Sitting of 27 November 1969

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Official Aid
    Sir F. Bennettasked the Minister of Overseas Development what have been the proportions of tied and untied official aid expended since November, 1967.
    The Minister of Overseas Development (Mrs. Judith Hart): In 1968 about 58 per cent. of the bilateral financial aid spent on goods and services was tied. This represented about 39 per cent. of the total official aid disbursed.
    Sir F. Bennett: Irrespective of any general results of devaluation on the effectiveness of British aid, is it true that devaluation has resulted in a net reduction of 15 per cent. in the available purchasing power of recipient countries of British non-tied aid spent elsewhere than in the United Kingdom, and how is this effect recorded in the official figures?
    Mrs. Hart: It is not specifically recorded. Indeed, it is not a fact. Devaluation did not reduce the amount which could be bought here with our tied aid.
    Sir F. Bennett: Non-tied aid.
    Mrs. Hart: Nor did it reduce the value of our budgetary aid and local cost aid in those countries which devalued at the same time as did. Our multilateral aid, defined in dollar terms and untied, clearly did not diminish in value. There was some diminution in untied aid. I can write to the hon. Gentleman if he cares, but the figures are rather more complex than can be dealt with in a single Answer.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Does my right hon. Friend agree, nevertheless, that tied aid adds a considerable cost to recipient countries?
    Mrs. Hart: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend will be aware that the whole question of tying or untying aid is one of the points on which there will clearly be many international discussions in the context of the specific Pearson recommendation on the subject.

    Indonesia
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Overseas Development what discussions she had with the Indonesian Foreign Minister on the question of the provision of coastal shipping and marine spare parts to Indonesia.
    Mrs. Hart: This was not raised by the Indonesian Government, although our discussions covered several other matters of technical assistance and capital aid to Indonesia.
    Mr. Dalyell: What other matters were discussed? Is it realised that the great Indonesian problem is perhaps help to the outer islands, and that this is perhaps the optimum form of aid that many people in Indonesia think that we could give?
    Mrs. Hart: As my hon. Friend knows, it is a Government-to-Government matter, and we discuss with Governments what proposals they wish to make to us. This was not one of them. I discussed with Mr. Malik and later with Mr. Sumitro the whole of our technical assistance and capital aid programme, but this was not a specific matter raised by them.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Did the right hon. Lady discuss during those talks the question of the estimated £200 million of British assets which have been seized by Indonesia and for which no compensation has been paid?
    Mrs. Hart: This was not a matter for me, so, quite correctly, it will no doubt be raised in discussions held with colleagues of mine.
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Overseas Development in what ways she is facilitating co-operation between British and Indonesian universities.
    Mrs. Hart: The initiative for establishing associations between universities rests with the universities themselves. I am not aware of any such association between British and Indonesian universities but can always consider requests from Governments for training for students and for help with exchange visits of staff.
    Mr. Dalyell: Has the Department allocated any funds for such contacts?
    Mrs. Hart: Not at present. We do not allocate funds in advance of requests for specific aid in particular matters.

    Overseas Aid (Future Programme)
    Mr. Biffenasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she has concluded her study of the Pearson Report on Overseas Aid; and if she will make a statement.
    Mr. Barnesasked the Minister of Overseas Development what conclusions she has reached following her study of the Report of the Pearson Commission.
    Sir G. Sinclairasked the Minister of Overseas Development, in view of the decision of the Federal German Government to endeavour to attain the aim envisaged in the Pearson Report, by increasing the public share in development aid by an annual rate of 11 per cent., if she will now make a statement on the Government's proposals for reaching the Pearson target for Government aid of 0.7 per cent. of our gross national product by 1975.
    Mr. Prenticeasked the Minister of Overseas Development when she expects to make a statement on the level of the aid programme for 1971–72 and the two subsequent years.
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Overseas Development by what stages Her Majesty's Government propose to increase net overseas aid so as to reach the target set by the Pearson Commission by 1975.
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Overseas Development what reply she has given to the Churches' Action for World Development representation that the United Kingdom achieve by 1972 the
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    target of one per cent. of the gross national product for overseas aid, with at least three-quarters allocated in the form of effective Government aid; and if she will now make a statement of Government policy in this matter.
    Mrs. Hart: I would ask the hon. Gentleman to await the statement which I hope to make later today.

    Aid (New Jobs)
    Mr. Pardoeasked the Minister of Overseas Development what was the total value of United Kingdom overseas aid, both official and private, in the past five fears together; and if she will estimate how many new jobs this created.
    Mrs. Hart: Net official aid and private flows of resources in the years 1964 and 1968 together totalled £1, 667 million. I cannot estimate how many new jobs have been created in recipient countries as a result.
    Mr. Pardoe: In view of the importance of the aid programme in creating new jobs, is it not time the Government made an investigation into its success in doing this?
    Mrs. Hart: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the essential need to concentrate our aid to a considerable extent on creating employment, because of the great difficulty that as one has rural development one often creates rural unemployment. But many other factors affect this, and it is not possible to find a precise relationship between our aid and the number of jobs created. If other factors were not involved, I would be very happy to do the investigation that the hon. Gentleman would like.

    Zanzibar Government Pensioners
    Mr. Allasonasked the Minister of Overseas Development what Government assistance is offered to local pensioners of the Zanzibar Government, resident outside Zanzibar, whose pensions are in default.
    Mrs. Hart: We have made, and continue to make representations to the Tanzanian Government on behalf of the pensioners concerned.
    Mr. Allason: As the Tanzanian Government have not the slightest intention

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    of paying these pensions, are not our Government under at least a moral obligation to look after those who have served Colonial Governments extremely well in the past and who have now hit very hard times? Is not it dishonourable just to leave them like that?
    Mrs. Hart: I think that to use the word "dishonourable" is going much too far. As the hon. Gentleman knows my predecessor had and I have a great deal of sympathy on this point. We have made very recent representations. My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs did so to the authorities involved on 28th October. My difficulty is that I do not have any funds to help these local pensioners. It is a very difficult situation which I fully recognise. I wish I could help, but, frankly, I am not in a position to be able to do so at this moment.
    Mr. Paget: The right hon. Lady tells us that to use the word "dishonourable" is to go too far. This is a default of obligation, and surely obligations of this sort should have a priority?
    Mrs. Hart: I would totally resist that adjective applied to the British Government in this case. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Zanzibar Government."] That is a very different matter. I took the word to be used in a rather different context. Of course it is serious and a matter of very great anxiety that people who have served in a public capacity in any country should not be able to draw the pensions to which they are entitled.
    Mr. Braine: Is the right hon. Lady aware that there are former Zanzibar officers living in this country who are drawing public assistance? Does not she think that this is a very grave reflection on the Government, and will she look into this matter again and take action?
    Mrs. Hart: Again, one gets the reflection on our Government. I am glad that we are able to substitute for a pension some assistance from our own funds for a former colonial servant who is now living in Britain. The difficulty is that those who are not living here cannot be helped in such a way. I wish this were not so.

    Pakistan (Naval) Pensions
    Mr. Roebuckasked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress has been made with the representations made to the Pakistani Government about the extinguishment of the pensions of former Pakistani Navy officers consequent upon their becoming United Kingdom citizens.
    Mrs. Hart: The matter is still under consideration by the Government of Pakistan, who are being pressed for an early reply.
    Mr. Roebuck: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the full extent of the disappointment felt in this country at the attitude of the Government of Pakistan has been conveyed to them? Is she aware of the feeling here that such pensions are a form of deferred pay and that it is dishonest for the Pakistan Government to withhold this money? Will she represent that view to them with vigour?
    Mrs. Hart: As my hon. Friend knows, there have been formal and informal representations made throughout the year by the British High Commission in Pakistan. The High Commissioner has himself taken up the matter only this week, and many of the points mentioned by my hon. Friend are being expressed to the Pakistan Government. Certainly the feeling which he has expressed has been conveyed to them.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: As one who, believe it or not, is a pensioner of the Pakistan Government, which I had the honour to serve, may I ask the right hon. Lady if she will vigorously take up this matter with the new High Commissioner and, if necessary, will she receive Members of this House interested in this matter if her representations to the new High Commissioner are not successful?
    Mrs. Hart: As the hon. Gentleman recognises, the responsibility for conveying representations to the Pakistan Government has rested with our High Commissioner and with my colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but I am in close contact with them and, if it would be helpful at any point for me, as distinct from one of my colleagues there, to receive hon. Members, I shall be delighted to do so.
    Mr. Roebuck: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I will seek leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    International Development Association
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will seek to initiate discussions on the next replenishment of the International Development Association.
    Mrs. Hart: It is for Mr. McNamara, the President of the Association, to initiate such discussions rather than myself. He has recently visited London, and I understand that the first meeting on the subject between the I.D.A. and the potential contributors is likely to be held next month.
    Mr. Hooley: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that encouraging reply, may I ask if she is aware that, in the view of the Pearson Commission, the I.D.A has done a thoroughly efficient and valuable job in the dispersal of aid and it is a matter of urgency that concrete discussions should start this year or early in 1970?
    Mrs. Hart: Yes indeed, and I am certain that Mr. McNamara will be taking fully into account the Pearson Commission recommendations as he now formulates his proposals for the form and size of the next replenishment. I am equally certain that there will be no delay in proceeding with this matter.

    Population Policies
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Overseas Development what plans she has for increasing the aid given to the International Planned Parenthood Federation; and what other steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government to assist in the solution of the problem of population growth in under-developed countries.
    Mrs. Hart: I have been making a special study of aid to developing countries in evolving and applying their population policies, including support for the very important activities of multilateral agencies such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation. I hope to be able to make a statement shortly.
    Mr. Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the British Government are giving £100,000 to the Federation and, if that is so, what proportion of the total is it? Does she agree that this is probably the most important problem of the under-developed areas and, unless we solve it, further aid would be like trying to go up a down escalator?
    Mrs. Hart: My hon. Friend's figure is not quite right. My Ministry is at present making a grant of £50,000 a year to the Federation and this is to be continued for five years. We are now considering what further assistance we can give, and it is on this that I may be able to make a statement later. On my hon. Friend's second point, I would be very happy to send to him, if I may, a copy of the speech which I made two weeks ago at the meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, in which I dealt very strongly with this matter.
    Mr. Carter Jones: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the Estimates Committee in looking at overseas aid was most concerned about the emphasis which her Ministry was laying on having its own organisation for this? The Estimates Committee felt that it would be better for this to be done by international co-operation rather than by a specialised national agency.
    Mrs. Hart: This is very much in my mind in the study which I am making.

    Tunisia (Flood Disaster)
    Mr. Juddasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will make a statement on British aid to Tunisia following the recent flood disaster.
    Mrs. Hart: Tunisia's economy has been severely disrupted by the unprecedented floods. Her Majesty's Government have already made an immediate gift of £10,000 for the first aid relief, and my Department is now urgently considering what further help of rehabilitation can be given. We hope to provide some immediately needed reconstruction equipment and also assistance for a radio-telephone link in central Tunisia.
    Mr. Judd: Does my right hon. Friend agree, as she has perhaps suggested in her reply, that the most significant aspect

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    of the flooding disaster in Tunisia is its impact on the long-term development of the country, and does she understand that she will have every possible support for a sympathetic response from this country?
    Mrs. Hart: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. I realise this, and it is in this direction that we would hope to make our further contribution.
    Mr. Brewis: Does the right hon. Lady think that £10,000 is adequate, in view of the magnitude of the disaster—things like radio-telephones will not help very much?
    Mrs. Hart: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman misunderstood my answer. I did not say that £10,000 was what we would give. I said that £10,000 was our immediate response for first aid relief. I am now considering what further help we can give and it is likely that this will be quite considerable.

    Tanzania (Development Assistance)
    Mr. Juddasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will make a statement on the future policy of her Department towards development assistance in Tanzania.
    Mrs. Hart: I regret I have nothing to add to previous statements on this matter.
    Mr. Judd: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that, while there is genuine concern for the pensioners, there is great distress in the House that pensions for former colonial officers should ever have been regarded as aid and that a disagreement on this issue should have led to a break in economic relations with Tanzania? Will she assure the House that we will as soon as possible resume aid to Tanzania is one of the countries which is most deserving in terms of its emphasis on self-help?
    Mrs. Hart: I am glad to hear and I welcome what my hon. Friend says. It will clearly be controversial when I now say that it is my personal hope that we can renew British aid to Tanzania as soon as we can resolve this pension question. I have a further Question on the Order Paper dealing with this. Studies are going on at the moment.
    Mr. Farr: Is the Minister aware that we have in Zanzibar no diplomatic British representation? In these circumstances how is it possible to have any effective aid system in that country?
    Mrs. Hart: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the difficulty is that we have our representation in a State, and in the case of Tanzania and Zanzibar our representation appropriately is in Tanzania. The situation is complex and it makes it difficult for us to convey effectively, although we have been making tremendous efforts, any concern we may have about purely Zanzibar matters as distinct from Tanzanian matters.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: On a point of Order. The Minister said that this was her personal view. Is it possible for a Minister at the Dispatch Box to give a personal view and not a Ministerial view?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me.

    Kenya (Land Resettlement Scheme)
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement about the progress on the land resettlement, 400,000 acres, scheme in Kenya.
    Mrs. Hart: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given to his Question on 20th October. According to the latest information, it now seems that the total acreage to be transferred under the three current schemes, covering purchases for land settlement, purchases by the Agricultural Development Corporation, and purchases through the Agricultural Finance Corporation, may amount to 370,000 acres by March, 1970.—[Vol. 788, c. 147.]
    Mr. Wall: Will the Minister give an undertaking that the fourth year of the scheme will be completed as planned? Will she say what the Government are prepared to do to help elderly British farmers who cannot continue much longer because of the pressure on land and the deteriorating security situation?
    Mrs. Hart: Beyond March, 1970, when the current schemes come to an end, we hope to hold discussions with the Kenya Government. We do not expect those discussions to take place until after the forthcoming elections in Kenya.

