Sitting of 31 October 1957

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER No. 29)
Return ordered,
respecting application of Standing Order No. 29 (Closure of Debate) during Session 1956–57 (1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:—

1

2

3

4

5

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Date when Closure moved, and by whom

Question before House or Committee when moved

Whether in House or Committee

Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Speaker or Chairman

Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

and (2)in the Standing Committees under the following heads:—

1

2

3

4

5

Date when Closure moved, and by whom

Question before Committee when moved

Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Chairman

Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS
Return ordered,
of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into the House of Commons and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1956–57.
Of all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1956–57 were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bills in Committee; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed:

PRIVATE BUSINESS

  ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 9
  Return ordered,
  of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing the definite matter of urgent public importance and the result of any Division taken thereon, during Session 1956–57.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1956–57, were referred by the Committee of Selection to Committees on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:
  And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC BILLS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1956–57 showing:

  (1) the number which received the Royal Assent;

  (2) the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were

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  introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but Amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postponed or rejected in either House of Parliament.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC PETITIONS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Public Petitions presented and printed in Session 1956–57, with the total number of signatures in that Session.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  SELECT COMMITTEES
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Select Committees appointed in Session 1956–57, the Chairman's Panel and the Court of Referees; the subjects of inquiry; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and of the Chairman of each; the number of days each Committee met, and the number of days each Member attended; the total expenses of the attendances of witnesses at each Select Committee, and the name of the Member who moved for such Select Committee; also the total number of Members who served on Select Committees.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE AND BUSINESS OF SUPPLY
  Return ordered,
  of (1) the days on which the House sat in Session 1956–57, stating for each day of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and the number of entries in each day's Votes and Proceedings; and (2) the days on which Business of Supply was considered.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  STANDING COMMITTEES
  Return ordered,
  of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the Standing Committees showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of Bills considered in relation to their principle and the number of Estimates considered by the Scottish Standing Committee, the number of sittings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills and Estimates considered by a Standing Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing, in the case of
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  each Bill, the particular Standing Committee by whom it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered by the Committee, the number of Members present at each of those sittings and, in the case of the Estimates, the number of days on which they were considered and the number of Members present on each of those days.—[The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Farming Industry (Wages and Productivity)
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what additional total costs are placed on the farming industry by the wage award announced in July; and what effect he expects the award to have on productivity.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Derick Heathcoat Amory): It is estimated that the award of the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales which came into effect on 28th October would add about £14½ million to the costs of the industry in a full year if the use of labour did not alter. Of this amount, about £11½ million would fall on price guaranteed commodities. It is not possible to forecast the effect of this award on productivity but I am confident that output per man will continue to improve.
    Mr. Gooch: Is the Minister aware that farm workers have not yet received a single penny of the millions mentioned by him? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware of the threats of many farmers to discharge men so as to avoid the obligation of paying them the additional 9s.? Does not the Minister agree that, measured in terms of output, farm workers are entitled to every penny of the 9s., and more?
    Mr. Amory: I am not quite sure that I understand the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, because the award has only just come into operation and, therefore, they would not yet have received a penny of this extra money. As regards the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question,

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    I should like to pay a tribute to the increased productivity achieved by the industry in the past ten years. The index of production has gone up from 124 per cent. of the pre-war level to 158 per cent., and during that period the total number employed in the industry has dropped from about 980,000 to something like 755,000, which is a great tribute to the productivity per worker.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that, as the additional charges are going up by £14½ million, unless we get an increase in production in the forthcoming year—[HON. MEMBERS: "We are getting it now."]—a wage award of this kind would really be inflationary?
    Mr. Amory: I think that the record of the industry so far, showing a steady annual increase in productivity, has been encouraging.

    Scarlett's Farm, Twyford
    Mr. Mikardoasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has given further consideration to the question of Scarlett's Farm near Twyford, details of which have been put before him; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amory: In April, 1956, the landlords of this farm applied to the Berkshire Agricultural Executive Committee for a certificate that it was not being cultivated in accordance with the rules of good husbandry. The Committee, after considering representations by the landlords and the tenant, gave notice of its proposal to grant the application. This proposal was upheld by the Agricultural Land Tribunal, on appeal. The landlords have since served a notice to quit and the tenant has, I understand, moved to a smaller farm.
    It is open to a Committee, when the case for a certificate appears to it to be made out on the facts, to make a supervision order instead of granting a certificate to the landlord; but this alternative is adopted only in exceptional circumstances. In this case, the tenant had been given clearly to understand in November, 1954, and August. 1955, that the Committee was not satisfied with his standard of husbandry and was considering whether to make a supervision order. In
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    these circumstances there were, in my view, reasonable grounds for the Committee's proposal to grant a certificate when the Landlord applied for one in April, 1956.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is not it clear from the right hon. Gentleman's statement that what happened in this case was that this farmer was, so to speak, put on trial for a year or so to see whether he should be put under supervision, and that, before that trial was ended, while he was honourably carrying out what was asked of him, and without waiting for the results of it, instead of being put under supervision he was evicted from his farm? Although it may be—no doubt, it is so—that all the regulations were properly carried out, does not this undoubtedly amount to a denial of natural justice in this case?
    Mr. Amory: I do not think so. The two things, supervision and the granting of a certificate of bad husbandry, are rather separate. I would point out that the farmer concerned particularly asked not to be put under supervision, and when the Committee looked at the farm to consider whether a certificate of bad husbandry should be given it decided then that no improvement had taken place.
    Mr. Remnant: Is not it correct to say that the parties concerned acted strictly within their entitlement under the laws of this country relating to farms and that if the farmer concerned had taken part of the advice which was tendered to him he might still have been there? Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the constituency of Wokingham, which I represent here, the unhelpful assistance of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Mikardo) in agricultural matters is not required?
    Mr. Amory: I agree with the first two parts of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. I think I will not comment on the third.

    Horticultural Marketing (Committee's Recommendations)
    Major Beamishasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has now completed his consultations with the public authorities and interested organisations regarding the main recommendations contained in the Runciman Committee on Horticultural Marketing; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amory: Consultations with the large number of organisations concerned are still in progress, and I am therefore not yet in a position to make a further statement.
    Major Beamish: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of the improvements suggested by the Runciman Committee were warmly welcomed by the industry, particularly the suggestion for a horticultural marketing council? Can he say when he hopes to be in a position to make a further statement?
    Mr. Amory: No. I would say only that the sooner I am, the better I shall be pleased. I am very anxious to get the maximum amount of agreement we can amongst the various sections of the horticultural industry, on the one hand, and also, on the other, about the central markets for London among the organisations and authorities concerned. That is what is taking time at present.
    Mr. Willey: Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that he promised us a statement in the summer? The summer is well past. Surely he can expedite these discussions?
    Mr. Amory: I think the hon. Gentleman must have been absent from the House on that day at the end of the summer when I made a statement and promised a further statement in due course.

    Transactions in Seeds (Committee's Report)
    Mr. Kimballasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a further statement about the time when he expects the Committee on Transactions in Seeds to publish its Report.
    Mr. Amory: I have just received a Report from the Committee on Transactions in Seeds on amendments to the Seeds Act, warranty and other matters. The Report will be published as soon as possible. The Committee will now consider problems relating to the protection of plant breeders' rights. Meanwhile my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Scotland and I would like to thank the members of the Committee most warmly for their long and arduous work on the inquiry they have just completed.
    Mr. Kimball: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the information given in the Answer to this Question will be welcomed by all the farmers throughout the United Kingdom, because many farmers have felt during the delay there has been over the publication of this Report that they were being deprived of the full benefit which they can now receive from the further development of the pedigree seed trade?
    Mr. Amory: There were important problems here to be investigated and reported on, and I am very glad to have this Report.

    Nutrition
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps have been taken to implement the recommendation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's Hot Springs Conference proposing the establishment of national nutrition committees.
    Mr. Amory: The resolutions of the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture, the Hot Springs Conference, held in 1943, recommended Governments to set up organisations to ascertain food consumption habits and the nutritional status of different sections of the population and to make recommendations to Governments. Organisations for these purposes already existed in the United Kingdom and no special action was necessary therefore to implement the recommendations.
    These organisations are now the National Food Survey Committee and the Committee on Medical and Nutritional Aspects of Food Policy.
    Mr. Willey: While appreciating that, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will encourage this work rather than discourage it, and see that it is improved, because we still have to pay a good deal of regard to nutrition even in this country?
    Mr. Amory: I certainly will, but I hope the implication of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is not that I have been discouraging in any way the activities of these committees. If he thinks I have, perhaps he will let me know why he thinks so.
    Mr. Willey: I will certainly see the right hon. Gentleman.

    White Fish (Names)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food what progress he has made with the preparation of an agreed list of names for white fish.
    Mr. Amory: The White Fish Authority has prepared a list of names in consultation with the National Federation of Fishmongers and the Authority's proposals are now being considered by local authority associations.

    Bread
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has now received the report of the Food Standards Committee on improving the quality of bread.
    Mr. Amory: No, Sir. I understand that it will be some time before the Committee can complete its inquiries.
    Mr. Lipton: Can the Minister say how much longer the public will have to put up with this doped and steamed cotton wool passed off as white bread, which was referred to the Committee in May, 1956, and which is going to cost a shilling very soon and provide even more exorbitant profits for the milling and bakery combines?
    Mr. Amory: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's description of the current breads available today. There has seldom been a wider variety of breads available. If he does not like white bread, there is plenty of brown bread.
    Mr. Lipton: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Exports of Live Cattle
    Mr. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the effects of the recent measures to restrict the shipment of cattle from England, Wales and Scotland for slaughter on the Continent; and to what extent direct shipment from British ports has now been replaced by shipment by way of Ireland so aggravating the risks of hardship and cruelty.
    Mr. Amory: I am satisfied that the measures introduced last August have removed any reasonable grounds for complaint about this traffic from Great
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    Britain. Although cattle bred in Ireland are being exported from Irish ports to the Continent I understand that only high quality stock for breeding have left this country for Ireland since that date.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Can my right hon. Friend say what action has been taken by continental Governments on receiving these shipments of cattle?
    Mr. Amory: The Governments concerned have now all given us the assurances which we required, and to the best of our knowledge the assurances given are being carried out.
    Mr. Champion: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why, following his announcement in July this year, exports of cattle from this country to Ireland went up from £359,000 worth in July to nearly £l million worth in August?
    Mr. Amory: I think there has been a misunderstanding. There have been no exports from this country to Eire in the last few months, other than a trifling number of high quality animals for breeding. They total, since the beginning of the year, only 43. Apart from high quality animals for breeding, there has been no export of cattle from Great Britain to Southern Ireland.
    Mr. Champion: As I understand it, those figures were supplied by the Ministry, but I will look into the matter and communicate with the right hon. Gentleman.

    Foot-and-Mouth Disease
    Mr. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the total number of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease this year; how many of these have been traced to infection of South American origin; and what further measures the Argentine authorities have been asked to take so as to make more effective the inspection and quarantine of cattle which are destined for shipment here as chilled or frozen beef.
    Mr. Amory: There have been 116 confirmed outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in England and Wales this year, including 29 classified as primaries. Of the primaries, 17 are attributed to meat from South America; these gave rise to 79 secondary outbreaks.

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    My veterinary officers have discussed with the Argentine authorities the possibility of keeping animals in quarantine for a period before slaughter but this was not found to be practicable. The Argentine authorities are very cooperative and every effort is made to reduce as far as possible the risk of bringing in foot-and-mouth disease. No system of inspection, however, can be relied upon to eliminate it completely.
    Mr. Hurd: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that this matter is really being pursued actively by the Argentine authorities? Are they not rather taking it for granted that we must have their chilled beef and that, therefore, we must take the risks of getting foot-and-mouth with it? Will not he have another full inquiry made as to what measures could be taken to safeguard our herds and flocks rather better?
    Mr. Amory: I do not think the Argentine authorities are complacent about this matter. We have had to acknowledge that there are very great practical difficulties in establishing quarantine arrangements over there. Indeed, if it were done it might even increase the risk of incubation of the disease during the period of quarantine. The Argentine authorities have set up a permanent commission for the eradication of foot-and-mouth disease, but, of course, that is a long-term effort.
    Mr. Whitelawasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will make an up-to-date statement about the progress of research into the causes and control of foot-and-mouth disease;
    (2) if he is satisfied that the present slaughtering policy is still the only practical means of keeping this country free from foot-and-mouth disease.
    Mr. Amory: Foot-and-mouth disease is caused by a highly infectious virus. The research being conducted at the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Institute at Pirbright, Surrey, is concerned with the determination of the fundamental properties of the virus found in this country and abroad and with problems of immunisation. Good progress is being made in evolving satisfactory vaccines, but I am satisfied that in this country slaughter is the cheapest and the only
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    fully effective method of controlling the sporadic outbreaks that occur.
    Mr. Whitelaw: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the loss of valuable breeding stock and also the disruption of years of breeding policy is a very high price to pay for this immunity? Does not that mean that the production of an effective vaccine should be made a matter of the highest priority in agricultural research?
    Mr. Amory: I agree that the effects are expensive and also very frustrating and disappointing to those who have taken many years to build up valuable herds, but it is quite clearly the cheapest policy for us at present. A policy of vaccination, even if it were effective, would be more expensive than the premium which we are at present having to pay for slaughter.
    Mr. Whitelawasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how soon compensation will be paid to those farmers whose herds have been slaughtered during the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Penrith area of Cumberland.
    Mr. Amory: Compensation has been paid in full in all but four cases. Of these, two present certain complications and in the other two cases, the time allowed for appeals against valuation has not yet lapsed.
    Mr. Whitelaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this very prompt payment will be most reassuring to farmers in the area, and in particular to those small farmers who have lost not only their stock but also their main source of income for some time in the shape of the monthly milk cheque?
    Mr. Amory: As prompt payment as possible is the least that we can do to help in the rather tragic circumstances that are involved.

    Bacon and Pig Meat
    Mr. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is aware of the considerable increase in the supplies of bacon and other pig meat from home sources and Denmark and the consequent sharp fall in market prices and the heavier liability on British taxpayers to make good the price guarantee

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    to home producers; and what action is being taken to stabilise supplies and market prices so that future production is not jeopardised with ill results for consumers.
    Mr. Amory: Yes, Sir. The guarantee arrangements for fat pigs, while enabling consumers to benefit from low market prices, protect the incomes of producers collectively and so provide a proper measure of stability to the industry. The trend of production, the market prospects for the coming year and the extent of Exchequer liability are among the factors that will be taken into account at the next Annual Review before the guaranteed price for 1958–59 is determined.
    Mr. Willey: Is the Minister aware, though, that the housewife enjoyed cheaper bacon, that she does not intend to be held up to ransom by a producers' cartel and that there is Government responsibility here? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if these supplies are to he regulated he must accept his responsibility and not merely allow high prices, reduced supplies and a high charge on the taxpayer?
    Mr. Amory: When the hon. Member reads my reply he will see that I referred solely to Government measures.

    Cattle Subsidy
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to prevent the abuse of the cattle subsidy system arising out of traffic in cattle between Eire and Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Amory: There appears to be some misunderstanding about this matter. Hundreds of thousands of cattle annually are imported from the Irish Republic to the United Kingdom and they play an important part in the economies of both countries. After a minimum fattening period of three months in the United Kingdom, these imported cattle, if otherwise eligible, qualify for the United Kingdom cattle subsidy less 3s. 6d. per cwt. Exports of cattle from the United Kingdom, including re-exports from Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic, are not restricted—except by regulations under Diseases of Animals legislation.
    There is some illegal movement from the Irish Republic to Ulster, but special vigilance is maintained both on the
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    border and in the markets and cattle which are found to be imported contrary to regulations are seized.
    Mr. Hall: Is not it a fact that there is quite a considerable movement of cattle from Eire into Northern Ireland, that these cattle attract subsidy and are taken back again across the border and exported to the Continent? Does not that mean that there has been an abuse of the present subsidy system at the expense of the British taxpayer?
    Mr. Amory: That can only take place legally if the cattle remain in Northern Ireland for three months or more between importation from the South and re-export.

    Radioactive Fall-out (Livestock)
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the restriction of milk production in Cumberland and the possible effects of radio-activity on animal husbandry.
    Sir I. Fraserasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement as to the short-term or long-term effect upon animals of grazing upon pastures subject to the Windscale fall-out; and what markets are still affected.
    Mr. Amory: Following the mishap at Windscale, milk produced in an area of Cumberland and Lancashire covering about 200 square miles was found to contain the radio-isotope iodine 131 in amounts which it was thought might involve some risk to young children living wholly on milk. About 1,000 farms were affected. Distribution of the milk was stopped as soon as this was discovered and steps were taken for its safe disposal. Fresh supplies from outside the area were brought in by the Milk Marketing Board.
    Radio-activity in the eastern part of the area has now declined to very low levels, and I am advised by the Medical Research Council that the milk is safe. From today, therefore, I have authorised the Milk Marketing Board to resume distribution from nearly half the farms originally affected. The remainder will be freed as soon as the Medical Research Council can assure me that there is no danger. I am advised by the Agricultural Research Council that the health

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    of farm animals grazing in the area should not be affected now or in the future. No restrictions have, therefore, been imposed on the movement of stock. Those purchasing cows in milk from the area have been advised that the milk will be safe for all purposes within twenty-four hours of their being moved on to fresh pasture.
    Mr. Peart: is the Minister satisfied that the compensation agreed upon between the Milk Marketing Board and his Department is adequate, and will compensation be prompt? In view of the fact that the Agricultural Research Council has been brought into the survey of the effect on animal health, will that be a matter which will be reported to the House by the Minister later?
    Mr. Amory: The Milk Marketing Board has paid for milk which has had to be poured away in exactly the same way as if the milk had been used for distribution; that is to say, payment in full has been made. As to the second part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, the Agricultural Research Council will keep this matter under continuous attention. It will I hope, be giving me advice whenever it thinks it necessary, or whenever I think it necessary to make inquiries of it, and, of course, I should be very glad to keep the House fully in touch with the advice I receive.
    Sir I. Fraser: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that buying and selling in Ulverston and other markets in Lonsdale can now proceed normally?
    Mr. Amory: Yes, Sir. I can assure my hon. Friend that the advice I have is that no risk has been involved to any livestock in this matter. The limited risk has been to milk and in that case really to milk consumed by babies, because babies consume practically no other food except milk.

    Farm Improvement Schemes
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the effect of the increase in the Bank Rate on farm improvement schemes; and whether he will estimate what proportion of farmers will have to borrow in order to pay their two-thirds share.
    Mr. Amory: Precise statistics of the progress of the scheme in recent weeks are not immediately available, but the rate of applications since 1st September has been greater than in earlier months. I regret that I have no information which would enable me to answer the second part of the Question.
    Mr. Harrison: Would my right hon. Friend consider making a survey to find out just how much of the money has to be borrowed, so that he can keep in touch with the progress of the scheme and the effect of the high Bank Rate?
    Mr. Amory: A survey of that kind would be very difficult to carry out. I doubt whether all farmers would agree to give me information about how much they have borrowed or are proposing to borrow. It may well be that through the high cost of interest at present the scheme will be held back a little, but we must remember that this is a long-term scheme and Parliament has given approval for the grants to be available for ten years.

    County Council Smallholdings (Improvement Grants)
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make county council smallholdings eligible for the new improvement grants.
    Mr. Amory: I am considering this question and hope to reach a decision shortly.
    Mr. Digby: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that some of these smallholdings need capital expenditure just as much as other farms and that some of the county councils are short of finance for the necessary improvements?
    Mr. Amory: I agree with that point. I am aware of it, but I must bear in mind that the Government already make Exchequer contributions to the estimated losses of authorities on improvement schemes for their smallholdings, and I must be careful that we do not pay twice.

    Sausages (Meat Content)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the reasons for the delay in the consideration

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    given to whether or not there should be national standards for the meat content of sausages; and what is the present position.
    Mr. Amory: Unexpected technical difficulties have arisen on the report of the Food Standards Committee and have called for further investigation. I have only within the last few days been advised of the results. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Health, and I will reach a decision as soon as possible.
    Mr. Dodds: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the recent conference of public health inspectors at Eastbourne it was emphasised that a pork sausage with less than 65 per cent. meat content, irrespective of the quality of the meat, ceased to be a sausage? Will he bear in mind, when making his decision, that he should beware of those vested interests who are advising him that a sausage should be judged by its flavour, when it is possible with soya bean flour and the addition of a chemical to give a sausage of lower meat content a very attractive meaty flavour?
    Mr. Amory: I think we shall need to have a full-dress debate on this subject one day. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are grounds for feeling that the solution to the sausage question is like a Sputnik which performs its regular orbits but never seems to get any nearer.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that courts of law are finding it extremely difficult to determine when a sausage is a sausage? He ought really to save them from their embarrassment as soon as he can.
    Mr. Amory: I know, Sir. The difficulty is that I am finding it just as difficult as the courts of law.

    Agricultural Executive Committee Offices
    Mr. Vaneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, how many county agricultural executive committees now arrange not to open their main or sub-offices on Saturdays.
    Mr. Amory: None of the main offices, and only two of the district offices, are now regularly open on Saturdays.
    Mr. Vane: If there is a demand, will my right hon. Friend try to arrange their roster of duties so that such offices can be open? Farming means working seven days a week, and it has been represented that it is not a good example from those who are supposed to look after the interests of farmers to find that working a five-and-a-half-day week is an intolerable burden.
    Mr. Amory: I am aware of that. As a matter of fact, we kept a number of offices open for some months where we believed there would be a demand in terms of visits and inquiries on Saturday mornings. However, the demand was so small that we rather reluctantly decided that we were not justified in keeping the offices open.

  CYPRUS

    Discussions
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on developments for a settlement in Cyprus.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. John Profumo): At the beginning of August Her Majesty's Government took soundings of the Governments concerned with a view to a further attempt to arrive at a solution of the Cyprus problem. The subsequent exchanges took place over a period of several weeks. It was felt, however, in some quarters that the imminence of elections in Turkey and the prospect of the debate in the United Nations made it inappropriate to proceed further with Her Majesty's Government's initiative at that time. That view was not shared by Her Majesty's Government although the reasons for it were understood. Her Majesty's Government remain anxious to continue the process of confidential exchanges. Meanwhile they have noted with regret the unmistakable signs of recrudescence of violence by the terrorists. Any renewal of violence from whatever quarter cannot but be a very serious setback to progress towards a settlement and will be dealt with energetically and firmly.
    Mr. Brockway: Is not it the case that the discussions to which the hon. Gentleman has referred are with the Greek and Turkish Governments and not with the people of Cyprus? In view of the fact

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    that Archbishop Makarios has now offered to negotiate through a delegation representative of all the people, including the Turkish minority, and in view of the reduced importance of Cyprus as a strategic depôt, and the appointment of Sir Hugh Foot as the new Governor, which we welcome, is it not possible now to take steps to end this tragedy of two years which many of us feel is such a disgrace?
    Mr. Profumo: On the subject of Archbishop Makarios, I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said on 28th March. The discussions have been between Governments, but I repeat that Her Majesty's Government are ready to continue the initiative in the way we have already explained clearly to the House. I should like to take this opportunity of joining the hon. Gentleman in the tribute he has paid to Sir Hugh Foot and to wish him well, I believe on behalf of all of us, in the difficult task which lies ahead. Perhaps the House will not mind if I also take the opportunity, on behalf of all of us, to pay the warmest possible tribute to the work done by Field Marshal Sir John Harding.

    British Officials (Languages)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many British officials in Cyprus are proficient in Greek, in Turkish and in both languages; and how many are proficient in neither.
    Mr. Profumo: Of the British officials required by Cyprus General Orders to pass language examinations. 54 have passed in Greek, 10 in Turkish, and 7 in both languages. Exact information is not available about those officers not required to pass examinations, but many are known to be reasonably proficient in one or other language.

    Administrative Secretary
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will abolish the post of Administrative Secretary in the Cyprus Government.
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir.
    Mr. Robinson: In view of the fact that this post arose directly out of the emergency, and also in view of the blatant party political sympathies shown by the present holder of the office, does not the
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    Minister think it would assist the new Governor, and perhaps save him embarrassment, if the post were abolished?
    Mr. Profumo: It will be for the new Governor to recommend whether he wishes the present organisation of the Civil Service in Cyprus and the establishment of posts to remain as they are now. That is the answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question. I must say, however, that I cannot accept the imputation against the present holder of that office. I answered two Questions last Tuesday on this subject and there is another one further down on the Order Paper today.
    Mr. Callaghan: Further to that answer, has not this officer made comments of a derogatory nature upon speakers from this side of the House on this question? [Interruption.] Whether those comments are deserved or not, will not it make it very difficult for this officer to serve a future Labour Government if he has committed—[Laughter.] This is a very serious point which concerns not only this gentleman but many others. Will not it be extremely difficult for a civil servant—[HON. MEMBERS: "Threat."] No, it is not a threat, it is a statement of fact. Will not it be extremely difficult for any civil servant who expresses any views about any member of a political party to serve him conscientiously and faithfully in the future? How is this man to be protected from statements of this kind? May I ask the Under-Secretary if he undertook these statements on his own initiative or was he asked to do this by the Governor?
    Mr. Profumo: There is another Question further down on the Paper and I wish to deal with the matter more fully when the time comes.

  ADEN

    Messrs. Cory Bros. (Trade Dispute)
    Mr. Bennasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the dispute in Aden between Messrs. Cory Brothers and their employees over redundancy; what action the Labour Commissioner in Aden has taken in response to the appeal sent to him; and whether he is satisfied with the present situation.
    Mr. Profumo: Messrs. Cory Brothers have agreed that in future the management will notify its casual labour requirements to the union concerned in advance, and that the rates of payment for casual labour will conform to those agreed by the Aden Port Employers' Federation. Agreement has also been reached on the pension and gratuity terms for employees declared redundant. The Labour Commissioner has been in touch with both parties during the negotiations. I regard this settlement as satisfactory.
    Mr. Benn: Is the Minister aware that this is a slightly more complicated question than he has indicated, in that the firm in question dismissed 120 of their monthly-paid staff on the ground that they were redundant, and promptly re-engaged them as daily staff, thereby avoiding the necessity of pensions, holidays and other benefits which were previously their obligation when these people were on the regular establishment? Secondly, is the hon. Gentleman aware that when the T.U.C. mediator went out to Aden, the Labour Commissioner told the union that it was more or less obliged to accept the settlement, but when the firm subsequently refused to accept its part of the settlement, no Government pressure was brought? Will the hon. Gentleman look at it again?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not think it needs looking at again. I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I regard the settlement as satisfactory. There were exceptional conditions which led to the re-employment of the people who had been dismissed, but the matter has been settled satisfactorily and I think we should leave it there.

    Mohamed Abdo Noman
    Mr. Bennasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what date the Aden Government decided that Mohamed Abdo Noman was an alien; in what form this decision was published; and under what powers the decision was made.
    Mr. Profumo: Mr. Noman is not, and never was, a British subject. He formerly held a British passport, although not entitled to one and, when it expired, it was not renewed.
    Mr. Benn: In that case, can the Minister explain how it was that in 1945, a long time before this passport was issued, this man was granted a certificate that he was a British scholar by the Government of Aden and was subsequently issued with a British passport, a photostat copy of which I have? Is there not an obligation on the Government to provide some explanation as to haw it was that an alien was provided with a passport?
    Mr. Profumo: I think it is wise to provide an explanation. Mr. Noman falsely stated that he was a British subject, born in Aden.

    United National Front
    Mr. Bennasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the United National Front Party was prohibited from holding its anniversary celebrations in Aden on 21st October, 1956; and whether this year permission for the celebrations will be given.
    Mr. Profumo: Permission was withheld because the United National Front was not registered in compliance with the law. No application has been received for permission to hold celebrations this year, and if the Governor does receive an application it will be considered in the light of the circumstances at the time, including the question of registration.
    Mr. Benn: If the reason that these celebrations were prevented last year was that the United National Front Party was not registered, would it not have been courteous of the Government of Aden to inform it of this when it applied to hold the celebrations, in view of the fact that it gave a complete list of the proposed speakers and assurances about the maintenance of public order, as well as a month's notice of its intention to hold this meeting? Is he aware that the Government's refusal to grant permission created a certain amount of justifiable and understandable ill-will?
    Mr. Profumo: I think it is very widely understood that it is necessary to apply for registration, but if for any reason this organisation did not know that, I am quite sure that the hon. Member's Question will have made the matter quite clear.

  HONG KONG

    Employment
    Mr. S. O. Daviesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of persons currently unemployed in Hong Kong; how these figures compare with those of twelve months ago; how many factories in that Colony have been closed down this year; and what steps are being taken to provide employment for the displaced workers.
    Mr. Profumo: There are no official statistics of unemployment in Hong Kong. It is estimated that the total number of jobs has not decreased in the last twelve months although the entry of refugees from China has increased competition for them. Between 1st October, 1956, and 30th September, 1957, 138 small factories and workshops were closed down because of unsuitable premises and a further 179 factories stopped work, many in order to remove to new premises. During the period, the total number of registered factories increased from 3,293 to 3,359 and the number of industrial workers employed in them increased by about 3,000. Additional jobs were created by the large reclamation projects now proceeding and by the continued building boom.
    Mr. Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that every possible effort is being made to find new employment for these displaced persons?
    Mr. Profumo: Yes, Sir.

    Trials (Legal Aid)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of serious crimes committed in Hong Kong Colony during 1956; how many of these were tried in the magistrates' courts, the district courts, or the supreme courts; and how many of the persons tried in each of these courts were legally represented.
    Mr. Profumo: Altogether, 22,587 serious crimes were reported in 1956 and 12,101 persons were charged or summoned. 11,739 persons appeared in the magistrates' courts, 246 in the district courts, and 116 in the Supreme Court. It is estimated that about 600 people were legally represented in the magistrates' courts. It is known that 71 were legally represented in the district court and 24 in the Supreme Court.
    Mr. Rankin: May I take it from those figures that about 75 per cent, of those who were tried in the Supreme Court were undefended? Is it not rather disturbing that in a British Territory today a person may be sentenced for life without having had the chance of being defended because he has no money? Would not the Minister urge on the Hong Kong Administration that they should consider establishing a system of legal aid after the pattern of that which exists in Singapore?
    Mr. Profumo: The possibility of increasing the provision of legal aid is at present under consideration by the Attorney-General in consultation with the Chief Justice.

    Building Development, Kowloon
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what compensation or alternative accommodation was offered to the Chinese residents who have been evicted during building developments in Kowloon; and how many evicted residents have been rehoused.
    Mr. Profumo: Compensation has been offered to owners for lawfully erected buildings, to leaseholders for Crown land resumed, and to tenants for their crops and for disturbance. Alternative accommodation has been offered on new estates only about a mile away with the option of returning later when the new accommodation has been built in the old locality; shopkeepers have been offered around-floor shops and artisans ground-floor rooms suitable for their work.
    Government resettlement has so far been arranged for 2,591 people.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the Minister aware that many rumours are flying about as to what is happening in Kowloon? Does he remember the promise which he made to me in July that where alternative accommodation cannot be offered compensation will be paid?
    Mr. J. E. B. Hill: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the re-housing policy in Hong Kong has been an unqualified success and deserves much greater recognition from the House than it is receiving in the sort of questions which are being tabled with scant regard for truth or knowledge of the facts?
    Mr. Profumo: I certainly agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. I think they are doing a magnificent job and I hope and believe that this is generally recognised in the House.
    Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. Is not it quite improper to challenge the motive which inspires any question? Is it not the case, as I am sure the Minister recollects, that I have commended the Hong Kong Administration for what they have done in housing?
    Mr. Speaker: I do not think that is a point of order. I did not hear any imputation of motives to the hon. Member at all.

  SIERRA LEONE

    Police Force (Strength)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the deficiency in gazetted officers and other ranks of the Sierra Leone police has been made good.
    Mr. Profumo: Yes, Sir.

    Illicit Diamond Mining
    Mr. John Hallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the outbreak of violence in Sierra Leone which followed police attempts to prevent illicit diamond mining has now ended; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Profumo: As a result of energetic action by the police, who were for a time supported by troops in a non-combatant rôle, there has been no recurrence of violence since the initial outbreak on 24th August in the Kono district. Prompt action has been taken by the Government of Sierra Leone to restore law and order in concert with the tribal authorities, as a result of which illicit diamond mining is now under control.
    Mr. Hall: While accepting the fact that vacancies for officers and other ranks have been made good in the police force, may I ask the Minister whether he is quite sure in his mind that the police force is strong enough to deal with outbreaks of this kind which might occur in future? Secondly, will he confirm that there was no loss of life in the operations against the illicit diamond miners?
    Mr. Profumo: I think I can confirm that the police force is capable of dealing with all normal problems, but, of course, the House will recognise that it is possible that abnormal conditions may arise, in which circumstances troops are called in, but in a non-combatant rôle. As far as I know, there was no loss of life, and if I find that I am wrong in that matter I will inform the House.

  BERMUDA

    Franchise
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what recent demands have been received by the Bermuda Government from representative bodies in Bermuda for an extension of the franchise; and what proposals he has in mind for constitutional reform.
    Mr. Profumo: No recent demands have been received by the Bermuda Government from representative bodies for an extension of the franchise, and no proposals for constitutional changes in Bermuda are before me at the present time.
    Mr. Robinson: Is it not a fact that a petition has been lodged by the Bermuda Labour Party in favour of universal adult suffrage? Does not the Minister think that the time has come for some adjustment in the franchise in a democratic direction in the Islands of Bermuda?
    Mr. Profumo: I am aware of a petition by Mr. W. G. Brown. The petition was presented to the Legislative Council on 6th April but it has not been considered by that body. No copy of the petition has been presented to the House of Assembly. This lack of interest by the Legislature no doubt results from the fact that although Mr. Brown has signed the petition as chairman of the Bermuda Labour Party, no such party appears to exist.

  TANGANYIKA

    Africans (Senior Government Posts)
    Mr. Malcolm MacPhersonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he is taking to facilitate the

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    training of Africans in Tanganyika to become qualified for appointment as resident magistrates.
    Mr. Profumo: It is the policy of the Tanganyika Government to provide, by the expansion of its bursary scheme, increased opportunities for the acquisition of academic and professional qualifications including legal qualifications, so as to enable Tanganyikans to take advantage of the opportunities for employment in senior posts in the territory. It is hoped thereby that more Africans will take advantage of the increased facilities to study law and other subjects overseas.
    Mr. MacPherson: Does not the Minister recall that the point made in the Question was that made by the Trusteeship Council? Will he therefore press this matter rather more urgently?
    Mr. Profumo: I think it is receiving the consideration which, as I agree with the hon. Member, it justly needs.

  GIBRALTAR

    Port Development
    Mr. Doddsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a further statement on the present position with regard to port development in Gibraltar, and the prospects for the future in this respect.
    Mr. Profumo: A Colonial Development and Welfare scheme has now been made for £300,000, as Her Majesty's Government's contribution towards the cost of this project. Letters have recently been exchanged between the Gibraltar Government and the oil company principally concerned and it is hoped that final details will soon be settled between them. Principles to govern what should go into the lease between the Admiralty and the Gibraltar Government have also now been agreed.

  MALTA

    Dockyard (Redundancy)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the concern in Malta at the prospect of substantial redundancy in the dockyard;
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    in view of this, what are the prospects in this connection; and what special efforts are being made to attract, if necessary, the repair of merchant shipping as well as light industries and to develop the tourist industry.
    Mr. Profumo: My right hon. Friend and I are well aware of the concern in Malta at the prospect of substantial redundancy in the dockyard, and this matter has been discussed at the current talks with the Maltese delegation. But, as I said in reply to my hon. Friend, the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling), on 25th July, final decisions have not yet been reached on long-term defence plans in relation to Malta and it has been agreed that before any final decisions are taken there will be discussions between the United Kingdom and Maltese Governments. As regards the third part of the Question, an announcement of the appointment of a Commission for the purpose will be made shortly.

    ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY (CIVIL SERVICE TRANSFERS)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Prime Minister whether, on grounds of public policy, he will instruct Departmental heads to facilitate the transfer of officers from the Civil Service to the Atomic Energy Authority, in view of the speedy progress in research and development in atomic energy.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): Heads of Departments are already aware that it is the policy of the Government to facilitate transfers from the Civil Service to the Atomic Energy Authority.
    Mr. Willey: In view of the importance of getting the right people in the right place at the right time in this branch of research, will the right hon. Gentleman consider any cases I refer to him where that seems not to have occurred?
    The Prime Minister: I should be happy to consider any individual cases, but it is only fair to the Authority to say that about 6,000 established civil servants have been transferred to the Atomic Energy Authority since it was set up, some 5,700 as part of the original transfer and some 300 since.

    SMALL FIXED INCOME GROUP
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Prime Minister what Departments he intends to call into consultation and what machinery he intends to set up to formulate plans for helping those living on small fixed incomes.
    The Prime Minister: All the machinery of Government is available for this purpose. Much has been done in the last six years to this end.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement at Brighton implied that there was to he some new move forward to help those living on small fixed incomes? Is he aware that I want to know what machinery is to be used and whether every Government Department concerned with these people will be employed in order that we may formulate a scheme which will do something which is necessary and urgent?
    The Prime Minister: All the machinery of Government Departments is naturally available—
    Dame Irene Ward: But will my right hon. Friend use them?
    The Prime Minister: —but I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that this is perhaps the most unsuitable day of the year on which to announce a policy.

    RADIOACTIVE FALL-OUT
    Mr. Wadeasked the Prime Minister (1) what are the most recent available figures of the level of strontium 90 and other allied radioactive substances in various parts of Great Britain; and to what date these figures refer;
    (2) what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the figures of the level of strontium 90 and other allied radioactive substances in various parts of Great Britain are ascertained at frequent intervals and are made public.
    Mr. Allaunasked the Prime Minister if he will state the increase in strontium 90 found in the bones of animals in Great Britain and in other effects of nuclear test explosions since the Government's statements in June and July.
    The Prime Minister: Measurements of the extent to which soil, herbage, farm animals, and milk and other foodstuffs, have been contaminated by radioactive fall-out are made regularly at a number of localities in Great Britain. The figures are made available from time to time and the latest are contained in a further report by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, entitled "Radio-strontium in Soil, Grass, Milk and Bone in the United Kingdom". A copy has been placed in the Library. This report relates to the year 1956 but contains some provisional figures for 1957.
    To ensure that the fullest possible precautions are taken, some reorganisation of the machinery for monitoring fall-out, and of the responsibility for its operation, was introduced last summer. The Agricultural Research Council has accepted responsibility for monitoring soil, herbage, farm animals, and milk and other foodstuffs, while the Atomic Energy Research Establishment will remain responsible for monitoring air and rainwater and for analysing the radioactivity present in samples of human bone.
    The Joint Committee of the Agricultural and Medical Research Councils and the Development Commission on Biological (Non-Medical) Problems of Nuclear Physics, of which Lord Rothschild is Chairman, has been charged with the responsibility for the oversight of this monitoring. To assist it in this task, the Joint Committee has set up a special subcommittee under the chairmanship of Dr. Loutit, Director of the Medical Research Council Radiobiological Research Unit.
    Mr. Wade: Does not the Prime Minister agree that this is a subject upon which information as up to date and accurate as possible should be available to the public? Does not he agree that information collected in 1955 and 1956 might not be accurate today in view of the continuing hydrogen bomb tests and continuing fall-out? Would it be practicable for figures to be published from time to time and, if so, would they be accompanied by comment from the Medical Research Council?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman will examine the report, I think that he will see that it is comprehensive. In reply to his question about the amount of up-to-date figures,

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    of course a great deal of analysis by experts has to be made to see that they are correctly interpreted when made available to the public, but I will certainly bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    Mr. Allaun: Since strontium 90 from earlier explosions will be accumulating for years hence, is the Prime Minister completely satisfied about proceeding with further explosions at Christmas Island and thus subjecting this and future generations to unknown but growing risks of irreparable injury?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. It is, of course, my duty to try to balance the advantages and the disadvantages, but I am quite certain that what we have decided to do is to the general advantage of the nation.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: The Prime Minister said that a report was being placed in the Library. Can he say whether it is being made available to the Press?
    The Prime Minister: I will look into that. I assume that if it is in the Library, it is very widely available, but I will take note of that point.

    OIL SUPPLIES
    Mr. P. Williamsasked the Prime Minister whether he has now received a report from Sir Matthew Slattery on the subject of making adequate provision for the future supply of oil.
    The Prime Minister: It was not my intention that Sir Matthew Slattery should hold a formal inquiry and submit a report. The task which I assigned to him was the continuing function of assisting me to concert and direct the activities of various Government agencies concerned with the transport of oil from the Middle East. He has been of great assistance to all concerned in overcoming the immediate difficulties and has kept me informed of progress. He will continue to watch on my behalf the development of what is essentially a long-term problem.
    Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most people will
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    greatly appreciate the remarks which he made in a speech at the Chamber of Shipping annual dinner? Is he aware of the need for increasing the numbers of large tankers, large repair facilities and port facilities capable of taking these larger vessels? Further, is he aware that this can be achieved in the end only by a lowering of taxation?
    The Prime Minister: There are two parts in that supplementary question and the answer to the second part is that, of course, considerable advance has been made in the matter of taxation. With regard to the other part—what further steps are to be taken—again I venture to say that this is not the day to announce any legislative or other action.

    NUCLEAR WEAPON TESTS
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister in view of the suspension of the London Disarmament Conference, if he will consider offering to suspend the forthcoming series of hydrogen bomb explosions at Christmas Island for as long as other nations suspend theirs, in order to stop the nuclear arms race and a further increase in radioactivity.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The Government have made it clear that they could only agree to a complete suspension of nuclear weapons tests in return for the security promised by a disarmament agrement.
    Mr. Allaun: Is not it clear that the traditional methods of attempting to secure disarmament have failed and that a generation of conferences has not managed to secure agreement on a single point and that, therefore, disarmament by example is the only way out of the nuclear arms race?
    The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Member will recognise that what he has said raises very large questions of policy. I have some difficulty from time to time in knowing quite what is the policy of the Opposition on this matter, but I certainly agree that it is not wise to send the Foreign Secretary naked into the council chamber—I think that was the expression.

    RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS (HEALTH HAZARDS)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister if, in the light of the subsequent events at Windscale, he has considered the Trade Union Conference resolution, submitted to him, asking the Government for an immediate inquiry into, and report on, health hazards arising from the use of radioactive materials, whether for military, industrial or other purposes.
    The Prime Minister: Health hazards arising from the use of radioactive materials are under constant study by a number of expert bodies in this country and by international agencies on which this country is represented. Reports are issued as the results of measurements, and the conclusions to be drawn from them, become available.
    Draft regulations governing the use of ionising radiations in industry and a code of practice governing the use of radioactive substances in hospitals have recently been issued. The legislation which governs the discharge of radioactive wastes is under review now. With so much attention and effort being devoted to this subject, I see no advantage in an additional or special inquiry.
    Mr. Allaun: Is it not correct that the M.R.C. Report presented last year was based on investigations carried out nearly three years ago and which are now out of date, and that since then radioactivity has greatly increased and that all scientific opinion favours a reduction of the safety limit allowed?
    The Prime Minister: That is why these draft regulations governing the use in industry to which the hon. Gentleman's Question referred have been issued and why the code of practice for the use of radioactive substances in hospitals has been issued. All I had to answer was whether some new and different system of management and inquiry into these affairs should be instituted. In my view, the instruments which we have at our service are the right ones and should not be added to and might even be impeded by superimposing another inquiry on them.
    Mr. J. Hynd: Can the Prime Minister say who has issued these regulations in industry and whether they are available to the public or are in the Library?
    The Prime Minister: This Committee was set up under the Act of 1948 and the code of practice and the regulations are issued in the ordinary way by the appropriate authorities, just like regulations governing factories.

    INTERCEPTION OF COMMUNICA-TIONS (PRIVY COUNCILLORS' REPORT)
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    Sir P. SPENS: To ask the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the report of the Committee of Privy Councillors on the interception of communications.
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; the Report of the Committee of Privy Councillors appointed to inquire into the interception of communications is being published as a Command Paper and will be available in the Vote Office this afternoon. The Report is being published in full.
    I should like to express my gratitude and the gratitude of Her Majesty's Government to the Privy Councillors—Sir Norman Birkett, Lord Monckton and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker)—for the thoroughness with which they made their investigation and for the time and care which they devoted to their task.
    The Committee recommended, with certain reservations by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick, that the power of interception should continue to be exercised within the existing limits as described in the Report, and subject to certain further safeguards of a procedural nature. The Government accept all the Committee's recommendations and arrangements are being made to give effect to those of them which call for a change in procedure.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Any comment must be delayed until we have had an opportunity of studying the Report, but I should like to associate myself and my right hon. Friends with the words of gratitude expressed by the Prime Minister to the members of the Committee.
    Sir P. Spens: Would my right hon. Friend make it quite clear that the Report deals both with interception for security purposes and interception for criminal investigation, and that all the Report is being published?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. My right hon. and learned Friend will find that the Report goes into both those questions, and when he reads it I think that he will find that it deals comprehensively with them.
    Mr. Lipton: It would have been to the greater convenience of hon. Members if they had had the Report before the Prime Minister made his statement to the House. Nevertheless, will he say why he has not accepted the reservations contained in the Report and submitted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker)?
    The Prime Minister: I hope that I have been guilty of no discourtesy. I would have thought that the right procedure was to express the gratitude of Her Majesty's Government to the Privy Councillors who did the work, then have the Report published, then allow hon. Members an opportunity of reading it and then, if necessary, arrange through the usual channels to have it debated. I think that any other procedure of mine would have been very discourteous to everybody concerned.

ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS AND ENQUIRIES (REPORT)
3.33 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Enquiries (Command Paper No. 218).
The Government are purposely giving an opportunity for this Report to be debated before the end of this Session so that we can obtain the reactions and feelings of the House before the new Session. The object of the debate, therefore, is not so much for the Government to monopolise the intention of the House as for them to obtain the views of hon. Members. Nevertheless, I shall be able to indicate in considerable detail the nature of the acceptance by the Government of the recommendations of the Report.
I must apologise ahead to the House if I have to speak in some detail, because the recommendations are many, and it would be impossible to give the Government's reaction to them without going into some detail. I am comforted in feeling that one great lawyer, the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) will follow me and another great lawyer, the Attorney-General, will wind up. This is a lawyers' paradise, but the issues involved concern not only lawyers, but the ordinary citizen. We are concerned with a matter which is of fundamental importance to the ordinary person.
Twenty-five years ago, there was a book by the late Lord Hewart, called "The New Despotism." This was followed by the findings of an eminent Committee—the Donoughmore Committee—which inquired into the exercise of certain ministerial powers, and this went some way towards allaying concern about the protection of the rights of the citizen against the vast array of powers which accrue to the modern State. Hon. Members may remember that in his book Lord Hewart quoted Kipling and said that
"Ancient Right unnoticed as the
Breath we draw
Leave to live, by no man's leave,
underneath the law."

