Sitting of 9 May 1962

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

  BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL
  [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Winter Keep and Permanent Grassland Improvement
    Sir J. Duncanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to introduce the legislation to implement the undertakings in the Agricultural Price Review regarding winter keep and permanent grassland improvement.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): I regret that I cannot yet say when it will be possible to introduce this legislation.
    Sir J. Duncan: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, although this will be United Kingdom legislation, it is of paramount importance to Scotland and that its necessity is increased by the fact that the present M.A.P. regulations will be finished by 31st December?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. I am fully seized of that point, but my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot make forecasts about the timing of legislation.

    Dogs and Cats (Quarantine Regulations)
    Sir Richard Glynasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
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    whether, in view of improvement in veterinary knowledge and techniques, he will review the present quarantine regulations for dogs and cats entering Great Britain, and in particular dogs and cats returning to Great Britain after a short stay overseas.
    Mr. Soames: The view of those who have made an informed study of the problem of rabies, including the expert committee set up by the World Health Organisation, is that apart from a prohibition of entry, a quarantine period of at least six months is the only sure protection against the disease. Our quarantine regulations have kept the country free from rabies for over forty years and I am not prepared by any relaxation of our present arrangements to take a risk of re-introducing it.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the World Health Organisation has recently published a further report on the control of rabies with the likely development of the Flurry vaccine, and that one month's quarantine with an injection of this vaccine may give better control than the six months' quarantine required by the present arrangement? Will he look into this matter again?
    Mr. Soames: No, Sir. The report to which my hon. Friend referred stated categorically that it was the opinion of the expert committee that those countries which were free from rabies, and so in a position to have quarantine up to six months if possible, should continue with that arrangement, and that that was the only sure way of ensuring that the disease did not come into the country.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Are experiments being conducted in this country to improve on the present position?
    Mr. Soames: I think that there is a very good state of affairs inasmuch as we have been completely free of this most terrible disease for forty years. I do not think that that can be improved upon. Any change is likely to be retrograde.

    Farms (Accidental Deaths)
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what new steps he is taking to combat the rise in farm fatalities last year.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. W. M. F. Vane): There are too many accidental deaths on farms and we are taking steps further to increase safety consciousness through publicity, education, advice and the vigorous enforcement of the existing safety regulations by a strengthened Safety Inspectorate. Further regulations concerning field machinery are being made which will be laid before the House shortly for approval.
    Mr. Farr: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind the possibility of having printed a number of posters depicting certain of the major causes of farm fatalities, such as tractor accidents, and distributing them with the normal correspondence which farmers receive from various departments of the Ministry of Agriculture?
    Mr. Vane: I will certainly consider that. We have a good deal of printed matter, although I am not sure whether we have something which exactly covers that point.
    Mr. Hilton: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the answer to this problem is the immediate appointment of more farm inspectors? While appreciating that much has been done in recent times, everybody interested in agriculture is concerned with the increase in accidents, especially fatal accidents. Will he consider the immediate appointment of more safety inspectors?
    Mr. Vane: I referred to the reorganisation and the strengthening of the Safety Inspectorate which is, I think, what the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

    Essex River Board (Mundon Wash Scheme)
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why a grant has been refused to the Essex River Board to carry out the proposed Mundon Wash scheme.
    Mr. Vane: I appreciate that this scheme was designed to benefit a large area of agricultural land but after full inquiry I regret it has not been found possible to approve this scheme, which would be very expensive in relation to the land deriving benefit.
    Mr. Harrison: Does my hon. Friend realise that this decision means that people who have been paying drainage rates will now be put out of business and that it is not only the people in the immediate vicinity of the Mundon Wash who are suffering, but an increasing number of farmers further back from the actual outlets who will lose their livelihoods?
    Mr. Vane: I said that the proposal which we have been considering was very complicated and expensive. There is generally more than one way of tackling large problems like this and it is not uncommon that the best, most elaborate and most expensive is not the only way. It may be possible to devise something which would be effective, if not quite so elaborate, and less expensive. We will willingly consider that if the river board will put such proposals to us.

    Land (Flooding)
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take powers to compensate persons whose land has been flooded by water draining from upland areas.
    Mr. Vane: No, Sir. I do not think this would be practicable or appropriate. I would remind my hon. Friend that during the financial year 1961–62 Government grants for land drainage works, including flood protection, carried out by river boards and internal drainage boards amounted to £3,900,000.
    Mr. Harrison: Does not my hon. Friend realise that it is just the success of his upland drainage schemes which is causing the suffering to the people who are down nearer the sea wall? Because the rainwater drains off so quickly, it floods the lower land. Increasing the effectiveness of drainage higher up makes other people lose their livelihood.
    Mr. Vane: I think that the reference to loss of livelihood is going a little far. As my hon. Friend says, it is true that water flows downhill, and it has been our principle to deal with drainage problems where they occur, and that means mainly at the lower levels. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend will have noticed that the Land Drainage Act, 1961, gives river boards permissive powers to levy additional charges on agricultural land,

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    including land in upland areas, to help them finance additional work.
    Mr. Harrison: In view of the importance of this matter, I beg to give notice that on the earliest occasion I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

    Potatoes
    Mr. Donnellyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the potato supply position.
    Mr. Soames: The Potato Marketing Board estimated on 13th April that stocks of home-grown main crop potatoes in Great Britain amounted to about 230,000 to 240,000 tons. Imports of main crop potatoes have so far amounted to about 90,000 tons. How long these stocks will last depends on the rate of consumption and on the level of imports of both new and main crop potatoes.
    Mr. Donnelly: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have in my hand a slip from the menu of a restaurant in Cardiff saying that owing to the potato price rise all menu items have been surcharged threepence extra? Is he aware that in South Wales potatoes were being sold singly at the weekend and that in the village school near where I live in Wales the children have been told that they will have only half quantities of potatoes? How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile that with the fact that some of my constituents have been fined for growing too many potatoes? Does he not realise the incalculable damage that this sort of asinine rot does to the good name of the British farmer among the townspeople?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman participated in our recent debate and did me the courtesy of listening to an extremely long speech by me in which I did my best to set out all the facts of the situation, with which I believe he is well acquainted. The constituent to whom he has referred is, in fact, paying the excess levy on the acreage of potatoes that he grew in 1959, 1960 and 1961. Those were all early potatoes, and two of the years were surplus years and farmers growing extra in those years affected the price which all farmers got on the market.
    Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is still not good enough? There is the constituent to whom he has referred, but there are many others who have also been fined for growing potatoes in the past year. If they had not grown potatoes, the present situation would have been even worse. I should have thought that the Government should have been conferring life peerages on them instead of fines.
    Mr. Donnellyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the basis upon which potato acreage allocations are made to individual farmers by the Potato Marketing Board.
    Mr. Soames: Each producer registered with the Board has a basic acreage, which is assessed by reference to actual plantings in a recent period. The Potato Marketing Scheme also provides that, in any case of hardship or unusual circumstances, or for the purpose of good husbandry, a registered producer may apply for a new or increased basic acreage. The Board has statutory powers to determine whether a given year shall be a quota year in which a registered producers' plantings may not exceed a stated proportion of his basic acreage without his becoming liable to payment of excess acreage contribution.
    Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the answer which he gave to my previous Question undermines the Answer that he has given to this one? The administration must be most unsatisfactory for us to be in this present situation of shortage. Somebody must be misdirecting arrangements. Cannot he take some positive steps to ensure that there are more flexible arrangements within the producer marketing boards? Those of us who want our producer marketing boards to be successful do not want their good name damaged amongst the townspeople.
    Mr. Soames: That is not so. I refute what the hon. Gentleman has said. The Potato Marketing Board tried at the beginning of this planting season to get an acreage of about 700,000. As the hon. Gentleman knows through contact with the country, the weather was such that the people who intended to

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    plant potatoes could not get them in. There was a shortage of acreage, and, therefore, a shortage of potatoes.
    Sir L. Plummer: Is it not a fact that this year the Potato Marketing Board has decided not to institute an excess quota fine?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir; that is so. This will be a non-quota year.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is my right hon. Friend aware that hon. Members on this side of the House have every confidence in what he is doing about potatoes and that we realise that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) is trying to make cheap political capital out of something which the Minister has very great difficulty in controlling—the weather?
    Mr. Soames: There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says.
    Mr. Peart: Despite the intervention of the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), who obviously desires to be a P.P.S.—[HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Gentleman was one."]—I was one before the hon. Member, though—is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a serious potato shortage? We think that flexibility in the policy of the Potato Marketing Board could have been achieved. Is the Minister satisfied that imports are coming in properly from the countries from which he prevents them coming in?
    Mr. Soames: Am I satisfied that imports are coming in properly from the countries from which I prevent them coming in? That is not happening, I trust. However, I am satisfied that the Board is making every effort to import potatoes from countries which are permitted to send them here.
    Mr. Peart: What about the State of Maine, which says that its products are free from disease and that it could export to this country? Can the right hon. Gentleman make any comment about that?
    Mr. Soames: From the point of view of disease, we have to be the judge of the sources from which we import potatoes.
    Mr. Donnelly: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply and
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    in order to show the right hon. Gentleman how expensive political capital is, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this subject on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Speaker: I constantly ask hon. Members to adhere to the traditional formula in these matters and not to make speeches.

    Agricultural Production
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the average value in pounds sterling, of agricultural production per person employed in agriculture in 1961, in the United Kingdom and in the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Soames: I regret that comparable figures are not available. It is not possible to obtain comparable statistics of the value of output or comparable definitions of persons engaged in agriculture. Moreover, a calculation based on prevailing farmers' prices in each country would reflect the systems and levels of farm support as well as differences in productivity.
    Mr. Ridley: Is this not quite extraordinary? How on earth are we to compare the agricultural systems in the respective countries if we cannot have figures such as these? It makes it far harder to assess the balance of advantage. I believe that such figures would show great advantage to British farmers if we joined the Community. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that?
    Mr. Soames: Perhaps it would help my hon. Friend if I were to give the figures in a slightly different way. The proportion of the total active population engaged in agriculture in the United Kingdom is about 4 per cent. and the proportion of the total gross domestic production which that percentage produces is about 4 per cent., whereas in the E.E.C. countries together, according to published information, the proportion of the total active population engaged in agriculture is about 21 per cent. and it is producing about 11 per cent. of the total gross domestic production.
    Mr. Walker: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that those figures indicate that there is tremendous scope

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    for improvement in the agricultural production of the Common Market countries? Are not their standards of mechanisation and building lower than ours? Are not these things in which they can make progress? Would my right hon. Friend like to prepare a White Paper indicating the increase in their production which is liable to take place in the next ten years, to the disadvantage of British agriculture should we enter the Community?
    Mr. Soames: It would be a very rash man who would prepare a White Paper in this country about what will be the state of agricultural production in other countries.

    Ice Cream and Sweets (Prices)
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take power to ensure that the increase in the price of ice cream and sweets, following the Budget, is not excessive.
    Mr. Soames: This is sometimes inevitable where the tax is a small fraction of a penny. But I understand some of the new prices include increases which manufacturers had in mind before the announcement of the tax.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that, following the imposition of 15 per cent. Purchase Tax on the wholesale price of ice cream and sweets, the trade has announced increases of 20, 25 and 33 per cent., and similar figures, on the retail price of sweets? Is this not a great gap, and are not the Government going to do something to prevent the trade exploiting this situation to give another upward twist to the inflationary spiral?
    Mr. Soames: No, Sir. That is not the objective. It would appear that on the basis of changes so far announced on some lines there will be no change, on others the weight will be reduced to keep the price unchanged, and on others prices will go up from 6d. to 7d. and from 1s. to 1s. 2d. In this respect I think that the hon. Lady would like to know that in the last seven years chocolate prices have gone up by less than 2 per cent., while there have been substantial increases in some of the manufacturers' costs.
    Mr. Nabarro: While conceding the truth of what my right hon. Friend says, may I ask whether he would recognise that in certain instances—and it may be a minority of cases—the increases in retail prices, notably on chocolates, are now of the order of 33⅓ per cent. compared with the pre-Budget price, whereas the Chancellor's Purchase Tax is only 15 per cent. on the wholesale price, and therefore the margin of price increase is more than double the amount of the tax?
    Mr. Soames: This may be so in certain instances. I have not the figures which my hon. Friend quoted, but, in general, this is a competitive industry, and it must be left to the manufacturers to be the best judges of what they should do about their prices in relation to the Purchase Tax and other costs.
    Mrs. Castle: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this trade has been extremely prosperous over the past years? Its present profits do not justify this entirely gratuitous increase, although the right hon. Gentleman seems to be prepared to accept it as normal, and to accept that routine increases in prices Should take place at intervals whether or not the profitability of the industry demands it. How can the Government have an incomes policy when they are so lax with their profits policy?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Lady talks about an industry, but this concerns a number of firms within an industry taking individual decisions, and there is considerable competition. If one firm steps outside and puts on unusually high prices it will soon find itself in trouble.

    Transactions in Seeds (Committee's Recommendations)
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieuasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he has now taken to implement the recommendations of the Committee on Transactions in Seeds.
    Mr. Soames: The Seeds Regulations, 1961, gave effect to a number of the recommendations of the Committee on Transactions in Seeds which did not require fresh legislation. Proposals for legislation to implement other recommendations of the Committee, including

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    a system of plant breeders' Tights, have been discussed with the interests concerned, but I regret I cannot yet say when it will be possible to introduce this legislation.
    Mr. Mallalieu: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is a very similar Answer to one given six months ago, and that in the meantime the agricultural industry is being deprived of important varieties of seeds? Can he give any indication that he is going to get a move on and put legislation on the Statute Book?
    Mr. Soames: We are anxious to proceed with legislation, but there is a considerable amount for the legislative programme. All I can say is that there will not be room for it this Session.
    Mr. Kimball: As there is a considerable measure of agreement about plant breeders' rights, will my right hon. Friend make available all the facilities within his Department so that this can be brought forward as a comparatively simple Private Member's Bill in the next Session?
    Mr. Soames: This would mean quite complicated legislation, but it is not a question of differences of opinion that is holding it up. It is the fact that there are many clients for future legislation.

    Frozen Processed Eggs (Import)
    Mr. Clive Bossomasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the tonnage of frozen processed eggs which are expected to be imported into the United Kingdom this year.
    Mr. Soames: Quantities imported will depend upon the requirements of traders. Consequently I cannot give any figure for the year as a whole, but total frozen whole egg imports to 31st March, were 4,702 tons compared with 4,633 tons during the same period of 1961.
    Mr. Bossom: Can my right hon. Friend explain the figure of 31,000 tons which the egg producers have got hold of? I understand that this is made up of 10,000 tons of Chinese eggs; 6,000 tons of Polish eggs; 5,000 tons of eggs from miscellaneous countries; and 10,000 tons from Australia. Secondly, would not the production from home
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    sources need only an extra 5,000 tons to meet usage? Could not my right hon. Friend liaise with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, especially about Chinese and Polish eggs, because many of the producers regard these as dumped eggs?
    Mr. Soames: As regards Poland, between 1st January and 31st March last year, 94 tons of eggs were imported. None have so far been imported this year. The figure which my hon. Friend quoted of 30,000 tons is a figure which some people have estimated as the number of eggs likely to come in, but the figures that we have available show that nothing like that is in prospect.
    Mr. Bossom: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that Polish and Chinese eggs will not come in this year?
    Mr. Soames: I certainly cannot say that. The importation of frozen eggs is left to the trade. Naturally it is affected by the level of prices in this country and there is free trade with a tariff in this commodity, subject to anti-dumping legislation.
    Mr. Hilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole question of importing eggs into this country at a time when home producers have plenty is something which is causing a lot of worry to egg producers in Norfolk in particular? Will he give an assurance that he will carefully watch the import of eggs into this country at a time when we are producing plenty of our own?
    Mr. Soames: The figures that I gave show that imports this year are very similar to imports last year.

    Fowl Pest
    Sir J. Duncanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the opposition to the recommendations of the Plant Committee on Fowl Pest, if he will take no action without the agreement of all the interests concerned.
    Mr. Soames: I would refer my hon. Friend to the Answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd) on 12th April.
    Sir J. Duncan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in Scotland the compensation payment has been very small

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    due to the policy that we have adopted there of not allowing chicks and hatching eggs into Scotland, thus creating a reservoir of healthy stock? Is he aware of the opposition in Scotland to any suggestion that the Plant Committee's recommendations should be carried out relaxing the regulations on slaughtering?
    Mr. Soames: I am in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland in this regard, and any action that we decide to take in the end will be based on the national interest as a whole.
    Mr. Peart: Will the Minister reject the advice of his hon. Friend, because if we accept what he implied in his question no action will be taken? There must be positive action by the Government at some time.
    Mr. Soames: When it is decided on, it will be on the basis of the national interest as a whole.

    Open Moorland (Ponies and Cattle)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take powers to require the owners of ponies and cattle left on open moors during the winter months to provide adequate food and shelter for these animals.
    Mr. Vane: It is an offence under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, for a person responsible for an animal to cause it unnecessary suffering. Any apparent breaches of this requirement should be reported to the police. I have no reason to think that further legislation is required.
    Mr. Lipton: Does the hon. Gentleman know that according to local reports, which have been verified by the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) since I put down this Question, last winter a substantial number of animals died of hunger and exhaustion on Dartmoor where they had been turned out and left to fend for themselves by callous and unscrupulous local farmers? Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to see that the law is enforced?
    Mr. Vane: I said in my Answer that apparent breaches of the regulations should be reported to the police, and I am sure that the chief constables con-
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    cerned will take note of what the hon. Gentleman said.
    Sir H. Studholme: Is my hon. Friend aware that I am in touch with the Dartmoor Commoners' Association and that I am hoping very soon to arrange a meeting with Members of Parliament whose constituencies are concerned and representatives of the Dartmoor Commoners' Association and the Duchy of Cornwall? Animals on Dartmoor have suffered a good deal during this hard winter, and we shall discuss this and other questions related to animals on the moor.

    Meat Imports
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to prevent the import of meat from countries outside the Commonwealth during peak home-killing periods.
    Mr. Soames: I have asked exporting countries to take account of the state of the United Kingdom market when planning their exports to this country. The pattern of imports is that they tend to be lower in the second half of the year when home production is at its highest. There would be serious objections to applying compulsory restrictions, with ramifications on our whole trading policy and on our international obligations.
    Mr. Browne: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that these marginal imports from countries outside the Commonwealth make a great deal of difference to our whole trading pattern and policy? If that is so, would he not agree that all that is happening at the moment is that a very great deal of damage is being done not only to the home producers but to the taxpayers of this country? Can he say what kind of answer he has had to his letters to foreign Governments asking them not to send so much meat this year?
    Mr. Soames: I have on the whole had satisfactory communications from the Governments as well as from all the major exporters of meat to this country. The tenor of them is that they do not expect to be exporting any greater quantities of meat to this country this year than they did last year.
    Mr. Browne: Is my right hon. Friend saying that he has no intention at times

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    of home peak killing in this country of stopping imports from non-traditional suppliers of meat to this country?
    Mr. Soames: I believe that if this were to be done we should build up considerable trouble for ourselves in other months, when the meat that would come in in those months would tend to be in greater quantity, and I do not think that would be the solution to our problem.
    Mr. Browne: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, what assurances regarding the marketing of cereals have now been given to Her Majesty's Government by representatives of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Soames: Our discussions with the E.E.C. must necessarily be confidential and the Government cannot disclose what assurances may be sought or received by Her Majesty's Government on cereals or other commodities during the course of the negotiations.
    Mr. Peart: The Minister said recently when addressing the National Pig Breeders' Association:
    "For cereals, for example, the system of target and intervention prices which the Six have adopted would seem in principle to provide a pretty effective form of guarantee."
    Throughout the Minister's speech there was really a defence of these proposals and the inference that the Minister agreed with them. Does he confirm what he said to the National Association? It is all very well saying that the negotiations are secret—I accept that—but the Minister, I suspect, wants to go into Europe and accept the levy system.
    Mr. Soames: What I said was "in principle"—that was what I was referring to there. The question asked what assurances we had asked for with regard to the marketing of cereals. That is a broader and more detailed question and this I cannot disclose.
    Mr. Peart: The Minister said in his speech that this was an effective form of guarantee. Does he confirm that?
    Mr. Soames: There is no doubt that the levy system can be an effective form of guarantee to farmers.
    Mr. Peart: Surely we ought to know more about what is happening in Brussels. If hon. Members opposite want to hide this, that is all very well. But surely in the cereal regulations the decision has been made. Does the Minister agree with this system and does he believe that it would be an effective guarantee from the point of view of our own home production?
    Mr. Soames: A number of suggestions have been made on the subject of cereals and I cannot disclose them.
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in agricultural negotiations concerning the United Kingdom's entry to the Common Market; and why he has decided not to attend the Ministerial meeting in Brussels this week.
    Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal has been keeping the House informed of the progress of negotiations and he will be making a further statement after the meeting this week. My right hon. Friend is responsible for the negotiations in Brussels and discussions at this week's meeting will not be such as to require my presence.
    Mr. Peart: In view of the fact that here we are negotiating about important matters which affect British agriculture, is it not important that the Minister should be there? Is not the reason really that there is a deadlock? Why cannot the House be informed about the state of progress of the negotiations? Why all this secrecy? As I have asked before, are the Government going to have a private package deal?
    Mr. Soames: There is no question of any deadlock, as the hon. Gentleman knows. My right hon. Friend is in charge of the negotiations covering the whole field—the very wide field—in which agriculture forms an important part. From time to time he may find it advisable to take some of his colleagues with him to these negotiations.
    Mr. Walker: Does not my right hon. Friend have any information when the Common Market countries will reach

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    agreement on those commodities which were not agreed in January? Will he confirm that the British Government do not propose to enter the Common Market until the detailed position of Common Market agricultural policy is known in respect of all commodities?
    Mr. Soames: For a number of the more important commodities there is a timetable for them to be submitted to the Minister by 1st July. That is the timetable at present.
    Mr. Shinwell: Does not the great reluctance on the part of the Government to furnish details about the progress of the negotiations on the agricultural and other aspects mean that one fine day, or perhaps one bad and tragic day, the Government will present a fait accompli to this House? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that if the present arrangements for British agriculture are abandoned, he may find himself without a job?
    Mr. Soames: As to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I think that he is fully aware that it would be intolerable and impossible for my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal to carry on negotiations in Brussels if at the same time he was going to make public his position on this matter.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Statement on Defence, 1962
    Commander Courtneyasked the Minister of Defence why a basic objective of British defence policy, namely, the defence of sea communications, is not mentioned in paragraph 3 of his Statement on Defence, 1962.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): The statement in the White Paper of the basic objectives of Britain's defence policy is in general terms. The defence of sea communications is one of the essential means by which we seek to carry out the three objectives set out in the White Paper.
    Commander Courtney: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he agree that the 1935 Defence White Paper contained a statement to the effect that the security of sea passage to this
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    country forms the basis of our system of imperial defence, without which all other measures would be of little avail, and can he say if any circumstances have arisen since, assuming a limited war, which invalidate that statement?
    Mr. Watkinson: I gladly confirm what my hon. and gallant Friend has said that the maintenance of sea communications not only for this island but for the Commonwealth as a whole is an essential part of our defence programme. I agree entirely.
    Mr. Paget: What is the point of maintaining sea communications with ports which the right hon. Gentleman admits that he cannot defend?
    Mr. Watkinson: I have not admitted that we cannot defend any particular port. If the hon. and learned Gentleman wants more information on that, perhaps he will put down a Question.

    Canadian Forces Medical Service (Study)
    Sir G. Nicholsonasked the Minister of Defence what conclusions have been reached from the study of the Canadian Forces Medical Service that was recommended in the Fourth Report of the Select Committee on Estimates of Session 1958–59.
    Mr. Watkinson: I am having a further examination made of the desirability of some measure of integration of the medical branches and the information we have obtained about the Canadian Medical Service will be taken fully into account in this examination.
    Sir G. Nicholson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that statement. It takes a long time for the penny to drop. The Select Committee recommended this three or four years ago and we should be glad to know what is happening now. What will be the nature of this inquiry? Who will make the inquiry? How long does the right hon. Gentleman think that it will take, and how long will it be before attention is given to this issue?
    Mr. Watkinson: In answer to my hon. Friend, I think that it might well be a little difficult to make the penny drop the whole way. I think that I had better undertake an investigation myself, with

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    the help of my Ministry, so that I can form my own views as quickly as possible.
    Sir G. Nicholson: When will that be?
    Mr. Lipton: In ten years' time.

    Service Pay and Pensions (Command Paper)
    Mr. Wiggasked the Minister of Defence what steps he proposes to take to amend Paragraph 1 of Command Paper No. 1666, Service Pay and Pensions, published in March, 1962, so that the reference to the Government White Paper isued in November, 1958, reads (Cmd. 570) and not as stated.
    Mr. Watkinson: I regret that the reference was made to the Report of the Advisory Committee on Recruiting Cmd. 545 and not to the Government's comments thereon Cmd. 570. A corrigendum slip was issued at the time.
    Mr. Wigg: I notice that the Minister smiles. Does he take it that an inaccurate reference in a major State document is something of no account?
    Mr. Watkinson: I smiled because I hoped that the hon. Gentleman was going to allow me to thank him for keeping an eye on my Ministry while I was out of the country.
    Mr. Wigg: I much appreciate that acknowledgment, but that conveys that it is necessary for me to do so.
    Mr. Watkinson: It also conveys that I think that the hon. Gentleman was also at fault in his question as I was perhaps on the original occasion.

    American Secretary of Defence (Discussion)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on his recent discussions with the American Secretary of Defence.
    Mr. Watkinson: I have had a most valuable discussion with Mr. McNamara which covered the whole range of our defence interests. I found that we were in general agreement on all subjects, including the rôle of conventional forces in N.A.T.O.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am not asking the right hon. Gentleman to disclose confidential aspects of these discussions. Nevertheless, is he aware that President Kennedy has been pressing the need for further conventional forces and an increased allocation from the United Kingdom? What has been the right hon. Gentleman's response to these requests?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am afraid that I cannot answer for President Kennedy. What I have said in my Answer is that Mr. McNamara, the United States Secretary of Defence, and I had a very careful examination of all these problems, and we came to the conclusion that we were in general agreement. I made the Government's position on these matters quite plain in my reply to the debate on the Address, in November of last year.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Has my right hon. Friend had any discussion about, or assurances in respect of, the progress being made by Skybolt?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes—some very satisfactory ones.
    Mr. Mulley: Can the right hon. Gentleman throw some light on Mr. McNamara's comment, made when he was here, that it was only a possibility that Skybolt might be available for our V-bombers and his own B.52s?
    Mr. Watkinson: I hope that I shall be forgiven if I am wrong, but my recollection is that that was a report of a statement which Mr. McNamara made to an American committee, early this year, I believe.
    Commander Courtney: Arising out of the Athens conversations, can my right hon. Friend confirm that the five American Polaris submarines and those under N.A.T.O. will, in war, if in the Eastern Atlantic, come under the command of the Commander, Submarine Forces, Eastern Atlantic, who is a British officer?
    Mr. Watkinson: No. What I assume—it is for the Americans to answer, and not for the British Government—is that the American's Polaris submarines allocated to N.A.T.O. in that area would come under SACLANT.

    Nuclear Weapons
    Mr. Gordon Walkerasked the Minister of Defence what steps he has taken to remove from nuclear weapons work any officer or man in the Armed Services who might be found to be mentally unbalanced or unreliable.
    Mr. Watkinson: We have always applied very stringent selection and training procedures in the case of officers and men dealing with nuclear weapons. These ensure as far as possible that mentally unabalanced or unreliable personnel do not become engaged on such work. In any case, no one man can initiate the use of nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Gordon Walker: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the new measures introduced by the United States Air Force to alter the arrangements which they previously had, and which were thought generally to be pretty good, but which they now think need improving in this respect?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not underestimate the importance of the question. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we must leave no loophole. I am having it looked at again, but my first look indicates that our measures are as foolproof as they can be.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Would not any person who pressed a button which might destroy Western civilisation be mentally unbalanced?
    Mr. Watkinson: That would depend on many things which are not relevant to this question.

    West Germany (Nuclear Weapons)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence if, in his discussions at Athens, he opposed the proposals made by West Germany for giving West Germany, directly or indirectly, control over nuclear weapons or weapons with a nuclear capacity.
    Mr. Watkinson: There are no such proposals.
    Mr. Allaun: Has not the Minister noted the public demand by Defence Minister Strauss, made before the Athens conference? Does not he think that it is yet a another step in a dangerous direction if the increasingly powerful German
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    generals are now to be told the details of where the nuclear weapons are stored, and what are their targets and their possible use?
    Mr. Watkinson: It is not for me to explain German defence policy in this House, but, as I understand it—and I think I am correct—the Western German Minister of Defence has remained correctly based on his position as a N.A.T.O. ally. In this position he does only what he is asked to do by N.A.T.O. which is to have the means of delivering nuclear weapons, the warheads of which are kept under strict lock and key by the Americans.
    Mr. Fletcher: Will the Minister confirm that neither directly nor indirectly will the Western German authorities be given any control over the use of nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is quite a different question.
    Hon. Members: Oh.

    North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (European Defence)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Defence what action is being taken by Her Majesty's Government on the proposal that the authority of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in European defence should be increased.
    Mr. Watkinson: Her Majesty's Government welcome any effective proposals for strengthening the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The decisions recently taken at Athens are an important step in this direction, inasmuch as they will give greater assurance to the non-nuclear members of the Alliance that not only will they be able to play a full part in the formulation of N.A.T.O. defence policy but that the nuclear weapons on which their defence depends will be available.
    Mr. Shinwell: Was not one of the principal proposals that came before the recent discussions with the Ministers of N.A.T.O. that a nuclear force should be established under the authority of some N.A.T.O. people? Do I understand that that has been completely abandoned?
    Mr. Watkinson: There was no discussion at the Athens meeting of the N.A.T.O. Powers of what I believe is commonly called the N.A.T.O. M.R.B.M. force. I think that that is what the right hon. Gentleman is referring to.
    Mr. Gordon Walker: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not, as a result of the meeting in Athens, N.A.T.O. is now even more dependent upon an early resort to nuclear weapons than it was before?
    Mr. Watkinson: No, I would not judge that to be the case. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will await my Answer to a subsequent Question.

    North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Athens Meeting)
    Mr. Wiggasked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on the Athens meeting of the Defence and Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement about the defence aspects of the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting in Athens.
    Mr. Watkinson: We had an excellent meeting of N.A.T.O. Defence Ministers in Athens, at which many decisions were taken which should greatly strengthen the Alliance. The more important of these in the defence field were:
    First, Ministers decided to adopt the British proposal to establish a committee comprising all members of the Alliance to receive and exchange information about the nuclear defences of N.A.T.O.
    Secondly, Ministers adopted a report from the N.A.T.O. Armaments Committee which made a number of recommendations for speeding up co-operation in researeh, development and production. It was further agreed that special efforts would be made to take final decisions on projects ripe for joint development.
    Thirdly, Ministers were agreed on the circumstances in which nuclear weapons might have to be used in defence of the Alliance. At no time was it suggested by any Government that the authority to initiate the use of nuclear weapons should be delegated to the military commanders in N.A.T.O.
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    Finally, the non-nuclear members of the Alliance have been reassured that adequate nuclear weapons will continue to remain available for their defence. In addition, both the United Kingdom and the United States Governments have given firm asurances that their strategic forces will continue to provide defence against threats to the Alliance beyond the ability of N.A.T.O. forces to deal with.
    Mr. Wigg: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a matter of profound regret that the full Athens communiqué has not been published in any organ of the British Press? Is it not a fact that the statement issued by the White House on the eve of the Athens conference has also escaped notice, whereas, on the other hand, last week the Minister's Department ceaselessly put out one story after another, presenting the defence policy of this country in a light which had little or no relevance to the facts? Is it not now clear, as a result of the Athens conference, that the President of the United States has put forward a courageous and intelligent policy, and that the Western world has to thank God that he is leading our defence and foreign policy, and that it is not left in the pusillanimous and misleading hands of Her Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member may have his own views about our defence policy. He has usually been proved wrong, and in this case he is certainly wrong.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Can my right hon. Friend confirm or deny some of the Press reports referring to disagreements between this country and the United States? Secondly, can he say whether he has made any progress in getting an assurance that Britain will receive her fair share of N.A.T.O. orders?
    Mr. Speaker: It is not part of a Minister's duty to confirm or deny Press reports.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I will put the question another way. My right hon. Friend has referred to the discussions that have taken place in Athens. Can he give us an assurance that there were no disagreements between him and his opposite number from the United States?
    Mr. Watkinson: As for our getting a reasonable share of N.A.T.O. orders, the arrangements which were unanimously agreed in Athens will result in a considerable speeding up of N.A.T.O. procedures, and in getting joint weapons systems. I hope that as a result Britain will get her fair share. As for reports of disagreements between either the American Government and the British Government, or the American Secretary of Defence and myself, they are completely and utterly unfounded. We found ourselves in general agreement on the whole range of questions which faced us.
    Mr. Grimond: Can the Minister tell us a little more about the new arrangements for the control of nuclear weapons? In particular, is it not the position that Polaris remains under American control—or are the reports that it is to be handed over to N.A.T.O. to be taken to mean that N.A.T.O. can fire it? Can N.A.T.O. fire it, or has it to be consulted only on occasions, and in respect of the targets at which it may be fired?
    Mr. Watkinson: If I answer the right hon. Gentleman as I should wish, I must not be taken as dealing with very difficult and detailed matters in a general answer. It was to deal with this kind of problem that we wanted the N.A.T.O. Nuclear Committee set up, in order that all nations belonging to N.A.T.O. might be able to discuss these difficult and complicated problems and know what they really mean and try to come to an agreed conclusion.
    Mr. Shinwell: Were not there discussions at Athens about the desirability, expressed by some Government representatives, of increasing conventional forces? Did not the right hon. Gentleman say himself, in a statement which appeared in the newspapers, that this country would carry out its Treaty commitments, whatever they may be, and he hoped that some of the other N.A.T.O. countries would increase their conventional forces? What happened in Athens about this?
    Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman, who has knowledge of these problems extending over a long period, is perfectly correct. The only thing is that it did not fall to the Athens con-
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    ference to discuss it. The triennial review which deals with the level of conventional forces will shortly be doing this complicated work. That is where the level of conventional forces will be discussed. I have said to the House that, when they fall to be discussed, so far as I can honestly see there will be no difference of policy between the Americans and ourselves on the question of the level of conventional forces.
    Mr. Kershaw: Was there any consultation, or were decisions taken, about increasing co-operation between N.A.T.O. and the C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O. alliances?
    Mr. Watkinson: Not specifically but I believe there have been some unofficial talks which I very much welcome.
    Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman seeking to say that Mr. McNamara told him that the American Administration regards B.A.O.R. as being an adequate contribution from this country to N.A.T.O. commitments and a proper performance of our Treaty obligations?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is a different question. I was saying that we are agreed with the Americans on general strategy, for example on the central N.A.T.O. front, which no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind. We shall do our best to fulfil the strategy when it is worked out in agreement.
    Mr. Paget: The strategy, but not our contribution to it.
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence whether he agreed to plans involving an increase in defence expenditure at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation conference at Athens.
    Mr. Watkinson: So far as it is possible to estimate at the moment, none of the decisions reached in Athens will involve increased defence expenditure for the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister consider the possibility of reducing our expenditure in connection with N.A.T.O.? Has his attention been drawn to a rather startling article by Mr. Chapman Pincher in today's Daily Express in which it is suggested that Dr. Adenauer may be planning the withdrawal of German troops from

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    N.A.T.O.? Would not he agree that it might be a good thing to tell the Germans to make their peace with the Russians, as that could result not only in ending N.A.T.O. but in ending the Warsaw Pact and changing the whole direction of expenditure?
    Mr. Watkinson: I think that the simple answer to the hon. Gentleman is, "No."
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence what decisions affecting the Polaris base in Scotland were made at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organisation conference at Athens.
    Mr. Watkinson: Her Majesty's Government very much welcome the decision of the American Government to allocate Polaris nuclear submarines to N.A.T.O. No doubt some of these submarines will be based on Holy Loch.
    Mr. Hughes: If the Americans are to leave the Holy Loch—a decision which would be greatly welcomed by the people of Scotland—is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this increase of Polaris weapons and the development of the Polaris strategy is being matched by the increased activity of the Russians in inventing megaton rockets and exploding them? Is not it a fact that the result of this Polaris strategy will be that we shall enter into and continue in an arms race when there is no sign that we shall win?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am aware that the very generous allocation of Polaris submarines to N.A.T.O. greatly increases the power of that force to keep the peace. I should be surprised if the majority of the people of Scotland did not support this.
    Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that there is no real change; that despite the allocation of the extra Polaris submarines to the Holy Loch and to N.A.T.O., politically the control still remains in the hands of America?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not believe that there is any fundamental change at this moment. This will be one of the problems which the N.A.T.O. Nuclear Committee will be looking at.

    Nuclear Tests
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Minister of Defence whether he is aware that the proposal of the United States to set off a hydrogen bomb in outer space may have unfortunate effects with regard to the disturbance of the Van Allen belts; and whether he will arrange for these dangers to be checked by the scientific staff of his Department so that official representations can be made to the United States Government.
    Mr. Watkinson: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made yesterday in answer to Questions on this subject by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Rankin: That was a very unsatisfactory Answer.
    Sir B. Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is satisfied that there is not increasing danger, and very considerable danger? If there is increasing danger, will he see to it that the matter is inquired into properly so to that no further action may be taken?
    Mr. Watkinson: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday, our defence scientists have been in close touch with the Americans over this test. I must make it plain that from the defence aspect I consider that it is essential.
    Mr. Rankin: When the right hon. Gentleman talks about his defence scientists, is not he referring to military scientists who are not so well informed in this matter as the true research scientists?
    Mr. Watkinson: That would be a matter of opinion.
    Mr. Rankin: It is a matter of fact.

  ROYAL NAVY

    Nuclear Submarines
    Commander Courtneyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty when it is intended to lay down a third nuclear submarine.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): I am not yet able to make any statement on this matter.
    Commander Courtney: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Americans will shortly be launching one nuclear submarine a month from six different shipyards where nuclear submarines are built and that the Russians will certainly have a comparable programme? Does he not think that if we are to have any pretentions to being a maritime Power we are falling behind these other nations?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I have already said that our nuclear submarine programme is expensive and it may take some time before it is decided exactly what we want in future years.

    H.M. Ships (Illicit Drugs)
    Mr. Wadeasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty in view of the discovery of opium and heroin on the British cruiser "Belfast", whether he is satisfied with the security precautions in the Singapore naval base; and what steps are being taken to prevent British ships being used for the carrying of illicit drugs.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: My answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes". There are standing arrangements between the Naval and Customs Authorities at Singapore for the prevention of smuggling at the naval base; these include the searching of H.M. ships. The effectiveness of these arrangements is evidenced by the discovery of the contraband to which the hon. Member refers. As to the second part of the Question, these arrangements are of course adjustable; and any additional measures required will be taken in the light of the joint investigation into the "Belfast" incident now being held by the naval and customs authorities in close consultation.
    Mr. Wade: Does the Minister agree that it would be regrettable if, as a result of the publicity given to this incident, unfair reflections were cast on personnel in the Regular Navy? If, as I understand it, those concerned in this case were casual labour, are they subject to the same security measures as the Regular naval establishment. Thirdly, is the Minister satisfied that there is the closest possible consultation between all the authorities concerned in trying to stop this traffic in illicit drugs?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am confident that no United Kingdom Royal Navy personnel were in any way involved. On the contrary, I think that it reflects to the credit of the Royal Navy personnel that they discovered this illicit drug traffic. Regarding security, all Chinese employees must have five years' residential qualification in Hong Kong or Singapore and must have satisfactory references covering the last five years. They are checked by the relevant Service security authorities. On the last point, the Controller of Customs at Singapore has personally stated that the local authorities have received every possible assistance from the naval authorities.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: Can my hon. Friend say what are existing security arrangements at Singapore and Hong Kong?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: There are three separate checks liable to be imposed in the dockyard area. In addition to the police patrol for the dockyards in Admiralty waters there are facilities given for customs officers to search Her Majesty's ships. Additional special precautions may be taken in consultation with customs, and all Her Majesty's ships leaving the Orient are thoroughly searched for illicit drugs. It was during one of these searches that the drugs were discovered.

DOCKS (DISPUTE)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): As Leader of the House I wish to make a statement on the threatened strike in the docks.
The Government have learned with regret that the negotiations at yesterday's meeting of the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry did not result in a settlement of the current dispute and that, as a result, the notice given by the trade union side of the Council of strike action to take effect at midnight on Sunday, 13th May, remains in being. The Government fully recognise that further consideration of the situation by both sides and a possible resumption of discussions between them may yet avert a strike and earnestly hope that such will be the case.

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Nevertheless, a national dock strike, of which the country has, fortunately, had no experience since 1926, would be a most serious blow to the economy and would inevitably lead to the interruption of essential supplies and services. The Government have a duty to maintain supplies and services essential to the life of the community by all the means within their power and, in view of the short period now remaining before the time at which the current strike notice expires, certain preliminary arrangements are being put in hand to this end purely as a precautionary measure.
Mr. G. Brown: Is the Leader of the House aware—I phrase this interrogatively—that this is a very serious situation indeed? For thirty-six years there has been no official strike in this industry. May I ask him whether the first part of his statement, which referred to discussions between the two sides—and referred only to that—actually reflects the Government's position?
May I ask what the Government themselves are doing to try to bridge the gap between the two sides, which I understand to be a quite narrow one? May I ask the right hon. Gentleman specifically if there is any suggestion here that the Government are putting pressure on the employers which is preventing the bridging of the gap?
Mr. Macleod: I say straight away that there is no truth at all in the sentence with which the right hon. Member ended his questions to me. Of the seriousness of this issue there is no doubt. That is Why I thought it right to make a statement today.
I am sure that the House will agree on two things. First, we hope that agreement may yet be reached. After all, we have been as near to this situation before and this eventuality has not emerged. Secondly, it is the plain duty of the Government to make whatever preliminary arrangements are necessary to maintain essential supplies to the community. Equally, of that there can be no doubt.
There have been separate discussions this morning and there is no progress to report from those. Clearly, there will be further discussions, but the timing of this is essentially a matter, I think, for the Minister of Labour.
Mr. G. Brown: Neither in his statement nor in his supplementary answer has the Minister dealt with the other point I put to him. His statement says nothing about the Government bringing the two sides together, which is a quite normal proceeding, and then seeing what can be done in joint discussions. Is that to happen and, if so, is it to happen under the Minister of Labour's personal presidency?
Mr. Macleod: It may well be, but it is entirely a matter for the judgment of the Minister of Labour whether the next stage—there are many possibilities—should be a joint meeting, a joint meeting with him, or a further meeting with the Chief Industrial Commissioner. These are essentially matters which we must leave to the Minister in charge, and he is the Minister of Labour.
Mr. Grimond: As a dock strike would be quite disastrous at present, and as this is a matter of great concern to the whole country, can the Leader of the House tell us what is the particular point upon which the current negotiations have broken down?
Mr. Macleod: It is the point at which that so often happens. The employers have made an offer—it is quite true that there is not very much between the two sides—and the trade union side feel that the offer is not up to the requirements they have put to the employers.
Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is this essential and critical difference between 1962 and 1926, that now it is not only a matter of maintaining essential supplies to the community in this country? It is the critical condition of our balance of payments and maintaining essential exports at the same time. Is that being borne in mind among the preliminary arrangements to which my right hon. Friend referred?
Mr. Macleod: Yes. The effect upon our trade, both on the imports coming in and, if measures have to be taken, on exports flowing out, is, of course, very much in our minds, as indicated in part of the statement I have made to the House.
Mr. Mellish: The Minister will be aware that the Government cannot avoid much of the responsibility here in that

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statements show quite clearly that negotiations have been proceeding based on the argument of the Government, which is about a wage increase of only 2½ per cent. With this as the background, does he not realise that it almost makes a mockery of trade negotiations, which should be free and unfettered? In an industry of this character where wage increases are an all-important matter at differences of opinion between both sides, is not this a matter from which the Government should have kept right out and allowed the negotiations to be free and genuine? It has already been admitted on television by the employers that the workers' case was wholly justified.
Mr. Macleod: The question of negotiation is, of course, between the two sides of the industry, and the Government have kept out of this.
Mr. Mellish: Two-and-a-half per cent.
Mr. Macleod: We have put no pressure either way on employers.
Mr. Gunter: Referring to this morning's series of meetings, as we understand it negotiations in that sense have broken down. Is it true that the conciliation officers of the Minister's Department have stated that there is nothing more that they can do at this stage? Therefore, is there not great importance in the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), that immediate steps should be taken to get both parties to the dispute together under the chairmanship of the Minister of Labour? May we have an assurance that the Minister will be acting as Minister of Labour and not as the "guardian of the guiding light"?
Will the Leader of the House amplify what he meant in the last part of his statement by "essential services"? Would it not have been a little better if that part had been left until tomorrow, when I expect we shall have a statement from the Minister of Labour?
Mr. Macleod: It is always difficult to know exactly the right time to make these statements, but, after all, this is Wednesday afternoon and this very
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serious event may be on us in four or five days' time. I thought it right, after consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, to make the statement this afternoon.
My right hon. Friend will, of course, carry out his traditional functions in this matter, as Minister of Labour. I would not put the same interpretation as the hon. Member put on this morning's meeting, when he talked about breakdown. I think it true to say that as a result of these inquiries by the Chief Industrial Commissioner there is no progress to report. It is then right for the Chief Industrial Commissioner to go back to the Minister of Labour.
Quite clearly, there are to be further discussions, but I thought it right to make the statement. I hoped that the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), with his experience of these matters, would be content to leave it to me, and that the timing of these discussions and the form they should take should be essentially a matter for the Minister of Labour.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  Service Pensions
  Mr. Deedes: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th May, I shall call attention to Service pensions, and move a Resolution.
  Hydrogen Bomb Tests (Information)
  Mr. Harold Davies: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th May, I shall draw attention to the need for accurate information on the world testing of hydrogen bombs and the standardisation of information to society, and move a Resolution.
  Nuclear Tests
  Mr. Driberg: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 25th May, I shall call attention to the increasing danger to mankind from the continuation of nuclear testing, and move a Resolution.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  PIPE-LINES BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.41 p.m.
  The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  About two years ago the House of Commons considered the Esso Petroleum Company Bill which planned to lay pipelines from Fawley to London Airport and from Fawley to Avonmouth. In the Second Reading debate on 28th June, 1960, I said:
  "As to the future, the Government believe that it is most important that an examination should take place on the general problem of pipeline development. In fact, they have already begun to examine this problem and to examine procedures which they think should be followed in future in regard to these matters."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1960; Vol. 625, c. 1303.]
  There was at that time considerable feeling in the House that the Private Bill procedure was not the right procedure for a development of this kind, and in the Special Report of the Select Committee on this Bill, which was issued on 21st July, 1960, the Committee said that it was convinced that Private Bill procedure was not the best way of safeguarding the interests of owners, lessees and occupiers where a pipeline is to be constructed. It recommended that no further Bills for the construction of pipelines should be passed by the House.
  The next step was that in the following March I answered a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot), when I said:
  "The Government have decided that it is necessary to legislate, to secure in the national interest the orderly development of privately-owned industrial pipelines."
  I said on the same occasion:
  "Before I lay detailed proposals before Parliament, I shall consult the various interests that would be affected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th March, 1961; Vol. 636, c. 2.]
  Shortly after that, the Trunk Pipelines Bill was introduced in the early summer of 1961, which promoted a pipeline from Canvey Island through London to Denham in Buckinghamshire.
  On the Second Reading of that Bill on 27th April last year, I said:
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  "Everyone feels that this project is very important and, the Government having reached the conclusion that there should be a new and general procedure to deal with these matters. I think it is generally felt that the procedure ought to apply to a project of this kind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th April, 1961; Vol. 639, c. 720.]
  I think the House of Commons generally endorsed the view that pipeline development by Private Bill should be frozen and that there should not be further pipeline development until the Government had taken action to bring in general legislation.
  During that time when the Trunk Pipelines Bill was going through the stages that it went through in the House of Commons, consultations were taking place with outside organisations as to the form and content that this legislation should take. This Bill that we are discussing today was drafted against a background of various views that were expressed by outside interests at that time. The process of preparing the Bill had to take account of the urgent need of legislation, about which, as I have said, I think that the House of Commons was agreed—if commercial pipeline development was not to be delayed.
  The Select Committee's Report and the Second Reading debate have made clear that Parliament believes the Private Bill procedure to be unsuitable, and, therefore, the Government were determined to make as rapid progress as they could with the provision of this Bill. No time was lost in the necessary consultation with outside interests, which was extremely far-reaching. They included local authorities, land-owning and farming interests, industry, statutory undertakers, and so on, and there was quite a wide field for consultation which had to be gone through before the drafting of the Bill began.
  As hon. Members will see, the Bill is not only complicated—necessarily, I think—but it also is of considerable length, for which I apologise. It was introduced in another place as soon as it could possibly be introduced. It is for these reasons that this House has not been asked to consider the Bill until this stage in the Session, at the beginning of May, although I still hope that there is general agreement about the need for legislation to be approved in

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  this Session in order that important developments in this field should not be unnecessarily impeded.
  Sir Leslie Plummer: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House who were the outside interests with whom he had negotiations, and if any of them were prospective pipeline operators or installers?
  Mr. Wood: If I may say so, I think that that interruption is a reason for my not giving way too frequently, because I have a considerable amount to say and I do not want to say it at too great length. I have said who some of the outside interests were. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that possible developers, particularly the oil companies, were certainly among the interests concerned, because it is quite clear that they should have been consulted in order to give the benefit of experience which they already possess.
  I should like to say at this point that I am deeply grateful for the careful and extended consideration which has been given to the Bill in another place, and I have no doubt at all that it emerged after its Third Reading there a better Bill than when it was introduced. Hon. Members may still feel that there is room for improvement. Indeed, if the doctrinal question which is proposed by the Opposition Amendment is settled satisfactorily from the Government's point of view in a few hours' time there will, no doubt, be further opportunities to make a good Bill even better. But whatever we do at a later stage, I myself am most conscious of the debt which I owe to the diligence, experience and expert knowledge not only of the noble Lords who spoke on behalf of the Government, but also of the noble Lords of all parties who took part in the debate in another place.
  The Bill has been deliberately drafted to give a fairly wide discretion to the responsible Minister. We have no experience in this country—and there is comparatively little experience elsewhere in the world—of the practical problems of administering this kind of legislation. Therefore, we believe that it would be unwise to circumscribe too closely the powers given to the Minister.
  In the United States, where experience of these matters is greater than in Great
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  Britain, it has been found undesirable to frame a mandatory code of safety. In fact, rather than do so in this Bill the Government have preferred to give the Minister power—just to give one example of statutory flexibility—to impose such safety requirements as he thinks necessary to meet the needs of particular cases, while, at the same time, giving to pipeline owners the opportunity to voice objections to the Minister's proposals.
  We are now possibly at the beginning of a period of wide development of pipelines in this country, and I do not think any of us can foresee precisely what problems the future is likely to bring with it in this field. I am certainly convinced that it would be a mistake to write into the Bill detailed provisions, however apparently sensible, which might prove unduly restrictive later.
  I will now get down to the purposes of the Bill. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum makes clear that there are four main purposes: to control the development of pipelines; to ease their construction; to secure their safe working; and, lastly, to establish that certain pipelines in England and Wales are rateable. Our knowledge of moving things from one point to another through pipelines is in varying stages of development, that is to say, for different commodities. It is difficult for us to say at the moment exactly how pipelines will develop, but, however they develop, none of us, either on this side of the House or on the other, wants to see them do so haphazardly.
  If I may be allowed a glimpse forward forty or fifty years, I am rather anxious that the industrialists of the early twenty-first century will have cause to say with satisfaction when they look around at the pipelines of Great Britain, "Conservative planning works". We would like to see an orderly system properly adapted to meet the needs of pipeline users and, at the same time, causing as little disturbance as possible to farmers and landowners by the careful planning of routes and by avoiding the unnecessary duplication of lines.
  The Government believe that the approach in the Bill is appropriate to the great variety of circumstances which we are likely to meet in the near and

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  more distant future. It leaves room for various arrangements which are subject always to the regulatory powers of the Minister to secure the objective of orderly development.
  I should like to reflect for a moment what are or what seem to be the possibilities ahead. First, a line may be provided and owned by a single concern. Next, there may be—perhaps this is more likely—a consortium of owner-users. This is no doubt especially true in cases where the separate provision of a pipeline by each of the users would lead to wasteful duplication. Thirdly, a line might be rented by an owning company to one or more users, such as some of the proposals we have had before us in the past. Fourthly, the boards being set up under the Transport Bill might either themselves construct and own pipelines on their own land or arrange for others to do so.
  For the next few years it appears likely that it will probably normally be the users of the pipeline who will themselves construct and operate it. Therefore, it seems right that, generally, the initiative should be left to them. Users know best their own business and its likely development. They are in the best position to determine when and where pipelines are feasible and economic and to integrate them with their own operation. They will naturally want to keep close control over the efficiency and costs of the pipeline operation and of carrying on this important part of their business. These seem to the Government to be right and proper objectives, which the Government are determined should be encouraged. At the same time, the Government feel that these objectives should be directed and regulated in the public interest. This is provided for in the Bill, in our opinion.
  I want to explain one or two of the detailed provisions for controlling this development. The Minister is given a wide power of control by Clause 1 over pipelines which are longer than 10 miles and which are defined in the Bill as cross-country pipelines. The constructor of these lines will need an authorisation from the Minister. The detailed procedure by which he should obtain that authorisation is contained in the First Schedule, which includes,
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  among other things, the proper advertisement of the project and the notification of the local planning authority and anyone else whom the Minister specifies. If the local planning authority objects, the Minister must order a public inquiry. In other cases of objection, the Minister is given discretion to hold either a public inquiry or a less formal hearing.
  It was decided not to make all pipelines of whatever length subject to the authorisation procedure, because it was felt that such a comprehensive procedure would interfere unnecessarily with industrial development. Therefore, by Clause 2 shorter pipelines under 10 miles in length, defined as local pipelines, are not subject to this authorisation procedure, but advance notice of the constructor's intention to build one must still be given to the Minister so that he can make directions in the interests of safety.
  There is a modification of these Clause 2 definitions in that under Clause 6 the Minister has discretion to direct that local pipelines of a particular kind or in particular localities should be treated as cross-country pipelines and be subject to the full authorisation procedure as the cross-country pipelines are under Clause 1. If the Minister takes action under Clause 6, it will be in the form of a Statutory Instrument which will be subject to the affirmative Resolution of each House.
  Powers have also been taken in the Bill to ensure that no more pipelines are laid than are necessary for the community's needs. Under Clauses 8 and 9, if the Minister is satisfied on receiving an application that demand is likely in the future for further pipelines he may insist, when he replies to the authorisation, on sufficient capacity in the pipeline to accommodate the traffic of other prospective users. Under Clause 9 the Minister may oblige the owner of a cross-country pipeline who is not using it fully to share it with other users.
  There are a number of supplementary provisions dealing with this general subject. Under Clause 40 both the Minister and the pipeline promoter must have regard to the effect on amenities. By Clause 42 the developer is under an obligation to restore agricultural land so that it is fit for agricultural use. Under Clauses 52 to 55 certain pipelines, such as those belonging to certain statutory bodies and railway undertakers, and

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  pipelines in factories, mines and quarries, are excluded from the Bill.
  To sum up, the Government are convinced that the Bill represents the right combination of flexibility, on the one hand, and detailed control, on the other, which seems to be proper in the circumstances and in the light of our present knowledge of pipeline development.
  I said earlier that the second purpose of the Bill is to ease the construction of pipelines. The Select Committee on the Esso Petroleum Company Bill expressed concern in its Report that the then existing Private Bill procedure, and the still existing Private Bill procedure, did not afford landed interests the full protection provided by the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946. This Bill seeks to remedy that defect. Whenever a pipeline promoter or a prospective pipeline promoter cannot obtain by private treaty the land or rights that he needs, he can, under Clauses 10 and 11, and under the procedure outlined in the Second Schedule, apply to the Minister for a compulsory purchase order or a compulsory rights order.
  Here, again, there is a quite detailed procedure under which, among other things, the application must be advertised, individual notices must be served on owners and occupiers of the land concerned, and the Minister must hear objections. Finally, if the Minister, after hearing objections, makes an Order granting land or rights, the Order is subject to confirmation by Parliament in accordance with Special Parliamentary Procedure under the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, as modified by Clause 50 of the Bill.
  Thirdly, this Measure seeks to secure the safe working of pipelines. There may be considerable doubts in our minds—I think that there are—about the future pattern of pipelines in Britain, but there seems to be no doubt that many pipelines will carry very large quantities of inflammable, or otherwise dangerous, liquids. The Government therefore ask for considerable powers in the interests of safety, and I am quite confident that they are right, but they have not proposed, as I have already said, that a detailed code of safety rules should be laid down for general application.
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  In this developing branch of technology, any statutory rules that were contained in the Bill would almost certainly be very quickly out of date. Instead, the Minister has the discretion to impose such safety requirements as he thinks necessary for any particular pipeline with, as I said earlier, the opportunity for the pipeline owner to object. Many industries in this country are developing their own codes of safety, and I am glad to find that in this connection the petroleum industry is in no way behind.
  I should like to give examples of what I have just said about the provisions for safety. The House will see that Clause 19 provides for various controls over the actual construction of the pipeline; for instance, the kind of material that is used and the depth at which the pipeline is laid. Clause 22 provides for control over the working of the pipelines—that is to say, their maintenance, inspection, the pressure at which they are worked, and so on, and Clause 23 provides for control during the time when the pipeline is disused or abandoned, particularly to ensure that dangerous materials are not left in it at that time.
  There are several later Clauses dealing with the avoidance of obstruction to navigation in harbours and the avoidance of interference with telegraph lines. Clause 41 puts on the Minister the duty to have regard to the need for protecting against water pollution. Clauses 30 and 31 lay down that serious accidents must be reported to the Minister, and Clause 39 provides for the appointment of inspectors, mainly needed in connection with safety.
  I have no doubt that at later stages of the Bill we shall have considerable discussion, as I remember we have had on previous Bills, on the subject of safety, and these Clauses will then be investigated in some detail, but I am speaking now of the Bill's general approach to the question of safety, where I am quite sure that it is right to give the Minister discretion to impose particular requirements in particular cases, with opportunity for objection by developers if they disagree.
  The last main objective of the Bill is to establish that certain pipelines are rateable. They have always been regarded as rateable under Section 24 of