    Malta
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement on aid to Malta.
    Sir F. Bennettasked the Minister of Overseas Development what progress has been made in regard to the fulfilment of Great Britain's pledged aid programme to Malta.
    Mr. Fisherasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will now make a statement about aid for Malta during the second five-year period of the aid programme.
    Mrs. Hart: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given to a Question by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) on 17th November to which as yet I still have nothing to add.—[Vol. 791. c. 205–6.]
    Mr. Wall: Is it not disgraceful that, because of a dispute as to whether 25 per cent. of our aid should be in the form of grant or loan, all aid should be cut off as has occurred in regard to Malta? What plans have the Government to remedy this situation?
    Mrs. Hart: It is well known to the House that we are engaged in discussions with the Government of Malta on this matter. We do not regard them as having ended. At the moment we are seeking clarification of some specific proposals which have been made. I regret, as much as the hon. Gentleman, that this is holding up our aid to Malta. What is comforting is that Malta's development plan has not been held up by the disagreement.
    Sir F. Bennett: Could we get back to the facts of the situation? Will the Minister confirm that all we are arguing about is whether the sum of £5½ million should be a grant or loan repayable after a large number of years? Will she also take the opportunity to deny, rather than making a waffly statement, whether one of the matters in dispute is whether an additional sum of £4 million promised to Malta for dockyard rehabilitation under a quite different heading is being lumped together with the total sum agreed in 1964 or is to be a separate sum? Could we have two plain answers to those two plain questions?
    Mrs. Hart: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. He is well aware that a full statement was made by the Malta Government in the Malta Parliament. Our view is that it would be unwise for us to make a similar statement in this House while we believe it is possible to reach a fruitful end to those discussions. I am sorry that I cannot give the specific answers for which the hon. Gentleman asks.
    Mr. Fisher: Will the Minister tell the House how much longer these negotiations are to go on? If the Prime Minister thinks that a week is a long time in politics, then nine months is a very long time indeed. Will the Minister genuinely do her best to expedite a settlement on mutually agreeable terms with Malta, with which we have always had the closest and most friendly relations and to which we owe a great deal, especially in the last war?
    Mrs. Hart: Indeed, I can completely assure the House that it is my desire and that I shall do everything within my power to reach a conclusion acceptable to the Malta Government and ourselves. There is no denying that it is a difficult matter, but we are in process of discussions and it is my hope and intention that the result will be satisfactory to both sides.
    Mr. Wall: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Answer, I beg leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    British Honduras (New Capital)
    Mr. Kenneth Bakerasked the Minister of Overseas Development how much the United Kingdom has contributed to date to the building of the new capital of British Honduras; and how much is the estimated total commitment to its completion.
    Mrs. Hart: £3,400,000 has so far been drawn. Further sums amounting to about £1½ million have been earmarked for this project.
    Mr. Baker: The Minister will be aware of the gratitude of the people of British Honduras for the generous amount of aid. Has any thought been given to the level of aid available to British Honduras

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    when it becomes independent, which appears likely to occur next year?
    Mrs., Hart: I myself have not yet had discussions with British Honduras on the point, but no doubt as independence draws nearer it will become a rather urgent matter on the agenda.

    Latin America (Technical Assistance)
    Mr. John Hyndasked the Minister of Overseas Development what measures have been taken, or are being considered by Her Majesty's Government to establish a British association with the Organisation of American States' International Fund for technical assistance for the economic and social development of Latin America.
    Mrs. Hart: Since 1965 my Department has undertaken each year two or three technical assistance projects in Latin America proposed by the Organisation of American States, and we accept O.A.S. nominees for training in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Hynd: In view of the important potential of Latin America both politically and economically, and the fact that the proposal mentioned in the Question was put forward recently to the Foreign Secretary by the Latin American Secretary of the Organisation of American States, will the Minister take full note of the significance of this matter and discuss it further with her right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary?
    Mrs., Hart: I will certainly take full note of it, but I am sure my hon. Friend will be the first to accept that there are difficulties of principle in making a cash contribution to an organisation of which we are not a member and in whose policies we therefore can have no say That is the real difficulty of the matter.

    Agriculture
    Mr. W. H. K. Bakerasked the Minister of Overseas Development how many requests she has received, and from which Governments, in the past two years, for agricultural technical advisers, machinery, seeds and fertilisers.
    Mrs. Hart: Over the last two years 311 requests from nearly 70 countries
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    have been accepted for agricultural staff —including technical advisers. Commitments totalling £2·2 million have been made for agricultural production requisites and a further £2·8 million for processing, marketing and storage.
    Mr. Baker: Would the Minister agree that this is a highly satisfactory state of affairs? Could she give an undertaking that such aid is in the best interests of the British taxpayer and of the recipients in the country to which the aid goes?
    Mrs. Hart: I do not regard it as at all unsatisfactory. A few moments ago we were talking about bilateral aid, but we also make a very large contribution to the Food and Agricultural Organisation. Our multilateral aid is able to help a very great deal in the purposes in which the hon. Gentleman is interested.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: I agree with what the Minister has said, but would she not agree that if one takes the figure of the agricultural technical advisory service and adds to it the consultants who advise people on the best agricultural and technical methods of improving their production in an industrial sense, this indirectly helps our own export trade?
    Mrs. Hart: That is a valid point. I assure the House that we undertake an enormous amount of overseas development expenditure in terms of skilled expert advice and technical assistance as well as in terms of cash project programmes. In addition to our cash contributions to multilateral programmes, we are one of the foremost countries in the scale and expertise of advice.
    Mr. Braine: Would the Minister agree that it is in agriculture overseas that the most specific results have been achieved in the last few years, where the results have been truly amazing? Is there not need for much more information to be made available? Could not her Department publish some special facts and figures showing our contribution to this important development?
    Mrs. Hart: I should be delighted to consider the suggestion. There is a very great deal that is not known about this subject. Many hon. Members in the House would be happy to hear about the matter as would many people outside.

    Developing Commonwealth Countries (Co-operation with German Institutions)
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Minister of Overseas Development what schemes she has for co-operation with German institutions in the provision for aid in developing countries of the Commonwealth; and if she will make a statement.
    Mrs. Hart: My predecessor had regular contacts with the Federal German Ministry for Economic Co-operation, and I certainly hope to continue this practice. I shall be meeting Herr Eppler this evening in Paris. I shall, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT details of two specific joint projects which we have entered into with German aid authorities.
    Mr. Tilney: Will the right hon. Lady bear in mind that the Commonwealth Development Corporation already collaborates with the Germans on certain schemes? The Germans have the money, yet they wish to collaborate with us bilaterally as we have local knowledge of the developing countries of the Commonwealth.
    Mrs. Hart: I will, of course, bear that in mind, and I am looking forward to my discussions with Herr Eppler. There are examples where C.D.C. shares with the German aid authorities in projects, and this is all to be encouraged.
    Mr. James Johnson: Assuming that "German" can mean East German as well as West German, may I suggest that my right hon. Friend applies her mind to the possibility of co-operation in Zanzibar, where the East Germans are building excellent houses for the Africans there?
    Mrs. Hart: One is always delighted to hear that there are effective bilateral programmes in any developing country, wherever the aid comes from. We have our part to play in bilateral aid, and so do other countries. Here and there, it is possible by co-operation to achieve a great deal more.
    Mr. Higgins: Is it not an extraordinary situation that, if a German firm invests
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    in a Commonwealth developing country, arrangements exist for insuring it against political risks, whereas if a British firm invests, they do not? Will the right hon. Lady discuss this and examine the German system?
    Mrs. Hart: That is another question. I will be happy to answer it if the hon. Gentleman puts down one about it.
    Following is the information:

    (i) In Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda the Commonwealth Development Corporation holds shares, together with the German D.E.G., in the equity capital of local development finance companies in which the Government-sponsored Development Corporation of each country also takes part. The Netherlands N.O.F.C. is also a partner in the first two of these bodies, which are participating in a wide range of enterprises including agricultural and forestry processing, industrial manufacture (including cement production), the growing of tea and the development of hotels.

    (ii) A link has been established between the University of Giessen, West Germany, and the University College, Nairobi, similar to the link between that college and the University of Glasgow. This has led to the provision of German staff for the Medical and Veterinary Faculties of University College, Nairobi. British and German staff have also been provided under joint arrangements for the Faculty of Agriculture at Nairobi.

    Zambia (Development Loan)
    Mr. Doigasked the Minister of Overseas Development if the £8 million development loan offered to the Zambian Government has been accepted by them; and what were the terms for repayment.
    Mrs. Hart: The offer of a loan has been accepted, but the terms of repayment have not yet been settled.
    Mr. Doig: Will my right hon. Friend make sure that the terms for repayment are reasonable, otherwise it will put too great a strain on a country which in some ways is fighting our battle?
    Mrs. Hart: My hon. Friend will be aware of my own past great concern about these matters in a former capacity. In the discussions that we are having with the Zambian Government, it will be our endeavour to reach a very fair settlement.
    Mr. Goodhew: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the best way in which Her

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    Majesty's Government can help the Zambian economy and the British economy is by restoring normal relations with Rhodesia?
    Mrs. Hart: I did not expect that the hon. Gentleman would agree with what I said on this issue.

    Aid (Official Figures)
    Mr. Prenticeasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she is satisfied as to the accuracy of the previous official figures showing that the flow of resources from Great Britain to developing countries in 1968 was less than 083 per cent. of the gross national product; and what is the latest estimate of the percentage.
    Mrs. Hart: The figures previously given require amendment for 1967 and 1968 mainly because of later information about private investment and guaranteed private export credits. The latest estimate of total flows for 1968 is 0.75 per cent. The full revised figures will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Prentice: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this shows a much lower percentage for 1968 than we previously thought? In view of that, does it not strengthen the case for a growing programme of official aid in the years immediately ahead to make good the larger gap now existing between our performance and the 1 per cent. target?
    Mrs. Hart: I agree with my right hon. Friend, of course, and I am sorry that I cannot enter into a fuller discussion because, as I have said, I expect to make a statement later this afternoon.
    Mr. Braine: Does the right hon. Lady also agree that this decline in private investment overseas calls, as Pearson recommends, for a new look at insurance against non-commercial risks? If other development countries find it to their advantage to embark upon such schemes, why does not this country?
    Mrs. Hart: This is very much a question not for me but for one of my colleagues. Certainly I am ready to consider this in conjunction with him.
    Following is the information:

    REVISED FIGURES OF OVERSEAS AID FOR 1967 AND 1968

    (the figures in brackets were given in an answer in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) on 5th May, 1969)—Vol. 783. c. 6–8.

    1967

    1968

    £ million

    £ million

    Official Flows Cross

    208·4

    210·6

    (208·4)

    (210·2)

    Amortisation

    29·4

    32·2

    (29·4)

    (32·1)

    Total Net of Amortisation

    179·0

    178·5

    (179·0)

    (178·1)

    Private Flows

    Private Investment (net of disinvestment)

    75·0

    79·0

    (83·0)

    (95·0)

    Guaranteed Private Export Credits

    64·4

    63·1

    (40·5)

    (78·9)

    139·4

    142·1

    (123·5)

    (173·9)

    Total Official and Private Flows (net)

    318·4

    320·6

    (302·5)

    (352·0)

    GNP

    40·140

    42·899

    (39·870)

    (42·547)

    Percentages

    Official Flow

    0·45

    0·42

    (0·45)

    (0·42)

    Private Flow

    0·35

    0·33

    (0·31)

    (0·41)

    Total Flow

    0·79

    0·75

    (0·76)

    (0·83)

    Gibraltar (Playing and Sports Facilities)
    Mr. Donald Williamsasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make increased grants to Gibraltar to provide additional playing and sports facilities to assist the local population and to promote the tourist industry on the Rock.
    Mrs. Hart: We have recently received proposals from the Government of Gibraltar and shall be discussing them in London next week with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar and his colleagues.
    Mr. Williams: I feel sure that that answer will be welcomed by the Chief Minister and the Gibraltarians. I hope that this country, through the right hon. Lady, will give to the Gibraltarians all

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    the help that we can at this time, and perhaps also some support for Miss Gibraltar this evening.
    Mrs. Hart: I shall be in Paris this evening and, regrettably, will miss the great event, whether or not she wins. I sympathise with what has been said. Again in a former capacity I was much involved in the problems of Gibraltar at a key period. I am very much looking forward to our discussions next week.
    Mr. George Jeger: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, during this past summer, Her Majesty's Forces stationed in Gibraltar have achieved marvellous results in improving tourist facilities and in the various work on which they have cooperated with the civil authorities? Will she ensure that whatever help is given by way of monetary grants it will not end that co-operation in a practical way?
    Mrs. Hart: I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend says, and I should be delighted to hear more from him about what he has discovered on his recent visit. I think that we all take it for granted that co-operation with Gibraltar will not stop just at money, and we all desire to give every possible and practical assistance that we can.

    Former Colonial Civil Servants (Pensions)
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyonasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will make a statement on the future arrangements about responsibility for the payment of pensions to former colonial civil servants by countries who receive assistance in aid from her department.
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will review the future arrangements regarding the payment of pensions to former colonial civil servants by countries who receive or have received aid from the United Kingdom.
    Mrs. Hart: This is an important and complex question with substantial implications for the aid programme. It is being re-examined in depth, but I cannot at present add to what my predecessor said in the adjournment debates of the 26th July, 1968, and the 20th Decem-
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    ber, 1968.—[Vol. 769, c. 1248–53; Vol. 775, c. 1724–33.]
    Mr. Lyon: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that this is a very unsatisfactory situation? We are the only former colonial Power to treat our colonial servants in this way. It means that they are dependent upon our former colonial territories for their pensions which, as we have seen, has unsatisfactory repercussions. Is my right hon. Friend aware that we on this side are resentful that this should be described as overseas aid when, apparently, some of it goes into the pocket of the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison)?
    Mrs. Hart: I am very much aware of my hon. Friend's concern about this. I know that he pressed my predecessor strongly on the point. Clearly it is a very great problem, and I hope that my own re-examination of it will perhaps make it possible to move on. But I cannot yet say, because I am in the middle of it.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are widespread feelings on the subject, especially in view of the fact that, as far as we know, no other country imposes this kind of burden upon its ex-colonial territories?
    Mrs. Hart: There is a very powerful case to be made here. There are also powerful arguments against. It is a matter of reaching the right balance of judgment on the basis of further study.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the right hon. Lady aware that I am not a former colonial civil servant, that I am quite happy about my exiguous proportionate pension which is coming from Pakistan, and that I will not worry Her Majesty's Government about it?
    Mrs. Hart: I am delighted to hear that there is one subject about which the hon. Gentleman will not be worrying us.

