Sitting of 5 February 1946

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Viscount Ullswater—Took the Oath.

Prayers.

  GENERAL STRIKE IN SINGAPORE.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, representing the War Office, a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can now make a statement regarding the recent serious industrial strike in Singapore.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD NATHAN): My Lords, on January 29 a general strike was called by the General Labour Union in Singapore and Johore in protest against the arrest of certain members of the General Labour Union and ex-members of the Anti-Japanese Army. The present economic difficulties of the country have created a situation favourable to labour unrest, and those responsible for the strike took advantage of this situation to further their own political ends. The strike was extended by well-organized intimidation and propaganda, and many strikers did not know the real reason for the strike. It was unpopular and maintained almost entirely by fear. The strike, which was called on January 29, was lifted on January 30. There are serious shortages and business is restricted, but His Majesty's Government are doing everything possible to improve the economic situation.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, whilst thanking the noble Lord for that answer, I should like to ask him whether the situation has calmed down sufficiently to enable him to say that a similar strike is not going to arise in the future.
  LORD NATHAN: My Lords, despite my name I should be unwilling to indulge in prophecy, and my information is not sufficient to enable me to go beyond what I have already said.

ASSURANCE COMPANIES BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, read 1a, and to be printed.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; read 1a, and to be primed.

FURNISHED HOUSES (RENT CONTROL) BILL.
2.35 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reaching read.
THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, the object of this short and comparatively simple measure is to provide machinery for the control of the rents of furnished lettings and of premises, whether furnished or unfurnished, which are let together with services, such as attendance, heating or lighting or hot water. This proposed extension of statutory control over rents will be exercised through a system of tribunals appointed by the Minister for the purposes of the Bill. As your Lordships are already aware, the Ridley Committee on rent control, in their recent and most valuable Report, made out a strong case for radical amendment of many of the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. To give full effect to their numerous and far-reaching recommendations would mean a long and complicated Bill, and the pressure on Parliamentary time has made it impossible for the Government to prepare so comprehensive a measure for passage into law during the current Session.
The Government have, however, decided to deal at once with the limited but extremely urgent problem of furnished lettings. Their proposal to widen in this direction the field of statutory control is in accordance with the views of the Ridley Committee, which suggested in paragraph 148 of its Report that "a scheme for the control of furnished lettings on the lines of the Scottish Act should be applied throughout Great Britain." I am sure

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that our intention to implement forthwith so vital a recommendation of the Ridley Committee will have the full approval of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and of the other noble Lords who urged the Government not long since to act upon the recommendations in this Report.
The existing Rent Restrictions Acts give substantial protection to the tenants of unfurnished premises, but they leave the tenants of furnished premises at the mercy of any unscrupulous person who, taking advantage of the present exceptional conditions, may choose to use the housing shortage to drive a hard bargain. These Acts do, of course, make it an offence to charge an exorbitant rent, and they set out to control charges by reference to a normal profit, but such vague and general statutory provisions are extremely difficult for the Courts to interpret.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: Could the noble Earl speak a little louder? We cannot hear what he is saying.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I apologize to the noble Earl. I shall endeavour to make myself audible in his part of the House. Experience has shown that the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts cannot be relied upon to give sufficient protection to hard-pressed tenants. There is also no effective control under the existing law over the charges which may be made for premises let with services. A common form of exploitation is to require the tenant to enter into separate contracts for renting the premises and for services. While the amount of rent recoverable under the first contract may be limited, because the premises are subject to rent control, there is no limit at all to the charge which may be demanded under the contract for services. I need not enlarge on the difficulties of the present housing situation, which are, of course, particularly severe where the population is most dense. Because of the prevailing shortage of unfurnished accommodation and of furniture to equip such unfurnished rooms as may come on the market, very many people, including a large number of newly-married couples, are compelled to have recourse temporarily to furnished premises.
Unfair advantage has already been taken of their desperate need for homes,
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and if control is not speedily established charges are likely to become increasingly exorbitant as more and more ex-Servicemen, married and unmarried, return from overseas and increase the demand for the insufficient accommodation at present available. Your Lordships will have noted that this Bill is a temporary measure and that it will only operate until December 31, 1947. It is designed to expire directly the housing situation has taken a real turn for the better. Its provisions are very similar to those contained in the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act, 1943, which is also a temporary enactment. This Act has, on the whole, worked well in Scotland and has not set an impossible task to those responsible for its administration. Another point of some importance is that the Bill applies to all furnished lettings and to lettings with services, irrespective of the rateable value of the premises. In the present period of acute stringency it is not considered reasonable that any class of property should be exempt.
Let me now explain to your Lordships quite briefly some of the main provisions of the Bill. Under Clause 1 the Minister may by Order apply the Act to the whole or part of any district of a local authority on representations by or after consultation with the local authority concerned. The Minister must then appoint a tribunal, consisting of a chairman and two members, for each district or combination of districts to which the Act is applied. The members and staff of the tribunal will receive such remuneration as the Minister, with the consent of the Treasury, may think fit, and the cost of those and other expenses will be borne by the Exchequer. Clause 2 provides that in a district in which the Act has come into force, either party to a contract of the kind envisaged in the Bill may refer the terms of the contract for adjudication to the appropriate tribunal. The local authority may also refer cases to the tribunal. Such a reference may be made whether or not the tenant has the right to share other rooms or accommodation in the house.
Another important feature of the Bill is that in Clause 12 (2) "rent" is defined as the aggregate of any separate sums paid by the tenant for the occupation of premises, or for the use of furniture, or for other entitlements to different

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services. It will thus no longer be possible to avoid rent control by making separate contracts for the use of furniture or for the provision of services. After due consideration, a tribunal may decide to approve the rent, or to reduce it, or, if they think fit, to dismiss the reference altogether. A tribunal has no power under this Bill to increase a rent except on a second reference to them on a change of circumstances, but I would ask you to note that a dismissal of a reference by a tribunal would in fact mean that the tribunal considered the existing rent to be unreasonably low, and it would then be open to the landlord to increase the rent at the end of the current contract.
Clause 3 provides that local authorities must keep a register of the rents fixed by the tribunals. That is obviously necessary in order to ascertain whether a rent is in accordance with the decision of a tribunal or not. Under Clause 4 it is made an offence to ask for or to receive a rent in excess of the registered rent, or a premium or other valuable consideration. A tenant can recover any excess rent or premium charged him, but this right does not extend retrospectively to a period before the registration of the rent.
Under Clause 5 a limited security is given to tenants after reference has been made by them or by a local authority to a tribunal. This clause follows very closely the recommendations made in paragraph 151 of the Ridley Committee's Report. It provides that the tenant shall have security of tenure for the whole period from the date of the reference to the date of the tribunal's decision, and for a further period of three months from the date of the decision, unless, of course, the tribunal decides to curtail it. An exception to this rule is made in a case in which a reference is withdrawn, and security of tenure in all such cases would cease on the expiration of seven days from the withdrawal of the reference. Under Clause 9 the penalties attached to any infringement of a tribunal's decision are, a fine not exceeding £100, or a term of not more than six months' imprisonment, or both penalties together. If the Bill is to be effective it must provide a severe deterrent. On the other hand, proceedings for offences under the Act will not be lightly entered into, because they
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may only be instituted by a local authority.
I have endeavoured to explain the provisions of this Bill in broad outline. I feel confident that it will commend itself to your Lordships as a means of securing fair rents during a period of unprecedented housing shortage and that you will regard it as an urgent measure which ought to reach the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Earl of Listowel.)
2.47 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I think we are all indebted, as we usually are, to the Postmaster-General for the concise and clear way in which he has explained this measure to us. There is not the slightest doubt that there are a certain number of cases—although they are probably few compared with the very large number of furnished lettings—in which excessive rents are being charged for furnished property. This is being done by a few unscrupulous landlords. In this connexion I think I ought to say "unscrupulous landladies," because in nearly every case of this sort it is a landlady who is concerned and not a landlord. They are able to charge these excessive rents because of the results of enemy action and the shortage of housing accommodation. Thus it is made very difficult for the men who have been fighting for us to get houses, and all of us who served through the 1914–1918 war and through this war know how good it is to get back from war conditions into a home, and a nice home at that. I think all of us are quite determined that these men shall not have to pay unduly for the accommodation which they so much deserve.
There is, however, another class for whom we ought to have some consideration—namely, those people who have lost their homes through bombing and who have to bear the burden of having lost their homes and the furniture they had collected, perhaps over a number of years. We must see that one injury is not added to another and that they are not asked far too much for similar accommodation. If one person starts charging too much, it is very often contagious. Mrs. Jones's friend—to take a name by chance—may well drop in and say: "What are you getting for your rooms? Do not you

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know that Mrs. Smith is getting so much?" That makes Mrs. Jones feel rather foolish that she is not asking as much as Mrs. Smith, and the whole thing is quite liable to become contagious once it is started. Therefore, I think we are all agreed that a check should be put on this practice before it grows into a real scandal. That is why the Coalition Government set up the Ridley Committee and that is why, in 1943, that Government introduced very similar legislation to this, applying to Scotland, where this habit had first appeared. I think it is quite clear that a measure like this is necessary now for England and Wales.
For my part, I believe that this Bill deals with the problem in the right way. There are such varied conditions in furnished lettings. Some rooms or houses may be well furnished, with good type furniture, some may be hardly furnished at all, and perhaps with quite shoddy stuff at that. So it cannot be laid down by Act of Parliament—nor, indeed, by regulation although we lay down lots of details in these days, unfortunately, by regulation—what the rent should be, and I think it is much better left to the kind of flexible procedure which will be the procedure under this measure. You must leave it really to the discretion of the tribunal. I believe the most important thing of all, if this measure, when it gets on the Statute Book, is to be a success, is the appointment of the chairmen and the members on these tribunals. I would have liked, myself, to see these matters left to some sort of informal hearings by County Court Judges who have such great experience, but I know that the County Court Judges already have their time fully occupied, and that, therefore, was, probably, not possible. But I should like those who recommend and appoint, at any rate, the chairman, to aim at getting for that position a man or a woman who has the full respect of his or her fellow citizens and a reasonably judicial outlook upon affairs. We must remember that there is no appeal. It is quite unusual to set up a tribunal and allow no appeal from it at all. We are vesting in the hands of these three people a considerable power and nobody is in a position to override what they do.
Failing County Court Judges, I would like the choice to be made amongst people
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who have served, and served well, in the office of Justice of the Peace—people who are known to take their duties in that capacity seriously, and to have the kind of character for impartiality which I have outlined. It is not desirable to get people who in dealing with cases of the kind that will come before these tribunals will take up a sympathetic attitude either because of the poor circumstances of the tenant on the one hand or because of those of the landlady on the other. We must remember, in considering this measure, that in lots of cases the landlords and the landladies will be poorer people than those who are lodging with them. I think that if you get tribunals looking rather at the side of one or other of the particular parties to the dispute and not at the size of the rooms, what the services are, and how they are furnished, you will get a frightful jumble of conflicting decisions about rooms of the same size in the very same street. So I do hope that great care will be taken in the selection of those who are to form these tribunals. I note that the Minister of Health said; in another place, that he thought they would work very much more justly and fit in better with local circumstances if the chairman was usually a lay person. If he or she is a lay person who has a good knowledge as to what is hearsay and what is not, that may be quite all right. But I do hope that some guidance will be given so that these tribunals do not form just a place where a good deal of hearsay evidence may be given and a lot of gossip of the neighbourhood may be aired.
The only other remark I desire to make is this. The Bill contains no provision and affords no way in which the tribunals can put a check on the putting forward of frivolous appeals. I know that the Minister of Health in another place opposed the making of some such provision. He did it on the ground that people in poor circumstances might be deterred from bringing their cases before the tribunal at all if the tribunal had the power—which was all that was asked for in the case of frivolous applications—to award costs against them. I do not think the fact that they risk having costs awarded against them, has prevented a large number of people making full use of our County Courts. Let us recognize quite frankly that there are some litigious people who like to have the thrill of going before a tribunal and, possibly, in con-

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sequence, afterwards finding their names in the local paper. But there is nothing at all in this measure to prevent such people going time after time to the same tribunal about the same case. If your Lordships will look at the controlling words which are in Clause 2 (2) you will find they read as follows:
"Where any contract to which this Act applies is referred to a tribunal"—
and it may be referred time after time—
"then, unless at any time before the tribunal have entered upon consideration of the reference it is withdrawn by the person or the authority by whom it was made, the tribunal shall consider it …"
I really think that in some way we ought to protect these tribunals from having cases brought time after time before them. It may be done, though not perhaps by many people. There were one or two litigants who I remember, when I was a junior barrister, did appear time after time in one or two County Courts, to which I then went. They were a public nuisance to the Courts, and the Courts had the power, of course, to check them. I think that there ought to be some power for the preservation of the dignity of the tribunal and to ensure fairness to the other party before the tribunal. That, however, is a matter which we may well discuss at later stages of this Bill. Let me end on the note which I have stressed in my speech this afternoon. I believe that we should facilitate the passage of this Bill into law, but that its success or failure will depend entirely on the people appointed, to reach the difficult and discriminating decisions that their duties will demand of them.
3.0 p.m.
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: My Lords, the principle of this Bill is one which I feel sure will commend itself to the noble Lords with whom I sit, all of whom are obviously anxious to stop the charging of rents which are unduly high in any cases in which this may happen. My noble friend who moved the Second Reading was good enough to make some reference to me. I should like to congratulate him on the extremely able way in which he put forward his Bill, but I must remind him that in saying he has carried out some of the decisions of the Ridley Committee, he has in fact taken one of the provisions and cut it in half. He has appointed the tribunals and denied them the right to increase rents which the Ridley Committee
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intended they should have, a point to which I shall be obliged to revert.
The noble Lord has called it a simple Bill. It is not, in fact, quite so simple as he would lead us to suppose. In the first place, as he has very rightly pointed out, although it is called the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Bill, it covers a vast mass of unfurnished property. In regard to these service flats which are the unfurnished property which it covers, the Rent Restriction Acts determine in many cases whether they are within the scope of the Acts or not by the meaning of the word "attendance." Frequently it all hinges on that word, but in this Bill we have substituted for it the word "services," a word which so far as I can discover is never used in the existing Acts. At once you have an element of confusion, the very thing which I ventured to tell your Lordships would arise when we attempted to tackle this question bit by bit as we are doing.
A further point to which I hoped the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, would refer, is that in Clause 8 of this Bill the Minister has power to make regulations but there is nothing to compel him to disclose those regulations to members in another place. This violation of what I believe to be the common procedure is surely also a violation of one of the principles of democracy. It should not in my view be merely criticized, but sternly condemned. It must be wrong that regulations should be made in a Bill of this kind and that members in another place should have no right to see them beforehand. It may seem from what I have said that it is my purpose to attack this Bill. That is not so. I have no desire to be unhelpful. But I should like to try and establish two points quite briefly. I may say in passing that I am sorry once again that it falls to my lot to weary your Lordships on these uninteresting and somewhat complex matters. I should also like your Lordships' permission to use the old familiar words "landlord and tenant" instead of the "lessor and lessee" in the Bill. I cannot somehow think of a seaside landlady as a lessor.
In the first place, I should like to urge that these tribunals should have power to increase rents. There may not be many cases where the rent should be increased: but there will be cases where the landlord has charged a nominal or trifling rent

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to oblige a friend or out of charity. The friendship may be interrupted, with the result that there may be a vexatious appeal, yet the tribunal has no power to rectify the injustice. The Minister, speaking in another place, called these "arbitration tribunals." There are in your Lordships' House—and they are not few in number—those who have been called upon to arbitrate on matters of great moment. I wonder what they would have said if, when being asked to act, they were told that they could decide in favour of one party, but that whatever happened they must not make an award in favour of the other. The Minister has called this rent-reducing legislation. That is all he has in mind—not the application of justice, but the reduction of rents. I suggest that the very expression implies misunderstanding of what justice stands for. It is regarding justice as if it were some industrial machine into which you pour blanks at one end, move a lever and all that concerns you is that the result in every case should be the same.
To turn to a merely common-sense view of this matter, I fear that this very provision may tend to defeat the purpose of the Bill. For, as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has pointed out, there is nothing to stop a vexatious or frivolous application. No appeal can lie, no costs can be awarded against the loser and the tenant is in the position that whatever happens he cannot possibly lose anything. I am not going to suggest that an application would be a matter of ordinary business routine, but if we consider the countless number of properties involved in London alone, we can see that the machinery of this Bill may well be slowed by the flood of applications which pour in, and there may be delay in granting relief in those cases where it is justly due.
As your Lordships are aware, in any form of control, the article controlled tends to disappear. I could give your Lordships examples of this, but perhaps at this hour of the day it might be a little painful were I to do so, choosing as an example the shops in which food is for sale, but as a general principle you can take it that under control the article controlled tends to disappear. We have got to be careful, then, that nothing we do diminishes the accommodation available. Much of this accom
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modation is provided by what I would call "small people"—landladies who let one room or perhaps two. They have their proper pride; they are sensitive to local publicity. Is it to be wondered at that they would shrink from being brought before a tribunal at all, still more when that tribunal can in no circumstances make an award in their favour?
If I may say so with respect, I feel sure that the Minister is conscious of the dignity of his office. He will not be led astray by the prejudice of partisans in another place. I feel, further, that he has every intention to be just, and I have tried to appreciate the argument which he has put forward in another place, and that adduced before your Lordships by the noble Earl.
As I understand it, it is twofold. First it is said that under Clause 2 (3) of the present Bill rents can be increased. But in fact they can only be increased in the light of changed circumstances. The circumstances existing up to the time of the application, or at that time, cannot be taken into account at all. In other words, if you hang a landlord first and try him afterwards you cannot be wrong. The second point is that the tribunals have the power to dismiss these cases. Therefore, the landlord can go back home and immediately increase the rent. There are several points about that. One is that some properties under this Bill are already controlled under the existing Rent Restrictions Acts, so that the remedy which the noble Earl suggests is in these cases by no means open. But if we take those cases where it does exist, how can it be suggested that it is a proper remedy? How can you ask a landlord to go home and say "This application has been dismissed. There is no guidance. I do not want to be wrong again, so I will charge a bit more." Perhaps too much is charged, and the tenant then has to apply again. How can it be suggested that this going backwards and forwards, this hit-and-miss procedure, can be a proper way of dealing with the matter, or that it can be fair to either one party or the other?
My last point concerns the question of flats let at a rent which includes services. I think it is important to remember—I hope I may be forgiven if I repeat myself—that all service flats are brought within the ambit of this Bill. Certain of them—that is those with a rateable value