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  the Rating and Valuation Act. 1925, but, as the House knows, the Lands Tribunal, in deciding a recent case, came to the conclusion that pipelines could not be assessed for rates under that Section. There is no reason why pipelines should not be rateable, and it is to repair this recently discovered defect in the law that Clause 38 has been introduced into the Bill; otherwise, substantial rate income would be lost. For those hon. Members from north of the Border who are interested in the matter, I may say that the 1925 Act does not apply to Scotland, which means that the rateability of Scottish pipelines is not in doubt.
  There was considerable discussion in another place about where the responsibility for administering the Bill should lie. It was frequently suggested that it should lie not with the Minister of Power, but with the Minister of Transport. The Minister of Power is, at the moment, concerned with the major industry—the oil industry—which is now making use of pipelines and, indeed, whatever may happen in the rather more distant future, the oil industry looks like being the main user of cross-country pipelines over the next few years.
  The Government therefore feel it right that the responsibility for administering the Bill should rest, at least for the present, with the Minister of Power, but I myself readily admit that there is considerable force in the arguments I have heard advanced in other places that pipelines are a form of transport, and I would also readily admit that a case might be made out for giving to one Minister the responsibility for controlling the future development of all forms of transport in Great Britain.
  I would merely say that I have no pride of possession as a parent. If I do succeed into bringing into the world what looks to me a robust and healthy baby, and helping it through the hazards of early childhood, I shall be very ready and happy later to consider handing it over to a foster parent, as long as I am certain that the foster parent can take good care of it. To me, this is largely a matter of judgment and timing. If it later appears desirable to transfer responsibility to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport this can be done without any difficulty by an Order
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  in Council under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act, 1946.
  The Bill is shortly to be criticised, I believe, in the terms of the Opposition's Amendment for failing
  "… to provide for the development of a pipeline system by public enterprise in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion …"
  and for granting instead,
  "… monopoly powers to selected private companies without either adequate safeguards for users or proper concern for the interests of the nation as a whole."
  I would be tempted to criticise the Opposition for a doctrinaire approach to the problem, but I have discovered that, in fact, one side always calls the other doctrinaire if that doctrine is unacceptable to itself. I have done my best to show what the Government's doctrine is, and I should like briefly to examine—and, no doubt, the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) will shortly explain—the doctrine behind the Amendment. All I would say in general is that, whatever their respective merits, it seems to me—if this is not an unduly controversial remark—that the Government's doctrine is less rigidly exclusive than is that of the Socialist Party.
  What would the Opposition's solution of development by public enterprise involve? Either a publicly-owned corporation, established by Statute, would have to be set up to develop pipelines throughout the country, or the British Transport Commission, or its successors, or some other existing public body might be made responsible for this development. As I see it, such a body might, in theory, be given a monopoly to construct cross-country pipelines as a form of public transport, or it might be given, not exclusive rights, but the right to veto cross-country pipelines proposed by other interests if they went along routes which the public body itself wanted to use.
  Whether a pipelines corporation, or the transport boards, was given exclusive powers, or whether it was given the right to veto other developments, it would, presumably, be entrusted with the task of promoting the development of a planned pipeline network. I would like to ask—and I hope that the right hon. and learned Member for Newport will give his view—what principles there

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  are on which this planning would take place, because it is perfectly clear that a pipelines system cannot be planned in the abstract, merely by drawing lines on a map, for it must be shaped by the needs and location, not only of the suppliers and distributors, but of the users as well.
  Any pipeline must be designed to meet either a known demand, or must be laid in anticipation of a demand arising. The difficulty that this presents seems to be that if the demand is assured and the pipeline is built to meet it, then the public pipeline authority would be investing large sums of public capital to meet the needs of private industry. I would feel that either a Conservative or a Labour Government would find such expenditure of public money extremely difficult to justify. If, on the other hand, the authority constructed pipelines where it thought they should run, hoping—and, perhaps, hoping on reasonably good ground—that use would be found for them, the authority would, none the less, be embarking on what must be a speculative and risky venture.
  Most of this necessary capital would in the last analysis, have to be borrowed from the Exchequer and this seems—and perhaps I am falling into the limitations of my own doctrine—a strong argument for placing the financial responsibility, which would be involved, on private enterprise, which stands to gain or lose by the success or failure of the venture. The Government, for these reasons, do not intend to give monopoly powers to public bodies to build pipelines either as an uncertain speculation or at the behest of private companies.
  We realise, however, that special considerations apply to routes owned by the transport boards, particularly along railways and canals, which may be suited for pipeline development, and Clause 12 of the Transport Bill allows the boards to build pipelines either for their own use or along their own routes as a transport service.
  Whether the development is to be carried out by private enterprise or by the public boards, I am convinced that legislation—and this is the purpose of the Bill—should try to provide conditions which will stimulate and
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  encourage pipeline development and, at the same time, make certain that such development is subject to the recognised pattern of public control which I have tried to describe.
  The second part of the Opposition's Amendment refers to the granting of monopoly powers to selected private companies. To put it no stronger, this gives neither an adequate nor a fair description of the provisions of the Bill. The Bill makes no distinction between the types of applicant who may apply for pipeline construction authorisation, or for compulsory powers. Indeed, the granting of any authorisation over a certain route to one applicant does not preclude the granting of another authorisation later to another concern if there has been unforeseen growth in the traffic which makes this necessary.
  The Bill contains provisions, in Clauses 8 and 9, which are expressly designed to make certain that an unnecessary number of pipelines are not built. These provisions enable the Minister to secure that the pipeline for which he has given his authorisation is of sufficient capacity to carry known traffic or traffic which is likely to develop by other users within a reasonable period. The Bill provides for the sharing of pipelines in certain circumstances, it safeguards the rights of those who use the spare capacity of an existing pipeline and it also contains provisions for the regulation of the charges which will be made. I submit that any monopoly element there may be is strictly limited by this variety of provisions and that there are ample powers given to the Minister to take against its abuse.
  I apologise if I have taken up a good deal of the time of the House to claim that the introduction of the Bill fulfils the intention of the Government to legislate for the orderly development of industrial pipelines for use by private industry. I hope that this step will give impetus to an important modern industrial development. The Bill is brought forward in the belief that it provides the necessary public control while encouraging and making as easy as possible the future development of pipelines. I am confident that the general purpose of the Bill will be widely supported by the House.
  4.15 p.m.
  Sir Frank Soskice: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House, while welcoming the construction of pipelines as a potentially valuable addition to our transport services, declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which fails to provide for the development of a pipeline system by public enterprise in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion, and which instead grants monopoly powers to selected private companies without either adequate safeguards for users or proper concern for the interests of the nation as a whole."
  We would, I feel, be anxious to express our gratitude to the Minister for the considerable care and clarity he used in putting before us the reasons which have induced him to present this Bill to the House. Such merits as it has he has certainly explained, but he has brought before the House equally, if not more clearly, what, in our view, are the substantial demerits and weaknesses of the Bill.
  We know, and the Minister has reminded us, that the genesis of the Bill is the two Private Bills brought before the House by the Esso Petroleum Company and Trunk Pipelines Ltd. I would go with the Minister in agreeing that inasmuch as we are now dealing with a matter of general and growing national concern, it is advantageous to have a General Measure which will deal with all cases. To that extent I would go with the right hon. Gentleman, and, to that limited extent, I would welcome the Bill.
  But that extent, as I say, is a limited one. The Bill contains a number of useful provisions to safeguard the interests of the private citizen. They have been exhaustively considered in another place and, no doubt, we shall have to give further consideration to them. I think that a General Bill, provided it is properly calibrated so as to protect not only the interests of the private citizen but the public interests as well, is the proper approach to this important national question. It is because I and those associated with me in the Amendment are firmly convinced that, in regard to the public interest, the Bill is seriously defective, that we have moved the Amendment.
  Before I come to the provisions of the Bill and the detailed reasons I shall
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  advance, I would make a brief reference to the nature of the topic we are discussing and the background against which we are discussing it. We are discussing the beginning, and something more than the beginning, of what, in the course of the coming years, will probably become a new and alternative system of transport. It will be used for white and black oils, liquid gases, chemicals, solids such as suspended coal and powdered coke and, as time goes on, who knows what other commodities as well. These are vital cost factors in a wide range of industrial production. Industry throughout depends for its cost computation largely on its spending on these products. Therefore, we are dealing with a Bill which will have a vital effect, particularly on the costing aspect of our industrial production over the years to come.
  Pipeline development is capable, so I believe from such limited researches as I have been able to make, of providing an alternative system of transport, cheaper than and at least as efficient as railway transport. Surely that is a matter of vital national concern, particularly when British industry is fighting a desperate battle in a highly competitive world, and a world which daily is becoming more competitive in circumstances in which our social services and defence effort, and our very survival, depends largely upon the successful expansion of our industry.
  We are discussing this matter at a time when it is at any rate possible that we shall be faced with the question of becoming full members of the E.C.C. and when our industries will have to face the blast of fierce competition from large European productive units. If it is the case that pipeline transport may provide a supplementary system of transport cheaper than and as efficient as existing forms, capable of being expanded in due course to a national network, surely, without further argument, there is a strong case for the nation as a whole, through some form of appropriate public enterprise, taking the matter in hand at the outset so as to secure that over the course of time it is properly planned and best shaped to serve the national ends.
  What are the national ends? The Minister asked whether we should engage

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  in the speculative laying down of pipelines. The main national end is to promote industrial expansion and all that that brings with it, but there are more specific national ends to which reference may be made and which are more immediately relevant to the Minister's question. For example, under the Local Employment Act, 1960, it is often desirable to encourage industry to go to areas which are less developed in order to promote employment, and facilities are provided by the Government to induce industry to go to those areas. Pipeline transport is just one of those facilities.
  Supposing that a public enterprise provides those facilities in such an area, although the demand might not yet be there, that cannot be described as providing a service on a purely speculative basis. It would be providing it for the purpose of developing a national framework of co-ordinated transport to fit in with road and rail transport in order to promote the broader national aim of increasing our industrial potential and thereby making the nation more able to carry the burden of the social services, perpetually being improved, and the other burdens which rest on the Exchequer.
  There are many other national purposes which may be achieved, but perhaps it is unnecessary to rehearse national advantages to be anticipated from the possession of an efficient supplementary means of transport for vital power products and of storage depots for consumers linked by pipelines throughout the country. We are not discussing something of unknown potentialities. The Minister addressed himself to the question as if we were talking about something which was unknown. We are not. In this country we already have about 1,200 miles of pipelines built by Government agencies mostly during the war, and some of them are now being used for transport purposes by the oil companies. I understand that we have about 430 miles of pipeline either functioning or in course of planning by private oil companies.
  Crude oil and multi-produce pipelines have for years been in operation in other countries—in the United States, in Persia, in Russia, on the Continent of Europe and in Australia. In the United States the development since the war of multi-products pipelines, carrying up to
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  20 combinations of products belonging to different owners in pipes of diameters of up to 24 inches, has been prodigious and I believe extends to tens of thousands of miles. In Persia, there is a multi-product network of pipelines about 1,500 miles in length. In France, there is 150 miles of 10-inch pipeline built since the war connecting the Seine estuary refineries and oil ports with the consuming area of Paris.
  It is not at all the case, as the Minister implied, that we are dealing with the unknown. This and other countries are using this method of transport. The problem is with us here and now. It is incumbent upon us to make up our minds about this, and to say that we must wait to see how it develops is missing the opportunity which is presented to us.
  Therefore, in moving the Amendment I submit that it is up to us to decide here and now, in this House, whether this development should be allowed, as we believe it will be, to be sporadic and unco-ordinated and unplanned by remaining in the hands of private entrepreneurs, or whether it should be brought within the framework, as we think it should be, of a national plan and shaped and guided by the intervention of public enterprise so as to serve best the public purposes to which it can be harnessed.
  How does the Bill provide for that aspect? How does it provide, if at all, for what I have called planning and shaping pipeline development in the coming years? Those of us who have put our names to the Amendment believe that the Bill does not provide for it at all. What does the Bill do? It vests in the Minister a purely negative control. He sits back and waits for the private entrepreneur to come to him and to ask him for what is called a pipeline construction authorisation. The Minister waits. A customer may appear on the scene, or he may not.
  If the customer—perhaps "applicant" is the better word—comes upon the scene, the Minister, in saying that he will grant the authority, can impose conditions. He can impose the conditions to which he referred, safeguarding amenities and providing for safety measures. I do not quarrel with that at all; it is one of the few merits of

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  the Bill. He may go further and authorise the entrepreneur to acquire other people's land by a compulsory purchase process. He may confer upon him what are described as compulsory rights by a compulsory rights order. He may say that the entrepreneur may, without buying other people's land compulsorily, carry out works upon it. All these conditions he may impose.
  There was an article in The Times of 1st May, 1962, pointing out that what the Minister can do when he is approached by the applicant is virtually to give the applicant something in the nature of a public utility status. That article concluded, as I think most of us will conclude, that the quid pro quo for this public utility status
  "should be that they"—
  that is, the pipeline owners—
  "operate in the general public interest and not primarily for the purpose of reaping a profit."
  I certainly approach this matter from that standpoint.
  So far—I emphasise the words "so far"—the Minister's control is purely negative. He can do no more than wait to see whether somebody approaches him and then impose conditions for allowing that person to build a pipeline and acquire the necessary facilities for so doing. If, or when, approached, he may impose conditions. The applicant may or may not accept those conditions. If he accepts them, the pipeline will be built. If it is not worth his while, the pipeline will not be built. [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right."] I know that we differ doctrinally in the House.
  One has to take into account that hon. Members opposite think that that is something desirable, but I am saying that it is wrong because the national need may require that a pipeline be laid down in circumstances in which it does not suit the financial interest of a would-be pipeline owner to lay it down. We disagree about that. That is the point at issue. We agree, at least, that the Minister has no power of initiation. He cannot cause a pipeline to be laid down and he cannot move a would-be pipeline owner to lay one down in any particular place.
  It may be desirable that there should be pipeline facilities provided in, for
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  example, an undeveloped area for the purpose of maintaining or securing employment, in order to induce industry to go there—a type of encouragement which has played a big part in post-war Britain—but, however desirable it may be for those purposes to have pipeline facilities provided there, the Minister is, under the Bill, completely powerless. As I have said—I am sorry to repeat myself—the question whether a depôt will be built in an undeveloped area, and whether that inducement to industrialists to go there will be provided so that the area may be set upon its way towards industrial growth and provide employment, depends entirely upon whether it is financially worth while for some applicant to put a pipeline service to that area.
  I am quite sure that hon. Members opposite will say that this should be so. I am equally sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will say that it is utterly wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We differ in the House on that sort of question. In our view, it should be regarded as a matter of public service. Hon. Members opposite do not agree. It is out of the conflict of ideas that the truth emerges, and we urge our view on the Minister as a matter requiring very serious consideration by the Government.
  The Minister referred to Clauses 8 and 9. Obviously, they are important Clauses, and, as I understand him, the Minister pins his faith in the value of the Bill, such as it is, from a planning point of view upon the provisions of Clauses 8 and 9. They are extremely limited in their application. They cannot achieve the purpose of procuring a planned pipeline network. What do these Clauses do? They are designed for no other purpose than securing that there is not more than the necessary amount of pipelines along any particular route. That is all.
  An applicant comes to the Minister and the Minister is entitled to say to him that he will grant him authority to construct his pipeline, provided, I suppose, that it is constructed with such a bore that it will, over a period of time, take a specified amount of products of other would-be users. But let us consider this by an example. An applicant

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  comes to the Minister and asks for permission to build an 8 in. diameter pipeline between point A and point B. Under Clause 8, the Minister says, "No; you must make it a 10 in. diameter pipeline."
  The applicant may accept this and say that it is worth his while to build a 10 in. pipeline. However, according to estimates, our oil consumption in this country yearly increases at a compound rate of no less than 6 per cent. In twelve years or so, our oil consumption will be about double. A pipeline owner who constructs a 10 in. diameter pipeline, after originally wanting to make it 8 in. in diameter, will probably find next year, or the year after, that he will be using that 10 in. pipeline to capacity.
  Clause 9 is the only Clause which in any sense gives rights to other persons, and I read this Clause as meaning simply that other persons may obtain the right, by applying to the Minister under Clause 9 (3), to use such surplus capacity, if any, as there is in a pipeline which has been provided by a pipeline owner. If there is no surplus capacity, the Minister cannot give any other would-be user any rights at all. Again, he is completely powerless. I see the Minister turning to the Attorney-General. I am sure that the Attorney-General will agree. At least, I hope he will; I am badly wrong if he does not.
  I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the Minister, once having prescribed the dimensions of the pipeline, be it 8 in. or 10 in., will, when the pipeline is laid down, have no power at all thereafter to say that it must be enlarged so as to create surplus capacity to be available to other would-be pipeline users. A 10 in. pipeline remains a 10 in. pipeline, and, if there is no surplus capacity, there is nothing else that any other would-be user can do, and there is nothing that the Minister can do.
  Any concept of common user or common carrier principle is ruled out by the provisions of the Bill. What happens, as I think I heard the Attorney-General say sotto voce, is that every would-be user, if he wants to transport his particular commodity, has to build another line.
  We regard this as an utterly unsatisfactory position. There should be a
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  service provided by a public authority, and it should not be left to the sporadic, wasteful proliferation of pipelines running, broadly speaking, along the same routes and owned by different owners. Some would-be pipeline owners may not be able to instal a pipeline along a particular route and they will have to go on using wasteful or more expensive road transport at a time when our roads are over-burdened with heavy commercial vehicles, and the burden is constantly growing.
  I put it to the Minister that Clauses 8 and 9 are almost entirely ineffective. Here, I am not putting my own view only, but I am putting the view which was expressed in a leading article in The Times of 1st March this year. Clauses 8 and 9 are extremely limited in their purport. The most that they can do, if they operate, is to prevent more than two or three lines being put along the same route. They give the Minister no power to initiate the construction of lines. He rests in the position of having to wait until a private entrepreneur thinks it worth while to approach him under Clauses 8 or 9, or independently of those Clauses, to lay down his own pipeline.
  I regard this—I do not mean it offensively—as a completely higgledy-piggledy arrangement. We have before us the example of sprawling, untidy development of railway lines by small competing railway systems throughout the nineteenth century under the terms of Private Acts. We fear that just this sort of thing may happen if the Bill is enacted, and it is left to the profit motive to determine whether and where a pipeline is to be laid down.
  There are solid reasons why this development should be undertaken by public enterprise in some form, and I should like to give them to the House. In the nature of things, we are talking about a public utility service which should be available to all would-be users on the terms of a uniform tariff without discrimination on what is called the full public carrier principle. That reason relates to the nature of the service about which we are talking. Secondly, if that is right in principle, there must be a power in public hands to initiate and promote development as and where necessary within the framework of a

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  national plan. There must be a forward-looking plan and the services must be provided so as to fill in its framework.
  Thirdly, as I have said, we know how these pipelines work. We are not dealing with something which is unknown. Their working has been demonstrated in this country and abroad, and their potential performance can be estimated with reasonable accuracy.
  Fourthly, the capital cost of providing pipelines and the servicing and maintenance cost can be estimated with reasonable accuracy. It is not a wild-cat scheme. The capital expended has a degree of permanence. A permanent enterprise of that sort is just the type of enterprise on which public funds should be embarked instead of private risk capital being called upon to finance it. Fifthly, it will provide a transport system for ingredients vital to a large sector of the national productive effort more cheaply than any present form of transport.
  I should like to say a few words in amplification of those last two points. Hon. Members may have had the opportunity of considering what I think must be agreed was a most valuable and helpful article, published in the Petroleum Times of 30th June, 1961, written by a Mr. Nolan, who, as appears from the introduction, is an engineer with the highest qualifications and particularly fitted by a very wide experience to write on matters of this sort. In his article, he gives some figures which are directly relevant to what we are discussing, and I hope that I am not being selective in those I propose to quote.
  Let me take the instance of an 8-inch pipeline from the examples which he gives. The cost of such a pipeline running for about 60 miles and operated on a conservative basis of what is called a 75 per cent. of hours capacity over the year would be paid off in 2·8 years by the difference between the cost of pipeline transport through that pipe and existing railway transportation costs.
  An enterprise of that sort is not a speculation. If the capital cost can be written off as quickly as that—[Interruption.] Exactly. That is why I think that there should be a national plan. I agree with the Attorney-General that, if
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  the pipeline is put in the wrong place, of course that is being wasteful. But if there is a scheme for finding out, both by reference to existing circumstances and to circumstances which are likely to eventuate as the economy develops, where it should be laid, we are not being wasteful. It is for that very reason that I am urging on the Government the point of view expressed in the Amendment.
  I have just dealt with an 8 in. pipeline. In the case of a similar 12 in. pipeline, the pay-off period, as it is called, is reduced to one year. In the United States, pipelines of anything of up to 24 ins. in diameter are used. I imagine that the pay-off period for a pipe like that is a minus quantity. I do not put my own figures forward as reliable. I read them from a print, except the one relating to the minus quantity.
  I have had the privilege of a conversation with Mr. Nolan. I put these further figures forward as coming from him, although entirely without commitment, and not as coming from me. I asked him what was the capital cost of an 8 in. pipeline. Taking an 8 in. pipeline 45 miles in length, he said, without commitment, that it would cost, from the capital point of view, £500,000 for the pipeline plus, say, £100,000 for the pumping installation necessary to propel the product to be carried by the pipe. Service and maintenance charges would be small. The life of the pipe would be anything up to 100 years, although the life of the pumping installation would be less—about twenty-five years.
  An 8 in. pipeline is capable, so Mr. Nolan tells me, of transporting up to 1 million tons per annum of white oils and gas products if operated at 75 per cent. of hours capacity.
  Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Does the figure of £500,000 merely cover the cost of the metal of the pipe, or whatever material it is made of, and the cost of digging the trench, or does it also include the cost of the land through which it runs and the rights which are infringed?
  Sir F. Soskice: I meant to ask Mr. Nolan that question, but did not. If the hon. Gentleman had asked me the same

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  question with regard to the pay-off period figures—that is, the capital cost being paid off—I could have answered him, because that appears in the article.
  According to a note in the article, the capital cost which would be so paid off by the difference between pipeline transport and rail transport includes virtually everything that I can think of. A whole list of things are included, such as land acquisition, Parliamentary procedure even legal charges, and so on. I therefore anticipate that what Mr. Nolan meant to say to me was that the figure of £500,000 included everything, but I cannot be definite on that. At any rate, the other figures which I quoted include it, judging from the terms of his article.
  The Government have already gone a long way with us in the Transport Bill. By Clause 12 of that Bill, the railway boards are enabled by the specific terms of the Bill to provide, lay down and operate pipelines. If I read the Clause correctly, they can do that not only for the purpose of their own business, but, if they obtain the Minister's permission, for the purpose of transporting the products of other users. They can acquire land for that purpose provided at least 51 per cent. of the land which they use for a pipeline is land which they already own.
  My right hon. and hon. Friends urged, when the Transport Bill was being discussed, that it should be for the Holding Company to provide and use pipelines, not the boards. I wish to quote what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said in answer to that proposal. He was quite specific. He stated:
  "… we take the view that the Railways Board and the Inland Waterways Authority, in particular, are most suitable bodies for operating pipelines, for the simple reason that they have large tracts of land in the form of permanent ways along which it may well be suitable for pipelines to be built"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1962; Vol. 658, c. 389.]
  There is very great wisdom in those words. The Government are saying that the railways boards are suitable bodies to provide and maintain pipelines. We would agree.
  Mr. John H. Osborn: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to Mr. Nolan's article, which I have here, and in which
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  he said that a lot would depend on the cost of laying the pipeline. Do the figures which the right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted two or three minutes ago cover the laying of pipelines on a railway, which would be difficult and much more expensive?
  Sir F. Soskice: I can only refer the hon. Member to the note on the page which has no number, from which, I think, he will find most of the answer.
  With regard to pipelines on railway property, in the passage from which I was quoting the Parliamentary Secretary was pointing out that the property already exists. Surely, it would be much less expensive to lay pipelines on property we already have than on property which we have not. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The logic of the argument of hon. Members opposite escapes me. I should have thought that it would be much cheaper if one already has the land than if one has not.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport was entirely in my favour. He was arguing on my behalf and I accept his argument. We merely ask the Government to go a little further than he did. The Transport Bill gives the railway boards permissive powers to lay pipelines. I ask the Government, if they select that form of public enterprise, and it may be the right one—that is to say, if they select the railway boards or some organ of our co-ordinated transport system, to the extent that it is still co-ordinated—to say not merely that they should have the right and the power to lay pipelines, but that they should be under the same duty to provide a pipeline service throughout the country as they are, under Clause 3 of the Bill, to provide a railway service.
  The two sides of the House are not far away from each other on that basis. Our argument is that it should be public and not private enterprise. The Government say, at least as to a particular form of public enterprise, that it is to have the power. We go a little further, particularly in view of what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport has said, and say that it should be made the duty of that public enterprise. We should be content if one of the railway boards has imposed upon it under the Transport Bill the duty of doing exactly what we want to see done:

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  that is, building up on a planned frame- work a national network of pipelines instead of leaving it to the private entrepreneur, governed, as he is bound to be, by motives of private profit.
  An additional reason in favour of the railways being selected is that they run under a deficit that arises largely for the reason that we have frequently pointed out. When the Government came to power, they proceeded to de-nationalise part of the road haulage transport system. They siphoned off into private pockets from the railway coffers a large part of the income which should have gone to the Transport Commission. Income will come from the operation of the pipelines. It will be diverted from the railways. We say that it should be integrated into railway income in order to diminish and, we hope, extinguish the deficit which the railways involve.
  I have sought to give in general the reasons why we think that private profit should not be allowed to determine if and where pipelines are to be laid. We do not want sporadic, wasteful, sprawling development. It is not in the national interest. If these pipelines are allowed to go simply where it pays somebody to put them for the purpose of producing a good profit and loss account and balance sheet, that is exactly what will happen.
  This is a great national development. It should be planned from what is now nearly the outset, although not quite the beginning of it. It is for those reasons, because, in our view, the Bill makes no sort or kind of provision for that purpose, that I have moved the Amendment.
  4.55 p.m.
  Mr. John Arbuthnot: There is, of course, a cleavage of opinion between the two sides of the House about what the content of a pipelines Bill ought to be. I do not want particularly to enter into the political controversy over it. It is a difference in outlook between the two sides, and we recognise that we think differently upon it. I should, however, like to take up one or two of the points made by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice).
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  The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be under a misapprehension about how cheap it would be to construct pipelines along railways. One of the important things about the construction of pipelines in general, as his hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer), who sat with me to consider the Esso Pipelines Bill, will confirm, is that the pipeline constructor to be at his most efficient should have a breadth of track in which to work of some 400 feet. It would be extremely difficult to have a breadth of 400 feet when working along a railway line. I have not myself seen the Esso pipeline being constructed, but I am told that it is going ahead at the rate of two miles a day. That can be done only if the constructor has room in which to work, but if he tries to lay a pipeline along a railway line he is so constricted that it is impossible to keep his costs anywhere near as low as if the work is done across open country.
  I cannot help feeling that there must be snags in the financial prognostications of the right hon. and learned Member for Newport. If pipelines were as profitable as he suggests, hundreds of people would have promoted Private Bills in the years leading up to last year to take advantage of this great financial opportunity.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman has also taken my right hon. Friend the Minister to task for not taking powers for the Government to lay pipelines. The Government already have powers. My right hon. Friend has powers to lay pipelines under the Land Powers (Defence) Act, 1958, and pipelines were laid under Defence Regulations and the Acts of 1945 and 1948 for, admittedly, defence purposes.
  My right hon. Friend and the right hon. and learned Gentleman have both said that today's Bill had its origin in the consideration of the Esso Bill and the Report of the Esso Bill Committee. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite who served on that Committee. It was a happy Committee, a unanimous Committee, and a hardworking one. If that Committee's Report has given rise to the present Bill, we have something substantial to our credit.

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  I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend paying tribute to the work done in another place in knocking the Bill into shape. Much has been done already to simplify our task. Many suggestions that had not previously come to light were brought forward, and the Bill is a very different Bill from what it was when it first went there. I listened to many of the debates which took place in another place, and very frequently I saw my right hon. Friend also listening there to those fruitful discussions.
  Tribute must be paid to the spirit in which the Government met the various criticisms of the Bill and the way in which they have improved it as a result of those deliberations. Much of the credit goes to my right hon. Friend himself by reason of the receptive way in which he invited and profited by the various representations that have been made to him. Representations have been made from all sorts of quarters, I do not doubt; I have made many myself; local authorities have been making them; the people who have been considering laying pipelines have been making them; people who wanted to operate pipelines; potential users and all sorts of people have come to my right hon. Friend to discuss the various problems which the proposed new legislation poses. My right hon. Friend has been receptive to much of the advice that he has been given about the drafting of the Bill. He has said today that he looks forward to the further stages of this Bill as giving further opportunity for making a good Bill even better; that is to say, we shall have further opportunities ahead of us of improving the Bill.
  Leaving aside the political content, or as hon. Members opposite would say the lack of content of the Bill, I believe that it is a good and workmanlike Measure. We had to do something to bring pipeline construction under proper control. That was clearly necessary, and this Bill does it. I therefore welcome the Bill as a whole. I feel that it does a good job of work, but I want to make one or two suggestions to improve it further. I do not want it to be thought that the suggestions that I make in any way detract from the general welcome that I give to the Bill as a whole.
  My suggestions for improvement arise fundamentally from the difference in
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  approach by this House and by the Committee on the Esso Bill, on the one hand, and, on the other, by the Ministry in drafting the Bill. It will be remembered that on 28th June, 1960, this House gave an Instruction to the Committee considering the Esso Bill
  "to amend the Bill in such a manner as will ensure adequate safeguards to the interests of owners, lessees and occupiers of land likely to be affected, bearing in mind the provisions of the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, and to the interests of the public bodies referred to in paragraph 12, Part II, First Schedule to the Water Act, 1945."
  That Instruction was to amend the Bill to give greater safeguards to these people.
  The Committee accepted this Instruction, but we had to report that we had complied with the Instruction only in so far as we were able to do so. We then drew attention to the fact that we thought that Private Bill procedure was unable to give full protection offered by the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, and, for this reason, that is to say because we had not been able to give full protection, we were convinced that the Private Bill procedure was not the best way of safeguarding the interests of owners, lessees and occupiers where a pipeline is to be constructed.
  The approach of the Ministry is rather different, as is brought out in the second object of the Bill, as set out in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. The second object is
  "to enable persons wishing to construct a cross-country pipeline or a local pipeline to obtain compulsorily the land and rights they need without having to promote a Private Bill."
  That was not the purpose which the Committee considering the Esso Bill had in mind. I do not know whether I am speaking for the rest of the Members of the Committee, but what I had in mind on the Esso Bill was that Government legislation on pipelines should impose, as it were, a code of duties and obligations and other provisions on pipeline constructions. What I myself envisaged was a sort of Pipelines Clauses Act, on the lines of the Railways, Canals and Lands Clauses Acts, which applied both to private and public legislation on these subjects and which seem to me analogous.

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  This Bill contains no such provisions. There is no power conferred on the Minister to make regulations on any of these subjects. It was argued in another place that it would be appropriate to deal with this according to the circumstances in each individual case. That worries me, since not only might this lead to unfairness or accusations of unfairness, but also to inconsistency and lack of Parliamentary control. It might also militate against the negotiation of agreements with such bodies as, for example, the National Farmers' Union.
  In the case of the electricity boards, there is a series of agreements with the N.F.U. and the Country Landowners' Association and other bodies on such matters as the placing of electricity cables and pylons, and it would seem to me that a similar sort of basis might well be the appropriate type of legislation to try to incorporate in this Bill, if it were possible to do so. I would emphasise that my constructive criticisms are aimed at reconciling the different approaches to this matter by the House, the Committee on the Esso Bill and the Ministry, since I do not believe that they are incompatible at all. I want to ensure that the Bill gives proper safeguards to objectors and also ensures Parliamentary control, which seems to me under the Bill as drafted to be somewhat lacking.
  There are three major points which I have to make on this matter, and one or two minor ones. The first major point is in regard to the holding of public inquiries. Under the Bill, public inquiries are compulsory only where the local planning authority objects. In other cases, my right hon. Friend may decide merely to hold an informal hearing, as he told us this afternoon. I suppose that this was designed to deal with the "lunatic fringe" of objectors, but it seems to me to be open to serious abuse.
  I would give one example of the sort of abuse I have in mind. In his application to the Minister, the pipeline developer has to state, under the provisions of the First Schedule and Clause 2 (2) (c), whether compulsory rights or powers for compulsory purchase are needed and if they can be obtained. If the pipeline developer is untruthful or
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  even optimistic on this point, the developer might persuade the Minister that there were no serious objections to the application. Subsequently, perhaps, an objector discovers that the application was going through, and at this late stage there would naturally be a strong temptation on the part of the Minister to dispense with a local inquiry on the ground that the strength of the objections did not justify the expense, delay and inconvenience and to substitute instead an informal hearing, as proposed under the First Schedule. It is worth noting that a hearing is virtually useless unless any objector who wishes to can achieve more than merely stating his grievance since he cannot cross-examine the applicant's witnesses or indeed even have the case for the applicant fully presented to him first.
  Furthermore, such a hearing would probably be in private and unadvertised so that the chances of enlisting local support or the support of other people who might be in the same position as the objector would seem to be remote. I do believe that there are serious dangers here, and I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that anybody who would at present have locus standi under the Private Bill procedure ought to be entitled to demand a public inquiry as of right.
  Possibly my right hon. Friend is fearful that this might lead to frivolous petitions. I would have thought he could safeguard himself against those by including a provision in the Bill for costs to be awarded against a frivolous petitioner. A precedent for this is in Section 7 of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, so that he would not be doing anything very novel if he were to safeguard himself in this way. He could then allow anybody who had a locus standi to require a public inquiry as of right. The objector could then cross-examine witnesses and would be in a very much stronger position than at a "hearing", which is at present all to which he is entitled.
  The second major point which I would put to the House is the proposal in the Bill to continue to use Special Order procedure. This is a new use for Special Order procedure and is applying it to circumstances for which it was never intended, that is to say, to assist one private individual, the developer, as

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  against another private individual, the objector. The House will remember that the Esso Bill Committee recommended Provisional Order Bills. We set our face against Special Order procedure.
  It is quite true that in another place the Government made a small concession making it easier for a petition of general objection to be referred to a Joint Committee, but I am far from happy about that concession, since under this Bill it is proposed that a resolution of one House only can block a petition of general objection from being referred to a Joint Committee. This follows the 1945 Act but practically no other legislation. In almost every other case an affirmative Resolution must be passed by both Houses, and it would seem to me that a Resolution of both Houses should be called for in this case. A requirement of this kind would present no difficulty to the Government.
  The thing which I am fearful of is that I foresee a possibility, with a Resolution in only one House, that a powerful oil company or pipeline company could get enough Members or Peers to pass such a Resolution thereby voting down an objector who might not be able to command such a lobby, regardless of the merits of the petition. So I hope that this point will be considered very carefully by my right hon. Friend and in Committee.
  The Bill as drafted does nothing at all to meet other objections to Special Procedure Orders and in particular the objections of too short petitioning time, too short time to move that an Order be annulled, and the general rigidity about petitions. For example, there is no provision for petitions which are late in time even though their lateness may be no fault of the petitioners. Again, there is no provision for Orders to be amended even if the Minister wishes to amend them. For those reasons I am not satisfied with the concession which was made by the Government in another place.
  In view of the undertaking which was given by the Government spokesman in another place I had hoped, and I still hope, that the Government will agree to the deletion of Section 4 (2) of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, altogether in relation to applications for pipelines. However, my
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  real belief is that the Esso Bill Committee was right in recommending Provisional Order Bills and not Special Order procedure for dealing with these matters.
  My third major objection is this. Compulsory purchase orders which come under Clause 10 (5) and compulsory rights orders which come under Clause 11 (7) are subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure, but pipeline construction authorisations, that is to say, authorisations relating to pipelines exceeding 10 miles in length, the big ones, which are dealt with in Clause 1 and in the First Schedule, do not come under this procedure. These pipelines may be quite formidable undertakings which would seem to me to merit further scrutiny in the event of objection and closer Parliamentary control, and frankly, I do not quite understand the reason why they escape it under the Bill as drafted. I think that they ought to be brought in.
  Now I turn to one or two minor points. In Clause 58 (2) it is provided that pipelines wild mean certain things and "no other". Among the things which are included in the "no other" are terminal buildings, that is to say, terminal buildings are excluded from the scope of the Bill. It would seem to me that a pipeline which had no terminal buildings might be a white elephant. I can see no reason for their not being brought into the scope of the Bill, as well as the pipelines and other machinery which go with them.
  I also wonder whether control of local pipelines, up to 10 miles in length, particularly, for example, those pipelines which might be carrying some very poisonous substance, is covered by the special powers which are in the Bill for my right hon. Friend in certain cases of pipelines less than 10 miles long.
  The next point which concerns me is the question of penalties. The penalties imposed by the Bill for contravention of its provisions seem to be low. In fact, I would almost describe them as derisory. The penalty for unlawful construction of pipelines is only £100, and there is a like penalty under Clause 2 relating to local pipelines. The penalties for unlawful construction under Clauses 1 and 2 seem to be based on penalties under the Town and Country

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  Planning Act, 1947, but it seems to me that there are one or two considerations which ought to be borne in mind. Prices have increased substantially since 1947, and the companies likely to contravene those Clauses are much richer people than those likely to infringe the Town and Country Planning Act. Furthermore, the development undertaken would be of a more serious nature than most contraventions of the Town and Country Planning Act. I know that it was argued in another place that really these penalties were not an effective deterrent for the pipeline operator and that the Government had other ways of bringing pressure to bear on pipeline constructors and operators, but at any rate it seems to me that this may be worth further consideration.
  Although, as has been pointed out, this Bill arose out of the recommendations of the Committee on the Esso Bill of 1960, in fact it departs very considerably from the ideas which first led to the setting up of that Committee and from the ideas which were set out in its Report. The Esso Committee was concerned that Private Bill procedure did not give adequate and fair treatment to objectors and further thought that a new field was being opened up with no provisions for ensuring proper and equal standards of treatment for objectors and in the public interest generally.
  The Bill in some respects alters the situation in these matters for the worse. For example, the whole burden of proof is shifted from the promoters, in the case of a Private Bill, who have to satisfy Parliament that their development is in the public interest. This Bill merely requires the developer to tell the Minister that he wants a pipeline and it is then for the objector, if he finds out about it in time, to satisfy my right hon. Friend that the pipeline will do him harm or is contrary to the public interest.
  The Bill, good though I think it is, wants further amendment. I believe that we can improve it substantially as it goes through its stages. I hope that in the light of some of these considerations it will be looked at with care in Committee and that my right hon. Friend will continue to be as accommodating as he has been so far in con-
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  sidering Amendments when he comes to consider future Amendments to be tabled in Committee.
  5.22 p.m.
  Mr. Niall MacDermot: The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot) has damned the Bill with the faintest of faint praise and has pointed out many of its minor defects. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him on the interesting points he has raised, though I hope to return later to his initial comments on the capital cost aspects of pipeline development.
  In our view, not only is this a most unsatisfactory Bill, for the reasons stated in our Amendment, but it is from the constitutional point of view a most peculiar Bill. As far as public general Acts go, it is without precedent in that it gives to private enterprise the rights and advantages of a public utility undertaking without imposing on it the burdens and duties of providing a public service. Throughout the Bill the keynote is that the whole of this development is to be dominated by the consideration of profitability. Everything is to be sacrificed on the altar of profit, not only the public good in the true sense, but the opportunities which the Bill gives for positive planning and for making real savings in the interests of the public purse.
  The Government have deserted even further the already deserted friends of the party opposite, the private landowners. In days gone by we should have seen hon. Members opposite coming to the House in hordes in a storm of fury about the Bill in order to defend the rights of private landowners, and perhaps we should have seen even greater hordes and greater fury in another place. As it is, in the passage of the Bill through the other place few voices were raised on their behalf, and I would be interested to hear how many are raised here today. The party opposite is no longer the party of the big landowners and still less of the little landowners. For anyone who is interested in studying the party opposite, the whole passage of the Bill throws an interesting light on who truly are the influential voices with the Government. They are, of course, the big business interests.

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  To show how far the party opposite has fallen, under the Bill not only will private enterprise companies be able, by use of compulsory powers, to acquire rights over landowners for their own profit, but they are not going to pay a penny piece in wayleaves for the rights that they acquire compulsorily. They will sit back with all the advantages of public utility organisations, merely paying compensation in damage for actual and future loss which can be proved. Those who have experience in this field know that anyone who is subjected to compulsory purchase often sustains future losses which he is not able to prove at the time, but there is not a penny piece to be paid by a private enterprise organisation for the rights themselves which they acquire.
  The real battle hitherto on the Bill has been between two different sections of big business. On the one hand, we have had the oil companies and, on the other hand, a consortium which formed a company known as the Trunk Pipelines Company Limited which sought to promote a Private Bill here to lay a pipeline from Canvey Island to London and to extend it later to Birmingham and Merseyside. That body intended to operate the pipeline roughly on a common carrier basis and to make it available to be rented out to all comers.
  The conflict between these two interests is between those, and particularly the oil companies, who want to construct their own pipelines to use them as their own means of delivery, and the private interests who want to be able to obtain a licence to operate a transport service. It is the old conflict that we know in the transport industry between the "C" licence holder and the "A" licence holder. As far as things have gone up to date with this Bill, one can say that Trunk Pipelines Limited and those who have been urging its interest have secured certain concessions, but in general the oil companies are winning hands down.
  I should like to turn for a moment to the question dealt with by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) and say something about the economics of the pipeline business. The oil companies have been putting out the story that the capital cost of construction of pipelines is highly expensive and requires a vast
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  capital outlay. It was described in a glossy publication, which no doubt all hon. Members have received from Esso, as being a "considerable capital cost". Government spokesmen have followed the same line of argument and have used it against the development being undertaken by private enterprise. They say that it is not right to impose this great capital burden upon the public purse when it can be done by private enterprise.
  No figures are given in support of this argument. My right hon. and learned Friend quoted certain figures put forward by Mr. Nolan. Other figures were put forward in an article in The Times on 15th February last year. As far as I am aware, those figures have not been challenged. The figures there given show that for an 8 in. pipeline 100 miles long the cost of construction would work out at £11,000 per mile. In other words, with an outlay of £11 million one could construct 1,000 miles of pipeline in this country. The article also stated that for a 10 in. pipeline costs would be 30 per cent. greater. When one compares that with the cost of constructing a motorway at £250,000 per mile one can see that the capital costs involved in pipeline construction are nothing like the vast figures which have been suggested but never quoted.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport also quoted examples of the pay-off period given in Mr. Nolan's article in the Petroleum Times. Hon. Members will find many more such figures showing the quite remarkably short time in which capital costs can be paid off, particularly with the shorter lines because, contrary to the general belief, as Mr. Nolan shows, the shorter lines pay off quicker than the longer ones. For example, he estimates that a 6 in. pipeline of only 10 miles long would be paid off in 16 months and a 1 mile pipeline could be paid off in one month. Taking the longer distance of 60 miles, my right hon. and learned Friend quoted the case of an 8 in. pipeline which, operated on a conservative basis of what is called a 75 per cent. hour capacity over the year, would be paid off in 2·8 years. A 12 in. pipeline of 60 miles length could be paid off in one year and pipelines of 8 ins. and 12 ins., respectively, over longer distances would be paid off in four years

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  and 1·6 years. So again one can see that these figures—and they are the only available quoted figures—do not support the contention that this is some vast expensive burden which cannot possibly be put upon the public purse. What it quite obviously is is a highly profitable one which could, if developed for public enterprise, greatly relieve the public purse.
  These figures were all given in relation to multi-product pipelines. Another thing which appears in the article is that the economics of the single product pipeline are very much more favourable to the user than those of a multi-product pipeline for a number of reasons. First, the percentage of the available time for which the pipeline can be used is much greater—nearly 100 per cent. instead of 75 per cent., as quoted by my right hon. and learned Friend. Secondly, the overheads are much less, less tankage is required and the management, of course, is simpler and the controls much less costly.
  The next argument put forward against public ownership, and which was put forward by the Minister in moving the Second Reading today, is that the Government have not the necessary knowledge to enable them to initiate and plan the development of pipelines in this country. As was said in another place, the Government cannot initiate without knowing what is needed and what is necessary for industry. If this is true, the admission makes nonsense of the Government's pretence that they will control the development of pipelines in the public interest. Again it was said in another place that the Government would ensure that there was public control on "a recognised plan and pattern." Which way do the Government want to have it? Have they a recognised plan and pattern? If they have, it must be based on a proper assessment of what are the future needs and requirements, what is necessary in the public interest and what is the basis upon which pipelines ought to be developed in this country. If the Government have that plan and pattern, why on earth cannot it be undertaken by public enterprise and initiated by public enterprise in accordance with such a pattern?
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  When one looks at the very limited powers which the Minister has under the Bill, it becomes perfectly patent that the Government have no intention whatever of imposing any plan and pattern on this development. Take the example of a petrol company which applies to lay a single-product line between points A and B. Suppose that the Government decide that in accordance with their plan and pattern what is needed between A and B is not a single product line but a multi-product line. As I read the Bill, there is no power whatever vested in the Government to require that the developer shall lay a multi-product line. The only power which the Government have is to require that the developer shall use a larger single-product line.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: I have had a great deal of experience of building pipelines, and I should be fascinated to know what is the difference between laying a single-product pipeline and a multi-product pipeline.
  Mr. MacDermot: Like the hon. Gentleman, I, too, should be fascinated to know that. Obviously in terms of the pipeline there is none, but if the hon. Gentleman will look at the Bill he will see that there is a difference and a distinction drawn in it between the pipeline to be used for a single-product and one to be used for a number of products. If the application is made for a single-product pipeline then the Minister has power to instruct the developer to construct a pipeline capable of carrying more of that product. He has no power to order him to construct one which is capable of carrying many products.
  In many cases, dependent on the type of product, there could be a difference in the tensile strength of the steel, the pressure at which the product was to be pumped, and so forth. But this distinction, as drawn in the Bill, shows, in my submission, that the powers which the Government are proposing to take to themselves are inadequate for ensuring a proper control of the development. The point has already been made by my right hon. and learned Friend that even when under Clause 8 the Government have required the developer to lay a larger pipeline, if he himself in

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  the course of his own business is able to use that additional capacity, the Government have no power whatever to require him to make available any of the use of that pipeline to anyone else. In other words, if it is intended to be a means of ensuring multi-use of the pipeline this can be defeated by normal economic expansion on the part of the producer, and it does nothing of the sort. To describe this, as has been done by some of the oil companies, as imposing a form of common carrier liability on the developer shows either a complete misunderstanding of the Bill or a complete misunderstanding of what common carrier liabilities are.
  Again, if one looks at the power of the Minister for regulating charges one sees that he has extremely limited power. If and when the owner of the pipeline refuses to make it available to someone else when he has surplus capacity, the Minister can then direct that it shall be made available to another user and can prescribe the rate at which it is to be made available. That is the only power he has. He has no power in a case where the owner is making it available to someone else though at extortionate and excessive rates, something which happens as one knows well, in the history of the American development of pipelines.
  There is no power in the Bill in that circumstance for the Minister to control the rate at all, nor any power to make a direction to the company in respect of any other user because the facilities are being offered and made available albeit at an extortionate rate. There is no power for the Minister to alter the rates later if economic circumstances change. When one compares these powers with the powers of control over the common carrier which there is in the American legislation one can see how little real intention there is to exercise control under the Bill.
  Again, there is no power vested in the Minister to order at any stage the expansion of the capacity. Once the pipeline has been laid down on a particular route which has been authorised and it is found that a second pipeline is required, there is no power as under the French legislation for the Government to say to the user, "You will now lay a second pipeline" After all, one must remember that—
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: This is not the correct interpretation of the French basic law of 16th May, 1959.
  Mr. MacDermot: Perhaps we can argue that later. As I understand the French law, the Government have the power, as was stated in an article in The Times, to order the expansion of the capacity. There is no such power under this Bill as again there should be if there were any serious intention to develop it.
  When one remembers that in the initial authorisation a private enterprise concern is being given compulsory powers over a given route and has already paid all the compensation for the damage suffered and for land which has been sterilised, it is surely insanity to say that if at a later stage more capacity is required another company has to construct another line along another route again having to pay all over again the whole of the compensation and, which is worse, sterilise another 20 feet belt of land for the whole length of the pipeline.
  Again, the powers of the Minister to call for information from the operators are very small indeed. An operator can cease to operate a pipeline completely and does not have to tell the Minister about it until three years have elapsed. How on earth, if that is to be the relationship between the Minister and the operators, is he to exercise proper direction and control in accordance with a plan and pattern?
  The Minister has no power to control the change of ownership of the pipeline. Despite the significance and importance of pipelines from the defence point of view, it would be quite possible for one of these companies to sell its interest in a pipeline to a foreign concern. Is it right that the Minister should have no power to control that? As I read it, nor has he power to control any change of user. An authorisation can be obtained to lay a pipeline with a view to its being used for a particular product and a particular purpose, but if there is a change to another user, does the Minister have power to control that change?
  These powers are pathetic, if there is any real intentions to exercise proper control over this development. But the real object that emerges from the Bill

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  and from the discussions which took place in another place is not to control the development of pipelines in the public interest but "to allow private enterprise the greatest possible scope". Indeed, those were the words used in introducing the Bill into another place. Our submission is that the object should be to allow our own publicly-owned transport industry and not private enterprise the greatest possible scope in developing this in a planned, orderly manner. The arguments for public ownership are clear.
  They are, first, to ensure a properly planned development as part of positive economic and social planning; secondly, to prevent the anarchic development which would result from leaving the initiative to private enterprise; thirdly, to see that the profits of the most profitable users are not left to swell the profits of private enterprise, and, in particular, of the oil companies, but are used to help finance less profitable but socially useful development.
  I will try to illustrate this through a hypothetical example from my own constituency. I do not know, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if you have ever had the pleasure of going to Derby, but if you have it could not have escaped your attention that immediately behind the cathedral, in the centre of the town, there is situated a large and not very attractive power station. The second thing that would probably have attracted your attention was the day and night thundering through the streets of large ten-ton coal lorries carrying industrial coals from neighbouring pits in Derbyshire, many of them to this power station.
  These lorries were counted, I think, by the chief constable recently, and it was found that they were passing through Derby at the rate of 179 to the hour, which is three every minute, squirting diesel fumes over the inhabitants, quite apart from the congestion they cause to traffic. There is no railway line serving that power station. I do not know, and do not pretend to know, whether it would be possible and feasible to carry coals to that power station from the local mines into Derby by pipeline. Technically, it would be possible, for in the United States they have been carry-
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  ing coals to power stations for distances of 100 miles and more.
  Let us assume that it would be a feasible but not highly profitable undertaking. Assume from the purely economic point of view it would about break even. Obviously, from the social point of view, under these circumstances, it would be a highly desirable development. Under this Bill, however, one thing is plain: that development would never take place.
  It would not be undertaken by private enterprise for the simple reason that there would not be any profit in it. It would not be undertaken by the Government because they have not the power to initiate socially useful development. It would not be and could not be undertaken by the British Transport Commission or its successors because it has no railway line along which it could lay the pipeline. It would not be and could not be undertaken by the National Coal Board which supplies the coal, for the simple reason that it has no power to lay pipelines. Equally it could not be and would not be undertaken by the nationally owned electricity industry for the same reason. The result would be that this very socially useful and desirable pipeline simply would never be laid.
  My submission is that this illustrates what is the essential evil of this Bill—that it means that this important new development in transportation will not be planned and developed truly in the public interest but will be left to spread itself sporadically and unplanned purely in the interests of private profit.
  We consider that this is a bad Bill. I hope that the Government realise that they will have to bring up some very heavy pumping machinery if they are to get it out of the pipeline in this House in the time they expect.
  5.47 p.m.
  Mr. F. V. Corfield: I think that everyone who has spoken has referred to the pedigree of this Bill as arising from the debate on the Esso Petroleum Company's Bill and the recommendation of the Select Committee. I can at least claim some responsibility for the fact that it ever got to the Select Committee, because I drafted the appropriate Instruction and moved it. I think, therefore, that I might

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  be allowed to recall the reasons why I did that, with a view to seeing the extent to which the Bill meets the objections I raised to the Esso Bill in particular, and to the use of the Private Bill procedure in general, for projects of this sort.
  Obviously, the main matter with which we were concerned was the suitability or otherwise of the Private Bill procedure and that, of course, inevitably raised the whole question of pipeline policy in general—whether pipelines should be allowed to proliferate all over the country, whether they should be more or less controlled, and who should exercise that control, Parliament or the Government.
  These are matters on which it is inevitable that the two sides of the House should take differing views, in some cases totally opposing views. But I suggest that the answer to the point raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) about the provisions of Clause 9, whereby a prospective operator can apply to use surplus capacity, is that those provisions must depend for their effectiveness on the estimate of likely demand, which is provided for in Clause 8. There is no reason to believe that the Minister is likely to make a worse shot at estimating demand than any of the boards of the nationalised industries to which Members opposite are so devoted.
  In considering the whole question of Private Bill procedure in relation to pipelines, one was struck by the precedent of the railways and the necessity of providing general legislation in the form of the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, to replace former procedure by private legislature. This was something which seemed to be appropriate to pipelines at this stage of their development, bearing in mind that in many respects a pipeline is equally suitable for liquid as for many types of solid.
  At the time of the Esso Bill, as a Member for a constituency affected by one of the pipelines which that Bill proposed to develop, my main concern was with the adequacy of the safeguards for the rights of private individuals, local authorities and statutory undertakers. There was a good deal of evidence at the time of the Esso Bill to show that
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  those people had not been adequately consulted, even in the case of such important undertakings as those responsible for water supplies in the neighbourhood of this pipeline.
  I have always taken the view that one should always look with some suspicion on any effort to extend powers of compulsory acquisition, and one should look with even graver suspicion when that is in favour of private bodies. One of the main difficulties of the Private Bill procedure is that it is necessary on these occasions to delineate the proposed line with a considerable degree of accuracy, and that makes it very difficult to allow for minor modifications, because in many cases it is impossible to alter a pipeline, even quite small distances, because solids, at any rate, will be forced round a pipeline only of a limited curvature.
  The only course open to a landowner who particularly wants a small modification, perhaps a horticulturist with a glasshouse, is, in any case, the very cumbersome and expensive course of petitioning. It seemed to me absolutely essential that we should introduce a cheaper and more expeditious means of resolving the various conflicts of interest which inevitably arise when a pipeline is proposed and when local authorities, water undertakers and so on are likely to be affected.
  It was with these considerations in mind that I moved the Instruction and it may be appropriate to remind the House of its contents, because the present Bill is supposed to meet the demands of that Instruction:
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to amend the Bill in such a manner as will ensure that the safeguards to the interests of owners, lessees and occupiers of land likely to be affected are similar to and no less effective than those available under the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, and that the interests of the public bodies referred to in paragraph 12, Part II, First Schedule to the Water Act, 1945, are similarly protected; and to inquire whether general public legislation relating to the laying, maintenance and operation of pipelines is desirable, and to report thereon to the House."
  It is with that background that I have studied the Bill and my first observation of a general nature is that it appears to be the view of the Government that the corollary to improving safeguards for the individual is to increase the power of the Minister.