    Malawi (New Capital)
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Overseas Development what help she is giving to the Government of Malawi in connection with the building of their new capital at Lilongwe.
    Mrs. Hart: None. British Government aid to Malawi, which is currently over £8 million per year, is fully committed.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view both of the responsible nature of that Government and their friendlines to this country, is it not rather tragic that a project to which they attach the greatest importance has been left by Her Majesty's Government to be helped by other Governments.
    Mrs. Hart: It was a question of reaching the right decision on this and, as I think the right hon. Gentleman knows, it was a very difficult problem at the time. Again, I was somewhat involved in it. The problem is that development aid money from Britain must go to projects which have development value. If a country attaches importance to a project which intrinsically does not have development value, it is very difficult to justify giving aid for it. But we are giving very generous help to Malawi in many other directions.
    Mr. William Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a controversial and dubious scheme and, in a nation where one child in two does not live to the age of five, there are far better ways of spending money?
    Mrs. Hart: I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that I would not want to comment on judgments made in Malawi by the Malawi Government about this problem.

    Malaysia and Singapore
    Mr. Peter M. Jacksonasked the Minister of Overseas Development what sums were paid in aid to the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore during the years 1967 and 1968.
    Mrs. Hart: The amounts of economic aid made available to Malaysia in 1967 and 1968 were, respectively, £5·6 million and £7.1 million. The corresponding figures for Singapore were £1·9 million and £1.0 million.
    Mr. Jackson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that these figures include a certain element of military aid? Having confirmed that, as I believe that she will, will she explain why she does not accept the U.N.C.T.A.D. definition that military aid should not be included in the definition of aid?
    Mrs. Hart: I think that my hon. Friend may find that I shall have something to say about this in my statement. But I
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    can confirm that, and perhaps I might write to my hon. Friend with full details of the way that this operates in relation to Singapore and Malaysia and the aid programme.

    Aid Programme (Balance of Payments)
    Mr. Peter M. Jacksonasked the Minister of Overseas Development what was the effect on Great Britain's balance of payments for the years 1967 and 1968, rounded to the nearest £1 million, taking account of purchases in the United Kingdom, the amortisation on borrowed capital and interest payment on loans, of the total aid programme.
    Mrs. Hart: The effect of our aid programme on the balance of payments is complex. The balance of payments cost of a marginal addition to the aid programme is estimated at about one-third or rather more where there is pressure on the capacity of industries producing aid-financed exports. Amortisation and interest payments on account of past aid loans, amounting to approximately £58 million in 1967 and £60 million in 1968, are estimated to make a net contribution to the balance of payments of the order of £40 million a year.
    Mr. Jackson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, looking at the figures, the demands on the economy of this country for economic aid are far less than many people both in this House and outside accept? Does my right hon. Friend not think it proper to bring this information to the notice of the public in a more acceptable way than is already done?
    Mrs. Hart: There is a valid point here. I am certain that the opponents of aid do not understand that this is so. I shall be glad to do everything that I can to make this information more fully known to the public. But I also have to rely a great deal on those Members of this House who are in favour of aid and higher aid programmes to help me to do it.
    Mr. Prentice: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the point that she mentions, there are considerable indirect benefits to our balance of payments through aid, such as orders for spare parts and replacements in aided projects, and the orders that we get from

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    other countries' aid programmes and multilateral aid programmes? The position can be summarised by saying that the best possible investment for the future of our balance of payments would be an increase in the flow of development aid from Britain and from the developed world generally.
    Mrs. Hart: I agree with my distinguished predecessor, and add one further point. The extent to which expenditure on aid can promote in general an expansion of world development can subsequently develop world trade from which we, along with others, can only benefit.

  EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY

    Exhibition Contracting Industry
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity what was the percentage increase in average weekly earnings in the exhibition contracting industry implicit in the agreement signed between the two sides of the industry on 7th February and frozen by her Department until February, 1970; and what is the corresponding percentage increase expected to result from the new settlement now negotiated under the aegis of her department.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. Harold Walker): In its Report No. 117, the National Board for Prices and Incomes did not quantify the increases implicit in the February agreement referred to them but said that the increases were well above the 3½ per cent. ceiling. The new settlement, operative from September, was not negotiated under the aegis of my Department. It is difficult to say what the precise effect of the agreement on earnings will be, but I would accept that the percentage increase may be of the same order as would have resulted from the February agreement.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is it not a fact that the rejected settlement involved a 10s. a week so-called productivity bonus, and that the sole result of the right hon. Lady's meddling in this instance was to transform it into an l1s. 6d. increase in basic rates which will be inflated by overtime rates?
    Mr. Walker: No. The hon. Gentleman has got it all wrong. It was a 3½ per cent. plus 10s. per day agreement that was originally referred to the board and eventually resulted in a settlement of 11s. 3d. for craftsmen. The settlement referred to the board was still the subject of a work to rule within the industry and was not the subject, therefore, of agreement.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity how many days' work were lost in the exhibition contracting industry through industrial action between the freezing of the wage settlement for the industry agreed on 7th February and the agreement of an alternative settlement.
    Mr. Harold Walker: The number of days recorded as lost is approximately 15,600.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: What was the resulting loss of export orders from these days lost purely and exclusively from the fatuous meddling of the right hon. Lady? Is not this a classic example of the nonsense that goes on when the right hon. Lady puts her fingers into matter which do not concern her?
    Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman is about as wide of the mark on that point as on the last. There is no evidence that exports were in any way adversely affected. No exhibitions were affected as a consequence of the work to rule or other militant action in the industry.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory-nature of that reply, I beg leave to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Price Stability
    Mr. Milneasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity if she will make arrangements for an examination of manufacturing costs and retail prices in the main field of consumer spending, with a view to establishing some degree of prices stability.
    Mr. Harold Walker: The objective sought by my hon. Friend is already being pursued through the operation of the policy for productivity, prices and incomes.
    Mr. Milne: Will my hon. Friend use his influence in this direction in view of

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    increasing apprehension about price increases, bearing in mind that this is one of the central features of our economic policy and that we want to see some results in the immediate future?
    Mr. Walker: I think that we are all anxious about possible price increases. But we shall shortly be introducing a new White Paper on the future policy of prices, incomes and productivity. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to await the outcome of that White Paper.

    Consett and Stanley (Unemployment)
    Mr. David Watkinsasked the Secretary of State and Productivity what is the unemployment rate for men and for women in the Consett-Stanley travel-to-work area of County Durham at the latest convenient date.
    Mr. Harold Walker: At 10th November, 1969, the provisional percentage rates of unemployment in the Consett, Stanley and Lanchester travel-to-work area were 7·3 for males and 2·4 for females.
    Mr. Watkins: Is it possible for the hon. Gentleman to break down these figures in terms of age groups? Can he say whether there is a predominance of older men of working age amongst them?
    Mr. Walker: I cannot give the breakdown offhand, but I shall be pleased to write to the hon. Gentleman to try to give him the information that he seeks. There is a problem with the older male workers, particularly redundant exminers.

    NIGERIA
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Prime Minister if he will take an initiative and approach both General Gowon and General Ojukwu with the aim of ending the Nigerian war.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): On ending the war I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to a Question by him on 17th November. I am discussing what further approach should be made on the question of relief.—[Vol. 791, c. 824.]
    Mr. Allaun: Will the Prime Minister at least support the new Swiss move and
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    reject any insistence that only the O.A.U. must solve this problem, because manifestly the O.A.U. has failed?
    Secondly, on aid, will my right hon. Friend help Joint Church Aid, because it is known still to be flying in food to the starving children of Biafra?
    The Prime Minister: On the first point. I have never insisted, in so far as this country is in a position to insist on this purely Nigerian question, that mediation should take place by the O.A.U., but I have always thought that it was best fitted to do it.
    On the question of the appeal that has been made to the Swiss Government and to certain other European Governments, obviously if they are able to solve the problem we would welcome any initiative which could be taken. But whoever does it will still have to face the problem that the O.A.U. has so far not been able to succeed.
    On the second point, as I have said, we are currently discussing what should be done—and urgently—on the question of relief.
    Mr. Heath: The Foreign Secretary has told the House that the Federal Government are prepared to enter into talks without prior conditions. First, can the Prime Minister say whether this means without any insistence that there should be one Nigeria?
    Secondly, as Colonel Ojukwu has publicly said that he will enter into talks without prior conditions, will the Prime Minister explain to the House what is holding up the two sides getting together at the moment?
    Thirdly, would it be possible to take the initiative through one of the African countries to see whether a meeting can be brought about through the African system?
    The Prime Minister: We have been in close touch with a large number of African countries, both Commonwealth and otherwise. Only a week or two ago I discussed the question with the Emperor of Ethiopia's Foreign Minister when he was here.
    The position for a long time has been —and I so reported to the House last March after my visit there—that the Federal Government have made it plain

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    that they were prepared to sit down without prior conditions. On the other hand, Colonel Ojukwu has felt that to sit down without a cease-fire would be difficult. So far there has been no agreement by the Federal Government to sit down without conditions and at the same time to have a cease-fire. We know the use to which a cease-fire might be put, and I think that is the real difficulty. The Federal Government have said that if there is to be a cease-fire—[Interruption.] —These are very important matters affecting the lives of millions of people. Three questions were put to me by the right hon. Gentleman. I think that he is entitled to a reply, even though his back benchers do not.
    The Federal Government have said that if it was a question of a cease-fire they would want to make sure that any talks were meaningful and that, therefore, involved, as they put it, talks on the basis of a United Nigeria.
    Mr. Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend consider sending a Minister or a senior official to Biafra to see what can be done to end the deadlock over relief supplies? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the growing concern in Britain over the starvation in Biafra, and the lack of action on our part in ending the deadlock by sending food direct to these people who need it?
    The Prime Minister: I do not accept the strictures in my hon. Friend's last few words. Eighteen months ago I sent Lord Hunt there, and the mercy corridor would have been open ever since if it were not closed at the Biafran end. The same is true in relation to daylight flights, a matter which we pursued when I was there. I assure my hon. Friend that I am well aware of the deep concern in this country, and indeed in all civilised countries, about the malnutrition, starvation and shortage of food in Biafra. The food is there, much of it in Nigeria, and could be driven in in trucks within a matter of hours, or days at the worst. [Interruption.] This is not a laughing matter. If the hon. Gentleman wants to titter in his constituency about starvation, he may do so. I was trying to answer a question from my hon. Friend expressing concern about this matter, a concern which I am sure is shared by 99 per cent. of the House. There is enough food in Cotonou, I think 10,000 tons, which
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    could be flown in there in a matter of days if we had daylight flights. That expresses our concern. We have been trying to get daylight flights established.
    I do not rule out sending a Minister or other emissary into the area to see Colonel Ojukwu if we think that that might help.
    Mr. Tilney: What approach is being made by the Government to the other Powers who are sending arms to both sides to see whether the maximum pressure can be brought to bear on the Federal Government and the rebels to reach some sort of solution?
    The Prime Minister: We have had talks with the French Government and also with the African Commonwealth countries who have recognised so-called Biafra and others who are at any rate fairly neutral about the matter and pressed them to put pressure both on the relief question and on the question of the settlement of the war. As my right hon. Friend has reported to the House, we have talked to the French Government about this and they are considering it.

    OLD PEOPLE
    Mr. Kenneth Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether he will recommend the appointment of a Royal Commission to examine the problem of caring for old people.
    The Prime Minister: We are constantly seeking to bring about further improvements in this field, but I do not think that at the present time a Royal Commission or special inquiry would take us forward in this task.
    Mr. Baker: Does the Prime Minister recall that in 1965 the Government told us that 361,000 old people never, or rarely, had a hot meal? Is the Prime Minister aware that now, in 1969, a growing number of old people are found on admission to hospital to be suffering from malnutrition, a state into which they relapse after being released? When are the Government going to deal with this problem?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a considerable number of those in 1965 who were living below any standard that anyone in this House would support were living on that standard because, although they would

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    have qualified for what was then National Assistance benefit, for one reason or another, in many cases pride, and the evidence of stigma, they did not apply for it. As a result of the reforms that we introduced in 1966, about 450,000 of those people are now in receipt of supplementary benefits.
    Mr. Maxwell: Will my right hon. Friend consider bringing in legislation to prevent the rise in the numbers of people abandoning their parents at a cost to the public purse? In particular, will he consider introducing legislation so that when children do abandon their parents some of their wages can be attached for assistance, instead of allowing these people to fall as a burden on the public purse?
    The Prime Minister: That raises a very wide question indeed, and one can imagine that legislation would need a great deal of thinking about and would be highly controversial. It is my impression, and I am sure that of the whole House, that the vast proportion of middle-aged and young families have a very real concern and make real provision for their elderly parents. We are dealing only with the exceptional cases, for which we have made provision.
    Lord Balniel: Is the Prime Minister aware that the planned development of special community health and welfare services for the elderly has been throttled right back by the Government at a time when the number of elderly is increasing very considerably? As the Government cannot sort out their own sense of social priorities, is not there a strong argument for having a Royal Commission to review the whole field?
    The Prime Minister: I hope that I never have to defend the social priorities of the previous Government. Fortunately the noble Lord has the advantage that he was not a member of that Government, so he can approach this with a fresher mind. As the noble Lord says, this is a question of priorities. The enormous advance that we have made in the social services, with the provision of a more than 70 per cent. increase in financial provision for helping the social services generally, is sufficient earnest of what we have done, very often in the face of heavy criticism, to help the kind of people whom the noble Lord has in mind. As regards the centres, in many
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    parts of the social services we have increased these immeasurably beyond what we inherited.

    PRIME MINISTER (TELEVISION BROADCAST)
    Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister if he will make a Ministerial television broadcast on New Year's Eve on Government policies for 1970.
    The Prime Minister: I shall be otherwise engaged on that date, Sir.
    Mr. Marten: If the Prime Minister's plans are changed and he is given an opportunity to speak to the nation in any way, will he perhaps tell the nation what proposals he has for dropping any of his policies in 1970? Second, could he also make a very clear statement to the nation on what he proposes in the way of further action to deal with industrial stoppages which are causing so much anxiety to the public?
    The Prime Minister: I think it unlikely that my engagements will be changed. I shall be in severe trouble if I do change them, because on that evening I shall be starting the celebration of my 30th wedding anniversary.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: She has my sympathy.
    The Prime Minister: She has mine, too, in view of the number of times that she comes to listen to Questions. If the only incentive which the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) can offer for cancelling the arrangements which I made a long time ago is to make the kind of broadcast that he suggested, I can tell him that I have no intention, at this or at any other time, of announcing the dropping of policies which are so valuable to the nation.