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of £100 or under, and with regard to which the attendance is not such as, by virtue of Section 12 of the Act of 1920, to take them outside existing Acts—are covered by both Acts. But whether they fall into the one category or the other, I think we should consider what the Ridley Committee has said. This Committee, as your Lordships are aware, was composed of members of all Parties. Their findings were not altogether unanimous, but on this point there was no dissentient voice. Everyone said the same thing. Everyone said—I need not quote the exact words—that where you have service letting and where the cost of those services has increased, the landlord should be allowed to increase the rent.
This is another instance in which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—I am sorry he is not here—has taken a part of the recommendations of the Ridley Committee and not taken the whole. The position of the owners of these service flats is hard. They have provided a great deal of accommodation at reasonable prices in London. They find themselves now, as indeed they always have, under an obligation to provide services which cost them a great deal more. I am advised, that even if there is no covenant in the lease, they can be sued for not performing the services which were the basis of the original agreement. It is easy to see how the cost of those services has risen. In addition to that obligation, for which they can be sued, they are liable under Statute to take back their old employees. Any of them may have to be paid twice what they were paid before, their lower pre-war wage being the figure on which the landlord relied when the original agreement was negotiated. When we turn to the increased cost of coke and coal, I am dealing with a matter so familiar to your Lordships that there is no necessity to elaborate it. I do suggest most earnestly that with regard to these service flats there is grave injustice. You cannot in fairness bring them within the scope of this Bill and at the same time deny them that limited increase of rent which by right is theirs, and which the Ridley Committee unanimously recommended they should receive.
My Lords, I am sorry if I have detained you. I feel the points which I have made are the least which justice will
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allow, and I can only hope that they will not lightly be rejected.
3.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, there is one point which arises out of this Bill and which I think I ought to mention on the Second Reading. I hope before we get to another stage that the noble Earl who is in charge of the Bill will be in a position to deal with the point and to remove the objection, which I feel is very strong. I will state the point quite shortly—prefacing my observations with the remark that I am very much in favour of the Bill as a whole. There is no subject nearer the legal part of me than rent restriction, and I feel very strongly that rent restriction having been a necessity, it will be a necessity for another year or two certainly. It is undoubtedly in the interests of the public as a whole that people should not be allowed to take advantage of a temporary stringency with regard to houses to exact exorbitant rents.
Now I come to the point at once. I imagine nearly everybody in the House at the moment thinks that this Bill relates to cases where there has been substantial letting of furnished rooms in a building. That is the main point, but, inadvertently or otherwise, it is so drafted that, as far as I can see, it applies to every single unfurnished room in a house, to every single letting of a flat, an unfurnished room or rooms in a flat. Indeed the short title suggested—Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Bill—is quite wrong, because as drafted it applies to every room, furnished or unfurnished, in such a city as the City of London, and it all comes about from the use of some words in Clause 2, to which the attention of the noble Earl has already been directed by the Law Society, who requested me to make clear to the House what we were dealing with.
This is (may I call it?) a snag which creeps into certain Bills which are put before us and which we have very little time for considering, and it entirely affects the real nature of the Bill. It is this. In Clause 2 (I) it is stated that where a contract which can be interfered with by a tribunal, whether entered into before or after the passing of this Act—that may refer to something going back ten years or more—where such a contract has been entered into whereby one person grants to

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another person the right to occupy as a residence a house or part of a house,
"in consideration of a rent which includes payment for the use of furniture or for services, whether or not, in the case of such a contract with regard to part of a house, the lessee is entitled, in addition to exclusive occupation thereof, to the use in common with any other person of other rooms or accommodation in the house, it shall be lawful for either party to the con tract. …"
to go before the tribunal. Have your Lordships ever heard of a room being let in London—and I am thinking of the poor people in London far more than I am of the rich—where a room has been let in a house unfurnished without a right to go out by the front door and to walk along the passageway to the door? That is accommodation in the sense that other people have got accommodation of the house and of the door in common with other persons in the house. Or have your Lordships ever heard of a place where in an ordinary house there is no light over the door in wintertime, so that people can go in and get out of the door? Yet, if they have that accommodation given, the Bill applies.
Have your Lordships ever heard of a building—and I will come now to the more expensive flat if you like, but the same is true about cheaper ones—where there is not any amount of accommodation in connexion with other people? If you go into a flat in Grosvenor Square you are entitled not only to the use of the front door and the passage up to the front door; you are entitled to go upstairs, or to use the lift, or to have other advantages given to you in connexion with the flats. And all those flats in London, small or big, for rich or poor, are included in this Bill. I challenge my noble friend who is in charge of the Bill to tell me what the answer to that is. It all comes into the words: "other rooms or accommodation in the house in common with other persons." You cannot help having some use or accommodation in common with other persons.
The Law Society, when they raised the point, drew attention to the fact that you have a right to drainage; even if you have only one room out of two or out of twenty, you have all the same right to drainage or to pour water down a sink. That is all accommodation in common use with other people in the house, and it is absolutely incredible to me that the noble
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Lord can really intend that words such as those, slipped in perhaps by a mistake but adhered to notwithstanding that the matter has been pointed out by the Law Society, should continue to be the subject matter of this Bill. And if it is the subject matter, all I can say is that we shall have to consider a good many other things in connexion with the Bill when it comes on at a later stage.
I am very much in favour of the Bill, but as a measure confined to the matters to which it properly is intended to relate. This Bill is not intended to relate to the cases I have instanced. The people who have flats of the expensive kind I have mentioned are entitled to go before the tribunal because they think their rents are rather too high. They have taken unfurnished rooms, yet inevitably they have the use, in common with other persons, of some of those amenities without which you cannot get to a room or use it in any way.
There is a clause about services which makes it quite clear. In clause 12 (I) of the Bill, which is the definition clause, you get this curious statement:
"'services' includes attendance, the provision of heating or lighting, the supply of hot water …"
"Lighting" includes lighting the door, the humble gas jet over the front door. Then it says, "the supply of hot water"—it does not say cold water. It goes on:
"and any other privilege or facility connected with the occupancy of a house or part of a house."
You may have cold water coming to your room or to the passage outside your room, but you cannot use the passage because that will not relate to you. How you are to get the water brought into your room, I do not know.
All this really requires consideration. I need not say that I am only too desirous that some consideration should be made so as to confine the Bill to those things to which it really is intended to apply. I have not forgotten all that the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill said in regard to evasions. That is quite true. If very trifling things are stuck into a room to make it a furnished room, that is a matter which obviously is included in the Bill, and properly included in it, and that may be true with regard to some of the things I have mentioned. On the whole, however, the effect of the use of these words is to make this Bill extend not only to

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furnished houses but to practically every single unfurnished room in every big city in England or in Wales.
It is quite easy to tell the noble Earl where he can make the Bill reasonable. That is in Clause 12 (3), which says:
"Nothing in this Act shall apply to a house or part of a house let at a rent which includes payment in respect of board."
So if you have bed and breakfast you are lucky enough not to be included in the Bill. The same clause ought to be extended so that you may say that the Bill does not include the cases of ingress and egress to the house and a number of other little things like that which are inevitably granted as part of the amenities which you get in respect of premises such as these. I finish by repeating what I have already said. I am in favour of the Bill on consideration of the points mentioned by my noble friend Viscount Buck-master, and subject to the limitation of the Bill in the way I have suggested to make it a reasonable measure.
3.27 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Llewellin that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves at the moment there is a case for this Bill being necessary, but I do not think that we should give a Second Reading without expressing, in some way, how much we deplore the necessity, at this stage after the war, for the imposition of further restrictions. This is a control, a restriction. We put up with controls and restrictions during the war because they were necessary during the war. We put up with them in order to win the war. Well, we have done that, and it is reasonable to suppose that people expected that as soon as possible after the war these controls and restrictions would be relaxed and reduced. Therefore I do think it is a great pity that all we can see going on is the imposition of further controls.
It has been said, perfectly truly, that the necessity for this Bill is due a great deal to the housing shortage. The remedy for that is to build more houses, and I think that if the Government really concentrated on that and got some houses built, as they promised in July—it was said then that they could deal with it in a fortnight—this Bill and others like it would be absolutely unnecessary.
Turning to the Bill itself, I want to make a suggestion as regards the tribunals
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that are going to be appointed by the Ministry. They are obviously the most important matter dealt with in this Bill. How they do their work, and the decisions they give, are going to have the very greatest effect on the operation of the Bill. In fact, the whole measure hangs on them. The tribunals are the main-spring of the whole thing, and I am wondering whether it is correct for the Minister of Health to be responsible for appointing these tribunals, They are doing work which is going to be very closely connected with the duties of his own Department. He is going to appoint the members of the tribunals, and he is going to have referred to them matters very closely concerned with his own Department. He is running a very grave risk of being accused of political bias in these appointments. The tribunals are not going to have an easy job; they are not going to please both sides who refer a case to them; they are going to make definitely disgruntled people. Those people, probably most unjustly, are going to say, "Of course, if you have a Minister like that appointing these people what hopes have you?" The Minister is laying himself open to the accusation of political bias.
I am not saying anything against the present Minister or the present Government. They have assured us frequently that they are going to operate the various Bills which they bring before us very fairly and very honestly, and I am perfectly certain that they are; but they are making laws for future Governments and there may be a Minister of Health and a Government with a very different shade of political opinion from the present one. I should very seriously like to suggest to the Government that it would be far better if these tribunals were appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor is admittedly also appointed by the Government, but he has always fulfilled his task with the absolute confidence of the people and with no political bias whatever. It would certainly relieve a great deal of anxiety and establish much more confidence in these tribunal, were they to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. My noble friend Lord Llewellin suggested that justices of the peace might be appointed. That is an excellent suggestion, but there may be objections to it. I think that the appointments should be made by the Lord Chancellor, and I hope that the Government will give this matter serious con-

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sideration and possibly bring in an Amendment before the Bill passes through its final stages.
I should like to have an assurance from the noble Earl that this Bill does not apply to hotels. I do not see why it could not; reading the Bill very carefully, I think that it can apply to any hotel, and that if you were lucky enough to get a room in an hotel for one night you might be able to claim it for three or four years! I am sure that that is not the intention of the Government, but as drafted at present that seems to be so. There is the question of contract. Surely a verbal contract that you take a room and they charge you for it is an implied contract? That is a legal matter and I do not wish to go into it, but I want to be assured that in no possible circumstances could this Bill be applied to hotels.
I have only one other point, but it is a most important one—the duration of the Bill. I think the fact that it can operate up to the end of 1947 is the most optimistic statement that I have ever heard as to the housing position. We cannot get any statement from the Minister of Health as to his target for housing, or even as to what has been done up to the end of last year; but I am not at all sure that in this Bill it is not implied that the housing problem will be completely solved by the end of 1947. I hope that the Minister is right there, but unfortunately there is a measure called the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, and I imagine that under that Act the life of this Bill can be carried on—can be, not will be—from year to year. I think that we want to watch that very carefully. We should not have this control of the rent of furnished houses one second longer than is absolutely necessary. We are prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading now in very exceptional circumstances and because of those very exceptional circumstances. As soon as things become normal again, we have to watch very carefully to see that this Bill is not renewed.
3.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should very much like the opportunity to answer some of the important points made by several noble Lords in the course of the debate. I am extremely grateful to all the noble Lords who have spoken and to the House for the support which
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they have given in general terms to this measure. It is an urgent Bill. Its speedy passage through the House will enable injustices to be righted and prevent future injustices, and I am most grateful to the House for their support of this measure.
The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, raised two points of special importance which I should like to try to answer. He directed attention to the importance of the personnel of the tribunals which will fall to be appointed, and I can assure him that the Government entirely share his sense of the importance of the personnel of the tribunals that are to exercise such important functions. He suggested that justices of the peace or other responsible persons with an impartial outlook should be chosen, and I have no doubt that the Minister will take his words to heart. He will notice that under the regulations in Clause 8 the Minister has power to give guidance in matters of procedure, and I think that that covers the possibility that laxity of procedure might prejudice the fairness of the decisions.
There is another important point made by the noble Lord which was later endorsed by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster—namely, that there might be frivolous applications and there seemed to be no protection under the Bill against litigious people who cared to bring such applications before tribunals. I think that in fact there are two safeguards. In the first place a tenant would hesitate, because it would jeopardize his own security. The obvious way for the landlord to retaliate would be by giving him notice to quit, and under the Bill he will not enjoy the same degree of security as a bona-fide applicant. The noble Lord will remember that the period of three months can be curtailed by the decision of the tribunal, and I have no doubt that in such cases the tribunal would send the tenant about his business as speedily as possible. I think there is little doubt that the time of tribunals would not be wasted by frivolous cases on account of their power to dismiss a reference. The moment they scented that a man was not a bona-fide applicant they would clearly dismiss the case, and the more often he came up the more obvious it would be that he was merely trying to waste the time of the tribunal.
LORD LLEWELLIN: If I may interrupt, a duty is imposed on them to con-

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sider it. I suggest that the noble Earl should have that looked into to see whether there cannot be some better provision against constant appeals than the rather vague hints to which he has alluded.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I will certainly fall in with the noble Lord's wishes in this matter, but there is of course no time limit to the consideration. It may be that the consideration will be extremely brief.
The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, who is such an authority on the subject of rent control, raised two points of special importance. First of all, he complained that the present Bill does not give the tribunal power to increase rents, such as was suggested in the Report of the Ridley Committee. He went on to say that he hoped this was a case for justice, and that it was unjust not to give a landlord the same opportunity of obtaining reparation as it is proposed, under the present Bill, to give to the tenant. We entirely share his sentiments about the justice of the position and the need to put right any injustice which may be caused. I would, if I may do so, like to direct his attention to the terms in which the Report of the Ridley Committee has been spoken of publicly by my right honourable friend the Minister of Health. He said, on the Second Reading of the present Bill in another place:
"I know that a strong case can be made for the enactment of the whole of the recommendations of the Ridley Committee, and the Government would not have been loth to do so were it not for the fact that the preparation of a Bill of that sort would have strained the machinery at our disposal and that we have not the Parliamentary time to devote to it. Therefore, I hope that in this matter the House will forgive the Government for not getting on with a very much more ambitious measure and will accept this Bill as a kind of first-aid treatment for the patient, who later, perhaps, will require a very much more radical cure."
I honestly do not think there is any difference of opinion between the noble Viscount and the Government as to the merits of the Ridley Committee Report. The noble Viscount also made a point about the regulations under Clause 8 and said that they might be subject to review by Parliament. That, of course, is not the case, but I would remind him that similar powers were given to the Minister under the Scottish Act of 1943, and those powers have been exercised for the last three
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years without any criticism or questioning of the fairness of the Minster's decisions. I therefore think it is reasonable not to clutter up the business of Parliament with any matters which may reasonably be left to the discretion of the Minister.
I am much obliged to the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, for the emphasis he placed on the drafting of Clause 2 (I). He would, of course, be the first to agree that this is a Committee point, but I am grateful to him for giving me notice in order that I may go into the matter carefully before we reach the Committee stage. I think one of the most useful functions of this House has always been to see that the wording of a Statute corresponds with the intentions of the legislators. When business has to be pressed rather hard and when Bills pass speedily through another place your Lordships' House is perhaps in a particularly important position in the matter of reviewing the wording of Bills in order to see that, when they pass into law, there are no omissions. I can assure the noble Viscount that the point he raised will be very carefully examined between now and the Committee stage.
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, raised two points which I should like to answer now. The first was about the position of hotels. I can assure him that hotels are excluded from the provisions of the Bill and will not be affected by the new procedure for the fixing of rents.
LORD LLEWELLIN: Can the noble Earl tell us what is the definition of "a house"? His answer must depend on that. After all, we are a house. It is a word with a very wide significance, and it surely might well be said to include an hotel.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am obliged to the noble Lord for making that point. I will certainly see that the definition is tightened up, if that is required, so that the expression "a house" can definitely exclude anything in the nature of an hotel. The other point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, was the question as to who should have the power to appoint these tribunals. He suggested that that should be done by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack instead of by the Minister of Health. I should like to make one comment on that point. I am sure the noble Lord opposite realizes that my noble