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  I have the honour to represent a constituency which, although entirely in the County of Gloucester, is very close to and in its interests and so on closely tied up with the City of Bristol, which was formerly represented by Edmund Burke. It may not be inappropriate, even in the twentieth century, to ask ourselves sometimes whether the power of the Executive is not increasing and whether it ought not in some respects to be diminished rather than increased. That is the sentiment which, I think, it is useful to bear in mind in studying the Bill from this aspect. My right hon. Friend has put this forward as a merit of the Bill; I find it a little difficult to agree.
  Clause 1 gives the Minister completely unfettered discretion in deciding whether he allows the first stage of the pipeline procedure, that is, whether he accepts or refuses a pipeline construction authorisation. This seems a little curious because it may well be, and probably will be in the future, that the majority of the pipelines concerned will be designed to carry something with no possible connection with the Minister of Power. I am not quite certain what the relevance of the experience of my right hon. Friend's advisers is when he gets an application from the Milk Marketing Board to pump milk, or from the British Oil and Cake Mills to move feedingstuffs through a pipeline. One would have felt that there would be some better provision to see that the application went to somebody whose advisers might know a little about the problem.
  If the applicant is fortunate enough to get my right hon. Friend's approval, his next hurdle is to look through the various provisions of the First Schedule and to publish certain notices. The curious thing is that although the Bill is supposed to improve safeguards for the individual and the owners and occupiers of the land on the route in particular, the Bill does not lay down any need for the applicant to send those people any form of notice. All he has to do is to publish a notice in the Gazette and
  "such other manner as the Minister may direct"
  and notify local planning authorities and such other persons as may be specified by the Minister. One would have thought
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  that the owners and occupiers of the land would have been notified automatically.
  Of course, I accept that if the promoter has been fortunate enough to be able to negotiate and reach agreement with the various owners and occupiers who may be affected, it can be assumed that they will not object and that they know all about it without being notified, but there are people besides the owners and occupiers of the land actually on the route who may be very much affected. These pipelines go along a relatively narrow stretch of land and can affect neighbouring property, particularly if they are carrying obnoxious substances of one sort or another—poisonous, explosive or inflammable. I would have thought that if local planning authorities had to be notified, it was sensible to notify the ordinary local authorities, the county districts, and so on, and the statutory undertakers who may be very much affected by a project of this sort.
  In general, I welcome the provision in paragraph 4 of the First Schedule which says that the Minister shall in no event grant an application without convening either a public inquiry or a hearing, but I share the apprehension of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot) about the alternative power given to the Minister to decide upon a hearing in preference to a public inquiry. In my experience, hearings convened by the Minister of Housing and Local Government under the planning Acts and the housing Acts are very similar to public inquiries in the sense that both parties are present and the applicant has an opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses for the authority which he is opposing, whether it be a housing or planning authority. I understood that a hearing under the Bill had the same meaning and would be applied in the same way. If this is so, then perhaps my hon. Friend's apprehensions are not quite as serious as they might otherwise appear to be, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will confirm that that is his concept of a hearing.
  If it is, it surely gives him very little advantage over a public inquiry, because if the objection is a frivolous one, no one will turn up at the inquiry to object, other than the objector who has caused the hearing to be held. We have to

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  remember, too, that the ordinary citizen does not study the London Gazette very much. He does not always study the advertisements in his local paper, and it often happens that the first somebody who may well be affected—but who has not had specific notice served upon him—knows about a project of this sort is the convening of the public inquiry.
  There does not seem to be any object in saying that he cannot come along at this stage and make his objection and explain his position simply because by this time the Minister will have decided that a hearing would be easier than a public inquiry. I cannot see that it will save my right hon. Friend or any of the members of his Department any trouble, and I hope that we shall have an assurance on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member far Dover, that public inquiries will be held in all cases.
  The next stage is that if the promoter is unable to obtain the agreement of all the people who own land over which he wishes to put his pipeline he has to apply either for a compulsory purchase order, or a compulsory rights order. Under this we seem to have a similar procedure to that laid down in the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, subject, however, to what may be regarded as an additional stage of the Special Parliamentary Procedure.
  This is a matter again on which I strongly support my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, because, as I understand it, there is a ruling from the Chair that on a Statutory Order of this kind the one thing that the House cannot do is to discuss any alternative means of obtaining the same object. This seems to me a serious and major defect in this procedure, because it could well be that in a proposed pipeline project Parliament and the Minister could take opposing views. Generally, these matters will turn in the last resort perhaps on one objection or one type of objection, and it will be a question of balance whether the public interest should override the objections, or the other way round.
  It could well be that the Minister will take one view, and the House another. If this happens the House will have no alternative but to throw out the whole project, and that may mean enormous delays before it can be reinitiated on another route to avoid all the problems
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  that have arisen and brought about this impasse. If it can be shown, as it often can, and one can anticipate this to some extent, that the project is a matter of grave national importance and urgency, the House will be under great pressure from the Government to let it go through, notwithstanding that the sympathies of the House are with the objector or with a set of objections.
  If that happens, this Special Parliamentary Procedure will become useless as any form of a safeguard. In fact, from this point of view the objectors, whether private individuals or local authorities, will be worse off than they would be under the old procedure by which the matter could be discussed on Second Reading, and an Instruction moved indicating that a change of route should be provided. I hope that my right hon. Friend will look at this again and try to introduce a final procedure which will enable modifications to be made and not leave the House with the alternative of either complete rejection or complete acceptance.
  As I understand it, Clause 2 requires a minimum of 16 weeks' notice for the erection of any pipeline under 10 miles in length. I have looked with some interest at the definition of "pipeline" and "local pipeline", but it seems to be that there is nothing in the Bill which prevents the ordinary pipes that float around a chemical works to be pipelines governable by the Bill. A large chemical works is being erected in my constituency, and to the ordinary layman it consists of almost nothing but pipelines.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend—whose attention I hope I can have on this matter—will give us some assurance that people who are developing chemical plants and the like, such as is being done by I.C.I. in my constituency, will not have to give 16 weeks' notice for every pipeline within their own curtilages, which in many cases are part and parcel of complicated chemical and other plants.
  In that connection, my right hon. Friend said that he was reluctant to issue any general safety regulations, and felt that it was better to operate under Clause 19, making conditions with regard to safety in respect of each case. But I think that if we are to use

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  the Clause 2 procedure to get conditions of safety inserted we have got very muddled up with our Departments, because most of these accident and safety precautions present almost precisely the same type of problem with which the Factory Inspectorate deals every day of the week in chemical and engineering factories and the like. It does not seem sense that we should set up a parallel body of experts to send out a series of conditions for the installation and safe management of pipelines when there exists an establishment capable of, and actually doing, that very job.
  Perhaps I might turn for a moment to the question of compulsory acquisition and damage. As I read Clause 12, to which the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) referred, I take it, although perhaps I have not given to it the time given by the hon. Gentleman, that this follows closely what happens at the moment in respect of the payment of compensation for gas pipes, water pipes, electricity lines and the like.
  Mr. MacDermot: Public utilities.
  Mr. Corfield: Although the electricity board makes wayleave agreements, that, as I understand, is a result of agreement with bodies such as the N.F.U. and the Country Landowners' Association that this is the easiest way of finding a formula to cover the general inconvenience caused by lines of pylons or timber poles, or whatever it is, across farmland.
  I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Derby, North that all these bodies are public utilities, but I am not sure that one can draw a distinction, and on another occasion I shall be interested to hear his views and the reasons why people should get paid more for the same service, that is, providing land for pipes, simply because it is demanded in one case by one body and in another case by another. I have never understood this argument, and it is the argument against which I based a lot of my complaints to the Government a few years ago on the subject of the differentiation between the compensation paid to people when land was acquired by public bodies and the price that they would receive in the open
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  market when it was acquired by anyone else.
  Mr. MacDermot: If he had not powers of compulsory purchase, the developer would have to pay more. But what is happening here is that the private developer is getting all the advantages as if he were a public authority, and merely paying compensation for actual loss and not giving any of the profit advantage to the person whose land he takes.
  Mr. Corfield: I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman, but, when he says that the owner of the land would get more, it is the marginal owner who would get more; the last man in. That is difficult to justify where one gets reasonable agreement on nine-tenths of the length and has the remaining one-tenth held to ransom, and it is doubtful whether it makes sense to pay those last owners a higher rate. I should have thought that that was the crux of the argument.
  I want to turn very briefly to the question of damage resulting from these pipelines. I suppose that we have to deal not only with the possibility of leaks, but with materials of this sort there is at least the possibility of explosion. I should like an assurance from my right hon. Friend that it is intended that the liability for damage should be absolute under the Bill, as I think I am right in saying it is under common law under the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher. Unless that is so there is a danger of damage arising subsequently not only to the owners of land through which the pipe passes, but to the owners of land and other interests over a very much wider area.
  If this is an absolute liability it is quite clear that it could run into very large sums indeed if something went wrong, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider very carefully whether a Clause should not be inserted in the Bill to provide for compulsory insurance, because we are dealing with something that could have enormous repercussions and result in such great damage that even some of the great oil companies would find it difficult to meet their liabilities if things went very badly wrong.
  Therefore, on the question of safety, I hope that the Government will consider very carefully whether they cannot

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  themselves produce a code of safety regulations or a code of conduct for the construction of these pipelines, both from the point of view of the general pipelines and if necessary with supplements for pipelines for special types of material, because however much easier it may be to make these regulations case by case under Clause 19 it is difficult for prospective operators to know what they are up against and what conditions they have to fulfil if there is no code of conditions. As these things get larger in number it will be difficult, I think, to have an efficient and equitable administration of these various conditions which will vary from pipeline to pipeline and from operator to operator.
  Finally, I deprecate a little—this is a minor point—the Clause which enables my right hon. Friend, as, indeed, do many other Acts, to give planning permission. In other words, he has some planning powers. I am certain that at the moment there is a very widespread feeling that the various defects of planning stem to a large extent from the multiplicity of Departments that can interfere. After all, planning is basically dictated by the pattern of communications, the location of industry and the provision of power yet the Minister whom we hold responsible in this House has responsibility for none of these things.
  Until the Government accept the suggestions which we on this side of the House have put forward more than once for a permanent sub-committee of the Cabinet of all these Departments to see that there is co-ordination in planning, I think that it is very unwise indeed to extend the planning power of any Minister other than that of the Minister responsible to this House, namely, the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
  I conclude by saying that I welcome the Bill. I think that it goes a long way towards what I had in mind when I first got interested in this matter, although I doubt whether the safeguards are quite as good as they appear to be. I think that we need to look at that carefully. On balance, I would rather like to see less power in the hands of the Executive and more in the hands of Parliament, but I welcome the Bill as an effort to achieve what the Select Com-
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  mittee recommended and what most of us had in mind when we debated this matter a few years ago.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Desmond Donnelly: Like the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield), I, too, have a constituency interest in this matter. I put mine as being rather a wider constituency interest and in a way a national interest.
  I intervene in this debate because the area of Milford Haven, in my constituency, is now in the process of becoming perhaps the largest oil port in Western Europe. About £25 million have been invested in it, mainly in the Esso Oil Refinery, at Herbrandston, and now the British Petroleum landing stage at Popton, which the Minister himself opened, which pumps oil 60 miles to the oil refinery at Llandarcy. In addition, another £30 million is to be invested shortly by the Regent Petroleum Co. near Pembroke Dock.
  The consequence of this is a revolution in the whole life of West Wales. The deep water harbour of Milford Haven, which has been neglected for centuries, is now seeing the largest ships in the world coming into it, ships of over 80,000 tons. It is all very exciting, but there are many difficult, practical problems involved for us in that area; and, naturally, we are interested in the implications of the Bill.
  During the course of my few remarks I hope that the House will forgive me if I wear two different kinds of hat. The first hat that I shall wear for a short time will be my doctrinal hat to show my support for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) and then I propose to put on my practical hat to deal with some of the implications. A little later on I propose to still retain my practical hat in order to take a closer look at the Bill and, finally, to ensure that there is no doubt at all about the colour of it, I shall put on my doctrinal hat for my concluding words. I have studied various kinds of political millinery very closely. They all fit very well and it is surprising how snugly the practical hat fits under the doctrinal hat and how useful it is.
  First, in my doctrinal hat I support the Opposition Amendment, which my right

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  hon. and learned Friend moved extremely ably, if I may say so. In my judgment, the Government have approached this problem by means of half-hearted stages. First, we had the Esso Petroleum Company Bill as a Private Bill. As the Select Committee subsequently reported, that should have been a Public Bill. No private company should have to deal with the problems and responsibility of having to undertake a matter of this kind. It was the Government's failure to face their public responsibility in the first instance that the Private Bill was promoted. Then, pushed by the Select Committee, we have now this Public Bill. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, it still does not go far enough.
  The Minister said that we were possibly only at the beginning of the development of the possible use of pipelines. If this is so—sand I accept it—surely it would have been much wiser to take wider powers, so that it would not be necessary to ask the House for further legislation to enable the Government—even accepting the Minister's political premises—to operate a governmental public sector of a pipelines system side by side with a private sector. I should have thought that that was doctrinal, or perhaps merely half-hearted—because it is half-heartedness that has been the record of the Government—to exclude the idea of a publicly-owned system operating side by side with a privately-owned one.
  Secondly, it is unwise, and perhaps wrong, not to take power to enable the Government to initiate pipelines for various reasons, such as the social purposes referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend. But I should have thought that a much more important point—as my right hon. and learned Friend mentioned, by implication—was that it is in the national interest to have a national system of pipelines for defence purposes. At the very least the Government have missed an important legislative opportunity, which will cause difficulties in the future. It is for that reason that I wholeheartedly support my right hon. and learned Friend.
  I now put on my practical hat. Having said what I have, I nevertheless agree that there are certain limitations
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  upon the foreseeable use of pipelines as a transport system. I say "foreseeable" thinking of the short-run of three, four or five years. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South talked about pumping milk. There is an almost science-fiction wishful-thinking about the possibilities of pipelines. We must be realistic. The most likely users of these pipelines are the oil companies, partly because of the costs involved, partly because of the great throughput which is necessary to meet the costs, and partly because of the fact that the pipelines have to go specifically from the point of production to the point of use if they are to be a real factor in cutting the cost of transport.
  The most important illustration of the use of oil pipelines is that which is now taking place under the COMECOM arrangements on the other side of the Iron Curtain—the Russian pipeline which terminates in East Berlin after going through some of the satellite States.
  Another possible user, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) said in his admirable speech, is the coal industry. I interpolate here to say how glad we are to see him back in the House in such good form. It is a great pleasure to see him coming here with such a large bank balance, in terms of votes. It is true that the Coal Board has considered the possibility of the pipeline transport of coal, making it into a sludge, either oil-borne or water-borne, as has been done in the United States of America. However, I understand that the Coal Board has had second thoughts about this, on economic grounds.
  The Board did set up a research unit, which has now been handed over to the Central Electricity Generating Board and it is that authority which is considering the possibility of transporting coal from pitheads to power stations. This is the other possible use, and I hope that it comes about, and that the Central Electricity Generating Board will prevent the asphyxiation of the inhabitants of Derby, North—long may they live and prosper—and that lorries will not thunder by, but that the coal will go by pipeline.
  Beyond that I see limitations. There is a suggestion that we might have a grid system, something like the ancient

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  vacuum tube system which is employed by some departmental stores, where the customer's money is sent away through a tube and the change comes back through a tube. The counting house gives one twist to make the change arrive at counter A, another to make it arrive at counter B, and so on. I do not think that it would yet be possible to construct a pipeline system in which one twist would send the coal to Birmingham, two would send it to Manchester and three to Glasgow. Such a system is very much in the distant future.
  Although coal is a possibility and oil is a certainty as a requiring industry for this kind of undertaking, and although the use of oil is likely almost to double, from about 66 million tons of coal equivalent to 100 million tons of coal equivalent—it is very much the fuel of the future—it is almost inevitable, in this small island, that most of our transport of these products will go round the coast by coaster I have to say this to put the whole project into perspective.
  If any situation arose in which, suddenly, the lionhearted limpets were removed from the Treasury Bench by the action of the electorate, and the Labour Party found itself confronted with the practicalities, it, too, would have to address itself to the question of where the money should come from for such a grid. There are many competing claims for capital—the social services, education, roads, railways, and so on. We would have to think about it and recognise the difficulties while appreciating that here, in a certain instance, it is possible—subject to safeguards in the national interest and matters of planning being taken into consideration—that those gentlemen who are prepared to pay might be the best people to be allowed to pay, at least at this stage. I accept that.
  That brings me to the third part of my speech—the Bill itself. I have three points which, like those of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South and the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot) are Committee points. I will make them in broad outline tonight, so that the Minister may have a chance of considering them before the Bill goes to Committee.
  First, there are the provisions in Clauses 8 and 9 which enable the Minis-
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  ter—if it should be in the national interest—to require a pipeline to be made of a size larger than the undertaker concerned wishes for his own interests, and also enable the Minister, where surplus capacity is not being used, to make it available to another user.
  If the Minister stipulates these conditions I am not clear—and some of the oil companies are not clear—who pays. I am all for the Minister's having power to say, "Build a larger pipeline, because we think that we may need it in the future", but in the intervening period who will service the capital required as a result of the Minister's decision? In the subsequent period, when the pipeline is being used by another undertaker, I am not satisfied with the provisions which fix the charges to be made to the second user of the pipeline.
  Secondly, there is a twelve months' time limit under Clause 1 (4) and (5), requiring the pipeline builders to show a substantial start in their developments in the building of pipelines within twelve months. The period of twelve months is a short time. A lot of planning has to go into this sort of project. It may be that the pipeline will have been started. But supposing the whole pipeline has not been started. It may be that whilst we are approaching the end of the pipeline at the end of the twelvemonths' period all of it will not have commenced. I should have thought that it would have been better to have another look at the matter and give the builders a little more time, providing that the intention is manifestly there.
  My third point is of less importance. The requirement is laid down for a detailed 6-in. map of the pipeline. When the map is prepared any possible developers will experience difficulty, because they will not have had an opportunity to enter upon the land to survey. They may only have had permissive consent, or perhaps had to look over hedges and guess. There is a precedent in the Water Act of 1948, where these powers to survey in advance are available. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman will think about this problem between now and the Committee stage, to see whether something can be done.

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  Having said that, I return to my doctrinal hat and say that, obviously, if pipeline transport becomes a major system of the future, it will be essential for there to be—to protect the public interest—a very close form of public control. When the control reaches the point where the national interest sometimes conflicts with the financial interests of the developers there comes a dividing line at which it is much better for the national authority to own the pipeline because it is so much better to do the planning then.
  At this point it is clearly incumbent on the Government to take positive action and I feel that it is regrettable that the Government have not foreseen this possibility and legislated against its eventuality so as to ensure that we shall not have to have a second pipeline Bill in the near future. I warmly support the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport.
  6.31 p.m.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: We have listened with considerable interest to the double presentation of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) who indicated that he wore two hats, the doctrinal and the practical. The hat which appeals to me much more however is reality. The hon. Member mentioned the possibility of coal pipelines. There is one of 10¾ in. in the United States extending for 108 miles from Ohio to Cleveland. Another project in the United States is the 350 mile line 25 inch from the Virginia coalfields to the East Coast.
  The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right to say, when dealing with the practical side, that the chances in the future of having such pipelines in the United Kingdom will depend much on future research and development. But I think it right to say that development will be confined largely to the construction and operation of oil pipelines. Regarded from that angle this Measure becomes an oil Bill. If we examine the matter a little further we discover one or two rather significant facts. I wish to take up some of the points indicated by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) who would like to see some sort of corporation, or something in the nature of the British Railways Board,
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  conducting pipeline facilities in the United Kingdom.
  One of the nearest analogies may be found in the French legislation on the subject. It is true that the Société Trapil, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman and other hon. Members have referred, has a 46·7 participation by the State both direct and indirect. The decree lays down that the State shall have a direct participation of 31 per cent. That, however, was in 1949. As I indicated earlier in the debate, the basic law in France was passed on 16th May, 1959, and it was not then contemplated that the State should have any direct investment in such enterprises.
  One of the most significant facts is that the Lavera-Strasbourg line which was constructed pursuant to the decree of 14th October, 1959, incidentally allowed for a direct State participation of under 6 per cent. Therefore, we are faced with the situation that in Europe the only country which has comprehensive pipeline legislation—France—in which they have numerous socialised or public institutions, the State participation is relatively small.
  Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The hon. Gentleman has given us the percentage of direct State participation. Can he give us the percentage of public participation as distinct from private participation, presumbly participation by municipalities and departmental or other public bodies?
  Mr. Skeet: I can deal with these points so far as the Société Trapil is concerned. There we have the State direct investment of 31 per cent., C.F.R.—which is an affiliate of C.F.P. in which the French State has a 35 per cent. interest—has 11 per cent., and Total, which is also an affiliate of C.F.P., has a 4·7 per cent. interest. Besides there are numerous other operators, primarily oil companies and marketeers in France. If we take the Lavera-Strasbourg line conveying crude oil line from the south there are approximately 16 owners. Apart from the small State investment all the others are marketeers and refiners of the principal or minor oil companies.
  To pursue the question put to me by the hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), if we move into

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  Germany we find that there are the pipelines from Wilhelmshaven to the Ruhr and from Rotterdam to the Ruhr, which contain no provincial or State participation. The holdings in the Wilhelmshaven to Cologne line are: Esso A.G. 42·27 per cent. West German B.P.—I will not give the full name—with 26·37 per cent. and four others with 26·5 per cent. The Rotterdam line is owned with B.P.M. 40 per cent., Gelsenberg and Mobiloil Handels-und Transport G.m.b.H. 40 per cent., Caltex 20 per cent.
  The point I am trying to emphasise here is that when we have a run round Europe we find that there is little distinct State participation in these enterprises because I think they recognise that they are closely tied up with the oil industry. They are the people with the technical knowledge in these matters and they run the lines rather as related communications either between terminal and refinery or between the refinery and a point of consumption.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Newport went further. In the Middle East and elsewhere pipelines are owned exclusively by the companies concerned.
  Sir L. Plummer: In his interesting speech the hon. Gentleman referred to the French Act of 1959 in which the authorisation of the pipeline has to be granted by the Government. The hon. Gentleman failed to say that it has to be granted on grounds of public interest and not necessarily of private profit so that the question of participation seems irrelevant against a background of the needs of public interest which are paramount under that Act.
  Mr. Skeet: One has to recognise the set-up generally in France. Let us see who authorises it. The authorisation will be sanctioned by the French counterpart of our Minister of Power, that is, the Fuel Department of the Minister of Industries, and is countersigned by the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Finance. There are, therefore, three people concerned, but the primary person concerned is the French equivalent Minister of Fuel. So far as the other matters are concerned, I think it right to indicate that the State should lay down certain guide lines. What my right hon. Friend the Minister has indi-
  506
  cated in this Bill is that he is trying to propose certain guide lines and a code which private enterprise will be able to operate.
  Following the argument, which was implied, that if it was in the public interest that industry should be attracted to an undeveloped area it might be desirable to build a pipeline into it, is somewhat short sighted. Pipelines, like any other form of transportation, must be justified on an economic basis. In other words, the reason why in the United Kingdom we have not had pipelines built all over the place is that they have not been economically justified, and there are further few points in the United Kingdom to which they could have been justifiably built. Probably a pipeline from the London area to the Midlands could be justified, but a pipeline from London to Yeovil certainly could not compete with ordinary forms of transportation. In that case it would be better to use coastal transportation or the railway or perhaps road facilities.
  It is not a question of the State deciding that there should be public services here or there. I appreciate the remarks of Mr. Nolan, who, of course, is very much in favour of the extensive degree of planning which has been envisaged by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport. It is worth bearing in mind that if these pipelines can be paid for at an early stage the advantage would accrue to the consumer because he would then have a reduction in the price of the products. In the case of petroleum products a large element in the cost is the taxation paid to the Government. The actual experience of companies, as I understand it, has been to reduce their prices. This is apparent in Europe. If, however, they reduce them too far in the United Kingdom they would possibly underpin coal, and that would be extremely undesirable. Another factor is that a pipeline is liable to be rated and a very high imposition placed upon it.
  I want to deal with one or two points raised by this Bill and to criticise it modestly by saying that my right hon. Friend is looking very much further ahead. It covers a number of products for which pipelines will be built. It is noteworthy that legislation both in France and Switzerland has been confined to the movement of hydro-carbon

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  oils under pressure or hydro-carbon or gaseous fuels. This Bill travels outside that and covers solids, gases and a number of other products. Does it not seem, therefore, that the Bill is travelling a little too broadly? Will we not be running into difficulties because possibly we shall not be able to perceive some of the difficulties which will later emerge?
  Clause 2 deals with local pipelines of ten miles and under. There must be a host of those in this country. I.C.I. has eighty-eight pipelines of under 25 yards running outside factory premises. Those would all fall inside this Bill. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers has about twenty pipelines of under 25 yards outside factory premises which also would come under Clause 2. Notification would have to be made to my right hon. Friend and he would have to consider what conditions to lay down. It would seem that he will have a myriad of applications to face unless he does something to alter the provisions in the Bill dealing with shorter lines.
  My right hon. Friend may consider marine non-factory premises such as brine works a factory, mine or quarry for the purposes of the Bill, or he may reserve to himself power to exclude certain areas, works or facilities as and when there appear to him good causes for exemption. Another way of looking at the problem would be to do what the Swiss have done. Pipelines running across land in common ownership or between adjoining factory premises would be exempted. It may be that we could have pipelines operating in a designated area compact in size and in a certain part of the country, such as pipelines conveying china clay, hived off.
  Perhaps the most helpful suggestion I could give to my right hon. Friend, because he is rather concerned about the question of safety, is that pipelines could be classified according to what goes through them. Then he could say that pipelines which are designed to carry a scheduled list of materials or products which may be dangerous or semi-dangerous must be notified to him under Clause 2. That would seem one way of limiting this problem. It would have The effect that the public interest would
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  be served because it would not be troubled on matters where no question of safety arose. On the other hand, it would suit industry, because it would not be subjected to undue interference. Alternatively, an enormous department would have to be built at the Ministry to deal with hundreds of small lines.
  My right hon. Friend twice mentioned safety arrangements in his speech. They come under Clause 19. He mentioned what happened in the States. If I may respectfully say so, I think he gave the wrong reason why there is not a very extensive code in the U.S.A. Gordon C. Locke of the General Council of the Association of Oil Pipelines, in a paper on the subject of oil pipeline regulation, wrote:
  "In 1947 the Inter-state Commerce Commission, after intensive investigation of the matter, concluded that while the Commission have ample authority the safety record of the oil pipeline industry and its situation did not warrant the development of a safety code to apply to oil pipeline operations. This conclusion of the Commission still stands."
  Therefore, it is on the record that because of the safety of pipelines in the industry he did not consider that a code was necessary. However, a code has been developed by industry and I have a copy of it, "Oil Transportation Piping, an American Standard Code of Pressure Piping", by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It lays down a code for the industry to follow covering structure, design, materials, etc., and all these matters at an early stage can avoid accidents happening. An argument was put forward in another place. That we might consider here a group of regulations being made similar to those made under the Factories Acts—most hon. Members are familiar with them—such as wood working regulations or regulations applying to the manufacture of lead compounds.
  If we examine Clause 19 carefully we find that the Minister has not reserved to himself the right to make regulations—far from it. All he can do is to give notice. That seems an extraordinary way of proceeding. The noble Lord, Lord Mills, said in another place:
  "We have the experience of the United States, where it was shown that safety matters cannot be dealt with satisfactorily by statutory regulations. The drawing up of safety regulations is a complicated and lengthy task, and

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  I think that a better way would be to provide for the application in individual cases, as required, of a code of practice drawn up by the individual industries concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 3rd April, 1962; Vol. 239, c. 103.]
  The Institute of Petroleum has produced a code of practice for petroleum pipelines. In the preface, which is worth looking at if hon. Members wish to read about this subject, it sets forth
  "general requirements for the safe design, construction and operation of the transportation of petroleum,"
  It says:
  "this Code should be regarded as complementary to such requirements. The Code has been formulated to define, in general terms, uniform recommendations for good engineering practice based on known experience and appropriate existing standards already in use by the petroleum industry."
  Another code is in course of preparation by the chemical industry. We see, therefore, that there is no need to make heavy weather of these provisions under Clause 19. Progress could be made by giving the codes statutory or semi-statutory force and thus ensure that these vessels are reasonably safe.
  My right hon. Friend mentioned the important matter of rating. He seems to imagine that we have reached the point when rates for pipelines have been paid all along. I am not certain that that is correct. When the Ritson Committee reported in 1959, it recommended that to the Class IV items of flumes and conduits should be added main pipelines. A Plant and Machinery (Valuation for Rating) Order was made in 1927. It was after 1959—in 1960—that a new Plant and Machinery (Rating) Order was made. Main pipelines, however, were not included. They were deleted probably for a very good reason. I should like to know from my right hon. Friend the Minister why they were deleted after the Ritson Committee recommended their inclusion. It is then incorrect to say, therefore, that the Bill is an attempt to maintain the status quo.
  If we are to bring pipelines within the rating law, the right thing to do would be to have a new plant and machinery rating order, which would be made after consultation with the industries concerned and certainly not by confronting industry with a Clause in a Bill which is not a rating Bill, particularly after industry has had a succession of vic-
  510
  tories in the courts, among which is the case of Bright (Valuation Officer) v. British Oil Storage Company, Ltd. In this case it was declared that although rates may have been paid on an assessment without prejudice, they are not liable to be paid under the law. Therefore, I strongly recommend my right hon. Friend not to do it that way, but to do it by means of a plant and machinery rating order, of which so far we have had two, one in 1927 and the other in 1960.
  Mr. Ede: Does the hon. Member contend that pipelines are not at present liable to be assessed for rates?
  Mr. Skeet: Pipelines as here are not assessable for rates unless they are classified as structures, which they are not, or conduits, which, of course, they are not. If the right hon. Gentleman cares to look at the photostat copy of the case which I have with me, he will find that that is the conclusion.
  The other matter to which I wish to refer arises under Clause 51, which seeks to strike out the advantage of certain provisions of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, by eliminating the effect of Section 3 (2, b). A mining undertaking will make use of this Act to apply to the court if it desires to make compulsory purchase of property. At the same time, it can also obtain certain auxiliary rights, namely, to work the minerals and secure underground and surface easements. The effect of this provision is to delete the mineral undertaker's chance of securing these easements in the High Court. In future, for pipelines he must go to the Minister.
  That would seem to be entirely unreasonable. A publication known as the Control of Mineral Workings issued by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1960 makes the rather significant statement that
  "All applications to the High Court under these provisions are made to the Minister of Power who refers them to the High Court if he is satisfied that a prima facie case has been made out."
  I would have thought that if the matter came to the Minister of Power in the first instance, before being referred to the High Court, he would have an opportunity of stating what he requires

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  and, therefore, it would be unnecessary concerning pipelines to insert this Clause in the Bill. That is a practical point which needs to be extremely carefully considered.
  I wish to refer briefly to Clauses 8 and 9 and to pay tribute to the very good work done in another place to reassemble these Clauses, which formerly appeared together as Clause 8. They are amenable to still further improvement. What is being carried in the pipelines is a third party's products. Should not a time limit be imposed upon him? Oil or other companies will be working out their plans for many years ahead and may later require the spare capacity for themselves. If, however, they have to carry the products of a third party for a number of years, they may be carrying somebody else's oil and not their own. Therefore, if the Clause is passed in its present form, it may be desirable to specify a period of years or to say that at the end of a given period the matter could be reviewed.
  If capacity in a pipeline is being allocated to somebody, he should either take up that capacity or pay a reasonable charge for it. I apologise to the House for raising a number of points and for taking time on these matters. It is, however, advisable to do it at this stage, so that my right hon. Friend will have an opportunity of considering them in advance and considering what Amendments are likely to be put forward. An attempt may be made to cut down the size of the Bill by limiting its application. If it was so limited and reduced to the carriage of things which are immediately before us—hydrocarbon oils and chemicals—it might be much more desirable. If, however, my right hon. Friend extends it over a much broader field, it may well be necessary in ten or twelve years' time to come back to the House thoroughly to amend the Bill because of matters which are now unforeseen. In that event, it would be much wiser and tidier and a more pragmatic approach if we seek to confine its application as it has been done on the Continent.
  The Bill is a fair compromise between giving power to the State, on the one hand, and allowing private enterprise
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  to operate in certain spheres, on the other hand. To go too far towards what is termed the theoretical approach which has been put forward on the other side of the House might be to fall between two stools. The system would not work and pipelines simply would not be provided. We cannot, for example, expect the Transport Commission in its new format to build pipelines if it does not have the money. We cannot expect the Government to provide the money when many other sections of the community are in need. If ability and experience lies with the companies concerned—and it is their business to know—and they want to put a pipeline between any two points, they will certainly do so. Hon. Members may say that it is wrong to make a profit, but it is generally the case that a venture which makes a profit is successful. Many pipelines could be built, but they might not be used. If they are not used, they are unprofitable and it is the taxpayer who would ultimately have to pay.
  The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) said that he wears two hats. I wear one. I am a realist. I try to understand this legislation as a realist. We should not have a too academic approach. We should try to make the legislation work, and I hope that I have made some contribution towards that end.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Skeffington: We have listened to a very interesting speech by the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet). I shall not attempt to cross swords with him on his obvious considerable technical knowledge of the subject, but I shall certainly cross swords with him on one or two of his philosophical reflections. Very few hon. Members on this side of the House—indeed, I should have thought few members of the public—would accept the hon. Member's view that any system of transport must be economically justifiable—by that I assume the hon. Member means must make a profit for someone—in order to bring it into being. It was very unfortunate from his point of view that the hon. Member chose France as an example. Paris spends no less than £7 million per year subsidising public transport within the city to prevent

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  traffic falling into chaos, which it undoubtedly would if the tube and buses were expected to show an operating profit at the end of the year or not to run.
  I did not quite follow the hon. Member's argument about the French pipeline. I should like to get further information. My information is that as a matter of fact the French Government have a 51 per cent. holding in the Paris to Havre pipeline. Whatever may be the case in France, in Italy the Italian Government have a considerable financial interest in oil distribution, which shows the view they take about these methods of transporting petroleum and the position of the State.
  The hon. Member put forward a rather elaborate defence at the beginning of his speech to support the Government's view about private enterprise pipelines, no doubt leading to the conclusion with which he ended that if a profit is made it proves that the venture is successful. If this argument were the criteria applied to all things, we should get into queer streets indeed. All sorts of things—bingo halls—could be justified as being desirable because they made profits. In a serious national matter like this we must pay regard to other considerations as well as that of profitability. In many instances it is not the only factor which should determine development, if we are to have a balanced and decent society. The Labour Party, and I believe the country, would greatly quarrel with the point of view advanced by the hon. Member.
  This is obviously a Bill of very considerable importance, not only because of the intrinsic matters with which it deals, but because of the constitutional implications flowing from it. In addition, the public will be facing a considerable new hazard which I do not want to exaggerate, but the House certainly should not lose sight of it. Further, this legislation will undoubtedly usher in a substantial new transport development in the movement of a considerable number of liquids and, indeed, solids.
  This legislation period seems to me to be very similar to that which was the prelude to our great railway development 130 years ago when for the first time in our history it became necessary to place some limitation upon the old
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  concept of unlimited land ownership. Looking back over the 130 years, I do not think that anyone would doubt that but for that early railway legislation we should not have had the railway development which took place. This is a lesson which I hope will not be lost on the House, even today. It became necessary to limit ownership to some extent in the interests of the whole community.
  There are two reflections from a study of this period. First, while it is right for us to consider all the new risks involved—they are substantial, but I hope that we shall not exaggerate them—I hope that we do not expose ourselves to the sort of posthumous ridicule to which some of our forebears laid themselves open in regard to the railway legislation. They alleged that the smoke from the engines would upset the cows and curdle their milk and that the birds would die from the pollution. We must certainly be careful in the criticism we make of the new risks which will face the public as a result of this development. It is worth recalling the fears expressed 130 years ago of a fire risk from engines was a real risk. It is still with us. Indeed, throughout the intervening century it has needed a considerable number of legislative enactments to reduce the risks to more reasonable proportions.
  The second reflection from a study of the legislation of 130 years ago is this. There is not much doubt that the procedure of those days, which was by innumerable private railway Bills, gave rise to the piecemeal and uneven development of the railway system in our country for which we are today paying very dearly. One of the ironies of it is that many of the opponents of public ownership today ascribe the difficulties of the railways to the fact that they are under public ownership, whereas their difficulties are due to the reverse reason—piecemeal development by private enterprise interested in profitability rather than on a national system.
  We all know, from a study of the period, the intrigue and commotion that went on and the kind of auctioning that went on, for concessions between rival groups. Large centres of the population where there was thought to be a profitable freightage received the attention of various competing developers, which

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  sometimes led to duplicated routes, even unnecessary routes, whereas other equally important centres from the point of view of the interests of the country were neglected and received either no service or a very poor one.
  Mr. Skeet: I am following the hon. Gentleman's interesting argument about the mistakes that were made on the railways in the early days. However, it must be remembered that we come into the pipeline business at the end of a very vast experience. After 100 years' experience of pipelines in the States we have learned not to adopt the Hepburn Act of the United States. We also have precedents in France, for example, which will enable us to go on the right lines.
  Mr. Skeffington: I fully accept that. That was the point to which I was coming next. It is true that the Bill will prevent some of the worst features of private development, but I do not think that the Government have learned nearly enough from the experience of the past. The Bill is a very weak compromise between what might have been possible—a bold national scheme—and this attempt to regulate private enterprise in the hope that in the long run the national interest will be served. I do not think that is a possible compromise to make. I believe that we shall get the worst of both worlds.
  It is because we take this different view, as a result of many years' history, not only in this country but elsewhere, that we have tabled the Amendment which gives this clear alternative to the nation which I hope it will be possible in the not too distant future to implement.
  I believe that the Bill is an eloquent manifestation that the basic Conservative doctrine has changed very little in 130 years from its attitude towards railway development. Hence we have this failure to put forward what I have just described as a bold conception of a national scheme. A great opportunity has been missed by the Government to act in the interests of the whole nation.
  I turn now to what I believe without exaggeration to be a new real risk which now confronts the public. It is clear that the conveyance of liquids, and indeed solids, certainly petroleum and other inflammable liquids, through
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  built-up areas constitutes a serious fire and explosive risk. No doubt the pipeline operators—and I shall give my reasons for saying this—will take every precaution, but the conveyance of these inflammable liquids, presumably under pressure, constitutes a considerable hazard. Many people take the view that it is not absolutely certain that we can avoid all possibility of a leak for a variety of causes.
  In the event of a fracture to a pipeline conveying inflammable material of one kind or another under pressure, a considerable area of the country, including rivers and canals, could become contaminated and seep into buildings through a leakage. If there is a leak of coal gas it will in time disperse, providing there is no explosion and a naked light is not brought into contact with it. However, in the case of petroleum under pressure the ground would become contaminated for a long time either in the form of liquid or very heavy vapour.
  The hon. Member for Willesden, East does no service by suggesting that no risk was involved here. That is certainly not the view of the London County Council, which has considerable experience of large installations, within its area, of the nature which we are considering. The Council has authorised me to express the view that hazard is involved and cannot be absolutely eliminated. I do not say that pipelines should not be constructed, but there is an element of risk in them. There is a hazard, and it is for that reason that I and my hon. Friends, together with many people outside the House, would much prefer a public authority to deal with this matter because it would have a responsibility to the public as its first consideration. The same fairly cannot apply to a private developer.
  Nothing was said by the Minister about this element of risk. I do not wish to exaggerate it, but in built-up areas inflammable liquids under pressure constitute a risk if there is a fracture in the pipeline. I should like to know what standards of construction, what margin of risk and what steps they propose to deal with the risk.
  There are other points which, perhaps, it would be more appropriate to raise during the Committee stage, but I must refer to two matters which seem to me

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  to be gross defects in the Bill. I think it quite wrong that the construction of any pipeline, which can be up to ten miles in length, should not require specific Ministerial authority and should not be subject to the safeguards of the First Schedule. Ten miles is quite a long way. I should imagine that generally the shorter lengths of pipeline will be through built-up areas. I should have thought that this was just the sort of case in which one would want every precaution to ensure that the public were not subject to risk of fire or explosion.
  The same argument applies to the exemptions in Clauses 52 and 57. I am sure that all the authorities will take every care to ensure that there is no risk, but I think that, from every point of view—from the point of view of a general code of national safety, from the point of view of the welfare of those working in the industries concerned, such as the mines, quarries and electricity—it was a matter of common sense to have one authority responsible for safety regulations, standards of construction, and so on. I do not think that that would cause any great administrative difficulty. It is not as though the number of pipelines will multiply to such an extent that no authority could deal with them. I do not believe that that is likely.
  There is the strongest case for saying that all pipelines, whether ten miles in length or whether they come within the categories mentioned in Clauses 52 and 57, should be subject to Ministerial authority and such safeguards as are laid down in the First Schedule.
  I should like briefly to touch on my experience when I was a member of the L.C.C. Within its area, there are certain buildings which are exempted from the very strict fire prevention code of the L.C.C. These buildings are exempted by the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act, 1939, although the county is still responsible overall for fire precautions. Having exempted certain buildings, the result was that they constituted great difficulty in areas where safeguards otherwise could reasonably be enforced. It was necessary to have lengthy negotiations in order to get a minimum code voluntarily accepted. Obstacles were put in the way of general fire precautions which the
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  L.C.C., as the body charged with the responsibility of fire precautions, has found have created considerable difficulty. For that reason, and because it seems to me that here there is a golden opportunity to put all pipelines under one authority and to standardise safety, construction and maintenance regulations, I hope that the Minister will give these points serious consideration.
  I believe that, in view of the sort of companies likely to be involved, the penalties laid down in the Bill are derisory. I do not place too much emphasis on penalties because the important thing is to ensure that there is no breach of the regulations or of the Act. But I am sure that the public's reaction to these piffling penalties will be that this is a matter which has not been treated seriously. I gather that there was some debate about this in another place. Perhaps the Minister will be able to announce that it is proposed to make some alteration in the penalties.
  Pipeline developments are bound to affect constituencies like mine very much. Because London Airport is in the area, a very large volume of spirit, paraffin and petroleum is bound to be brought into it. I should be delighted if it were possible to get the conveyance of this material off the roads. I am therefore not against pipelines. The more we can get off the roads, the more we shall help safety and traffic flow. But, particularly in view of the opinion expressed by the L.C.C., I am apprehensive about the question of fire risk and explosion risk. I hope that the Minister who replies will be able to say something about this matter, because it has already caused some apprehension among those in the vicinity of London Airport, who already experience considerable risk from other things apart from the one which I have just mentioned.
  I am sorry that the Government have missed the opportunity of introducing a national system which could have served the public interest and not merely the private interests instead of being content with the lopsided system which we shall have. All I can say is that we may get a mandate in the next few months to alter the priorities. When we do, perhaps we shall have a very much better Bill than this one.
  7.19 p.m.
  Mr. John H. Osborn: My aim is to introduce a note of realism into the debate. On certain matters, such as safety and penalties, both sides of the House are in agreement. I think that perhaps our greater concern is with the future practical uses of pipelines when we have passed this legislation and with some of the more important economic considerations, whether the governing body is a nationalised body or, as we on this side plan, private industry.
  Having followed the Bill from its introduction in another place, I must say that I am most impressed by the way in which it has been changed and improved. I am not a lawyer, but I feel that the last version of the Bill has been altered out of all recognition from the Bill which was first considered. Their Lordships considered themselves amateurs, but I feel that that is a modest assessment of their ability and is far from the case.
  What does a Bill such as this mean to the ordinary people of the country? We must remember the consumers and the general public, and I have been considering the Bill from that point of view. Surely pipelines are but a means of improving the efficiency of distribution of certain products, and, therefore, indirectly a means of raising our standards of living. The question is one of man-hours. We have to compare the man hours required to lay a pipeline, with the man-hours required to lay down or maintain roads, rail or even shipping, and to compare the man-hours required to maintain an existing capital asset such as the railways with the man-hours required to lay down and bring into operation a new asset. We have to compare the man-hours of operating a pipeline with those of driving lorries. I refer particularly to the problem mentioned by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) about London Airport.
  Particularly after our discussion about the article by Mr. Nolan in the Petroleum Times, we are agreed that there are decided economies to be achieved by using pipelines. I therefore welcome the Bill in broad principle, as will many of the organisations and statutory authorities which will be affected by it. It implements the recom-
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  mendations of the Select Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot), which recommended that no further Private Bills should be used in connection with the construction of pipelines. There have been various disadvantages in the old procedure. Local authorities have asked for different safeguards and safety factors. As a result of the Bill, there will be consistency.
  What will people want? First, there must be positive encouragement to use pipelines as a new form of industrial development, although, as we have seen in the debate, they are nothing new. There is the possibility of conflict between the pipeline developer or operator and landowners, and I endorse many of the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield). There must be uniform conditions under which rights of way are granted to operating companies. I believe that as a result of the Bill this has been achieved.
  There is a potential danger to the public and a need for safety—a point which several hon. Members have raised. Certain conditions are laid down by pipeline operators already. My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) mentioned the new code of regulations which has been prepared by the Institute of Petroleum, and I want to dwell on that later. It is essential that somehow the Government should control pipeline development, not in the sense in which hon. Members opposite want control but in the sense of co-ordination with a degree of planning, on which I want to elaborate later.
  Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Will the hon. Gentleman explain the difference between what he wants in the way of control and what he thinks we want in the way of control? They seem to be just the same.
  Mr. Osborn: If the hon. Member allows me to pursue my theme, in the normal course of events I will answer him. If I do not answer his question I will willingly give way to a further interruption by him.
  The sense of disorder and arbitrary growth of the railway network of a hundred years ago should not be repeated with pipelines. Before dealing with the

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  economics of the operation of pipelines, I want to review the likely scope. No one has reminded the House that the most vital use of pipelines in this modern age is for water and water undertakings. The second greatest use is for gas. This is a use in transporting fluid and gases. It is in no way new to transport water or gas by pipeline. That immediately helps us to put the problem in its correct perspective. I mention this bacause the mileage required for petroleum transport in this country is infinitesimally small compared with the mileage already required for water and gas.
  I have discussed the implications of the Bill with suppliers of pipelines. It helps to put the Bill and the project into perspective to realise that the few hundred miles of pipeline used for petroleum products as well as for other materials in this country are insignificant compared with the requirements for water and compared with overseas projects for the transportation of oil.
  In considering the transportation of other materials we can disregard such materials as dry sand and grain. Although contrary to the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South, I suggest that we can disregard the transport of milk. The transport of these materials is not a practical proposition at this stage. There are other commodities, such as clay and various aggregates in the cement industry, which are being transported by pipe and have been transported in this manner for many years. Gravel is another commodity so transported. That is why I support the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East that we may find that the Bill goes too wide.
  Another problem is that of the transportation of iron ore from a mine in this country to a blast furnace. A belt conveyor is one means of doing it, but the normal means is overhead ropeways. A company which is using one overhead ropeway is considering the economics of a pipeline. There is this alternative method for the transportation of iron ore as a slurry. The complications of pipeline legislation must not be allowed to drive people away from the use of pipelines when they might prove to be a more economical means of the transportation of solids.
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  Reference has been made to the transportation in the United States of coal and coal slurry. Research has been carried out by the British Hydraulic Research Association, and I asked Questions on this a year ago. I think that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) also mentioned it. The Central Electricity Generating Board is taking the matter up. As a result of some of this research limestone is being transported in this way in Trinidad. This, admittedly, may be an indirect rather than direct result of this research. We have other examples of petroleum pipelines particularly that in Russia. There is the development from the north to the south of France which has been mentioned. The length of these pipelines is much greater than anything which we contemplate in this country.
  I want to deal with the fundamental economic criteria and with cost. One yardstick shows that transportation by sea is invariably cheaper for petroleum products than are pipelines. Another yardstick used in Europe shows that where there is a requirement of 500,000 tons or more it is probably cheaper by pipeline than by rail or other methods of land transport. Volume is the decisive factor in economics.
  We have talked about the future development of the transport of petroleum by pipeline. It is possible that a company may put down excess capacity to meet an expected rise in demand over a number of years. We have figures for the operating costs for that capacity, based mainly on the article by Mr. Nolan, but there is also a liability. What happens if the company puts down a pipeline for excess capacity and its market research is wrong? Who should be encouraged to invest money in a venture in which there is some risk?
  I think that commercial "know-how" should be the criterion rather than that the ambitions, perhaps, of the chairmen of non-commercial concerns should provide the correct basis for deciding whether to proceed with a project. This reference includes some of the chairmen of the boards of our nationalised industries. Prestige and other factors may come in, whilst that commercial "know-how", which the oil companies in this country certainly have, will be nonexistent in the nationalised undertakings.

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  I wish to make a further comment on the complexities of transporting different commodities by pipeline. These are not difficult to visualise. We may have three refineries making various products which are fed into one pipeline and various feeder lines going to various distribution points. These is a tremendous science in developing these projects, and that knowledge is held by the oil companies of the world. It may be gained by those outside the oil companies, but the experience may well and truly be costly, because "know-how" is something that is developed only by experience and practice over a long period of time.
  This brings me to the point which divides the two sides of the House. Surely the object of pipelines is to provide a service to the community, and so, for that matter, is the object of industry. The criterion for the survival of an industry, whether we like it or not, is its profitability. I am aware that a decision given, in the end, by the Minister and endorsed by the House will give a pipeline operator a chance of constructing a pipeline over certain routes in such a way that he has a possible economic advantage over a competitor who may not be given this licence or permission by the Minister.
  For the same reason, why should a landowner allow a pipeline over his property if the profit from it goes to the operator, unless there is to be reasonable compensation, and unless the landowner is satisfied with the terms of the contract which is made. There have been private negotiations beforehand, but the landowners must be satisfied that they have been given an adequate price for the route or the wayleave? On the other hand, given this right, if an operator makes a wrong assessment of the usage which is likely to be made of the pipeline, there will be a loss. Therefore, as I said before, the decision as to whether or not a pipline should be constructed must be taken on a purely commercial basis.
  Turning specifically to the transport of oil by pipeline. I would reiterate that it is the oil companies which have the necessary "know-how" and knowledge from the pattern of their trade. I would sooner see the oil companies
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  making a profit out of these ventures than the nationalised undertakings take part in them. There is no supreme penalty, such as that which faces the chairmen of private industry, to confront the chairmen of nationalised industries. They do not have to face bankruptcy as a result of their mistakes. The taxpayer pays, and one of our aims on this side of the House has been to seek to relieve the taxpayer of that particular risk.
  I therefore wish to take up the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) and say that it is in the public interest that there should be no liability on the taxpayer when embarking on a project of this kind. It is much better that the risk should be taken primarily by the oil companies, which have the resources, concerning petroleum pipelines, rather than that the outcome should be financed by the State and ultimately the taxpayer.
  Reference has also been made to legislation in Europe and in the United States of America. The one lesson that has been learned is that the common carrier obligation does not work properly in the United States, and the trend is to contemplate joint venture projects; and I would certainly describe the Trapil pipeline from Le Havre to Paris as a most interesting venture, built by all the interested parties, with, of course, the State as a participant.
  This brings me to Clause 8. I have shown that the common carrier obligation does not work, but how is a pipeline to be constructed and owned to ensure its profitable operation, with due regard to the rights of landowners whose property the pipeline will cross? How will Clauses 8 and 9 operate when the Bill is passed, and how will the Minister use his powers? The first essential, obviously, is that the bigger companies, which have the bulk of the demand from one refinery to one distribution centre, should give facilities to their smaller competitors.
  The biggest area in which there is demand is the West Midlands, and the first authorisation—I am looking ahead, and I look to the Minister to contemplate what the decision would have to be—might well be for a supply by pipeline to the Midlands. If this is granted

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  on one route from, say, the Thames to the Midlands, it would place most private operators with refineries in the Sopth-West—Pembroke, Wales, Stanlow, in Lancashire, or the North-East, at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if he authorises four small pipelines, the pipeline operation could well become un- economic. Thus we in the House have to decide who is to have the final say in the taking of this decision.
  The question of granting a common carrier obligation to help a small company, which may in due course want to use a pipeline laid down by a larger company, has been dealt with in Clause 9, which I believe that it has been reworded and changed in another place so that we now have adequate safeguards. I think that the best way of using legislation is to ensure that there is a degree of co-operation between competitors. The joint venture, as such—even with State participation, if necessary, which is something on which I should frankly frown in the early stage, as there is no need for it—is the ideal solution. But we have to be careful about this. It is wrong for the House to give rights without relevant obligations. It would be wrong for us to make provision to help small people if those people are not to accept some financial liabilities. My reading of Clause 9 is that the words in line 40
  "being payments in consideration of the right's being secured to him."
  will give adequate cover to the big operator granting facilities to a smaller one.
  It is very encouraging to note that the two leading oil companies are contemplating working together, and have interested smaller ones interested in the routes to join them in the venture. In regard to the long-term question of planning, I think that there might well be a special section of the National Economic Development Council to deal with the oil companies and those operating pipelines.
  I have various comments to make on other Clauses of the Bill. The first is that we must make quite certain that a steel company, because of the legislation which we pass, does not elect to transport its ore by any other than the most economical means. Would it be easier, under the Town and Country
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  Planning Act, to construct an aerial ropeway rather than contemplate the construction of a pipeline for over 10 miles for the conveyance of raw materials to the steel works?
  I should like also to comment on safety with regard to pipelines, and to suggest that there is a lot to be said for greatly reducing the Clauses on safety—Clauses 19 to 23—and bringing in regulations instead. The technical criteria for the operation of pipelines, pumping stations and other equipment are changing from year to year. Are we to have these factors too closely tied up in the Bill, or would it not be better to make use of regulations?
  The final thing is the question of the choice of routes, and now I would develop the interruption I made in the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport. We have to face the fact that the laying of a pipeline would be cheaper across country than alongside a railway for the simple reason that the equipment could not be got alongside railway sidings to dig the necessary trenches to carry the pipeline. The general view is that it would be very costly in practice to lay pipelines alongside railway lines. I know that this view is not shared by certain members of the British Transport Commission, but unless a new technique is found for quickly laying pipelines alongside railway lines I am certain that cross-country routes will be cheaper.
  May I end on a personal note? I am one of what I believe to be the very few hon. Members who have a pipeline already across their own land. I have one at the end of my garden. I had the opportunity to buy some land. There was a notice in the deeds that there was a pipeline, but I did not read my deeds carefully, and proceeded to obtain planning permission to build a house. I forgot completely all about the pipeline, and arranged to have my deeds filed away by my solicitor. Six to nine months later, when I had almost completed my house, I had a letter from one of the offices of the Ministry of Power to remind me that I had a pipeline going through my land, and also to remind me that a building should not be placed within 10 ft. of it—as is similarly provided in Clause 24 of the Bill.