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That is much the same sort of conception as underlies the findings of the Franks Committee.
These two Reports, therefore, mark comparable landmarks in the same wide field. The sort of subjects that we are considering have dominated political thought throughout this troubled twentieth century, and, therefore, in corning to the detail of the Report on Administrative Tribunals and Enquiries, let us first remember the fundamental principles for which the Committee was set up. It is easy to say that the trampling of human rights, the perversion of justice and the denial of redress against the immense powers of the State have no relevance to our own country—and that may well be true. Indeed, the findings of the Committee are, on the whole, comforting, but unless we are constantly on our guard these diseases may attack the body politic almost unnoticed, and if they are not resolutely checked at the outset they may eat right into its structure.
That is why the Government decided, two years ago, to set up the Committee to see whether all was well with the proliferation of tribunals. This was a source of concern to us at the time. We have had this manifestation not only here, but also in the United States of America. Therefore, I think that the setting up of this Committee was fully justified and its findings, interpreted by the policy of the Government, which I propose to outline in general terms, will, I hope, justify the decision to ask these right hon. Gentlemen and other gentlemen to do the work that they have done. I hope that the House will start with me by thanking the Committee and its able Chairman, Sir Oliver Franks, for tackling this difficult job with speed and thoroughness. I thank them on behalf of the Government and also, if I may, on behalf of the House.
The Committee included three hon. Members of this House—the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison), the hon. and learned Member for Paisley (Mr. D. Johnston) and the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen)—and, subject to the usual rigour, I hope that they may be able to make their contributions to the debate.
In studying the findings of the Committee it is important to examine its terms of reference in detail. Judging by two prominent leading articles today, in
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The Times and the Manchester Guardian, which range over the rather wider field of citizens' rights as a whole, there might be some misunderstanding of what did or did not fall within the terms of reference of the Committee. What fell within its terms of reference were the constitution and the working of tribunals and, secondly, the working of administrative procedures which include an inquiry or hearing. Therefore, some of what I might call the more exciting or controversial issues of recent times did not fall literally under the cover of this Committee's inquiry, and I will confine myself to the terms of reference put before this Committee.
This later part of its findings, that is about inquiries, principally involves procedures to do with the compulsory acquisition of land with town and country planning. The Committee pointed out that the essential feature in both cases is the adjudication of a dispute between the individual citizen and "authority." It infers that in either case Parliament has provided, or expects, special safeguards in order to promote administration which is not only efficient but also acceptable to the general body of citizens as fair.
That is where we in Parliament come in, to see that this is eventually fair. That is why the Government accept at once the three guiding principles of the Committee which should underlie both the work of the tribunals and also these special administrative inquiries. These principles are set out in the opening part of this Report. They are openness, fairness and impartiality. It is against these three tests that we wish the House to judge the findings or recommendations of this Committee and also the conclusion of the Government upon them.
We have been concerned to accept as many of the recommendations as possible, but before I indicate the nature of our acceptance by going in some detail into the various findings, I must mention those matters which must be in the minds of members of a Government when looking at a Committee of this sort and its inquiries and results. Those considerations must be slightly different from those in the minds of members of a Committee inquiring into matters of this sort. First, for example, the Government must be able to discharge their responsibilities effectively. Against that test we must

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judge the findings of this Report. Secondly, there is the question of delay.
The Franks Committee itself volunteered the view that its recommendations are unlikely to contribute towards the speedier dispatch of business. But the delay in settling cases is one of the main subjects of public complaint. We do not want, as a result of our findings and conclusions, to enlarge on what Shakespeare wrote about "the law's delay" by the delays of tribunals, inquiries and other methods which influence the life of the ordinary man and woman.
The third thing which the Government must have in mind is the striking of a just balance between the claims of the citizen and the community as a whole, in an era in which the nation must be equipped with the resources of a fully competitive economy. And so, in turning our minds to the recommendations, we remember, first, that the Government have a duty to discharge their responsibility. Secondly, the citizen has a right not to be submitted to too much delay and, thirdly, we have to strike a just balance between the rights of the citizen, which we all want to defend, and the need for carrying on the business of the country efficiently. Nevertheless, taking account of these considerations, we expect to be able to accept wholly or substantially the great majority of the detailed recommendations in this Report.
Before going into detail, I wish to make one important point. It is that although the Committee made a number of criticisms of present arrangements and put forward no less than 95 detailed recommendations, it did not find proved any charges of widespread maladministration or injustice in these tribunals or proceedings. On the contrary, as its Report states, the Committee found much to commend and many of its recommendations endorse present practices. On the whole, the Committee found that justice was reasonably well done and it was mainly concerned in applying the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality and to make it plain that these procedures are capable of providing justice. But the Committee has suggested importing into the system we have already certain additional safeguards for the individual beyond those already present.
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I think it important that we should look at the Report against that background and here, on behalf of the House and the Government, I should like to thank all the members of the tribunals or inquiries wherever they may be—National Assistance, National Insurance, health, or the many others that assist the medical services—for the work that they do. Very often it is unpaid. While my speech may not be remarkable for its great humanity—although I should like it to be, because we must remember that in dealing with these difficult matters one has to be severely practical—we must remember the human side that is behind all this; and that when persons come before these tribunals they are exceedingly human and understand very little of the intricacies of the procedure before which they are being forced to be present. So I should like to thank all those members who work so hard on these tribunals.
Now I come to the recommendations. The most important recommendation in the Report, and the biggest, is that the Government should set up two Councils on Tribunals to exercise general oversight of the work. We agree with the spirit of this recommendation, but we propose to set up a single Council on Tribunals which will be appointed jointly by the Lord Chancellor and by the Secretary of State for Scotland. We think it best to tackle the problem in this way, because many tribunals are organised on a basis common to Great Britain as a whole. The difference between Scottish and English law and matters concerning tribunals which are separately administeredin Scotland can, we think, best be provided for by setting up a special committee or panel of the Council to deal with matters of special concern to Scotland.
This single Council will exercise a general oversight over the working of tribunals and the Government propose to consult it before establishing any new tribunal. It will be our intention, when this Council is set up, to refer to it for advice on a number of the recommendations which the Committee has made. Therefore, if the House wishes to have some idea about what time-table we have for carrying out these proposals, I would say that hon. Members must put first the establishing of this Council of Tribunals.

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Now I go on to other recommendations. It has long been a source of grievance that on some tribunals the citizen cannot be represented by a lawyer, or that he requires the consent of the tribunal before he may be so represented. The Franks Committee favour the right of legal representation before tribunals, except in the most exceptional circumstances. But in two of the most important tribunals, those relating to National Insurance and the industrial injuries local tribunals, it recommends that the consent of the tribunal should be obtained before legal representation is permitted. The House may be glad to know that the Government propose to remove restrictions on the right of legal representation before tribunals as recommended by the Committee. There is only one safeguarding phrase which I must bring in: that further consideration will need to be given to the position of the numerous local service committees under the National Health Service.
It is sometimes argued that the presence of lawyers may make proceedings more formal and impair some of the valuable features of the tribunals, notably their simplicity and expedition, and that was a feature of the tribunals to which the Franks Committee drew attention in comparing them with the courts. While attaching importance to these features, the Government think it important that the citizen should not be deprived of what he often regards as his elementary rights. Therefore, we accept in general that recommendation.
I now turn to another important contribution.
Mr. R. T. Paget: Does that include conscientious objectors' tribunals?
Mr. Butler: Yes it does.
I turn now to another important recommendation of the Committee and this raises the question of appointments to tribunals. One feature of the present system which has been criticised is that the appointments to tribunals are commonly made by the very Ministers responsible for administering the service upon which the tribunal is asked to adjudicate. That is a mix-up, in a manner which would have offended Montesquieu, of the executive and judicial functions. It recommended that the chairmen of
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tribunals should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, or alternatively, in Scotland, by the Lord President of the Court of Session or the Lord Advocate. It recommended that the members should be appointed by the new Council on Tribunals.
The Government sympathise with the object of these recommendations. We propose that, in general, chairmen should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor in England and Wales and by the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland. We do not, however, think it would be desirable for the new Council to appoint members of tribunals. Such an arrangement would not preserve proper accountability to Parliament. It is a matter of keeping checks and balances throughout. The Government therefore propose that appointments generally should be made by the Minister of the Department concerned, after consultation with the Council on Tribunals. On that matter we should value the proposals of hon. Members.
Now for a third recommendation, which the Government accept in general. We agree that for the most part it is desirable that chairmen of tribunals should have legal qualifications, but we see no reason why any serving chairman who is not so qualified should be dismissed if he is giving satisfactory service. Nor would I like to exclude the possibility that in future it might be desirable to employ, in tribunals of first instance, a certain number of chairmen who are not legally qualified. In this connection, I am asked by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to remind the House to consider specially the fact that a large number of chairmen of National Assistance tribunals have not legal qualifications but, nevertheless—if I may put the matter like this—perform their duties extremely well. We have to strike a proper balance between these various considerations.
I next come to a set of recommendations about legal aid. The Franks Committee recommended that legal aid should be available for certain tribunals and that applicants should receive an allowance toward their legal expenses before tribunals. Here are examples of recommendations that we are not able to accept. We cannot accept either of

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them. We have not yet been able to extend the provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, to all litigation before the ordinary courts and it does not seem to us that there is a sufficient case for extending the official scheme of legal aid to tribunals at present.
It is simply a commonsense situation. There is, in fact, a queue for legal aid. We do not see why this particular branch should be given precedence when we have not been able to make progress in other directions. The proposal to reimburse the citizen for a portion of his legal expenses in proceedings before tribunals would be expensive, and might encourage the employment of lawyers in circumstances where the expense would not be fully justified.
I now come to the important question of appeals. This is another big section of the Report. The Franks Committee recommended that, generally, there should be a straight appeal from a tribunal of first instance to an appellate tribunal and a further appeal on a point of law to the courts. We have to give a little further consideration to the application of this proposal in particular circumstances. The Franks Committee proposes important exceptions to this general principle, for example, that there should be no appeal on a point of law from a decision of the National Insurance Commissioner or of the Industrial Injuries Commissioner, or the National Assistance appeal tribunals. That, again, is a matter upon which we should value the opinion of hon. Members and we would like to look at the application to particular cases.
I could, of course, spend some time examining the effect of the Report on particular tribunals. All the various tribunals are set out in the Report dealing with a variety of work of Government Departments, but the constitution and Procedure of many of those tribunals will be modified as the result of our acceptance of the general recommendations. One has to take a slightly different attitude to the various tribunals—National Assistance, family allowance, National Insurance, health, military service, transport, or whatever it may be—in deciding upon the application to particular tribunals of the general principles set out by the Franks Committee. We shall not only
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be guided by the views expressed in this debate, but we shall in some cases, as I said earlier, arrange for early consultation with the Council on Tribunals which we shall try to set up before too long.
A recommendation which I am sure will be of special interest to the House is that the adjudicating functions now exercised by county agricultural executive committees should be entrusted to new independent tribunals from which appeal should lie to the Land Tribunal or to the Scottish Land Court, as the case may be. I can only say this afternoon that we want, first, to hear what the House has to say about this proposal and that, in the second place, we think it right in principle that the recommendation should be accepted.
The only reservation I make is that we announced in July, 1956, that we were discussing the whole question of disciplinary powers, security of tenure and other matters under the Agriculture Act, with the main agricultural organisations. These discussions will take account of what the Franks Committee has said about the judicial function of the county agricultural executive committees and the Government will bring forward proposals as soon as possible. It would be profitless for me to talk about the procedure without discussing the powers from which it derives.
I must, therefore, subject to hon. Gentlemen expressing their opinions and the House expressing its opinion, ask the House to wait until the Government can bring forward proposals about these powers after the discussions with the agricultural organisations have been concluded and decisions on points of policy have been reached. I mention the matter because it is of particular importance, and interests many hon. Members.
Parts IV and V of the Committee's Report deal in the main with the procedure relating to compulsory acquisition of land and town planning, all matters upon which we should like to be as lucid and clear as possible. The main purpose of these recommendations is to give to the citizen a greater sense of a fair hearing and to bring the process by which the final decision is reached as far as possible into the open. The further purpose is to establish, as far as can be done in this administrative field, the rule of law.

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I will emphasise that the Government are in full sympathy with these broad objectives, which flow from the principles of openness, fairness, and impartiality. We are prepared to accept a great number of the Committee's recommendations. Some can be implemented without any change in the law. Where that is possible that will be done, and the necessary arrangements will be made. Where amendments of the law are required, we shall have to put first the appointment and setting up of the single Council on Tribunals. We shall make the necessary preparations for the other matters to which I have referred and shall refer.
I must, however, return to a point I made in the opening of my remarks, that we must not complicate the procedures more than we can help. The great majority of objectors and appellants are small people. Quite a few present their own cases without professional assistance and for most people it is essential that the procedure should be simple, intelligible, quick, and cheap, as well as fair.
It is subject to that that I now come to some of the Committee's recommendations. The first of these is that an acquiring or planning authority should be required to make available in good time before the inquiry a written statement giving full particulars of its case. I am authorised by my colleagues to say that Ministers concerned will in future require authorities to see that their case is properly set out before an inquiry opens and that this will be made obligatory.
The Committee further recommends, in recommendations (68) and (69) that
"The deciding Minister should, whenever possible, make available before the enquiry a statement of the policy relevant to the particular case…"
In future, the responsible Ministers will ensure that more is done to make the policies for which they are responsible more widely understood and that appellants are told where they can find the information which may help them.
We accept that in principle, but here is another example where a little more examination and a little more help from the House are necessary, because we see considerable difficulty in undertaking, at any rate today, that a particular statement shall be made in every particular case, because in some cases that might prejudge
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the case of the citizen who is appearing. Subject to that, I have stated our attitude.
Now I should like to state our attitude towards what the Committee has said about inspectors. I will take all the Committee's recommendations about inspectors. It is proposed first, by recommendation (70), that
"The main body of inspectors in England and Wales"—
that is, the body of full-time inspectors employed by the Minister of Housing and Local Government—
"should be placed under the control of the Lord Chancellor…"
Later, the Committee recommends that the reports of all inspectors should be published.
I will take, first, the question of the control of inspectors. It seems to the Government essential that the Minister of Housing and Local Government should retain his personal responsibility for them. The Minister has to arrange between 5,000 to 6,000 inquiries a year. Inquiries have to be arranged promptly, and, therefore, inspectors have to keep in very close touch with the Department. It goes without saying that the inspectors have to be fully au fait with what is the Minister's position.
The Government further recognise the importance of emphasising the independence of the inspectorate, and to meet the spirit of the Committee's recommendations we propose that in future the Minister will appoint them only after consultation with the Lord Chancellor, and will be free to dismiss them, should such an eventuality arise, only with his consent.
As recommended by the Franks Committee, no change is proposed in the existing practice of the Scottish Department and the Ministry of Education in England of appointing persons from outside the public service to conduct their inquiries.
On the next question of the publication of inspectors' reports, this is a matter which aroused a great deal of interest, and on which we have heard from such organisations as the F.B.I., and we have heard repercussions from many sides. The House may be glad to hear that the Government are prepared to arrange for the publication of the inspectors' reports. No amendment of the law is required, and this change will be brought into effect as

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soon as possible, although further consideration needs to be given to the method of publication. The Government are anxious to avoid unnecessary distribution of paper, and believe that many objectors and appellants will not want the reports, which are sometimes very long, provided they get a full account of the inspectors' findings together with the Minister's decision and the reasons for it.
I have been asked whether we should include the recommendations of the inspectors, and I think that the best thing I can do is to read paragraph 328 of the Franks Committee Report, which says:
"The inclusion of recommendations is important, since the inspector hears the evidence at first hand and has an opportunity of immediately relating what he hears to the physical facts of the case, by personal inspection of the land. We recognise, however, that there will be cases where the element of policy is so large that it would not be reasonable to insist on recommendations being given."
We accept the line of that finding. The expression that the publication of the reports will be arranged by the Government and that normally the recommendations should be published represents the present attitude of the Government on this point, upon which we have had a good many questions. I am sure the House will realise that this decision represents a major step forward in meeting the interests of people whose land is affected by acquisition and planning control.
I come now to the Committee's recommendations about the procedure to be followed at inquiries. The first five recommendations under this head run from paragraph (71) to paragraph (75), and are designed to secure proper disclosure to the inquiry of the case to be met and that an orderly and generally known procedure should apply. In paragraph (72) it is recommended that
"…codes of procedure for enquiries should be formulated by the Council on Tribunals…"
and should be given the force of law. The Government accept these recommendations generally.
I should like to say a particular word about the bearing of these recommendations on agricultural interests. I think it fair to say that the general acceptance of these recommendations and of others in this part of the Report relating to
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inquiries will benefit all citizens involved in these procedures, but since it is so often agricultural land which is the subject of compulsory acquisition—in my humble opinion, too much of it is being acquired—it follows that these recommendations will be of particular interest to farmers and owners of agricultural land.
The Committee recommends that officials of Departments should be prepared, if required, to give factual evidence at inquiries in support of any views that may have been expressed. It means, in practice, that if the Ministry of Agriculture expresses positive views on the agricultural quality of land on which somebody is proposing to build, officials of that Department will, if required, be prepared to expound their view at the inquiry. This relates to a particularly apt leading article in the Manchester Guardian which deals with something which I think it might be too controversial for me to mention this afternoon. The Government cannot go so far as the Committee in agreeing that the officials of the Department should be prepared, if required, to appear in cases where no view has been expressed. That, I think, would be going a little too far.
Recommendations (76) to (79) concern costs, and the Committee recommends that in general costs should be awarded to successful objectors or appellants. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] I am sorry to say to my hon. Friend that the Government do not feel able to accept this as it stands. We recognise that there is a need here, and I do not want to make any final statement this afternoon. I cannot make a final statement on anything, although I have given an indication of many of the findings. On this we should prefer to consult the Council on Tribunals and hear the views of hon. Members.
On recommendation (84), that
"The Minister's letter of decision should set out in full his findings and inferences of fact and the reasons for the decision"—
we think that that is absolutely right. This is already the practice of some Departments and in future it will be adopted by all.
Part V of the Committee's Report deals with "Particular administrative procedures relating to land". Here I have to make some comments on the

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recommendations relating to Service Departments. The House may remember that these Departments are at present under no statutory obligation to hear objections to proposed acquisitions. They do so by an arrangement, I am informed, made in 1947 and announced in a White Paper, Cmd. 7278. That is, they arrange for a private hearing of objections by local authorities or other bodies, or occasionally and exceptionally there is a public inquiry, and all this is treated as a planning matter.
The Committee recommends, in paragraph (87), that
"Save in time of emergency or threat of emergency or in special security cases the Service Departments should be required to adopt the same procedure…as other Departments."
This means, in effect, public notice and public inquiry. The Government have some definite views on this subject. The Government agree that a situation in which an owner or occupier has no statutory right to object to the acquisition of his land in peacetime should not be allowed to continue, but we do not feel able to go all the way with the Committee's proposal in this matter concerning the needs of the Service Departments.
In the case of the Service Departments, speed is often vital and it is really not practical in the world we live in for the Committee to envisage that we should wait for an emergency, or even for the formal threat of an emergency—that is, the declaring of an emergency—before acting. We live in times in which it may be absolutely necessary, precisely for the sort of reasons the Committee mentions, namely, security and the public need, for a Service Department to act. We must, therefore, reserve the position in that respect.
It is also not desirable in our opinion to distinguish special security cases from others. Many of the Service Departments acquisitions involve some element of security and it would at once direct attention to them if they had to be singled out for special security treatment. Therefore, subject to stating that the Government agree that a situation in which an owner or occupier has no statutory right to object to the acquisition of his land in peace time should not be allowed to continue, we must make
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reservations about the needs of the Service Departments in this field.
The Government accordingly propose that where a Service Department wishes to acquire land the private interests directly affected should be given a statutory right to object and to be heard. The hearing will normally be in private far some of the reasons I have given, but will be conducted by a person specially appointed for the purpose by the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State for Scotland. I should, however, make it clear that it would not be possible in these cases to undertake publication of the inspectors' reports.
I think I have now detained the House long enough to give it some idea of the attitude of the Government towards the first and second parts of the Committee's terms of reference. I have attempted to indicate that the first step is to set up a single Council on Tribunals and to consult it on a great many matters. I have also indicated the attitude of the Government prior to the debate taking place and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will be able later to take up and perhaps to answer some of the queries that are put by hon. Members.
I think it would be wrong for me to say any more at the opening of this debate, except to underline again the fact that we approve of the spirit in which this Committee has made its recommendations. Its recommendations are, in fact, in accord with the philosophy which animates the actions of the Government. The Committee has said this in paragraph 5:
"Since the war the British electorate has chosen Governments which accepted general responsibilities for the provision of extended social services and for the broad management of the economy. It has consequently become desirable to consider afresh the procedures by which the rights of individual citizens can be harmonised with wider public interests."
I therefore hope that the House will accept the general lead of the Government and will aid the Government in giving us its advice so that when the time comes, perhaps in the new Session, we may take for preliminary action. I hope it will agree that we have been wise to hold a debate in this Session in order to be fully armed with the wisdom of this honourable House.
4.15 p.m.
Sir Frank Soskice: I am sure that the House will be grateful to the Home Secretary for his very careful and full account of the reactions of the Government to the proposals of the Franks Report. I must confess I felt very considerably at a disadvantage as I listened to his speech—full and detailed as it was—because it was rather like listening to him when he was announcing his Budget proposals, except that we like these proposals very much more. It was a little difficult to get them down on paper and, of course, the Government had had an opportunity of deciding on what they are going to do about the nearly 90 different proposals contained in this full and detailed Report.
As I listened to the proposals the Government have in mind, I must confess I felt very glad indeed that the Government have been able to go so far in meeting the spirit of the Report. On the other hand, it is right to point out that the Report was published only in July of this year and, speaking as I do from the Opposition Front Bench, I would not feel able to commit my right hon. and hon. Friends to acceptance of any particular detail of what the Government contemplates.
What I would say, however, without any qualification at all, is that we on this side of the House recognise the extreme importance of the content of the Report. We on this side think that the debate we are having this afternoon is particularly relevant to the present stage of our social and political development in this country. The Minister referred to the proliferation of tribunals. "Proliferation" has a rather ugly sound, but I think that on both sides of the House we would recognise that tribunals and procedures of inquiry—indeed, the various procedures which the Franks Committee investigated—are now, and must inevitably be, a permanent feature of our social and political system. In their various types they are a constitutional device which we by our experience, particularly in the last twenty or thirty years—whichever Government were in power—have come to agree is an indispensable device for the running and management of our affairs.
On either side of the House, no doubt, we would disagree as to the area in which
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the Government may and ought to accept responsibility for direct intervention with a view to guiding and promoting the general welfare. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite would no doubt regard that area as in general more restricted than we on this side of the House would regard it. In 1945 we opened a new page in our history by accepting on behalf of the Government a far wider measure of responsibility than had theretofore been recognised as proper. I leave out of account the war years, because they were years in which exceptional circumstances appertained.
Now, in 1957, we have this wide range of tribunals enshrined in our public life and our advance guided as a result of various administrative measures, the Minister in question being enlightened by the results of inquiries. I do not think it would be over-stating the case to say that they are a permanent feature of our judicial system—sometimes partly judicial and partly administrative. It was high time and of great value to our community that the Franks Committee should be able to go into the matter as fully as it has done.
I should like to take the opportunity at the outset of associating myself and my right hon. and hon. Friends cordially and warmly with the expression of thanks we have heard offered this afternoon to the members of the Committee. We are really very fortunate in this country in being able to find busy and highly qualified men and women who give so unstintingly of their time, their experience and talents, in seeking to find answers to a whole wide range of difficult social, political and other problems. We may congratulate ourselves that on the Statute Book the legislation enacted by Governments of any complexion is very much richer as a result of the work of successive committees and Royal Commissions.
Perhaps it would not be inappropriate for me to say that it would be regrettable if the idea were allowed to get about that the members of commissions and committees should work for months preparing valuable reports only with the result that those reports are pigeonholed, no action being taken. I am very glad, and I am sure that in this respect I echo the feelings of all right hon. and

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hon. Members of the House, wherever they sit, that the Government have thought proper to give us this very early opportunity of discussing this Report.
In answering the speech to which we have just listened, I have no easy task. I feel sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side would desire individually to examine the proposals of the Government in the light of the recommendations which have been made. They are matters of detail, and in each case they require a delicate adjustment. The Government have felt that they cannot for the reasons given follow all the recommendations of the Report, and we should like most carefully to consider the respects in which the Government have dissented from the findings of the Franks Committee.
On all sides of the House, I am sure we will also be glad that the recommendations discard fully anything which could savour of putting Government Departments above the law in any way. Whatever powers are vested in Ministers or representatives of Ministers or public authorities, it would be at once agreed on all sides that these powers must derive and derive solely from the language which Parliament has chosen with which to invest the particular authorities with those powers. In this country we would regard it as completely alien to our conceptions and wholly inconsistent with our scheme of things that, when the clash comes, as it must come, between the will of the individual and the will of the community, represented by the appropriate Governmental institutions, those Governmental institutions should in any sense have some method of interpretation of the law more favourable to them than to the individual.
In this country we would entirely reject anything of the nature of droite administrative. We are all starting from the assumption that, in determining the rights of individuals as against the rights of authority, there must be the plain language of Parliament, whether it is enshrined in a Statute or contained in delegated legislation, and that, whatever is the tribunal that has to determine as between the individual and the State, it must be bound by that language of Parliament and apply itself to ascertaining exactly what Parliament has said, either
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through the letter of the Statute or through the letter of delegated legislation, by ordinary canons of interpretation which would be used in any ordinary court in the land.
Starting from that general assumption, I feel that we, if we were the Government, would at once assent to the proposition that the right way is to test the various tribunals and inquiring bodies by reference to the three standards which the Franks Committee adopted—openness, fairness and impartiality. That is a method of approach which entirely commends itself to us on this side of the House, and I feel sure that I can speak without qualification for all my right hon. and hon. Friends in so saying. Therefore, on both sides of the House, we start from common ground.
Within the scope of this debate, the Minister has said that he would desire, in order to assist the Government, expressions of view from all sides of the House. In an endeavour to respond to that, I think I can only take some of the various tribunals and the various proposals which come within the Committee's Report. The difficulty is that so many different tribunals and so many different procedures are involved. At one end, in a sense, we have tribunals like the local insurance tribunals, the industrial injuiries tribunals, the National Assistance appeal tribunals and that sort of tribunal, and one can, in a sense, look at them as tribunals which particularly touch the individual.
I can well remember, when we were putting on the Statute Book the legislation which set up these tribunals, the feeling there was about the necessity for an informal atmosphere. I think hon. Members would agree that when a person appears before a National Insurance tribunal, an industrial injuries tribunal or other similar tribunal, he is speaking particularly of something that personally concerns him and which perhaps he is more qualified to speak about—and here I speak with reluctance and hesitation—than the most trained lawyer in the land. It is something that he knows better than anybody else. If he wants some particular form of remedy, he can put that case much more clearly out of his own mouth than some other person who suffers only vicariously from the difficulty from which that person suffers.

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If I understood the speech to which we have just listened, the Government's proposal is that the individual should have an unqualified right of legal representation. I think that that was the proposal—that it should not be necessary to obtain the permission of the chairman of the tribunal. I venture to voice this doubt. Would it not go to some extent towards formalising that atmosphere of informality which the Franks Committee has commended? These tribunals have been singled out by the Franks Committee for what I think I may describe as exceptional commendation. They work particularly well, and the Committee said, in regard to these tribunals, that they should be excepted from the principle that it is generally right that there should be a right of appeal on points of law to the courts. That is a striking commendation, and I think that all hon. Members, wherever they sit, will be glad to think that this work, which affects so very many people, often in humble circumstances, throughout the land, is so efficient.
I would not feel disposed to oppose the proposals to which we have listened. I simply venture that doubt, and say that we will want to look at the Government's proposals rather more closely. I assume that probably most hon. Members, when they look back on their experience, for example, in their own constituencies, would form the view that cases presented, for example, to industrial injuries tribunals or local insurance tribunals by the trade union representatives, are, on the whole, effectively and fully presented.
Speaking for myself, and I do not know whether any of my hon. Friends share this experience, I see the problem really arising—and it is not so very infrequent, as indeed the Franks Committee said—in the case of applicants before the tribunal who, for one reason or another, are not accompanied by their trade union representative. It may be that they have not paid their contributions, or for one reason or another did not belong to a trade union, or for other reasons apart from the ones I have mentioned.
I have not infrequently felt, looking at the matter again, and at the evidence placed before the courts by such applicants without legal representation that, had the case been more fully and care-
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fully prepared and presented to the tribunal, they would undoubtedly have got the remedy for which they asked. I should be interested to hear whether any of my right hon. or hon. Friends in various parts of the House share that experience.
In the case of such persons, I would have thought that it was certainly very desirable that they ought to be legally represented. At the moment, they can be legally represented, if they want to be, before the industrial injuries tribunal, and the proposal of the Franks Committee—to which the Government do not limit themselves as I understand it, since they do not think the consent of the chairman of the tribunal should be necessary—is that in all cases without the consent of the chairman legal representation should be made available. I simply pose this question, and I do not know whether the Government have given it thought. Is it very likely that, in any case in this wide variety of cases that are heard before these tribunals, if there is an unfettered right to obtain legal representation, legal representatives will be employed?
I see that the Franks Committee's Report calls attention to the fact that in industrial injuries cases, although, as I say, and as the Committee points out, legal representation is allowable with the consent of the chairman of the tribunal, it is employed only in about 2 per cent. of the cases. It may therefore be that even if the Government's proposal is implemented it will not, in practice, make any difference. Speaking purely for myself, I should be glad to think that in the case of those who, for one reason or another, desire to be legally represented, there is no legal bar to their being so represented. I repeat that that is simply an expression of my own opinion, and I do not seek in any way to commit my right hon. and hon. Friends.
One matter which the Franks Committee reported upon was not mentioned in the speech of the Home Secretary, and that is the case of claimants for National Assistance. The Committee recommends that the present system, by which applicants for National Assistance have their claims heard in private, should continue. The Committee points to that as an exception from the general principle which it adopts that all proceedings should as far as possible be in public.

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For a moment, I should again like to draw upon my experience as an ordinary Member of Parliament. I do not know how widely this view is shared. I very much welcome that recommendation by the Franks Committee. The Government say that in general they are accepting these recommendations, but I do not know whether they include that one. I feel that these applications for National Assistance should continue to be heard in private. My experience not infrequently is that applicants for National Assistance who have the strongest claim for it, and who, if they received it, might find great benefit resulting not only to their comfort but actually to their health, still decline to ask for it because they feel that some stigma attaches to it. I very much regret that, and always try to discourage that point of view when I meet it, but undoubtedly it still exists.
The idea that there is a stigma, the deterrent, such as it is, attaching to seeking National Assistance, to which claimants are clearly and obviously entitled in individual cases, might be increased and augmented if they felt that they might have to describe their personal and intimate difficulties before a public tribunal. I very much hope, therefore, that the Attorney-General will be able to tell us that this is one of the recommendations which the Government have accepted.
I turn now to the subject of county agricultural executive committees. As I understood the speech of the Home Secretary, the Government broadly accept the view put forward by the Franks Committee that a new tribunal should be interposed between the executive committee and the present agricultural tribunal which hears appeals. Again speaking entirely for myself, I do not feel convinced that that proposal is one which ought to be accepted. At present there is a one-tier appeal, and the Committee reports that the present independent appeal tribunal to which appeals go from the decisions of the executive committees is working very well and has not been the subject of complaint. Thus, we already have a one-tier appeal, and it is now proposed by the Franks Committee that a second appellate body should be interposed between the executive committee and the present appellate body.
This is not a sphere in which I can pretend to possess any personal expertise,
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and I tread diffidently, relying on the experience of others and information which I have received. But am I not right in thinking—perhaps the Attorney-General will answer this point—that, for example, the National Farmers' Union is very much opposed to it? One ground given, understand, is that already executive committees are somewhat loath to exercise the powers which they possess. In exercising their powers, particularly when making supervision orders, they act as far as possible in a purely friendly capacity, trying to assist, rather than penalise, the farmer. Is there not ground for fearing that if a fresh tribunal were interposed between the executive committees and the present appellate tribunal, the activities of the executive committees would be still further inhibited and impeded?
After all, the Agriculture Act, 1947, was created upon the basis that there was a delicate balance between Parts I and Farmers were, under Part I, given certain guaranteed rights—expectations with regard to prices, and so on—on terms that under Part II they made certain that the agricultural industry served the community and ministered as far as it possibly could to the growing requirements of the community for all sorts of agricultural produce. It is, therefore, the case—I am sure the Attorney-General will agree—that the administrative functions which are vested in the agricultural committees are of prime importance, and a consideration which should weigh in the minds of the Government is that the activities of the committees should not be inhibited. At all events, they should not be unduly inhibited.
I do not join those who would seek to override the rights of the individual. When I listened to the Home Secretary's speech I noticed that he called attention to the possibility of "the law's delay", but he did not make reference to what I am sure we should all regard as at least as important—"the insolence of office". But I would ask the Government to reconsider whether there is any need to overhaul that aspect of the working of tribunals with regard to the agricultural industry.
Another matter on which I speak with hesitation is the question of appeals against supervision orders. I note from the Report that there is the very greatest

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conflict of view as to whether there should or should not be appeals. On the one hand, the supervision order is, as the Act was conceived, an order which is not regarded as or intended to be penal. It is an order under which the farmer is, as it were, reminded of his obligations and shown how he can more nearly achieve the task set before him by the Act and the public interest.
On the other hand, as the Committee points out, the supervision order is registered as a land charge, and that may well be, particularly in the case of a farmer who works on an overdraft, a matter of considerable import. I merely pose the problem and should be grateful for the views of the Attorney-General. I take it from what the Home Secretary has said that the Government include that as one of the recommendations of the Franks Committee which they propose to implement.
I want for a short time to turn to the Health Service. I do not know what the Government's proposals are in this respect, because no reference was made to them in the Home Secretary's speech unless I missed it.
The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): It was dealt with.
Sir F. Soskice: I did not think it was dealt with. At all events, I should like to pose a question, and perhaps the Attorney-General will deal with it.
Might I remind the House how that matter stands with regard to the Report? The most important change proposed by the Franks Report is that all proceedings before the Appeal Tribunal —with one single exception—should, from now on, be public. At the moment, when the local service committee has recommended a punishment, and the executive has imposed on a doctor a punishment less than dismissal from the National Health Service, the doctor has a right of appeal to the Minister. If he appeals to the Minister, no publicity attaches to his appeal, and if the punishment be awarded and confirmed there is no public disclosure of the doctor's name, although I think there is disclosure of the amount of the penalty imposed.
The Franks Report recommends, in the first place, that even if the penalty recommended is less than dismissal from the
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Service, appeal from it should lie, not as now to the Minister, but to the Appeal Tribunal. Then, as I have said already, it proposes that all proceedings should be public in the fullest sense; that is to say, I take it, that the evidence should be deployed in public, the arguments reported and so on.
I should be grateful if the Attorney-General would state what are the Government's views about this. Speaking for myself—and, again, I speak only in a purely personal capacity here—I have some hesitations as to whether it is altogether fair on the doctor that he should, in all cases in which he is brought before the Appeal Tribunal, have the matter discussed openly. Is it fair, for example, that that should be done in public in cases in which the charge is dismissed, in which the appeal is successful? Is it not enough, perhaps, to provide that only when the charge is sustained and the penalty—whether less than dismissal or dismissal itself—is, in fact, upheld and imposed, that the result, with the name of the doctor, should be published?
On the other hand, it must be said, as the Franks Committee points out, that the Disciplinary Committee of the General Medical Council normally—though, I gather, not always—does conduct its proceedings in public; and furthermore, that when a case actually comes before the Appeal Tribunal it must already, in the nature of things, be a case with regard to which the appropriate service committee has found that there is a strong prima facie case against the doctor which, in the view of that service committee, merits punishment. I simply pose the problem, and ask the Government's views about it.
I would also ask this question. Is it reasonable that with regard to their own disciplinary proceedings and the publicity attendant thereon doctors should stand in a different position from other professional persons—the profession of which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is such a distinguished ornament, the solicitors' profession, accountants and so on? In the light of these proposals, how do their procedures come out in comparison with the procedures applicable to other professional persons? I just put the question to the Attorney-General and I should be very grateful if, in due course, he would answer it.

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I have pointed to two tribunals which, in a sense—
Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I was hoping that, before the right hon. and learned Gentleman left that point about doctors, he would express at least a personal view about the recommendation that the appeal should not be to the Minister, but to an appeal tribunal. What does he think about that? Is he or is he not in sympathy with that recommendation which, it seems to me, is an important one?
Sir F. Soskice: It is clearly an important point, and I can only answer the question put by the hon. Gentleman by saying that so far as I can see, purely as a novice in these matters, and not knowing all the various considerations that can be urged, except so far as I can collect them from the Report, on the whole it might be better to have one appeal tribunal to deal with all disciplinary matters against doctors—but I voice that opinion hesitantly, and would not feel competent to insist on it in the face of reasons deployed to the contrary.
That brings me to what I would describe as the sort of proceedings which are at the other end of the scale. They are opposite to the sort one contemplates when considering proceedings before a local insurance tribunal. I refer to such proceedings as those which deal with the compulsory acquisition of land, the granting or refusing of planning permission, the various inquiries that are held to assist a Minister in the conduct of his Department in respect of the use of land.
Here I should like to call attention to the fact that in a document entitled "Personal Freedom", published by the Labour Party about a year before the issue of the Report of the Franks Committee there appeared a number of proposals in which the spirit, certainly, of the Franks Committee was very closely reflected. I should like to think that members of the Committee derived great assistance from the perusal of this extremely valuable document. I do not say that it contains a monopoly of good feeling on these matters. No doubt, other documents from other parts of the House could be—and I believe are being—exhibited at this moment, though whether or not within the rules of order is a matter for you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
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I should like to call attention to the very broad identity of view between the Labour Party and the members of the Franks Committee. In particular, that identity of view and the sources of feeling from which it obviously springs manifests itself in the conclusions both of "Personal Freedom" and of the Franks Report with regard to reports of inspectors at inquiries. After listening to the speech with which this debate opened, I think that I am right in saying that the Government have, in effect, adopted a kind of half-way house between the proposals contained in the Franks Report and the proposals contained in "Personal Freedom". They have, as I understand—though I may have it wrong—taken the view that, normally, the recommendations contained in an inspector's report should be made available, and the document, "Personal Freedom" runs on similar lines. It says that the report should be made available and that, where there is good reason, the recommendations themselves should also be made available.
Government Departments, understandably—we are all human—are reluctant to let any, shall I say, hindrance be placed in the way of what they honestly and sincerely believe to be the conscientious discharge of their duties and "interest rei publicœ" that they should fully use the powers—so long as they do not use them overbearingly and aggressively—vested in them by Parliament. Against that stands the interest and desire of the private individual. Inevitably, in a modern, complicated society, from time to time a clash develops between the two. On both sides of the House we approach the problem by saying that where a clash develops, then, if I may use another Latinism, fiat justitia, ruat cœlum. We would prefer to think that strict justice is done, whatever the impediment in an individual case that may be placed in the way of the Government Department.
Against that must be balanced the fact that we live in a highly competitive world, and that Ministers must energetically and unflinchingly face the duties that Parliament has put on their shoulders; and the task of such committees as the Franks Committee, and of this House in deciding which of these recommendations to implement, must be to find how the balance lies between the two. We, on this

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side, would certainly welcome, on the whole, the approach that the Government have made. As I said, I am not seeking to commit anybody with regard to it, but, sympathetically, we think that the recommendations of the Report in general should be adopted so far as it is practicable to do so. I quite agree with what was said, that there must be not too much delay, and, equally, I agree that any complication in the proceedings should be avoided.
Nevertheless, it would seem that there is some, although, as the Franks Report points out, a limited amount of disquiet and dissatisfaction in some cases with regard to the workings of these inquiries. Ministers should give reasons for their decisions and those affected by inspectors' reports should know what is the content of them, particularly as regards the facts. How far it may be workable in all cases to expect a Minister to furnish a statement of his policy behind which a report is formulated, I do not know. I gather from the speech to which we listened that there may be serious practical difficulties there.
I was a little suspicious of the proposal that all that should be done was to arrange that any person who appeared before an inquiry should be told in some way or other where he can find out about a Minister's policy. That seems to be a process analogous to legislation by reference, which none of us in this House likes very much. Clearly, the Government will consider that and, when detailed and formulated proposals are to hand, we shall wish to examine them critically on this side of the House.
The proposal about councils is obviously an important one; it is, I think, wholly novel, no such proposal ever having been made before, so far as I know. We on this side of the House can see that a fresh, outside judgment about the proceedings of tribunals would be of value. We wonder whether it will, in fact, be a practical possibility to man the councils in such a way as to ensure that they bring to bear on these matters the wide range of experience necessary for the purpose of considering the wide variety of different tribunals under their purview, but we regard the proposal as a useful and interesting one and we shall be glad, in due course, to know how the
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Government suggest that these councils should be manned.
In 1946, we attempted to deal with delegated legislation by passing the Statutory Instruments Act of that year. In a sense, the two problems, the tribunal and inquiry, on the one hand, and delegated legislation, on the other, bear a certain analogy one to the other so far as they present a problem and challenge to our society. We should like everything to be done and discussed on the Floor of this House, and we should like all differences to be brought before the ordinary courts of the land. In practice, it is not possible for that to be done. Having dealt with one item satisfactorily by the Act of 1946, it would be valuable and useful now to approach the other.
As I said at the outset of my speech, we on this side of the House, I am sure, join in the pleasure which was evinced opposite that we have had such an early opportunity to debate this Report and that, in general, its recommendations are found acceptable. We are particularly pleased that the spirit from which those recommendations emanate is a spirit with which the Government feel wholly in accord.
4.53 p.m.
Sir Patrick Spens: I wish to begin by adding my thanks to the Franks Committee for the thoroughness with which it went into this subject, and for the exhaustive nature of the Report and recommendations which it made. It is, I think, a record that a Report of this magnitude should have been prepared and produced with such expedition and that it should be being debated by this House so soon after its publication. All of us who take an interest in this subject owe a very great debt of thanks to every member of the Committee and to those who have made possible the progress so far achieved.
I looked the matter up and found that it was in February, 1953, that my learned friends inside and outside the House asked me to become chairman of the committee of Conservative lawyers which produced the document to which the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) referred, "The Rule of Law". That we published in January, 1955. The Franks Committee was appointed before the end of that year.

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Of course, we claim for our pamphlet no more than the right hon. and learned Gentleman does for his; we do not say it represents the last word. However, all these publications are indications of the way in which opinion not only in this country but in the United States, France and everywhere where there have been progressive, modern governments during the last twenty-five years, was moving.
There have been two great changes during the last quarter of a century. First of all, there has been the delegation by Parliament to large, independent, industrial and economic bodies of the carrying on of matters affecting the life of the country, very much beyond the control of this House. I should be out of order were I to go on to assert anything further about that. The second great change undoubtedly has been the tremendous growth of tribunals, committees and appeal courts which have come into being as a result of the social legislation of the last twenty-five years.
I and my friends went in very great detail into the existence of many of these tribunals both here and overseas, but I am bound to confess that it was not until I was honoured by being made chairman of the Select Committee on the Bill for the disqualification of Members that I discovered how many—literally thousands—of these bodies there were exercising some semi-judicial, semi-administrative, function all over Great Britain. It was when we had considered whether Members put in that kind of position could or could not rightly sit in this House that we realised what a number of these different bodies there is.
The task committed to the Franks Committee was an enormous one, and the way in which it has been able to give us general principles of direction as to how we ought to improve the situation is really remarkable. I myself believe that the all-important remark made in the Report was that
"Tribunals should properly be regarded as machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of machinery of the administration."
That is the fundamental basis of the discontent here, in the United States, in France, in India and everywhere where there is progressive government. Are these tribunals set up to deal with individual cases merely to be considered
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as part of the machinery of administration, to get on with the business of administration, or are they really to be made tribunals of adjudication in an attempt to do justice between Government Departments and individual citizens?
We all recognise that the decision which the Franks Committee recommends us to take, namely, to establish tribunals as tribunals of adjudication, must in many cases delay administration. To the extent to which it is necessary to mitigate that tendency. I am quite certain that, when detailed proposals come before Parliament, all of us will co-operate. In the first instance, these tribunals must cease to be regarded as part of the machinery of administration and must be given their proper function as tribunals of adjudication.
From that follows all the matters to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has referred—the principle of impartiality, fairness and the like; the necessity to ensure that tribunals are appointed in a way that makes them impartial; the consideration of their procedure, so that impartial decisions shall be reached; and in order that the subject may regard the way he is treated as fair, a greater measure of publicity should be given to inspectors' reports, reasons, and so on. There is not one of the 90 recommendations that does not follow from the principle that these tribunals must be worked into our system as tribunals of adjudication and not as mere cogs in the wheel of the machinery of administration.
Mr. A. J. Irvine: In view of the emphasis that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is placing on this aspect of the matter, with which I agree, would I be right in thinking that he has heard with a good deal of disappointment the decision, which, I understand, has been made, that the inspectors who hold planning inquiries and preside at planning appeals are not, in accordance with the terms of the Report, to be placed under the control of the Lord Chancellor?
Sir P. Spens: I am obliged to the hon. Member. I intended to deal in detail with one or two of the proposals. However, the days when I practised in front of any of these tribunals or took part in their business have long ago passed and

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I am not competent individually now, speaking from my own experience, to say whether this or that procedure or exception is right or wrong. What I do want to say is that I am quite certain that the suggestion which has come from the Franks Committee of the establishment of a council to superintend tribunals, and a council available to be consulted concerning who should be the members of this or that tribunal, is a suggestion which will prove to be of the greatest value.
One of the great difficulties has been not only that Ministers or heads of Departments appointed members of their own tribunals, but that there was a certain amount of haphazardness in the way in which individuals were selected. I feel that the establishment of a council is a great step forward.
I also welcome more than, I think, does the right hon. and learned Member for Newport the right of the individual to have legal aid if he wants it before any tribunal. Nothing makes a person more dissatisfied than to find himself or herself before a body of people, who are, perhaps, better educated and more experienced than he or she, very often in rather a hurry, and to find himself tongue-tied, as all of us who practise in the law know that a layman inexperienced in any of our procedure often may be, and then being turned down and feeling that he has not had a fair share. I regard it as essential, not that legal representation should be compulsory—far from anything of the sort—but at least that any person who wants legal representation should have a right to it.
Sir F. Soskice: Does the right hon. and learned Member realise that I did not oppose that? I was really raising the question of whether the Government were disregarding the recommendation of the Committee that legal representation should be only with the permission of the chairman of the tribunal in the case of local insurance tribunals.
Sir P. Spens: I beg the right hon. and learned Member's pardon. I thought he was rather regarding it as unnecessary as a principle. All I want is the principle that a person shall be entitled to legal representation. If in any particular case the House subsequently comes to the view
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that it ought only to be with the consent of the chairman, I do not have the knowledge to know whether that would be right or wrong and I would not dream of forcing my view on the House in any way.
Mr. Barnett Janner: What is the view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman of the opinion which has been expressed concerning the granting of legal aid to the individual? If what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says is his real view—and I agree with him to a very considerable extent—it must necessarily follow that the person who is not able to obtain legal advice or legal aid should be in a position to do so.
Sir P. Spens:. The question of legal aid was to be my next point. I take the view that legal aid has been a very great social service. I think it is running into trouble now to a very large extent. I should like to see it extended. I do not believe that it is possible at present to extend it to every type of tribunal in the land. I accept what my right hon. Friend said about that.
That again, however, is a point that we must consider. We shall have to be satisfied why it is impossible, either in particular cases or generally, to provide legal aid. If, as I suspect, the situation at the moment will not allow it, then for the time being we must accept it. In principle, however, if a person is to have the right of legal representation, I am, naturally, in favour of making it possible for him or her to have it. It is not by any means necessary always to do it by legal aid.
Concerning appeals also, the principle ought to be that wherever possible an appeal should lie and certainly that in every single case where there is a point of law, there must be an appeal if such a point of law arises. On the agricultural side, it must depend upon what the powers of the tribunals are to be. If the powers of the tribunals are to be altered, as I understand they are, it seems to me that the machinery for dealing with complaints, and so on, must await the formulation of the powers.
All that I wish to emphasise this afternoon is that I believe the Report to be a tremendous step forward, not only to deal with the difficulty in this country, but to deal with it in the other countries also.

