Sitting of 19 July 1951

Preamble
The House met at half past three of the clock, The EARL OF DROGHEDA On the Woolsack.
Prayers

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL
3.35 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 147 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
On Question, Motion agreed to and Bill read 3a accordingly, with the Amendments; Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (LYMINGTON) BILL
Amendments reported (according to Order).

RIVERS (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION) (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL
3.37 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF WORKS (LORD MORRISON): My Lords, the Bill to which I now ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading deals with a problem that, I think your Lordships will agree, has been with us too long. The problem of preventing pollution of rivers has been one of increasing seriousness since it was first thrust on us at the beginning of last century. It is true that in 1876, seventy-five years ago, Parliament passed an Act for the prevention of rivers pollution, but it would be difficult to find today any body of informed opinion that
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is satisfied with the Act as an instrument for the prevention of pollution. The people of this country are becoming increasingly impatient of the present condition of many of our rivers. Fishing and angling interests deplore the pollutions that make the exercise of their skill impossible. Local authorities have found the provisions of the Act cumbersome and ineffective. Industry, too, has had reason to complain, for, while industry is one of the main polluters, many trade processes depend on a supply of reasonably clean river water. Your Lordships may be interested to know that works designed for the purification, so far as practicable, of trade waste waters before discharge to the River Esk in Midlothian are actually in use not for that purpose, but to clarify the water before it can be taken into the industrial processes concerned.
The facts of pollution are not in dispute. The Bill is based on the report, published in January last, of a sub-committee of the Scottish Water Advisory Committee, which examined the question of amending legislation. The Chairman of the Committee was Sir Humphrey Broun Lindsay, and among its members was a member of your Lordships' House, the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. I regret that he is unable to be present here to-day. We are, however, fortunate in having here the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who was Commissioner for the Special Areas in Scotland in, I think, 1937 and 1938, and who had at his disposal grants for the assistance of the Scottish Special Areas. One purpose for which grants were given at that time was that of sewerage and sewage purification, and, as the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said in his report, great progress has been made in reducing river pollution. In particular, an important contribution was made, I am advised, towards the problem of cleaning up the River Clyde and its principal tributaries. While full statistics on pollution were not furnished by all local authorities, the Committee record a minimum of 526 known pollutions, of which 293 were from domestic sewage and 233 from industrial effluents. The Committee, in fact, say that all the evidence before them pointed to—I quote from their Report:
"there being a good deal of pollution which is both unnecessary and avoidable."

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My Lords, it is against this sombre background of extensive, and often avoidable, pollution that the Bill now before your Lordships has been drawn. It makes three important changes. In the first place, by the machinery it provides it enunciates the important principle of unified control of a river or a group of rivers from source to sea. In place of the present system whereby the local authority are charged with the prevention of the pollution of a river only within their local government boundaries, the Bill provides for the establishment of river purification boards to control a river throughout its course. Orders of the Secretary of State are to define river purification board areas and to establish river purification boards. The membership of the boards is to be drawn from two sources. The local authorities—that is, the county councils and the town councils of large burghs—are to furnish not less than three-fifths or more than two-thirds of the members, and the rest of the members are to be appointed directly by the Secretary of State to represent
"the interests of persons concerned with the carrying on of agriculture, fisheries or industry in the area, or any other interests which in the opinion of the Secretary of State should be represented."
The river purification boards are to be financied by requisition on the local authorities concerned.
Your Lordships are no doubt aware that the Association of County Councils in Scotland have strenuously opposed the provision in the Bill for the setting up of new ad hoc authorities for the prevention of pollution, and some of your Lordships may have something to say on the subject. In the meantime, I shall content myself with saying that in another place, on a free vote, the decision in favour of ad hoc authorities was carried by an overwhelming majority. In accordance with the recommendations of the Broun Lindsay Committee, it is not meantime proposed to establish river purification boards in the sparsely populated areas in the North and West of Scotland, where, fortunately, the problem of pollution is not serious. There, the existing local authorities will continue to act, but they will have the advantage of the new powers that the Bill provides.