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  What would have happened under the Bill if I had inadvertently constructed a house over that pipeline?
  Mr. Skeffington: Pull it down.
  Mr. Osborn: That is a fair answer, but as a landowner I should be sorely peeved, having invested a large amount of money in a house or other building, at being forced by a Minister to pull it down. A situation such as this could be a means of causing immense ill-will between those in power and a private individual.
  There is another answer, of course. It could be arranged by agreement, if such a mistake had been allowed to happen, to have the pipeline diverted, and that would be cheaper. This is the sort of problem which could arise, and I think that there must be adequate safeguards to ensure that landowners have protection against those in power.
  In principle, this is a Bill which I support and endorse, and I am quite certain that in the long run it will enable fuels—and solids, too—to be transported more cheaply and effectively, and on a proper basis.
  7.42 p.m.
  Sir Leslie Plummer: The Minister can be under no illusions about the number of Amendments which are going to be tabled to this Bill when it goes to Committee. A very considerable number of them are going to be tabled by hon. Gentlemen who are sitting behind him. Indeed, the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) excused his speech by saying to the Minister that he was giving him advance notice of Amendments he would put down.
  I am not going to follow that example. I do not propose to give any notices of Amendments which I think should be made to the Bill, and I do not propose to discuss it Clause by Clause. In any case, I do not think there is time enough for that, and it would weary the House. I would much prefer to deal with the Bill in purely general terms.
  As was said by the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot)—who, incidentally, is to be congratulated on the way he acted as Chairman of the Select Committee, on which, with three of my
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  colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party, I sat—this Bill really emerged from the unanimous decision which we came to on the Esso Bill. I do not myself want to join with him or with the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) in claiming any paternity for this Bill, because this Bill, as it stands now, does not represent the view of the four Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party of what would be a proper substitute for the sort of Measure which we had before us. I think we ought to make this quite clear. While it is perfectly true that we were a happy band, as the hon. Member said, and that we came to a unanimous decision, we came to a unanimous decision only on the Report which we produced; we came to no unanimous decision on the terms and conditions which are laid down in this Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) referred to the anarchical position which is now existing, and which, I think, will continue to exist unless this Bill is altered very considerably. When I sat on that Select Committee day after day I went through one of those great brainwashing experiences which all of us suffer when we sit on Select Committees. That is to say, we faced a bench of learned counsel who were taking every opportunity to convince us that their clients were right. It was an arduous, even a nerve-racking, experience to keep alert and to resist the blandishments of those gentlemen. They did not convince me. Indeed, I have had a sweet revenge since sitting on that Select Committee. Although I am frequently told that the Esso sign means happy motoring, I have solemnly sworn never to buy a single drop of Esso petroleum—in revenge for what they did to me during those laborious days. I buy another brand, whose name I shall not reveal.
  What came out of that investigation was the cold-blooded way in which it was argued that what Esso wanted was good for Esso and therefore was good for the nation. An hon. Member opposite said a little while ago that to make a profit is for the public good, and that that is the justification for it. That is roughly the line which the Esso Company took. It said this: "We are not concerned with whether it is bad for the railways or bad for shipping. We

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  want to run a pipeline from Fawley to Severn-side"—I think it is called—"because we want to have our petroleum bought by I.C.I. and turned into flannel trousers—into man-made fibres. It is in the interests of the profit of I.C.I. and it is in the interests of the profit of Esso that this operation should take place, and, of course, it is going to mean a considerable reduction in cost."
  To whom? I ask. That was what one of my hon. Friends asked. A considerable reduction in cost to whom? The consumer? Or is it that what is really meant is that there is going to be a considerable increase in profit either to I.C.I. or to Esso? We got no answer to that at all.
  That was what was impressed upon me all the time, and it has been impressed upon me listening to the debate today—and I have not moved from the Chamber, except for two or three minutes, since 2.30. The assumption by hon. Members on the other side, who constantly describe themselves as realists, is that providing this thing is profitable it is therefore in the national interest and it is for the common good. But this was not the view of Esso. Esso's view was that it was in the interests of Esso. That was the purpose of the legislation which we were considering in the Select Committee.
  I am concerned with the ultimate control of the Act which will emerge. I do not believe it comes properly and naturally under the control of the Minister of Power, with all respect to him. He himself has made it quite clear that he has no possessive pride in this. I believe that it should come ultimately—and soon—under the control of the Minister of Transport, because this is a transport operation. Therefore, it ought to come under his control, and it ought to come under his control because one of his duties is to preserve what is left of the railways of this country and to save them from going even deeper into bankruptcy and insolvency.
  We ought to have before us the lesson of what took place in the United States when there was uncontrolled pipeline development which resulted in the pipeline operators themselves, Standard Oil, which is the American name for Esso, being responsible for fixing to some degree the freight rates on the railways
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  with which they were competing. By virtue of the fact that they were taking oil off the railways and bunging it through the pipeline they were able to say, "You must accept our rates for carrying fuel."
  It is true that the Americans have accepted the principle of the common carrier. If the pipeline development in this country were under the control of the Ministry of Transport it would be perfectly right and legitimate for the Minister to see that the common carrier clause was applied. This is not a job for the Minister of Power. It is essentially a job for the Minister of Transport.
  I was lunching today downstairs with a delegate to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Study Group. He is a white South African from Bechuanaland. He explained what happened when there was an attempt made in South Africa by pipeline developers to build a pipeline from Durban to the Rift. The Minister of Transport in the South African Government—and, heaven knows, I do not want to pray in aid the South African Government but this man clearly knows his job—said, "I am not going to have this. This railway line makes £7 million a year. It is in the national interest that we should keep the railway line running efficiently and properly." They run 150 extra trains a day for the Christmas holiday. The Minister said it was essential that the line should be kept open and he said, "You are not going to open a pipeline because it is against national interest that you should do it."
  Here we have an example from a country for whose normal policy I have nothing but abhorrence and detestation, taking the view that what is in the public interest shall run and not what is in the interest of private profit. Therefore, I should like to see the whole of this operation under the control of the Minister of Transport and the development of pipelines vested in one of the boards which will take the place of the British Transport Commission, or perhaps the holding company.
  We have already suffered in this country from the Government's denationalisation of road transport in 1952–53, which dealt railways a tremendous blow. We are now faced with the development of pipelines. I do not object to their

  531
  development, but unless they are integrated with our national transport system what we shall have is the affluence of pipeline operators and the poverty of our national transport system. We cannot have two worlds—a prosperous pipeline industry and an even more bankrupt national transport industry.
  I wanted to raise a point with my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), whom I am sorry not to see in his place. I also want to raise it with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn). When, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Dover, we listened to expert witnesses, they made it clear to us that we are only at the beginning of the development of pipelines, and that it is is not only a question of pumping petrol or gas or oil but that all sorts of things will be put through them. This is an amazing development. In the next 50 years the country will be honeycombed with a complex of pipelines carrying goods of all sorts.
  We should, therefore, be having a working party set up by the Government to talk to these experts and to ask people like the dairymen whom the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) mentioned, "Where do you want the pipeline to go?" Esso said, "We must have a pipeline from Fawley to London Airport for the good reason that Shell have one and they are competitors of ours." This is the anarchy of the situation. It is simply saying, "Let us duplicate pipelines all over the place because our competitors are doing it and there is plenty of dough attached to it." It is our job and that of the Government to see that the development of the pipelines over the next decade or two is not bedevilled with the inflationary things that took place in railway development 130 years ago.
  Just as it is important that the essential services are put into an area before factories come there, that is to say, water, electricity and transport, so it is necessary, if we are to open up new areas of development and to deal with problems of under-employment in certain places, that we should be pushing pipelines in those directions. As has been said, a pipeline can be an instrument in creating new lines of development.
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  The Bill is better than nothing at all, but, it can and must be made much better than it is. If I were the Minister I would have been concerned at and alarmed by the speech of the hon. Member for Dover, because the hon. Member uttered perhaps the most cogent detailed criticism of the Bill to come from either side of the House. I know that the hon. Member is a passionate supporter of the Minister. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman had better watch out. I assure him that there is a lot of trouble coming from that quarter. I should not be too happy with the reception given to the Bill in its present form.
  Finally, I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for making an intervention while he was speaking. I thought that he was irritated by it. I asked whether he would let us know the names of some of the people whom he had been consulting while the Bill was being drafted. I did not intervene in any flippant way and I did not mean in the slightest degree to upset the right hon. Gentleman for whom we all have a great deal of respect. I asked because I wanted an answer to something that was bothering us on this side of the House.
  We have been told that Trunk Pipelines Ltd. has been negotiating a contract with the British Transport Commission and that the Commission, despite what hon. Members opposite have said about the impossibility of running pipelines along railway verges, is very interested in that development. This is a matter of considerable concern to us. I wanted to find out whether an agreement had been reached between the Commission and Trunk Pipelines Ltd., whether the Minister was aware of it, and whether if such an agreement has been reached it stands and is valid with the new authority which is being set up to take the place of the British Transport Commission. This is an important point which I hope will be dealt with in the Government's reply.
  Finally, I hope that in the Committee stage we shall have an opportunity to improve the Bill to such a degree that this House will not have to come back in ten or twenty years' time with an entirely new Measure to deal with all sorts of disturbances and obstacles in the way

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  of development and blocks on the road of progress because we proved to be too limited, too narrow, too pedestrian in our approach in this Bill. That, however, is the fault in the Bill. It will be up to the Minister to eradicate that fault and see to it that the development of pipelines in this country is, primarily, fundamentally in the national interest.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. A. P. Costain: When I interrupted the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) I said that I had a certain amount of experience of pipelines. I was referring to the fact that I was on the board of the company which built the trans-Persian pipeline, which has several times been referred to by hon. Members in this debate. I have been interested to note that no right hon. or hon. Member has doubted in any way the advisability of building pipelines.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) mentioned the economic effect. I have indirectly been connected with pipeline building in Persia for more than thirty years, and the House should know that there has been tremendous development in engineering and safety in the construction and use of pipelines. I join with the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) in paying my tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot) for the work that he has done on the Bill. My hon. Friend's speech very well demonstrated that he had done his homework on the subject.
  As so many different points have already been raised, I will confine my remarks to one or two. First—and I hope that my right hon. Friend will be with me in this—I hope that, in building lateral pipelines throughout the country, special care will be taken not to sterilise building land. The House has had so many debates on the shortage of building land that I think I shall have right hon. and hon. Members with me when I say that it would be a tragedy if a pipeline was so constructed as to sterlise such land for possible development either now or in the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Hallam gave a practical example of how, inadvertently, he almost built a house on a pipeline. Some provision should be that,
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  if a pipeline is to be constructed near a possible development area, it should be sunk deeper or surrounded by concrete.
  The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) made special reference to the anxiety of the London County Council about safety. It is fair to say, however, that there is always a risk in any form of transportation. But the danger in transporting liquid fuel by pipeline is very much less than in its transportation by any other method. The risk of an explosion in a pipeline carrying petroleum products is probably a good deal less than the danger from a gas main, particularly bearing in mind that the type of pipe used to convey liquids is flexible and without the spigot, socket and joint of the gas main. The House can be reassured on that point.
  However, the central theme of the debate has been whether these pipelines should be constructed and run by private enterprise or under public ownership. Members opposite have kept true to form with their formula, "Our Johnny, public ownership, looks to the country's welfare, and your Johnny, private enterprise, looks only for profit." They assume that anything done by a public authority will be for the benefit of the public.
  Quite recently, however, there was an example in Lancashire, where my company introduced from the United States a new firm to set up in a new town. This firm water a supply of gas for construction purposes, but the public utility—and this may be surprising to hon. Members opposite—said, "You can have a gas main only if you pay the cost of bringing the main into the area." I forget the exact figure, but I believe that the cost was about £40,000. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover is present, I will also mention the case of a firm in his area, where the gas board wanted money before introducing services. Members opposite say that public ownership must be for the public benefit, but I doubt whether the nation goes far with them when it considers some of the nationalised industries.
  Hon. Members opposite base some of their case on the argument that this does not need much capital expenditure, and have referred to an article in the

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  Petroleum Times, written by Mr. Nolan. I have had the privilege of knowing Mr. Nolan for many years. We were in Persia together and I have high respect for his technical ability. When I first knew him, he was in road transport, and he is a recent convert to pipelines. He is employed by one of the best consulting engineers in this country, who has dealt for some time with pipelines. I am sure that, when Mr. Nolan wrote that article to give an overall picture of the cost of pipelines, he did not expect hon. Members opposite to use it as a prospectus to bring out a national pipeline company.
  Mr. Nolan talked about averages. In an article of that sort one can only discuss averages. One cannot possibly float a company or a nationalised industry on averages. The hon. Member for Derby, North made play with the fact that an 8 in. pipeline might be proposed while the Minister stated that it should be a 10 in. pipeline. He asked whether that size would be big enough. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that a 10 in. pipeline has 50 per cent. more capacity, and that by doubling the pressure one can increase the capacity by 41 per cent?
  Hon. Members opposite say that pipelines are easy to run—that one just puts the products through and brings them out at the other end. Having had something to do with running pipelines, I can assure them that the system is as complicated as is the railways system. I know of cases where the railways have lost a steel truck in the open air where it could be seen. If that is so on the surface, what about underground, where one cannot see these things? The distribution through pipelines depends on very accurate delineation of where the products are. I do not want to develop this at great length because I know that, like myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has been here since the debate began, hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I will, therefore, summarise my main objections to public ownership.
  If this project were carried out by private enterprise, one of the oil companies—possibly B.P.—would be one of the firms involved. B.P. is, anyway, very largely owned by the Government. Private enterprise has to pay rates.
  Mr. Herbert Butler: Does B.P. lose its goods?
  Mr. Costain: That firm has experience of pipelines and I want it to help with the job. I do not want to see another public corporation set up. This job can be done by experts who are already experienced in the work. I was going on to say that when it is run at a profit a company pays rates, and there is such a thing as Income Tax. Having got somebody else to do the work, the Government take more than 50 per cent. of the profit—the word which hon. Members opposite regard as dreadful—without having made any capital investment.
  I was impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), who kept putting a hat on and taking a hat off. Most of the time I found myself more in agreement with him than I had expected. He pleaded that the Government should use their capital for purposes other than this. I fully support him. On the other hand. should pipelines go to public ownership, and a loss be made, as is often the case with a nationalised industry, the rates, Profits Tax and Income Tax are lost, and the losses are borne by the ordinary taxpayer.
  I welcome the Bill. I hope that the Committee points about housing and land, and so on, will be considered by the Minister. There has been some reference to whether a 10-mile pipeline inside a chemical works would come under the Bill. This is a Committee point, but I would like the Bill to lay down a distance from the point the liquid enters the pipe to the point it reaches its destination as forming the length of pipe which would be covered by the Bill.
  In welcoming the Bill I ask hon. Members to make one reservation. Pipelines have a wonderful future, but they should not be given credit for what they cannot do. Hon. Members have spoken of putting milk in pipelines, but they should remember that the whole length of the pipeline would have to be filled with the product and I would not like milk which had been in the pipeline for three weeks to be delivered to my doorstep.
  8.12 p.m.
  Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) is one of the two or three hon. Members opposite so far who have welcomed the Bill generally. Most of the speeches of hon. Members opposite, as well as many from this side of the House, have contained Committee points which have completely devastated the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has nothing in the Bill of which to be proud. He has been told in advance that he must expect trouble from his hon. Friends in Committee. But those are not the matters to which I want to make reference.
  Much has been said about the principle underlying the Bill. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe has just said that hon. Members on this side of the House have been sounding off their trumpets in order to get public ownership. He has completely misconceived our views on this subject. We like public ownership, particularly when there is a profit which can be brought into the public coffers; but our main criticism of the Bill has been on the question not of ownership, but of planning.
  Ownership can be completely irrelevant to whether an undertaking is efficient. If there is one lesson to be learned from the fact that Richard Thomas and Baldwins has not been sold back to private enterprise, whereas most other steel concerns have, it is that public or private ownership is completely and utterly irrelevant to efficiency. Richard Thomas and Baldwins cannot be beaten for efficiency, or for the relationship between management and employees. It is an excellent firm from every point of view and it is under public ownership. Does any hon. Member opposite dispute that it is thoroughly efficient? The Government are greatly to be congratulated on not having denationalised Richard Thomas and Baldwins for doctrinaire reasons.
  I use that merely as an example to show that the ownership of the shares in a concern need not necessarily have the slightest relevance to the efficiency with which that concern operates. It is not on the question of ownership that we have been stressing our opposition to the Bill, but primarily on whether the Bill brings about an orderly development of our pipeline resources.
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  Although there are some, there are few hon. Members who can say from their own knowledge whether there will be a tremendous development of pipelines in this or that direction. On this subject I am happy to take the comments of those who know more, or who have been better briefed than I, about this subject, and to recognise that the Minister was probably right to say that we are on the threshold of considerable development in the pipeline world, or underworld. If that is the case, is it not plain common sense that there should be some direction of this development in the national interest? Yet we have the Government sitting in their ample armchairs and doing nothing, absolutely nothing, about this direction. Are we to have a completely haphazard development of pipelines? Is there not to be any thought—when deciding whether a pipeline should be driven from this point to that—as to whether it is in the long-term national interest? Is profit to the individuals who construct it to be the only consideration?
  Hon. Members opposite, again including the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, have said that we object to profit. They can go on believing that if they like, but it is not true. We object not to profit but to the exploitation of the public for personal profit. We say, not that it is wrong that pipeline companies should make a profit, but that it is wrong that the profit of individuals should be the sole criterion in deciding whether an undertaking should be made.
  There is this further consideration which has been touched on in the debate today, namely, that when public powers are given to private individuals, when they are given privileges to dig up roads and purchase land compulsorily, or whatever it might be, they should not be given solely or mainly to enable private individuals to profit.
  Mr. Costain: They are given primarily because a service is being provided.
  Mr. Mallalieu: They may be providing an excellent service, but they will also be making profits—some of them handsome profits—and all this is being done by steamrollering pipelines through the country at the expense of individuals.
  Most individuals do not mind having things done at their expense, provided

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  they can see that these things are being carried out in the national interest. They do not mind someone making a profit at their expense, provided that it is done in the national interest. We cannot tell whether this haphazard pipeline development will be in the national interest; indeed, all experience leads us to believe that it will not be in the national interest if it is done haphazardly. I am not afraid of being impolite or rude to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I do not think that it is necessary in this case. I could use stronger words than higgledy-piggledy, but that phrase precisely describes what will happen in the development of these pipelines. There will be absolute chaos and duplication.
  There are only two small parts of the Bill which even remotely touch on the question of control from above in the national interest. Clause 1 has a slight element of control in it, and Clause 8, which is designed to prevent unnecessary duplication, may be partially successful in its application.
  The Clause 1 controls are in the nature of town planning controls and restrictions. They are not positive controls in the direction of development in the national interest. They are restrictions which may be desirable from a town planning point of view, but this is only a small element in what I am trying to put across to the Front Bench opposite, namely, that there must be something more than is proposed here. There must be national control and direction in the construction of the lines.
  I do not want to speak for too long because many wise things have been said during the debate already which I think should have shown the Government that there is strong feeling on both sides of the House about this Bill. The Government must not approach this or indeed any other question from too doctrinaire a point of view. My feeling is that the Government are not being particularly doctrinaire on this occasion. They are merely being bone idle. They are going to sit back in armchairs watching this thing happen around them and are not going to take sufficient steps to control it in the right direction in the national interest.
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  This is one more example of what I regret to have to describe as Tory thinking in this day and generation with regard to private profits. We do not mind private profit, but when it is made the be all and end all of economic activity, it strikes us on this side of the House as being a sad state of affairs indeed.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: Is my hon. and learned Friend suggesting that on some occasions the Tory Party has not considered that profit was the beginning and end of everything?
  Mr. Mallalieu: No, indeed not. I was suggesting that sometimes right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite were too lazy even to consider that motive, or indeed any other motive. This seems to be happening at the moment because they are too busy thinking of private profit in other directions. I submit that they have allowed a great deal of unnecessary sprawl and unsuitable building, making the landscape and skyscape round London eyesores. The Government have allowed shocking planning because it has been thought profitable to individuals to do so.
  There is also the example of the railways. Hon. Gentlemen opposite never tire of referring to the unprofitability of the railways, even though they created the present situation by giving to their friends that part of the transport undertaking which was extremely profitable, namely, the road transport. It is the Tory philosophy of profit which is creating this sad situation in the country. Ugliness is becoming more and more frequent and permanent, and gradual stagnation is setting in in the economy, due to laziness on the Government's part and failure to give proper thought to directing our economy in the national interest.
  This Bill is not only an example of the law of the jungle. It shows that the Conservative Party is actually signposting the way to the jungle to encourage people to go in and scramble about in it if in the process these activities increase and the jungle encroaches on decent land, it will be just too bad. This seems to be the philosophy of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and shows that we have reached a sad state of affairs. I

  541
  know there is uneasiness about this Bill on both sides of the House, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friends for putting down the Amendment which embodies the opposite theory, that we ought in the national interest to have thought for planning—to see to it that our activities are co-ordinated in the right direction. I am grateful to my right hon. Friends for having tabled the Amendment, and I hope that the House will accept it.
  8.25 p.m.
  Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Trunk pipelines, or at any rate pipelines up to ten miles in length, have a considerable history in the West Country. They were primarily used for transporting china clay from the china clay workings to the factories, where the clay was dried out into blocks, whence a large proportion of it was sent to the docks for export. Those pipelines had this distinction from the ones we are discussing today. First, there were no compulsory purchase orders to enable the ground through which they passed to be compulsorily acquired; it was purchased by free negotiation. Secondly, they were operated by gravity rather than by pumping. Lastly, the substance they carried was in no way injurious or dangerous.
  Those who live in the West Country and drive on roads which sometimes get covered with a mixture of china clay which has fallen from trucks, which has been diluted with rain, have good reason to be thankful if the china clay reaches its destination through pipelines rather than by road transport. Quite apart from the economic cost of transporting goods by trunk pipelines, there are many commodities which travel by road, as the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) mentioned, which might for one reason or another cause grave inconvenience to other members of the public.
  Until the first quarter of this century, or a little later, it was generally believed that people not only owned the pillar of ground going down to the centre of the earth, where presumably it tapered to a point, below their property, but also enjoyed the ownership of the column of air above their property. Space in those days was not a relevant consideration. Then Air Navigation Acts came along entitling the general public to the right
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  to fly over property without requiring wayleave or permission of any kind so long as they flew above the minimum altitude limitations. This surely is another extension of that principle. It is limiting to some extent the right of people to exercise the ownership of their property below a certain level, and it also restricts to some extent what they can do with their property above that level. For instance, they cannot build houses which may crush a pipeline. This brings me to a matter that I should like my hon. Friend to consider.
  Clause 23 gives the Minister the right to cause an abandoned pipeline, or a pipeline that has not been used far over three years, to be removed when it constitutes a source of danger, but has no power under that Clause to cause a disused or abandoned pipeline to be removed on the grounds that it causes grave inconvenience. This is an alteration which could well be considered in Committee. One can imagine a number of cases where ground has been sterilised by the existence of pipelines. A pipeline might no longer be of any use because the airport which it served has been closed.
  Had there been fuel pipelines to Blackbushe Airport before it was closed, those pipelines would presumably still be in existence. The fact that they have been washed out and therefore do not constitute a danger would mean, hypothetically, that the Minister could not act under the provisions of Clause 23 and either order their removal or alleviate the effect of the prohibitions upon building over the disused pipelines. That matter could well be considered in Committee.
  Clause 10 (2) provides that:
  "The Minister, on an application for a compulsory purchase order, shall have power in his discretion to grant the application or to refuse it."
  To my untutored mind that excludes the possibility of refusing a compulsory purchase order but granting, instead, an order far the compulsory acquisition of rights over land for construction of pipelines, which is the alternative means by which the company which wishes to introduce the pipeline may obtain the necessary permission to do so.
  It is very important that applications for compulsory purchase orders should

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  not be made when an acquisition for rights over land for construction of pipelines would suffice. In other words, if we grant the case for limiting the rights of individuals, for the greater convenience of the community, it is nevertheless incumbent upon us to make sure that the restriction on those rights are not greater than is necessary to achieve the objective in respect of which those rights are being restricted. Unless my interpretation is incorrect, with an Amendment to Clause 10 we could achieve the result which the Bill sets out to achieve in this respect, while limiting the scope of potential hardship or injustice more strictly than at the moment.
  Incidentally, in the early days of railway legislation there was a fairly widely held view that the constructors and owners of a railway line and system, having a monopoly right, in the sense that they owned the system which they had constructed, should not be permitted to operate trains upon that line but should merely act as owners of the system, the use of which was hired out to one or more competing organisations, individuals or bodies corporate who wished to avail themselves of the facilities brought into existence by the company concerned in pursuance of the rights conferred by Private Bills.
  Although this system was tried in a few cases it met with no success. It will not be at all difficult for hon. Members to guess why. The safety aspect, with a number of completely dissociated operators endeavouring to run on one system, left so much to be desired that the experiment was not persisted with.
  I sometimes wonder how a number of different substances can be pumped through a solitary pipe by a number of different operators, if that is the objective of one of the Clauses. Although there are great similarities between many of the products of the various petroleum companies they do not compete with each other in price in many cases. The whole import of their advertisements is to point out the alleged differences between their products rather than the similarities between them. If the substances to be pumped through the various pipes are dissimilar, and perhaps inimical to each other, it would seem that great operating problems are in-
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  volved in cleansing between one operation and another.
  Mr. Costain indicated dissent.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am happy to be told by my hon. Friend that this is not the case.
  Mr. Costain: Provided the products are basically the same they can be separated by what is technically known as a plug, which is simply a volume of water or some other substance. It is not possible to send raw basic fuel and finished products through the same pipeline because certain residues would be left in the pipeline.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clearing up that matter.
  The question of liability has already been referred to. I merely wish to appeal to my right hon. Friend for insurance cover.
  I think that is not unreasonable. Whether it be an aircraft or a motor car, or any device or process liable to cause extensive damage to members of the public, I think it reasonable that the operator should have to carry a large amount of insurance. I am not suggesting that pipelines are inherently hazardous. If the substances conveyed are inflammable or volatile substances, such as petroleum spirit, I should imagine that the risk of transferring them in a sealed pipe over a given distance is much less than the risk of sending the substance by road, or even by rail, with the accompanying hazards of accidental damage. This point has been mentioned by other hon. Members, but I hope that it will be referred to by the Minister.
  My right hon. Friend in introducing the Bill made no plea that it should be passed into law in the virgin, or somewhat polluted virgin, state in which it has arrived in this House. I believe that the fundamental objective of the Bill is desirable. Whatever view we may take of the merits of the profit motive, it is irrelevant in a situation where this process, as a means of transport, is desirable. With a society of 52 million people which is increasing each year, and with the volume of trade and transport increasing each year, I think that there is every incentive to increase to the

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  maximum those means of transport which do not involve further congestion of the land surface. At present we are losing 500 acres of agricultural land a week to house and factory building and road construction. I look forward to this process as an additional means of transport which will tend to alleviate a certain amount of the congestion on the land surface; remove an element of danger which attends the movement of certain types of commodities and also as something which will expedite the delivery of commodities in a manner which is both safe and effective.
  8.38 p.m.
  Mr. William Warbey: A number of hon. Members have praised this Bill with faint damns and others have damned it with faint praise. I have not heard anyone speak about the Measure with great enthusiasm. On the other hand, every one agrees that we ought to have a Bill on lines similar to this one.
  The difficulty which we all face is the fact that there are three conflicting interests which have to be reconciled and, almost inevitably, in trying to achieve this the Government have done a very bad job. Firstly, there are the interests of the private enterprise developers, who wish to go ahead and build pipelines in order to make a profit from them or in order to save money on transport and thereby increase their profits in other ways. There are, secondly, the interests of private individuals, whose personal rights in land or property may be affected, and local authorities and public undertakings whose services may be affected by pipelines cutting across them or going above and below them and leading to all kinds of disturbances, including the blocking of streets while the pipelines are actually being constructed.
  Thirdly, there is the general public interest, which is to ensure that this very important and valuable new means of transportation shall serve the public. Here I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) on its value as a comparatively safe, convenient and efficient means of transportation in certain special cases. The public interest requires that this great new development should take place in ways which, firstly, realise the maximum of which it is capable and are not neces-
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  sarily restricted, secondly, in ways which avoid unnecessary and wasteful duplication and multiplicity, and, thirdly, in ways which result in some degree of co-ordination and integration, not only within the pipeline system itself, but also with other forms of transport.
  Finally, as was pointed out by one hon. Member, there is a possible strategic interest in this matter. The railways are regarded as a matter of strategic importance and the pipeline system obviously also, in fact so much so that we already have 1,200 miles of publicly-owned pipelines in the country, built and belonging to the Government and still belonging to the Government. This is one of the bits of public enterprise which have not been sold off to private enterprise, although some is rented at rentals which we are not able to discover but which we suspect are very advantageous to those who do the renting.
  We already have three-quarters of the pipelines existing or under construction in the country under public ownership and for a reason of public interest. I should have thought that a very good precedent indeed for saying that on this system of publicly-owned pipelines we should build and extend until we have a complete, properly planned and co-ordinated network of value to the community as a whole. That, of course, we cannot get from this Bill, although we shall do our best to amend it. Vie shall not get anything like it I am afraid from this Bill, not even with the proper safeguarding of public interests and the beginning of planning and co-ordination.
  Hon. Members opposite have pointed out how inadequate are the powers vested in the Minister in the various Clauses of the Bill and also that most of those powers are permissive. A great deal of discretion, including, for example, that in relation to safety regulations—an extremely important matter—is left in the hands of the Minister. There is a curious mixture of a kind of feeble attempt at planning in parts of the Bill with an almost total laissez faire in the rest of the Bill. In Clauses 8 and 9, for example, there is a little planning. Under certain limited circumstances only, the Minister may, if he wishes, exercise the power to prescribe what the capacity of a pipeline shall be and the charges that shall be made for its use.

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  That is extensive central planning by the Government, but it is to be applied, as it were, to a little bit of the system and in circumstances which may arise only in limited cases. What the Minister cannot do is to plan the overall network, to have a total picture and see that the development conforms to it. He cannot initiate anything. Initiation must come entirely from private enterprise and possibly from such public bodies as the successors to the British Transport Commission in the limited cases in which, under the Transport Bill, they are to be allowed to develop pipelines. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, the Minister will sit in an armchair and wait for the applicants to come to him with their piecemeal proposals. He has to deal with the proposals, in effect, piecemeal. He can consider what may be the likely developments in the future in other directions or along the same route, but he cannot plan the whole thing as a co-ordinated development in accordance with the requirements.
  On the other hand, in so far as he has powers, those powers are almost autocratic. The Minister alone, by his own ipse dixit can take the decision, subject only, if local authorities object, to a public inquiry. After sitting all by himself in his lonely room, the Minister has in his discretion the power to hand over to a big oil company, for example, the authority to develop a pipeline which gives that company a very useful extension to its existing semi-monopoly powers. He can do this without any reference to Parliament. I am sorry that the Minister is not in the Chamber at the moment, but the Attorney-General will be able to deal with this point, no doubt, when he winds up the debate.
  In presenting the Bill in this form, the Minister has breached an undertaking which he gave to the House. I will read to the House what he said on Second Reading of the Trunk Pipelines Bill on 27th April. Speaking of possible inquiries under a Bill which might eventually be brought forward by the Government, he said,
  "The inquiry might be on the lines of those held when the Generating Board make proposals to build generating stations or place grid lines over the country, with anyone being able to be heard and make representations, the subsequent procedure being to allow the House
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  of Commons to express an opinion on the provisional decision reached as a result of the public inquiry. The hon. Member for Ashfield made the point that it was important for Parliament to be allowed to look at all the proposals that might be made. He was quite right. An important project which did not happen to require compulsory powers might escape the net. I feel that the procedure which is eventually agreed upon must be such that important projects of the kind he mentioned should be those on which Parliament should have the right to express a view"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th April, 1962; Vol. 639, c. 720]
  Under this Bill, Parliament will have no right to express a view on any of the projects which are considered by the Minister. I hope that the Attorney-General will tell us why the Government have abandoned the undertaking given on their behalf by the Minister of Power that all major projects authorised by the Minister would be submitted to Parliament for approval. That does not happen under the Bill except in two comparatively minor cases. The rest the Minister decides alone. There are no guiding lines laid down in the Bill on which he has to make his decision. He is not required to make his decision in accordance with the national interest, the economic interest, or the social wellbeing of the country. No such considerations are laid down. If he liked, the Minister could decide solely on the ground that a scheme would be advantageous for the applicant and not for anybody else. That is a possibility under the Bill.
  The result is that private interests are queueing up at Millbank to put in their applications, some of them rival applications. The oil companies have their plans out. In fact, the oil companies are so confident that the Government will give them an authorisation that they have gone ahead with parts of their plans. For example, Shell-Mex-B.P. is constructing its terminal at St. Albans which is planned to be the terminal point of a trunk pipeline coming up from the Thames through Essex and Hertfordshire to St. Albans. The company is so confident that the Minister of Power is going to give it an authorisation when it makes an application that it has gone ahead with the preliminary arrangements in advance, just as Trunk Pipelines was so confident that it would get its Bill through that it spent £70,000 on promoting it—but it made a mistake. Trunk Pipelines is also in the queue

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  along with the other oil companies for this great grid that is planned to go from the Thames, through London to Birmingham and up to Merseyside, which would obviously be made the central front line of a national system.
  Who is going to get the benefit of this grand concession? The would-be concessionaires will have the benefit conferred upon them by a Minister making his decision without any guiding lines, without even having to make any report to Parliament, let alone having to consult Parliament. He is to do this solely on his own judgment and that of his advisers.
  In almost any other country in the world except this, provisions of this kind would be regarded as an open door to corruption. No other country in the world would dare put such powers in the hands of a Minister. It is only because there is a fantastically high standard of integrity among our civil servants and Ministers of the Crown that we can even think that such powers could be operated without the gravest public dangers arising, because there are great profits to be made and great advantages to be gained by private interests out of the concessions that will be handed out under the Bill when it becomes an Act. We on this side are concerned to ensure that these profit-making concessions are not handed out to private interests but that the profits and advantages which will come from this pipeline development shall accrue to the public interest.
  8.54 p.m.
  Mr. Grant-Ferris: I am sure the whole House agrees that we have had a very interesting debate. I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes. There is no great difference of opinion in the House about the necessity for a Bill such as this. The only difference seems to be about who is to own and run the pipeline system. I was very interested today in the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice). I am always interested in his speeches. I always thoroughly enjoy them. I do not have to agree with them to enjoy them. I certainly enjoyed everything he said today, although I saw the fallacies of his argument. He was at great pains to tell the House that if we put a Bill such as this into law
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  we should produce in the country the same mess and proliferation of pipelines as we had in the case of railways and that the very trouble into which we got in the last century would take place in this.
  I do not think that the right hon. and learned Member for Newport could have read the Bill very carefully if that is the view which he holds. Clause 8 expressly lays on the Minister the duty to avoid that state of affairs. I see that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) does not agree with that, but I think that that is the case. The whole object of the Bill is to prevent the sort of thing of which hon. Members opposite seem to be afraid.
  A Private Bill was introduced into the House in the last Session on this matter and the Government rightly thought that the question of pipelines was so important that it was not a fit and proper subject for Private Bill legislation. The railway system of the past was the subject of Private Bill legislation, and we all know the present difficulties which have been caused by that. Therefore, the Government rightly thought that there should be a public Bill to deal with this matter.
  Nationalised industry stands to gain a great deal and will lose nothing from the Bill. Instead of having to foot the bill itself, someone else will do it and will pay very well for the privilege of travelling on nationalised industry's land.
  I was very interested in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn), who spoke of the difficulties of running pipelines along railway property. That may be so, but one thing which is certain is that canal towpaths are an ideal site for pipelines. Thank God, they travel mainly in the directions in which the largest number of pipelines is likely to go. They go from here to Birmingham, from here to Bristol, from Bristol to Birmingham and from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester. The pipelines will bother nobody. They will travel along the towpaths and will not, I hope, be an eyesore but will bring a substantial revenue to the new Inland Waterways Authority.
  I understand that the company which was to promote the Private Bill had

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  arrived at a very satisfactory arrangement with the British Transport Commission over what the royalties should be merely for the use of the Grand Union Canal towpath from Birmingham to London. I know some of the figures, but perhaps I should not mention them in the House. The money arising from just that one route would have made considerable inroads into the not very great deficit of the inland waterways over the past year or two. One can visualise a very large revenue accruing to the waterways in that respect.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend, when he replies, will say something more about the amenity aspect. This matter is given little attention in the Bill. I should like to see Clause 40 strengthened. One can readily understand that if a pipeline is to be laid along some of our more beautiful canals unless it is properly hidden it could wreck that beauty and be a very great eyesore. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider an Amendment to Clause 40 to strengthen the words "preserving natural beauty" in line 20 and will substitute other words saying that, if necessary, these pipes, running over considerable distances, whether through railway property, along waterways or anywhere else, should be buried.
  Nowadays, there is a very good method of laying a pipe through the sort of obstacle which will be repeatedly encountered, namely, a humpback bridge. The towpath goes under the bridge. There is a tool which will bore quickly under the ramp of the bridge to enable the pipe to be laid instead of having to go round the narrow part of the towpath. I hope that the question of amenity will be safeguarded carefully by the Minister in Committee, because I do not consider that the Bill is quite strong enough yet. We could easily lose a great deal of our natural beauty.
  I have only one more word to say, which, I suppose, is not strictly on the Bill. This is really a communications business and it should be for the Ministry of Transport in the long run to take the responsibility on the Ministerial side. It is not the job of the Ministry of Power but has been thrust upon it by force of circumstances and the fact that oil companies and others want
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  to do this job. I hope that in due course the Government will take note of this and will not proliferate the number of Ministries which have to be dealt with. Concerning canals alone, we have to deal with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Transport. To have to deal with the Ministry of Power as well is rather too much. It is clearly the job of the Ministry of Transport.
  9.1 p.m.
  Mr. Thomas Fraser: We have had an interesting debate. It began with a speech from the Minister which was a lucid explanation of the provisions of the Bill. Towards the end of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman commented upon the reasoned Amendment which appeared on the Order Paper. I felt, however, as I listened to the excellent speech with which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) introduced the Amendment, that the Minister would recognise how puny was his objection to it.
  From time to time during the debate, I have found myself just a little depressed by the unwillingness of hon. Members on the Government benches to comment upon the speeches made from this side of the House in support of the Amendment or to comment upon the Amendment at all except to criticise public enterprise. They appeared to imagine that the Amendment contained only the proposition that pipelines to be constructed under the Bill should be constructed by public enterprise. Of course, we on this side take that view.
  As I listened to the criticism of public enterprise from the Government benches, I wondered why we had not denationalised the railways, gas, electricity and the coal mines and, perhaps, even the Post Office. Clearly, hon. Members opposite believe that anything that is run by a public authority in the public interest must be run at a loss and less efficiently than if the service were run by private enterprise.
  The Amendment suggests not only that development should be by public enterprise, but that it should be in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion. I have not heard hon. Members opposite comment upon whether

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  that is desirable. From the newspaper comments I have read on the Bill since its publication, I have had the impression that most people outside who take an interest in the matter rather took the view that the pipeline system should be in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion.
  Hon. Members opposite have not had anything to say about the later part of the Amendment, which suggests that the Bill
  "grants monopoly powers to selected private companies without either adequate safeguards for users or proper concern for the interests of the nation as a whole."
  I recognise that some hon. Members opposite have said that they are not quite satisfied with the provisions of Clauses 8 and 9. For the most part, they seemed to be more than satisfied with Clauses 8 and 9, and so certain were they that what was good for the oil companies was good for the country that we wondered whether, during the Committee stage, they would not want to move the deletion of Clauses 8 and 9.
  This is the impression one could hardly avoid having from the tone of so many of the speeches that were made, and I hope the right hon. and learned Attorney-General, who is to reply, will tell us whether he accepts that, even with Clauses 8 and 9 in the Bill, monopoly powers will undoubtedly be granted to selected private companies, without adequate safeguards for other private companies, which might conceivably be users of the pipeline, and without adequate safeguards for the customers of other oil companies who will be in the areas supplied by the pipelines owned by individual companies.
  Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether the Government are quite unconcerned with the interests of the nation as a whole? In writing in the phrase in the Amendment about the desirability of a pipeline system being developed
  "in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion,"
  we had hoped that the Government would recognise that not only do we all want to see economic expansion in this country, but economic expansion all over the country, and not only in selected parts of the country. There is at present
  554
  very great congestion in the Midlands and in Landon and the South-East. These are the parts of the country which are attracting population all the time, and almost every other part of the country is shedding and losing population.
  Government spokesmen have boasted many times of the provisions of the Local Employment Act, 1960. The Minister of Power knows plenty about colliery closures and what has happened to the mining industry in recent years. The Minister of Power, who has given us the Bill—
  Mr. William Ross: Where is he, by the way?
  Mr. Fraser: —knows that the mining industry is employing 150,000 fewer men than it did four years ago. He knows that there are very considerable colliery closures in some parts of the country, and when we have questioned him on what the Government are to do to protect the social fabric in those parts of the country, the answer always has been, "We shall do what we can under the provisions of the Local Employment Act, 1960."
  We say that if we leave this entirely to the oil companies, the companies will put in their pipelines to supply their customers in London and the South-East, and will put in other pipelines to supply customers in the West Midlands. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have been telling us today that because this will be an economic operation their customers will get the benefit.
  If this is so, then surely oil will become cheaper in the areas of the country which are suffering the greatest congestion at present than it will be in other parts of the country. Will not this nullify the Government's professed efforts to steer industry into those other parts of the country? How are they to induce industrialists who are expanding their businesses to go from London or the Midlands into Wales, or into the northern part of England or Scotland? As a matter of fact, the whole of the country North of the Humber is shedding population at present.
  If, in those parts of the country, fuel supplies are to be available at a higher price than in the congested areas of the

  555
  country it is no use pleading with industrialists to occupy factories which are being built for them in those parts by the Board of Trade, and it will not encourage industrialists to go to B.O.T.A.C. to get loans to build factories in those parts. Does not the Minister recognise that? Does he not recognise that production costs there will from the start be seen to be higher than in the congested areas from which the Government say they are trying to steer away industry and population?
  It is in these circumstances that I would have thought that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House would have recognised that, if there is to be a tremendous development of pipelines for the conveyance of oil and oil products, if there is to be a system of pipelines which will carry solids, many kinds of which have been mentioned in the debate today, it would be better to avoid the proliferation of private enterprise lines, and better to put pipelines down in a planned way, and that it would not be a bad thing to have some lines going into the parts of the country to which it is the Government's desire to steer industry, even though the profitability of those lines might be a little, less than the profitability of lines running into London or the Midlands.
  That is what we have in mind when we talk of laying them
  "in accordance with a policy of planned economic expansion."
  The Minister will be satisfied to learn that nobody on this side of the House is against pipelines.
  Mr. Ross: Except the Secretary of State for Scotland's.
  Mr. Fraser: I said nobody on this side of the House. We are fobbed off from time to time with the proposition that there are jobs in the pipeline for those areas which are much in need of additional employment.
  However, we take the view that pipelines must be in the public interest. We take the view that the public interest is rather important. The only interest which has been hammered home on the other side of the House today is the interest of the landowners whose land is to be traversed by these pipelines, notwithstanding that in almost every
  556
  case all that will happen will be that a trench will be dug, a pipeline laid in, and the land covered over again and restored to its agricultural or other use—except that it will be sterilised from building.
  As I listened to many speeches today I learned that we are to have Amendments moved in Committee to make sure that the owners of that land will share in the profits to be made by the oil companies out of the pipeline built; but there was nothing said at all about the public interest.
  I would have thought that hon. Members opposite, as well as the right hon. Gentlemen who occupy the Treasury Bench, would have taken the view that where public utility powers have to be given to operators, and recognising that public utility powers are being given by the Bill to the pipeline operators, they might have agreed with us that those operators ought to carry out their activities in the interests of the community as a whole, and not in the interests of mere profit making.
  It ought not to be for us in Parliament to confer great powers on the Minister to confer in turn great powers on private persons outside to compulsorily acquire other private persons' rights merely for the purpose of gaining more profits for themselves. When they obtain public utility powers they should be required to carry out their functions for public purposes and in the interests of the community as a whole.
  Hon. Members opposite have learned nothing whatsoever from history, and I suspect that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General has not learned anything either, because the most illuminating comments that I have heard in the whole of this discussion have been the right hon. and learned Gentleman's rather audible mutterings in reply to speeches made from this side of the House when my hon. Friends, in the public interest, were commending the reasoned Amendment.
  The Attorney-General and his hon. Friends are prepared to see repeated our whole experience of railway devlopment in the last century when ultimately, in the course of this century, order has had to be brought in and it has had to be recognised that railway systems

  557
  must be co-ordinated. I should have thought that the party opposite would have recognised that all of us have a duty to see that this does not happen with pipelines, but there is no recognition at all of this.
  It is because we on this side of the House do not wish to see this proliferation of pipelines, and want to see their development carried out in the public interest, that we say we must have an integrated transport system. At each terminal point of a pipeline there will be depots from which tankers will run by road and rail. There must be a good deal of integration between the existing different systems of transport and the new transport to be provided under the Bill.
  It is for that reason, among others, that we on this side take the view that the Minister who should be responsible for this is the Minister of Transport. Inasmuch as this co-ordination of our different systems of transport is desirable in the interests of the country as a whole, we believe that it should be a public enterprise authority that should be entrusted with the job. I should have thought that this might have somewhat impressed hon. Members opposite. It may be that they could have resisted our public enterprise proposals, but they might have gone as far as legislatures have gone in most other countries which have had to deal with this problem. I do not know of any country which has introduced legislation to give power to a Minister to authorise the laying down of pipelines which has not taken greater care of the public interest than is being taken in this Bill.
  Suggestions have been made today that in the United States the common user principle has not been a great success and that there has been a great deal of litigation about it. But there is litigation about many things in the United States and in this country. We do not decide not to try to render a service to the community just because there might be litigation in consequence.
  But the United States Government have never discontinued their insistence in statute on the common user principle in the operation of pipelines. The tariffs to be charged have to be published and approved by the Inter-State Commerce Commission so that unreasonable profits
  558
  shall not be made. I believe that the accounts also have to be published, so that the public can see that no undue profits are being made by the operators. Is there anything like that in this Bill? There is not. There is no provision to control tariffs, to ensure publication of accounts—nothing of that sort. There is no guarantee that other concerns will be able to get the use of a pipeline after it is constructed.
  On the Continent, most of the general laws, although they do not insist on the common user principle, insist on the multiple user principle. They do not give authority to individual oil companies to pipe only their own products.
  Mr. Skeet rose—
  Mr. Ross: Speaking for the oil companies again.
  Mr. Skeet: I have no interest to declare. In Europe, the French and the Swiss, for example, stated at the inception that there must be capacity within the pipelines which could be utilised by third parties. Am I not right in saying that the Bill goes further than that?
  Mr. Fraser: In the first place, the European countries did not grant authorisation to individual oil companies. They only granted authorisation to consortia, to multiple users, so that there would be multiple use of the pipelines from the beginning.
  I can understand it if hon. Members opposite are against the proposition that this should be done by public enterprise. But I cannot understand why they do not at least insist that the pipelines should be owned and operated by consortia which would be controlled, in some degree, by the Minister with regard to tariffs and to the availability of the lines to smaller companies which might not be members of a consortium. I thought that hon. Members opposite would have been in favour of the tariffs being controlled and the accounts of the consortia being made available for public scrutiny. But they seem quite unconcerned about providing any of these safeguards in this country.
  I now give one or two examples of pipelines which should be constructed in the not too distant future. My hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) called attention to the great

  559
  developments at Milford Haven. There is an Esso refinery there now. Regent proposes to build one nearby. B.P. has a refinery near Swansea. There will surely be a pipeline in the not very distant future from Milford Haven to the Midlands. This may well be an Esso pipeline. It will be reasonable for the Minister to say to Esso, "Regent is to build a station nearby, so we had better have a pipeline to take the products of both refineries."
  One need only look at the map to see that the more sensible thing would be to start a pipeline at Milford Haven, bring it round in an are coming close in to Swansea to pick up the refined product from the B.P. refinery, and take it on through industrial South Wales into the Midlands. But if Esso applies to the Minister for permission to run a pipeline for its product from Milford Haven to the Midlands, he will not, under Clauses 8 and 9, be able to do more than call its attention to the probability of a supply of oil from the Regent refinery going up nearby also being taken to the Midlands.
  The right hon. Gentleman will not be able to say, "Your proposal is wrong. I want a route which will go round and take in the product from the refinery at Swansea." As I understand it he is not given that power in the Bill. Yet this is precisely what should happen. Let us take the example of pipelines from Canvey Island, or the northern bank of the Thames Estuary. Esso is considering building a line from there to St. Albans and Trunk Pipelines Limited has proposed to build a pipeline from Canvey Island to Denham, in Buckinghamshire, and thence to the Midlands and on to Merseyside.
  From the map one can see that the lines of the proposed Esso project and the Trunk Pipelines project are very different and need to be different. Let us recognise that on the whole length of those lines we have 20 feet of land sterilised from building for all time, or as long as any of us can possibly foresee. Those lines will probably be down for 100 years or more, for all practical purposes for ever.
  Mr. Grant-Ferris: If the pipeline takes the route of the towpath of the Grand
  560
  Union Canal, no building land will be sterilised. That is the obvious route and it is the route already chosen.
  Mr. Fraser: I support what the hon. Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) said about building along the towpaths of canals. It is also right to use railway tracks. But if he has listened to the debate, he will have learned that many of his hon. Friends take the view that the oil companies should be encouraged to go through virgin land, across country. They do so because it is easier and cheaper to build pipelines in that way.
  Hon. Members opposite who have claimed great knowledge of these matters, including the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), have been very careful not to give us any figures of the cost of constructing pipelines. They were ready enough to cast doubt on the figures produced by Mr. Nolan in the articles in the Petroleum Times. They acknowledge that he has some expert knowledge, and some of them that he has great expert knowledge. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe said that he knew him well, but that Mr. Nolan had only recently come into this business. I would have thought he was one of the experts. At any rate, he has gone to the length of producing some figures. I wonder why the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe did not do so.
  Mr. Costain: I have been accused of not giving an estimate for producing a pipeline. Equally, I would not state the length of a piece of string. Producing a pipeline depends, among other things, on the terrain to be covered, whether the pipeline passes through town or countryside. I would put a pipeline along a canal if I could. One cannot possibly say how long a piece of string is.
  Mr. Fraser: Hon. Members know very well that they could produce figures of the cost of building the pipelines which we now have. They were careful not to do so. The Government have built 1,200 miles of pipeline in this country already. We think that it would be sensible to integrate the new pipelines with the pipelines we already have. We could have been told the cost of the present pipelines, but hon. Members opposite who are knowledgeable about the

  561
  activities and the finances of the oil companies have not said what it costs to build the Esso, Shell, or B.P. pipelines.
  Mr. Corfield: What would that prove?
  Mr. Fraser: It would prove Mr. Nolan right. Hon. Members opposite were concerned only with proving him wrong. They have called attention to the additional cost of building pipelines along, railway tracks. Mr. Nolan dealt with that in his article.
  It costs slightly more to lay a pipeline along a railway track than across open country, but other savings are made in the process, and in as much as it is desirable to integrate the transport services and prevent sterilising land that might be required for other public purposes, it would be better to run pipelines alongside the railways and the canals. I thought that most people who were knowledgeable about this subject agreed with that proposition, but apparently hon. Gentlemen opposite take the view that if the oil companies do not agree it cannot be right.
  We take the view that local pipelines, for which provision is made in Clause 2, ought to be dealt with in like manner with cross-country pipelines. Most of these local pipelines of less than 10 miles in length will be laid in the populous areas, in places like London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow. They will be built by private individuals who will be using public utilities. They will build these pipelines under streets which are owned and controlled by local authorities, and perhaps even building them against the wishes of the local authority concerned. All this will be done to make a profit for the company, and I think that these short pipelines will be as important as the longer pipelines which are to be laid in open country.
  The criterion to decide whether the pipeline should be subjected to all the controls laid down in the Bill should not be the length of the pipeline, but the purpose for which it is required, whether it is to be used for a public purpose, or whether it is to be used to transport solids or oil products of one sort or another, or whether it is to be used to take crude oil to a refinery. These considerations ought to be taken into
  562
  account when deciding whether the full provisions of the Bill should apply.
  This is merely an oil companies' Bill. I think that we have all had this week a copy of the Esso magazine.
  Mr. George Lawson: Has my hon. Friend made an estimate of how much money the Bill has brought to the Conservative Party funds?
  Mr. Fraser: I have no way of finding out what contributions have been made by the oil companies to the Conservative Party funds, but on reading this week's edition of the Esso magazine I see that the Bill gives the oil companies everything for which they could ever ask. It saves them all the expense and trouble of the Private Bill procedure. It gives up all the powers that they could ever have obtained under a Private Bill.
  Mr. James Dempsey: All for nothing.
  Mr. Fraser: It gives them everything for which they could possibly ask, for nothing, or, at any rate, very little, except to the public purse.
  I repeat that this is purely an oil companies' Bill. If the Minister thinks that I am being a bit rough on him in saying this, let me point out that he is responsible for the coal industry. He told us that one of the products that can be carried in pipelines is coal. Does the National Coal Board have power to build pipelines? I do not think that it does. If the Board wants to supply coal by pipeline to a generating station, it cannot do it. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are getting impatient, but I understood that the right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted twenty to twenty-five minutes in which to reply.
  The Minister envisaged that coal would be carried by pipelines, but he has not taken the trouble to give the Coal Board power to construct pipelines to transport its coal to power stations. He has given power to the oil companies to build pipelines to take their oil to the generating stations. Of course, if we had not nationalised the coal mines, and they had still been privately owned, the private owners would have that power to construct pipelines. In time, no doubt, the Railways Board or the Inland Waterways Authority will construct pipelines between the coal

  563
  mines and the power stations. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that in a good many cases nowadays there are no railway lines near to where new generating stations are being built. An example of this was given by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot).
  This is a bad Bill. It does not deal with this great problem. There has been a suggestion from hon. Members opposite that it would be wrong at this time to burden the public purse with the cost of putting down pipelines. I say that this would not be a burden at all, but would be a very worthwhile investment. I can prophesy with safety that in a few years' time a very much heavier burden will be put on the public purse when other legislation has to be brought in to bring order out of the chaos which will be brought about by this Bill.
  9.36 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): The right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) will know that attorneys are sometimes required to perform tasks which they do not expect to do. That is certainly my situation tonight. I should not be replying to this debate but for the illness of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, and I am sure that the House will join me in wishing him complete and speedy recovery—sufficiently speedy, one trusts, to enable him to enjoy taking part in the discussions in Committee, which, to judge by the debate, are likely to be both interesting and enjoyable. [HON. MEMBERS: "And prolonged."] My right hon. Friend gave a very clear exposition of what the Bill will do. My task is to reply to the criticisms which have been made and to the main attack, which has been in support of the Opposition's Amendment.
  Many points have been raised which, no doubt, will be more fully discussed in Committee, but I should like to reply shortly to some of them and then come to the Socialist Party's Amendment. For that reason, I shall start by replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot) who thought that the right of public inquiry should be extended to all objectors, the frivolous objectors being penalised by costs.
  564
  The proposal in this Bill follows the Electricity Act, 1957. I think that the power to have an informal hearing is useful and I have never heard of any complaint of the exercise of Ministerial discretion between having an informal hearing and a public inquiry. The procedure envisaged in the Bill is criticised to some extent by my hon. Friend, but I believe that when it is thoroughly examined it will be found to be a completely satisfactory procedure. He went on to say that pipelines less than 10 miles in length should be included in Clause 1, subject to authorisation. The same thing was said by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser). My right hon. Friend can under Clause 6 require short pipelines to come within the procedure under Clause 1.
  The other point made by my hon. Friend and some other hon. Members was that the penalties contained in the Bill were too small. I do not think that that is so. We must bear in mind that in addition to the penalty which can be incurred in a prosecution there is the liability to remove the offending works, and to pay the cost of their removal if it is carried out by someone else. That may be a fairly substantial amount. In addition, there is the sanction—the effect of which should not be minimised—of the publicity resulting from a prosecution.
  The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), who supported the Socialist Amendment, made a number of criticisms which will fall for consideration in Committee. He alleged that the Bill did not provide my right hon. Friend with certain powers, but we are satisfied that we have all the necessary powers to achieve the Bill's purposes. The hon. Member instanced the case of a power station in Derby which receives its fuel supplies by way of lorries which travel right through the centre of the city, and he suggested that the two nationalised industries—the Central Electricity Generating Board and the National Coal Board—would not be able, if they wished to do so in the public interest, to lay a pipeline from the mines to provide a direct supply to that power station.
  I was interested in his giving this example of a situation in which the public interest would not be regarded

  565
  because there would be no private profit, since we should be dealing with two nationalised industries. But the Coal Board and the Central Electricity Generating Board have powers of their own in connection with the construction of pipelines. If those powers are insufficient it is open to them to apply, like anyone else, for authority under the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) said that the Bill did not go far enough to protect the rights of those through whose land the pipelines will go. That is a proper matter for examination in Committee, but I take the view that the rights of those through whose land the pipelines will go are fully protected by the Bill. We shall wait to hear any suggestions that my hon. Friend has to make. He went on to say that he thought that the liability for damages should be absolute. We have considered this possibility, but at present we do not consider that there is any need for this exceptional treatment. The present law provides adequate protection.
  The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) referred to the possibility of enabling public enterprise to develop pipelines alongside private enterprise development. At present we think that it is right to take the steps that we are taking in the Bill. If nationalised bodies such as the British Transport Commission and the Transport Boards—as they will be in the future—having dealt with the problems now confronting them, wish to engage in this operation, it will be a matter for future consideration.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) thought, contrary to some of my hon. Friends, that the very short lines should be excluded from the provisions of Clause 2 unless they were carrying dangerous fuels. No case for that has been made out. I believe it to be desirable that my right hon. Friend should have notice of all pipeline constructions if we are to achieve—as I think the Bill will enable us to achieve in due course—a properly co-ordinated pipeline system.
  The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) also thought that the penalties were too low, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield,
  566
  Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn), who supported the Bill, thought that there should be regulations concerning safety. I dare say that these will come in the future, but if we are to achieve the safety that we all desire it is desirable that at present my right hon. Friend should have the flexibility which the Bill gives him rather than the rigidity which would be imposed by making regulations.
  The hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) asked about arrangements to be made—
  Mr. Ross rose—
  The Attorney-General: I have only a short time left, and I want to reply as fully as possible.
  The hon. Member for Deptford asked whether Trunk Pipelines Ltd. had made any arrangement with the British Transport Commission. I understand that talks have taken place, but I am not aware, and I cannot inform the hon. Gentleman, of the result of them. But it is open to Trunk Pipelines Ltd. to make an application under the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) talked about the possibility of building land being sterilised. That is one of the factors which will have to be taken into account by my right hon. Friend when he is authorising the construction of a pipeline. It was the hon. Gentleman who suggested, giving an instance in South Wales, that my right hon. Friend would not be able to secure the development of a pipeline of the sort which he suggested. My hon. Friend is not right about that, because the Minister can refuse to give authority to Esso to develop a pipeline unless it takes the course he thinks appropriate having regard to all the circumstances.
  I think that now I can come to what is the main issue of the debate. It is whether—
  Mr. Skeffington: Will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman say something about the question of safety, which is concerning authorities like the London County Council and many other authorities which are apprehensive about this new risk?
  The Attorney-General: I do not think that there is any exceptional or new risk

  567
  involved in the construction and use of pipelines. I do not think there is any necessity to impose an absolute liability on those who construct or use them.
  As I was saying, this brings me to the main issue of the debate, whether the House should accept the views put forward in the Bill or the Amendment. The hon. Member for Hamilton complained that nothing had been said from this side of the House about the phrase in the Amendment referring to "planned economic expansion" and about the terms of the last part of the Amendment. I think that the hon. Member was the first to refer to the last part of the Amendment and the first to make use of the phrase from it.
  We are not proposing any "monopoly" powers. No doubt that word was used to attract the odium which the word normally carries, but to use it in relation to this Bill is quitie inappropriate. The Bill does not give monopoly powers to anyone. It is open to anyone to apply for authority to construct a cross-country pipeline at any time—[Laughter.]—and what hon. Gentlemen opposite, who laugh so easily, do not appear to recognise and appreciate is that the granting of authority under Clause 1 is analogous to the granting of planning permission under the Town and Country Planning Acts. They might just as well argue that permission to create a factory creates a monopoly as much as permission to lay a pipeline. It is a completely illogical argument.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Newport said his piece with his usual charm, and I found it somewhat nostalgic. It reminded me of so many of the speeches which I heard from that side of the House between 1945 and 1951. We then heard from hon. Members opposite a great deal about the benefits of public ownership; much talk of the nation's interest and much condemnation of the profit motive. We have heard it maintained that everything will be all right if it is only left to public enterprise. We have heard that kind of argument, and so has the country, ad nauseam. Now, in the light of experience, few people will accept it.
  568
  The right hon. and learned Member for Newport said that there was a strong case for public ownership. He failed to make it out at all. He asserted that only under public ownership could pipelines be properly planned. That is not true. That is confusing the planning side with the development. The planning side can be done, and will be done, under this Bill by granting or withholding of authority. The granting of it would be after certain conditions had been satisfied.
  If hon. Members opposite read the Bill they would understand that it gives planning control. That is one of the main objects of the Bill. It is easy for right hon. and learned Members to speak of sporadic, untidy development and to suggest that the development would take place as with the railways, but one of the reasons for the Bill is to give my right hon. Friend power to control where the pipelines go. That is clearly expressed in the Bill even if hon. Members opposite do not appreciate it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman criticised the power of my right hon. Friend as being a negative power, but a negative power is necessary to prevent wrong development.
  The main difference between our approach and the approach of hon. Members opposite is that under our approach pipelines will be constructed where there is a real need for them and at the expense of those who want to use them. Large sums of taxpayers' money will not be invested in piplines some of which will not be wanted. It is easy for the right hon. and learned Member and hon. Members opposite to assert that the national interest requires a pipeline when private industry is not prepared to put it down. It is suggested that pipelines should be planned, among other things, to encourage development of industry at particular points. The right hon. and learned Member touched on that and the hon. Member for Hamilton developed it. The answer surely is that it raises the dilemma that either the pipelines will be economic or not. If they are economic, no doubt private industry will be ready to construct them. If they are not economic I do not believe that the construction of a pipeline which is not required is the best way of

  569
  encouraging the proper distribution of industry.
  I quite understand that hon. Members opposite do not like anything which disagrees with their theories about this matter, but it is a ridiculous proposition that public enterprise should spend large sums of money initially—[Interruption.] It is all very well hon. Members talking about the pay-off being so quick, but it will only be quick if the pipeline is economic. Initially large sums of money would have to come from the taxpayer. The party opposite suggest that public enterprise should construct pipelines in places where they will not be economic to secure better location of industry. That was the theme of the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton, which he developed for a long time.
  Mr. T. Fraser: Does the Attorney-General not know that what I said was that pipelines might go to those parts of the country where the Minister said the Government were doing their utmost to bring about industrial development? If so, the pipelines would then be economic.
  The Attorney-General: The hon. Member put forward the proposition that pipelines should be put there to secure a different location of industry. The point I make is that if we want to secure that, there are better ways of doing it than by constructing pipelines for which there is no immediate demand.
  Our approach is much better than the approach put forward in the Amendment. We have here the control which
  is required over the lines which the pipelines will take. It is true that we are not making provision for common user—
  Mr. Ross: Or anything else.
  The Attorney-General:—but that is inherent in the Bill. If the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) thinks that we have made provision for nothing in the Bill, then he has either not read the complicated provisions or has not understood them.
  It is interesting that we have not had a single contribution from the Liberal Party to the debate. I think that I am right in saying that none of the Liberals has been here all day. The hon. Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), who is sitting on the bench which the Liberals usually occupy, is leaving plenty of room for them. But the Liberals have saved themselves from the dilemma which so often occurs to them of having to make up their minds on a project which will effect a great change in our economy in the future.
  The division between the two sides of the House on this issue follows old-fashioned lines which we have often heard argued. We are satisfied that ours is the right and proper approach to the problem and the approach which is best in the national interest. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 277, Noes 195.