    MIDDLE EAST
    Mr. Eadieasked the Prime Minister what arrangements for dealing with policy matters by Her Majesty's Ministers have been made as a result of the prolongation of the war in the Middle East.
    The Prime Minister: There has been no change in the arrangements, Sir.
    Mr. Eadie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that U Thant is reported to have

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    said that we are probably in for another hundred years' war in the Middle East? As we are so dependent on the Middle East for such a large slice of our oil supplies, would not my right hon. Friend agree that this is a further illustration of how the White Paper on Fuel Policy is redundant? What does my right hon. Friend propose to do about it?
    The Prime Minister: I do not think that anybody in this House, nor U Thant, would want to use that remark to show that nothing should be done about trying to get a settlement in the much nearer future. I know that my hon. Friend would not want his question to be misinterpreted as meaning that he is concerned only with oil supplies. There is a much stronger moral reason why we should all try to seek a settlement—
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Like in Nigeria.
    The Prime Minister: Yes, like in Nigeria.
    Hon. Members: And in Rhodesia.
    The Prime Minister: This is a very difficult problem, almost an intransigent one. We are pressing for an early resumption of the four-Power talks in which we have an important stake.
    Mr. Walters: Bearing in mind the increasingly deteriorating situation and the threat that it could bring to British interests, should not the Prime Minister now consider a new British Government initiative, possibly in association with France?
    The Prime Minister: I hope that the hon. Member will feel the right answer is that, since France and ourselves are both engaged with the United States and the Soviet Union in four-Power talks, this is the right forum for pressing what I know the hon. Gentleman genuinely has in mind.
    Dr. Miller: Would the Prime Minister not agree that the full implementation of a cease-fire in the area would be the most valuable contribution to the solution of the problems there?
    The Prime Minister: The United Nations has repeatedly called for a ceasefire on both sides. That is really aimed at preventing the situation from getting even more dangerous than it is. The future solution of the problem, which we
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    hope will be at a much earlier date than has been mentioned this afternoon, must depend on the full implementation of the Security Council resolution, which we moved there.
    Mr. Heath: The Foreign Secretary told the House, I think on 17th November, that his interpretation of the United Nations resolution was that withdrawal from territories did not mean all territories which were occupied in the six-day war and that this had to be read in conjunction with the words "there should be secure frontiers as a result of a settlement." Is this not a most important interpretation of the resolution, and can the Prime Minister say whether this represents any change in British policy? Is this interpretation accepted by the other three Powers with whom we are having private talks in the United Nations, and is it accepted by the Israelis and the Arabs?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to what my right hon. Friend said, but that is the interpretation we have put on it all along and made clear at the time of the acceptance of the resolution. It has been the basis of Dr. Jarring's talks. It has also been the basis of our approach in the four-Power talks. It is a question of concurrence, not necessarily in terms of time, but an agreed package from the beginning, so that if point A happens point B automatically follows, including the security of frontiers and the security of the right to live, of countries in that area who have not been granted the right even of recognition. As to what the areas from which withdrawal would be appropriate may be, that is still an unsolved problem between the Four. We have made our position clear, that it must be a package as a whole. If one thing begins the rest must follow.
    Mr. Swain: Returning to the real meaning behind my hon. Friend's Question, namely, the fuel policy, and in view of the difficulties obtaining in the nuclear power and natural gas industries, could my right hon. Friend and the Government have another look at the fuel policy with a view to its early review?
    The Prime Minister: The difficulties which my hon. Friend may have discerned, whether in the supply of North

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    Sea gas or in the generation of nuclear power, do not, I think, arise from the prolongation of the war in the Middle East.
    Sir D. Renton: Will the Prime Minister give an undertaking not to reduce further the strength of any of our forces in the Middle East areas, especially with regard to the Persian Gulf?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has said in repeated defence debates that the right hon. and learned Gentleman totally misconceives our position over our influence in the Middle East if he thinks that it depends on forces in the Persian Gulf.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Heath: Would the Leader of the House please state the business of the House for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 1ST DECEMBER—Private Members' Motions until seven o'clock.
Remaining stages of the Ulster Defence Regiment Bill.
TUESDAY, 2ND DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Merchant Shipping Bill.
Remaining stages of the Insolvency Services (Accounting and Investment Bill and of the Valuation for Rating (Scotland) Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 3RD DECEMBER—Supply [3rd Allotted Day]:
Debate on the Government's Broadcasting Policy, which will arise on an Opposition Motion.
Prayer on the Transfer of Functions (Monopolies, Mergers and Restrictive Trade Practices) Order.
THURSDAY, 4TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Gas Bill.
Motion on the Police Pensions (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations.
FRIDAY, 5TH DECEMBER—Private Members' Bills.
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MONDAY, 8TH DECEMBER—Debate on Foreign Affairs, which will be continued on Tuesday, 9th December, the 4th Allotted Supply Day.
Mr. Heath: Can the right hon. Gentleman now tell us when the next White Paper on pensions will be published, and, also, give the House a clear indication of when we are to have a debate, before the Bill?
Mr. Peart: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman, quite rightly, would raise this. It is hoped to introduce the Bill soon. In addition, there will be an Explanatory Memorandum in the form of a White Paper, which is not unusual with Bills of this sort. It is further proposed that there should be a White Paper on the actuarial background.
I see little prospect of Government time for a preliminary debate before the Second Reading of the Bill.
Mr. Heath: I must tell the Leader of the House that this is just not good enough. In answer to a question by me, on 6th November, the Prime Minister told the House that there was some desire for a debate and that he thought that that was the right way to deal with the matter. That was on the White Paper. The Leader of the House, during business questions directly afterwards, gave a similar assurance when he said that this was the desire of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and that he would, therefore, look into it.
This is a clear assurance that the Leader of the House would give the House time for a debate on the White Paper before the Bill. What we are now faced with is that the Secretary of State stated in a speech on 23rd November that he would publish the Bill in 10 day's time. That takes us to about 3rd December or 4th December. The House must have a debate on these White Papers before the Bill is published.
Mr. Peart: I have looked into this. If the Opposition had really felt so strongly about this they could have chosen today's Supply day.
Mr. Heath: I must press the right hon. Gentleman. There are three Government White Papers published here, and the Government are to publish a Bill.

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They are treating the House with the utmost contempt unless the House is allowed to express its considered views on these White Papers before the Government publish the Bill. The Opposition have already given a lot of time for Government business. The Leader of the House knows this full well. We are giving a day for the debate on foreign affairs and he knows, too, the arrangements, on another matter for which we are giving a day. It is the Government's job to provide time for debate.
Mr. Peart: I accept that the Opposition are providing a day for foreign affairs and broadcasting. But in view of Government business up to Christmas, I cannot possibly accede to the right hon. Gentleman's request.
Dr. Summerskill: Would my right hon. Friend find time for an urgent debate on the subject of nurses' pay and would he please not say "Next week". or that he takes note?
Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend presses me, but I must say "Not next week".
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind the House that there is a lot of business ahead.
Mr. Fortescue: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the last White Paper on pensions is one of the most complex and difficult documents ever put before the House? Is he aware that it would be scandalous if we had to debate that at the same time as the Second Reading of the Bill?
Mr. Peart: I am aware that it is a complex matter. This is why we are having more White Papers.
Mr. John Mendelson: Will my right hon. Friend accept that there will be general appreciation of the quick arrangements for a two-day foreign affairs debate? Will he reaffirm his early assurance to the House that one day will be devoted entirely to the subject of Vietnam and that there will be a separate debate, on the other day, on Nigeria, so that we can have debates dealing with one important matter at a time, instead of hopping from one end of the globe to the other?
Mr. Peart: I am aware of my hon. Friend's view. I will look carefully into the question of how the debate should proceed. Technically, any Member can raise any matter connected with foreign affairs, but it may be convenient if we have an emphasis on one day on a particular subject.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: May I draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to Motion No. 34:
[That the letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Mr. Speaker concerning relations between the House, the Treasury and the Civil Service, laid before the Select Committee on the House of Commons (Services) in the last session of Parliament, and not reported to the House, be laid before the House.]
This stands in my name, and the names of 79 hon. Members on both sides of the House. May I ask him how soon the House will have some opportunity of appreciating the Treasury's understanding of our proper place in its scheme of things?
Mr. Peart: I have seen the Motion in question, dealing with House of Commons services, but I cannot promise a debate. I will consider it with my colleagues on the Services Committee.
Mr. Orme: Would my right hon. Friend arrange for the Secretary of State for Education and Science to make a Statement next week about teachers' pay and the necessity for negotiations to take place following the breakdown of the Burnham procedure? In view of the fact that strikes are going on throughout the country—I believe that the teachers have a genuine case—should not this matter be discussed by the Government?
Mr. Peart: I will call my hon. Friend's views to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that his refusal to have a separate debate on the abatement White Paper prior to the introduction to the National Superannuation Bill makes a mockery of both the Prime Minister's and Secretary of State's statements that they would like to hear the view of the House before coming to a final conclusion on a matter which is vital to the occupational schemes?
Mr. Peart: I cannot add to what I said earlier on this subject.
Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Does my hon. Friend realise that while many of us are glad that a debate on broadcasting is to take place next week it will be taking place in Opposition time? Is he also aware that when "Broadcasting in the 'Seventies" was discussed at the end of last Session that, too, took place in Opposition time? Is he further aware that when the Government statement was made, that occurred during the Recess, which means that in the whole of this Parliament there has not been a debate on broadcasting at the initiative of the Government, this at a time when profound changes have been taking place? Is not this a sad state of affairs?
Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend has made his point. The Government's broadcasting policy will be debated, when I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to make his views known on that occasion.
Dane Irene Ward: If the Government do not provide time for the House to debate the pensions White Papers and if it is decided to have a Motion of censure on the Government over this matter, would the right hon. Gentleman consider it proper to give an assurance that the Bill will not be published until the debate on the Motion of censure has taken place? That may enable us to know where we stand.
Mr. Peart: I cannot indulge in Opposition hypothetics.
Mr. W. Baxter: Would my right hon. Friend allocate time to discuss the very important question of agriculture? While this will not be popular with hon. Gentlemen opposite, is my right hon. Friend aware that such a debate should take place, because the Opposition have no policy in connection with this important subject? Further—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot debate the merits of the case at this stage. He may only ask for time to debate the subject.
Mr. Peart: If my hon. Friend, who I know is deeply interested in farming, manages to encourage the Opposition to allot a Supply day for a debate on this
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subject, we will be interested to know why they have changed their policy in this matter.
Mr. Fisher: For the information of the House, would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the subjects suggested by his hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) for the foreign affairs debate will be subjects for debate, and, if so, on which of the two days they will arise?
Mr. Peart: I cannot say that at this stage. I said that I would examine the matter.
Mr. Manuel: Would my right hon. Friend consider giving time to enable the House to debate the astonishing change that has occurred in the Opposition's agricultural policy? Is he aware that such a debate is urgent, because it has been the biggest change of policy that I can recall in my time in the House?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is unwittingly drifting into the merits of the case.
Mr. Peart: I cannot find time for such a debate next week, though I agree that it would be a suitable subject.
Dame Joan Vickers: In view of the importance of the Seebohm Report, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that a statement, a White Paper, or a debate on the subject takes place in the very near future and certainly before local authorities take their own line in the matter, which would be regrettable?
Mr. Peart: I will see that the hon. Lady's views are known in the right quarter.
Mr. Dickens: When is it hoped to make a statement about the implementation of the Sixth Report on House of Commons services?
Mr. Peart: I had hoped to make such a statement this week, but I am still having consultations on the subject.
Mr. Peyton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)—in which he said that he could not indulge in what he called "Opposition hypothetics" —deserves full marks for originality if not for intelligibility?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will now come to his business question?
Mr. Peyton: Is the Leader of the House really satisfied that the questions which have been addressed to him calling for a debate on the pensions White Paper have received answers from him which are in any way worthy of the position he occupies?
An Hon. Member: Twit…
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Peart: I suggest that, in his usual way, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) is adopting an offensive manner.
Mr. Spriggs: Has my right hon. Friend seen the Motion on nurses' pay, to which reference has already been made, signed by a large number of hon. Members? Will he reconsider the reply which he gave earlier on this subject?
Mr. Peart: I said that I had noted it and that I would make representations to my right hon. Friend. A debate on the subject cannot take place next week.
Sir E. Boyle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it would have seemed inconceivable at any earlier stage in our parliamentary history that the Government would not make time available for a debate on White Papers on the national superannuation scheme before the appearance of the scheme? Has not the purpose of White Papers always been, throughout our history, to elicit information in a wide national debate, including a debate in this House, before legislation is introduced?
Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman has made his point—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—but I cannot add to what I said earlier on the subject.
Mr. William Hamilton: In view of the indecisive vote which occurred last Friday on the question of televising the proceedings of the House, would my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will provide Government time for the subject to be debated in the middle of the week—if not next week, then some time in the very near future?
Mr. Peart: I cannot give that assurance.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: Reverting to the question of the two-day foreign affairs debate, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is vitally important that it should be divided into sections rather than there being a general tour of the world? Will he seriously consider having a part of the time available for debating the Nigerian war, a subject which moves many hon. Members on both sides of the House?
Mr. Peart: I will consider that. Indeed, that is why I said earlier that I would consider the matter.
Mr. Parker: On a point of order—
Mr. Speaker: Not for a long time yet.
Mr. Tuck: May I press my right hon. Friend to reconsider his reply about the need to give time, either next week or in the near future, for a consideration of the complete about-face of the Opposition's agricultural policy? The people should know of this Volte-face.
Mr. Peart: I appreciate the importance of the subject and my hon. Friend is right to mention it. It is, of course, a matter for the Opposition. I would be interested to hear the comments of hon. Gentlemen opposite on the subject.
Lord Balniel: When the right hon. Gentleman said that a debate on pensions and the Government's White Paper should take place not in Government time but on an Opposition Supply day, was he really saying that we should not trust the Government's word when they say that they will provide time to debate a certain subject?
Mr. Peart: I cannot add to what I said earlier on the subject.
Mr. Chapman: Will the promised second debate on procedure take place before Christmas?
Mr. Peart: I cannot promise, but I hope that it will occur at an early date.
Sir D. Renton: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall saying, this time last week, that he would consider providing time for a debate on the Beeching Report before legislation based on it was introduced into either House? Is he aware that since last Thursday there has been introduced into another place the Administration of Justice Bill [Lords], at

