory cause to accidents".
He made this pertinent comment:
"It may well be that this is a very small risk but I personally would not choose to be driving down the M1 behind or in front of somebody who had less than perfect eyesight."—[Official Report, 21/5/84; col. 24.]
In replying to that debate the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said that when the noble Lord. Lord Trefgarne, had made those remarks he was, in fact, opposing the total repeal of the safeguards in the Opticians Act and that because the Government were keeping the registration of opticians the remarks of the noble Lord did not apply and were no longer relevant as far as this Bill was concerned. However, if your Lordships think of the words quoted today, there is no reference to the testing of eyes and no reference to prescribing. The noble Lord was talking about unskilled or unqualified dispensing.
I feel that this amendment would prevent standards of dispensing from falling, as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, feared they would. It would prevent the risk of accidents, which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, feared and it would prevent the risk—however small some people may think it is—of damage being done to eyes.
Lord Rugby: There is a very big difference between testing eyesight and dispensing spectacles. If a person has a prescription, that prescription has to be made up and it will be made up probably by an optical manufacturers prescription house which will operate within very exacting limitations according to the prescription. The dispenser is simply the person who sends the prescription off to one of these houses and receives back the lenses which have been entirely made up according to the standards which are laid down. They could be prosecuted for producing equipment which is not within those limitations. Therefore, the dispenser is simply a dispenser of glasses which are made up by someone else. He puts them in a frame and sells them.
7 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I shall be very brief, although I appreciate that the debate has gone on for some time.
Lord Ferrier: There is plenty of time.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I agree that there is plenty of time. I simply want to make the point that it appears to me that many noble Lords who have spoken against the amendment are really asking, "Why should we bother? Why do we not just leave the present situation but watered down? Why should we not leave people to look after themselves?" The noble Lord from the Cross-Benches simply said that even though that may be damaging to one's health and the nation, it should he left like that: caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. If an individual is foolish enough to manage his own affairs where his eyesight is concerned and is not prepared to show sufficient care and concern, why should we bother? I believe it is the responsibility of the Government, and certainly this House, to look very carefully at the situation.
I am no expert in these matters. I listened carefully to what was said, and I declare a small interest. Having received a journal called Insight, I see that the members of the Federation of Optical Corporate Bodies include the Guild of British Dispensing Opticians, the Society of Opticians and the Cooperative Wholesale Society. As noble Lords are aware, I declare readily my association with the Co-operative movement.
If, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, said, we are concerned about some distress at the manner in which the cost to the consumer has been unnecessarily inflated over the past period, surely of itself advertising will substantially help to reduce the cost. We do not know the extent to which that will happen. I imagine that advertising associations and the advertising world would say that there is advantage to be gained from the increased competition that advertising will bring.
At the end of the day, we may have a situation in which the individual trusts, first of all, the doctor and the optician. He may want to make sure that his eyes, which arc precious, get the best treatment. I have read some of the literature, and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has pointed out the extent to which the profession takes great care to make sure that only those who pass the most stringent tests are qualified to have letters after their name. People may need three years' training and a range of skills to prove that they are qualified. Are we really saying that we can so lightly set aside that situation and give an opportunity, not to anyone or to any shop, but to many more shops and many more unqualified people to provide members of the public with what they believe is on their prescription, which the person dispensing it may not be qualified to interpret? Are we really satisfied that we can so easily move from a situation that protects the consumer? I say that we ought to think very carefully.
I very much hope that the Minister will tell us what in addition to what is on the face of the Bill he intends to do to make sure that the consumer is protected. I hope that he will have in mind that, no matter how
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much is written in legislation, very many people, who may be gullible, poor or simply feckless, will simply take the opportunity to buy what they can at the cheapest place that they can. They may do little damage to themselves, but the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, made a point which was echoed by others: they may damage themselves very little, but in having this opportunity they may run the risk of damaging others. I do not believe that we should take that risk.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I wish to add just one or two words. I was very interested in what has just been said about the impact of advertising on the cost of glasses. In this Committee there seem to he some who believe that advertising will help to reduce prices; other noble Lords say that that is a minor issue and is not important. I am very concerned with the high standard of optical dispensing that exists in this country. Why do we have to do everything in one fell swoop? Why can we not let the advertising go through, leave things for a couple of years, see how that reduces the price of glasses, and, if it does not help, think again on the other issues?
Lord Glenarthur: I fully share with the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Molloy, their views on the precious nature of sight. I am fortunate enough at the moment not to need glasses. But perhaps it would help if I reminded the Committee of the origin of the existing restrictions on sales of optical appliances in Section 21 of the Opticians Act 1958.
This section was added to the then Bill at Committee stage in another place, and was indeed a matter upon which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, fought tooth and nail. It might help to recall what danger that Act was aimed against. The clause was introduced in Committee in another place in response to a widespread feeling that the sale of glasses to the customers' own choice without a sight test by a qualified person was a danger. In other words, the clause was designed to prevent sales of self-selected, ready-made glasses. Nowhere in the debates on the Bill then was it suggested that empty frames were a danger. Nowhere was it seriously suggested that glasses made up by non-opticians to a prescription following a sight test were dangerous. This is because they do not pose any danger to adults.
The Government have not proposed the total repeal of Section 21, although I think this was a point that was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, when he referred to what my noble friend Lord Trefgarne had said earlier and which was answered by my noble friend Lord Caithness at Second Reading. That speech made by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne referred to total repeal. But I understand, of course, there are some who would have preferred us to have gone rather further than we have done. We acknowledge the dangers of undetected eye disease, and the Bill requires glasses sold by non-opticians to accord with a recent prescription by a qualified prescriber. We have not stopped there. Glasses for those under 16 years of age also have to be supplied by a qualified optician, because the young developing eye needs to be carefully corrected or else permanent squints or damage in other ways can result. The medical view in the shape of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists and the leading

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optical professional body, the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians, confirm quite categorically that adult eyes cannot he damaged by inappropriate lenses. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, seemed to agree with that, and so did others.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: Before my noble friend leaves that argument, may I just get this clear, because it is of relevance to the amendments that will follow? Is he therefore saying that the reason for retaining the obligation of prescription is not to prevent harm to adult eyes, as he agrees that that cannot arise, but in order to enable a test to be made for disease of the eye? Is that the proposition that he is advancing to the House?
Lord Glenarthur: Since a pair of glasses will not be available without the prescription in the first place, the fact that the person concerned goes to a qualified person to get the prescription means that his eyes will be tested. I hope that that will answer the point that my noble friend makes. As to the frequency of those tests, that is a matter for a regulation, on which we are consulting at the moment.
The argument is then advanced that general wellbeing, or even safety, as referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Somers, and my noble friend Lord Mottistone, would be endangered by this measure, because lenses will not be properly centred. If a lens is substantially incorrectly centred, it will indeed cause problems. What is more, in the vast majority of cases this will be obvious to the wearer through blurred vision or even headaches. Even though I do not wear glasses, I know quite well that if I put on somebody else's glasses. I get blurred vision and I get a headache after a minute or two, so that seems pretty obvious to me. This is how people today know that their glasses are not right. Of course qualified opticians do sometimes make mistakes but such a mistake comes to light because the user notices it and complains about it. This is how the public in future will know if their glasses are incorrect.
The noble Lord. Lord Graham of Edmonton, just now referred to the handout circulated by the Federation of Optical Corporate Bodies and called Insight. In that, they did say that the more powerful the prescription the worse it will be, so I think what they say in that remark goes to make my point for me.
In emphasising that there are no significant dangers arising from bad optical dispensing, I should not like that to be taken as any indication of lack of concern about whether or not the public get good glasses. A vast range of consumer goods and services is produced in this country. It is exceptional, however, for there to be legal restrictions upon who can sell them. Unlike the dangers of poor optical dispensing, those of food poisoning are very real. We do not, however, require all grocers to be qualified. Even if we did, we should not protect the public from contaminated tins of meat.
For most products and services we put all the necessary safeguards on what can be sold. We prohibit adulteration of foodstuffs, for example—although I sometimes wonder, when I read the labels stating the contents of certain tins! But we have not been persuaded that there are any inherent features in a pair
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of glasses that require them to be treated in a quite different way from the generality of goods and services. Of course we acknowledge the high degree of professional skill involved in arriving at the correct prescription, but we are not convinced that only a trained dispensing optician is capable of making up these prescriptions.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, asked particularly whether there was any guarantee of training for those who supply glasses. There is a legal requirement in the Bill that glasses sold accord with the prescription. If anyone is to meet that requirement they will have to have the necessary expertise, otherwise they will not be complying with the law. This expertise is not particularly hard to acquire, either, I must tell the Committee. In fact I understand that one very reputable optician claims that it is possible to train someone to dispense the most common forms of prescription in a week.
It is a very scientific and almost a mathematically-based performance. For many prescriptions, only one or two simple facial measurements need to be added to the prescription in order to enable a technician in an optical prescription house to make the complete glasses. The accuracy of the finished product can be checked on a simple machine, a focimeter. The more complicated prescriptions require a higher degree of skill. However, any non-optician who tackles any sort of optical dispensing will be placed by this Bill under a legal obligation to supply glasses which accord with the prescription.
We are prepared to draft the subordinate legislation in ways which will further strengthen the consumers' hand. For example, we intend to ensure that unsafe frames and lenses are prohibited. We intend to define the tolerances within which the prescriptions must be met. We are prepared to consider whether requirements relating to centration of the lenses should be included—and I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord. Lord Somers. In fact we are willing to listen to any views on how the product—that is to say, glasses—needs to be regulated.
The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing asked particularly about a requirement that prescriptions be given to the patient after a sight test is completed. In preparation for this Bill, we have started consultations with optical bodies on changes to the terms and conditions of service of opticians providing GOS sight tests. One of these changes is to make it a positive requirement that prescriptions are given to the patient after the sight test is completed.
We believe that this is the correct way of ensuring that the public get the consumer protection they need, rather than by regulating who can sell these products. Many of the public will continue to want the different forms of reassurance that a recognised training bestows. Indeed for certain patients the additional understanding and knowledge of optical matters of the trained person will be highly desirable—for example, for many patients of hospital eye departments. We will place no barriers in the way of prescribers who, for good optical or medical reasons, wish to advise their patients of the need for a knowledgeable person to dispense their prescription. We cannot, however, continue to justify the present level of legal restrictions applied to glasses.

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There is no doubt that the competition of alternative suppliers will reduce pries. It is also true that glasses. Taking all reasonable safely factors into account and bearing in mind the subordinate legislation to follow, competition is the best assurance of consumer satisfaction. It is on that basis that, if my noble friend presses his amendment to a division, I ask the committee to reject it.
Loar Cullen of Ashbourne: We have had a very interesting debate and a great many people speaking on both sides. I feel that one or two points that have been raised I should try to clear up a little. One is the question of the prescription, which people seem to take rather calmly. The prescription is of course the absolutely vital matter before you get your lenses. But the specification, which I do not think has been mentioned today, is what is sent to the prescription house, and it contains all the measurement carefully made by the dispensing optician without which the prescription is of no value.
I should also like to take up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, about the profits of optical companies, because both the two Price Commissions and the office of Fair Trading came to the conclusion that opticians were not making excessive profits. The reasons for that of course is that opticians are making losses on their National Health Service work and the only way that they can keep in business at all is by increasing the price of private spectacles. However, this price is falling and is now lower than it was in 1981. Anyhow, we have had a very interesting debate and I should certainly like to test the feelings of the Committee.
7.17 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No.1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 71, Not-Contents, 94.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Glenamara, L.

Ardwick, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller]

Auckland, L.

Banks, L.

Hampton, L.

Bernett, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Bernstein, L.

Hughes, L.

Beswick, L.

Jeger, B.

Birk, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Blease, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kagan, L.

Bowden, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Lockwood, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Loudoun, C.

Collision, L.

McNair, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

David, B.

Mayhew, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Merrivale, L.

Donnet of Balgay, L.

Molloy, L.

Drumalbyn, L

Mottistone, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Mulley, L.

Ennals, L.

Nicol, B

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Oram, L.

Ferrier, L.

Pender, L.

Galpern, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

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Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Prys-Davies, L.

Stewart of Fulharm, L.

Rea, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Renwick, L.

Stone, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B. [Teller]

Suffield, L.

Taylor of Manfield, L.

Serota, B.

Underhill, L.

Shackleton, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Somers, L.

Whaddon, L.

Stallard, L.

White, B.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

NON-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kitchener, E.