  Division No. 179.]

  AYES

  [9.57 p.m.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Bossom, Clive

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Allason, James

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Box, Donald

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Arbuthnot, John

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Cole, Norman

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Braine, Bernard

  Collard, Richard

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Cooke, Robert

  Barber, Anthony

  Brooman-White, R.

  Cooper, A. E.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Barter, John

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Batsford, Brian

  Buck, Antony

  Corfield, F. V.

  Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

  Bullard, Denys

  Costain, A. P.

  Beamish, Cal. Sir Tufton

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Coulson, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Burden, F. A.

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Goa & Fhm)

  Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Curran, Charles

  Bidgood, John C.

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Biffen, John

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Dance, James

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Channon, H. P. G.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Bishop, F. P.

  Chataway, Christopher

  Deedes, W. F.

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Doughty, Charles

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pym, Francis

  Drayson, G. B.

  Kimball, Marcus

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  du Cann, Edward

  Kirk, Peter

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Duncan, Sir James

  Kitson, Timothy

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Eden, John

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Lambton, Viscount

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Emery, Peter

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Rippon, Geoffrey

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Farr, John

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Roots, William

  Fisher, Nigel

  Lindsay, Sir Martin

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

  Forrest, George

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Russell, Ronald

  Foster, John

  Longden, Gilbert

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Seymour, Leslie

  Gammans, Lady

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Sharples, Richard

  Gardner, Edward

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Shaw, M.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  McAdden, Stephen

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Gilmour, Sir John

  MacArthur, Ian

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  McLaren, Martin

  Smithers, Peter

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Goodhart, Philip

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Stodart, J. A.

  Gough, Frederick

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Green, Alan

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Talbot, John E.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maddan, Martin

  Tapsell, Peter

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Maginnis, John E.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  Marshall, Douglas

  Teeling, Sir William

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Marten, Neil

  Temple, John M.

  Harris, Reader (Heaton)

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Mawby, Ray

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Hastings, Stephen

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Hay, John

  Mills, Stratton

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Turner, Colin

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Hendry, Forbes

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Morgan, William

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Hiley, Joseph

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Neave, Airey

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Hobson, Sir John

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Walder, David

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Walker, Peter

  Holland, Philip

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Hollingworth, John

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Hopkins, Alan

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Hornby, R. P.

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Webster, David

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Whitelaw, William

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Peel, John

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Percival, Ian

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Peyton, John

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Wise, A. R.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  James, David

  Pitman, Sir James

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Woollam, John

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Pott, Percivall

  Worsley, Marcus

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Prior, J. M. L.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Mr. Chichester-Clark and

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Mr. Finlay.

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Benson, Sir George

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Ainsley, William

  Blackburn, F.

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Albu, Austen

  Blyton, William

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Boardman, H.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Awbery, Stan

  Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)

  Chapman, Donald

  Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

  Bowles, Frank

  Cliffe, Michael

  Beaney, Alan

  Boyden, James

  Collick, Percy

  Bence, Cyril

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  572

  573

  Cronin, John

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Crosland, Anthony

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Rhodes, H.

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Kelley, Richard

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Ross, William

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Lawson, George

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Deer, George

  Ledger, Ron

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Dempsey, James

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Diamond, John

  Lipton, Marcus

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Dodds, Norman

  Loughlin, Charles

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Small, William

  Driberg, Tom

  MacColl, James

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  MacDermot, Niall

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  McInnes, James

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Evans, Albert

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Steele, Thomas

  Fernyhough, E.

  McLeavy, Frank

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Finch, Harold

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Stonehouse, John

  Fitch, Alan

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Stones, William

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Marsh, Richard

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Forman, J. C.

  Mason, Roy

  Swain, Thomas

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Taverne, D.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Mellish, R. J.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Millan, Bruce

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Ginsburg, David

  Milne, Edward

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Monslow, Walter

  Thornton, Ernest

  Gourlay, Harry

  Moody, A. S.

  Timmons, John

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Tomney, Frank

  Grey, Charles

  Oliver, G. H.

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Oram, A. E.

  Warbey, William

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Weitzman, David

  Gunter, Ray

  Padley, W. E.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Paget, R. T.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Whitlock, William

  Harper, Joseph

  Pargiter, C. A.

  Wigg, George

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Parker, John

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Paton, John

  Willey, Frederick

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Peart, Frederick

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Pentland, Norman

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Holman, Percy

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Hoy, James H.

  Prentice, R. E.

  Woof, Robert

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Hunter, A. E.

  Probert, Arthur

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Randall, Harry

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Rankin, John

  Mr. Charles A. Howell and

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Mr. McCann.

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Reid, William

  Bill read a Second time.
  Motion made, and Question put, That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Bowden.]
  The House divided: Ayes 195, Noes 277.

  Division No. 180.]

  AYES

  [10.9 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Boyden, James

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Ainsley, William

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Albu, Austen

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Deer, George

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Awbery, Stan

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Dempsey, James

  Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Diamond, John

  Beaney, Alan

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Dodds, Norman

  Bence, Cyril

  Chapman, Donald

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Cliffe, Michael

  Driberg, Tom

  Benson, Sir George

  Collick, Percy

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Blackburn, F.

  Corbel, Mrs. Freda

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Blyton, William

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Boardman, H.

  Cronin, John

  Evans, Albert

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Crosland, Anthony

  Fernyhough, E.

  Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics. S. W.)

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Finch, Harold

  Bowles, Frank

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Fitch, Alan

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  MacColl, James

  Ross, William

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Forman, J. C.

  McInnes, James

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  McLeavy, Frank

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Small, William

  Ginsburg, David

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Gourlay, Harry

  Marsh, Richard

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Mason, Roy

  Steele, Thomas

  Grey, Charles

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Stonehouse, John

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Stones, William

  Gunter, Ray

  Millan, Bruce

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Milne, Edward

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Harper, Joseph

  Monslow, Walter

  Swain, Thomas

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Moody, A. S.

  Taverne, D.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Oliver, G. H.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Oram, A. E.

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Padley, W. E.

  Thornton, Ernest

  Holman, Percy

  Paget, R. T.

  Timmons, John

  Houghton, Douglas

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Tomney, Frank

  Hoy, James H.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Parker, John

  Warbey, William

  Hunter, A. E.

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Weitzman, David

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Peart, Frederick

  Whitlock, William

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Pentland, Norman

  Wigg, George

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Willey, Frederick

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Probert, Arthur

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Kelley, Richard

  Proctor, W. T.

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Randall, Harry

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  King, Dr. Horace

  Rankin, John

  Woof Robert

  Lawson, George

  Redhead, E. C.

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Ledger, Ron

  Reid, William

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Rhodes, H.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Loughlin, Charles

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Mr. Charles A. Howell and

  Mr. McCann.

  NOES

  Aitken, W. T.

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Deedes, W. F.

  Allason, James

  Burden, F. A.

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Doughty, Charles

  Arbuthnot, John

  Campbell Sir David (Belfast, S.)

  du Cann, Edward

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Duncan, Sir James

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Eden, John

  Barber, Anthony

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Barlow, Sir John

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Emery, Peter

  Barter, John

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Batsford, Brian

  Chataway, Christopher

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Farr, John

  Bell, Ronald

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Cole, Norman

  Forrest, George

  Bidgood, John C.

  Collard, Richard

  Foster, John

  Biffen, John

  Cooke, Robert

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cooper, A. E.

  Gammans, Lady

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Gardner, Edward

  Bishop, F. P.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Garfield, F. V.

  Gilmour, Sir John

  Bossom, Clive

  Costain, A. P.

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Coulston, Michael

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  Box, Donald

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Goodhart, Philip

  Braine, Bernard

  Critchley, Julian

  Gough, Frederick

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Brooman-White, R.

  Curran, Charles

  Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Green, Alan

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Buck, Antony

  Dance, James

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Bullard, Denys

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  576

  577

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  McLaren, Martin

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Roots, William

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Bonner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Russell, Ronald

  Harvey, John (Waithamstow, E.)

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Hastings, Stephen

  Maddan, Martin

  Seymour, Leslie

  Hay, John

  Maginnis, John E.

  Sharples, Richard

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Shaw, M.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hendry, Forbes

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Marshall, Douglas

  Smithers, Peter

  Hiley, Joseph

  Marten, Neil

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Hobson, Sir John

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Stodart, J. A.

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Mawby, Ray

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Holland, Philip

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Hollingworth, John

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Hopkins, Alan

  Mills, Stratton

  Talbot, John E.

  Hornby, R. P.

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Tapsell, Peter

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Morgan, William

  Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Mott-Radcliffe, Sir Charles

  Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Teeling, Sir William

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Neave, Airey

  Temple, John M.

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  James, David

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Jennings, J. C.

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Turner, Colin

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Peel, John

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Percival, Ian

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Peyton, John

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Kimball, Marcus

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Walder, David

  Kirk, Peter

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Walker, Peter

  Kitson, Timothy

  Pitman, Sir James

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Lambton, Viscount

  Pott, Percivall

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Webster, David

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otto

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgewater)

  Lindsay, Sir Martin

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Pym, Francis

  Wise, R. A.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Longden, Gilbert

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Woollam, John

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Worsley, Marcus

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  McAdden, Stephen

  Ridsdale, Julian

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rippon, Geoffrey

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. J. E. B. Hill and Mr. Whitelaw.

  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

  PIPE-LINES [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified.]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to regulate and facilitate the construction and secure the safe operation of pipe-lines and make provision for matters arising thereout; and to provide that certain pipe-lines shall be plant or machinery for the purpose of the enactments relating to rating in England and Wales, it is expedient to authorise—

  (1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the expenses of the Minister of Power which, by virtue of subsection (3) of section three of the Ministry of Fuel and Power Act, 1945, are defrayed out of such moneys;

  (b) any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of Rate-efficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local Government in England and Wales or in Scotland;

  (2) the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received under the said Act of the present Session by a Minister of the Crown other than the Postmaster General.—[Mr. Wood.]

  10.21 p.m.
  Mr. Thomas Fraser: In the concluding passage of his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill, the Attorney-Attorney impressed upon the House the very great importance of the legislation which the House was then being invited to pass. The Bill has got its Second Reading, and we move on to the consideration of the Money Resolution. Presumably, the Money Resolution required for the Bill, this terribly important Bill, is also very important, and that being so I would have expected the Minister to have had some words to say to us in explanation of its provisions. I am not very good at understanding Money Resolutions.
  I read in this one,
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to regulate and facilitate the construction and secure the safe operation of pipe-lines and make provision for matters arising thereout; and to provide that certain pipelines shall be plant or machinery for the pur-
  580
  pose of the enactments relating to rating in England and Wales, it is expedient to authorise—
  (1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—
  (a) any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the expenses of the Minister of Power which, by virtue of subsection (3) of section three of the Ministry of Fuel and Power Act, 1945, are defrayed out of such moneys."
  I wonder whether the Minister or somebody else could tell us what is the anticipated increase in the expenses of the Minister of Power attributable to the Bill to which we have just given a Second Reading. The Minister may have expected us closely to scrutinise Section 3 (3) of the Act of 1945, but even though we had it is not quite certain we should have fully comprehended its meaning. However, I would be grateful to him if he would tell us what is the increase, attributable to the Bill to which we have just given a Second Reading, of the expenses to be incurred by the Minister.
  Paragraph (1, b) also provides for moneys to be provided by Parliament for
  "any increase attributable to the said Act"—
  that is, the Bill to which we have just given a Second Reading—
  "of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of Rate-Deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local Government in England and Wales or in Scotland."
  This is very puzzling indeed. I would have thought that the only effect upon the income of local authorities arising from the provisions of the Bill would be from that Clause which provides that pipelines in England and Wales will have to pay their whack of local rates. They have henceforth to be rated.
  The Minister explained that quite recently there was a court decision which judged that pipelines and plants attached to them were not rateable subjects. Now that they are to be made rateable subjects one would have thought that the income of local authorities would have increased as a result of the Bill. If that were so, I should not have thought that thereby there would have been any increase arising in the rate deficiency grant or the Exchequer equalisation grant. I should

  581
  have thought that it might have had the opposite effect. [Interruption.] However, the Money Resolution seems to anticipate—
  Mr. William Ross: On a point of order. This is a terribly important Bill and we are anxious to hear all about the Money Resolution. There seem to be so many private conversations going on that I wonder whether we could not have some order.
  The Chairman: It is a fact that there is so much noise going on that it is difficult to hear what the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) is saying.
  Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) should start again.
  Mr. Fraser: I am being encouraged to start again. I do not propose to accept that advice, though I ask whether the Minister takes the last point I have been making. I was saying that I should have thought that the provision in the Bill to ensure that pipelines are rateable subjects in England and Wales would have allowed an increase in the income of local authorities which might conceivably have had the effect of reducing the rate deficiency grant or the Exchequer equalisation grant, but the provisions of the Money Resolution suggest that it would have the opposite effect. Can the Minister explain how on earth it can have the opposite effect in England and Wales? Since pipelines are rateable subjects in Scotland at present, there is no provision in the Bill to make pipelines in Scotland—[Interruption.]—rateable subjects. I cannot see how there can be—
  Mr. Thomas Steele: On a point of order. I am sure that hon. Members will want to be assured that hon. Gentleman are not being accused of making all this noise when it is the hon. Ladies beyond the Bar who are making the noise.
  Mr. Fraser: I think that I had better bring my remarks to a conclusion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is difficult to understand how some deficiency would have to be made good by means of the rate deficiency grant or the Exchequer equalisation grant in England and Wales because of the operations of the Bill. It is even more difficult to see
  582
  how an increase in the grants would arise in Scotland under its provisions since, as far as I know, the Bill does not affect the income of local authorities in Scotland. However, the Minister no doubt has a perfectly reasonable and valid explanation of the Money Resolution and I should be glad if we could have it before the Committee is invited to pass the Resolution.
  10.30 p.m.
  Mr. Steele: After listening to the debate on Second Reading and hearing the Minister of Power and the Attorney-General, I want to ask the Minister why we are having this Money Resolution at all. After all, we were informed that these pipelines were to be provided by private enterprise and that that enterprise would be very profitable. If that is so, why are certain sums of public money necessary? Why it is necessary to have this Money Resolution, placing a burden on the public purse? This Committee has a right to know.
  Hon. Members opposite argue that they believe in private enterprise, and in private enterprise that makes a profit. If that is their philosophy, then those who are building the pipelines should bear the cost, and none of it should be borne by the public. The Money Resolution reads:
  "… for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to regulate and facilitate the construction …"
  If that means that a burden is to be put on the public purse, then we should know how much it is to be. The Minister should make it clear that the burden will be put where it belongs—not on the taxpayer but on the private enterprise companies who will build these pipelines. The Money Resolution goes on to say that it will involve money to
  "… secure the safe operation of pipelines …"
  Why should this burden be on the public purse? Why should we be asked to give the Minister power to make all this provision and to ensure that any cost arising out of this project is borne by Parliament? The Minister should ensure that the burden of this provision is also placed where it belongs.
  The Money Resolution also says:
  "… and make provision for matters arising thereout …"

  583
  What other matters are these? Are we giving a blank cheque to the Minister? My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson), who is a suspicious man in these matters, indicated that the petroleum companies have already made some contribution. I am not saying that they made it direct to the Government, for that would be wrong, and I am sure that my hon. Friend, too, would not say that. But he thinks that some money has been passed.
  Surely we shall not be asked to give a blank cheque to the Minister to spend public money for pipelines to be built by private enterprise for its own profit? We should have more explanation of what all this means. I hope we will get it from the Minister. If his reply is on the same lines as that of the Attorney-General on Second Reading, clearly we shall have to vote against this Money Resolution as well.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) read out an interesting word from the Money Resolution—"thereout". This is the first time I have seen that word in a Money Resolution. It should be "therefrom". The right hon. Gentleman might consider the possibility of withdrawing this Money Resolution in order to have it put into good English. It is a very serious matter that we have to put up with this kind of slipshod verbiage because the Government are so slipshod themselves. That is not treating this Committee as it should be treated.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) raised a very interesting point. My hon. Friend pointed out that as a result of what is dealt with in the Bill and the Money Resolution, namely, the Exchequer equalisation grant and the rate deficiency grant, England might find that it had an increased rateable value, which would lower the Exchequer equalisation grant. If that is so, that would lower the Exchequer equalisation grant for Scotland. Scotland is therefore likely to be worse off as a result of the Bill. Having listened to the speech of the Attorney-General, we know that we are not to have any pipelines in Scotland because they will not
  584
  be profitable, and he does not believe that we should try to- attract industry to Scotland. Scotland will not be able to gain any benefit from the Bill, cannot look forward to enjoying the fruits of this potentially great form of transport, and will be worse off financially. That is a disastrous prospect for Scotland.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele), with his usual acumen, saw that the Bill suggested that we were to have to help private enterprise to make its profits, something which is not unusual for Tories. Apparently it is Tory philosophy that we cannot do things which are in the public interest, but we can always find time to help private enterprise to make profits.
  When I examined this Money Resolution, with my usual thoroughness, I examined the Explanatory Memorandum and that part of it which deals with the Bill's financial effects. We are given a detailed list of the things which are covered by the Money Resolution. Paragraph 18 (1, a) of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum gives an interesting list. It says that the expenses of the Minister of Power are to cover:
  under clause 4 (2) in removing works executed without a pipe-line construction authorisation under clause 1 (1) or without notice under clause 2 (1);
  under clause 20 (2) in removing works executed contrary to the Minister's directions under clause 19 (1) or in altering them;
  under clause 23 (2) in rendering a length of pipe-line safe on abandonment or disuse;
  under clause 25 (2) in demolishing a building encroaching on the route of an underground pipe-line, or alternatively under clause 26 (1) in executing remedial works to the building or pipe-line;
  under clause 28 (1) in removing deposits of spoil or refuse encroaching on the route of an underground pipe-line.
  In other words, we are being asked to sanction payments in order that we can chase after private enterprise to undo the things which ought not to have been done. We will have to put things right for private enterprise. We have to remove the soil and the dirt. We have to make abandoned and disused pipelines safe. It is true that the Minister is to be given power to obtain repayment from private enterprise and

  585
  hopes that it will pay him for the work he does. However, at the foot of that page we read:
  "Expenditure under sub-paragraph (1) (a) to (e) and (i), which might be substantial, may be recoverable, in part at least, from other parties as stated above."
  What does this mean? This seems to cover the most substantial expenditure which we are being asked to vote under this Money Resolution. We are being asked to do this because the Government are wedded to private industry, and because the robber barons have exerted pressure on the Government to forbid public industry and to enable private industry to forge ahead and take its toll of the public. We will have to clear up the mess afterwards. Or, if they try to do something which they are unable to do, we shall have to correct their mistakes. The Minister has not even got a guarantee that he will get the money back from private enterprise. That is what this means.
  The Minister ought to explain this before trying to slip it through on the quiet. I can understand why the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not here. He would wish this to be slipped through on the quiet, but we have a high regard for the right hon. Gentleman, and I hesitate to accuse him of wishing to slip it through. This is a serious matter. We are being asked to vote money for these purposes, and I hope that if we do not get a satisfactory explanation of this—and I have my doubts about whether we shall—my hon. Friends will vote against this Money Resolution.
  The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): It is perhaps appropriate that a number of hon. Members from Scotland should, with their usual concern for our financial affairs, be investigating the details of this Money Resolution, even at this rather late hour.
  In answer to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), I have been looking forward to trying to explain these details which seem to be exercising him and his hon. Friends. I hope that I can explain them satisfactorily, although perhaps not with the exactitude that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) would like.
  The Financial Resolution is necessary for two reasons. First, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East told us in con-
  586
  siderable detail—and I recognise some of his speech from the Bill in front of me—to cover any increase in the expenses incurred by the Minister as a result of various functions, of which the hon. Gentleman gave details; secondly, to meet any increase in the sums which may be payable by way of rate deficiency grant and Exchequer equalisation grant.
  There are one or two things which it is very difficult to estimate, but which it is pretty certain will not be very expensive. One is the increase in the Minister of Power's administrative expenses under Clause 16. The other is the expense of inquiries under the Sixth Schedule. Neither of these is likely to be very much, but they are extremely difficult to estimate.
  The item for which I can give an exact estimate is
  "remuneration, allowances and other payments made to or in respect of inspectors …"
  I understand that this is likely to be about £10,000 to £12,000. But the earlier items, the cost of
  "removing works executed without a pipeline construction authorisation"
  and the other matters for which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East gave details, may or may not be substantial expenses.
  These are controls which I think the House has agreed should be exercised in the public interest. The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends wanted to go further this afternoon, but these are controls which are exercised in the public interest and it is right therefore that the public should bear the cost of them.
  Mr. J. T. Price: The right hon. Gentleman has made an important statement.
  Mr. Wood: I have not finished. May I finish, and then perhaps the hon. Gentleman will not think that it is as important as he thinks it is now. These are matters for which the public should bear certain costs. These expenses of the Ministry of Power will largely be recoverable and, therefore, presumably, these first five items will not fall to any extent on the public purse.
  10.45 p.m.
  Mr. Price: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, because he has made an important statement. The effect of it is that if anyone erects a pipeline or carries out works without

  587
  authorisation from the Ministry of Power then the public purse may be charged with the cost of putting the matter right. My point is that if someone erects a house or other building on land illegally and without authority under the town planning powers he is charged with the cost of putting the job right and pulling down the building. It seems to me that we are here departing from public policy.
  Mr. Wood: That is exactly the position under the Bill. These expenses which will be incurred by the Ministry of Power in exercising the powers which the House has approved will be recoverable. If hon. Gentlemen read the Bill they will see that they can be recovered. Therefore, that group of expenses will not, in fact, turn out eventually to be considerable although at any one time the Minister may be saddled with certain expenses in removing the kind of obstruction to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention.
  The other main purpose of the Money Resolution, as I pointed out, was the payment of any increase in the sums by way of rate deficiency grant Or Exchequer equalisation grant, and here, of course, the provisions of the Bill may affect the grant in two ways. One way is by increasing the expenditure on which the grant is payable and the other is by changing the percentages of the grant. The hon. Gentleman was very anxious to know how this could possibly increase the grant, and it is certainly true that the rating provision in Clause 38 will in every case in which the pipeline goes through the local authority's territory increase the 1d. rate product of those areas.
  It is impossible to say at the moment, because we do not know how they will work, what is going to be the precise expenditure on inquiries in connection with pipelines, or what cost of inquiries will fall on the local authorities. It is impossible to say at the moment with any exactitude, as I think the hon. Gentleman would like me to say, what the total effect of these two provisions is going to be and, therefore, impossible for me to give him a more exact answer as to whether the effect on the rate deficiency grant is going to be good or
  588
  bad from the point of view of the local authority.
  I hope, therefore, having given this explanation of the charges that are likely to fall, which I think are already reasonably clearly explained in the Financial Memorandum, that the Committee will agree to approve the Money Resolution.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, will he be good enough to clear up this point which has already been raised and to which he has just made reference? Paragraph 19 of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states:
  "Expenditure under sub-paragraph (1) (a) to (e) and (i), which might be substantial, may be recoverable, in part at least …"
  The right hon. Gentleman says that the Bill enables the Minister to recover that expenditure wholly. If that is so, why does the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum say that it is only
  "recoverable in part at least"?
  Mr. Wood: The answer is that the Minister has power to recover these moneys. It is true that it may be only part of the cost. The money may not be forthcoming which the Minister wants to recover, but he has power to recover.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: This has been a very unsatisfactory statement from the Minister. It seems clear that what he calls expenditure controls in the public interest—and which, therefore, the public should pay—are really acts which the Government must take to tidy up the things which private enterprise should have done itself. It is left to public activities, far which, as he says, the public has to pay. The debate has been extremely interesting, in that it has disclosed that the Money Resolution covers in large part the costs which the public will be paying for things which private enterprise should pay for, Which may or may not be recovered, and which it is expected will be recovered only in part.
  The other thing that surprised me was that local authorities will have to pay the cost of inquiries. This fact was not disclosed during the Second Reading debate, as I recall—although it is a long and complicated Measure. The Minister said that it would be paid for

  589
  out of the increased penny rate, but an inquiry might result in turning down permission to build a pipeline, in which case the cost would fall on the local authority without any countervailing benefit on the other side. This is something wholly new, and it is extremely unsatisfactory. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to tell us what will happen if the cost falls on a local authority which is not recouped by an increase in the penny rate.
  The Minister assumed that it would be; he assumed that all inquiries would go one way. But the penny rate would only come in if the inquiry went the right way. If it went the other way the local authority would be left with an extra charge, which we did not understand was going to fall upon it when the Bill was explained to us. Even if the Minister has a satisfactory explanation of that matter, however, the other part of his speech leads me to think that we should divide against the Money Resolution. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will explain the point about local authorities which will not be recouped.
  Mr. Ross: It is extremely unsatisfactory that on a matter as important as this we should be given so little information. We have so many lectures from hon. Members opposite, and from the Chancellor, about Government expenditure, telling us that it is no good asking him to reduce taxation, but we are expected blindly to vote for a Money Resolution which will mean an increase in taxation. Hon. Members opposite, who usually have so much to say on this matter, are not prepared to ask how much this will cost.
  Mr. Willis: My hon. Friend should not speak so loudly; they are asleep.
  Mr. Ross: That is a good reason for my talking loudly. I may wake some of them up.
  We got only one figure from the Minister, and he tried to obscure even that. He gave us a figure of £12,000 as the administrative cost to his Department in respect of the inspectors. That figure arises from the safety precautions which will have to be taken, arising out of an exercise that is to be undertaken—we have been told this all day, eventually by no less a person than the Attorney-General himself—only if it is
  590
  profitable. The profit goes to the private oil company, but the cost of making the system safe has to be borne by the taxpayers.
  On every other point we could get no information. The Government do not know. Hon. Members opposite, despite all their speeches against Government expenditure, are prepared to accept this without a murmur. The Minister says, "Fancy raising this at this late hour". When can we raise it otherwise? By the laws of the House we are allowed only three-quarters of an hour to discuss it. There was a day, when the Labour Party was in power, when we went on all night on this kind of thing. I should like a further estimate from the Minister about the real cost under the headings referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin). We have had experience of some of the things which have been left, in the shape of disused houses, disused pieces of land, disused collieries and so on. The financial obligation falls on the local authority. The House has not accepted this or examined the enigma of the rate deficiency grant.
  The Minister will be conversant with the intricacies of the rate deficiency payment, not only in England and Wales, but how it affects Scotland. There is a double formula which I am sure the Leader of the House knows well. The rate deficiency in aggregate comes down in England automatically in connection with the eleven-eightieths which underlies the whole thing. No one can persuade me that the cost of an inquiry against the increased assessment arising out of the provision of a pipeline will lead to an increase of the rate deficiency grant. It will lead to a reduction. Scotland will get no benefit at all. Automatically it will lead to a reduction, and I want to know by how much.
  I regret the absence of the Parliamentary Secretary and the reason for it. But he would appreciate the reason why we are concerned about these matters. I hope that the Minister will have another go, out of fairness to the House and his own party and out of fairness and in justice to Scotland.
  Mr. Wood: If the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) is right, the financial position of the local authorities in England and Wales will not worsen.

  591
  He is concerned about the position in Scotland. Perhaps first I might answer the question of the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), who was concerned about the expenditure which might fall on a local authority. He said he was not aware that this was in the Bill, but it is contained in Clause 44. I can sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman for not understanding the Bill, but in fact it means what I say that it means. The cost falls on the local authority, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not be unduly concerned about this cost because the Ministry of Power will provide the inspector—and all that the local authority will be asked to provide is the hall where the inquiry will be held and perhaps some heating if the inquiry is held in the winter. At the same time the local authority will have a good chance of getting a pipeline with an increase in the product of a penny rate.
  I appreciate that the pipeline may not run through the area of a local authority and that it will not then get the penny rate. In such a case the authority will bear a small charge. But it is, in fact, included in the Bill, and I should not like to mislead the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: In his first intervention the Minister said that these two things were likely to balance. He did not know what the effect of the rate deficiency grant would be because these two factors might balance either way. Now he is saying that there will be no real cost to the local authority and the rate grant will drop, and the point made by my hon. Friend is true in relation to Scotland.
  11.0 p.m.
  Mr. Wood: In relation to Scotland, where the Exchequer equalisation grant is payable, the amount is designed—I need hardly mention these facts to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) who knows them so well—to
  bring the resources of those local authorities up to a level determined by comparison with local authority expenditure and rate burden. I can assure the hon. Member that this Bill is unlikely to have any substantial effect on that grant.
  Mr. T. Fraser: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman how ridiculous is the position? He is making clear that the local authorities will bear the cost of these inquiries. If he will look at his own Bill, he will see in the First Schedule that the Minister may order a public inquiry to be held notwithstanding the fact that the local planning authority has not offered any objection. If for reasons which are outwith the knowledge of the local authority the Minister himself has seem fit to order a public inquiry—which is understandable—why should the authority have to pay for the inquiry?
  Despite what the Minister said about Clause 44, it is quite unintelligible. It is rather late in the evening to read it now. I suggest that the replies which the Minister has given us are so unsatisfactory that the Leader of the House, who has sat there during this debate, should recognise that the Committee has had no satisfactory explanation of the Money Resolution and that the only reasonable thing to do is to adjourn the discussion now and continue it at a more reasonable hour of the day. The Minister said that he wondered why we should have this discussion at this late hour. I think he was right in making that complaint. It is unreasonable to have this discussion on this complicated matter at this time. I ask the Leader of the House if he will move to adjourn the discussion to a more reasonable time.
  Mr. Wood: I must clear this up. I never wondered why we should have this discussion, but I congratulated hon. Members opposite on their concern for our financial affairs.
  Question put:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 241, Noes 174.

  Division No. 181.]

  AYES

  [11.3 p.m.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Barber, Anthony

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Allason, James

  Barlow, Sir John

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Arbuthnot, John

  Barter, John

  Bidgood, John C.

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Batsford, Brian

  Biffen, John

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Hay, John

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Bishop, F. P.

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Bossom, Clive

  Hendry, Forbes

  Pott, Percivall

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Box, Donald

  Hiley, Joseph

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Braine, Bernard

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Hobson, Sir John

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Buck, Antony

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Bullard, Denys

  Holland, Philip

  Pym, Francis

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Hollingworth, John

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Hopkins, Alan

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)

  Hornby, R. P.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Rippon, Geoffrey

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Roots, William

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Cleaver, Leonard

  James, David

  Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

  Collard, Richard

  Jennings, J. C.

  Russell, Ronald

  Cooke, Robert

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Cooper, A. E.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Seymour, Leslie

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Sharples, Richard

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Shaw, M.

  Corfield, F. V.

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Costain, A. P.

  Kimball, Marcus

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

  Coulson, Michael

  Kirk, Peter

  Smithers, Peter

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Kitson, Timothy

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Critchley, Julian

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Stodart, J. A.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Curran, Charles

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Talbot, John E.

  Dance, James

  Longden, Gilbert

  Tapsell, Peter

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Deedes, W. F.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

  Doughty, Charles

  McAdden, Stephen

  Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

  Drayson, G. B.

  MacArthur, Ian

  Teeling, Sir William

  Duncan, Sir James

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Temple, John M.

  Eden, John

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Emery, Peter

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Errington, Sir Eric

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Farr, John

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Turner, Colin

  Fisher, Nigel

  Maddan, Martin

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Foster, John

  Marten, Neil

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Gammans, Lady

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Gardner, Edward

  Mawby, Ray

  Walder, David

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Walker, Peter

  Gilmour, Sir John

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Mills, Stratton

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Goodhart, Philip

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Webster, David

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Morgan, William

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Whitelaw, William

  Green, Alan

  Neave, Airey

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Wise, A. R.

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Woollam, John

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Worsley, Marcus

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Peel, John

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Percival, Ian

  Hastings, Stephen

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Finlay and Mr. McLaren.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Beaney, Alan

  Boardman, H.

  Ainsley, William

  Bence, Cyril

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Albu, Austen

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics. S. W.)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Benson, Sir George

  Bowles, Frank

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Blackburn, F.

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Awbery, Stan

  Blyton, William

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  594

  595

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Randall, Harry

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Rankin, John

  Cliffe, Michael

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Reid, William

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Cronin, John

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Rhodes, H.

  Crosland, Anthony

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Kelley, Richard

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Ross, William

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lawson, George

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Ledger, Ron

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Deer, George

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Dempsey, James

  Lipton, Marcus

  Small, William

  Diamond, John

  Loughlin, Charles

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Dodds, Norman

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Donnelly, Desmond

  McCann, John

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Driberg, Tom

  MacColl, James

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  MacDermot, Niall

  Steele, Thomas

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  McInnes, James

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Evans, Albert

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Stonehouse, John

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Stones, William

  Finch, Harold

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Fitch, Alan

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Swain, Thomas

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Marsh, Richard

  Taverne, D.

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Mason, Roy

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Forman, J. C.

  Mayhew, Christopher,

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Thornton, Ernest

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Millan, Bruce

  Timmons, John

  Ginsburg, David

  Milne, Edward

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Warbey, William

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Monslow, Walter

  Weitzman, David

  Gourlay, Harry

  Moody, A. S.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Whitlock, William

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Oram, A. E.

  Wigg, George

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Gunter, Ray

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Willey, Frederick

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Parker, John

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Harper, Joseph

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Peart, Frederick

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Pentland, Norman

  Woof, Robert

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Hilton, A. V.

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Holman, Percy

  Prentice, R. E.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Hoy, James H.

  Probert, Arthur

  Mr. Grey and

  Mr. Charles A. Howell.

  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  EMPLOYMENT (THE HARTLEPOOLS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]
  11.4 p.m.
  Commander J. S. Kerans: I wish to draw attention to the very high rate of unemployment which now exists in my constituency. In October, 1959 it stood at 5·9 per cent. Since then it has come down a little. For a short period it was as low as 3·8 per cent. Since then it has steadily risen, and the present figure is 6·4 per
  596
  cent. Not very long ago it was 6·5 per cent., the highest in the North-East. It means that at the moment there are 2,234 men and women who are registered in the employment exchanges in both towns, and 1,774 of them are men. Whilst it is true that a small number of those men are not wholly unemployed but are on short-time working, nevertheless 1,539 men are wholly unemployed, which is a very high percentage.
  I have put numerous Questions to the President of the Board of Trade, and in general terms I am invariably told that there are prospects of so many jobs ahead. Somehow these do not seem to materalise, and before one can say "Jack Robinson" a new lot of school-leavers are on the market. The result is that the constituency's unemployment percentages are back to where they were.

  597
  What are the causes of the present situation and what action can be taken by the Government to alleviate the present hardships, doubts and inconveniences? As I see it, the main problem in The Hartlepools is want of communications, quite apart from the present recession in the steel and shipbuilding industries. By road, we need easy access from the A.1. This, I know, has been approved in principle. I trust that my hon. Friend will do all he can to stress the importance of this to the Minister of Transport.
  By air, the nearest airfield is seven miles from Newcastle. There is no doubt that something very much nearer is required. I realise that Middleton St. George has Royal Air Force priority. I was one of those concerned at a meeting about that not so very long ago, but I would say that a concerted effort is needed by the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Aviation and the Air Ministry to improve air travel conditions so that industry can be attracted to the area.
  By sea, we have a fine harbour on which a great deal of money has been spent, and the coastal and foreign trade has slightly improved, in the last three years from 2,384,000-odd tons in 1959 to 2½ million tons in 1961; but it could be a good deal greater.
  By rail, West Hartlepool is left on a limb for the greater part of the day, with very few direct trains from London. Surely this is a matter which merits investigation between the Board of Trade and Dr. Beeching? It may be a small matter in the large, overall question of communications, but it is nevertheless thoroughly inconvenient that those who have to go to the area have to change twice from Darlington, and that costs some hours.
  What are other factors affecting unemployment in the constituency? The main factor for the industrial community is the remoteness of the area. There is a vast number of people who have only a vague idea where The Hartlepools are. I hate to say it, but it is perfectly true. It is high time the area was put on the map, and on this aspect of the matter, too, I would ask the Board of Trade to spur themselves to greater efforts. N.E.I.D.A. is doing its best, I know, but it has only just
  598
  started. We have a trading estate where there is ample room for expansion, but little has materialised in recent months. N.E.I.D.A. is under way, but the time factor is urgent and we have yet to reach the peak of the school-leavers.
  Turning to the steel and shipping industries, what hopes has the President of the Board of Trade, in conjunction with his Ministerial colleagues, of improvement? It is a tragic thought that a vast concern like the South Durham Iron and Steel works at Greatham, only just completed, and which reached the peak of £60 million, has already had to close down certain sections. Has the nadir in the steel industry been passed? What hope is there of an increase in employment in this industry? The shipping position on the ship-repairing side has shown some improvement, but orders are not all that far ahead. Here again, can the Admiralty help, even though orders may be very small in size? I know that we are to lose our reserve fleet by late June, but that was inevitable. The Admiralty kept it as long as possible there in view of the employment situation, and I am deeply grateful, but it could not do it forever.
  What steps could be taken to increase employment? I suggest that approval should be given now to completing the Brenda Road in the Seaton Carew area. This road has been built in sections with a gap in the middle, which means virtually a bottleneck, and practically nothing has been done about it. The local authority wants power to go ahead with this middle section, but the Minister of Transport has deferred the money allocation. Men may soon be laid off by the council and my constituents will suffer. Surely an exception could be made in this case for an area of high unemployment. I ask my hon. Friend to consult and convince the Minister of Transport on this small domestic issue. Again, some of the education projects could similarly be advanced in a high unemployment situation.
  We have an organisation in the Board of Trade called B.O.T.A.C. I suggest that its powers should be a little wider. It advises the Board of Trade on the making of grants and loans, but I feel that it is slightly cautious in its attitude towards security. If we want employment in the area, we should take a wider view.

  599
  Another point, and it is a good one, has been brought to my attention by the town clerk. He writes:
  "… I think that the remedy which the government ought to apply in cases like that of the Hartlepools, is to build one or more factories in advance of known requirements …".
  This has been done in the past in Jarrow.
  "Experience has shown that where a building exists and is immediately available, it is seldom that an occupier cannot be found. Indeed, most of the factories that now exist on the Hartlepools Estate were build in advance of known requirements, and some very excellent tenants were quickly obtained."
  The town clerk has further written to say that
  "… although the unemployment figures reveal a bad situation, they by no means tell the whole of the story, as a considerable number of people, particularly those of the executive class, have recently had to leave the Hartlepools to seek employment elsewhere. Whilst this may be regarded in some quarters as a remedy to the problem, I would emphasise that any large scale migration, particularly of the higher income classes, has a damaging effect on the whole economy of the town, and reflects itself in declining values of property and diminishing retail trade."
  That is a very good point.
  Finally, there is the trawling industry, which has virtually ceased to exist in The Hartlepools, due to high dues and the limited availability of crews. I ask my hon. Friend to consult fishing interests on measures to improve conditions, with the various Ministries concerned.
  This is not just a Board of Trade matter. Many other Government Departments are concerned. The Local Employment Act, 1960, does not seem to have produced the results expected. Only one firm has really established itself in my area since that Act came into force. I ask the Government to investigate the entire problem of these pockets of high unemployment as a matter of urgency. Cannot Remploy, which is supported by the Ministry of Labour, be expanded? I appreciate that industry cannot be forced into the area, but I suggest that the persuasive powers of the Board of Trade might be a little stronger.
  Will my hon. Friend take the initiative and consult the appropriate Departments and organisations concerned now on what can be done to help? There
  600
  are further redundancies in engineering to come in the constituency. There are more school leavers to come, and time does not stand still. I ask the Government for action now and quickly.
  11.25 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Pentland: I intervene for a few moments in order to support the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) in the case which he has put forward so sincerely. I do so because I can understand his sincere concern about the unemployment position in that part of the country. It is reflected and has a sympathetic response in constituencies all over the North-East.
  I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will not be surprised that I intervene in this debate, and I make no apologies for doing so even though the hour is late. I know that he is fully aware that year in and year out hon. Members on this side of the House have put down Questions to the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister of Labour and even the Prime Minister about the problems facing us in the North-East. Time and time again we have pressed the Government to face up to the urgent need for new industries to be steered to our part of the country, so far without any material success coming our way, no matter how much we agitate on this problem.
  The hon. and gallant Gentleman was quite correct in what he said about the operation of the Local Employment Act, which has failed miserably, as we have said before, to overcome the problems of the North-East. When it was introduced, it was expected, the Government said, to deal not only with existing unemployment, but to anticipate future unemployment in the areas in which it was expected to operate. It has failed in both those objectives in the North-East, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman was quite justified in his criticisms of it.
  Although The Hartlepools continues to head the unemployment league table in the North-East, with an unemployment rate of 6·4 per cent., many other areas in the North-East are rapidly catching up. For instance, places like Jarrow and South Shields and East Boldon have a rate of 5·5 per cent.,

  601
  Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, has 5 per cent., Sunderland 4·8 per cent., Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor and Shildon 4·6 per cent., Houghton-le-Spring 4·3 per cent., and so on through the list of places with unemployment rates as high as three or four or five per cent.
  In addition to the problem of adult unemployment in the area, we are now faced with serious unemployment among juveniles. Many of the youngsters who left school at Christmas have not yet been able to get a job of any kind, and they have now been joined by the Easter school leavers. In the Northern Region, 12,000 children left school at Easter this year, 4,000 more than at Easter last year. They are now on the labour market and looking for jobs. Everyone concerned with youth employment in the North-East is seriously concerned and apprehensive about what the future holds for these children. With the hon. and gallant Member, I ask what action the Government are to take to solve these problems of juvenile unemployment.
  Again, as a result of economic policies which the Government have been implementing over the past twelve months, we find that unemployment is increasing in the steel industry, in shipbuilding, in ship-repairing, and in the metal manufacturing industries. This has to be considered in relation to the existing problem of the contraction that is taking place in the mining industry. In Durham alone we are apprehensive about what will happen to many thousands of miners who, if this contraction continues, as it probably will, will have to look for alternative employment in the next five or six years. We therefore ask the Government what preparations they are making in areas in Durham and Northumberland for the introduction of new industries to replace the coal industry and the coal mines as they are closed.
  I have no time to develop my argument at length tonight. This will have to wait for a future occasion, but I warn the Parliamentary Secretary that all those hon. Members who represent constituencies in the North-East will continue to hammer away at the Government for as long as we can so that we will at least impress on them that some realistic plan must be brought forward
  602
  to solve the problems that face our people in the North-East.
  Commander Kerans: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the thing to do is to put the area on the map; to advertise it?
  Mr. Pentland indicated assent.
  11.32 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): I was hoping in the short time available to me to have an opportunity to put the area on the map.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) has handled the current problems of The Hartlepools with clarity and common sense, and he has been supported by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Pentland), who has carried the argument a great deal wider than my hon. and gallant Friend did. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I deal with the wider aspect in the context of The Hartlepools, as it is my hon. and gallant Friend's right to raise this on the Adjournment. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend on the attention that he pays to the wellbeing of his constituents, and on the vigour with which he pursues their interests.
  I readily understand and sympathise with the anxiety with which my hon. and gallant Friend must regard the rise in unemployment over the last twelve months. The numbers of wholly unemployed have increased from 1,250 to about 2,100 over the past two years, that is, from 3·4 per cent. to 5·6 per cent, with a further 236 temporarily stopped. As my hon. and gallant Friend says, nearly four-fifths of the wholly unemployed are men.
  I must say that a year ago, despite the Indifferent prospects for shipbuilding, I had begun to regard the unemployment problem in my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency as being within reach of solution, but unfortunately since then the recession in the steel industry has come upon us and has affected Tees-side more seriously than any other steel-producing area, except Scotland. Some closures of plant have taken place in the area, and further closures have been announced. Firms which had been expecting to take

  603
  on additional labour have actually been discharging labour. At the same time it is fair to recognise that some of the plant that is now going out of use has already been replaced by more modern plant.
  If I had any criticism to make of my hon. and gallant Friend's speech, it was perhaps that he tended to paint a rather too sombre picture of The Hartlepools, as remote, cut off, and in consequence neglected. In fact the steel industry is spending many millions of pounds a year in the Tees-side area—over £13 million last year, and much the same in the current year. It has spent no less than £144 million on development in Tees-side since the war. I would not call that evidence of neglect.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked whether the steel industry was likely to recover from now on. It is, perhaps, too soon to say that. Consumer stocks are lower than they have been for a long time and did, in fact, continue to fall in the first quarter of this year. But there must be a limit to that, of course. At the same time, there are a good many factors accounting for the weakness in the present demand, some of which may be somewhat intractable. There is the falling off in demand of the National Coal Board and of the British Transport Commission. There is the lack of buoyancy in shipbuilding and in heavy engineering and the lack of demand from overseas for heavy oil pipelines.
  What is certain, I think, is that a general recovery in demand should soon be reflected in the steel industry. So far, however, the recovery in steel production on Tees-side has been only marginal and the utilisation of capacity is still only about three-fifths. That, I am afraid, largely accounts for the rise in unemployment in my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency. I agree with him that it is sad to see new works such as the South Durham Company's plants for steel plate production not fully occupied.
  I recognise, of course, that The Hartlepools, in common with other parts of the country, feels that its communications could be improved and that higher priority should be given to it. In saying that, I am not in any way criticising what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is doing but
  604
  merely stating the fact that there is an awful lot to be done and that every locality thinks that its problems should be tackled first. However, I will very willingly pass on to my right hon. Friend what my hon. and gallant Friend has said about communications—road, rail and air.
  My hon. and gallant Friend asked about port facilities. The docks, as he knows, are owned and operated by the British Transport Commission in The Hartlepools, and with coal exports dropping the port is more dependent on the imports of iron ore, and, of course, with the recent recession in the steel industry they have been affected. Up to that time they had been increasing rapidly. As a matter of fact, over the last two years there has been about a 5 per cent increase in the tonnage, that is to say, in the total shipments outwards and inwards, foreign and coastwise.
  My hon. and gallant Friend drew attention to the improvement in ship-repairing and I was very glad to see that a prominent shipbuilding firm in his constituency had obtained two large orders for the conversion of tankers into dry-cargo vessels. On the other hand, of course, another firm has just had to declare 200 redundancies.
  The Board of Trade has been doing its best to bring new industry to The Hartlepools and to the whole of the North-East. In the general context of the North-East, it is well to remember that there are 10,000 jobs in prospect. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street said that all this effort had been to no purpose. He said that the Local Employment Act was intended to anticipate the difficulties. Then he quoted Seaton Delaval which has 5 per cent. unemployment. When we put it on the list we anticipated that, and it had much less unemployment than it has now. What the Local Employment Act cannot deal with is with fluctuating employment resulting from recession in a particular industry. It is supposed to be dealing with high and persistent unemployment.
  Fourteen firms have been taken by the Regional Controller or his staff to see The Hartlepools in the past six months. I understand that three are thinking of bringing projects to the area. My

  605
  hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that I cannot give details, because these are confidential matters. Six applications for assistance under the Local Employment Act are under consideration by B.O.T.A.C. at present, and five firms have already received offers of assistance under the Act for projects estimated to provide about 400 jobs. Including those 400 jobs—as my hon. and gallant friend knows from a Reply given to him in the House three weeks ago—there are about 950 new industrial jobs in prospect over the next four years, 550 of them being for males.
  The majority of these jobs result from expansions undertaken by firms already established in the area, but that does not matter at all; the point is to get jobs. That is what the Act is there to do, and assistance can be given to established firms for expansion just as well as it can be given to firms coming into the area. But there is at least one new entrant, which is likely to provide between 150 and 200 jobs.
  My hon. and gallant Friend suggested that advance factories should be provided. This is something which every constituency with high unemployment thinks should be done for it. But I ask my hon. and gallant Friend to consider what would be the position if we were to provide advance factories in all the constituencies where there is a demand. Inevitably a great many of these factories would not be taken up, particularly in the present state of trade in this country. It is true that in the early days of the industrial trading estates a great many factories were provided in advance, but that was when there was a great shortage of buildings and a great deal of industry was turning over from wartime to peacetime production. There was a great demand for factory space.
  606
  The position is quite different now, and we must recognise it.
  But we have provided a certain number of advance factories. We have had two lots of throe factories each, one in England one in Scotland and one in Wales. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street knows the factory that is being completed in Jarrow but has not yet found a tenant—so it is not as easy as all that to find tenants for advance factories.
  In conclusion, my right hon. Friend and I are well aware that the area badly needs more jobs, especially for men. Both of us have visited my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency, and I can truly say that we understand and sympathise with its problems, and that the Board of Trade's regional staff, in particular, are doing their very utmost to contribute towards their solution.
  I join issue with the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street when he says that these efforts have been of no avail, and again I point to the number of jobs in prospect and the efforts now being made, and the likelihood that they, in turn, will result in further jobs in prospect. But against that the fact is that in the north-east, with the rundown in the coal mines, we are having to run very hard indeed in order even to keep in the same place.
  But if we can diversify industry and bring more industry up there we shall be on much sounder ground for the future, and the object we hold before ourselves is the object of diversifying industry in the north-east, so that it will not be smitten from time to time with what is happening now in one industry.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Twelve o'clock.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Peas
  Peas
  Fishing Industry (Landings)
  Fishing Industry (Landings)
  Potatoes
  Potatoes
  Toxic Chemicals
  Toxic Chemicals
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  South Africa
  South Africa
ROYAL NAVY
  Admiralty Establishments
  Admiralty Establishments
  Nuclear Submarines
  Nuclear Submarines
  Portsmouth Command (Naval Establishments)
  Portsmouth Command (Naval Establishments)
  Greenwich Hospital Properties
  Greenwich Hospital Properties
  Royal Marines
  Royal Marines
  Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar
  Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar
BRITISH ARMY
  Overseas Purchases
  Overseas Purchases
  N.A.A.F.I. Shop, Aldershot
  N.A.A.F.I. Shop, Aldershot
ROADS
  Widening Schemes (Compulsory Purchase Orders)
  Widening Schemes (Compulsory Purchase Orders)
  Toll Bridge, Aldwark
  Toll Bridge, Aldwark
  Pedestrian Subways
  Pedestrian Subways
  M.4 (Tormarton and Almondsbury)
  M.4 (Tormarton and Almondsbury)
  One-way Streets
  One-way Streets
  Eastern Avenue, Cardiff
  Eastern Avenue, Cardiff
  Stretford-Eccles Bypass
  Stretford-Eccles Bypass
  Beverley
  Beverley
SHIPPING
  Shipbuilding (Overseas Orders)
  Shipbuilding (Overseas Orders)
  Shipbuilding Industry
  Shipbuilding Industry
  United States Maritime Commission (British Shipping)
  United States Maritime Commission (British Shipping)
  European Maritime Powers (Meeting)
  European Maritime Powers (Meeting)
RAILWAYS
  Victoria Line
  Victoria Line
TRANSPORT
  Council of Europe (Recommendation)
  Council of Europe (Recommendation)
  Mobile Cranes
  Mobile Cranes
  Old-age Pensioners (Fares)
  Old-age Pensioners (Fares)
EMPLOYMENT
  Aberdeen
  Aberdeen
  Stoke-on-Trent and Burnley
  Stoke-on-Trent and Burnley
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  CENTRAL TREATY ORGANISATION (MILITARY COMMANDER)
  CENTRAL TREATY ORGANISATION (MILITARY COMMANDER)
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Space Aircraft
  Space Aircraft
NATIONAL FINANCE
  The Cloud, Buglawton (Estate Duty Settlement)
  The Cloud, Buglawton (Estate Duty Settlement)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Detention Centres
  Detention Centres
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Spoil Heaps
  Spoil Heaps
SCIENCE
  Nuclear Tests
  Nuclear Tests

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

PENALTIES FOR DRUNKEN DRIVING
2.35 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the figures given in answer to Questions asked in this House on April 16, which support the widely held view that prosecutions for driving or being in charge of a motor vehicle while under the influence of drink or drugs are better tried by magistrates' courts, they will bring forward an amendment to Section 6 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, to reduce the maximum penalty for such offences to one of a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months, which would in effect remove the right of an accused to go for trial before a jury while not interfering with the discretion of a magistrates' court to send any case for trial to a higher court if the gravity of the case, in the opinion of the court, warrants such action.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government cannot agree to this proposal. As your Lordships know, the Government are very concerned over the hazards that may arise through driving under the influence of drink or drugs, and they share the noble Lord's anxiety that the law on the subject should be fully enforced and the appropriate penalties imposed. But they are not satisfied that it is either necessary or justifiable to take the drastic step of depriving defendants of their long-established right to elect for trial by jury.

AIRCREWS AND SAFETY REGULATIONS
2.36 p.m.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that members of aircrews (particularly captains and co-pilots of British international commercial aircraft observe strictly the regulations for the use of safety body harness on take-off and landing.]
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Aviation has no reason to believe that members of aircrews of public transport aircraft registered in the United Kingdom are not complying with the regulations in this respect.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I be allowed to say that there is at least some doubt in the minds of some individuals with some knowledge of flying as to whether some of the otherwise unexplainable air accidents may not possibly be due to those in charge of commercial aircraft becoming temporarily unconscious through sudden illness at take-off or landing, falling forward across the controls and thereby causing the aircraft to go into a steep dive from which it is impossible to recover in the short time available?
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have not heard this view widely expressed and do not subscribe to it themselves. There is no record of an accident to a United Kingdom aircraft on a commercial flight where the cause was thought to be the sudden illness of a pilot at the controls. Where there is any suspicion that physical incapacity on the part of the pilot or co-pilot may have contributed to the cause of an accident, the pilot is medically examined or a post-mortem examination is made. All professional pilots undergo a strict medical examination twice a year, designed, among other things, to eliminate the risk of any sudden incapacity.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, while again thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask whether

219
the noble Lord is aware that in a Parliamentary Paper called Aviation Safety, published only in the last month, there is no reference whatsoever to the subject matter of my original Question. I ask, then, if this may be so by reason of the fact that it is taken as an elementary precaution that is presumably adequately covered in the Flight Manuals and mandatory instructions of the air operating companies; and, again, may it not be one thing to make an instruction mandatory and another thing to ensure that it is strictly and meticulously carried out?
LORD DENHAM: Yes, my Lords. This is one of a number of safety regulations which Government flight inspectors see to; and the flight operations inspectors are referred to at page 15 of that Paper. I would advise the noble Lord that of course this Paper is primarily to inform the public of the precautions taken, and not to instruct the pilots on what precautions should be taken. The pilots are given extremely careful instructions in their training and also in any new precautions that come out while they are actually in operation.
LORD CASEY: I thank the noble Lord.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, is it not desirable that an officer in charge of an aircraft should be strapped to his seat, not only for take-off and landing but also in actual flight? In view of the seriousness of the matter, and the doubt expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Casey, would the Minister undertake again to draw this matter to the attention of the airlines in a safety pamphlet?
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, the regulations are that the pilot and co-pilot should, on landing and take-off, wear full harness, while during the rest of the flight they wear just a safety belt. I will draw the remark of the noble Lord to the notice of my right honourable friend.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the case of a person who has a sudden attack of unconsciousness it is extremely unlikely that a post-mortem examination will show any evidence of it.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, there is always the possibility that the investigations carried out afterwards will show some other reason for the accident.

ANTIBIOTICS IN MILK
2.40 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what investigations have been made to ascertain the frequency and extent to which milk sold for human consumption contains residues of penicillin and other antibiotics; and what steps have been taken to prevent milk so affected from being sold for that purpose.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, surveys have recently been made in England and Wales and in Scotland, in which samples of milk from farms have been tested for the presence of penicillin and other antibiotics. The results are being analysed and their significance assessed. The Milk Marketing Board for England and Wales and the main Scottish Board require producers, by the terms of their contracts, not to offer for sale milk from cows which have been treated with antibiotics within a specified period. The other two Scottish Boards advise producers in the same sense. The object of these precautions is to ensure that the antibiotic is excreted before the milk is offered for sale.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, will the noble Earl say what the result of the examination was, and whether or not any samples were found infected?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, as I said, the result of the survey is in process of being analysed now, and it will be submitted to expert opinions. We are not in a position to say more at the moment, until we have examined the statistical data.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that in a recent broadcast it was stated that

221
5 per cent. of samples of milk contained penicillin or other antibiotics?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords. I was not personally aware of the broadcast, but I had seen articles in some papers which allege that there is a substantial proportion of penicillin in milk. This is why the survey was undertaken, and this is why this survey will be carefully analysed. We shall have to consider what we shall do when that has been done.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that it may be that the use of such antibiotics prevents contamination from other and worse things?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, it may well do that.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, may I ask when the result of this investigation will be available?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot: say when the result will be available, but the matter is being proceeded with at full speed. Did the noble Lord ask "whether" the result would be available? I thought the noble Lord said "when".
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I meant both.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: I will certainly consider making the result available.