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least one Clause of which enables the Beeching proposals to be implemented, certainly to an extent? Will he therefore please grant time as soon as possible to discuss this very vital report?
Mr. Peart: I will consider the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks, but I am somewhat pressed for time before Christmas.
Mr. Ron Lewis: When are we likely to discuss the report on youth and community work in the 'seventies?
Mr. Peart: Not next week.
Mr. Farr: When is the Government White Paper on the Common Market likely to be produced? Will the House have an opportunity to discuss it before fresh negotiations are commenced?
Mr. Peart: I would not have thought that that would occur next week, or before Christmas. I agree, however, that before any decision is taken, the information which has been promised should be made available.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: May I once more bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Motion on the Order Paper on civil air transport licensing, standing in my name and the names of at least 70 of my hon. Friends, and ask him to provide time for a full debate on it before the Christmas Recess?
[That this House protests most strongly against any suggestion that a second British carrier should compete against the British Overseas Airways Corporation on the North Atlantic route; and calls upon the President of the Board of Trade to give an immediate and definite direction to any proposed civil aviation authority that new and independent operators should not be allowed to endanger the financial viability of the nationalised corporations on either domestic or international routes.]
Mr. Peart: I cannot give an assurance on that.
Mr. Emery: Will the Leader of the House press the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity to produce a White Paper on prices and incomes next week, or if not, to make a statement, because many industries are negotiating wage increases which are to start on 1st
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January for the whole of next year and if Government policy is not known, as usual, it will be too late?
Mr. Peart: At the appropriate time my right hon. Friend will introduce a White Paper.
Mr. Peter M. Jackson: May I press my right hon. Friend about the reply he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens)? He stated that he was undertaking further consultations. Can he tell the House when he expects to have completed them and will be making a statement on House of Commons services?
Mr. Peart: Soon.
Sir Hannar Nicholls: Quite apart from feelings expressed on this side of the House, is the Leader of the House not aware of the embarrassment felt by hon. Members behind him as he is not allowing for a debate on the White Papers on pensions? Is it not clear that he and the Prime Minister are going back on their word and perverting the proceedings of Parliament? Is he aware that if he will not do this, we shall have to urge our Leader to put down a Motion of censure?
Mr. Peart: I am rather surprised at the extravagant language used by the hon. Member. I cannot add to what I said earlier.
Mr. Swain: Will my right hon. Friend discuss with his right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for power—whoever he may be this week; I do not know—the possibility of an early debate on the coal industry?
Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend has been away for a few days.
Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Select Committee on Science and Technology published a report on 7th May and that we still have not had the Government's reply? This must make the people wonder whether the Government are in turmoil about a correct reply. How much longer are we to wait as it is more than six months since this very important report was published?
Mr. Peart: I accept that and will make representations.
Mr. David Howell: Has the right hon. Gentleman noted the report from the

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Estimates Committee on serious overloading in the Inland Revenue Department due to the Government's tax reforms? Will he arrange for an early debate on this very important subject?
Mr. Peart: I have noted that and I have had many representations on it which I will consider.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: What has happened to the Bill to implement the proposals of the Phelps Brown Committee, which was needed urgently so many months ago?
Mr. Peart: It will be produced next week.
Mr. George Jeger: Does the Leader of the House recall the Foreign Secretary saying that at the conclusion of his talks with the Ambassador from Madrid, the Governor of Gibraltar and Ministers of Gibraltar, a statement would be made to this House? Will he ask the Foreign Secretary whether the statement can be made during the two days debate on foreign affairs so as to give us a chance to voice our views upon it?
Mr. Peart: I think that that request is reasonable. I will convey it to my right hon. Friend and ask him if he can make a statement during the debate.
Mr. Heath: I must once again press the Leader of the House to give time to debate the White Paper on pensions. The Prime Minister gave his word that there would be a debate and the Leader of the House confirmed this. He said that he could not state the precise date, but he confirmed it. Not only is he breaking his word, but he is breaking the Prime Minister's word.
The Secretary of State has quite rightly had discussions with all outside bodies concerned before publishing the Bill, and the only people who have not been able to express a view are us in the House of Commons. This is absolutely lamentable. Will he carry out his duty and give the House an opportunity of discussing this important proposal, which will affect millions of people?
Mr. Peart: I have said that there is no possibility of a debate before Christmas—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—because of pressure of business. But I am always prepared to consider
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a situation and I will give an assurance that I shall consider the point so emphasised by the Leader of the Opposition. I cannot go beyond that.

TILBURY DOCKS (CONTAINER BERTHS)
The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mrs. Barbara Castle): I will, with permission, make a statement about the present difficulties which are preventing the operation of the O.C.L./A.C.T. modernised terminal at Tilbury.
Overseas Containers Limited and Associated Containers Transportation yesterday announced that, in the light of the continued refusal of the No. 1 Docks Group Committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union to lift its ban on the implementation of the agreement reached in January this year, covering the operation of the O.C.L./A.C.T. terminal at Tilbury, they have decided to place on a more permanent basis at Antwerp the alternative arrangements introduced in March for the handling of the U.K./Australia traffic.
O.C.L./A.C.T. are also taking steps to place their Tilbury terminal on a care and maintenance basis and to redeploy staff. O.C.L. is giving further consideration to the dismantling of equipment at Tilbury. I also understand that O.C.L./ A.C.T. are seeking an increase in freight charges to and from Australia to cover additional costs of trans-shipment of cargoes to and from the Continent.
Although, before January, 1968, a number of modernised terminal berth agreements negotiated by the T. & G.W.U. had come into operation, the No. 1 Dock Group Committee then decided to impose a ban on the further implementation of modernised berth agreements until a Stage II Devlin agreement had been reached for London as a whole. The lead in these negotiations has been taken by the employers in the Enclosed Docks and by the T. & G.W.U., and after intensive discussions, an offer by the employers, which provides in return for two-shift working and flexible manning a standard weekly wage of £33 10s. for the great majority of dockers and £36 for those working on ships, was put to the

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men by ballot earlier this month. It was rejected by 3,090 votes to 2,442.
Following the ballot, the No. 1 Docks Group Committee confirmed their ban on further modernised berth agreements, and at Tilbury yesterday the men rejected by a narrow majority a proposal that they should nevertheless bring the modernised berths at Tilbury into operation. It was these two events which precipitated the O.C.L./A.C.T. decision to which I have referred.
My Department has been in close touch with the two sides throughout these negotiations and has assisted in bringing them together. It has had joint meetings with the employers and with the full No. 1 Docks Group Committee in order to try to get the ban removed.
I fully appreciate the concern of dockers over their future employment prospects in view of the reduced labour requirements which follow the introduction of modern cargo handling methods. In view, however, of the special protection against redundancy afforded to dockers by the Dock Labour Scheme, the successful operation of agreed voluntary severance arrangements introduced in June, 1969, and the introduction from the same date of improved pensions and a lower retirement age, and also of the terms of the Enclosed Docks employers' offer, to which I have already referred, I would urge the union to reconsider its attitude and, without waiting further on the conclusion of the Stage II Devlin negotiations, to lift the ban—in the interests of the country, the port and the men themselves.
I am seeking an early meeting with Mr. Victor Feather, of the T.U.C., and Mr. Jack Jones, of the T. & G.W.U. to discuss the serious position which has now arisen.
Mr. Peter Walker: Does the First Secretary of State agree that the announcements made yesterday are not only disastrous because of the adverse effect which this will have on British exports but will also have an appallingly long-term adverse effect on the whole future of the transport industry? The fact that after eight months' notice of this terminal being closed agreements freely entered into are not being able to operate and there is still no agreement made will
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mean that our European competitors for container transport will obtain a great advantage.
Does the right hon. Lady recognise, also, that we on this side support her in urging the union quickly to decide to treat the Stage II Devlin negotiations and the agreement already freely entered into on the terminal as completely separate agreements? As, for eight months, nothing has happened, on reflection does not the right hon. Lady consider that her Ministry could have done something during the past eight months to have avoided this position being reached?
We wish her every success in her talks with Mr. Vic Feather and Mr. Jack Jones, but ask her not to hesitate to call a court of inquiry if that will assist to bring about a quick settlement.
Mrs. Castle: It is because I appreciate the far-reaching implications of this situation and the dangers to our modern port developments that I have made this statement this afternoon. I hope that the whole House will join me in urging the separation of the Tilbury arrangements from the negotiations covering the rest of the docks. My Department has taken every possible step, and will continue to take every possible step, which we think will help to secure a solution to this problem.
Mr. Marsh: Without wishing to underestimate the seriousness of the situation, may I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm that there are 13 container berths in Tilbury and that 11 of them are operating as efficiently as any anywhere in the world? Does not part of the problem in the rest of the London docks arise from the multiplicity of employers within the docks, which makes the Opposition's objection to the part of the Ports Bill which is designed to cut down the number of employers quite inexplicable?
Mrs. Castle: It is true that certain modern facilities were brought into operation before the ban was imposed. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that the one-employer principle, which he worked so hard to attempt to secure, is vital for the future success of the docks.
Dr. Winstanley: I regret the necessity for this action, but agree that it is the right action now to take. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the underlying

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trouble is, not so much money, but insecurity? Whilst recognising the protection afforded by the Dock Labour Scheme, will the right hon. Lady do everything she can to allay the fears of these people, which have been aroused, not so much by this situation, as by the way in which they were treated in the past, so that we can move to a more permanent satisfactory solution?
Mrs. Castle: I agree that it is a sense of insecurity which is playing a very big part. The tragedy is that the very ban which is being used as a weapon against insecurity is threatening jobs in the future. Steps have been taken to correct the errors of the past, as I pointed out in my statement, by the voluntary serverance scheme, by the improved pension scheme, by the lowering of the retirement age, and by the continuation of the protection of the docks labour scheme. Everything possible is being done. It is now for the men themselves to safeguard their future by allowing this fine modern terminal to work.
Mr. Delargy: May I, as the Member of Parliament which includes Tilbury, welcome my right hon. Friend's appreciation of the fact that the opposition of the dockers is based almost wholly on their anxieties about redundancy? Could the Government do more to allay these anxieties than they have done already? Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although I am very pleased indeed that she is seeking an early meeting with Mr. Victor Feather and Mr. Jack Jones, I should have been even more pleased if she had said that she was treating such a meeting as a matter of immediate urgency in the interests, as she says, of the country, of the port, and of the men at Tilbury?
Mrs. Castle: I am hoping to have the meeting tonight. I stand ready to have it in the next five minutes, except that I must give time for the other persons concerned to respond to my request and make themselves available. I do not think that we have lost any time.
On the question of improvements in the security of the men, I know that my hon. Friend fully understands the position in the docks. He knows full well that dockers enjoy unique protection against compulsory redundancy, because no employer can discharge a man without
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the approval of the Dock Labour Board. My hon. Friend also knows that payments substantially in excess of normal redundancy pay—in some cases up to nearly £2,000 per man—are available under the severance scheme. Therefore, a great deal has been done. We must now plead with the dockers to drop the defensive attitudes which are endangering their own future.
Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Was it not to avoid a situation such as this that the T.U.C. gave solemn and binding undertakings some time ago? What action have Mr. Feather and his colleagues taken over the last few months to persuade the men at Tilbury to avoid cutting their own throats by these Luddite activities? Is the right hon. Lady aware of the great tragedy it will be if this terminal goes overseas? Has any consideration been given to O.C.L. setting up headquarters in any other part of the United Kingdom?
Mrs. Castle: This situation is quite different from that with which the Tory Government were proposing to deal in their legislation. This is a question of getting acceptance on a new forward-looking agreement. This afternoon we should concentrate on trying to get a change of attitude, instead of hectoring and lecturing men who have the same interest as we have—to see that our ports flourish.
Mr. Michael Heseltine: If the one-employer principle is so vital to good organisation in London, why is it that the trade which London is now losing is going to ports which believe in a multiplicity of labour organisers?
Mrs. Castle: I am not convinced that the hon. Gentleman understands the position. Does he understand, for example, the advantages that flow in the form of more efficient practices where the one-employer principle operates? For example, at the Olsen berth, as a result of the one-employer principle being in operation, there can be complete inter-changeability between quay labour and ship labour, as anybody who knows anything about the docks will understand.
Mr. Mikardo: Has my right hon. Friend found her task in resolving this complex problem made easier by the extent to which some right hon. and hon.

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Members opposite have sought to make party and anti-union propaganda out of this situation?
Mrs. Castle: I agree with my hon. Friend that on occasions when the House is discussing matters of sensitive industrial relations and very delicate problems of changing human attitudes hon. Members opposite are not very constructive in their approach.