Allerton, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Avon, E.

Lawrence, L.

Bauer, L.

Linksey and Abingdon, E.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Long, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Lindsey and abingdon, E.

Beloff, L.

MacLethose of Beoch, L

Belstead, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Boothby, L.

Mar, C.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Margadale, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Marlery, L.

Broxbourne, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon- Avon, L.

Caithness, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mersery, L.

Carnergy of Lour, B.

Milverton, L.

Cockfield, L.

Minto, E.

Coleraine, L.

Monoson, L.

Colwyn, L.

Morris, L.

Craigavon, V.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Crathorne, L.

Nathan, L.

Croft, L.

Northesk, E.

Cromartie, E.

Northfield, L.

Davidson, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Denham, L. [Teller]

O'Neill of the maine, L.

Donaldson of kingsbridge, L.

Orkney, E.

Eccles, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Effingham, E,

Ranglan, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Rankeillour, L.

Elton, L.

Reigate, L.

Fortescue, E.

Rhodes, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Rochdale, V.

Gisborough, L.

Rodney, L.

Glanusk, L.

Rugby, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Gray, L.

Sharples, B.

Grimond, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Grimstone of Westbury, L.

Spens, L.

Hailshmam of Saint Marylebone, L.

Stamp, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller]

Hayter, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hemphill, L

Teviot, L.

Hives, L.

Trumpington, B.

Holderness, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Vickers, B.

Inglewood, L.

Westbury, L.

Killearn, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.27 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I think that this is probably a convenient moment to adjourn the Committee stage of the Bill. In moving that the House do now resume, I think that it is fair to tell your Lordships that we shall not be returning to this particular business before 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
7.28 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons amendments be now considered.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
[References are to [Bill 108] as first printed for the Commons].
1 Clause 1, page I, line 5, after ("may") insert (", after consultation with such bodies as he considers appropriate,").
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1. In moving this amendment, I propose to touch on some of the other changes of importance that have been made to the Bill and then, with the permission of the House, I shall move Amendments Nos. 2 to 16 en bloc.
COMMONS AMENDMENTS
2 Page 1, line 6, leave out from ("area") to end of line 9 and insert ("within Scottish inshore waters.").
3 Page 1, line 10, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) Orders under this section may prohibit, within the specified sea area, all or any, or a combination of the following—

(a) all fishing for sea fish:

(b) fishing for a specified description of sea fish:

(c) fishing by a specified method;

(d) fishing from a specified description of fishing boat; and they may—

(e) specify the period during which any prohibition is to apply;

(f) make exceptions to any prohibition contained in the order.").

4 Page 2, line 6, after ("shall") insert (", unless the order provides otherwise,").
5 Page 2, line 7 leave out subsection (4).
6 After Clause 1. insert the following new clause—
("Power to prohibit the carriage of specified types of net.
The Secretary of State may, after consultation with such bodies as he considers appropriate, make orders under this section prohibiting the carriage, for any purpose. in any British fishing boat, in any specified sea area within Scottish inshore waters, of a type of net specified in the order; and such an order may make exceptions to any prohibition contained therein.").
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
("Powers of water bailiffs, etc.
.—(1) This section applies where an order under section I of this Act imposes any prohibition or restriction on fishing for salmon or migratory trout within any waters which form part of the district of a district board within the meaning of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Protection) (Scotland) Act 1951.
(2) Any water bailiff or constable or any person appointed by the Secretary of State in pursuance of section 10(5) of the said Act of 1951 may exercise in relation to a contravention of an order referred to in subsection (1) any of the powers conferred upon him in relation to a contravention of that Act by the following provisions thereof—

(a) sections 11 and 12 (which confer powers of search and arrest); and

(b) sections 10(1)(d) and 20, so far as those provisions relate to the seizure of fish, instruments or articles liable to forfeiture or to the disposal of such fish.

and subsections 10(3) and (6) (which contain provisions ancillary thereto) shall apply as if the Acts therein mentioned included this Act.").
8 Clause 7, page 5, line 22, at end insert—
(" "Scottish inshore waters" means the sea adjacent to the coast of Scotland and to the landward of a limit of six miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured, up to the mean high-water mark of ordinary spring tides;").
9 Page 5, line 24, at end insert—
("(2) Orders under section 1 or 2 of this Act shall be made by Statutory Instruments which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.").
10 Page 6, line 4, after ("section 32") insert ("(a)").
11 Page 6, line 6, leave out ("and") and insert—
(":

(b) for the words "Secretary for Scotland" there substituted the words "Secretary of State";

(c) the words from "and the Secretary of the Board" to "name of the Board" shall be omitted;

(d) for the words "Chairman and Secretary of the Fishery Board" there shall be substituted the words "Secretary of State"; and

(e)").

12 Page 6, line 7, at end insert—
("Merchant Shipping Act 1894 (57 & 58 Viet. c. 60) In section 374, after the words "Fishery Limits Act 1976" there shall be inserted the words "Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984".
Illegal Trawling (Scotland) Act 1934 (c. 18)
In section 4(1) for the words "section six of the Herring Fishing (Scotland) Act 1889 or of any byelaw for the time being in force" there shall be substituted the words "an order under section 1 of the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984".
In section 6—

(a) the definitions of "Herring Fishery (Scotland) Acts" is repealed; and

(b) in the definition of "illegal trawling"—

(i) for the words "section six of the Herring Fishing (Scotland) Act 1889 or of any byelaw for the time being in force" there shall be substituted the words "an order under section 1 of the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984"; and

(ii) the words from "and the expression" to the end of the definition are repealed.".

13 Schedule 2, page 7, leave out line 4.
14 Page 7, line 29, leave out ("section 4") and insert ("sections 4 and 11").
15 Page 7, line 30, at end insert—

("49 & 50 Vict. c.29.

Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886.

In section 32, the words from "and the Secretary of the Board" to "name of the Board".".

16 Page 7, line 42 column 3, at end insert—

("In section 6, the definition of "Herring Fishery (Scotland) Acts", and in the definition of "illegal trawling" the words from "and the expression" to the end of the definition.").

I should also point out that in Amendment No. 6, in the last line, the word "prohibitions" should be in the singular. It should read, "prohibition". The Bill has been considerably altered since it last appeared in your Lordships' House. I do not propose to deal with all the amendments in detail, for many of them are technical or drafting changes, although I shall attempt to give a fuller explanation of any particular points raised by noble Lords.
I should however like to draw your Lordships' attention to some of the more substantive changes

1069
which have been made. I would point out that, although they may have flowered in another place, their seeds were planted here. Clause 1 has been extensively redrafted to make it much clearer and simpler to understand and to make explicit powers which previously were present only by inference. This is, however, an addition to the clause which makes consultation by the Secretary of State with appropriate bodies mandatory before orders are made. I am sure your Lordships will find that change particularly acceptable.
Clause 2 is a new clause which was introduced primarily to help in combating the very serious problem of salmon poaching at sea. It will give the Secretary of State power to ban the carriage of monofilament gill nets. The use of these nets for catching salmon is already prohibited, but it is difficult to enforce when fishermen have virtually to be caught in the act at sea and can claim to be using the nets to fish for other species. I understand that very little use is made of monofilament nets in legitimate fisheries. A ban on the carriage of these nets will make law enforcement easier and will have a significant effect on poaching.
Clause 7 is also new and is designed to allow water bailiffs to enforce any order relating to salmon under Clause I of the Bill. Examples of such orders might be to prevent the setting of a gill net other than by a boat, or the setting of enmeshing leader nets to fixed engines. The powers given to bailiffs are restricted to Clause 1 orders and are the same as those contained in existing salmon legislation.
The other amendments are, as I have said, technical and drafting changes, but I believe that the Bill, which was a good one to begin with, has now been significantly improved as a result of debates here and in another place. The overhaul of existing legislation and the creation of a modern inshore fisheries regime is much needed. This Bill provides that and I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Earl for his introductory remarks on the Commons amendments to this Bill. We on this side of the House are also very pleased that many of the amendments are the result of our discussions and suggestions, and even of amendments put down in this House by myself, my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Grimond.
I mention in particular the first amendment, because we suggested that it would make the Secretary of State's work considerably easier if he were instructed to consult with such bodies as he considers appropriate. Although it was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, that the Secretary of State would certainly consult—and I think that the noble Lord changed his mind at a certain point—he did not think that it was necessary to make it mandatory. I am very glad that, having had our discussions, the Government have decided that it is better for all concerned that the Secretary of State and the various
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fishing bodies in Scotland should now get together. It is better for all of them that there should be that provision and I give a very warm welcome to the first amendment.
As regards the rest of the Bill, the Minister is quite right to take all the remaining amendments together. Most of the amendments were followed through by Members of this House in another place and we viewed with considerable interest the fact that those in Committee in another place used many of the arguments put forward in this House in order to reinforce their case for the amendments.
There is only one point upon which I should like the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to expand. I readily agree that I require further information because of my lack of knowledge of the subject rather than any intimate knowledge of fishing. Most of my knowledge about fishing has come through consultation with the various fishing authorities when the Bill first appeared.
However, Amendment No. 7, which arises after Clause 5, deals with the powers of the water bailiffs. The noble Earl may not have the details to hand at the moment, but he mentioned the matter briefly when he introduced the amendments. If the noble Earl could give me a fuller explanation of that clause now I would be very pleased. If not, I would be quite content if he agreed to write to me at a later date giving me a fuller explanation. However, with those comments I must say that I am quite happy with the Bill: I did not think that the Bill was as good as the Minister perhaps thought it was when he introduced it; but after the work of many people in this place and another place I think that it is much more workable and a much better Bill.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, I should just like to say that I think that the Bill has been greatly improved by the amendments made in another place. I always liked the Bill, but it has now been made even better. I would just like to congratulate the Government. Alas! I cannot congratulate them on everything these days, but there is one matter that they have handled superbly since the war and that is the inshore fishing industry, especially the inshore fishing industry of Scotland, with which I have had something to do in the course of a long political career. After the war that industry was facing disaster. Now it is one of the most prosperous industries in Scotland, and the Government, all Governments—but particularly this Government and successive Ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—should bear considerable credit, if only for persuading European Governments of the need for conservation; and they deserve it. I am very satisfied with this Bill. I am very satisfied with the condition of the inshore fishing industry generally in Scotland; and I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating all concerned.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful for the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, and the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. We are very grateful for the support and help that they have given us in trying to make this a better Bill. It shows that this Government do take matters away and read very carefully what is said in this House, and it also shows that they are flexible enough to amend the Bill for better when the arguments are conclusive.

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The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, asked me about Amendment No. 7. I can expand on that a little. The purpose of the amendment is to enable water bailiffs to enforce any order relating to salmon under Clause 1 of the Bill. It repeats a similar provision in the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 which extends identical enforcement power to the bailiffs for orders made under that Act. The effect is that water bailiffs may exercise powers given to them in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Protection) (Scotland) Act 1951 to search boats, examine nets and, with a warrant, to search any person, premises or vehicle and to detain any person found committing an offence in respect of any order prohibiting salmon fishing.
I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael. If it does not do so, I shall gladly write to the noble Lord in more detail at a latter stage. Meanwhile, I commend the Commons amendment.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I have spoken to the rest of the amendments, and with the leave of the House I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 2 to 16 inclusive.
[Printed above.]
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said amendments—(The Earl of Caithness.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure. I understand that it has been agreed through the usual channels that we shall return to the earlier business at 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.39 to 8.30 p.m.]