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and learned friend on the Woolsack is one of the most hard-worked members of the Government. He has a number of different capacities to fulfil. I always think it is really astounding that any Lord Chancellor can discharge so many functions over a longish period of time without a serious effect on his health. I am quite certain that the Government would be very reluctant to add any additional burden to that already borne by my noble and learned friend upon the Woolsack.
LORD CHESHAM: Might I ask if the Minister of Health has nothing to do?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I can leave the answer to that to the noble Lord himself. What he was proposing was the removal of the responsibility from one Department to a member of the judiciary, who is also the Chairman of this House and who, as a member of the Cabinet, has to support and defend a number of important Bills. I merely wished to indicate that that was a serious difficulty in his suggestion. I have covered as best I can—I am afraid I have not dealt with every point which has been raised—the matters which have been drawn to the Government's attention by the speakers in this debate. I can assure your Lordships that any point which requires further consideration will be considered between this and the Committee stage. I should like to conclude by thanking the House for giving such a kind and good reception to the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TRUNK ROADS BILL.
3.47 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, amongst the many tasks we have to deal with today we are called upon to assist in adding another chapter to the long and fascinating story of our public roads. It was a rough story during the Middle Ages, but it became smoother with the advent of the Turnpike Trust Companies, about 500 of them, and the development of horse-drawn traffic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Roads went rough
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again in the nineteenth century, after the advent of the railways, but during the present century they became quite smooth again. Rough macadam has been replaced by fine tarmac, thanks to the splendid work of our county councils and other authorities. I think their work has been really wonderful. I remember how throughout this country at one time in the winter the roads were muddied up very badly, especially in the rural areas, and in summer-time one got smothered with dust if one travelled on them. The county councils have changed all that and everything is less uncomfortable than it was.
The internal combustion engine has brought us many new problems, some of them extremely urgent, and the Bill I am introducing is intended to help in their solution. We must remember that there will be streams, if not floods, of new traffic appearing directly our country has recovered from its war-time troubles and people have been able to obtain cars, and business people have been able to obtain lorries, for the movement of personnel and goods on our roads. Some of your Lordships may remember that you gave approval to the Trunk Roads Bill in 1936, ten years ago. That Bill sought to separate trunk roads, for through traffic, from local roads, chiefly for local traffic—a very clear distinction. It made the Minister of Transport responsible for the trunk roads and left the local councils to continue their care of local roads within their respective areas. Experience has since shown the desirability of endowing the Minister with further powers for taking over another 3,685 miles of trunk road, making 8,144 in all, and of enabling him to acquire further mileage in the future, to construct new roads himself and to act more expeditiously than he can at present in regard to road improvements and safety precautions. That is the purpose of the present Bill. The Act of 1936, as I have said, transferred to the Minister 4,459 miles of roads, previously vested in a large number of local highway authorities, which constituted, in the words of the Act, "the national system of routes for through traffic."
That was the new creation of 1936. The Minister was given powers to maintain and improve those trunk roads, and to employ local highway authorities as his agents for the day-to-day management of the trunk roads in their respective areas. In carrying out improvements to

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the trunk roads, the Minister was empowered to deviate from the existing line by building by-passes or diversions, but whenever he did so the length of the trunk road which was superseded by new construction ceased to be a trunk road and reverted to the status of county road. It was a case of "new roads for old" on every such occasion. The Minister had no power to increase the number of trunk roads—he could not take any more over—and the improvements he could carry out were, in effect, limited to improving the engineering features and the general alignment of a fixed number of roads. Moreover, no roads in county boroughs or large burghs in Scotland or in the County of London became or could become trunk roads under the Act.
This last provision attracted some criticism in both Houses of Parliament during the passage of the Act of 1936. There were two reasons for it: first, the fact that trunk road routes, where they pass right through large towns, usually form one of the main streets, and a high proportion of the traffic using them is, therefore, local and not through traffic; second, the view that through traffic routes should by-pass and not traverse large centres of the population. These points, I think, are very good reasons for the restrictions.
This Bill transfers, as from April 1 next, a further 3,685 miles, as I have just said, from local highway authorities to the Minister. These roads are listed in the First Schedule which your Lordships will probably have perused. They form an interconnecting system of through routes between various parts of the country, they link the chief centres of industry and population with each other and with the most important ports, they connect the more important food-producing areas with their markets. That is a most important matter from the agricultural point of view. Further, they include certain routes which are of importance to the tourist traffic. I think that covers all the principal considerations that we have to bear in mind.
Unlike the Act of 1936, the Bill does not treat the trunk road system as something fixed and final. The system is regarded as an organic entity which must be capable of growth and modification to meet the changing needs of the community. Accordingly Clause I em-
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powers the Minister by Order to take over additional existing roads as trunk roads, to build new routes as trunk roads (without necessarily superseding any part of any existing trunk road) and to direct that a road shall cease to be a trunk road when he deems that that is desirable. The clause requires him to keep the national system of routes for through traffic continually under review, and, in exercising this power, to have regard to the requirements of national and local planning, including the requirements of agriculture. These powers will introduce into the administration of the trunk road system a measure of flexibility which will make possible its adaptation to changes in the main flow of through traffic which may result from future developments in town and country planning, in the location of industry and in the geographical distribution of the population. The exclusion from the trunk road system of all roads in county boroughs, large burghs in Scotland and in the County of London is to be abolished.
The second part of the First Schedule of the Bill lists certain lengths of road in county boroughs and large burghs (though none in the County of London at present) which will become trunk roads on April 1 next. In addition, the new powers to take over further existing roads, of building new trunk roads or of discarding certain lengths of road from the trunk road system, are to be exercisable in county boroughs, large burghs and the County of London. This does not mean that the reasons on which the decision to exclude such areas from the trunk road system of 1936 was based are now regarded as no longer valid. It is as true now as in 1936 that the principal traffic routes through the centres of large towns serve the needs of local traffic at least as much as that of through traffic; and the Government are as strongly convinced as ever that through traffic should be diverted from highly developed areas in the interest alike of safety, of good planning and of speedy communications. But local government boundaries of to-day were not in the main determined by consideration of the most suitable allocation of responsibility for through traffic routes. Borough boundaries often zigzag across trunk road routes in such a way that a continuous length of road is divided into a succession of short

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stretches, the responsibility for which alternates between the Minister and the county borough council, according as the section of road lies in the borough or in the adjoining county respectively. Such conditions may present an unnecessary obstacle to uniform standard of maintenance and of improvement. As your Lordships will gather, in such a case as I have cited one part of the road would be under the Minister and therefore kept under modern standards while the other section would be maintained according to local standards. You would not have an even run of through traffic.
The removal of that obstacle is one reason for the proposed change. In addition, some county boroughs and large burghs in Scotland have built outer ring roads diverting through traffic from the centre of the town, and they have been linked with radial routes to connect them to through traffic arteries leading to and from the centre. Where such orbital and radial routes connect existing trunk roads, or roads which it is proposed to take over as trunk roads under the Bill, they form integral parts of the trunk road system, and to transfer responsibility for them to the Minister is a logical step which in no way derogates from the principles of leaving with local authorities the responsibility for routes serving mainly local needs and diverting through traffic from centres of development. I hope that I have made that point clear.
The powers included in Clause 1 of the Bill are an appreciable extension of those conferred by Section 1 (3) of the Act of 1936, and in their application they are likely to bring about considerable changes from time to time in the responsibilities of individual highway authorities. It is proper, therefore, in such circumstances that Parliament should have a greater measure of supervision of the Minister's activities and that local authorities should have the right to be fully consulted, to make objections to the Minister's proposals and, in contentious cases, to submit their objections to Parliament for decision. These objects are achieved by means of the procedure provided in the Second Schedule which requires the Minister to publish his proposals, to serve notices of them upon specified authorities and to hold local inquiries if demanded. By the provisions of Clause 2 (I),
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if objections to the Minister's proposals made by the highway authority whose responsibilities will be affected are not withdrawn, the Order is to be subject to the special Parliamentary procedure of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, which your Lordships approved a few weeks ago. I might add that that procedure seems to be giving general satisfaction. When this Bill was in Committee in another place, great pressure was put on the Minister and strong arguments were put up to add many more roads, aggregating to over 1,000 miles, but the Minister objected to including them on the ground that every case should be thoroughly considered locally, and not brought into the Act of Parliament if the local people had not had much to say about it and that under this lay-out of notices and appeals and the right of coming to Parliament, they would have perfectly fair play. He, for his part, would have a fair chance to consider them, and would in every case where the plea was proven, adopt the further roads one by one as they proved to be desirable. That seemed to satisfy all those who pressed for inclusion and that gave satisfaction to a large number of Members in another place who had been approached to get other roads included. It was rather a contentious point, in fact the most contentious point in this Bill, in the Commons, and it was met in the way I have described.
Those are the most important changes which the Bill will bring about. Other provisions are mainly extensions of the Minister's powers, designed to enable him, in planning and carrying out schemes of new construction or improvement, to adopt modern conceptions of lay-out, in the interests both of the safety and convenience of traffic and of the preservation of amenities. Clause 3 of this Bill will enable the Minister to build cycle tracks or footpaths with greater freedom than before. They can be associated with the trunk road at some distance from it and separated by intervening land which does not form part of the road. At present the Minister may build cycle tracks and footpaths but they and the carriageway must run side by side and between the same highway boundaries. Under this Bill there will be a change which will be advantageous in several ways. The segregation of mechanically propelled traffic, pedal cycles and pedestrians is new

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generally accepted as an important principle in the promotion of greater safety. It is one on which the Road Safety Committee have laid considerable emphasis. I should like to pay a tribute to the work of that Committee which is a regular, continuous Committee, and which issues reports of great interest from time to time to all concerned. I regard that Committee as the apostolic successor to the Alness Committee which was set up in this House some years ago. Properly applied, this principle can increase not only safety but amenity, that is, the principle of separating the tracks. The separate footpath or cycle track can follow a course which will enable its users to enjoy natural beauties of which they would be largely deprived if they were compelled to adhere to the line followed by the carriageway. Furthermore, in many places where cycle tracks are needed the widening of the road on the existing alignment would be very costly by reason of the engineering works required and of the adjoining property which would have to be demolished, whereas by building a track or path a little distance away the carriageway would be left undisturbed.
Similar benefits should follow upon the proposed power in the same clause to confine the existing carriageway to one-way traffic and to accommodate traffic coming in the opposite direction on an-other carriageway. If a considerable stretch of road was available the two carriageways would be separated by intervening land, an expedient which is not available to the Minister under his present powers. The new powers in Clause 4 are also in the interests of safety. One of the commonest features of through traffic routes, resulting in dangerous conditions, is the concentration of too many junctions and side turnings in a relatively short length of the through traffic route. The clause proposes that the Minister should have power in such circumstances to remodel junctions and to stop up existing junctions, building an alternative connexion between the severed junction and the trunk road at a safer point. As a safeguard for the rights of users of a junction which may be thus stopped up, the Minister's power is limited so that he may not stop up an existing connexion unless there is an alternative connexion within 440 yards of the junction to be stopped up, or the Minister provides such a connexion. At present the side roads
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are outside the Minister's jurisdiction, although it is clear that a dangerous layout or a bad alignment on the side road can have a very material bearing upon the safety of traffic on the trunk road. Under Clause 4, the Minister would be able to take effective action and to bear the cost as a trunk road improvement and there would be no expense to the local authority. In order to safeguard the rights of interested parties, the orders made under this clause are subject to the procedure laid down in the Second Schedule.
Under Clause 6 of the Bill there is an important new power whereby the Minister may authorize by order the construction of bridges or tunnels carrying trunk roads over or under navigable waters. That is a power he has never had before. It is under this clause that a project such as the proposed Severn crossing would be dealt with. The trunk road can either go over or under. Hitherto such projects required the promotion of a special Bill in each case, involving substantial expense and occupying much Parliamentary time. The interests of bodies primarily affected—navigation authorities and catchment boards as well as local authorities—are carefully safeguarded by making orders under Clause 6 subject to the same procedure as orders under Clause 1 (2). There will be the same provisions for publication of proposals, service of notices, consideration of objections and the holding of public inquiries; and if and when a navigation authority or catchment board, having lodged an objection to the Minister's, proposals, does not withdraw the objection, it will have the right to bring the matter before Parliament, for decision by the machinery of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945.
Another obstacle to the efficient maintenance and improvement of the trunk road system is to be removed by the provisions of Clause 7. The clause will transfer to the Minister privately-owned bridges on trunk road routes, and the lengths of road carried by those bridges. Hitherto they have been excluded from his jurisdiction. The position in respect of these bridges, the majority of which belong to railway companies, is, generally speaking, that they were built in the exercise of statutory powers conferred by private Acts.
Where the construct ion of a railway, canal or other undertaking involved interference

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with a public road, the statutory undertakers were generally required to carry the road over their works by means of an adequate bridge and thereafter to maintain the bridge, its approaches and the road over them. It has been held that this obligation is limited to the maintenance of a bridge adequate in character and strength to serve the needs of the normal traffic using the road in question at the time the bridge was built. Those owning the bridges stand on that decision.
The divided responsibility for the bridge on the one hand, and the highway on either side of it on the other hand has proved a serious handicap to the execution of urgently needed improvements. When proposals for major alterations by widening, strengthening or reconstructing the bridges are put forward, the private owners may be able reasonably to contend that the bridge fulfils the statutory requirements imposed upon them and is entirely adequate for the purposes of their own undertaking. The fact that it may no longer be adequate for the needs of an increased volume of new road traffic is not their concern but that of the highway authority. The highway authority however face the prospect of heavy capital outlay on works which at the end of it all will not be theirs but will still belong to the railway company or other private owner. At whatever stage important works may be decided upon, difficult and protracted negotiations commonly ensure in order to reach agreement as to the allocation of the cost of the works between the private owner and the highway authority.
These disadvantages can best be illustrated by the fact that in 1935 the Ministry of Transport launched a programme of reconstruction of sub-standard bridges, and 1,289 bridges were selected as requiring urgent attention. Highway authorities were offered a specially high rate of grant, 75 per cent. of the cost, as an inducement to press on with the work. Four years later, in 1939, schemes had been prepared and approved in respect of only 211 bridges out of 1,289, of which 175 schemes had been put in hand and 103 of them actually completed. It was then estimated that at that rate of progress the completion of the programme, which was a very moderate programme, would take about fifty years.
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Divided responsibility is the root of the trouble in connexion with these bridges, and it is unlikely that it will be overcome by anything short of the transfer of control and responsibility from the private owner to the highway authority. That is sheer common sense. There is nothing illogical about it. It has been forced upon us by the experience of the last ten years at least, and indeed longer. As far as trunk roads are concerned this solution is adopted in Clause 7 of the Bill; that is the particular clause dealing with bridges. The bridges will vest in the Minister, in relation to existing trunk roads, roads which become trunk roads under the Bill on 1st April, 1946, and in the case of any existing roads taken over by the Minister in the future under his powers under Clause 1 (2) on the date upon which the road becomes a trunk road.
The terms of transfer will be settled by agreement between the Minister and the private owners or will be determined by independent arbitration in cases of dispute. The clause follows the provisions of the Bridges Act, 1929, in several respects. In particular it preserves any statutory rights of statutory undertakers (other than the bridge-owners) in relation to the bridges, and requires the Minister to maintain the existing headway and clearances where the bridges are over railways, canals, or similar works. The former owners will be relieved of all future liability for the maintenance, repair or improvement of the bridges which, together with the road surfaces over them, will vest in the Minister as part of the trunk road. They will make payments to the Minister in respect of this relief or their liabilities, but where, as will happen in some cases, the transfer of the bridge unavoidably deprives the owners of property which has hitherto brought them in some revenue, the Minister will have to compensate them. Arbitration will have to take place in the case of dispute, and there will be no delay about it if we carry this Bill. These provisions have been subjected to close scrutiny and are considered to be fair and reasonable. The clause is expected to eliminate hitherto unavoidable delays in the execution of improvements long overdue.
As to the financial aspects of the Bill, I do not think they will unduly trouble your Lordships. The immediately ascertainable financial results of the transfer of the