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Very much to my surprise, when I was asked to talk to the American Bar Association on the Franks Report I had one of the largest legal audiences that I have addressed for a long time. The very problem with which this Report deals are, of course, encountered right through the States of the United States and the representatives of the various States were interested to know how at least Sir Oliver Franks and his Committee proposed that we should deal with them.
I regard this as, I would almost say, a surprising step forward. Sir Oliver Franks has done a very great service to the country. I realise that there is a difference of viewpoint between people solely occupied in administration and those of us who are occupied in the law. There is a fundamental difference of approach. It is enormously to the advantage of the freedom of the individual that the Report has taken the form that it has and that my right hon. Friend has accepted so many of its far-reaching recommendations. I look forward to legislation at a very early date.
I knew that it was a good omen when, at a certain conference at Brighton, my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department addressed us on the subject, because he was the real person behind the report of myself and my learned friends. Naturally he could do little more than hint at what would be accepted in the Report, but my hopes have been more than gratified today and I look forward to seeing the necessary legislation to put the promised improvements into effect with the least possible delay.
5.10 p.m.
Mr. R. T. Paget: It is not for the first time that I feel that I am probably in a minority on both sides of the House with regard to this Report. I speak of it as a lawyer, and as a lawyer with a very acute realisation of the limitations of lawyers and of the legal system. I think that the most one can say of any proposed Measure is that it will probably do more good than harm. On balance, I believe that what is going to be done by this Report will do more harm than good. I will state why.
I think that we are confusing in this Report the judicial method of arriving at
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decisions and the executive method of arriving at decisions, and those are quite different things. But a lot of these tribunals which we are considering—and this really goes to the root of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has been saying—are not judicial tribunals at all. They are not performing, and ought not to be performing, a judicial function. They are performing, and ought to be performing, an executive function, May I try to distinguish what I mean by the difference between these two?
Take the simplest case of land acquisition. My land is required for a public purpose. The need for my land and the decision to take it is an executive decision and not a judicial decision. What I should be paid for it is a judicial decision to be arrived at fairly. The first decision, as to whether the land should be taken, is a question of expediency. As to what should be paid for it is a question of justice. That is the distinction that ought to be drawn. It is not drawn throughout this Report. To apply the judicial machinery for arriving at decisions, decisions which of their nature are executive, I believe in principle and in practice to be wrong and bad. It means that our decisions are slow. It means, in general, that our decisions are cowardly because we fear getting into the trouble of all the procedure in which we are involving ourselves. It means that our decisions are sluggish, and I do not for a moment believe that it means that our decisions are any more acceptable.
We are given the fundamental principle which we are told is openness. I agree with openness, although I was a little surprised at hearing the right hon. Gentleman being such an advocate of openness on executive decisions, since in many capacities, for a great number of years, he has established a reputation of being quite the cagiest customer at the Dispatch Box we have ever heard. But, whether they be judicial or executive decisions, I agree with the principle of openness.
But what about fairness and impartiality? Those words, to my mind, are just wind in this thing. Let us consider this position. A road separates my land from a neighbour's. It is proposed to widen that road. What does the Minister have to say? I object to it being widened my side. My neighbour objects to it being widened his side. Is the fair thing

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to be done to widen both sides? Obviously not; that is absurd. What has to be decided is not the fairness and impartiality but what is most convenient, and what I have to argue to the Minister is that it will suit him better to go into my neighbour's land rather than mine. That is the reality of this sort of decision and where we have the executive decision —whether the land shall be taken and not how much is paid for it.
What is the right of the citizen is that in an executive decision which affects him he shall have his point of view brought to the attention of the executive officer that is deciding it. We do not want all this legal procedure for that purpose. Nor will it curb what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) referred to as the insolence of office. We here, at Question Time, do more than anything else to curb the insolence of office. By putting the shadow of a legal procedure between the Minister and his responsibility, we shelter the Minister from the criticisms which are effective in curbing the insolence of office. Put up this legal procedure and Departments merely make themselves highly adept at making themselves inquiry-proof. They put themselves into a position in which they know that an inquiry cannot touch them. When they are criticised here, the Minister gets up and says: "This is sub judice; it is being considered by a tribunal; you cannot touch me here." That is all we do by muddling two methods and using them in the wrong place.
With regard to legal representation, I really was startled to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that there was to be legal representation before conscientious objectors' tribunals. The purpose of legal representation, I understand, is, paradoxically enough, that advocacy should cancel out and that the decision should be one of justice and not of advocacy. But this sort of issue which we get before a conscientious objectors' tribunal can only depend on how the matter is put, and the decision who should be excused and who not will depend on advocacy and nothing else. I cannot help thinking that is not a very desirable instance.
Again, another instance is this, and this is where I really come to the subject with which I want to deal, namely, agriculture. We say that a committee, with a
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chairman with legal qualifications, has to decide whether a committee of farmers is right on the question of what is good husbandry. We might just as well appoint a committee, the chairman of which is a farmer, to decide whether the House of Lords is right on a legal decision. It is taking the legal right out of its context and position.
With regard to agriculture, where I very much hope that the qualified acceptance will ultimately result in no action, I should like to say this. The principle of the Agriculture Act is that upon the one hand the public underwrite the farmers enterprise and in consideration of that underwriting the farmer undertakes to conduct his enterprise by and large in the public interest. That is the basic bargain of the Agriculture Act.
How does the provision for supervision work in practice? There is the local agricultural executive committee, a civil servant with experienced farmers. When land is being abused the people in the district know it, for there is a feeling in the countryside about it. In the friendliest way, those people on the committee try to help the farmer. He may be short of capital and may need a loan for machinery, and he may get a loan for the machinery. He may need advice. He is helped in the friendliest way, and if it is considered necessary that this chap should carry on, he has really to accept supervision.
It is only at that point that a decision is made. If we are going to say at that point that those experienced farmers have got to justify their decision in front of a chairman with legal qualifications who may know nothing in the world about farming, what will be the result, even if he has the assistance of some assessors with some local knowledge? It is difficult enough already for these committees, as the Minister of Agriculture knows. We are not complaining that the committees are over-active. They are under-active throughout the country. We know that shockingly bad farming is not being restrained half enough. We are making an advisory procedure into an executive decision—and it is an executive decision —whether it is in the interests of the country that supervision should be exercised, more difficult, more dilatory, more complicated. Will a stubborn farmer who does not want help be more satisfied,

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more peaceful about the decision in these circumstances?
At the next stage, which is acquisition, there is an appeal already, an appeal to the Agricultural Land Tribunal. It is so often the stubborn man who will not be helped, although every effort is already made to help him, and we should not provide him with more opportunities to waste his money and waste his land or its products. The Act is not working enough now. If we implement this proposal we shall bring it to a standstill.
I hope the Minister of Agriculture will oppose it very energetically, as I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) would if he were in his position. The proposal is no good. It has been opposed by the National Farmers' Union, who know it is bad for agriculture, bad for the land. It has been opposed by the National Union of Farmworkers. It was opposed by the last Commission which examined it. Yet it is suggested that the views of the people immediately concerned, who understand the countryside, should be overruled. I hope it will be reconsidered.
5.24 p.m.
Sir Lionel Heald: I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget)— I may be unpopular for so describing him, but I propose to do so—will forgive me if I do not enter into a detailed discussion with him on the subject matter of his speech. His view appeared to be that legal advocates and members of the legal profession were to be discouraged in these cases, and his general view seemed to be that the legal profession in all its manifestations was of very little value to anyone. That may be his opinion. I have often wondered why we find ourselves on opposite sides of the House. After listening to him tonight, I begin to have some vague ideas about that.
Mr. Paget: I was saying that legally trained people are correct for judicial, not executive, decisions.
Sir L. Heald: I do not think my hon. and learned Friend can be aware of the general feeling in this country on the subject, which, I believe, will be very much relieved by this debate today and by the Report before us. I do not think he is aware of that. Knowing his judicial and
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fair approach to matters, I think that if he had appreciated it he would have taken the matter more seriously.
When I was coming to the House today I heard a conversation in the bus between two apparently intelligent and educated people. They were not Members of Parliament, but I hope that does not make that description inapplicable. One said to the other, "What is going on in the House today?" The other replied, "Nothing of any importance at all. It is some legal question about administrative tribunals, or something of that sort." It is very unfortunate that anyone should so speak of the matter. It means that a great many people in the country have got accustomed to the state of affairs. I think it has been taken in time, but people are becoming far too accustomed to this kind of thing going on, the sort of thing which we can find described quite clearly in the Report, and very moderately described by the Committee. I think the Committee might have gone a lot farther than it did. I think it approached the matter with studied moderation.
This is one of the most important matters to be debated in the House for a very long time. There are a great many Members of the House, like the hon. and learned Member for Northampton, who do not appreciate that there are a large number of people who think this sort of thing far more important than many other things upon which we spend a lot of our time.
When the Committee was appointed—I think it is right to say this—some doubts were expressed whether it would adopt a sufficiently robust attitude to what I may call the official view, the official view being what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) described as the idea of the function of these tribunals. I might put it on another basis from that on which he put it. The view very often is that administrative tidiness is the most important thing. Some people put it differently and say that their view is that man was made for the State and not the State for man.
This debate shows that the House of Commons appears to have a very robust view on that subject. We should welcome the Report for that reason alone. Certainly we should not be doing justice

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to the Committee if we did not make it quite clear that any apprehensions of the kind I have just indicated were quite unfounded.
A significant expression which has been used is that the tribunal should not be looked upon as existing in order to "register" executive or departmental decisions. That has a considerable bearing on what the hon. and learned Gentleman was saying. Because it is a lesser judicial examination, with evidence and arguments, it prevents the proceedings from being mere rubber stamp arrangements.
I cannot help reminding the hon. and learned Gentleman that it was a right hon. and learned Gentleman on his side of the House who said on one occasion that some of these inquiries were used for the purpose of enabling people to "let off steam" and apparently for nothing more. I believe that has caused the public a good deal of concern.
I would by way of preface to what I have to say repeat what I have said before in this House, and what I shall always say, that I personally have the greatest possible respect and admiration, and, I would say, personal friendship, for those who are engaged in the public service. But they have their job to do, and they have their ideas as to how it should be done. It will be seen from paragraph 40 of the Franks Report that the official view presented to the Committee was that these tribunals should be regarded precisely in the way that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South has indicated.
Therefore, I say with the greatest respect and friendliness to these people, without whom the Government could not be carried on, that if this Report is adopted it will represent tremendous victory by the ordinary citizen over "the gentlemen in Whitehall." I believe that that will be generally recognised throughout the country, but there is not the slightest derogation of those gentlemen. Their business is to try to score the victory if they can. This is our opportunity of acting as referees and saying that the rules should be slightly altered.
I am sure that we shall all be delighted to feel that the Government do not intend to allow themselves to be advised to water down the recommendations in the
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Report in that respect. I believe that we shall also be very delighted to have heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), my predecessor as a Law Officer, expressing the views that he did today. I believe that some of his comments will have surprised one or two of us who are delighted at his conversion even at this late stage.
One extraordinary fact is that the Franks Report has had so little impact on the general public and has received so very little attention in the Press. One reason for that may be that, when one comes to read it, what the Report says seems so very obvious. That there should be
"Openness, fairness and impartiality"
seems to state itself, and one has the unpleasant feeling that surely the only reason why the Committee mentioned that is that it came across a good deal of evidence that those characteristics have not always been apparent. Surely it is rather an unpleasant thought that for 50 years we have been building up this tremendous system without looking after the proper conduct of the proceedings in that way. If that has been prevalent, even only to a small extent, it is quite sufficient reason for the Report and this debate.
I emphasise that point by mentioning three or four of the things that are now recommended as obligatory. One wonders how we have carried on all this time without ensuring their existence. The Report states that a citizen should be fully informed of all his rights in connection with a public inquiry. At present he is not so informed in some cases. Evidence of that was brought before the Committee, and some of us know of examples. Secondly, the Report states that the citizen should always be told in advance what the case is about and what case he has to answer or deal with. Again, that has not always happened, and surely that should be ensured. As to legal representation, I need not go into that question, but it appears that a case was brought before the Committee where it was found that the Crown had legal representation but the other party could not be represented.
Mr. Paget: It sounds like a war crimes trial.
Sir L. Heald: No doubt the hon. and learned Member has dealt with that point in his book.
Another point which has not yet been mentioned in the debate is the recommendation that the citizen should have a reasonable allowance for his expenses if his attendance is considered to be justified. I quite agree that if we go into complicated questions about detailed costs there might be some argument about it, but if a man or woman is involved in expense in going before a tribunal and his or her presence there is justifiable, it is only justice that there should be a reasonable allowance for expenses.
Another point made by the Committee which surprises the ordinary person when he finds that it is not now the case is that, as the Committee says, the Minister should not be the judge in his own cause, nor should his own officials conduct an inquiry from which there is an appeal to him. A great many people have told me that they have been amazed to find that that is the case now, and it is supposed that there must be some reason for it.
These are examples of very simple points which I believe the general public will appreciate when they come to hear what we have generally decided today. The recommended institution of a Council on Tribunals is a very wise and helpful provision, because it would remedy another difficulty found to exist, which is the lack of co-ordination between different kinds of tribunals, or even similar tribunals in different parts of the country, and the principles which they apply.
I think, therefore, that the Report is a very excellent one and that we should all welcome it, but there is a danger of our becoming complacent about it. I do not say that this has been a back-slapping occasion today, but so far there has been a certain amount of mutual congratulation. I feel that a different though not necessarily jarring note should be struck to the effect that we must appreciate that the Report covers only a very small part of the field. It is said by the Committee itself that the vast majority of cases in which members of the public come into conflict with Government Departments are not covered even by the terms of reference, as the terms of reference only apply to cases in which there is already a tribunal.
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It is a rather solemn thought, and it is emphasised in paragraph 15 of the Report, that the famous Crichel Down case, which actually gave rise to the appointment of the Committee, is not covered by the terms of reference. In fact, the terms of reference appear to have been carefully drawn so as to exclude it. It is just as well to remember that.
There is another important and practical example which we must carefully bear in mind. There is no question of my being out of order in referring to something which is not within the Committee's terms of reference, because the Committee itself refers to it and points out that there might be a possibility of a misunderstanding. In the paragraphs dealing with compulsory purchase, the Committee points out that it would be a mistake to suppose that the improvement in the procedure which it recommends is likely to have any great result in removing public concern and anxiety.
Paragraph 278 states:
"…much of the dissatisfaction with the procedures relating to land arises from the basis of compensation…we cannot emphasise too strongly the extent to which these financial considerations affect the matters with which we have to deal. Whatever changes in procedure are made dissatisfaction is, because of this, bound to remain."
We all know cases in our constituencies of two people whose pieces of land lie beside each other and are comparable in all respects. One has his land acquired by the local authority and the other sells to someone else, and the one gets four times what the other gets for his land. It is difficult for anyone, to whatever political party he may belong, or whatever seat he may represent, or whatever majority he may have, to explain that. Although the hon. and learned Member for Northampton may have no difficulty in explaining it to his own satisfaction, I think that he would have difficulty in explaining it to the satisfaction of my constituents. I think that that is the kind of thing we must go on to do. We must regard this as a start, but no more.
I was interested to hear from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport, my predecessor, that he admitted frankly that in 1945 his Government undertook a great extension of the area of government and so forth,

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with the result that it created the kind of conditions that we are trying to cure by this Report. It was notable that he did not explain why he had never done anything about it himself. Therefore, I want to go on record in this matter in case somebody asks "Why have you not done anything before about this?" In the debate on the Loyal Address in December, 1954, which was the first occasion I had for several years of expressing myself entirely independently, I ventured to say:
"The great problem of government today is that of how to reconcile the freedom of the individual with that degree of interference by the State which is at all events necessary at any given time. We cannot expect any real assistance in that direction from Socialism, but we do expect it from a Conservative Government.…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1954; Vol. 535, c. 832.]
Well, we have now got it.
5.41 p.m.
Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) sat down after striking a slightly discordant note because, after all, his own Government were in power for four years before they even set about attempting to appoint a committee. The true position, as we all know, is that it takes some time to see how tribunals and inquiries of this kind work before we can with any reasonable satisfaction appoint a committee to look into them.
Let me say straight away that I personally agree almost entirely with the principles of the Report, and very largely with the suggestions put forward by the Home Secretary. Some of them do not go far enough and others are likely to go too far. I will refer to one or two of them a little later.
I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the scope of the Report is limited. That is because the terms of reference set down by a Conservative Government limited what the committee had to do. There are matters to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman drew attention which perhaps would be the better for investigation, but these matters are not merely to be found in public administration. There are trade associations with secret courts, and I would welcome an investigation into their operation, just as I welcomed the investi-
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gation into the more open transactions which take place in the tribunals and inquiries which are the subject of this Report.
There are three dominating impressions which I had on reading the Report. First, it is conclusive in favour of the tribunal and inquiry system. What it proposes is not a recision of that system, but amendments to make it work more efficiently, better and more acceptably. We have had so much hot air about tribunals and inquiries, from the time of Lord Hewart's "New Despotism" down to the present day, that I think we all have occasion to be grateful for this sane and balanced judgment upon the working of the tribunal and inquiry system.
The second impression I got on reading the Report was the masterly analysis and enunciation of the principles which should govern the working of tribunals and inquiries. The third impression was that when the Report comes to apply those principles to specific cases, it of necessity is not so happy. It recognises this itself, and suggests the setting up of the Lord Chancellor's Council in order to keep tribunals in particular under review.
Of course, as the Home Secretary mentioned in his opening remarks, in considering the operation of the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality the Government must also take into consideration effectiveness, absence of delay and a balance between public and private interest. When we come to apply the principles of the Report to individual cases, then we are up against—and we must face the fact squarely—the kind of practical considerations which were so aptly illustrated by the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget).
In carrying out the recommendations and principles of the Report, I gather that there will be amendments, in some cases of Statutes and in other cases of Statutory Instruments. Perhaps the Attorney-General will confirm this when he replies to the debate. Therefore, the Government's proposals in those cases will come before Parliament for consideration. It is important that the actual proposals the Government make after full consideration should in each case come

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before Parliament for its views to be expressed; not merely where, of necessity, they will have to come before Parliament in cases of Statutes and Statutory Instruments, but also in cases where any substantial amendments are proposed.
There is one matter I wish to refer to before coming to the tribunals and inquiries, and that is the responsibility of Parliament in general in dealing with the scope of Ministerial discretion which is at the basis of our tribunal and inquiry system. Such trouble as arises here about ministerial discretion is a Parliamentary responsibility. These are discretions which are conferred on Ministers by Statutes or by Statutory Instruments and, therefore, we have a responsibility for the scope of ministerial discretion.
There are three kinds of machinery through which ministerial discretion operates. First, the tribunal system, secondly the inquiry system, and thirdly Ministerial discretion without any tribunal or inquiry. The tribunal system is one which applies where rules can be laid down, and the function of the tribunal is to apply those rules to the facts of the case. The inquiry system is where rules cannot be laid down but where an investigation is made, a public inquiry is held, or a hearing is given before applying policy to an individual case. Thirdly, there is the wide open Ministerial discretion including the Crichel Down type of case.
The principles on which we should act in deciding which of these methods should be adopted are as follow. Wherever rules can be laid down in a Statute by Parliament, they should be laid down. In other words, the Ministerial discretion should be as limited as possible. That can be done where there is a long-term policy, as in pensions tribunals.
In other cases, where there are sudden changes in policy—maybe whether there is to be a green belt or not, or perhaps variations in the needs of the Service Departments—of course rules cannot be laid down, but it is essential in those cases that Parliament itself should see that inquiry is held and that every possible safeguard is made in the interests of the subject against the exercise of unfettered Ministerial discretion.
I should like to see some kind of body within the scope of Parliament—just as
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in the case of Statutory Instruments we have the Scrutiny Committee—a nonparty body of Members of Parliament or, if civil servants are required, something analogous to Parliamentary draftsmen, advising the House of Commons on a non-party basis as to the form of discretion which should be given to a Minister by a Statute in a particular case. That is far more appropriate and would be far more effective than having a Lord Chancellor's Council, outside the House altogether, advising upon new tribunals and what ought to be done, and pontificating about it.
It is a matter for Parliament itself to decide in the case of new tribunals. I am not referring to the suggestion that the Lord Chancellor's Council should have jurisdiction in respect of tribunals already established, keeping them under review, for that is a different matter. In the case of new tribunals it is the responsibility of Parliament, and the machinery for dealing with them should be devised within Parliament itself.
I come to the proposals about the tribunals. Here I am in very substantial agreement with the principles enunciated in the Report. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) that the fundamental decision about the tribunals is whether they are adjudicatory or administrative. Before the Franks Committee, the Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury argued that they were administrative. I completely fail to see what basis there is for that argument. What the tribunals are doing is not just applying policy. They are applying stated rules to the facts in a particular case, and that is not a policy decision or an administrative decision in any sense but is an adjudicatory decision. I am in complete agreement with the Report and the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington South in that, as the Report puts it,
"tribunals should properly be regarded as machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of the machinery of administration."
Once that fundamental decision had been taken, it seems to me that nearly all the other recommendations of the Report follow as a matter of course. There is legal aid and advice. I hope that the Home Secretary and the Government are not excluding the possibility of giving legal aid and advice in these cases. I do

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not see on what ground of justice—the only exception might be the ground of economy—they can resist the application of the legal aid scheme to tribunals. The Report advocates it logically in accordance with its principles because it has come to the conclusion that it is an adjudicatory process. Once one has come to that conclusion, then the same reasons which would make legal aid and advice available in the courts would equally make legal aid and advice available before the tribunals.
It follows that the proceedings should be in public, that in general there should be legal representation, and that there should be absolute privilege for witnesses against the laws of defamation. I go further than the Report here. The Report says that absolute privilege should apply, at any rate, in those cases where evidence is on oath. I fail to appreciate the distinction between whether evidence is given on oath or not on oath. What is important is that there should be absolute privilege for the evidence however it is given. I do not suppose there would be much in this in practice, because if absolute privilege was given where the oath was administered and not otherwise, the oath would be generally administered.
There is also the matter of reasoned decisions being given. Of course there should be reasoned decisions. I do not agree with the limitation suggested by the Report. The Report says that the minority should not give their reason for dissenting because of the burden which it would place on the minority. This is an issue which was raised between the Government and ourselves in respect of the Restrictive Trade Practices Court, a very much more important tribunal. We proposed, on that occasion, that the minority should give reasons for dissent. Of course they should give reasons for dissent. The people before the court are entitled to know the decisions of the court, where there are differences, and what their chances would be in the event of an appeal. The reasons which apply to having a reasoned decision in the case of the majority apply equally to a reasoned decision in the case of the minority.
The Report then deals with the question of appeal. I am glad to see that the Report recommended that the appeals on fact, law and merits should go to not
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the court, as the Conservative Party pamphlet proposed, but to an appellate tribunal. This is for the very good reason that if it went to a court, the appeal would be, as the Report says, from an expert tribunal to an inexpert general appellate body. The function of the court in these cases is to deal not with facts or merits but with law.
Here I go further than the Report. The Report says that there should be appeals to the court of law in some cases. I cannot understand the limitation. The function of the courts is to administer the law, and if it is their function to administer the law it seems to me that there should be an appeal to the courts not in some cases on law, but in all cases on law.
I now come to the appointment of the chairman and members of the tribunal. I agree that as it is an adjudicatory body the chairman should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and not the Prime Minister, as the Treasury suggested. Now we come to a difference between the Report and the Government's recommendations. The Report proposes that the other members of the tribunal should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor's Council and not by the Minister. I agree with the Report. The Government proposal is that the members should be appointed by the Minister—not by the Lord Chancellor's Council—after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. That is proposed on the ground that otherwise we should not preserve proper accountability to Parliament. I simply cannot follow that reasoning.
What accountability to Parliament is involved in the appointment of the membership of the tribunals? These tribunals are applying rules to facts. The legislative and administrative functions are finished when the rules are drawn up. The application of the rules is purely a matter of adjudication, and, therefore, no question of preserving proper accountability to Parliament arises. It seems to me that the Home Secretary simply got hold of a cliché and put it in as a justification for bargaining between himself and the Departments.
The proposal of the Government is that the members should be appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. It is a most dangerous proposal.
The Attorney-General: My right hon. Friend said that the appointment of the members would be by the Minister, not after consultation with the Lord Chancellor, but after consultation with the Council on Tribunals.
Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: I am much obliged and I will continue the criticism on that basis.
Exactly the same principle applies, although I suppose that involving the Council in this would not be quite as important as involving the Lord Chancellor. There is no requirement that the Minister shall take the advice of the Council on Tribunals. The Minister can act contrary to its advice. The result would be that people would assume that the members were appointed after consultation with the Council so that the Council would give a cloak of respectability to the Minister's appointments. It would effect nothing else.
I should prefer to have it straight out, as a Minister's appointment without consultation, or, far better, the proposal of the Report, for the reasons I have given, that the members themselves should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor's Council. I completely agree with both the Report and the proposals of the Lord Privy Seal about the functions of the Lord Chancellor's Council, subject only to what I said about Parliamentary responsibility for ministerial discretion in new legislation.
I pass now from tribunals to inquiries. Here we are no longer in the realm where rules are drawn up and applied to facts. We are dealing with cases where policy is directly applied under administrative discretion. We are in an entirely different position because we have no longer a purely adjudicatory function, but a mixture, as the Report says quite clearly, of an adjudicatory function with an administrative function. I will confine myself very shortly to the two big issues about inspectors.
First, should inspectors be appointed by the Minister, or should they be independent? Secondly, should inspectors' reports be published? It is important to emphasise what is found by the Report about inspectors, because so many wild allegations have been made against the tribunal and inquiry system. The Report says:
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"…we have received…no criticism of the qualifications of inspectors or of the manner in which they conduct enquiries."
That should be recognised and accepted, but now we come to the question whether inspectors should be independent or appointed by the Minister.
The difficulty is that inspectors act in two capacities, an adjudicatory capacity and an administrative capacity. Two strong views are held on this subject. The Report says that appearance is what matters and that, therefore, inspectors should be independent. Appearance cannot be all that matters and the question is whether appearance matters most. Against that we have the view that the Minister is responsible for the decision and the inspector who acts in his place must therefore be his man.
The inspector has two functions, two functions which result in his report. First, he has to find facts, which is an adjudicatory function. Then he has to give advice to the Minister, which is an administrative function. If it were possible, the simple solution would be to separate those two functions and to say that the inspector should find the facts and that there should then be full publication of the inspector's report. That may not be a practical solution and it is on the footing that it is not a practical solution and that the two functions have to be performed by the same man and covered by the same report that I will inquire into the matter a little further.
The Report says that the inspector's report should give findings of facts, reasoning from facts, including application of policy and recommendations, that is, advice, to the Minister about his action. The first, the finding of facts, is adjudicatory. And the second and third are administrative. The Report says:
"The inclusion of recommendations is important, since the inspector hears the evidence at first hand and has an opportunity of immediately relating what he hears to the physical facts of the case, by personal inspection of the land."
The Report therefore emphasises the importance of the inspector making recommendations and including them in his report. There is not much difficulty in deciding that the inspector's report should be published and that the inspector himself should be independently appointed, if what he is concerned with

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in practice is almost entirely a question of fact, as is the position of inspectors under the Ministry of Education. Nor is there much difficulty in coming to the opposite conclusion where the whole gist of the inspector's function is almost entirely administrative and advisory and the application of policy.
The difficulty comes where we have both those functions, the adjudicatory and the administrative equally balanced. In those circumstances, the inspector must be appointed by the Minister, because the Minister is responsible for the decision and the inspector's advice and recommendation are essential parts of the ministerial process of making up the Minister's mind. He must, therefore, be responsible for appointing the inspector who acts under him in exactly the same way as anybody else within the Department. Therefore, I agree with the broad conclusion of the Lord Privy Seal that the appointment should be made by the Minister.
However, as I understand it, there is again a compromise where the Lord Privy Seal proposes that the appointment should be made only after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. Exactly the same objections apply here as I have already adumbrated in the case of members of a tribunal. The Lord Chancellor's advice need not be accepted, so that he would be saddled with the appearance of responsibility in a matter for which he might not be responsible and so we would be getting the worst of both worlds.
It would be far better to have an outright decision, contrary to my own view, that the Lord Chancellor should appoint the inspectors, rather than have this muddled cloak of respectability cast over the appointment by associating the Lord Chancellor's name with an appointment over which he has no power. I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will stick to his proposal that the inspector shall be appointed by the Minister, but will eliminate his intention that it should be after consultation with the Lord Chancellor.
Should the reports be published? Exactly the same reasoning applies to the reports as to the appointment of the inspector. With regard to findings of fact the reports should be published; there is no difficulty about that. I do not
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think that anybody, at any stage, has opposed the publication of findings of fact by an inspector. The difficulty arises when we consider whether the other part of the reports dealing with application of policy, and the recommendations, should also be published. For the reasons that I have already given, these seem to me to be part of the administrative function of making up the ministerial mind, and I should be against the publication of the application of policy and of the recommendations.
Let us consider the Minister's position. He has an inspector, whom he may or may not have appointed, making recommendations to him. If that inspector has not been appointed by him, the Minister simply has to say, "I have followed the inspector's advice and I am not responsible for the inspector." It seems to me that in that case it would go to the root of ministerial responsibility. In my view the appropriate, logical and proper course is to try to sever the fact-finding adjudicatory function of the inspector from his administrative, advisory function; to do the same with the reports; to put the inspector and that part of his report which is purely fact-finding in a position entirely independent of the Minister, and to put responsibility for that part of the inspector's function and that part of his report which deals with administration and advice entirely on the Minister, and make it quite clear that it is the Minister's exclusive responsibility.
These are difficult matters to argue out, and they will be still more difficult when they have to be applied in the case of individual inquiries and individual tribunals. But that will have to be done, and the place where it will have to be done is in this House and in Parliament. I hope that this debate will be treated merely as an indication of the views of right hon. and hon. Members as to the general approach to the whole tribunal and inquiry problem, and that when it comes to the question of applying these principles and this general approach to individual cases, every factor that affects the case in question will be carefully examined.
It is for that reason that I press the Attorney-General to state that the House will have an opportunity of dealing with the individual application of the principles which are the subject of today's debate.
6.15 p.m.
Mr. John Hobson: I also should like to express my admiration of the work of the Committee whose Report we are considering today. Its breadth and scope, the number of subjects with which it has dealt, and the precision with which it has dealt with them, are remarkable. I am not surprised, however, that the Report has not attained great popularity among the public, and is not the subject of frequent discussion by people travelling on the buses, because it is concerned with procedure. Professor Maitland has said that liberty and justice are secreted in the interstices of procedure. That does not make procedure any more interesting for the majority of the public.
We all know that we can get our liberty by habeas corpus, and we also know that habeas corpus is effective only because there is a proper procedure by which the citizen can obtain his liberties. Nobody is interested in the procedure, but everybody is interested in obtaining the liberties. It is for that reason that I agree with previous speakers that while this is a dull subject, in a sense, it is of immense importance to our citizens so that they can obtain justice and right, and not be overridden by administrators and bureaucrats representing whatever Government may be in power.
I desire today to address myself to only one aspect of the Report, namely, that part which is concerned with proceedings under the Agricultural Holdings Act, and its recommendations in relation to county agricultural executive committees. I do so for three reasons: first, because agriculture is an exceedingly important industry in this country, and I represent substantial numbers of farmers and landowners in my constituency; secondly, because my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal invited the views of Members upon this subject and, thirdly, because I have been fortunate enough to have the honour to appear on many occasions before agricultural land tribunals and in other matters concerning agricultural holdings.
I heartily agree with the recommendation of the Franks Committee that county agricultural executive committees should not in future have any judicial or quasi-judicial functions—with one exception. I think that the estate management com-
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mittees of agricultural executive committees are proper bodies for exercising the discretion of the Minister in lieu of the landlord when deciding whether approval should be given to long-term improvement on farms.
An estate management committee is composed half of landlords and half of tenants. It knows the locality; it is well qualified to judge such applications. Further, these applications are to a large extent administrative rather than judicial.
There is every reason why, nevertheless, county agricultural executive committees should not continue to discharge judicial functions. Those functions at present fall into two quite different categories. There are those which concern the good husbandry of the farm, in which either a dispossession order or a supervision order may be made or, alternatively, there are disputes between landlord and tenant concerning notices to quit and the right to continue in possession. Decisions on both these questions are unsuitable for determination by a county agricultural executive committee because, as the Franks Committee points out, it acts as detective in the first place, then as prosecutor, and subsequently as judge. Moreover, it is almost impossible for the members of such a committee, within a county, to sit in judgment on their own brethren; there are too many loyalties and personalities involved for a satisfactory decision to be reached.
I know one practising solicitor who never, in the first instance, conducts his case except at half-cock when appearing before such a committee, because he knows that it will go automatically to the agricultural land tribunal in any event. Practically all these cases finish up at the agricultural land tribunal.
If that recommendation is accepted, it presents the problem of what should be put in place of the executive committee. The Franks Committee has recommended that it should be a body presided over usually by a legally qualified chairman, with other local representation. In other words, it will be only a minor agricultural land tribunal. The present tribunal is composed of a legally qualified chairman assisted by a representative of landlords and a representative of tenants. I cannot understand what benefit could be derived from setting up a new tribunal which is, apparently, to be of a lower quality than

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the appeal tribunal, to discharge exactly the same function as the appeal tribunal, and to result in two hearings both on fact and on law, when everyone knows that the final decision will be that of the agricultural land tribunal. That seems to me merely a waste of time and of the litigant's money.
It also has this other grave disadvantage which those who have appeared in cases before agricultural land tribunals will know. The hearing before the tribunal does not take place for anything up to six to nine months after the process has begun. Therefore, the tribunal is not able to see the farm at the vital time. Much window dressing can be done and the parties are left for a long period in a state in which they do not know the eventual outcome of the litigation. I hope, therefore, that the Government will consider that all cases removed from the jurisdiction of county agricultural executive committees should be removed for hearing before the agricultural land tribunal as a tribunal of first instance, that tribunal being subject only to an appeal on points of law to the general courts of this country.
I am glad that the Franks Committee has not heard any criticism of the agricultural land tribunals. I should like to put it a little higher and to say that they are most admirable bodies. The selection of their chairmen has been excellent, and they discharge their duties in a way which has led to practically no criticism of any sort. I hope they will be a model for other tribunals in the future. They combine the advantages of judge and jury. A legally qualified chairman can direct the minds of the members of the tribunal to the issues, and these sensible experts can, under his direction, and with him, come to a proper conclusion. One other advantage is that the decision of the tribunal is binding on the Minister. I hope that this system will be a model for many other tribunals which we are discussing today.
6.23 p.m.
Mr. R. E. Prentice: A number of hon. and learned and right hon. and learned Members have taken part in this debate and, as a non-lawyer, I feel rather like an Englishman taking part in a debate on Scottish affairs; not so much like Daniel in the lion's den as a
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very timid lion cub in a den of Daniels. I wish to make a contribution to this debate based on my experience, as a trade union official, of social insurance and industrial injury appeals. It would not be improper to say that in this respect not only have the trade unions given considerable service to their members over a long period, but they have helped in the operation of the legislation with which we are concerned. They have played a real part which, I think, deserves wider recognition.
Hon. Members speaking in this debate have referred to the spread of tribunals in this country since the war as though we should approach the matter apologetically. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) said that it would be better were everything done through the courts rather than through the machinery of special tribunals. I do not think that is so. In many ways tribunals give far better service to the country than the courts could possibly do. My own experience in connection with industrial injuries is limited to the years since the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act came into force, but I have learned a great deal from my older colleagues who have had experience of dealing with matters relating to industrial injury through the courts under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts.
The tribunal system has tremendous advantages for the people concerned. It has the advantage of speed. A local tribunal can decide a case within a few weeks or, if it goes to the Commissioner, it may be decided within a few months. Were such cases taken to the courts, they would take much longer to decide.
There is also the advantage of cheapness, particularly for those people who have no trade union or other organisation behind them and who do not qualify for legal aid. People who have some doubt whether their case will succeed are deterred by the cost involved. Another great advantage is that of simplicity. People find themselves in an atmosphere in which there is little formality; legal phrases are seldom used and most people can understand what is going on. I hope that lawyers present will not think me disrespectful if I say it would be a good thing if the courts of the country did their business more quickly and more cheaply

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and with greater simplicity. In other words, I think they have something to learn from the tribunals in that respect.
I am confining my remarks to those tribunals concerned with social insurance and industrial injuries. These have not been mentioned much so far in this debate, probably for the same reason that they get but brief reference in the Report, because the system is working well and on the whole gives satisfaction. We are reminded in the Report that 50,000 or 60,000 cases every year are heard by National Insurance and industrial injury tribunals and I believe that these tribunals meet the requirements of openness, fairness and impartiality which the Report lays down.
Regarding legal representation, I feel that the correct course would be for the chairman to be allowed to decide whether legal representation should be permitted. I hope I shall not be accused of having a bias against lawyers, but in these matters there is a lot to be said for keeping the atmosphere as impartial as possible. The more these tribunals are invaded by lawyers the greater the danger of the proceedings becoming formalised and legalised. The trade unions in matters of industrial injury and the British Legion regarding war pension appeals have been able to build up a fund of specialised knowledge and they can provide representatives who can state a case as well as any lawyer. There is an argument that people who have a complicated case and belong to no suitable organisation should have the services of a lawyer and I think that the chairman of the tribunal is the best person to decide. If the matter is thrown open too wide, there is a danger that people will feel the only really satisfactory way of conducting their case is to have a lawyer; that there is a first-class and a second-class way to do it and that the first-class way is by employing a lawyer. That, I consider, would be unfortunate.
I wish to refer to paragraph 177 of the Report concerning the right of people to appeal from local appeal tribunals to the Commissioner. This applies equally to the National Insurance Act and the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. I see no objection in principle to the recommendation of the Franks Committee that there should be an automatic appeal for all claimants. If for any
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reason the Government cannot accept it, there remains a very strong case for adopting the recommendation of the Trade Union Congress that trade unions should have an automatic right of appeal in industrial injury cases. It is anomalous that the trade unions have that right under the National Insurance Act but not under the Industrial Injuries Act where their experience is even more relevant.
Within my experience, whenever my union ask for leave to appeal under the Industrial Injuries Act we are nearly always given leave because it is known that we do not put in applications that are frivolous, where an appeal is bound to fail. The process of obtaining leave leads to delay in the cases of people who are suffering from industrial accidents and disease and are anxious to know the outcome of their case.
There are two points upon which I disagree with the Report in the field that I have chosen to speak on. I support the principle contained in paragraph 105 in which the Report says:
"In the absence of special considerations we consider that the ideal appeal structure for tribunals should take the form of a general appeal from a tribunal of first instance to a second or appellate tribunal."
I would mention two types of tribunal to which the Committee have not seen fit to extend that principle. First, there are those that deal with medical questions under the Industrial Injuries Act. These are decided by a medical board with an appeal to a medical appeal tribunal. This kind of question gives rise to more complaints than do the ordinary questions that go through the machinery of insurance officer, local appeal tribunal and commissioner. One reason is that the medical appeal tribunal exercises its jurisdiction over a region, of which there are fourteen in the country. There is no national appeal tribunal.
Many of the cases that come before the medical appeal tribunal are purely medical. It has to decide, for instance, whether a man is 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. disabled, and in the majority of cases there is nothing very much to be gained from having a national appeal tribunal to adjudicate. Some of the questions, however, are legal or semi-legal. For that reason a legal chairman is appointed in addition to two medical members. In such cases there is a definite need for a body of case law to be built up by a

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national tribunal which could be followed by the regional tribunals.
I remember the case of a man who was completely blind. He lost the sight of one eye in an industrial accident and the sight of the other from natural causes. His case was considered under the "paired organs" regulations whereby if a man loses an ear or an eye or any paired organ in an industrial accident and if he has already lost or later loses the use of the other, special considerations enter into the assessment of his case.
I do not want to go into too many technicalities, but the question arose whether the man was entitled to 100 per cent. or to only 50 per cent. disablement pension. I believed and still believe that he was entitled to a pension of 100 per cent. The medical appeal tribunal decided otherwise. Rather later there was a similar case in another part of the country, where the tribunal found in favour of the claimant. That is an example of where justice might not have been done and where there is the need for a further right of appeal. Where there are legal points there should be an appeal to the Industrial Injuries Commissioner.
The other aspect I want to present concerns the National Assistance appeal machinery. The Franks Committee concluded that no further appeal was needed from the decision of a local tribunal to any kind of national tribunal or to the National Insurance Commissioner. The reason is stated in paragraph 182 of the Report, which says:
"Although in form these Tribunals hear and determine appeals against decisions of local officers…in practice their task much resembles that of an assessment or case committee, taking a further look at the facts and in some cases arriving at a fresh decision on the extent of need. For this reason and also because by their very nature questions of assistance require to be finally determined as quickly as possible, we do not think that the provision of a further appeal on merits from the Tribunals is appropriate."
That is probably true of the majority of National Assistance claims but not of all of them. According to the Report of the National Assistance Board for 1956, there were 9,789 appeals heard during the year by the tribunal. Of that number, 9,241 related to the rate of assistance but 548 other appeals were concerned with
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other matters, such as whether an applicant was refusing to maintain himself or his dependants, and with arrears of insurance benefits. In those 548 cases and probably in some of the larger number the tribunal was not merely a case committee but had to interpret what the Act intended in relation to those facts. There are 151 different National Assistance tribunals. The House has been reminded that many of them have non-legal chairmen. It is unsatisfactory that different interpretations are put upon the Act in different parts of the country, and that there should be no right of appeal.
I would cite a case which came to my attention some years ago of a man who was living on practically nothing. Most of his sickness benefit was taken up with paying his rent and it is no exaggeration to say that he was slowly starving to death. He was a very sick man. On his mantlepiece was a quantity of doctor's prescriptions which he had not been able to take to the chemist. The local National Assistance appeal tribunal decided that his wife, who was living in the house and was earning a weekly wage but was taking no steps to help to maintain him, should be considered as a member of his family. The tribunal rejected the appeal and the man had no further right of appeal. I am glad to say that by writing to the Chairman of the National Assistance Board I was able to get the case re-investigated and assistance was granted. In such cases there should be a right of appeal, which shoud be automatic.
Many of the matters I have been raising may seem minor criticisms of schemes which, on the whole, are working well, but in these matters we are dealing with the human problems of people for whom this legislation was intended and towards whom the community has a special responsibility. If there is an injustice even in one or two cases only we must take very great care to examine matters to see whether improvements can be made. I hope that the Government will consider the suggestions that I have made.
6.38 p.m.
Mr. John Morrison: I am very glad that I have caught your eye, Mr. Speaker, I do not try to catch it very often and nobody can complain that I take up a great deal of the time of the Chamber.

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I speak as one of three hon. Members who sat on the Franks Committee, the only hon. Member from this side of the House. I speak, like the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), as a layman and not as a man of law. With reference to the hon. Member's speech, I hope that I may say—and I mean this—that it showed great understanding of the personal problems of many of the people who are concerned with the ultimate results of the work of these tribunals.
Before I say anything else, I would pay a personal tribute to our Chairman, Sir Oliver Franks. A tribute has been paid to him by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Benches, but all those who served on the Committee, whether they be in this House or not, would agree that I speak for them all when I say how grateful we were to him for the conduct of our affairs in that rather long two years of committee work.
It was indeed a pleasure to work under Sir Oliver Franks. He is a man of great experience, a man of letters and of law. He was a distinguished civil servant in the war, a distinguished diplomat and ambassador, and now he is a distinguished banker. It is very difficult to find a man who has more varied experience, and the Government are to be congratulated on finding such a man to take on the chairmanship of this Committee.
I am sure that Sir Oliver Franks, if he were taking part in this debate, would like to pay tribute to one other member of the Committee, and that is Lord Justice Parker. As the senior man of law on that Committee, he acted as our unofficial second-in-command, or deputy-chairman; he did a great deal of extra work in looking into the complicated facts and many of the legal questions, and he also kept people like myself, who are not primed in the law, on a straighter and narrower path than would otherwise have been the case.
I was very glad to hear from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in his opening remarks, that the Government wholly or substantially accept the recommendations of this Report. I was also very glad to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, say that the Opposition as a whole accepted in general, with certain reservations, the whole principle of the
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Report. It will make those of us who spent a long time on the Committee feel that our labours have not been entirely in vain and have not been pigeon-holed, as has so often happened to many Reports in the past. I am glad to see in the Chamber at the moment the hon. and learned Members for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) and for Paisley (Mr. D. Johnston), who also served on the Committee.
I believe that the setting up of this Committee and the 95 recommendations that it made are of great and lasting constitutional importance to the rights and liberties of all citizens, men and women, throughout the land. Therefore, I am very glad that the recommendations have had a favourable reception from Her Majesty's Government. There were two reservations from one member of the Committee, Lord Silkin, but when one thinks of the number of members, and hears in mind their different shades of political opinion and their knowledge of different walks of life, I think that to have 95 recommendations, with only two small outstanding reservations, is a remarkable piece of unanimity and a remarkable tribute to the Chairman.
Lord Silkin was, unfortunately, seriously ill towards the end of our deliberations and was not able to participate in our final meetings, but I am very glad to say that I have since seen him in another place, fully recovered, and I am sure that all of us who sat on the Committee are glad to know that.
There is one question which I do not think has been touched upon in this debate. In a way, the Committee was exceeding its terms of reference in dealing with it at all, but I think it should be mentioned, and perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, who may be winding up the debate, will see tit to say something about it. I refer to the question of compensation in cases of compulsory purchase. We as a Committee felt unanimously that this should not go without mention, and that much of the trouble and difficulty of legal tribunals could be avoided if only the market value could be paid in the case of compulsory purchase. I ask the Government to dwell seriously on that matter.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) referred to a little book with which he was concerned, as was my hon.