OVERSEAS AID (FUTURE PROGRAMME)
The Minister of Overseas Development (Mrs. Judith Hart): With the permission of the House, I would like to make a statement on the future programme for overseas aid.
The House will know that the Second United Nations Development Decade begins in January, 1971. Its purpose will be to help the developing world to achieve a faster rate of economic growth so that it may begin to have a fairer share of the growing wealth of the world. It is an objective supported in all parts of the House.
The Government believe it to be of great importance that, as a major donor country, with a high reputation for the quality and organisation and size of its aid programme, we should play our full part in this new development effort. Despite our economic difficulties, we have succeeded in maintaining official aid to the less developed countries at a high level during the life of this Government and we have greatly improved the terms of our aid in particular in the provision of interest-free loans.
We have now examined our programme for the first three years of the Decade, and our purpose for the whole of the Decade in relation to the new target of 1 per cent. of gross national product set by the Second U.N.C.T.A.D. conference and the particular recommendation of the Pearson Commission concerning this.
Last February, our White Paper on Public Expenditure gave estimates of £227 million for 1969–70 and of £235 million for 1970–71 for the total aid programme. Excluding the likely defence element in Britain's special aid to Singapore and Malaysia, this gives figures for
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economic aid of about £219 million for 1969–70 and about £227 million for 1970–71.
The Government have now decided that in 1971–72 all economic aid will be consolidated into one official aid programme, and this will be increased from £227 million to £245 million, an increase of about £18 million. In 1972–73, it will be further increased to £265 million, an increase for the year of £20 million. In 1973–74, the last year of the present Public Expenditure Survey, the programme will accelerate by a further increase of £35 million to £300 million.
These figures, together with the defence element in our special aid to which I have referred, will produce total figures of £270 million for 1972–73 and £305 million for 1973–74, which will appear in the White Paper on Public Expenditure. These figures are in cash terms throughout and relate to gross disbursements.
These, then, are our decisions about the official aid programme up to 1973–74. This is the element of total financial flows from Britain for this period which the Government can determine and about which they can give a commitment. But private flows—that is, private investment and guaranteed export credits—are the second element in total flow, as it is reckoned in terms of the 1 per cent. G.N.P. target. Net private flows, as well as net official flows, count towards the target.
The volume of private flows is not determined by the Government, although it is influenced by Government policies. Their future level is difficult to predict, and one can make varying estimates of the possible course of private flows during the 1970s. Taking a high estimate for private flows, we could expect to reach the 1 per cent. target not much after the date of 1975 recommended by the Pearson Commission.
We recognise the element of uncertainty which is bound to attach to estimates of private flows six years' hence. So we shall keep the progress of both official and private flows under review. In any case, the Government intend, unless our balance of payments position should preclude it, to reach the target of 1 per cent. total flow not a moment later than the end of the Second Development Decade.

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We seek the end of poverty wherever we find it—whether in the Britain we live in or the world we live in. [Laughter.] I should be sorry if any hon. Members found this a subject for any sort of amusement.
Hunger and disease recognise no national frontiers. No Government has a finer record than ours in the drive to end poverty—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] No Government has a finer record than ours in the drive to end poverty at home. In a renewed and strengthened international drive to end world poverty, I believe that our new aid programme can make a vital and effective contribution.
I thought it right to make this statement today, in view of the debate tomorrow. No doubt, a number of questions arising from it can be considered in the debate.
Mr. Braine: We shall, of course, debate the figures tomorrow, but we note that they are in cash terms and relate to gross disbursements, taking no account of capital repayments or likely movements in prices. Would it not have been much fairer, more honest and more realistic to express the figures in real terms? Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the figures mean that the Government feel unable to accept the Pearson recommendation that official aid should reach a level of 0·7 per cent. of G.N.P. by 1975?
Mrs. Hart: The hon. Gentleman will accept that, as we roll forward in our planning of public expenditure programmes, we shall move towards the later years of the 1970s. What I have said today relates to 1973–74 as the final date, covering the dates up to which our forward-rolling public expenditure programmes relate. That is what will be covered in the forthcoming White Paper. We shall wish to keep under review both official and private flows, and we shall very much have in mind the percentage of G.N.P. which official flows are then reaching.
As for the 0·7 per cent. target itself, the hon. Gentleman will recognise that it is at present a recommendation of the Pearson Commission, which will be the subject of a great deal of international discussion in which we shall engage ourselves in the coming year. What I have
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said relates to the prime Pearson target of 1 per cent. total flow.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that we have heavy business ahead.
Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Lady said that the net flow of private investment to developing countries was not subject to ultimate control by the Government. Does she recognise that the hostility of Governments in such countries as India and Zambia to private British investment is harmful to the development of those countries? What representations is she making to such countries, as the taxpayers of this country ought not to be asked to subsidise the political instincts of their Governments?
Mrs. Hart: This is a complex question, as I am fully aware. I thought that it was necessary to make the statement today, in view of the debate tomorrow. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be glad to discuss that matter during the debate.
Mr. Barnes: Will my right hon. Friend agree that the rate of increase which she has announced may mean that we shall not have achieved the Pearson target for official aid by as late as 1980? As the share of exports which Britain receives from all the aid which donor countries give is almost twice the share of the aid which we provide, does she not consider that quicker movement on our part towards the 0·7 per cent. target could be achieved without imposing any great burden upon us?
Mrs. Hart: I do not know how my hon. Friend measures fast movement. On the basis of the figures which I have announced, the rate of increase in official flow by the last year will be over 13 per cent., a very high rate of increase. Moreover, my hon. Friend would be wrong to assume that among the Pearson Commission targets—the Commission made many recommendations—the 0·7 per cent. target will not be in our mind. It certainly will. As I have said, we shall be discussing it in our international negotiations and reflections on Pearson over the coming year. What I have stated is that we are guaranteeing to reach the total 1 per cent. target, and we shall keep both kinds of flow very much in mind in order to do that.
Sir G. Sinclair: In view of the continuing decline since 1964 of official aid as percentage of our gross national product, does not the Minister consider her statement extremely disappointing? If, on the basis of that performance, she is relying largely on the private sector to make up for failures to allocate Government funds, what does she intend to do about encouraging private investment overseas, either by insurance or by tax proposals?
Mrs. Hart: I recognise the hon. Gentleman's deep concern about these matters —he is well known for it—but I put this to him. If he thinks that, after all our balance of payments difficulties in the last two or three years, to achieve a rate of increase in official flows by 1973–74 of over 13 per cent., taking the whole economic aid programme up to £300 million, is disappointing, I can only say that his view will not be shared by the developing countries or by the other major donor countries with which we shall discuss these matters.
Mr. Prentice: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the figures which she has announced are not consistent with reaching the 0·7 per cent. Pearson target by 1975 or, indeed, projected forward, consistent with reaching it by 1980? Will she accept—and will she persuade the Cabinet to accept, which is more to the point—that those of us who want to see a proper British effort in this direction will not now be satisfied with anything less than the Pearson targets? In view of the improvement in our economic situation, we could and should afford to do that and announce that we shall.
Mrs. Hart: My right hon. Friend, who has been very much engaged in these matters as my predecessor, will recognise that the context of this decision has moved forward considerably from the point at which he left it. Equally, I think that he will recognise that the Pearson Commission target relates to 1 per cent. total flow and 0·7 per cent. official flow, and, in relation to that, 1980 is the latest date at which Pearson hopes that people will move towards it.
My right hon. Friend will also recognise, as will the House, that, in planning
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public expenditure, one pushes it forward over a planned period, and, as we move on in later years, we shall begin to look at 1974–75 and beyond—indeed, we should be looking at 1974–75 next year —and in relation to that we can then pursue the question of a further rate of increase beyond 1973–74.
Mr. Blenkinsop: Does not my right hon. Friend acknowledge that France is already achieving the target set by the Pearson Commission, and that West Germany has made clear its determination to reach it? Is it not unsatisfactory that we are not clearly accepting the target?
Mrs. Hart: West Germany has a particular factor of a very large private flow, and there are many circumstances affecting other countries. Having had a period when we could not increase the aid programme as rapidly as we would have wanted, because of our balance of payments difficulties, we are now pulling it up and reaching a considerable rate of increase over the next three or four years.
Mr. John Hall: Will the right hon. Lady remind the House of the percentage of the gross national product represented by Government aid now, and say what the percentage will be in 1973–74 of the then estimated gross national product?
Mrs. Hart: I cannot give a precise answer, because we do not have precise figures about G.N.P. in future years, though we make some assumptions about its growth. I can tell the hon. Gentleman, in answer to the first part of his question, that we now stand, as I have said in answer to questions, at about 0·4 per cent. in official flow.
Mr. Pardoe: Can the right hon. Lady confirm that net British aid, after capital repayments and interest payments, has fallen by an average of 3 per cent. since 1961 and that her statement means that it will continue to fall at that rate in the years covered by her statement?
Mrs. Hart: No, Sir. Certainly not. I do not agree with that at all.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We shall debate this tomorrow.

TEN-MINUTE RULE BILLS (NOTICES OF MOTION)
Mr. Parker: On a point of order. Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. Member who arrived first at the Public Bill Office today put in 70 Ten-Minute Rule Bills, thus taking all the possible available time until December, 1970, if the Session lasts that long?
Hon. Members: Oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We are on a serious issue.
Mr. Parker: What action can be taken to remedy this outrageous abuse of our procedure?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having given me notice this morning, when he came to see me in company with a number of his colleagues, that he intended to raise as a point of order the practice in the Public Bill Office governing the giving of notice for Motions for leave to bring in Bills under the Ten-Minute Rule.
As the House knows, applications for the right to introduce Bills under the Ten-Minute Rule on future dates were made at 10 o'clock this morning at the Public Bill Office. I have been informed that one hon. Member, the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), arrived at a somewhat earlier hour than his fellow Members, and, when the office opened, put his name down for a future date together with the names of 70 other Members who had requested him to act for them for future dates.
In consequence, Members who had also arrived very early, and who next sought to set their names down for future dates, found that under the rules of the House there was little opportunity left for them through the whole of the Session.
I know that it is often the practice of Members in tabling Motions and dealing generally with the business of the House, to hand in not only their own names, but those of their fellow Members, and under the rules of the House as they stand there is nothing in the letter of the law with which the hon. Member for Tiverton has not complied. Whether he has observed the spirit of the law is a matter
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which I can leave only to the determination of the House. Mr. Speaker has no power to vary at his own discretion the rules which the House has laid down.
All that I can rule now, therefore, is that the present procedure for receiving notice of Motions for Ten-Minute Rule Bills was observed. It is for the House, not Mr. Speaker, to change the rules if that course would seem desirable.
Mr. MacDermot: On a point of order. As one who was present this morning, Mr. Speaker, may I with the greatest respect submit that you have been misinformed on a material point about what took place.
Before coming to that, may I, on the mere legal question of the construction of Standing Orders, ask whether you have considered the wording of Standing Order No. 5(8), as well as the wording of Standing Order No. 13. Standing Order No. 13 is extremely vague and does not indicate, because the passive tense is used, which hon. Member should hand in the notice of Motion. But in my submission Standing Order No. 5(8) is worded in such a way as to carry with it the necessary implication that the notice of Motion to the Public Bill Office must be handed in by the hon. Member who is seeking the leave of the House. If you have not had time to consider that point, Mr. Speaker, may I respectfully ask that you might consider it further.
May I turn now to the question of what actually took place. You said a moment ago, Mr. Speaker, that you had been informed that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said that the hon. Members in whose names he was purporting to hand in notices of Motion had requested him to put in their names. The hon. Gentleman, as we would expect of him, was very frank, and when we raised this question in the presence of the Clerk of Public Bills he conceded that only one of the 70 Members had personally requested him to do so, and he named that hon. Member. He added that some other hon. Members had signed the piece of paper which he handed in. It transpired later that they number three out of the 70. I think that another hon. Member present in the room who had in previous conversation protested against the proposed conduct himself hurriedly added his name to the piece of paper.

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The matter did not end there. Another hon. Member who was present had said to a number of others before the Clerk of Public Bills came in that he was unaware that his name was on the list of names to be handed in by the hon. Member for Tiverton, and said that he had not given authority to anyone for the hon. Member for Tiverton to do so. When I repeated this to the Clerk of Public Bills there was no denial that that had been stated. Another hon. Member whose name was among the—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman will make his point briefly.
Mr. MacDermot: I appreciate the lateness of the hour, Mr. Speaker, and that is why I am trying to state these facts as briefly as I can.
As I have said, I submit, with respect, that you have been misinformed, Mr. Speaker, and I conceive it my duty to lay what I believe to be the true facts before you and the House as quickly as possible.
Another hon. Member whose name is on the list informed a number of us that he had given authority to three of his hon. Friends to hand in a Motion in his name, but that the hon. Member for Tiverton was not one of those three. You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that an agent has no power to authorise another agent; he cannot pass on the agency. So none of those three hon. Members was able to authorise the hon. Member for Tiverton to act for that hon. Member.
A number of hon. Members who arrived shortly before 10 o'clock and whose names were on the list were patently unaware that their names were on the list of the hon. Member for Tiverton, and said so. When the attention of the Clerk of Public Bills was drawn to this matter, he said that he could not question the honesty of the hon. Member for Tiverton, but that the hon. Member had stated himself that he did not consider that in any way would his honesty be impugned if the Clerk ruled against him on the admitted fact which I have stated.
In my respectful submission, this did not amount to the position you were apparently informed about—namely, that the hon. Member stated that these other hon. Members had requested him to act on their behalf. I suggest that this matter
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needs very more thorough investigation and that it would be quite wrong to allow the whole of private Members' time until next December to be pre-empted on the basis of transactions such as this.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) for giving me notice that he intended to raise this matter.
First of all, I intended to queue myself through the night in order to secure a favourable position for the Bill I have given notice of. I then inquired of the Public Bill Office whether I could as well give notice on behalf of other hon. Members to save them the ordeal of sitting through the night—an ordeal which no other hon. Members availed themselves of—and was informed that I could give notice for any other hon. Members wishing to give notice of Bills and that there was no limit on the number. That is the quite specific answer I got to a quite specific question put to the quite specific authority for ruling on these matters.
I did then queue throughout the night without any other hon. Member, from either the Government benches or the Liberal bench, being present.
Mr. Roebuck: The hon. Gentleman should get married.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have asked for brevity. The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) must now come to 10 o'clock this morning.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I did not quite catch that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I asked the hon. Gentleman to come to the question of what happened at 10 o'clock this morning.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: It was not until after 8 o'clock this morning that any hon. Member from the Government or Liberal benches put in an appearance. When 10 o'clock came, I handed in, first, my own Bill, and gave notice of it, and then a considerable number of Bills in the names of hon. Friends who wished notice to be given of their intention. Without exception, they had either given the Bills to me themselves or the Bills had been given to me with concrete assurances that it was their wish.
It was at that point that there was a certain amount of discussion with the