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additional roads to the Minister will be that an annual maintenance charge of about £2,500,000 will be borne in full by the Road Fund, instead of in part by the local rates with the assistance of grants from the Road Fund. As most of the roads taken over are at present Class 1 roads, towards the maintenance of which grants of 60 per cent. are made, the net increase to be borne by the Exchequer will be about £1,000,000 a year. Of course; no estimate can be made of the cost of future improvements of these roads, a burden of which local highway authorities will be relieved.
These proposals constitute an appreciable relief financially for the local authorities as well as a great aid to them in having better roads through their areas. There is a great deal of work to be done on the existing trunk roads and on those which will be added to the trunk road system by this Bill. In the three years from the passing of the Act of 1936 to the outbreak of war, many plans were made. Some were carried out, and some were started but were interrupted by the war. There are now also considerable arrears of maintenance to be overtaken. New surveys will be required of the roads which will be added to the trunk road system. As men and materials become more freely available it will be possible with the new powers which the Bill will confer to make the trunk road system adequate in all respects for the traffic of the country.
I have given a concise statement of the intentions of the Bill. I have read most of what I have imparted to you because I am aware that the record will be read by many thousands of people who want to know what is being done with regard to this matter. I hope you will pardon me for having done so much reading. I do feel, and I hope you share my feelings, that this measure does carry us one stage further, that we are adding one more chapter to the story of our roads. The welfare of our country and the happiness of our people depend so much upon the provision of adequate roads that every effort should be made to render them as safe as possible. I feel sure your Lordships will give careful attention to this matter and give this Bill a Second Reading without a Division, as was done in another place.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Walkden.)
4.20 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I do not intend to keep your Lordships long on this measure. I would like to thank the noble Lord who introduced it and to say that, as far as I am concerned, I am in support of it. The noble Lord referred to the fascinating history of our roads, and for some nine months I, in a way, took part in that history when, as Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of War Transport, under the direction of my noble friend Lord Leathers, I had the direct responsibility for matters concerning the roads, and, incidentally, was the first Chairman of the Road Accidents Committee to which the noble Lord referred.
It was a sad thing at that time that we could do so little to improve our roads. There were the plans about which the noble Lord spoke. A large number of them had to be abandoned because the man-power was needed for more urgent purposes, in going into the Services and making munitions, and things of that sort. Our main task during that period of the war had to be to try and see that the existing surfaces of the roads were maintained in a sufficiently good state of repair to take the very heavy loads and burdens which we knew were later destined to come upon them. I think that the Ministry can claim that it then succeeded in its task, because never before have such huge vehicles, and such a mass of huge vehicles, as our American allies brought to these shores, ever traversed our highways. Huge tanks and huge guns and tank transporters, colossal, cranes and parts of bridges, and indeed, of course, parts of artificial harbours, traversed our roads, a purpose for which, I suspect, those roads were never really intended. And a large part of this traffic was, of necessity, landed in the Clyde or the Mersey and had to be brought right down to the South Coast. The roads had to be kept up, and I am glad to think they let none of these vehicles down.
Nevertheless, the major improvements in our roads are now a further six years overdue, and it is time that something strenuous was done about it. This Bill is a follow-up measure of that passed in 1936, and my only complaint about it is that it does not go far enough. The noble Lord referred to what could be done under Clause 1 (2) in bringing further roads under this system, but of course the

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governing factor of that clause is the Minister himself and the Ministry itself, because nobody but they can exercise the initiative of bringing a new road in; and from the Schedule that we have got before us we pretty well can judge what their present intentions are.
I believe this to be one of the right jobs for a central Government Department, and I must say that I only wish that the Ministry of War Transport still had, as its main tasks, jobs such as these, and that officials of the Ministry did not have other preoccupations which I suspect the advent of the present Government has brought with it. If the Ministry had not to worry about problems of nationalization of this or that transport industry we might have a more comprehensive and better measure than this. However, I hope that this Bill, limited as it is, will do something largely to reduce the appalling number of accidents on our roads, which after all is one of the most important problems of our time and one towards whose solution no amount of nationalization, I am afraid, will contribute anything at all. If I may sum up this Bill, it seems to me it is rather like dried eggs. They are good so far as they go.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: If you can get them.
LORD LLEWELLIN: At the present time there is not enough of them, and I say there is not enough of this Bill. Secondly, with dried eggs, their success depends on how you use them. The success of this measure will depend on whether it is energetically put forward and used by the Government Department. I hope that this measure will be carried into law and that active steps will be taken under it when it is passed. In this kind of function, I think we can all join in wishing the Minister and his staff success.
4.28 p.m.
THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: My Lords, like the noble Lord who has just sat down, I would state that I welcome this Bill which has been introduced to-day, and I welcome it with the same remark as that used by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin—namely, that it does not go far enough. It is right and proper that the national responsibility for the provision and maintenance of highways should be extended. It is wel-
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come and desirable because, as the noble Lord who introduced the Bill indicated, it spreads the burden of upkeep, of maintenance, and it relieves the local rates, It allows, secondly, a more liberal and uniform treatment of these roads, which is certainly required for dealing with the extended road traffic. Thirdly, I think it should be a contribution to the greater safety of the public.
But when we examine the Bill in more detail and look into the programme outlined by the Schedule of the addition of 3,685 miles, it is difficult to see that this is a really comprehensive programme or that it anywhere nearly approaches the ideal outlined in the paragraph of the introductory memorandum which was quoted by the noble Lord in introducing the Bill. May I take Scotland as an illustration? It gives the impression of the roads having been viewed from rather a regional or piecemeal aspect instead of as a national whole. With regard to the additions for Scotland, I can claim that they fall very far short of the words in the paragraph which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, to the effect that these roads were planned to connect the chief centres of industry and population with each other and with the most important ports, and to connect the more important food-producing districts with their markets.
A bird's-eye view of Scotland will divide it mainly into three bands or areas. The middle district may be classified as the industrial belt. It extends from Ayrshire and Renfrew on the west to Fife and Angus on the east, and includes the great cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. To the south of that we have the Border counties, of agricultural and pastoral trend, which are the home of the hosiery and woollen industries. To the north-west we have the great area of the Highlands and Islands, where the main industries may be said to be forestry, agriculture, fishing and beauty—with inaccessibility. It is on that point that I should like to detain your Lordships for a few moments.
In relation to the trunk road facilities, the position may be summarized by saying that it is essential to the proper development of Scotland that the five main focal points—Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh on the south of the industrial belt, and Perth and Dundee on the north

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of that belt—should be definitely connected by trunk roads by the shortest possible route. That has not been provided by this Bill. It is true that there is another road which drives up through central Scotland, without touching the two great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and which links up with the main system coming through Stirling and crossing the Forth either at Stirling or at the Kincardine bridge.
I do not want to detain your Lordships at this hour with too detailed a description of the needs of the north and northwest, but we must not shut our eyes to those needs, because in that part of Scotland roads are the one means of communication available for the life-blood of the country. It is only by roads that they can get their necessities of life and bring the products of their industry to market. I feel, therefore, that there is a very strong case for an extension of the trunk road system in the north and northwest, and I was very glad to notice that the Minister, in his reply in another place, was fairly sympathetic to the plea brought forward by members representing those constituencies. He indicates that a case had been made, or could be made, for a road right round the North-West of Scotland, and that it would receive further consideration.
But I must press here and now to-day, and at a later stage if necessary, the case of the industrial belt. I think it is essential that the five points which I have mentioned should be linked by the shortest possible available route. There is one terrible omission from the provisions of the Bill in that respect, and that is the link in the Great North Road, Ago, from Edinburgh to Inverkeithing. I brought this point before your Lordships when the original Trunk Roads Bill came before the House in 1936, and I am bringing it up again to-day in spite of the fact that it has been debated at length in another place and that the Minister has so far declined to include it in his programme for the present Bill. If your Lordships will look at the map, you will see that Ago starts from Edinburgh and goes to South Queensferry at the Forth Bridge. Ago continues from North Queensferry through Inverkeithing and Cowdenbeath to Perth. The Minister in his wisdom has added the route from Inverkeithing to Perth, but
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has so far declined to put the essential part of this road from Edinburgh to Inverkeithing on the list of trunk roads, so that those who would use the road north from Edinburgh have to travel via Kincardine bridge to Inverkeithing, a distance of some 45 miles, as against 15 miles by a direct route.
I am making this plea, and propose to continue it by a definite Amendment if necessary at the Committee stage, because I feel that it is a vital point for Scotland at the present time. In his reply to the debate in another place, the Minister took refuge behind the statement that he had an agreement with certain local authorities for the construction of a bridge across the Forth at Queensferry. There is no substance in that argument. The bridge has not yet come into existence; it has not even yet passed its Provisional Order, although we are doing all we can to promote it. It is, I admit, an agreement which has been made with regard to the construction of a bridge, but I am dealing with the road as it exists to-day, the road from Edinburgh to Queensferry and from Queensferry to Inverkeithing, which takes a large volume of traffic and which has to be maintained. There is a ferry from North to South Queensferry which is severely overburdened by the traffic which it has to carry, and undoubtedly the traffic on this road is increasing from day to day. It is that road, a distinct and vital link in the shortest route from Edinburgh to Perth, which it is essential to raise to the position of a trunk road.
In the answer to which I have referred before, the Minister indicated that, if this matter were brought before him by a body interested in the subject and authorized to speak, he would be prepared to review it with a fresh mind. I indicate that that moment has now come, because last week the Fife County Council passed a unanimous resolution pressing for the inclusion of this road on the trunk road list. That resolution has been endorsed by the Corporation of Edinburgh, by the County of West Lothian, and by the burghs of Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline. The whole of them are authorities who have combined in this agreement with the Minister about the construction of the road bridge.
I therefore feel that the time has come when the Minister should be asked to re-

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view this decision. I ask it on the grounds of justice and common sense, because it is justice and it is common sense that this Great North Road should be, as it is in effect, the link joining Edinburgh, Perth and the Highlands. If this point is conceded it will not invalidate the agreement as regards the construction of the bridge; that will remain. If and when that happy day comes when the bridge and its approach roads are constructed at the cost of some £6,220,000, then I hope the Minister or his successor will, in justice and in fairness to the initiative and drive of the local authorities in Scotland who have made it possible, agree there and then to take it over and substitute it as a trunk road for the trunk road which I am now pressing he should include, the road from Edinburgh to Queensferry and from Queensferry to Inverkeithing.
4.42 p.m.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, in commending this Bill to your Lordships the noble Lord opposite devoted himself at considerable length entirely to the powers which the Bill gave, without adopting the attitude (which, I believe, would have commended itself to your Lordships much more) of suggesting how those powers were going to be used. We were told that new bridges and roads could be built and that new roads could be taken over, but no hint was given to us as to what priority in the nation's work that work of construction was going to take. I feel that until the Government do something rather more strenuous than they have already done to carry out their own 1936 Act, which they call the principal Act, and to do some of the work on the roads taken over under that Act, to take over a whole lot more roads would be really rather a waste of time. They have so much on their plate now that I do not feel they can cope with any more. I very much hope that some indication will be given to us of what it is proposed to do, but I must admit that I was very alarmed at words from the Minister in another place. On the Third Reading he said, "I think we have to contemplate a deluge of vehicles upon our modern roads." What really frightened me was the use of the word "modern" in connexion with our roads. If the Minister
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had used the words "existing roads," then I would have agreed with him. It really frightens me when a Minister describes our roads as modern, because he should be the first person to recognize that they are completely out of date.
The Bill also provides for improvements. An estimate has been given us of what is going to be spent on maintenance but we are told that it is not possible to give an estimate of what is going to be spent on improvements and new work. Surely we might be given some idea of how much it is proposed to spend in the next few years on new work in connexion with roads taken over under this Bill. At the present moment the Road Fund is getting, I believe, something in the neighbourhood of £75,000,000 to £80,000,000 a year from taxation of road users. Can we be told how much of that is going to be spent on this new scheme under this Bill? I do not think the country can be said to be asking too much if it claims that when the motorist, the road haulier, and other road users have put their hands very deep into their pockets, at least a reasonable proportion of the sum involved should be put back into the roads. Admittedly the roads have become looked upon more or less as the milch cow to feed the nation, but I think it is generally recognized that there is a limit to the amount of milk you can draw even from the best of cows, and it is also recognized that cows do not produce milk for ever; they have to have a year off and have a calf, during which time quite a lot of money is spent on them. I suggest that quite a lot of money might be spent on the nation's milch cow to give it the assistance which will enable it to become more productive. If you increase your roads and make them safer, they are going to be more productive of taxation. I do beg the Government to give us some information as to the priority they are going to give to this work, both in men and material, and the amount of money they propose to spend on it.
4.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, while welcoming this Bill, I do consider the title might be better if it were known as the Trunk Roads Make-do-and-Mend Bill. It seems to me to be very largely on those lines. One is bound to recognize that the Government is having a troublesome time over money, materials and

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labour; and, to a greater extent than is usually recognized, demands for labour for roads do clash with the housing problem, for the reason that access roads to houses must be provided. Cement enters very largely into the construction of roads and also into housing, and therefore the two are not so separate as might at first appear. However, I consider that insufficient attention has been given to American practice and to reinforced concrete in the design of roads. It seems to me that the scope of this Bill is completely inadequate for the size of the problem which confronts the country. I am also sorry that no provision appears to have been made for extensive research into traffic and general methods of highway construction such as is done in other countries. No attempt at standardization of trunk roads appears to be contemplated, and I think that is rather unfortunate.
I should like to illustrate what the problem may be in the near future. In 1933 the number of mechanically propelled vehicles was 2,285,326 and in 1938 it was 3,084,896. That gives an average annual increase of approximately 160,000 vehicles a year, allowing for vehicles being taken off the roads; that is the net result. That means that if we increase at that average speed over five years, by 1951 we may have over 4,000,000 vehicles on the roads. That assumption is based on the average increase between 1933 and 1938, but we must bear in mind that there has been an amazing growth of savings among the lower income levels. A large number of people have got tucked away, and will be able to use when the Chancellor allows them to have it, £300 and £400 to quite an amazing extent. That does seem to indicate to me that those people will very likely be investing in motor vehicles of one form or another and therefore there will probably be a far greater increase than there was in the past.
Not only that, but we are trying to increase our exports of motor vehicles, and that cannot be done without at the same time increasing home supplies. That is another reason why the figures are probably very much under-estimated. Then there is the enormous increase in service transport to be considered. A mechanized division on the road at proper convoy intervals stretches from London
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to York. That does not take account of R.A.F. transport which has become terrific, and of Navy transport. There will also be an increase in buses, or I hope there will, because that is necessary for transport in rural districts. All those things will make the roads much more congested than they are at present. Then there is the Alness Report. In your Lordships' House on November 21, 1945, the noble Lord, Lord Winster, said—I will try to quote his exact words if I may:
"From what I hear and have been told, I would say that the Report of the Alness Committee is a fixture on the Minister's desk, that the volume is always there and is constantly looked at by the Minister."
That will be found in the Hansard Report of the proceedings in your Lordships' House on November 21, 1945. I wonder if the Minister has come to the part of that Report which states:
"The Committee are of opinion that powers delegated to the Ministry under the Trunk Roads Act, 1936, should be used with energy and with dispatch."
I would like to suggest, also, that there should be added to his desk furniture a statement giving the daily accident figures, and the American publication Inter-Regional Highways, which is a report on the American methods of tackling the whole problem of the roads as it faces them. I think that would throw a very good light on how the Americans are tackling very much the same problem as that which confronts us. It would show, I am sure, that they are going down to first principles and tackling the matter from the bottom rather than patching up something that has grown up through the ages and is now perfectly inadequate in the roads system.
4.53 p.m.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships long at this late hour, but I should like to ally myself with what has been said by noble Lords who have spoken before me. I am very much in favour of the adoption of this Bill so far as it goes. We all of us, whatever the Party to which we belong, I think, realize, and so indeed do all thinking people in the whole community, that the modifying of our road system is vitally necessary not only from the point of view of preventing accidents but also that of increasing transportation facilities for industry.