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and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—"The Rule of Law." As another little book was produced on the benches opposite, I should like, without wishing to be over-political on this occasion, to say what a great help "The Rule of Law" was to all of us who sat on the Committee, particularly the lay members like myself.
The salient recommendations of the Committee seem to come under various headings: first, the setting up of the Council which is to co-ordinate and guide existing tribunals. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary say that that recommendation, in general, was accepted. He also said that the appointment of the Chairman would be a matter for the Lord Chancellor, and I believe that will give satisfaction to all of us who worked on the Committee.
I was not quite clear what my right hon. Friend said about the appointment of the members of the Council. I shall not labour that point today because I would like to give it more thought, but it may be that I shall not be quite so happy about that matter.
The general function of tribunals was accepted by the Franks Committee as working satisfactorily, with the exception of agricultural executive committees. I have heard the observations on that subject from hon. Members opposite, but I welcome very much what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said about it.
With regard to administrative inquiries, I should like particularly to welcome the fact that the inspector's reports are to be made public, although I am not quite so happy about the Home Secretary's suggestion that the inspectors themselves should be appointed by the Ministers. I hope that matter will receive further consideration. I believe it would give added comfort to the public or to anybody appearing before an inquiry if inspectors were appointed by an independent authority.
But I know that this is a difficult question and that it is easier to make these statements than to decide what actually should happen. At the same time, I hope my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will heed some of the things which have been said today, not only on the matter
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which I have just been discussing but on other matters, as well as some of the things which may be said by the civil servants who may see difficulties arising from the acceptance of some of the recommendations. We in this country are very fortunate in having a very good Civil Service, though I sometimes think that if they were promoted and paid for saving the country a bit more money, rather than spending it, it would be better still; but that is by the way.
I should like to emphasise one matter which was agreed unanimously by the Committee, and it is this:
"We wish to emphasise that, whatever our recommendations under either part of our terms of reference may be, nothing can make up for a wrong approach to administrative activity by the administration's servants. We believe that less public resentment would be aroused against administrative action if all officials were trained in the principle that the individual has the right to enjoy his property without interference from the administration, unless the interference is unmistakably justified in the public interest. For example, the attitude of an owner or occupier may well turn on whether…notice of a proposal to inspect the land"
is properly given. It is worth remembering that particular point.
I do not want to take up more of the time of the House. I am very grateful for the words of the Home Secretary and I hope that we shall find that a great many of these recommendations will shortly get on to the Statute Book.
6.51 p.m.
Mr. Julian Snow: I think that many hon. Members have been profoundly disturbed at the lack of interest with which this Report has been received by the public at large. I have no doubt that to a very great extent we have been responsible in our constituencies.
I think I should couple with ourselves the responsibility of the Press in this matter. It sounds a boring subject, but in reality the operation of these tribunals and the holding of these inquiries touches upon the lives of many of our constituents who, in my experience, tend to raise an issue rather late in the day. Bearing in mind the atmosphere in which this discussion has taken place this afternoon, I should not like to say anything which sounded unduly critical about the conduct of local inquiries, but I wonder whether we should not face the fact that

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the esteem which some inquiries have incurred has suffered slightly by the very structure of the court of inquiry itself.
I have in mind the sort of situation that arose in my constituency about three years ago, when it was proposed to build a series of pylons to carry an overhead power cable from a place called Drake-low. I was brought into the matter when a number of pylons had been constructed, quite a large number, with concrete foundations and there was entry on to land long before the inquiry had taken place. The inquiry had been publicised and everyone knew that it was to consider the route which the line should take. I am told that that is something which has happened quite a few times.
I wonder whether, possibly tonight, when the Attorney-General winds up the debate, we can be told, as a matter of interest, on how many occasions an inquiry has followed the starting of operations and building construction? The public may say, "They are just doing this as a face-saver. The work is going to be done anyhow, so why waste time?"
Speaking from this side of the House, I realise that I am rather vulnerable in raising the rôle which is played in this matter by nationalised industries, but I think that in a debate of this kind should raise the question. I do not think hon. Members can chide me with adopting an unduly uncritical attitude towards nationalised industries, which I support politically. I am concerned with Recommendation 75, to which the Lord Privy Seal addressed his remarks. I am referring to the question of evidence at inquiries.
Purely in a private capacity, I attended an inquiry about the establishment of the nuclear power station at Bradwellon-Sea, in Essex. I corresponded with Sir Anthony Eden after that inquiry, because I was so perturbed about the situation which, it seemed to me, had arisen. The acquiring authority in that case was the Central Electricity Authority and the inspector was provided by the Ministry of Power. The chief witness for the Central Electricity Authority—this is not a criticism, but a mere statement of fact—was quite incapable of answering questions which were addressed to him, by others and myself, about the need for the acquisition of that particular piece of land, as opposed to others.
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Under the rules, no evidence was provided by other Departments. The original intention of the Ministry and the Authority was to locate the power station at a place on the River Crouch, about 15 miles from Bradwell. It was decided before the inquiry that they could not put the power station there because the effluent of hot water would affect the oyster beds in the locality, the oyster beds in question belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture. In due course, it was decided to locate the power station at Bradwell-on-Sea, where there are important oyster beds owned by private individuals and companies.
At the inquiry we were not in a position to ask officials of the Ministry of Agriculture how it was that the Ministry was prepared to defend its own oyster beds, but not prepared to defend the oyster beds which were not under the Ministry's control. I ask the House to bear with me on this, because I am trying to illustrate the fact that there is a substantial reason for querying Recommendation 75.
When I asked the Central Electricity Authority's chief witness what steps had been taken to find in the area land which might be superfluous to Government Department requirements, a very distinguished "silk" appearing for the Authority asked, "How on earth can this witness know that?" I rather agreed. Perhaps I may add, in parenthesis, that the Central Electricity Authority was supported on that occasion by no fewer than 43 officials to provide evidence during the conduct of the inquiry.
I raised the point that it might well be the case that the War Department owned land in the area of a suitable nature adjacent to the sea, which could be used for cooling purposes and that land might have done just as well as the land in question. In the light of weapon development, such land might not be needed by the War Department much longer, if now. Of course, an answer was not forthcoming. It was on that point that I wrote to Sir Anthony Eden and in due course I had —not from him but from the War Office —a most unconvincing reply, which made it quite clear to me that the Department had never been consulted.
If I may hark back to the Crichel Down affair, hon. Members may not know that one of the more unfortunate results of that

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affair was the abolition of a committee which had been established, I think, in 1948 under the rather ponderous title of. "The Inter-departmental Committee of Property Owning Departments"—a bad title for a very good committee whose chief function was to correlate the requirements of various Service Departments and to define those areas of land which were not needed any more and pass them on to other Departments which might need them. I understand that no such correlating committee exists now. Had it existed, I believe that some justification could have been produced at the Bradwell inquiry. There was, to my knowledge, at least one site in the vicinity of Bradwell which should have been considered, and which today is in an area which need not be used by the War Department. It is adjacent to the sea, and should have been considered.
My plea, therefore, is that the Government should reconsider Recommendation 75, the first sentence of which reads as follows:
"Officials of the Department of the deciding Minister should be required to give evidence if the enquiry is into a proposal initiated by that Minister, but not otherwise."
Where does a nationalised industry come in? Could we have an explanation of that, because, whatever may be the constitutional set-up, most people will assume that a nationalised industry is an agency of a Ministry. Therefore, in the case which I have been quoting, this agency was not in the same position as an acquiring authority—the sort of authority which is referred to in Recommendation 71, where the intention is presumably to refer to authorities acquiring land for building development, and so forth.
Having made these criticisms and having particularised about one nationalised industry—the Central Electricity Authority—which, because of its nature, must lay itself open to this sort of thing and which has a function to fulfil which we do not want to disturb, I should be grateful if the Government would have another look at this particular recommendation.
7.2 p.m.
Sir James Duncan: The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tam-worth (Mr. Snow) has drawn attention to a matter which is not dealt with in the Report. He referred to the attitude
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which should be adopted in these matters by the Government in relation to the nationalised industries. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing that point to our attention. I hope the Government will watch that point when eventually they introduce legislation in the next Session.
I wish to congratulate the Franks Committee on this magnificent Report, with its 95 recommendations. What has not been emphasised so far is the unanimity with which the Committee has submitted its recommendations. It is true that there were certain reservations by Lord Silkin on two points, but the bulk of the 95 recommendations were unanimous. When one remembers that on one side of the Committee there was my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison) and on the other side the hon. and learned Member for Paisley (Mr. D. Johnston), it seems to me a matter of some importance that this body, studying these questions for two years, should have been able to get together and produce something which we can all welcome and which has been unanimously agreed.
I like the views which the Committee took about the general principles that there should be openness, fairness and impartiality between the Government authorities and agents and the citizen. This attempt after all these years to redress the balance between the citizen and authority will, I am sure, be very fruitful if the Government, as they have said they will today, take the action that is required on the various sections of the Report.
I want to see the Minister dissociated from adjudicating functions altogether. I recognise, as does the second part of the Report, that the Minister, after making certain inquiries, has to make the decision; but as far as possible we want to dissociate the Minister from the adjudicating function. I refer particularly to the county agricultural executive committees, because I think this matter is important. This is a typical example of the way in which the Minister ought to be dissociated from adjudication either through himself or through his agents, which are the executive committees.
It seems to me that the principles laid down in the Franks Report are quite right, but I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick

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and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) in urging the Government to think again about implementing them. My hon. Friend said that the agricultural executive committees' adjudicating powers should be removed, and I think all, or most of us, are agreed about that; but the Franks Report rather seems to recommend that there should be a lower tier type of agricultural land tribunal, with a right of appeal to the agricultural land tribunal itself, with a further right of appeal, on points of law, presumably, to the courts.
My hon. Friend made the suggestion that there should not be a lower and a higher tier, but only one. I am now talking only about England and Wales. I think I am right in saying that in England and Wales at present there are eight agricultural lands tribunals. It may be necessary to extend them, but to have one tier of agricultural land tribunal alone should be sufficient.
I think the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) made the same point that there should be only one tier of tribunals to which these cases could go, in replacement of the adjudicating function of the agricultural executive committee, with an appeal from this tribunal to a higher court of law. It seems to me that that suggestion would be a very much better way of dealing with the matter than to have a series of tribunals eventually arriving on points of law at the Court of Appeal.
Speaking now as a Scottish Member, I suggest that a Scottish point arises here. I understand that we are to get rid of the adjudicating function of the agricultural executive committees in Scotland also, and that new tribunals will be set up. I agree with that and I think it is right, but in these cases the right of appeal lies to the Scottish Lands Court. I am not certain—and here I am thinking aloud—that in that case, with a fairly large extension of the work of the Scottish Lands Court, it is manned sufficiently strongly at the moment to carry that additional load.
The Scottish Lands Court, I think, consists of one legal chairman and four or five lay members. If it is to have a great deal more to do, it seems to me that the legal side of the Court will have to be strengthened. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Paisley does not think that I am referring to personalities.
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I am not; I am talking purely of the theory.
I should like the Scottish Office, when bringing in new legislation, either separately or as part of a United Kingdom Bill to deal with this point, to bear in mind that the extra load on the Scottish Lands Court may mean more than it should carry. It has to do all or a great deal of the work in the Highlands area, and it devolves some of this work on the purely lay members under the present system. Now, we are to give the Court more work to do, and I think it should be strengthened, particularly on its legal side.
I have promised to be brief. I welcome paragraphs 71 to 76. This procedure will be a great advantage to farmers and landowners; the new procedure should be laid down quite clearly so that the man who is faced with the possible acquisition of his land knows the case which he has to meet, has an opportunity of leading evidence and is given a fair hearing.
I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury that much of this trouble in the past has arisen from the fact that market value has not been given in compensation, and I hope that the Government will reconsider their decision not to take that step. Even if they do not, the Report will make much difference to these cases where land is being taken for local authority or national purposes, always against the wishes of the owner. He does not want to be disturbed; he wants to be left in peace. I submit that at any rate he is entitled to a fair hearing, and up to now it has been quite clear that he has not always had it.
I wish my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had gone as far as that in respect of the Services, because recommendation 87 is quite clear on the point. It seems to me that it ought to be workable. It reads:
"Save in time of emergency or threat of emergency or in special security cases the Service Departments should be required to adopt the same procedure for acquiring land as other Departments."
My right hon. Friend did not go as far as that. I hope he will reconsider this matter and go as far as that. I agree that in certain cases there are special considerations, but the Service Departments are just as had at grabbing land as anybody else and I think that in peace-time they ought to be put in the straitjacket in the same way as any other person.
7.12 p.m.
Mr. William Wells: I think that the reasons the Home Secretary gave for exempting the Service Departments from the full rigour, so to speak, of the Franks Committee's recommendations were adequate, and I think that the hon. and gallant Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), as a Scots Member, will understand why I, a mere Englishman, have not the temerity to follow him in his criticism of the Scottish Land Court.
I was left in some doubt when the hon. Member was dealing with the agricultural courts in England and Wales. It seemed to me that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Learning-ton (Mr. John Hobson) had made a rather self-destroying argument. He said that he agreed that the adjudicating functions should be taken away from the county executive committees, and I think he was quite right when he expressed that; the Franks Committee refers rather to taking away adjudicating functions from those committees than to constituting a new court of appeal. The hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington then went on to criticise the long delay which ensued before it was possible to take a case to the agricultural land tribunal, and said how stale the cases were when they went to appeal.
Sir J. Duncan: Have more of them.
Mr. Wells: If we have more of them we must to some extent reduce the quality. Surely, given the need for an expert appeals tribunal, which is in line with the whole of the recommendations of the Franks Committee, it is better to do as the Committee suggests and have a national tribunal dealing with matters of appeal and have local tribunals, the members of which are able to go and see the land at the time the complaint is made and deal with the matter while it is fresh, to sit as the court of first instance. I do not propose to pursue the agricultural argument any further.
It would be presumptuous of me to say any more than has already been said in praise of the Franks Committee and its work, but there is one matter in relation to the Report which is a little saddening. I and the hon. Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) have been engaged for a considerable time on another report for
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which the Home Secretary is responsible, which concerns the question of homosexual offences and prostitution. The Franks Report describes very clearly the impact of the subject matter with which it deals on the population of this country. Paragraph 18 of the Franks Report reads:
"The general impact of decisions by tribunals and Ministers on the public today is illustrated by the fact that Rent Tribunals have in some recent years dealt with as many as 15,000 cases and that the annual number of planning appeals is about 6,000. Although the number of cases heard by National Insurance and Industrial Injuries Local Tribunals (50,000 to 60,000 annually) is smaller than the number of unemployment insurance cases heard in the years just before the war, the scheme is now on a wider basis and potentially affects nearly everyone."
Following the publication of the Wolfenden Report, the members of the Wolfenden Committee, including myself, received invitations to appear on television and were pursued with inquiries from the Press. Sir John Wolfenden has been asked to address a meeting at Cambridge. I addressed a meeting at Oxford last week-end, and I have been invited to attend a debate in Liverpool University at the end of November and to address an Institute of Insurers in December on the subject matter of the Report.
The News Chronicle published a Gallup Poll only a few days after the publication of the Report, and an astonishingly high proportion of the people who were interviewed knew, broadly speaking, what is the subject matter of the Wolfenden Report. Sir John Wolfenden himself, as he well deserves to be, though not for the same reason, is almost as well known to the British public as Mr. Elvis Presley.
The sad thing about all this is that when we deal with the Wolfenden Report in the House, as we shall before long, our discussions will be conducted before an educated and instructed democracy; whereas this evening I feel very sad to say that we are not conducting our discussions on this even more important matter, affecting much more intimately much wider strata of the population than the Wolfenden Report, before an educated democracy. I hazard a guess that the most cursory references to this debate will be made over the B.B.C., that probably no other broadcast commentary will be made at all, and that the report of today's debate in tomorrow's newspapers will be of a very limited character.

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That is not the fault of the Government, it is not the fault of Parliament, and although I have one or two criticisms of what the Government are doing in this matter, I think that, in the essentials, they have done what they ought to have done.
The Government have stated quite frankly and freely that they accept the principles of this Report. I would like them to be able to go further and give themselves a time limit in which to bring in a programme definitely introducing those changes which they intend to make; but, at any rate, so far so good.
I think that the Government are exposed to the much more serious criticism—voiced from this side of the House by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), amongst others, and from the other side by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald)—that the terms of reference on which the Franks Committee operated precluded it from considering the wider question of the relationship of the administration to the citizen, with which such public interest as there has been in the Franks Committee is really concerned. In this debate we have not been able much to discuss, because we have no material from the Report on which to discuss it properly—because of the Committee's terms of reference—the exercise of Ministerial discretion.
Hon. Members may have read articles by Professor Mitrany in the Manchester Guardian, published shortly after the publication of the Report, in which the Professor referred to the methods adopted in Sweden to ensure that the Administration acts fairly and properly in relation to matters affecting individuals. He pointed out that in that country a very high-level official—the High Commissioner for Justice—has a roving commission, with his staff, through the transactions of every department in the State. Were an innovation of that kind applicable at all in this country—and whether it would be suitable or compatible with our ideas of Parliamentary control—is a matter of question, and a question, unfortunately, that we cannot discuss now because the terms of reference of the Committee precluded it. Looking at the subject as a whole, we
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are, as one hon. Member has said, really at the beginning of the inquiry and not at the end of it.
There are one or two matters of relative detail on which I should like to comment and about which I should like to ask one or two questions. I do not disagree very much with the recommendations that the Government have adopted, adapted and modified in relation to inspectors and their reports. I think that there is quite a lot to be said for making an exception of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and letting the inspectors in that Department remain to be appointed by the Minister.
More important than the formal recommendations in this sphere is that the inspectors themselves—of whom, in general, no criticism is, I think, to be made—should enjoy a higher status in their Department—whichever Department it is. It may be that they will not achieve that position whilst they are within the Department, but one of the sad facts that the Committee brought out, not at all incomprehensible, is that the Administration at so many levels does not understand the nature of a judicial inquiry and, in consequence, that many of the complaints that have given rise to the' setting up of the Committee have ensued simply from the fact that the Executive and its devoted servants have not given sufficient weight to the claims of the individual.
There are two points in particular about which I should like to ask questions. First, I did not hear the Home Secretary, when dealing with the recommendations that he had accepted, deal with No. 91, namely, that there should be an appeal from the Minister on a question of law on what constitutes "development." That is, indeed, a startling innovation, because to have an appeal on a matter of law from the Minister himself, although I think probably perfectly proper, seems to me to be such a novelty as to deserve specific mention as to whether or not it is being adopted.
Another thing that I think is more important than may appear is what the Government intend in relation to those who are to be clerks to tribunals. The Committee heard considerable evidence and argument as to whether the clerks of tribunals should be appointed ad hoc or whether there should be a corps of clerks. In the end, the Committee came

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to the conclusion that, on the whole, it was better not to have a corps of clerks but to have clerks appointed ad hoc. It seems to me that, prima facie, the clerks, if they were an organised body or corps, could serve a most useful function in acting as a link between the tribunals and the Council which the Lord Chancellor will appoint.
The ground on which objections was taken to a corps of clerks seemed to be singularly thin. It was said, in effect, that there would not be sufficient prospect of promotion to attract the right sort of clerk. I should have thought that was not a very strong argument at all; that, in the first place, if it were true that there would not be much prospect of promotion, the device of seconding clerks from Government Departments could be adopted. I should have thought that it would have been a most valuable experience for an administrative official to have spent a certain amount of time as clerk to a tribunal. But I would very much question whether, given the hierarchy of tribunals which we are to have, there will not, in fact, be perfectly adequate prospects of promotion for a good clerk.
I apologise for the time I have taken. It has emerged from the debate that a very large measure of support exists in this House for the recommendations of the Committee. I merely express the hope that, in some way, the interest which we in this House feel may spread to the country and that the country will take the measure of a problem which so deeply concerns every person who may ever be entitled to any kind of National Insurance benefit.
7.30 p.m.
Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I am particularly happy to follow the hon. and learned Member for Walsall, North (Mr. W. Wells), because he began by taking a point which I took when speaking on this subject at my own party conference, in Brighton. I only hope that he enjoys a little more reporting tomorrow morning than I or any of my friends did on that occasion. Perhaps I might just say that the Labour Party, at its conference in Brighton, did not discuss this subject. It was given high priority by the Conservative Party, being the subject of the first motion for Friday
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afternoon, discussion to be opened by the Home Secretary.
Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he is a little out of date? We are so much ahead of the party opposite that we discussed the matter a year ago.
Mr. Rees-Davies: I appreciate that a year ago the Labour Party discussed a matter which Professor Robson, that eminent Socialist lawyer, described as having very little relevance to the circumstances of the case. If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman and his friends did not discuss the Report of the Franks Committee, which was published only in July of this year, and, therefore, could hardly have been discussed twelve months ago by the Labour Party.
As a result of this subject having high priority, one would have thought that some of the leading newspapers of the country might have paid a little attention to the subject matter of the debate which took place, at least, at the Tory conference. Nevertheless, despite the fact that some newspapers devote much space—the Sunday Express, in particular, devoting one whole column to it every Sunday, to the very important question of the liberty of the subject, very properly, if I may say so, and producing a great many examples of administrative injustice which take place—not one single word devoted to the basic arguments which lie behind this subject was to be found in the main national newspapers of the day.
Today, as one would expect, there is a first-class leader on the subject in The Times. Not one word do we find in the popular Press, for, unfortunately, unlike the sexual pleasures which form the subject of the Wolfenden Report, the subject we are debating has no "human story" in it which is really worth selling to the public in these days of competitive television and B.B.C. broadcasting. What is worse is that there has, as yet, been no opportunity on any television or radio broadcasting system to give due attention to what is really the most important of subjects, namely, the liberty of the individual and his position as citizen vis-à-vis the State. There has, as yet, been hardly anybody inside or outside the House who has really criticised and censured the

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Press, as I feel we should do, for the attitude it has adopted in this matter.
Let us consider what is the basic point lying behind the whole question. All government today is ruled by committee, by inquiry and by tribunal. There was an extremely able article, which some may have read, by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), in the Daily Telegraph about a month ago, in which he drew attention to the proliferation of trade unions, trade associations, committees, councils, conferences and all the other paraphernalia of the modern State. Indeed, one can nowadays hardly express a personal view unless one is Sir John Wolfenden or Sir Oliver Franks, having one's committee behind one and the whole chariot of the modern State in one's support, or one is Mr. Cousins with 5 million votes to be put on the table. The individual is no one otherwise.
Fundamentally, the country does not like this situation very much. People are becoming a little "fed up" with the absence of individual rights. What they want to see is somebody who can determine a method by which there shall be a proper balance between the rights of the individual and the power of the State. The astonishing feature is that the man who expressed this best was none other than the very well-known Labour leader, Professor Harold Laski. In the Conservative Party's book to which reference has been made, The Rule of Law—I think the author of this particular paragraph was my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—it is said:
"We see no logical reason for limiting the rules of natural justice to those cases where a dispute is already in existence before the decision is arrived at. We are fortified in this view by the opinion of the late Professor H. J. Laski, a constitutionalist by no means jealous of executive powers and himself a member of the Donoughmore Committee, who said:
Executive discretion is an impossible rule unless it is conceived in terms of judicial standards.'
We would not ourselves care to state the principle more narrowly."
I am happy to say that a number of us took that view. It is a view which lies at the heart of things, and I should like to repeat it. Professor Laski said that
"Executive discretion is an impossible rule unless it is conceived in terms of judicial standards."
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I believe that that meets the fundamental difficulty, for at the basis of all administration there must be some known set of principles based upon these judicial standards, whether they are decisions between citizen and State or proceedings within inquiries or tribunals.
The Franks Report, together with the Donoughmore Report, is, I believe, by far the most important document to appear in recent times in this country, and it is the more remarkable because it is all-party, layman as well as lawyer, civil servant as well as lawyer, the Committee being unanimous in its view. The really great importance of it is that it is laying down the future basis of our administration, although its particular terms of reference were limited.
The Committee itself stated the basis, namely, that two fundamental notions lie at the root of the problem. First, what is judicial, the antithesis of that being what is administrative. Secondly, what is according to the rule of law, the antithesis being what is arbitrary.
The rule of law upholds the view that decisions must be made in accordance with a known set of principles which are predictable. An arbitrary decision is one which is made without principle, without rules, and unpredictable. The Civil Service view, in substance, as put before the Franks Committee, was that, in the main, these tribunals and inquiries are purely administrative and not in any sense judicial.
That approach was rejected by the Franks Committee, which expressed the belief that Parliament intended decisions to be predictable, in accordance with a set of rules, and that, in any event, such decisions are an adjudication. As was said rightly by The Times this morning, it is for this House to say quite firmly whether the process is an adjudication or not I have no doubt that the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) was quite right on the point. It is an adjudication, not just an administrative process, when one sets up an inquiry or tribunal.
There is, however, a much more important question which, so far, has not been touched on today, largely because it is not really within the four corners of this Report. It is what we are going on to do. The next stage in this battle is this. The standard which one lays down where

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there is a decision to be adjudicated will be no less a standard than the standard which we will expect from the Administration where there is no inquiry and no tribunal. It is quite simple.
It comes down to this. There must be laid down a known set of principles of the rules of natural justice. Certain of those rules are applicable only where there is an inquiry or where there is a decision to be made. There are, however, three rules which can be applied to every decision taken between a citizen and the State, whether there is an inquiry or not.
Those three rules are, briefly, as follow. Where any decision has to be taken in which the rights of the citizen are affected by the decision of the State, it is the duty of the State, first, to consult with the citizen; secondly, to give an opportunity for a fair presentation of the facts; and, thirdly, to state openly the reasons for that decision if required to do so. The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) would have none of that. His speech—I know that he did not intend it—was pure dictatorship.
In the case of Crichel Down, or when any other decision has to be taken, when a person goes to the local office to inquire whether he can put up a garage, or whether there is to be compensation for the take-over of his land, irrespective of whether there is an inquiry, there is no reason why there should not be consultation. He must have an opportunity to talk it over. There is no reason why he and, indeed, the individual who happens to be the civil servant should not be able to express their views openly and accurately. That is what was wrong with the case of Crichel Down. There is no reason why the decision should not be given openly and publicly in any event.
What I am saying is that it seems to me that the newspapers—and the Press is important in this matter—have failed the public and that the whole of the country outside is not willing to grasp what is the purport of the discussion here today: that we are seeking, through the assistance of the Government and of this remarkably fine Report, to create something which is really worth while for the country. No doubt the hon. and learned Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Wells) was entitled to something otherwise when he was sitting on the Wolfenden Committee, but
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he would be the first to agree that matters like that are of really small importance compared with the liberty of the individual and the subject.
My interest in this matter dates from a particular moment. In 1948, I had the privilege to be concerned with the new towns cases at Stevenage and Crawley. It was in the course of those cases that none other than the right hon. and learned Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross) came out with a remark which shocked me profoundly, when he said that it was simply an opportunity for the objectors to raise objections and nothing else.
The right hon. and learned Member was, however, quite right. He was perfectly justified in saying that in accordance with the law. One would expect him to be right, and he was. It was, to my mind, the appalling obliteration of the standards of the rules of natural justice at that time that started me off on this course, and it was in 1951 that Mr. Ashe Lincoln and myself and a committee first sat to consider the question of administrative tribunals and to offer the first report to the Conservative Party. It was following that that my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary led his team, in turn with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), into the pamphlet "The Rule of Law", and it was that part of the Conservative Party's programme, in its 1955 Election manifesto, which led to the setting up of the Franks Committee.
What is so nice to think is that it is that Committee, wholly independent in its views and having seen the whole picture, who realised that here was a subject which really can cut across party philosophy; for although in the background this is true party philosophy of the Conservative Party, none the less it is my belief that the great majority of the Labour Party can join in and say, "Here is something in which we equally and sincerely can believe" and that any question of whether one gives the lead or not will not be important fifty years from now.
If only one can make the country forget sex and fights over whether the Archbishop is right or wrong over religion, if people can be made to wake

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up and realise that this busines is something which affects the lives of the people deeply, and if the Press can get a little more responsibility into it and report matters which are news instead of gossip, this debate and the future may be worth something to our country.
7.47 p.m.
Mr. David Weitzman: The hon. Member for the Isle of Tranet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said something about the Labour Party joining in. I believe that what we are discussing today is a fundamental part of true Labour policy. There is, therefore, no question whatever of Labour joining in.
The unfortunate part of a debate of this kind is that the same views are expressed again and again, and one cannot help that happening. I should have been reluctant to join in at this late hour were it not for the fact that the Home Secretary asked us to try to proffer our own views on this matter. Therefore, although there may be repetition, particularly in view of the fact—this criticism is very justified—that the Press has given so little publicity to what is so very important and grave a matter, it is important that we should express our views upon it as strongly as we can.
We have had an excellent Report on a most important subject. The administration of justice in this country is second to none. It is built up on the recognition of the fact that justice is not only done but is seen to be done. I know that there has been a good deal of criticism of lawyers and courts, a good deal of it coming from this side of the House. I would have taken the view that, wherever it is possible, administration by the courts was the best possible system. Quite obviously, however, the work of tribunals could not be vested in the ordinary courts of judicature. From the practical point of view, it would throw such a burden of work upon the courts that they could not be carried on; and it is, of course, true that there are amongst many tribunals important characteristics which are not found in the courts: cheapness, informality, expert knowledge on particular subjects and matters of that kind. That view was very well expressed, as referred to in paragraph 39 of the Report, in the opinion of the Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor.
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With the growing activity of Governments and their responsibility in many fields—something that was unthought of in former years—the tendency is clearly for these tribunals to increase. They will, of course, continue to increase. It is therefore very important that three cardinal principles have been laid down with regard to them. I refer of course, to the principles that have been expressed—openness, fairness and impartiality—and I accept the fact that the application of these principles is an excellent basis on which to view the constitution of these tribunals and make recommendations as to their future.
It is obviously advisable, so far as possible, that there should be uniformity in order to achieve these three objectives, and, therefore, I join in pressing the recommendation for standing councils on tribunals. I think that recommendation is a very good one. I do not mind the Home Secretary having said that instead of having two he is going to have only one, so long as we have the idea accepted. Such a council, I gather, would keep the constitution and working of tribunals under continuous review. It would advise with regard to the appointment of new tribunals, it would formulate procedure on the lines of the Franks Report, and, I gather, although this is not accepted, the recommendation is that it would appoint members of the tribunals. I still feel that the Government ought to reconsider that matter and that the appointment of members ought to be made as recommended by the Franks Committee.
Again, in accordance with these principles, these requisites of openness, fairness and impartiality, as has already been pointed out, it is important that every citizen should know his rights. He should know the case that he has to meet. For example, as proposed in the Report, the acquiring or planning authority should, in my view, provide a written statement with full particulars, and, if possible—I do not think this has been referred to—as suggested in the Report, a statement of policy applicable to the case. It is of great importance that the case should be proved by the evidence of witnesses.
I am attracted by the recommendation that the hearing should be in public unless there is some very grave reason for holding it in private. I apprehend that reasons for holding it in private might well be those set out in the Report,

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the discussion of intimate relations, financial matters, or where one's professional conduct is involved. I would repeat the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) with regard to National Health Service tribunals and the appeal from them.
I would, quite shortly, point out that if one looks at paragraph 203, which is the paragraph in the Report dealing with the question of appeals from National Health Service tribunals, and one contrasts that with paragraph 207, there does appear to be some contradiction, and I should like to have it made clear whether the suggestion is that the appeal to be held in public is an appeal limited to a case where the punishment is the removal of the medical practitioner from the list. If it is anything else, I think that it would be a bad thing to hold it in public. In a case, however, involving removal from the Medical List, it might well be held in public.
I have noted the reservations made in the Report by Lord Silkin. Frankly, I do not agree with those reservations. I think myself, although the Government do not adopt this idea, that inspectors ought to be under the control of the Lord Chancellor, as indicated in the Report. Apparently, some compromise is being put forward. It is suggested that they be appointed by the Minister after consulting the Lord Chancellor. As has been pointed out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), that really means nothing. Obviously, that consultation could, in practice, mean nothing.
On the other hand, as the Report says in paragraph 303, it is the appearance which counts in this case. It is exceedingly important that the atmosphere of impartiality should be as pronounced as possible. If we get inspectors appointed by the Lord Chancellor, then we do, at any rate, get the appearance of the atmosphere of impartiality, the public presented with the fact that the inspector who is dealing with the case is not attached to the very Department which has the matter in hand. After all, from a practical point of view, is there any reason why this should not be done? The inspector could be in touch with the appropriate Department and obtain any information with
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regard to the matter. I hope that the Government will look at it again.
Turning to the other reservation made by Lord Silkin with which I do not agree, and where I agree strongly with the recommendation of the Committee, the matter is far more important. I think that it is a very valuable suggestion indeed that the inspector's report should be communicated to the parties by the Minister together with his decision, and that such reports should contain a summary of the evidence, the finding of the facts and the reasoning from those facts. I appreciate the criticism made on this matter by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East. I listened with interest to the attempt he made to show that there was a division between the judicial capacity and the administrative capacity of the inquiry in respect of the functions of the inspector. Frankly, I cannot see why there is a difference.
I should have thought that, if an inspector is appointed to preside over an inquiry and make his report, he listens to the evidence, makes up his mind as to the facts, reports upon those facts, draws his inference from them and makes recommendations. I should have thought that that was a wholly judicial procedure, and I cannot for the life of me see why one should describe such procedure as partly judicial and partly administrative.
I can see no reason why there should be this criticism and an attempt to say, "Keep these inspectors' reports confidential." It is of the greatest importance that the parties to the case should know what the inspector has found. One remembers in connection with this the further recommendation that is made in the Report that the parties should have an opportunity of dealing with factual evidence, particularly that of experts which is obtained after the inquiry. Perhaps the most important matter in this connection is with regard to the decision of the Minister. I am glad to see that the Government have decided to accept the recommendation that, in giving that decision, the Minister shall give his reasons. It is clearly frustrating to a party to engage in the whole of the paraphernalia and machinery, call his witnesses and put forward his views and then have the matter decided against him

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for some reason of which he has not the faintest idea. I therefore welcome the acceptance by the Government of this recommendation as a great advance in this matter.
I want to say a word about what I consider to be one of the most important points in the Report. Recommendation 16 deals with legal aid. I mention this particularly because I was most disappointed to hear the decision communicated by the Home Secretary that the Government had no intention of implementing it. The recommendation says:
"The official scheme of legal aid should be extended at once to tribunals which are formal and expensive and to final appellate tribunals. Any extension of the scheme to cover a wider range of proceedings in courts should be accompanied by an extension to other tribunals."
Paragraph 89 is the relevant paragraph. It puts the recommendation in respect of legal aid in the strongest possible terms. It says:
"We have already drawn attention to the connection between legal representation and legal aid. The importance of access to the courts has been recognised by the enactment of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, and arrangements for the provision of legal aid have recently been extended to the County Courts. This in itself provides a strong argument for extending legal aid to tribunals, particularly since some tribunals have a status equal to that of the County Courts and involve greater legal costs."
It represents a very great hardship to parties that the Government should announce their decision, which means that the benefit of the legal aid scheme is given to litigants in the high court and the county court, but is not to be given to parties engaged in an inquiry before a tribunal.
Before I leave the subject, I should like the Attorney-General to look at paragraph 70, on the basis of which I have a very real complaint. I have on a number of occasions in the House raised the subject of advice under the Legal Aid and Advice Act. The implementation of the Section dealing with advice is long overdue. I draw attention to the important words in paragraph 70:
"The provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, relating to legal advice, as distinct from legal aid, have not vet been brought into effect. On balance we do not feel able to recommend that an official scheme of legal advice should be introduced for tribunals only, that is to say piecemeal, but there is evidence that the absence of such a scheme causes difficulty and hardship in some cases
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and we draw attention to the desirability of its general introduction at the earliest possible date."
I know that recently there has been criticism—I believe there was some today in one of the evening papers—in relation to the legal aid system. I have no doubt that considerable criticism can be expressed upon individual cases and of money being ill-spent, but there is not the slightest doubt that the legal aid scheme has conferred tremendous benefits on the country and is of very great assistance in thousands of cases. I suggest that if legal advice could be made available to possible litigants a great deal of money might be saved.
I hope the Government will look at the matter again, first from the point of view of providing legal aid for parties appearing before the tribunals, and secondly, and still more important, from the point of view of introducing some legal advice scheme as provided for under the Act. I regard that matter as one of the most important among the questions that we are discussing today.
The Report is a well-thought-out document with many valuable sugeestions. It reflects very great credit on the Committee. No doubt there is room for detailed criticism on a number of points, but I hope that, broadly speaking, the recommendations will be implemented in the near future. I am very glad to hear the views expressed by the Government, and I hope there will be no delay in making them effective.
8.5 p.m.
Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: It is not often that I have the opportunity of following the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) and finding myself in such complete accord with a good deal of what he has said.
We have today had a friendly debate on the subject of 95 recommendations put forward by a very able Committee. I want for a moment to deal with two matters referred to by two hon. Members which are really outside the Report, but are mentioned at the and of it.
The first is mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald), the importance of compensation in matters of the acquisition of land. It does not matter how much we discuss the ways in which

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we can improve the machinery for acquiring land if at the end we find that the person whose land has gone is dissatisfied with the basis on which his compensation is calculated.
The other matter is the importance of officials being trained in the principle that the individual has the right to enjoy his property without interference. I am sure that if the original approach is made in a courteous and helpful manner, and if the sort of thing referred to by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tam-worth (Mr. Snow) is not repeated, there would be much more possibility of these tribunals not being required and of a settlement being reached by discussion and mutual agreement.
I have had correspondence with a number of people in my constituency who are interested in business, and it seems to me that the following points emerging from the Report are the ones about which they feel most strongly. The first is that inspectors dealing with cases should be put under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor. The second is that a local planning authority should be required to make a full statement of its case before the appeal is heard. Many of us have had the difficulty of going into court and having to resist a case when we have not known exactly what were the facts against us. The third is that the inspector's report should be published.
I think it proper for me to mention that before being elected to this House I sat as chairman of an agricultural land tribunal. Some of the other things that I want to say relate to experience acquired in that capacity. When I looked at the paragraphs about agricultural land tribunals in the Report, I was naturally pleased to see that there was not very much about them and what there was was reasonably complimentary.
I noticed with considerable enthusiasm the proposals that there should be a Council on Tribunals. I wish to mention three things which will in due course be considered by the Council. First, it has been said that there will be a code of procedure. A number of hon. Members have made suggestions about what should be included in the code. The most important suggestion is that at the beginning of a case a statement of the case should
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be made by the Ministry or the local authority in such a form that those on the other side know exactly what it is and what they have to meet.
I wondered whether it might be worth suggesting to the Council on tribunals that there should be something in the code about evidence being taken before tribunals. Anyone who has appeared before a tribunal which has a lay chairman and who has had a layman appearing against him will know of the difficulty which arises when the principles of evidence are not fully appreciated. I know that it is not possible to work that out in great detail, but I should have thought that a code of procedure could usefully have had a short paragraph explaining some of the major principles on which evidence ought to be accepted or rejected. It would be of considerable assistance in arriving at a reasonable conclusion.
Clerks are mentioned in paragraph 61 which says that the clerk's duty
"should be confined to secretarial work, the taking of such notes of evidence as may be required and the tendering of advice, when requested, on points connected with the tribunal's functions."
The order setting out the rules of procedure on which any tribunal is based is a fairly lengthy document and provides plenty of scope for legal argument and legal talent. A lay secretary trying to administer that order, possibly when attacked by a solicitor who is very active on his client's behalf, is put in some difficulty and in that respect something is missing from the arrangements envisaged for the tribunal. I am not able to suggest an answer, but it may be possible to have a senior clerk on the staff of the Council on Tribunals to act as a sort of master in chambers for clerks to consult on points of procedure rather more difficult than those with which they, as laymen, would be able to deal.
Another point about procedure is the suggestion in paragraph 74 that inspection should take place only in the presence of both or all parties. I know that it is essential to have both parties present during the hearing, but I am unable to follow why it is necessary to have both parties present during an inspection. It is difficult for me to see how a tribunal, perhaps consisting of three people, trying to inspect some land could be assisted in its deliberations by

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having two sets of parties, and their legal advisers, wandering around and buttonholing members of the tribunal and asking them to look at this or that. I should have thought that it would not be necessary to say that they should all be present on all occasions. There may surely be occasions when it might be beneficial not to have them present.
I want to refer for a moment to agricultural executive committees. I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Walsall, North (Mr. W. Wells) has left the Chamber. He was complaining that the case put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) had destroyed itself because the suggestion that the judicial functions now carried out by the executive committees should be removed and given to the agricultural land tribunal would only lead to further delay. The hon. Member seemed to think that handing those functions over to the agricultural land tribunal would mean that things would get even worse.
The difficulty about the delay with the agricultural land tribunal is not the amount of work which is piling up, but the time it takes to get through the executive committee and other stages before the matter comes before the tribunal in accordance with the proper procedure. That criticism of my hon. and learned Friend's case did not seem to be valid.
The criticisms of agricultural executive committees set out in paragraph 147 of the Report seem to be based largely on a belief that the major work done by the A.E.C.s is connected with supervision orders and dispossession. I made some researches into what agricultural executive committees are entitled to do and what they do do. I found that there are 75 different functions which have been delegated to them at various times. I have no doubt that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General could expand that list considerably. The supervision and dispossession functions amounted to 19, and other matters, such as fixed equipment, notices to quit and so on, would account for 56.
Looking at paragraph 147 in the light of those figures especially in the case of notices to quit, I cannot follow why an independent decision could not be achieved by the present method. I am, however, prepared to accept the view that it is entirely desirable to divorce the
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Minister from judicial considerations, and for that reason I support the proposal of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington.
I am unable to see what a new court would contribute to the procedure. If a new court were set up, A.E.C. members would be called upon to act as a sort of prosecutor in that court and there might be some difficulty in persuading some of the members to do that with a great deal of enthusiasm. Another difficulty about the new court is that it is a big enough job to work on the panels available and to get a full tribunal for ordinary purposes. If in addition there are to be other panels and other courts, there may well be great practical difficulties ahead.
My last criticism of the new court is of the suggestion that the chairman must be wholly independent of the area. I am not aware that it is necessary for the chairman of the local bench, for example, to be wholly independent of his area, nor is it necessary for a judge of assize not to take the assizes in the county in which he happens to live. I cannot see why the chairman of the new court, if there is to be one, must be someone who lives outside the area.
Apart from those criticisms, my main reason for coming to the same conclusion as that reached by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington is that it is most desirable to keep the Minister as far from these judicial proceedings as possible. For those reasons, that proposal will have my support.
I am pleased these matters have been discussed in such a friendly way today and that the Government have been able to come to such a quick conclusion and make such firm recommendations as on this occasion.
8.20 p.m.
Mr. A. J. Irvine: I agree with the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) that it is very satisfactory that the Government have been able to find time so promptly to discuss this very important Report. It is also a very striking thing, and of great importance—whether or not it is widely reported in tomorrow's newspapers—that such a marked degree of agreement has been demonstrated in the debate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House seem to approach this matter in very similar frames of mind and with similar outlooks.

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I have always thought that it was especially the responsibility of hon. Members on this side of the House to insist upon the necessity for a system of administrative inquiry which was manifestly fair and just in its method of procedure. To the extent that hon. Members on this side desire a greater degree of control exercised by the Administration and a greater rather than less intervention by the State in running the country, there is a very special importance for us in ensuring that the system of administrative procedure and inquiry, which is so important a part of State activity, shall be effective and fair. I have viewed the recommendations of the Report with that consideration in mind. What we want is that combination of fairness and efficiency which is easily practicable if reasonable procedures are adopted and pursued. I want to deal with Parts IV and V of the Report.
At planning appeals, and to some extent at compulsory acquisition inquiries, there is at present often some sense in the appellant or objector, as the case may be, that the deal he is getting is not absolutely fair and square. One has to be very careful in one's treatment of this subject, because there is a great deal about these proceedings which is very impressive. Great care is taken by the inspector; a great deal of consideration is shown to those appearing; there is nearly always an agreeably informal yet orderly, helpful and considerate atmosphere. One can, indeed, pay so many tributes to the way that the matter is handled that one may be asked, "Well, where is the criticism?" The criticism lies in the belief which a party will often entertain that, with all this considerateness, informality and courtesy, there may prove to be comparatively little relevance between the inquiry and the eventual decision.
That decision is to be made by the Minister. It will be made by him in secret. "I can have no confidence," says the appellant to himself, "that the evidence which has been heard at this inquiry will be the decisive factor. The Minister is to consult other Ministries before he writes his letter of decision; it may be the Ministry of Transport or the Ministry of Education, or some other. It is in these consultations that the
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decision will be made." The citizen is thus inclined to feel that there is a kind of divorce between the impressive parade of fair treatment and inquiry, and the real decision made at the point, far from where the inquiry is held, where power lies.
If, as I believe, that is a fault of the existing procedure, the Committee's recommendations to cure it are very significant. If these recommendations are implemented I believe that it will result in the kind of objection that I have endeavoured to adumbrate ceasing to be applicable. First, there is the very important proposition that there shall be a written statement from the Minister both of policy and of the relevant facts.
That is an immense safeguard. To my mind, it is a most important reform. The main objection at present is that there is this feeling that the decision is taken in secret and upon material not available to the inquiry. If this recommendation is put into effect that criticism will cease to be valid. If it is effectively implemented by the Department—as we know it will be—the Minister's viewpoint will have been made clear on certain relevant matters before the inquiry. The whole investigation will start coming out into the open—and that is what we want.
That is not merely a good thing for the appellant and the parties at the inquiry; it is also a very good thing for Parliament. Parliament created these tribunals. Parliament has initiated this procedure and found it of admirable use in the public interest, and it is very important for Parliament, as well as for the parties interested in these inquiries, to be able to check, not unreasonably but none the less carefully, and not too often, but regularly, how these Departmental inquiries are faring, what degree of consistency there is between the decisions, what level of fairness is achieved and questions of that kind.
I suggest that this will all be much assisted by the written statement. I attach great importance to that, and I think it will be of considerable value. It may sometimes have the result, the rather unexpected result, that an appellant will discontinue his appeal. If this written statement becomes the practice, as one hopes that it will, it is quite possible that a Department will set out matters of fact and statements of policy arrived at

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and approved by Parliament which, if implemented, would have the effect, inevitably in all logic, that the appeal would be bound to fail.
Although that may happen, and perhaps sometimes will, it is not necessarily a had thing. Far better to have a statement of policy which is conclusive against the appellant in the written statement, and let him discontinue when he has that statement, than that he should go forward into all the paraphernalia and pretence of an inquiry which is prejudged and serves no useful purpose but merely presents the surface and pretence of a process of adjudication.
There are key factors in this central matter of bringing the process of inquiry into the open. May I say, in parenthesis, that there is a great deal of detail in this Report which will need much consideration and study? I think it important that the House of Commons should not lose sight of the circumstances that in all this there are some key factors of central importance in coming to the heart of this problem of how to establish a system of tribunal or inquiry procedure which avoids the kind of disadvantages I suggested earlier.
The first key factor is the written statement which, in my judgment, is of great importance. The second is the fact of the publication of the inspector's report. If we have the written statement of the Minister's policy, where that is a relevant factor, and if, in addition, we have the relevant facts found, after weighing the evidence, by the inspector, the appellant or objector has the material, as also has Parliament, with which to determine whether, on a basis understood and set out and upon facts found there has been a reasonable and fair application by the Minister of a judicial mind to the resulting problem.
I feel bound to say that those of us who are concerned in this kind of thing have found a great variety of quality in Minister's letters of decision. One has seen letters of decision which have been almost abrupt in their treatment of the matter; which have not endeavoured to reason from any premises. There have been others where the greatest care has been taken, where the decision letter is a wel-constructed document arriving at a conclusion which earlier propositions supported. How well worth while is that
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work, because it is so much more satisfactory for an objector or an appellant to see that the thing has been dealt with in a thorough and logical fashion. If it becomes mandatory, as we hope, not only for there to be a preliminary written statement from the Minister in appropriate cases, but also publication of the report with the relevant facts, I think that a considerable advance will be made.
Another key factor is, I suggest—and this is one of the few matters in which the Government's attitude has caused me any disappointment—to be found in the recommendation that the inspectors should be, as the phrase goes in the Report, "under the control of the Lord Chancellor." I am in favour of that recommendation. In saying that, I recognise the force of the argument the other way. None the less, it is of great importance that we should avoid the difficulty that the outlook of the inspector tends to be coloured by his Departmental experience and sympathies.
I have the greatest admiration—I say this very sincerely—for the corps' of inspectors, particularly in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, whose work I have been privileged to observe. They are a most admirable and very fair body of men. Nevertheless, it is asking too much for them to shed Departmental prejudice entirely at an inquiry. It is part of the very marrow of their bones. Even if a paragon were found who could rid himself of the Departmental outlook, the procedure would still be open to the objection that the appellant, the citizen whose status in the matter we are seeking to safeguard and improve, would believe that the Department, through the inspector, was both judge and party in the dispute. That is how it would seem. A very great deal of difficulty arises from that impression.
The difficulty would be overcome if inspectors came under the control of the Lord Chancellor's Department. It would be much more than a nominal change. If the change were made now, no doubt the present inspectors would continue to act and the consequences of the alteration might not be felt noticeably at once; but in due course, as new men came up, making their applications to the Lord Chancellor's Department, and getting into the way of thinking as servants of that Department, the change would be felt.

