Lords Sitting of 6 February 1986

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Earl of Annandale and Hartfell—Sat first in Parliament pursuant to the Peerage Act 1963.

Airports: Security against Terrorists
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether action is being taken to improve security against terrorists at British airports.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): Yes, my Lords, the security arrangements at British airports are kept under continuous review. Most recently, in January, my department directed Heathrow and Manchester Airport to change the checking-in arrangements for E1 A1 passengers so as to protect them from terrorist attacks.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. I do not expect particular measures to be divulged publicly, but are the airport authorities being encouraged to improve the screening of persons starting employment at terminals?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the preface to his question. As the House will realise, I cannot give detailed answers on many points relating to security, but there is going to be a tightening up in the procedure of employment at airports.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I welcome any steps to improve the security at our airports, but will the noble Earl comment on the statement by the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester that if machine guns have to be carried at Manchester Ringway Airport he would prefer them to be carried by the armed forces rather than by the police?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not think it would be right for me to comment, but I shall pass on the remarks of the noble Lord to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the noble Earl recall the Written Answer which appeared in Hansard of the other place on 27th January, in which a very helpful reply was given on the question of airport security? Can he say what results have been achieved in contacting the British Airports Authority regarding the issue of temporary passes and also airside passes?
The Earl of Caithness: Yes, my Lords, we are in regular touch with the airports authority. As the House will probably like to know, there are more than 100,000 staff who need to go airside and therefore it is probably impracticable to vet them all. But there is increased vigilance to make sure that such things as addresses correspond with names.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the pictures of machine gun toting policemen and soldiers, however necessary they may be at the airports, is having a disastrous effect on tourists—an effect which is doubtless highly satisfactory to the terrorists, who are our enemies? Can he find a solution to this dilemma?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure the solution is to rid the world of terrorists.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, with regard to security during the flight of an aircraft, can the noble Earl say whether that could be enhanced if a much more stringent limit were placed upon the amount of baggage passengers are allowed to take upon the aircraft?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with regard to baggage, since September airlines have been legally required to reconcile passengers boarding their aircraft with hold baggage with those passengers who have checked in, so there has been a stricter control on baggage as from September last year.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, my question related to the amount of luggage passengers were taking on board aircraft. Would it not enhance security if less baggage were taken on board the aircraft?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, in view of the fact that some baggage will have to be taken on board, provided that is carefully screened and can be checked to passengers on board that aircraft I do not think the amount is so relevant when those precautions are taken.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, in considering the possibly disastrous effect that armed police may have on tourists at London Airport, will the noble Earl also bear in mind the deterrent effect that it might have on terrorists?
The Earl of Caithness: Yes, indeed, my Lords.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, when considering those rather unlikely press stories about the machine gun toting police and soldiers at London Airport having an adverse effect on tourism, will the noble Earl bear in mind the fact that there have been machine gun toting soldiers at Italian airports for the past 15 years and that tourism into Italy is still at an astronomical level?
The Earl of Caithness: Yes, my Lords, we are aware that other airports do have armed police.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has said, will the noble Earl bear in mind that the reality of the situation is that some of

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these terrorists, these lunatic types, do not mind and would love to be shot and killed so long as they can blow up hundreds of others? The submission of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is unrealistic and does not count. What really is essential is absolute and thorough searching, so that anyone who appears to be the slightest risk is not allowed on any aircraft.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I said earlier in reply to, I think, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, we are tightening up, and we shall continue to tighten up. It is an extremely difficult area, but we shall be vigilant in all respects.

London Docklands Development: Progress
3.7 p.m.
Lord Rodney: 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 progress has been made by the London Docklands Development Corporation since its establishment in 1981.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, since July 1981 delay and decay in Docklands have been replaced by enterprise and action. Up to November 1985 more than £1 billion of committed private sector investment and more than 200 new companies had been attracted there; 4,700 new permanent jobs were created and 1,300 existing jobs were preserved; 2,700 private homes were built, of which 42 per cent. were bought by residents of the dockland boroughs; and more than £10 million was spent by the corporation on direct community support.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for that very encouraging reply. Will he agree that it is an instance of a very considerable success of the policy? What is the situation as regards the proposed STOL airport for short take-off and landing aircraft? Can he say whether that is going to go ahead and when the first flights may possibly start?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the reception of the Answer which I have just given him. Following a public inquiry into the STOLport proposal the Secretary of State gave outline planning permission on 23rd May last year. The corporation is now considering detailed planning applications and has asked the London borough of Newham for its comments. The private company Mowlem plan to complete the construction of STOLport by mid-1987.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that perhaps the most satisfactory aspect of the redevelopment of the Docklands is what I call the leverage argument—that is to say, for every £1 million of Government money that has been invested, private enterprise has spent up to £14 million of its money. This goes to show that if Government money is spent
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in the right way there can be tremendous results. On the housing front, will the noble Lord emphasise and will his honourable friend take note of the fact that the vast majority of houses built by London Docklands have been built for ordinary people at below the price range of £40,000? They have been queueing up all night to buy and this is a tremendous success story.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. My answer is implicit in his question.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend happy, as I am sure he is, to confirm the very considerable public service performed by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, in this context, and also by Sir Nigel Broackes?
Lord Elton: Indeed, I am, my Lords, and I am glad of the opportunity of so doing.
Lord Somers: My Lords, may ask what is the position as regards the Docklands railway? Is that still in hand—
Lord Mellish: I can answer that, my Lords.
Lord Elton: I am sorry, my Lords, but an aside from someone sitting near me obliterated the key word of the noble Lord's question.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I was asking what the position is as regards the Docklands railway. Is that still in hand?
Lord Mellish: Yes it is, my Lords.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it seems I am superfluous in these exchanges. The railway at present under construction is being financed by the Government through London Regional Transport and LDDC at a capital cost of £77 million. I think that puts it well in hand.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the railway is going ahead splendidly and is ahead of schedule?
Lord Elton: Thank you for the ride, my Lords.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that London is not the only place with decaying docklands. We have many decaying docklands on Tyneside and would welcome more Government resources there.
Lord Elton: My Lords, although the LDDC was started as an experiment, there is, I agree absolutely, a lot we can learn from it.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, can my noble friend tell us where the London Docklands Light Railway is to end? Is it to be at the Minories or the Bank? Will my noble friend also comment on the proposed Canary Wharf development scheme?
Lord Elton: My Lords, on the first question I would not like to tell the noble Viscount where it is to end because I am not certain but I will write to him. As to the Canary Wharf scheme, this is an imaginative scheme using the enterprise zone system which makes the planning system very much easier. It is intended that, if it goes ahead, it will create a very large number of extra jobs. I do not think I can add to what I have said.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his reference to the Canary Wharf scheme. However, it has been reported that the Corporation of the City of London has opposed the railway link between Canary Wharf and Bank tube station, which of course is vital to the scheme. Can the noble Lord say what other petition, if any, has been received, as I understand that the closing date is today, and whether the Government think the issue between the Corporation of the City of London and the developers can be resolved?
Finally, as regards the increased employment it is calculated that 40,000 jobs may well be created. Can the Minister tell us whether a large number of these jobs will be for unskilled and semi-skilled labour, which would, of course, go a great way towards relieving the high unemployment in that area?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the number of jobs expected to be provided by the scheme is 45,000 of which 36,000 will, it is anticipated, be new jobs. I am not clear as to the amount of unskilled labour that is involved in banking but I would not have thought it was a very high component part of the banking profession. The project is subject to planning permission under the EZ scheme, as I said, and the Secretary of State has no powers to call it in for his own decision. He has said that it would not be right for him to intervene since the EZ registration exists to enable regeneration to take place and should not be overridden because of the size of a particular scheme. The noble Lord's interest extends, I think, beyond the area of the EZ and my right honourable friend will, of course, be looking at any matters properly put to him which fall outside that area.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, are the Government prepared to carry out an inquiry to see what adverse effects the development of the Canary site may have on the rest of the South-East?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think I have already replied concerning the planning processes and what the noble Lord asks about is part of those.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, does it involve that kind of thing?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Lord asks whether the matter is under control I can say that it is under the control of the enterprise zone system.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I asked whether the Government would be prepared to carry out an inquiry into the possible adverse effects the development of this site would have even on some parts of the South-East.
Lord Elton: My Lords, we do not think there will be an adverse effect on the South-East region arising from the development of Canary Wharf. We think the effects will be beneficial.

Oil Prices and Revenue
3.15 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: 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 is the annualised effect on their revenue of a fall of 1 dollar per barrel in the price of Brent crude oil, if the sterling/dollar exchange rate remains constant.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, about £500 million assuming that the price of all North Sea oil deliveries falls by a sustained 1 dollar per barrel.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that response. In view of the substantial decline in oil prices since the Autumn Statement, and hence the projected shortfall of revenue in both this financial year and, more importantly, the next, will the noble Lord kindly tell us whether the Government have any policy towards the oil price, and, if so, what it is; and whether they have any corresponding policy towards the exchange rate, and, if so, what that is?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, those supplementary questions go very far of the Question on the Order Paper. What I can say is that in fact the recent price changes had little effect on 1985–86 receipts, since the 1985–86 revenues were largely determined by prices for oil deliveries up to the end of 1985. Lower oil prices for 1986 will of course reduce Government revenues from United Kingdom oil and gas production in 1986–87. However, consumers and industry will benefit from lower oil prices. Lower prices will permit higher world trade and output with lower inflation, and that must be good for Europe, the United Kingdom and for jobs.

Oil and Other Fuel Prices
3.17 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have considered the impact of falling oil prices on coal and gas prices.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, it is too soon at this juncture to be clear whether recent lower trends of oil prices will persist or how sterling oil prices will react. Continuing low oil prices would, of course, exert downward market pressure on the prices of competing fuels such as coal and gas in certain markets, but detailed

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decisions on coal and gas prices in the United Kingdom are for the boards concerned.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. May I ask whether the noble Lord does not believe that in fact we are now on a long-term decline in oil prices? May I ask also whether he recalls the Statement to the House of Commons by the right honourable David Howell on 16th January 1980 when he announced that domestic gas prices would be increased by 10 per cent. per annum over and above the rate of inflation over three years on the basis that the policy of the British Gas Corporation, endorsed by the Government, was to sell gas at a price broadly related to that of the competing oil product? Further, since in 1980 the price of oil was between 35 and 40 dollars a barrel but is now only 16 to 17 dollars a barrel, should not the price of gas be reduced by 33 per cent? Similarly, should not the price of coal be cut to keep it competitive with oil for the generation of electricity and other steam-raising activities?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, in my initial reply to the noble Lord I said that at this juncture it was too soon to be clear whether recent lower trends in oil prices will persist or how sterling oil prices will react. We can go no further than that. This may not be a situation which will last for a very long time. As we have experienced in the past, the price of oil can rise just as quickly as it can fall.
The effect on gas prices will depend on such factors as how far the oil companies pass on the lower crude prices in their prices for heavy fuel oil and gas oil, and secondly, the commercial decisions made by the British Gas Corporation. I have no wish to speculate about hypothetical outcomes.
With regard to coal, the same answer applies, but of course the ultimate price of coal will depend on the extent to which the delivered prices of heavy fuel oil and gas oil fall in sympathy, together with the commercial perceptions of the National Coal Board and its largest customers. All those things will come into the equation.
Lord Morris: My Lords, to back up the point that my noble friend has just made, may I ask whether he is aware that even today, according to the papers, there has been a modest surge in oil prices?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I take the point which my noble friend makes and it does re-emphasise what I have said. As we have found in years gone by, I am afraid, oil prices can rise as quickly as they can fall.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in today's late press it is said that oil may well drop to 10 dollars a barrel? What is remarkable is that in fact the public, who are entitled to be worried and unhappy about the economic problems of this country, receive no advantages at all. It cannot be justifiable that oil and gas prices should remain constant. To speak on behalf of the motorist, it is really a scandal that the moment oil prices rise the prices at the pump also rise
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automatically, but when oil prices go down petrol at the pump does not. Why is this?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is not quite correct in what he says. On many occasions in recent years the oil companies have taken a collective decision that prices would rise but those prices did not stabilise and in a reasonably short time there was a price war which resulted in prices coming down again. So far as the present situation goes, my information is that there has been a drop in the price of petrol at the pumps; and if oil were to drop to 10 dollars a barrel I do not think there is any doubt but that we should see a very substantial drop at the pumps.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what is the position concerning oil for fuel for heating in the home? At the moment that is very much more expensive as a means of heating than gas or coal, yet time was when it was much cheaper. When can those people who are now finding they have an installation which is very costly to run expect to see some improvement in their oil prices? Can the Government do anything to encourage the companies to bring down prices to the consumers?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I take the point the noble Baroness has made. I think what will happen if the oil prices continue to remain low is that we shall see this reflected in the price charged for the fuel oil to which my noble friend refers, just as in the price at the pumps.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in support of his submission that when oil prices drop so also do gas prices, can the noble Lord give us one example to substantiate this claim?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord has not been following closely what I said. I said nothing of the sort. I said that the price of gas would be a matter for the British Gas Corporation and a lot would depend on whether the drop in oil prices was reflected and passed on to the main suppliers, of whom the gas corporation would be one.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can the noble Lord reply briefly to this? I think he just did not get the point I was making, which was that when oil prices went up to 40 dollars a barrel the Government forced up the price of gas; I want to know whether the Government will force down the price of gas since oil prices have halved?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I really must suggest to the noble Lord that he is not being completely fair. He referred to the statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy on 16th January 1980. Now 1980 followed very closely upon 1979, and of course until June 1979 the party of which he is a member had been in office for some considerable time. My right honourable friend found it necessary to make his statement as to how the price of gas was to be treated because our predecessors had not faced up to the problem. Indeed,

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the result was very successful. The result of this may well be that the British Gas Corporation itself will take a commercial decision on the matter if the prices remain at a low level, but that must be for the gas corporation.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his noble friend Lord Gowrie made exactly the same point, not in 1980 but 18 months later, thereby reiterating the Government's right and indeed their intention to force up prices?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the policy which was followed was followed for a period of three years in order to re-establish the position whch had been lost during the time in which the party of the noble Lord was in power and the situation was not faced up to.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall—and it is a point that consumers remember—that during the lifetime of this Government, which is more recent than the one to which he referred, they have forced up the prices of water, gas and electricity, when not one of the chairmen of those industries thought it was necessary?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, on a previous occasion I think I have paid tribute to the work of the noble Baroness and her concern for the consumer; but sometimes, when dealing with a situation which has got very much out of hand, it is necessary to take steps which are unpopular at the time in order to achieve the proper results in the longer term.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, having regard to the prepenultimate answer which the noble Lord gave, is he assuring us that the gas board will have recourse only to commercial considerations in any prices which it charges between now and the time of privatisation?
Lord Gray of Contin: No, my Lords, I am not giving the noble Lord any such assurance. I made it absolutely clear that this must be a matter for the British Gas Corporation, and if he has any doubt about that I suggest he writes to the chairman of that corporation.

Business
3.29 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on British Leyland.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Report stage of the Shops Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 p.m. for approximately one hour, and that during this adjournment the Committee stage of the Gaming (Amendment) Bill and the Importation of Live Fish of the Salmon Family Order 1986 will be taken.

Inner Cities: Government Assistance
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a Statement on Government help to people living in inner city areas.
We are all only too well aware that people who live in many inner areas of our cities suffer from a wide range of long-standing problems. The Government have increased the amount of central government money spent on employment and training programmes, urban regeneration, and industrial assistance in these areas. We have taken a number of measures including setting up last year city action teams to co-ordinate and target government effort in the seven inner city partnership areas.
In order to complement and build on this existing work we have now decided to try out a new approach to the task by intensifying and bringing together the efforts of government departments, local government, the private sector and the local community in eight small inner city areas.
This initiative is a further step to improve the targeting and enhance the benefit to local people of the money channelled through existing central government programmes. They include the employment and training programmes of the Manpower Services Commission, the Department of Trade and Industry's programme of regional and industrial assistance, the Department of the Environment's urban programmes, and the Home Office programmes of black business support and grants to support staffing of services to ethnic minority populations.
Within the chosen areas we shall try out new approaches, particularly on training provision, and employment or self-employment opportunities for local residents. This will be tackled through projects and activities of wider but direct benefit to the residents of the areas concerned and their environment. We shall seek to stimulate enterprise and provide a stronger base for the local economy. We shall give special attention to the problems of young people from ethnic minorities where they are particularly disadvantaged.
To test our approach we have selected eight areas which are diverse in their character but whose residents all share problems of deprivation and lack of opportunities. They are not necessarily the eight most deprived areas in our cities, but the people who live in them need more employment opportunities, support for their local business economy and a better physical environment. We shall introduce our new initiatives in Notting Hill and North Peckham in London, the Chapeltown area of Leeds, North Central Middlesbrough, the Highfields area of Leicester, Moss Side in Manchester, St. Paul's in Bristol and Handsworth in Birmingham.
We shall be establishing small task forces in each of these areas. They will work with the local authorities, and local community and voluntary organisations. They will quickly seek to attract private sector participation.

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We shall seek early discussions with the local authorities concerned about the details of this initiative. We hope to persuade the local authorities to join with us and use their own programmes alongside our own in a concentrated and targeted effort to improve work prospects and the quality of life in these areas.
Large sums are already available to the chosen areas under existing Government programmes. But in order to help the initiative get off the ground the Government will be supplementing the sums with some £8 million of additional money of which £3 million will be found from within my department's existing provision and £5 million will be found from the reserve.
The initiative will be led by a team of Ministers drawn from the Departments of Employment, Education and Science, Trade and Industry, Environment and the Home Office. I will have overall responsibility for the co-ordination of this initiative. My right honourable friend the Paymaster General shall have responsibility for its day-to-day management and supervision with the support of a small central unit. This inner cities initiative will complement and not replace existing Government programmes.
I hope the House will welcome a bold experiment in concentrating all available efforts and resources in a joint way on the improvement of job expectations and the quality of life of the residents of these small inner-city areas.
My Lords, that is the Statement.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for making his Statement this afternoon. However, the measures contained in it do not in any way meet the urgent need to tackle the desperate and growing problem of unemployment, particularly in respect of those who have been out of work for over a year. It is surprising that the response to last month's shocking unemployment figures should be that Statement and the modest measures proposed. I do not think that the measures are bold; they are very modest indeed.
Naturally, we welcome any proposals, however modest, that will assist in overcoming mass unemployment, particularly in the inner cities. But does the noble Lord believe that so small a sum as £8 million will have much effect? Can he say how many additional jobs are likely to be created by the initiative? Can he relate that £8 million to the loss of hundreds of millions of pounds to the urban aid programme as a result of Government cuts, and also to the £1,487 million which has been lost in rate support grant by the areas mentioned since 1979? In relation to those figures £8 million is a flea bite.
The Statement talks of providing a better physical environment. What does that mean? What kind of better physical environment is envisaged? Are more houses to be built in those areas; if so, who is to provide them? Will it be the local authorities, the private sector or a partnership among the local
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authorities, the housing associations and the private sector?
Can the noble Lord also tell us why the areas mentioned have been chosen? Does that mean that the Government now accept that there is a connection between unemployment and inner-city riots? Bearing in mind his reference to the need particularly to assist black people, what is now the Government's view on contract compliance? What discussions have taken place with the interested parties—the local authorities, the voluntary organisations and the private sector, all of whom will be important if the initiative is to succeed? The Statement refers to city action schemes, but since they were formed, we have heard little about them. What success have they had so far?
I do not want to be entirely critical. As I said, we welcome the proposals, modest though they are. I am glad to find from the Statement that the Government have apparently been converted to the need for planning and co-ordination if we are to solve the problems of the inner cities. That is something that the Labour Party has been urging on the Government for a long time. It is pleasing that at least in that respect they are now adopting the advice that the Opposition have been giving them over a long period.
Finally, may I ask whether we can expect further Statements on measures to deal with mass unemployment, particularly in response to the recommendations of the House of Commons Select Committee on Employment which reported on special employment measures and the long-term unemployed? It recommended that the Government should spend £3,300 million on additional employment measures. Following this modest Statement, will we be getting a bold Statement, perhaps in line with the Select Committee recommendations, in a short time?
Baroness Seear: My Lords, we on these Benches also wish to thank the Minister for making the Statement in your Lordships' House. It is gratifying to have the opportunity on these occasions to get at the Minister with direct responsibility. We should like to see recognition of the need for a change in the Government's macro-economic policy. We have long been urging that what is required is carefully targeted expenditure on infrastructure and particularly on housing and housing repairs. In the areas with which the Statement deals, housing and housing repair developments would be particularly welcome and would make a substantial contribution both to the environment and to job opportunities. Having said that, one recognises that this is a new initiative, modest but nonetheless useful.
All of us who have been connected in any way with the many local experiments to try to bring about improvements in those areas—and there has been a great deal of local initiative of one kind or another—are aware that there is confusion in many parts because people do not know to which Government departments to go, as there has been a considerable amount of overlapping. For the organisations that are working at grass-roots level the bureaucracy of trying to get at the available resources has hindered progress. If the Statement means that the