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I wonder if the noble Lord who is going to reply could tell me if in connexion with the increasing of the mileage of our trunk roads it is suggested that we shall never have autobahnen, and whether this is only a makeshift arrangement to tide us over a difficult period. Proper autobahnen or proper roads for vehicular traffic only, like those over which I drove in Germany the other day, unquestionably to my mind would be an immense advantage to us. Just doing away with a few bottlenecks and making footpaths along our trunk roads will never get rid of accidents or speed up traffic. By doing that sort of thing we are only putting new cloth into an old coat. I feel that we should face this problem and put first things first. We know that a very large number of accidents occur in congested areas. Therefore let us, instead of making a lot of double carriageways, at this moment, get rid of our dangerous areas in towns, make ring roads and make sure that our through routes through towns are properly fenced off with railings on the pavements, which I understand have proved one of the most effective means of preventing accidents in our cities. We have got to cut our coat according to our cloth. Our position with regard to labour, materials and finance is difficult, so let us deal with the black spots first. In this connexion, I have been asked to raise the question whether the Ministry can tell local authorities where by-passes are going to be built round towns which are on these trunk roads. The point is that some of these towns have been "blitzed," and the local authorities do not know how to get on with their planning unless they are informed fairly soon whether the trunk roads will go through these towns or a by-pass is going to be made round them.
Dual carriageways were talked about by Lord Walkden. I would like to know if it is the intention of the Ministry, in due course, to have dual carriageways on all our trunk roads. I feel that dual carriageways are necessary, but I am convinced that they should be regarded purely as roads for self-propelled vehicles and that nothing else should be allowed on them. Many years ago Jules Verne wrote some famous books, among them The Clipper of the Clouds and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea which were remarkably prophetic in some
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respects. At the time, people thought him a little peculiar, but since then, we have developed such things as jet-propelled aeroplanes. Although I cannot visualize myself sitting behind a jet-propelled motor car (or certainly not very close to it) there is no doubt that some day things which we cannot now foresee may come to pass and I suggest therefore that we do not spend too much money on improving things which, in a short time, may well be out of date.
4.58 p.m.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, like others of your Lordships who have spoken, I naturally welcome this Bill. But it does seem to me that there are many matters connected with the roads to-day which have received no mention whatever, either in the Bill or in the speech of the noble Lord who introduced it. What I want to know is what is really going to be the policy of the Ministry of Transport with regard to our road system in the years to come. Naturally, to-day nothing much can be done because of the enormous demands on labour. Probably the present difficult labour situation will continue for another two or three years. Therefore, I suppose, we shall have to endure the roads and the road system which we know to-day for another two or three years before they can be sensibly improved. I want to know what the policy of the Ministry of Transport is going to be in the future. I know what the policy was in the past because I had the honour of serving on a Public Safety Committee of the Ministry of Transport at one time. It brought one closely in touch with the permanent officials of that Department. It was in the time of Mr. Hore-Belisha, who was then Minister of Transport, and in those days we were quite clearly told that the policy of the Ministry was the improvement of existing roads and not the making of new roads at all. It was intended to improve existing roads. That policy was steadily pursued right up to the outbreak of the war, and I believe that it has been pursued since. The result is that to-day you have the ordinary Class A1 road, which leads to some village or town, probably very congested with traffic throughout most of its length. Take, for example a road like the Great North Road. At many points you find great congestion, then you come to a by-pass round a particular town or

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village. Traffic strikes away round the bypass and then is led back on to the original road where it creates an almost impossible bottleneck. The results of that can be foreseen on the outskirts of any of our great cities when conditions become anything like normal. In fact, they can be seen in a minor form even to-day. If you go on the roads now you can get a foretaste of what is going to happen. I should like to recall to the mind of the noble Lord who is going to reply the conditions which obtained around London before the war and with which, I am sure, he was as well acquainted as I. Miles and miles of queues of motor cars could be seen piling up along any road you liked to take on the outskirts of London. We want to know what is going to be the policy of the Ministry of Transport. I submit to your Lordships that there are things that one can do. For instance, the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, referred to a report about inter-regional highways. There was a message from the President of the United States to Congress and I should like to read your Lordships a small passage out of it. This is what President Roosevelt told Congress:
"In the interests of economy I suggest that the actual route of new highways be left fluid. It is obvious that if a fixed route he determined in detail the purchase price of rights of way will immediately rise, in many cases exorbitantly; whereas if two or three routes—all approximately equal—are surveyed, the cheapest route in relation to right of way can be made the final choice."
The second recommendation which he made was even more important. He said:
"Second, experience shows us that it is in most cases much cheaper to build a new highway where none now exists rather than to widen out an existing highway at a cost to the Government of acquiring or altering present developed frontages."
It seems to me that those passages sum up the whole highway position far better than I at any rate could attempt to do. They go to the very root of the whole problem. I think it was Viscount Stonehaven who alluded to the Minister of Transport's desk furniture. The Minister's desk furniture is the Alness Report but there is another piece of desk furniture to which I should like to draw his attention—the report which Sir Charles Bressey got out for the Minister of Transport. It is an exhaustive report and it deals with all sorts of things which have received no mention and may not have
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received—I have not read the debates in another place very carefully—much attention there. Questions have been asked to-day about dual carriageways. The noble Lord who introduced the Bill talked about them and the powers the Minister is going to have. On page 27 of Sir Charles Bressey's report, he indicates that radial roads out of London—.there are 20 of them—contain 525 miles in the aggregate inside the London traffic area. Of this 525 miles there is only one per cent. which has dual carriageways of two lanes each. Thirty-two per cent. have a single carriageway of two lanes up to twenty-six feet wide and forty-seven per cent. have a single carriageway of three lanes. That single carriageway of three lanes is one of the most prolific: sources of accidents on the highways today. Motor cars endeavouring to pass other vehicles simply meet in the middle. Somehow they try to get themselves out of a difficulty but more often than not it results in a skid and a casualty. There is forty-seven per cent. of this 525 miles with a single carriageway with three lanes and only ten per cent. with a single carriageway of four lanes, and so it goes on.
There are other matters I should like to mention. What is going to be the policy of the Minister with regard to level crossings? Most of the main arterial roads in this country are crossed at some point or another by level crossings which lead to enormous congestion of traffic. It is the congestion of traffic which leads to accidents, either directly or indirectly, and we want to do something positive to reduce accidents. I suggest that we should do everything we can to reduce accidents on the highway. Your Lordships will be familiar with many level crossings. On the road to the south coast through Reigate there is one; there is one at Crawley, and another on the great road to the west at Sunningdale. All these level crossings on main arterial roads should no longer exist and it should be the policy of the Minister to get rid of them as soon as possible.
There are no fewer than forty level crossings in the metropolitan traffic area over Class I roads and twenty-four over Class II roads. There are 138 level crossings over unclassified roads in the metropolitan area. That will give your Lordships an idea of what that particular problem

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is. But there is another question to which I should like to draw your attention in this particular Bill. Clause 4 of this Bill gives the Minister additional powers relating to side roads connected with trunk roads, and here I find what is the most astonishing proposition, that it is the business of a Minister not to make roads or maintain them but to stop them up. It sounds to me an extraordinary position.
Modern road engineering is far in advance of the old practices of the past. The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, alluded, as I have said, to the Inter-Regional Highways Report. It is an admirable report with many illustrations of suggested ways of treating road intersections, and it is possible so to construct road intersections that there need be no interruption to traffic which wants to go from one road to another or to get across it. Many of you know the remarkable system of roads outside New York on the way to Long Island where fourteen roads are intersected. No line of traffic crosses another and the traffic goes on at a steady speed, neither very fast nor very slow. It can go from one point to another without having to cross another line of traffic.
These are the sort of things we want in this country, particularly on our congested roads, and I am quite certain that the congestion we knew before the war is just going to be child's play in the years to come unless something really drastic is done. It is a question of road safety and of saving life, and in saving life ought we to be too parsimonious. The Minister is asking for great powers under this Bill. I am sure your Lordships will be only too glad to give him all the powers he asks for and, like other speakers, I wish the Minister had taken powers to take over the whole road system of the country if by doing so something could be done to reduce the appalling toll of accidents on the highway to-day. I hope this Bill will receive a Second Reading, and if the Minister is able to give me a reply on what his policy is going to be I need hardly say how grateful I shall be.
5.9 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD WINSTER): My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate and I am sure my right honourable friend the Minister of War Transport will be extremely gratified by the good reception this Bill
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has had from your Lordships. Each of the noble Lords who has spoken has expressed his support and approval of the Bill, although most have said that it does not go far enough. Lord Llewellin prefaced his remarks by saying that, while he welcomed the Bill, he felt that it did not go far enough. It gives me great pleasure to hear a Conservative blaming the Labour Party for not going too far. We must endeavour to be more revolutionary. I understood that the noble Lord said that he approved of trunk roads being centralized under the Minister. In that we are going back to the practice of the first great road-makers in this country, the Romans, who, fifteen hundred years ago, built up a very remarkable system of roads in this country under a completely centralized authority. They were roads of excellent construction, admirably maintained, and they had a very good record in regard to road accidents, the chariot drivers not being road hogs. The noble Lord likes this Bill, though going back to one of his earlier incarnations, he thought of dried eggs, and compared the Bill with dried eggs. I am not very fond of dried eggs either. The noble Lords, Lord Woolton and Lord Llewellin, certainly have got one great achievement to their record, and that is that they did, by their work at the Ministry of Food, disprove the old proverb "that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs." That has now been shown to be possible.
Coming to some of the points made by the noble Lord, may I inform him that the highway authorities can at any time make representations to the Minister to add new roads to the First Schedule, and the Minister will give proper consideration to such requests. There is no need to wait for the Minister to take the initiative. The highway authorities can take the initiative in that matter and approach the Minister with their suggestions. The noble Earl, Lord Elgin, made a record in his speech. He used the time-honoured phrase that he did not wish to detain your Lordships at this late hour, but he created a record by stating that at 4·33, which in my experience is the earliest at which I have ever heard that suggestion used. I thought the noble Earl made an admirably clear statement of Scotland's position. It is quite true, as he felt, that the Bill does not approach the ideal, but

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we are circumscribed at the present moment by what labour and materials permit us to do. We cannot achieve the ideal at this moment. Labour and materials prevent us from doing that. Then the noble Earl, of course, came very quickly to the heart of his speech. That was the matter of the Forth Bridge. He used a phrase which, if he will forgive me for saying so, I did not like very much, because he said the Minister, when speaking in the other place, took refuge behind the statement about an agreement with the local authorities. Well there is no question of taking refuge, as this was an agreement made between the Ministry and the local authorities, and it is not taking refuge, in the sense in which the phrase was used, to quote the terms of the agreement. May I remind your Lordships of the terms of that agreement? There is an agreement between the Ministry of War Transport and the local authorities to build the Forth Bridge as and when it becomes possible according to our list of priorities on a grant-in-aid basis under which the Ministry will contribute 75 per cent., and the local authorities accept that agreement.
With regard to what the noble Earl said about this Bill not taking the Scottish problem as a national whole, in fact Scotland has as high a percentage of trunk roads as England and Wales, except for the link across the River Forth, which we all know is a fact. Except for that gap, Glasgow, Stirling, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee are linked by trunk roads. The ferry service at Queensferry has recently been improved and is now considered to be reasonably adequate. On the turn of events, however, the Minister will have to review the position, and if he gives his approval the roads in question can be taken over as trunk roads.
Then we had a very interesting speech from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who complained that our roads are completely out of date. I would not go quite so far as to say that. I do not want to use a cliché, but there has been a war, and no doubt some of them have fallen into arrears, but I would not like to commit myself to saying that our roads are out of date. The work on trunk roads will receive whatever priority is possible bearing in mind the availability of labour and materials. The Minister with his resources will, of course, be far better able
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to get the work done than the local highway authorities. As regards highway policy generally, and trunk roads in particular, the Minister hopes to make a statement very shortly in the House of Commons indicating the rate and pace at which work and expenditure will proceed. The Minister has stated that all roads should be made fit for the traffic on them, and that is, in a nutshell, his policy in this matter.
The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, called attention to American practice. I rather sympathize with the noble Viscount, because my attention has been drawn almost every day to American practice where civil aviation is concerned. Really I can assure the Noble Viscount that our engineers are very familiar indeed with American road engineering practice. With reference to what the noble Viscount said about research, there is a road research laboratory where work is always proceeding on road research, particularly with a view to getting better services and safety for traffic. I can assure the noble Viscount that work proceeds actively at that research laboratory.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: The point which I did not make clear, and which I meant to make clear, was that our research, as we know, has been going on in connexion with what one might call the detailed aspects of the problem, none the less important, but I do not think it has been tackled from the traffic angle, which is the basis and the beginning of the American method of dealing with the same problem.
LORD WINSTER: Research proceeds into road engineering problems and particularly into the question of greater safety for traffic, which involves the traffic angle. I assure the noble Viscount the two aspects of the work are related. Although undoubtedly there is a very great deal to admire about American engineering practice, I should be very reluctant indeed to admit that our road engineers are in any way inferior in ability to their opposite numbers either in America or in Germany. No doubt the number of licensed motor vehicles will greatly increase. The noble Lord anticipated 4,000,000 vehicles in 1951. I have seen same even more startling figures which anticipate 12,000,000 by 1963! It would be very terrifying, only I shall not

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happen to be in one of them, I imagine. No doubt, however, the number of licensed motor vehicles will greatly increase and the roads will have to be improved upon. That is the problem which any Minister of Transport will have to face. Again I beg the noble Viscount to remember that the war years have been a very considerable handicap indeed to rapid progress in these matters. No Minister of War Transport has been able to do what he would have wished to do during the war years. We do start with that very serious disadvantage, that six years' handicap in progress.
The noble Lord, Lord Waleran, was also kind enough to welcome the Bill with the modification "so far as it goes". I can assure him that special consideration will be given to black spots where large numbers of accidents occur. That is done, and I can assure him that that matter always does receive constant attention in the Ministry of War Transport. Again I must thank the noble Lord for reminding me of that work of Jules Verne, The Clipper of the Clouds, which I must read again. He is quite right in saying that the anticipation shown there is remarkable, and no one will cross to America in one of the Boeings without remembering what he wrote on that subject. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, must always be listened to with great respect when he speaks on the question of roads, or traffic, or road safety. He has, I know, devoted great skill and attention to these matters; he speaks with authority and what he says must command respect. He asked me what will be the policy of the Ministry of War Transport in the years to come. I say again, the Minister's general policy will be to make the roads fit for traffic as soon as it is reasonably possible. This is bound to be a blend of improvement and of new construction. The noble Earl asked me if the policy was to be one of improvement or of new construction. That is the answer: it must be a blend of improvement and of new construction. The noble Earl also, like other speakers, called attention to American practice. But it is no good inviting a comparison with another country unless the conditions are reasonably comparable. Many other countries are lucky in having more space
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in which to work, in being able to begin on a new slate and in not being committed to an old system in very congested surroundings. One has to take those matters into account when comparing the position here with the position in other countries. But, as I have already said, the noble Earl may be quite sure that the practice in other countries is carefully studied and that what can be usefully incorporated into our practice is done.
One or two speakers have called attention to my remark about the furniture on the Minister's desk. I have no doubt whatever that the Report of Sir Charles Bressey also adorns his desk. We have not at all forgotten Sir Charles Bressey's Report. But may I remind the noble Earl of the much later Report of Sir Patrick Abercrombie on the planning of Greater London. This latter report of Sir Patrick's is under examination by the Government and is being discussed with the London County Council. The noble Earl rather departed from the limited subject of trunk roads to the general highway system of the country. May I remind him that this is the Trunk Roads Bill and not a general highways policy Bill.
EARL HOWE: Would you mention level crossings?
LORD WINSTER: The noble Earl took the words out of my mouth: I was just coming to that. Certainly it is the opinion of the Minister that level crossings should be abolished as soon as possible. That is agreed ground. As to taking over level crossings at this moment, the answer as regards level crossings on trunk roads is Yes, the Minister does intend to take powers to deal with them. I have endeavoured to answer the questions.
THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: I did not like to interrupt the noble Lord in the course of his speech, but I should like to be sure I am right in my interpretation of what he said about my submission: that is, that the Minister will now give consideration to the matter with a view to bringing this road into the present Bill.
LORD WINSTER: I will repeat the words I used in reply to the noble Earl, which were that on the new turn of events the Minister will have to review the position, and if the case is proved the roads in question can be taken over as trunk roads.
THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: In the present Bill?
LORD WINSTER: I would not answer, in the present Bill. I shall have to consult my right honourable friend about that. I am sure the noble Earl will agree that I could not give such an undertaking without consultation with my right honourable friend.
THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: I only meant that consideration will be given in order that it might be done.
LORD WINSTER: I am sure my right honourable friend will have the speech of the noble Earl brought to his attention and will consider the points the noble Earl has made. I have answered the various questions put to me by various noble Lords in the debate. There is a great deal that I would like to say, but at this late hour I will, out of consideration to your Lordships, refrain from saying it. But I would like just to make this remark before I sit down. My reading of history is that countries flourish while they are active about their communications. But when you find that a country begins to neglect its roads and its system of communications, it is from that moment that you see decadence and decline setting in in that country. We have had a lot of melancholy croakings about our own situation following on the war, but I say that this Trunk Roads Bill which we are introducing today, which shows the determination of the Government and of the country to press on with its roads and with its communications, to improve and to extend them, is in itself a proof of the virility of this country and of our determination in the future to play our proper part in the world.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL. [H.L.]
5.39 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of the Patents and Designs Bill, 1946. It comes to us in this House first before it goes to the other place, and if for that reason
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alone I hope you will allow me to take rather longer in explaining it than might otherwise prove agreeable to the House. There is also another reason why, with your permission, I will take this Bill rather deliberately. I refer to the great variations of knowledge, on the subject of Patent Law between different members of your Lordships' House. I know that on this, as on all other subjects, there are probably one or two noble Lords who know as much as, or perhaps more than, anybody else in the country, but there may be one or two noble Lords who know as little as anybody in the country.
While it is highly imprudent to describe a measure as non-controversial—it is the surest way of provoking controversy—this, at any rate, can fairly be described as a non-Party measure, and one which is likely to prove, and indeed is proving as far as we can judge, highly acceptable to all sections of organized industry. Finally, by way of introduction I may mention that Clause 1—the clause which your Lordships may wish to ponder most carefully—represents an agreement reached during the time of the Coalition and Caretaker Governments.
The language of the Bill is not readily intelligible to those who know as little about Patent Law as some of us may find we do, but its main objects are perfectly clear and I will state them straight away. First, this Bill will enable inventors who have been prevented by the war from working patents in their possession to obtain a compensatory extension of the term of their patents much more cheaply and much more simply than is possible at present. Secondly, the Bill protects those at home and abroad who disclosed their inventions to the Government in the interests of the war effort without having time to make application for a patent—it gives thorn priority over anybody who has subsequently applied for a patent for the same invention. Thirdly, it throws completely open to our people, without arty patent: restrictions, all German and Japanese inventions which were made during the war or in the period just before the war. Those are the three broad objects of the Bill.
None of these purposes can be achieved under the law as it stands. The Bill achieves the first of them, the extension of term, in Clause i; the second, that is the protection of war-time disclosure, in