DEVELOPMENT OF SPORTS FACILITIES
2.44 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are now in a position to announce their decision concerning the recommendations in September, 1960, of the Wolfenden Committee, set up by the Central Council for Physical Recreation for the development of sports facilities in Britain.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a very full and detailed answer to a Question Which was asked yesterday in another place in substantially similar terms to that which the noble Baroness has asked to-day. At this stage I do not think there is anything I can add to what my right honourable friend said.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for that reply, I should perhaps declare a personal interest, in that I sit on the executive of the Central Council for Physical Recreation. But while being glad that a start has at last been made in this matter, and while welcoming particularly the modest amount of help given to the governing bodies of sport in administration and coaching, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that a large number of people in this country Who have given a lifetime of service to sport feel considerable disappointment that the Government have not felt able to recommend the setting up of a Sports Development Council? As the Minister will be aware, in another place yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer said—I quote from column 228 of the Commons OFFICIAL REPORT:
"The question of a Sports Development Council is another matter."
Later, he said (col. 229):
"I will keep that matter under consideration. As I have said, it is being considered."
Can the noble Earl amplify that statement and tell us when may we expect to have the results of that consideration?
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, is he aware that the regret felt at the Government's decision not so far to agree to a national Sports Development Council is not solely confined to the Benches opposite?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am, of course, aware of the noble Baroness's keen interest in these matters and the contribution which she has made. I am afraid, however, in answer both to the noble Baroness and to my noble friend, that I am not in a position to say anything further than my right honourable

223
friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday about the Sports Development Council. This particular recommendation is, as he said, under consideration.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I try to tempt the noble Earl? While this is not a matter of opposition—it is an all-Party matter—may I ask the Minister whether he can press the Government, and in particular the Lord President of the Council, who, if he would not mind my saying so, has been very interested in this for some time past, to do something, as a matter of urgency, on the question of grants for international sport? Does he not consider it undesirable, unfair in the face of competition and, in my opinion, quite disgraceful, that when we send teams overseas to compete in amateur athletics they are entirely dependent on voluntary bodies at this end? Would the Government not consider giving some help here, so that those connected with these voluntary bodies might feel that their efforts were really recognised?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am only too easily tempted. I will certainly bring the matter to the attention of my noble friend.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, as I am a newcomer, perhaps if I put down a Question in a few days' time I might have an Answer.

DARTFORD TUNNEL BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
SHOREHAM HARBOUR BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

INTRODUCTION OF COMMERCIAL BROADCASTING
2.48 p.m.
LORD REITH LORD REITH rose to move to resolve, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the work of a political pressure group for the introduction of commercial broadcasting, as disclosed in a book by Professor H. H. Wilson, of
224
Princeton, published last June called Pressure Group. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I put down this Motion months ago, without naming a day. I thought I ought to. It was just that: a duty encumbent on me, a moral duty—to introduce that term thus early and so give opportunity for a cynical snort to those so inclined. Too much goes by default in this country in these days—far too much—because not enough people care about this or that, because they cannot be bothered, because they have not enough sense, or intelligence, or faith, or courage, or energy or love of country to read the issues aright and to take action. Silly position, I thought to myself last night, apropos this Motion, and rather sickening. What is the use of raising it here? What can come of it, and in an atmosphere heavy with hostility? I nearly telephoned to someone, but did not know to whom to telephone, to cancel the Motion, or to transfer it to the Liberals, or to Labour, or to anyone willing to receive it. But I changed my mind in the middle of the night, and I have the honour to submit this Motion to your Lordships.
There seems to have been a mighty moving of the waters in the last two or three weeks over this Motion; a significant, if not an impressive, array of Party opposition in a matter which ought not to have had any Party implications at all. The Motion does not refer to the decision to disrupt BB.C. monopoly and to introduce commercial television. It refers to the way it was done. There is no objection to pressure groups as such. The history of many reforms in this country, beginning with Wilber-force, is the history of pressure groups formed by individuals conscious, perhaps deeply conscious—and long ahead of the majority of their fellows—of a need for change. Nothing necessarily shameful in a pressure group; nor in being moved by the pressure of a pressure group, if—if, I say—its motives and methods are above-board, straightforward, honourable and honest. See if you can claim all that, my Lords, for this particular pressure group.
As to the decision made entirely as the result of this pressure group, of course I considered it, as did many of the most

225
respected leaders of this House—Lord Halifax, for instance (who said in one of the two momentous debates that, if I were to take the matter to a Division, he would vote with me against the Party of his life's dedication and service), Lord Brand, Lord Hailsham, Lord Waverley, Lord Radcliffe and Lord Samuel. Of course I considered it, as they did—will you excuse me, my Lords, if I talk frankly?—as one of the mostdeplorable, shocking and subversive actions in British political history. I think so more than ever to-day, and I believe that there is an appreciable number of Conservative politicians who now regret what was put across them ten years ago.
And put across it was. For the issues of broadcasting policy were never formulated by Conservative Party headquarters for the ratification or rejection by voters, despite frequent references to the weight of public opinion and all such hypocrisies. The voters were simply never considered, never consulted. The pressure group was right out of touch with the rank and file, but it was so operating as to commit the Party leadership. It was the most remarkable and extraordinary exhibition of political lobbying that this country has seen. There is much detail in the book to which I refer. Objectives were primarily and in origination commercial gain, for all the reeking smoke about the evils of monopoly, and saving broadcasting and its administration from the dangers of political interference. That was one of the bogies raised by the noble Earl, Lord Woolton; and he advocated a supervisory body such as the Federal Communications Commission in America, a body notoriously ineffective and notoriously the focal point of intense political pressure.
My Lords, I am in no way associated with the Labour Party, and what I say now is true, apropos the fear that had been expressed; that during all my wretched years in the B.B.C., as I now feel them to be, since almost everything I had done has been destroyed (and Lord Hailsham said it was the wrecking of a life's work) and, so far as I know, in more than twenty years since then, Labour Governments have been at least as scrupulous as Conservative Governments not to interfere
226
with B.B.C. independence, for the establishment of which I suppose I was originally responsible.
And the credit for what has happened is, I suppose, with the Lord Woolton—or is it discredit? Heaven help us, are we to be diffident, if not ashamed, to speak of moral values, or of ethical and intellectual objectives? Listen to what the Conservative White Paper of May, 1952, said:
"The effective monopoly"—
of the B.B.C—
"has done much to establish the excellent and reputable service for which this country is renowned."
Do we often hear of such renown? And then there comes this non sequitur, as I see it, when the White Paper continues:
"… but in the expanding field of television. provision should be made to permit some element of competition".
How mild! But how silly and squalid! No mention of commercialism—they were too clever for that; proceeding gently, they were, in those days, but with full, if disguised, intention of doing what I had always said would be the result—the incredible evil, my Lords, of putting the ether at the power of money.
Of course monopoly has to be justified—justified by circumstances in its establishment, justified by what it does and does not do in execution. In the B.B.C. we were always conscious of monopoly, and were highly resolved, derivative therefrom, that it should be justified—and it was, and abundantly so, by public acclaim, till this pressure group started up. The precedence of the United Kingdom was the admiration and envy of the world, often copied as to the constitution and procedure. "Delenda est", said Lord Woolton. Not just monopoly, but the precedence that Britain had in teaching other nations, in Miltonic phrase, how to live. And so the B.B.C.—admitted source of a new but potent renown of Britain—was "sold down the river" by the noble Earl and his pressure group. How gallant the achievement! How the new renown of its doing must shine upon him now!
As I said ten years ago somebody introduced Christianity into this country; somebody introduced the printing press; others the incalculable beneficence of medical and scientific

227
discovery and application. Somebody brought smallpox, the bubonic plague, the Black Death, greyhound racing and football pools. And commercial television was introduced by means conspiratorial and disreputable, as given in that book—in which, incidentally, there may be some misstatements, though they amount to a negligible total compared with the shattering indictment of its survey. I have here a letter from the publishers which, of course, I can lay, if that be recognised procedure. Here is what it says:
"Almost all the charges of inaccuracy have been unsupported by details or any evidence. A trivial number of minor slips do exist in the book, but we are convinced, having seen much of his material, that Professor Wilson has ample evidence to support at least 95 per cent. of the statements in his book; and certainly enough to support the really significant points."
Irrespective of what one may think about the rupture of the B.B.C. monopoly and the introduction of commercial television, it really is nauseating reading.
The comment of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, so generally admired in this House, on what was done is good enough: "a shoddy and squalid constitutional error"; "a disreputable piece of chicanery…"; "a deliberate concealment …" Thus, Lord Hailsham.
The report is concise, clear and fully documented, and Professor Wilson of Princeton College closes thus:
"One is left with the impression that the Conservative leadership was something less than forthright … Britain was given commercial television against the advice of almost all the nominal leaders of society in education, religion and culture, as well as significant sections of the business community. At no time was the British electorate, or even the rank-and-file Conservative voter, given an opportunity of passing on the merits on the case.
One cannot help "—
Listen to this my Lords—
"but appreciate the extent to which the British Constitution is dependent on the character, sensibility and responsibility of those in positions of leadership.'
"Palmam qui meruit…"; or is it "Stigmam qui meruit ferat"?
The book recounts the methods by which a small group of Back-Bench Conservatives were able to introduce commercial television, thanks to the active co-operation of some Party
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leaders and the indifference of far more until it was too late. It raises these three important questions: propriety of using the Conservative Central Office for fundamentally sectional ends; propriety of introducing a commercial element into broadcasting without mandate from the electors in 1951; propriety, finally, of certain public relations methods as a means of influencing public opinion—for example, writing identical letters to different newspapers over different signatures, and the submission of allegedly impartial articles by distinguished contributors.
Now it should be stated, my Lords, and I do so categorically, that the same sort of fraudulent public relations policy and mechanics as were adopted ten years ago have been planned to operate in advance of the Pilkington Report—that really should be noted—ready to crash into full activity whenever the Report is published, especially if it recommends what this pressure group and, I imagine, the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, fear it will. Do you approve of that? Do you approve of the denigration of the Pilkington Committee increasingly in progress? Only a day or two ago, for instance, the Chairman of the Pye Group said in public that the Committee was a sham; but he added that the Government must implement the Pilkington decisions immediately they came out. That is something that the new manifestations of the pressure groups exist, if possible, to prevent. Incidentally, there is an interesting difference between public relations as practised in 1953–54 and now. The same people are now putting emphasis on the implementing of special interests, such as the clergy and educationists; and for obvious reasons.
The noble Earl, Lord Woolton, once said that it would be unfortunate if the public ever became cynical about advertising. In fact, I submit that it would be far more unfortunate if the public ever became less cynical, if it stopped being cynical. The real misfortune would come if this cynicism were to spread into fields not properly those of advertising at all. This has happened; it might well happen again if public relations techniques were used, or rather abused, as they have been, in the interests of pressure groups. This will interest you, my Lords. An advertisement

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depicting a mother and her family made happy by using a certain detergent is said to sell not the detergent but family love. "Mr. Cube" was designed to sell "freedom", not the cause of sugar manufacturers—and it absolutely did, most effectively. I am not complaining about it; I am giving information that some have never had before. But advertising so often is not for the product at all, but the results of the product. Similarly, those who use "freedom" in their talk of broadcasting are cynically exploiting that commodity while disguising their real ambitions.
The National Broadcasting Development Committee, forsooth, formed in the early summer of 1961, is a natural son—and when I say "natural" I mean it—of the Popular Television Association, spearhead of the commercial lobby of 1953–54. The Chief Publicity Officer of the Conservative Central Office resigned early in 1961, and joined a public relations firm—a firm with the same address as the National Broadcasting Development Committee, of which Lord Lloyd—glory be!—is chairman, Lord Woolton a member, and the notorious Mr. Simms, ex-Central Office, a partner in the firm, secretary of the Committee. The Committee has five major aims. I am not going to bother your Lordships with them, but I am going to tell you that I do not think they will get one single one of them adopted. The Institute for Educational Television, proposed in a letter to The Times in August last year—many eminent signatories, but they were curiously mixed—has its headquarters with another public relations firm. Maybe the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, will tell us whether this body is still alive. It was widely condemned in educational circles, and very little has been heard of it of late.
I hope that the Labour Party—I say this with every recognition of the seriousness of it—if and when it comes to power, will be strong enough, and courageous enough, to free the ether from the bondage of commercialism. I make this statement on the authority of reports I have read from official quarters that the increasing number of crimes of violence to the person and to property is in recognisable measure due to what is being put across the ether—that ether
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of which all things consist and in which we live and move and have our being. I say further, that if I were in a position myself to take supreme and sole responsibility, however great the unpopularity, I would take it simply because of this: that
"right is right, to follow right were wisdom in the scorn of consequence"—
and any damn consequences at all.
To transport your Lordships for a few seconds to a different scene and setting altogether, I wish I had the power of veto in Northern Rhodesia, where recently they have decided to permit an American syndicate to build an enormous hotel by the Eastern Cataract of the Victoria Falls, complete with casino. I would exercise a veto over that if I could, despite whatever consequences came. I can go to Ascot with the best of them and enjoy myself—and, moreover, find it profitable. But to attach a casino to the Victoria Falls is an insult to the Almighty, to the memory of David Livingstone and to the majesty and magnificence of the Zambesi.
I end, my Lords, by putting, with great respect but with great urgency and appeal, five simple questions to the noble and learned Viscount The Lord High Chancellor—not as a Party leader, but as high custodian of British proprieties, political, constitutional and moral: (1) Does he approve of commercial television?; (2) If he felt the B.B.C. monopoly should be disrupted, were there not other and better ways of doing it?; (3) Does the noble and learned Viscount approve of what was done by the pressure group ten years ago?; (4) Does he approve of what is being planned and done now by way of discrediting and baulking Harry Pilkington's Report?; (5) Does he approve of the Conservative Central Office being used as it was ten years ago? My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the work of a political pressure group for the introduction of commercial broadcasting, as disclosed in a book by Professor H. H. Wilson, of Princeton, published last June, called Pressure Group.—(Lord Reith.)
3.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, it is kind of you, if I may say so, to welcome me after you have heard this torrent of vulgar abuse that has come from the noble Lord. I am very greatly in doubt whether it is a good thing for anyone to get up and reply to a speech of that nature. The noble Lord and I were members of two Governments. We were on terms (I hope I do not insult him by saying so) of considerable friendship. We worked together with much amity. He could not at that time have suspected that I had so much moral failure about me. I was, my Lords, though a little surprised, rather prepared for the speech; because in the middle of April I received from the noble Lord a letter addressed, "Dear Sir", and telling me that if he spoke to-day—so it was not in the middle of last night that he had doubts about whether he was going to speak—he proposed to refer to me considerably. Well, he has kept his promise.
My Lords, I am at a loss to know how to reply. I have been in your Lordships' House a long time. Is it necessary now for me to get up and defend myself against charges of having poisoned the ether of this country; of having been the tool of bad influences? Be careful, my Lords, because many of you were parts of that bad influence: I did not initiate it. I have come to the conclusion that the only possible reply for me to make is one of a quite simple statement, and it is this: that never during my time—I ought to say at any time—has any pressure group in this country ever sought to influence my opinion and my actions, either by promises of reward to me or by promises of financial support to the Conservative Party. The noble and learned Viscount the Leader of this House knows quite well that it is a part of the unpleasant duty of the Chairman of the Party to try to raise the wherewithal for running the Party; and I did. But never once was either principle or honour sold during the period in which I was Chairman of the Party. I ask your Lordships to accept that as my assurance, my faith and my pledge to you. As probably one of the senior Privy Counsellors in this House, I would not give you a pledge—I should not dare to give you
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a pledge—that was false. May I, therefore, dismiss that issue?
My Lords, while the noble Lord was speaking I made some notes: "putting the ether at the mercy of money", and "selling down the river". What does the noble Lord mean by "selling"? Does he suggest that there was a financial transaction there? "Selling down the river"—what does he mean by it?
LORD REITH: If the cap fits, my Lords, let him wear it.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: I think I have been tolerably patient with the noble Lord up to now, and I am determined to remain patient. But after that sermon with which he started, and the assumption of high moral rectitude on his part which the rest of us do not have, I must say that it is really rather offensive that somebody who so rarely fills this House with his presence and his voice should use it as a platform, with all the protection that it gives a man, to make these statements. I did try to make a note of something he said about bubonic plague and smallpox; I gathered it had something to do with something I had done, but I lost the point. I do not know why the noble Lord brought it in.
Now, my Lords, let us get away from all this hypocrisy about pressure groups. Of course they exist in this country. I do not know anything about the man who wrote this book in which the noble Lord seems to have had so much faith. He is a university professor. I have never heard of him, but why should I? He is no worse for that. But what does he mean? Of course we have pressure groups; I hope we always shall. What is Parliament for, except as a place to which people who have grievances or ideas can come and say, "We want this rectified; we want this adopted"?
My Lords, have we not all seen great crowds of people here who have come along, seeking to put their grievances before Members of Parliament? We have seen members of trade unions with a financial benefit in prospect. It is a very proper thing for them to do to those who are the leaders of public thought and legislative action in this country. The nurses are now indulging in a very considerable pressure group.

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And, if I may go right off the subject (I will try to get it in before I am called to Order), I hope that the nurses will keep up that pressure group. For I am one of the people who owe so much to them, and I am most anxious that they should get justice. But that is off the line. If they succeed, my Lords, what will they succeed in doing? They will succeed in getting more money and shorter hours. Well, why should they not? But that is a pressure group.
What happened about commercial television? For a long time there had been a good deal of consideration going on upon two issues. The first was whether we were wise to continue the monopoly of the B.B.C.; the second was whether we were wise not to encourage television in this country and encourage the commerce which would come from it. I will tell your Lordships quite honestly my action about it. There is nothing that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, need not know and for which he really needs a Select Committee, because it is just this. These gentlemen, competent in electronics, thought they saw an opportunity of developing it, for their benefit truly, but without damage to anybody else. They came along and saw a number of us who were in the Government at the time. There was no threat; there was no offer of anything to us. They put forward a view.
They were not the only pressure group. There was another pressure group of great strength, full of moral issues also, who came along and made speeches in this House, or some of them did, and others made speeches through an organisation which they created for the purpose. Why should not they do so? I think they were right to defend something that they thought was essential for the wellbeing of the country. But so were the other people who said, "There is something which we can give to the people of this country." True, they thought they would make a profit. True, they made very considerable losses for the first year; but subsequently they have made great profits.
My Lords, may I make one other personal statement? I have not at any time had any financial relationship with any of those companies. Neither I nor any of the family trusts which come under my general direction have one
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penny-piece invested in commercial television or in any of the attendant companies in commercial television. And, of course, if I had had, I should have made vast sums of money—perhaps even more than the noble Lord, Lord Reith, made at Ascot. But I saw the possibility of gain, and I thought it was ill-advised, it not wrong, for a person who had taken such a prominent part as I had in advocating commercial television to have any financial connection with it. I thought that, since so much had been said against my moral character, it was probably advisable that I should tell your Lordships of that.
That is all I have to say. I cannot go through the whole range of what Lord Reith has said and pretend to reply to it. I can only sit down with one consolation. I personally have not seen any marked deterioration in morality or patriotism—your Lordships remember that long phrase with which the noble Lord introduced his sermon to us. I have not seen any marked change in the people of this country since the commencement of commercial television. I have certainly seen no evidence of causation of any immorality or irregularity in the country. But I have seen one thing, my Lords, and I think it is a matter which you and I, as legislators, might take a certain amount of credit for. I have seen vast numbers of people who are thoroughly enjoying night by night the results of commercial television. In fact, I am told that more people switch on to commercial television than to the B.B.C. Therefore, my Lords, perhaps we were not so foolish when we agreed to commercial television. Perhaps there is very little with which we can charge ourselves as to having done harm to the country. I regret profoundly the speech that Lord Reith has made to your Lordships today.
3.29 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON LORD SHACKLETON had given Notice of an Amendment to the Resolution, to leave out "there be laid before the House Papers relating to "and to insert" in view of", and to add at the end of the Resolution:
"a Select Committee of this House be appointed to inquire into and report upon the allegations made in this book, in the light of the important Parliamentary and public issues involved."

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The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Titans have hurled their thunderbolts, and I hope that my speech will be delivered in a calmer mood. I should first like to say that it is not my intention at this stage to move the Amendment standing in my name; and, indeed, if the debate goes on very late and we follow our usual practice in regard to attendance late at night, it may not be worth moving at all. My object in not moving it now is, of course, to avoid distracting the House from the main subject which we are discussing; and for the same reason I have suggested that we do not to-day go into the question of the definition of "an advertiser", not for lack of desire to pursue the matter—and I am quite sure that the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack would be extremely ready to give an answer—but because I think it would be agreed that it is better pursued on another day by question and answer.
My Lords, I hope we shall take this subject seriously, and I hope that we shall not try to laugh it off or disregard it as vulgar abuse or reckon that this is not a matter which we should consider in this House. The fact remains that a number of allegations have been made—not allegations, I would stress, of corrupt practices. So far as I know, there has been no suggestion of corruption on the part of Members of Parliament or Members of your Lordships' House or of those outside concerned with the introduction of commercial television, but I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, when he says that pressure groups are a normal part of our political life. Indeed, in their way, political Parties themselves are pressure groups, sometimes of a rather confused kind, or a number of pressure groups go to make them up.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, disagrees with me and perhaps I am carrying the analogy too far. Certainly the trade unions, the farmers' unions, the employers' associations and organisations like the British Legion are all perfectly respectable pressure groups who bring pressure on Members of Parliament and do so publicly. Of course, it is perfectly normal to identify sectional interests with the national advantage. This does not necessarily suggest that they are
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hypocritical, though there may be a considerable measure of self-deception or wishful thinking.
The accusation is not that this was an ordinary pressure group activity, but that it was a very exceptional one, one that has stirred strong feelings among people in all Parties and not least among some of the most respected leaders of the Conservative Party. I remember the late Lord Waverley saying to me that never in his life had he known the type of pressure group activities that were going on. I confess to prejudice, if not, I hope, to a vested interest. The more I defend the B.B.C., the less they invite me to broadcast, I find. But I confess that for a long time I have had strong views on commercial television. I agree with much that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, said about it and I am surprised that the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, should have taken the credit that he appeared to do for the creation of this and the fact that many people switch on commercial television.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, I hope that I did not claim any credit for it. That certainly was not my intention.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am sorry if I misinterpreted the noble Earl. He appeared to regard with satisfaction, anyway, the result that viewers are more inclined to switch on commercial television than the B.B.C. programmes. But more people read the News of the World than read the Sunday Times. I do not think that we need to be unduly moralistic about this. This is not the issue. The issue is that the decision on commercial television was influenced by means that, on the whole, are of a kind which most noble Lords would prefer not to see introduced into our public life and which have been fully described in this book. I would say that to a large extent the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, has confirmed the broad statements in this book. Certainly there has been no denial of particular statements in it. This is the sort of political lobby that we should prefer not to see introduced into our country.
Although the book is written by a distinguished Professor of Princeton University, it is open to the charge to which all history, particularly contemporary history, is open—namely, that some of

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the facts come under dispute. I was heavily involved at that time as a member of a frankly opposition pressure group. This was certainly not a single group but an all-Party group. The facts that have been written with regard to that group appear to me to be completely true.
It is mentioned that certain cinema interests were prepared to contribute to the National Television Council, in support of what seemed to be their interests in resisting commercial television. This I can confirm and this part is accurate. We are criticising the whole tactic of pressure groups. I have here a letter written to Lady Violet Bonham Carter by one of the more notable supporters of the National Television Council. The letter reads:
"Dear Lady Violet,
Thank you for your letter of the 1st inst., inviting me to a meeting on Thursday, the 18th. As I am very much opposed to commercial television and would do anything possible to defeat this measure, I should very much like to be present.
Yours sincerely,
Prince Littler."
This letter, I must admit, does make the situation somewhat confusing. But I think that it shows that pressures were at work. Subsequently, Prince Littler (I will not quote his later remarks) Changed his mind and said that many of the fears Which had been expressed by others were unjustified. The fact remains that commercial television was introduced in this country without any real demand for it, without any of the major political Parties—I am sorry I must include the Liberal Party—being in favour of it, and certainly with the Government of the day very reluctant and doubtful about the whole thing. There are still members of the Conservative Party, in Parliament and outside, who regret this decision.
It is not easy to disentangle all the different strands in this book. The easiest answer to the allegations, of course, is to deny their acuracy, but I would go so far as to say that I think that most of the facts in broad detail are correct. There is the account of the forming of an informal Back-Bench pressure group. It appears that the majority of its members had interests in advertising agencies or radio manufacturing firms. I am not accusing them of corrupt
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action in this. It is a common feature that people with special interests will pursue them, believing that they are also in the national interest. It is said that this group decided to meet without disclosing its existence to the other members of the Conservative Party or the contact that members of the group had with Ministers. It would be interesting to know whether this statement is true. Certainly it has been suggested by a number of people, both inside and outside of the House—their names are given in this book—that it was this group to whom most of the credit must be given—I will not say for persuading the Government to change their mind, because I still do not know what really went on within the Government at the time; but for the fact that the Government found themelves in such a position that they had to go ahead with commercial television.
Of course there was a considerable amount of anti-monopoly feeling among them, and a number of people who have no interest. Certainly there has been no suggestion that the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, either has made, or at that time sought to make, any personal profit out of it. The objection to the noble Earl's part is the extent to which the Conservative Central Office was operating in close association with the pressure group without, apparently, the knowledge of the Government of the day.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, that is not true.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Earl may have said that the case is not worth answering, but I can only quote what he himself is alleged to have said. Perhaps he can deny it. This apparently is what he said to Professor Wilson:
"We created the Popular Television Association, you know, ex-Central Office, and put Lord Derby at the head of it. This was done because it was thought desirable to have a non-Party organisation".
This, he suggested, is a common practice of the Conservative Party. The establishment of front organisations is a well-known tactic in the Communist Party, and I am sure there is nobody less like a Communist than the noble Earl, Lord Woolton. But the fact remains that there was activity of a kind,

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of a very high pressure kind, and, furthermore, of a clandestine kind, which was not generally known. We shall be glad to hear the denials that have not yet come.
Then there was, of course, the group outside. In particular certain men have been mentioned, men of great distinction and energy, who have done a great deal industrially for this country. There was, for instance, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Robert Renwick and Mr. Norman Collins. The Observer says in the "Profile" on Mr. Stanley—and this was not taken from the book:
"To the fierce task of breaking the B.B.C.'s monopoly Stanley contributed materials and endless enthusiasm. He financed Mr. Norman Collins, the ex-B.B.C. man, who stumped the country selling the idea of CTV in the early' fifties, to the extent of £150,000. Without this and a similar sum from Sir Robert Renwick, the financier, Collins' persuasiveness might have come to nothing."
I do not know where that £150,000 went. I do not think the Popular Television Association ran big enough activities to consume it, and it would be very much simpler if the Conservative Party published their accounts so that we could know whether in fact this sort of money was going in that direction.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: I can tell you now that it did not.
LORD SHACKLETON: Is the noble Earl saying that no contribution—this would be a light on what goes on in these accounts—of any scale went into the Conservative funds from any of these people or interests?
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: That was not what the noble Lord said. What he said was that there was a fund, which was separately created, of £150,000, or whatever it was, and he wondered how much of that went into the Conservative Party. I give the answer: none of it. And I did not know of that fund.
LORD SHACKLETON: If the noble Earl does not know of that fund, I take it he does know the sources of the money that came into the Conservative Party. I feel it would be helpful to us all if we knew that.
I think enough has been made on that point, and I would only say that some of the accounts in this book of what
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went on are part of the high pressure tactics of a kind to which we are not accustomed in this country. People were roped in in all directions. A lot of respectable people in public relations do not like this sort of business at all. The Popular Television Council spent quite a lot of its time stating that it supported the B.B.C, but every piece of dirt that could be thrown at it was circulated to the newspapers. Mr. Gillie Potter, for instance, who was a supporter of the Popular Television Association, accused the B.B.C. of flogging foul films and boosting bawdy books. All this was circulated to a very large number of newspapers, including the provincial newspapers in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, attacked an unfortunate lapse on the part of the B.B.C. This was circulated by the Popular Television Association, who claimed to have secured just over 1,000 column-inches of editorial space.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that my strictures on the B.B.C. were not justified and were not properly right to be made in this House? Is he aware that I received an apology from the Chairman of the B.B.C. for what happened on that occasion?
LORD SHACKLETON: I am not suggesting anything of the kind. I said it was an unfortunate lapse. I am making no accusation against the noble Lord. I said the Popular Televison Association took full advantage of this.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: Good!
LORD SHACKLETON: I am glad the noble Lord thinks so. They circulated the letters—sometimes the same letters, but with 22 different signatures, written from the same address, all apparently written by Mr. Sims. Later the same gentleman said: "I receive a large number of provincial newspapers, and have noted in the past week a tremendous increase in the number of letters in these papers." Letters he had himself written!
This characterises the world's Press as a new nitwit industry.
I do not propose to make any more points about the Conservative Central Office. The facts are there. There was

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one error. It was stated that Mr. Chapman-Walker was Secretary of the Broadcasting Group and I understand that Mr. Goldman, of Orpington fame, who is also Conservative Central Office, has officially claimed the credit for being head of the broadcasting group. I cannot see what difference this makes. It does not make any difference as to the extent of the tie-up between this front organisation and the Conservative Central Office at a time, apparently, when the Government had not made up their minds.
The Conservatives may reject this, but I hope they will consider seriously whether the accusations are true. If they are not true, then they ought to be disposed of, once and for all. But if they are true, then they reveal a rather undesirable; state of affairs for which the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, has himself, as I have quoted, claimed the credit. The question of accuracy is undoubtedly one of the matters that will come under discussion. It is a pity that, so far as I know—and there may have been a second one—only one libel action has been taken in this matter. I have here a letter from Professor Wilson, to whom I wrote asking him whether he still in fact stood by what he said in this book. I should like to quote what he said:
"I don't really have anything more to add to the story now… There are certainly gaps in my account, for people like Renwick and Stanley wouldn't see me, and"—
and he mentions a certain noble Lord—
"while giving considerable assistance, was not eager to go into the final operations in great detail…
"Despite the efforts to discredit the book, the threats of libel actions etc., only one factual error has been pointed out—that I know of—and that is the stupid reference to Chapman-Walker"
to whom I have already referred.
"… So far as I am aware"—
and he would surely be the person to know this—
"no one has challenged the detailed account of the tactics used by the Popular Television Association, nor the various statements from backbench memoranda which came into my possession."
I would add one further sentence:
"Though by British standards it may not seem so, I actually leaned over backward to understate the facts, especially in regard to the
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contempt and cynicism expressed by the commercial proponents."
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord just for one moment? He said he had received this from the author. I received my copy of the book as late as last week. It has a corrigendum apologising to my honourable friend C. I. Orr-Ewing for the statements made about him. Did not the publishers of this book, in making that apology, communicate with the author?
LORD SHACKLETON: NO The noble Lord is quite right—they did not communicate with the author, and the author in fact has not withdrawn that, as far as I know. I did say there was one and possibly another, and I had in mind Mr. Orr-Ewing, but I had no intention of referring to him.
We could leave this matter here, were it not for the fact that there are signs of rather similar activities developing to-day. The line-up is just the same. The noble Lord. Lord Reith. indicated the sort of people who are involved. Some of them are high-minded, and I do not doubt they all believe in what they are proposing. There is a certain confusion. Some, in fact, are doubtful as to whether there ought to be another commercial channel, because they prefer to keep the present monopoly which the Government set up in the commercial field, and they would rather create something called the Educational Institute or the Institute of Educational Television. I do not propose to criticise that. But there is a division of opinion; there is a great deal of pressure going on and I have had evidence, including some from Conservative Members of Parliament who have expressed anxiety about tactics of this sort. And, my Lords, there has been a certain lowering of standards. We have the deplorable example of a well-known television contractor and producer deliberately bringing pressure to bear on the local Press in a direct, financial way in order to get good propaganda. That may be part of the normal practice of the entertainment industry but, again, it is certainly the sort of thing that we should prefer not to see here.
The only thing I would say in conclusion is that I think it would be as well if these charges could be investigated

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impartially and not merely denied, and I hope that whatever happens this episode will not be repeated in other directions. I would end with one last sentence, which is in fact from Professor Wilson's own book. After a description of what went on, he said:
"One cannot help but appreciate the extent to which the British Constitution is dependent on the character, sensibility and responsibility of those in positions of leadership.
3.52 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I think it would be generally agreed that an interesting aspect of your Lordships' House is that by its very make-up, in not being an elected body, it probably has more continuity than any other legislative chamber in any civilised State. It changes little from Parliament to Parliament as regards its personnel and, of course, we are not to-day discussing the desirability or undesirability of that situation. But, except to fanatical extremists, I suggest it is unique in its continuity, which in fact seems to involve us in particular political responsibility for the standards of morals of Parliament, which is greater than the responsibility which falls to a Chamber whose complexion may change greatly every few years and whose past record can be more easily disregarded, if it seems convenient to disregard it, on the basis of what was done, rightly or wrongly, by a past political generation who took good or bad action, and when criticism in retrospect can, therefore, be only academic and fruitless.
Not so in your Lordships' House! The protagonists of yesterday's battles, victories and defeats, are still arrayed in very much the same lines. If I may say so, it seems quite appropriate that a retrospective analysis such as that which is sought by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, to-day should be the subject of your Lordships' attention.
The critical faculty of the people of this country has, of course, been greatly broadened and shaped by the surge forward in education, especially I think by broadcast education, more particularly over the last half century; and it is essential that political integrity should not only exist but should be seen to exist. In most games there are opportunities for ruining the whole spirit of
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the game, the whole disinterestedness of it, by resorting to cheating and unfair practices, yet we do not hear it stated as an axiom that cricket is a dirty game or that chess is a dirty game. On that analogy I should like to say that I have always deeply resented the loose saying that politics is a dirty game, because that is a denigration based usually on disappointment or jealousy and only in the smallest proportion upon fact.
Of course, unpleasant things do happen even in the best regulated families, in politics and all political Parties; it cannot be helped. But it is I think irresponsible and dangerous to allow any incoming generation to form an over-cynical view of those who are performing public services with high purpose and with integrity, as indeed for the most part is done in both Houses and by all Parties. The only sure way of putting across this picture of politics which we want to be put across—a true picture of sincere and true dedication to the welfare of our country—is, of course, to ensure so far as we possibly can that the high standards be maintained not only in full public view but also behind the scenes in Parliament and politics in general.
Suspicion is an insidious cancer which feeds upon itself and there comes a point when ugly rumour can no longer be ignored; it must be tackled and investigated, and that is the point to which I think the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has brought us to-day. I personally am in no way prepared to offer judgment on the book which has been referred to in to-day's debate except to say that I found it rather tedious reading; but, as the allegations in it are grave and the position which it discloses is, if true, damaging to the reputation of British politics, it would seem that further official investigation is desirable and that this Resolution is not out of place.
I happen just to have completed my term as a member of the B.B.C. Advisory Council, but apart from that I have no interest whatever in this matter to disclose. Like almost all of your Lordships, I have views on the matters which occupied this House a few years ago in one of the most interesting debates it has had. Given the same chance, I should vote the same way now. But we

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are not discussing those merits and demerits which we discussed in such detail. We are viewing certain activities which appear to be disturbing, and if the noble Lord, Lord Reith, or his supporters, should press for an inquiry into the truth of the matter, I should support that object.
3.58 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR:My Lords, this is clearly a very important debate, which is shown particularly by the large attendance of noble Lords now sitting on the Front Bench. In spite of the numbers that are speaking in this debate, I felt that perhaps it would be proper that I, who played some part in taking the Television Bill through your Lordships' House, should take part in it. May I start by saying that I, and I should have thought many others who have an affection, and respect for the stature of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, must regret that in the middle of the night he did not change his mind. I must confess that I have never listened to such a staggering assumption of moral superiority without a single fact justifying—not his charges, because he made no charges, but his implications. For this is essentially a debate founded on implications which are founded on a book that is founded on implication.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on the skill with which he dissociated himself from some of the more startling statements of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, but when he talks about charges being justified I would ask: what are the charges? He was very careful to say he was not accusing anybody of being corrupt or of being interested. Oh, no! He has no accusations to make. Then, what on earth is all this about?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble Earl allow me to interrupt him? I certainly said there was no accusation of corruption, but I repeated time and time again that there was personal interest involved which was, as is so customary, identified with a national interest. He is saying I did not make charges, which I did.
EARL DE LA WARR: I do not count an interest declared before Parliament as a charge at all. We all frequently speak on matters in which we have an
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interest. I have for years spoken in your Lordships' House on agriculture, with a very great interest; there is no charge against me for having done so. We all knew perfectly well that on both sides of the House there were people speaking, as I felt, with a great sense of disinterest but who in fact had certain personal interests. The leader of the opposition to the Bill in the House of Commons was deeply interested through his employment by the B.B.C. Many of those who were supporting commercial television, we knew perfectly well—and they declared their interest openly—had interests in various companies that were associated with the industry. It has never been considered a crime in Parliament to speak with an interest, provided that it is openly declared.
Let us be perfectly clear what this is all about. It is no good the noble Lord saying that he is not accusing those who were connected with the Television Act of having been either corrupt, or interested without declaring their interest—because there is no charge without that—or that they were weak and foolish, and were pressurised or deceived. He has made a charge. And here let us be dear against whom this charge is made. It is not merely against the Government. There were two days of debate in this House and 160 of your Lordships voted in favour of what was then the Television Bill—the Bill which was to set up Independent Television; and therefore everyone who voted for that Bill is implicated in whatever charge the noble Lords claim that they are making. I think those of us who were implicated with this Bill would be quite entitled to feel very deep resentment at this suggestion. Actually I confess to what I have said already; that I feel rather sorry that one of the stature of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, should have made the speech that he has made to-day.
I have been puzzling as to what really was at the back of his mind. Is it that he just looks back nostalgically to the days when he was a dictator of a monopoly? Is it that he takes pleasure in throwing mud at perfectly sincere people who happen to commit the crime of disagreeing with him? Or is it that he hopes, by raising the matter at the present moment somehow to influence the Pilkington Committee in its proposals for

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allocation of the new channels? I have tried to find an answer to any one of these questions; and I have failed.
If he initiated this debate from any one of those motives why choose this slipshod book? Here it is. What is the first thing your Lordships see when you open it?—two corrigenda for inaccuracies. In regard to the second corrigendum, the fact is omitted that it was made only as a result of legal action taken in the courts by somebody whom the noble Lord would no doubt regard as deeply venal for his support of commercial television. In fact he was sufficiently disinterested to refuse to ask for damages, although it was made very clear he would have been entitled to them if he had so pressed. Those are not the only two corrigenda that were needed. There is one of the noble Lords here involved and he can correct me if I am wrong; I understand that the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, had to be written to and apologised to, and also the noble Earl, Lord Derby. I am told by somebody who has taken the trouble to read this worthless book more carefully than I have that they have discovered more than 100 inaccuracies. I think it is sufficient to quote four admitted inaccuracies, admitted by the author himself and by the publisher.
LORD SHACKLETON: If the noble Earl will permit me to intervene, I think he was guilty of inaccuracy when he said they were admitted by the author. They are not admitted by the author except in one case.
EARL DE LA WARR: There may be disagreement between the author and the publisher, in which case that makes even clearer the inaccuracy of the author. But I keep coming back to this point. What is it all about. The noble Lord, Lord Reith, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, too, I take it, are just concerned with the purity of British politics. What do they mean by that? We are told that it is quite legitimate for the T.U.C., the National Farmers' Union, or other bodies, to press the interests of their members. Surely it is not merely the normal process of democracy, it is the very essence and purpose of democracy that any of us who feel strongly on any subject are entitled to press our views on the Government,
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and it is a duty in a democratic country for the Government to take regard of their views: It is in fact the duty of Her Majesty's Government to search its own mind and conscience as to the action it should take, but not as dictators. Of course there was pressure here. People felt very strongly on it. But I would correct the noble Lord on the history of the formation of these councils or associations. The first pressure—let us call it—group, if the noble Lord likes to use that word, to be formed was the National Television Council in defence of the B.B.C. It was not until after that had been formed that the Popular Television Association was brought into being.
At this point I confess to just a little embarrassment as to what to say further. We very clearly do not want to get drawn into a debate on the merits of independent television. But on the other hand I cannot help feeling that as the then departmental Minister charged with the duty of advising his colleagues on what steps to take it might be helpful to your Lordships if I tried to outline how my mind worked on this subject. I stress "my mind", for the simple reason that although the decision was a Cabinet decision, no one Minister can say how other Ministers' minds work; you can only say what the decision was. But it seemed to me that the moment one let one's mind run according to first principles then the whole case for independent television seemed to outline itself very obviously and very simply.
What was the position? It was clear and I think fairly generally agreed, in the midst of a subject which brought forth so much disagreement, that a second programme had become technically possible and was considered desirable. It then seemed to me to be clear that if we were to have a second programme it was highly desirable to do what so many of us had felt should be done for a long time: to break the B.B.C. monopoly. That was felt strongly by admirers of the B.B.C. as well as by those mythical ones who are supposed to have been its opponents. But if there was to be competition, it seemed to me that it should be real competition, and therefore that merely to have another Director-General or another department within the structure of the B.B.C. would not give genuine competition; nor

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would another State corporation formed on precisely the same lines as the B.B.C. That drew one inevitably to the only other method of bringing this about—namely, commercial television.
At that point one bad to face the fact that there were certain fears connected with commercial television. I freely confess that I felt able to sympathise and to try to meet these fears because I had lately been to America myself, and I had seen things that I definitely did not like in the system across the Atlantic. Therefore, to my mind it was necessary to respect those fears and to try to meet them. That led the Government on to the next point, which was that the B.B.C. must be left as it was, not only because it had done such excellent work (Which was sufficient in itself), but in order that no one in this country who had a rooted objection to commercial television need ever turn the knob to view it, but could continue viewing the programme of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
What was the next point that at once occurred to us? There was a fear that the advertisers would control the programmes, to the detriment of quality. That was met by laying it down that there should be only spot advertisements, that there should be no sponsoring and that therefore the programme companies solely should be responsible for the content of the programme. I hope I am not being too personal, but I feel that as I am dealing with the charge of having acted under pressure it might be useful just to indicate how my mind ran.
Just about that time I had to go across the Atlantic, and I made it my Dustiness to see some of those who were operating control of commercial television across the Atlantic. They told me that their efforts at controlling the operations of programme companies were quite ineffectual. I asked them: "In your view what would make them effectual?", and the answer came straight back, "If we, as a controlling authority, owned the stations, we could exercise control". From that day that proviso went into the build-up of our television policy.
There is one final point. We knew perfectly well that what we were doing was something quite new—you can call it experimental; that whatever trouble we
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took to attempt to make this a decent British system, one of which all British citizens would be proud, and however much trouble we took, we were conducting an experiment, and we might well be making mistakes. Therefore, the final proviso was inserted, that the scheme was to be started on the basis of a ten-year licence, which would leave the ultimate functioning of this great power in the hands of Parliament, which would be in the position, after a few years of trial, to review the way it had worked. Actually, we now see the Pilkington Committee conducting that review. It is said that all this was done "subject to pressure". I can tell your Lordships one 'thing which I think is fairly good proof that it was not so done: that is, that what we proposed was heartily disliked by both sides. It was a compromise, perhaps, in the view of some people. But to me it was never a compromise; it was what I thought ought to be done and what—I assert this most strongly—has been proved in practice, after eight years' trial, to have worked.
We have had two strong speeches to-day by those who are violently against the system that we established. I do not know whether your Lordships have noticed that they have not mentioned one single item of justification for their dislike of what we have done. They leave me in the position of being able to assert that the only effect that it has had on the broadcasting world is to "buck up" the B.B.C. so that we now get better programmes from them; and, of course, we have destroyed their monopoly position in regard to dealing with performers and with their technical staff.
My Lords, I think I have been drawn a little into the question of the merits of Independent Television. I must remind your Lordships that we are not discussing that matter, but we are discussing the integrity of those who proposed and those who supported it. I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who I believe is not now asking for his Select Committee—whether or not he is going to do so later, I do not know—that if he still feels that there is something wrong with the system, or with the way in which it was brought in, he should accept this challenge. Let him persuade his own Party to take this subject to the country at the next General Election. Or, if he

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wants to help the Conservative Party to redress some of the difficulties it has had at by-elections, then let him persuade his Party Leader to make this an Election issue. He will then get the answer of the country.
4.20 p.m.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: My Lords, I had not intended originally to intervene in your Lordships' debates at quite so early a stage of my membership of this House. But the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, is one which interests and concerns me deeply. It would be wrong of me to seek to conceal from this House the fact that I have over a number of years been, so to speak, mixed up in television. Indeed (and perhaps this may assist me in the avoidance of controversy, which is so desirable in a maiden speech), I have appeared on the screen for both the B.B.C. and commercial television. There is a saying in America, which has wide experience in such matters, that all cameras corrupt; the television cameras corrupt utterly. I can only hope that I have escaped to your Lordships' House in time.
For most of the period which has been under review in this book by Professor Wilson I was a Governor of the B.B.C, but I think I may say that I was—if I may be forgiven for using the word in this debate—a somewhat controversial Governor of the B.B.C, since, while sharing the admiration of my colleagues for it, I did not believe that it should necessarily remain completely alone in the field. I was prepared to accept it as the established church of broadcasting, but I felt, if the right reverend Lord Bishops will forgive me, that even Established Churches sometimes benefit from competition. Therefore, being in this perhaps somewhat anomalous position, I took no part in the various groups and debates and measures on each side of the controversy, though, as one concerned through journalism in the gathering of news, I could not avoid reaching me from time to time whispers of the jungle fighting going on around me.
A good deal has been said in this debate, pant in praise, part in disparagement of the author of this book, Professor Wilson. I have the advantage—or some of your Lordships may think
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it is the disadvantage—of having known Professor Wilson for a number of years. I met him first when I was lecturing at Princeton, where he is of course a Professor. He struck me as a careful and rather conservatively-minded man, as indeed Princeton is a rather careful and conservatively-minded institution. He had a tremendous belief in British political institutions, and he had also an idealistic and perhaps, as it seemed to me, a romantic conception of the British Conservative Party. He believed that its spirit, its soul, was in an important sense kept—I almost said "embalmed"—in a number of the Members of your Lordships' House. He used to talk to me particularly of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, Lord Halifax and the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of your Lordships' House, Lord Hailsham, whom he regarded as a kind of trinity who could be assured of guarding what he believed to be, and liked to describe as, the aristocratic tradition of British politics.
He did not of course believe—because he was a shrewd and careful student of politics—that they were always, or indeed often, right. But he felt that when they were wrong (and I feel sure this is a view which your Lordships will share and which I certainly do) it was from the noblest of motives. And he had a belief that when issues of great public importance arose, affecting particularly the social and moral values of this country, it was to men such as these that the Conservative Party turned for guidance. Your Lordships may therefore understand his shock, having regard to the motives which embarked him upon this inquiry, when he found that all these custodians (as he believed) of the true spirit of British Conservatism and of the aristocratic tradition in British politics had apparently been rejected by the Conservative Party on an issue so deeply affecting the public interest as the decision on commercial television.
I remember that when he arrived in England to start his researches he rang me up and I invited him to have lunch with me at the Reform Club. He was a little shaken at first, until I assured him that the reform with which the Reform Club identified itself was that of the Reform Bill of 1866.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: 1832!
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: I stand corrected, my Lords. He told me why he wanted to make this inquiry: from the other side of the Atlantic, it seemed to him to represent so significant and, in many ways, so fascinating a movement of British politics. I was, for the reasons stated earlier, unable to help him or to give him any inside information on what had gone on, though I was able to suggest a number of people he should see. I saw no more of him until some months later when he had completed his researches, and when again I lunched with him. He struck me as a changed man. Indeed, he looked as I imagine that other Professor Wilson, also of Princeton, must have looked on the way back from Versailles—like a man who felt that the Old World had let him down.
My Lords, much has been said about this book. I think it does need again to be said that, although it has been out now for nearly a year, apart from one or two comparatively small mistakes (and anybody who seeks to make a survey of this kind, where it is impossible to document the evidence; where one must depend a great deal upon the conversations and verbal reports of interested people, will be aware how difficult it is to he accurate in every detail), nothing which affects the main burden of the book, the main description and outline of the tactics and methods which were employed—whether one justifies them or not—has been stated to show that he was wrong in that.
I know that maybe he is guilty of many errors of omission, as well as of commission. I would by no means seek to declare (and I feel sure that my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger would not wish to disagree with me on this) that professors, even American professors, are not human and are incapable sometimes of getting things wrong. But I do suggest to your Lordships that the general case, the case for the entry of new methods, new types of public relations pressures, into British life shown in this book is one worthy of examination. And, of course, although I do not wish—and it would be wrong in the context of this debate—to seek to compare the two systems of television,
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one has to recognise that the stakes involved indeed were very high, and that the consequences were in many ways very profound.
The other day I saw a report just issued by what is called the Statistical Review of Independent T.V. Advertising, which sets out the record of advertising revenue for the commercial stations since the Act was passed. It makes interesting and in many ways startling reading. In 1955 the advertisement revenue was £2 million; in 1956 it was £12 million; in 1957 it was £31,900,000; in 1958 it was just over £48 million; in 1959 it was just over £58 million; in 1960 it was £76,900,000, and in 1961 it was £93,276,000—an enormous, constant progression of money rolling in.
I am reminded of the story told me by an eminent lady member of the staff of the B.B.C., who found herself the other day at a rather pleasant country house party. A rather nice gentleman whom she did not know came up to her and said, "I hear you are in television". She admitted it, and he said, "It is a very good thing, I think". With that modesty, that constant desire to be reassured that they really are doing something which is definitely for the public good, which so distinguishes members of the staff of the B.B.C., especially of course if in their formative years they came under the massive and beneficent influence of the mover of this Motion, she said, "In what particular way do you feel that television is so good?" He said, "Well, as a matter of fact I do not myself have very much to do with it, but a lot of my friends tell me that they made a packet out of it". And, indeed, a lot of people's friends have "made a packet" out of it.
One is bound to agree with that rather honest and outspoken Canadian, Mr. Roy Thomson, controller of Scottish Television, when he said that to be allowed into commercial television was to be given a licence to print money. He himself, it has to be said, has used his licence to print television money to buy up, and on the whole to improve, a number of newspapers. But the consequences of the decision which were stated, in part, at any rate, as a result of the activities described in this book by Professor Wilson, have for the Press as a whole been remarkable and

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disastrous. The death of one national daily paper, one London evening paper, four Sunday papers, and a number of provincial papers, can be put down in large part to the decision to have a new television channel in the way that it was decided, and in the way in which those concerned in these pressure groups pressed for it to be decided.
I am not, my Lords, in any way criticising advertising. The Press of this country depends upon advertising. Indeed, there would never have been any independent Press in this country but for the existence of advertising. But it must be borne in mind that there is a fundamental difference between the method of using advertising in television, and the advertising in the Press. Advertising is won by a newspaper because of the whole personality of the paper and the whole public that that paper appeals to. It is possible, therefore, for papers of varying difference of appeal and content to flourish, from the mass-circulation paper to the serious quality paper primarily concerned with public affairs. Advertising on television is sold primarily to tie up, not with the whole personality and content of a total programme, but with one programme at one particular peak hour; so that the whole drive and concentration is to get your immense advertising revenue, on the level I have outlined, by throwing away at the peak hours all standards except those which can bring in the largest possible captive audience.
The trade paper makes an examination from time to time of what it regards as really good television advertising, and I noted with interest its star selection the other week, which it praised for really understanding the television medium and for getting, as it said, to the heart of the television market. It was a film of a domestic scene in which one saw on the screen a group of people sitting round a table playing cards. All of them were laughing except for one lady, who had her hand in front of her mouth. A warning voice came on and said, "She dare not smile because her false teeth are dingy". There is nothing of which to complain in that, for in due course, and by taking the right thing, that lady will be able to join the laughing
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card party without any doubts or difficulties or need to hold up her hand. But I suggest, my Lords, that to tie one of the great discoveries and potentialities of our time in the field of mass-communication to a system which requires that at the peak listening hours it shall be able to sustain and attract a public which is being softened up to be told solely about its false teeth, runs us into considerable dangers.
But this, of course, is not a matter of looking back on the past. The purpose of this debate, as I understand it, is not simply to look back and see what was done and by what methods this decision was taken. Anybody who is at all connected with this world of television and the Press is well aware, as has already been said, that the pressure groups are mobilising again—and, of course, so far as they do so perfectly openly, it is quite right that they should do so. For example, I was interested to read in one of the trade papers of a new series of meetings, one of which was being addressed by a group of people: Mr. Norman Collins, a man of great ability and drive, who was one of the most active and most successful people in the whole drive for commercial television; the managing director of Pye Radio, which was the most active of all the firms in this drive; and the media director of Benton & Bowles, which is the London associate of a great American advertising company. Their theme, which is a theme of which we shall be hearing much more, was that if local radio comes to Britain, as it must, then it must be commercial; and the new drive is going to be not only for a development of commercial television, but that sound radio, which from the earliest days has been organised as a public service in this country, shall also be given over to commercial usage and advertisements.
My Lords, I hope I shall be forgiven if I conclude on a personal note. I have spent the whole of my professional life in what it is now fashionable to call "the business of mass-communications", but which I prefer to call journalism. I have been a journalist not only of the written word but also of the spoken word. Although it has many defects—and I admit them—I am proud to think that, as a whole, British journalism and

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British newspapers set a standard for the world; and I am glad to think that, in their early, formative years, British radio and British television also set a standard for the world. We are on the edge of immense developments in this field of television—immense developments in the way of world link-up, through Euro-vision and going on to links between other continents. It seems to me profoundly important that, in those developments, the face of British radio and television to the world shall be one that is based and founded on the public interest and on the maintenance of values which we believe to be important and which we know to be British. It is because I believe so profoundly in those values that I venture to intervene in this debate and hope that there will be sent out to the British people—and, indeed, to the world—the message that this House is determined to maintain those standards and that judgments on the future of television and of radio shall be made solely in the public interest.
4.49 p.m.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, it is my first and very pleasant task to congratulate the noble Lord, who has just sat down, upon his maiden speech. Like myself, he is a Welshman, and, therefore, I did not expect either that he would find himself at a loss for words or, necessarily, that he would be entirely non-controversial, because Welshman find that very difficult. But I can assure the noble Lord that I personally, and I know all of your Lordships, very much enjoyed his speech. We are glad to welcome him to this House, and we hope we shall hear him often again.
Turning to the subject of the debate, may I begin by saying that I, and I am sure many of your Lordships, have in the past greatly admired the achievements of the noble Lord who moved this Motion, in what he did to build up the B.B.C. in the early days, in his work with the Colonial Development Corporation, and elsewhere? Therefore, personally, I feel very sorry that he should have made the sort of speech that he made this afternoon, because I felt that, for a man of his achievements, it was not what I personally would have expected. The noble Lord's views on the subject of broadcasting have, at any rate,
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whether you agree with them or not, the merit of extreme simplicity. They were expounded by him in a memorandum which he wrote for the Beveridge Committee, in which he said the following:
"It was the brute force of monopoly that enabled the B.B.C. to become what it did and to do what it did, that made it possible for a policy of moral responsibility to be followed. If there is to be competition it will be of cheapness and not of goodness. The usual disadvantages of and the dangers of monopoly do not apply to broadcasting."
Those were 'the noble Lord's views. He expressed them to the Beveridge Committee at that time, and although he did not express them to your Lordships this afternoon, I did not feel that his views had really changed.
I must confess that I, for one, am not quite clear, and I do not follow his reasoning, as to why the B.B.C. should be so very different from various other organisations of a similar character. As I understand it, the task of the B.B.C. is to provide information, education and entertainment for the public. But, of course, the B.B.C. is not the only organisation which performs this function; it is done by the Press, the publishing industry, the theatre, and the cinema. I do not think, however, that any sensible person would suggest for one moment that all these industries should be turned into public monopolies for fear that they might not follow a policy of moral responsibility, or that competition might lead to cheapness rather than goodness. However, the noble Lord believes in a B.B.C. monopoly of broadcasting. He has an absolute right to his beliefs, and I have no doubt whatsoever that he holds them with the greatest sincerity. On the other hand, whilst he is perfectly entitled to his views, I think it is a pity that he should have suggested, as he has suggested this afternoon, in no measured terms, that all those who disagree with him and who in the past have endeavoured to press the merits of another policy have in the main—not all of them, but the majority—done so for venal and unworthy motives.
At this stage I had intended to declare an interest, but the noble Lord has obligingly done it for me. I am the Chairman of a body known as the National Broadcasting Development

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Committee—Glory be! as the noble Lord said. I should like to take the opportunity, since the noble Lord is obviously very suspicious of this body, as he was of its lineal predecessor, the Popular Television Association, to assure him that I have no links whatsoever with Lord Woolton, except that he is a member of that Committee. But it is not in the Central Office. This Committee receives no money from the Central Office, has no connection with the Central Office, and is composed of people from different political Parties. It is therefore a perfectly simple organisation; it is not the terrifying bogy or pressure group which he thinks it is.
At the same time as I make that declaration—well, I did not have to make that declaration, because the noble Lord, with his usual courtesy, made it for me—there is another declaration that I will make, and that is that I have no connection whatsoever with any television company. I do not even possess a single television share, and because I am not a very good investor. I should never make a penny out of it, anyway. Therefore, I am in fact one of those quixotic people in whose existence the noble Lord seems to have a certain difficulty in believing, who are actually opposed to a monopoly of broadcasting, not because I am going to make anything out of it but simply because I do not think it is a very good idea.
There is another declaration which perhaps I ought to make at this time, and that is that I did not have anything to do with the Popular Television Association at the time we are concerned with in this debate. Therefore, I have no personal knowledge of exactly how it came into existence or of its dealings. But your Lordships have heard what my noble friend Lord Woolton has said this afternoon. Personally, his word is good enough for me, and I thought it ought to be good enough for your Lordships. I do not believe in a monopoly of broadcasting by the B.B.C. But that does not mean I am opposed to the B.B.C. On the contrary, I thoroughly like the B.B.C. I respect it, and I should be horrified if there were any suggestion that it should be done away with and that we should have instead in this country the complete American system of broadcasting.
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On the other hand, I Chink perfectly sincerely that all monopolies are objectionable, and that of all monopolies perhaps the most objectionable is any monopoly which in any way limits freedom of expression or has too great a power to influence men's minds. I think that in these perhaps over-simplified views there are many other people, not only in this House but in this country, Who agree with me. In any case, should the noble Lord believe that these views are confined to such unimportant people as the public, I should like to draw his attention, and that of the House, to the views of the Beveridge Committee on the B.B.C. monopoly, because I think they are important. In their Report they said:
"There are dangers arising from the mere size of such a corporation. There arc dangers of Londonisation. There are dangers of remoteness, of self-satisfaction, of secretive-ness. There is danger of slowness in exploring new unfamiliar techniques. There are dangers of favouritism and injustice in treatment of staff or performers, each of them an evil in a monopoly more serious than it would be in a concern with rivals. There is the danger, finally, that when a sense of mission such as animates the B.B.C. is combined with security of office, it may grow into a sense of Divine Right, as it did in the case of Charles I. The dangers of monopoly are not imaginary."
In the same way, the late Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Bell, of whom we were all very fond and who I should not have thought could be accused by anybody in your Lordships' House of having had unduly Right-wing views, said:
"This is a subject upon which Christian people are fully at liberty to differ, but I hope full consideration will be given to the danger of monopoly. The new independent stations will offer a service of value in itself."
I do not believe that anyone who knew Dr. Bell would think for a moment that he was expressing any except his own sincerely held opinion; and I am quite certain that no one ever succeeded in bribing Dr. Bell.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, has referred to a pressure group. I have always been in some doubt as to what exactly was a pressure group. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to tell whether anything is or is not a pressure group. The three political Parties are all pressure groups. The trade unions are pressure groups. I suppose the R.S.P.C.A. and the N.S.P.C.C. are pressure groups. Almost

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any body of people who get together for the purpose of putting forward certain ideas have, I suppose, pressure. I do not know whether pressure groups become immoral only if there is any risk of any money being attached to it. But at any rate, as other noble Lords have said—and therefore I do not want to labour the point—it is the very essence, surely, of our democracy that there are always pressure groups, all the time, of different kinds. Sometimes they are Party groups. Sometimes they cut across all Parties as in the case of television. I do not think there is really anything very much wrong in pressure groups.
In any case, surely we have learnt by now that where there is not freedom for pressure groups to operate, ultimately it ends in violence. That is the trouble in many parts of the world, where there is not the freedom which we mostly enjoy in this country. In any case—and this is a point I should like to emphasise—contrary to the noble Lord's opinion (which I thought, I must confess, was a little disingenuous in this respect) that there is one pressure group, there are two pressure groups. That is made quite clear in Professor Wilson's book, which I painstakingly read last week-end. I might add here that it is perfectly clear that Professor Wilson takes a much more indulgent view of the pressure group which supported the B.B.C., and reserves his moral indignation for that which supported the opposite point of view. I have no doubt, after reading the book which Professor Wilson has written, that it is perfectly clear which way he thought. Various inaccuracies in the book have been exposed and there are probably some more which have not been mentioned. I think that the conclusions which he reaches must be treated with some reserve. So much, my Lords, for the book.
As I say, there were two pressure groups. Almost immediately after the publication of the first White Paper, an organisation called the National Television Council was formed. Its earlier sponsors were Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Lord Waverley and Lord Halifax. It enlisted the support of bishops and vice-chancellors in opposing commercial television. Letters were sent to leading newspapers, pamphlets were printed and public meetings were
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held. The Council engaged a full-time organiser, temporarily released by a film company. Members of both Houses received literature from this organisation. The Council made no attempt to deny that the bulk of its funds came from the cinema industry, which at that time thought that it was threatened by commercial television and obviously had a direct commercial interest in preventing the introduction of commercial television.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the National Television Council, which I admitted frankly was a pressure group, and I gave same examples of our notable supporters in the cinema industry, did not receive the bulk of its funds from the cinema industry. Its account books were shown to Professor Wilson, but the accounts of the National Television Council, like the accounts of the Conservative Party, have not been published.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, if I may refer to Professor Wilson's book, the A.B.C. actually admitted to him that it gave money to the N.T.C. I make no complaint. I think that that is inevitable. But while on the record, I think that the noble Lord will find that the A.B.C. did finance the National Television Council. If what Professor Wilson wrote on other things is accurate, presumably he is accurate on that.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I agree that they made an important contribution, but they were not the only ones. In fact, it was a rule of the N.T.C. not to receive any contribution which would give anybody any control over it. The question is not in dispute. This is all a splendid example of the nature of pressure group activity.
LORD LLOYD: My Lords, it would have been better if the noble Lord had mentioned in his Motion that there were two pressure groups instead of one.
On July 22, 1953, the Trades Union Congress entered the field of battle with a statement in which they announced their intention of fighting
"any surrender of control over television services to private commercial interests"
and the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees also announced their intention of fighting the Government's plans for competition. It

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was only after all these developments that the Popular Television Association came into existence. A great deal has been said about the publicity campaign waged by the P.T.A., but at any rate we never went to the excesses of the N.T.C., of exhibiting a baboon at public meetings, which they were dissuaded by the R.S.P.C.A.—Mr. Alfred J. Marks, I presume—from continuing.
The Popular Television Association, so far as I know, never complained that its rival took money from the cinema industry: nor did the Association ever deny that it accepted support from people who were financially interested in commercial television.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, by "support" the noble Lord means "money", of course?
LORD LLOYD: Yes, my Lords, I thought it would be more interesting for your Lordships to change the word—money, of course. Both sides accepted financial support and frankly I do not think that there is a great deal wrong with that. Just as Professor Wilson says (I have no personal knowledge, but I am sure it was true) that the policy of the National Television Council was never influenced by the money it received, exactly the same was true about the people on the executive of the Popular Television Association. I have looked through the list of their names and I do not think that at that time any one of them had any connection with television. There was not a great deal to choose between these two pressure groups, and I think that most of those who took a leading part in the controversy did so as a matter of principle, just as I am opposed to a monopoly of broadcasting because I think that it is wrong.
I would venture to make one final point. Both sides waged vigorous campaigns, some with baboons and some without; and at the end of it all, it so happened that the Government came down, on the whole, in favour of those who wanted commercial television. Suppose it had gone the other way? Do your Lordships really believe that the noble Lord would then have come here to draw attention to the pernicious activities of the pressure group known
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as the National Television Council? I do not think so. It was because it went the other way that we have this debate this afternoon.
But all that is past history. I think that what really matters to-day is the future, though obviously we are not in a position to discuss it. In the past we adopted the usual attitude which we in this country adopt in these matters. We came to a compromise. We have neither gone to the extreme of complete Government monopoly of television nor, thank Heaven! have we gone to the extreme of the American system of unbridled commercialism. I believe that, on the whole, that was a wise and sensible compromise. It was the sort of compromise which has given this country the stability which it has always enjoyed, because we are that sort of people. What really matters is that in future we should again look at this question as objectively as we can and decide what is the right thing to do in the next stage. We all have our views and prejudices one way or the other. Undoubtedly there are some things wrong with commercial television. I agree that they have probably made far too much money far too quickly. But it might be argued that that was because there was insufficient competition. There were, in effect, local monopolies; and because there were no competitors in the advertising field, they made too much money. That is a point for consideration.
There is the question of standards. In some ways standards have risen and in some ways they have fallen. I am sure that they need to be looked at again, and it might be necessary to strengthen the authorities concerned with standards. I think that it is in that spirit that we should look at this question, instead of dragging up the rather dreary controversies of the past. Therefore I hope that we shall all wait until we have read the Pilkington Report and then try to reach decisions which are wise and sensible and which will ultimately redound to the good of this country.
5.9 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I rise to address your Lordships.