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And it would mean an improvement. In this way the movement into the open of these inquiries and procedures would be carried further to the great advantage of us all.
8.38 p.m.
Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), my joy has been slightly marred by the refusal of the Government to adopt the recommendation relating to the inspectors. I appreciate the logic and force of what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas). Logically, he is absolutely right. The function of the inspectors is not only adjudication but more than that.
Nevertheless, that consideration must be outweighed by the fact that the people who go into an inquiry think, perhaps wrongly but absolutely firmly, that they are going into a court. It may be silly but the idea is there, and I do not believe anybody will disabuse their minds of that belief. So long as that is the case I prefer the point of view of the hon. Member for Edge Hill to that of the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East.
This afternoon, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary asked for the views of hon. Members on the recommendations relating to appeals. In the short time that we have left we ought to respond to that request.
It has been most interesting that everyone who has spoken from personal experience of different tribunals has urged the provision of appeals. I have in mind particularly the speech of the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) who spoke from great experience and urged the need for some tribunal of appeal in his field, if only to harmonise the differing decisions of tribunals. I think it nothing short of a scandal that so far there has been no sort of appeal from the rent tribunals. In paragraph 161 of the Report the Committee says that it received more criticism of those tribunals than of any others, and in paragraph 165 it says:
"In view of the financial importance of these decisions to the parties concerned and of the criticisms made of the existing arrangements, we think it essential that some form of appeal should be provided."
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I think anyone with any experience of rent tribunals realises that that is a "must". It is time for some unanimity to be provided over the adjudications of the rent tribunals. That can be done only by providing some sort of appeal from them.
It is good news that the mystical constitutional doctrine is no longer to impede the giving of evidence by one Government Department before a tribunal of another. It was said to be quite impossible constitutionally, but I am glad that that impossibility has disappeared overnight. I hope, however, that when the evidence is given it will not take the form, as so often happens, of some minor official being sent with a prepared statement already typed which is simply handed in. Then when the objector or whoever the opposite party is, tries to ask some questions about it, it is perfectly clear that the minor official is nothing more than a postman who knows nothing about the subject but has just come to hand in that bit of paper. I hope that will not be considered as giving evidence in any material sense, because this decision to adopt the recommendation will be set at nought if that is the way it is carried out in practice.
I would add my voice to the many we have heard today, and particularly to the voice of the Committee in paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 of the Report in which it emphasises that:
"Over most of the field of public administration no formal procedure is provided for objecting or deciding on objections."
In other words, what we have been discussing today is really that small part of the iceberg which appears above the surface, while something like six times as much is totally submerged.
Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: It goes by default.
Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I was thinking of Government decisions because that is what the Committee was considering. It mentioned:
"For example, where foreign currency or a scarce commodity…is rationed or allocated, there is no other body to which an individual applicant can appeal if the responsible administrative authority decides to allow him less than he has requested."
I believe that in every other civilised country where there is exchange control

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there is provision for an appeal to a tribunal, but here one gets the one word "no" from the Bank of England and that is the end of that. One does not even know whether the facts found by the tribunal have been rightly found. It may have made an elementary confusion of identity. The Department may have thought that the applicant was someone else, but there is no way of putting it right. It must be remembered that in the Crichel Down case, which was a case in this category, a great many mistakes of simple fact were made and were only exposed accidentally.
A lot of that must go on. I am not blaming civil servants because this goes on also in any business, but in most cases the facts can be put right when they are challenged in the courts in actions between private individuals. To anyone who has practised in courts it is quite obvious that people have been proceeding on a wrong basis until that is pointed out, but in this case we are faced by Government decision affecting the health, wealth and property of private citizens. The area below sea level is not seen at all except for the occasional word "no" or "yes" if one is very lucky. I ant quite sure there are a great many elementary mis-statements of fact which could be exposed if there were something in the shape of an appeal against such a decision to a body which would have the power to find the facts, if nothing else.
We must tell the Government that, though today has been a good day for them and for all of us, and we are most grateful, there is no limit to our appetite for freedom in this country. They must not think that because today they have given a good deal, we ought to go away satisfied for a long time. There can be no compromise on this matter, and we must warn them that we shall go on pressing for some sort of machinery to provide for the cases where at present there is no tribunal and no appeal.
I should like the Government to say to the members of the Franks Committee, "You have done a marvellous job, and that is recognised throughout. Is it too much to ask you to do what apparently you would have liked to have done, if we may judge from your Report, and go on to this further work?" No better body could be found to do it. Is it too much to ask the Government to resolve or at
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least to consider that, and see if something of that kind cannot be made known to us in three-quarters of an hour's time?
8.46 p.m.
Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: We have had an extraordinary debate today. We have had speeches which have been dealing with constitutional principles and practice. We had a speech from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), one from the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and one from my hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), which have discussed the deeper issues. We have also had a whole series of speeches dealing with concrete and practical issues, like that deeply moving speech from my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice).
I should love to have engaged in these discussions of principle and of some of these wider questions, but in view of the time I will content myself with saying this on the issue of principle. I believe that the constitutional problem which we have to settle today is the relationship of individual liberty with the growing power of the State, and, because I believe this Report makes a contribution which will extend personal freedom, as a Socialist I welcome this Report.
We have had speeches during this debate from members of the Committee, but I want to contribute a speech from the unusual point of view of someone who was a witness to the Committee. The tribunals which this Report covers extend over nearly the whole sphere of our social life. They deal with land and property, with National Assistance and national health, with transport, with rents, and with many other things. They also deal with one sphere which is unique, where the tribunal does not have to decide a matter of fact, but has to decide an issue of mind and of spirit. These tribunals are the tribunals which decide whether an objector to military service is conscientious or not.
I gave evidence to this Committee as the Chairman of the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors in this country. I want to recognise at once the extraordinary courtesy, sympathy and understanding with which we were received. We gave evidence on a number of

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matters. Every one of the points which we raised is dealt with in this Report and on every point specific recommendations are made. I want to acknowledge our great satisfaction at the way in which this Committee has met our proposals, although we represent a small minority in the community.
Some of these recommendations will require legislation—the arrangement for the appointment of tribunal members, the general oversight by the Council on tribunals, the question of legal aid and the right of appeal to the courts on points of law—but there are other recommendations which need not await legislation, and I am pressing on the Government tonight that the recommendations which can be applied by administration should be applied.
May I give one or two illustrations? There is the issue which we put in our evidence of the age of the tribunal members. The boys who come before the tribunals for conscientious objectors are 18; they are little more than adolescents. They are accustomed to leaders of youth clubs, they may be accustomed to the leaders of boy scouts, and they come before the tribunal to express themselves and their inner thoughts. One of the members of the tribunal who has to judge their consciences is 82 years of age. Two people who have died recently, while still chairmen of tribunals, were 83 years of age. They live in another generation from the boys of 18. There is hardly contact of mind with them. We have urged that if tribunals are to understand youth today, they must be of this generation. Justices of the peace are required to retire at 75 years of age. We are asking that members of tribunals shall be brought more into relationship with the age of these boys who are the applicants.
I am glad that the Committee agreed with us. These are its words:
"We have already recommended that the Council on Tribunals should give consideration to the question of age-limits for tribunal service and we consider it relevant to the particular case of Conscientious Objectors Tribunals that it has been thought desirable to introduce a special age-limit for justices sitting in juvenile courts."
We have had a letter about this from the Minister of Labour and National Service, in which he says:
"Owing to the small membership of the tribunals, we could not, at present, impose a
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general age-limit without losing an undue proportion of experienced members. We are, however, appointing several younger members, and intend to continue to lower the average age."
My only comment is that if the general age limit cannot be reduced
"without losing an undue proportion of experienced members"
it indicates that the age limit must be very high.
Several members of these tribunals have sat there since 1939—for eighteen years. We are urging the Government to go further than this letter from the Minister of Labour suggests, and to appoint to the tribunals, before which these adolescents appear, men of an age that can understand their point of view.
The next administrative recommendation that might be applied is that the location and atmosphere of the tribunals should be more sympathetic to the kind of issues heard. In Leeds, these matters of conscience are discussed in a law court. The members of the tribunal sit two tiers above the applicant. Until recently there were uniformed policemen in attendance —all the atmosphere of a trial.
A place in London that I know well is the Fulham Town Hall—a vast building. Again, the members sit well above the applicant, who is almost lost in the well of that hall. In such circumstances there cannot possibly be the kind of personal contact between the boy and the members of the tribunal that is necessary to reach the truth about the applicant's sincerity.
I am glad to say that, again, this Committee has met us on that point. Paragraph 218 of the Report says:
"Some Tribunals sit informally round a table in a fairly small room. Others occupy a court or other public building where seating arrangements introduce a formal atmosphere. Such differences are not justified, and we need only refer to our earlier general recommendation in Part II that for tribunals in general an informal is to be preferred to a formal setting."
As for atmosphere, some of these tribunals have imposed the taking of the oath—again, an atmosphere in which it is quite impossible to get to the mind in this informal spirit-to-spirit contact which, alone, can get the truth of the position about conscience. Again, we are glad to find that the Committee accepts our view about the formal taking of the oath.
The Committee says that, while it is not prepared to rule out the oath

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altogether, it considers that it should not normally be necessary for the tribunals to exercise that power. On this issue also, we ask the Government to apply the change by the method of administration.
The next point which I urge upon the Government is contained in the suggestion we made that the decisions of the appellate tribunals in test cases should be distributed to the local tribunals. We have an extraordinary situation now. If a conscientious objector goes to the local tribunal in London, he has no chance whatsoever of being regarded as a sincere conscientious objector unless he is an absolute pacifist and is opposed to war and violence in all circumstances. The local tribunal interprets the military service Acts in that way.
The man then passes to the appellate tribunal, which interprets the Statute entirely differently and says that a man to whom the matter is one of right or wrong in his personal conscience need not necessarily be opposed to all wars to be recognised as a conscientious objector. Thus we have a local tribunal and an appellate tribunal in the London area taking opposite views.
There is another illustration. Under the military service Acts, a man may be exempted entirely, he may be exempted conditionally, or he may be put into the Army in non-combatant service. The tribunals interpret these provisions in different ways. In Scotland, 18 per cent. of applicants are given total exemption. In London, only 0·6 per cent. of applicants are given total exemption. In Scotland, few are given exemption on the condition that they may do this or that form of work. In London, many are given such exemption.
The point which we put to the Committee, which the Committee has endorsed, is that some guidance ought to be given to local tribunals by circulating the decisions of the appellate tribunals. This used to be done. It was done in the First World War, and it has been done even under the present National Service Act. I have in my hand now copies of the decisions of the appellate tribunals distributed to local tribunals between 1940 and 1943; they are decisions in test cases. But the Government have stopped the practice and will not allow it to continue. I now ask the Government to apply the recommendation of the
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Committee in this respect by the method of administration and not to wait for legislation.
Those are the particular points I wished to bring to the notice of the Government. I make no apology at all for raising these issues, because I believe that, in the long run, a nation will more than by anything else be judged by how it treats the claims of conscience, how it treats a man's sense of right or wrong, and how it treats individual personality in these things. If we can develop a system in our tribunals which can meet the extraordinarily difficult problem of judgment in these spheres, we shall have gone very far indeed towards meeting the problem of the liberty of the individual and his relationship with society.
9.0 p.m.
Mr. James Griffiths: We have had a very interesting, very valuable and, on the whole, harmonious debate. Having listened to it, it seems to me that we are reaching out towards a House of Commons decision upon the Franks Report and its recommendations. That is something to be desired and something for which to be grateful.
I find myself in the unusual position of having to congratulate the Government, first, upon providing the opportunity for this debate, and, even more, upon the speed with which they have arrived at their conclusions. I hope this is really the turning over of a new leaf. Perhaps the Attorney-General knows—if not, his colleagues know—that there are other Reports lying about the Table which were produced long before the Franks Report. I am thinking of one in particular, a Report called the Gowers Report.
If I remember correctly, the Government, as they have done today, accepted the recommendations of that Report. They proceeded to implement part of it. They began to implement a second part of it and produced a Bill in another place—the Shops Bill. That Bill, too, is about here somewhere. Then, somebody got very angry with the Government in the 1922 Committee, if that is what it is still called, and they ran away from it. I hope that this speedy decision to implement with reservations the recommendations of the Franks Committee is, in fact, the turning over of a new leaf and that when we come back next week we shall find it announced

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that Her Majesty's Government, in the Session which we shall then begin, propose to put before the House and to carry through very quickly the Shops Bill which they abandoned in the last Session.
In intervening in this debate, in which we have had valuable speeches from right hon. and hon. Members with varying experience, both legal men and lay men, I ought perhaps to say why I have any right to speak at all in this matter. First, it so happens that for many years it was my duty as a trade union officer to appear for my members before one of the tribunals which in many ways set the pattern for the tribunals which we have since established in the sphere of social insurance. That was the old court of referees, under the Ministry of Labour. I was also privileged for a period to serve as one of the lay members on the court of referees. That experience was a valuable one, and I hope that it entitles me to look at this problem today with some experience.
There is one thing that I would say about this from the experience of the court of referees. I entirely endorse the view of the Franks Committee that tribunals must be looked at not as a part of administration, but as bodies to adjudicate. It is important, therefore, that no Government shall give to these tribunals matters to decide which they cannot adjudicate except by subjective considerations.
Let me give an experience. It is important for us to remember it and it may be related to something that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) had in mind. I am not an agriculturist, but I have grave doubts as to whether questions of whether the farmer was a good farmer or farmed his land badly or well should be adjudicated in that way.
This was my experience. It is not a party matter, but history. When we began the courts of referees to adjudicate in unemployment insurance, we began with objective criteria laid down in the unemployment insurance legislation. Then, on the pretext or excuse, or for the reason—it does not matter which—that the Fund was running into difficulties, the Government of the day decided that the courts of referees should decide, not whether the man was unemployed because there was no work available for him or because the
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Ministry of Labour could not provide a job for him, but should decide in each individual case whether the man was or was not genuinely seeking work. It nearly wrecked the courts of referees. Let me admit quite frankly that it became a farce.
I had sat on these courts of referees for some years, and I think everyone will agree that we gave the courts of referees a job which we should never have given to them. It led to all kinds of practices. It is history now, and we can joke about it sometimes, but let me say that it is something that I shall never joke about and never forget, and I find it very difficult to forgive.
I remember that an unemployed miner would go before a court of referees and the chairman would ask him whether he had looked for work yesterday, the day before and last week, and where he was going the next day. The fellow had to sit down and do his homework the night before, preparing a list to give to him. It became a farce.
It is very important that we should not give to any of these tribunals, if we are to regard them, treat them and maintain them as bodies of adjudication on problems of that kind, the power to decide matters on which there is no criterion by which any body of men can actually come to a judicial decision. That is one experience.
The second experience was when I was Minister of National Insurance. It was my privilege and honour to promote legislation and, indeed, to establish tribunals as a system of adjudication under the National Insurance Acts. The most important of these—and it was a very great departure from tradition and previous practice—was under the Industrial Injuries Act. We changed the whole system of providing for men and women who were disabled by accident or disease. We transferred it into a social service, and we decided, partly for that reason and partly for other reasons, that adjudication in cases under the Industrial Injuries Act should henceforth be determined by tribunals very largely in the manner—adapted and renamed—as laid down as a pattern by the courts of referees. That was nearly ten years ago.
I have been greatly encouraged by the fact that in the Franks Committee Report the tribunals established under the

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National Insurance Acts came out very favourably. Indeed, it is very interesting that, so far as I know, there is no representative body of men anywhere, neither the T.U.C. nor the workers, nor anyone in this country, which suggests that adjudication in industrial injuries cases should revert to the courts, except with one reservation to which I will return in a moment. I come, therefore, to this matter with that experience.
What the Franks Committee tells us is that in its view the system of tribunals has justified itself, that tribunals, as a system of adjudication, have come to stay and that they are likely to increase. Therefore, it is important that all of us who are concerned with this problem should face it in the setting that we are to have the present tribunals and a larger number of tribunals. I attach the greatest importance to the proposals that have been made and to which the Lord Privy Seal referred, and about which I want to ask some questions.
Since these tribunals have come to stay and are likely to increase, the Committee has, for that reason, suggested that there should be set up two standing councils and that these councils should be given certain functions, keeping the tribunals under review and doing other things. That is a most important point. It is a body outside Parliament. I want, therefore, to ask questions of the Attorney-General and the Lord Privy Seal about the councils.
The Home Secretary himself said, quite rightly, that when it comes to the implementation of those parts of the recommendations which the Government have accepted, the first step will be to set up these councils. They are very important. Have the Government yet considered and made up their mind about the composition of the council? The chairman will be a very important person, and the membership will be very important. The Franks Committee recommends that it should be a small body, consisting of ten members, and that it should have members with legal knowledge, experience and qualifications, but that the majority should be laymen. It is very important that when the council is first established its membership should create confidence in it.
This is a debate in which we express our personal views. That is what the
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Home Secretary wanted. Consequently, I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has given any consideration, or ought to give any consideration, to whether members of the House of Commons should be eligible for membership of the council. The Franks Committee had Members of Parliament upon it. Is there advantage or disadvantage in having Members of Parliament on such a body? I do not put forward a definite proposal, but it is a matter which ought to be considered.
Having regard to the functions and powers which the Council will have over the whole field of social insurance, another important question arises, and that is whether representatives of those in industry—employers and the Trades Union Congress—should be included in its membership, for they will be deeply concerned. Consequently, I hope the Government will give consideration to the composition of the Council when they make the necessary appointments.
We have not had an intervention from a Scottish hon. Member. I do not know whether the Scottish hon. Members realise that the Government have thrown Scotland overboard. There is not to be a separate Scottish council, but it has been decided that there shall be a separate panel for Scotland, whatever that means. Perhaps the Attorney-General will explain it. If there is to be a single Council for the whole country and not a separate one for Scotland, I reserve the right of my Scottish colleagues to return to the battle some other day. On the other hand, if there is to be one Council for the United Kingdom with a panel for Scotland, then I must reserve the position of my Welsh friends. If there is to be a panel for Scotland, why should there not be a panel for Wales? That is another matter to which we shall have to return.
On the whole, I feel that the case for the Council has been made out. We must all appreciate that the membership of the Council will be enormously important. If it seems to be overweighted in its political opinion, views and experience and does not carry the confidence of the country, it will not be the useful body which it could be and which the Franks Committee desired it should be.
I now turn to some of the detailed recommendations and what the Home Secretary has said about them. I read

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with very great care the detailed recommendations made by the Franks Committee about the procedure before tribunals. I have been very much impressed by the careful way in which the Committee examined the problem and by its very important recommendations. With regard to what happens before the hearing, before the tribunal begins its job, the Committee lays down how very important it is that the claimant, the man with a grievance, should know that he has a right of appeal and how he should appeal. With all respect to my former Ministry, I doubt whether we have really lived up to what we hoped we should do in the social insurance sphere. There are still people who do not know that they have a right to appeal in social insurance matters. This is a matter of publicity, of telling the people. I hope that this recommendation, to which I attach very great importance, will be considered very carefully.
It is also very important that before he goes to the tribunal the man who is to appeal shall have set out the case he has to answer. The Committee also recommended that the document setting out the case against the appellant should be sent to him not by the Department, but by the tribunal.
The Attorney-General: The documents which will come from the tribunal will deal with tribunal matters, but the statement of the case which the Department wants to make will come, as it should come, from the Department.
Mr. Griffiths: But the tribunal will communicate with the appellant?
The Attorney-General The Attorney-General indicated assent.
Mr. Griffiths: We were all deeply impressed by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), who has great experience of these subjects, and I entirely agree with what he said about whether the hearings should be in public or in private. That decision should be left to the chairman, but the appellant ought to be consulted. Generally speaking, the hearing ought to be in public unless there is a very good reason for holding it in private.
It is especially important that industrial injuries cases should be heard in public, because so many people are concerned.
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One of the advantages in the old days when such cases went to court was that people read about workmen's compensation cases and came to understand them and to know them. If hearings of industrial injuries and National Insurance cases were in public and were attended by the Press, the people would be informed about how the National Insurance schemes were working. That is a good method of publicity, and there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by having hearings in public.
The Franks Committee recommended that the chairmen of tribunals should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. In the policy statement of our party, prepared by a committee of which I was a member, we anticipated that by saying the same thing fifteen months ago. We said that there was much to be said for members as well as for chairmen of tribunals being appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The Franks Committee recommended that the members of tribunals should be appointed by the new councils, but the Lord Privy Seal rejected that and the Government's view is that members of tribunals should be appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Council on Tribunals.
Appointing members of tribunals after consulting the new councils will not be the best way to proceed. Members of local tribunals are to be appointed all over the country and there will be hundreds of tribunals. A committee of ten sitting in London will have to appoint tribunals in Llanelly, Northampton, Newport, Leicester and so on. How will they be guided in deciding on those appointments?
Whether they are appointed by the Lord Chancellor, by the Council or by the Minister, I suggest that the best advisers as to suitable persons to serve on these committees in the areas are the local advisory committees of the Ministry of National Insurance. I am certain that they are the right bodies, with the right kind of experience. There are now over 200 of them, and their members are drawn from all ranks of contributors to the National Insurance Scheme—employers, trade unionists and others. They all have wide experience. They have the function of supervising and keeping in close touch with the administration of the Ministry through the whole

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country. They are the right kind of people to advise as to membership, and I hope that when we discuss this question in detail that fact will be borne in mind.
I now turn to the question whether the chairman should always be someone with legal qualifications. My view is that in the case of an industrial injuries tribunal he should be. In other kinds of tribunal there is a good deal to be said for maintaining at least a proportion of non-legal or lay chairmen. That is at least so with National Assistance tribunals.
Next comes the question of legal representation at these tribunals. There is an unanswerable argument for providing legal assistance for the man who is not able to state his case and has no one else to do so. I shall explain in a moment. I admit that I have one fear about it. Once it begins on any kind of large scale it will become the general practice. If an appellant who is a non-unionist has a lawyer when he appears before a tribunal, on the next occasion when a trade unionist has a case before it, he will say. "If the non-unionist can have a lawyer I must have one."
On the other hand, it is very important that everyone who goes before these tribunals in connection with matters which are of great importance to him should have every assistance in fully stating his case. I hope that we can achieve that without destroying what is of the very essence of the success of these tribunals, namely, their informal—not injudicial but informal—atmosphere, which has done an enormous amount of good. This country owes a great debt to them. We have recently been discussing the problem of what is to happen in industry. One of the causes of the greatest bitterness in the coal-mining industry was the knowledge that if a man did not get workmen's compensation he felt that he was denied it, or that he had been unjustly treated and robbed of his rights by his employer. One of the contributions that we made towards improving industrial relations in this country was to take the problem of the treatment of injured people out of the contentious industrial field.
Mr. Paget: I wonder whether consideration has been given to the possibility of having one member of an industrial tribunal given the specific function
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of advising and assisting applicants in presenting their cases.
Mr. Griffiths: I do not think that any consideration has been given to it, and I very much doubt whether it would work.
If we provide for legal representation in these tribunals—and I am thinking particularly of the industrial insurance field—we shall be giving nothing unless the Government are prepared to expand the legal aid service. What chance has a man appearing before such a tribunal of getting legal assistance unless he receives help in doing so? If there is to be any reality about providing the right of appellants to legal representation before these tribunals it is essential, as the Franks Committee said, that the legal aid scheme should be expanded to cover the case of appellants appearing before them. Secondly, the means test which is now applied must be made much more generous.
Regarding the right of appeal, there is a growing feeling that on points of law there should be an appeal from the Commissioner to the courts in insurance cases. There is no time to do so this evening but I should like to have read what was written to me by someone with wide experience. I will put the case to the House as it was put to me. It was suggested that under the present system sometimes cases heard by local insurance tribunals result in an appeal by the insurance officer acting as a statutory officer, but when the case comes to the Commissioner it is not a question of an appeal against the decision of the local tribunal on the facts before the tribunal but a rehearing of the case.
I have in my possession a letter from a man from my own union, the South Wales Miners' Union, referring to a case in which a widow made a claim for benefit under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act on the grounds that the death of her husband had been caused or accelerated by pneumoconiosis. The local tribunal decided in her favour and awarded a benefit appropriate under the Act. The local insurance officer appealed to the Commissioner. I am told that when the case came before the Commissioner new medical evidence was produced and a battery of witnesses and, in effect, it was a new hearing and not an appeal. In such cases there should be an appeal to a higher court.

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When I was piloting the legislation through the House it was interesting to me that my colleagues and friends in the trade union movement, who supported the proposal to set up tribunals, thought it was wise to consider whether there should be appeals from the Commissioner to the House of Lords sitting as a judicial tribunal. They knew from experience of decisions under the Workmen's Compensation Acts that the House of Lords had given a generous interpretation of many of the provisions contained in that legislation.
Today we are dealing only with a small part of the problem and inevitably we have been concerned about protecting the citizen against the abuse of the power of the State. As a democratic Socialist who sees the State extending more and more I accept responsibility for the fact that we must ensure that the citizen is protected.
In order to give this debate some degree of balance may I end by saying that while we have been concerned with the State as a power, and with the "man in Whitehall" to whom someone referred, we must remember that in the history of this country, and particularly during this century, the State has not always been a tyrant or despot. The State has been a protector. Positive State action has made personal freedom a reality for millions of people. My first experience of the State was that as a miner I was told it would be illegal for me to work more than an eight-hour period in the pit, which pleased me. It prevented my employer, unless he wished to break the law, from making me work more than eight hours, which did not please him.
The establishment of the Welfare State has brought real freedom to millions of people. The problem is to realise that the State has a positive function and to discover how in a planned society we can ensure that all the time the State is the servant and not the master, and that those who serve the State are servants and not masters. How can we combine a planned economy with personal dignity and freedom? I believe that we can do both. The Franks Committee, in the limited field in which it was allowed to roam, has made a valuable contribution to those twin necessities of modern society, reconciling authority and power with the
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preservation of personal dignity and freedom.
9.36 p.m.
The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) began by saying that he found himself in the unusual position of having to congratulate the Government. I thank him for his congratulations. I am sure the House will agree with me that the right hon. Gentleman showed in his speech that he found the position enjoyable. I hope that he will repeat that experience.
I agree with hon. Members who have expressed the view that this is a very remarkable and astonishing debate. It indicates a change of attitude which I welcome. I do not want to be provocative at all tonight, if I can avoid it, but, looking back to those years between 1945 and 1951, I do not believe we could have had a debate of this kind then. I am sure that if proposals had been put forward by us during those years we should have been told, in terms such as were used in those years, that these inquiries were only for blowing off steam. To stop the tribunals would impede the progress of Socialism and stop the Socialist Juggernaut. It shows a change of attitude.
The Socialist Party cannot claim to be the holders of the banner of individual freedom; nor, indeed, can the Liberal Party. This debate has been remarkable for another feature; apart from the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen), who played a valuable part on the Committee, it has been remarkable for the absence of every other Liberal Member of the House. That shows what real regard the Liberal Party have for matters of this sort and for individual freedom.
I want to add my voice to the chorus of praise which has been given to the Franks Committee. It was a formidable task, which must have meant many hours of labour and of complicated, detailed work. The right hon. Gentleman congratulated us on the speed with which we reached our decisions, and he expressed the hope that no long delay would be taken in implementing them. We shall, of course, welcome the assistance of the party opposite in securing the passage through the House of the necessary changes which they approve and which we put forward.

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We will press on with administrative arrangements which do not need legislation as soon as we can. We recognise the importance of this work.
It is significant that there has been so little criticism of the Franks Report and of the Government's attitude towards the recommendations. The total number of recommendations is 95, of which 71 have been either completely or broadly accepted, eight have been accepted in some degree, four not accepted, and 12, we feel, must be reserved in whole or in part for further consideration. Our attitude has been to accept as many of these recommendations as we can and, when we cannot accept for one reason or another, to try to find some alternative method which complies with the spirit of the Franks Report.
My task tonight is easier because of the general approval of the Report and the favourable reception which has been given to the Government's proposals. The only real critic has been the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), and I shall come to him a little later. As has been said by my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) and for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), tribunals are with us and serve a useful purpose. In that connection, I think the Report is extremely important where it expresses the view in paragraph 40, to which reference was made, that these tribunals are not ordinary courts but neither are they appendages of Government Departments, and where it says:
"We consider that tribunals should properly be regarded as part of the machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of the machinery of administration."
We endorse that and hope that view will long prevail.
I come next to the question to which the right hon. Member referred in relation to the Council on Tribunals. I am glad that that proposal has met with such general acceptance. The right hon. Gentleman asked if I could now state what would be the composition of the Council. I cannot. I agree with him that it is necessary that its membership should command confidence, not only in England but also in Wales and in Scotland. I would emphasise that there is a great advantage in having one Council on Tribunals for Great Britain. So
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many of the tribunals are common to England, Wales and Scotland, and if we had separate bodies for England and Scotland, or for England, Scotland and Wales, I do not think the effect of their recommendations in relation to tribunals which were common to the whole country would carry or would be likely to carry as much weight as the united recommendations of a Council on Tribunals for the whole of Great Britain. Our proposal is that there should be a panel to deal with and consider the position with regard to purely Scottish tribunals. I think I am right in saying that there are no purely Welsh tribunals.
Mr. J. Griffiths: There could be.
The Attorney-General: There could be; I would not exclude the possibility for one moment, but that is a consideration to be borne in mind. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the composition of the panel. All I can say is that that is our approach so far as we have gone on the subject. But he ought not to say that the Government have thrown Scotland to the winds and allege that no Scottish Member on this side of the House has taken part in the debate in view of the admirable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan).
Another matter I should like to emphasise is that we regard the functions of this Council as advisory, not executive. We do not think it right that a body which is not accountable to Parliament should have executive powers. It was in relation to that that the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), I am afraid, misunderstood something my right hon. Friend said in opening this debate. My right hon. Friend was dealing with the question whether members of tribunals should be appointed by the councils, and he rejected that suggestion on the grounds that the councils would not be accountable to Parliament. It was in that connection that he used the word "accountability". I want to make that clear. I should not like to undervalue the importance of the functions of this Council, because, as I see it, it will be concerned to see that the three main principles of openness, fairness and impartiality are generally observed and maintained.

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I want to come straight away—rather out of order—to the important question the right hon. Gentleman asked about appointments to tribunals and the part the Council will play in them. The system which has worked so well of local bodies in the National Insurance field will not be scrapped or abandoned, but we feel that there is an advantage in having consultation about appointments with this Council, not for the purpose perhaps of selecting individuals, but so as to ensure that the balance of the composition of these tribunals is right.
We have had allegations tonight of some members of these tribunals being far too old for the performance of their duties. The Council on Tribunals, as I see it, will be able to keep a general eye upon them and draw the Minister's attention to the position. It may say that a particular tribunal in Wales is getting a little bit too old. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why Wales?"] I was taking that merely as an example. In that field, I think the Council on Tribunals will serve a useful purpose, but it may also serve this purpose. People may like to write to the Council and give information about the tribunals. They may say "We do not think that you ought to re-appoint Mr. So-and-so, because he goes to sleep most afternoons." There may be other comments and information which would assist us in maintaining what we want to maintain—really efficient tribunals for the performance of their various functions.
I come to a subject which was somewhat criticised and debated today—the question of legal representation. My right hon. Friend, in opening the debate, referred to "a lawyer's paradise." I do not believe that giving the right of legal representation will result in anything like a lawyer's paradise, and I do not believe that it is right to give any restricted right of legal representation.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), whose speech I listened to with great interest, and which I will draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, suggested that the right of legal representation should be given only with the consent of the chairman. I do not think there should be that fetter upon it. Why should not an individual have a lawyer if he so wishes and
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if he can get one? Why should not an old lady in a case in which perhaps no question of law is involved employ a lawyer to speak for her and put her case for her as best he can?
I have never been able to understand or attach much weight to the arguments for restricting the right to legal representation. The right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) suggested that possibly it might lead to an absence of informality, and others too have suggested that. I do not think that there is anything at all in that argument. Whether a hearing is formal or informal does not depend upon the fact that there may be a member of the Bar or a solicitor appearing for a claimant, but upon the way in which the tribunal conducts its business. That is all it depends upon, and not upon whoever goes to the tribunal to speak for any of the parties. It depends upon the tribunal and its chairman.
Then, it may be said, and this is a more difficult accusation to answer, that lawyers are always long-winded. They sometimes are, but that again depends upon the tribunal. There are some judges, and I will not mention any names, before whom the most persistent advocate would find it impossible to be at all long-winded. Seriously, it is the duty of lawyers to present cases for individuals and render that service to the community. I think it was quite wrong of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton to suggest that to give the right of legal representation before conscientious objectors' tribunals would mean that the result depended entirely on the advocate. I do not think so. I think that that is a reflection upon these tribunals which is unwarranted. If we get the right tribunal, then legal representation, when it takes place, should assist, and will assist, and not hinder the tribunal to arrive at correct conclusions.
I want to say a word about legal aid. I think what my right hon. Friend said about that was misunderstood. We have not rejected the proposal that there should be legal aid before tribunals but we have said that we have not as yet been able to implement legal aid for all those kinds of litigation for which it has been recommended, and that legal aid before tribunals must take its place in the

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queue and cannot be implemented at present. I am sorry to say that, and I do not think I need say more.
Mr. J. Griffiths: If we are to admit legal representation at these tribunals, does not the Attorney-General realise that this is the opportunity to extend legal aid coterminously with legal representation?
The Attorney-General: The right hon. Gentleman need not impress upon me the importance of the value of legal aid, for I served on the Rushcliffe Committee.
I want to turn to a question which was much canvassed about the Franks Committee's recommendations in respect of agriculture. Some hon. Members opposite criticised these proposals by the Committee. May I put this question: what ground is there for departing in this particular respect from the three main principles which the Committee laid down and which have been so clearly approved in the House? The hon. and learned Member for Northampton said there was no criticism of these tribunals and of the way in which they function, but paragraphs 146 to 148 of the Franks Committee Report read:
"We have heard substantial criticism of the County Committees and…there is no doubt that the workings of the County Committees, as adjudicating bodies, are far from satisfactory. We must say at the outset that their constitution as adjudicating bodies is in conflict with the principle of impartiality…substantial objection has been taken to the fact that these Committees combine the functions of detective, prosecutor and judge, so that a fair hearing of the case and an independent decision cannot result.…We regard it as wholly undesirable that these Committees should continue to exercise adjudicating functions in addition to their executive functions."
That is very strong and very powerful language, and to those who say that we should not make the change recommended by the Franks Committee that the adjudicating functions of the executive committees should be terminated, I would say that it is incumbent upon them, if they wish to establish that proposition, not only to controvert the allegations made by the Franks Committee but to produce overwhelming evidence to justify such exceptional treatment.
Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Will this matter of the agricultural executive committees come before Parliament for consideration before any reforms are made about it? Will the administrative reforms
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which the Attorney-General has in mind be brought before the House in each case even though no statutory amendment is required?
The Attorney-General: The second question is one which the hon. and learned Gentleman asked twice in the course of his speech.
Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: It has not yet been answered.
The Attorney-General: I have not yet reached it. I hope to reach it in due course. As for the first part of the question, it is quite clear that legislation is required to implement the Franks Committee Report.
I will move quickly to the next major point, which concerned the inspectors. That raised a good deal of argument. We were told that the appearance was all that matters. I do not think that that is so. I do not think that that is really the true test. Merely transferring the apparent responsibility to the Lord Chancellor whilst leaving the real responsibility with the Minister of Housing would savour rather of the nature of a sham.
The hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) put the point that the inspectors get a sort of Departmental outlook. Transferring the appointment to the Lord Chancellor would not prevent that happening, because in order to get through their work the inspectors have to work in the closest collaboration with the Ministry of Housing. That is really not the answer. There have been no complaints against the way in which these inspectors perform their duties, and with the new steps that are being taken it will become more apparent than ever that they perform their duties really well.
The real answer is the acceptance of the recommendations that a statement of the facts has to be put forward on paper before the inquiry takes place, that the report of the inspector will be communicated to those concerned—and the recommendations he makes—and that the Minister's decision will be announced. That is the real thing. I do not think that the other point matters very much. It really has a certain amount of unreality.
Mr. Brockway: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how soon this will be applied?
The Attorney-General: The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) raised a number of questions about a particular form of tribunal. I can only say that to implement all the recommendations we have accepted will obviously involve legislation in many directions. A great deal of time may elapse in dealing with that. I hope not. I hope that with the good will and the kind of spirit we have seen on both sides of the House today we may bring about the legislative changes fairly speedily. So far as the administrative changes are concerned, some do require further consideration. Details have to be worked out. In some cases, we feel that we should consult the Council on Tribunals, particularly on procedure. I cannot give any time but, again, this is not a matter which we want to shelve at all. I think our attitude shows that.
I conclude by saying that I feel sure that the proposals which the Government have outlined today, and the fact that we have accepted so many of the Franks Committee's recommendations, will lead not only to a greater sense of fairness being felt by all who come before these tribunals but also to a far better determination of the problems that come before those tribunals; I feel sure, too, that the proposals in regard to inquiries will, again, assist in the proper determination of the matters that come before these inquiries and on which Ministers have to decide.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Enquiries (Command Paper No. 218).

RAILWAY STATIONS, MANCHESTER
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Barber.]
9.58 p.m.
Mr. W. R. Williams: The subject of this Adjournment debate may not be one of national importance, but I and many others believe that it is of considerable moment to the people of the important City of Manchester, part of which I have the honour to represent, and, indeed, to the people of many other Lancashire and Cheshire townships adjoining Manchester. The subject is the need for major schemes of reconstruction and expansion at Manchester's railway stations, and particularly at the London Road and the Exchange Stations.
It will be well known to many hon. Members that the London Road Station is the main outlet for passenger traffic to Crewe, London and the South; to South Wales and to the West Midlands —the most populous and important industrial and commercial centres. Exchange is the main outlet.
It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Barber.]
Mr. Williams: The latter, that is to say, the Exchange Station, is one of the main outlets for the north-west of England, parts of Scotland, Yorkshire and the industrial areas of the North-East. There may be defects in the other two stations, Central Station and Victoria Station, but I have not had the opportunity to make personal investigations into those, and I will, therefore, confine myself to the two stations to which I have referred, London Road and Exchange.
Perhaps I ought to say that I sought to raise this subject on the Adjourment of the House a number of weeks before the Summer Recess. Unfortunately, from my point of view, Mr. Speaker did not find it possible to select it, and I have, therefore, had to wait until now. I mention

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that because I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, the Ministry, and, indeed, the British Transport Commission, will not be too much affected by the climate of the debate during the last few days and so be deterred from giving what I regard as full and sympathetic consideration to the submissions I hope to make in the next few minutes.
I assure the Parliamentary Secretary, first of all, that I fully recognise the stupendous tasks and problems with which British Railways have been confronted ever since nationalisation. In the second place, I realise that they still have problems of great magnitude ahead. Thirdly, I assure the Parliamentary Secretary that I am second to none in this House in admiration of the remarkable achievements of the British Transport Commission in the past six or eight years in engineering construction, relaying permanent way, mechanisation of signals and, what is perhaps particularly important from Manchester's point of view, the completion of the electrification scheme between Manchester and Sheffield which has proved a great asset to the travelling people of Manchester and that part of Yorkshire. Nevertheless, I make no apology at all for urging that a niche must be found in the immediate future programme of the Transport Commission to provide Manchester and this most important area with travelling facilities and amenities in main line stations which are in accordance with the importance of the area and the needs of the people living and working in it.
The hon. Member for Withington (Sir R. Cary) will, I am sure, know well, as I and others do, that within a radius of about thirty miles from the centre of Manchester there is an estimated population of between 2¼ and 2½ millions. The area is highly industrialised and there is within it a wide diversification of commercial establishments, trading centres and business activities. My first and basic contention is that the facilities now existing in London Road and Exchange are not up to the required standard and something must be done very soon in order to improve them.
Perhaps I had better deal separately with the two stations, taking first of all London Road, which is the principal station, as all hon. Members representing Manchester constituencies know very well
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because we frequently travel to and from it. With London Road must be associated its half-sister, Mayfield. Heaven knows what Mayfield Station really is; it seems to be one of those anachronisms one finds from time to time in a railway system. It seems to me to be a relic of the old days which has never been completely and properly amalgamated into the London Road Station.
I am not alone in the belief—it is shared by a large number of people in Manchester—that the sooner the existing structures at both London Road and Mayfield Road are pulled down and demolished, the better it will be for Manchester. A person trying to catch a train at the Mayfield Station finds that normally it is running out of London Road, but at the last minute it is changed to Mayfield. One has to run through jungles of staircases and corridors which seem to be miles long—I do not suppose they are, but they seem to be miles long when one is in a hurry. There does not seem to be any co-ordination whatever between these two sides of the station. The case I was putting tonight is that as soon as possible these two stations should be mobilised into one modern unit which will be worthy of Manchester and the area.
My second point is that, in the opinion of many of us who travel frequently, especially from Stockport to London Road, there is a shortage of tracks in the area. More tracks are certainly necessary to deal with the ever-growing traffic in the area, and especially—I am not an expert or a technician, but this much appeals to me—to deal with the clearance of empty coaches and light engines, which seem to be occupying the tracks that ought normally to be assigned to the main line passenger traffic coming in and out of Manchester.
I believe that the operational, the signalling and the inspectorate staff in London Road are most severely handicapped in their efforts to despatch trains on schedule and to receive incoming trains on time by the absence of suitable and sufficient tracks from that section, possibly from Longsight into London Road and Mayfield. This is certainly the case in the heavy seasonal periods, when a large number of relief and extra trains are put on to carry the additional traffic.

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I shall not attempt to deal with the technical improvements which will be necessary to ensure that that is done. It is a matter for the technicians, the engineers and the constructional engineers. I simply pose the question as one which is exercising my own mind and the minds of many people who are forced to travel to and from Manchester.
In my opinion, there is a serious lack of accommodation for luggage, parcels and packets in Manchester, London Road. The extent of this problem is in the large stacks of parcels, packages and Post Office mailbags which are strewn all over the platforms and, indeed, over some of the exits of London Road station. Apart from speedy storage and disposal of these parcels and packages, the question of security is very important. I consider it most unfair to the employees of British Railways in London Road to impose upon them responsibility for custody without at the same time providing reasonably adequate accommodation, adequate staffing and, above all, direct and constant supervision of these articles. I do not think that under the existing circumstances it is possible for the staff to do it.
My third point concerns the working and retiring accommodation for the railway workers themselves. As an old trade union leader, I hesitate to interfere in matters which are normally outside by province. I consider that these matters are proper for the trade unions concerned to enter into negotiations with the official side and to try to make the best they can of the conditions there. I know that there are frequent and regular discussions between the unions concerned and the official side at London Road to try to overcome some of the problems there.
Looking at the buildings from the outside, at the retiring rooms, the offices, cloakrooms and so on, I think that they are hardly up to modern standards either in capacity, working conditions, hygiene, ventilation, lighting or anything else. I have not seen them inside. I did not think that it was my job to try to go inside to see them.
I have been actively concerned, however, about the retiring accommodation which was allocated to the male porters belonging to the Post Office who work at London Road Station, and I made
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it my business to ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to intercede on their behalf with the authorities in Manchester. I am very glad to say that improved accommodation has accrued as a result of that intercession. Whether the other accommodation is as bad as that which I saw in connection with the male porters' accommodation, I am unable to say. I am quite certain that every trade unionist there would be very pleased indeed to find modern offices and retiring rooms in London Road.
The main point of my submission concerns the facilities and amenities which are provided for the travelling public. I have made it my business to ascertain to the best of my ability what waiting room accommodation is available at London Road. So far as I can see, there is one ladies' waiting room in the main booking hall—and what a main booking hall it is! I can hardly believe that the people who planned the booking hall at Euston were the same people who planned the booking hall at London Road, Manchester.
There is one ladies' room there. I have not been in it, so I do not know what it is like. There is a general waiting room in the booking hall, and I think that with a little bit of elasticity it might be possible for that room to hold 12 to 15 people. There is another one, I understand, at the back of what is called the Tavern—and it is a tavern. I should imagine that if one pushed very hard one might be able to get 20 people into it. I do not know if there are others, and I am subject to correction if there are. So far as I can see, the travelling accommodation there for the public would possibly provide for 35 to 45. When we realise that thousands of people are travelling many times a day from Manchester to London and other places, I think that it will be agreed that the accommodation is completely inadequate.
There is another point of which I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to take note. The passengers who generally travel from London Road, Manchester, come from various parts of Lancashire. They have had a journey of an hour or 1½hours in some cases and owing to the connections they possibly have to come to London Road late in the evening, perhaps at 9.30 or 10 o'clock, to catch the midnight trains to London, Cardiff, Cornwall and other places. It is

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quite pathetic to see hundreds of passengers, especially women and children, old people and disabled people, who have not even a room in which to sit at London Road Station. They have to be there sometimes for 1½ hours or 2 hours in the cold weather in winter. Anyone who has been in the main booking hall at Manchester will know what a cold wintry evening is like in that tunnel of a booking hall. There is certainly no room at the London Road Station for a lot of these people. Many people will agree with me that we cannot allow this to go on indefinitely. Something must be done.
I want now to say a word about refreshment rooms. As far as I can ascertain, there are two ordinary refreshment rooms and the old tavern. One refreshment room closes fairly early, and the other at 11 p.m. Anyone who tries to get into the refreshment room at London Road Station between 10 and 11 p.m., especially in the summer, ought to be playing in the scrums for Wales, because it requires tenacity, courage, strength and stamina. Refreshments cannot be taken in comfort, if at all, and passengers facing long night journeys find that they cannot be served.
I want now to say a word about Exchange Station. I am not as familiar with Exchange as I am with London Road, but I have made it my business to visit it early in the mornings and at other times, and I believe the position there is, if anything, worse than at London Road in respect of amenities and general welfare facilities. I saw only one waiting room, one for both ladies and gentlemen, and I imagine that, with a struggle, one could get 14 or 16 people in it. I have seen no other accommodation for people there. There is no refreshment room. All there is is a wagon stall on one platform where one can get teas, buns and sandwiches. One certainly eats and drinks rough at Exchange. I have been there in the morning. Believe me, one sits out on benches on the platform with no cover and no protection from the wind and the cold.
I had wished to refer to the station approaches, the struggle at the taxi ranks and so on, but I think that the hon. Member for Withington feels almost as strongly as I do about some of the conditions at the Manchester stations, and,
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hoping that he will be fortunate enough to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, I have pleasure in making room for him.
10.18 p.m.
Sir Robert Cary: I intervene briefly in support of the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams), who renders a service to all the citizens of Manchester by raising this matter.
As the hon. Member has truly said, the centrepiece is the reorganisation of the London Road Station. I believe the Prime Minister is travelling by train to Manchester tonight to fulfil a public engagement tomorrow. As he steps from the sleeper in the early hours of the morning into the grime of London Road Station, I hope he will not be reminded of the observation of John Stuart Mill 100 years ago about Manchester, that it was the vestibule of hell.
In referring to the London Road Station, I am not saying anything against the splendid services maintained by British Railways. This is not a complaint against the services to and from the station. It is a matter of how best the amenities of the station can be improved.
I am reminded that many years ago as a boy at school in Sussex, owing to a little success, which I had in the school debating society, I wrote excitedly to a well-known editor in Printing House Square asking him how I could manage to get to Parliament, and he most sensibly replied, "Train to Victoria, then 29 bus." As the years passed my ambition was fulfilled but it was via London Road Station and a majority of anything from one to ten thousand.
As I travelled on Thursday last to Manchester, I thought that I would make a little reconnaissance of the station staff of London Road Station, and as an ounce of fact is worth a ton of generalities, I took this question to the following staff of that station: "What does London Road Station need most?" The ticket collector said longer platforms; the bookstall keeper said, a better bookstall in a better place; the station-master's clerk required a bigger office; the parcels office clerk said, a new parcels depot; and the taxi-driver who took me away from the station said that London Road Station required blowing up. I do not ask my hon. Friend to be quite as drastic as that,

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but I ask him to give the matter some of the priority urged upon him by the hon. Member.
10.21 p.m.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I have listened to the eloquent pleas from the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) and my hon. Friend the Member for Withington (Sir R. Cary) about station facilities in Manchester. I am bound to say that I find it difficult to understand how the citizens of Manchester, who have made such splendid provision for this country in many ways and, indeed, have not failed to care for themselves in others, have failed in the past to provide themselves with better stations.
The fact is that almost any hon. Member can make a plea for a better station. It is common knowledge that nearly all our stations were built in the last century. Very few of them were modernised between the wars and we have not had time to do much since. Therefore, moved as I am by the eloquence of the hon. Members, I hope that others will not follow their example with similar pleas, because I shall occupy this bench every night for many months if they do.
I have inquired into this problem and the British Transport Commission has plans for London Road which are scheduled to start within the next eighteen months—it was two years from last March when they proposed these plans. These plans will go a long way to meeting what the hon. Members asked. That is to say, they provide for the lengthening of the platforms and increasing the number of the platforms. That is to meet the extra traffic which is expected when electrification is completed. When electrification is completed, those odd engines free-wheeling on their own and blocking tracks will disappear, because with electric traction they will not be needed. It is also intended to provide for a general modernisation of the whole station, including better lighting, repositioning of buildings—and I will take up the point about the parcels accommodation, but I think it has been catered for —and certainly to provide new refreshment rooms.
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On behalf of the Commission, I should say that I have made it my business and, indeed, my interest since I have been in my present Department to tour the country whenever I could to see what the Commission was doing with its modernisation schemes in different regions all over the place. Although the Commission has not been able to do much in the stations yet, where it has been able to do something it has done it very well. I am thinking particularly of the new refreshment room, the Caledonia refreshment room, at Glasgow Central Station which is admirable and everybody enjoys going there. It is just what a refreshment room ought to be.
I hope that in the course of the next few years there will be many more of those and that London Road Station, Manchester, will be among the first to have one. A great deal is being done in the design of refreshment rooms, waiting rooms and so on. Some stations have new ones now. They are much more attractive and commodious than the old ones, and in every way give better facilities to the long-suffering travelling public.
I sympathise with the travelling public. I quite agree that the traditional waiting room and refreshment room leaves a great deal to be desired. The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) probably said the last word on the subject in a debate during the summer. While I cannot agree with all he said. I do agree—and the Commission well knows this—that there is much to be done, and it is most anxious to go ahead and do it. At the same time, extensive remodelling of the track will be required in order to tie in with the increased number of platforms, electrification and so on, and the total estimated cost of that station is£1¼million, so it is a big step.
There are also other schemes. At Manchester, Oxford Road, there is a £250,000 scheme for special reconstruction brought about by electrification. At Manchester, Victoria Road, there is a new cafeteria, which was put in in 1952, and a new track lay-out and coloured light signalling system are to be installed. There is a further and bigger scheme for Victoria Road, under which £1 million will be spent in order to improve passenger accommodation. At Manchester, Central, a modern cafeteria was

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constructed in 1953, and there is a scheme for a further £116,000 for modernising the booking office, lengthening platforms, etc. I find that there is no proposal for improvements at Manchester, Exchange, at present, but I shall certainly take up with the Commission the points which the hon. Member has made and see how it proposes to meet them.
As to the general picture, we have had about two years of this huge modernisation programme for the railways for which we are providing £1,200 million plus in order to bring our railways up to the top class, in the expectation that there will be no better railway system in the world than ours in the next ten or fifteen years. Despite the capital cuts we are still allowing this modernisation programme to go ahead at a pretty high speed. The Chancellor told the House that we were allowing the expenditure of £170 million for next year and the year after. That, it is true, means some slowing down of the programme which the Commission was intending for those two years, but the fact is that the Commission has greatly speeded up its modernisation programme—and we are very delighted that it has—over the original figures for those two years, which were £135 million and £140 million. So even at the slower rate that we can allow the Commission is still substantially in advance of schedule, and I do not doubt that the whole country, including the constituencies of the hon. Members who have been speaking, will see very big improvements throughout.
Inevitably, most of these improvements, to start with, have been concentrated on the operational side—upon such matters as motive power; changing steam to diesel and electrification;
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coloured light signalling, which gives better line occupation, and reduces personnel; the continuous brake for freight wagons in order to improve the service; permament way improvements, and new marshalling yards which are an essential part of the improved freight service.
This is all foundation work for a better service both for passengers and freight. It is not work which will show itself very much to the travelling public, but all of it will be giving us progressive returns in improved quality of service both for passengers and freight, and therefore improved earning capacity for the Commission.
As, at present, there is a deficit of a good many tens of millions of pounds, which has to be carried by the taxpayer and financed by the 1957 Act, it is obviously of first-class importance that the Commission should relieve the taxpayers of that burden as soon as it can, so it has been rightly concentrating upon giving a better service and making itelf economically sound as soon as it can, and it hopes to do so by 1961–62. It certainly intends to go ahead progressively with improvements in stations, in the facilities for the travelling public in refreshment rooms, retiring rooms and so on, and with more comfortable rolling stock, and in a large variety of ways. I think that the hon. Members can be assured that Manchester will get its, share—
The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock. The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

  TRADE WITH CHINA
  2.35 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) whether there is any legislative authority for quantitative limitations on certain engineering exports to China, or whether these limitations are fixed by the Co-ordinating Committee in Paris under a self-given mandate; (2) whether there is under discussion the possibility of adopting a system of global quotas under which the amounts of these goods exported to China would have to be taken from totals fixed not specifically for China but primarily for Russia and Eastern Europe; and, if so, whether they are aware that failure to differentiate in these matters between China and the Soviet bloc perpetuates China's dependence on Soviet industrial resources.]
  THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, the limits set from time to time on certain exports from this country to China are fixed by Her Majesty's Government and made effective under the provisions of Section 1 of the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act, 1939. We take account of recommendations from the Co-ordinating Committee in Paris, which acts in a purely consultative capacity under a mandate from its constituent Governments. As to the second part of the Question, I think that the noble Viscount is already aware that the discussions which take place in the Co-ordinating Committee we confidential. I am not, therefore, able to disclose the tenor of the Committee's discussions on the subject of future quota arrangements. The overriding consideration is the need for limiting strategic exports.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Lord for his Answer. May I ask him whether the Government will bear in mind that it would be in the interests of British industry if the detailed application of the Government's policy in this matter were completely under British control? May I further ask him whether the Government will consider the advisability of themselves taking the responsibility in the future of applying the control, on the principle enunciated by the Foreign Secretary on February 15, 1956, that the test should be the extent to which the trade serves the interest of the free world?
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I admit that it may possibly be to the advantage of British industry if the course proposed by the noble Viscount were adopted. But this is an alliance and we must keep faith with our Allies. As to the noble Viscount's second supplementary question, while not accepting all the implications involved I can give him an assurance that economic and political factors, as well as the primary strategic one, are considered before Her Majesty's Government decide what action to take on the recommendations of the Co-ordinating Committee.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, might I ask whether all the Allies concerned in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation are observing exactly the same practice as the British Government in this matter?
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I think our Allies stick to the rules pretty scrupulously in this respect.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I asked that question because I think you will find that there is a wider amount of trade going on with some of the other countries than we are permitted to conduct in the present situation. Is it not rather strange that in present circumstances we should have for long periods the German mark taking superiority over sterling in the markets, with a large increase of German trade in China?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, I quite agree. There have been in the past causes for complaint, and no doubt there will be causes for complaint in the future.

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  But I think that, as leaders in this matter, we should try and keep faithfully to our promises.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, is there any time-limit imposed upon this subjection of our own trade to the partial control of our rival traders?
  LORD MANCROFT: Not that I know of.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: The noble Lord mentioned the point about our being leaders. Is he not aware that the chairman of the Co-ordinating Committee in Paris is a subject of the United States, which country does no export trade with China at all?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, I am aware of that.

  HEBRIDEAN GUIDED MISSILE RANGE
  2.40 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to ask the Second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there has been any change in the plans to install a guided missile range on South Uist since the statement on the subject made by them on June 4, 1957.]
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, the projected guided missile range in the Hebrides, in common with other defence installations and establishments all over the world, has been and is being closely scrutinised to make sure that the detailed plans are consistent with the latest developments in our defence policy and take full account of the urgent need for economy. It is too soon to say in what respects the plans which I described to your Lordships last June may be altered. The letting of the main contract for further constructional work is being held up until the Services' needs have been redefined more precisely. I will, if I may, keep your Lordships informed as the plans develop.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Lord for his Answer and for his continuing and sympathetic interest in these matters. May I ask him whether he will arrange for the
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  fullest possible notice to be given in the event of any further changes other than of a minor character, in order that the islanders may have ample time to arrange for other employment or generally to arrange their economy?
  LORD MANCROFT: Yes, my Lords, I will certainly give the noble Viscount that assurance. The Service Departments are particularly anxious to take the islanders as fully into their confidence as they possibly can.
  VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, in view of the effect upon agriculture of recent events in our nuclear station in the North of England, can we have an assurance that there will be no nuclear question involved in these missiles?
  LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I do not want to go into too much detail, but I can assure the noble Viscount, as I did, I think, in the debate in June last on this subject, that it is not the intention that there should be any nuclear activity at all in the Hebrides range.