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Clauses 2 and 3; and the third, that is free British access to German and Japanese inventions of the war period, in Clauses 4, 5 and 6. You will observe that the Bill confines itself to dealing with special circumstances which have arisen out of the war; it does not attempt to deal with major long-term issues. You will recall that during the period of the Coalition Government a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Kenneth Swan, K.C., was set up to make a comprehensive review of Patent Law. The terms of reference of the Swan Committee were very wide and Clause 1 of the present Bill represents its interim findings, but before we tackle still more fundamental issues I am sure you will agree that we must wait for a later report from the Swan Committee.
To-day, then, we are simply being asked to consider special legislation to deal with a special ad hoc situation arising from the war. I hope you will bear with me if, for a few minutes, in order to explain the background of the immediate problem, I attempt, in an amateurish way but with a hand which has been guided by the best professional advice, to trace the main outline of the Patent Law of this country.
You will ask, my Lords, or some of you who are as uninstructed as I was until recently will ask, a few simple questions. What is a patent? How do you get one? How long does it last? Where does a British patent run? A patent is the exclusive right for a limited period to manufacture, use or sell an invention. You obtain a patent from the Crown by applying in the prescribed manner to life Patent Office, which, as noble Lords will know, is an office under the wing of the Board of Trade, and by convincing them that you satisfy various conditions. The three most important conditions which you have to satisfy are these. First, you must make full disclosure of your invention. Secondly, you must be the true inventor yourself, or his representative, or at any rate the first importer, if the invention comes from abroad. Thirdly, your invention must really be novel. To use the old phrase, it must be a manner of new manufacture. I should add that you have an appeal from the Patent Office to the Patents Appeal Tribunal, which consists of a High Court Judge.
Where does a British patent run, and how long does it last? It runs in the
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United Kingdom and in the Isle of Man. It lasts for fifteen years, provided that a renewal fee is paid each year after the first four years and provided that it is not revoked, as it may be for a number of specified reasons. If you can prove that you have been prevented by circumstances from obtaining adequate remuneration for your patent, you can obtain an extension for periods up to ten years. I would stress the fact, in view of the proposal that is shortly to be made in Clause 1, that these extensions have to be obtained, not from the Patent Office, from which you get your original patent, but from the High Court. That gives a very brief survey of the background.
Now I will come to the clauses of the Bill. Clause 1 is intended to help the considerable number of patent holders who have been prevented by the war from working their patents and many of whose patents are now running out. Take, for example, the inventor of bakery machinery—I am told this is a good example, but it is not one which would readily have occurred to me—who got his patent in 1930. His plant, machinery and staff were probably taken over for war production and he probably had to close down or much reduce his output of bakery machinery during the war. Under the existing law he will almost certainly get, in the end, an extension designed to put him, as far as his patent goes, in the same position as if the war had not occurred, but the procedure is unnecessarily cumbersome and expensive—I would emphasize those adjectives—so that in many cases he may be deterred from making an application at all. Without going into all the steps involved, I would point out that his case has always to receive a hearing in the High Court, at which both he himself and the Patent Comptroller—the latter acting through the Board of Trade Solicitor—are represented by counsel. Our bakery machinery inventor has himself, of course, to bear the expenses of both sides—his own and those of the Patent Office.
VISCOUNT SIMON: There is no obligation to have counsel—he may do so, of course.
LORD PAKENHAM: I thank the noble and learned Viscount for the intervention and correction.

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As the Swan Committee point out, even in the simple and unopposed cases (and 149 out of 150 cases, when the Swan Committee reported, had been unopposed), the costs falling on the applicant—that is the inventor—are at present between £150 and £200. That is perhaps the most important single sentence that I would like to lay before your Lordships in relation to Clause 1. This although in 90 per cent. of cases the extension granted by the Court is precisely that considered suitable by the Patent Comptroller, so that the Court hearing is often little more than a formality.
"It has been represented to us"—
say the Committee—
"that this heavy cost amounts to a denial of justice to the large body of patentees, the majority of whom, having already suffered loss or damage on account of the war, cannot afford to incur expenses upon the scale involved under the present practice. We have been convinced by thy arguments put before us, and we are of the unanimous opinion that the existing practice urgently needs modification."
I shall be very much surprised if your Lordships do not agree with this unanimous finding of the Swan Committee.
In what it actually proposes to put in place of the existing procedure Clause 1 of the Bill follows the recommendation put forward by eight out of the ten members of the Swan Committee. The proposed procedure consists of giving the applicant—that is our distressed bakery machine inventor—a right of choice, which is something that he does not at present possess. In future he will be able to go either to the Court, as he now goes when he wants an extension, or to the Patent Comptroller as he now goes when he wants a patent granted in the first place. He will have that choice. It would still rest with the Patent Comptroller, under the proposed procedure, if the case raised issues of exceptional legal complexity, to refer the case to the Court, but that: would seldom arise, and in the great majority of cases it is expected that the Comptroller would be able to grant an extension, after, of course, careful examination of the evidence, but without the need for any hearing in front of himself—that is, without any hearing at all. I think that is very important.
It is probably an under-estimate to say that the cost could be reduced in this way from, say, £175—that is, half-way be-
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tween the 200 and the £150—to £50 in a simple unopposed case. The reduction would certainly be of that order—probably greater. The big drop, of course, would flow from simplification of the procedure, from the elimination of a hearing in the majority of cases, and from the fact that even when a hearing did take place it would usually be before the Comptroller where solicitors and a patent agent can appear for a client, and where hearings are distinctly cheaper than they are in Court.
Your Lordships may be a little slow to welcome a proposal which may seem to expand the area of quasi-judicial power under the control of the Executive. You will recall, however, that under the Trade Marks Act of 1938 the re is a precedent, one may fairly say a successful precedent, for the procedure of allowing the applicant an option of applying to the Comptroller or to the Court. You will also recall that the compromise suggested by the two dissenting members of the Swan Committee, the policy of allowing the easier cases to be decided by the eminent Court officials known as Masters, was decisively rejected by 8 out of 10 of the members of the Committee after one of the Masters had been heard on the subject.
You will further be reassured to observe that: the inventor, while gaining new rights, loses none that he possesses at present, and that the proposed novel procedure applies only to cases of war loss. The ordinary peace-time extension of term which may raise grave issues between citizen and citizen will still have to be taken to the Courts of the land. Fortified and comforted in this way I hope you will see your way to applaud Clause 1 of the Bill as a genuine boon to inventors and to industry at large.
If I have carried you with me so far, I shall be disagreeably surprised if you are not still more sympathetic towards the remaining clauses. Clauses 2 and 3 both seek to protect, though from different angles, the patriotic inventor who placed an invention in the field of Radar, for example, at the disposal of the Government during the war without delaying to apply for a patent. Clause 2 is the international clause. Suppose your invention, disclosed to the Government here, was then communicated to the American Government by our Government,

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and suppose your invention ultimatel passed into the knowledge of some enterprising American citizen. Without Clause 2 such a gentleman could get a patent ahead of you, although you were the inventor, and could shut you out both in this country and in America. The same unfair advantage—unless some reciprocal arrangement were entered into with America—could be obtained by a British citizen who picked up in a similar way what was originally an American invention. All that is made impossible by Clause 2 which secures to the true inventor his priority in the queue of applicants for a patent—a priority determined by the date when he first communicated his secret to the Government.
I should like to stress the reciprocal character of this Clause 2. Taken by itself it would ensure our war-time inventors of their proper priority here against the kind of contingency which I have described, but it is, in fact, a part of an understanding reached with the American Government, who, on their side, are promoting similar proposal before Congress. both the American Legislature and our Legislature act as we hope they will, American war-time inventors will be protected here, and in return our war-time inventors will be protected in America. In other words, the true inventor will be protected in both countries whatever his nationality. Similar reciprocal arrangements will be reached with other countries who desire them.
Clause 3, still dealing with the same general topic, is a corresponding domestic clause protecting inventions disclosed during the war and operated secretly by the Government at home. At present if some noble Lord—looking around I do not see any eminent scientific Lord here, though I may be mistaken—shall we say if some well known member of this House such as Lord Cherwell, had disclosed an invention to the Government during the war, and the Government afterwards secretly worked it, and if I picked it up and, what is most improbable, understood it—and was able to persuade people that I had invented it myself, which is still more improbable—there would be nothing to prevent me obtaining a patent for the noble Lord's invention. Clause 3 puts it
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beyond all doubt that Lord Cherwell in that situation would be able to secure his own patent and the revocation of mine. I am sure you will all agree that Clauses 2 and 3 represent proper and, indeed, essential arrangements.
Clauses 4 to 6 can perhaps be taken together. They touch on a new theme. The broadest object of these clauses is to deprive inventions and designs made during the war period in Germany and Japan of any protection in the United Kingdom. Clause 4 makes it impossible for any patent to be granted on behalf of any inventions made in Germany or Japan or by a German national in enemy territory since September 3, 1938 (except, generally speaking, where the invention passed out of German or Japanese hands before the outbreak of war). Clause 5 refers to the mass of information available in specifications or designs which were submitted to the Comptroller by Germans and Japanese just before the war, but cannot be published under the existing law. I know that this matter was of considerable interest to your Lordships when there was last talk of patents in this House. I have in mind information in connexion with patent applications which were still under consideration when war broke out. This information was placed at the disposal of the Services and Supply Departments during the war, and it will now be freely available for industry.
Clause 6 is necessary because, under an Emergency Act passed at the outbreak of war, the Comptroller had wide powers to extend the time within which the formalities necessary for securing or maintaining a patent have to be completed. Clause 6 specifically enables the Comptroller to refuse this period of grace to Germans or Japanese and, I may add, to citizens of those countries who do not grant us reciprocal extensions of time on their side.
May I briefly sum up the position now reached regarding enemy patents, remembering, of course, that Germany and Japan were both parties to the International Convention before the war, but that those and other rights are lost to them so long as they continue to be regarded as enemy countries, as they are to-day for purposes of the Trading with the Enemy Act?
British patents for German and Japanese inventions are of four kinds. First, those which were granted before the

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war. About these one thing is certain, they will not be returned to the ex-enemy proprietors. Indeed, so far as German patents are concerned, Article VI of the Final Act of the Paris Conference on Reparation provides that
"each signatory Government shall, under such procedures as it may choose, hold or dispose of German enemy assets within its jurisdiction in manners designed to preclude their return to German ownership or control."
Secondly, inventions for which applications were under consideration at the outbreak of the war. The Bill throws these and all the information relating to them open to all of us. Thirdly, inventions made during the war period, the period since September 3, 1938. The Bill before us makes it impossible, as it might not otherwise be, for patents to be granted for these at any time. Fourthly, inventions which may be made in the future in Germany or Japan. The treatment of these will, of course, depend on many decisions yet to be made, whose discussion would carry us far outside the Bill before the House.
In conclusion, I ask your Lordships to treat this Bill as a matter of urgency. There is considerable pressure from industry for Clause 1. The interim report of the Swan Committee was dated March 12, 1945. Again, it is expected that the United States legislation analogous to our Clause 2 will be passed at a fairly early date. Under that legislation applications will have to be filed in the United States within six months of its passage. Furthermore, if British subjects are to obtain its benefits, we have to give assurances that similar benefits will be given in this country to United States citizens, and we cannot give these assurances until the present Bill becomes law. The proposals of the Bill regarding German and Japanese patents speak, I think, for themselves. I ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Pakenham)
5.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, I am glad to find myself for once able to give the most whole-hearted support to a Bill produced by the present Government. It is a very good Working Party for once. I think I like all of it subject to one question which I am going to put to the noble Lord on Clause 4, which I think requires
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some consideration. Undoubtedly Clause is right. One has got to remember that the extension of a patent is not an administrative, but a judicial act, and therefore I have no doubt it is right that the ordinary procedure in normal cases should be maintained, that this should be a matter for the Court. But there has been a tremendous amount of delay. There is a great number of these cases lining up, and, as the noble Lord has said, in the great majority of them there is no question of opposition. It seems to me entirely reasonable that we should do the two things which it appears to me to be necessary not only in patents but in litigation generally—the it we should as far as we can, make our action both cheap and expeditious. The Comptroller is a man with great experience, and wherever there is a case which ought to go to the Court, then, as I understand it, there is full discretion—indeed a duty—reserved to the Comptroller to see that the Court deals with tray case which he considers ought to go before a Court.
Clause 2 is altogether admirable. I take it that here we are only concerned as between ourselves and the United States, because it is only with the United States that the bulk of our pooling of scientific knowledge and inventive genius took place. I am not quite sure whether, at an earlier stage in the war, certain communications were not made to the French Government. Perhaps the noble Lord can give me an assurance on this point, that anything in relation to inventions made during the war which was communicated to the French Government would be protected. If it is so, then our reciprocal arrangements should be wide enough to cover any pooling that has taken place. This clause does deny to an applicant for a patent here from a foreign country any right to receive a patent unless reciprocal legislation has been passed in his own country.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount appreciates that there is no specific reference to the United States in that clause.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: No, I understood that. I know there is no specific reference. The clause I say is rightly drafted because it protects a man here and it also ensures reciprocity from another country by saying that a national

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of another country, who wishes to get protection here, by reason of communication under a pooling arrangement, shall not have an audience and right in the British Courts unless his country has passed similar legislation for the benefit of a British subject applying for a patent there. That is perfectly right as far as legislation goes.
The noble Lord has quite rightly told the House, and I am glad to hear it, that progress in the United States is likely to be rapid, that the United States have not only agreed to this but hope to get their legislation through soon. I sincerely hope legislation will be passed shortly in both countries. It obviously would be unfair if one lagged behind the other. I would hope that we might compete in this case. I hope that Congress will try to see whether they cannot get on with as much hustle as that with which we are getting on here. That clause I think is altogether good, and I have nothing to say about Clause 3 which is largely consequential.
With regard to Clause 4, I do want to raise a question of principle. Germans and Japanese who made their inventions during the war should, of course, certainly not be able to come here and patent them. That is obvious. And other people, British subjects or people of other nationality, who got to know about German or Japanese inventions should certainly not be entitled to come here and seek to get a patent on the strength of an invention which was not theirs but which was invented by the enemy. It is wholly desirable that this great mass of knowledge which we are now getting about German secret processes should be placed at the disposal of all industry.
I want to put this to the noble Lord. The clause as drafted is absolute. It says that you cannot get a patent if the process was invented by a German or a Japanese during the war. Now this might well happen, because great minds, scientific minds and inventive minds, have moved on the same lines. There are a number of cases in this country, as I understand it, where inventions have been made by British subjects, and in respect of which they have applied for a patent, but no patent has been granted, because a patent involves the publication of a specification. The granting of a patent has been deliberately held up during the war in
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order to preserve the secrecy of the invention; but, at the same time, the inventor has not only been permitted, but has been urged, to go ahead and develop his invention, to set up a factory and manufacture on this process.
It may very well be that during these six years of war some inventor in Germany has invented exactly the same process. The English inventor who made his invention had no possible means of knowing anything about what was going on in Germany. He could not know. But he made his own invention, applied for his patent and set up his factory here. We now have access to all these archives which record German ingenuity, and it may be found that when nobody here could know anything about it at all—possibly six months before the English inventor made his invention—there had been anticipation in Germany. I am not sure that it would matter whether it was six months before or six months after under the clause as drawn, because I think if the invention had been made in Germany at all the British inventor would not be entitled to have his patent. But let me assume that anticipation is a factor in this. In 1941 an inventor in Germany makes an invention. No one knows a thing about it outside Germany. Six months later an English inventor invents exactly the same thing, and sets up his factory. I do suggest—indeed I contend most, strongly—that the British inventor, who has put a great deal of money into it, should not be prevented from getting his English patent because it is subsequently discovered that a German had made the same invention in Germany. I hope the noble Lord will look very carefully at this, because I am advised that under the clause as it stands those patents which the Government quite rightly held up and refused to grant here, in order to preserve the secrecy of the invention, will now be turned down if it is discovered that there was a German invention of the same kind. I hope that that will be most carefully looked at.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I hope the noble Viscount will forgive my interrupting him. No doubt that question does require looking into. I have never charged my memory on things like this, although I was at one time very familiar with this branch of the law, but I am