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I am mindful of the words of a great Prime Minister, who once said:
"A man may speak very well in the House of Commons and fail very completely in the House of Lords."
Though I have not had the honour of speaking in another place, I am fully aware that what might pass in a pulpit might prove intolerable in your Lordships' House. I will, however, promise your Lordships that I will bear in mind the advice of the author of Ecclesiasticus, who said to those in my position:
"Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words; be as one that knoweth and yet holdeth his tongue."
My only excuse for speaking this afternoon in this debate is that I have had some little experience over a number of years of both broadcasting and television with the B.B.C. and the independent television companies. If that experience has taught me anything, I think it is the responsibility that anybody who is involved in any way whatsoever in broadcasting should be conscious of the tremendous power of this medium for good or for evil—that is, for both the revealing or the disguising of truth. That is why I should regard, if such exists, the activities of any pressure groups in the sphere of broadcasting, if not with dismay, at least with some concern.
The debate this afternoon has, so far as I can see, been an inquest into the past, and perhaps your Lordships will forgive me if, as a short interlude, I ask you to consider from what we have discussed this afternoon the possibilities in the future. Here, I think that in discussion we ought to differentiate between television and sound broadcasting. I imagine we should now accept as a fait accompli our having commercial television in this country. Speaking for myself, I regard them as different mediums in this sense. When I look at a television programme, whether it is a play, the Cup final, a thriller or a concert, I am really only concerned with what I see actually on the screen before me. Therefore, I am not greatly perturbed, when the play or the match is over, whether any particular pressure group informs me that my health will depend entirely upon the daily and regular use of some patent medicine.
But when I listen to any of these things on sound radio the position is entirely
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different, because when one listens to the radio, at once a certain series of mental processes comes into play. Appreciation is involved as well as imagination, concentration and one's critical faculties. Surely, it is a shock, when the programme is over, to have one's train of thought violently interrupted by the very doubtful information that female charm is impossible to acquire without using some particular scent. That may be true or it may not, but the whole purpose of broadcasting, as I see it, is not just entertainment but a development which widens the mind, deepens the understanding and refreshes the spirit. It is not a case of pandering to what we call popular taste but expanding the popular taste. I realise that this is a personal view and, therefore, is no argument for objecting to broadcasting in the future being controlled by any pressure group. But I must say that I discussed this matter with a number of excellent gentlemen in a pub last Sunday evening after service, and I found that none of them was particularly keen on the extension of any kind of commercial broadcasting in this country.
I would share myself the disquiet of a distinguished member of this particular Bench on which I sit, who some years ago was gravely perturbed, when listening in to a Shakespeare play across the Atlantic, to be told between acts that Lady Macbeth's staple diet was a certain form of cereal. It would appear to me, as a pure layman in these things, that the commercial broadcaster must depend for his living on the good will of the advertisers. In other words, he must be able to offer in return to them the audience of the right kind and size to buy their goods. This must surely be in practice the largest possible audience. To achieve this it seems to me the broadcaster is bound to limit the range of his programme. The principal argument I would concede against any extension of commercial broadcasting in this country is not what it includes but what it is bound to exclude by its very need to secure and retain large audiences. I know there is a theory that you can have sponsored programmes, one catering for a minority and another for a majority audience, but in practice it would be very difficult to resist the inevitable commercial pressure to extract

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the maximum possible income from the mass advertiser whose advertising expenditure is so much greater than that of the man concerned with some specialised interest.
Finally, I think we ought to realise that there is a danger in that possible pressure groups with yet another source of advertising, often with its somewhat unfortunate appeals to what we describe as undesirable human traits or its occasional exploitation of noble qualities, may not be a good thing for the country. May I give two examples? One has been referred to, and is the example of mother love. This is a quality which has inspired poets and artists through the centuries, and without which very few of us would have survived to this moment. It is surely prostituting this great thing when it is used to advertise a detergent alleged "to make baby clothes softer than soft for the mother who cares". Nor is it right, in order to sell a product, first to arouse feelings of anxiety or even fear which can be resolved only by the reassurance which comes from the purchase of whatever the advertiser has to sell.
I dare hardly contemplate the anxiety neurosis in the minds of the clergy in the Established Church if they are constantly to be asked to wonder, "Why is his surplice whiter than mine?" which, when you analyse it, is a vested interest to preserve the status quo, to hinder national thinking, to limit the power of choice, and to encourage the uncritical acceptance of an entirely false set of values. Therefore, I ask your Lordships this: ought we really, in the present condition of the world, which calls for self-sacrifice, the spirit of adventure, for boldness, courage and for clear thinking, to allow to any pressure group a medium which requires the British people to subject themselves to a further dose of self-indulgence?
5.18 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I am sure it will be the wish of all your Lordships, in all parts of the Chamber, that I should express on behalf of all of us satisfaction that the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Worcester, has joined us here, and upon this, his maiden speech. Known to many all over the world as Charles Edwards
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the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, he will have an audience greater than that in this House if he continues to address us, as I am sure he will. May I then express to him our deep thanks for his speech and our best wishes for his future among us?
Before I turn to the precise terms of the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, may I deal with a matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, about which I am able, happily, to give your Lordships a little evidence? It was in that passage in which he said that there was a committee of the Conservative Party which was "clandestinely"—that was his word—meeting to discuss what should be done about television policy at that time. I was a member of that committee, and far from its activities being clandestine, I have ascertained this very afternoon—and here is the bit of paper—that it was stated on the Conservative Party Whip of February 6, 1952, that this committee was meeting for the very purpose of considering the future of television. Now it is commonly known to those who sat in the other place that the Whip goes to all Members of the Party and a certain number of officials, and, owing to the carelessness of Members in dropping it into the wastepaper basket, it is generally available to the Opposition. I make only one point: that the noble Lord was wrong in suggesting that this committee met clandestinely, thereby implying that there was something about it unusual or particularly noxious. On the contrary, it was one of those ordinary committees of the Party which all of us have sat on from time to time, where new matters or old matters, Party matters or controversial matters are discussed while the Party is making up its mind what it is going to do. A little later I will develop my own attitude towards this matter arising out of my having become a member of that committee.
Perhaps your Lordships will bear with me for just a minute if I mention the background of my interest in this matter. First of all, I have no commercial interest, I have no shareholding interest, nor have I had in any of these wireless or broadcasting activities. But I have had a deep public interest, having been as long ago as 1925 one of the

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original members of Lord Crawford's Broadcasting Committee, which first recommended Parliament to set up the monopoly service called the B.B.C. Very many years later I was for two terms, including the term immediately before the Second World War and for the greater part of the War, a Governor of the B.B.C. Board. In all this time, over twenty years or more, I knew and met the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who was a friend of mine, and who, notwithstanding what I am going to say to-day, is still a friend of mine. Certainty I regard him as such. I reckon that in all these years I sat at his feet because I thought he was rendering a great service to our country and to many other countries by the moral attitude—and I use the word as advisedly as he did—which he adopted towards broadcasting. I think he set an example to the B.B.C, and we, all of us in Britain, set an example, through the B.B.C, Which was followed to some extent in Canada, South Africa and Australia, and exercised a good influence over men's minds throughout the world during the time that this new and dangerous method of mass communication was finding its feet.
I think it is most sad that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, in the latter part of his life should come down here and tell us that he regrets the whole of his life, that he regrets what he did. I affirm he has left a monument in the B.B.C, whose tradition and uprightness of purpose will long lead to our remembering him and the work he did for Britain and the world. It is quite unnecessary for him to come and apologise and be sorry for himself because changes have taken place after 20 or 30 years. They often take place, and it may even surprise your Lordships to know they can take place in the mind of a person like myself, who has no financial interest Whatsoever in the matter. It is one of those things which we ought to recognise: that there is integrity to be found in various quarters sometimes where you might not expect it.
I turn to this Motion. It includes the words "political pressure group" and I cannot help thinking that the words and the way they are used in the writing of this Motion are intended to create prejudice; and I say that with respect to the noble Lord. The words "political
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pressure group" are used as if they were a nasty phrase implying a dirty bit of work. I have some notes here which would have led me to develop the argument that pressure groups are a necessary part of the democratic system. I will reject the lot, because all noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Reith, himself, have made it quite clear that a pressure group is not necessarily a method of behaviour to be criticised, but, on the contrary, is often a wise and sometimes necessary part of our activities. Since Members of the House on all sides and the noble Lord, Lord Reith, himself have made that clear, I will not take up time by going over that ground.
Lord Reith's Motion then goes on to refer to this book. My Lords, the book is a year old, and while it has been said that since it has not been thrown down, brought into the Law Courts or violently corrected in the public Press for a year it must therefore be true and, by implication, notable, I should also like to say that this matter may not be of great public interest in Britain. I have now read considerable extracts from the book—I had not, in fact, heard of it until about a fortnight ago when this Motion appeared on the Paper. I wonder, therefore, whether it is significant, as we may be led to suppose, and whether perhaps the reason that it has not been a matter of public controversy is that it is an obscure work by a professor in a place a long way away, and a place from which I, personally, would not wish to be advised. I do not know how other Britons may feel, but that is how I feel.
Then we come to question ourselves: what can be the purpose of this Motion and why its timing? Why was it not raised last year? Why now? Is it not obvious that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, consciously or subconsciously, is putting this Motion on the Paper so that it may adventitiously appear just after the publication of the Pilkington Report, or just before it—he did not know which when he put the Motion down—but probably just before, in order that a major change of broadcasting policy might be debated. Although that has not yet taken place we are on the threshold of it and touching upon it, and some of the signals are going up as to lines which might be

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taken when we come to read the Pilking-ton Report. But would it not foe better to read it first?
Therefore, I think this Motion is suspect of disordered thought on the part of my noble friend and suspect of prejudice; and that it has been put down for a purpose which is not the one on the Paper and which is not manifest. I do not say that in denigration of his character, which is one of the highest in the land, but in denigration of his judgment, and I deeply regret to have to say it. Nevertheless, I do think it is so.
What is the gist of the whole matter? My Lords, I was in the Commons throughout the period when the Bill was going through all its stages, upstairs, downstairs and in the Chamber. I took part in the whole of that. I had no interest beyond public interest, or outside the public interest. I indeed had a strong tendency to be a supporter of the Establishment—and in this instance by "the Establishment" I mean of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and the B.B.C., as he saw it and would like to see it remain for ever, because I sat at his feet, as I have said, and I had to admire him, and still do, and because I had been a Governor of the B.B.C. I had been one of the very few—.there ware only three—of the Members of the Commons who sat on the Committee which set up this monopoly.
But after 20 years in public life I had seen two or three things happening. One was that I thought the monopoly was getting a little too strong. I thought that a division of power in the land was a good thing, rather than a concentration of power of any kind, and especially the power of the word. And I also had begun to discern that television, now developing rapidly in America but only in its early infancy here, must rise quickly, if given a chance, but that it could not do so without vast extra money. I remember saying to the Beveridge Committee, in evidence, what was known to many at the time: that it costs £1 to put a certain amount of material into the studio for presentation orally but it will cost £10 to put it into a studio to present it by television orally and visually. The process is more extravagant of ether, of equipment, of
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staff and of money—very extravagant indeed.
There was never any hope that an adequate service suitable for a country of our status and situation and commercial development could possibly be financed out of licence fees. There was only one way it could be financed and that was by advertisements. I urged upon the B.B.C. to take advertisements; that was the advice I ventured to give at that time. But their conscience would not allow them to. They would take £1 million a week or a month (I cannot remember) of advertisements in the Radio Times. They would glady acknowledge artists and authors and theatres, night by night. They would gladly advertise the Radio Times in their own programmes, to increase circulation. But their conscience would not allow them to take advertisements in order to pay for something Britain needed. I think they were small-minded, and pig-headed, and it is their own fault if they did not see what was coming. But they did not.
I then said to myself, "We need television on a proper scale and we cannot have it without advertisements, so we must have it with advertisements", and I supported the Government. There was nothing Machiavellian or nasty or round the corner or clandestine, nothing horrible about this, Lord Reith, nothing at all; just a change of mind due to all the facts of the case, which it surely is right for a public man to consider and weigh. That is how I came to be supporting it. I should not be surprised if, as my noble friend Lord Lloyd said, a great many others who supported it felt as I did: that it was time the B.B.C. monopoly was changed, and the only way we could have proper development of television was by the method of having advertisements. In 1955, when the Television Bill was passed, there were 5 million televiewers; today there are 12 million. That development could not possibly have taken place without vast sums of money, and vast sums of money have been spent, as your Lordships know.
Finally, let us look, without all the heat and passion that is generated in this matter, at the television advertisement itself. Is advertisement in itself a

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bad thing? The noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams—and in passing may I congratulate him on a most interesting maiden speech which I was glad to hear—said that there could not be a free Press in this land without advertisements. I entirely agree. There could not be a vast, rich, well-equipped television system without advertising, I affirm. Advertising is not only useful for that reason; it is useful for at least two others. It helps manufacturers to make more things that are known to be wanted, and that enables them to make them cheaper; and it helps the public to know what is being made and to choose. I do not believe that a bad service is rendered by the broadcasting of advertisements; I believe a useful and a good one is. I do not adhere to the doctrine that we must always give the people what we or they think is good for them; I affirm that "a little of what you fancy does you good". And that is the theme that will guide me in judging the Pilkington Report when I have the honour to read it.
5.35 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I think that at the outset of my speech I ought perhaps to declare an absence of interest. I must disclose this absence of interest in television: I have no television set. I have never yet seen a programme of Independent Television. I think I last saw a B.B.C. television broadcast in a private house when I saw—a not entirely satisfactory experience—the Boat Race of last year; and the other B.B.C. television broadcasts I have seen have been in Westminster Hall, of great occasions like the State Opening of Parliament and the Coronation. I hope that this admission that I scarcely ever see television will not be thought to be too disgraceful. After all, it is not yet compulsory.
The reason that I intervene this afternoon is that, though I have little experience of television, I have a good deal of knowledge of the matters dealt with in the book that is the subject of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Reith. I read the book last weekend. For some 30 years I have been interested in broadcasting and in the B.B.C. I took part in some debates in the House of Commons on the subject, in particular the debate of May 28, 1940, when I intervened
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from the Government side, and the debate of December 11, 1946, when my Party were in Opposition. I was a Minister at the Board of Trade at the time the Television Act, 1954, was going through Parliament. I know it is sometimes thought that no junior Minister ever has knowledge of anything; that he remains quite ignorant of the forces operating in the House of Commons and in his own Party. But that really is not so. I had some knowledge of the forces at work in the Party and in Parliament, and I had some means of judging the merits of what Professor Wilson has described in his book. I knew, fairly well, I think, all the Members of Parliament who are mentioned, though I do not profess to have known all those outside.
An Act of Parliament of such novelty as the 1954 Act is, of course, the product of a number of varied views and forces. I think some previous speaker has pointed out that that Act satisfied nobody entirely. I do not think that was altogether surprising. But I have no doubt whatsoever what was the main influence, the main motive that influenced the Tory Party and many others to introduce this legislation; and that was the dislike of monopoly and the evils associated with it. We may have been right or we may have been wrong, but that was the motive. Of course that does not mean that those of us who took that view were necessarily opposed to the B.B.C. The noble Lord, Lord Reith, is quite preposterously wrong in making that assumption.
If I may explain my own position, I was—and I still am—a great admirer of a great deal of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, When he first became responsible for that monopoly. He will probably have forgotten this, but I had the pleasure of meeting him at some fairly small gatherings at which he explained some of his ideas after a few years. Above all, I admired him because he treated this new medium seriously. He had high ideals for it; he was determined, if I may so put it, not to ignore public taste but, if anything, to be a little ahead of it. I believe that the greatest of all the achievements of the B.B.C. sound radio hitherto, and the way in which it has added more happiness than by anything else to the lives of the people in these islands, is by

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making them acquainted with great music. That would not have happened unless the noble Lord, Lord Reith, had had high ideals. I had the pleasure of personal friendship for many years with Adrian Boult and with Arthur Bliss, two of the Directors of Music at the B.B.C. I was a school friend of Arthur Bliss and a college friend of Adrian Boult. I can never be too grateful for what the B.B.C. has done in this sphere.
I took part in many debates over the years on this subject, two of which I have mentioned in particular. In those early years I took for granted the necessity for the monopoly, and I concentrated my criticism of the B.B.C. on an endeavour to improve its practices, but not to curb its powers. But in the course of the years I formed the definite conclusion that it would be advisable, in the public interest, to end its monopoly, if that should become technically possible. This afternoon the noble Lord. Lord Reith, spoke as if this dislike of the monopoly aspect of the B.B.C. had been a rather insincere conviction conjured up, when the Conservative Party took office, by this pressure group to which he refers in his Motion. This idea is entirely unfounded. The objection to the monopoly of the B.B.C. had been the subject of Parliamentary criticism from a much earlier date. I daresay that some noble Lords who are interested may have referred to the debate in another place on July, 16, 1946, when my Party, from the Opposition Benches, endeavoured to carry a Motion to secure an inquiry before the renewal of the Charter of the B.B.C. Many interesting speeches were made in the course of that debate, not least a speech by a friend of many of us, the late Lord Bracken.
Perhaps I might draw attention, in particular, to the speech of my honourable friend, Kenneth Pickthorn, then the senior Burgess for Cambridge University. He is one of those mentioned frequently in these pages. In that debate of July, 1946, he wanted an inquiry on whether it was necessary that the B.B.C. should continue as a monopoly. But may I mention something else? I am astonished that it has not been yet mentioned in the debate this afternoon, and I am even more astonished that the writer of this book
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should have given it such slight mention, if he wished to be honest and accurately to portray the great issues involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, is not the only Director-General of the B.B.C. who had high ideals. There was my friend, again an Oxford friend and a friend of many Members of this House, I think, on both sides, the late Sir Frederick Ogilvie. On June 26, 1946, Sir Frederick Ogilvie expressed these sentiments in a letter to The Times—sentiments derided this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, as unworthy, as if they were sentiments that could result only from corrupt motives. Sir Frederick Ogilvie made a plea that there should be an inquiry—a plea which in the next month was supported by my Party in this Motion in the House of Commons. Now let me read two or three passages from Sir Frederick's letter. It says:
"Freedom is choice. And monopoly of broadcasting is inevitably the negation of freedom, no matter how efficiently it is run, or how wise or kindly the boards or committees in charge of it. It denies freedom of choice to listeners. It denies freedom of employment to speakers, musicians, writers, actors and all who seek their chance on the air. The dangers of monopoly have long been recognised in the film industry and the Press and the theatre, and active steps have been taken to prevent it. In tolerating monopoly of broadcasting we are alone among the democratic countries of the world.
"I was Director-General of the B.B.C. from the autumn of 1938 to the beginning of 1942. At the time of leaving I set down some of my impressions and experiences in a memorandum which Sir Alan Powell and his colleagues on the B.B.C. board of governors have had in their possession since the end of the war. My chief impressions were two: the evils of the monopoly system and the gallant work of a very able and delightful executive staff in trying to overcome them. The B.B.C. itself, good as it is, would gain vastly by the abolition of monopoly and the introduction of competition. So would all the millions of listeners, who would still have the B.B.C. to listen to, but would have other programmes to enjoy as well. So would all would-be broadcasters gain. If rejected by the B.B.C, they would have other corporations to turn to."
I hope that the House will have thought it worth while to be reminded of these extracts, and to have them read. I know how many other speakers there are, so I content myself with having drawn attention to the letter. It will repay study throughout.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene? He mentioned that in Professor Wilson's book there was a reference to this letter.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am glad I have been asked for that: it enables me to read it. I think the House should know this; it is the only reference in the book, and it is in these terms. Speaking of a debate in this House, Professor Wilson says—and these are his words:
"Not until the sixth speaker, Lord Man-croft, did the Government hear words of commendation for its proposals, and even then they were told they should have gone further and faster and proposed sponsored radio as well. From his stress on the evil of monopoly to the copious citation of Sir Frederick Ogilvie's letter to The Times of June 26, 1946, which had been widely circulated by the Conscrvate backbench group, Lord Man-croft might have been speaking from a brief prepared by the Broadcasting Group."
I leave it to the House to judge whether that gives an adequate description of the letter I have read to the House. I have mentioned that in July, 1946, my friend Kenneth Pickthorn and others in the other place objected to the monopoly of the B.B.C. and asked for an inquiry. I have read the letter in The Times by a former Director-General of the B.B.C, a most humane and cultivated man, known to a great many people in this House and in another place.
I come now, with some astonishment because I do not think it has yet been mentioned in to-day's debate, to the Minority Report of my right honourable and learned friend Mr. Selwyn Lloyd in the Beveridge Report. Is this thought quite unworthy of mention? Of all parts of the Report, it reads among the best to-day. I do not ask anybody to agree with it, but what I want to say is that anybody who is interested in what moved the Conservative Party to legislate can take it that there was dislike of monopoly and the evils associated with it.
My Lords, over the weekend I read the book which is mentioned in the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Reith. I found it a very strange document indeed. That there should be numerous mistakes about the standing and nature of various committees, I thought was natural and excusable in a stranger to our Parliamentary proceedings; I attach
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little importance to slips of that kind. I tried—and I hope noble Lords will agree with me—to be as patient as I could with the actual language used, repulsive though I sometimes found it. I hate it when people talk about people being "pressured", When they mean "pressed". It is as if Shakespeare had said, "Where the bee suctions, there suction I". For all I know, my Lords, that is what they teach in American universities. There the title of "Professor" is not always inconsistent with illiteracy. The word "motive" is not allowed to appear anywhere in the document. Wherever "motive" is meant, "motivation" is used. I tried, as I say, not to he repelled 'by the language, and I ignored all the milder mistakes of getting all our committees wrong, and so forth.
Then I came to what I found was utterly extraordinary about this book: that an intelligent American, living in a country where there are the severest possible laws against monopoly, should have taken it almost for granted that nobody could object to the monopoly of the B.B.C. except for money or some indirect or improper motive. I found this so insane that I began to fear for the sanity of the author. But, of course, I must do that no longer 'because the same illusion seems to have entered the head of the noble Lord who proposed this Motion.
My Lords, I have never, curiously enough, had any financial interest in advertising or television. I have been invited from time to time to broadcast or to take part in broadcasts by the B.B.C.—very long ago, of course, before they regarded me as a very elderly "has been" and an "angry old man". But that does not prevent me—any more than it prevented my friend the late Walter Elliot, who, by universal admission, was a superb broadcaster and a good friend of the B.B.C.—from questioning the B.B.C. monopoly. The disadvantages and evils of a monopoly in so powerful a medium of information, education and entertainment as the B.B.C. are so obvious that I shall not weary the House by repeating them. I will just give a few examples based on my own experiences, some of which I have raised in the other place in earlier debates.

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Let me deal first with B.B.C. treatment of matters of acute controversy, which is a difficult problem. I think that there are only three possible ways of dealing with it: one of them utterly bad; the two others with possibilities. The utterly bad way of dealing with a controversial matter is to ask one man to broadcast on it and nobody else. The second method is to have a debate between two opponents. That can be very good indeed, but it used to be the tradition to have an extremely elderly Liberal in the chair, who would say at the end of the debate: "I am sure that we are really all agreed on this". That way, again, is not an ideal way. Fortunately it is not likely to be repeated to-day, because nobody in his wildest moments any longer regards a Liberal as impartial. The third, and best, method is to have a series of broadcasts in which different views are given.
Now let me give one example of the B.B.C.'s employment of the first method, which I have described as the worst. This happened in 1946. I was very much interested at that time, as some noble Lords may know, in trade union law, on which I had recently written a book. I heard with some astonishment after the 9 o'clock news a well-known Socialist (incidentally a friend, about whom I make no complaint of any sort) give a talk on the highly controversial matter of the closed shop, with which he was generally in sympathy. I had no objection whatsoever to what he said, as he gave the views I should have expected of him, having regard to his known political antecedents. I wrote the B.B.C. a polite letter asking if an equivalent opportunity would be given to some opponent of the closed shop. The reply of the B.B.C. was that no such opportunity would be given, because the gentleman had made an objective broadcast and they saw no need for any further broadcast at all. That is my first example.
I am not saying that all these examples are equally important, but I now come to what I regard as a very important matter—and I cannot help thinking that noble Lords in all quarters of the House may conceivably agree with me. In the ten years before the war, foreign affairs were probably as important in this country
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as they have ever been. The B.B.C. was in a position to decide who should broadcast to us on foreign affairs, and nobody whom the B.B.C. did not choose could address the British public on this subject.
From 1928 to 1934 Mr. Vernon Bartlett broadcast regularly, and thus had a virtual monopoly of addressing the British public on the subject. Let me say at once, my Lords, that I make no sort of complaint against Mr. Vernon Bartlett, who is, and has always been since I have known him, a personal friend of mine. May I quote what Mr. Vernon Bartlett himself says in his work, This Is My Life, published in 1937? He said:
"During the six years I was almost the only broadcaster on foreign affairs, and the interest in the subject was so great that inevitably I had a very large audience."
He goes on, himself, to point out how very undesirable he thought that was. Let me quote another passage, which comes a little later in his work:
"There should, I think, be not one broadcaster on foreign affairs but a panel of them. They should be of widely different political views"
As your Lordships know, Mr. Vernon Bartlett was for a long time connected with the News Chronicle. As I say, I have no complaint against Mr. Vernon Bartlett and I share his views on how evil this monopoly was.
There is only one other matter in this connection of which I would remind the House. I think it was in 1933 that Mr. Winston Churchill, as he then was, was refused an opportunity of broadcasting on foreign affairs by the B.B.C. Now I daresay that the B.B.C. has an excuse for everything I have mentioned, but what I say to the House is this: is it conceivable that any of these things could have happened if they had not had a monopoly?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I believe the point that my noble friend is making is a legitimate one, but I think he should also say that the policy has been changed since, and that does not represent policy.
LORD CONESFORD: I entirely agree, and if anybody thought I implied that it did, then I withdraw. I am sure that

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the B.B.C. would never do anything like that again. But I still think if I may say so, that the B.B.C. should not be the sole employers.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I just ask what the noble Lord is saying now? Is he saying that the B.B.C. gave up this policy only because of the coming of Independent Television or that they had abandoned it first? Because if they had given it up before, and would never have it again, the relevance of this reminiscence is not quite obvious.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, it is obvious to my mind, and I am very sorry if it is beyond the noble Earl, that what I was saying—with, I thought, such clarity as I am capable of——
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am afraid not.
LORD CONESFORD: —was that the subject of the debate to-day is whether the Conservative Party had some improper motive, yielding to a pressure group to persuade them not to extend the monopoly of the B.B.C. I said—and this is the whole point of my remarks—that there had been long a desire in the Conservative Party to end the monopoly of the B.B.C, when that could be done, because that monopoly had given rise to serious evils.'
LORD REITH: My Lords, when did this happen, may I ask? When was this great desire expressed?
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I have given the reference of the debate, and if the noble Lord was not listening I will give the dates again. The debate I am alluding to was in 1946. I have read the letter in that year of the late Director-General, whom I regarded as quite as honourable and humane a man as I do the noble Lord who introduced this Motion; and I have mentioned the desire expressed in the House of Com mons by Members of my own Party to end the monopoly. We may have (been flight or we may have been wrong, but it was no new thing; and I still think——
LORD REITH: My Lords, does the noble Lord know why Sir Frederick Ogilvie left the B.B.C?
LORD CONESFORD: I think he told me at the time, but I cannot remember
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whether he told me whether I should reveal it. But I am not going to charge my memory in order to do so. I knew Sir Frederick Ogilvie quite well. I have read his letter to The Times, and if the noble Lord is suggesting anything would have made Sir Frederick Ogilvie write something in which he did not believe, then I would repudiate that as monstrous——
LORD REITH: Do not impute motives.
LORD CONESFORD: That comes very well from the noble Lord, after his treatment of my noble friend Lord Woolton this afternoon.
LORD REITH: Nonsense!
LORD CONESFORD: The noble Lord shouts out "Nonsense!", well expressing what is on his mind.
My Lords, I have said that these effects of monopoly which I have described are no small evil. I also believe that it is no small evil that talented broadcasters should have only one possible employer in this country. I believe that, too, is a great evil. Finally, in dealing with these evils, I believe that the power of patronage is a great evil. The B.B.C. monopoly enabled the Corporation, by its choice of those Who were to broadcast on important occasions, to confer on its favourites a political advantage unparalleled since the 18th century. I do not believe that those who were in a position to give away rotten boroughs in the 18th century, had a greater power of patronage than the B.B.C. under its monopoly.
My Lords, I do not know if the noble Lord, Lord Reith, will have any complaint about my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds. He quoted in these debates some years ago the book which I love more than most books with Which I am familiar in English literature: I remember that it moved me more, when I first read it as a boy, than almost any other work in English prose. I refer to John Milton's Areopagitica. I think I can recite great passages of that even to-day, but I promise you that I will not do so. But it was the most noble and magnificent plea for unlicensed printing, and it was the most splendid weapon against monopoly in disseminating the things of the mind. I do not believe that John Milton's argument applies only to printed books

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Yesterday, I refreshed my memory of a very different piece of prose, which I shall now read to the House. Your Lordships will find it on page 364 of the second volume of the Report of the Beveridge Committee:
"It was the brute force of monopoly that enabled the B.B.C. to become what it did; and to do what it did; that made it possible for a policy of moral responsibility to be followed. If there is to be competition it will be of cheapness not of goodness. The usual disadvantages and dangers of monopoly do not apply to Broadcasting; it is in fact a potent incentive."
My Lords, I prefer John Milton.
6.8 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, I ought to say at first that I am a member of the General Advisory Council of the B.B.C. I would add that I shall say nothing whatever about the B.B.C. in what I am about to say.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, might I interrupt my noble friend for one moment? A friend has drawn my attention to the fact that I did not give responsibility for the words that I quoted; they were from a written memorandum by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, to the B.B.C.
LORD REITH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, read that out and I am very proud of that.
LORD CONESFORD: I have no doubt.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, it is my objective, if I can, to bring a little calm into this debate. I take a rather more sober view of this affair than does the noble Lord, Lord Reith. But I do not share the complacency which I think has been shown by some members on the other side. And, as regards what the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has just said, I would observe that "monopoly" may or may not be a bad thing, but the answer to monopoly is not necessarily commercial television.
As many noble Lords have said, this should not be a debate about commercial television as such. It should rather be a debate on a different and wider theme, a theme which relates to the anatomy and physiology of our society as a political organisation, and in particular to the constitution
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and ethos of the Conservative Party. This is the subject matter of the book to which the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has drawn attention and, in my view, the subject is treated cautiously and temperately in well documented fashion by the author, who belongs to a type which is commoner in the United States than it is here. He is a political scientist, a student of government; and, in spite of the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, on his language, his book has the virtue that it avoids, in general, the rather pretentious jargon in which many American political scientists clothe their analytical and theoretic conclusions about the springs of political action. Unlike so many of his colleagues, he tells this rather complex story as plainly as he can.
Now I have said that the book is well documented, and it certainly draws on a wealth of written and oral evidence. But, of course, the author cannot know everything. He admits that many questions have been left unanswered. There may be relevant and important facts which have escaped him; and he may have got some of his facts, some of his impressions, wrong. If so, those who speak for the Government and the Party will no doubt challenge him. They have done so on one or two points, but, apart from that, in general, they have so far confined themselves to broad accusations of inaccuracy. I shall leave it at that: but, in my opinion, Professor Wilson makes out a prima facie case which should be well pondered by those who care for the good ordering of our political life.
My Lords, to the minds of many people in this country there is something almost indecent in subjecting the operation of our contemporary society to scholarly scrutiny; and political science and sociology have accordingly been late in coming to maturity here. It is all right and proper to study, shall we say, the process of growing up in New Guinea, but until recent years similar studies of our own social processes have been rare. If now there has been a change, if we are becoming conscious that our own society is as much in need of analytic study as any other, that is all to the good; and for that reason Professor Wilson's book is, I think, to be

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welcomed. He tells how, against formidable odds, a small, resolute group, inside and outside of Parliament, was able to swing opinion in the Government and among the rank and file of the Conservative Party, and to succeed in placing on the Statute Book a new and rather revolutionary measure for which it would appear the Government had no popular mandate and to which there was every indication that both Government and Party had, at an earlier stage, been generally opposed.
That is Professor Wilson's main thesis, and he sets out to show, so far as he can, how it was that that result was achieved. This suggests, I think, two general observations. The first is that we are inclined to dismiss, perhaps too readily, the Communist accusation that in countries such as ours governmental decisions are dictated by what are called "capitalist circles". That charge is grossly exaggerated, yet here is a concrete instance to show that, perhaps, the charge can sometimes be well-founded. The second observation is that, in general, revolutions are made by small, resolute groups who know what they want and how to go about getting it, but acting—and this is important—in a propitious environment where wider support can be aroused.
Now this, in its way, was a small revolution, and those who engineered it had, I think, as has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, perhaps learnt something from the well-established revolutionary techniques of propaganda, pressure and infiltration with which we have become familiar. The environment in this particular case was propitious, because, for one thing, the Government had a slender majority in Parliament and was susceptible to Back-Bench pressure, and because, secondly, the campaign for commercial television was in harmony with the electoral plans of the Party management, since the public to Which commercial television would be most likely to appeal was the public which the Party management was most anxious to attract into the Conservative fold.
There was the double approach. On the one side there were certain powerful commercial, financial and advertising interests, who had their eye upon the big money which they hoped would
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accrue if consumer consciousness could be sufficiently developed, by way of entertainment, among a wide public. Commercial television has done many worthy things, and some of its chief figures are enlightened and public-spirited men; but, essentially, it exists in order to persuade the public to buy more and more consumer goods. On the other side were certain professional Party officials at Conservative Central Office who foresaw, very justly, that the promotion of consumer consciousness would be an electoral asset for the Party. There were votes to be won, particularly from among Labour voters, who it was thought were, as a Whole, more favourable to commercial television than were the Conservatives.
To illustrate those statements, I shall give three short quotations from Professor Wilson's book. The first quotation is a statement by a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1953. He said:
"The advantage"—
that is, the advantage of commercial television—
"should lie with the Conservative Party, because the more vulnerable Labour voters will be exposed to a new form of persuasion".
That is the first quotation. The second quotation is from a Conservative Party official, speaking at Swinton College in 1959. He said that commercial television
"has done us incalculable good".
The third quotation is again from a member of the Central Office, made in 1958. He said that, in his judgment, the achievement of commercial television was the idea and the complete operation of the Party professional at the Central Office. He went on:
"All the top leadership of the Party was opposed with the exception of Lord Woolton. We could not have got our programme through without him".
That is not Professor Wilson speaking: that is a Party member of the Conservative Central Office.
My Lords, the campaign was brilliantly successful. The campaigners, it is true, did not get all they wanted. In particular, they were denied sponsored programmes; and in other respects the Government wisely introduced safeguards into the Act. But the main objective of the campaign was secured.
Now, my Lords, there is nothing corrupt about this, and Professor Wilson

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does not suggest that there was. The campaign owed its success to the skill and drive with which it was conducted; but it would probably not have succeeded if it had not been a projection or an extrapolation of the already accepted post-war Conservative appeal. That appeal was addressed with skill to the newly-prosperous electors in the lower middle ranges of society. It took credit for that prosperity and promised to continue it and make it secure for the future. Commercial television played in with this appeal by showing how, in practice, the new prosperous life could be lived. In the course of the campaign, the old-style traditionalists inside and outside the Government and Parliament were routed. The rank and file toed the line. The campaigners had their way. They had calculated rightly, on both counts: the campaigning interests got the big money; the Party won two electoral victories. So, my Lords, the introduction of commercial television by the Conservative Government takes its place in the evolving political life of our country.
Yet, my Lords, the truth of the matter—although here I share perhaps the somewhat naïve illusions of Professor Wilson—is that the great Conservative Party, whatever else it may be, is not, in essence, the bagman's party which some of its supporters run the risk of making it appear to be. It is not the party of the Manchester school and of laissez-faire. The older Conservative tradition, the tradition of Disraeli, has not been submerged. Of course, the Conservative Party, by its nature, is inevitably enmeshed with the vast complex of commerce, industry and finance, in the same way as the Labour Party is enmeshed with the trade unions: these are the disadvantages under which both Parties suffer. Yet the Conservative Party has not wholly capitulated to the commercial ethos, and it has preserved some of its aristocratic values.
Some of those values were asserted by Mr. R. A. Butler when, in 1946, he stressed the Conservative belief that "quality is as necessary as equality", and when he insisted that
"our particular contribution to the social philosophy of our time is that we are guardians of traditions, that we bring all that is most
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inspiring in our past to serve the ever-altering needs of our present."
Those of your Lordships who attend to 'these matters will have noted how brilliantly and how inspiringly the traditional philosophy of Conservatism is expounded, inside and outside of Parliament, by the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House. Let us hope that his Party will listen to him. The episode which is the subject of to-day's debate is, I think, an explicable one. There is no mystery about it. But it marks, I venture to say, some transfer of allegiance away from the respectable principles of the older philosophic conservatism towards the the idols of the market place. As one Conservative critic put it:
"… the hucksters who were asked to attract the crowds … have taken over the show".
Finally, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will move his Amendment, but as to that I would say only this. The affair may or may not have been a desirable development in our political life. I doubt myself whether it was. But there was nothing corrupt in what was done. It is therefore, as I see it, not a matter for a Parliamentary inquiry. I doubt whether it is even a proper subject for a Resolution in this House. It is a matter, if anything, rather for the conscience of the Conservative Party.
6.23 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I believe I am the first speaker from these Benches to follow upon the two very admirable maiden speeches we have heard this afternoon, and I should like, with all sincerity and gratitude, to congratulate my noble friend Lord Francis-Williams, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, for the two extremely interesting, knowledgeable and helpful contributions which we have had. I am also very nearly—though I think perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rea, shares this distinction with me—the only speaker in this debate so far who has absolutely no connection whatsoever with the B.B.C., with the Independent Television Authority or with the negotiations, in or out of Parliament, which have taken place, and which are the subject of this book. And what is more—and I say this in no spirit of

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boastfulness—I can scarcely call myself a listener or viewer either of Independent Television or of the B.B.C., though I do occasionally look at their programmes. So while I hope I have the benefit of speaking with a certain amount of objectivity, I cannot claim the benefit of speaking with any degree of expert or inside knowledge of this matter.
I can say quite honestly that I opened this book of Professor Wilson's with a completely open mind. I had not read any reviews of it. I had heard a little about it, but very little, and I did not know what I was going to find. I rather suspected that I was going to find a strong indictment of the Government and disclosures of disgraceful and possibly even corrupt behaviour. I found none of this as I read this book. I do not think that Professor Wilson himself would ever suggest that he was imputing corruption or improper behaviour to respectable politicians and public people. But what I did find in this book was something which the noble Lord, Lord Strang, very properly, and in a very balanced and lucid manner (if I may say so) referred to, something which should give us all a very great deal to think about in the running of this country, and that was the influence of groups of people who wished to get something which at the present time the majority do not wish.
We have heard a lot about pressure groups from various noble Lords Who have spoken already, and it has quite properly been said that there is nothing wrong whatsoever in a pressure group. But what is wrong, to my mind, and I think my view would be shared by most noble Lords, is that this book is a camouflaged pressure group, a disguised pressure group. There is nothing wrong whatsoever in the publishers of this book, Messrs. Secker & Warburg, advertising it in an attempt to pressurise (if the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, will allow me to use the word) the public into reading this. But what would be extremely wrong indeed would be if the publishers of this book, in order to promote sales, had "got at" the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and got him to inaugurate this debate simply in order to promote the sales of their book, without an-nouncing or letting it be known that that was the reason. That is surely a type
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of pressure which we must all condemn; and that is the type of pressure which, in reading this book, I could not say to myself did not exist. I cannot say to myself that it did exist, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strang, that there is a prima facie case to be answered. I hoped that in the course of this debate we should have good and satisfactory answers to this, and I still hope we shall.
We did have certain explanations from some noble Lords who have been mentioned in the book and who have been involved in this case. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, gave in his usual frank and honest manner a complete account of his part in the transactions, and there is no doubt at all about it that there has been no criticism of any kind, even in the book, of what the noble Lord did. I must say frankly that I was disappointed that the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, did not quite so freely disclose everything that happened. His speech seemed to me to be far more concentrated, if I may say so, upon an attack on the noble Lord, Lord Reith, than upon shedding light on this extremely important subject.
THE EARL OF WOOLTON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, in fairness, might admit that I was the person who was attacked. Perhaps there was some justification for my trying to repel that attack.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, far be it from me to justify, or otherwise, any action of the noble Earl. Of course, if he believes attack is the best form of defence, he made an admirable defence in this matter. But I say quite frankly, and I repeat, that I would have gone away from this debate in a happier frame of mind if more information had been forthcoming in the noble Earl's speech.
When we get down to it, what is really at stake in this matter? We have the knowledge that there were two pressure groups at work; and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, was quite right in pointing this out, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton had done earlier. I have no complaint about that whatsoever. It appears that there is a possibility, to put it no stronger, that the successful group operated in a way which was not at that time completely clear to all the people among whom it was operating.

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The effect of that was first upon the Conservative Party. That is no concern of mine. It is no concern of any of us except noble Lords sitting on the opposite Benches. I must say that if such imputations or suggestions had been made about my own Party, I should have urged strongly that there should be a full investigation to see how true they were, and I should not be happy at any form of covering up.
Then there was the question of what effect this pressure, open or hidden, had upon the Government of the country, and its effect on the actual condition of the country. We now have commercial television and whether one approves or disapproves of it, it is something that cannot be lightly dismissed. The effect of this pressure group has undoubtedly affected the lives of every single person in this country.
That brings me to my third point, the general effect on the country as a whole. It would not be in order to have a wide discussion (though certain noble Lords have wandered a little far) concerning the merits of commercial television or B.B.C. monopoly, but I think that it is right at this stage to amplify a little what the right reverend Prelate said, so rightly, about the effect of commercialisation, and particularly of advertising, on our life to-day, because this has always been one of the strongest fears of those who have opposed the inauguration of commercial television.
If I may, I will quote some words of my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, as reproduced in this book, from the debate in your Lordships' House on Monday, May 22, though I am afraid that I cannot tell of which year, because they seem to me so true and representative of the fears expressed by those who opposed commercial television. My noble friend said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 176, col. 1371]:
"Is it wise for this country to follow up the craze that we find growing rapidly in some countries to commercialise everything? Is it really wise? Will it add to the dignity of this great country of ours? Surely there are some things which are too sacred to be commercialised? Nothing gives me more satisfaction as a Briton than that we in this country have not yet trod that path very far. The main reason why I am against sponsored broadcasting is that I am afraid it is a step in the direction of commercialisation."
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The figures which were given by my noble friend Lord Francis-Williams are very apt in this context. I will not go through them all again, but let me remind your Lordships that the advertising revenue of I.T.A. rose from some £2 million in 1955 to £93 million in 1961. That shows the advertising potential and the effect it can have on life in this country. We can be certain that this figure of £93 million will be greatly extended in years to come. There is nothing wrong in advertising itself. There is no reason why people should not try to promote the sale of their products; indeed, there is every reason why the public should be given information about where they can obtain articles and what they contain. But modern advertising is something very different from that. It sets out openly and deliberately to create a demand where none existed before—in other words, to create dissatisfaction where people were satisfied. It encourages them to base their standards on materialism rather than on other more important things. If we look at it fairly and squarely, it turns away, with the approval of society, from all those virtues which we fundamentally believe to be good and great.
I should like to read a passage from a broadcast made some months ago on the B.B.C. by Mr. Tynesley, of the Department of Theology at the University of Hull. He said in that broadcast:
"Modern advertising has a definite image of the successful human being. What sort of hero is held up for our admiration by the advertisements we most commonly see? A man of the city, a good-looker with unmistakable drive and ambition. He is clearly on the way up, outstripping his fellows all the way along in clothes, girls, cars, cigarettes, and so on. He conforms to the pattern of life around him and all his fears and anxieties have been solved!
"All this amounts to a caricature of what our mediaeval forefathers knew as the seven deadly sins! The appeal of advertising is directly to the things people used to be warned against—pride, envy, sloth and so on. These values add up to a powerful and enticing image of the good life and provide a persuasive popular alternative to the Christian ideal."
My Lords, I believe that to be true. That is the way modern advertising is working to-day. While no one blames advertising, and advertising alone, for the decline in our moral standards, or commercial television

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alone for opera-fling advertising, those who say "hat this great weapon of advertising should be used freely, and still more freely as the years go by, must ask themselves whether they approve of the sort of values which are being offered to our young people as the ideals for which they should strive, as being the true form of good life to which every true "he-man" and "she-woman" of this country should aspire. Because we cannot divorce these two complements. We cannot say that we do not want a monopoly, therefore we we must have commercial television and then, once we have commercial television, wash our hands of all responsibility for what happens.
We can now see with our own eyes what happens when a country has commercial television. If we say that that is the sort of young people we want to see, that we want young men and women growing up with those ideals, why not carry on with commercial television—and let us have commercial radio, too! But if we believe that we should have higher standards, to which we all pay lip-service, then we must have doubts. We must wonder whether those who promoted commercial television, however good their motives and however high-minded they were at the time, were right and whether the country is really a better place because we now have it. And if we have doubts, surely it is not too late at least to say that, no matter what form of pressure group, open or hidden, we may have, this sort of thing shall not spread in our country and shall not be given Government licence to provide a form of ethic and moral to which we are wholeheartedly opposed.
6.40 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I cannot pretend to approach the subject under discussion this afternoon with a completely unbiased mind, because I took part in the debate of June, 1954, and on that occasion expressed very definite views in favour of the Government's Television Bill, and in favour of the creation of a new Authority. On looking at the terms of the Motion before us this afternoon, it is obvious that it is not intended to have a debate on the future of television or broadcasting, but a study, apparently, of the vote of censure passed by an American Professor
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on the present Conservative Government of this country. I do not wish to say that the facts are right or wrong; I will accept the facts as stated.
I have taken the opportunity of reading with some care this book in question. I do not take any exception to the facts, but what I do take the gravest exception to are the innuendos, the implications and inferences drawn from those facts, which I consider to be quite false. In the 1954 debate, I referred to the Television Bill as a cautious, guarded and empirical approach to a delicate problem. It may be that the results have not been as successful or quite what we hoped they would be, and it may be that something like the equivalent of Gresham's Law is operating in the field of television. But, in any case, this is not the occasion to deal with that; as I have said, we are not debating that particular subject.
In the early twenties the noble Lord, Lord Reith, said:
"He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the people want is often creating a fictitious demand for lower standards which he will then satisfy".
In some respects I think these words were prophetic, and to-day, in my view, they apply both to the B.B.C. and to the I.T.V. That is the dilemma as I see it. After all, the choice in those earlier years was not whether to keep the B.B.C. in solitary splendour, but between having a competitive incursion of uncontrolled, foreign, and largely American-sponsored programmes, and setting up another Corporation instead of that under British control. I still believe in liberty of thought, speech and action; and the, in some ways, disappointing results of I.T.V. do not alter my view that the Government were right in setting up another body.
Television is set in a modern world and cannot be insulated, even if it were a good thing, from the failings of modern man. My respect and admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Reith, in his amazing achievement in building the B.B.C. on standards which have won the admiration of the world, do not blind me to the facts of the present situation, as I see them. Having brought up, as it were, the B.B.C. and given it such an admirable training, the time had to come when the noble Lord had to leave it to

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face alone a hard world. Just as on a short-term view (the best Government is probably a highly efficient and benevolent dictatorship but a highly dangerous situation arises because of the uncertainty of succession and the uncertain hands into which this unchallenged power might fall, so, with the B.B.C. as a monopoly, the dangers of unworthy hands gaining control of a machine with terribly and unpredictably wide influence were altogether too great to face. It was highly improbable that fate would produce a succession of men fit to wear the mantle of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and it was also unlikely that Governments would acquiesce in consolidating such independent power.
To turn to this book, which apparently is the chief subject of our debate, I have read it with great interest. I am always interested in political propaganda and its manifold and sometimes cunningly devised manifestations. Descending to the phraseology common in this book, one might wonder what pressure group stimulated this piece of propaganda against the Conservative Government and certain of its supporters. It is obviously written by a man obsessed with the idea of pressure groups; and having lived and worked all his life in the land of pressure politics, pressure cookers, pressurised air, and pressurised other things it is perhaps natural that he should feel bound to attribute the success of any movement to a pressure group inspired by the most ignoble motives. That was an atmosphere with which he was probably familiar.
It has apparently escaped his notice that sincere belief in liberty of expression in its manifold forms may bind men together sincerely in a common cause. With an outlook like this—and I say this with the greatest respect—it would be possible to attribute even the growth of Christianity to a successful pressure group aiming at the spiritual domination of mankind. It would be as easy to put up a case for that as to put up the case which it has been attempted to put up this afternoon.
I found this book a distasteful exhibition of the skill
"To hint a fault and hesitate dislike"
and, without sneering, to teach the rest to sneer. It seems to have been overlooked
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by the author of the book that the supporters of I.T.V. might patriotically object to monopoly; might have patriotic motives binding them together. He seems also to have overlooked that they took a tremendous risk, and at one time it looked as if their losses might be astronomical. It is true that they won through to financial success, but, surely there is no justification for condemning them on that account, unless one is afflicted with the view that there is something fundamentally ignoble about financial success even in the interest of one's own country's welfare.
Personally, I found this book most interesting as a piece of anti-Conservative propaganda, ill concealed as an impartial analysis of improper political manipulation. Otherwise it was quite a valueless book. In our debate in June, 1954, I spoke in favour of the Television Bill and the Government's action. I gave my own views and my own reason, uninfluenced by any pressure group. Nor do I believe that one existed in the sense of Professor Wilson's book. There must have been many other Peers who spoke at the time who were in the same position. We exercised our own judgment as, indeed, I have done to-day. May I say that I have never had any financial interest of any sort or description in television or broadcasting?
One final word. The noble Lord who moved this Motion has, and always has had, my deepest respect and admiration. One of our troubles is the unimpeachably high standard of his aims and his achievement. It is given to few men to impress their personality and their ideals so vividly as he did upon a public institution. I can understand his feeling as a disappointed idealist to-day. If your Lordships will permit me to be didactic, the essence of an ideal is that it should be unobtainable; that it is always there, just on the horizon, to be striven for but never reached. It is something the poet meant when he talked of:
"That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which men bear to live or dare to die."
I regard the ideals of the B.B.C. as a beacon light in a world of imperfection. But a study of their programmes will give evidence of the continued pressure on their ideals, and they are weakening

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at times, with the public taste for more common food, which is also plentifully supplied by the I.T.V. That is all I wish to say on this subject except to add that I very much appreciated, as I am sure the whole House did, the extremely dignified and adequate reply which was made by the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, to those aspersions on him and his activities. I regret, my Lords, that the Resolution was ever put an the Paper but, as it was put there, I felt one should say quite frankly what one felt about it.
6.52 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, may I first add my own congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, and to the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Worcester, on two admirable and lucid maiden speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, is a seasoned campaigner on television and a skilful exponent of the art of interviewing. The right reverend Prelate is a brilliant exponent of the spoken word, and, having heard him both from the pulpit and in your Lordships' House, may I say to him that we hope we shall hear a lot more from him from both places.
I am in a minority of those taking part in this debate who have no interest to declare whatever in the realm of television, either B.B.C. or I.T.V., as I was not a Member of either House during the course of those somewhat heated debates during the 1952–54 period, but I am a reasonably prolific television viewer and I choose which channel I wish to view purely according to merit.
I turn to Professor Wilson's book and, like the noble Lord, Lord Walston, I approached it with a completely open mind. Parts of it I found intolerably dull, others quite fascinating. Whether or not it is a truthful account of what happened during the time in question I do not know, but I regret the imputations made against the Conservative Central Office. I have had certain dealings with the Conservative Central Office because I am currently on their Parliamentary speakers panel, and I know that the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, has not only helped to revive the Party but has always given this country the most valued and impartial service. Whilst the author probably meant no malice towards the Party, in certain extracts from his book he imputed it.
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May I turn for a moment to the subject of advertising? The B.B.C. has, in fact, experimented with advertising recently in a monthly series of programmes called "Choice". I happen to have a great interest in the matter of consumer advice and I am all in favour of any channel indulging in giving impartial advice of this kind, but the only time I watched this particular programme it seemed to me to be presented in a most unconvincing manner. So far as Independent Television advertising is concerned, judged purely on its merit, I personally find much of it irritating in the extreme. Often, during a great play or a well-known play, one will have an interruption for an advertisement for some kind of toothpaste or shampoo, and I should personally wish—whether or not the Pilkington Committee have considered this I do not know—that advertising were limited to the end of the programme. Surely the impact would be just as great. It is most irritating to find that a feature programme—and some of the I.T.V. feature programmes are extremely good—is interrupted in the middle for a series of tedious advertisements, some of which deal with two or three advertisements for one particular kind of commodity.
I therefore speak in this debate purely from the point of view of the viewer, and his interests must be considered in the light of what has emanated from this book. I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, who, as other noble Lords have said, has rendered great and valued service to this country by what he has done for the B.B.C, the Colonial Development Corporation and other Departments. But I must confess that I was very unimpressed by his speech to-day. It seemed to me that he never got down to any fundamental attack on the events Which this book describes.
It has been suggested that the Independent Television Authority programmes have more impact on the viewer than those of the B.B.C. I have not a copy of any recent listening figures, but the last I saw certainly tended to confirm the opposite view. Speaking for myself, I think that the B.B.C. programmes, again purely on merit, are on the whole of a vastly superior quality. Something was said of the lack of impartiality of the B.B.C. on certain political occasions. I do not think that at any

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rate to-day that is a fair comment. May I instance, for example, "Panorama" with which the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, will not be unfamiliar. In this programme a very balanced account is generally given of any subject which is discussed. I dare say there have been lapses, but they are in the minority. One thing I regret is the frequent lack of co-ordination between the two channels. I find on Tuesday nights there are two programmes dealing with the police: "No Hiding Place" is now welcomed back and restored to us after a lapse of some three months, and this new programme "Z Cars". There would be some case for looking into coordination regarding the timings of these programmes. Just who is to blame? Whether it is the B.B.C. or the Independent Television Authority I am not in a position to say, but something in the way of co-ordination would be of great help to the viewer.
I quote from the Second Schedule of the 1954 Television Act, which states:
"The amount of time given to advertising in the programmes "—
that is the I.T.V. programmes, of course—
"shall not be so great as to detract from the value of the programmes as a medium of entertainment, instruction and information."
To be fair, I believe that advertising time has now been cut down, and I think that is a very welcome move. Like other noble Lords, I have no bias against advertising—far from it. A very great friend of mine who is a Member of another place is a director of the firm of J. Walter Thompson, who have been mentioned in Professor Wilson's book. So I hope that what I have said has been useful in that I have approached this debate in an 'unbiased frame of mind. As I have said, I have viewed both programmes, I.T.V. and B.B.C, frequently and I think that both have their faults. There may well have been faults which Professor Wilson has been right to point out, and I, for one, will listen with great interest to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor who is to reply, before deciding what to do if this matter should be pressed.
7.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I had not originally intended to
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intervene in this debate since, frankly, I hardly felt that this book by a somewhat obscure associate professor in an American university was worthy of discussion in your Lordships' House. However, we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams—whom I also should like to congratulate on a most able and interesting speech— something of the character of the author of this book, and I am somewhat reassured, although he did admit that the associate professor had perhaps made certain errors of omission and commission and that in this sense he was only human.
I might add that this book contrasts unfavourably with an admirable volume, published I may say by a fully fledged American professor, Dr. Burton Paulu, entitled British Broadcasting in Transition. This gives a balanced, intelligent, very thorough account of the breaking of the B.B.C. monopoly and the setting up of the I.T.A. It is very fair to the B.B.C. and very fair to the I.T.A., and to noble Lords who are anxious to establish the facts this volume should be warmly recommended. I only wish it were Professor Paulu's book which formed the subject of our debate rather than the other, and I can only regret that your Lordships' time should perhaps have been wasted in considering that.
However, since my name is mentioned in the book and I am a director of one of the original I.T.V. companies, and because my views have been represented inaccurately, I feel I should say a few words. When I saw extracts from this book serialised in the New Statesman I found it was stated that at one time I and some of my friends wanted to drop out of the movement for I.T.V. I wanted to tell your Lordships that it is not true that I ever wished to drop out. I was always completely convinced that the breaking of the B.B.C. monopoly was necessary and would sooner or later come about, and I still believe that to have only one broadcasting organisation is not a healthy situation either in television or in sound radio. Not that I would, for a moment, speak against the B.B.C.; indeed, I am immensely impressed with what they have done, and even more impressed by what they have done since I.T.V. have been on the air.