That brings me to the second important change. A new code for the control of pollution is provided in place of the out-
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of-date provisions of the 1876 Act. The main feature of the new control is that by-laws defining what is to be regarded as poisonous, noxious or polluting are to he framed, after the appropriate surveys have been made, by the river purification authority—that is, the river purification boards, where these have been set up, and elsewhere, the county councils and town councils of large burghs. The bylaws are to be confirmed by the Secretary of State, and full provision is made for objections against the by-laws to be considered before they are confirmed. It will be an offence to contravene a standard prescribed by by-laws.
In the present state of knowledge, it is not practicable, at reasonable expense, so to purify some trade wrote waters, notably those discharged from paper works, as to permit of the effluent being discharged into a stream without some degree of pollution taking place. The Bill recognises this hard fact, and in such a case it will, under Clause 27, be open to the river purification authority to grant the industrialist concerned, on application, a relaxation from the by-laws, if he satisfies them that it is not reasonably practicable to dispose of the waste waters except by discharging them into a stream, and that he is taking, or is prepared to take, all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the matter discharged being unnecessarily poisonous, noxious or polluting. There is an appeal to the Secretary of State against the grant or the refusal of such a relaxation.
Perhaps it is appropriate that I should here mention one respect in which this Bill differs from the English measure for the prevention of pollution which has recently been before your Lordships' House. In the English Bill, mine water—that is to say, water in the condition in which it is raised from the mine—is outside the scope of the Bill, but may be brought in by order of the Minister of Local Government and Planning. In the Scottish Bill, mine water is within the scope of its provisions, rind it will be for the National Coal Boars to comply with the standards laid down in by-laws or to apply for a relaxation of these standards. The reason for this difference in treatment is that in evidence before the Broun Lindsay Committee the National Coal Board claimed that only 6 of 179 mine waters for which they had obtained

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analysis were unsuitable for discharge to rivers, as compared with over 100 in England and Wales. As my noble friend Lord Macdonald explained during the Committee stage of the English Bill, it would have called for an enormous amount of work to have all the English cases investigated immediately.
In the third place, the Bill brings within its scope, subject to such modifications as the Secretary of State may by order determine, the tidal waters of the Clyde and Forth. The majority of pollutions are found in the industrial belt of Scotland, and the basins of these two rivers form a large part of that area. In these circumstances, to omit from the provisions of the Bill the tidal waters of the Clyde and Forth would have been to miss the crux of the whole situation in Scotland. The Bill also provides for other tidal waters to be brought within its scope on the application of a river purification authority or other interests, and after the holding of a local inquiry.
The detailed provisions of the Bill may perhaps be left for examination at a later stage. What remains for me to do is to point out that it would be wrong to imagine that, once this Bill becomes law, the rivers of Scotland will at once return to their natural purity. There is no engineering difficulty in so treating domestic sewage as to enable it to be discharged to a stream without offence or danger to fish life, but the present restrictions on capital investment, and the shortages of labour and materials, make it impossible for all the necessary sewage purification works to be put in hand at one time. Within the limitations set by the capital investment programme, however, the Secretary of State will do his utmost to facilitate the necessary works by local authorities.
As for trade effluents, the Bill deals with polluting matter entering a stream. Often the most economical way of preventing a stream from being polluted by trade effluent will be to take the effluent into a sewer of the local authority for treatment along with domestic sewage. This at once raises the question of the terms and conditions on which the local authorities should be empowered or required to admit trade effluents to their sewerage systems, and the Secretary of State has accordingly set up, under the chairman-
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ship of an eminent Scottish jurist—Sheriff Hill Watson—a committee representative of all interests concerned to examine this question. I commend this Bill to your Lordships as a genuine contribution on non-Party lines to the solution of a real problem. Once the river purification boards have been established, and get down to the important tasks that await them, we shall have done much to redress the errors of the past and to restore the cleanliness of our Scottish streams. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Morrison.)