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inclined to think that use in Germany of such a patent would not prevent the obtaining of a perfectly good patent in this country. Publication by some document or other, such as a scientific journal or something of that sort reaching this country, would, I think, have made the patent invalid, and one has got to distinguish between the two things, use in this, country and publication here, and something which has not been used here at all.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am very much obliged to my noble friend, who not only was a great patent judge, but made a very large income out of a great many patent cases. Anybody was extremely wise who tried to retain him in a patent case.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I do not rely upon my recollection of Patent Law.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: My knowledge of patent law was never anything like as great as his, but I was advised that the law which the noble and learned Viscount has expounded is exactly right, and that a British subject would, apart from this new legislation, be entitled to get his patent unless there had been publication. This would prevent the ordinary law operating, as I. read it and as I am advised under Clause 4 as drawn, there cannot have been any publication here because everything has been kept secret in Germany. If it has been kept secret in Germany and there has been no publication here, and it is discovered that such an invention was made in Germany—
VISCOUNT SIMON: The test is the making of the invention.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: The test is the making of the invention, not the communication. There could have been no communication from Germany. Therefore you are putting the British inventor in a far worse position by this Clause 4 than he would have been under the ordinary law. I am perfectly certain that is not the intention. I am perfectly certain the intention of the Government and the Board of Trade is that people who had not invented the thing themselves should not get hold of a German invention and pass it off as their own. But where a British subject has made his own genuine invention, without any knowledge of the German invention, then certainly I
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contend that the British inventor ought to be entitled to his protection. I think it is a very important point and I deliberately raise it here on the Second Reading and not in Committee because I am sure the noble Lord will want to look into it, and we can discuss it further in Committee. But apart from that, I must say I think this is a most desirable Bill and I only wish we could have more of the same kind.
6.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, may I say another word on this point we have just mentioned and which I think is very interesting. The probability is—and I am suggesting this to the noble Lord in charge of the Bill—that what he really wants is, after the words in line 6, "invented or designed in Germany or Japan or by a German national," the following words added: "and published in the realm of Great Britain." I think that would probably get what he desires. The application may be refused if the invention has been published here. The mere invention, as if think my noble friend Viscount Swinton said, is, according to my recollection, irrelevant in the obtaining of a patent here.
LORD PAKENHAM: With enormous deferenc e, may point on: that it is not completely irrelevant under the Bill before the House?
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I use the word "irrelevant," meaning only that it will not be a bar to a good patent here.
LORD PAKENHAM: Without wishing to lay down the law on that point, may I call attention to Clause 4 (3) (b) where the date of the actual invention or design is relevant? But perhaps I may say a word on the subject at the end of the debate.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: There is only one other thing I would like to add, which perhaps is irrelevant, but it: is as well that people in charge of these things should be reminded of the fact. In the course of this last war it was ascertained in the United States that almost every patent granted as the result of communication of a German patent has been fraudulent in the sense that the specification has been found, since the war, to be a deliberately imperfect specification. Therefore people who attempted during the war to

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use the patent found that the whole thing had to be reinvestigated and that the patents were in substance bad ab initio. I know it may be said that that is outside the scope of this measure, and I do not know how far that has been ascertained by manufacturers here. However, we have been allowed to use English patents communicated from Germany during the war, and I do not know how far our experience has been similar to, that of people in the United States. If it is similar, I myself think something should be done about it.
6.15 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I promised the noble Lord opposite that I would, on this Second Reading debate, say a word, because when I was Lord Chancellor the provision which is in Clause 1 of the Bill was submitted to me and I expressed a view about it; and it is right, if it is any service to the noble Lord, that I should say that I then did express the view, though with very much less detailed knowledge of Patent Law than my noble and learned friend who has just spoken, that I thought the provision in this clause was justified. The noble Lord has explained, with remarkable clearness, what the change is. Of course, as things stand at present, if a man who was the owner of a patent—the patentee—by reason of hostilities has suffered loss or damage—for example, if he has lost, because of the war, the opportunity of dealing in or developing his invention—then he may make application, as the law now stands, by a simple process called an originating summons, and the patent judge may grant him an extension of his patent for so many years and may indeed have regard solely to his loss or damage. That is the present system, and my own information, which, of course, is not so authoritative as that before the Kenneth Swan Committee, is that it does involve sometimes quite considerable expense, although no reasonable person would dispute that it is right to extend the patent. I therefore am of the opinion, and I expressed it in the course of the late Government, that this clause was justified.
But your Lordships must always bear in mind that in these matters of patents there is a third party whose interests have to be most carefully guarded. There is the Patent Officer on the one side, and
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the patentee on the other side. But every patent is a monopoly and it has the effect of excluding other people, third parties, the mass of the public, from maybe the rights they would otherwise enjoy. Therefore it is of great importance that the third party should be adequately protected. As long as the existing law remains, one of the duties of the man who applies to extend the life of his patent is to advertise that it is his intention to make such an application, and that amounts to public notice to other people who can come forward, if they will, and oppose, arguing that it is not in the circumstances right to give the patentee a longer run than the ordinary law allows him.
I should like the noble Lord to tell us this in his reply. Although it is not provided for in the Bill, and although the Bill in terms abolishes the duty of the applicant to advertise his intention, I apprehend it is the intention still of the Patent Office, under the rules that it makes, to see to it that there is a public advertisement of the fact that this application is being made. Otherwise the whole thing might be disposed of in a room without third parties knowing anything about it. There are rules which can be made under the Bill and I should suppose the rule would be, not that the applicant had to do it, but that the Patent Office would see to it that this thing would not be simply done without any sort of announcement by anybody. The noble Lord will tell us about that in a moment.
The other point I want to make is this. I have inquired of judges who know more about the matter than I do. I quite agree with the recommendation of the majority of the Kenneth Swan Committee about this, and I do so simply on the ground that unless we change the law a number of people who have suffered already, because the war has interfered with them exploiting their patents, will be put to, it may be, very heavy expense before they establish their right to an extension. I think this change is not unimportant. Normally, under the present law, the Patent Office (which, it is quite true, considers the application for a patent in the first instance) in the matter of these extensions is something in the nature of a watch-dog; it is in the nature of an opposite party who examines the merits of an application for an extension, and indeed when the application is made

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in Court it is quite common for the Board of Trade, on behalf of the Patent Office, in proper cases, to arrange for counsel to be there for the purposes of challenging the right to an extension. That is very important in the interests of the general public. But if you put your watch-dog in the seat of judgment, then where is the watch-dog? Who is going to see that the public are not unduly shackled by the continuance of a patent? I hope the answer will be that the Patent Office, under the proposed rules, will see to it that notice is given so that an opponent may appear. That would seem to be right and fair, but we shall hear about it in a moment.
The only other thing I wanted to say was that for my part, while I quite agree that this change is justified—and I have not heard it opposed; I do not think my noble and learned friend has anything to say against it—I do want to insist that, apart from this change, it is important that the existing jurisdiction of the Courts should be maintained as the sole and exclusive means of extending the term of years in other cases which have nothing to do with the war. After all, the grant of an extension is the grant of a monopoly; it does affect the public generally and may prejudice rival traders. I think, therefore, it is proper that such a decision should normally be treated as a judicial act between competing members of the public; and a judicial act ought not, in my judgment, to be discharged otherwise than in open court, and should not, as a rule, in the least resemble the departmental decision of a departmental official, who, presumably, sits in private. At least, I have never heard of the Press being admitted to a sitting in the Patent Office.
Therefore, I admit that this is an exceptional case which it is right to meet. But I think it is useful to insist in this debate that what is essential is that the change now made is a limited change to meet the undoubted special claims and difficulties of patentees who have been obstructed because of the war, and the more so because, I imagine, by far the greater number of, war-time extensions are really made as a matter of course, and because you do not want to use an elaborate machine if justice can be done to all parties by a much simpler process. All I wish to say is—and this is what I said when I was asked about the matter by
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the Board of Trade when I had a responsibility which I have not now got—that I entirely agree with this proposal, on the clear understanding that it is not regarded as the thin end of the wedge for the purpose of removing from the jurisdiction of the Courts (who, I think, discharge this duty very well and with extraordinary knowledge), in a wider and wider field these difficult patent decisions, acutely contested, and to put them instead in the hands of an official of a Government Department.
6.24 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I would ask your permission to reply to one or two points, although I have already spoken. May I say what: encouragement one receives on a matter of this sort from the legal opinion not only of Viscount Simon but of Viscount Maugham as well. When I explained to one or two people what this Bill amounted to, they said, "You will have the lawyers against you, because it will take away business." The debate today has shown what a very base reflection on the legal profession that kind of view represents. I think we can console ourselves with the thought that the lawyers are with us this time, or, at any rate, that those who are against us have not got the hardihood to come and tell us so.
May I reply first of all to specific point put to me by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon? It is intended under the Bill that the Comptroller will advertise these applications in the Patent Office Journal and thus afford opportunities for opposition from interested parties, although, as the noble Viscount would be the first to realize—indeed, he has himself said so—it is not likely that such opposition will very often arise.
VISCOUNT SIMON: Is it intended to make a rule to that effect?
LORD PAKENHAM: Yes, it will be done by rules, but provision for opposition is already made in the Acts. The noble and learned Viscount Lord Maugham put to me a rather general point which, as he confessed, did not tie itself up very closely to the Bill, an perhaps there will be an opportunity to deal with that on another occasion. There is no doubt that the difficulty that the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, raised is one which requires careful consideration, and I can say

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it is under consideration already. I am very glad that he was good enough, not only to give me notice in advance that he was going to raise that point, but also to raise it at this stage because it does give one warning before the Committee stage is reached and it is probable therefore that in this way we shall arrive at a more satisfactory arrangement in the end.
I will not attempt to offer to-day a very authoritative opinion on a matter where the highest legal authorities must clearly be consulted and given due time to make a pronouncement. I would lay before the noble Viscount these three possibilities, which undoubtedly he has in mind. We assume that some British inventor has applied for a patent since September 3, 1938, and we assume that during the same period some German made a similar invention. The British inventor may make his invention before the German makes his invention. In that case the British inventor is all right; he is protected if he makes his invention first, or so I am instructed. The noble Viscount will not wish me to go beyond the legal opinion offered me. That is the intention, but when we reach the Committee stage, or before it, it may be possible to go into the point still more closely. That at any rate is the intention, more particularly of Clause 4 (3) (b). On the other hand, it may be that the British inventor not only makes his invention after the German has made his invention but derives his invention from the German invention. In that case the British inventor is knocked out.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: If he knew about the German invention.
LORD PAKENHAM: If he derives his invention from the German invention he is knocked out. I am distinguishing between these cases. In one case I have described, he is all right, and in the other case I have described he is knocked out. The middle case, I think, interests the noble Viscount particularly—namely, the case where the British inventor makes his invention after the German invention is made and is not aware that the German invention has been made. As regards that case, where the British invention is subsequent to the German invention but is not derived from it, all I can say is that the case in justice is being very carefully
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considered. The noble Viscount will appreciate what I mean. I am very grateful to the noble Lords on the other side who have come forward in this very generous and co-operative way and I am sure the Government is also grateful for their support.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

NATIONAL SERVICE (RELEASE OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Nathan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The VISCOUNT MERSEY in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Release of conditionally registered conscientious objectors.
1.—(I) At any time after the date fixed, under arrangements for the release from Army service of persons called up for service under the National Service (Armed Forces) Act, 1939 (in this Act referred to as the "Act of 1939") for completing the release from such service of persons of all ranks in any group who are released by reference to their group, the Minister of Labour and National Service may direct that any conditionally registered conscientious objector of the same group shall, as from the giving of the direction, be released from the obligation to undertake work subject to which he was so registered.
Immediately after a direction has been given under this sub-section a copy thereof shall be sent by post to the person to whom the direction relates at his last known address.
6.33 p.m.
VISCOUNT SWINTON VISCOUNT SWINTON moved, in subsection (I), to leave out "Army." The noble Viscount said: I make no apology for returning to a matter which was raised on the Second Reading, and to which, I am bound to say, I thought the noble Lord in charge of the Bill gave a very unconvincing reply. This Amendment, comprehensively, raises two points.

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In the first place it raises the question of why the date of release from the Army should be the date on which the conscientious objector is released. Releases cannot take place in all the Services at the same moment. This Bill concerns the man who has established his claim to be a conscientious objector and has been released from the Army—that is if he got into the Army—for, observe, we are not dealing with those who served in the Non-Combatant corps, they are dealt with entirely as soldiers, and I have nothing to say about them. We are dealing with men, who either were actually called up into the Army and got into the Army or established themselves as conscientious objectors before they actually got into uniform. They are men who on establishing their claim to be conscientious objectors were sent back by the Tribunal into civil life and became to all intents and purposes, from the moment the Tribunal gave its decision, civilians just as much as if they had never been called up.
These men were not to be called up, provided that they undertook certain employment to which the Ministry of Labour directed them. Now the war has come to an end the men in the three Services, the fighting men in the three Services, are demobilized. We are having a certain amount of trouble over demobilization to-day, and, whether we are all satisfied with the rate or the method or not, I feel we should all be agreed about one thing, that we should not add, by any mischance, to the difficulties and misunderstandings in demobilizing these fighting men. But observe what is going to happen. The conscientious objector, who has not fought at all, and has merely been occupying himself in some work to which he has been directed in civil life is, for the purpose of being relieved of his obligation to work, to be treated as if he were a member of the Army and one who, if he had continued to serve in the Army, would at a particular moment be discharged from the Army. Then, he is to be discharged from his civil obligations. It may well be that men in a similar age group in the Navy or the Royal Air Force are kept longer in their Services. Why on earth should this preference in the date of discharge be given to a conscientious objector?
The only reason the noble Lord gave last time was that it is easier to treat him
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as a member of the Army. It may be that the bulk of those people were called up—I dare say that they all were—for military service, and they established the right not to serve in the Army. But I say that it is unfair and is likely to lead to trouble and misunderstanding in the other Services if men who are conscientious objectors get out sconer than men of exactly the same age, category, and everything else who are serving in the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force. We say: "First in, first out." No one can say that the conscientious objector was first in. I should say that he ought to be last out, and he ought not to come out of this civil occupation until the whole of the men in his class and of his age, in his age group, in the last of the Services to be demobilized, is demobilized. That is, I think, a very reasonable proposition.
But there is a much more important matter than this. Assuming that is done and the man is free to go away from this occupation in which he has been placed, I say that on merits this conscientious objector—he has established his claim of course, there is no prejudice in this—is not to be classed as a serving soldier, sailor or airman. He is a civilian. His whole claim was that he would have nothing to do with the war. His conscience, he maintained, forbade him to have any part in the war or to have anything to do with the Fighting Services. He would not serve in the non-combatant ranks, as many brave conscientious objectors have done at great peril to themselves. This man claimed to be a civilian and the tribunal has treated him as one and has said to him in effect: "Go back, you shall not be put: into any armed forces. Go back to civil life."
The Ministry of Labour, very properly, made it a condition of his going back to civil life and spending the war as a civilian, that he must be subject to the obligations which rest upon any civilian of his age and category. The man to all intents and purposes is a directed civilian. He is sent to certain work, it may be agriculture, engineering or possibly in a coal mine, by the Ministry of Labour. He is, directed into an occupation which is subject to the Essential Work Order. That means that he cannot leave his work without the permission of the Ministry of Labour. Now just observe what is going to happen. He is going, under this Bill,

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to be given a privileged position over all other civilians who are of the same age as himself. Take a man who was dreadfully anxious to serve in the Fighting Services, and who did his best to get in but was medically unfit and so was not passed. He was sent into one of these special occupations under the Essential Work Order. Today I know the numbers have been reduced. But there are many hundreds of thousands—I am not sure if it is millions—of men who are being kept under the Essential Work Order in their particular work, men of the same age as these conscientious objectors.
If this Bill goes through without this Amendment the conscientious objector, as soon as his age group is reached, will be entitled to leave the occupation under the Essential Work Order to which the Ministry of Labour has sent him, whereas his fellow citizen of the same age, and men who wanted to fight in the war maybe, are still held in their occupations. I think I have read that correctly and I do not think I do the noble Lord an injustice because he said you could not hold them last time. We want the release to be not a formality but a reality. I do not think there is the least doubt about it and if you look at Section 1 (4) I think it makes it perfectly clear. Reading Section 1 as a whole there is not the least doubt that if that man is in one of these occupations under the Essential Work Order the moment he is due for release he is free to go away and leave the occupation to which he had been directed. If I am right in construing this, I say that this is grossly unfair.
The point I wish to make is, first of all, that he should stay where he is until the last Service group of a like category with him has been demobilized and also if he is in employment under this special Order which obliges him and his fellows to stay in work, he should be treated exactly like his fellow civilians and be compelled to stay there until the man of like age and category as himself can go. That seems to me to be simple justice. No one wants to deny the conscientious objector justice. That is what he is entitled to but he is not entitled to precedence over his fellow civilians.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 6, leave out ("Army").—(Viscount Swinton.)
6.42 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD NATHAN): My Lords, when I spoke on the Second Reading of this Bill I pointed out that under the National Service Act no provision at all was made for the release of registered conscientious objectors and that in default of some active and positive step they would remain subject to that Act until the end of the emergency defined in that Act. It was thought desirable to put a period to the term for which they should be under the obligations imposed upon them by the National Service Act as conscientious objectors. Consequently, it had been decided to assimilate their release to the release of those serving in the Armed Forces of the same age and service. It was therefore provided by the Bill that they should be released from their obligations as conditionally registered conscientious objectors as a class by age and service at the completion of the period, the date fixed for the release, of the similar, comparable age and service group in the Army.
The whole question that is raised by the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount opposite is whether it should be the Army or not. From the practical point of view it is important to create a system easily intelligible and easily administered. The Army is the largest of all the Armed Forces of the Crown and its programme has been chosen because broadly speaking the release from the Army is on lines more clearly defined and more straightforward than the dates in the other Forces where there are various dates of release in the same age and service groups owing to differences as regards branches and trades. So far as the Army is concerned it is proposed to take the date at which they should be released as after the date fixed for completion of release of persons in all ranks in the same age and service group including officers, who at present are being released in some classes at a somewhat slower rate.
Let me give your Lordships an actual example. According to the most recent announcement, Army officers in group 24 will be released by March 31, the other ranks of that age and service group having been previously released. The Navy would have reached group 29 in the case of the executive branches by March 31,