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However, I was not intending to discuss the merits and demerits of commercial broadcasting in this debate, which should, I consider, under the terms of the Motion be confined to Professor Wilson's book and perhaps generally to the problem of pressure groups. All I would say, in so far as I am concerned, is that the New Statesman were good enough to publish my correction and my solicitors have received a letter from the publishers in which they say they will of course take steps in all future editions, reprints and further impressions, if any, either to correct the passage in question or to include an appropriate footnote. I do not think the corrigenda is in some editions your Lordships have here.
Quite apart from the inaccuracies of the book, which I understand are numerous—the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, said someone had counted over 100—I am surprised at the whole tone of it since it comes from a citizen of a country which leads in private enterprise and in whose capital city pressure groups are more active than perhaps anywhere else in the world. It seems to come ill from an American to make such insinuations. But I understand the Professor's politics are of a fairly Left-wing variety, and therefore it is not surprising, having decided what his conclusions were in advance, before he even started to make investigations, that he should fit every possible fact within the framework of what I must call his preconceptions—or should I say fundamental misconceptions? This is certainly the impression that I gain in reading a book which itself appears to me to resemble more of a gossip column in the popular Press than a serious historical piece of work, except that it seems incidentally to be less accurate than most gossip columns.
Considerable store is set on who met whom in which London clubs, on which date, and important conclusions are derived from these meetings. No doubt other noble Lords may quote other in-accuraoies—they have done so already— and I expect there are some to which the noble and learned Viscount will refer in answering the debate. In fact, I should say that the book abounds in half-truths as well as inaccuracies and even downright falsehoods. Corrections have been demanded and in at least one case legal action has been taken. This must be as
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embarrassing to the publishers as to anyone, and it may well be that the list of corrigenda will grow, and I should not be surprised if further legal actions were pending.
The real mischief done by a book of this kind seems to me that it creates an aura of untruth and invention. A journalist reviewing it in Time and Tide let himself be completely taken in by it, as well as by some mischievous and malicious inventions of somebody's imagination. In the result, he had to publish an apology admitting that his story was without any foundation whatsoever.
It cannot be other than a matter of regret that a noble Lord of the distinction and high ideals of Lord Reith should have impugned the integrity of the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, not facing him openly with first-hand evidence but hiding behind the back of a journalising professor whose home is thousands of miles away, and who has already landed his English publishers with a good deal of trouble.
LORD REITH: My Lords, I am not accustomed to hiding behind anybody's back.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Well, I think it is most regrettable that the noble Lord did not think of slightly changing the terms of his Motion. But the point I really wish to underline is one which has already been made by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, and by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd: that the Popular Television Association—call it a pressure group if you like, and I was not myself a member of the Association—was not formed until another pressure group, the National Television Council, had been in existence for a month. Had the National Television Council not been formed, it seems unlikely that the Popular Television Association would ever have come into being.
It interests me greatly that it should be the noble Lord, Lord Reith who should so much deplore this pressure group. I was recently reading his own book Into the Wind, and I got the impression from that book that the noble Lord himself was a most powerful pressure group on his own account. First of all, to cite one passage, at pages 80 to 82 he describes his many interviews including one with the right

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honourable J. R. Clynes, because—and I quote:
'it seemed that in the Labour Party there was most chance of finding the essence of what I believed."
There follow several references to the amount of money handed over to him. In one case he says—and again I quote:
"I had distributed considerable money, often in cash. I rarely knew the purpose. Fifteen thousand pounds passed through my hands."
There is also in the book a whole series of instances in which the noble Lord uses strong pressure to achieve his own ends. He seems to have had access to the Crawford Committee in 1925. He says that he gave the Committee before his second appearance a memorandum of comment on what the others had said. Was this correct procedure? He was extremely active in what I can only call lobbying, and says, for example, on page 106, that he drew up a statement of the B.B.C. case and sent it to Members of Parliament, and that the Postmaster General was very annoyed. I cannot avoid the impression, from reading Lord Reith's book, that he brought powerful pressure to bear on more than one Prime Minister.
On page 155 he says that as the then American Ambassador was in some distress about it, he "spoke to the Prime Minister's Secretary" about Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's commitment to broadcast to America under the aegis of a Chicago newspaper. He says that he telephoned to the head of the N.B.C. in New York and asked him to speak to the head of the Columbia Broadcasting System, and then sent a joint telegram to him. The telegram came next morning. Another Prime Minister on whom he seems to have exercised what might be described as pressure was Mr. Lloyd George, whom he pressed, against his original intention, to speak in a debate in 1933. In another passage Lord Reith says—and I again quote:
"MacDonald said we were turning his hair grey; he wondered which was the Government—we (that is to say, the B.B.C.) or they".
Then, on page 227, he says:
"There was no lobbying of members, but when offered opportunities of private conversation I took them gladly. I suggested to the General Advisory Council that they might give evidence on their own … The Board of Education was stimulated to give evidence—they should not have required it; and I asked
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Attlee, one of the members, if he thought others should be stimulated also. …"
On page 228 he goes on:
"By the courtesy of Lord Ullswater I received throughout a copy of the evidence given by other witnesses."
Really, my Lords! What a pressure group was there! Here was the head of the B.B.C. telling Prime Ministers what to do and what not to do; having numerous private conversations with other Ministers and other Members of Parliament; distributing considerable sums of money—often in cash; admit ting (and this is quite extraordinary) his own Party political bias; being privately shown evidence given before Committees by other witnesses. If your Lordships need a classic example——
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, would the noble Earl allow me? Did he say "distributing large sums of money, often in cash"?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Yes.
LORD TAYLOR: To whom?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Well, would it be desirable to go further into this? The noble Lord will know precisely what he meant by it.
LORD REITH: Let him tell the whole story. I was 24 years of age and I was not at the B.B.C. But what does all this matter?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, the noble Lord wrote the book. I have a copy of it here. If he would like to find the correct page and explain exactly what was behind it——
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: You are making the speech.
LORD REITH: Is the noble Earl suggesting that I retained any of this money myself?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am only saying that it was stated that it was distributed to others. If your Lordships will allow me to pass on, the book is available to your Lordships and it can be read after the debate.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not really understand -this. This would seem to be the first suggestion made in this debate of something amounting to corrupt practice. Nobody

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else has suggested that anybody has done this. What is the context of this statement?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am not passing any judgment on this; I was merely quoting a passage from the book. That is all I can say at the moment. I am purely quoting Lord Reith's words
If you will permit me, I feel that from the examples which I have given this is a classic example of a pressure group, and the like of it has never been seen before or since. The power of the man or, in his own words "the brute force of monopoly" is manifest to all. I do not wish to impute any false motives on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Reith. I have no doubt that he acted with the highest principles. My point is that in our free society in varying ways we may all contribute to pressure groups—whether we be parents insisting that our children attend school, or Whips insisting, or perhaps requesting, that we attend debates. Surely objections cannot be raised against these so-called pressure groups. If there is to be any objection, let it be to the underlying principle.
I was not going to say more, but since the noble Lord, Lord Reith, mentioned the proposed Institute of Educational Television, I thought I ought to say a word to him that this really has little to do with the book or with commercial broadcasting. A number of interested people, who have no connection whatever with commercial television, are its supporters, and its motives really cannot be in question. I think they are even going to change their address.
LORD SHACKLETON: Why?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: That is really all I have to say, except that it is surprising to me that in these last three days there has; been this somewhat concerted attack—shall I call it?—on commercial television, and it comes just before the Report of Sir Harry Pilking-ton is expected. Do we detect some kind of pressure group in this? And which, my Lords, is the co-ordinating organisation, or should I say corporation, behind it all?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, could
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he tell us why the Educational Institute, or whatever it is called, is changing its address? It is another mysterious remark he has made.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: A noble Lord earlier in the debate referred to the address of the Institute as being related in some way to commercial television. It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was not in the House at the time, but this was suggested, and all I can say is that it was housed in its present address because an offer was made. But it is not being changed because of any criticism of the address.
7.22 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Reith, opened this debate in a mixture of sorrow and anger. He said, "What can come of it all?" He spoke very sadly. Well, I do not think he should have been quite so sad, because a very vigorous debate has come out of his Motion, a debate which in itself, even if it went no further, if it stopped before my speech, I think would have done a useful service. Some noble Lords think it should not have taken place; I think it should. I think the noble Lord has achieved what he set out to achieve, merely by bringing about this debate.
The noble Lord then spoke of the wrecking of a life's work—as though a life's work had been wrecked. I think he was absolutely wrong, and that the B.B.C. to-day still bears the imprint of the moral integrity with which he started it off. I think it is a thing we all should be proud of, and I do not see any deterioration in the B.B.C. since the coming of commercial television. In fact, I would agree with the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, when he said that, if anything, it has stimulated the B.B.C. to do even better. But that is entirely apart from the question of advertising and broadcasting.
Then there developed, my Lords, a very sultry dispute between the noble Lords, Lord Reith, and Lord Woolton. I only hope that when the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor comes to reply he will feel that there is a serious subject here to be discussed, and that Lord Strang perhaps set the tone we ought to try to follow in arriving

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at the true importance of this book and the importance of the subject—which may very well be much greater than the nature of the book.
This is one of those debates in which one wants to be scrupulously fair, and I shall try to be so, and also try to maintain a sense of proportion, to face life as it is and not as we should like it to be. For one has to do just that. Politics is often an affair of mixed motives, but it is none the worse for that; otherwise, it would be out of touch with reality. In real life, motives are always mixed. Because of the nature of the raw material we deal with, because in getting things done we have to deal with this mixture of motives, we try to build safeguards into our way of life to prevent our acting from private interest, prejudice or partial affection. We try to do that, and that is really, I think, what we have been trying to do in to-day's debate. It is one of the big, important safeguards of our way of life that we should be debating this very subject.
As to the book, I have to read many sociological text books by Americans, and I would say that this is a fairly average sample. I would not say that this is a great book; I should say it is a painstaking book; and I am absolutely sure that Professor Wilson took great trouble over getting his data and trying to analyse and evaluate it fully. Whether he is completely accurate or not is another matter. No textbook of this sort is ever altogether right, and it is proper that it should be criticised and the mistakes pointed out. I think the noble Lord, Lord Strang, was right when he said it makes a prima facie case, a case worth looking at, worth examining in the public interest. It is a good thing that we should see how pressure groups operate in this country.
I was a little upset when the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, were rather sneering about American professors. America has more Nobel Prize Winners among its professors than any other country in the world. They are not a race of stooges and second-rate people any more, whatever may have been the case fifty, sixty or seventy years ago, when American universities were just
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beginning. They have a fine record of scholarship, and I do not think we add to our reputation if we simply denigrate American professors. I think that is quite wrong.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: If the noble Lord would permit me to say so, I was not denigrating American professors. I know many of them and I would praise their work—particularly, in this field, the work of Doctor Burton Paulu. But Professor Wilson is not very well-known, and is actually an associate professor.
LORD TAYLOR: There is nothing wrong in being an associate professor. In America these associate professorships are a very good thing. I wish there were more of them in our universities, where readers very often cannot become professors until they are fifty-five or sixty, and this is a very bad thing. Incidentally, my noble friend, Lord Francis-Williams tells me that so far as he knows Professor Wilson is a Republican, not a Left-wing person at all, and I honestly found no Left-wing bias in this book. There may have been little bits of stupidity here and there and lack of knowledge of England, but in every book that is built up of a series of conversations with people inevitably there are inaccuracies, particularly when describing events that happened ten years ago. Those are the sort of things for which it can be criticised, but I did not find much evidence of bias. I think it should be looked at fairly by anybody who is interested in this subject, bearing in mind that it is not a great, important volume, but nevertheless a very useful piece of sociological source material, or case material, to be read by anybody who cares about freedom and liberty and the way we make our laws.
I am very glad that our attention has been drawn to this question. The book is, I think, scrupulously fair in describing both the National Television Council and the Popular Television Association. It pointed out that they were both pressure groups. It pointed out the association of A.B.C cinemas and the various vested interests with the National Television Council. It showed it all. I do not think there is anything left out, or any subtle angling. I am sure if anybody has suggested there is angling,

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Professor Wilson's book ought to be read in order to put it right.
My Lords, advertising is a legitimate and valuable human activity. But it is a secondary activity, for its value to the community depends entirely on the value of the -product or service advertised. I thought that my noble friend Lord Walston made a most valuable contribution to the basic philosophy of advertising—and yet one had the feeling that perhaps he pressed it a little too far: that we have to accept that advertising does a very useful job, so long as it does not try to persuade us that false things are true. In many fields, however, our society has decided that advertising is wrong. For example, individual members of professions may not advertise; and that, incidentally, is why advertising is not a profession, much as some of its practitioners would like to say it is a profession. Then there are certain products which, because of the harm they may do, may not be advertised in certain ways. So society puts certain restraints on advertising: we say, in effect, that advertising may be good in its place, but that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
But this is not a debate about commercial television. It is getting much nearer when we come on to one branch of advertising—namely, public relations, which is a variety of advertising and much more open to abuse. Public relations at one extreme is harmless, and indeed valuable, when it gives information about goods or services which we all ought to know about; and, so long as it is really public, and clearly identifiable, it is not open to objection. But it easily extends into private relations and secret pressure; and it is the secret-ness of pressure, particularly when the person who is being pressed or impressed does not know that it is happening, that is objectionable—and I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, nodding his head.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, goes to see somebody about the B.B.C. There is nothing secret about that: he was an open pressure group, if he was anything. That, surely, is what we all do all the time; and provided we do it openly it does not matter. But this new kind of public relations, which is really private relations and secret relations, is applied
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to people who may not realise that they are being pressed for ulterior motives; and the best of us may be remarkably simple when our friends seek to influence us for some ulterior motive. We may fall without realising that we have fallen, or even what we have fallen for. That is the background to the case we are examining to-day.
An open pressure group which identifies itself and states all its aims, is not only something we can all accept but, as the noble Lord, Lord Reith, said, something which has often achieved great reforms in our history and is a proper part of our political life. So long as we can see who is after what, we can judge the issues on their merits and guard ourselves against subtle, secret persuasion. But the secret pressure group without clearly identified members and objects, working underground and out of sight, is a menace to our society. As my noble friend Lord Shackleton said, the great example of such a secret pressure group is to be found in the sphere of politics—namely, the Communist Party. Communist Party methods have rightly earned the scorn and contempt of decent people throughout the world. Note that it is not the object which is necessarily objectionable, though it may be; it is the method of secrecy, deceit and subtle intellectual corruption of decent people. This is the philosophy of conspiracy and of the end justifying the means.
When one uses the word "corruption", my Lords, there are two ways in which it can be used. There is corruption by money, and there is the corrupting of minds for any kind of ideological reason; that is to say, persuading, influencing, people to think wrongly or unclearly for ulterior motives, without telling them the whole story. That is the thing which is so objectionable and so wrong. No doubt many of those who wanted, and still want, commercial broadcasting are honestly convinced of its value. No doubt many were concerned only with the money they hoped to make out of it, and I suppose there is no great harm in those two groups coming together. I did not see any great harm in it, provided that they did so openly, and provided that they fought clearly for what they wanted. But the story as revealed in this book shows that they worked in secret and

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with very great skill, declaring only such of their aims as were appropriate at any particular moment. They arranged this extraordinary letter-rigging business, in order to appear to be influencing public opinion, when in fact they were doing nothing of the sort. They were employing methods which really were indistinguishable from those employed by the Communist Party when it seeks to rig a campaign, as we in the Labour Party have known only too well when they have fought against us. The danger is that these gentlemen were far more intelligent than the average Communist propagandist and, therefore, far more dangerous.
How could ordinary, decent people protect themselves from this subtle type of corruption?—and I am using the word here in the non-financial sense; in the sense of having their minds indoctrinated and changed. There is one answer, and one answer only, that I know; and that is to find out and publish as widely as possible what is going on and who is doing it, even though it is unpleasant for all of us. We have in this House, and in another place, the valuable rule designed to prevent our deceiving, and thereby greatly influencing, our colleagues. We always have to declare our interests, and if we fail to do so we are very properly taken to task.
The Press in this country, too, are concerned to preserve their integrity, in that they shall not be greatly influenced by the P.R.O., the private relations officer, the hander-out of hand-outs, or the giver of cocktail parties, who is trying to get advertising material into the news columns. This is going on all the time, and the Press, very properly, are on their guard. But every now and then they are caught out, as they were caught out on this occasion in the campaign by the Popular Television people, as is so fully described here, when these articles were sent round to the editors of little provincial papers, achieving that great number of column inches which my noble friend Lord Shackleton mentioned.
My Lords, this pressure group, which was working against another pressure group, won the battle. It won over the Government without persuading the mass of the Conservative supporters that
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it was right. There was no question of having a General Election about it, and I imagine that, had that occurred, it would have gone very much against commercial television. I shared the doubts of the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, about what would happen, but so far as we are able to judge, the people who were setting out to do this attacked the Conservative Central Office both from within and without. They then attacked, approached or pressed upon individual Members, and Back-Bench Conservative Members of Parliament. There was nothing crude about this. There was certainly no question of handing out money or offers of positions, except that at one point there was a public appeal in some of the theatrical magazines for potential performers on commercial television, when it came. These lists were apparently compiled by the promoters of commercial television, but they were subsequently admitted to be a complete hoax on the people who sent in their names.
Fortunately, however, this process of "brain-washing" was only partly successful, and the Government, thank goodness! failed to swallow the whole bait they were offered; so we were spared commercial sound broadcasting and sponsored programmes on television, which the hidden persuaders would have liked us to have. The Government imposed on commercial television a supervisory organisation, although not perhaps a very strong one. So we had something far less obnoxious than we should have had if the pressurisers had made their way to the full. Nevertheless, the door was open to private profit-making on an unprecedented scale.
As again my noble friend Lord Francis-Williams showed, in his remarkable speech, there must be very few commercial enterprises which have shown such a staggering return on capital invested over such a short period of time. Those who seek to add to these enormous profits are once more at work. This time, I am sure, their approach is more circumspect than subtle. What they want, however, is clear enough: they want commercial sound broadcasting, and their way in is via local broadcasting—that is, by sound broadcasting stations with a radius of a few miles covering local communities, and ostensibly designed to give local

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news, information and entertainment. What they, the people who are after commercial sound broadcasting, want to give us is not local news and local talent at peak hours, but Radio Luxembourg by the back door. That is what they are after giving us, so far as we are able to ascertain. As your Lordships probably know, Radio Luxembourg is essentially a background of "pop" music, listened to by children and young people, with plenty of profitable advertisements thrown in.
The point about local broadcasting is that no locality could provide more than three, four or five hours' local material, at the very most, so it would have to fill up with something else. That something else, if it were B.B.C. or a public service, could be existing B.B.C. programmes which are available on other wavelengths. If it were commercial broadcasting, on the other hand, it would mean the creation of a commercial network sending out "pop" music and carrying very large commercial advertisements to pay for the royalty costs of this "pop" music, which would be very heavy. In fact, it would consist of Radio Luxembourg—"pop" music and national advertisements; and the pressure to get peak listening time would be enormous, to the loss and detriment of local broadcasting. This is something which I hope we shall never see.
Moreover, this is; something which has one appeal—and it is an enormous appeal—to the commercially-minded: that it is very cheap to set up a local broadcasting station. It can be done for £20,000 or £30,000 capital cost, and the running costs per annum are of about that order. Here is an absolute goldmine for them, if only it can be done: so no wonder the scramble has begun. By the end of 1961 there were 300 companies registered for the purpose of operating commercial radio stations in different parts of this country. A great many of these are already linked together, in anticipation, we presume, of the formation of chains. One of them has run a sample programme which I think was called "Radio Bristol". It consisted of very little local material and largely of national people: recordings of Eartha Kitt, Frankie Vaughan, Charlie Drake and so on—people who
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had no possible local connection or local interest.
So, my Lords, the pressure is on, and I hope that this debate will make sure that the pressure is openly applied this time. For if it is openly applied, there is nothing wrong, provided that we all know who is after what and who is trying to get what. That is fair enough. We are prepared to meet it; and we hope that the Government will act as an honest, decent arbitrator; will decide what is in the public 'interest, and will make a fair and good decision. But next time it must not be this secret business.
I would ask the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, finally, two questions only. First, do the Government share our view that it is a bad thing in British political life that there should be secret pressure groups, with secrecy of membership and concealed aims? This is the technique of the cover organisation, the technique of the Communist Party, and, I would suggest, a very undesirable introduction into British politics. I hope the Government do take the view that this is something wrong and bad. It is a matter of degree: in all these things it is hard to know where to draw the line. But where a pressure group exists, it Should make itself known—its objects, its objectives, what it is after and, preferably, where its money comes from, too. Secondly, we should like to think that the Conservative Party and the Government are determined that there shall not be pressure groups operating, quite possibly against the Conservative Government policy, inside their own organisation. That is something with which only the Conservative Party can deal.
My noble friend Lord Shackleton and I, and our colleagues, as we have listened to the debate, have felt that it would be wrong to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Shackleton; that it would be quite wrong to have a Parliamentary inquest into this matter. We feel that Lord Strang was right when he said that this is something which the Conservative Party must do for itself, and can only do for itself, by imposing a self-restraint within its own membership and within its own Party machine; and by making sure not only that right and truth is done but also that it is seen to be done, and that we do

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not have a repetition of the sort of thing that we have heard about this afternoon.
My Lords, there is one last thing I should like to say, and that is to congratulate the two noble Lords who made such excellent, non-controversial maiden speeches. We all hope to hear from them many times again.
7.47 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, there are three preliminary matters to which I invite your Lordships' attention. The first is my joining the pleasant band who have had the good fortune to congratulate our maiden speakers. I thought that, for felicity of phrase and, if he will allow me to say so, use of voice, the noble Lord, Lord Francis-Williams, is high among those I have heard over what is now a very long time. With regard to my old friend, the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Worcester, we are delighted to have heard that sincerity, which has meant so much to so many thousands of people in the past, expressed in our House. We hope that we shall hear them both often again.
The second point is to recommend some new reading to noble Lords opposite, because in that new reading they will find expressed almost exactly what they have resented in speeches from our side of the House. I refer to the fables of Monsieur de la Fontaine, and especially that one which says:
"Cet animal est très méchant. Quand on l'attaque, il se défend."
For those of your Lordships who think I am speaking Italian, the translation of that is:
"This animal is excessively wicked. When anyone attacks it, it defends itself."
That has rather been the burden of the counterblast of our speeches to-day.
My third point is this—and I speak with the utmost sincerity. It is always a pleasure to hear a speech from the noble Lord, Lord Reith, whom we all admire for his achievements in the creation and the furtherance of the B.B.C., and for his strong views and direct mode of expressing them. Nevertheless, most of us will feel that it is unfortunate that to-day's debate has been tacked on to a book whose chief
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characteristics are that it shows, first, slovenliness, in that it is careless, inaccurate and superficial; secondly, an outstanding failure to appreciate how the British Party system permits independence of views; thirdly, an unequalled ignorance of the structure of the Conservative Party inside and outside the Houses of Parliament; and fourthly, a confusion between anonymous gossip and evidence in a manner which would make any political columnist blench. Now, my Lords, I am always delighted to reply to a debate in your Lordships' House, but that delight arises from hearing your Lordships' views of the facts and the problems which stem from them. I hope that the preparation for such a reply will in future avoid the need to read tendentious and ill-written efforts in book form.
May I now take the first point as to the slovenliness and inaccuracies of this book? I will spend a few moments on the slightly sordid task of examining the book from the standpoint of the criticisms which I have felt bound to make. Let us first look at the admitted inaccuracies. Noble Lords who have put this book before your Lordships have said that there is only a negligible proportion. Let us look at it. If your Lordships open it you will see a corrigendum relating to my friend Mr. Orr-Ewing. That cannot be said to have nothing to do with the main thesis; that is part of the main thesis. And there are withdrawals of five points in relation to Mr. Orr-Ewing alone. The first one is:
"to correct any implication that Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing … had any personal financial interest in the initiation of Commercial T.V.";
secondly, to
"accept Mr. Orr-Ewing's statement that, during his association with the Company, Messrs. A. C. Cossor Ltd. were never concerned as to how T.V. programmes were organised or created ";
thirdly, they
"took no financial interest in any commercial T.V. company."
The fourth is:
"They also accept Mr. Orr-Ewing's assurance that it is not the case that he ever formed or joined any unofficial group as stated on pages 63 and 69."
The allegation that he joined that group is the only piece of evidence about the starting of the pressure group that the book contains; and that is wrong. To

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continue, my Lords, the corrigendum goes on:
"Mr. Orr-Ewing has informed them that he served on the official Conservative Broadcasting Committee, and was also a member, on the invitation of the Conservative Chief Whip, of the Ralph Assheton Committee which was specially set up in February 1951."
I say again that this is not a fringe point. That five-fold correction goes, as I shall demonstrate, to the essence of the thesis which this publication is advancing, and it does not help by making that sort of an attack on an honourable gentleman who is a friend of mine. That is the commencement of the book.
At page 96, line 25, there is this correction: the Secretary to the Conservative Parliamentary Broadcasting Committee was not Mr. Chapman-Walker but Mr. Peter Goldman. I was sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, allowed himself that somewhat cheap gibe when he mentioned the gentleman of Orpington fame. I am glad to think that when I was defeated in a Parliamentary election no member of the Labour Party used that term. I should be very sorry to hear that, when the noble Lord himself was defeated at Preston in 1955, any Conservative made that sort of sneer; or that that gibe was made when the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition was defeated in Sheffield in 1931.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: They were all cheers.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is better to cheer than to sneer. The noble Lord has got something out of this debate.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: What was the noble Viscount saying about me?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said, hope no Conservative sneered when the noble Viscount was defeated in Sheffield in 1931. No Labour Member ever sneered at me when I lost my seat in an election.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: We had a pretty general sweep, but I might say this to the noble and learned Viscount: that I was offered a by-election to go into another seat, and I went back and defeated the man.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sure I am equally glad about that. I think it is better if we politicians abstain from sneers when electoral defeats take place.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, is it not better to avoid sneers altogether? Because we have had a good many sneers this afternoon, including sneers at those who cannot answer back.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the sneers have come from one quarter, as I shall show in a moment. They are not only sneers, but they are completely without foundation.
I now turn to the Law Courts. Of course, the writer of this book made an attack on Mr. Chapman-Walker. He based that attack on the wrong assertion I have just mentioned: that he was secretary of a Committee, when he was not. There was also the broad suggestion that, being in the publicity office of the Conservative Party under my noble friend Lord Woolton, he was using his time for television. Well, of course, an apology was made with regard to that. Proceedings were brought and an apology was made. I now quote the agreed statement:
"The defendants recognised that, in his capacity of chief publicity officer of the Conservative Party, he had many diverse and important duties which had nothing to do with independent television.
"They also recognised and wished to state that in so far as he did devote his working time to the promotion of independent television, this was done in accordance with his ordinary duties pertaining to the general presentation of Party policy and subject to the direction of the Chairman…"
But, of course, the noble Lord says that he did very well.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am sorry, I did not. I just wanted to know what was the attack which was made on Mr. Chapman-Walker.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The attack made on Mr. Chapman-Walker was that, being engaged as publicity officer of the Conservative Party, he devoted himself, in a capacity which he never held, to the promotion of commercial television. Therefore, the imputation was quite clear—that he ignored his other duties. Now, this is what the publishers whom the noble Lord is supporting apologised for. They should

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know, even if the noble Lord does not. What they said was this:
"Mr. Bristowe, for the defendants, associated himself with Mr. Molony's remarks and tendered their sincere apologies to the plaintiff. They expressed appreciation of his generous attitude in this matter".
I think that all your Lordships will agree with Mr. Chapman-Walker's desire not to obtain any pecuniary advantage out of so irresponsible a publication. That is why he took no damages. I refer, without quoting (because time is passing), to similar remarks in the New Statesman of March 2.
As my noble friend Lord De La Warr has already mentioned, there are over 100 inaccuracies in the book. I simply take two. At the foot of page 100 it is stated:
"… just as in a meeting of the 1922 Committee he "—
that is, Mr. Churchill—
"had brushed off Lord Hailsham's demand for implementation of the Tory pledge to restore the University Seats."
My noble Leader asks me to say that this is pure fiction. The pledge was Sir Winston's. My noble friend never thought, nor asked, that the pledge should be carried out. My noble friend was not a member of the 1922 Committee after his father died in August, 1950—that is, at any time when a demand for the implementation could have been made. If this is the standard of scholarship under which attacks are made on the honour of public men, it sheds a curious light on the reliability of the author as an investigator.
The suggestion on page 96 that Mr. Chapman-Walker had been a Socialist is, of course, untrue. Whether it is defamatory might be argued. A few might say that, however untrue, it is not defamatory to say that a man is a Socialist. More of your Lordships might say that, however untrue, it is not defamatory but an encomium to say that a man had ceased to be a Socialist. Anyway, we can leave that with the knowledge that it is untrue. I could give other examples, but those two, and the motives directly attributed to my noble friend Lord Clitheroe, at page 101, show that my noble friend Lord Milverton is perfectly right. The best that anyone can hope to get out of this book is that the author will
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"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."
My Lords, I now come to the point which the author has got completely wrong—the nature of the formation of opinion in the Conservative Party. As we have all agreed in this debate, we are not discussing which view was right and which was wrong: it is a question of how the opinion was formed. The first point is that what Professor Wilson, as well as all our compatriot critics, deny, ignore and forget, is that the case against the monopoly was not a minority, let alone a conspiratorial, view. The broad trend in my Party ever since the war has been away from the monopoly organisation of broadcasting. The book by Professor Paulu, to which my noble friend Lord Bessborough referred, dealt with the same position in 1946, as my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford described. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Airedale is here, because of the way which Professor Wilson describes that situation. He says:
"Parliamentary reaction to this decision, however "—
that refers to the decision of the Labour Government to extend the Corporation's life without an inquiry—
"revealed the extent to which the Conservative and Liberal opposition, especially Winston Churchill, questioned the wisdom of continued monopoly operating without a full-scale inquiry."
That is the start. The allegation is that it required some secret body to convince us. There is no evidence of how it was done, but that is what is thrown about. Remember the evidence before the Beveridge Committee. It is true that everybody had his own solution. I am not making the bad point that everyone who gave evidence against monopoly wanted commercial television, but, whatever solution they wanted, they were united in not wanting a monopoly. Let me just deploy the evidence.
Let me take Sir Geoffrey Crowther and Sir Robert Watson-Watt. They stated:
"The only ultimate safeguard of liberty lies in diversity. It is not enough that the individual should have an abstract right to be different. He should, in fact, be different and should be encouraged to be different. But if there is safety only in diversity, how can diversity itself be safe, with the most powerful organ of publicity and propaganda in one centralised control? "

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Or let me take a group from Lord Taylor's own Party, the Fabian Research Group, who said:
"We suggest that monopoly of so important a medium of expression is as undesirable as monopoly of the Press, book publishing, the theatre, or the films. The recurrent difficulties arising from our present broadcasting system seem to us to be largely due to its monopolistic nature."
Now let me take: the Liberal Research Group, so that my noble friend may snare:
"Given the context of a free society, it seems to us indisputable in the circumstances of to-day and to-morrow that the monopoly of the B.B.C. in sound broadcasting and television in this country can no longer be justified."
Let me turn from political Parties to the British Actors' Equity Association, who stated:
"The main problem, as we see it, is to break down the present economic and artistic monopoly of the B.B.C."
Proposals for the breaking of the then monopoly of broadcasting came from the Listeners' Association, from such interests as the Radiowriters' Association, the Music Directors' Association, the Radio Industry Council, the Radio and Television Retailers' Association and the Scottish Radio Retailers' Association, as well as from individuals. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, can have the rest. I am not saying that there were no people who took the undesirable view that monopoly was all right. All I am saying is that there was a vast general body of opinion over the whole conspectus of politics and art who wanted to break the monopoly. Now, what does the noble Lord want to say?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am sure that the noble and learned Viscount does not want to mislead us. I joined the Committee very soon after it started and heard the great bulk of the evidence. And the bulk or the evidence was in favour of continuing the B.B.C. monopoly. It is true that there were about three individuals who argued against it and very intelligibly they argued, too. We examined their evidence very carefully, and my recollection is that the balance of evidence was substantially in favour of continuing the B.B.C. unchanged. While admitting the disadvantages of monopoly, we thought
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that, on balance, in the public interest, the B.B.C. should go on.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not going to argue about the number of words. Of course, I accept the noble Lord's recollection. I am not in a position to controvert it, and therefore I do not. But I do say (and I am sure the noble Lord will admit that this is a fair point) that I have quoted a wide conspectus and range of people, of great ability and widely different political views, who were in favour of breaking the monopoly.
In those circumstances, Why is it argued that it was necessary to convince the Conservative Party, when all these people were already convinced? I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Lloyd because he quoted the classic criticism of monopoly. It is a subject that I have studied closely over the last twenty years, and the best, the classic, criticism of monopoly is the paragraph which my noble friend quoted from the Beveridge Report. This is the milk of the word of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor:
"There is a danger of slowness in exploring new and unfamiliar techniques. There are dangers of favouritism and injustices in treatment of staff or performers, each of them an evil in a monopoly more serious than it would be in a concern with rivals. There is the danger, finally, that when a sense of mission such as animates the B.B.C. is combined with security of office, it may grow into a sense of Divine Right, as it did in the case of Charles I."
I gather that the noble Lord wishes to interrupt me again. I am happy to give way.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount is very kind. The quotation he gives is absolutely accurate. In spite of that, in spite of all that evidence and all those views, the Beveridge Committee concluded that this monopoly was to be preferred. I think there must have been something powerful in favour of the B.B.C. which made our Committee think thus.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will tell the noble Lord why he and his Committee came to that conclusion. It was because only one of the members of that Committee, my right honourable friend Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, was prepared to follow to its logical conclusion the argument that the Committee had set out in

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that passage; and the most logical conclusion was that the monopoly should be broken. That was in January, 1951. There again, take the approach of this book and try to 'preserve your calm. It is quite clear that my right honourable friend Mr. Selwyn Lloyd found that the strongest argument for the breaking of the monopoly was, to use his own words—I think I have it right—"the danger of abuse of power". But it is typical that the Professor, although he summarises my right honourable friend's Minority Report, cannot resist quoting someone else, a third party, as saying that Mr. Selwyn Lloyd had been influenced toy a memorandum on behalf of certain firms associated with foodstuffs. My noble friend Lord Milverton was quite right—only Pope could do full justice in satiric couplets to that approach.
Now let me come on to the next point. That Report was received in January. In February, 1951, ten Conservative Back Benchers were set up by the then Chief Whip,
"to consider and make recommendations regarding the Party's policy on broadcasting services in view of the expiring of the B.B.C.'s Charter."
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, to-day said that they showed a preponderance of commercial interests. Let me tell your Lordships who they were. First of all, there was my noble friend Lord Clitheroe, who was the Chairman; there was Mr. Brendan Bracken; there was my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, then Lord Dunglass, now Lord Home; there was Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Mr. Duncan Sandys, Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, Sir (then Mr.) Kenneth Pickthorn, Mr. John Profumo, Mr. Ian Orr-Ewing, who is the subject of the withdrawals I mentioned a short time ago, and Mr. John Rodgers, who was in the service of J. Walter Thompson, Limited, the advertising agents. I doubt whether anyone who knew anything of Britain, far less British political life, could call that collection of names a commercial pressure group. If they do, then they have my sympathy. These names appear in Mr. John Rodgors' review of this book in the Financial Times. He also said:
"In July, 1951, the Committee reported in favour of retaining the B.B.C. as a public service institution, while advocating the establishment of a parallel competitive system."
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That is, they reported in favour of the maintenance of the B.B.C, but of establishing a competitive system.
Professor Wilson has fallen into confusion with regard to Conservative committees. I am not making much of that, but it is simply an example of his slipshod methods. The basis of his thesis and argument is that Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Orr-Ewing formed an informal committee in 1950, working independently and unofficially, without the sanction of the Whip's Office. This is untrue. It has been denied by Mr. Rodgers, and in the case of Mr. Orr-Ewing it is accepted in the corrigendum that it is untrue. That is another of the groundless facts on which these charges are thrown round at people in public life to-day. I have just given the account because I want to show your Lordships the way feeling existed at the time in the Party to which I belong.
In July, 1951, my noble friend Lord Woolton, then Chairman of the Conservative Parly, made a speech in your Lordships' House in the debate on the Beveridge Report, pressing for the ending of the State monopoly because of his view of the dangers of State control of these powerful media. I hope I have summarised his views accurately. I think I have. Here again, there was an expression of Conservative political opinion made absolutely public in your Lordships' House, and not subject to any pressures at all.
I want to say merely a short word about my own thoughts, because, after all, I was the Minister who, on behalf of my noble friend Lord De La Warr, was in charge of the Bill in the House of Commons. I should like to pay this tribute to the great work which my noble friend Lord De La Warr did on that Bill. Your Lordships will remember that, with great reasonableness and fairness, he guided the Bill through your Lordships' House. I dealt with it in the Commons with the aid of his Parliamentary Secretary. I want to say just my own thoughts. As I told your Lordships, I have always been interested in, and most anxious about, the dangers of monopoly, and I wrote a booklet about it soon after the war. I should think it would be very difficult to find now. I am not suggesting that any of your Lordships should read it to-day,

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but my particular interests at that time were transport, getting rid of war-time controls, and stumping the country attacking the policy of the then Government. But when I began to study this subject, the two points which worried me most were, first, State control of a powerful medium which might influence the public, and, secondly, to use Lord Beveridge's own words:
"There are dangers of favouritism and injustice in the treatment of staff or performers. This had been impressed upon me from sources outside politics and had a great effect."
I was very worried by them.
I have tried to show what opinions were held on the subject of the monopoly of broadcasting, and I should now like to examine the thesis that a small group of Conservative Back Benchers overthrew what the Professor thinks were the forces of righteousness. He sees the passage of the Television Bill as the achievement and the dream come true of a handful of men against the Establishment: David against Goliath, except that in his view David is this time in the ranks of the Philistines. This was the idea that a few energetic individuals contrived to defeat not only the Opposition but the Government and the weight of public opinion, at least as expressed in The Times newspaper. This is in some ways an attractive idea, and might even raise a modest cheer among the many millions watching I.T.V. But, alas! the facts were otherwise.
That some individuals were active and zealous in proclaiming the merits of their new ideas is, of course, true. The individuals concerned would be the last to deny this. But they were certainly not more active than the opponents of their scheme; certainly not more vocal—remembering, as I do, the Parliamentary debate at the time, I should say they were considerably less vocal—than those opponents who, of course, I accept were equally convinced of the merits of their point of view.
But to proceed from this and say that Her Majesty's Government adopted policies against their better judgment and real convictions; seems to me to be drawing a really absurd conclusion from non-existent facts. I can only say that if Professor Wilson believes this, then, in the words of the great Duke of Wellington, he can believe anything. The truth
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of the matter is that at the time all things combined to be propitious for change: the availability of radio frequencies, the ability and ambition among professional technicians and artists, a growing conviction that in such an expanding field provision should be made for greater opportunities, and a wider outlet for all these ideas and abilities which existed in this country and which up to that time necessarily had been somewhat circumscribed.
I should like to think that new ideas always spring fully armed from the collective brain of Her Majesty's Ministers. That would be pleasantly flattering to one who has spent fourteen out of the last twenty years as one of them. The truth is, as somebody said earlier in the debate—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—and it is true, that the origin and genesis of each change is not simple. It is complex, complicated, sometimes long in gestation, and sometimes, thanks to the vigilance of the Opposition, extremely painful in parturition. Many things contribute. There is the germination of an idea; the growth of a conviction; the forming of public opinion, all adding up to a high tide in the affairs of men. And when this happens there will inevitably be many who will be astonished and indignant to find that the waters have enveloped and encompassed them while they are sitting in their comfortable seats on the sea shore.
This I can say with as much certainty as is possible after eight years—and, my Lords, I am speaking of 300 men and women, at least 250 of whom were old friends of mine with whom I was on Christian-name terms, and I think anyone would agree that is a modest statement of my ability at that time to know, for, as I said, I was in charge of the Bill. My view is that after the Conservative Party were returned to power in 1951 there was always a majority among our Members in the House of Commons in favour of breaking the monopoly, but it was recognised that there was a great problem as to how it should be done. To prove the case against monopoly was not to prove the case for commercial competition. An alternative nation-wide programme required large extra revenue, and such revenue had to come either from commerce or from the general public, either

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from advertisements or from licence fees.
I admit it is difficult even for someone as closely associated with all the Members as I was at the time to diagnose the minds even of one's friends after eight years, hut I think that what had great influence with all my friends in the House of Commons was three arguments. First, they thought that licence fees constituted an inelastic, regressive poll tax falling heavily on the poor; and, after all, television as it was ten years ago and is to-day, is not the rich man's luxury but the poor man's regular pleasure. Secondly, competition between two organisations might well become illusory if the State were the paymaster of both.
Thirdly, advertisements, when properly controlled (I shall come to this again), perform a useful, economic and social function. Although people may have their own views of the different influences, they will agree that these three points were important in the forming of the opinions of my friends. Of course, the Government felt it right to proceed cautiously and by stages, and, of course, in any large issue of principle one finds sincere proponents of different viewpoints urging these viewpoints with all the cogency in their power. What is unique about this?
Professor Wilson talks of the two special, one-purpose organisations, referred to to-day; the National Television Council, opposing commercial television, and the Popular Television Association, supporting it. My Lords, some surrounding facts are interesting. The opposing Council was formed in June, 1953, and it is stated on page 153 of the book—it may possibly be something in the book which is right and, at any rate, it is in the book:
"At a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party Public Information Group on March 6, 1953, a paper was presented which took for granted the inevitability of commercial television and merely considered proposed safeguards against its abuses. In the discussion which followed. Mr. Mayhew was able to persuade the Group to reject this approach and to intensify their efforts. …"
their efforts to do what?—
"… to defeat Conservative plans".
So there you had it well started; and, my Lords, I think we ought to be very
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careful indeed about imputing secrecy. Mrs. Mary Stocks, who was a very well-known Left-Wing person, said in a letter to the Financial Times,
"The National Television Council was not organised by the Labour Party."
She had never heard of this meeting. How very odd!
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, let me say this; I did not discover in the second corrigendum which was issued on this book any withdrawal of the second paragraph on page 211 in which there is this quotation, first of all from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham:
"Though some Conservatives 'dislike the vulgarity inherent in sponsored broadcasts', others, including the Party professionals and presumably Lord Woolton, were aware of the likelihood that the direct influence of commercial broadcasting would redound to the benefit of the Conservative Party. Mr. Charles Orr-Ewing, in supporting commercial television, had written in 1953 that 'The advantage should lie with the Conservative Party, because the more vulnerable Labour voters will be exposed to a new form of persuasion.'"
I need not read any further than that. From the last comments the Lord Chancellor made I should think the Party meeting (although I was certainly not there) had the same opinion, which was that it was going to be used in such a way, as has perhaps proved to be the case, as to bring undue influence on the political position.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Viscount has got in his quotation, and good luck to him! But the point that I was on is quite different from the one which he has tried to knock me off. The point I was on before he interrupted me was that the National Television Council—that is, the opponents—were closely tied up, as is stated in that book, with the Labour Party, and they were tied up in such a way that Miss Mary Stocks did not know anything about it. That is an interesting comment on the people who have dealt with secrecy, as has been done in this debate.
The book goes on:
"By the middle of April Mr. Mayhew had completed writing his pamphlet. Dear Viewer, and submitted it for criticism to Lord Simon, Members of Parliament, officials of the B.B.C. and other potential supporters."
And on page 154—
"As a result of extended conversations between Lord Simon and Messrs. Mayhew, Shackleton, Lewis and Barry "—

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Lewis, if I remember rightly, the secretary of this pure-minded body, was loaned by the entertainments industry—
"it was decided to invite a number of people to form the National Television Council."
As we have heard to-day, they got their money and the services of a secretary from the entertainment industry. Why not? I have no objection to Mr. Christopher Mayhew going to a Labour Party meeting and converting the Labour Party to be against it. He is entitled to. I have no objection to his submitting his pamphlet to Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, Members of Parliament and officials of the B.B.C. Why not? He gets some useful information from them. I have no objection to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, meeting Lord Simon of Wythenshawe and Messrs. Mayhew, Lewis and Barry.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, what an answer that is—what has been quoted now by the Lord Chancellor—to the statement about repeated inaccuracies! That is one of the proofs of the reasonable accuracy of the book.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Viscount's argument is well summarised in a book by Mr. P. G. Wode-house. He describes a character and he says, "He would not hurt a fly. I have often seen him doing it—not hurting flies." If you find a modicum of truth in the book, that does not take away from the vast proportion of error I have already put to the House. But I say, why not; let them do it. Good luck to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton! Good luck to Mr. Christopher Mayhew! They got on with their pressure and they got their organisation going in June; and in consequence of that, the Popular Television Association was formed in July. Again I say: why not?
The book devotes much space to the importance of these bodies. On the other hand, in the New Statesman of July 21, 1961, Mr. A. J. P. Taylor, the historian, who is a gentleman who would hardly be claimed by anyone as being a friend of the Conservative Party or a man of Right Wing views, said—he was speaking of the book that is now before us:
"In my opinion, this book is wrong from start to finish—wrong in its approach, wrong in its narrative, wrong in its conclusions. It is interesting only as an illustration of the
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complacent blindness which afflicts the high-minded. To this day, the high-minded defenders of the B.B.C. monopoly do not understand what hit them. They think it must have been some sinister conspiracy. Yet the real explanation is simple: many people were growing to dislike the rule of the high-minded. After all, commercial television has not been the only victory recently for common sense. There are betting shops, and improved licensing hours. No one has suggested yet that these were won by pressure groups of bookies and brewers. They happened as soon as someone had the impudence to ask: why not? Commercial television was just the same. Why should viewers be denied programmes which they enjoyed, and be given only programmes which did them good? This question was dynamite. Once asked, there was no effective answer—only the bleat of protest from self-appointed guardians of culture, most of whom never watched television at all. Professor Wilson has the usual outlook of intellectuals that anyone who has money or makes it must be wicked. It never occurs to him that it is possible to make money by acting according to one's conviction."
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, if he will allow me to say so, made a very interesting speech, on the same lines as that of my noble friend Lord Strang; and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, really asked me to take that up. I should like to take first the advertising part, but I promise the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that I shall come quite seriously to the political philosophy part of it, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Walston had in mind and in which I was very interested.
It is easy to take up the parrot cry that independent television exists to sell goods and not to produce a good television programme. But what I always ask is: why need there be conflict? A good programme attracts viewers, and that is what any television organisation, B.B.C. and I.T.A. alike, wants to have. By all means let us criticise what we think are bad programmes, but let us remember also that tastes vary and that within the confines of their single programmes the B.B.C. and I.T.A. must suit many different tastes. Let us hope that the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting will have some wise advice to give us on programme standards and objectives.
I must point this out—and I listened with great care to what the right reverend Prelate said on this point: of course advertising is a form of persuasion, but advertising by viewing and

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sight never forced anyone to do anything. It is not like the man coming round to the back door or the front door of the small house. It presents a product, a service, a case, in as favourable a light as possible. It plays up the good points and discreetly omits the weaker ones. In this sense I suppose I ought to admit that it is a form of advocacy. In the matter of the sale of goods there are many firms each advocating the merits of its own products. The consumer can choose. There is nothing unfair or sinister or immoral in this conception. On the contrary, it makes the consumer the arbiter; and surely it puts a premium on value for money, because we may—and here I think so many go wrong—credit the ordinary man and woman with enough common sense to detect any glaring discrepancy between the claims of the advertisement and the merits of the product when purchased and used.
I spent a long time working on authoritarian theories, on mad racial theories, and therefore I have considered this point. But I sometimes think there is always a great danger of getting into an authoritarian state of mind if you have an uncontrolled intellectual superiority over ordinary people. I make just this point: those who criticise the tendency of "keeping up with the Joneses" are often—and I say this with regret—individuals who themselves have already satisfied the vast majority of their material needs.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, not only asked me five questions but was kind enough to send me a copy of them at lunch time, for which I thank him very much. The first question was: "Does he approve of commercial television?" The answer is, Yes. Secondy: "If he felt the B.B.C. monopoly should be disrupted, were there not other ways of doing it?" The answer is, No. Then: "Does he approve of what was done by the pressure group ten years ago?" I have no complaint to make of what was done by either of the pressure groups. Next: "Does he approve of what is being planned and done now by way of discrediting and baulking the Pilkington Report?" I do not know of anything being done to discredit or baulk the Pilkington Report. But I give your
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Lordships the assurance that, so long as I am one of Her Majesty's advisers, that Report will never be discredited or baulked. The next question was: "Does he approve of the Conservative Central Office being used as it was ten years ago?" I stand by my noble friend Lord Woolton to-day as completely as I did ten years ago. I have no regrets, and I will always stand by him so long as he is there. I do not think there is any equivocation about my answers— I hope not.
I was asked by Lord Taylor about the more general position, and I should like to say this—I hope he will excuse me if it is not quite an answer to his question, but I think it is more the approach that he wanted, and I will try to give it to him. In the Introduction and in the last chapter of the book, the author permits himself some reflections on the movement of political history. He does not, at page 14, disguise his own bias when he expresses-I quote:
"doubt that so vital an instrument as television should be utilised for commercial purposes."
He goes on, at page 16, to make the point which I think the noble Lord, Lord Walston, had in mind. Again I listened with great care. I hope I have got his point. I put it in the Professor's words. At page 16 he said that the Conservative Party sanctioned a development which, its critics maintained, speeds the movement towards a society which would glorify middle-class consumption goals and the commercialisation of all institutional and personal relationships and values. He does not get on to what is the real problem of democratic Government—namely, that a Government must be at once the leaders and representatives of the people. If they were not leaders, they should not be a Government. If they are not representative, it would not be a democracy. In forming their policies, members of the Government must take into account what ordinary people want and desire. It is right that they should. That is one of the aspects of Government that distinguishes democracy, and I will stand for it so long as I am in political life.
I said that there need be no conflict between providing a good programme and advertising. A good programme

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attracts viewers, and that is what any television organisation, B.B.C. or I.T.A. alike, wants to have. As I say, let us criticise What we think are had programmes; but, I repeat to your Lordships, let us remember that tastes vary, and that within the confines of their single programmes the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. must suit many different tastes.
I cannot equal the eloquence in which my noble and learned friend Lord Simonds put this aspect of the problem when he adorned the position which I now occupy, but I venture to use some words of the more recent Sir John Fortesoue—I said "more recent" because, a year or two ago, I attended at the house of my noble friend Lord Fortesoue to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the first John Fortescue to own that house, my predecessor 500 years ago. I am now referring to the Sir John Fortescue who wrote the History of the British Army which has been very near my bedside for the last 20 years. Sir John says
"'The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world', wrote Burke, 'is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.'"
That is Burke. Fortescue goes on:
"'Liberty' is a word very difficult to define; but a worse definition might be found for it than exemption of the attempts of others to determine our happiness."
My Lords, I ask all noble Lords, whatever their Party—the more high-minded they are, the more I ask them—to bear that in mind; and on that I ask your Lordships to repel this attack,
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which is based on a false fantasy, and, if necessary, by your votes to show how non-existent is its basis.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I rise to correct a misstatement 'that inadvertently I made, which was unfair to the B.B.C? I said that from 1928 to 1934, when Mr. Vernon Bartlett was regularly broadcasting, there was virtually no other broadcaster on foreign affairs. I find I was wrong. That was unfair to the B.B.C, and I desire unreservedly to withdraw and apologise.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, now is the time, before I ask Lord Reith to reply, to call the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, for reasons that I have already given, the lateness of the hour and others, I will not pursue that Amendment.
LORD REITH: My Lords, for the same reason I limit my right to reply to half a minute—less, and to two comments. First, I do not withdraw one word nor change one inflection. Secondly, Lord Woolton charged me with vulgar abuse. Abuse, maybe, if he wants it so. As to vulgarity, if there were any it was of his receiving, not of my transmitting. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before nine o'clock.