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Clerk of Public Bills, because the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North raised the question whether a commission or request to give in a notice can, as it were, be sub-contracted. I did indeed say that, if the Clerk ruled against me, so be it. The hon. and learned Gentleman has half reported a number of conversations, but without naming their originators, some of whom are present, so that they cannot speak for themselves as to whether his report is accurate.
Mr. Speaker: Order. There are important debates ahead. I have asked both sides in this controversy to speak briefly.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: In view of your appeal for brevity, Mr. Speaker, if you wish I shall not continue answering specific points raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman, but will merely conclude by saying that it was a case where the early bird got the worm and that the frustration of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who preferred to spend the night in bed, is understandable in the circumstances rather than commendable.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): I hope to save the time of the House. I take the view of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) that this matter should be investigated. The Select Committee on Procedure is being set up and will be available. I believe that this matter should be examined by that Committee.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that I have ruled that what happened conformed with the letter of the law. Whether it conformed with the spirit of the law is a matter for the House. The hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) submitted further legal arguments to me. I have looked at Standing Order No. 5(8). It does not deny the interpretation which the Clerk placed on it.
Mr. C. Pannell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is nothing in the Standing Order that deals with the extraordinary situation that arises when this House has a "nut case" on its hands. Last Friday, we were discussing whether
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there was decreasing esteem for this place. I want to charge you that you must protect the House against this sort of thing. With great respect, it is not so much a matter of the decision you gave on the best knowledge available to you up to the time my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) spoke, but the fact that, that statement having been made by an hon. Member, we all expect to be believed.
In such circumstances, you must surely look again at this. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I have rather more respect for the Chair than most people. I am not speaking in the imperative sense to Mr. Speaker in person. I am speaking in the imperative inasmuch as, the argument having been put, Mr. Speaker, as the servant of the House, is under an obligation to the House.
Our procedure will be made a laughing stock for another year. What the Leader of the House says is no good at all. What we are saying, with great respect, is that if your Ruling stands, Mr. Speaker, we must bow to it, but the Leader of the House has a flat duty to put a Motion on the Order Paper today.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has answered his own earlier point of order. The Chair can only rule whether something is in order. I said much earlier that if what has happened does not conform to the spirit of the Standing Order, it is for the House to determine what it should do.
Dr. Winstanley: Has it been brought to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that it has been widely stated, as a justification for this disreputable act, that Liberal hon. Members had decided to act similarly? May I, on this point of order, say that, while this suggestion was made outside the House by someone unconnected with the House, it was utterly and unanimously rejected by the Parliamentary Liberal Party as being improper, a gross interference with private Member's business and an action more characteristic of Conservative hon. Members than of Liberals—
Mr. Speaker: Order—
Dr. Winstanley: My point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Speaker: Briefly, please.
Dr. Winstanley: Since this position will now clearly lead to retaliatory action, which could bring the House into disrepute, is there nothing that you can do, Mr. Speaker, to restore the position?
Mr. Speaker: On the first issue, I have no indication of what goes on in the minds of Liberals, or Conservatives, or Socialists at all. On the second point, the fact remains that if things remain as they are all the time for Ten-Minute Rule Bills for the whole of this year and all of next year, I believe, to Christmas, will have been preempted—
Mr. Mendelson: What does the Leader of the Opposition think?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Whether the House itself will take action to alter that in some sort of way is a matter for the House, but the hon. Member is right to say that action of this kind might automatically lead to retaliatory action of some kind or other.
Mr. William Hamilton: May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? You have given a Ruling based on information which you have received, presumably from the Clerk of the House and from the Clerk in the Public Bill Office. Some of us disagree with that Ruling and we can presumably take necessary action by a Motion on the Paper. Presumably, also, the Leader of the House can take action. He will know very well that the Procedure Committee recommended that Ten-Minute Rule Bills be taken at the end of the day's proceedings. That might be a fruitful field for his researches.
But has the fact been drawn to your attention, Sir, that an Opposition Whip was involved in the exercise this morning, so presumably the Opposition as a whole were involved? Unless the Leader of the Opposition gets up and denies specifically all knowledge of it, we must assume that the Opposition as a whole were involved in what is essentially a private Member's exercise.
This is a very serious matter. It is bound to lead to retaliatory action. I am inclined to congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-
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Hyslop), as I am sorry that I did not think of it first. But there will come a time, no doubt. Retaliatory action can be taken in this and other fields—[HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Yes. In the meantime, it is quite clear that, whatever the letter of the law might be, whatever the letter of the Standing Order might be, there has been a serious infringement of its spirit. The House should take serious note of that.
Perhaps I could suggest to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that he now freezes the position as it is until such time as he and the House alter Standing Orders to ensure that this time is not pre-empted until December, 1970, or whenever it is, that we start from the beginning again, and that the Standing Order is so amended as to prevent an hon. Member from presenting a Bill for anyone other than himself.
I doubt very much whether the Clerk in the Public Bill Office has the authority to accept the oral word of one hon. Member that he is speaking on behalf of another 70. There is very strong prima facie evidence that he was doing nothing of the kind. There is a conflict of evidence here. It is no good Mr. Speaker or the Clerks or anyone else saying that this or that is their interpretation of the Standing Orders. We are sovereign. We shall decide, by Motion or otherwise, what the interpretation of these Standing Orders is. If there is an abuse of them, the remedy stands in our own hands.
Mr. Speaker: The remedy stands, if there is an abuse of the Standing Order, in changing the Standing Order to make what the hon. Member alleges to be an abuse impossible. But the administering of the rules of the House is in the hands of the Chair until those rules are changed.
On the earlier part of the hon. Member's question, Mr. Speaker was aware of all the facts which have emerged during this discussion, including what the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) told the House this afternoon. These things were told to me when a group of Members of Parliament brought their complaint to me this morning. I hope that we can now get on—
Hon. Members: No.
Mr. Speaker: Order. This problem will not be solved this afternoon—[HON. MEMBERS: "It must be."]—inside the House. All that the Chair can rule is on the matter of order, and that I have already done.
Mr. Iremonger: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker). I personally arrived at the House at a quarter to six this morning and handed to my hon. Friend my own signed Bill and he handed it in for me. Therefore, it is quite wrong for his integrity to be impugned by hon. Members opposite—
Hon. Members: Oh…
Mr. Speaker: Order. Things are difficult enough as it is. No one has impugned anyone's integrity.
Mr. Darling: May I ask, on this unfortunate episode, whether you would have authority, Mr. Speaker, to give precedence to Bills which are presented to the House under Standing Order No. 37, so that the Bills which have been put down, rightly or wrongly, by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) would not be taken on the days for which they have been put down?
Mr. Speaker: I will certainly look into that.
Dame Irene Ward: I have been a member of the Select Committee on Procedure for very many years and I have been aware of the Standing Order which governs the handing in of Private Members' Bills under the Ten-Minute Rule. I also had a Bill which I hope will be taken in the House, in due course, because I have asked for it and I think that I have a right to do it.
The point is, as I know perfectly well, that the situation is unsatisfactory: the whole House and you, Mr. Speaker, will agree with that. But the House is very much indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell Hyslop), because, by his activities and his honourable dealings in this House— [Laughter.] It is no good anyone laughing: I am prepared to stand here until the House rises unless I am allowed to have my say.
I was saying that I think that the House is indebted to my hon. Friend, because, as he is an hon. Member of this
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House and always acts in an honourable way, he has, by his action, drawn the attention of the House to the need for a reform of this Standing Order. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for having done that. When people come to look at the history of these times, it will be a great pity if they think that this House, in these difficult days, could not take a victory in the way in which it has been achieved.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Orme: On a point of order.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Tiverton will appreciate the compliment which the hon. Lady has paid to him.
Mr. John Mendelson: There are only two brief points to which, in my submission, you have not yet replied, Mr. Speaker. One was the material point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) when he asked you, Mr. Speaker, whether in considering this matter, not only now, but ever since it was brought to your notice earlier in the day, you had been aware that, as we have now heard from the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) himself, not all hon. Members gave their names to him directly but that there was an intermediate agent, who I understand to be one of the official Opposition Whips, namely, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More).
Mr. Speaker: Order. With respect, I have already dealt with that point. I have told the House that the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) informed me this morning, as he informed me this afternoon, of the very point which the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) has made and I said that that did not affect my Ruling.
Mr. Mendelson: My second point concerns the advice which you, Mr. Speaker, have given the House that the way in which to deal with this situation is to change the Standing Orders. This leaves the House in a most unsatisfactory situation. It is the job of all hon. Members to protect the standing of the House in the country. I say this without any unfriendliness towards the hon. Gentleman

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concerned, as he well knows, but surely it is not possible to say that only one party will from now on have the right to submit Private Members' Bills and to defend that in the country.
I therefore invite the Leader of the Opposition, who often addresses the House on the dignity and standing of Parliament—and I put the same question to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—whether he can combine it with his responsibility to leave us for the next 12 months as a laughing stock in the country and allow people to think that the House of Commons cannot conduct its affairs in a manner in which a stamp collecting society would be able to conduct its affairs.
This is not a matter for retaliation; that would be the worst possible way out. Neither side of the House should be childish about it. An escapade has been originated by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). He has had his laugh, but now it is for the leaders of the main parties to get together and to ask him to abandon this nonsense and to start de novo. This would be in accordance with the dignity of the House.
Mr. Speaker: The House will have noted with interest the words which the hon. Gentleman has addressed to it.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a lot of business ahead of us.
Mr. Turton: Is not what is happening now becoming an abuse of the procedure of the House? The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), quite properly, asked you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. You gave your Ruling and subsequent questions either must be aimed at challenging that Ruling or directed to the Leader of the House to take control of the situation. It would be better to leave this matter until a later date, when the Leader of the House can make his own suggestions and, I hope, arrange a debate on this matter.
Mr. Peart: I would have hoped that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) would withdraw. The Leader of the Opposition could use his influence in that direction. On the other hand, I said that there should be a further investigation. I agreed with my hon.
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and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot). Although my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) holds a different view, I believe that this problem should be the first business of the Select Committee on Procedure, which will be set up tomorrow.
Mr. Heath: I rise formally to support what the Leader of the House has said—that this matter should be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure. I well recall the early days of the 1951 Parliament when a group of hon. Members below the Gangway who were then in opposition, led by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) and ably supported by the then hon. Member for Hornchurch and the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo), who is still with us, organised Ten-Minute Rule Bills for their own party purposes by putting down sufficient Bills on one day to preclude all other Government business.
We readily agreed that we were outwitted and the matter was referred to the Select Committee on Procedure, as a result of which the rule was made that not more than one Ten-Minute Rule Bill could be put down on one day.
Perhaps hon. Gentlemen opposite and those on the Liberal benches will now admit that they have been outwitted on this occasion. You, Mr. Speaker, knowing all the facts, have said that nothing out of order has been done. I am sorry if hon. Members opposite cannot admit that they have been outwitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). I agree with the Leader of the House that this matter should be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure. I am confident that we can find a solution to this problem.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the House has said that this matter should be considered by the Select Committee on Procedure. I have listened to a wide cross-section of views on all the issues which have been raised. I must move to the next business.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Ian Lloyd. A point of order.

TILBURY DOCKS (CONTAINER BERTHS)
Mr. Ian Lloyd: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the consequences of the decision by the Tilbury dockers to maintain their ban on the handling of containers."
You, Mr. Speaker, require evidence that this matter is specific, important and urgent—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Motions under Standing Order No. 9 are important.
Mr. Lloyd: —and, moreover, that it falls within the scope of Ministerial action.
This is a specific decision by a specific group of dockers not to use specified container handling techniques. The location is specific: it is in Tilbury. Moreover, this decision will create—and perhaps this is more important—the first specific instance within my knowledge of a new and massively damaging type of artificial industrial obsolescence.
The matter is important because the maritime transport industries of this country have recently invested well in excess of £100 million to adapt themselves to what is possibly the most serious challenge which they have faced in a century. They have done this to re-establish a British lead in a sphere in which Britain still has a lead. They have done it to continue the contribution which these industries make to our balance of payments in time of peace and to our survival in war.
It is important not merely because a substantial proportion of this national investment—and it is a national investment—has been sterilised for at least two years by this action, the real question is whether this country, perilously dependent on the proper deployment of its national resources, can tolerate a precedent of this kind succeeding. If it succeeds, the whole range of technical innovation, not merely in the docks, will be placed at the mercy of new, self-appointed apostles of obstruction.
Mr. Speaker: Order. With respect, the hon. Gentleman must not discuss the
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merits of what he will discuss if his application is successful.
Mr. Lloyd: I was merely emphasising that, if these decisions are allowed to succeed, a specific group of individuals, olympian in their disregard of the national interest, in their scorn of industrial negotiations, can destroy national institutions.
Mr. John Lee: On a point of order—
Mr. Speaker: It is not usual to have a point of order during a Standing Order No. 9 application.
Mr. Lee: With respect, Mr. Speaker, you have already told the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) that he should not argue the merits of this case. Surely he is indulging in polemics which have nothing to do with his case.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker is endeavouring to see that when an hon. Member makes a submission under Standing Order No. 9 he makes it properly.
Mr. Lloyd: To continue the specific points—
Hon. Members: No.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must hear the specific point before I know whether or not it is in order.
Mr. Lloyd: It is a specific fact that this type of decision and obstruction is taken by this type of individual—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is asking leave that we may break into the debate of the House set out m the Order Paper. If he succeeds in obtaining leave, he may make the point he has made and many others. For the moment, he has to convince the House and the Chair that his application is a justifiable one.
Mr. Lloyd: I shall move immediately to the question of importance. This situation has presented a direct and formidable challenge to the Government— [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Member is reading."]—whose responsibility it is to ensure—
Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members who are jealous of their own rights under Standing Order No. 9 and attack free speech must accord it to others.
Mr. Delargy: On a point of order. I respect the rights of hon. Members as well as anyone else, but the hon. Member has read every single word.
Mr. Speaker: It is not unknown in this House, although it is always discouraged, for hon. Members to read every word of what they say.
Mr. John Mendelson: Further to that point of order. Under Standing Order No. 9, as you rightly say, Mr. Speaker, we must all observe each other's rights, but if an hon. Member wishes to blacken the reputation of a group of men and makes use of Standing Order No. 9 procedure purely for that purpose, having written his imputations against a group of workmen before he submits his Standing Order application, he is abusing the Orders of the House.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has expressed his opinion.
Mr. Lloyd: Hon. Members may or may not read some of their speeches, but I defy them to read a speech which is in note form.
It is the duty of Governments to preserve the legitimate and constitutional processes of this country. These have been frustrated by dark and devious threats
Hon. Members: Order.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker is grateful to hon. Gentlemen for helping him. The hon. Gentleman must observe the method of applying under Standing Order No. 9. He has heard many applications submitted to the House. He cannot make the speech that he will make if he obtains his application under Standing Order No. 9.
Mr. Lloyd: I will now turn to the urgency of this matter. It is urgent because it is costing the country a minimum of £14,000 a day. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would willingly like to have £14,000 to spend either on their schools or on teachers' salaries.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not interrupt his own submission.
Mr. Lloyd: It is urgent because immediate action, and nothing but immediate action, may prevent the loss of the
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total United Kingdom—Australian trade to Antwerp. I submit that this is a question of considerable importance. Nothing in my submission is more urgent than a direct and contemptuous challenge to the whole apparatus and procedure whereby progress and industrial agreement are achieved in this country.
Mr. Faulds: On a point of order.
Mr. Speaker: The Chair is grateful, but the Chair can manage. The hon. Gentleman must not digress into the merits. We are not debating Tilbury. The hon. Gentleman is asking Mr. Speaker to allow him to suspend the business of the day so that he might debate it.
Mr. Faulds: On a point of order. If the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Lang-stone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) would be so good as to hand me his script I will promise to prompt him rather better than he is reading it.
Mr. Speaker: That is a foolish attempt at a point of order.
Mr. Lloyd: On the final question of responsibility, it is my submission that this is quite definitely within the responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who is not here. It is within his responsibility because this matter affects the whole country, every family in the country. It is within his responsibility because, for the last two years, the authority of every Department of the State has been diminished by these actions.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is clean out of order now.
Mr. Lloyd: Without wishing in any way discourteously to anticipate your decision, Mr. Speaker, if the matter which I have raised this afternoon is not a matter specific, urgent and important, then the English language has lost some of its meaning, and the appropriate comment on Parliament is that of a requiem mass.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Whatever the noise is doing, it is not defending the English language.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) was courteous enough to inform me that he might seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House today.