3.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, for the eminently fair and clear way in which he has presented this Bill, the purpose of which will not be questioned in any part of the House. It has the almost inestimable advantage of being backed by a first-class Report. I feel that the House should express their gratitude to Sir Humphrey Broun Lindsay and his Committee for their admirable and informative Report. It is not only well-written and short but has a fine idealism of its own, and moreover, is practical and precise in its recommendations. I think this able and independent Committee have deserved very well of Scotland.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrison, said that this problem of river pollution was a legacy of the Industrial Revolution. It is, indeed; but, strictly speaking, it is a later legacy. The first problem of the Industrial Revolution was to get sewage off the roads into the rivers, and the early part of last century was almost entirely taken up with that work. I believe, for instance, that such an ordinary domestic fitting as a W.C. is not more than a century old. Therefore, it was what was called the sewerage policy of Disraeli which was really the first part of the second stage, which I hope to-day we shall carry a step further. There is nothing in the Bill which speaks either of money or materials, and, as I think everyone must realise, in the end these will be the bones of any method by which our rivers can be freed of their present pollution. I agree with the noble Lord that the Bill is uncontroversial, except for one issue, but I shall say nothing about

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that to-day. It was left to a free vote on both sides in the Scottish Grand Committee. I wish that more Bills were left to a free vote in the Scottish Grand Committee than is the case at present: if that were done we might get better results.
I think it was a pity that the Government, in supporting their case, should find the need to criticise local authorities for not having done more in the past. The local authorities might equally come back and complain to the Secretary of State that in certain cases they had no authority to prosecute polluters. I think the case for the Bill is sufficiently well established, without any need to bring the local authorities into contempt. The noble Lord, Lord Morrison, has been good enough to speak of some of my experiences in this matter before the war, and I am bound to say I found that the local authorities grasped with both hands the offer of any assistance in such problems. We had hoped—and I think this is not without interest—that after the works on the Clyde had been completed, the Clyde would be a pure river. Unfortunately, that is still not the case. But this experience is a measure of the time and effort which will be necessary to put this plan fully into operation. For that reason I do not in any way cavil at the wide and extensive use of the word "reasonable" throughout the Bill, although it almost suggests that the bodies which will be set up will naturally be unreasonable. The word appears with perfect regularity, in clause after clause. Even that does not end the matter, because the Secretary of State is made the final arbiter of whether the boards are reasonable in the decisions which they make.
There are two points which I should like cleared up, although I think I am right in both. I gather that all prosecutions will remain with the Lord Advocate or with the Procurator-Fiscal, and will not be a matter for the boards at all. I take it that their function in this matter will be to lay information with the Crown Office. I think I am also right in saying that the civil rights of riparian owners will remain unaffected by this Bill. The second point l should like to raise is, how far do the boards effect or embark on matters of drainage and flood control? I think they are not supposed to take any action in that regard, although I notice that in Clause 17, the duty is laid on them to conserve water resources. Further on,
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in Clause 24(2), works carried out for drainage and flood prevention under statutory powers are exempted from the offences created by that clause. I shall be glad if these relations can be sorted out. The boards must necessarily be considerably concerned with any matter affecting drainage and flood control.
In regard to the Scottish River Purification Advisory Committee to be set up under the Bill, which was recommended in the Broun Lindsay Report, I hope they will not become anything like the Highland Panel. The Highland Panel are not allowed to publish any opinion, and their opinion is brought out only in so far as that is convenient to the Secretary of State of the time. I suggest that to some extent this Committee should have independent expression of opinion. They should not have their reports written by a bureaucratic pen within the general report of the Department of Health. I should like to see in this Bill some of the points mentioned in the Broun Lindsay Report—for instance, that the Committee should have power to initiate proposals and to demand information. I should like to discuss this question later, because I think it is important that the Committee should not be regarded as a whipping boy for the Secretary of State. It seems to me that the name of these boards, river purification boards, is an extremely clumsy one. I wonder why they cannot be called simply "river boards." These are important boards; I do not know any more important that deal with rivers, and I think a simple name would make them more attractive. In regard to the inquiries which will be held under the Bill, I hope that they will be held in public. It is important that the work Of these inquiries should be known as widely as possible.