  COMPENSATION FOR INJURED JUSTICES OF THE PEACE
  2.44 p.m.
  THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch, who regrets that he is prevented by doctor's orders from attending the House, I beg to ask the Question that stands in his name.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there is any means by which justices of the peace appointed to act as judicial authorities under the Lunacy Acts, 1890 to 1911, and the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, can be compensated for injuries inflicted by mental patients whom they interview in the course of their duties.]
  LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I know of no statutory authority for paying compensation to a justice of the peace for injuries sustained in the circumstances mentioned by the noble Lord, or in the performance of any of the other duties which fall to the lot of justices of the peace. So far as Her Majesty's Government are aware, no need has yet been felt for any such provision, which would in any case call for legislation.

  CONSTITUTION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS
  2.45 p.m.
  Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by Lord Teynham, That there be laid before the House Papers in regard to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government for the reform of the constitution of the House of Lords.
  THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, again I must ask for your indulgence, as I have been ordered not to speak here unless I read what I have to say. I hope your Lordships will credit me with sincerity when I say how much I dislike finding myself in opposition to Her Majesty's Government, to whom I have on many occasions given my loyal support but opposition is often a good thing, especially if it has a clarifying effect on the issues concerned. It requires strong conviction to hold to one's opinion and not to follow the line of least resistance, especially when doing so implies disloyalty to plans conceived by one's own Party.
  I heard with interest the speech made yesterday by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. As I listened to his persuasive words, I thought of the effect that they would have on those who were unaware of the fatal pitfalls there are in the plans of Her Majesty's Government, every one of which I believe to be basically unsound so far as the future welfare of this House is concerned. The noble Earl and his advisers seem obsessed with two things which are interrelated: the admission of Life Peers and the longterm aim of equalisation of the Parties. In my view these changes will, if agreed to, lower the efficiency and undermine the independence of your Lordships' House. as well as abolishing its centuries-old traditions and people in this country who have looked to debates in this House under its present composition for expert knowledge and guidance will find set up in this ancient Chamber a replica of another place, but without its powers, which will inspire little confidence and probably require a Lord Chairman to keep it in order.
  The noble Earl, in his speech, discarded all alternatives and has put forward reasons which in my opinion do not
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  justify the all-embracing changes that he proposes should be made. Who is it Her Majesty's Government are trying to appease? It cannot be Conservative public opinion, for time and time again that has shown its appreciation of the efficiency with which your Lordships carry on the business of this House. Nor can it be the Left-Wing Socialists, who are unappeasable and on whom no supposedly popular changes in the composition of this House will have the slightest effect. There are in existence Conservative groups the members of which are mortally afraid of being called "reactionaries." They are continually looking over their shoulders in case anything they say may appear to their friends to be non-progressive. It may be that Ministers of the Crown come into this category after listening to the persuasive, almost mesmeric arguments for reform put forward by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury.
  Whatever may be the deep-seated reason for these proposed changes, I felt that the time had come—perhaps it is now too late—to make a stand against the Left-Wing Conservatives and their Liberal supporters who, at the moment, appear to dominate your Lordships' House. I therefore put down a Motion which we should now have been discussing but which had to be withdrawn because no support for it was forthcoming: I could not even get a Teller. My Motion was as follows:
  "That in order to strengthen the Opposition, this House considers that the creation of a small number of hereditary Peers is preferable to the creation of life peerages, which would entail the abandonment of the hereditary principle which for centuries has been the foundation of membership of this House, and, further, that the equalisation of the Parties is against the interests and the future welfare of this House."
  If this Motion had been agreed to it would have provided an alternative to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government, and would have had the double effect of strengthening the Opposition and retaining the status quo.
  A great deal has been said about the precedent of the admission of Law Lords, but under the Act passed in 1876, four Lords of Appeal in Ordinary were created Life Peers, and since then the number has been raised to nine. This did create a precedent and was a small infringement of the hereditary principle. The noble

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  Earl the Leader of the House may therefore feel himself to be on firm ground in asking your Lordships to consent to the admission into this House of a number of individuals, including women, on a non-hereditary basis, thus abandoning the hereditary principle on which for centuries membership of your Lordships' House has been based. But the two matters—the position of the Law Lords and Life Peerages—are not comparable. The creation of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary as Life Peers was an absolute necessity, because at that time no-one in your Lordships' House, except the Lord Chancellor, had any knowledge of the processes of the law. But what the noble Earl is asking your Lordships to agree to is unnecessary, as the alternative put forward in the Motion I have read would have removed the main difficulty in the running of this House.
  As your Lordships know, the chief trouble which has beset this House, and a trouble which must be met, has been the diminishing Opposition and the difficulty of getting suitable persons of Left Vying views to accept hereditary peerages and so relieve the strain on noble Lords opposite. One of the reasons for this was the obvious one; that they would not be able to afford it. Now that your Lordships are paid for attendance, a solution has been found. There has been another difficulty besides that of payment, and that is that many persons of Left Wing views are averse to hereditary titles. Some certainly may be, but now that the main obstacle has been overcome it will be possible to find eight or ten persons who would be prepared to enter this House as hereditary Peers, and give their support to the noble Lords opposite; and it might even be feasible to find suitable persons who, unfortunately for themselves, are childless, and who would thus become not only hereditary but also Life Peers.
  I have gone into this point very thoroughly, and in spite of the misgivings of certain noble Lords I have been assured from the most reliable resources that now that your Lordships are paid for attendance there will be no difficulty whatever in getting persons of Left Wing views to accept hereditary peerages. My sources are very good indeed, and very reliable. I recognise that the creation of such peerages for political reasons is
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  unpalatable to some of your Lordships, but I, and I believe most of your Lordships, would like to see more eminent men of Left Wing views brought into this House. Their admission here, besides being an asset, would ensure the retention of the status quo, and maintain the traditions of this House.
  I had hoped that the noble Earl the Leader of the House, would have taken the line suggested in my Motion, instead of asking your Lordships to agree to the admission of individuals on a non-hereditary basis. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the hereditary principle in a country ruled like ours, which has no written Constitution. The ruling of this country is a lonely task, and if your Lordships, of your own act, in this place cast away the hereditary principle, that task will become still more lonely.
  It is evident that the proposed admission of Life Peers is related to Clause 2 of the 1948 Conference, which suggests that the revised composition of your Lordships' House should be such as to secure, so far as practicable, equality between the political Parties, and I hope your Lordships will not be misled by the comparatively mild suggestions of the Government's present schemes. The long-term aim is the same, and there should be no compromise. I noticed that the noble Earl said very little about this long-term aim. The tactics of the Government are good. They remind me of the old Chinese proverb
  "Softly, softly, catchee monkey".
  However, with regard to this equalisation of the Parties, your Lordships will remember that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in the debate in 1955, used the words
  "We can all accept proposition 2. … Her Majesty's Government certainly do."
  This is very definite, and I find it impossible, for several reasons, to follow the noble Earl the Leader of the House along those lines.
  In the first place, under the House's present composition. I can, like any other Member, give my views on any subject which comes up, whether I am in agreement or not with the Government in office. Clause 2, if agreed to, would threaten one of the greatest assets of your Lordships' House, the independence of its Members in the expression of their

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  opinions. The equalisation, or even the partial parity, of the Parties would introduce into this House the turmoil and strife of Party warfare, making it as like another place as possible. Noble Lords, nominated or otherwise, would have to vote and speak as they were told. Your Lordships have an example before your eyes. Noble Lords opposite have to obey orders. There are occasions when they are gagged and hamstrung by Party discipline, and that would be the fate of noble Lords on this side if Clause 2 were agreed to. As I have said, it threatens that independence of thought and expression which has made this House the greatest debating Chamber in the world and gained for it the respect and confidence of the country.
  I may be told that I am exaggerating, and that the new House will be little different from the old and will have the same opportunities for the free expression of opinions. I ask your Lordships to visualise the situation as it certainly will be. The time will come when the two Parties will be nearly equal; there will. at times, be bitter recriminations and Party strife. Noble Lords who criticise their own Party's policies will be looked upon with disfavour, and gone will be the present atmosphere which is so necessary for unbiased and clear thinking. There will be less time and fewer opportunities for independent views and for the leisurely and careful consideration of Bills and policies, something which is so well carried out by your Lordships under the House's present composition.
  I hope that the Conservative majority here will continue. It does no harm to anyone, least of all to the Socialist Party. On that point, let me remind your Lordships that the number of Government Bills that came before this House during the administration of the late Socialist Government was 409, all of which, including nationalisation Bills were passed after amendment—with one exception, which concerned your Lordships' House. This House is now a revising Chamber, doing useful work, and a deadlock between the two Chambers is extremely unlikely. I may be told that an increase of from eight to ten Peers does not go far enough, but it would, I suggest, be enough to start with. It certainly would not be sufficient to equalise the Parties, but I
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  believe that only a minority of your Lordships wish to turn this House into a bear garden. A number of noble Lords who may want it that way have come to this House after serving for years in another place, and have enriched our debates by their knowledge and political experience. They come with the light of battle in their eyes, but the debates which take place here seem to them dull and dreary, and some of them may be prepared to support any change in the composition of your Lordships' House which will give them the chance of taking part in the cut and thrust of Party warfare. They are mostly first-creation Peers and men of eminence and distinction. And the fact that we have so many of these noble Lords, who, take an active part in debates and who are in frequent attendance, demolishes the argument that this House as a whole requires to be further strengthened.
  Then there are some noble Lords who may look upon the nomination of Life Peers as a good compromise, and who are probably relieved that, although old traditions may be sacrificed, they themselves may still have the hereditary right to sit. Again, there are others, especially on the Liberal Benches, who think that your Lordships' House must, in the well-worn phrase, "march with the times"; but if your Lordships go too far and too fast along that road you will stultify yourselves. This House is an anachronism. and therein lies its strength. Take away its unique political independence, remove even a part of its hereditary character, and you will be doing away with an atmosphere, something which is indefinable and intangible but which has a strength of its own, because it is part of the tradition of a great nation. I am sorry if I repeat myself, but it cannot be emphasised too often that these debates which take place in your Lordships' House, under its present composition, are necessary to the country because they are free and largely independent of votes and Party, and are carried through, by men who know what they are talking about. Consequently, there is no need for a large number of new Members, however eminent, to add to the talents your Lordships already possess in good measure.
  There have been other attempts to introduce Life Peers into this House. In 1853, during the debate on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report, it was mentioned that

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  it was the hereditary quality of your Lordships' House which gave weight and steadiness to its decisions, and that if the hereditary character of this House is taken away, its independence is gone. Lord Campbell followed this up by pointing out that the House of Lords had been abolished in the 17th century and a Chamber of Life Peers might do it again. If the liquidation of this House is to be our ultimate fate, I hope we shall go down with the flag flying, as we are. In past debates, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has mentioned the difficulty he had of getting young men to come forward and help in the running of this House, but it may well be that the payment of your Lordships for attendance, small though it is, will prove an incentive to ambitious young Peers to take up a political career rather than go into business—I know it is small, but still it is possible. Also, if the noble Marquess was hard pressed, surely it would have been possible to find eldest sons of Peers with ability and a desire to serve the country who would accept peerages.
  May I remind your Lordships that in the past this House was run by the few and not by the many. In 1774, the average attendance was thirty-five, a number which is about the percentage of the then smaller peerage as 100 is to-day, and it remained much the same throughout the reign of King George III. Taking the average attendance to-day as from 90 to 100, one finds that the comparable average then was much the same. The usual attendance in those old days seems to have been from ten to twenty, so it would appear that although trade and commerce did not take up the time of young Peers as they do to-day, leisure and the demands of a society life did. Therefore, from the point of view of getting young Peers to help, the position then cannot have been very much different from what it is now, and yet they managed. I believe that this is a small difficulty which, if the will is there, can be overcome. It may be thought that I have been laying too much emphasis on tradition, but this country has been built up on tradition in its system of government, in the law, in civil life and in the Armed Forces; and it is true to say that it is the respect of our people for tradition which has helped us as a nation to present a stable front in the world of
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  chaos which has existed for so many years.
  Now let me turn to the question of women. On at least three occasions—maybe two; I am not quite sure—this House has turned down the admission of women, and nothing has happened since the last time to make your Lordships change your minds. I hope that your Lordships will not weaken now. Women do excellent work throughout the country, especially in welfare, but, excepting for a few, they are not—I should have said, in my opinion—suited to politics, for the following reasons. They are often moved by their hearts more than they are by their heads, and the emotional urge which exists in a woman's make-up does not help towards good judgment. It is said that to allow women in another place and not here is not logical; but logic is not always infallible. The main point is that many of us do not want women in this House. We do not want to sit beside them on these Benches, nor do we want to meet them in the Library. This is a House of men, a House of Lords. We do not wish it to become a House of Lords and Ladies.
  There is another aspect of the general situation. If the Government decide that this House is to be modernised, such action may be considered in some quarters as the setting up of a rival Chamber to another place, and would not he tolerated. Although we know that this would not be true, it may well be considered so. Therefore, if your Lordships encourage the plans of the Government, I am of the opinion that it will be the greatest mistake that has ever been made in this House in its existence.
  Finally, there is one point I should like to emphasise. It is this: if this House were to be given more powers, there might be some excuse for the acceptance of at least some of these reforms, but as there is no chance of that I cannot see what possible advantage will accrue to your Lordships' House, or to the nation at large, by changing the composition of a legislative body which, as is everywhere admitted, does its work extremely well. My Lords, we continue to see changes all around us. We see things which we had always thought sacrosanct altered beyond all recognition. But there are other things which stand like rocks in this ageless State. May your Lordships' House be one of them!
  3.6 p.m.
  EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, as rather a newcomer to your Lordships' House, I have a certain diffidence in addressing your Lordships on this subject, more especially after hearing so many interesting speeches yesterday and to-day, not the least interesting being that of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow. Yesterday we had a remarkable speech from the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel. If all Members of your Lordships' House kept as young in the eighties as he does, there would be no question about the introducing of more youth into this House. I was much impressed, if I may say so, by the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, so long a colleague in another place, who I thought made a delightful contribution.
  Although I was not a Member of either Legislative Chamber, and only a rank-and-file Member of a Party then, the events of 1910 are still vivid to me. When I heard of the idea that in coming up to your Lordships' House one came into a cool atmosphere, I could not help recollecting that there was nothing cool about the atmosphere of 1910. The events of 1910 were regarded as the final service of the Liberal Party to this country in the field of political emancipation, but in our Party we always had a certain apprehension that once again the Commons might be challenged by your Lordships' House. For many years I occupied a room in the other place dedicated to the Leader of the Opposition, and over the mantelpiece was the text "Fear the Lord alway." I thought that was "Fear the Lords always." We had a certain apprehension, but, generally speaking, it was a matter of letting sleeping dogs lie—not that I would use the term "dog" abusively to this House, a very fine, ancient, pedigreed animal. We always thought that it might bite again, but actually when Labour came into power in 1945 there was no trouble. I think that was very largely due to the high statesmanship of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and I think the country will always be indebted to him for it.
  It is true that there was one matter in which we had to proceed, and that was the amendment of the Parliament Act. There was some question at a late hour yesterday about why we did that. It was suggested that it was an unprovoked assault, or words to that effect. As a matter of fact, it was what one might
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  call "intelligent anticipation." On a battlefield one occupies a particular feature of the landscape because one may apprehend attack in that place, and our intelligence was proved to be right by the event. But, broadly speaking, we accepted things as they were, because we were dealing largely with economic matters and we did not think that there was a case for going out for all-out change.
  On the other hand. other Parties invited us to discuss these matters, and the Conference which was held went into full consultation and arrived at certain conclusions which we were prepared to put before our Party. We had no mandate; nor had the leaders of other Parties. Whether or not they would have been accepted by the Labour Party at the time, I do not know. I gather that there were similar doubts on the other side. But there was an opportunity which. in my view, was let slip over a quarrel on some six or eight months' delaying power of your Lordships' House. A good deal of water has passed under the bridge since then, and I do not think that at the present time it would be fruitful to renew an inter-Party conflict.
  So we come to the present time. Frankly, my attitude was at one time in favour of single-Chamber Government. In the old days of 1910 we always said, "Away with the Lords!" Since then, as the result of experience, I have come to believe in a Second Chamber. One must not confuse the idea of a Second Chamber exactly with a House of Lords. I have been against anything which would in any way thwart the will of the elected representatives of the people. On the other hand, I recognise that, owing to stress of business in another place, one does need a revising Chamber. Ministers would hardly ever be able to "get away with it" if they could not from time to time say, "Well, I will see whether something can be done about it in another place." That is very different from giving power to a non-elected and non-representative Assembly to act against the will of the electors.
  It is true that this House is an anomaly, It is part of our history, come down to us from the time when it was even the predominant part of the Legislature. But to-day it is, I think, mainly complementary to another place. What we are considering to-day really is how far it fulfils

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  the need of the present time. I agree that, on the whole, against all probability, it works extremely well, as things do in this country. We are very wise not to be logical. The French are a very logical nation, and they have several Governments every year. It is also true that this House has very distinguished persons in it: it can draw on all kinds of experience. What I think it comes down to is the difficulty that faces us in these days of getting what I call the hard core of full-timers. The same applies to another place. There may be people who can give a certain amount of time, while mainly occupied by other things, but there must always be a hard core of people who can devote their whole time. In the old days one could find such people, because there were people of great possessions. Nowadays the problem is more difficult, and it is particularly difficult for an Opposition Party such as the Labour Party.
  I have never maintained that we wanted to have a mathematical equality between Parties in this House. All I claimed was that there should be a possibility, at some time or other, of not having the House solely the preserve of one Party with an overwhelming majority. Some of my friends defend it or the grounds that, just because its composition is so anomalous, no one will ever seek to give it more power; and that if it were made more logical, it night be a case of trying to give it more power as against another place. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has expressly disclaimed any desire to increase the power of this House. That is very sad. But the noble Marquess may not last for ever. I do not know what would happen if the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, succeeded. We have seen what he can do with a bell, and what he can do with a House of Lords I do not quite know. But assuming that there is no desire there to increase the power of the House, there is still a need to get a workable team on both sides.
  Frankly, my Lords, I do not think that the present proposals really get over the difficulty. It is all very well for the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, to say that three guineas a day, three times a week, will tempt the rising generation front trade and industry. I beg leave to doubt it. I agree, on the other hand, with those who have said that it is in-
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  sufficient for people who are going to do a full-time job. Therefore, one has to look at the matter from the point of view of giving adequate remuneration to those who attend. I do not like the idea of "clocking in," so to speak: I do not think it is very dignified. On the other hand, the idea of a salary is almost impossible, so long as there are some 600 people or so outside who may attend—I think the noble Marquess is perfectly right in that. That is why I do not think the proposal to create a certain number of Life Peers is the real answer, though it would be of some advantage. It is often difficult for people to accept Peerages, particularly when they have a family. I have sometimes had the job of seeking to reinforce your Lordships' House. In the Labour Party, not being sterile, most people had children, and it was not always the fact that those without children were the best people to be sent up here. So I do not think you will get over that. I agree that the admission of women is right. I think it is desirable. I believe that it would be of great assistance, and might be of extreme value in our discussions. Furthermore, with the comparatively short sittings that we have in this House, it might be possible for women members to attend quite regularly, despite their other avocations.
  But that does not get over the difficulty that was pointed out, if a number of Lila Peers is to be added to our present numbers, our numbers will go on increasing and increasing. Therefore, I do think, if this matter is going to be dealt with seriously, it is necessary to consider somehow the cutting down of numbers. I do not think the device of giving leave of absence is very satisfactory. After all, it does not remove something which on our side we regard as a potential menace. I am bound to say that perhaps our members tend to think of the 400 or 500 who do not attend. They feel that most of these Members hold views somewhat similar to those of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow—or more extreme. I expect we are quite wrong, but there is that potential menace. Therefore, I think if we are going in for reform here we have got to deal with the hereditary principle.
  It has been suggested that we might make a distinction between Peers of Parliament and other Peers; that by issuing Writs for each Parliament to a limited

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  number of Peers it might result in a smaller House. I do not quite know who is going to advise on that—presumably the Party Leaders. Here we come to the deep-laid suspicion that many noble Lords have of Party Leaders and Parties, and the great pride in independence. With regard to independents, I agree with the great Conservative, the Earl of Beaconsfield. who said:
  "Independents are people you cannot depend on."
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): I believe it was the fourteenth Earl of Derby who said that.
  EARL ATTLEE: Far be it from me to take the credit from anybody else, but it is the case with almost all good sayings on the Conservative side that they are put down either to the Earl of Beaconsfield or to Sir Winston Churchill. But whoever said it, there is a lot of truth in it. The fact is that you have to realise that the working of our Constitution does depend on the Party system. If you want to see how you cannot work democracy without a proper Party system, you have only to look across the Channel. It may be difficult, but it is the one way out.
  I feel that the Government, while they were about it, might have dealt with some other anomalies. There is that brought up in regard to the Scottish Peers by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun. Then there is the question which I should have thought would have been in the forefront—namely, the right to refuse to come to this House. That was put admirably and temperately by Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn quite recently, and it was put somewhat violently by the noble and learned Viscount Lord Hailsham. The greatest "slating" I ever had was in a letter to The Times from Lord Hailsham on account of my refusal to summon Parliament to meet in the middle of September to deal with his particular case. It showed the importance of the subject to the noble and learned Viscount. I am surprised that, with his position of eminence in his Party, these proposals should come forward without that essential. Undoubtedly it is hard, and, of course, it is one of the things that prevent some people from coming to your Lordships' House: they have a hopeful boy who might do great things in the Commons and the hopeful
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  boy tells his father that he does not want to come here. Unless they are fortunate in having a very long-lived father, such as we all hope the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate will be—be is only a young man of eighty or so now—they are in danger of having a promising career nipped in the bud. If proposals were to be put forward, I should have thought that was one which would have been included.
  I have one last point to make. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chichester put forward a proposal for adding representatives of the other Churches to your Lordships' House. Frankly, I am against that idea. I think that, historically, the Bishops came here not through their spirituality but through their temporality, because they were Barons and fighting men. I think it was Stalin who asked how many divisions the Pope could put into the field. In old times it was often asked how many men-at-arms the noble Bishops could provide. I do not think representatives of other religious bodies would add to the efficiency of this House, because in this House we get quite a number of laymen who are fully qualified to speak to the House on these matters. In any event, I think the presence of the Bishops here is taking them away from their proper work. What will be the fate of these proposals, I do not know. I have watched this question for forty-seven years, and all that time it has been one that did not brook delay. Well the brook may go on—I do not know.
  3.24 p.m.
  LORD REA: My Lords, at this stage in the debate, twenty-four hours after the noble Lord. Lord Teynham, put his inspired Question, and almost half a century after the matter first became urgent. I have no intention of pursuing academical arguments, or indeed of making the speech which I had intended to make, because I have had the great gratification of hearing that speech from every quarter of the House during the last twenty-four hours. But I think perhaps it is suitable that I should put before your Lordships the attitude of the Party for which I speak, if indeed it is necessary to say more than that we have not deviated, as a Party, from the conclusions to which we came forty-six years ago; that some improvement in the composition or the powers, or both, was necessary

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  in regard to your Lordships' House. In this respect I follow the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence: that this matter has ceased to be a Party issue and is one of individual political conscience. Just as he and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, deviated from the rigid neutrality of their Leader, so I think I must claim some indulgence for any noble Lords on these Benches who may not unreservedly accept our Party line of welcoming these present proposals, with the reservation that we look upon them as an earnest of something better and rather wider in the way of reform yet to come.
  Without going into detail, it would seem quite obvious that the whole principle of some reconstitution of the Second Chamber, which I think obviously now has the support of the majority of your Lordships, stems perfectly plainly from the fact that the hereditary system, whatever may be said for it or against it, has in some way got a little out of focus in relation to the function of a Second Chamber in our democratic State. It does, I think, call for some rearrangement and some tidying up: partly, perhaps, by the creation of Life Peers; partly, perhaps, by the inclusion of women, and partly, perhaps, by some other measure that we have not yet found. But basically the unbalance of this House, upon which I think we almost all agree, is connected (and at this stage I would not go further than saying "connected") with the development of the hereditary system in this House. Yet that is the basic one thing which the Government have side-stepped and are not proposing to tackle at the moment. That I regret.
  Will the creation of ten Life Peers a year, of which we approve, have any appreciable effect on a House of some 870 Members? Is the inclusion of women anything more than a side issue, undertaken as a belated gesture of consistency and justice? These two issues taken in isolation from any attempt to solve the real, main difficulty of the present composition of the House seem to me to present a lopsided attempt at a solution, in which I suggest the Government have been, so to speak, artistically most inept. Speaking artistically, the artist, of course, is always at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Almighty, since he is striving all the time to reproduce in two dimensions what the
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  Almighty does so much better in three. That, I suggest, is what is happening in the present situation.
  At this stage I do not propose to make any new suggestions, but, while paying tribute to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury for his advocacy of these reforms, I may add that t am rather unimpressed by his argument that the hereditary Peers cannot follow the example of the Scottish elected Peers because they do not know each other well enough. In an ordinary Parliamentary election to the other House the electorate numbers about 70,000, of whom I suspect that at least 50,000 or 60,000 have never dined with, do not know and have not even seen or heard the candidate for whom they propose to vote. If 600 or 700 so-called "backwoods Peers" of the reasonably high capacity which the noble Marquess quite justifiably attributed to them are unable to select 200 or 300 of their own number, then things do look rather grim. In my opinion, it is such a selection of hereditary Peers among themselves which would most easily, at least for the present, ensure that continuance of that youthful element in your Lordships' House, whose existence seems to me of absolutely vital importance.
  From the Government's proposals I turn to the Opposition's lack of proposals. For two generations, if not three, the Labour Party have denounced the House of Lords. The proletariat has been taught to denounce the House of Lords, and I have no doubt that that part of the proletariat which still supports the Labour Party expects its leaders either to abolish or to reform the House of Lords. But are they being misled'? Of course, to-day there is a different part of the proletariat who join with many of the non-proletariat in wishing to goodness that we could get rid of this Tory Government, while hoping to goodness at the same time that we shall not get a Labour one. But that is a point I shall not pursue at the moment.
  How comes it that the feet of the Socialist Party continue to be so cold, time after time, that in this matter they neither advance nor retire? What do they want to do? It may be that they realise that the electorate is not so much in love with one-Chamber government as it used to be. Or perhaps they are hoping that time may do their work for them, and

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  if they hang back from their previously declared convictions and let the matter go, this House may die of inanition. If that is their line, I think it is politically unworthy. I have in mind a much stronger word than "unworthy", but I will let it go at that.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? The Liberal Party declared forty years ago that this matter "brooked no delay". What proposals have the Liberal Party put forward for the reform of the House of Lords?
  LORD REA: The Liberal Party, so far as I know, is the only one of the three Parties who have consistently supported some measure towards the reform of the House of Lords.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: But what measure?
  LORD REA: If the noble Viscount will refer to the All-Leaders Conference in 1948, at which a large measure of agreement was achieved, and also to the Parliamentary records, he will find that the Liberal Party supported the Liberal leader, who took that line.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The Labour proposals.
  LORD REA: From the Front Labour Bench in recent times my Party, the Liberal Party, has been accused of becoming more and more reactionary.
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
  LORD REA: I am very glad to hear those cheers, for it shows that I have not misquoted anybody. Perhaps it means that our constant effort, particularly through the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel, to modify the non-representational part of the British Parliament—despite every lack of co-operation from the Labour Party—is retrogressive or feudal. I do not think that that can be maintained. Does it mean, perhaps, that on occasions when we join the Labour Party in the Division Lobby in one of their more liberal moods, against what we consider to be a reactionary Government measure, we are then considered to be progressive? That frequently happens. But when we support the present Government on a point where we consider that the Labour view in this
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  House is old-fashioned, partisan, doctrinaire, conservative, damaging to the majority of the workers and inimical to the welfare of a progressive State, as in the present instance, then they call us reactionary.
  There is one more point which has, I think, been touched upon only by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and that is the position of those who are destined to be Members of your Lordships' House and who would like to be free to pursue a Parliamentary political career in another place. We are all looking forward to hearing the Lord President intervene in this debate, and if his personal modesty should prevent him from touching upon this particular subject perhaps we might look to the Lord Chancellor to enlighten us as far as possible. The noble Viscount. Lord Hailsham, as the pillar, if not the pediment, of the Conservative Party, last week-end—and admittedly in a different context—used these rather remarkable words:
  "I will not have things different than they are."
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It should be "would."
  LORD REA: I do not expect the noble Viscount to take that line in this debate, but should be do so I must warn him that I, for one, shall differ "than" him. I submit that the great changeover in the opinion of Members of this Chamber regarding the necessity for putting our House in order is a welcome and encouraging sign. I am content to go slowly—but not too slowly—and we here on these Benches, representing, as I say, the only Party that has consistently supported measures of this sort, congratulate the Government on bringing them forward.
  3.35 p.m.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords. I was originally drafted into this position by my colleagues at a time when the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, was still looking for his Teller and before it was known that one could not be found. I had had some doubts, I confess, as to whether it was appropriate at all for a third member of the Government Front Bench to intervene, because I think there has been a very wide measure of agreement in what has been an agreeable debate.
  Like my noble friend the Marquess of Salisbury, I personally have lived with

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  this problem for a considerable time: ever since, thirty years ago, my father rather coyly confided to me that he had been invited to occupy the Woolsack, and that an inevitable consequence of this was that he would have to accept an hereditary peerage. Although he, with characteristic generosity, consulted his potential heir in the matter, I regret to say that he did not follow his advice. Since that time, over a period of more than ten years I have taken part in almost every debate on the subject of the Second Chamber in either House of Parliament, and I have a number of convictions which are recorded against me. They are sincerely held convictions; and I certainly would not, in anything I say to-day, desire to depart from the substance of anything that I have said at any time about them.
  I certainly remember my exchange with the noble Earl opposite. If I may offer him a gentle reproach, it would be that lie is quite mistaken, and if he will look up the record he will find that he is mistaken in thinking that I was demanding either the special return of Parliament or the individual and separate treatment of my own affairs. What I was asking for was the kind of general reform of the law which he was this afternoon regretting that the Government had not introduced. If I did subject him to some criticism, I should hardly have thought that it was to be dignified by the term "slating." It was because I thought then, as I think now, that there was a slight uneasiness of conscience on his part which led him to misrepresent the real nature of my request.
  But it is clearly my duty this afternoon, quite humbly and dispassionately as the servant of this House, to offer what objective advice I can as to the attitude the House should take about the proposals which fell from my noble friend yesterday. Viewing the matter as dispassionately as I can—and your Lord- ships know I never have the brand of emotion to enter into what the noble Lord referred to as his "make-up"—I am in absolutely no doubt as to what that advice should be. It is that we are right to act; that we act late rather than too soon; and that the measures which have been proposed by my noble friend are intrinsically desirable measures which ought to be adopted, although, as anyone would expect from a person like myself who has expressed strong convic-
  702
  tions on this subject in the past, I do not pretend that these measures are adequate or a final reform. Nor would I seek to do so: it would be wholly inconsistent with everything I have said in the past, and everything I believe now. But it would be none the less my unequivocal advice that, at the juncture at which we now are, an attempt to load into the Government programme much more than is already there would cause these proposals in their turn to founder, as previous proposals have foundered in the past, for multiplicity of counsel and divergent opinions.
  I sincerely think, notwithstanding the fact that I should like to see a great deal more in them—and here I speak as one who has interested himself in this matter for nearly thirty years—that if we put more into the proposals now, we should lose them for want of sufficient basis of agreement to carry them through both Houses of Parliament. I thought myself, with the greatest respect in the world, that my noble friend Lord Salisbury was a little less than generous to the Leader of the House when he described the proposals as "half a loaf being better than no bread." My own conviction is that we should be unable to secure, except perhaps with a disproportionate expenditure of Parliamentary time, effort and emotion, agreement for a wider measure than they represent, which leads me to ask the House to be content, in substance at any rate, with the proposals which we have put forward.
  Now I address myself to the three questions which we really have to ask ourselves. Ought we to act? There has, I think, been a wide measure of agreement in all quarters of the House that we ought to act. There has been a surprisingly wide agreement about the nature of the problem about which we ought to act. We are all agreed in principle that a problem exists with regard to those who have a right to come here and perhaps ought not to possess that right. If one looked in the Lobby to-day one would see a whole sheaf of Writs which have not been claimed, at any rate this Session. That in itself constitutes a problem. But, none the less. the primary problem, the thing which makes it imperative to treat this matter as a fairly urgent necessity, is not so much the right to attend of those from whom

  703
  it might legitimately be withheld, as the necessity of procuring, as the noble Earl opposite has said, the day-to-day attendance of suitable Members when it is difficult to obtain a quorum. Here I would warn those of us who quite rightly, for reasons wholly laudable, do not find it possible to attend regularly, not to be misled by the appearance of the House this afternoon. In the latter stages of the Committee stage of the Shops Bill it did not look quite like this.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: It was not such a good measure.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: If my noble friend will forgive my saying so, the attendance should not bear a direct proportion to the goodness or badness of the measure. Indeed, if noble Lords opposite were to be listened to, one would suppose that attendance would go in inverse proportion to the goodness of the measure. That is part of their complaint.
  My conviction is that we must act in order to recruit adequate numbers to do the ordinary work of the House. I think it has been established beyond doubt that there are people who, for very good reasons, would be glad to accept a Life Barony or a Life Peerage but who would find difficulty, for various reasons which are perfectly honourable to themselves, in accepting an hereditary Peerage. We heard yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, whose speech we enjoyed, confess that it would have been difficult for him, if he had had an heir, to accept an hereditary Peerage. If he had had an heir, we should therefore have been deprived of his valuable counsel. The late Mr. Leopold Amery told me that similar considerations in a life-long Conservative afflicted him. One has heard many other names and knows many other instances and considerations which might affect them.
  Now my noble friend Lord Glasgow asks, whom are we trying to appease? The answer is that we are not trying to appease anybody: we are trying to do what we sincerely regard as our duty. In order to comfort my noble friend Lord Glasgow a little in his grief that we should be undermining the hereditary principle to which he attaches so much importance, I would remind him of what Walter Bagehot said nearly a hundred years ago, in 1867, about Life
  704
  Peerages. Your Lordships will forgive me if I refer at some length to Walter Bagehot, and forgive me also if I say that of all the writers there have ever been upon the British Constitution I still think he shows the most insight. This is what he said, and I quote it at some length because it is exactly on the point we are discussing to-day. This is what he wrote nearly a hundred years ago, referring to difficulties in our composition:
  "These grave defects would have been at once lessened, and in the course of years nearly effaced, if the House of Lords had not resisted the proposal of Lord Palmerston's first Government to create Peers for life. The expedient was almost perfect."
  This is what causes the noble Earl so much discomfort to-day.
  "The difficulty of reforming an old institution like the House of Lords is necessarily great; its possibility rests on continuous caste and ancient deference. And if you begin to agitate about it, to bawl at meetings about it. that deference is gone, its peculiar charm lost, its reserved sanctity gone. But, by an odd fatality, there was in the recesses of the Constitution an old prerogative which would have rendered agitation needless—which would have effected, without agitation, all that agitation could have effected. Lord Palmerston was—now that he is dead, and his memory can be calmly viewed—as firm a friend to an aristocracy, as thorough an aristocrat, as any in England; yet he proposed to use that power."
  I gather that the noble Earl regards me as a Left Wing Conservative with a Liberal supporter. But now hark to this would the noble Earl not regard the late Duke of Wellington as a Conservative?
  "If the House of Lords had still been under the rule of the Duke of Wellington, perhaps they would have acquiesced. The Duke would not indeed have reflected on all the considerations which a philosophic statesman would have set out before him; but he would have been brought right by one of his peculiarities. He disliked, above all things, to oppose the Crown."
  Then there is a reference to this:
  "He never was comfortable in opposing a conspicuous act of the Crown. It is very likely that, if the Duke had still been the President of the House of Lords, they would have permitted the Crown to prevail in its well chosen scheme. But the Duke was dead, and his authority—or some of it—had fallen to a very different person. Lord Lyndhurst had many great qualities: he had a splendid intellect—as great a faculty of finding truth as any one in his generation; but he had no love of truth. With this great faculty of finding truth, he was a believer in error—in what his own Party now admit to be error—all his life through. He could have found the truth as a stateman just as he found it when a Judge; but he never did find it. He never looked for it. He was a great partisan, and

  705
  he applied a capacity of argument, and a faculty of intellectual argument rarely equalled, to support the tenets of his party. The proposal to create Life Peers was proposed by the antagonistic Party—was at the moment likely to injure his own Party. To him this was a great opportunity. The speech he delivered on that occasion lives in the memory of those who heard it. His eyes did not at that time let him read, so he repeated by memory, and quite accurately, all the black-letter authorities bearing on the question. So great an intellectual effort has rarely been seen in an English assembly, But the result was deplorable…. The House of Lords rejected the inestimable, the unprecedented opportunity of being tacitly reformed. Such a chance does not come twice. The Life-Peers who would have been introduced would have been among the first men in the country. Lord Macaulay was to have been among the first. Lord Wensleydale—the most learned and the least logical of our lawyers—to be the very first. Thirty or forty such men, added judiciously and sparingly as years went on, would have given to the House of Lords the very element which, as a criticising Chamber, it needs so much. It would have given it critics. The most accomplished men in each department might then, without irrelevant considerations of family and fortune, have been added to the Chamber of Review. The very element which was wanted to the House of Lords was, as it were, by a constitutional providence, offered to the House of Lords, and they refused it. By what species of effort that error can be repaired I cannot tell; but, unless it is repaired, the intellectual capacity can never be what it would have been, will never be what it ought to be, will never be sufficient for its work."
  My Lords, if, in face of this opinion, written by the acknowledged expert on the British Constitution nearly one hundred years ago, the noble Earl still thinks that this is the project of a Left-Wing Conservative with a Liberal supporter, all I can say is that he needs a great deal of convincing. The truth is that we have paid a melancholy price for Lord Lyndhurst's Indian Summer, and as Lord Ridley reminded us yesterday, owing to his great-grandfather's unfortunate attack of gout.
  Assuming, therefore, that we have to act, and that life peerages are desirable, can we, on any rational basis, exclude women? Again, the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, says that we should—women are so emotional in their make-up. The noble Earl, of course, with his calm and dispassionate temperament which he displayed so clearly to us this afternoon, was s moved by only one logical and totally intellectual consideration: he did not wish to sit beside women or to meet them in the Library. I can understand the intellectual character of his argu-
  706
  ment. I fully concede that it has nothing whatever to do with his emotional prejudices. None the less, there are some of us who think that there could be no justification whatever for excluding women once the principle of life peerages is accepted. I have been asked in the course of the debate "what about Peeresses in their own right?" I do not suppose that on either side of the House many of us would go to the stake for the inclusion of Peeresses in their own right on our Benches.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The Conservative Party divided the House on the issue a few years ago.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I hardly think that is the same as going to the stake. I daresay that if your Lordships displayed a strong predeliction in one direction or the other the Government would not resist either course. If I may express, in a sentence, a personal opinion, it is that I am not in favour at the present time of an extension of the hereditary principle. The actual method of descent by which a peerage descends to a Peeress in her own right is so difficult, so complicated and so anomalous that I doubt whether many of your Lordships could accurately describe them; and certainly not one in a million of the public knows that they exist. The law of co-parceny and abeyance seems to me to be so anomalous that to extend the hereditary principle by including it in your Lordships' composition in 1957 would be a doubtful proposition. And, as I said before, I personally do not attach great importance either to the acceptance or rejection of this proposal.
  LORD SALTOUN: May I ask the noble Viscount, if that is his sole objection, whether he would consider the case of Scotland, where the method of descent is perfectly simple and clear?
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords. certainly I will consider anything to do with Scotland; but I am not sure that I know enough about the subject, upon which my noble friend is an acknowledged master, to give him an answer which has not had some degree of deliberation.
  The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, suggested that we should have dealt with the anomaly and injustice of the heir who does not wish to succeed to his father's

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  peerage. I must say that it ill becomes him to rebuke me for not dealing with it; of all the people in the world, I should have thought that he was the least entitled to make that reproach to me. I would simply say this: that I do not regard the question of the acceptance of a peerage by an heir as one which can easily be isolated from more general questions affecting the Peerage.
  If the noble Earl had been good enough to inquire what I had in mind in 1950 I should have let him into the secret that I had a draft Bill on the subject. That draft Bill, which still reposes, forgotten and unloved, in the files of the Lord Chancellor's Department, and which, like my noble friend Lord Salisbury, I will not now develop further, did in fact make general proposals affecting the character of the House of Lords. I do not believe it is easy—I do not say that it is impossible, only that it is not easy—to isolate this issue; and although I myself do not attempt to disguise my belief that it results in injustice, and even in inconvenience, I do not believe that we should be wise to include it in the modest measure which we have in mind for immediate legislation.
  EARL ATTLEE: May I ask the noble Viscount whether this Bill of his was put into the Lord Chancellor's Office by him in the time of his father?
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I shall be very happy to tell the noble Earl one day, but I think that I should follow the noble Marquess's example and not lead the House into the pleasant meadows of individual schemes which are unlikely to go through. But I shall, should be ever again have influence in the governing Party of this state, and should that Party attempt to legislate it, put all my facilities at its disposal.
  That brings me to the question of the hereditary principle, with which it is very much allied. A great number of noble Lords have said, in one tone of voice or another, that the Government should not have let this opportunity slip without dealing with this thorny subject. I have already indicated what, to my mind, the answer to this question is. For forty-seven years each successive proposal has foundered for diversity of counsel in the matter. I do not believe that if we were to introduce a measure to deal with this
  708
  there would be a greater measure of agreement now than there has been in the past. I think that noble Lords who have criticised us have, on the whole, been less than generous to a Government which, for the first time, has shown a clear determination to legislate on a definite part of the matter. I would ask them to support us in pressing this modest reform through, in the sure knowledge that of course this does not deal with a highly contended and contentious matter, but in the certain belief that if we attempted so to deal we should probably lose the modest measure which we propose.
  My Lords, there are those who do not believe in an hereditary principle at all. There are those who would like to see a Scottish system of selection. There are those who, like the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, have an alternative principle of selected numbers. I would respectfully agree with my noble friend that those who would alter the hereditary principle without abolishing it would have to justify first some principle of selection which was satisfactory not merely to your Lordships but to another place. What we have to deal with, to my mind, is the much more fundamental and difficult question of the limitation of the overall numbers of this House, with which it is very closely allied. I would agree with the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition that the latter is very dangerous ground indeed if one wished to acquire any degree of general agreement among the Parties on this subject.
  That, my Lords, really concludes my argument in this matter. I can only say, with a clear conscience. that every word which fell from the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, yesterday I could have repeated to-day, because he was really saying—and if I may humbly say so, saying far better and more succinctly—exactly what I have been trying to put before your Lordships to-day. This I must say: I do not personally regard this as a Party matter. Certainly the noble Lord. Lord Pethick-Lawrence, did not treat it as a Party matter; and, except for a certain amount of spirited and reasonable defence of his own Party, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Rea, treated it as a Party matter, either.
  I would make this plea to the Party opposite. We have debated this matter

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  for a long time and it has frequently been asked why no further progress has been made. There was a fine opportunity to deal with this matter in a comprehensive way in 1948. The chance of agreement between the Parties was lost, and I am not going to assign any blame for that; but I cannot altogether omit to state that there has been, at any rate on the part of some members of the Party opposite, an attitude towards this problem in which I would associate myself with the epithet used by the noble Lord. Lord Rea. That attitude is best summed up in the words of Mr. Herbert Morrison, quoted yesterday by my noble friend Lord Gage:
  "The Labour Government was not anxious for the rational reform or democratisation of the Second Chamber for this would have strengthened its position as against the House of Commons. The very irrationality of the composition of the Lords and its quaintness are safeguards for our modern British democracy."
  I believe that is fundamentally a disreputable attitude to take. I believe, on the contrary, that one should endeavour to reform abuse wherever one finds it: and if the result of reforming it is not to produce a House to which greater legal powers are added (for as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said yesterday that is not at all in question at the present time) but to produce a House with a higher degree of moral standing—nothing more—then one should not shrink from the higher status which such a House would enjoy. I would implore noble Lords opposite, when they come to take counsel with one another and with those of their membership who perhaps may not share this view, to beg them to approach this matter on its merits and not from the point of view of Party advantage.
  If it were the case that a further invitation was extended, an invitation of the kind which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, declined in 1953, much to my regret, I should hope that they would induce their colleagues to accept it. Then we could look forward to a more comprehensive reform of Parliament; and I can assure them that I should seek to take no unfair advantage of them if they entered into those discussions in good faith.
  4.4 p.m.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, my only claim to speak is that I have seen this issue debated from the very beginning. I belong to the small class of octogenarians who have seen every phase of the argument, and if I found any satisfaction in to-day's debate it would be the satisfaction of an extremist, because what has been decided by the Government is in my opinion putting an end to the powers of this House. There have been three phases. There was, first of all, the phase of 1910, referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. Then, Mr. Asquith issued the terrible threat "Wait and see", which was executed; and the Parliament Act left this House bereft of all its major powers. That was one result of neglecting the warning given by the Liberal Party. The second phase was when Lord Salisbury, the father of the noble Marquess, and other noble Lords devoted themselves to the question of whether something might be reconstructed from what was left. There were many proposals for modifications of one kind and another, every one of them involving modification of the hereditary system.
  That is the key of the whole issue. Are we going to abolish or modify the hereditary basis of this House?—because it is the hereditary basis of this House which is the main source of its weakness. Yesterday we went right back, behind what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, had been suggesting, to the same kind of attitude on the part of Her Majesty's Government and their supporters as we had to face in 1910 when the first Parliament Bill was proposed. Then the argument was "Stop!" I suppose that no phrase will do more harm to this House or to the Conservative Party in the country than the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, to the racing stable. If he wishes to substitute for Debrett's Peerage, Ruffs Guide to the Turf that will do nothing to assist the authority of the House of Lords.
  The speech of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, in which he said that the great purpose of his policy was to keep out of the House of Lords what he called Left-Wingers, especially Left-Wing Conservatives, illustrates the same point. It is a great advantage for those who thoroughly disbelieve in the hereditary principle—as I do myself—that the case

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  should be clearly put. So, just as when there was the first real battle, when Mr. Asquith vanquished the House of Lords, and the second time, when eminent people like the father of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and others were trying to reconstruct something which would be acceptable to the Conservative Party. now we have the third phase, where we have gone right back in history and have had produced the same arguments as were produced in 1909 and 1910 when we campaigned on this issue; which means that there is now only one thing left for this House. I suppose nobody will do anything.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spent a lot of time explaining about life peerages, and read various extracts and said a few words about women being admitted but does anyone really suppose that the admission of ten Life Peers will make any difference? People want to limit their number. That is the most astounding thing. We are not going to be overweighted by people who are elected on merit. There is to be a limit to their number. In his Bill the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Simon, proposed ten, Does anyone suppose that the election of ten Life Peers to this House is going to make the faintest difference? That may at times improve the quality of debate and the knowledge available, but is it going to change the structure of the House?
  As regards women, I now belong to the octogenarian class, and I remember, as does the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, many things of a long time ago. I have noticed that the question of women is being debated in this House in exactly the same way as it used to be treated in the House of Commons in the old days. Every reference has been a facetious reference, whereas the real advantage of the admission of women to the House of Lords is that that is itself an admission by the oldest House of Parliament of the equality of the sexes. That is the real point involved.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: If the noble Viscount will allow me, may I say that I think it is unfair to the House to say that every reference made to the question of the admission of women Members has been facetious. That is not the case at all. The matter has been taken quite
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  seriously by the House, and there has been an extraordinary unanimity of agreement in favour of the proposal.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: That is a matter of opinion. I have listened to the debate, and no doubt the noble Viscount himself treated this subject with the dignity which it deserves. Speaking from my own long recollection. I say that a facetious note has repeatedly been introduced into discussions on this issue, and there has been the same sort of Stone Age attitude as marked the reference to the reconstruction of the House itself. Neither of these things is particularly important, however. What is important is this. We have now reached a stage when the idea of the alteration of the hereditary basis of this House is rejected. What will happen now will be nothing until this House should, if it is unwise enough, get into conflict with a Socialist House of Commons—and a Socialist House of Commons cannot be long delayed. In that case nothing can happen except the "high jump." It will be the last stage of the power of this House. There will be no more talk of reform. Therefore, the four phases have been progressively diminishing the power of this House. That, to my mind, is clear. I only want to say that in a general way because I have seen the debates from the beginning.
  I was a humble member of the Government in which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was in the Cabinet, when this matter was first proposed in 1911. If the Members of the Front Bench opposite have so much fear of their Back-Benchers that they dare not tamper with the hereditary principle, let us see, as The Times said in a recent article, what can be done in a minor way. I was frankly disappointed with what the noble Viscount said about running repairs—repairs to holes in the roof and the like. Two matters I particularly mention. One is that brought up by Lord Saltoun yesterday—the question of the disenfranchisement, the de-citizenising, of the Scottish Peers. They can sit neither in this House nor in the other. I have sat twice for Scottish seats in the other place. I do not know very much about the practical side, but I know enough to know that the matter of which Lord Saltoun spoke is frankly an injustice. Is it impossible that an issue of that kind, which does not deal with any

  713
  general point, does not in the least affect the standstill policy of the Government, should be dealt with in some way in the Bill?
  The second point relates to a matter in which I must declare a passionate and paternal interest. It is the case of certain people, of whom the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is one. I must admit that as we are to secure such a rich prize in this pursuit of the Sabine women, it seems rather graceless to criticise. But can any one justify what happens? You have 200 or 300 Peers who will not come here, and you will not take away from them their right to come. On the other hand, you have able young men, like the noble Viscount himself, and like certain Members of the Opposition, who take every possible step while still Commoners to rid themselves of this incubus. And you refuse to deal with the case. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said some time ago that the fact that the injustice is an injustice only to a few does not make it any less an injustice and an evil in the State.
  I would say that in some way it must be possible to deal with this matter at this particular moment. When it was brought forward, I remember among other cases those of Lord Selborne and Lord Astor; and later on, of course. as I have said, there was that of Lord Hailsham. They all left it rather late. Lord Hailsham left it rather late. He had become eligible to receive the Writ of Summons, and therefore the Prime Minister, by some Rule—do not know whether it is a sound Rule or not—excluded him from the House of Commons. Of the other Peers, I recollect that Lord Selborne, in particular, insisted on sitting in the House of Commons. Someone "spied strangers," and in that way the matter was brought to issue. In this particular case with which I am personally concerned—and I apologise for troubling your Lordships with it—everything had been thought out. The young man who was a Commoner came to this House and said: "Please divest me of this prospective burden. I have been elected a Member of Parliament for a constituency. I am serving that constituency. The Writ of Summons says I am to go and serve in the Lords. I have been elected to serve in the House of Commons. My borough wants me. Twice they have elected me and they have petitioned Parliament that
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  I may still remain." As I say, I was very disappointed in what the noble Viscount. Lord Hailsham, said.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Viscount must be fair. With the general argument which he has just put forward, I agree. Indeed, it was the argument which I put to the noble Earl who is now sitting on the Front Benches opposite in the seat next to that of the noble Viscount. It was expressly rejected by the noble Earl when the Labour Party were in power.
  EARL ATTLEE: There was no question of rejection. The noble Viscount left the matter very late. He could have taken the matter up with his own Government. Suddenly, he asked me to recall Parliament in the middle of September, which of course I was not prepared to do.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I never asked the noble Earl to recall Parliament at all, whether in September or at any other time. As I was saying just now, the general argument put forward by the noble Viscount. Lord Stansgate, I accept, because it is an argument which I put to his noble friend. But the particular argument that an individual Peer, an individual heir, could ask for special legislation for himself is not one that I myself have ever accepted.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It is useless to bring in the question of the interchange of letters between the noble Viscount and the noble Earl. That is irrelevant. The relevance here is this. Here is a man, not of noble blood, who has taken every precaution, before disaster happens, to clear himself of this incubus. He has come to this House under Standing Orders and has put his case. He has been told that it is a just case, and he has been sympathetically heard. It is said that this matter could go into a General Bill. Here is a General Bill. But now, apparently, the noble Viscount refuses to put in it a clause to the effect which is sought.
  Therefore, in these two cases, the Scottish case and the particular personal case which I have mentioned—I apologise for it—it was only the accident of war that brought this unhappy young man into this servitude. I would ask the noble Viscount, when he drafts the Bill, will he make the Long Title comprehensive enough to permit Amendments to be

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  moved dealing both with the Scottish case and with the case of forced succession and take the opinion of the House and accept it on the general issues. I think I need say no more. There are two specific matters which can be dealt with.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think the noble Viscount is quite right in asking these questions. But I would ask him to leave the matter to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack to deal with when he replies. I know that he will take note of these matters.
  4.19 p.m.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the speech which the noble Viscount has just delivered was rather characteristic. It was a medley of practical suggestions and a good deal of academic matter. He suggested in the main part of his speech that the only thing that really mattered was to get rid of the hereditary principle. I should have thought the thing that really matters to-day on the issue we are discussing is whether or not by what is proposed we are going to get a more useful, a more practical and a better working Chamber. There are many things on which we disagree in these matters, but I should have thought that there was one thing which we could agree about—that is that the proposal put forward by the Government is indeed a modest proposal. I do not think that it is necessarily the worse for that. In constitutional reform it is very desirable to get agreement between Parties, if we can. I regret that we did not come to an agreement when we had our Conference, and I regret equally that the invitation to the Conference which we proposed in 1953 was not accepted. But if we cannot get agreement between Parties, we had certainly better have agreement within our own Party so far as we can, if we are going to bring forward legislation.
  The introduction of Life Peerages, which is the main proposal brought before us, has figured in every proposal for reform that has ever been made to this House. Indeed, if the Wensleydale case had been decided the other way, or if the ancestor of my noble friend Lord Ridley had suffered less from the gout, probably we should have had Life Peers in this House for the last 100 years. It is interesting to note that although a great
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  many legal arguments were used in the Wensleydale case, that case was decided net by the lawyers sitting as a Select Committee, but by the Whole House, and I am certain that what carried weight with this House in those days, the bulk of whose Members would not have understood the legal arguments, from Blackstone and before, which were produced, any more than I should to-day, was the rotund attack which Lord Lyndhurst made on the introduction of Life Peers as a terrible danger to the Constitution and his picture of the awful degradation that would attend us in this House if they were introduced. I could not help feeling that the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, sounded rather like an echo of those debates of a hundred years ago.
  I should have thought that Life Peers were something which, with very few exceptions—perhaps only one exception—the whole House would be prepared to accept. But is that enough? The real test to me is not some academic question, but whether the introduction of Life Peers will give what both sides want in this matter. I should have thought that by itself it would not do so. I am sure that it is right to introduce Life Peers. I am sure that, provided we could induce them to come, there are a number of people who could be brought here. I do not mean by that the distinguished elderly people who will go on getting older, and I hope that when the Bill comes before us there may be the possibility that if people are appointed Life Peers they will be allowed to retire if they so desire, particularly if the number is to be limited, and not sit here or somewhere else until they are ninety years old or more.
  Are we really going to get, by this method alone, the number of day-to-day working people required? Frankly I think that we have to face up to the question of payment. I was greatly interested in what my noble friend Lord Ingleby said yesterday about another place. I think that if people are to do the job here, then at any rate they have not to be hopelessly out of pocket. We have to offer them for their day-to-day work something that is not derisorily inferior to what they could get in any other walk of life. I should like to know what is in the Government's mind about that. Frankly I am left in doubt.