Health and Social Security Bill
House again Committee on Clause 1.
Lord Northfield Lord Northfield moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 2, at end insert—(";or (g) containing two lenses of equal strength and of a power not exceeding 4 dioptres for reading purposes.";")
The noble Lord said: The effect of this amendment would be to allow reading spectacles, as all call them, to be freely on sale without prescription. This is rather like old times; the situation makes me think of the Agricultural Holdings Bill when we were dragging the Conservative party, which was protesting if not actually kicking and screaming, towards a free market and on that occasion the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was on our side. It will be very interesting to see whether, on being made a minister, he has been sufficiently nobbled to swap side and be against a free market.
Seconly, I believe that we are on familiar ground because of something I said in the House of Commons
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on 16th April 1958. As all noble Lords will recognize, I was a mere boy then. On that occasion I seconded an amendment in these exact terms after having tried to count the House out in order to kill a Bill. I did not succeed on either stratagem. So here we come to do battle again.
Today I am talking about spectacles of the type that I am now wearing, which still have their label on, which are available in America for about 12 dollars or which I can buy on the streets of Hong Kong for about £1.50. I am taking about the progress that we have made in this direction in the last 26 years. First, we have obtained an agreement from the Government that the selling of spectacles by an optician is a commercial operation and that it should be separated from the professional one. We have at last won that point. Secondly, we have convinced the Government that to wear the wrong spectacles does not cause any great harm. As the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, said in replaying to the last debate, that was at the core of the undue restrictions that were placed on sales in 1958.
In this amendment we ask the Government to go one step further and to admit at last that presbyopia (which is the effect of ageing in the eyes when one begins to need magnification) is not a disease but is a perfectly natural process and should not be classed as disease and thus subject to all the restrictions on appliances that go with disease. Everyone should be able to have magnification in reading glasses as they become older.
Much of the trouble regarding this arises from the paternalistic outlook of many people. They say that they do not want poor people rummaging about in Woolworth's, as they used to do, because they cannot afford a decent pair of spectacles. That is not how spectacles are handled today. If you go into any American store which sells spectacles over the counter, you will find that they are properly arranged in display cabinets, with the degree of correction perfectly clearly stated, and with the degree of correction perfectly clearly stated, and, with the help of the shop assistant, you can choose the pair that provides the degree of magnification that you need. Let us get away from the feeling that there is something terrible about helping oneself to spectacles. As old age approaches, it is quire proper and it is not the degrading process that it used to be rummaging around for cheap good in cheap shops.
Secondly, would people be so foolish as to be tempted to avoid sight tests? This is one of the arguments against the amendment. First, we must recognize that that will not be the case because they know that sight tests in this country are free. It might well be that in some other countries they would be tempted to avoid sight tests if such spectacles were on open sale, but in this country, with free sight tests, they will go for eye tests and profit from them, and thus from time to time check on their eyesight.
In the report of the Office of Fair Trading at paragraph 9.9 it states that they carried out a public survey and that 98 per cent. of the public knew that they should be sight-tested before buying spectacles. Therefore, after years of the health service, there is now a full understanding that proper care for the eyes means having one's eyes tested and checked from time to time.
Therefore, the issue is: should we force people to do this or should we leave it optional, as the amendment proposes? The real issue is: what is freedom in this case? I reject the degree of paternalism which was brought out in the last debate, which says, "We know that you might do yourself some harm by choosing your own spectacles; therefore we shall stop you". We must get away from that approach. After years of the health service, 98 per cent. of people are sensible enough to take advantage of the free sight test.
Apart from this sense of personal responsibility in these matters, there is the question of freedom. In paragraph 9.35 the report of the Office of Fair Trading says that the proponents of this change, like myself or Mr. Trevor-Roper, the distinguished ophthalmologist who supports us on these matters,
"believe that generally Section 21 of the Act"—
that is, the restrictions in it—
"represents an unwarranted intrusion on the personal freedom to choose a lower level of service in return for a lower price".
That freedom ought to be open to us and we should not have to say that we must always go to a fully qualified man and go through all the hoops, with all the expense. We should be able to have a lower level of service and buy over the counter at a lower price if we make that choice. We should also be able to buy spare pairs of spectacles when we break them or if we are going abroad and need some spares to take with us.
Lastly, there is no reason why we should not allow people to buy these spectacles as fashion dictates. Women are very influenced by fashion when they choose spectacle frames and there is no reason at all why they should not have a few spare pairs of simple correction spectacles of a fashionable type that go with their various outfits. Therefore, there are many reasons why we should have this freedom to choose spectacles over the counter without causing great harm to our eyesight.
What would be the size of the market? The report of the Office of Fair Trading says that in the United States of America it is about 10 per cent. However, they estimate that in this country it would be between 3 per cent. and 5 per cent. of the market for spectacles because most people would continue to take advantage of the National Health Service, whereas in the United States there is no such service. So the report says that between 3 per cent. and 5 per cent. of spectacles would fall in this category if the freedom existed here.
The only real disadvantage that the Government put forward is the danger of non-detection of disease. I want to examine that disadvantage before I sit down. Mr. Trevor-Roper and other distinguished medical men have given clear evidence to the Office of Fair Trading inquiry, which was very fair. One noble Lord said that he did not believe that they had taken evidence from the opticians. My goodness, they did—to the point where the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and I were complaining that the whole thing was being inordinately delayed and we thought that the Government were trying to sit on this inquiry for too long and hold it up. I repeat, it was very fair.
Anyway, Mr. Trevor-Roper made clear that in his opinion—and he is backed up by other medical men—most diseases of the eye are sufficiently
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apparent to cause the patient to seek medical advice. This is crucial to the argument. The only case where this is not so is that of glaucoma. The Government's case for resisting this amendment up to now has been the fear that people with glaucoma will not be detected if we do not force them to have an eye test before they buy spectacles.
Can we examine this as my final point? Mr. Trevor-Roper and others—this comes out in the OFT report, and the OFT people accept the figure—estimate that between 0.2 per cent. and 2 per cent. of the population are susceptible to glaucoma. We are first of all arguing about a very rare condition. But what one has to look at is how many people would be at risk. I have said that only 3 to 5 per cent. of spectacle purchasers would fall in this bracket. Therefore, we are arguing about the danger to 1 or 2 per cent. of 3 to 5 per cent. of spectacle purchasers: an infinitesimally small number, a tiny number, of 1 or 2 per cent. of the 3 to 5 per cent. of the population who might buy over the counter, who might be detected as suffering from glaucoma.
In those circumstances, can we really justify that all of us, without exception, must go through an eye test before we are allowed to buy a pair of spectacles? Is it not getting ridiculous when it is down to figures of that sort? I end on that note about paternalism. I can stand a certain amount of paternalism where large numbers of people arc involved, but are we going to say that everybody in our society must have an eye test because 0.2 per cent. of 3 per cent. of the population might in some way be detected as having glaucoma? I could go on with the argument, but I shall not. It is as ridiculous as that, and I hope that this time the Government are going to accept the principle of this amendment. I beg to move.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: I bow to the enormous experience which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has displayed in this area. I must admit that in my involvement in politics it has not frequently been my experience to find myself as wholeheartedly in agreement with every word that the noble Lord has expressed from the Opposition Benches as has been the case with what the noble Lord has said tonight. I would go further and make it clear that so far as I am concerned I would not for a moment quibble at his amendment, which seems to me to fulfil admirably the purposes that the amendment which I have drafted seeks to achieve. Therefore, I am only too happy to tag on behind the noble Lord's amendment tonight.
I should like briefly to describe my personal involvement in this area, such as it is. About four or five years ago I lost my reading glasses. I needed them urgently, and I was eventually advised that there was an establishment in Wardour Street, or somewhere like that, where you could get a pair of spectacles within the day with a prescription. That I achieved, and it cost me £65. Three years later I suffered a similar inconvenience. By that time I was a Minister in Her Majesty's Treasury. One of the inconveniences of being a Minister in Her Majesty's Treasury, in my experience, is that you cannot afford to go to Wardour Street and pay £60 for a pair of spectacles. Therefore, I had to obtain the appropriate prescription and wait

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for three days before I could obtain the spectacles I needed. In the meantime, I had to try to do my best with borrowed spectacles, or none.
I do not know whether all the dangers which we were warned about on the earlier amendment as to the hazards to our eyesight have any substance at all. I must say that I doubt it very much; but I find it hard to believe that they are liable to do more harm to one's eyesight than borrowing other people's spectacles or trying to use none in order to read during the period one has to endure before one can obtain spectacles on a prescription.
On the third occasion, four months ago, when I again had the misfortune to lose my reading glasses, I was advised to repair to the establishment of a gentleman called Mr. Risdon, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, referred earlier. Mr. Risdon had opened an eye shop in Clerkenwell. This evening I have with me a pair of spectacles which I obtained from his eye shop. I went into his eye shop having no prescription. I examined a series of cards, and found a pair of glasses which appeared to enable me to read quite adequately. I have been using them ever since, and they seem to suit my purposes entirely. I can read very well with them, I can assure my noble friend. They cost me £7–50, and I was out of the shop in three minutes.
That is a convenience and also an economy which this amendment, and the others to which I and other noble Lords have put our names, is designed to open up to all our fellow citizens. We would be conferring an enormous benefit on the generality of our citizens: the large number who need glasses for reading, who suffer from what I gather is called presbyopia and who could obtain their glasses with convenience and economy if these amendments were passed.
I want to refer briefly to some of the arguments that we have heard in the Committee tonight against this extension of personal freedom and personal economy, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has already dealt with. I do not think that we need delay ourselves over the proposition that there is any danger of people damaging their eyes by acquiring glasses in the way in which I acquired mine, because at the trial of Mr. Risdon for his open defiance of the 1958 Act the President of the Ophthalmological Society (I hope I have the title right) acknowledged in court that there was no possibility of damage to adult eyesight from the acquisition of the sort of spectacles which Mr. Risdon was offering to his public. Frankly, I do not think that anybody this evening has attempted to refute that proposition, though they have made other allegations, to which I shall refer.
The second allegation is that if people who may need (as most of us do, unless we are lucky, with the advancement of age) the assistance of magnifying glasses for the purpose of reading are not subjected to a preliminary test, then there is a danger that serious defects of vision, or diseases of the eye, will go undetected. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, exposed most effectively, if I may say so, the drawbacks to this proposition. I should like to add one or two further drawbacks.
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The optical profession has told us all that it is estimated that in this country something like 236,000 among us—the precision of the figure I find fascinating—are today wandering around with glaucoma. If that is the case it does not suggest that this magnificent testing system is particularly effective in its job. If ever there was an "own goal" it seems to me that that is one. But I submit to your Lordships that the argument goes rather wider than that.
I wrote an article in one of the public prints recently which in effect, I must admit, was advancing the case for the amendments which we are discussing tonight. Subsequently I received a letter from a gentlemen who wrote as follows:
"I write as one who has worn spectacles for the correction of short-sight and mild astigmatism for over 40 years so that by middle-age I had experienced a fair number of two-yearly eye tests from a succession of well-established opticians.
"Around my fiftieth birthday, just after I had paid the usual exorbitant sum for a new pair of spectacles made to a prescription only marginally changed from the previous one, the company for which I worked introduced routine eye screening for staff engaged upon certain research projects. The eye specialist retained by the company lo do this screening subjected me to a very comprehensive examination, which went very well until he concluded the proceedings with a determination of my ocular tensions (which I now know to be an important indicator in glaucoma). With some alarm he told me that my tensions were "phenomenally high and potentially so dangerous to my vision that it was imperative for me to undergo further examination and treatment without delay".
He then went to see a specialist and was found indeed to be suffering from severe incipient glaucoma. He asked why this had not been identified in the numerous tests over many years that he had been subjected to by opticians. The specialist replied that the usual acuity tests carried out by an optician would be quite irrelevent to his condition.
I can add another example even nearer home. I am led to understand that my noble friend Lady Trumpington found the need to acquire a pair of glasses. She purchased a pair of glasses after the usual optical tests. She found that they did her no good. When she returned to the optician the optician said clearly she was suffering from diabetes, so she went to a specialist who found that she was not suffering from diabetes in any way at all. What she was suffering from was incipient cataract. This was corrected and I am delighted to say that my noble friend is now totally restored in her vision. She has given me her personal agreement that I should mention these facts to the House because I think they are highly relevant to the matters that we are discussing this evening.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: May I ask my noble friend whether, after what he said about opticians, he wants less well-trained opticians in the future?
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: What I am trying to say is that the argument that eye testing as at present conducted is a means of controlling, preventing, or checking eye disease is totally unsubstantiated and all the evidence points in the opposite direction. I believe it is arrant nonsense to pretend that the sort of tests that are conducted as a means of obtaining a prescription for glasses are a means of identifying serious eye disease—that is exposed as completely hollow. This is the proposition that I am advancing to your Lordships.