Clause 16 envisages that the boards will report to the Secretary of State and to local authorities, whereas the boards set up under the English Bill will report to Parliament. That means that the reports of the Scottish boards will be only semipublic, because, though what is reported to a local authority is certainly not confidential, it will not be possible for others interested to know the contents of the reports. I suggest that if these boards are going to be fully effective in their work, they must have wide support among the general public, and that support can be offered only if people know what they are doing. We all like to hear of efforts

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to purify our rivers, but we are really interested only in purifying the rivers we see ourselves. If we were to receive a report on a river known to us, and in which perhaps we were intimately interested, whether from the point of view of looking or fishing, we should give a much wider measure of support to any scheme suggested.
In Clause 12 of the Bill it is envisaged that in certain cases local authorities will be agents for the river boards. I think it is known to the Scottish Office that the Fife County Council are very anxious to act as agents on behalf of the board concerned with the River Leven. I am not sure whether or not that is practical, but, as I read the Bill, it appears to be. So I should be interested to know, if not today, then at some other time, how that matter stands. If a local authority have carried out their work properly and want to go on doing that work, I think they should be encouraged to do so. My next point is really a Committee point, but I should like to draw attention to the First Schedule. It starts off by saying this:
"Before making any order to which this Schedule applies."
But it does not say to what orders the Schedule applies. I may be quite foolish, but there are a number of orders specified throughout the Bill, and I am not at all clear how the position stands.
In conclusion, I should like to make two points. First, the Broun Lindsay Report recommended a common board for the whole length of the Tweed. That means that for the lower reaches the board would have to be in part an English board. I should be interested to know whether it is intended that that common board shall be set up, which I should have thought was in line with the requirements both of the English and the Scottish Bill. I can see no specific reference to the point in this Bill. It may, of course, be that the setting-up of such a board can be satisfactorily carried out by administrative action at a later date. If I may end much as the noble Lord did, I trust that the hopes raised by this Bill will not be too high, because, if they are, many people will be deeply disappointed. It will take a long time to achieve what is here intended. I see no reason to think the machinery is not basically sound, but I should like to know a little more of how it is to be paid for.
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I have great pleasure in supporting the noble Lord on his Motion for Second Reading.
4.2 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes. In this matter I find myself in line with the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, and my noble friend Lord Selkirk, in being against the county councils of Scotland. I am sorry to find myself in that position, because I realise the value of the work they do, and the fact that, even more than in England, they represent the people of their county in a way that few bodies do. There are two or three points on this Bill that I should like to make. One is that, in having three-fifths of the representation on the river board, the county councils have quite enough influence as it is; indeed, time may show that they have too much. In the second place, I am rather distrustful of this discharge of industrial effluent into domestic sewage. I thought there was a Statute of 1936 which governs that subject. But I am certain that in the hands of Sheriff Hill Watson a right conclusion will be reached.
I am also distrustful of the word "reasonable," to which my noble friend Lord Selkirk has drawn attention. It is as a result of the use of the word "reasonable" that the pollution of the rivers of Britain takes place. What I want is somebody to say: "This is quite unreasonable, but you have got to clean that river." That is the only way in which ultimately we shall get the rivers clean. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, said that a concession was to be made to sugar manufacturers in regard to their effluent, because it was not found possible to deal with it. I do not set up as an expert, but when I was in Holland for a short time I studied their sugar industry, and I found that they managed the disposal of their effluent very well.
LORD MORRISON: If the noble Lord will permit me to say so, he must have misheard me. I said "paper," not "sugar."
LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I am afraid that has rather left me in the air, and I have no more to say.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, I do not want to take up more than a few minutes of your Lordships' time, but I think it is right that a few words should be said by one who is acquainted with such famous Border fishing rivers as the Tweed, the Teviot and the Jed. I am particularly glad that the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of this Bill sounded a note of warning as to the results which might be expected in the immediate future, because I think the remark which was made in the financial and explanatory Memorandum to this Bill when it was before another place, but which is not in the Memorandum to the Bill before us to-day, is pertinent. In that Memorandum it was stated that the expenditure of local authorities is not likely to exceed substantially the expenditure incurred by them under the provisions repealed by the Bill. If the local authorities are not going to be required to make further financial provisions, I cannot see how we are to make our rivers purer. It is particularly unfortunate that the introduction of this Bill should come at a moment when there is considerable financial stringency, owing to the needs of rearmament. It is clear that not very much can result from this Bill in the immediate future. If the Bill is to be more than a mere expression of good intentions, funds must be provided; and as my noble friend Lord Selkirk has said, public feeling must be aroused.
4.6 p.m.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I certainly cannot complain at the reception this Bill has received in your Lordships' House. As the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, says, it is unfortunate that more Scottish Bills cannot be treated in this way. Speaking from memory I believe that in the whole course of the discussions on the Bill in another place there was only one Division, which was on the point dealt with by the noble Lord as to the position of county councils. In these circumstances, I need not go into that matter to-day, particularly as a number of noble Lords and I myself have an appointment elsewhere. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has gone; I was going to apologise to him for bringing his speech to a sudden termination.
I know that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, will not expect me to answer the
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many questions he put, but I will, briefly, answer one or two of them. He said he would like to know whether he was right in thinking that the powers of prosecution will be held by the Lord Advocate or the Procurator-Fiscal. The answer is that they will. The noble Earl also asked whether he was right in assuming that civil rights of riparian owners are in the same position as they were. The answer to that is also in the affirmative. Further, he asked what are the relations of the new boards to the general question of drainage and flood control. Roughly, the answer is that they have nothing to do with it at all. I am entirely in agreement with the noble Earl in regard to a number of his points, and I admit that his knowledge of this subject, so far as it affects Scotland, is much greater than mine. I agree with him that it is important that the new hoards should not be cribbed, cabined or confined in the work that they will do. Therefore, I should say that it will be within their compass that the reports of advisory committees, if of sufficient public interest, will be published. There may be a considerable number of reports that would not be of sufficient public interest, but I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Earl that, if good work is to be done in connection with this Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament, it must have the backing of the public, and the public nowadays must be told what it is all about.
I am unable to comment at the moment on the point of why the new boards should not be called simply "river boards." I rather think the explanation is that there are already river boards in existence, and to create other boards with the same name might well cause complications. I am not very definite about that point, however, and perhaps it can be raised later. The noble Earl asked me a question with regard to the Fife County Council acting as agents in respect of the River Leven. I am sorry, but I am not in a position to make any promise about that at present. With regard to the noble Earl's point about the First Schedule of the Bill, he asked whether the procedure envisaged in that Schedule is to be carried out. I am advised that that is so; moreover, if he will look at page 32 of the Bill, he will see in the left-hand corner in very small print after. "A.D. 1951," the words "Sections 3, 5, 29 and 33."
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am sure the noble Lord does not think I had omitted to notice that. I understand that that is not generally regarded as a valid part of the Act.
LORD MORRISON: I shall have to leave it at that. The final question which the noble Earl asked me was what will happen in regard to the River Tweed which, as everybody knows, is an English river as well as a Scottish river. The answer is that it is proposed to make arrangements between the Scottish and English river boards for them to co-operate. There is a possibility that the arrangements, when they are made, will necessitate legislation. I am not sure about that, and I should not like to make that definite statement. At any rate, the idea is that joint arrangements shall be made between the boards on either side of the Border to co-operate.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I do not want to press the noble Lord, but surely the whole object is that there should be
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an ad hoc board dealing with each river. I understand the noble Lord to say that there will be no ad hoc board dealing with the Tweed.
LORD MORRISON: There will be an ad hoc board dealing with the River Tweed in Scotland, co-operating and working in conjunction with the board which deals with the part of the Tweed which is in England.
LORD CLYDESMUIR: Not a joint board?
LORD MORRISON: I cannot say that. It only remains for me to thank noble Lords for the kind way in which they have received this Bill, and to hope that the pessimistic prognostications of the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, will not be realised.
On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes past four o'clock.