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  When the noble Earl the Leader of the House spoke in the debate, he said, if I understood him aright, that that was one of the three things that had to be taken into consideration. I imagine that it has been taken into consideration, and although it may not have to figure in the Bill, because I imagine that what is paid is a matter for a Vote in another place, still I think that we should be greatly assisted if the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, when he comes to reply to-night, could tell us a little more about what is in the Government's mind. Obviously we cannot give a salary to everybody, whether he comes here or not, but I do not see why the practice which the House has already adopted and another place has voted, of paying so much a day for attendance, should not be continued and a larger sum given that would avoid all difficulty. To pay salaries to people who do not come here is something about which I should have thought—again pace the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow—there was hardly any question.
  I should have thought it impossible to introduce life peerages and then say that they were not going to be given to women. I therefore welcome the inclusion of women. If so, what about the hereditary Peeresses? I did not quite like the way in which the noble Viscount. Lord Hail-sham, slid away from it in what was a little too refined a legal argument for me. However, their succession may come, they are hereditary Peeresses as much as noble Lords are hereditary Peers. As a matter of fact, the history of the Rhondda case is not a very creditable one. Like the Wensleydale case, it was decided largely on political grounds—I do not know whether I shall be rebuked for saying this. Of course, there was a great legal facade, but what in fact happened was that a Select Committee sat to decide whether Lady Rhondda was entitled to her Writ of Summons and that Committee reported that she was. The Government changed—a Government of a complexion more favourable to the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, less favourable to the ladies, came in. The question was sent back to another Committee and that Committee most obligingly reported—I am sure that there were arguments every way—that Lady Rhondda was not entitled to sit. The House readily accepted the Report of the
  718
  second Committee and decided that Lady Rhondda was not entitled to sit.
  It seems to me a little illogical that if we are going to have women as Life Peeresses, we cannot have hereditary Peeresses in your Lordships' House. Suppose we do not put it in the Bill—and I agree that since the Rhondda case it is no good sending it back to a Committee for Privileges; if we are going to have this changed, we must change it by legislation. And suppose the Prime Minister of the day says that he thinks that it would be a good thing to appoint two or three Ladies who are Peeresses in their own right as Life Peeresses: is he enitled to do this, or are they barred? If they are barred, that means that the poor ladies are in a most unfortunate position; they are the only females out-side a lunatic asylum who are not to be entitled to sit in this House. I really do not think that we ought to leave them like that.
  Of course, the main question which arises is whether the proposals go far enough. The Government at this stage leave the hereditary right and hereditary representation entirely unchanged. There have been proposals, nor before the House but certainly debated a great deal outside it, regarding election or selection, and the Government reject them all. I do not necessarily dissent from that at this stage, provided it is a stage. I should like to know, really, what the Government's view is on this matter. My noble friend Lord Salisbury has never concealed his views. What is their view about it? I mean, is it a stage? I think there is practical force in Lord Hailsham's argument that if too much is put into this Bill and there is a large legislative programme you might not get it through. Of course, that depends—noble Lords will forgive my saying so—on the priority attached to the particular measure. If it is put last on the list, a sort of "also-ran," then no doubt you will not get it through. But is this a stage or is this the last word? I most sincerely hope that the Government can go so far as to say that they feel that it is only a stage.
  That brings me to this point. In the debate yesterday a great many kindly references were made to the Report of the Select Committee. The Select Committee reported that every hereditary Peer had a right to a Writ of Summons

  719
  and can be deprived of that right only by legislation. But, my Lords, the Committee also reported that the right to be summoned carries with it the duty to attend unless the Peer is excused attendance, and I think that that is important. The Committee concluded—and your Lordships will find this in paragraph 31—that a Peer who is unable to discharge his duty of attendance can reasonably be said to have a duty to apply to the House for leave of absence under the existing Standing Orders.
  As Lord Teynham, in a model speech introducing his Motion yesterday. reminded us, the Committee reported on how the House could adapt those Standing Orders on leave of absence to meet the present situation wherein many Peers are unwilling or unable to attend. My noble friend Lord Salisbury emphasised that the Committee, which included Peers of all Parties—it included Lord Hailsham, incidentally, and powerful legal representation he fulfilled both functions, the legal and political—were unanimous in their Report, and when that Report was debated it was very favourably received in the House, as indeed it was yesterday in our debate.
  I do not want to go into the details of that Report again to-day, but I should like just to remind the House of three of the Committee's findings: first of all, that if the House wished to amend its Standing Orders in the manner outlined in the Report it would be entirely competent for the House to do so by its own Resolutions and it would be a matter for this House alone; secondly, that the suggested amendment of the Standing Orders would in no way infringe the right of every Peer to receive a Writ of Summons and, thirdly—-and I think this escaped the notice of some of your Lordships. but the Committee attached a great deal of importance to it—the suggestions of the Committee took full account of the fact that some Peers can attend here only occasionally. I feel sure we all feel that a number of those who cannot attend regularly make most valuable contributions to our debates when they do come, and that this House would be much the poorer if they were not able to attend. If the suggestions of the Committee were followed, the Standing Orders would take that fully into
  720
  account and would enable a Peer who could attend only occasionally to satisfy the duty by saying. "I shall come when I can." and, of course, he would have genuinely to carry that out.
  Bearing all this in mind, I hope that the House will accept the Report of this Select Committee as a counterpart of the Government's proposals. I gather from what has passed in the earlier debate and yesterday that that would be acceptable in almost all quarters of the House, and, as the Leader of the House said, it is entirely a matter for the House. I should be very willing, if it would be convenient to the House, as I was selected to preside over that Committee, to table a Motion early in the next Session inviting the Lord Chairman of Committees to prepare and to present to the House for their consideration the necessary Amendments to Standing Orders. In that way, by our own motion, we should be carrying it a stage further, and the House could not only consider the principle, which I think is very generally accepted, but would have an opportunity of seeing the draft of the proposed Standing Orders and could adopt them in whatever form it thought was most convenient.
  As to adopting these proposals, I do not think we ought to leave the matter without at least doing that. I agree with my noble friend Lord Salisbury: I do not think them a complete alternative to dealing with the absentee Peers. But we are a very practical, if not a very logical, body, and I feel sure that if we did adopt Standing Orders in that form, the great majority of Peers would comply with them and we should find, in fact, that we had the kind of House which, I think, nearly all your Lordships wish to have, and we should preserve in this House every element that most of us value, while making the House a stronger and a more effective one.
  4.38 p.m.
  LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly, as befits one who joined your Lordships' House extremely recently. If the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, found himself speaking with diffidence, I feel that I should be practically on my knees in addressing your Lordships in this debate. But, although the noble Lords, Lord Melchett and Lord Milne, addressed the House yesterday, I

  721
  believe I am right in saying that nobody else under fifty years of age has so far addressed it to-day, in this debate which will affect the life of the House for many decades to come. In that capacity I feel that I must register my respectful disappointment at the limited nature of the proposals offered by the Government at this moment. I have been a Member of your Lordships' House for only six months, but my interest in the House and the problem of reform goes back considerably further than that. As a result, I approached this debate full of hope that we should hear proposals to concentrate and strengthen the House, not to inflate and weaken it, as I feel these proposals tend to do. I had hoped that we should be invited to resolve ourselves as a House into a Corps of Regulars, if I may borrow a military term.
  I feel, and I hope that it is accepted as axiomatic, that, basically, ultimately the usefulness of this House, and even its survival, must rest upon the country's confidence in its judgment and in its composition. And that confidence is bound to be linked with visible parity between the Parties. If that parity is to be achieved without reduction, and entirely through expansion, I think the whole procedure is bound to get out of hand. I have never been any good at sums, but in simple arithmetic, to provide noble Lords opposite with a voting strength to match the potential voting strength of this side is talking in very big figures indeed. After all the speeches I have heard, I remain convinced that, for effective reform, present membership must be pared down. I am in disagreement with noble Lords who think that this country has no use and no respect for the hereditary system. I claim that my ear is as close to the ground as most, and I do not believe that a purely elected House of Lords would be acceptable either to the country or to Parliament as a whole. I am certain that both its prestige and its usefulness would be enhanced by achieving approximate parity between the Parties, but to-day it seems to me that the whole process of achieving this has been presented back to front. I would favour strongly a drastic reduction in the number of sitting Members, and, consequently, a less drastic and less wholesale creation of Peerages to man the Benches opposite.
  LORD STRABOLGI: May I ask whether the noble Lord has in mind the wholesale creation of hereditary peerages or life peerages?
  LORD ST. OSWALD: I favour, as I have said, not a wholesale creation, but that necessary creation of peerages, which I personally should prefer to remain hereditary peerages. However, such cogent arguments have been put forward in favour of life peerages that I do not feel strongly enough to take a firm stand on that point. But I think the other point I make remains virtually unaffected. I must say that in this connection I have always felt prepared to find myself dispensed with. And I have to appreciate that, in the allegory of my noble friend Lord Teynham, as a racehorse I should have been shot several years ago. The selection of such a working nucleus does not present any insuperable problems. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, approached the problem most encouragingly and practically last night. In the corridor of this building two days ago I spoke to a noble Lord from the Benches opposite, with whom I seldom find myself in agreement, and I learned of the idea of a type of electoral college, to be found from within the membership of your Lordships' House. I must say that I should not find such a system in any way invidious.
  Despite the trenchant arguments of my noble friend Lord Hailsham, who came nearer than I thought possible to convincing me, my feeling is still that we have not taken hold of this opportunity of reform as it deserves. I believe the impression that these proposals will give is that we in this House are not really serious about reform; that we have put up a meaningless compromise. I know that that is, in fact, utterly untrue as an intention, but I believe it is how the country will see it.
  Moreover, I cannot help feeling that it is quite unrealistic to suppose that we in this House can set the pace or the, extent of this project once it is launched. We have started a process of reform; we have disturbed the status quo, as I heard it put yesterday, and in doing so we have automatically invited the country at large, and Members of another place, in particular, to give their views on reform. They will do so, and they will go on doing so until they are satisfied that real reform

  723
  has been achieved. They will undoubtedly raise the question of exclusion, as well as that of expansion. Some noble Lords have implied—I have not myself gauged the measure of support—that they would favour such a measure in the indefinite future. That decision and its date may well be taken out of our hands, once this whole question is publicly broached. If we are in favour of further measures, let us say that we want them, and that we want them now. That will win us more understanding and appreciation in the country and greater respect in another place.
  I cannot support the objection of my noble friend Lord Glasgow, great as is my personal affection for him, because it seems to me a clean pace backwards. Nor can I admire the proposals of the Government as they stand, because they seem to be an attempt to take a pace to the side while still remaining in the same spot. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for allowing me to delay for several minutes his far more significant words. But I must identify myself with the hope that, if these proposals go forward as they are, they will have incorporated in them a definite undertaking to carry them further forward still in time, so enabling your Lordships' House to continue as a benefit to this country, as relevant to the unseen future as it has been to the sometimes forgotten past.
  4.46 p.m.
  LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. His vigorous speech reminds me that I am no longer able to count myself one of the younger Members of your Lordships' House. However, I think I can still claim to belong to the middle-aged group, and if I may, I will say a word or two from that angle, in pursuit of the interesting remarks that fell from the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, on the subject of pay. I do not think what I call the middle-aged group, those who have not yet reached retirement, are the only people by any means, and probably not the most important, to be considered in this connection. But they are a group who certainly come very much to mind when we consider the question of the "hard core" referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.
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  We are all apt to be egotistical in this kind of thing, but that is the only way in which we can pool our collective experience. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, would have had the same experience as myself. Take, as an example, someone in his middle forties, a man who is a Minister at the time a Government comes to an end, and who has a number of children to educate. Is such a person to try to play his part as a Member of the "hard core" in your Lordships' House, or is he to earn his living? I speak as one who has been faced with that situation, as has the noble Lord. Lord Ogmore, and other noble Lords. I am afraid that in a situation like that no kind of expense allowance will help. I know that there are older people to whom the expense allowance may make a difference between coming to this House and not coming, but, so far as the middle aged are concerned, it cannot affect the issue.
  I therefore venture to think that some kind of salary, of the sort which Members of Parliament receive, should be considered in relation to a certain group in this House. The real trouble begins, of course (and some of my later proposals will bear on this) when it comes to considering who should receive this salary—because it cannot be given to everybody. But that is the centre of the problem, as I see it. I speak only for myself, although others probably feel the same way in saying that if, when I ceased to be First Lord of the Admiralty I had been offered the salary of a Member of the other place. I think I should have devoted my time to the work of this House for the last six years, whether that would have been a good thing or bad. This applies to a good many Ministers who fall from office and if we are talking of the hard core, we must consider that group as an important element in the problem.
  I apologise for not having been present yesterday owing, to a family bereavement. If I speak to-day, it is in a strictly personal sense, after consultation, of course, with my noble Leader. He made it plain yesterday that so far as our Party is concerned, all these matters are still under consideration. Therefore, what I say is, of course, subject to subsequent decisions. But I do feel it a duty in this fluid situation, both in a Party sense and in a national sense, to throw into the common

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  pool of ideas a certain plan which has not hitherto. I think, been advocated to your Lordships, although some of what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, may have started some minds moving in that direction. I must not attempt to commit the noble Earl to this particular plan.
  I would suggest that when the matter is discussed, either in this House or in the country, we might divide the participants in the argument into five categories. There is, first, what I would call the status quo, brigade, of whom the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, is a champion. Secondly, there are the tinkerers—I do not use the word in any derogatory sense. Then there are the conservative reformers, among whom the noble Marquess. Lord Salisbury, is pre-eminent; and I think the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. would belong to that group also. Fourthly, there are what I would call the radical reformers, who include most of the Labour Party, perhaps; and, finally, the single-Chamber men, of whom we have not heard very much on this occasion, and with whom I will not deal now.
  I make one other preliminary comment, and this, I think, would win acceptance: that it is desirable in principle that there should be as much agreement as possible about all the basic political institutions of this country. We have agreement about the Crown, the Lower House, the Judiciary, and the principles of the Civil Service, but we certainly have not got any kind of agreement about the type of Second Chamber we require. Is there any chance of reaching an agreement, to start with at any rate, as to what is wrong with the existing Second Chamber. One defect admitted by everybody it seems to me—though in my opinion it is not the most fundamental defect—is the difficulty of providing enough Opposition of Labour Peers who can attend regularly. I am not referring to quality. Noble Lords opposite will be surprised to know that we do not suffer any inferiority complex, although we recognise the enormous abilities opposite. We do not shrink away from them. But when it comes to numbers in the vote, the result is ludicrous. However well we argue, it can make very little difference when the Whips are properly laid on, and that situation has been familiar to us for many years.
  Various proposals have been suggested and; speaking for myself, I welcome par-
  726
  ticularly the inclusion of women. But generally, I think that, so far as tinkering changes can be, these proposals are a step in the right direction—always assuming that they do not prevent still better things coming about. Again there is the proposal that the eldest son of a Peer should not be compelled to take his seat here. I strongly endorse that proposal. We should have suffered the loss of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and that would have been a serious failure from our point of view; but, by and large, I think it is unfair, and I believe that most people think so. I hope that the sons of Peers will be released from this particular obligation.
  But I do not think that, when one has made these tinkering little changes, it will solve the problem. Although life peerages will do something, they will not do much. I have a number of friends, of all Parties, who I am sure would be pleased to accept peerages, whether they were hereditary or life peerages. But I have no one within my own personal acquaintance (though I know that such people exist) who would accept a life peerage yet would not accept an hereditary peerage. Mr. Amery was mentioned, and that may well be a sad case, because he was so great a man. Of all the people I know personally, however. I do not know anyone who would accept a life peerage but would not accept a hereditary one. However, the idea of life peerages seems to me helpful, so far as it goes.
  The real question—and it has come up again and again—is whether we wish to continue a Second Chamber at all in which there is a hereditary element—in which the hereditary Peers ensure a permanent and overwhelming majority for the Conservative Party. No country in the world. I am assured, contains to-day an hereditary element in its Second Chamber. I made inquiries from a supreme expert, and for a time he thought that Nigeria might provide an example of this in their Council of Chiefs. But now I learn that the Council of Chiefs is not hereditary, so even Nigeria does not provide a parallel, and there are no parallels anywhere in the world. Certainly no one who belongs to any Left Wing Party is likely to advocate the retention of the hereditary element in this Chamber. On the other hand, the retention of an hereditary element—I put it as generally as possible—is, I think (though I have

  727
  no means of judging) supported by most Conservatives.
  It is supported. I think, on one of three grounds. First of all, there is the purely Party point of view. In saying that, I do not impute some special cynicism to politicians. Those who believe in their Party are entitled to consider that it is likely to do more good to the country than its opponents. I do not think one throws away a Party advantage unless one is forced to do so by fresh conviction or by overwhelming circumstances. Secondly, most Conservatives, it seems to me, feel that, quite apart from purely Party questions, the Second Chamber will be a more cautious Chamber—more conservative with a small "c"—and it is felt that this function of the brake is one of the functions which a Second Chamber, quite academically speaking, is expected to perform. Thirdly, there are those—and I think the noble Lord. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, is among them—who, as they would say, believe in the hereditary principle; who would say that, apart from any calculation of Party or anything of that kind, blood is blood; and that, on the whole, those who come from families who have performed most distinguished services in the past are somewhat more likely than the average man to render signal service in the future. I hope I am not distorting it: I am putting it in the way that has appealed to many illustrious minds. There is this belief that there is some value in the hereditary principle, not in relation to some Party calculation, but in relation to the merit of the service which those who inherited these great traditions would be likely to perform.
  I do not want to stop this afternoon to argue against any of these considerations, except to say that, in the form I have presented them, or, indeed, in any other form, they could not be accepted by anybody who belonged to the Labour Party. I do not think—it is a matter of opinion—they would be accepted by the majority of our people anywhere, irrespective of Party. I would say, in passing, that if one rejects the hereditary principle for the purposes of Parliament one is not rejecting it for the purposes of the Monarchy. One is not rejecting it for the purposes of inheriting property, whatever one's views about the inheritance of property. After all, there are quite a number of countries
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  which still have hereditary monarchies. Almost all countries make provision for inherited property in some form or another, but in relation to Parliament we stand alone. I feel that that fact should never be lost sight of in any discussion of this issue.
  I would venture, therefore, to come to the proposal which I should like to place before your Lordships. I can place it before the House in a most general form. It is not my idea. I hasten to say. I claim no initiative genius in regard to it. It has, in fact, been composed into the form of a Bill by a non-Party expert, but it could be carried through in various ways.
  This is the scheme. All Peers, whether hereditary or created, would have the right to sit and speak in the House, but only a limited number of Peers would have the right to sit, to speak, and to vote; only a minority of the Peers would receive the right to vote as well as the right to come here and speak. The voting Writs would be distributed in a fashion calculated to secure and maintain rough parity between the various Parties over a period of years. The strength of the Parties among the voting Peers in this House would roughly reflect the strength in the House of Commons—I hope it would not reflect it to the last iota. I personally would hope that a number of Cross-Benchers, for example, would be endowed with voting Writs. I must not forget the Liberals: I certainly would not wish to show disrespect to them. I would hope that a number of Cross-Benchers would be given voting rights and special attention given to the position of the Liberals, so that we could make the results of the Divisions less of a foregone conclusion than in the House of Commons. But, by and large, the Government of the day, it seems to me, should, ordinarily, in the last resort be capable of securing a majority in the Second Chamber.
  The beauty—if I may call it that—of the two-Writ plan is that it provides a solution of what seems to me otherwise an insoluble dilemma, the dilemma of, on the one hand, denying any one Party a permanent majority—and on that there appears to be a wide measure of agreement—and, on the other hand, maintaining some hereditary contribution to which the Conservatives attach so much value. No doubt even under the two-Writ scheme the Conservatives would

  729
  enjoy a majority among potential and actual speakers, but the voting majority would disappear and with it the main objection. I would hope, in Labour minds to giving the House of Lords the same standing on all questions as it enjoys on non-Party questions.
  It seems to me that our standing and our capacity for service would be greatly improved all round. The removal of the permanent control of this House from the hands of one Party would make the whole institution much more attractive to Labour men of the highest class and also, surely, the Liberals, and I would hope also non-political notables. The emergence of our House as a genuinely impartial body would greatly strengthen the quality of our personnel. At the same time continuity would be preserved. I do not know whether I speak for all my colleagues, but maybe I speak for some when I say that to that I attach no little importance.
  LORD BLACKFORD: Would not the noble Lord's scheme involve the creation of an enormous number of Socialist Life Peers in the event of a Socialist majority in the other place? Would not the difficulty of getting people to accept life peerages in the present circumstances of non-payment be very much intensified?
  LORD PAKENHAM: I am advocating payment. Perhaps the noble Lord was not present.
  LORD BLACKFORD: I did not hear any advocacy of payment on a large scale.
  LORD PAKENHAM: I was dealing with payment at the beginning. I certainly feel that noble Lords would require payment: f hoped to make that quite plain. If the noble Lord asks me whether it would not involve the creation of Life Peers on a large scale, I would say that it would not involve the creation of peerages on the kind of scale contemplated hitherto in discussions of this sort, because you would have to obtain a majority in a much smaller body—those who possessed voting rights.
  I was saying a word about continuity, In the Labour Party, for instance, we may think one particular arrangement is perfect; the Conservative Party may prefer some other arrangement. Basically it seems to me a great advantage if we can secure agreement. The institutions of our
  730
  country are all the stronger if there is solid support behind them. And surely it is a far more satisfactory method of natural growth that we should gradually adapt what is there than sweep away what exists and put something totally different in its place immediately. It seems to me that this scheme would be of positive advantage to some future Labour Government compared with the present position. But it builds on what is there and does not indulge in over-drastic reduction. Therefore, with much humility I put forward this plan—not my own, but one to which I have given a great deal of thought—the two-Writ plan, as a compromise which would last for many years and which might command far more general agreement than any other plan of reform of which I have heard. Respectfully, committing no one except myself. I present it to the House.
  5.5 p.m.
  EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has made a most interesting speech upon which I do not propose to comment, at any rate for the moment, though I should like to make reference to it later. No doubt when the Lord Chancellor comes to reply he will give consideration to the noble Lord's points. May I ask your Lordships' indulgence—not sympathy, but indulgence—because I am suffering from an infection of the eyes, which I hope is only temporary, and if any noble Lords wish to interrupt me, which they may do because I am always combative, would they excuse me if I do not sit down immediately, because I shall not be able to see them.
  May I add a second personal note, if it is not inappropriate. As noble Lords are aware, I was for forty-seven years a Member of another place and had the honour to be the father of the House, as it is called. I was very proud of my membership there. But I would say, I hope without effrontery or effusiveness or what might be considered impertinence, that I am equally proud to be a Member of your Lordships' House. I never thought the House has stood better than in the debate which has taken place. We have had the highest quality of speeches, and we have had what is so much a part of this House, essentially fair speeches.
  I would add one other matter of a personal kind, in a sense. I should like to

  731
  pay my tribute—and I am sure it is a tribute in which other noble Lords would like to participate—to two Members of your Lordships' House who have not only contributed, as one would have expected, most admirable speeches to this debate, but by their advocacy in the past have done so much to bring about the modest reforms which we are considering. I need hardly say that I refer to the noble Marquess. Lord Salisbury, and the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. We have had very remarkable speeches from them in the past. and only those of us who have moved behind the scenes (as I have done, because I am one of the few Members of your Lordships' House who took part in another place in the debate on the Parliament Bill, and I have been on many Committees of my Party concerned with this matter) know how much influence Lord Salisbury and Lord Samuel have had on these high issues and how sometimes they have had to fight against different views in their own Parties. We owe a great debt of gratitude to them. While I agree entirely with them that we should be grateful to the Government, I hope that they in particular and those of us who agree with them will be very vigilant in this matter.
  I was a little concerned at some portion of the trend, not of the speech of my noble friend Lord Hailsham, but of the speech of the noble Earl the Leader of the House. I am personally in some doubt whether the Government, now they have calculated the views of the House, which are obviously in favour of these modest proposals, are prepared in Her Majesty's Speech to announce that a Bill will be brought in and passed in another place. Here I find myself in some disagreement with noble Lords in all parts of the House. I do not believe you will get complete agreement between the Parties on these or any other proposals put forward. I think it is impossible, and I say that from a very long knowledge of the question. But I believe that the Government could get a Bill embodying these proposals through another place without much difficulty and possibly—I do not want to say anything wounding to the Opposition—without anything more than a formal objection by the Opposition, and I believe it would pass your Lordships' House. I hope that that is going to be done and that we shall not
  732
  be told, now that the House appears to be in favour of these proposals, that there is going to be another Party Conference, because in that event no legislation will be possible in this Parliament.
  Now I come to the proposals themselves. I do not propose to discuss them; they have been fully discussed in other speeches. I personally regret three things. I regret, first, that the Government have not taken the opportunity of dealing with what I call the renouncement of peerages. I think it should have been dealt with and I think it could have been dealt with. I agree wholeheartedly with the point so well put forward by the noble Lord from Scotland in regard to the anomaly in the position of Scottish peerages. Though I admit that politically it is probably difficult, I am sorry that there has not been an announcement about the contemplation of a further rise in what I might call the emoluments of your Lordships' House, because I think the present amount is too small. I believe that that is the general opinion in all Parties. If I may use a vulgar phrase, I do not think that it will do the trick.
  I have nothing more to say on that point, but I wish to make reference to the much bigger issue—namely, the further steps to be taken to reform the composition of your Lordships' House. May I, as an ordinary Back Bencher on the Conservative side, assure the members of the Party opposite, who do not seem quite certain on this subject, that so far as I know—-I think all my noble friends behind will agree—there is not the slightest wish on the part of anybody to increase the powers of the House. I know of no single Conservative Peer who wants it; all we are concerned with is to improve the composition. Most of us believe in the hereditary system, but a large number of us believe that that system can survive in your Lordships' House only if it is divested of the real abuses which it has at the present time. I will come in a moment to what those abuses are.
  I should like to support my noble friend Lord Swinton in his admirable speech, in saying that we should have some clarification from the Lord Chancellor as to whether, at some time in the future, the Government will contemplate proceeding with the bigger question. After all, it will be a little difficult for

  733
  the Government to refuse to do so, because many of its members were parties to the agreement between the Parties in 1948 that the hereditary principle should not alone qualify. I do not think I am giving away a secret when I say that I was in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet at the time. So far as I know, nobody objected to that principle. Therefore, even if they are not going to do it now, the Government ought to say whether they agree with it. I say that because I rather gathered from the speech of the noble Earl the Leader of the House that he was not very favourable to the idea. He stressed very much the antiquity of your Lordships' House. Perhaps I was wrong, but I thought he gave it as a reason for being cautious about interfering more drastically than is proposed with the hereditary principle.
  Incidentally, having been very idle at school and at Oxford in regard to history, I was thrilled to hear from a noble Lord about the history of your Lordships' House. I had no idea that it went back not only to Roman times but almost, as I understood the noble Lord to suggest, to pre-Roman times.
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think that was a slip of the tongue. I think he said "before the Roman Conquest." meaning the Norman Conquest.
  EARL WINTERTON: I thought the noble Lord said "before the Roman Conquest." I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Hailsham should have deprived me of something which gave me the greatest pleasure last night. I had pictured to myself your Lordships' neolithic ancestors, clad only in skins and each with a large club by his side, sitting in opposite rows round the Woolsack. It occurred to me, if I may say so with great respect, that the reason why the Lord Chancellor does not possess the power of the Speaker of another place, or even of the President of any other Assembly or Senate in the world—that is to say, he cannot rebuke us when we indulge, as I am indulging now, in happy irrelevancies—was this antiquity of our institution, because while, no doubt, the Lord Chancellor in neolithic times was possessed of a mace, it would not be of much use against 400 club-men. But my noble friend has, unfortunately, dispelled this fine dream which I had.
  734
  The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, used, I thought, a somewhat equivocal argument in commending the hereditary principle to your Lordships' House. He said, quite truly, that the main classic races were won by horses having the best possible pedigree and breeding. That is perfectly true. But it is equally true, as anybody who has studied this subject of breeding knows, that you may pay for the most expensive sire and have the best dam and you may get a horse that is useful for nothing except cats' meat. I need hardly say that I am not referring to any Member of your Lordships' House when I say that. In a long experience of over seventy years, some of the most consummate blackguards, both men and women, that I have ever met have had the moss ancient and lengthy pedigrees. So I do not think that my noble friend's analogy was altogether a good one, although in other directions he made a most admirable speech.
  I do not wish to detain your Lordships except for a moment or so longer. I spoke just now of the hereditary system, and I said that most of us—in fact all of us on this side of the House—favoured it. provided its abuses were got rid of. I am coming to a most delicate point and one which some noble Lords may resent, but I am sure that they will accept my complete sincerity in this matter. How can any of us before a meeting of our fellow countrymen and women, whomsoever they may be, defend this state of affairs?—and in saying this. I refer to no individual. The abdication took place because it was held by His Majesty's Government in Great Britain and by His Majesty's Governments overseas that it was not consonant with the position of a Sovereign to make the marriage which the then Sovereign contemplated. If that was not an inroad into the sacrosanct principle of the hereditary system, I do not know what is. Yet a Member of your Lordships' House, convicted of a serious crime, sent to prison for several years, can, in theory, on the day that he gets out, come here and take his seat and vote. A Member who has never attended the House, has no intention of attending the House, abuses it as an institution, and goes, as one noble Lord has done, much further and abuses the Sovereign, can, if he alters his opinion, come and take his seat.

  735
  And, perhaps worst of all, is this situation: a noble Lord who lives permanently abroad, as some of our order do, in order to avoid paying taxes, can, during the three weeks that one is allowed to spend in Britain if one is resident overseas, come here and take his treat and vote. How can anyone justify that? What is the use of using old clichés about what a fine debating Chamber we are—of course we are—of how we have experts on every subject and what a friendly place this is? All that is true, but one cannot defend abuse of the hereditary system. I want to see those abuses shorn away, and I believe that could be done by some system of election such as takes place in the Scottish peerage and which used to take place (as I know, having voted for Representative Irish Peers) in the Irish peerage.
  I cannot follow the argument of my noble friend the Leader of the House when he says, as I understood him to say, that if we had such a system of election the younger Members of your Lordships' House who do such splendid work and would be a credit to any assembly would not be elected. Of course they would be elected if they were willing—
  VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: They would not be willing.
  EARL WINTERTON: I do not know whether or not they would be willing, but that is largely a question of the emoluments offered and whether it would be possible for them to live on the emoluments they were given. If those emoluments were increased they might be able to do so, but I do not see that they would be less willing to serve than they are at the present time. I visualise a House of forty or fifty Life Peers. Presumably those who have been given peerages for public service would continue to have the right to sit, but only if they were prepared to attend. Here I must say that there have been bad cases—and I am sorry if I must offend personal friends from another place—of Members who, having been given peerages for public service, some of them men of the highest repute who have been Cabinet Ministers elsewhere, have never once attended your Lordships' House since they have taken their seat. That reduces the whole system to ridicule and must
  736
  cause the enemies of those noble Lords to suppose that the only reason why they accepted a peerage was in order to be called "My Lord."
  If, in addition there were some 200 elected Peers I believe we should have a first-rate Chamber, but I do not want to press the point. All I ask, with my noble friend Lord Swinton and a number of others, is that Her Majesty's Government shall not exclude from consideration some form of further reform on those lines in the future; and I hope they will consider accepting the smaller suggestion made by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, about the Writ of Summons.
  I want to say only one other thing. I hope the proposal made by my right reverend friend the Lord Bishop of Chichester (whom we shall all miss from this House when he goes and who, though I have often disagreed with him, is an old and dear friend of mine) on the representation of other religions will also be considered. Finally, I hope that those of us on both sides of the House who are generally in favour of some system of reform—and I believe there is between us more agreement than might appear on the surface—will not cease in our efforts and, if necessary, will form some loose organisation or association in order to press forward those reforms and maintain the position and lustre of your Lordships' House.
  5.24 p.m.
  LORD COLERAINE: My Lords. I have been a Member of your Lordships' House for so short a time, and I cannot claim the political experience of my noble friend to whose wise and witty speech we have just been listening, that I had many misgivings about intervening in a debate which so closely concerns the traditions of your Lordships' House. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this debate is partly in the nature of a Parliamentary reconnaisance; that Her Majesty's Government are anxious to know the opinion of Members of the House from every quarter. For that reason I will venture to put before your Lordships my own views, for what they are worth.
  I support the proposals of Her Majesty's Government. I wish that they went further. I wish that they went further in the direction outlined yesterday by my noble friend Lord Salisbury.

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  And I must say that I was much impressed by what the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, said about the pressgang Peers. I was not altogether convinced, however, by the observations of my noble friend Lord Hailsham about the difficulty of getting through a Bill which was anything more than the bare proposals which have been put before us. But generally speaking I support heartily the Government's proposal—with one exception. It seems to me that the proposal to admit women Life Peers and at the same time to keep out hereditary Peeresses is utterly indefensible. We pride ourselves very often, and I believe justly, on being an illogical people. We say that we have a deeper wisdom than logic which, particularly in matters of politics, serves us well. I think that is very true. But there is another maxim which we hold dear—that it is unwise to proceed to extremes. And it seems to me that in this case Her Majesty's Government are carrying lack of logic to the extremity. They have really reached in it a kind of ultima thule of absurdity.
  At the time of the Rhondda case, to which reference has been made this afternoon, the position was certainly illogical: women could go to another place but they could not come to this House. But it was at least defensible, for it could be argued that the mere fact that women had votes and, because they had votes were entitled to be represented in an elected Chamber, did not entitle them to conic to an hereditary Chamber which did rot depend upon election. But now that argument is being swept aside because Her Majesty's Government are proposing that women should be admitted to this House.
  If the Government were saying "Clearly we must limit the hereditary principle; we must do away with it or confine it within very narrow limits," then there would be an argument for keeping the hereditary Peeresses out of the House. But they do not say that. They continue to accept the hereditary principle without qualification, except such qualification as your Lordships may, by Standing Order, give it. Thus we are envisaging a position in which there is a House of Lords to which women shall be admitted, in which the hereditary principle is untouched and where the only human beings who cannot get in are those who are entitled by their inheritance and are no
  738
  longer debarred by their sex. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to reconsider a policy that seems to me so wildly absurd that it will tend to cast ridicule upon proposals which I believe otherwise to be serious and sound.
  May I say a word about the standpoint from which I approached this question of reform? I believe that an effective Second Chamber is not just a useful and convenient adjunct to Parliamentary government. I believe that it is an essential corollary to Parliamentary government. I believe that without an effective Second Chamber. Parliamentary government will eventually disappear, and will be succeeded by the dictatorship of a majority, exercised through a Party caucus. I do not believe that Parliamentary government and mass democracy are necesarily the same thing. I have had many arguments with members of the Russian Government about that. They maintain that their system is democracy, and it is not always easy to counter their arguments. What they cannot maintain is that it is Parliamentary government, or that it leads to a free society. And what we are interested in is the maintenance of a free society.
  There seems to me to be one requisite, above all others, that is necessary for an effective Second Chamber. It is not, in my judgment, a question of powers. Those may or may not be important, but at any rate we are not considering them now. The most important thing, I believe, for the effectiveness of this House is that it should command the respect of the people of England. The noble Lord. Lord St. Oswald, in what struck me as a most remarkable maiden speech, if he will allow me to say so—
  A NOBLE LORD: It was not a maiden speech.
  LORD COLERAINE: Well, it was a most remarkable speech. One tends, of course, to think that the best speeches are those with which one most closely agrees. Lord St. Oswald did make the same point. He pointed out, as other noble Lords have done, that the House of Lords cannot command general respect if only one point of view is represented. And there is general agreement on that. Of course, that is the whole purpose of the Government's measures, so far as they go; the whole purpose of the creation of Life Peers. But even from

  739
  that point of view, it seems to me, we come against this difficulty. Either we have to create such a large number of Life Peers at a stroke that it becomes almost ridiculous, or else the one-Party complexion of the House will largely continue for a very long time to come. The only way we can escape from that dilemma, it seems to me, is by some restriction upon the attendance and powers of hereditary Peers themselves. I do not believe—and here I agree with my noble friend Lord Salisbury—that this House commands the respect it ought to do when the hereditary principle is carried, in theory at any rate, to the extremes to which the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, referred a moment or two ago.
  Last night. Lord Elton, in a speech which I am sorry to say I missed hearing, though I read it with great interest, contrasted the real House of Lords we know with a purely imaginary House of Lords, consisting, as he described it, of 500 or so power-drunk Tory Peers coming down here to "steamroller" things through the Lobbies. And he asked why we should bother with the imaginary House when we know what the reality is. Imagination in these matters is a very real and important thing, and if it is the fact that in the minds of the people of this country the House of Lords is as Lord Elton fancifully described his imaginary House, it seems to me that it is vital and urgent that we should disabuse people's minds of that picture. I do not for my part see how we can disabuse their minds except by qualifying the hereditary principle, by limiting it in some way. There are noble Lords here—they are few in number—who are opposed to the hereditary principle. No doubt there is a body of opinion outside which is also opposed to it, but I do not believe that the hereditary principle is unpopular in the country and that the hereditary Peerage is not greatly respected. But the danger which faces us, and which I think we have to recognise, is that when the hereditary principle is carried to its logical extreme, it does, whether we like it or not, become ridiculous. That is why I believe the Government would be well advised to go a little further than they have done in this matter.
  May I just say one word more—it will be only a brief one—on a matter which
  740
  concerns not so much the Government or what the Government may propose, but the House itself? I was very much impressed, if I may say so, by the speech which the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, made last night, in which he said something about the possibility of reducing the House to a comparatively small body of professional whole-time politicians. It seems to me that any proposals for reform of this House must have that tendency. That is what has been happening in another place over the years, and it is a danger that I think we must guard against in this House. Like others who come here from another place. I find the atmosphere extremely agreeable; I find that the standard of debate is very high; I find that the hours are reasonable, and that I spend more time (though not an excessive amount) than I used to do in my bed. But what has impressed me more than anything else about this House is a certain feeling one has—a feeling of detachment on both sides. I welcome these proposals. I think they ought to go further than they do. I hope that one day they will be taken further. But I do think that we ought to keep at the back of our minds a determination that we should not lose altogether our amateur status; we should keep this feeling of detachment which I have tried to describe; and certainly we should never let the Party machine, on either side, get the control that I think it has got in another place.
  5.39 p.m.
  LORD BLACKFORD: My Lords. I gather that the object of this highly interesting and important debate is to enable the Government to ascertain the general views of the Members of this House on the subject of reform; and that reference will then be made to the matter in the gracious Speech next week, after which the Government will produce a Bill which they will hope to carry into law. During the debate, a large number of highly diverse proposals and opinions have been put forward, and I am very sorry to think that the Bill which the Government are likely to produce will be so circumscribed.
  I should have liked to see something much bolder than what is now proposed. My own view is that the introduction of a number of Life Peers and Peeresses will not make much difference. I do not think that they will attend any better than a

  741
  large number of Members of this body do now—unless, of course, it is made worth their while by means of a much higher salary, or unless they feel that, combined with their salary, they are doing work which is really worth while. I have no doubt that the proposals of the Government, if they are limited to these two questions, will pass through both Houses without much difficulty, because they are so innocuous or, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, so "tinkering". I think that it is a great pity that we not take this opportunity of going much further. I imagine that the Bill will be initiated it this House. l should like to see a really broad Bill introduced here, a Bill on which we can all argue and debate, and see what result we can get out of it, and then pass it down to another place for their opinions.
  In the few moments at my disposal, perhaps I may suggest one or two reforms of a minor character which appeal to me. Tile noble Earl, Lord Attlee, spoke of the alarm which his Cabinet felt at the possibility of a huge number of "backwoodsmen" suddenly coming down to your Lordships' House to vote down any measure proposed by the Labour Government in 1945. It did not happen then. and I do not think it will ever happen in the future, but I can imagine that if I were a Socialist Minister it would rather annoy me that there was a possibility of such a thing happening. A perfectly simple way of getting out of this difficulty would be to disfranchise any noble Lord who did not take the Oath at the beginning of a new Parliament within, say, a month, except for good reasons shown, such as absence abroad. He should be disfranchised for the whole of that Parliament. I would go further than that. If any noble Lord did not put in a reasonable number of attendances in this House diving a Session—let us say, just to give a figure to argue on, fifteen—then I would disfranchise him for the whole of the next Session. That seems to me a simple way of preventing one of the disadvantages under which members of the Opposition in this House at present suffer.
  There is another small point that I should like to bring forward. I see no reason why Peers, like convicts and lunatics, should be deprived of a Parliamentary vote. There does not seem to me to be any fairness in that in these days. I think that Peers should be
  742
  allowed to vote for their Parliamentary candidate for another place, and I should like to see a clause of that sort inserted in any Bill to reform your Lordships' House. Thirdly, I agree very much with the noble Viscounts, Lord Stansgate and Lord Hailsham, in their "press-gang" fears. I see no reason why a man should be forced to join this House if he does not wish to do so, and in order to come to a decision I should like, to hear the opposite case argued by somebody taking a different point of view.
  There is another disability under which Members of your Lordships' House suffer which I should like to see removed. I should like to see Members of this House enabled to stand as candidates for another place. Of course, we could not have our cake and eat it. If a noble Lord opted to stand as a candidate for another place, and was unsuccessful in his candidature, then for some agreed time—say, the whole of the next Parliament—he would be disbarred from sitting in this House. That is a matter of adjustment and agreement. I put forward this proposal for two reasons. First, there are a number of young Peers in this House, able and ambitious young Peers, not confined to one Party, by any means, who would be very glad to be allowed to stand for membership of the House of Commons. If they are here, they cannot hope to attain any of the leading Offices of State, such as those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary. And there have been several Members of your Lordships' House who, in the general opinion, would have made, we will say, excellent Foreign Secretaries or Chancellors of the Exchequer, but that has been impossible because of their membership of your Lordships' House.
  Above all, it is not possible for a Prime Minister to come from this House. Shortly after I first joined another place, in 1922, Mr. Bonar Law died, and the Premiership became vacant. We all remember that the late Lord Curzon was bitterly disappointed because he was not sent for to fill the vacancy. I could never understand how a statesman of the standing of Lord Curzon, even at that time, thirty-five years ago, could have imagined that it was possible for a Prime Minister to sit in your Lordships' House. However, Lord Curzon thought otherwise. But nowadays it would be quite unthinkable for the Prime Minister to sit