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I would personally accept that there is one argument which may be advanced against these amendments. It is not one I think that is often advanced by the optical profession. If the proposition may be advanced that those of us who with the advancement of age—something that indeed happens to all of us—require magnifying glasses to enable us to read were exonerated from the obligation of obtaining a prior prescription, then it is possible that the points at which a prescription could be obtained for the rest of the glasses-wearing population who genuinely need prescriptions, and who are quite rightly not covered by these amendments, might be reduced. That is a serious argument, but I do not believe that the sensible way to deal with that is to impose upon the majority of our fellow citizens who need magnifying glasses for the purposes of reading an obligation to obtain a prior prescription.
As my noble friend from the front Bench said earlier, it is demonstrated without any contravention that there is no hazard at all to eyesight in adults obtaining magnifying glasses which they need for reading without benefit of prescription. I believe that the evidence is overwhelmingly against the proposition that the obligation to obtain a prescription is any sort of a genuine control, a genuine detection, of eye disease.
I must say, with regard to the argument which we heard earlier—that if we are all to be free to go off and buy our glasses off the peg without prescription then we shall all be bumping into each other or falling off the pavement under buses—that it makes one wonder about those in other countries: and there are a great many of them, Australia, most of the Scandinavian countries, contrary to what the right honourable noble Lord said earlier, something like 90 per cent. of the states in the United States, where people have no such obligations imposed. Do we find them all falling off buses, bumping into each other? Is there an enormous incidence of horrifying accidents and disasters because they can go and buy their spectacles off the peg in a shop, as we were able to do until 1958 in this country? Is there any evidence at all that in the period up to 1958 we were all banging into each other, falling off pavements, or driving into each other on the M. 1? The argument really does not stand up.
To my mind the logic of what we are doing tonight is that we should carry the freedom and choice for the individual, and the economy that would result, one stage further. The Government have in this Bill, I believe, made a major strike for improved competition and better choice for the citizen. Let us go on one stage further, and if we carry these amendments that is what we shall do.
Lord Mottistone: I think my noble friend said that he was taking his Amendments 3 and 4 with number 2. Is that right?
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: Yes.
Lord Mottistone: It was a little surprising to have nearly an 18-minute speech in a Committee stage in this House from the number two speaker. I hope my noble friend will note that. The point that the noble
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Lord, Lord Northfield, made, which was the key to his amendment and the key to my noble friend's amendment, was that the effect of these amendments is to remove the need for the prescription. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, said that 98 per cent. of people know that they need to have the eye test. Of course, that might be so. We have been at it for nearly 20 years—or is it 30?—and we have become accustomed to it. But, in my experience, when the pressure that the legislation imposes is removed, it does not take long for the 98 per cent. to go rattling down.
Lord Northfield: Even when it is free?
Lord Mottistone: The point about this is that the prescription has a validity. Both the noble Lords said that it did not have a validity for the maximum number of people. That may be true, but it has a validity for some of the people some of the time. I take very much the point that was made briefly in a splendid speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, that we do not want to rush into making a total change overnight. We have a system which has been serving us well. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, pointed out how other countries are coming in our direction.
Lord Northfield: They are not.
Lord Mottistone: Yes, I think that this is true. I do not know about the United States. I am always suspicious about the United States—
Baroness Jeger: Hear, hear!
Lord Mottistone:—suspicious in the sense that sometimes people will go over there and do things which are not legal under the law of the state in question at the time. So one needs to watch that, but in Europe I think this is true.
The whole point of these things is to abolish the need for the prescription. If it was necessary—and this seems to be the sense both of the debate now and the debate that we had earlier—to go to have our eyes tested perhaps every two months, that might be a terrible imposition, but we do not need to do that if we are of the normal run of people. We need to go, at the most, every two years, and in my case I am now round the three- or four-year mark. This is not a great strain and it is up to me. There is a lot of freedom. With all the remarks about freedom from the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, I thought he was coming to join us on these Benches. I hope he will talk about freedom to his noble colleagues in all sorts of other areas in which they do not really recommend freedom.
The whole point about these amendments is that they abolish the prescription too soon. It has a validity and there is a need, and I trust that your Lordships will resist all these three amendments.
Lord Rugby: The matter of the prescription is only important in certain respects. The main one is to get a properly prescribed lens. It has nothing whatever to do with a medical check. I stress that the whole tenor of the legislation was to state that by no stretch of the imagination were opticians to be accorded a medical

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status. They have no medical status and the noble Lord seems to be suggesting in his speech that, if one goes to have a test and a prescription is given, that that as well is an automatic screening for various aliments either of the eye or possibly of other parts of the body and for diabetes.
Unfortunately, when the prescription is also tied to the sale of an appliance, the likelihood is that the prescription will be directed towards that sale. All too often, even if something is evident, the optician is not likely, or has no need, to declare it, because it will do his own business down by failing to sell the valuable product at the end of the sale. In other words, he is doing the very thing which doctors were stopped from doing—namely, having a consultancy and at the same time prescribing medicines which they had invented themselves and which were known as cure-alls. For the same reason, we are asking that there should be a separation now between the optician who does the eye test and the department which persuades the person to buy the prescriptive glasses on those premises. They should take that prescription out to see whether they can extract the best advantage from it.
Lord Bowden: I wonder whether I may be allowed briefly to intervene and explain something of the history of the connection between eye testing and the ability to detect eye diseases, because it originated in Manchester.
Years ago we had a two-year course leading to a diploma. We thought that it would be a good idea to upgrade it and to make it into a three-year course leading to a degree. But to make that possible we decided that it was essential that a student should have an opportunity of seeing the treatment given in the Manchester Eye Hospital. Ever since that time, all students of ophthalmic optics in Manchester have worked for quite extended periods under supervision in the Manchester Eye Hospital; it being clearly understood that the purpose of this tuition was not in any circumstances to make it possible for them to treat the diseases concerned but rather that they should be able to identify them and, if need be, refer patients for expert treatment.
That has been an extremely important development which has made our own department celebrated and has since been copied by many others—the Northampton School in London, for example, does much the same. It is very important indeed to realise that students who are learning to dispense spectacles should, at the same time, have experience of diseased and malfunctioning eyes so that they can recognise them and arrange for the people whom they see to have further, better and proper medical treatment. That is my first point.
The second point I would make is that everyone realises that it is quite wrong that ophthalmic opticians should be required in effect, to subsidise their professional skills with the selling of spectacles. Everyone has always disliked it for the very reasons which were mentioned moments ago which make it impossible for medical men to do that in this country. It is very much better that there should be a separation between these two functions which makes the proper
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function very understandable and makes it possible for the profession to exercise the skills which it has learned both in the correction of visual defects and in the analysis of malfunctioning eyes.
The first and second points that I must make are that, in no circumstances, should there be a dependence on the part of those who are earning their living as practising ophthalmic opticians to supplement their incomes by dispensing spectacles. For this reason, we very much welcome the increase which was recently given by the Department of Health in the price to be paid for an individual eye test.
These are complex issues indeed. The question as to what extent a profession should be encouraged to advertise is very hard for the layman to consider dispassionately. Solicitors of course are now going to be encouraged to advertise, and I very much hope that sooner or later the Bar will do the same. What a thought that lawyers and barristers will be able to say, "I got Three-Fingered Jack off with only six months. Look what I can do for you!" This possibility, I am sure, would transform the nature of the Bar and the legal profession. But the question we have to ask ourselves is this. Would the Bar like it? And we know of course that they would not. Would they tolerate it? We know of course that they would not. In any event, would the practice of the law be improved if it were insisted upon by the Government? The answer obviously is, certainly not.
These traditional practices really are only a survival of the medieval guilds. Someone—I think it was Shaw—once said that all professions are, in essence, a conspiracy against the public. So let us face the fact that ophthalmic opticians are working within the same constraints as are the members of all the other professions, and that they are no better or no worse because they have to try to exploit their opportunities when they can. I know ophthalmic opticians very well. We had a very big department of ophthalmic optics. They are extremely dedicated, responsible and serious men struggling to create a profession where until recently there was not one. After all, it was not very long ago since the barbers first separated themselves off from the surgeons and created the profession of surgery. That was not very long ago. When the Duke of Wellington fell ill, he said, "Send for the apothecary!"—there being no such person in those days as a professional physician. All the professions are growing; they are becoming more and more self-assertive if you like, and they are in the process of giving a better and better service to the community. The ophthalmic opticians are doing the same.
9.12 p.m.
Lord Monson: I, too, should like to endorse every word spoken by the noble Lord. Lord Northfield. I particularly liked his attack upon the wholly un-Thatcherite paternalism we have heard expressed in this Committee tonight. Like my noble friend—or I suppose that I should correctly say, the noble Lord—Lord Bruce-Gardyne, I, too, have bought spectacles from Mr. Peter Risdon, one pair of which I have in my hands at this moment. In fact, I have bought three different pairs from him, costing £4, £7.50 and £8.50 respectively. They are of different

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magnifications for different lighting conditions—for daylight, for good artificial light and for poor artificial light, respectively. They are also of different magnifications for different times of day because, it may not be generally appreciated that one needs lesser magnification in the morning when one's eye muscles are rested than in the evening when one's eye muscles are tired.
The problem with stipulating that prescriptions must be produced before a pair of reading glasses can be bought is that the strength prescribed if the eye test is carried out in the morning will be different from the strength prescribed when the test is carried out at midday and even more different from the strength prescribed if the test is carried out in the evening. What many of us object to about the present state of affairs is not primarily the high prices of spectacles, although we would welcome the reduction that this Bill certainly would produce, partly because of increased competition and partly because of the scope that opticians would have to reduce their high overheads by moving from over-furnished, prime, High Street, ground-floor sites.
Neither is it a question of courtesy. I have always been treated with great courtesy on the rare occasions that 1 have visited an ordinary optician in the United Kingdom. What really gets under my skin—and, I suspect, under the skin of tens of thousands of my fellow countrymen—is being described inevitably patronisingly (and therefore insultingly) as a "patient" when there is absolutely nothing wrong with us. The use of the word "patient" is part of the mystique put about by the optical profession to pretend to a medical skill which in fact they do not possess. People over 45 who need simple reading glasses are not in any way diseased or disabled; an individual over the age of 45 who finds that he or she needs reading spectacles is no more to be described as a "patient" than a neighbour of the same age, who finds that he needs to take a lift up to the fourth floor instead of climbing up the stairs as hitherto, is correctly to be described as a patient.
Lord Auckland: I think that we are in grave danger in this debate of getting into undue technicalities. I was very surprised to hear my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne say that he had to pay £65 at a shop in Wigmore Street. This morning I obtained a new pair of spectacles at a cost of £37, including of course the eye test from an optician, who I had been visiting for some years. It has been argued that opticians have a monopoly; but many other people have monopolies. I would be quite prepared to see an obligation on opticians to display their prices outside their shops, as indeed many do.
I think the whole query about this amendment is, if it is carried and if no prescription is required, what redress has the person whose eyes may become affected later and whose sight becomes seriously impaired? This point should be very much considered. If an optician makes a mistake, he or she can be proceeded against. That is my understanding, anyway. Therefore I think these amendments are defective. There is too much made of the fact that perhaps only 2 per cent, of the population suffers from glaucoma, a disease which is largely, or was at one time, suffered
1082
from in the tropics. There are other eye diseases besides glaucoma. I do not know the figures for these diseases but we have the possibility of the prescription being withdrawn—I know it is there for children under 16 but it must also be there for others because at any age eyesight can be impaired. Therefore I hope that these amendments are rejected.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: I just want to make one brief intervention, and I promise I shall not give any views as to where I have just bought a pair of spectacles, whether it was in Wigmore Street, Hong Kong, Singapore or anywhere else. I think that we have heard quite enough about individual pairs of spectacles when what we really want to be doing is taking a responsible view for people who are perhaps not so fortunate as other noble Lords who travel all over the world and who need to get their spectacles on a reasonable basis, which is what I hope they will be able to do in the future.
I have only one other point to make. We hear a good deal about this magnification. I know that we do not want to get technical (and I cannot get technical, anyhow) but magnification is not the appropriate term. What I understand—I have been given this on pretty good authority—is that the point of having reading spectacles is to focus light on to the back of the retina from a near object. As we all know, after 45 years one is not able to do that naturally and therefore the lens is meant to provide a clear image and not an enlarged one. So I think that we ought to stop talking about magnification.
The Earl of Caithness: We have had a long debate on this matter and we have covered a lot of the ground in the first amendment as well. The Government, when studying the Office of Fair Trading report, gave serious consideration to the merits of allowing self-selected reading glasses. I accept the evidence, which is quite clear, that they cannot ruin adult eyes. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, reminded me of the happy hours we spent on the Agricultural Holdings Bill. We made great strides in liberalisation, which this Government are doing now. We are persuaded of the merits of requiring a sight test before glasses are dispensed. This is in line with the thinking and practice of most Western countries. Such sight tests perform a valuable role in ensuring that glaucoma and certain other serious eye and general diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, vascular abnormality, macular degeneration—I could go on for a long time but I do not wish to bore your Lordships—are detected.
It has been our stance throughout this controversy that we are proposing nothing that will expose the public to a greater level of risk to their health. Similarly, we do not believe that the public interest is served by letting someone drift into preventable blindness out of sheer carelessness or lack of knowledge. This amendment and Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 would break the present link between sight testing and sales of glasses. It is this factor that matters, not whether reading glasses are involved or relatively low-powered lenses. I do not believe that the sight test requirement is a really onerous condition. The public can readily obtain them, and they are free.