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red tape will be cut and the relationships among departments will be co-ordinated by the Secretary of State's unit in such a way that people locally do not have to do the work themselves but can go direct to one place to get the information and support that they need, that would be a very great help indeed and a development which we should very much welcome.
In that connection, I wonder whether the noble Lord can explain this point a little more. The Statement says that it is hoped that local government programmes will run alongside those of the unit. Is the unit to do actual work or is it to co-ordinate, to assist and to cut red tape? It would be unfortunate if there were another set of initiatives being taken from the centre, running in parallel. I think that it is paragraph 8, but without my spectacles I cannot read it properly. Will the noble Lord just explain what the term "alongside" means?
I turn now to more detailed points. Will the premium payments for specially difficult groups under both YTS and the community programmes be extended in those areas? As the Secretary of State will realise, there is a great deal of anxiety in voluntary bodies working in these areas and throughout the country that the premium payments for difficult-to-employ people are not going to be sufficient. The voluntary bodies that have been dealing with schemes for difficult-to-place people will in some cases have to give up their efforts because they believe that the money forthcoming will not be sufficient. Is the Secretary of State saying that in these areas these special payments and the support for the voluntary bodies' working will be at least as much as it has been in the past and perhaps enhanced, rather than, as the voluntary bodies fear, reduced?
I should also like to ask the Secretary of State whether this also means that, when there is this emphasis on training and where the community programme is being carried out under the MSC, the opportunity to use the community programme for training on a much more extensive scale than has been possible up to now is part of what is planned for the aid areas. Some of us believe that the community programme, rightly handled, could be an extremely useful instrument for training and replacing in employment the long term unemployed, but that the present provisions in the community programme do not make this practicable in a great many areas. I should also like to ask the noble Lord whether there is any thought of experimenting with contract compliance, with the emphasis being laid on the needs of the ethnic minorities.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. The noble Lord said, I believe, that he was not being particularly critical. If that was not being particularly critical, I should not like to be in the House when he is being critical. May I say at the outset that this is not in any way a response to the unemployment figures, last month's or at any time. The problem of unemployment is at the forefront of the Government's mind. This is a response to conditions that have been perceived for many years in the inner cities. The noble Lord opposite makes the mistake, as many who sit on the Opposition Benches do, of confusing quantity with quality. It is not a matter of the amount of money that
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we have spent. Everyone in your Lordships' House should know how much we have spent over the past decade or two on the inner cities. Nor is it money spent to improve the physical environment. All too often, we seem to have spent money to improve the physical environment without it having any particular effect on the inhabitants within that improved environment. This is a dedicated attempt by government departments working together to restore to the inner city that which made the inner city great in the beginning, which was a sense of enterprise, of business and of work. It is no good trying to improve the environment without actually bringing to those who live within that improved environment a sense of belonging to our society, playing their part in our world and having pride in working for themselves and working for others. That is the purpose of this initiative.
Indeed, it is not just about the £8 million. In these small areas, in which some 300,000 souls live, the Government spend over £70 million on a variety of different programmes. It is a way of getting together. I am afraid that I cannot rise to the bait this afternoon of discussing or making an immediate response to the Select Commitee of another place about discussions or solutions for dealing with long term unemployment save to say that the net additional cost, I believe, was some £3.3 billion, and the gross cost some £5.5 billion. I suspect that those of us who are concerned with the steady growth in the community programme, of the problems that we see in finding the projects to increase it by a modest 10,000 places a month—modest in its terms but in fact a very real increase of 10,000 a month—were slightly appalled at the thought of having to find 750,000 places or some other figure. I have no doubt however that we shall be able to come back with a considered response to that in due course.
3.45 p.m.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is part right and part wrong—part wrong, I regret to say, because it is not the infrastructure that these particular areas are vitally concerned with. Of course, the infrastructure is important. It does not do the inhabitants of these areas much good to see re-enveloping schemes carried out, in which outside contractors are brought in, the work is done and the outside contractors go away while the inhabitants stand by and watch. What I hope we can see in this is a way in which we can put together programmes and let the inhabitants of the areas share in the work being done, maybe even carry it out, and, maybe—yes, my Lords, cut through the red tape—look at some of the rules and perhaps experiment to see whether we can adapt the community programme not so much for training alone but for ways in which we can start people off in their own jobs, and also perhaps look at the community benefit rules and at premium places within YTS, and do so in areas where there are particular problems.
This is not a programme that is directed solely at ethnic minorities. One area at least has very few of those who come within the description of ethnic minority communities. This is a programme that looks towards better co-ordination among all government departments in respect of a problem that

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is real and longstanding—a problem that other government programmes, instituted by those who sit on all sides of the House, have not succeeded in making great progress in tackling.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, can the noble Lord answer two simple questions? In the first place, he says in his Statement that these new initiatives are to consolidate already existing ventures. Can he say to what extent his already existing ventures in the inner cities have reduced unemployment in those areas since they were begun? Secondly, we have been told on this side of the House consistently by a whole series of Ministers from the Government Front Bench that this Government do not believe that they can create jobs. Has he changed his mind? Is he telling the House this afternoon that these new ventures which the Government have cobbled together are, or are not, going to create any new jobs and reduce unemployment within the inner city areas?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I normally fear simple questions because they often prove hard to answer—but not on this occasion. If Government programmes had created jobs in the inner cities, I suspect that we would not have the need for this experiment. The difficulty that we have—it is one faced by all governments—is that many programmes seem by their very nature to avoid the very worst areas of deprivation in our cities. What these programmes are doing is to seek out and confine themselves to these areas. That is what I hope we shall learn from a series of experiments and a series of models. The jobs that Government can directly create are jobs in the Inland Revenue and the VAT offices—not the sort of jobs that people normally think of as being job creation. What the Government can do is to create a climate in which jobs can grow. As we have seen, we are creating more jobs than the rest of Europe put together. What we now want to do is to create jobs in these particular inner city areas and to see conditions in which these jobs can grow. These are areas in which many young people have not benefited from 11 years of compulsory education. Far from it! They are areas in which many have not even come into the youth training scheme but have stayed outside the simple rules of society. These are the people we want to reach. I am sure that all in your Lordships' House will wish the experiment success if only for the sake of the inhabitants of these areas.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I have noted that among the departments to be involved in this initiative and represented by Ministers, there is no mention of the DHSS. The Secretary of State will be aware that there are many existing locally-based and community-based schemes sponsored by and run by the local social services, which include elements of training—training for employment and other forms of training, particularly for young people. Can he explain why the DHSS is not to be involved and represented by Ministers in this initiative?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, in these particular areas it was thought appropriate that we start with co-ordinating government departments,
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which had already begun. They are my own department, Education and Science, Trade and Industry, the Environment, and the Home Office. I have no doubt at all that if any other government departments are involved co-operation will not only be sought but be given.
Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone: My Lords, I should have thought there would be a warm welcome for improving the physical environment of the people living in Notting Hill and north Peckham. But there are other vast areas of London where the housing conditions are deteriorating rapidly because the houses there were all built about 120 years ago. From my own experience in dealing with these matters I should have thought a sum of £8 million would be just a drop in the ocean towards solving the problem which exists in the inner areas of London.
Can my noble friend say whether the measures which he has just announced are in addition to those which were previously announced by the Department of the Environment? If they are not, I fear that this programme will have very little effect on those areas beyond Notting Hill and north Peckham—and vast areas are involved. It is not just the ethnic minority who are living in bad housing conditions because of the deteriorating housing stock; it is also the indigenous Londoners who have lived here for generations who I think ought to be looked after as well.
What is needed here is a central organisation. I hope that this matter is not being dealt which piecemeal. Unless we can tackle it over the whole area by a central organisation—and I have to comment that the central organisation in London is going—I cannot see that the measures just announced will be anywhere near enough to tackle this enormous problem.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Plummer. May I say that if a central organisation was the answer—Londoners having had a central organisation for these many decades—surely there would not now be so many areas of central London to which he draws attention in need of urgent rebuilding. That is neither the answer nor the way. I thought I had made clear that within these areas the Government already contribute, through the programmes, the Manpower Services Commission, the Home Office and the Department of Environment, over £70 million, to which we are adding another £8 million merely for the purpose of co-ordinating and getting special schemes going. It is not the shortage of money that is the problem; it is the quality of that spend, not the quantity.
In small, particular areas—which are not confined to those with large ethnic minorities because there are some which do not really have any ethnic minority populations at all—we are endeavouring to demonstrate that it is possible to spend Government moneys better by co-ordinating Government spend with local authority spend and private sector spend. I hope that we shall learn from all of this how to begin to make a quick and permanent cure to the problems of living in the inner urban areas.
Lord Oram: My Lords, does the Minister recognise in the generally dismal record of recent years on inner cities that there has been one small but encouraging development; namely, the increase in the number of small co-operative businesses? I have in mind housing co-operative societies and small producer co-operatives in the service sector which have grown in number from some 200 five years ago to 1,000 now, employing in new jobs some 10,000 members of these co-operative societies in a distinct form of self-employment.
Will the Minister ensure that of the small funds which he has announced some part will go to the encouragement of this kind of small enterprise? If he agrees with that, will the Minister consider channelling those funds through local co-operative development agencies where they happen to coincide with the areas mentioned in his Statement?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. I would willingly pay testament to the worth of the cooperative movement itself and to co-operatives in getting people to band together to form small businesses. However, these are not small amounts of money. We are talking about some £70 million or more, to which we have added a further £8 million, in areas in which we have some 300,000 people living. The programmes can be co-ordinated better, but they will, I hope, not result in people simply having employment for as long as the tap is turned on but in the end in businesses in which people will carry on when Government funds have come to an end. Indeed, that is the only way we can restore the inner city. Among the varieties of schemes which we shall set up, with the assistance of the private sector, local authorities and the world of education, I hope that there will be many co-operatives and that young people will learn the advantages of working together.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, following the question of the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, will the Secretary of State concede that deprivation is not confined to inner cities but is sometimes at its worst in housing estates which are at some distance from those inner cities?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I suspect that deprivation is often a state of mind as much as anything else. Much of our planning and much of the state of poor living conditions exist in areas far from the inner cities, but in areas of large housing estates. We in this country have a great deal to learn about our living conditions. We have, I believe, 27 per cent. of our housing owned by local authorities compared with 5 per cent. in the United States, and 3 per cent. in Germany. I am not sure that that size has contributed towards the removal of deprivation in our society.
Lord Scarman: My Lords, I welcome this initiative, perhaps because it is a belated although modest attempt to put into effect a recommendation made in a certain report which was published as recently as 1981. I ask one question of the noble Lord. Will this centrally co-ordinated effort, of which I strongly approve, pay particular attention not only to the direction of funds—which, whether they are modest or large, is a very important feature of any effort if it is to
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be successful—but to communication with the people who live in the inner cities?
There is the age gap of the young people who at the moment are very alienated. Will any attempt be made to discover what they want and what are their aspirations? In allocating the housing effort, will any effort be made to discover the design of houses that they want? In matters of education, will any effort be made to discover what are the minorities' feelings about our educational system? I suggest that unless this is done this effort, like so many other well-intentioned efforts, will fail.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, for his comments. I am glad to give him the assurances he seeks. The essential difference between this, and I suspect other, initiatives that have taken place is that, while there will be central co-ordination, it will be locally directed; while it is concerned with programmes, it is concerned much more with people. What I should like to see above all else in these programmes is a sense of ownership given to the local communities. We shall endeavour to bring community leaders and the inhabitants into the programmes. We shall pay great attention to all the lawful aspirations of the inhabitants so far as we can. Indeed, that is the only way, so far as I can see, that this programme will succeed.
Baroness Airey of Abingdon: My Lords, may I ask whether there are many schemes such as that of the YES organisation, which I think was started by Mr. Angus Ogilvy? This organisation is no charge on the Government and I believe is largely subscribed to by private people or firms. It is particularly for young people. I also believe that this has been expanded to Northern Ireland.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, yes. I hope to be assiduous in going out to friends and acquaintances—I do not expect to have too many friends after this—in the private sector to ask them to contribute towards programmes such as YES and others which exist through business in the community, and which will, I hope, play a real role in helping to bring a sense of business enterprise and a sense of achievement to those who live in these areas.

Sex Discrimination Bill [H.L.]
3.59 p.m.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make new provision instead of Section 6(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975; to amend Section 77 of that Act; to provide for the removal of certain restrictions applying to the working hours and other working conditions of women; and to repeal the Baking Industry (Hours of Work) Act 1954.
I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Young of Graffham.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Agricultural Holdings Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Shops Bill [H.L.]
4 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Glenarthur.)
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, before we proceed I should like to ask whether page 8 of the Marshalled List is correct and, if it is not correct, how it should be dealt with. The reference to "After Clause 1" at the top of the page must be wrong because it is dealing with the continuation of a clause to be inserted after Clause 2. However, there then follows Amendment No. 13, which I read as being after Clause 2. I do not know whether any of the noble Lords who have put their names to the amendment are present. The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, was here a moment ago. Amendment No. 14 reads as if it ought to come after Clause 1. Amendment No. 15 reads as if it ought to come after Clause 2. There must be something wrong on this page, and I should be grateful if I could be told how it can be most conveniently dealt with.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I can assure the noble and learned Lord that there is one mistake, and that occurs at the top of page 8, where it says, "After Clause 1". It certainly should read, "After Clause 2". As regards Amendment No. 14, which in the view of the noble and learned Lord should come after Clause 1, and Amendment No. 15, which in his view ought to come after Clause 2, I cannot give an answer immediately, but I shall endeavour to let the noble and learned Lord know shortly.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is entitled to express an opinion on that matter as he is one of the signatories to Amendment No. 14.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord seems to take great delight in putting me in a position of intense embarrassment. May I say that he has succeeded!
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I should like to raise a point on the order of the amendments. Surely there is a mistake. Amendment No. 2, according to the original list, was to appear before Clause 1. In the present Marshalled List it appears after Clause 1. It is inconsistent and lies in conflict with Clause 1, and, therefore, surely it should be taken before Clause 1, because otherwise it will not be possible to consider the matter logically.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his observations. Indeed, he was kind
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enough to give me an indication that he wished to raise the matter. I have looked into it, and I am assured by those who are responsible for marshalling the amendments that the matter has been investigated and the Marshalled List is in fact perfectly correct. I hope that that satisfies my noble friend. I could obtain more information on the matter if necessary, but I believe it to be in order.
On Question, Motion agreed to: Report received.
Clause 1 [Removal of restrictions on opening hours and Sunday trading]:
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 5, at beginning insert ("For an experimental period of three years")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the object of my Amendment No. 1 is to allow the Bill for deregulating trading on Sundays to go ahead as suggested in the Bill, but only for an initial period of three years. After that period the matter should be brought back to Parliament for Parliament to consider, in the light of the experimental period of three years of operation, whether or not there are any matters which in the public interest require some changes. There has been a recent precedent for such a course—
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I wonder whether I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment? Would I be right in thinking that, in speaking to Amendment No. 1, he is also speaking to Amendment Nos. 9 and 16 as well? It would be helpful to know whether or not that is so.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord's intervention, and, with the leave of the House, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 9 and 16, as they contain the same words.
Amendment No. 9: Clause 2, page 1, line 9, at beginning insert ("For an experimental period of three years")
Amendment No. 16: Clause 3, page 2, line 1, at beginning insert ("For an experimental period of three years")
As I was saying, there is a recent precedent for this kind of procedure and that occurred in the Bill, which is now an Act, for the compulsory wearing of seat belts. Seven years ago there was great controversy as to whether or not the wearing of seat belts should be made compulsory. The Bill was brought in, and it was agreed that seat belts should be made compulsory for an experimental period of three years, after which time the matter would be brought back to Parliament. As your Lordships know, that happened a few weeks ago, when the Act was continued after a very interesting and helpful debate. Similarly, at present there is no doubt that there is a cleavage of opinion as to whether it is right to have total de-regulation of trading on Sundays.
I should like briefly to remind your Lordships of the apprehensions which were so cogently put to your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, with all their great experience in trade union and industrial relations matters. We have also heard splendid speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, based on his great experience in local

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government. Your Lordships may remember, too, the very moving speech of my noble friend Lady Seear about the dangers which she thought might arise in respect of women workers, whether part-time of full-time. As she pointed out, they could be exploited by some employers if total deregulation without some safeguards were introduced at the present time. All along the Government's answer to all the matters raised has been that times have changed; the regulations of the Shops Acts are not required; there is now a better approach to industrial relations and a better approach by employers to their employees, and therefore the difficulties which we on this side of the House envisage will not arise.
In spite of those assurances which have been given by the Government, it appears that they do not trust their followers because they have introduced a compulsory three-line whip in order to enforce these matters. It seems to me that a caring Government, in the light of the speeches which have been made in this House, would welcome at least the general theme basic to my amendments, that deregulation should be continued for an initial period of three years and that the matter should then be brought back to Parliament for reconsideration in the public interest. I hope that the Government will feel able to make this concession in the light of all the conflicting evidence before the House. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, this is a very important amendment which I believe the House should consider very seriously indeed. The Report stage provides all Members of your Lordships' House with the opportunity to reflect, and I very much hope that the Government are also in a reflective mood.
Together with other Members of this House, at the Committee stage I brought forward an amendment, the purpose of which was to let the Government have their Bill, amended or unamended, but that at the end of 12 months the Home Secretary should come to Parliament and report on the consequences of the Bill and the outcome of it in practice. One of the criticisms of that procedure was that one year was too short, and I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, spoke briefly on this matter. It was said that it would be difficult immediately the Bill became an Act for people to be faced with the prospect of not merely radical changes taking place on day one, but, after one or two years, in the light of procedure, perhaps even more radical alternatives.
Therefore, I am very pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has brought forward the same principle but in another way. The Government and their supporters, who are faithful in their attendance and support, apparently have no shadow of doubt that every line of the Bill and its meaning will turn out all right. They are not even prepared to entertain the possibility of doubt. The Bill seeks wholly to deregulate the control of shopping on a Sunday. Up to this stage of the Bill the Government have refused to countenance any possibility not only that they are wrong but that there are no other ways of achieving substantially that which they say they want.
I have taken careful note of what Home Office Ministers have said in another place. Of course the
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Minister in this House, who will be in touch with them, is very well aware of what was said. In another place, in response to a question as to what kind of representations had been made on the purpose of the Bill, Mr. David Waddington said only last week that the Home Office had received 32 letters in support of the Bill and 20,763 against. I have checked the figures and found them to be correct. That is the situation. For every one letter in favour of the Bill, 650 are against.
On an earlier occasion, when the figures were not as drastic as that, I heard the Minister say that people who are in favour of something are very rarely moved to write, but that those who are opposed to it will write very strongly. The Government must be very confident indeed that a ratio of 650:1 does not represent at least a caveat, a voice, telling them to think very carefully.
Of course, there are those who have urged others outside to write letters. As politicians—and we are all politicians—we know that it is one thing for people to put their names to a petition and to attend meetings, but it is quite another for people to be moved to spend money and time in writing letters. Around the House at different times Members have quoted this or that survey; we are all in the business of selectively quoting the statistics that suit us. I should like the Minister to explain how he intends to get round the sincerity of the 32 and the sincerity of the 20,000. I am not prepared to say that one group is less sincere than the other. They have all been moved to write to the Minister—and I do not know who they are—stating their views.
4.15 p.m.
It is against that background and also against the background of the Synod, which met this week, that we are considering this matter. The Synod has almost by as large a majority said that it does not like the Bill in its present form. The Minister cannot leave this debate without tackling head-on why the Government persist in believing that what they are doing has somehow been endorsed. Certainly it has not been endorsed by an election, a manifesto or by overwhelming votes of one kind or another.
What are we inviting the House to do? We are inviting the House to accept the Bill, amend or unamended. I suspect, that, in the light of discussion, it will be amended only in so far as the Minister wants it amended. We are saying that, against a background of passionate opposition, after three years we should examine how it has worked in practice.
At the earlier stage I suggested that we should look at the Bill after 12 months' operation. When speaking to that particular amendment I said that a number of groups ought to be canvassed during and certainly at the end of the experimental period, and they were listed. We should bear in mind the impact on the exercise of the right to worship, the impact on employment, wages, costs, the interests of the consumer, crime, transport and the effect on the environment.
More than once it has been said that once a law is passed, we cannot go back on it—that it is all or nothing. In this context I cannot believe that we are

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talking simply of another piece of legislation. I believe that we are talking about something which when carried into effect, either wholly or partially, will have a major impact not just on the nature of Sunday but on the character of British life. Unless we are prepared to look again at how the Act is working, that could be the case.
In his amendment the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has introduced a device whereby, at the end of a three-year period, we look at the experiment. In spite of all my preconceived prejudices and bias that this Bill will be a disaster, I am prepared to accept the Minister's view that it will provide employment, that it will stimulate industry, that neighbourhoods will not be disturbed, that trade will flourish and that the consumer will have a better choice. At the end of three years I am prepared to look at the evidence, and if the evidence cannot be denied, I am prepared to say that I was wrong. Is the Minister not prepared to provide a device which will allow Parliament to look at the impact of what I believe is a major social revolution contained in this Bill? Is he not prepared to give the people of this country an opportunity so to do?
I very much hope that the Minister will not regard this as a wrecking amendment but rather as an amendment designed ever so modestly to hold out the prospect that, if the House and the Minister are wrong, the Minister will have the opportunity to think again, without being embarrassed and without having to go through the procedures of enabling, amending and piecemeal legislation. We must look at everything and not have preconceived ideas as to whether we are right or wrong. We are simply saying that if this is what the House wants, let us have it, but at the end of three years let us look at how it has worked in practice. I very much hope that the Minister will be conciliatory in his remarks.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, subject to anything he may say by way of correction, would have the effect that on the expiry of three years from Royal Assent of the Bill it would lapse. There would be no provision, as I understand it, for continuation by statutory order. It would simply lapse, and the Government of the day would at that time have either to let it lapse and revert to the present position or alternatively to introduce a completely new Bill. For that reason, if I am right about that—and the noble Lord is always most willing to be helpful in correcting one if one gets something wrong—the comparison with the seatbelts Act is misleading because that had provision for its continuance if Parliament so approved. This has none.
There is also a difference of principle. The seatbelts Bill imposed a compulsion; this Bill removes restrictions and rather different factors apply. The noble Lord who has just spoken said that those of us on this side of the House who support the Bill believed, as I do, that its coming into force would help employment and help investment. What is going to be the effect if it is, on the face if it, solely a temporary measure expiring at the end of three years with no guarantee of continuance, or even a legislative facility
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for continuance? Very few people, are going to make investment over a short period like that.
Equally employers would hesitate to take on extra staff over so short a period as that, particularly bearing in mind the effects today of employment protection legislation. If one were to take on additional employees for Sunday work, after two years, and within the three-year period, one could not dismiss them without incurring heavy expenditure on redundancy.
It seems to me that the adoption of this proposal would not produce the kind of experiment that the noble Lord opposite has referred to, but would in some considerable measure frustrate the whole purpose of the Bill. It would not be a fair demonstration of what the effect of the Bill will be for those two vital reasons: the restriction, the discouragement, of investment, and the discouragement of taking on employees. This amendment would blur the whole issue. When the Bill came into force we should not get a clear demonstration of its effect; we should have only a rather uncertain and hesitating reaction, while those concerned awaited the outcome of the three years.
The noble Lord said that Parliament should have the opportunity to review the working of the Act. I wholly agree. There is nothing whatever in the Bill to prevent Parliament keeping the closest possible eye on the Bill. Ministers would have to answer questions as to its effect, and it would be open to Parliament to introduce legislation to repeal it if it seemed to be a disaster.
There really does not seem to be anything in this amendment except the inherent disadvantage of seeing to it that the Bill comes into effect in the worst possible circumstances, and without the possibility of its demonstrating its clear value and clear benefit as some of us see it. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will reject it.
Baroness Ryder of Warsaw: My Lords, I rise to support this amendment in the hope that if Parliament passes this measure there is at least an opportunity to stop its evil in three years' time. There are, alas, many people in Britain now who no longer attend any form of worship in churches or chapels on Sunday, or have no form of belief whatever. But I maintain that they still need a quiet day in the week which is different from their working days, when they can have the opportunity to relax, reflect, enjoy peace, and spend the day with their family
Having worked in Marxist states where attempts are still made to obliterate the traditional Sunday and force people, including women and children, to attend political rallies, I realise more and more that we in Britain either by accident or by legislation, throw away our liberty, and forget God.
There are in Poland and Ethiopia especially people who refuse to be bullied. They continue to worship God on Sunday and their churches are overflowing. Many have indeed died for their faith. Moreover, they would be horrified to see shops doing business on Sundays here. But as everyone knows, those countries are so short of food that this matter does not apply to them.