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but there are specialist branches which are being released at different rates and in some cases are several groups behind the executive branch. The Royal Air Force will, on the average, have reached group 28 by March 31, but in the case of that force certain groups of officers are being released at a slower rate. The Army is the largest of all the Services and I should have thought it is obvious that if one is seeking a yardstick the best yardstick is the Army, that substantial justice will be done to the men in the Forces if the release of conscientious objectors is timed to follow the Army programme for only a minority of the men in the same group in the Navy and Air Force are in fact being released at a later date.
Similar conditions apply to the Women's Services and the release of conditionally registered women conscientious objectors is being related to the A.T.S. In regard to another class of conscientious objector, those who have been registered in the Non-Combatant Corps have been posted only into the Army, and this is, therefore, I submit to your Lordships, an obvious basis of comparison for release purposes. Otherwise you would have the anomalous position that certain conscientious objectors would be released with the Army as members of the Non-Combatant Corps: other conscientious objectors would be released by reference to some different scale or process. Indeed, there is a very real precedent for this. A broad parallel is to be found in the existing system for the coal mining ballotees. Their release age and length of service scheme is related to the timetable of the Army.
I ought perhaps to have mentioned that I do not think the noble Viscount opposite referred to the point which I myself mentioned on the occasion of the Second Reading, that in addition to release according to age and length of service, the Bill also provides for the release of conscientious objectors out of turn to undertake work of national importance. It will be a release made in the national interest on the recommendation of Government Departments. Where persons of similar experience or qualifications are being released from the Army under Class B, the same standards apply for release under Class B from the Royal Air Force and from the Navy. No conscientious objector will be released out of turn except in circumstances where he
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would have been so released if he had been serving in one of the Armed Forces.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I knew about that, I am not challenging it.
LORD NATHAN: I am much obliged. With regard to the second Amendment on the Paper my right honourable friend, the Minister of Labour and National Service, in the House of Commons on the Second Reading of this Bill gave an undertaking. He gave an undertaking that it was the intention to ensure that 7.he purpose of this Bill is not frustrated by the exercise of existing labour controls in such a way that a conscientious objector, who has been released from his conditions, is tied to the work from which he has been released under the Bill. Now, that was the undertaking given to Parliament by the Minister of Labour and National Service speaking, of course, on behalf of the Government.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: We are not bound by it.
LORD NATHAN: I would not suggest that the noble Viscount or indeed this House is bound by what may have been said in the other House, but it is a factor to be taken into account. It is a matter on which I feel the House ought to be informed. In that statement made in another place the Minister did set out the position, which is not indeed quite as the noble Viscount opposite seems to have understood. On the release of a conscientious objector, he will be released from the directed work or the work under the Essential Work Order—the actual job or kind of work to which he has been directed—but that does not mean he is in any better position than other members of the public of the same age and skill so far as liability is concerned to direction to some other job or piece of work, whether under the Essential Work Order, or simply direction to a non-scheduled job to which direction applies.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am sure the noble Lord wants to answer the point I raised. I did not say he would be in a better position than somebody else in the way of direction to something new. What I put to him was this. If I have not misread the Bill there are two men serving side by side in an occupation governed by the Essential Works Order, a conscientious objector aged 29 and an ordinary civilian aged 29. Is it not a fact that if this goes through the civilian

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aged 29 will be held and the conscientious objector will be free?
LORD NATHAN: No, it is not true. That is the point of misapprehension on the part of the noble Viscount opposite which I was endeavouring to remove. What is true is that, if there are two workers of the same age, side by side in the same workshop under the Essential Work Order, under this Bill the conscientious objector on release will be released from that particular job, from that particular work, but he remains equally liable to be sent to a different job, it may be next door, under the Essential Work Order.
LORD LLEWELLIN: Might I interrupt one moment? Will he or will he not in all respects on release be in the same position as a member of the Armed Forces who has been released in the normal way?
LORD NATHAN: Let me take it by stages. The position in the first instance will be that, being under the Essential Work Order, on an order being made he will be released by the National Service Officer from that particular job, but it will be open to the National Service Officer to say to him, "I am directing you to another job under the Essential Work Order." I ought perhaps to say that it is not the intention, as I erroneously informed the House on the Second Reading, that they should be given a period of eight weeks to find their own jobs on the same lines as a soldier released under Class A, but that the conscientious objector, when released under this Bill will be liable, subject to what I have just said, to the same degree of direction and control as other civilians, and it is not proposed that released conscientious objectors should be given more favourable treatment than other members of the community of the same age and service group.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: May I ask this? I do not want to quarrel with the noble Lord about something in respect of which I may not be clear.
LORD NATHAN: Please.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: If I am wrong I will be the first to withdraw it.
LORD NATHAN: Please.
VISCOUNT SWINTON: In the way in which it works to-day—let us take agri-
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culture —people are frozen in agriculture and are forbidden to leave it, and men are not being directed into agriculture. Therefore what would happen if one considers this position? There are two men serving side by side on a farm. One man is released. The noble Lord says that he might be directed, but the way in which you are dealing with this Essential Works Order, as I understand it, is this, you are holding men frozen where they are, but you are not directing new men into a number of these works, and therefore in practice he would have a preference.
LORD NATHAN: I do not think I can do more than repeat, I think for the second time, which I am quite prepared to do, what I have already said, and I do it with the desire of being helpful to the noble Viscount opposite. The position seems to me to be abundantly clear. A released conscientious objector under this Bill will be released from the particular job which was the subject of the condition imposed upon him by the Tribunal, but he still remains subject to direction by the National Service Officer, either to a non-scheduled piece of work or to a job under the Essential Work Order. In that respect he will be in exactly the same position as any other civilian of the same age and skill.
7 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLINhad given Notice to move to insert the following proviso:
"Provided that no direction made under this section shall have the effect (a) of releasing any such conscientious objector from his obligations at a date prior to that on which persons of the same group as his are released from the last of the three Armed Forces of the Crown to release that group or (b) of relieving him from any obligation under the Essential Works Order so long as other persons of like age and qualifications remain subject to directions under the said order."
The noble Lord said: I must say that I, for one, am not at all satisfied with the attitude the noble Lord has taken on this matter. He has himself told us, as we thought when we put down this Amendment, that the time of demobilization of certain groups in the three Services is different. He says that in several cases there will be groups in the Royal Navy or in the Royal Air Force which will be released after the date when the similar Army group has been released. Yet, knowing that, these conscientious objectors, who have done no service comparable to

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the men in the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy who are going to be kept on, are going to be released from their obligations ahead of men who may have been serving in the Mediterranean, in submarines, in the Far East, or who may have been flying over Germany or doing other duties like that. These conscientious objectors, under this scheme, are coming out from their obligations before these other men.
In taking that attitude, which has been admitted by the noble Lord, the Government is just as wrong as it could possibly be and in my view it is being highly stupid too. There is some dissatisfaction—I do not think justified in the way it has been shown—in the Royal Air Force at the present moment, but it is only on the Government's shoulders if they make it worse by letting these conscientious objectors go before a number of men in the Royal Air Force are released. The noble Lord, on Second Reading, said that they would be released when the whole of the group in the Armed Forces to which they belonged, had itself been released. Those were the noble Lord's own words. If he would stick to those words and accept an Amendment interpreting them, I should be absolutely satisfied and justice would have been done.
What I am saying is that men who have served in this war only as civilians should not be released from their obligations before the date on which the last of the men who took the far more difficult and far more hazardous course in the war has been released. It is quite simple to know when the last group is being released. It need not be so complicated. The Ministry of Labour knows, even if the Services themselves do not know what one another is doing. The Ministry of Labour knows when groups are being released, and it would be easy enough to say that Group 24 will be released from the Army on March 24th and the last people in Group 24 are going to be released from the Royal Navy on June 24th; therefore, as from June 24th, the conscientious objectors will be released, but not before. The attitude the Government is taking is wrong in regard to the men in the Armed Forces of the Crown, and is, if I may suggest so, a stupid thing at this stage when discontent as regards demobilization is being shown.
Now, in regard to the other Amendment on the Paper. A man has been a
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civilian because he applied to be a civilian; he applied not to go into one of the Armed Forces of the Crown and appealed to be regarded as a conscientious objector, and he was made a conditionally registered conscientious objector. He had to take on some job similar to jobs civilians were taking on in this country. Now what the noble Lord said the other day was this:
"It is intended that it should be a reality, and consequently those who are serving in work under the Essential Work Order, or in work to which they have been directed by the Ministry of Labour, will be allowed to leave that work."
A lot of their fellow civilians are not allowed to leave their work; they are still kept in agriculture and in the coal mines. Let us remember that these conscientious objectors are going to have preference and be allowed to leave when others are kept there.
LORD NATHAN: May I interrupt? I am sorry the noble Lord should proceed under a misapprehension. Under the Bill, a conscientious objector will be released from the occupation to which he has been made subject by the conscientious objector's tribunal, but he will remain directable to other work, like any other civilian of the same age.
LORD LLEWELL: Perhaps the noble Lord, then, will relieve my doubts. I understand that at the moment, although people are being frozen in essential work to which they have gone or to which they have been directed, new people are not being directed into those industries to-day. Is that correct, or is it not? I give way to the noble Lord.
LORD NATHAN: The Minister of Labour and National Service made a very long and careful statement on this subject in another place the other day, extending to upwards of four columns of Hansard, but I think, broadly speaking—and I must make tint qualification—the position is that the Minister of Labour's power of direction to work under the Essential Work Order and the like will not extend to those aver the age of 30, and he is intending to withdraw, on notice, certain kinds of work from the Essential Works Order. I think I read that such a notice had been given—three months' notice—only the other day. I can make only a general statement, because otherwise I should have to make a most careful

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statement to the noble Lord, based on four columns of Hansard.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am really asking the noble Lord one simple question, and if one of his noble friends would make an inquiry while I am speaking, perhaps I may get the answer. The simple question is: If you allow one of the conscientious objectors to leave his job now, is it the practice now (not is it within the Minister's power) to direct any man back again, if the Minister wishes to do so? That is the short, simple question that I am putting. I am not suggesting that if you are not directing a civilian man above the age of 50 or above the age of 31, whichever it is, that you should direct a conscientious objector above that age. All I am saying is that I object to this man being given a preference over a civilian of his own age. If he is a man of 32 and you are no longer directing anyone above 31, of course, release him; but if he is a man of 28, then I say you ought to keep him along with other similar civilians who, for one reason or another, perhaps because they were unfit, are in the same occupation (if it is one covered by the Essential Work Order), where you are still keeping people by the direction of the Ministry of Labour and freezing them. If he has been directed to something in which civilians are not still frozen, then release him with the others when his age group in the Armed Forces of the Crown is released. If however, his fellow civilians are still being frozen in that occupation, I see no reason whatever for letting the conscientious objector of the same age out. I give way to the noble Lord.
LORD NATHAN: I am not at all certain that the noble Lord is not really chasing a shadow, and I know he has no desire to do that. When the conscientious objector is in an essential works job—I use that phrase for shortness and clarity—he is under it, not by virtue of the Essential Work Order, but by virtue of the condition imposed by the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal. That is his position at present.
LORD LLEWELLIN: It may be. He might have been there before and ordered by the Tribunal to remain there. If he had not been directed by the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal and was a
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man of the appropriate age, he would still have to stay there. As I understand it, because he has been directed by the Tribunal to stay in his job, having once been directed like that, he is in a favourable position compared to that of his cousin, who was there at the same time and never was directed by a Conscientious Objectors Tribunal.
LORD NATHAN: I will put it in another way. The status of a conditionally registered conscientious objector in an essential works job is that he is in that essential works job by reason of a direction given or a condition imposed by the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal. That is his position subject to the proposals for release which we now have under discussion. He is, in other words, the object of an act by the Conscientious Objectors' Tribunal. We now say to him under this Bill: "You shall no longer be the object of the activities of the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal; you shall be released from the condition which they imposed upon you. You shall be restored to the general body of civilians unconditionally as far as the Conscientious Objectors Act is concerned, but you shall remain in all respects subject to the obligations of every other civilian of the same age, in that although you may be released from the occupation to which you have been directed by the Tribunal, you still remain directable to other essential works under the Essential Work Order, like any other civilian of the same age."
LORD LLEWELLIN: None of us would have any objection to saying "Once your group number has come under this Bill, the condition imposed on you by the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal shall cease to have effect," if the noble Lord went on to say that a National Service Officer could then say to the man, "Look here, there are three of you in the same job. You are going to be frozen like the other two, because you are in this industry. We are not freezing people because we like to freeze them; we are freezing them because the industry is important. You will have to stay along with them, although your original way of going in may have been because you were directed by the Tribunal. By now you have learnt the job; you are just as important as any of the other people in it. When we release everybody in it, then we will unfreeze you, and not before."

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Why should not the conscientious objector take his part and line up alongside civilians of his age in such things as agriculture? From what I have heard of the Minister of Food's announcement in another place to-day, agriculture is more important in this country than ever it was.
LORD NATHAN: I will tell the noble Lord—that really was the subject of what I referred to as the Minister's undertaking in another place—that to adopt his suggestion would—and I say it with great respect—make of this Bill a fraud and a farce. Under the noble Lord's suggestion he would be getting no release at all.
A NOBLE LORD: And a good job too.
LORD NATHAN: It may be a good job or it may not. The object of this Bill is to provide release. Under the noble Lord's suggestion he would remain exactly where he was. The only difference—and I do not think it is a great difference—between the noble Lord and myself is this. We are saying, "You shall be freed from the particular occupation to which you have been directed, but you still remain liable to the national service implied by the liability to direction which is applicable to other people of your age, although it may be into a different occupation." That is essential in order to make the release a reality.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I shall be quite satisfied if I am told the answer to the question I put. Are the Ministry of Labour in fact now doing anything more than freezing people? Are they still directing people into industry? I have asked a simple question; I asked it five minutes ago. There should be somebody available in this House to give that answer.
LORD NATHAN: I have said—
LORD LLEWELLIN: The noble Lord said, "He is still directable." He may be, according to the law, but the question is whether the practice is now to direct these people. I understand that the practice is not to direct anybody new into industry but only to freeze those in the industries in which they now are. If so, if the conscientious objector is released from the industry in which he is, unless you are going to make an exception in the case of conscientious objectors, he will get completely out. I am not trying to do the man down; all I am saying is
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that if you have got two people who are still frozen in an industry, the first man out ought not to be the conscientious objector, just because he has been a conscientious objector. That is what is going to happen if he is let cut and the Ministry of Labour are at the moment not directing any other people in.
LORD NATHAN: It is the same point which I think I made on the Second Reading, and which I made to-day when I said it had been limited now to men not over 30. Men, of course, are directed into industry if they are of military age, and for the present purposes military age has been taken administratively to be 30. They are not only directable but they are being directed.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I understand that a conscientious objector, if he is under the age of 30 and is released from an essential works job in which civilians are kept, will not be just as free as a member of the Armed Forces, as the noble Lord told us last time. Members of the Armed Forces are free, they are not directed; they are given the opportunity of finding their own jobs, and quite rightly. The conscientious objector will be on the same basis as his fellow civilians; he will be directable back, if released. Therefore, if you decide that after being four or five years a conscientious objector he has picked up the calling of agriculture, he will then, under this Bill, be released, because you do not want to make of it a fraud, but you can look round and say, "We still want people in agriculture; you have had five years' experience in it, so back you go." If that is the position, it puts him on the same basis as his fellow civilians in the agricultural industry, and I am quite happy, but I hope to be re-assured that that is the position.
LORD NATHAN: I have told the noble Lord that the power of direction is retained. The conscientious objector is liable to direction. The power of direction is being exercised by the Minister so far as it relates to people up to the age of 30. The conscientious objector will be released from the particular occupation in which he is engaged and he will remain liable to be directed, and in an appropriate case he will be directed to other work for which he is suitable, in the same way as any other civilian of military age.
LORD LLEWELLIN: That puts it far better than it was put by the noble Lord on the Second Reading of this Bill, when he said this man was going to be as free as any member of the Armed Forces. I am not asking for him to be penalised; I think the House understands that. I am only asking for him not to be dealt with in a preferential way to those in the Armed Forces. As it is, I shall read rather carefully in the Official Report what the noble Lord has said to-night. If it does not seem to meet my point, I shall ask liberty to return to the charge at a later stage of this Bill. But, as we are both probably meaning to do the same thing here, it would be better if the Government—if they are bound by this thing—would put down an Amendment themselves to do justice to the other men serving in the Forces and to the civilians working alongside conscientious objectors. I would ask the noble Lord to look at it from that point of view and having said that I beg leave on behalf of my noble friend to withdraw—at any rate at this stage of the Bill—the Amendment that was proposed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I do not move the Amendment of which I gave notice.
Clause 1, agreed to
Remaining Clause, agreed to.

BANK OF ENGLAND BILL.
Amendments reported (according to order).

GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (SHAN STATES FEDERAL FUND) ORDER, 1946.
GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (G0VERNOR'S EMERGENCY ALLOWANCES, REPAIR OF FURNISHINGS) ORDER, 1946.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (ADAPTATION OF ACTS OF PARLIAMENT) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1946.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (HIGH COURT JUDGES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1946.
Laid before the House, pursuant to Act, for affirmative Resolution and referred to the India and Burma Orders Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.