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It is our firm belief that the eye test performs a valuable screening role. Glaucoma is not a major disease numerically, but having the sight test does allow for early detection of any cause of blindness. The acuity test is not in itself sufficient, but an optician who failed to examine the back of an eye with an ophthalmoscope, which is the most reliable method, would be in breach of his professional terms of service and his professional code of practice. There is already an obligation on an optician providing NHS sight tests to hand the prescription over on request. Some proportion of patients do request their prescriptions now, and many more will doubtless do so when this Bill is enacted.
In preparation for this Bill, we have begun consultations with optical bodies on changes as to the terms and conditions of service of opticians providing GOS sight tests. As my noble friend Lord Glenarthur has already said on Amendment No. 1, one of these changes is to make a positive requirement that a prescription is given to a person after a sight test is completed.
The noble Baroness. Lady Robson, the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and just now my noble friend Lord Mottistone, said we should proceed in stages; and we believe that this Bill, as at present drafted, is the right stage to have reached at the moment. We will, of course, keep the matter under review. I therefore hope that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, will be persuaded to the Government's view that considerable liberalisation can be achieved by the Bill as it stands and that the additional competitive benefits in self-selected reading glasses are outweighed by the greater risk to which some people would be exposed.
Lord Monson: Before the noble Earl sits down, would he not agree that the arguments he has just advanced about testing for diabetes, and so on, could be used to justify a requirement that every single adult in the country should undergo a periodical eye test, whether or not he or she needs glasses?
Lord Northfield: The debate has gone exactly as I forecast. The memories of the Agricultural Holdings Bill debates are reinforced because I see that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who was resisting the open market in farm rents, has now been brought in to reinforce the Front Bench in resisting the free market on this issue, too. It is amazing how hard it is to drag the Tory Party towards the free market, and I must confess that on matters like this I am beginning to despair of them.
There are just two points I would make quite briefly. First, it is not the case that Western countries are moving towards restrictionism in this matter. The Office of Fair Trading report makes it quite clear that ready-made spectacles are on free sale in the United States, in several of the Australian states, in the whole of Japan and in the whole of Canada, for example—and in Portugal, Greece and Sweden as well. It is not the case that countries which are rather like our own in some way are drifting apart on this matter. They are in fact in favour of freedom, and you can buy freely there.
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Secondly, I would say that it just is not the case, despite the noble Earl getting all mixed up with the names of all the diseases, that an eye test is needed in order to detect them. As Mr. Trevor-Roper has made clear a thousand times, most of those diseases are sensed by the patient anyway, and he would go haring off to a doctor or an optician the minute he felt them. They are not things from which he would find relief by buying a pair of spectacles. So it is clearly quite silly to confuse this argument with all these other diseases. They will be detected in the normal process of medical care, as soon as the patient realises the discomfort and that spectacles do not cure it.
We end where we began. I shall go on as I now go abroad. Noble Lords from all parts of the House come up to me and say, "I hear that you are going to America. Will you bring me back a pair of spectacles of this correction?" and I come back loaded with spectacles for my noble friends. 1 just feel sorry for those outside, who do not have friends going to America or Hong Kong to help them. It is quite ridiculous. These spectacles can be bought for £5, £6 or £7 in America, and in Hong Kong I get them for £1.50. I will take orders after this debate, if some of your Lordships are envious of these prices.
I shall, of course, beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but we shall have an attempt at drafting it more accurately in a way that can be forced to a Division at Report stage. So 1 hope that we can get an amendment which in drafting terms is watertight. Finally. I wonder where this paternalism is going to end. As the BMA said at one point in this long argument, "Are we next going to say that dentists must have a monopoly of selling toothbrushes, because somebody who wants to buy a toothbrush should be checked to see whether he has dental decay before he is allowed to buy an appliance?" It is becoming as silly as that and I only hope that that sort of point will one day register with this Government. We have dragged them so far into the open market. I hope that one day we will get them the rest of the way. In the meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 not moved.]
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 20, leave out from ("not") to ("before") in line 21 and insert ("earlier than three years").
The noble Lord said: This is very much the second or even third- best amendment, because I would have much preferred that of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, or one of those of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne. However, it represents an effort to find some sort of common ground between the libertarians, on the one hand, and the paternalist lobby, on the other. If it is necessary for people who are not in any way ill or disabled—I do not accept that it is necessary, but if it is considered so—to have to undergo the inconvenience and. to some extent, the indignity of obtaining a prescription for perfectly straightforward reading glasses, which in many other civilised countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, pointed out, they could buy across the counter, then, for Heaven's sake!, let them not have to submit to this charade more than once every three years. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: The noble Lord, Lord Monson, raises an interesting point. We still have an open mind on the time for which a prescription should be valid. Some have suggested that this should be as short as one year. However, our view is that two years would be an appropriate period. This view is backed by the views of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists and the Ophthalmic Group Committee of the BMA. We are still open to listen to other views and to receive other evidence. Because views differ, and indeed could well change in the light of scientific discoveries, I believe that the time should be specified in subordinate
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legislation. This will provide flexibility without losing parliamentary control since orders are subject to the scrutiny of both Houses. With that, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment.
Lord Monson: I started off being very encouraged by the noble Earl's reply, but became rather despondent towards the end. I will read carefully what he has said and perhaps come back to this matter at Report stage. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington Baroness Robson of Kiddington moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 28, at end insert—
(": or
(c) any other appliances with the exception of reading spectacles prescribed to correct presbyopia and with lenses not exceeding a maximum power of +4 dioptres.")
The noble Baroness said: The purpose of this amendment is to propose a compromise which I hope may seem reasonable to the Committee. I am particularly encouraged in that thought by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, has put his name to our amendment. We have heard impassioned speeches ever since this debate started, either for or against free dispensing of spectacles. The passion has been equal, I feel, on both sides.
The effect of the amendment is to provide that an order under subsection (3A) of the Bill would not only prohibit unqualified and unregistered sellers from fitting contact lenses to anybody, or supplying spectacles to children under the age of 16; it would also confine non-opticians to the supply of reading spectacles, which is, after all, what many noble Lords have been talking about.
I believe, on the other hand, that the Government are correct to insist upon the continued requirement of sight testing. It is frequently discovered at the time of a sight test that there is a medical reason for the fact that the eyesight is deteriorating. As a result, the person concerned is referred to his general practitioner to find out what is the problem.
It is quite unforgivable for the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, to draw a conclusion from the fact that one member of a profession makes a mistake. That does not condemn the profession as such. There is no profession in this country that has not occasionally made a mistake. You do not condemn all solicitors because one person has made a mistake. You do not condemn all chartered accountants because one of them has failed to discover a fraud in a set of accounts. It is a human weakness that occasionally somebody makes a mistake, but this does not condemn the profession as a whole. I beg to move.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: I did not condemn the profession. I did not utter a word of condemnation. All I said was that there did not seem to be very clear evidence that sight testing was a very effective way of discovering serious eye disease. Would the noble Baroness comment on the proposition from the opticians themselves that nearly 250,000 people in this country are suffering from undetected glaucoma? Does not that suggest that the eye testing regime which we have at present is less than wholly effective—if, indeed, there is any truth in the figures?
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I have no means of checking whether those figures are true. I am aware that to detect glaucoma in the early stages is one of the most difficult things to do because, to begin with, it is virtually symptomless. It could be that the figures which have just been quoted imply that that is the number of people who have the beginnings of glaucoma. My experience is that, when people have
1088
their eyesight tested, the prescribing optician is able to discover whether a more serious problem than purely bad eyesight is present. I believe, therefore, that there are strong arguments against the sale of ready-made spectacles without prescription, and I am delighted that the Government have recognised those arguments.
The opticians are not, perhaps, very keen on the amendment standing in my name and those of my noble friends. They would think it very undesirable that unqualified people should dispense even reading glasses. However, I am certain that opticians and many others, both in this House and in another place, feel that to permit unqualified people to sell reading glasses is the lesser of two evils. I hope that the Committee will support the amendment. I believe that this compromise amendment could make the two sides meet and that improvements could be made to the Bill which is before us.
We in this country have, I believe, a very high standard in ophthalmic dispensing. It is important that that high standard should be retained. It must be restricted to those who attain a minimum standard of competence through training and qualification. That is important. It is that which the Bill has now jeopardised. Therefore, I believe it is right to limit the harmful effects of the change by restricting unqualified people to the dispensing of reading spectacles only.
Lord Rugby: I am afraid that I must dissociate myself from this amendment because I misread it, and I thought that this amendment was concerned purely and simply with the other amendment relating to reading spectacles. I have already stated, and have gone on the record as stating, that the dispenser of optical appliances is nothing more or less than a seller of optical appliances.
The actual make-up of the lenses is not conducted by the dispenser; the lenses are made up by members of the Optical Manufacturers' Association: by the prescription manufacturing houses. The prescription is sent to be made up by a recognised manufacturer. The lenses are returned in the post and fitted into the frames. Those lenses conform to very highly qualified procedures from which there can be no deviation. Therefore, there is no reason at all why an optical dispenser should not dispense any lenses he likes.
Lord Kilmarnock: So far, I have not intervened in this debate between what the noble Lord, Lord Monson, rather felicitously called the libertarians on one side and the paternalists on the other. I support the amendment moved by my noble friend. I am sorry that the noble Lord. Lord Rugby, is not with us, because I was encouraged by seeing his name to this amendment. I thought that he was moving towards a compromise position, but it seems that he is moving back. I should like to tell the noble Lord that I was initally attracted to the movement led by him and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, together with other noble Lords on the Benches opposite, towards relaxing the law on these matters. But the more I looked into the effects that it would

1089
have on disadvantaged groups and upon those with really bad sight, the more reservations I found I had.
I was not happy with the first amendment moved in Committee this evening, and nor am I happy with the Bill as it stands. Later, we shall come to amendments dealing with costs—which are also very important. But here we are concerned simply with dispensing; in what circumstances dispensing must be done by registered qualified dispensers, and in what circumstances it may be opened up to those who are not qualified—provided they sell spectacles against a prescription.
I remain sympathetic to what one might call the "reading glasses movement" headed by the noble Lords, Lord Orr-Ewing and Lord Bruce-Gardyne. But I do not believe that unqualified dispensing should go any further than that very substantial sector of the market. Unqualified dispensers should certainly not be permitted to dispense the more complicated prescriptions for bifocals, trifocals or varifocal lenses of progressive power, nor other lenses incorporating worked prisms or corrections for astigmatism. Certainly it cannot be right or sensible to allow post-cataract patients to have their spectacles dispensed by someone who may have no training or qualifications.
On those grounds, I support this amendment. In fact, I should be prepared to support either of the amendments, because I believe that there is another in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. However, I understand from my noble friend Lady Robson that our amendment is slightly better drafted in professional terms, and so on balance I will support that amendment—but I am certainly behind both of them. It seems to me that we have here a reasonable compromise between the libertarian position and the paternalistic position which has been attacked by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. I suggest to your Lordships that we should rally behind one or other of these amendments.
Lord Mottistone: With your Lordships' permission, I should like to speak to my own amendment, Amendment No. 7, which is in effect an alternative to Amendment No. 6.
Amendment No. 7: Page 2, line 28, at end insert—
(": or
(d) any optical appliance defined by order as being either a low vision aid or an optical appliance, which includes in its composition a high power, complex or multifocal lens.")
I am very sad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, does not support Amendment No. 6. I thought he had realised that there was a need for some kind of a compromise position regarding dispensing—but he clearly does not. But as this debate goes on, we might convert even him. I would have thought that he was the leader of his side, and not my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, in this particular battle.
The purpose of my amendment, as, I think, is the purpose of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, is to control the dispensing of high power complex or multi-focal lenses and low vision aids by limiting it to registered opticians. I think that your Lordships will readily understand that in these specialised cases specialised skills are needed. It is quite simple. I hope very much that my noble friends on the Front Bench will agree that in this area the Bill has not
1090
gone quite far enough. We understand that they are wholly overboard in the sense that reading glasses of the type I am wearing at the moment do not require any aids at all; and the fact that I might fall down the steps is quite irrelevant to them. We know all about that. But when one needs very special spectacles—as does my noble friend Lord Suffield, for example, as he told us on Second Reading—it is perhaps right that they should be dispensed by an expert rather than by just any person. I suppose that it is reasonable that we should have an amendment either on the lines of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness or mine. I have no great preference, but I think that my amendment is better because it uses less technical words. I commend it to my noble friends.
Lord Ennals: I only rise to make one comment which is that I supported the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, quite intentionally. I have no intention of withdrawing. I made no mistake. I might have supported the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, but did not do so when I saw that the noble Lord. Lord Rugby, had added his name to it. I hope that Amendment No. 7 will be seen favourably by the Government.
Lord Northfield: The noble Baroness looked at me when she was talking about a compromise. I want to make clear that this is not a compromise between me, or the people who I stand with, and anybody. This is a compromise between the people who do not want to do anything at all and the Government. It is going one step back compared with the Bill. It is certainly not a compromise with us. Therefore. I hope that the noble Baroness will not look at me when speaking on this issue. She has the wrong compromise in mind. She wants to go further back than the Government. Goodness knows, they have not gone far enough! The noble Baroness has it wrong.
As for the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, he has it wrong, too, if I may say so. There is a failure to understand how the industry works. A dispenser does not sit in a back room making spectacles and lenses; nor does an optician. The prescription arrives and the person who receives it whether an optician or one of the new non-qualified people, simply sends it to a prescription house which makes it up. All that then happens when it comes back to the person doing the dispensing is that he puts it in a frame and makes sure that the frame fits on the face of the person concerned and that it is centred. Frankly, the complication of the lens which the noble Lord talked about at great length has nothing to do with the dispenser. That is a specialised function carried out by the optical houses. The noble Lord has the story completely wrong.
The Earl of Caithness: With the leave of the Committee I, too, should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. I start by saying yet again—and I should like to stress it as would my noble friend Lord Glenarthur—that the medical evidence is quite clear that glasses, however complicated or powerful, cannot damage adult eyes. It is also widely acknowledged that the more powerful the prescription, the more noticeable symptons of dispensing errors will be. There is therefore no reason