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It is a real pity that some noble Lords and noble and learned Lords can never witness those scenes of stoic courage and incredible faith, and that instead they choose, for reasons which they think are right, to allow Sunday to go by the board in Britain. If we delude ourselves into believing that some of the big stores are not interested in opening, well, we are being extremely naive. The greed for money and power changes minds so easily. I have a vested interest in remembering Sunday because the foundation that I represent has some 200 charity gift shops, but only seven or eight open on Sunday to offer coffee and refreshment, and this is after the times of Sunday services
What example do we give young people, especially those who are disillusioned, indisciplined and unemployed, if they see materialism grow stronger and Sunday no different from any other day? I stand here simply and humbly to plead that Sunday itself should be observed as it is in the majority of other countries on the Continent. Why should Britain be so different? I plead at least for an opportunity to think again after three years if this Bill is passed—as I hope it will not be.
Clearly the Government are determined to have their own way on this matter, but as a committed Christian I deplore their action, and, equally as bad, the indifference which many, alas, express towards God and all that Sunday stands for. I remember with sadness that this was originally a Christian country, but I rejoice to see our Jewish friends continue to observe their Sabbath and day of rest.
May I now read to your Lordships from the Ten Commandments:
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God".
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton—and I respect his views about deregulation, and I know he respects mine—referred to this amendment as a "device", and that is exactly what it is. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter made some interesting and, I would suggest, most telling points concerned with the lapse, and the need for continuance, which require no repetition. But so far as I am aware—and I ask my noble friend the Minister and any of your Lordships whether they are aware of any—there is no precedent for this type of legislation by experiment: an experiment with automatic lapse at the end of a certain period of time. I know of no such precedent.
4.30 p.m.
The Bill is concerned with the principle of deregulation not with an experiment in the principle of deregulation. The case for and against deregulation has been argued already at various stages and various Divisions and the House has taken a view. There is no point, certainly for me from these Back Benches, in seeking to enter into the pros and cons of a decision which has been taken, although, as your Lordships know, I agree with it.
Finally, I should like to say that if I believed that this Bill truly prevented anyone from worshipping God I should not for one moment support it because I also, curiously enough, am a committed Christian. If I truly
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believed that was so I would not support the Bill, but I do not believe it for one moment.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder if I may put a point of view to your Lordships and a plea that there should be an objective look at the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, and supported in various parts of the House. I believe that the House will have been touched by the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder, whom we hear all too infrequently, but whose life for the benefit of this nation—in that way I should also associate her gallant husband—has been of terrific worth to all of us. When she speaks, we listen to her with great respect.
There is an opinion in this country which is very similar to that of the noble Baroness. We know that as it is reflected in 20,000 letters to the Home Office. Quite rightly, people who object are more likely to write than people who support, but there cannot be many fervent supporters if all that was in the Home Secretary's postbag was 20 or 30 letters against the 20,000. But there is a great body of opinion that feels as she does.
There is also a great body of opinion which is anxious about another tradition which is being broken and one that I have a little more authority to speak on: a great family tradition which will be affected by more work on Sundays. There is a body of opinion which, untested, says that a great number of sections of employment, other than shopworkers, will be brought into Sunday trading: there will be a need for more police, more inspectors, more people dealing with rubbish disposal and so on. There is a great body of opinion that thinks that their districts will be adversely affected on a Sunday by its being turned into a repetition of a Saturday, that their quiet and their tranquillity will be interfered with.
There has been no testing of that opinion by any vote at all. Only an opinion poll has been taken. I am sure that of all people the Government would not wish to be persuaded at this time that opinion polls ought to be considered with respect. If they take that view concerning themselves, will they please be as charitable in their view of my condemnation in this instance of an opinion poll being a satisfactory test of public opinion?
We are an objective Chamber. I do not suppose that any of us has any sort of vested interest in the passing or the non-passing of the Bill.
The Earl of Onslow: I have, my Lords.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on being so gainfully and usefully employed. Without any doubt, without the opinion of the nation being known but with all of us realising that there are these apprehensions and different points of view, we are trying to do what is right. Nobody in this Chamber, and I include the noble Lord the Minister, can say anything more than, "I do not think family life will be interfered with; I do not think people will be prevented from going to church if they want to; I do not think that neighbourhoods will be interfered with; I do not think people will be thrust into employment on Sunday who would not want to be; and I do not think this change will have an adverse effect on youth".

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The answer of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to this amendment was extremely forceful. One usually finds that in debate he is a very forceful speaker, but I thought that his logic on this occasion was quite apparent to me as it obviously was to him. The noble Lord said that this amendment means that the Act comes to an end, if it is enacted, at the end of three years. He says that if one finds that things do not turn out as well as anticipated Parliament could repeal this Act. Did he pause to consider what that would mean? It would mean that with the Shops Act provisions having been repealed by this Act the repeal of this Act woud leave a complete and absolute void. One would then have to pass, with all the rigours of the types of debates that we have had, an entirely new Bill. That may be a fearsome speculation that the noble Lord is prepared to envisage, but why in those circumstances should he not be absolutely prepared to envisage that at the end of three years this matter should be considered anew in exactly the same way because the result would be the same?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the noble Lord turns his back to me while he addresses a question to me. Will he deal with this point? He is perfectly right so far as he has gone, but if the amendment were carried those of us who believe that these restrictions are out of date and should go would have to go through a completely new Bill on the lines of the present one. Although that would involve the pleasurable experience of hearing a great deal from the noble Lord himself it might involve other factors which would seem unnecessary. Parliament is taking a great deal of trouble over this measure. It seems rather otiose to seek to go though the whole process again after so short a time as three years.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether the House would permit me, without thinking me discourteous, to pose a question to the noble Lord. If the noble Lord found in this amendment not the end of an Act at the end of three years, but the words that Parliament could by affirmative order renew the provisions of the Act, if Parliament so desired, would he then be in favour of such a provision? Because if he was, and told us so, I am sure that it would strengthen us in having a certain amendment at Third Reading.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I do not know what authority the noble Lord has for saying that I told him that I would be happy with a provision of that sort.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am asking the noble Lord.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I certainly would not because I think it is wholly unnecessary. I will give the noble Lord this point. I think that it would be less damaging than this amendment, which I am glad to see he shows signs of withdrawing. But I would still feel that it was wrong.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, with respect to both noble Lords, I should remind the House that we are at
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Report stage. I do not like to interrupt a private debate but I think I should do so on this occasion.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, would my noble friend allow me to remind him, if it be necessary, that on Report stage if the noble Lord addressing the House is good enough to give way to another noble Lord to whom he has referred, that noble Lord, by long custom of the House, is entitled to take advantage of that courtesy?
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I rise feeling almost a peace-giver to the House. I continue, I promise your Lordships, not at any greater length than I have spoken already, to add to the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has been kind enough to discuss with me and with the House. Your Lordships heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that he was apparently so positively certain of the advantages and the outcomes of this Bill that he would not even want to have an order at the end of three years to continue its provision. It does not show to me very much faith that his views would equally be the views of Parliament, because if he had that confidence he would have said something rather different from what he did say.
I am merely going to say this. There is doubt in your Lordships' minds and there is doubt in the country. All that this amendment asks for is that we look at this matter again as Parliament at the end of three years knowing then what the conditions are, rather than dealing with definite, final legislation at this point when we just do not know what the effects will be.
Lord Fraser of Kilmorack: My Lords, I had no intention of intervening in this debate but I must say a few words; I shall not detain your Lordships for long. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lords, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran and Lord Graham of Edmonton, both of whom are good parliamentarians and always worth listening to. I must admit that I have listened with interest to everything that has been said by the noble Baroness and others. However, I think we take it a bit narrow. This is, after all, a liberating rather than a restrictive measure; and if we in this country are going to continue to pass, or to fail to pass, Bills of a liberating and not restricting character on the basis that they must be for nothing more than an experimental period of three years, then we shall sink beneath the waves and we shall deserve to do so.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden: My Lords, I am not going to detain your Lordships for a long time, either. May I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder of Warsaw, on what I thought was an absolutely excellent speech. I agreed with every word she said. Who are we to disregard the third Commandment? Look in the Book of Exodus: it says that should go on for ever.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, we are not asking people not to do anything; we are telling them that they may do something if they want to. That is the difference. We are not asking the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder, not to go to church; we are not asking any Muslim not to go to the mosque; we are not asking any Jew not to go to the synagogue; we are not asking

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anybody not to keep the sabbath holy. What we are saying is that those who want to get on trading may do so if they want to. We are also introducing and keeping protections for those who work in it. That is the difference.
We are not bossing people about, We should not boss people about. They are old enough and clever enough to look after their own interests. That is what modern society and modern education is about. It is about people being adult and sufficiently capable of doing the things that they want to do. It is not for us to tell them. Nanny says, "You may not go to the garden centre, which is owned by me, at Guildford outside on a Sunday. But you may go and buy a pornographic book in a bookshop; but you may not buy a Bible". That is the muddle into which we have got. What we are saying is that we should allow people to be grown up and adult. That is what this Bill is all about.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the Bill before us, as my noble friend Lord Onslow has reminded us, removes the statutory restrictions from retail trading hours. It does so in recognition of the strong demand that exists—and I shall return to Lord Graham's points and those of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, about representations in a moment—and which has consistently been revealed in surveys of public opinion and is regularly exhibited today, now, in people's shopping habits. The Bill recognises the fact that trading outside the hours currently permitted in the legislation is already happening. Shopkeepers want to open their shops, shoppers want to shop and the Government do not believe that they should prevent these activities which after all are perfectly harmless activities.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, raised the point quite fairly about the numbers of letters that the Home Office had received on the subject. But, as the noble Lord recognises, lobbies may be formed (as, I am certain, they have been in this case) to persuade persons to petition and to make representations to the Government. One certainly does not doubt the sincerity of the organisers of these petitions, or indeed those who respond to them. But it is certainly not an indication of the wishes of society to compare the number of those making representations against a particular proposal with those who are content with it and see no need to write. I should have thought that that was perfectly clear to anybody who had any experience of receiving letters on issues which arouse the emotions which are touched by this Bill. If we wish to gauge the views of society on this Bill, we have only to look at the results of the various opinion polls, despite the view of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that perhaps we ought not to put much weight upon opinion polls—but there, again, perhaps he may not do so upon certain opinion polls when they do not seem to be helpful to him. The opinion polls that we have had on this Bill show quite clearly and quite consistently that over two-thirds of the people in this country support the Government's proposals for deregulation and that nearly 70 per cent. use shops on Sunday, anyway.
As well as responding to demand, we also believe that the criminal law has no place in regulating
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behaviour such as shopping. I listened with great care to the moving speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder of Warsaw. But shopping is not harmful, it is not wicked. The noble Baroness referred to the evil in this Bill. With the greatest respect to her, I really think that is going a little bit over the top. Shopping is not wicked, it is not a behaviour that needs to be prevented. Even were it to be felt necessary to regulate shopping hours, the present law is not satisfactory. It has been roundly condemned on all sides in your Lordships' House by the Judiciary, by local authorities and by the general public variously as unworkable, unnecessary, unenforceable, unwanted, anomalous and obscure.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, prayed in aid the case of seat belt legislation. In the case of seat belt legislation, it was possible and sensible to have an experimental period. I understand the force of that argument. We were talking about safety of life. There were those who were concerned that people who were compelled to wear seat belts in cars may be injured because of that. The effect of that legislation on injuries to motorists and passengers could be measured and, if necessary, the status quo could be restored if the experiment was found not to work. That is not so with this Bill, and I honestly do not believe that the noble Lord is comparing like with like.
This amendment will create uncertainty in the retail trade. After the passage of this Bill, retailers will begin to plan for their new freedoms. They will be able to decide their opening hours without legal restriction and without fear of prosecution, in order best to meet the needs of their customers. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said words to the effect that change is unsettling. I understand that point of view. I can therefore appreciate the anxiety, which he clearly does, felt by many about what they see as a great change in our shopping lives. But that change is already under way, and I cannot believe for a moment that we can stop that change by providing for a temporary removal of restrictions for only three years. What on earth are we going to do then? We would return to the present law.
We have had many long hours of debate in your Lordships' House in favour of this Bill and against it, in favour of amendments and against them, and yet to the best of my recollection I have heard no-one argue for the status quo, for the advantages of the present law. Why, my Lords? It is because the present law is indefensible, and it would seem doubly or perhaps triply so in three years' time if retailers and consumers were to be forced back into the straitjacket of the present law after a period of more sensible and suitable retail trading patterns. And what then, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked? Are we to begin this procedure all over again, with another committee of inquiry and another Shops Bill? The proposition is unrealistic, and I cannot think of anything more exhausting.
The effect of this amendment could be disastrous. We would be forced back to the present law with no alternative available. It also assumes that the machinery of government is not working. The Government constantly monitor social trends, as I said in answer to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, in Committee. Social

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trends, social patterns and social changes are monitored, and on the basis of such monitoring the Government decide on the need for legislation. It may be that in three years', five years' or 20 years' time, even, the Government of the day will decide that legislation in the area of retailing is necessary. If they so decide, I cannot predict what form that legislation may take, because I cannot with certainty foresee the social changes and social needs of a future time. I can, however, predict one thing with as much certainty as I can muster: that is, that whatever legislation may be introduced it will not be the same as or even similar to the Shops Act 1950.
This amendment seeks to create uncertainty for retailers and consumers alike. It will return us to the present unsatisfactory situation in three years' time, with no option but to start the process of legislative reform anew. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, also spoke to the other amendments in his name. Again, these amendments seek to undo this Bill and to return to the present state of affairs. They will also leave shopworkers less protected than this Bill proposes. A shop which opens on a Sunday after this change in the law may decide to continue opening in three years' time, although by the first of the noble Lord's amendments it might be permitted to sell only some of its range of goods. At that time, all protection for employees against Sunday working would be lost and a refusal to work on a Sunday might result in dismissal. I cannot believe that this is the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran.
I return to the theme which my noble friend Lord Onslow addressed when he spoke just now, which I think, too, meets the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder of Warsaw, when she compared this Bill with the sort of compulsion of which she has evidence on other matters in other countries. There is no sense at all in which this Bill seeks to compel anybody to do anything. All this Bill is trying to do is to sweep away the unnecessary and outdated legislation, to allow people to open their shops on a Sunday if they wish, and to allow those who wish to shop to do so. I cannot see in any sense that the amendment which the noble Lord proposes to look at this matter again after three years can in any way assist the purposes of this Bill, and I hope that the noble Lord will see the force of reason and will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I never anticipated in what kind of moment I should be praying in aid the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and the speech of the Minister in support of the basic, fundamental aspect of the theme of my amendment; and I am very grateful indeed to those noble Lords who have spoken on this matter. I was very careful in putting forward this amendment to point out that it had an objective. I asked the Government, if they were a caring Government, at least to welcome the general theme which is basic to my amendment. Why did I do that? I also said that I hoped the Government might feel able to give some concession in this matter. Why?
It was because one of the two pillars on which I was basing my speech was that this matter that is before the
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House is a community matter. It affects large numbers of the public, employers and hundreds of thousands of employees. The second pillar upon which I put forward this amendment was that there is unquestionably a cleavage of opinion in the country, in this House, all over; that people are not entirely happy with what the Government are proposing. I do not want to enter into any question of statistics, but even the noble Lord the Minister talked about two-thirds of the country being in favour of the Bill. What about the other one-third? It is implied that the other one-third might be not so much in favour. Therefore, you have this great cleavage of opinion.
When I put down this amendment I anticipated that the Government would make some concession and would attack it in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, did so well. He was very kind to me and said that I would correct him if I felt he was wrong. The noble Lord was right, but the subject of his first speech this afternoon was based entirely on a technical matter, which was that I had not produced an amendment to say what should happen at the end of three years. That is a technical attack which, with great respect to the noble Lord, I anticipated. I thought that the noble Lord having made only that kind of attack upon the Bill, with his great experience of local and national Government, he would accept that there is a cleavage of opinion throughout the country on this matter and that this is clearly a case where some kind of experimental period of use could be introduced, coming back to Parliament by some simple procedure. It would have meant only a slight amendment to Schedule 1.
But, no doubt unhappily, the noble Lord the Minister felt bound to keep to his brief—and I can understand that—though the two pillars upon which I based my arguments and the attitude that I have adopted in presenting this to your Lordships is that here is an opportunity for the Government to make some concession. Even at this late stage perhaps I may make an appeal to your Lordships to support that objective theme as embodied in my amendment and to ask the Minister once again whether he can make some concession in this matter by introducing some kind of amendments to deal with the obvious technical difficulites which have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, dealt extremely well with the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in his first speech this afternoon and said that really it was not a fundamental objection to my amendment. I ask the Minister to consider whether even at this late hour, in the circumstances of this being a matter involving so many hundreds of thousands of people in the community outside this House, this is an occasion when the Government could make a concession without loss of face and without the loss of any kind of prestige. The Government could only gain at this moment from saying, "There is a cleavage of opinion in the country; we do not know whether we are right about all that we say on the position of employers and employees but this is a clear case on matters involving so many thouands and thousands of people that some kind of concession can be made at this stage". Unless the noble Lord the Minister can make some kind of

1301
concession—I ask him to consider whether some kind of concession could be made—I shall have to test the opinion of the House.
5.1 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 83; Not-Contents, 118.

DIVISION NO 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lincoln, Bp.

Amherst, E.

Liverpool, Bp.

Ardwick, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L. [Teller.]

Bath and Wells, Bp.

Birk, B.

Lockwood, B.

Birmingham, Bp.

London, Bp.

Boston of Faversham, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Bottomley, L.

Mishcon, L.

Brentford, V.

Molloy, L.

Brockway, L.

Newcastle, Bp.

Buckmaster, V.

Nicol, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Oram, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Oxford, Bp.

Coleraine, L.

Phillips, B.

Collison, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

David, B.

Ripon, Bp.

Denning, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Derby, Bp.

Rochester, Bp.

Durham, Bp.

Rochester, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Ennals, L.

Ryder of Warsaw, B.

Evans of Claughton, L.

St. Albans, Bp.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Bp.

Falkland, V.

Foot, L.

Shackleton, L.

Gallacher, L.

Southwark, Bp.

Galpern, L.

Stallard L. [Teller.]

Gladwyn, L.

Stamp, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Grantchester, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hampden, V.

Strabolgi, L.

Hampton, L.

Tordoff, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Underhill, L.

Hereford, Bp.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hunt, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Wheatley, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Wigoder, L.

Jeger, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Winchester, Bp.

Kilbracken, L.

York, Abp.

Leicester, Bp.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Brookes, L.

Abinger, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Broxbourne, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Aldington, L.

Butterworth, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Caccia, L.

Ampthill, L.

Caithness, E.

Arran, E.

Cameron of Lockbroom, L.

Auckland, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Campbell of Cray, L.

Beloff, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Belstead, L.

Cathcart, E.

Bessborough, E.

Chelwood, L.

Bolton, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Boothby, L.

Clinton, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Cox, B.

Brain, L.

Craigavon, V.

1302

Cranbrook, E.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Davidson, V.

Merrivale, L.

De La Warr, E.

Mersey, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mottistone, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Eccles, V.

Munster, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Elton, L.

Norrie, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

O'Brien of Lothbury, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Onslow, E.

Ferrers, E.

Orkney, E.

Forester, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Pender, L.

Gainford, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Porritt, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Portland, D.

Gray of Contin, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Grimond, L.

Renton, L.

Haig, E.

Rodney, L.

Halsbury, E.

St. Davids, V.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Sandford, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Henley, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Stockton, E.

Hooper, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Ingrow, L.

Sudeley, L.

Killearn, L.

Suffield, L.

Kimball, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Kissin, L.

Terrington, L.

Kitchener, E.

Teynham, L.

Lawrence, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, E.

Trumpington, B.

Long, V.

Tryon, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Vickers, B.

Mancroft, L.

Vivian, L.

Manton, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Margadale, L.

Westbury, L.

Marley, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Marsh, L.

Wolfson, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

British Leyland
5.11 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in another place on the subject of British Leyland. That Statement is as follows:
"Yesterday I informed the House that talks were at an advanced stage on the proposal for a merger between Land Rover Leyland and the Bedford Commercial Vehicle subsidiary of General Motors. It is the Government's intention that subject to satisfactory terms and conditions, and the receipt of firm undertakings from General Motors on their manufacturing and sourcing intentions, these negotiations should be brought to an early and successful conclusion.
"I also confirmed that following an approach by the Ford Motor Company, wide ranging but at this stage exploratory discussions with the Austin Rover Group were in progress which might lead to a proposal for the merging of these businesses. I wish to inform the House at the earliest opportunity on the most recent developments affecting these discussions in particular as regards Austin Rover.