  743
  here. Yet it is quite possible that in the years to come a very suitable man, adjudged by the country to be just the man to fill the most important Office of State, might happen to be a Member of your Lordships' House. The idea is not confined to one Party—after all, the noble Lord. Lord Pakenham, is still a young man. For that reason alone, I think that Members of this House should be permitted to stand for membership of another place.
  Your Lordships may say that these are only small Committee points, but the object of my rising to-day is to ask the Government not to be circumscribed in the measure which they bring forward in the new Session. but to open the doors to a really full Bill, in which we can move to insert new clauses, as well as Amendments to existing clauses, so that the true opinion of your Lordships can be ascertained and broad proposals can be submitted for the opinion of another place.
  5.49 p.m.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, in the twelve years or so during which I had the privilege of sitting in your Lordships' House, I do not remember hearing a better debate. All the contributions that I have heard have been in a most moderate tone and all noble Lords who have spoken have been at one in trying to help to solve an extremely difficult constitutional problem. I do not quarrel with Her Majesty's Government for not putting forward more radical proposals. I think that there is great substance in the claim that they should try to seek the greatest measure of agreement in any proposal they make to reform your Lordships' House. I, for one, was encouraged by the remarkable speech of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, which I thought was a key speech in this debate. If I may also say so, I think it is very creditable to your Lordships' House that we should have converted the former Leader of the Socialist Party and a self-declared unicameralist to the point of view which he has now espoused.
  My Lords, we have been talking chiefly about Life Peers and about women Peers: may I say straight away that I think we should be willing not only to accept but also to welcome the presence of the ladies in this House. I regret the remarks of
  744
  Lord Stansgate when he said that the references to them had been facetious. They have not. I also support what Lord Swinton said about hereditary Peeresses. I think it would be a very shabby deal if at this juncture they could not come amongst us. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, says, "Do they want to?" I think we should invite them and then we shall see.
  As to Life Peers, I am not very sanguine about our solving all our problems by life peerages. I hope we shall get, at any rate on the Labour Benches, an addition of trade-union experience which we might not get otherwise, and that, I think, would be of great strength to this House and to the country at large. But I do not think we shall get a great many "worker bees" in the hive. Inevitably the Life Peers will tend to be men of very busy and fully-occupied lives who can give only a small portion of their time to the detailed work of this House, and I do not think that will revivify the Opposition or lend immensely increased authority to our deliberations. The difficulties which confront us are many and this is not really a true solution.
  The first difficulty is economic, as has been so wisely pointed out. Noble Lords nowadays, or those who would become noble Lords, have not got the means to spend their time here, to take flats in London and be prepared to work late, and so on, at the expense of their livelihood, their wives and families, their children's education and so on. Lord Lucas of Chilworth, in his remarkable speech yesterday, made that perfectly plain, as one who is deeply experienced in this matter; so some form of payment will be necessary. Of course, the question is, "Whom do you pay?" That has already been pointed out.
  Lord Pakenham, who I am sorry is not here, put before the House, I think very fairly, a proposition which I had heard in outline before and which merits further consideration. But I should not like myself to see this House, as my noble friend Lord Colerain said in a speech with which I was wholly in agreement, dependent on the Party machines. I say that with great respect to Lord Hailsham. I fear, as I think the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel. seemed to fear

  745
  in his speech last night, that the Party machines have become too powerful and, indeed, as I thought he said, all-powerful. I believe it is inevitable, with universal franchise, that opinion in the House of Commons must be directly or almost directly divided between the two great Parties in the State, and it logically follows that those who command the Party machines in the present circumstances have an immense and a growing hold over their followers. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, laughs. but every week we read about a potential revolt in the Socialist Party or a potential revolt in the Conservative Party, but they never occur, because, as everyone knows, the Party machines are so powerful.
  I do not want to see that form of control, so to speak, leaking into your Lordships' House. I believe that a certain detachment and independence is necessary to the working of our representative institutions. How we are to maintain that here, and yet are to have a more equal balance of Parties, is something which I must confess eludes me. I very clearly see the objection moderately expressed by Lord Pakenham from the point of view of the Labour Benches that the Conservative Peers will always vote them down. But the very fact that there is a perpetual majority is in one way a source of strength to his Party. Moreover it does make for considerable detachment from close Party ties. How we are to get that sort of detachment if once again we are divided on strict Party lines I do not know.
  Politics could not be managed without Parties. I should like to add that I do not see why we might not include perhaps even a larger number of Liberals. Whatever might be said on the question, there is undoubtedly still a considerable Liberal element in the country. I should also like to see here people more loosely attached to politics than those of us who call ourselves Party politicians. If we had a limited House, how is this independence to be achieved? The House has considerable power still. If ever it becomes inconvenient to the Government of the day, of whatever complexion, the inevitable tendency must be to try to rig the Upper House in order to get the acquiescence of the majority.
  746
  While I agree that a certain majority for one Party in this House does not make for good Parliamentary institutions, equally I submit to your Lordships, in the interest of representative government and independence of mind, there ought not to be a slavish adherence to, or a slavish following of, the Government of the day in the speeches and votes of the majority in this House. Although we are making a beginning with life peerages, we are being involved in far more problems than we are solving. If we are to look forward to a successful future for this House, we ought to try to maintain within it a very large body of opinion which, though perhaps owing allegiance to Party, is not strictly subordinated to the Party machines.
  5.56 p.m.
  LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords. I feel rather hesitant in addressing your Lordships, as I have not been for very long a Member of this House. I was, however, a Member of another place for many years, and have taken the closest interest in these problems all my life I rise to say that I wish to support the. Government's proposals in general, and certainly to congratulate the Leader of the House for the able way in which he put them forward. I am bound to say that with many other noble Lords. I was disappointed that the Government's proposals were as limited as they were, but I understand the argument that one step at a time may be wise.
  There has been general agreement in the House on the desirability of having a Second Chamber—with the exception of one view, expressed by the noble Lord. Lord Faringdon, with which I shall not deal because general opinion seems quite convinced of the desirability of a Second Chamber. I think there has also been fairly general agreement on its functions: the function of revision; the function of providing a platform for public discussion; and, thirdly—-by far the most important, in my view, and the point which was made by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, last night—the function of saying to the House of Commons on certain occasions, "Think again."
  The reforms we have been discussing are entirely concerned with the membership of the House. I fully apreciate that the Party opposite do riot like the hereditary system. though I think some

  747
  of them might recognise that there is value in hereditary membership, if only for this reason: that there ought to be some persons in Parliament specially charged to speak for the past and the future, as well as for the present. I conceive that hereditary Peers are in some ways better qualified to do that, and better suited by their training, than some others.
  This House, as everyone knows, grew out of the Magnum Concilium. the great Council of the State which comprised the great men in the State whom the Crown wished to consult and whose support the Crown wished to gain. Right up to 1540, when the monasteries were dissolved, the non-hereditary element of this House was larger than the hereditary element. I would remind the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, of that point, although I know that the situation in the Scottish Parliament was different, as I believe that at that time there was a unicameral system; but so far as this House is concerned, right up to 1540 there were more nonhereditary Peers than hereditary Peers. At the present time we have under forty non-hereditary Peers, the Lords of Appeal and the Bishops (who owe their presence here, as the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chichester, said, in his interesting speech, not to the fact that they were members of the national Church, but to the fact that they were originally great feudatories of the Crown and, moreover. were practically the only educated people in the country at the time). I make this point about the House having had so predominently a non-hereditary element in the first part of its life because it would not, therefore, be very contrary to its traditions if the balance were to go somewhat in that direction again.
  The main new proposal is to restore to the Crown the Prerogative which it undoubtedly had, and which, in my opinion, was most unfortunately challenged in the Wensleydale decision, of creating nonhereditary Lords. I applaud and support that decision, and I only hope it is fully understood that this power is not to be used for the purpose of making a large creation of non-hereditary Peers at any one time. We all understand the need for this new creation, which was so well put by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, and other noble Lords, but I should like to say a word on the question
  748
  of limitation, on which not a great deal has been said. I feel that the question of limitation must be carefully examined. On the one hand, I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that the unlimited right to create Peers is an important part of the Constitution, because that power is in relation to this House the counterpoise in the Crown's power to its right to dissolve the other House. I am sure the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, will agree that this Prerogative of the Crown, which of course is trust held by the Crown on behalf of the people, has less significance now, because the power of veto has been taken away from this House and has been replaced by the power of delay. Therefore, the right to create Peers is not quite so essential as it was previously. I think this is a subject which should be examined closely when we have a Bill before us, and all the debates which took place at the time of the Peerage Bill. in 1719, and at the time of the Regency Bills, when George Ill was ill, are most important and should be studied before we come to a decision.
  For lack of agreement, the Government have made no proposals for legislation with regard to hereditary Peers, and that, of course, as I think all noble Lords have said, is a problem that should be tackled. I hope, however, that any change will leave in the service of the House all those hereditary Peers who might prove of value to your Lordships' House. That is the line I would draw. As a start, I am quite prepared to accept the suggestion of Lord Swinton's Select Committee. There are, of course, other possibilities to consider. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, put forward an interesting scheme for limiting the right for Peers to vote, though not to sit. Then there is the scheme which is in the brain of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, which we should wish to hear about one day. Then there are other proposals, many of which are new and, therefore, were not considered by the Rosebery Commission or the Bryce Report, but which I feel merit serious consideration.
  I think the plan to give leave of absence to those Peers who are unable to attend, or whose abilities do not lie in the direction of legislation or taking part in Parliamentary government, is worth trying; and I think it might be considered also whether the newly created life Peers might not be permitted to resign their

  749
  seats when the time comes, as the Bishops can, and as the Law Lords could in the first few years of their existence. It was only after a period that the Law Lord's seat in the House of Lords was extended for life, it having previously been for the period of his service as a Law Lord. Before sitting down, I should like to say a word of congratulation to my noble friend Lord Ingleby on his valuable contribution last night. I will not pursue the point he made, which has been made by other speakers and needs a great deal of consideration. To sum up, I support the proposals of the Government, and I trust that this first step in the reform of the House will lead to further evolution of our membership in a way which will not only satisfy the traditionalists, amongst whom I number myself, but also those who do not take the same view of the hereditary Peerage that some of us on this side of the House take.
  5.58 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I want to speak for only a short time. I would first, congratulate the Government on having the "guts" to come forward with a scheme at all. Many criticisms of this scheme have come from former members of former Governments and Cabinets who had ample opportunity to produce schemes of their own and never had the determination to do it. That is a great point in favour of Her Majesty's Government. I hope they will not be worried by the slightly schizophrenic attitude of the Party opposite: on the one hand, recognition of the part a Second Chamber plays; and, on the other hand, the attitude we saw from Mr. Herbert Morrison. I think that what has come out of this debate is not only that we must have Life Peers, but that they must be amply paid if they are to do their work properly. I am sure there will be full support from those sitting on this side of the House for any proposal that those Peers on the other side who may need it should receive a proper living wage to do the job properly. I think there is general agreement that the Prerogative of the Crown should not be limited in the number of non-hereditary Peers it makes, any more than it is in the number of hereditary Peers.
  I regret that nothing has been done to deal with the point of resignation or abandonment of a peerage, and I hope that it will be considered; and even if it is
  750
  not adopted, I hope that if a Peer whose son is a member of the House of Commons should die the change will not be made until the end of the Session. It is a great hardship on a constituency like my own, where, after I had been elected a few months, my father died and the unfortunate Conservative and Labour organisations had to go through the expense of a second by-election, with all the hard work that it involved. I am sure that there will be general agreement for the proposition that a Member of Parliament who succeeds should not have to change from one House to the other until the end of the current Session.
  Lastly, I feel that the scheme of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has enormous merit. But let us, above everything, try to keep our personal independence from the rigours of Party ties which one has in another place. If we are to be like the Scottish Peers and elect a number by election, people will tend to vote the Party ticket and the hereditary Peers on the Liberal Benches and on the Socialist Benches will have less chance of being elected by the general body of the House. Nor will those Peers who may be keen Conservatives but who may take a view on a controversial subject like capital punishment or Suez, against the majority of their Party, get that support from their colleagues. The same point applies to the scheme of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for nicely balancing the Parties. It would be hard on those independent Cross-Benchers, from whom we get the most valuable contributions to our debate. It would equally mean that the Party leaders, drawing up their list of who would be their Party representatives, would try to take the "good boys" who always vote the straight Party line, rather than those who might have exercised a measure of personal independence.
  That is the great advantage we have in this place over another place. When one is a Member of the House of Commons one has been elected by a constituency to support one's Party. The Whips are telling you that the whole time. Here we represent nothing but ourselves, and we have the independence, which most of us use, to go against our Party on matters in which our conscience is deeply concerned. That is one of the most important things in this House, and we must not lose it in any scheme of reform. Rather, I suggest, membership

  751
  should be by selection. There should be a selection committee, representing not only the Parties but also the Cross-Benches, the Spiritual Benches and the Law Lords. Any Peer who wants to be an elected Peer in this House should have to make an application to the selection committee, first saying that he proposes to be a reasonably regular attendant and putting his qualifications, such as that he has been a Member of Parliament; that he has taken part in local government; that he has been a justice of the peace; that he has held office of honour under the Crown in the civil, the diplomatic or the fighting services; that he takes part in the economic life of the country, trade, agriculture or industry; that he takes part in important philanthropic activities, or has important academic qualifications. Then—if I may give an analogy I would instance Chatham House—it is quite possible for a selection committee to see that the Peers who have something to contribute are able to be Members of this House. I put forward that suggestion because in any scheme we must not lose that personal independence which up till now the ridiculous hereditary principle has given us. We all agree, I think, that the abuses of the hereditary principle must be pruned; but let us not lose that personal independence.
  6.14 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are now coming to the end of a most valuable debate, and in making the final speech from this side of the House I should like to pay a tribute to the large number of most excellent speeches that we have heard from all sides of the House. Indeed, I doubt whether I have ever heard more outstanding speeches than I have heard in the course of these two days. It would be invidious to mention names, but I am sure the whole House will agree with me that it is right to say how much we all enjoyed the speech of the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel. We hope that we shall hear a great many more speeches from him on subjects on which he is so well qualified to address us. Also, there was the speech of the noble Marquess which I personally enjoyed very much, possibly because I was so much in agreement with him almost for the first time since I have been in this House. And I think the whole
  752
  House enjoyed the speech of my noble friend Lord Attlee. It is as if this House were determined, on the eve of great changes, to show how good it can be. It certainly has been at its best.
  In winding up the debate from this side of the House, I personally suffer from two handicaps. The first my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough has already explained—that neither he nor I, nor any member on this side, is in a position to speak for our Party; we can speak only for ourselves. Perhaps the debate is none the worse for that, as so many other people have done the same. But we had only just heard the proposals of the Government and, naturally, we should like to consult our political friends on them. Secondly, we have not had really detailed proposals. We are discussing this matter merely in broad principle, and we should like to have the kind of detail that we should normally get in a Bill before finally expressing our views. Nevertheless, these handicaps have to some extent been made up by the advantage of being able to speak without prejudice, and not necessarily on strict Party lines. The House will have noticed—and I am sure the noble and learned Viscount who is to reply will not take advantage of the fact—that a number of us on this side of the House, as well as on the other side, have spoken with different voices. We may even want to speak with a different voice ourselves at a later stage when this matter comes before the House.
  In summing up the discussion from this side, I should like to see how far this House is in general agreement, and where we disagree, either fundamentally or in detail. I think that one can say quite definitely that the whole House is in favour of two-Chamber Government—I do not think that that needs argument—with the exception of my noble friend Lord Faringdon, who made a brilliant but, I thought, rather wrongheaded speech. Everyone accepts the principle of two-Chamber Government. It hardly needs argument, but one of the advantages, and one of the things we look for in two-Chamber Government, is independence of thought and the independent opportunity of putting right legislation which has gone through the other Chamber. It could be, of course, as my noble friend suggested, that there could

  753
  be revision by another committee of the other pace. But you would then be having a revision by the same people of the job which they had already done, and there is an advantage in having a revising Chamber consisting of totally different people who can look at the matter afresh, and no doubt make valuable contributions.
  But there is a corollary to that, and it is one about which I have complained over and over again. It is that one looks mainly to the Opposition to apply themselves to the details of legislation—I say mainly, but not entirely—and if they do so there really is an obligation on the part of the Government to take proposals from the Opposition seriously. Now there have been Bills where that has been done, and I have not the slightest complaint about a number of them, but on other occasions I am bound to say that, having spent hours and hours drafting Amendments, considering them and discussing them with our political colleagues, we are then met with the situation that, by a ukase of the Ministry dealing with the matter, no Amendments can be accepted, however reasonable we may be, and however much we try to put our case in a moderate way. I would suggest that, if this House is going to function properly as a Revising Chamber, these Amendments must be treated seriously and given proper consideration; there must be no excuse or exception.
  I realise that there have been difficulties in the past, due to the fact that Bills have come to us late in the Session, and that it would embarrass the timetable in another place if any Amendments were accepted. That is not, however, an adequate reason for not treating this House seriously, and it is highly frustrating to noble Lords who are prepared to give their time in order to improve legislation. I am not speaking against the noble and learned Viscount, because I know how reasonable and accommodating he always is. and how fairly he tries to deal with Amendments; but the fact remains that those who are for this purpose his masters are not equally accommodating.
  I think that most Members of this House do recognise that some change is necessary. I do not know whether the noble Earl. Lord Glasgow, recognises that
  754
  some change is necessary—he shakes his head and says "Yes"—that is interesting.
  THE EARL OF GLASGOW: I should like to see the noble Lord's side strengthened.
  LORD SILKIN: I do not want to cross-examine the noble Earl, but that is a valuable concession. There was another noble Lord who said that this House is illogical but it works, and I gathered from him that that also was a reason for not doing anything about this House. I agree with him that the composition of this House is illogical I do not agree with him that it works. It is to the credit of all noble Lords who attend this House that we have done our best to make it work in the most difficult circumstances, but it is not working satisfactorily, and it is going to work less and less satisfactorily in the future unless something is done. There is no need for me to make the case for some kind of change, because almost every noble Lord who has spoken has accepted that situation.
  It is gratifying to feel that most noble Lords recognise the value of an Opposition, and I hope that we may claim that we have been a responsible Opposition. I was very moved by the tribute paid to the Opposition by two noble Lords in the course of their speeches, the noble Earl (I almost said, "my noble friend"—I apologise) Lord De La Warr and the noble Lord, Lord Gifford. We greatly appreciate it. Indeed, I do not know whether, under present-day conditions, it would have been possible to carry on satisfactorily without the kindness and the personal courtesy that we, as an Opposition, have generally received from Members on all sides of the House, but particularly from Members of the Government. This is not entirely a Party Question. To-day, it is this side who are in difficulties about constituting an Opposition, but to-morrow, whenever a change of Government takes place—and I will not make any prophecy to-night—the present Government will be in a similar difficulty. Frankly, I do not see the elements of a satisfactory Opposition even among noble Lords opposite. It is not entirely a matter of assisting this side of the House: we have got to face the situation as it might well be from the other side of the House as well.

  755
  There is general acceptance also of the view that the quickest, the immediate, remedy is the creation of a number of Life Peers. Speaking for myself, I would agree that if Her Majesty's Government are out to do something quickly, and with the least possible trouble, from their own side, as well as from ours, that is something that they can do forthwith. But I want to emphasise what nearly every previous speaker has already emphasised; that is, that simultaneously with the acceptance of powers to create Life Peers there must be adequate payment. Otherwise, Life Peers will not be induced to come at all. Some of us have been searching our minds to see who are suitable people. Of course, we can get Life Peers; so can you, quite easily—any number of them. But we do know what we want it the idea is to get suitable people who are going to help in the conduct of the Business of this House. It is not merely in dealing with Amendments and legislation; we are also a deliberative Chamber, as we are to-night; and we want people who will contribute on both sides, on both aspects, the deliberative side and the revision side. If you want suitable people who are willing to devote themselves to it, then you really will not get them unless they are adequately paid.
  I am sure the House will forgive me if I make one personal statement. In common with a number of my noble friends, I have tried to give a good deal of time to this House. I can assure noble Lords that the time one spends in this House is as nothing compared with the time one has to spend at home preparing for the work of this House. I think one also ought to pay tribute to one's wife and to the people one tends to neglect for the sake of preparing for the conduct of the business of this House. It is asking a great deal of people if they are asked not only to come here and devote themselves to this work, in sacrificing their leisure and the enjoyment of life, but to do it at a financial sacrifice. Therefore, it will be useless to take these powers unless, at the same time, there is provision for adequate remuneration.
  A large number of noble Lords have taken the view that the proposals of Her Majesty's Government do not go far enough. Indeed. I think almost every noble Lord who has spoken to-day took that view, as did a great many who spoke
  756
  yesterday. I understand that there are difficulties. All Governments seek to take the line of least resistance, and to avoid difficulties with their own friends, and therefore it is understandable that they should adopt this line, because most people will not dispute it. Nevertheless we have to ask ourselves to what extent these proposals will help solve the problem. I agree that the creation of sufficient Life Peers may, in a narrow way, help to deal with the problem of numbers and of getting an effective Opposition.
  Several noble Lords have said that in the long run it is essential that this House should be held in high esteem throughout the country. There may be differences of opinion about it, but I do not think it is held in sufficient esteem at the present time. I think that there is a great deal of discontent over the fact that it is an hereditary Chamber, and that enormous numbers of Peers can come along at any time (but in fact do not come), and that nothing is done about it. I am not going to enter into recriminations as to why one Government did or did not take action, or why another did. As I have said before, all Governments are tarred with the same brush; they have big programmes of legislation and they try to take the line of least resistance. But this is a matter that must be dealt with sooner or later.
  The composition of the House is an important matter, and the proposal of the noble Earl, Lord Home, whom I congratulate on the way in which he introduced it, does not deal with the fundamental question of numbers. My noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in a most admirable speech, said something with which I profoundly disagree. He said that it did not matter whether or not there was equality between the two sides. If by that he meant that it does not matter whether we on this side are in a permanent minority, and that it does not matter in the least that we can be swamped for all time by large numbers of noble Lords opposite, whether we are in Government or in Opposition, then I certainly disagree. I feel that when we are in Opposition, it may not matter very much whether we are out-voted by ten to one or fifty to one—that is quite immaterial; but it does matter, when we are a Government, that we are not in a position to carry through, according to our lights, the kind of legislation that we want

  757
  to carry through, and that we are always at the mercy of a House which can defeat us, as we may think, quite arbitrarily.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, purely on a matter of elucidation, may I put this question to the noble Lord? He said that this was a fundamental question of numbers. From his point of view, is that really so? Is the fundamental question that of the hereditary principle or the number of hereditary Peers?
  LORD SILKIN: I am going to deal with that.
  THE EARL OF HOME: That would be helpful to know.
  LORD SILKIN: Perhaps I used the word "fundamental" too easily.
  Now I want to say a word about the entry of women into this House. I think most noble Lords welcome it, more or less. The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, was somewhat lukewarm in his welcome, and my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth was absolutely horrified and petrified at the idea. But, by and large, most noble Lords welcome it. I think that at the moment we are almost the only institution in this country which does not accept women. I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel can help me on this point, but I believe that the City of London Corporation has no women members and we have never yet had a woman Lord Mayor of London. But we have had quite a number of distinguished women Chairmen of the London County Council; and having worked with women on that body for twenty-one years. I can say that there can be no doubt whatever as to their immense value in administration. I can give the noble Lord. Lord Teynham, a guarantee, that after he has had a year or two of experience, he will wonder why he was ever lukewarm about them. The same applies to my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth. I have no difficulty whatever in accepting the principle of having women in this House.
  My Lords, I do not want to take up much more time because many of the things that I thought it necessary to say have been said so often and so forcefully that it is unnecessary for me to repeat
  758
  them. But a number of noble Lords have put forward their ideas as to what the future House of Lords should be, and I think that I might do the same. I need hardly say that I am speaking entirely for myself. I am against the hereditary system. Even if it did work, I should still think it wrong. I think that a House of this kind should be based upon getting the best people that we can possibly find to do the work, and that the mere accident of birth should not give a person the right to sit in this Chamber. I realise that that view is not generally held on the opposite Benches, and probably that is the big difference of opinion between us.
  There were two speeches made yesterday to which I would refer—I am not sure whether the noble Lords who spoke really went as far as I go. One speech was that of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and the other that of the noble Lord, Lord Milne. I do not know what their views are, but I rather gathered that they would have had something to say quite strongly about the hereditary system-they rather hinted at it. My own view is that we should abandon the hereditary system and convert all existing peerages into life peerages. That would give us at any rate the continuity which some noble Lords want, and it would give us the gradualness and the experience that are so desirable. Indeed, it may well be that before the last of the existing Peers ceases to be a Life Peer, we might well have fifty years. But it would be a gradual process, and I think it has a great many advantages to commend it—of course, always on the assumption that one takes the view that I do about the hereditary system. I think it might well be argued that it would be damaging to destroy this House in one fell swoop, and to convert existing peerages into life peerages would give this continuity that I think is desirable.
  I am not in favour of selecting noble Lords to sit in this House. I do not know who would do the selecting; it would be a most invidious task. I think the noble Viscount, Lord Gage said yesterday that if there were some such process he might not be selected. I should like to assure him that if I had any voice in the matter he certainly would be selected, because he is one of those noble Lords who have a unique experience of local government

  759
  and housing, and we all value his contributions in this House. We may not always agree with them, but they are valuable. I regard him as an expert on those subjects, and he is not one of those noble Lords who comes once in two years, delivers himself of a speech and then is not seen again for another two years. He is a regular attender, and I should have thought that he is an ideal person to be here. But the case for selection is not always as clear as in the case of the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, and it would be a most invidious task to select from among our number. It is for that reason that l myself would reject any proposal of that kind.
  The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury put the case in a slightly different way when he said that it would be difficult for English Peers to select Peers from amongst their number because a great many of them are not known to one another. That is only another aspect of the invidiousness of having to make a selection. But even during the lifetime of Life Peers it should be possible for a noble Lord to renounce his peerage and for him then to become eligible to sit in another place. I am not in favour of this "Box and Cox" method of giving a noble Lord leave to stand for election there and, if he fails, after a suitable period to come hack, and then, perhaps, after a time, to have another try. I believe he should make up his mind once and for all. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Blackford, who made that suggestion. I should not accept it. I think, however, that if a noble Lord wants to renounce his membership he should be entitled to do so and to stand for another place if he so desires. I agree with all the suggestions of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, as to operating the Report of the Committee of which he was so distinguished a Chairman and was so humble a member.
  I believe there should be facilities for noble Lords to ask for leave of absence, and I would go further and say that if noble Lords do not attend and in fact show quite clearly that they have no intention of attending, it should be possible to deprive them of their right to attend this House. In passing, I would say that there are some noble Lords who come here regularly on ceremonial occasions and on no others, and I and some
  760
  of my noble friends have on those occasions been crowded out by noble Lords whom we do not know and have never seen and who come here just for those occasions.
  Then I believe that if we were to have this Parliament House it ought to be open to the Government of the day to create a number of Peers of Parliament for the duration of that Parliament. That would be a very useful right which would enable the Government of the day to have a majority of membership in this House. I would not disturb the inequality; it would gradually right itself. But I believe the Government of the day must have the right to ensure that it has a reasonable number of Members here—probably not a majority for that might mean appointing too many—in order to enable it to do the work of the House.
  Finally, I repeat that there must be adequate remuneration for those who are doing the work. I should myself have a very high test for payment. I should require an attendance of something like 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. during the Session before any payment was made—I am not referring to expenses, but remuneration. Expenses are in a different category, and if a noble Lord comes once he ought to be reimbursed the expenses he has incurred up to three guineas a day. Payment for attendance, however, should be made only to those who come here regularly and make it at least a part time career.
  Her Majesty's Government have not suffered from lack of ideas on this subject. People have spoken with considerable courage and wisdom and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will make something of it all and not entirely neglect the advice that has been given to them. Possibly the biggest volume of advice has been that Her Majesty's Government should not limit themselves to the narrow proposals that have been put forward by Her Majesty's Government in this debate. Let me, in conclusion, ask Her Majesty's Government to remember that in deciding this question they must have in mind that it is not this House alone—which incidentally has a vested interest—which is concerned. We have been talking as if we are the sole arbiters of the fate of this House; but there is a much wider public that is concerned about the composition of Parliament. We must consider the

  761
  views of the people as a whole. We want a Constitution which is respected and looked up to and approved by the vast majority of the intelligent people of this country, which is not subject to frequent changes from Government to Government, which the democratic peoples of the world can regard as a model and which they can look up to as the Mother of Parliaments.
  6.47 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I am sure all of your Lordships must sympathise with me in my difficulty in seeking to avoid an outworn phrase to express our thanks to my noble friend Lord Teynham for initiating this debate. We are most grateful to him. I have heard every word of all the thirty-seven speeches that have been made, and one can say that this debate has been not only useful but of the utmost value to Her Majesty's Government and to every Member of your Lordships' House who is interested in this subject. It has been a noticeable feature of this debate that there has been almost universal agreement that an addition to the membership of this House, especially on the Opposition Benches, is necessary for the continuation of the efficient functioning of the House. As the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said, there has not been much unicameralist sentiment, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon. I believe the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, admitted that he was once a heretic of this kind. But, apart from that, the necessity for bicameral Government has been generally accepted. Almost everyone started from the premise of the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, that if the Second Chamber did not exist we should have to invent one at once.
  In order to get clear the actual problem with which we have to deal, I will give my conception of the functions of this House in five sentences—I promise to do so in no more. The first is subject to what is now I believe an established convention: that we do not reject Bills passed by another place that have been publicly proclaimed in the programme of the Parties behind the Government. Subject to that, we have these duties (this has been often said). There is first delay—now for a short period—so that people can think again. Then we have our two functions as a revising Chamber.
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  Here, with the greatest respect, I join issue on emphasis with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, because I attach enormous importance to these functions. There are two revising functions. The first is in what I may call the field of secondary policy—that is, when you have passed a Bill for the second time you then give effect to the opinions in this House as to the methods by which the principle of the Bill should be applied. The second, and I say it without any doubt or hesitation, is Committee points, because that is the adjusting of Bills to the requirements of the life of ordinary people. That is a very important matter.
  The third of the functions is the introduction of non-Party Bills. If I may give an example, I take various law reform Bills which I have had the honour to put before the House in the last three years. They are admirable and useful and there is not a vote in any one of them. That is a most important function of this House—to produce Bills of that kind. Finally, there is the function of which the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has reminded us: that is, the provision of a forum for discussion by acknowledged experts of Motions on important subjects. These functions must be carried out by our House and in a way which does not make us a rival of the popular Chamber.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: May I venture to interrupt before the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor proceeds? I am afraid that I must have made myself misunderstood. I agree that the function of revision, dealing with Committee points, is of very great importance and is valuably performed now by us and should continue to be. I was protesting only against the idea that the Committee function is practically the only function of importance that is to be left to the Second Chamber.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am grateful to the noble Viscount. I said that it was a difference of emphasis. Now I fully understand his point of view. I do say this—the noble Viscount will excuse me if I rather stress the point: it is vital to the matter that is before your Lordships—that, without prejudice to the importance of the other functions, the functions of the House as a revising Chamber are of supreme importance.

  763
  I hope that your Lordships will not be too bored, but I want to remind you of two periods. One is the first two years after the war when the Labour Government were in office. I hope your Lordships will not think I make any Party point in the figures which I am about to give—that is not the intention at all. I take the Transport Bill because I myself led the opposition to it in the House of Commons. In this House, the Government put down 86 Amendments of their own and 53 to meet the Opposition's points. And the Government accepted 91 Opposition Amendments. In respect of the ten major Bills of the two years after the war, 1946 and 1947, no fewer than 1,222 Amendments put down in this House were incorporated in the Acts. I should like also to remind your Lordships of what happened last Session. The three Bills I mention (I hope your Lordships will not think it is egotistic) are Bills which I had to deal with myself—three major ones. When the Copyright Bill was in Committee, 151 Amendments were moved; on Report, 155; on Third Reading, 34. On the Road Traffic Bill, in Committee there were 135; on Report, 91; on Third Reading, 21. On the Restrictive Trade Practices Bill, in Committee there were 67; on Report, 39; on Third Reading, 7.
  No one who has been in charge of a Bill of any magnitude would or could deny that consideration after the Report stage in the first House is essential, and it is essential to the second prerequisite of tolerable legislation—that is, that it should fit the ordinary life of ordinary people. We are, I suggest, apt to underestimate the importance of this. The cleverer we are, the more apt we are to think that if a Bill only fits our policy it is all right. And this task involves that the views of Back Benchers, but especially of the official Opposition, should be forcibly expressed and freely considered. I heard my noble friend Lord Gage yesterday and Lord Silkin to-day say that Governments are apt to pay too little attention. If we have, I am very sorry.
  I have tried, myself, to give the fullest attention to Amendments. There are many difficulties which arise, even if we appear difficult to the Back-Benchers at times. What is vitally important is that Lord Gage, speaking for rural Sussex, if you like, and the representatives of
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  the Labour Party, speaking for all those who support them, should leave their impact on Bills and on the thought of those in charge. It has been due solely and entirely to the self-sacrifice of a small number of noble Lords that this has continued up to now. If I instance Lord Silkin and Lord Lucas of Chilworth it is because we have worked together so much in the fields which I 'have mentioned during the past few years. A great Civil Servant with whom I worked used to ask: "Whom would you appoint if the 'Treasury bus' ran over Mr. A?" I shudder to think what would have happened to the three Bills I have mentioned if that malevolent vehicle had knocked down the two noble Lords. Lord Silkin and Lord Lucas of Chilworth.
  We believe that we can help to lessen the risk of that work not being properly performed by reversing the Wensleydale decision and permitting the Crown to create life peerages for men and women. I read carefully once more I read them often—the proceedings of the Wensleydale case, in case your Lordships might ask me about it. And yet—and this is a very real glory of your Lordships' House—when I came here, Lord Wensleydale's great-grandson, my noble friend Lord Ridley, was able to give me inside information on the case that even I had not known.
  Over and over again in this debate it has been stated that there is a real difficulty in getting suitable people to take hereditary peerages by reason of their views or their anxiety about the position of their sons. This debate has also made clear that at the present moment this problem must, if possible, be solved without increasing or altering the powers and privileges of the hereditary element of this House and thereby stirring controversy with those who dislike that element. This is a difficult point for all of us. We have heard—and were glad to hear—individual views from noble Lords who belong to the Labour Party, but it has not been possible to get the official view. I make no corn-plaint about that, but I do say this (and I hope that after so many years of friendship I am not misinterpreting him): I feel that the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, showed how easy it would be to rouse Party feeling on a proposal of comprehensive

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  reform which, although it cut down the number of hereditary Peers who sit and vote in this House, increased the prestige and influence of the House in itself. I say to my noble friends who would like us to have gone further, and with whom I have the greatest sympathy, that they have to weigh that point.
  The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Latham, showed that he felt that any improvement in the composition of the House might increase its influence, even where it was recognised that it might be, as it is to-day, an essential salvage operation if the work of the House is to continue efficiently. And your Lordships will have noticed that the noble Earl. Lord Attlee, although he indicated a number of anomalies that ought to be put right, said to-day that in 1953 he thought that the time was premature for another all-Party Conference to discuss this matter. Therefore I say to my noble friends who might have some disappointment in their minds that we have to consider that point. And it is not merely a cowardly point. In constitutional matters, if we cannot get the maximum of agreement, at any rate let us have the minimum of disagreement between the great Parties, because long after we are no more the swing and flow of Party life has to continue for the benefit of the country.
  That is one side of it, and now I turn for a brief moment to the other side from which attack has come, personified in the admirable, good-humoured and winged words of my noble friend, Lord Glasgow. I would only remind him that it is well worth remembering, from his point of view, that the Wensleydale decision was limited to the prohibition of Life Peers from having the right to sit and vote. I remember my noble friend Lord Polwarth, on a previous occasion, telling us that an ancestor of his sat as a Life Peer in the Scottish Parliament jure uxoris. Actually, the Life Peer has an ancient and a respectable background. Indeed, the interesting thing is that the argument that excluded Lord Ridley's great-grandfather was not that the Crown could not create Life Peers who could sit and vote, but that the Crown had allowed the prerogative to fall into desuetude. There has always been a great clash of traditional opinion about that case and great controversy about its rightness, and there is much to be
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  said for the view of Walter Bagehot which the noble Viscount, Lord Hail-sham, quoted to-day. On the second point, on the inclusion of women as Life Peers, I think that there has been almost complete unanimity.
  May I deal with some of the suggestions that have been made? I hope that I shall answer most of them, but if I do not, perhaps noble Lords would be good enough to write and remind me and I will try to deal with them again. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chichester mentioned the position of various other churches. I say this simply as a matter of fact, because the subject has been raised. The Church of Scotland is in a different position from the Free Churches; it is a national established Church and its ministers are prohibited and disqualified by Statute from sitting in another place, unlike the ministers of the Free Churches in England and Scotland. Secondly, the General Assembly adopted a deliverance in 1948 advancing a claim for representation in this House, which, was noted by the Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs.
  It would be possible for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, after suitable consultation, to consider recommending for life peerages eminent members of the Church of Scotland. The right reverend Prelate who is present will appreciate the differences in the Presbyterian form of Church government, which, of course, includes laymen as well as ecclesiastics. With regard to the other churches which were mentioned, I should want to know more of their own views before I made a promise beyond consideration of the point. That I gladly give. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will think that that is a fair attitude to take up.
  My noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh mentioned Peeresses in their own right, as did subsequent speakers, and my noble friend Lord Saltoun mentioned the position of the holders of Scottish peer, ages who are not elected by their fellow Peers of Scotland. The difficulty of both these arguments is that their acceptance would increase pro tanto the powers conferred by heredity. I hope that Lord Saltoun is in his place, but if he is not, I should like him to be reminded of this point. I did not hear Lord Saltoun formulate his proposals for the eight or nine

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  ladies who are holders of Scottish peerages in their own right. I should have been very interested if he had developed that point. But, fortunately, both the arguments demonstrate the flexibility of my noble friend's proposals because, again, it would be perfectly possible to consider suitable and willing examples of either category for life peerages. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, asked me that specific question: Would they be barred from holding life peerages? The answer is No; they would not, and it would be perfectly possible.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, raised the very difficult point with regard to the Peer's eldest son who is in the House of Commons. My Lords, I consider that that is essentially a House of Commons question. I do not think it is right for Members of your Lordships' House to claim to get the best of both worlds.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The noble and learned Viscount must not say that.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I must say what is necessary. But I want to put it in this way: I am not prepared to say anything derogatory to the dignity of the Peerage or the right to sit in this House. Whatever views may be taken, it is a great privilege, enjoyed, if you like, by an infinitesimal fraction of the population of this country, and I do not think that it is for us to claim, in addition to that privilege, other privileges on the Motion of this House. If the House of Commons were to indicate that (someone can introduce a Bill under the Ten Minute Rule or in any other way) there was clearly a demand in the House for this change. I should be prepared to consider it, but I think it would be most unwise of this House at this time to claim additional powers, additional facilities and additional rights. Our concentration must be on our duties—
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The Lord Chancellor says that the claim I made was to have it both ways. That is not so. I made a perfectly simple claim to renounce the whole thing—to disclaim finally something that fell on unwilling shoulders. There is no law on this matter. The House of Commons has a practice. They say that if a man has received a Writ of Summons (and that
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  does not mean getting a Writ of Summons: it means being certified as a proper recipient) he cannot sit. It is therefore a matter for the House of Lords. If this House said: "If you renounce your claim to a Writ of Summons, it will not be issued." Then the applicant is in the clear, and the matter can then be raised in the House of Commons. I do not want to delay the noble and learned Viscount, and I only ask this question: would be undertake that, when this Bill is introduced, it is introduced in such a form that the opinions of the noble Lords can be taken clearly upon this issue?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly consider that, because the Rules of Order in your Lordships' House are very wide indeed. What I could not guarantee to the noble Viscount is that, if there is a Bill and it leaves this House, it would be in a form in which that Amendment could be moved. That is a matter which would require the most careful consideration.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: But really—
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have dealt with the point.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: If the noble and learned Viscount will not allow me to speak, I cannot help it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is a quarter past seven. I do not want to appeal for sympathy, but I have had thirty-seven long speeches, and therefore perhaps I can postpone for a little time the pleasure of hearing the noble Viscount again.
  The next point with which I wanted to deal was the proposals of, if I may so term it, the Swinton Committee, which was mentioned by Lord Swinton and others. I was not on the Committee, but I am sure that the Committee were right in thinking that the Standing Orders would, in practice, be effective in all the foreseeable number of cases. This is essentially a matter for the House. It is for the House to decide whether there should be a change in its Standing Orders.
  My Lords, it is rather late to deal as fully as I should have liked with the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham. I thought it was most bold of the noble

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  Lord to put his proposals before us, and I could not help seeing hovering over his head as he put them, the ghostly figure of the Abbé Sieyes, that distinguished priest of the noble Lord's Church who was always producing constitutions. They were always long; they were always logical; and they never worked! One of the great troubles about our problem is that everyone is his own Abbé Sieyes. With regard to the reform of the House of Lords, I would say this: that on first consideration—and, of course, I have thought of it before—I see three difficulties.
  First of all, the conception of a House, with us sitting here, in which all of us can speak and only some of us can vote, has something strange about it. If you apply it to a Committee stage, what is the noble Lord, Lord X, to do, having made six impassioned speeches on an Amendment, when voices are called for? Is he to keep silent? Is he breaking the rule if he says "Content"? The other point of difficulty is the selection of the voting Peers, who alone have full powers; whether that is to be done by the Prime Minister and so on. That indicates—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, will not take me too much amiss—the difficulty in which one finds oneself. That has commended itself to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for whose ability I have the greatest respect, yet to me, having considered it, there seem to be fundamental difficulties. That is always an aspect of this problem that one has to remember all the time.
  LORD PAKENHAM: Before the noble and learned Viscount leaves that point, I take it that he is still ready to bring a fresher mind than after thirty-seven speeches he could reasonably be expected to possess to a consideration of this problem. Or has he exhausted not only his mind, if I may say so, but the subject?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As the noble Lord can well see, although he is too polite to say, it is only for to-night that I have exhausted my mind, and I shall be pleased to consider and discuss it with him at any time.
  The point was raised several times—and again I think it is a difficult one—of the economic aspect of this House. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, put the
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  dilemma quite clearly. He said that, on the one hand, it is difficult to legislate for payment of a salary if it could be enjoyed by the whole 872 Peers, or even if it could be enjoyed by so many of them who cared to come in in order to qualify themselves to enjoy it. That is one side of the difficulty. The other horn of the dilemma is that there is no way of reducing the numbers without dealing with the difficulties pointed out by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Latham; which means strengthening the House and increasing the authority of a body which is largely hereditary. That is the dilemma one is in. I do hope that everyone, as I certainly shall, will give all the attention he can to finding a solution, because I agree with what has been said about the importance of this matter. I do not think our own proposals are made any the better or worse for the existence of that difficulty. But, frankly, it is one for which, so far, I have been unable to find a solution.
  I now turn to the question of whether or not the number of Life Peers should be limited. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was against the limitation of the number. My noble friend Lord Clitheroe, who as usual showed his great knowledge of this, as of so many historical subjects, was, as I understood him, doubtful about it. For those of your Lordships who are in favour of limitation (of course, I will consider all the views expressed), I would ask you to consider that we are, as I said, merely restoring to the Crown a power long enjoyed, if sparingly exercised. In my view, the danger of a large influx is to-day illusory. I say, with great respect, as a junior Member of your Lordships' House, that I believe the power of absorption of this House, in the fullest sense of the term, is very great. I have said that the Wensleydale decision is usually considered to have been a mistake in law and certainly a mistake in policy. There is admittedly no restriction on the right of the Crown to create Life Peers. The only restriction, fixed 100 years ago, was on the right to sit and vote in Parliament. All that this proposal does is to restore to the Crown a right which undoubtedly existed and was used in the two or three centuries ago. Viewed from that point, there does not seem to be any obvious reason why the

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  restoration should be qualified by the limitation on the numbers.
  But if one turns to the arguments of convenience, I think they tell that way. If one grants the necessity of persuading men and women of high merit to come into the Second Chamber, it is inadvisable to tie the Prime Minister's hand by any annual limitation, because, as my noble friend the Leader of the House said, it is a varying demand: it may be necessary to have a considerable number now, and in other years many fewer. If there were such a limitation, I think it would be necessary to give the Prime Minister special powers to give life peerages to members of his own Government, including junior Ministers and ex-Ministers whom he wished to get rid of from the House of Commons. Some provision would have to be made to deal with that unfortunate necessity of public life. All these limitations would complicate the Bill. They would have to be made to fit in with our political life, and I say that a desirable flexibility would be lost. The question of "swamping" is really again shadow fighting in this field. Theoretically, to-day the old "swamping" power is still there: the Prime Minister could create sufficient hereditary Peers to abolish the House, and then, having created them, could pass a Bill in a Single Chamber taking away their Peerages. If one wanted to do it, it could be done. But I do not think that in the foreseeable future, weighing all the other measures which are open to a Prime Minister, it is something which one ought to consider seriously.
  I am sorry to have taken so much of your Lordships' time. This debate has focused the attention of your Lordships and, I am sure, the attention of many outside this House on the vital issues which, as I think, are inherent in any discussion about the composition of the Second Chamber. So I venture to think that what has passed here yesterday and to-day will be pondered over, not only by the Government and by your Lordships but by all those who are interested to maintain the efficacy of our Parliamentary institutions. In listening to the debate, I have been particularly struck by two things. First, there has been an almost universally expressed sense of the great responsibility which your Lordships feel to see that the working of our Constitu-
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  tion, which so largely depends on conventions put into effect by good will, remains unimpaired. But I hope your Lordships feel that, in the words of my noble friend Lord Salisbury, we have not failed to grasp the nettle. We claim that we have here faced that truism which is so very true: that the best is often the enemy of the good. If you do not face that fact you often lose the good altogether, and we have had to face it here. No doubt there are some of your Lordships who wish that we had gone further. There are also, I think, a very small number who wish that we had let well alone.
  I was struck, not only by the speech of my noble friend Lord Salisbury, but also with the speeches of Lord Melchett and Lord Milne yesterday, and to-day by that of my noble friend Lord St. Oswald, who said—politely—that we were complacent and perhaps not paying sufficient attention to public feeling. I hope that what I have said may disabuse them of that idea, because it is not ignoring public feeling; it is trying to meet it when, as I say, we try to secure the minimum amount of disagreement between the great Parties. But I do wish to say this to Lord Salisbury, Lord Swinton and Lord Winterton, who asked me on this point. I believe, and the Government believe, that the British Constitution is an organic and a dynamic thing, and when we have made this change in the composition of the House, if we reach that position, the Government must—I repeat, must—consider the effect of the change, and whether and when the time has come for a further change.
  I suggest that not only must the Government do it but every noble Lord in this House must do it—and when I say that I mean noble Lords on both sides of the House. For so encouraged do I feel by the course of this great debate, that I believe for the first time in my political life we may succeed in approaching this vital issue without Party preconceptions or feelings, and with a true desire to make this House—always a great instrument of good law-giving in our country—have a greater place, not competing with the House of Commons, but doing and able to do a great task effectively in accordance with its traditions of the past and also in accordance with the new world into which we have moved.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, before the noble and learned Viscount sits down, there is one question I should like to ask him. I have listened with the greatest interest to the most important speech he has made, but I am still not clear on one point. Is it the Government's view that it would be unwise, or have they come down against any limitation of the numbers of hereditary Peers at the present time because that would increase the prestige and authority of the House, and that might be controversial?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we have come down against including in these proposals a limitation of the number of hereditary Peers. With regard to the reason, it is, as I have tried to make clear in my speech, that I believe the extent to which we have gone will cause, as I put it, the minimum disagreement between the Parties, and will greatly improve the position of the House. But I repeat what I said—I thought I was answering the noble Marquess—that as soon as you have done that you immediately create a new situation which must be considered, first, as to its effect, and, secondly, whether it is right to go on to consider some improvement. But what we say is that the proposals put before us should get the minimum disagreement between Parties at the moment, and we desire to place these as our proposals before the House.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I can only conclude that my interpretation was correct.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, at twenty-five minutes to eight I am not going to split hairs with the noble Marquess as to whether he is adjectivally exact. But I hope that I have repeated myself on this matter, and I should have thought that there was no doubt at all as to the meaning of what my noble friend the Leader of the House anti Lord Hailsham and I have said on this point.
  7.38 p.m.
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, after what the noble and learned Viscount has said about this debate, I need hardly add that I am sure we all agree that we have had a most interesting and useful discussion on the reform of this Chamber. I am delighted to know that Her Majesty's Government are proposing to accept Life
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  Peers. I think it is true to say that the House generally, with few exceptions, accepted the proposal for Life Peers in your Lordships' House. I am sure we were all interested in the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. He appears to be in favour of more extensive reform, and I am inclined to agree with him. But I would say that we must make haste slowly, and that appears to be the view of Her Majesty's Government.
  The noble Earl, Lord Winterton, has twitted me about racehorses. It is certainly difficult to breed good racehorses, and it is equally difficult to breed good Peers. Sometimes one gets a statesman in the process, but also there must be many discards. Many speakers have advocated higher emoluments for the active Peers in this House. I agree that it is absolutely necessary, and I do not feel that the scheme would work at all unless the emoluments were increased. I should like to support fully the proposal of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, that perhaps the Lord Chairman of Committees might be asked to make a draft of Standing Orders covering leave of absence, so that they might: be debated in your Lordships' House. Her Majesty's Government will, I am sure, take careful note of all that has been said in your Lordships' House, and for that reason I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
  Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

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