1091
why alternative suppliers should be limited to the more simple glasses.
It is certainly true that the more complicated prescriptions require a higher level of attention to such matters as centration of the lenses and the back vertex distance of the glasses. However, those who choose to supply such glasses are under a clear legal requirement to supply glasses which conform to the prescription. We are considering carefully what additional steps might be taken to strengthen the hand of the consumer; for example, that the taking of certain measurements is a necessary contractual condition between supplier and customer. The public make many sophisticated judgments on a wide range of consumer choices. There really is no reason to believe that they will be incapable of detecting error, complaining and obtaining redress.
We acknowledge that there is a very small number of people whose eye condition requires more knowledgeable dispensing—conditions where the background knowledge of a fully trained person will be required to help ensure a successful outcome, and occasions where mere technical competence in interpreting and making up the prescription may not suffice. In such cases it is open to the doctor or other prescriber strongly to advise his patient that special care is needed in the selection of his supplier. He may even feel that the prescription should be endorsed with his advice to use one of the many registered opticians. This will be entirely acceptable. Indeed, we are considering reinforcing this approach by requiring alternative suppliers to display a warning notice advising would-be customers to heed their preserver's advice. The needs of this minority can therefore be met in the context of doctor-patient relationships. For these reasons, we believe Amendment No. 6 is inappropriate and unnecessary, as the public can be protected without having to be nannied.
I turn now to part of Amendment No. 7 in the name of my noble friend Lord Mottistone, where he raises the point of low vision aids. I should like to assure my noble friend that there is no intention that unregistered opticians should sell low vision aids required by those with the worst sight. Low vision aids, for the information of noble Lords, cover a variety of devices of varying complexity prescribed to aid those with little vision. At the simplest level, a hand-held magnifier could be a low vision aid. At the other extreme, a closed circuit television system could be used as an aid. Each device or combination of devices is devised for the individual patient. Many obtain low vision aids on loan from the hospital eye service. Not many qualified opticians undertake this work. We believe that it is unlikely that unregistered suppliers will want to enter this market. However, to avoid any risk, I undertake to ensure that orders for exemptions exclude such optical appliances. The definition will require some considerable thought to avoid catching quite legitimate sales involving simple hand-held magnifiers. We will of course consult on these orders. I hope that my noble friend will accept this assurance. For the reasons already stated, I cannot however share his desire to exclude the more complicated forms of glasses. I therefore ask the Committee to reject these amendments.
Lord Mottistone: May I ask my noble friend to explain this? Do I understand that he agrees at any rate with the first part of my amendment and will put down an amendment of his own at the next stage, or is he suggesting that the relevant parts of it will be incorporated in the relevant orders?
The Earl of Caithness: No, we will not bring forward an amendment. We will have it in orders.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: While thanking the noble Earl for his reply, regretting that he has not been able to go any further towards meeting us in our amendments and not being certain what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will do with his amendment, 1 am afraid that I must press my amendment.
9.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 24; Not-Contents, 52.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Attlee, E.

Mottistone. L.

Auckland. L.

Nicol, B.

Banks. L. [Teller.]

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Renton. L.

Ennals. L.

Robson of Kiddington. B.

Ferrier, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch. B.

Jeger. B.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Kagan, L.

Stoddart of Swindon. L. [Teller.]

Kilmarnock. L.

Lockwood, B.

Underhill, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Winstanley. L

Molloy, L.

L

NOT CONTENTS

Allerton, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Ampthill. L.

Avon. E.

Hives, L.

Bauer. L.

Ingrow, L.

Belhaven and Stenton. L.

Killearn, L.

Beloff. L.

Lawrence. L.

Belstead. L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Brougham and Vaux. L.

Long, V.

Caithness. E.

Lucas of Chilworth. L.

Carnegy of Lour. B.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Coleraine. L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Colwyn, L.

Monson. L.

Craigavon, V.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Craigmyle. L.

Croft. L.

Northfield. L.

Davidson, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Rochdale, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Effingham. E.

Skelmerdale, L.

Elliot of Harwood. B.

Suffield, L.

Elton, L.

Swinton. E. [Teller.]

Fortescue. E.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Trumpington. B.

Gisborough. L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Glanusk. L.

Westbury. L.

Glenarthur, L.

Whitelaw. V.

Grimston of Westbury. L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 7 not moved.]
9.57 p.m.
Lord Banks Lord Banks moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 28, at end insert—

(e) any optical appliance for a registered partially sighted person:or

(f) any optical appliance for an old age pensioner.")