1303
"The Government would have preferred to have waited until the exploratory talks had clarified the difficulties and opportunities a merger might have created, and then taken a decision in principle, on the basis of a considered analysis, whether to pursue the possibility further. Speculation surrounding these exploratory talks has itself given rise to very great public concern and uncertainty. If this were to continue for any extended period it could have seriously damaged the prospects for Austin Rover's business, its employees, its suppliers and its dealers. Nor would such a period of uncertainty have been helpful to many people associated in comparable ways with Ford's business in this country. Concern about these developments was expressed very clearly on all sides of the House in yesterday's debate. The Government have given full and immediate consideration to the situation so created. We have decided that it would be wrong for the uncertainty to continue, and the right way to end it is to make clear that the possibility of the sale of Austin Rover to Ford will not be pursued.
"It is, however, the Government's intention, with the agreement of the BL board, that negotiations should be pursued for the separate privatisation of Unipart by an early placement of shares with United Kingdom institutions.
"Collaborative arrangements in the motor industry will become increasingly necessary and important. Austin Rover Group's successful relationship with Honda is an example of this. I hope that Ford and Austin Rover will also consider positively other opportunities for collaboration. I should like to pay tribute to Ford's contribution to the United Kingdom economy through research and development, manufacturing and employment.
"I hope the Government's decision and the ending of uncertainty will leave Austin Rover free to devote their efforts to the further development and growth of their volume car business, building on the creditable progress which has already been achieved."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, we on this side of the House are grateful to the noble Lord for repeating that Statement. It would seem that there are certain marginal advantages in the return to Cabinet Government, because the decision not to continue with the Ford negotiations was expressly repudiated by the Government only yesterday. This is what the Government said yesterday:
"The question that we must address is: can or should BL continue as it is, whether in public or private ownership? I believe that it cannot do so. Even if it could, it should not, because in today's world standing still means dropping backwards."
Concluding his speech in winding up, the Minister said:
"At this stage, we should negotiate as best we can."—[Official Report, Commons, 5/2/86; cols. 345–47.]
Now today we have in the Statement:
"I hope my decision and the ending of uncertainty will leave Austin Rover free to devote their efforts to the further development and growth of their volume car business, building on the creditable progress which has already been achieved."
1304
It is amazing what public opinion, and opinion even within the ranks of the party opposite, can do. It is good to see that the first time there was Cabinet discussion on the subject a different decision was reached to that reached by the Department of Trade and Industry.
However, having now decided the principle the Government go on to say that they are continuing, and advising the company to continue, its proposals in regard to the merger that was the subject of the noble Lord's Statement on Monday last. We should have thought, applying the principle that we should develop British industry and that we should stick up for Britain, that the first part of the deal would also be annulled. It is quite clear that the Government have considered, not having discussed it in Cabinet—and we have it on record in the other place—and have decided, presumably at today's Cabinet meeting or one held last night, that they cannot at this stage back out of the General Motors deal. This is clearly something on which we shall have further debate. There must be a debate in this House in which this whole matter can be ventilated.
The Statement makes no mention at any point about the negotiations in regard to the buses. The noble Lord referred to it himself in his Statement on Monday last. He said:
"Separate discussions are taking place with the Laird Group, who own Metro Cammell Weyman, about the future of Leyland Bus."—[Official Report, 3/2/86; col. 906.]
To turn to today's Statement, Leyland Bus is still in limbo. We shall be glad to hear any further information the noble Lord has about that because it has not been mentioned.
The noble Lord referred in both Statements—there was a Statement in another place and in the debate there yesterday—to a merger affecting these other interests, including Land Rover. Does the noble Lord mean "merger" or does he mean "take-over"? Which? If there is a merger on, that implies a degree of shared capital risk. Are we sure that the Government wish to continue with a shared capital risk in something which, according to their speeches, they are quite prepared to flog off to United States' interests?
Will the noble Lord enlarge further on this and will he state categorically whether, in the light of previous undertakings that have been given by General Motors in regard to the maintenance of the British components, the Cabinet consider that it is likely to maintain the British component in the latest deal with which the noble Lord has made us acquainted?
Viscount Chandos: My Lords, on behalf of the Alliance Benches, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for repeating the Statement on the future of British Leyland and its key subsidiaries. I think that these Benches greet the Statement with a mixture of relief, continuing apprehension and absolute stupefaction.
I am surprised that the Statement omits to reveal that the Government will be offering a new testing ground for British Leyland on the Road to Damascus. There is stupefaction that the Government have allowed the preliminary discussions proposed by the Ford Motor Company to be pursued and yet, as soon

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as this sad and unworthy secret became known, they can declare that the uncertainties that were created justified breaking off the negotiations. British Leyland is still a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange and sooner or later the deal that the tiny circle of Government Ministers was prepared to consider would have had to have been circulated in detail to shareholders, employees and the general public, as indeed the Statement acknowledged.
Many public companies which propose mergers or takeovers, or are subject to takeover bids themselves, become affected by uncertainty: for the employees, the shareholders, the trading partners and customers. But where they believe that there are genuine commercial grounds for a link, they willingly tolerate the inevitable uncertainty and speculation in order to achieve their aims. In the case of the proposed acquisition or merger of Austin Rover with the Ford Motor Company, the hasty, undignified but still welcome retreat by the Government shows that a more balanced and less prejudiced assessment of Austin Rover's progress and prospects, and a more careful preliminary analysis of the effects of a sale to Ford, would have avoided the management of Austin Rover being forced into precipitate and commercially damaging negotiations.
The competence of this Government in exercising stewardship over nationalised industries, which in his book Sir Michael Edwardes compared unfavourably even with that of the last Labour Government—or should I say the incompetence of this Government?—is the best but possibly the only advertisement for continued privatisation. I suspect that the blushes of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry are only spared by his ability to attribute this tragi-comic pas de deux to another misjudgment on the part of his predecessor.
As I said, the stupefaction is mixed with relief that the Government have at least pulled back from their ill-considered attempt to abdicate from responsibility for Austin Rover, but also with apprehension that the future of Land Rover Leyland is in the melting pot. There is universal recognition that Leyland trucks technology, products and facilities are now superior to those of Bedford, while Land Rover is a company coveted by companies and investors throughout the world. If this deal really makes sense, can the noble Lord assure the House that every effort has been made and will continue to be made to achieve a genuine merger of Land Rover Leyland with Bedford, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, also advocated, and not a sale of the company to General Motors, whatever conditions are attached?
In a genuine merger British Leyland could retain a stake—a substantial one—and the employees could acquire a stake, and still General Motors, as a joint venture shareholder, could provide its international marketing network. Can the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, assure us that this approach, which any competent, commercial management would have pursued, has not been ignored in the Government's rush to pass one more buck for a few more quick ones?
Finally, can the noble Lord also assure us that in the future in its actions, its propaganda, its policies and its leaks, the Government will actually assist Austin Rover-BL and its constituent parts to achieve the aims
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of developing their business to which this Statement I hope sincerely referred.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I acknowledge the receipt of this Statement by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos. I think that there is very little to which I have to respond and perhaps I shall do it best by saying that the Government have responded quickly to both public and parliamentary opinion as expressed yesterday—as properly they should—and have come to the Houses of Parliament with the conclusion of that decision. I am surprised that there should be any criticism of the Government on that score.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, asked specifically about the position of the buses. I have nothing more to add to the statement and comments that I made on the 3rd February when I repeated a Statement made in another place that negotiations with the Laird group for the bus arm of Leyland were proceeding. That position remains the same three days later.
As regards the General Motors truck division and the Leyland truck and Land Rover arm of British Leyland, noble Lords will appreciate from Monday's Statement that this is quite a different matter from Austin Rover group and Ford. I said on Monday that negotiations were in an advanced stage. If I may just repeat this afternoon's Statement, it is the Government's intention that, subject to satisfactory terms and conditions, and the receipt of firm undertakings from General Motors on their manufacturing and sourcing intentions, these negotiations should be brought to an early and successful conclusion. That remains the position.
Other than that, I would remind your Lordships that for some many years now General Motors truck subsidiary, Bedford, has had its European headquarters, its European research and development arrangements and its manufacturing arrangements centred in the United Kingdom. General Motors have put in £1.2 billion worth of investment over the past 10 years; it employs 27,000 people; local content for 1986 will be 60 per cent. on its car and truck operations, and it is on target to meet the commitment which was made last year. I do not believe that one should criticise General Motors for being anything less than supportive of the United Kingdom's manufacturing industry. I say the same of Ford, whose interest in investment, employment and development in their area of industry is second to none in so far as support for the United Kingdom is concerned.
We are disappointed—the Statement says so—that the discussions between Ford and ARG were not allowed to proceed so that a calm and careful analysis could be made of any proposals. As regards assisting BL, the Government remain committed to British Leyland, the Austin Rover Group, in securing all the opportunities for that group to prosper and to achieve their fair share of the domestic and overseas market. One would look for the board of Austin Rover Group to continue with their collaborative arrangements and perhaps make others, such as with Honda, Peugeot, or VW-Audi, in a variety of ways, and that is how they would probably be able to succeed.
5.30 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I shall be brief. I thank the noble Lord for the Statement that he made. As he said, it will do a great deal to alleviate the deep anxiety and distress in my city of Birmingham about the future for employment. I wonder whether he can say something about the consultation that will be taking place with the workforce before further arrangements are made, because of the consternation that will be caused among the workers on hearing that arrangements are being made, as it were, over their heads.
What I want to ask the noble Lord most of all is this. In the arrangement that he spoke about concerning Land Rover, Unipart and Leyland Trucks, the West Midlands is likely to be affected as a centre of component making. That is an important part of the industry. We have to consider not just the assembly of the cars and the trucks but the components and the service industries that depend upon them. I think that the people of my diocese will ask themselves what effect the arrangements for these other parts of BL will have on employment. In my diocese I have one ward with an unemployment rate of over 41 per cent.; in another it is over 35 per cent. There will be deep anxiety that the arrangements may cause more unemployment. Anything that he can say to give people confidence will be greatly welcomed.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his contribution and indeed for his questions. As I explained on Monday, and I thought this afternoon, the Leyland Trucks, Land Rover and General Motors negotiations are at an advanced stage. I think that the House will agree that it would be wrong of me to pre-empt the result. However, we believe that an arrangement between two of the largest truck makers in the United Kingdom would be in the best long-term interests of the people employed in the truck industry. Across Europe that industry is in decline and there is massive over-capacity.To join the activities of those two important companies would be in the best interests of the industry. It would make it better able to compete in the European and the world markets to the long-term advantage of those employed in that sector.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what is Austin Rover's current share of the United Kingdom market in its respective class? Can he also tell us whether it is now the intention of Her Majesty's Government to put the £1.5 billion guarantees to British Leyland into the category of public expenditure, since it must be likely as a consequence of today's Statement that that guarantee could be called?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, speaking from a fairly reliable memory, I can tell my noble friend that the Austin Rover group has 18 per cent. of the United Kingdom domestic car market and a rather small share of the European market; but one hopes that it is expanding. If my memory serves me right, it has 19 per cent. of the truck market in the United Kingdom. The Government stand behind the so-called Varley-Marshall arrangements.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord a little further? I asked him whether he would confirm that the arrangements, which he says are at an advanced stage, so he ought to know the form, are strictly merger or take-over? Exactly the same considerations apply to his statement about the Cammell group. He referred to separate discussions taking place with the Laird group about the future of Leyland Buses. Are those discussions with a view to merger or take-over? Surely he knows which term applies, even at this stage.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am not in a position either to agree with the noble Lord or disagree. I have said that the Leyland-General Motors negotiations are in an advanced stage, but the detailed arrangements as to how they may be completed and put together have not been arrived at. The Laird group discussions are not at such an advanced stage. I should certainly not wish in either case to prejudice the negotiators, particularly those of British Leyland, in suggesting in any way from this Dispatch Box how they should proceed or what should be the outcome.
Lord Thorneycroft: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that far from being criticised, his Secretary of State is to be commended, after only a few days in office and one debate, on having responded to some of the views expressed to him? It would indeed be a sorry day for Parliament if Ministers were to be bitterly criticised every time that they respond to arguments put forward in this House or in another place.
Will my noble friend continue to bear in mind that the danger to jobs in the motor vehicle industry is just as great or greater if we do nothing whatsoever than if we move out and try to expand and enlarge the size of the operating units? Will he press upon the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, that the simplistic and intensely nationalist view that he had been putting forward from that Bench, and indeed the fears of the right reverend Prelate, should not be allowed to weigh too much with us, for if we took that simplistic and nationalist view not only in the motor industry but in many others the damage to jobs in this country would be incredibly large?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his questions. I am sure that your Lordships will share my admiration for his great knowledge not only of parliamentary affairs but of business and commence. It is in the light of that experience that he asks such apposite questions. There is a great danger to jobs if we fail to recognise the importance of investment, both internal and from overseas, in our industries. The investment comes not only with money but with technical expertise and a whole range of other advantages to our industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, quoted fairly extensively from what my right honourable and honourable friends from the Department of Trade and Industry said in the debate in another place last night. He will remember that it was said that the motor industry is moving at a fast pace across the world; no longer can we build cars plainly for the domestic market, nor indeed for the European market. We need to build for world markets. Collaboration is vital if our

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manufacturing base is to be secured and, as I said to the right reverend Prelate, jobs in the industry preserved in the long term.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister said in his original Statement that the negotiations over Austin Rover are to come to an end. Most Members of the House, I believe, welcome that. Can he tell us, though, what has changed since yesterday? Is it not the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, has suggested, that the Minister has been influenced by the voices from another place—and quite rightly so? But how does it come about that the debate in the other place took place yesterday? What would have happened if there had been no leak about these negotiations? Can he tell this House whether the Government intended to pursue those negotiations, if possible to a conclusion? Can he also tell the House where the leak came from which was the occasion for the debate on which, apparently, the Government, and particularly the Department of Trade and Industry, have completely reversed their policy? What has happened since yesterday, and why?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, really, I am so surprised at the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. I made clear in repeating the Statement that the Government would have much preferred to have waited until the exploratory talks had clarified the difficulties and the opportunities that a merger might have created. Then we could have taken a decision in principle and discussed it on the basis of a considered analysis. However, because certain events took place—I have little doubt in an endeavour to embarrass the Government—speculation surrounding those talks rose and gave great uncertainty both to the public and, indeed, to the two companies. This was explored during the debate yesterday in another place. As a result of public expression and as a result of parliamentary expression, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and colleagues decided that no useful purpose to the two companies would be served if a decision was prolonged. I have made that clear in the Statement. As to the question of what would have happened had this matter not been raised on Monday, since the matter was raised and since things did happen I can see no profit in speculation.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a quick technical question on the issue of manufacturing and sourcing intentions of GM? The noble Lord mentioned twice in his answers that GM already had 60 per cent. United Kingdom content. Is that what the Government are thinking about? I would remind him that Nissan has given an undertaking of 80 per cent. United Kingdom content. Does United Kingdom content mean United Kingdom content or EC content?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, in fact, I did not say that General Motors had 60 per cent. United Kingdom content or, indeed, local content. What I did say was that we had received assurances that local content of GM's products across the range would reach 60 per cent. in 1986. On Monday, I said in
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answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, who said it was 46 per cent., that it was, in fact, 48 per cent. They are on target to reach the undertakings that they gave. I might remind the House that in the truck area local content is 80 per cent.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord further on an essential matter that he has not found it possible to answer? Is he aware that what the whole House is interested to know is whether the negotiations which are still going on—the details of which he naturally does not want to disclose—are negotiations aimed at securing a take-over or at securing an amalgamation?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, can press me as much as he likes. I have said all I am able, or willing, to say about that matter other than repeating that the negotiations are aimed at securing a viable truck industry in this country and securing the long-term employment prospects of those engaged in it.
Lord Brookes: My Lords, the Minister will, I hope, allow me to express what I wish to say in the form of a statement rather than a question, because my remarks are rather difficult to phrase. I speak from some knowledge of the industry. The upside worth of the proposed deal with General Motors—it is very much upside for GM—can also be upside for this country. We are talking—and the Minister is talking—about trucks, as if Bedford and Leyland were common or similar. They are very different. Bedford produces trucks in the light to medium range and only touches the borders of the heavy range of trucks. Leyland was once, years ago, the great European leader, expressed in its lovely calendars of beautiful ladies—"To Leyland, she's a lady". I hope that the Minister will take care that the lady is not raped in the process of the situation. The great attraction for General Motors—it is not a disadvantage to our own country—is that General Motors badly needs a European base for heavy commercial vehicles. Leyland might well have a better future in such a circumstance than it is likely to have with any other partner.
The other great upside worth for GM in this deal is, of course, the Range Rover and the Land Rover—something which, I believe, is entirely missing from GM's international marketing package. So there are great advantages to General Motors in this situation. All that I pray is that the Government, influencing the use and power of their shareholding will ensure that there is substance, purpose and commitment in the local content—that is, British content so far as conditions permit—imposed as part of this deal. I believe that GM, faced with an attractive target like this, should be very willing to negotiate upon those aspects. The great danger when dealing with a multi-national in the car industry is—
A noble Lord: Speech!
Lord Brookes: My Lords, forgive me. May I ask the Minister to be mindful of the danger that if General Motors were to switch its castings and forgings to plants in Europe which it owns, merely to fill them up,

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that would not be fair competition. I am sorry for almost having made a speech, but I believe that it was worth saying.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, of course I recognise my noble friend's great interest in this industry, in which he has played an important part as principal of a component manufacturer. I would not wish this afternoon to comment in detail upon his remarks other than to say that nothing stands still, least of all the motor industry. It would be wrong for me to commit any company into an action several years hence. I repeat, however, that General Motors have demonstrated over many years very good faith in the United Kingdom, particularly in the truck industry. We have no feeling that they would change course from that which they have employed over so many years.

Shops Bill [H.L.]
5.49 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Lord Denning Lord Denning moved Amendment No. 2.
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Local authority supervision of Sunday trading
.—(1) The provisions of this section shall be construed in the light of the general proposition that the special character of Sunday ought to be preserved, as far as practicable, as a day of leisure in which a person is not required to pursue his weekday work and is free to do as he chooses.
(2) Sunday trading, that is, the opening of shops for trade or business on Sundays (which has hitherto been precluded or restricted by Part IV of the Shops Act 1950) shall in future be permitted only in the circumstances and to the extent allowed by the local authority.
(3) Every shopkeeper who desires to open his shop for trade or business on Sundays shall apply to the local authority for permission to do so.
(4) In deciding whether to grant or refuse permission, the local authority shall take into account all relevant considerations such as—

(a) the nature of the shop and the goods to be sold there and the size and situation of it; and

(b) the effect, in their opinion, which the opening of it on Sunday would have on the shopkeeper, the shop worker, the customers, the passers-by and the residents of the area.

(5) In order to achieve a degree of uniformity over the country the Secretary of State shall issue a Code of Practice for the guidance of local authorities, but such a code shall not be issued unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(6) Any interested person may appeal within a reasonable time to the Secretary of State against a grant or refusal of permission to open a shop for trade on Sundays, and the Secretary of State may allow or reject the appeal on written representations or on public hearing as he thinks fit.
(7) If any shopkeeper should open his shop for trade or business on a Sunday without the permission of the local authority, he shall not be guilty of a criminal offence, but the local authority may apply to a Circuit Judge for an injunction to restrain him from repeating it; and the judge shall have available to him all the remedies usual for breach of an injunction.").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, at Committee stage there was much discussion on several amendments. Useful comments, and objections, were made to some of our amendments. I have tried to take all those into account and to present to your Lordships what I hope will be an acceptable way of preserving
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our Sunday. If your Lordships have the amendment before you, you will see that in a rather unusual form of construction we try to state, in the first subsection, the principle that,
"the special character of Sunday ought to be preserved, as far as practicable, as a day of leisure in which a person is not required to pursue his weekday work and is free to do as he chooses".
If that principle is accepted I think it follows, as I will show, that the whole of the rest of the clause should be accepted.
In stating that principle I have gone back to the important departmental committee chaired by Lord Crathorne, a very distinguished Member of this House, and including the Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede. I have taken the words from that committee's report. Let me read them to you:
"We came to the conclusion that the special character of Sunday ought to be preserved as far as practicable as a day of leisure in which a person is not required to pursue his weekday work and is free to do as he chooses".
It goes on:
"The special character of Sunday would be seriously impaired if the majority of shops were open as on weekdays and most shop assistants were required to work on that day. It is however, generally recognised that some goods and services are required on a Sunday".
In 1964 that committee thought that the practical way of doing this was to revise that list of exceptions. As has been said, in the course of experience that schedule of exceptions has been criticised, put to scorn and the like. I am afraid that there is no chance of getting any list of exemptions through your Lordships' House now. However, does that mean that there is no practicable way of securing our Sunday? That is what the Government would put forward.
It is for those reasons that the following clauses are suggested. The next clause permits Sunday trading, but only,
"in the circumstances and to the extent allowed by the local authority".
That has been going on a good deal. But the local authority have had the control hitherto, and there has been some variation. Some have enforced prohibition; others have not.
If I may turn to the Auld Report, it felt that there was a great deal to be said for the local authority being able to have the control. In paragraph 219 the report said:
"In fact, shopping seems to us to be one area where a reasonable case might be made for local discretion. Shopping is primarily a local activity, employing local people, and it would be local residents who would be disturbed by any untoward noise or traffic congestion".
The Act of 1950 and the others have therefore entrusted this matter to the local authorities. They are, after all, democratically representing the people; they represent the tradesmen in the districts. Your Lordships will know how they are formed. After considering that the ground for opposition, set out in the Auld Report at paragraph 226—
"But the major difficulty with a pattern of local variations, and it is one that would apply whatever the method of local determination, would be the lack of consistency inherent in the system, both geographically and over time"—
it goes on to say that policies may vary. One local authority may have a different view from another. A person from one area may go just across the border to find a shop that is open.
In these amendments we have tried to overcome that, and I hope successfully. In the next subsection, subsection (4), local authority special exemptions are not proposed, or anything of that kind. Let each shop be decided by itself. Let the local authority have a list of applications, whether it be do-it-yourself shops or food shops. A lot of these open on Sundays now. Let the local authority have a list of the shops which are available to open on Sundays without any restriction. Shops would then be named. As subsection (4) says, in dealing with these applications one considers,
"the nature of the shop and the goods to be sold there and the size and situation of it".
An example is the small shop which already gives a reasonable service to the community; let that be open. Let the local authority say so. Let the do-it-yourself centres be open. But at all events let there be this regulation by the local authority.
It is then said that there will be differences all over the country. That argument is dealt with in subsection (5):
"In order to achieve a degree of uniformity over the country the Secretary of State shall issue a Code of Practice for the guidance of local authorities, but such a code shall not be issued unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament".
One will not get any difference if one goes from Hampshire into Sussex or Wiltshire or whatever it may be. The local authorities will have a code of practice which the Secretary of State will issue. One will therefore have a system uniform throughout the country, so that objection would be dealt with.
In order to ensure further uniformity one comes to subsection (6). If a trader is refused permission when he thinks he ought to have it, or one of the residents thinks that he has been granted it and that he ought not to have it, a very simple method would be to have an appeal to the Secretary of State by written representation. The Secretary of State would then decide it. That would also give uniformity throughout the country.
A further objection was that one was making a criminal offence of infringement in this matter; that one ought not to make it a criminal offence, subjecting a person to penalty of imprisonment, if he opens on Sunday. That is dealt with in subsection (7). One does not make someone guilty of a criminal offence. If he has opened a shop on Sunday without permission one simply applies to the judge and says to him, "This man is opening a shop on a Sunday"—as do some of the great stores in London—"He has done it without being granted permission". Then an injunction could be granted to stop him from doing it again. It is not a criminal offence. He will not do it again, or if he does, contrary to the order of the court, then he can be fined, reprimanded or whatever it may be.
Those are simple remedies I suggest for all the objections which were made previously to the local authorities in their own districts being able to say, "These shops, well and good, they can open on Sundays"—I shall not go into the exceptions; most of them will have done it a long time. There will be no difficulty about those, but all the others must get permission or they must not continue.
In other words, through this amendment one has tried to find a practical way of framing the first
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proposition. But if the first proposition is ignored it merely means that the Government, through this Bill, will be saying, "Well, Sunday is free for all. The law has no part in it".
I would ask all those who agree with this proposition to vote for the amendment. It is fundamental. It is the only way of dealing with the situation. I repeat:
"… the special character of Sunday ought to be preserved as far as practicable as a day of leisure in which a person is not required to pursue his weekday work and is free to do as he chooses"—
to go to church, as I hope people will if they wish to, or to go for recreation if they wish to, to go if they please to the do-it-yourself shop, because they will certainly have got permission. In other words, one preserves in this way the "special character of Sunday", which I am sure all the right thinking people in this country would wish to do. They would wish to preserve this special character of Sunday which we have had over the centuries. I hope and I think that this is a practical way of ensuring the character of Sunday. I ask your Lordships to support the amendment.
6 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords—
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, at Second Reading—
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I believe that one of the proposers of the amendment takes priority.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am so sorry; I beg the right reverend Prelate's pardon. I can see him now and I ask him to excuse me.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham: My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Lord if I have in any way pre-empted him, but I thought that your Lordships' House would wish to know that the General Synod of the Church of England has just ended. Indeed, one of the reasons why we are a little late here is that we had a meeting of our House: that was the reason why we were late. The presidents agreed to have an emergency debate, so strong was the feeling of the members of the General Synod. During that emergency debate we reaffirmed our opposition to total deregulation by an overwhelming majority of 427 in favour, six against and three abstentions. I thought that your Lordships' House would wish to know that.
So far as the amendment is concerned, I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will agree with the principle of subsection (1): namely; that we would wish to preserve the special character of Sunday so far as possible. As regards subsections (2) and (3), we understand that it is part of Her Majesty's Government's policy that there should be as much decentralisation as possible and those subsections take that into account.
As regards subsection (4), we take into account factors with which I would hope the noble Lord the Minister would himself be concerned; namely, the effect of Sunday opening on shopkeepers, shopworkers, customers, passers-by and the residents of the area.