The noble Lord said: I move this amendment at the invitation of my noble friend. As the Committee is aware, the Bill as it stands requires qualified dispensing only in the case of children and in the case of the provision of contact lenses. This amendment would require, in addition, qualified dispensing for the registered partially sighted and old age pensioners. In fact, 75 per cent. of registered blind and partially sighted people are over 65, so there is a considerable overlap between these two categories. Twenty-seven per cent. of all elderly people have some visual impairment.
Old people often need complex lenses. References has already been made on a number of occasions today to those required by, for example, people recovering from cataract operations. Often, old people may have serious eye conditions. We do not believe that these two categories should be exposed to any risk, however small some people may think it is. We feel it is essential that their glasses should be dispensed by fully qualified persons. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: I should like first to deal with the question of old age pensioners. There are no medical grounds for excluding the over-65s from unregistered suppliers. Their eyes are no more capable of permanent damage from inappropriate glasses than are those of younger adults. It is probably true, as the noble Lord. Lord Banks, suggests, that a higher proportion of this age group require more powerful lenses, but this does not of itself make unregistered sellers undesirable. Indeed, patients with high-powered lenses are more likely to notice visual distortions. There is no argument for excluding pensioners from the benefit of greater competition and the lower prices that this will bring.
So far as the other part of the amendment is concerned, those who are registered partially sighted will usually be advised by their medical advisers to obtain glasses from a qualified optician. But we are not at the moment convinced that the law should deprive all registered partially sighted of the right to choose where they should obtain their spectacles and thus expose them to possible extra financial costs that might be avoided by the rest of the population.
We are still considering representations on this matter. If we are persuaded that legal constraints are needed, these can be put into orders under the powers which are contained in the Bill. So an amendment to this Bill is not required and it would, of course, be open to your Lordships to pray against any orders that came forward. I hope that with those remarks the noble Lord will not press his amendment to a Division.
Lord Ennals: I was very glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, say that consideration was being given, particularly in the field of disability, because it is rarely the case that disability can be neatly categorised and that a person's disability is confined to
1094
one particular aspect of his or her way of life or health. It is certainly true that disabilities affecting the nervous system are often evidenced in the eye and that other disabilities increase a person's dependence on his own good sight.
For many people with a disability the economic provision of National Health Service spectacles has an important effect on their quality of life in just the same way as access to the whole range of national health services is important to them. The withdrawal of NHS optical dispensing from these groups should be seen in the context of the total health provision.
Some may say that it seems curious that the blind require spectacles. But for many of these people the preservation and enhancement of the tiny part of their eyesight that remains is vital to their lives. The blind and the partially sighted together, as a group of disabled people whose disability may not be confined to sight, deserve continuing access to NHS optical dispensing. So I was very encouraged by what the noble Lord said, and I hope that when consideration is being given to orders—even though I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Banks, will not be pressing the amendment—consideration will be given to an order which will give effect to the principle in relation to disabled people.
Lord Banks: I, too, am glad to hear that consideration is being given to the position of the partially sighted. I cannot pretend that I was altogether satisfied with the reply which the noble Lord gave. I would like to consider what he said and perhaps to return to this particular subject at a later stage. But in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne Lord Cullen of Ashbourne moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 32, at end insert—
("(3E) No order under subsection (3a) above shall be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.".")
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to require that any order which is introduced to permit the sale of optical appliances by unqualified persons should be subject to affirmative resolution of each House of Parliament. Whether or not the amendment is technically correct I am not quite sure, but I would like to hear the views of my noble friend on the Front Bench.
This seems a reasonable amendment to propose, because during the Committee stage of the passage of the Bill in another place, the Government accepted that any Order in Council making changes in the General Optical Council Publicity Rules dealing with advertising should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. It can be argued that the conditions and safeguards to be applied to unqualified sellers of spectacles, upon which the Govenment have placed such great reliance, are a matter of much greater public importance than the advertising rules affecting opticians. It is, therefore, important that Parliament should positively approve the adequacy of any such safeguards.
At the moment, apart from the safeguards built into the Bill to prevent unqualified people from dispensing contact lenses or selling spectacles to children under the age of 16, the only other safeguard envisaged by the Government appears to be the requirement that spectacles should comply with British Standards. However, this will not correct any errors in dispensing and there still remains a very big question mark about how the Government propose to ensure that the conditions and safeguards to be laid down in the Order in Council are in fact to be enforced.
At the moment the Goverment appear to be relying on the fact that a breach of the Order in Council would render an unqualified seller of spectacles liable to prosecution under Section 21. However, the police have never shown any willingness to undertake such prosecutions in the past and there seems no likelihood of their adopting a different attitude in the future. Such prosecutions as have been brought in the past have been initiated by the General Optical Council. But that body has no statutory duty to prosecute, and since its primary duty is to regulate the registered profession, it is open to doubt whether the GOC will still be prepared to assume a prosecuting role, especially when neither the General Medical Council nor the General Dental Council do so in relation to doctors and dentists.
Futhermore, this enabling power, taken in subsection (1) of Clause 1 of the Bill, to end the so-called opticians' monopoly, is another example of an objectionable tendency in legislation to deal with matters of major importance in subordinate legislation. In this particular case Section 21 of the Opticians Act 1958 is an offence-creating section, and it can be argued therefore that if the ingredients of that statutory offence are to be changed, then it should be done by direct amendment to Section 21 rather than by subordinate legislation subject merely to the negative resolution. I beg to move.
Lord Ennals: Very briefly, I wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, and indeed my name is down to the amendment. Clearly a number of Orders in Council will flow from this legislation. We had one example in the previous short debate. That being the case, it is important that both Houses should have the opportunity of scrutiny without the need to pray against it. Therefore, I strongly support this particular amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I, too support my noble friend. It seems to me that at the moment, apart from the point made on my Amendment No. 7, the Bill contains so much of the detail which will be set out in the orders that this is a case where we should have an affirmative procedure and not a negative one. I should have thought that the case for it is overwhelming, and I hope that my noble friend will agree.
Lord Rugby: I was not here when this debate started, but 1 understand that in fact the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, acts as president for the optical corporate bodies, which are highly commercial concerns. I am sure he will admit that he is involved in a commercial exercise in putting forward their points of view. if
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anyone doubts that, I would refer him to the public relations department which those bodies possess and which apparently has an abundant supply of money in order to publicise the case for the retention of a monopoly, in which they are very predominant. That publicity material has been sent around both Houses of Parliament on a very large scale. I regard that as a form of advertising, if no one else does. If they can advertise in that form, I see no reason at all why other people who wish to enter the market should not equally enjoy the same privilege.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: With great respect, that is a very interesting observation, but it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the amendment.
Lord Ennals: If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Rugby. I think that that was a most unpleasant intervention. I am able to stand up and say that because I am not involved in any financial implications at all. Of course, professional bodies are entitled to lobby this House as they are entitled to lobby the other place. It would be absolutely wrong if we in this Committee were to criticise their ability and freedom to do so. In fact, much of our work would be made harder if we did not have the benefit of the expertise which they place at our disposal. So I deeply resent that the reference was made and I assure the noble Lord that I have not gained one penny from it.
Lord Renton: On reflection, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, will not persist in the line which he has just taken. All my working life until recent years I have belonged to a very highly competitive profession indeed. But it is also a highly qualified profession. We hope that these regulations will have something to say about the requirement that people in the competitive world which the Government quite rightly envisaged have adequate qualifications or are subject to adequate safeguards. That should be so, whatever the interests of opticians, as they now are, may be. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, will not expect the Government to accept his argument as part of this case.
Lord Rugby: I was not putting forward an argument. I was trying to make a statement of fact. We have the optical corporate bodies who now occupy prime sites in the selling end of optical appliances in all the major city centres. They occupy a privileged position because they now dominate a monopoly position. That is what I am trying to bring home. In order to get competition into the market I believe that other people should be allowed to advertise in the same way that is their privilege at the moment.
Lord Mottistone: What relevance has the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, has just made and the one he made earlier to Amendment No. 9? It may have been suitable for other occasions, but of all the amendments it has no relevance to Amendment No. 9, apart from the fact that it was most distateful and uncalled for, but that is neither here nor there. It is quite irrelevant, and I should think that it is out of order in the Committee.
10.12 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: Not for the first time have I or many of my noble friends stood at this Dispatch Box and discussed the question of affirmative versus negative resolution. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, knows what I am talking about. I cannot share my noble friend's enthusiasm for the affirmative resolution procedure in this case either. The Bill as drafted provides an adequate means of parliamentary scrutiny. The orders which can be made under it can be the subject of a Prayer by either House. The Government have been open minded on this subject.
Orders which override the wishes of the General Optical Council in the matter of advertising are to be subject to the affirmative procedure. It is clearly unusual for the Privy Council to be given power to override the decisions of a statutory body exercising jurisdiction over an independent profession. It is clearly a power which must be exercised sparingly if the independent status of the GOC is not to be undermined. A power of this nature justifies special scrutiny.
My noble friend Lord Cullen queried whether or not the amendment was properly drafted. I am advised that it is excellently drafted. I understand that parliamentary counsel could not have improved on it. Its only technical failing is that it should have been in substitution for subsection (3D) and not (3E), but that no doubt is a point which he has already noted.
However, the orders we are dealing with here are not an unusual exercise of power, as my noble friend suggested they were. They are mainstream examples of subordinate legislation, and nothing particularly unusual. The subject matter is indeed important but the orders will merely be putting flesh on the bones of the clear principles set out in the Bill before the committee. They will specify what appliances can be sold by non-opticians and lay down the conditions governing their sale.
The Bill itself puts clear constraints around the powers. It sets out the important exceptions to the appliances which can be exempted. The Bill imposes the most important condition: the prerequisite of a sight test. I really do not see what real additional checks on the Privy Council are required here. They are tightly constrained by the Bill as to how far they can go. Their proposals are subject to a Prayer of annulment by either House if your Lordships or Members of another place believe that the orders are not satisfactory.
To adopt the affirmative procedure in this case will subject the public to unnecessary delay in the furtherance to their advantage of the Bill's proposals. The public want to see a liberalisation of the market in glasses and they want lower prices, too. They will see no advantage in a delay. The negative resolution procedure will give the public what it clearly wants, while retaining adequate parliamentary scrutiny over the orders. I believe that no good purpose is served by this amendment, and I hope that my noble friend will see fit not to press it.
Lord Banks: The noble Lord says that there are clear principles in the Bill and because of that it is not necessary to have the affirmative procedure. Is the
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noble Lord saying that the affirmative procedure can only, or should only, be used when the orders are based on principles not contained in the Bill?
Lord Glenarthur: I think the noble Lord is twisting my argument. What I said was that these are mainstream examples of subordinate legislation—not unusual orders—and I think the noble Lord, in the way that he put it, is in fact misrepresenting the argument.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: In reply to my noble friend, of course I shall not press this amendment. I would say that the way in which these regulations are done is extremely important. They will be very carefully examined. Many of us are highly doubtful as to how they will be enforced in so far as unqualified and unregistered opticians are concerned. Who will make sure that they are not selling spectacles to children, not selling contact lenses or whatever, when there is no way of actually knowing who they are, what their address is, or anything else? However, having said that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Rugby Lord Rugby moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 2, line 32, at end insert—
(" (c) in subsection (4), before the word "appliance" in the second and third places where it occurs there shall be inserted the word "optical", the words "of being used" shall be deleted and for the words "a defect of sight" there shall be substituted the words "an optical abnormality or disease";").
The noble Lord said: I have seen fit to add the word "optical" to the word "appliance". I think it is important that it should be qualified all the time. There are many appliances on the market which might be described as having a relationship to the eye. For instance, if you take an extreme case, a white walking stick could be described as an appliance in that particular sense. I believe "optical appliance" perhaps clears up any misapprehension. I would in fact only wonder whether it should be "ophthalmic optical appliance" where a prescription is supplied by someone who is a qualified ophthalmologist, because I think in that way we would probably get nearer to what we are really looking for. However, I think it makes it quite clear that an "optical appliance", when referred to, should not be just an appliance.
I wish also to go into the realm of the word "defect" which is apparently capable of great misunderstanding. In a court case to which I recently listened the word "defect" was clearly totally inappropriate and nobody could give a proper description as to what was meant by the word "defect". I think if we had had "an optical abnormality or disease" then that would have cleared this point up because in certain cases—it applied especially in this court case-we are dealing with what is described as "a normal defect". I think it would have been better if "a normal defect" could have been described as an abnormality. It would have made it clearer for everyone concerned.
Could we therefore have an "optical abnormality" instead of "defect", especially where age is concerned because one cannot describe age as a defect. In court age was described as a defect, but it seems to me that where one is dealing with a certain age group of

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people—say, people all of 45—one has to consider a normal condition for people of 45 years of age. If somebody has an abnormality, and I should like to bring this into the Bill instead of the word "defect".
Lord Mottistone: As I am advised, the effect of this Amendment No. 10 would be to change the defence available to someone prosecuted for selling an optical appliance to make it easier for ready-made reading glasses to be sold without prescription. That is the practical effect as opposed to all the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, made.
Lord Glenarthur: I have listened with care to what the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, said in moving his amendment and to what my noble friend Lord Mottistone said also. I have to tell Lord Rugby that I do not believe that this amendment actually achieves his intentions. As I see it, having carefully looked at the Opticians Act 1958 and the Bill, his amendment would merely alter the nature of the proof required when someone sought to use the defence that they sold glasses as an antique rather than to correct—or whatever—a defect of sight; or, as the amendment would make it, to correct an optical abnormality or disease. I believe that the noble Lord wanted this amendment to allow a general defence against prosecution on the grounds that the glasses concerned were only intended to correct the results of the natural ageing process of the eye or presbyopia.
Once again I must stress the point that we are not maintaining that self-selected glasses to correct presbyopia would, in themselves, be harmful. The person concerned might get less than his full potential correction to his vision but his eyes would not, at the end of the day, be harmed by it. Our objection to self-selection is that it breaks the link between sight testing and the sale of glasses: a point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Caithness. It thus would allow some cases of glaucoma and other diseases to go undetected. We believe that this is a risk we need not and we should not take. The requirement to have a recent sight test is not particularly onerous and will not detract much from the Bill's aim to improve competition. We believe that the extra competitive advantages of self-selection are not commensurate with the risks involved. Thus I hope the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Northfield: I shall not enter the general argument, but I wonder whether the noble Lord would care to look into the point that if an amendment on these lines were to be moved at Report stage the best place to make this amendment would be in the definitions of the words "optical appliance" at the end of the 1958 Act? In case we wish to return to this matter at the Report stage, perhaps he would write to me and confirm that that is the best drafting advice that the Government can give.
Lord Glenarthur: I certainly shall come back to the noble Lord. I think that probably he is correct; but I need to seek advice on that. Section 30 is probably the appropriate place; but I shall need to confirm it in writing.
Lord Rugby: With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Rugby Lord Rugby moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 2, line 32, at end insert—
("(d) at the end of subsection (4) there shall be added—
"or that he supplied or repaired an optical appliance for purposes of restoring partial or total visual accommodation where otherwise the safety of the individual might have been adversely affected.".")
The noble Lord said: This amendment is in relation to repairing or giving first aid to somebody who has had an accident, possibly a car accident or something of that sort, and thus is incapacitated because his spectacles are damaged, but needing quite simple repairs such as those which can be effected by a jeweller or an engineer enabling him to make a temporary repair and thereby restore partial, if not total, sight to that person.
I believe that this is a very important amendment because at present it is stated that an optical appliance is an empty spectacle frame and anybody who dares to mend either a hinge, an arm or any part of it can be prosecuted. In view of the immensely incapacitating effect on people without their glasses, I believe that somebody in a professional capacity should be fully entitled to assist, if at all possible and, if necessary, to charge a professional fee for that repair to safeguard that person from another form of worse accident.
Lord Mottistone: I am advised that this also would provide a similar extension to the last amendment to defences available to an individual prosecuted for selling readymade glasses. I think perhaps it is not all that it seems.
Lord Glenarthur: I have some sympathy with the intention which lies behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rugby. In future many people will probably keep prescriptions for glasses upon their persons; but if not, it will not be too onerous to have to go to a registered optician. One of the benefits of increased competition will be that the prices charged by opticians will become more reasonable. Also, increased competition will make all suppliers more customer-conscious and give a faster service.
I fear that the amendment would open the door to abuse and would put suppliers in a difficult position if faced with a plausible tale of woe from a customer. I am not convinced that the benefit of the extra flexibility proposed would be commensurate with the extra risk which could arise from its abuse. Repairs to frames have not been illegal in the past. In future, even replacement frames will be able to be supplied without prescription. I do not think, anyway, that lenses can be repaired. Replacement lenses will only be available on production of a prescription, and this point was covered earlier this afternoon. I accept that to some extent this could be irksome on occasion; but, as I have said, this minor inconvenience must be balanced against the possible abuse to which the amendment could lead. I hope that the noble Lord will not press the amendment.
Lord Rugby: I have been told by a doctor that perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to