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I listened to what seemed to be many hours of debate when the noble Lord the Minister successfully steered us through all the stages of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Bill in this House, As regards that Bill, the Minister successfully persuaded us that the Secretary of State should have discretion—discretion concerning approval of all projects involving scientific procedures, and discretion concerning the approval of codes of conduct. Your Lordships will see that under subsection (5) of this Bill discretion is given to the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice which will have to be approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has already spoken about the fact that the criminal law would not enter into it. Perhaps I may add that it would be flexible. Codes of practice could be changed. We hope that it may be possible for what seems to us to be the stony heart of the Minister to be melted by the good sense of the amendment so that he can agree with almost every principle of it. Briefly, those are the reasons why I am very happy to support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I was moved, as I think other noble Lords who were here were moved, when the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder, spoke on the previous amendment. It is a pity that the noble Baroness was not present to express views like that on Second Reading. However, as many of us made clear on Second Reading, the fact is that with this Bill we are not concerned to safeguard the character of Sunday or the sanctity of Sunday, because we do not believe—I do not believe, the Government do not believe and the majority of us do not believe—that the sanctity of Sunday is threatened by the deregulation of shopping; we are concerned to ensure that the deregulation is done in an orderly way and that the interests of those who work in the shops are safeguarded.
At the conclusion of the Committee stage, I had thought that it would not prove possible to design any amendments worse than those which had already been offered from the point of view of the authorities whose job it would be to implement and enforce them. However, I have to say to your Lordships that the four noble Lords whose names are attached to the amendment have succeeded triumphantly in producing such an amendment. Indeed, it puts me in two difficulties.
First, I cannot imagine how four noble Lords of their eminence, distinction and authority could possibly have agreed among themselves to draft and table this amendment. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has just retired from the very peak of the learned profession. The right reverend Prelate occupies with great distinction one of the most important sees in the Church of England. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, speaks with all the authority of a Front Bench spokesman of the main Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, speaks not only with knowledge of local government, but with distinction as the leader of a local authority for a considerable number of years. I cannot imagine how they have
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combined together to produce such an extraordinary amendment.
The other difficulty which I am in is that in order to express, as I sometimes seek to do, the views of the Association of District Councils, I should have to use the homely and colourful language of the lower deck. That would be appropriate on HMS "Brazen" when she was not open to visitors, but it is not appropriate from a member of the cloth in the company and in the distinguished setting in which we are being recorded, possibly, for radio. Therefore, I have to sacrifice accuracy for seemliness.
Let us imagine the situation that an amendment like this one would pose for the local authorities. Visualise, for example, the chief executive of the City of Birmingham—a city which has 12,500 shops—or, to take one of my own members of the Association of District Councils, the City of Bristol with 5,700 shops. If this amendment were enacted, he and his staff would have to gear themselves to receive applications from all those shops. Of course this legislation will not lead to all those shops opening on Sunday. However the owners of the shops will know that the first thing that they will have to do in order to be able to open just for an hour on some Sundays or for the day on two or three Sundays before Christmas is to get their application in, and therefore, the local authority will have to be geared up to deal with applications on that scale.
They then have to turn over the page and see what it is they have to deal with. They have to receive from those shops something setting out the nature of the shops. That is easy enough. They then have to take into account the goods to be sold, and that amounts to something near to a complete stock list. One does not need to know the number of items, but one has to know all the categories. Then the Chief Executive of the City of Bristol will have to consider how to form an opinion on the effect of the opening of the shop on Sundays, and of course that will vary according to whether it opens for an hour every Sunday or whether it opens all day for a few Sundays just before Christmas, or whether it is open during the tourist season and so on. There are endless permutations. The local authorities have to form an opinion of the effect of all that on their shopkeepers—5,000 in the case of Bristol and 12,000 in the case of Birmingham—as well as all their shopworkers. For some of the big shops the exercise will be easy because USDAW will be able to express an opinion. However, at least half the shopkeepers are not represented, so they will have to find some way of getting information in respect of them.
They then have to consider the customers. The customers are not just the citizens of Bristol and Birmingham—they go miles wider. The City of Birmingham at the heart of the West Midlands has to form an opinion about the effect of the customers who come in from the whole of the West Midlands and the shire counties beyond. Let us leave aside the passersby for the moment and turn to the residents. As regard the residents, the exercise is relatively easy because they are the people whom the councillors are elected to represent and one might reasonably go direct to them for their opinions. In relation to passers-by, the task is extraordinarily difficult. The passer-by is a person who can only be defined by behaviour. It is perhaps a job

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which the traffic wardens could do when they are properly trained. You have to observe and make sure that the chap in question is not a resident, that he is not a customer (that he is not actually going in and out of the shop), but that he is just passing by. Once you are satisfied about that you can consult him and ask him how he thinks he will be affected—not how he has been affected.
When you have all this together you still cannot quite deal with these applications because, in order to do so properly, you must have regard to this code of practice. There are very few things which local authorities dislike more than codes of practice issued from central government, but they are in this amendment and regard must be had to them.
Clearly, a new division would have to be established in the Home Office to work on this—a Sunday Opening Division, with the short title, SOD. That division would need an Assistant Secretary and probably an Under-Secretary. It would be a very important, responsible job. They would have to design this code of practice. The Assistant Secretary (SOD) would need an advisory committee: the Sunday Opening Committee (short title, SOC). On that committee would need to be someone to represent the shopkeepers, someone to represent the shopworkers, someone to represent the customers—and in that case we have Which? magazine and all those people—someone to represent the residents (and there are many residents in the United Kingdom) but perhaps that could be done, but to find someone to represent the passers-by really would be difficult. My noble friend on the Front Bench would have to sort that out. Therefore, you would start off like that.
Then we come to subsection (6) which deals with appeals. Can noble Lords imagine that the local authority will be able to deal with matters to the satisfaction of all their 12,000 shopkeepers in Birmingham without some of them objecting and appealing? If only 10 per cent. appealed, that would mean 1,200. This would lead to a whole series of public local inquiries. We all know what planning public local inquiries are like. They deal with well-established rules, regulations, customs and conventions. These public local inquiries would be looking into whether the local authority had formed the correct opinion on the matters set out in subsection (1) and in the light of all the circumstances which they have ascertained following subsection (2). It would be an absolute bureaucratic nightmare and I hope that the noble Lords who have a tabled this amendment will not give it another thought. If they do, I hope that the House will reject it.
Lord Grimond: My Lords—
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, this is the second time that I have intervened. The first time was before the right reverend Prelate spoke. I apologised to him and I repeat my apology. Now I have interrupted the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, and possibly the noble Lord, Lord Graham.
I entirely follow the view put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. Of all the amendments that we have had, I think that this really is the worst, and it is the worst not only for the reasons which the noble
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Lord, Lord Sandford, has set out but because it compounds the existing anomalies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, referred to completely indefensible anomalies. Indefensible anomalies are now to be compounded by territorial fragmentation.
On Second Reading we owed it to the right revered Prelate that the question was posed with complete accuracy and clarity before your Lordships: should we have total deregulation or partial deregulation? Your Lordships decided on the former. The right reverend Prelate has again today reiterated his opposition to that, and very naturally he supports, and indeed has sponsored, this amendment because it is the latest of many which seeks to go back on what was decided on Second Reading.
6.15 p.m.
Subsection (1) is certainly an instruction to the courts as to how they are to construe what follows. It goes no further than that. It proclaims a principle which would be of value to the court if the matter ever came before the court. Subsection (2) is rather obscurely drafted, but I take it to apply to every single retail outlet. It is susceptible of a narrower interpretation. However, subsection (3) begins with the words "Every shopkeeper …" and subsection (7) states "If any shopkeeper …" Therefore, this applies to every single retail outlet, even though today it may be lawfully transacting business on a Sunday. For example, it applies to every petrol filling station, newsagent and tobacconist. Every single shop in this country must apply to the local authority for leave to trade on a Sunday.
My noble and learned friend quoted from the Auld Report, but this amendment goes right against the final Auld recommendation on this part of the issue. Not only does it go against the Auld recommendation and what your Lordships decided on Second Reading, but it exemplifies what has been described as the "tunnel vision" which vitiates the approach of the opponents of this Bill. They regard retail trading on a Sunday as peculiarly obnoxious, as something quite different from the commercial and industrial activities of the other four to six million people who work on a Sunday.
On a previous amendment I drew attention to the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who was moving the amendment, lived in an area in close proximity to the newspaper offices. I mentioned how the Embankment is thronged with cars; that the narrow streets between the Embankment and Fleet Street are blocked with massive vehicles on a Sunday, as are Fleet Street, Gray's Inn Road and Holborn. I twitted the noble Lord that he failed to see any of that rattle, hubbub and throng simply because he was gazing, as the opponents of this Bill have habitually gazed, in horrified fascination at the shops in Fleet Street and Holborn which might open in order to serve the people who work in the area. At the time I also mentioned Gray's Inn Road, but perhaps that has now been overtaken by events.
It is not enough to say that newspaper people are entirely different from people who work in the shops. You have the office messengers; you have the cleaners. How are they to be differentiated? Yet nobody suggests that all these other businesses must apply to a local authority for a licence to carry on their trade.

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There is another matter. What is given to the local authorities is an unfettered discretion. It is quite open to them to say that in the whole of their area, or part of their area, no shops shall open at all on a Sunday. Obviously a number of opponents of this Bill would like to see that happen.
What would happen then? The noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, on an amendment in Committee referring to local options, suggested looking at the United States, where some have Sunday opening and some do not, and all that happens is that in the places where Sunday opening is banned the people who want to shop get in their cars and drive across the state boundary, That, of course, is an admission that Sunday trading is desired, and that people will go to considerable trouble to get it.
However, in England, under this proposal, it is much more serious. A district council is often divided from its neighbour by a street. Therefore, you may well get, say, a draper's shop open on a Sunday on one side of the street and its rival for custom on the other compulsorily closed because it has not been licensed by the local authority. Further, this does not face the difficulty that both the Gowers Committee and the Auld Committee referred to, that shops increasingly have mixed stocks, and that that is an invitation to evasion, an invitation to a breach of the criminal law, bringing the criminal law, both those committees said, into disrepute and contempt.
It is perfectly open to a local authority to say, "No Sunday opening in this area", or, "No Sunday opening in part of this area", or, "Let us apply the schedule", which is now utterly discredited, "Schedule 5 of the 1950 Act", or, "Let us apply one of the other schedules that have been proffered". There have been no less than five during the course of our discussions, and not one has stood up to examination.
What you get is a patchwork of retail trading across the country. How does my noble and learned friend propose to deal with that? The first way is the bureaucratic appeal to the Minister, added to the vast local bureaucracy to which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has referred. The second is to paper over the cracks with a document labelled with the current vogue words in statutory affairs, "A code of practice". What is the status of that code of practice? Obviously it is not intended to tie the hands of the local authorities, which can go their own sweet various ways. It merely would be Whitehall nanny exhortation. That is the way that those fissures, cracks, are papered over.
This seems to me to be the worst of all the amendments for that reason; but there is one matter that I raised several times as early as Second Reading. It is fair to say that it was in an intervention in the speech of one of the right reverend Prelates. There is the question of the ethnic minorities in this country, and that has never been faced. What I questioned then has not even been referred to because it is so much easier to deal with generalities such as, "local democracy", and, "Let the people choose", and so on.
Take an area where there is a total ban on shops opening on Sunday. At the moment, by legislation which goes back before the last war, practising Jews
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who keep their sabbath on a Friday and close their shops on a Friday can open on a Sunday morning.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will forgive me for intervening, but as a practising member of the faith he is now describing may I say that the sabbath day is in accordance with the Commandments. It is on the seventh day, and it is on Saturday.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I am very much obliged. I apologise if I have offended any susceptibility. I think I am right in saying that it starts on a Friday evening, does it not?
Suppose you have it that all the shops are to be closed on a Sunday morning. The question then arises whether the practising Jew shall be allowed to open his shop on a Sunday morning, as at present. Do any of your Lordships think it desirable that a local election should be fought with that as one of its issues? Can your Lordships imagine what the National Front would make of that?
It is not only the practising Jew: there are also the Moslem communities. They are expert shopkeepers, and valuably there is a growing middle class from among the Moslem shopkeepers. They told the Auld Committee that many of them shut their shops on a Friday and that they would like to open them on a Sunday. Considering the way that the Moslem shopkeepers were a prime target in recent riots and assaults, do any of your Lordships, do any of the proponents of this amendment, think that it would be desirable to have a local election in the Midlands to decide whether the Moslem shopkeeper should be allowed to open his shop on a Sunday morning to compensate for the Friday closing?
This is an unconstrained discretion given to the local authorities subject only to appeal to the Secretary of State. For those reasons, as well as those given by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I hope that your Lordships will have nothing to do with this amendment.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will the—
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I gave way to the noble Lord, Lord Grimond.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords, particularly those who have given way. I hope not to delay the House for very long. Indeed I should have thought that all the criticism that can be made of this amendment has been made in the telling speeches of the noble Lord. Lord Sandford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon. I wanted to add a word or two becaue I am somewhat perplexed by the form of the amendment.
I used to visit close relations of mine who were members of the strictest sect of the Wee Free Kirk and the sabbath was kept holy. No vehicle could be taken out. The only things that were allowed was church in the morning, a lot of eating, reading the Bible and other good books and going for a walk in the afternoon. They kept the sabbath because it was God's will, because it was what the Bible entailed upon them. Yet that argument appears to have died out and we are

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told now that keeping the sabbath is a matter of convenience, that it is a question of leisure. One amendment which was moved, and I believe supported by the right reverend Prelates, as I understood it, would have ensured the opening of shops on Sunday morning and the closure of shops on Sunday afternoon. That would have very much surprised my free kirk cousins. They would have found it bad enough for the shops to be opened on Sunday afternoon, but the idea that someone could seriously propose to open them on Sunday morning and shut them so that we could all play golf on Sunday afternoon would have struck them as irreligious to say the least of it.
I do not intend to go over the difficulties of the amendment, but subsection (1) reads:
"a person [must be] free to do as he chooses".
My liberal soul may demand that I keep a shop; I choose to do that. It seems to me that I should have freedom to do so, unless I am convinced and convinced for religious reasons that it was wholly improper. Over the page we read the words which have already been dealt with where:
"the nature of the shop and the goods to be sold there and the size and situation of it"
are to be taken into account. There is no guidance about what is to be taken into account except that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said that in principle he would favour small shops being opened. Why small shops should be opened and larger shops closed I really do not understand. It is the small shopkeeper who may be working a seven day week and who may wish to play golf on a Sunday afternoon. He may even wish to go to church. Thus I feel we should have to give guidance about that.
The next subsection reads:
"In order to achieve a degree of uniformity over the country the Secretary of State shall issue a Code of Practice".
I am not clear whether we want uniformity or whether we do not. We hand this matter over to the local authorities so that each area may be free to choose and to differ from other areas. I rather approve of that, if we are to have it at all, because the only place in which I can see this amendment really being of use and value is in the northern islands of the Hebrides. There the free kirk still flourishes. There may be there a strong community desire to keep the shops shut on Sunday, I suspect for all Sunday and none of this business about leisure. As they are separated by sea, it is extremely difficult to go over to shop on the mainland. It is conceivable that this amendment might be of use in the northern islands of the Outer Hebrides, but it is the only place I can think of in which it would have a chance of working. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who has such experience in these matters, would agree with me.
In Scotland we used to have a local option at one time. It was not a success. It was designed to stop drinking. In fact it greatly increased drinking because people would motor for miles and miles and having motored they thought they might as well drink up to the gills, which they did, or they bought drink by the case and took it home. Therefore I am doubtful about that, but on the whole I should prefer that local authorities were given some power simply and solely for the sake of the northern islands of the Hebrides
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(not the southern islands which are Roman Catholic and I have the idea that they would get on with their own affairs!).
I feel that this amendment—although I am sure it is brought forward in a spirit of compromise and of goodwill—does not seem to me to have any religious significance whatever. Even I, a renegade from the Church of Scotland, still feel that the sabbath means something, but I do not think that appears in this amendment. However if we are to leave the sabbath—I for my part am prepared to do that—we must therefore go the whole hog and accept that if the shops are to be open on a Sunday we must open the whole lot and leave it to the common sense and the effect of whole community opinion to see if this is sensibly carried out. In my view it has been sensibly carried out in Scotland. I hear no complaints in Orkney about the opening of the shops, or very few compared with other matters, and over Scotland as a whole Sunday opening—much as it is disapproved of by those who feel deeply religious about it—is for the rest of the population accepted and acceptable and they would be loath to go back to any other system.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the amendment, however well intentioned, is open to most serious objection because, in the first place, it fails to take into account the effect of the Government Amendments Nos. 19 and 22 which acknowledge the special character of Sunday as relevant in modern society for those who work in shops. Secondly, it proposes a wholly impracticable concept of the special character of Sunday with licensing protection for those who work in shops but no such protection for the many others. Furthermore, it conflicts with the principle of deregulation for the avoidance of anomalies. It proposes also a novel system of application and enforcement which is neither practical nor acceptable. Worst of all, it puts us all back on that old familiar well-trodden treadmill which calls into question the principle of deregulation.
The special character of Sunday as distinct from any other working day is recognised and enhanced by the Government's Amendments Nos. 19 and 22: the moratorium of two years on repeal of the provisions of the Shops Act referred to in Clause 2—that is Amendment No. 19—and there is also the strengthening of the safeguards against dismissal for an action short of dismissal for refusing to work on Sunday under the Employment Act as proposed in the new schedule which is Amendment No. 22. These two amendments introduced after the telling speech of my noble friend Lord Stockton go a long way to meet the point he made that the existing safeguards for the protection of shopworkers should not be removed in the principle of deregulation.
Subsection (1) of the amendment, couched in terms of leisure, freedom not to be required to perform weekday work on a Sunday (taken verbatim from a 1964 document) ignores the realities of living, earning, spending, saving and even shopping in a multi-religious, largely agnostic society of 1986, a society in which, assuredly, there is no justification for making any long-term distinction between those who work in shops on Sunday and those who render services or supply goods other than in shops, a disparity which

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could only be resolved, one day, if it be resolved at all, by general legislation quite beyond the scope or intendment of this Bill.
As to the intendment of the Bill, of course the position is, as has been said by other noble Lords, that the principle of deregulation has been affirmed on more than one Division on more than one occasion in your Lordships' House; and the ingenious licensing system, ingenious and novel, proposed in this amendment is clearly inconsistent—inconsistent, that is to say, with the principle that has been accepted which lies at the very heart of the Bill. Indeed, this amendment stands in stark, irreconcilable conflict with the plain intendment of Clause 1; and, if it were carried, this amendment would work havoc on this Bill.
In conclusion, I want to say a word about the proposed means of enforcement, for these of themselves are open to most serious objection. You start with this code of practice having no legal effect. It is to apply to individual licensing for each shop in each area which has to be individually dealt with. How on earth can you achieve uniformity? Why on earth in the name of justice should you seek to achieve uniformity? Each individual application ought to be dealt with on its merits if you are to have this curious bureaucratic system at all.
But these codes of practice have no legal effect whatever, and whether they induce uniformity or do not is neither here nor there because at the end of the day you end up by asking the circuit judge, of all people, to restrain a breach of a code which has no legal effect. And not only that. In the intermediate stage where you get to this appeal to the Secretary of State against the grant or refusal of a licence, the code would be, as presumably the Secretary of State issued it, taken into account. On what basis—uniform application, the merits of the individual case? It is impossible to answer the question. And then at the end of the day, at the suit of one of the parties to what is a purely administrative decision by the Secretary of State, on mere proof of breach, the judge is called upon to enforce that decision by injunction without ever being able to entertain the individual merits at all. It is respectfully suggested that such a departure from settled practice is contrary to the very essence of justice.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, I will detain your Lordships for a few moments because family life has been mentioned as being damaged if shops are open on Sunday. I come from New Jersey in the USA where I live most of the time now. Far more people go to church there than do here. All the shops are open. And not only are they all open, but if you ask farmworkers, "You going to church on Sunday? Are you going to take all the children?" they say, "Yes, because after church we are going to the supermarket and then they are going to dodge round the counters having a splendid time while we, mother and father, shop together". It is quite wrong, looking at the American experience, to think that opening the shops reduces the number of people going to church. I am quite sure that it does exactly the opposite.
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Of course, in America there is no great authority like an established Church to tell you what the special character of Sunday is. People are very religious. Many of them there have a very fine idea about Sunday but they do not accept it from authority. Surely the need for a day of rest which is in the amendment has greatly changed. In the old days, of course, you had six days' work, a lot of it manual work and a man was very tired. It was perfectly proper that he should have a day of rest for physical reasons. Now he works only five days a week; now the man shares the household jobs; he knows how to cook; he can look after the children—and he does. People are able to do things as a family today which they never could a few years ago. If the wife wants to earn a certain amount of money as a part-time worker on Saturday or Sunday—and it may very well be that that is very good for the children—she does so. Father now looks after the children. I think really that these two days at the end of a week have a different character now.
I do not know much about religion but I think that if you want to attract followers to the Christian faith it matters much less what you say about this or that form of dogma than what you do. It is the way people act, how they behave, that creates examples which make us better neighbours and better able, I think, to look after our own families. Therefore, I think the opposition to this Bill is founded on an out-of-date view of our society.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am sure that the House knows that I have a very deep respect for the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, but I would respectfully remind them of an advice that was once given to me by a great advocate. He said, "If ever you mock or you laugh at your opponents in court, or if ever you over-exaggerate in your language in condemnation of your opponent's case, it is a sure sign to the judge that you have a very weak case indeed". I did not enjoy—and I noticed that the Front Bench did so—the comments that were made about this amendment in a rather mocking tone, if I may say so, by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. Everybody is entitled to his opinion. They may have reacted differently from the way I did.
One could be very caustic. The noble Lord who spoke a moment ago spoke about this being an agnostic era. I could say in common parlance, "A fat lot of good it's done this country and all of us that it is an agnostic era". Is our youth any better, or is it worse? Is our family life any better, or is it worse? Is our record as a people better, or is it worse? So I should have thought one takes no pride in the fact that it is an agnostic era.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the words that I used—and it was I who used the words—were, in fact, a "multi-religious, largely agnostic society". That is what I said.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if I return to the same sentiment that I was trying to express, I use the words "largely agnostic" at the request of the noble Lord—and he rightly requests it—instead of the quotation that I gave. The sentiment is the same. A fat lot of good it has done us by being largely agnostic.

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But having said that, one can of course produce a problem for every solution, and that is what the noble Lord the Minister and those who are in favour of this Bill have done. We brought forward amendments saying that this was a local matter. We are not dealing again—I say this with respect to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—with this business of people who want to go to church or do not want to go to church, and with the question whether this is a religious issue or not a religious issue. We dealt with all that in past amendments. We are dealing now with whether local authorities should have the right to decide if a shop should open. I turn immediately to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, who said that he regarded this as the worst amendment of all time. He then went on to deal—
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, not of all time; only of this Bill.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am so glad that the noble and learned Lord is being so moderate in his criticism. But he then went on to say that this amendment would produce a situation where local authorities could decide whether or not there should be any shops open in their areas. That is what he said, and I notice that he does not correct me. If the noble and learned Lord will forgive me, that was the worst argument in the debate on this amendment because, if he turns to the amendment itself, he will see that there are principles laid down upon which a local authority have to make a decision. They have to take into consideration various matters before they consent to an application, or refuse it. If they merely issued a blanket edict that no shops were to open in their area, it would not take long on judicial review for that local authority to be castigated at once. The noble and learned Lord knows that, and therefore, with respect, he should not as a distinguished lawyer have used that argument.
What are we deciding? We have previously, as I have said, produced a problem for every solution. Local authorities were brought in first on the basis of deciding by way of a planning permission whether or not shops should open. Noble Lords on all sides of the House said "Yes, we understand that local authorities obviously have local considerations well in their minds, principles that could guide them locally and local likes and dislikes. All that is very sensible, but you cannot really apply planning permission; that is out." They were right. So we threw out that amendment for that reason.
We then said that local authorities ought to decide on general principles. Everybody paid tribute to local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said he did not think that local authorities would like the job. Some of us replied that national government do not like many jobs, but they have to do them. If that is so, that is not an argument. Then everybody said that local authorities are very suitable for this but there could be such a variation. You are dealing with Brighton, Bermondsey, Barnstaple and Bristol, which are all very varied areas, and in those circumstances you could get a lack of uniformity in the principles that were then laid down by local authorities. So the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and those of us who
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support this amendment have tried to meet both those objections. We do not have planning law as the guiding principle and we have tried to produce uniformity; not, as was said very recently, uniformity as between one shop and another, but uniformity as between areas, because certain principles will be laid down.
Codes of practice have been laughed at in connection with this amendment. When we on these Benches, on very serious Acts indeed, were dealing with police powers, the liberty of the subject, whether people go to prison or whether they are kept in custody, the Government answered that codes of practice would be obeyed by the police and that that was a sufficient safeguard. But suddenly codes of practice have become wastepaper; nobody wants them. They do not have the force of law, say the Government and others on the Government Benches.
Let us look at this amendment rather seriously. This is possibly our last chance to deal with the question of whether local people should be able to decide what they want in their locality. I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Grimond. We are not deciding this on religious grounds. It would be wrong and improper. I have said so quite openly to this House, and my colleagues understand me very well. It would not be very fitting if I were to stand at this Dispatch Box and try to lecture your Lordships upon matters religious. I have my own faith, and your Lordships have yours. In so many ways our faiths converge, but upon this matter it would be quite wrong for me to address your Lordships. I have addressed your Lordships on the subject of family life, the environment, the crowding of areas on a Sunday, and the fact that there should be a different day of the week within the cycle of days of the week. Is it wrong for local authorities to have to decide this, and is it wrong that they should have a code of practice?
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said—smiling as he said it—"Look at the numbers in Birmingham. There are 12,000 shops in Birmingham." We have been told, "Please don't worry; only a few people will want this. You are quite wrong to think that there will be Oxford Streets throughout the towns of this country. Only a few people will want to do it." So, presumably, there will be only a few applications. "What", says somebody else, "newsagents will have to apply? They are shops that are already open within the law." There is nothing within this amendment to stop a local authority from saying, "We have taken into consideration all these shops in our area that are legally open. Newsagents, or whatever they may be, will get a completely formal consent. All they will have to do is to make a formal application."
Great play has been made of the fact that all that is being done in this legislation is to echo the voice of freedom throughout the land. Nobody need open a shop unless he wants to. I have never heard (and I do not want to use exaggerated language) a sentence more mocking at freedom. Will the workers who start shopworking after the date of commencement of the Act have any freedom as to whether they will work on Sunday? Will they have freedom to keep their jobs if they say, "We don't want to work on Sunday"? No, my Lords, they will not have that freedom. Will shops which do not want to work on Sundays but which wish to keep themselves economically alive because other shops with a competing trade are open have the

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freedom that has been talked about to decide whether or not to open on Sundays?
I commend this amendment to your Lordships on the basis that it puts the rights to deal with these matters where they should be—with local authorities who know their people and know their conditions. There is nothing in this amendment which deserves laughter or extreme language. It is an amendment that deserves support.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may say a word. I do not want to use extreme language at all, and of course the views of the local authorities are not decisive. But the Auld Report, having gone through all the various ways of controlling Sunday trading and pointing out that they had defects, did say at paragraph 227 that of all the options this was the only one which actually made the situation worse.
7 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I want to say only three things. First, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mocked our modern society. I would rather my children were born now in the era of tolerance and listening to other people's points of view than in 1938 when I was born—I am not quite sure when the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was born, but it was a little earlier than that. It is a better society that we live in now than it has ever been before. That is the first point. Secondly, what this amendment is saying is that it is the last chance for the bossy-boots to get their oar in, if that is not a terrible mixture of metaphors. What we are asking the Government to do, those of us who agree with it, is to allow people to do what they want. It is not for nanny state to say "Do this, do that". We are mature and civilised human beings.
The last point I want to make is specifically directed at the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham. The right reverend Prelate has put into his amendment "passers-by". I thought that the New Testament was rather scathing about those who pass by on the other side. Is this a new Christian doctrine, to go with the Eusebian denial of the Virgin Birth, that now "passers-by" should always be consulted? I sincerely hope that this last bossy-boots amendment is thoroughly resisted.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am bound to recognise after this long debate that some of your Lordships find it an attractive proposition that the regulation of retail trading hours particularly on a Sunday should be in the hands of local authorities in order that they can be tailored to the needs of local communities. That has come over quite plainly. But I rather hope that, on reflection, your Lordships will see that such a scheme would introduce a quite intolerable burden of bureaucracy, as we have heard from so many who have spoken this afternoon. This burden would fall on traders, it would fall on courts and it would fall on the local authorities.
If this amendment were to be accepted, as my noble friend Lord Sandford so vividly illustrated, local authorities would be faced with a flood of applications upon enactment of the Bill. Every sweet shop, tobacconist and newsagent, every garden centre and
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do-it-youself shop, every pharmacy and video shop, every petrol station and station bookstall, every shop in a holiday resort and every other shop now open on a Sunday, legally or illegally, would be required to apply for permission to open on a Sunday. What a burden that would be!
Under the terms of this amendment a shop will either be granted permission to open or refused it. There is no scope for conditional or limited opening. Local authorities will have to consider each and every one of these applications. They will have to establish detailed policy for each shopping area and neighbourhood and decide whether to allow all or some shops to open; and, if some, what kind. They will have to consult, deal with representations, deal with petitions and deal with lobbies. Inevitably, there will be difficulties and disagreements, all of which will fall to the Secretary of State to be solved on appeal. I shall return to that in a moment. For fairness, it will be necessary for such appeals to be processed rapidly in order that a trader does not lose custom to a competitor. In this case the burden will fall upon the taxpayer.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, quoted from paragraph 219 of the Auld Report. As I think has been pointed out, he did not go on to mention paragraphs 223 or 224, or indeed the last paragraph to which my noble friend Lord Sandford referred just now, which all go to point out the other side of the coin and the very real difficulties that this would introduce. While I can see that it might be superficially attractive, this amendment continues to shy away from the problems and practicalities that any new system of regulation will introduce.
The Secretary of State is required to draw up a code of practice, presumably stating the principles and conditions under which a shop should be allowed to open. My noble friend Lord Sandford again pointed to the difficulties of this. In this House and elsewhere it has been shown time and again that it is not feasible in today's retail trade to devise a system which will differentiate fairly between shops. Yet this amendment requires the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice and that code of practice is to be agreed in both Houses of Parliament.
Were the amendment to be accepted we should begin our discussions all over again as we tried to define a code of practice that would be fair and simple and easy to enforce. This would not solve a problem; it would merely delay it. The problems would be tackled not as part of this Bill but when considering a code of practice issued by the Secretary of State. Although a code of practice will be issued by the Secretary of State, the judgment and the application of it will be local. Surely, there is a strange inconsistency there. Nor will such a code be binding. This would be a total abdication of responsibility. It would be an admission that Parliament could not solve the problem and had decided to pass the buck to the individual local authorities.
If local authorities disagree or diverge in their interpretations of the code of practice and their granting of permission, we may find a trader is forced to close when a nearby rival is open. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, gave an example of how boundaries may lie along a street and shops on one

1329
side would be able to pick up business where others on the other side of the road would not. There are bound to be local anomalies. If they are to be eliminated, it will presumably be through the system of appeal to the Secretary of State. Such appeals may come not just from shopkeepers whose application has been refused but from any interested person. This may include his trade rivals or any member of the public.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, seemed to indicate that the right to appeal would be a very simple method of achieving uniformity. Would it really? The amendment allows any interested person to appeal against a grant or refusal of permission. It would mean a shopkeeper could appeal against refusal of permission; it would mean a rival shopkeeper could appeal against the grant of permission; it would mean that people who objected to shops being opened could appeal against the grant of permission; it would mean that people who wished to shop could appeal against the refusal of permission. In short, it would mean an extremely busy Secretary of State, but I cannot see that the system would be simple or that it would lead to a simple method of achieving uniformity. As my noble friend Lord Sandford pointed out, if one went into the realm of public inquiry the mind really boggles.
I cannot envisage that that would be a sensible way to proceed. I do not regard it at all as any part of the Government's business to decide whether or not an individual shopkeeper should be allowed to trade on Sundays. The amendment may remove the offence from the scope of the criminal law but the only sanction that can be imposed on a shopkeeper is an injunction. Thereafter he would be liable to the penalties associated with contempt of court should he not abide by the terms of that injunction. Is that really a practicable way of dealing with a trader for opening a shop to meet the needs of the customer? Do we really want that to happen? I agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway; of course we do not.
This amendment proposes a system of regulation that would create an unacceptable burden on all concerned and at a cost to ratepayer and taxpayer. It is a procrastinating amendment since it leaves discussion of the policy underlying the proposed code of practice to another time, even though such a policy has been unsuccessfully sought on many occasions both here and in another place. Furthermore, it proposes restrictions on Sunday trading in Scotland, as the noble Lord, Lord Grimond indicated, where there are none now. I think that many of your Lordships will agree that Scotland will not particularly welcome that.
Retail trading hours do not need restriction by law, nor are such restrictions desired by the majority of the people of this country. I share the views of those who have pointed to the serious shortcomings of this amendment, which would produce a complex and costly bureaucracy at local and at national level to regulate a harmless activity which most people do not consider should be regulated.
This amendment does not have the good case in reality which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, thinks it has. That is why my noble friend Lord Sandford, with his great experience, stressed the nonsenses it would lead to. I hope the noble and learned Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Denning: My Lords, we have heard today the sort of arguments I have heard dozens of times in the courts of law. They say, "If you do not like your opponents' argument and cannot deal with it in any other way, pour scorn upon it". It is like the partner who had to leave a case to his colleague. He put a note for him on the brief, reading, "No case, abuse the other side's attorney."
That is what has happened throughout our discussion today. Time after time, at Committee stage and now, we have put forward amendments to preserve the character of our Sundays. They have all been well-intentioned, well thought out and well planned but we are met not with reason but with scorn. I tell your Lordships that all those round the country to whom I have spoken, all right-minded people, want to preserve our Sunday as much as they can and to restrict Sunday trading so that it does not impair Sundays. That is what we have tried to do in these amendments. Well, we did not succeed with exceptions. That proposal had scorn poured upon it. It was said, "These are ridiculous exceptions. There are anomalies." We did not succeed, although we tried time after time.
We now come to the amendment we are at present debating. Surely it is sensible. It is not unworkable. What I would envisage would happen, as my noble friend Lord Mishcon said, is that if the amendment goes through all those shops which are now opening on Sunday will just make a formal application to the local authorities and in nearly every case those applications will go through on the nod because the local authorities have not taken any steps against the shops under the existing Act. Therefore, there will be no trouble about those at all. Of course, any new ones like the do-it-yourself centres will be allowed. It will only be a few who want to open freshly on Sundays. I hope there will be only one or two in our areas or perhaps half a dozen or more—people who hitherto have been closed on Sundays—who will say, "Now we will apply for permission."
The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, envisages floods of applications. That is what is feared. I dispute the suggestion. There will not be floods. The only people who will apply will be those existing shopkeepers whom we already tolerate opening on Sundays—whether newsagents or food centres. They will be granted permission automatically. Applications will only come from those who want newly to open on Sundays. Why should not our local authorities—good, sensible people—say, "We have got enough already open on Sundays. We have that little shop around the corner. We do not want you next door to open"? Why should not they say that? If there is abuse of authority as suggested by my noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale, where shops are open in one area but not another, or you cross the border to find shops open but cannot, those will all be ironed out by the code of practice and by the appeal mechanism.
We have tried many amendments and this is the last step, the last opportunity, for us to preserve the character of our Sundays by some means in law and not to let Sundays be flooded with shops that are open. Whether your Lordships agree with the details or not, I ask the House to say that this amendment should be carried in order to emphasise the real opinion of the

1331
people of England that the character of Sunday should remain and that we should not allow free, unsolicited Sunday trading for all shops. I am ready to test the opinion of the House because I feel so strongly about it.
7.16 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 55; Not-Contents, 86.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lincoln, Bp.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Liverpool, Bp.

Birmingham, Bp. [Teller.]

London, Bp.

Bottomley, L.

Mishcon, L.

Brentford, V.

Mulley, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Newcastle, Bp.

Brockway, L.

Nicol, B.

Buckmaster, V.

Oram, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Coleraine, L.

Rea, L.

Collison, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Denning, L.

Ryder of Warsaw, B.

Diamond, L.

St. Albans, Bp.

Durham, Bp.

Southwark, Bp.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Stallard, L. [Teller.]

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Gallacher, L.

Swinfen, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Grantchester, L.

Underhill, L.

Greenway, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hampton, L.

Wheatley, L.

Hereford, Bp.

White, B.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Wilberforce, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Winchester, Bp.

Kilbracken, L.

York, Abp.

Leicester, Bp.

Ypres, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Geddes, L.

Arran, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Grimond, L.

Belstead, L.

Halsbury, E.

Bessborough, E.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Birdwood, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Henley, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Hooper, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Broxbourne, L.

Ingrow, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Kimball, L.

Butterworth, L.

Lawrence, L.

Caccia, L.

Layton, L.

Caithness, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Long, V.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mancroft, L.

Chelwood, L.

Manton, L.

Clinton, L.

Margadale, L.

Coggan, L.

Marley, L.

Colwyn, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Cranbrook, E.

Merrivale, L.

Davidson, V.

Molson, L.

De La Warr, E.

Monson, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mottistone, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Mountevans, L.

Eccles, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elton, L.

Munster, E.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

1332

Norrie, L.

Stockton, E.

Onslow, E.

Suffield, L.

Orkney, E.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Pender, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Portland, D.

Trumpington, B.

Rankeillour, L.

Vickers, B.

Renton, L.

Vinson, L.

Rodney, L.

Vivian, L.

St. Davids, V,

Ward of Witley, V.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Sandford, L.

Wolfson, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Young, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.25 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, it would appear that this is a convenient moment to break for dinner. I suggest that we do not resume the Report stage of this Bill before 8.30. I move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, we have now adjourned, but I think noble Lords are anxious to get home this evening, so would 8.15 be acceptable to the Government?
Viscount Davidson: I thought, my Lords, that 8.30 had been agreed through the usual channels; but obviously it was not. Yes, it is agreed—8.15 then.