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persons in an accident is the loss of spectacles. They are so totally incapacitated. I cannot believe that anyone in this Committee would be so heartless as to say that they should be left in a semi-blind state while an optician, who is probably not available over the weekend, is only prepared to say that people must carry a spare pair of glasses around with them; when they cannot possibly anticipate this type of occurrence. Many people must realise that spectacles are highly fragile and that we might have to carry half a dozen pairs around with us in those circumstances. It is ludicrous to say that somebody cannot make a repair for fear of hurting this closed-shop opticians' profession.
Lord Glenarthur: If I can return to the noble Lord, the point is that if he is referring to frames there is nothing to suggest that the repair of frames is illegal. I accept the fact that hinges come undone and that damage can be done to the plastic. We have all seen examples of repairs which have been made to glasses. The noble Lord, in praying in aid the point about damage, suggested that it would not be possible for someone to get a repair to his glasses over the weekend. I understand the intention behind the amendment, but I think we should be going a little too far in this case, particularly in view of the fact that frames can be repaired at the present time while broken lenses cannot be repaired anyway.
Lord Winstanley: I apologise for detaining noble Lords and the Committee on this matter but I assure the noble Lord that there is a point here and one that I hope at some stage he will look into. Perhaps noble Lords will forgive me if I recount a personal experience which tended to make me take the view that Lord Rugby has taken on this.
Not very long ago I had to travel from your Lordships' House to do something which required reading. I had to read a script. The screw came out of the corner of my glasses. They were a metal pair and when that happened they expanded and out dropped the lens. I could have seen the screw and I could have seen the hole that the screw goes into if I had had my glasses on. But I could not put my glasses on and could not screw the screw in. I was at Euston Station and I asked the chemist there if he could do it. "Oh, no," he said, "that is optical work. I could go to prison for doing optical work." I said, "Where shall I go? Is there an optician here?". He said, "No, but there is an instrument maker outside. Try him." I went to the instrument maker and said, "I wonder if you could put this little screw into my spectacles." "That's optical work. It is more than my living's worth to do that. It is optical work." So I said, in that case, would you be kind enough to sell me that little screwdriver and that lens so that I can put the screw in?" "No," he said "that would be helping you to do optical work."
The story did have an happy ending. I travelled on the train. I was going up to do a broadcast in Manchester. I happened to be sitting next to a pop-singer from a group known as The Paper Dolls. She was not an optician. She had not got a screwdriver. But she had very long finger nails. This tale is absolutely true. I said, "Look, dear, do you think you could put
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this screw in my spectacles?" She was able to do it, I was able to do my work later on, and I got out of a rather difficult situation. It was not a dangerous situation but it really did seem to me an absolute absurdity if, under the Opticians Act, it was an offence for somebody to put a screw in a pair of spectacles. I wonder if the noble Lord would look into that point at some stage and let me know so that we can decide whether or not the monopoly in the Opticians Act as far as that kind of work is concerned does require some kind of relaxation.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: Perhaps the noble Lord might take a leaf out of my book. I always keep a spare pair of spectacles and a screwdriver in my briefcase because I have had just the same experience as he has. I do it myself and no one has taken me to court yet.
Lord Glenarthur: I must confess that I do have some sympathy with the point of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and my noble friend Lord Mottistone. When I have been asked to do anything in this line, I have found a very thin piece of fuse wire to be an answer and it has worked quite well. I cannot give an undertaking that it will be possible to do anything, but I shall take away what the noble Lord has said and study it in the Official Report. If it is possible to do something, I will of course be in touch with him and let him know. I would not like to give any undertaking now except to say that I will certainly look at what has been said.
Lord Rugby: I thank the noble Lord for that. He must remember that many people do not carry briefcases. They live very far away in the country and sometimes, especially in agriculture in which I am engaged, it is very important that they should be able to see properly. We can easily have accidents with these very fragile things and we are not within miles of opticians' shops. Often we cannot get to a person who can do repairs. I think this is something which the noble Lord should look at carefully because life can sometimes be difficult and dangerous situations can be involved. For instance, electricians are perhaps engaged in circuitry in very uncomfortable positions and wearing perhaps only a pair of slacks and a sweat shirt. Where do they keep a spare pair of spectacles? The standard spectacles supplied by opticians are very fragile and break very easily. They are for self-employed people, and I do think that first aid for spectacles is vital and important, and I hope that the Minister will look into it. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington Baroness Robson of Kiddington moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, line 41, after ("Council") insert ("and such bodies representative of the interests of the general public as seem to the Privy Council to be appropriate").
The noble Baroness said: May I speak also to Amendments Nos. 13 and 14:
Amendment No. 13: Page 3, line 5, leave out from ("Council") to end of line 7 and insert ("and to such bodies representative of the interests of the general public as seem to the Privy Council to be

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appropriate to the modifications they propose to make and consider any observations of those bodies thereon.")
Amendment No. 14: Page 3, line 23, after ("Council") insert ("and those bodies representative of the interests of the general public which the Privy Council has consulted").
These amendments seek to extend consultation beyond the professional interests and to involve the consumer. Similar amendments were tabled at the Report stage in the Commons but were resisted by the Government. I felt that the resistance was not very logical for the Government argued that they intended to consult the consumer interests anyway and that there was therefore no need to write it down. In my view, all too often when it comes to discussing consumer interests the argument is that it is not necessary to write a provision into a Bill and that it will automatically happen. It is my experience that it does not. I believe that it should be written down in the Bill. I should also like the Government to clarify what consumer interest they would consult. Would they consult the voluntary organisations? Would they involve the CHCs? These are questions that I would very much like to have answered. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: I note what the noble Baroness said in proposing her amendment, but I have to tell her that I feel that her amendments are unnecessary. The clause already requires that where changes are made without the GOC's consent the orders shall have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament. In other cases either House can pray against the orders. Members of your Lordships' House and of another place represent the public. To require affirmative resolution procedure unless both the GOC and bodies representing the public have indicated consent might well require all orders to be so treated. The GOC and the other bodies might well take up opposed views. It is more satisfactory for the Government to perform their usual role in such matters and reach their own judgment after carefully considering all viewpoints.
The GOC itself is not there simply to represent the views of the optical profession. It does have a small number of lay members who are intended to represent the general public. Sadly, however, this body, on this issue, has, I fear, become somewhat out of touch with public feeling generally and is only reflecting the wishes of the profession.
There is ample evidence in the OFT report that only minimal restrictions on advertising are needed. We believe the report also reflects public feeling on this particular issue. We have, for example, the full support of the Consumers' Association and also of the National Consumer Council for our proposals on this matter.
Ministers can take soundings from such bodies without the need for formal arrangements. If it would in any way help the noble Baroness. I certainly can give an assurance that both these bodies will be given an opportunity to comment on any orders on which we are bound by the Bill to consult the GOC. I hope that, with that, she will be satisfied and will not press her amendment.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I thank the noble Lord for his reply, and, in view of his assurances that the consumer interest will be truly consulted, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 not moved.]
Lord Ennals Lord Ennals moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 4, line 6, at end insert
("( ) The Secretary of State shall by order make provision for the control of the advertising, publicising or promotion of optical appliances as defined by the Opticians Act 1958 in any manner to the public, by persons not being registered medical practitioners or registered opticians.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name. The Government's contention has been that advertising will increase competition; but there clearly will not be fair and equal competition, and clearly there will be a risk to the public, if the unregistered sellers of spectacles are allowed to advertise appliances in a profligate and unrestrained manner. While precisely similar advertising restraints will be placed upon the registered seller and the registered practitioner, there remains a similar duty upon the Government, I would submit, to protect the public interest—and this is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, was making just a moment ago.
If the unregistered sellers are free to make spurious claims, to advertise worthless qualifications and to engage in misleading price comparisons, as against registered practitioners—which presumably registered practitioners will quite properly be prohibited from doing—then the registered practitioner goes into the new situation with one hand tied behind his back. The public will be faced, on the one hand, with restrained, properly controlled and regulated advertising of professional services, and, on the other hand, with unregistered sellers able to use every advertising trick to gull the unwary patient and persuade him away from qualified and registered dispensers.
The purpose of this clause is to make provision for the Secretary of State to formulate by order simple restrictions on the mode and content of advertising by the unqualified to satisfy the requirement that the public should not be misled as to whom they are consulting or what services are being offered. Further, the order should prevent comparative price advertising as against registered practitioners, and the advertising of bogus or spurious qualifications. I beg to move.
Lord Northfield: I do not want to intervene at any length on this, but I think my noble friend may find it is already covered by the Bill. That is for the Government to say. While I am on my feet—and it is the only opportunity we have—I think we should give a welcome to this relaxation on advertising. My noble friends on this side of the Chamber often wonder why we distrust opticians to some extent. If my noble friend would only reflect on the job we had to get opticians to display prices—my goodness, the pressure and the years it took to get that! And even then they only carried the display of prices by, I think one vote on the General Optical Council. It was absolutely disgraceful.
The Minister has said what he wants advertising to do. He said in column 388 (I have to paraphrase; I cannot quote) that he wants opticians-and the dispensers, too—to be able to advertise their whereabouts, their hours of opening, the range of

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prices of frames available and all the basic information to allow the market to flourish and the consumers to exercise some choice as to where to go for what they need. It surely is right that we should have this degree of advertising by both opticians and the new non-registered dispensers.
Finally, it is worth reading out what the Office of Fair Trading said about the present restrictions on advertising. This is in paragraph 11.103 of its report, and it said:
"The rules on publicity of 1981 effectively deny consumers information on available opticians in their locality; the range and prices of available products; and the services which are offered by opticians in terms of opening hours, speed of dispensing, product guarantees and specialised services such as contact lens work and, to a lesser extent, quality. Consumers are therefore denied the knowledge on which to make an informed choice of optician".
How right that is, and how many years have we been battling to get opticians to admit it! I unreservedly welcome the relaxation on advertising that is in the Bill.
Lord Suffield: For the reasons he gave, I support the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, about advertising. I feel that like should be compared with like, because the same constraints should be on both commercial firms and professional firms. It is not like car manufacturers, who are all the same and can run down each other's product. While there are contraints on the professional firm there must be constraints on the commercial firm for the reasons that the noble Lord gave.
The Earl of Caithness: The effect of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, would be to require the Secretary of State to make orders controlling the advertising of optical appliances other than by registered opticians or doctors. We see no need for this sort of bureaucratic arrangement for regulating advertisements or publicity involving glasses by either manufacturers or retailers. Advertisements for glasses, like other things, will be subject to the Trade Descriptions Act, the law on misrepresentation and the codes of the Advertising Standards Authority and the Independent Broadcasting Authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will be pleased to hear that both of the latter bodies already have provisions in their codes relating to advertisements containing health claims or involving health-related products. Indeed, they are aware of this Bill and are both prepared to revise their codes to cover any particular problems which liberalising the sales of glasses might throw up. Our present view is that these codes are adequate to avoid the excesses which some noble Lords fear.
Furthermore, it must be remembered that there is the buffer of a sight test which stands between advertising-generated demand for glasses and their supply. I think that this point must be borne in mind when considering some of the points which the noble Lord. Lord Ennals, made. The fact that one has to have this sight test—and this is one of the good reasons for maintaining it in the Bill—means that any excesses of advertising will be subject to it. Therefore, I cannot accept that the advertising of glasses requires special legal controls, and I hope that the noble Lord will now see fit to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ennals: I do not feel at this moment that I want to withdraw it, and I will explain the reason why. My noble friend, who has not always been my friend in the course of the proceedings, Lord Northcliffe—I beg his pardon; I mean Lord Northfield. I deliberately try to insult him by calling him by the wrong name! It is quite effective sometimes; but it is hard on the Chief Whip, who criticises one for that sort of tactic in another place. But my noble friend Lord Northfield said in his intervention that this is to be found in another part of the Bill, and it is not necessary to have this amendment. Perhaps he will intervene and explain to me where in the Bill this is covered. So far as I can see, the responsibility that I am trying to place upon the Secretary of State is not covered in any other part of the Bill.
Certainly I welcome the points that were made by the noble Earl in his answer, and his reference to the Trade Descriptions Act and the Advertising Standards Authority's willingness to guarantee that there will be fair competition. But the point that I wanted to make was made by the noble Lords who supported my amendment; namely, that there ought to be equal with equal, like with like: that if there is going to be an effective system, as there is, of advertising for the professionals, there must be an effective system of advertising for the non-professionals. I have argued the case against the clause; I do not wish to have it at all. But we have got it. If some element of restraint is going to be placed upon those who are not qualified, the best way in which to impose it is, as I have already suggested, by the Secretary of State standing as the moderator. He should have the responsibility of ensuring that like is compared with like, and that there are proper restrictions in relation to the non-trained, non-qualified dispenser. I am hoping to have an answer from the noble Earl.
The Earl of Caithness: I do not think I can add much to what I have already said. However, I omitted to thank the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for his welcome of our proposed relaxation of advertising. The point that the noble Lord raised with regard to this amendment is not covered elsewhere in the Bill. However, any constraints on the optical profession are, in effect, self-imposed. We are having to take legislative powers in order to force the GOC to liberalise. No doubt they will bear in mind the disadvantage under which this will place them. They can revise the rules themselves. No doubt they should have done so by now. We see no reason why the GOC needs so many rules.
Lord Northfield: I thought that the matter was covered at the bottom of page 2, by the orders which the Privy Council can make. If I have misled the noble Lord I apologise. I said that it was not for me to dictate to him the answer that the Government would make. The Government have given the right answer, though it was not the one I thought.
Lord Ennals: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Lord Denham: This is probably the right time to resume the House. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Anglian Water Authority (King's Lynn Tidal Defences) Bill
The Queen's Consent signified; Bill reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
Selby Bridge Bill
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.

Barclays Bank Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before eleven o'clock.