Gaming (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
7.27 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: 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 Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL CATHCART in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Amendment of section 16 of Gaming Act 1968]:
Lord Kilbracken Lord Kilbracken moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 13, leave out ("(not being a cheque which has been dishonoured)").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Bill, as I am sure those of your Lordships who have remained here will be aware, is to legalise what is known as the redemption of cheques in gaming clubs. As I hope I made clear at Second Reading, I am completely in favour of this Bill.
If one goes to a gaming club and writes a cheque to pay for one's chips and then, for once, wins a lot of money, it is extremely annoying that it is then not possible to get the cheque back. Also, gaming club proprietors of course would much rather return the cheque to you and have your cash instead, because it is always possible that the cheque may be dishonoured.
It was not the intention in 1968 that the redemption of cheques should be illegal, but Section 16(3) unintentionally made it so.
I have put down these four or five amendments. They will not in any way affect the operation of the Bill but I believe that they would improve it and remove one or two points that are not clear at present. This first amendment deals with the question of dishonoured cheques. Of course, the gaming clubs have a great deal of trouble with dishonoured cheques because players come in and write cheques for more than they can afford and when the cheques are presented they are returned. It is then up to the gaming clubs to collect the money one way or another, and in many cases when cheques are re-presented they are honoured. If not, in most cases the player will eventually go back and give the money that will enable the cheque to be returned to him.
The Committee will notice that in Clause 1(3) of the Bill, the redemption of cheques is permitted provided that certain conditions are complied with. The words to which I am taking objection are those in parenthesis:
"(not being a cheque which has been dishonoured)".
My amendment would delete those words. My reason for doing so is that the subsection reads:
"shall permit to be redeemed any cheque (not being a cheque which has been dishonoured) accepted in exchange for cash or tokens",
etc.
My point is this. A cheque that has been dishonoured cannot be redeemed. It cannot be a redeemed cheque because that is defined in subsection (7) as meaning:
"a cheque accepted in fulfilment of the conditions specified in subsection (2)",
and one of those conditions is paragraph (b):
"it is redeemed during the playing session in which it was accepted, or within thirty minutes after the end of the session".
Of course a dishonoured cheque would have been accepted a day, two days or three days before. Therefore, a dishonoured cheque can never become a redeemed cheque and there is no need to talk about redeeming any cheque
"(not being a cheque which has been dishonoured)".
For 18 years, since the Gaming Bill of 1968 became law, there have been well-established procedures between gaming clubs and their members for the members to make good—I must not use the word "redeem"—cheques that have been dishonoured. None of those procedures has ever been thought illegal and could not be illegal in any way because neither subsections (1) nor (3) of Section 16 of the Gaming Act could conceivably have been contravened. There is therefore no need to legalise what has been held to be legal ever since the Gaming Act became law. I therefore feel that those words should be deleted, and I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said. As he rightly reminded the Committee, he indicated his firm support for the Bill on Second Reading. As he pointed out, the intention of these amendments is in no way to affect its central purpose. In some cases they are rather more than drafting amendments. I can assure him, as I have told
1334
him already, that we have looked at them carefully to see whether they could be incorporated in the Bill. I apologise in advance if he thinks that in any sense I am taking a negative attitude to what he has proposed, but substantial problems arise in relation to the amendments. If I may, I shall deal with the one that he has just moved in order to explain the problems that would arise if it was incorporated in the Bill.
As the noble Lord said, the law as it now stands applies in this way. Dishonoured cheques can already be discharged and recovered by a player. That is as it should be. They have already gone through the banking process; that is, they have gone through a bank within two days as a result of Section 16 of the Gaming Act 1968. The central purpose of the Bill is that their position should not in any way be affected. Players have always been able to redeem by payment of either cash or chips a cheque given for gaming on a previous visit to the casino which was subsequently dishonoured and returned. There is no reason why they should not continue to be able to do so.
The words in parenthesis are designed simply to make it absolutely clear that such dishonoured cheques are outside the scope of the Bill. By definition, having already gone through the banking process—a point that I have made already—a dishonoured cheque could not comply with the second condition, (b), required for any redeemed cheque under subsection (3) of the Bill. The general prohibition against redemption specifies in the two words immediately preceding those in parenthesis, "any cheque". If that is construed as including dishonoured cheques, they could no longer be redeemed. The words in parenthesis eliminate that possibility and are therefore I am afraid absolutely essential. It could lead to all sorts of extremely vexatious litigation if the form of words set out in the amendment were added to the Bill. I very much hope that as a result of my explanation the noble Lord will not press his amendment.
Viscount Davidson: The Committee will be grateful for the close interest that the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, has taken not only in what the Bill sets out to achieve but in its drafting. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has explained why the words referred to in the amendment were included in the Bill. We take the view that the words are helpful and important in making it clear that a cheque which has been dishonoured may be returned to the person who offered it in the normal way. It is conceivable that without the words there might be some confusion as to whether the conditions which will apply before cheques can be redeemed also apply to dishonoured cheques. For this reason we cannot agree to the noble Lord's amendment.
Lord Kilbracken: I am grateful to both noble Lords for what they have said. I still feel that a bouncing cheque cannot be redeemed under the definition in the Bill; it is in a sense beyond redemption. But in view of the line that both noble Lords have taken on this point. I do not intend to press the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Kilbracken Lord Kilbracken moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 8, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
("(c) any substitute cheque is not post-dated; and").
The noble Lord said: My second amendment deals with the question of post-dated cheques. Under the 1968 Act it is of course illegal to give a post-dated cheque because that would amount to the giving of credit and would be contrary to Section 16(1) of the Act. Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has included paragraph (c) of Clause 1(3) which extends that prohibition of post-dated cheques to any substitute cheque that is given by the player when he redeems it.
But the matter to which I must draw attention is that, as the Bill is at present worded, it seems to me certain that that prohibition would apply only if the substitute cheque were for the full sum of the cheque that is being redeemed.
Paragraph (c) reads:
"where the cheque is redeemed in exchange for a substitute cheque".
We have to consider the case where the original cheque was for £100 and the member who comes to leave the club has £50 in chips and wants to pay in the £50 and write a substitute cheque for the other £50—something he is quite likely to want to do and something that is specifically permitted under subsection (3). It seems to me that this is a drafting matter, but that it would not be possible because the whole cheque is not redeemed, only part of it. To get around this I have left out the wording,
"where the cheque is redeemed in exchange for a substitute cheque"
because that is unnecessary. It is only when a cheque is exchanged for a substitute cheque that a substitute cheque will be involved. The paragraph would instead read,
"any substitute cheque is not post-dated".
That would include a case where a substitute cheque was only in respect of part of the amount involved in the original cheque. I feel that there is a mistake that should be corrected. I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, has rightly said that this is really a drafting amendment. We looked at it carefully with the legal authorities responsible for these matters. I do not believe that the problem, as the noble Lord has set it out, will be a matter of any difficulty. It is primarily a question of the use of language rather than any particular issue of principle. Reasonable men can take different views on what is the right form of words to use. On the basis of the advice that we have received, we have concluded that the present form of wording is preferable to the alternative. It is a narrow issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, indicated, when he pointed out that it was a drafting issue. The position is that we preferred our own choice of language, having, as a result of what the noble Lord said, discussed this with the authorities concerned. I do not know whether the noble Viscount cares to add anything.
Viscount Davidson: I should perhaps add that I can confirm that, while we appreciate the attempt of the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, to simplify the wording of the Bill, we do not believe that this suggestion fits in
1336
grammatically with the surrounding provision. It is, in our view, desirable that the words,
"where the cheque is redeemed in exchange for a substitute cheque"
should appear to make the position as clear as possible.
Lord Kilbracken: I am grateful to both noble Lords. I am sorry that the Minister accuses me of being ungrammatical. As a working sub-editor, one of my duties is to follow the laws of English so far as I can. It seems to me that the Bill would read:
"unless the following conditions are fulfilled, that is to say—"
and then,
"any substitute cheque is not post-dated".
That seems to me to be a condition just as,
"it is redeemed during the playing session in which it was accepted",
and so on, is a condition. If I may take it, as I think I may from what has been said, that the wording of the Bill will not prevent a member or a player from redeeming his cheque in part with cash or tokens and in part with a cheque that is not post-dated, I am perfectly content to leave it as it is, and to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Kilbracken Lord Kilbracken moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 11, leave out paragraph (d).
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with what the Act, in its rather quaint way, refers to as tokens but what I and everyone else in the gambling world describe as chips—the chips are down. This is an amendment to paragraph (d) of Clause 1(3), which I had better read out. One of the last of the conditions is that,
"where tokens are given in whole or in part exchange for the redeemed cheque, the value of each token is equal to the amount originally given in exchange for it or, if the token was won in the gaming, the value it represented when won".
This seems to be considering a situation in which the chips that you get for your £25, your £100, or your £10,000, depending on your scale of play, may in some way or other differ from the amount of money you pay for them. In other words, you go in and cash a cheque for £100 and get only £95 worth or £90 worth of chips—or maybe it will be £105 worth of chips; if there is any such club I would immediately become a member of it. But that is not, of course, the way that it happens.
The way that it happens is that if you give the cashier £100 you get chips with a face value of £100. That, as I have confirmed, although I knew it already, is the situation in all the licensed premises in Britain and also in France, Monaco and elsewhere. It would probably be illegal—in fact, it would be illegal—for a casino or gaming club to give you chips with a face value of less than the amount you gave, under Section 15 of the 1968 Act which makes clear that Section 4 of the Act also applies in Part II. Section 4 states that no gaming shall take place
"where a levy is charged on any of the stakes or on the winnings of any of the players, whether by way of direct payment or deduction, or by the exchange of tokens at a lower rate than the rate at which they were issued, or by any other means".
Section 15(2) states that, in the case of licensed premises, regulations made under the section may provide that a levy may be raised. However, this has never been done. There is no sign that it ever will be done. And the gaming clubs are surely making enough money already without giving them 5 per cent. up front when you go to buy your chips. Since the face value, which the dictionary defines as the value written on the coin or other object, is always what you have given for it, I do not see why there is any necessity to go into all the detail in paragraph (d). I do not see why the question has to be raised at all, in which case paragraph (d) could be omitted altogether. That is what I propose in my third amendment. If, however, that is too radical a solution, I would suggest instead my Amendment No. 4, which would leave paragraph (d) reading,
"where tokens are given in whole or in part exchange for the redeemed cheque, each token is given its face value".
I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, quite reasonably asked the question: why does this issue have to be dealt with at all? I shall endeavour to explain very briefly why it does indeed have to be dealt with. It would be a matter of substance were this amendment to be incorporated in the Bill.
The paragraph (d) which the noble Lord is seeking to strike out governs the value of tokens. It is simply there to ensure that the player receives the same value for them as he gives. It is a simple addition to Section 16(2)(b) of the 1968 Act. It would prevent any possibility of the licence holder, for example, discounting a proportion of the value of tokens in any such transaction. It is a necessary safeguard against the possibility of malpractice. That is indeed the purpose of it. It is to safeguard the position of the player. I think it is essential to have that provision in the Bill, and that is why it is there.
Viscount Davidson: The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has explained that it is a prudent precaution for paragraph (d) to provide that tokens used to redeem cheques should be given the same value as when they were first obtained. We regard that as an important safeguard in ensuring that cheque transactions are conducted fairly. We consider that the provision should be retained.
Lord Kilbracken: In view of what both the noble Lord and the noble Viscount have said, I do not propose to take the matter any further.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 26, leave out ("a") and insert ("any").
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Kilbracken Lord Kilbracken moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 28, leave out from ("period") to ("on") in line 30 and insert ("throughout which gaming is taking place").
The noble Lord said: This is a proposed amendment to subsection (7) of Clause 1, in which there are three definitions. The first definition is of a "playing session". The need for this is because that phrase is used in paragraph (b) above—one of the conditions which is imposed. The condition is that the cheque must be redeemed,
"during the playing session in which it was accepted, or within thirty minutes after the end of the session".
The "playing session" is defined as meaning:
"a continuous period during one day, or two consecutive days, throughout which gaming is permitted by or under this Act to take place on premises in respect of which a licence under this Act is for the time being in force".
I would first point out that in the 1968 Act there is no reference to any time when gaming is permitted to take place. All the Act has to say on this matter is that gaming may not take place for a period of about 11 or 12 hours on Sunday. But in one of the schedules to the Act—I do not have the reference in front of me—it authorises the licensing authority, when granting a licence, to lay down the hours to which gaming should be confined if the licensing authority feels inclined to do so, and the licensing authority in fact always does.
I am not sure whether an order made by the licensing authority as to the hours when a club may be open does or does not constitute hours permitted by or under this Act. They are not permitted by the Act but they are permitted by the magistrates, who are authorised to permit them by the Act.
However that may be, it seems to me that this paragraph does not say what it intends to say, because what this means is that a cheque may be redeemed until 30 minutes after the time prescribed by the licensing magistrate for that particular club on that particular day. That is probably three or four o'clock in the morning. We can well understand that it is essential, if a cheque is going to be redeemed, that it has to be redeemed during that playing session—in other words, before the player goes home—or within half an hour after gaming has ceased.
But the position may quite well be that the hour at which gaming ends is perhaps considerably earlier than the hours during which gaming is permitted. For example, it may be snowing very heavily, no one comes to the casino, at midnight the club is deserted, they are entitled to continue until three o'clock in the morning, but they close down. Sometimes these clubs decide to have a staff party in the casino, so on that particular night they stop playing at half-past 10 or 11 o'clock although they are perfectly entitled under the law to go on playing until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning.
Under those conditions, under the Bill as drafted at present the man who wants to redeem his cheques could come back three or four hours after the club has completely closed to people and demand to redeem his cheque because it is during the period for which gaming is permitted. My point is that it should be for the period during which gaming is actually taking place. That is what I hope my amendment would do.
The words "during one day, or two consecutive days" are not necessary. I found them confusing I see what this means: that gaming is normally going on both before and after midnight, so it has to apply to the day that ends at midnight and the next day which

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begins at midnight. But I do not see that we have to say that. Surely what the Bill is trying to say is that the "playing session" means a continuous period throughout which gaming is taking place on premises, etc., not "is permitted … to take place". That is the whole object of my amendment. I beg to move.
8 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The problem about this particular amendment is that it would make no allowance for a situation arising in a casino which necessitated some temporary interruption to gaming. One has to accept in these days that not only is there the risk of a fire alarm going off, but there could easily be a bomb scare as a result of which the casino had to be evacuated. The wording of the Bill in terms of:
"continuous period … permitted by or under this Act"
would accommodate that particular contingency which otherwise may entirely fortuitously bar players from redeeming their cheques. I am sure that that is not the noble Lord's purpose, but that is why that particular form of wording appears in the place that it does in the Bill.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, for having written to me and given me a clear explanation of the amendments which he proposed to move. I must admit that I have been rather baffled by the descriptions of cheque transactions and so on and I am not sure whether the Minister, if he did not have the full weight of the civil servants behind him, may not also feel rather baffled. I should like to thank the noble Lord for the very interesting description he has given of the changes that he has tried to make to the Bill. However, as I, with my limited experience, understand the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, it has the very clear objective of trying to rectify an imperfection in the present Act. The Bill which has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has received the general agreement of the many people who have worked on it.
Therefore, although I fully recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, would like to make it even better, I personally should like to accept the very minor alterations which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is making today through his amendments and which will leave the Bill very much as it was on Second Reading. I should like to wish the Bill a very safe passage.
Viscount Davidson: I should also like to thank again the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, for the interest which he has taken in the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord does not feel too isolated.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has explained the importance which the Royal Commission attached to restricting the redemption of cheques to the period of the playing session and immediately thereafter. The Bill seeks to follow the Royal Commission. In so doing, we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that it is important to be completely clear about the playing
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session, and the present definition appears helpful and informative.
Lord Kilbracken: This seems to me to be quite a difficult point. I can quite see that if there were a fire or some emergency and all play suddenly stopped for 15 minutes while people hid under the roulette table it would constitute an end of play. On the other hand, I believe that what I said was true. If it refers to the hours during which play is permitted, then play may end several hours before that time and that would be unfortunate too. However, on balance, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the Minister are right because if it has to be one or the other it is better that it should be too late than too early. I have raised the point in order to clarify the issue, but in the light of what has been said I shall not press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 38, leave out from ("accepted") to ("in") in line 39.
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 7. This is a drafting amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 40, at end insert ("by either the holder of a licence under this Act or a person acting on behalf of or under any arrangement with the holder of such a licence.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8. This is also a drafting amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Interpretation, short title and commencement]:
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 3, line 6, at end insert—
("(4) This Act does not extend to Northern Ireland.").
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Kilbracken: If the 1968 Act does not apply to Northern Ireland, then surely it follows automatically that this one cannot do so?
Lord Harris of Greenwich: It is always difficult to decide how clear to make a statute. On balance, we came to the conclusion that it was desirable to make it absolutely clear and that is why that particular form of words appear.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

Importation of Live Fish of the Salmon Family Order 1986
8.6 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 27th January be approved. [9th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Importation of Live Fish of the Salmon Family Order 1986 will allow live fish of the salmon family to be brought into Great Britain from Northern Ireland under licence. When the Diseases of Fish Act 1937 was enacted, it prohibited all imports of live fish of the salmon family into Great Britain and that prohibition includes those fish originating in Northern Ireland.
However, in the Diseases of Fish Act 1983, the opportunity was taken to amend that provision of the 1937 Act so that the total prohibition could be relaxed by order, the draft of which having first been approved by both Houses of Parliament. The draft order which I am putting before your Lordships today has been approved in another place and is the first example of such a relaxation that we have proposed.
The absolute prohibition under the 1937 Act has contributed greatly to Great Britain's relatively high fish health status when compared with many of our neighbours in continental Europe. The fish farming industry in this country finds this advantage of considerable value and I can only assure your Lordships that the draft order which we have brought forward will not jeopardise our fish health status in any way.
Following extensive and detailed discussions between officials in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, my right honourable friends and I are satisfied that we should allow live fish of the salmon family to be brought into Great Britain from Northern Ireland under licence. We have taken that decision in the light of Northern Ireland's excellent fish health status which is certainly as high as Great Britain's. Moreover, imports of fish and fish products into Northern Ireland are strictly controlled in order to safeguard their high status. All fish farms in the Province are regularly tested and no fish stocks may be moved from farm to farm without consent in Northern Ireland. For those reasons we have concluded that the present absolute ban is not reasonable in relation to live fish of the salmon family coming from Northern Ireland.
Noble Lords may wish to have some details of how the arrangements will work in practice. When the order comes into force, live fish of the salmon family may be brought into Great Britain from Northern Ireland but only under licence. Licences will only be issued for consignments which come from fish farms which we know to have a satisfactory fish health record. Licences will require the certificate of origin and health to be completed in relation to the individual consignment and that the certificate accompanies the fish during their journey. If those requirements are not met the consignment may be seized and disposed of as we see fit.
The fish farming industry throughout the United Kingdom will benefit from the arrangements which we
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propose. Northern Ireland fish farmers will have many more potential customers for their fish while fish farmers in Great Britain will have a greater choice of suppliers. Our fish health status will not be jeopardised in the process. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 27th January be approved. [9th Report from the Joint Committee]—(Lord Belstead.)
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, we should like to thank the Minister for explaining this order because it is a little unclear whether it refers to fish from farming or fish from rivers. However, the Minister explained that it relates to fish from farming and not to fish from Ireland's rivers.
I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, is present at the moment, but I discussed this matter with him earlier. He said that, although he did not know much about salmon, he did not think there was much salmon in Northern Ireland. This measure will certainly help because fish farming in both countries is expanding at a tremendous rate.
However, I wonder whether a danger could be involved. The Minister must know that quite recently storms destroyed the cages of a fish farm in Scotland and literally tens of thousands of fish were let loose. I do not think we can control fish as we can control sheep. I cannot believe that they would not swim across from Ireland to Scotland, because it is not very far! If storms burst the nets or cages of particular fish farms and the fish get loose, there could be a disease danger there. I do not know whether any allowance has been made for that sort of thing happening. It has happened in Scotland but I do not know where the fish went. There could be a danger there.
I think the Minister said this ban has been in force since 1937. If the Irish have cleaned up the disease situation, it is all to the good that the ban should be lifted. It reminds me of a situation in relation to importing cattle from France. I tried that way back in 1954, but the disease situation was such that the Department of Agriculture for Scotland would not even accept a letter from me making such a request; they said that I would be wasting my stamp. However, in due course the French tidied up the disease question and the ban was, as we know, lifted in 1962.
If the Minister could answer my question about what happens to the fish that escape, along with him I would be delighted to approve the order.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, always has one shrewd thrust, and he produced one on this order. My response is that fish might escape in one direction but they might very well escape in the other direction and therefore there could be pollution either way across the Irish Sea. It is something which could happen whether or not this order is agreed to.
I think it is important to say that, under this order, before issuing a licence we shall look very carefully at the health status of the specific supplying site, not just at the health status of Northern Ireland in general. Therefore, we look at the particular fish farm first to see whether we can grant a licence. Sites from which movements are proposed must have been regularly

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tested to rigorous standards for at least two years. They must have been found free from a range of diseases. They must also operate on a water source free from potential disease contamination and they must operate good husbandry practices in order to minimise disease sites. Therefore, that really means that the health status from the individual supplying site will be of the very highest, and all this will be kept under close observation by the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland veterinary offices. I hope that that is a good enough reply to the noble Lord on the particular issues that he has raised.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we find ourselves in a slight difficulty in that we are due to resume consideration of the Shops Bill at a quarter-past eight and it is now only fourteen minutes past. Whether I should attempt to speak for another minute, which I might find difficult at this stage, or whether I should adjourn the House during pleasure for—
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, the noble Lord clearly underrates his ability to fill in a mere minute and a half. I am quite sure that with assistance from other Members of your Lordships' House we can help him out of his agony.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. We have now probably almost reached the stage when we can continue consideration of the Shops Bill on Report.

Shops Bill [H.L.]
8.15 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
The Deputy Speaker (Earl Cathcart): My Lords, before I call the next amendment, I should announce a correction to the number of those voting in the last Division, Division No. 2. The number should have been: Contents, 56, not 55; and Not-Contents, 86. So the Not-Contents have it.
Lord Gallacher Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Late opening on week days.
.—(1) Transactions carried out in shops after 9 p.m. on week days and 7 p.m. on Sundays may take place in accordance with provisions to be included in an order to be made by the Secretary of State. Such an order shall not come into effect until a draft has been laid before and approved by an affirmative resolution of each House of Parliament.
(2) Variations to an order made under subsection (1) above may be made at any time by the Secretary of State by order. Such an order shall not come into effect until a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.
(3) Orders referred to in subsections (1) and (2) above shall specify the names of enforcing authorities as well as a scale of fines for non-observance of the provisions of this section by any occupier of a shop found guilty of contravening these orders.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment has as its purpose the writing into the Bill of statutory closing times for shops on weekdays and also on Sundays. Having said that, I would also claim that the closing times which are proposed are so liberal and so
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much in advance of what are currently in the 1950 Act that the Government should have little difficulty in accepting this amendment—that is to say, if they are disposed to accept in principle the idea of statutory closing times at all. I would assume that, if there is a rejection of the times proposed in this amendment, we can take it as being fairly definite that, so far as this House is concerned, Her Majesty's Government's mind is closed, and that this is in fact an "open all hours" Bill.
First, perhaps I may tell your Lordships that on Mondays to Saturdays at the present time shops may open until 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock on the so-called late night. The purpose of this amendment is to make 9 o'clock the universal closing time on all six weekdays, so that by itself this particular amendment will increase the legal shopping hours by five hours per week.
I should say in passing that the Auld Committee received no great requests for much in the way of an extension of the existing week-night opening hours. In fact, I can recall that only one major retailer asked for an extension beyond 9 p.m., and on examination it was found that only two of his 240 stores were opening later than 9 p.m., and those stores were in highly specialised locations in central London.
It has also been suggested that the problem of enforcement would be easier if, instead of having one late night which is variable from retailer to retailer, the late night closing was universal so that retailers could not say, when asked why they were open after 8 p.m., "This is my late night" when they had also probably been open the previous night after 8 p.m., calling that the late night. Therefore, 9 p.m. would facilitate the enforcement process.
Turning to Sundays, it has been my contention throughout the piece—and I make it again this evening—that the Auld Committee received no great request for Sunday night shopping. Equally, I concede that there was demand for shopping on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon, and by choosing 7 p.m. on Sundays I think we have met all the evidence which the Auld Committee received, and are in fact providing a major change in the law of this land.
Furthermore, if one assumes that 7 p.m. is selected I think one can say that this would meet most of the demand which is likely to ensue. It meets the present practice of the law breakers; I refer to the DIY stores and the garden centres, most of which are closing at 6 p.m. It allows a closing time for shops to coincide with the opening time of pubs, which I think should facilitate life for those people who find Sunday boring in that they can move from shopping to drinking. I think that in other ways it meets with the general demand which the Auld Committee received.
If we take together the proposals in the amendment, and pay attention to the fact that there is no statutory opening time for shops in Britain, and if we assume that most shops are now open by 8 a.m. on weekdays and can remain trading throughout until 9 p.m., we are talking of a 13-hour shopping day, six days a week, a total of 78 hours. If we assume that on Sunday business starts a little later and shops decide to open around 9 a.m. and remain open until 7 p.m., we have a 10-hour shopping day, which give a shopping week of 88 hours.
For a country which is enjoying the benefit of a five-day 39-hour week, to most people that would seem quite reasonable and would certainly legalise shopping hours to an extent which is probably greater than in most parts of Western Europe. If in addition to that one adds 56 hours' sleeping time—eight hours a day, seven days a week—one gets a total of 88 plus 56, 144 hours. Effectively, there would, under the amendment, be only 24 hours in a week when shops should be closed. But in point of fact shops need not be closed during that period of time because the amendment provides for shops to open provided they are not selling goods other than those specified in the schedules which the Minister will be empowered to make under the Bill.
You may say to yourselves, "Why close at all?" I would say, first, to protect those who live near shops from the problem of nuisance. I would say, further, to minimise the demand on the police, transport authorities, and other enforcement bodies arising from having to provide a service which may, or may not, be required but which in law should be available throughout the total period that shops choose to remain open.
There is also the important point made by the Association of County Councils that although the county council is not the enforcing body for shop hours it is in fact the enforcing body for a wide range of consumer protection legislation. Given the strain which will be placed upon the enforcement authorities as a result of the extension of hours, it is fair and reasonable to suggest that there should be a limit to the period of time during which county councils are expected to enforce the law.
I asked the county councils to tell me how much law they were expected to enforce. I have a list showing that there are 52 Acts of Parliament designed to protect the consumer and enforceable by county councils. The county councils make it clear that not all those Acts of Parliament are enforceable within the shop, but many of them are. In addition to that there are 1,007 statutory instruments to be enforced as well as 100 European Commission regulations.
Among the legislation which has to be enforced are the Trade Descriptions Acts 1968 and 1972; the Fair Trading Act 1973; the Consumer Credit Act 1974; the Prices Acts 1974 and 1975; the Food Act 1984; the Farm and Garden Chemicals Act 1967; the Medicines Act 1968; the Weights and Measures Acts 1963, 1976 and 1979; the Consumer Protection Acts 1961 and 1971; the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974; and the Consumer Safety Act 1978.
That is a fairly formidable corpus of legislation. If one bears in mind the undoubted problems which retailers will have in maintaining service throughout the extended trading hours, and in particular the supervisory problem for management, I would submit that protecting the consumer becomes more important under the proposed Bill than it did under the Shops Act 1950.
There is also the important point that if there is no statutory closing time at all in shopping legislation one has a conflict between that legislation and the licensing laws. We read in the press that the Government are perhaps minded in the next Session of Parliament to do something about implementing the report by the
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noble Lord, Lord Erroll, which was produced in 1972. I cannot believe that in implementing that report, whatever form the implementation takes, the Government are going to have a situation in which public houses need never close. If, therefore, you have a situation in which there is a closing time for pubs and no closing time for shops, then you have automatically created yet another anomaly, and for that reason I would suggest that there is merit in having a closing time for shops in this Bill.
So far as shopworkers are concerned, I am referring here not to those covered by wages councils but to those covered by agreements between fairly large bodies of employers and the trade unions. My experience of labour relations has been gained entirely on the employers' side, so I know very well what the trade unions are likely to do so far as the existing agreements are concerned.
They will say—and quite rightly, in my opinion—that the existing agreements are based on the Shops Act 1950, and that if you have a situation in which shops may be open for 24 hours a day then there is a need to conclude new agreements covering those workers. I think that will be used by the trade unions—and again I have no objection to this—as a justification for saying that in every case where other workers are obliged to undertake shift work, to work on Sundays, and generally to have the social inconvenience which these liberalisations will mean for them, that is recognised in the agreements which they already have with employers, and I think they would have little difficulty in convincing any independent chairman of an arbitration tribunal that a major increase in wages is justified as a result of the changes which this Bill now proposes.
That can only mean higher prices for consumers. It may not have entered the heads of the National Consumer Council, or indeed of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but it is the harsh reality of life and something that ought to be taken into consideration so far as the protection of consumers is concerned in this Bill.
So far as concerns the owners of small shops, the problem is perhaps less acute. But even here where the family is asked to man the counter there is a justification for not allowing, perhaps, a bossy father to tell sons, or even nephews—as in the case of "Open All Hours" with dear old Granville and Mr. Arkwright—to perform all hours of the day, and so on. There is a case for a closing time there.
In my opinion the problem of opening well into the late evening will become a difficult one. It will place employers who would not normally open so late in the position of having to make a decision as to whether or not they must continue to open in order not to lose trade to competitors who are forcing the pace regarding closing hours.
The amendment will allow for shops to remain open until 9 p.m. on six nights, and 7 p.m. on Sundays. It will permit the Minister to make, by statutory instrument, a list of goods which can be sold after those times on those seven days. It will further permit the Minister to amend that list by statutory instrument as and when changes in shopping habits, or other reasons, make such changes seem desirable.
Finally, the Minister would also be able, within the some legislation, to provide for the rate of fines which

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he was going to ask the courts to impose on conviction for non-observance of those hours, and also to specify the enforcing authority. Here I would suggest to the Minister that, if the amendment is of any interest to him whatsoever, there may be a case for taking away enforcement in England and Wales from the Association of District Councils and offering it to county councils, because then consumer enforcement and shop hours enforcement would be under the control of a single authority, and on balance that might prove economical from the point of view of the taxpayer. I beg to move.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I have rather more sympathy for this amendment than for most of the amendments moved by noble Lords on the Opposition Benches, but only a little more sympathy, given the way in which this amendment is presently drafted. The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, referred to the possibility of 24-hour shopping. As a matter of fact I believe that for shops to open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in non-residential areas would actually add to the gaiety of the nation—I use the word "gaiety" in its correct sense, assuming it is still legal to do so. Equally I would concede that for shops to open for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in residential areas would tend to add to the misery of the nation, and I agree therefore that some local authority control may be needed so far as residential areas are concerned.
But why go over the top and propose such early closing hours? Nearly all the Asian-owned and Asian-run grocery shops and mini-markets in the part of London where I live are open until 11 p.m., or possibly 10.30 p.m., every day of the week. Certainly nobody I know in my street, or anywhere near where I live, has any objection to this at all—quite the opposite. Why should they object, because, after all, the pubs are open until 11 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on Sundays? If the pubs, or indeed the Asian-run shops, were to stay open until midnight, people might well think differently: they might be deprived of sleep, and a genuine nuisance would have resulted. If the amendment referred to 11 p.m. closing on weekdays and to 10 p.m. on Sundays, to bring shops into line with pubs—it was, after all, the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who referred to a possible anomaly in this respect—I could bring myself to support the amendment, but certainly not as it is drafted at present.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, it has been a curious feature of our debates on this Bill that noble Lords on the Benches opposite seem to have a craving to restrict the opening of shops wherever they can. It leads one to wonder why they adopt so restrictionist an attitude. The tendency in this country in recent years has been to extend the hours during which shops are open and available to the public. We owe a good deal of this to immigrants from the continent of Asia, from where come hard-working people determined to make a success of their business in the best possible way by providing the service which the public wants. Many of them have prospered, deservedly in my view, because they have studied the needs and wishes of the public
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and they have sought to serve them. There has been a considerable liberalising of the hours during which shops are open.
I see no reason to restrict it, either as this amendment proposes on week days—which seems to take it outside the general scope of the Bill, which as I understand it is concerned with Sunday opening—or, still less, to close at 7 o'clock on Sundays. There would have to be all kinds of exceptions. There are the all-night chemists, which are essential in case of emergencies; and there are the shops at airports, which have to cater for the arrival and departure of aircraft at all sorts of unseemly hours. In the light of that, there does not seem any point in imposing this restriction.
Indeed, it would hit another rather praiseworthy aspect of our life. Certainly in central London, if bookshops stay open late at night, as they do, lawfully or not, one finds that people, particularly young people, go there without intending necessarily to buy a book but to browse among the books, well into the evening, educating themselves. If the shopkeeper wishes to keep his shop open to serve this purpose, I cannot see why Parliament should intervene to stop it.
The only argument that the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, seemed to adduce was that it might lead to excessive hours for shopworkers. He made this wonderful calculation, that shopworkers would theoretically be working for a whole week minus 24 hours. The amendment does not deal with that at all, because it gives no indication of the hours at which the shops concerned would open. The concern of the amendment is only with the time that they would shut. There are shops in the centre of cities which regard their main trading time as being in the evening and which therefore do not open early. Any speculation about the length of workers' hours seems wholly irrelevant because one has left out the other factor—that of opening.
Finally, it is worth remembering that this tendency to later shopping reflects the social tendency in this country under which more and more married women work. If they work in the day, as do their husbands, they can only do their shopping at week-ends—the main advantage they gain from the Bill is Sunday opening—or in the evenings. In both those cases they can do their necessary shopping, and do it very pleasantly with their husbands, who, after all, are very useful, as some noble Lords know, to carry the packages home. Some of us have experience of this.
I cannot see why we should seek to impose these further restrictions. I hope that on reflection the noble Lord will see the point of this and will withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher. I do so because I am concerned about the conditions of shopworkers. I have received representations from unions affiliated to the TUC and from other associations looking after the interests of shopworkers. I have had some submissions from a staff association representing numbers of shop employees. They are concerned that the Shops Bill will greatly encourage late-night trading. Because late-night trading seems so much more likely, they believe that there is a much greater need for workers to be

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protected, particularly against dismissal, if they do not want to work late nights. They also make the point that most shopworkers are women. They need to be home in the evenings to look after their children, to prepare meals, to do the housework and so on. Unrestricted late-night trading and late-night working will destroy jobs in retail shops for married women because they will not want to do that work.
There is another point we should bear in mind when we talk about late-night working. Late-night working means that people have to return home at a time when other people have already gone home. This greatly increases the fears women have of being attacked on their way home.
During the debate we had earlier, several noble Lords referred to the fact that things have improved. Although we are now in an agnostic era, things are much better and more tolerant than they used to be. That may be so, but in certain respects, unfortunately there has not been an improvement. One of those respects is the safety of women at night on our streets. Regrettably, people are now frightened about being out late at night. I live in an area of North London where there have already been several unsolved crimes against women at night, and even I feel a certain amount of unease if I am out very late at night. Public transport is not what it was, and there are real fears when women have to work late at night and go home late. Thus this will increase the dangers.
Lord Monson: My Lords, would not exactly the same thing apply to women who work in pubs and cinemas?
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, it probably does, but why increase the numbers at risk? This is the point I am making. Why should we have a situation in which as a matter of course shops open late at night with no restrictions? Indeed, the amendment proposes liberal hours. It provides that shops can open until 9 p.m. on week days and 7 p.m. on Sundays. If shops are to stay open all hours—much later than that—without any restrictions, the pressures will be on for everybody to trade in that way and far more members of the workforce will be exposed to the risks. Of course some people are exposed to risks. People who work in night clubs or other places where they have to walk the streets in the evening on their way home late at night are at risk, but we do not need to increase the numbers. Although there is much to be said for freedom for people to trade and freedom for people to shop if they wish to do so, that freedom must be restrained or restricted to some extent if, in so doing, we are risking the exploitation of another section of our population.
As I said earlier in debate on the Bill, if we want to extend shopping facilities either on Sundays or late in the evenings we have to ensure that we do not do it at the expense of a vulnerable section of the population, and shopworkers are vulnerable. The Auld Committee said they were vulnerable, and we agree on all sides of the House that they are. In these circumstances, it is up to the legislators to see that this vulnerable section of the workforce is adequately protected. I therefore commend the amendment to your Lordships.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for his kind and
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sensible references to late-night trading in bookshops. It just so happens that we close our bookshops at 7 o'clock on Sundays, purely because trade is thinning out at that time in the evening. Why should we have to close our shops at 9 o'clock, on week days? On week days most of our bookshops in central London remain open until 10.30 in the evening, because there is sufficient trade to justify staying open until that hour. In so staying open we make a profit, the employees are well recompensed and the public is served. It is good for the publishing industry and good for the hook selling industry.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, did I understand the noble Earl to say that bookshops, of which he has knowledge, open until 10.30 p.m., which at the moment is against the law? If in fact it is against the law, and this law has been flouted in that way, how does the noble Earl expect us to believe that future laws will be obeyed?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I do not think that we are breaking the law. I think that one is allowed to trade until midnight.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we can all learn from experience. If the noble Earl genuinely believes that it is legal to open until midnight then, with great respect, I believe he is wrong. But not only, with respect, would traders be wrong to want to do so; we come back to the local councils who have a spokesman in this authority who knows that they ought not to do so but yet he does not enforce the law. The question remains. If the present law is being broken and not enforced by people who are urging that it should be abolished, what laws are those people going to enforce in the future?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I apologise if I am wrong in this respect. I thought I was right but I am sure we can find out at a later date. But I can assure your Lordships that we do not stay open until half-past ten at night purely because it is nice to see the lights twinkling in our bookshops. Furthermore, I predict that it will not be too long before we have 24-hour trading in London, and we really ought to get used to that strong likelihood. I just wonder if the noble Lord has taken that into account.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, perhaps I might say a few words in support of this amendment. Perhaps I could start by saying that I think there is a very great difference in the ways that this whole issue is being argued from these Benches and from the Benches opposite. The difference is that we are always arguing in a wider context. Many of the arguments that are coming from the Benches opposite are in support of the consumer. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was quite right when he said that it is very nice for a woman shopper to have her husband with her to carry back her shopping. We are not arguing about that; we are saying that this is the case. What we are talking about is the sacrifice that is being made so that the consumer has wider choice. That is what we are trying to present in these amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, asked why it should be 9 o'clock and why not later. We feel that 9 o'clock

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is the limit for shopworkers. One must remember that shopworkers are predominantly women, and one must therefore surely look at the situation in a different way. We are worried about how women are going to get home. My noble friend has made this case. I am quite sure that any of us who have daughters worry about them when they come back very late and we wonder whether there will be any public transport for them. They are in a vulnerable position. I do not think that one can brush this aside and always argue in favour of the benefits that the consumer will get.
I should like to support this amendment because I think we have thought it out and it would suit the consumer who wants a wider choice. After all, 9 o'clock is of extra benefit to shopping. It means that there is a long time remaining after people have left their offices in order to shop together. At the same time, it does not mean that there will be too many inconveniences and hazards for those shopworkers on whom we all depend to offer a greater choice to consumers.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, gave the example of the Asian family and their industry. I do not think this is entirely relevant. Here the family is very often working together and in many cases the woman would not have a serious problem in getting to and from work. As my noble friend has asked: why increase the number of women who are going to be in some form of risk?
I hope your Lordships will look at this amendment favourably. I think it has been thought out very carefully, that it has got a balance in it, and there is something in it which should please everybody. I hope that it will get support from your Lordships.
8.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I am sorry that I shall have to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for the following reasons. The major purpose of this Bill is to give shopkeepers the chance to serve their customers at the times they choose, the times at which they think there is a demand—a point well brought out by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. This amendment stands in direct opposition to that purpose and seeks to reimpose limits on retail trading hours. Shops would only be able to open after 9 p.m. or after 7 p.m. on Sundays where the Secretary of State has made an order approved by both Houses of Parliament.
There is no principle discernible in the amendment on which the Secretary of State could base his decision on whether to allow opening after these times. Is it to be done on a local or a national basis? The amendment does not say. How could the Secretary of State be expected to make orders on a local basis? The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, expressed fears about increased late-night trading but shops are allowed legally at the present time to remain open until 8 p.m. and until 9 p.m. on one night a week. But how many do so?—a minority.
My noble friend Lord Arran might have to be reminded that he had it slightly wrong and that shops at the present time may legally reopen at midnight.
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They are not allowed to stay open legally until midnight at the moment.
I think it is worth asking the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, who spoke about sacrifice, why she should use such an emotive word? Why is the noble Baroness so keen on nannying and preventing a great deal of women from doing what they want to do? It is not only in the dark that women have need to be frightened for their safety, I am sorry to say. I would also remind her that many women throughout the war worked night shifts in every kind of trade and factory, and did so willingly.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that the security on our streets has very much deteriorated since those days?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords. To return to the subject, there is no indication that shops that are open after 9 p.m. on weekdays or after 7 p.m. on Sundays at present cause any significant problems from either the residents' or the workers' point of view. Those shops opening so late are really so few and far between, catering largely for the sale of food and wine. They are often used for "topping up" where an item or two suddenly becomes immediately necessary: because visitors have arrived or something has been forgotten from the weekly shopping trip. The excellent services provided at all hours by these small corner shops is what makes them so valuable in our community. And it is from trading at unsocial hours that they derive much of their income.
I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, should support this amendment. He has in previous amendments argued for special protection for small shops. This amendment would seek to deprive them of one major source of income. These small shops tend to be in the larger cities, often in small shopping parades, not in residential neighbourhoods where they might be a disturbance or cause the nuisance that the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, feared. Where the shops that open do exist, they are very welcome to many people, not least, I would submit, to the staff and Members of this House who work jolly long hours. One can understand why controls have been thought necessary for places open for entertainment and refreshment after 10 p.m. and for take-away foods shops after mid-night; but it hardly seems appropriate that ordinary shops should be liable to restrictions beyond the hours specified in this amendment. I believe the House should reject this amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the noble Baroness chides me for having on one occasion urged protection for small shops, while on this amendment I support the principle, regardless of the size of shop, that they ought to be allowed to open longer than they do at present. This is all part of a piece of the defence mechanism of the noble Baroness and those who support her complete abandonment of any regulation. It goes along the lines that, if you start off with the premise that you wish for no restriction at all and on Second Reading have accepted the principle that you do not accept any restriction, there is no amendment of any kind that is tolerable. If it is the case that every time you put up any variation from complete deregulation it can be argued "We have already agreed

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that we will have none", and if, every time we try one way, it is pointed out that it is contrary to another amendment, then that is completely against not only parliamentary procedure, but also good debating practice.
Of course, there are best solutions and there are less than best solutions, and what those of us who are opposed to complete deregulation are about is trying to get the best solution that we can. This will not be the ideal solution. It certainly is not the one—given the range of options, of which there have so far been a dozen—about which I could have said "If I can have one, this is it." But it is the best we have. At five minutes to nine on a very cold night, this is the one that we have in front of us and we shall argue it. It will not be the last one because there will be others. There are also other stages and there is the other House, too.
I am not saying that the noble Baroness ridiculed the amendment, but it is interesting to note that one of the defences of noble Lords opposite is that something is contrary to arguments used earlier. What we are being criticised for is seeking a compromise. It may be that the noble Baroness and her supporters believe that it is not only "all or nothing at all" with the Bill, but also that once you have accepted the principle there is no way in which one can possibly try to ameliorate the position or live with it. We shall have to remember that on some other occasion.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, asked: why stop at nine? This has been the argument on other amendments. Why have 1 o'clock on Sunday? Why stop at six on Sunday? Why do lots of other things? I think the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, pointed out that in his area Asian shops sometimes stay open until 10.30 or 11 at night. I can tell your Lordships that if noble Lords are basing their opinions about the future under a changed law on what is happening under the present law, they are sadly mistaken. Sainsbury's at Croydon are open till 10 o'clock at night. It is against the law, but they do it. If they had a choice, they would open late every night and not open on Sunday. But they are breaking the law with impunity from the point of view of enforcement.
If the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, believes in a situation where, in the main, the late-night opening shops are the Asian shops, and all the big shops are closed because they are observing the law or are waiting, it needs only one of them—maybe Sainsbury's, maybe the Co-op, maybe Presto, maybe Tesco—to decide, "We can now open not merely till 8 o'clock, but till any hour." So they decide to open and lots of the trade which at present goes to the Asian shops will go to the big stores. Then the little shops will say, "This is terrible". That is the argument for protecting the existing small business or shopkeeper. But it is not the only argument.
The noble Baroness asked: why are we stopping shopworkers, and women shopworkers, who want to work, and in this instance want to work late? If the shop is open late, why do we want to stop them?" Many of them will not want to work, but many of them will work because they must. I do not mean just because their jobs are at stake, but because there will be all sorts of arrangements in respect of payments. Most people work because they are paid for it, and not
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because they want to work. They will work because it is worth their while.
If an entrepreneur decides that it is in his interest to open later—and he is in business only because of his interest; he is not there just to serve the customers and provide employment; he is there to make money, which is the nature of business—he will have means of saying to his employees, who are mostly women and part-time, "I now require you to work till 10 or 11 at night." The women will say, "We have to think about this because our jobs are at stake. We will continue to work."
As regards what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, about being restrictionist, I ask: why not think about the consequences of having restrictions or of having no restrictions? Although noble Lords opposite think that they cannot be wrong—I believe that I can be wrong—I consider that where there are no restrictions it will be at the cost of certain groups. My noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs used the word "sacrifice" which is appropriate. There are groups whom the deregulators are not prepared to take into account. One group is the residents who are affected by late-night shopping. The noble Lord opposite tells us that we have to get ready for 24-hour shopping in London. If that is the case, it will be to the detriment of what London is and of London as we know it.
I know of little communities where I live, and in general shops do not open in the morning because there is no trade. By and large, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is the time-scale for shops now. But competition in the retail trade gets fiercer every day, never mind every week. Once you have lifted the restriction—and, apparently, noble Lords opposite are not even prepared to consider in three years' time whether it is right or wrong—we shall have a situation where, in the very nature of being a good entrepreneur, someone will say, "Nobody else's business in this area is open beyond six or 7 o'clock. I will be the exception and I will take a risk." It is that person's business and he may open till 9 o'clock.
There are some stores now that open till 8 o'clock because that is the legal limit, but when there is no limit they will open until nine, 10 or 11 p.m. and believe that they are entitled to do it. Noble Lords opposite will say "We do not believe in restricting them"; despite the possible adverse consequences for the workers, for the residents, for the cost of goods and for the general ambience of the community.
My noble friend Lord Gallacher made a very powerful case against those who say that the present law does not allow adequate time for shopping. He said that counting the hours of sleep at eight hours a day, there will still remain more than 80 hours when people can shop legally under this amendment. I know that if you close a shop at 6 p.m. you get people coming along at 6.5 p.m., and if you close the shop at 7 p.m. they will come along at 7.5 p.m. There are always one or two on the margin.
I looked very carefully at the idea that the Asian family is anxious, able and willing to work until all hours. I shall simply tell noble Lords what my theory is. They are working until all hours again not because they want to but because they have to. They come to

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this country and they have the kind of fibre which makes them say, "If we have to survive, we will work all hours", and they do. But I have news for the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. The sons and daughters of those families who have worked all hours, when they are mature and educated, will reflect on whether they want to work all hours and there will be a change. There will be a change in the attitude of those who have to work all hours.
9 p.m.
I think that this amendment is very reasonable and I am very sad indeed that the noble Baroness has once more demonstrated that, whatever interest the Government serve, it is not that of the consumer. In future the noble Baroness will hear the evidence which she refused to take into account. It will be given to her by a great many forces, not least by her own eyes, and will show that what she is party to is a destruction and dereliction of a character and a kind of life in this country which we ought to try to protect. This amendment has been a very simple attempt to do just that.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, I found the reply of the noble Baroness more than a trifle disappointing. She had nothing to say about the protection of consumers over a 24-hour shopping period. Presumably it may happen—the last time this was raised I remember the noble Baroness made a remark to the effect that it was all tinned beans that were sold out of hours. I hope that she will not persist in those arguments because undoubtedly there is a body of law for the protection of consumers which was put on the statute book only with great difficulty and which it is essential should continue in force so long as shops are open. It serves the cause of consumers very little to say that you may shop 24 hours a day but that you will have very little protection during those hours when county council inspectorates are not available to enforce the law.
I turn now to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Arran. I was quite mildly amused to think that someone who has the protection of the net book agreement is the man who is currently breaking the law. I can only say that, if bookshops are as prosperous as he makes out and if they are able to operate the extended hours which he makes out and presumably pay a reasonable wage to their employees for those hours, it may be that the justification which the restrictive trade practices court accepted so many years ago for the continuance of the net book agreement should be re-examined in the light of modern conditions. If we are to have competition, let us have it across the board and let the book trade face the same kind of competition that other retailers are having to face since the abolition of retail price maintenance.
I turn now to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. I think it is pretty obvious that, even in the 24 hours when shops should be closed, the purpose of the amendment is to allow the Secretary of State to permit sales to continue during those 24 hours
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in the same way as Schedules 2 and 5 to the 1950 Act allow sales to be made. It will be a matter for the judgment of the Secretary of State to decide what is to happen at airports, railway stations and places of that kind. It is quite misleading for anyone to suggest that in point of fact we are asking the Secretary of State to make individual orders for every nook and cranny of this country. He would obviously make orders covering the whole nation and in that way the situation for trade after 9 p.m. on weekdays and after 7 p.m. on Sundays could be effectively regulated.
My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton has dealt with the impact of this on the small shop. I think the Government proceed from the assumption that it is going to be like Scotland and that not a lot of use will be made of the freedom which the Bill proposes. I examined the evidence to the Auld Committee and I am satisfied that 50 per cent. of the multiple retailers are simply waiting for the law to be changed. Once that happens, their competitors will have no option but to open alongside them. What we are getting is a major change not merely in the retailing life of this country but, I believe, in its social life. I am grateful to my noble friends who have tried to point that out to the Government. I believe that their minds are closed, and since that is the case I see no reason why I should delay your Lordships any longer in trying to persuade them to take a more liberal view of the proposition before the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Airedale): Amendment No. 4, Lord Graham of Edmonton.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am conscious of a number of factors which one minute of your Lordships' time will help to resolve. It is quite clear that the Government are certainly not prepared to look remotely on some very good amendments that have been moved so ably. I am looking at the rest of the amendments on the Marshalled List, Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, which precede the amendments relating to Clause 2. I very much hope that when we get to Clause 2, noting what the Minister has already done, there will be scope not only for satisfactory amendments to be moved but for a better response to them from the Government.
I am also conscious of what I understand are the difficult weather conditions outside. With the approval of the House, I should like to indicate that I shall not be moving Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. I believe we have an understanding that at this point the present proceedings on the Report stage will be adjourned.
[Amendments Nos. 4 to 8 not moved.]
Clause 2 [Removal of restrictions on opening hours of adult shop assistants etc.]:
[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]
House adjourned at eight minutes past nine o'clock.