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The hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the consequences of the Tilbury dockers' decision to maintain their ban on the handling of containers".
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 9 I am directed to take into account the several factors set out in the Standing Order, but to give no reasons for my decision.
I have given careful consideration to the representations of the hon. Member and to all that happened previously on this matter this afternoon, but I have to rule that the hon. Gentleman's submission does not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order, and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.
Mr. Maclennan Mr. Maclennan rose—
Mr. Speaker: I am not prepared to take further points of order on an issue which I have already ruled several times.
Mr. Wellbeloved: We are in some difficulty, Mr. Speaker. We accept your guidance on all matters, but this afternoon we have witnessed an unsual situation. First, in the opinion of many hon. Members on this side of the House, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd), who invoked Standing-Order No. 9, did so in a manner which we believe was an abuse of procedure. Secondly, could you advise me under what paragraphs of the Standing Orders of the procedure of the House you yourself, Sir, derive the power to refuse to listen to any other submissions on that particular matter?
Mr. Speaker: On the second matter, the power of the Speaker to refuse points of order on the same issue after he has ruled for a certain time is a power of long standing.
On the first point of order raised by the hon. Gentleman, I was aware that
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the hon. Member for Langstone was irregularly moving his application for Standing Order No. 9 and, with the help of some hon. Members in the House, I called his attention to the fact from time to time.
Mr. Maclennan Mr. Maclennan rose—
Mr. Speaker: I have told the hon. Gentleman that I cannot take a point of order on the issue which we have discussed already.
Mr. MacLennan: I respect your Ruling entirely, Mr. Speaker, but would ask you how hon. Members can be protected in a situation which has arisen when there appears to be a direct conflict of evidence about facts on which Mr. Speaker makes—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going back. He must take the matter up in some other way. There is no conflict of facts.
Mr. Maclennan Mr. Maclennan rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman himself is one of those who advised me on the facts of the case this morning. I know all about them. This is a matter for Parliament to resolve. It is not however to be solved by repeating points of order.
Mr. Maclennan Mr. Maclennan rose—
Mr. Doig Mr. Doig rose—
Mr. Speaker: I will take no further points of order on that issue. Hon. Gentlemen must resume their seats.
Mr. Roebuck: Mr. Speaker, you have referred to some facts which have been put before you. Is it possible for the rest of the House to have information about those facts, since many hon. Members know nothing about them?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is going back to the issue. The facts were placed before the House during the submissions.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [2ND ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

  £50 TRAVEL ALLOWANCE
  5.13 p.m.
  Mr. Reginald Maudling: I beg to move,
  That this House regrets the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to increase the £50 travel allowance.
  It has taken some time and a considerable journey to reach this subject. I am afraid that our time now available for debate will be very much truncated. Therefore, I will try to compress my remarks and make them as brief and concise as I can, since I know many hon. Members on both sides wish to take part.
  Our argument is that the present £50 travel allowance is absurd, unfair, humiliating and unjustified. It is absurd because it is the only remaining restriction virtually speaking on citizens of this country who want to spend their money on foreign goods and services. It is unfair because it is full of anomalies and falls in different ways on different individuals. It is humiliating because it means that the British traveller abroad is regarded either as a poor relation or as a wangler who gets round his own country's regulations. It is unjustified because the Government have never been able to produce any convincing figures at all to justify the continuation of the restriction.
  I have had some personal experience in this matter as a tourist, and I must declare an interest as chairman of a group of companies one of which is engaged in selling packaged holidays on a large scale to the broad public in this country. I have also twice in the Treasury been engaged in the business of trying to make the exchange control work. I therefore know a good deal from various points of view about the realities of the situation.
  We are not saying that there should be a total abolition of all exchange control. I hope that the time will come when that
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  can happen, but at the moment there clearly is a continuing need for control on capital movements. But the £50 allowance has nothing whatever to do with the control of capital movements. It is feasible, as the Chancellor will know, and as was the case before the £50 restriction came in, in practice to allow a total freedom of current expenditure on holidays without allowing loopholes to occur in the capital movement control. One could go back to the old system of £250 or more if people could justify that they wanted to spend it on a holiday and not as a subterfuge to get capital out of the country.
  We are not saying that there should now be complete abolition of exchange control, but a complete abolition of effective control of people in spending as much of their own money as they want to spend on holidays abroad. It is as simple as that.
  I come to my first point as to why the present restriction is absurd. It is quite ridiculous, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows it. There is no other limit at all in practical terms on what people can spend on foreign goods and services, all of which cost foreign exchange. When something is on open general licence the foreign exchange must be provided automatically. One can order anything one likes from any country in the world and get the money from one's bank.
  One can order a fleet of Mercedes 600s or fill a swimming pool with Bollinger, but one cannot spend more than £50 on visiting other countries. If one does, the Treasury will come down upon the individual and say that it is wrong, bad for the balance of payments and contrary to law. Apart from this one retricted area, everything else is free. Surely it is an absurd situation.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Not so.
  Mr. Maudling: Those are the facts, and they certainly throw up a nonsense. Let us take an extreme example. Suppose a right hon. Gentleman opposite was on a visit to Paris and his wife wanted to buy herself a dress. He would have to say, "I am sorry, I cannot provide you with the finance to buy the dress now, but you can ring your bank

  659
  in England, arrange for it to be imported there and then flown out on the next aircraft." That is perfectly legal and there is no objection to that at all. It is a foolish situation that the travel allowance is the only form of expenditure of foreign exchange by an individual that is now cut back by the law.
  It is also completely unfair. It is unfair because it affects the man who chooses to spend his money on holidays and travel rather than other things. It affects the man who prefers to spend his money on French scenery rather than on French wine because the one is limited and the other is not. The restriction is an advantage to those who prefer group travel, which often can be cheaper. But many people do not prefer group travel. They prefer to go round on their own, to see things for themselves and to decide their own holiday. Why should they be penalised?
  Then there are special concessions which give rise to anomalies. If one wants to go to see the World Cup football matches in Mexico one can take £150. But if one wants to see the remains of the Maya civilisation at Yucatan, one can take only £50. What is the rational and how could it be justified?
  What about people who have friends and relatives abroad. Such people can go and stay abroad with them. You can stay with your aunt in the South of France and she can then stay with you in England. So long as it is a spontaneous agreement there is no objection, but if it is a "compensation deal" it becomes criminal. How can this make any sense?
  I doubt whether even the Government understand some of the consequences of this restriction. I am sure that the public do not understand them. Suppose somebody wants to travel in America and Australia. If he goes direct to America he can take only £50, but if he goes to Australia he can take all the money he likes. I think I am right in saying that the Australian regulations allow a traveller to take about 3,000 dollars out of Australia to America. What is the British citizen to do in such circumstances?
  What about the position of coins? Is it not a fact that, although the law controls notes abroad, there is no law to deal
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  with the carrying of new 10s. pieces abroad. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman from experience, though not my personal experience, that casino chips, cashable in many places in France, are not currency and, therefore, are not subject to exchange control. That fact came out years ago when we tried to enforce exchange control in a particular case.
  All these are examples of the absurdity of the system which, to some extent, is inherent in any exchange control but which becomes really damaging because of the limit imposed at present. The subterfuges to which people resort arise because of the limit, which is totally unjustified.
  Then there is the fact, which must not be ignored, that it is a humiliation. Anyone who goes outside the sterling area and is in company with German, Belgian, Swedish, Finnish or Danish tourists—
  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): French?
  Mr. Maudling: I know that the French get only £70 at the moment, but I think that that is the only example of any substance which the Chief Secretary can quote.
  The British tourist abroad is regarded by people from many other countries as an object of sympathy. I find nothing more galling in this life than the sympathy of one's foreign friends. I do not like to have their sympathy, especially in this instance. Either they say that the poor British cannot afford what anyone else can afford, or they say that if a British tourist appears to be affording it, he must be getting round his Government's restrictions.
  No one will believe that the recovery of this country's balance of payments is soundly based so long as the Government maintain the control, quite contrary to the spirit of the International Monetary Fund and copied by so few other countries.
  My fourth point is that it is unjustified. The figures quoted by the Government when they refer to a £25 million saving on the balance of payments are not substantial figures. In the first place, there is the technical point that they are gross and not net. They take no account of the amount that people would spend at

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  home if they did not go abroad and the fact that a lot of it would go on imported goods.
  Secondly, they ignore the reflex effects of it. The Minister will find that people in the tourist and hotel industry will assure him categorically that the maintenance of our £50 restriction limits the willingness of travel agents in other countries to encourage people to come here. I hat cuts down our ability to expand tourism into this country, which I am glad to see is rising fast but which could rise much faster.
  Thirdly, the £50 limit leads to an artificial dislocation of investment in the tourist industry in that hotels are being built in the sterling area which may and the future very difficult when the limit is removed.
  The figures are wholly unreliable because they are based on a sample. They cannot be based on anything else. How does the Treasury know how much people spend when they go abroad? Anyone going to a country in the sterling area does not have to declare it and can take as much as he likes. Incidentally, the Government are inconsistent on this. When they talk about investment or defence expenditures, it is the United Kingdom balance of payments which matters. When they talk about the travel allowance, it is the sterling area balance of payments which matters. A lot of people who might spend £100 in France spend £500 in the Bahamas. Are the Government concerned about the United Kingdom or the sterling area balance?
  If a company wants to invest in Australia, very often it cannot do so. If a man wants to go to Australia for a holiday, he can do what he likes. That is another example of the absurdity arising from the present situation.
  Coming to the other half of the expenditure, which is expenditure outside the sterling area, how can the Government have reliable figures? It is common knowledge that this is a control which is widely evaded. From sampling techniques asking people questions, how can the Government expect to get accurate answers about what people are spending? No one will admit that he is spending more than he should be. Therefore whenever the Government rely, as they
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  do, on asking sample questions, they are not getting figures which can be regarded as reliable in any sense.
  I hope that the Chief Secretary will deal with this in his reply and that, for the benefit of the House, he will say how these figures are compounded, where they come from, whether they are crosschecked and how accurate, in true statistical terms, they can be regarded.
  Those, therefore, are my four points. I am truncating my argument because of the compression of time for the debate. The present travel allowance is absurd because it is the only remaining restriction on expenditure on foreign goods and services. It is wholly unfair in its incidence on different individuals. It is humiliating for Britons travelling abroad. It is unjustified by any economic considerations.
  What are the excuses that the Government may give? I see in The Times that it is suggested that they may argue that the £50 limit is good because it makes cheaper travel available to the mass of the British people. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not say that, because it is arrant nonsense. What has brought down the cost of package tours is the fiercely competitive conditions in the industry. The one thing which keeps up the price is the Government's regulations. If the Board of Trade realised this, cheap holidays could become even cheaper. The Government have done nothing to bring down prices. On the contrary, they are keeping up prices. I hope that we shall not hear the argument foreshadowed tentatively in The Times.
  The other argument which is sometimes heard from the benches opposite is the pernicious one that the restriction does not matter because it affects only a few and that the average man does not want to spend more than £50 abroad. Leaving aside the fact that there are as many above as there are below an average, it is surely an iniquitous argument to say that people should be restricted in spending their own money simply because they are in the minority. I ask the Government to repudiate that argument, which is a favourite one among some of their colleagues below the Gangway.
  How can it be argued that the restriction on an individual to spend foreign

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  exchange in one way is justified because there are only a few who want to do it? There is no limit on anyone in this country spending as much as he likes on foreign motor cars, wine, food, or anything else. He has a complete call on the foreign exchange resources of the Bank of England. He is only restricted when he wants to go overseas and spend some of his money.
  This is a restriction which stands out like a sore thumb as an absurdity. I hope that the Government will sweep it away.
  5.28 p.m.
  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) for dealing with his argument so briefly in view of the short time at our disposal, and I shall endeavour to respond. However, he is asking me to make the case for the Government. I shall listen carefully to the points made in the debate and, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that of the House, at the end of the debate I shall reply shortly to the questions put to me.
  Let me deal first with the right hon. Gentleman's fourth point. I accept that this restriction has to be justified, and it has to be justified both internationally and internally.
  The international justification is that which has to be made both to the I.M.F. and the O.E.C.D., which have precise regulations about this kind of restriction. In both cases, the United Kingdom has complied scrupulously with the requirements, and both organisations have accepted the restrictions. E.F.T.A. does not require specific undertakings of this kind, but it is interesting to note that those E.F.T.A. countries which are members of the two organisations to which I have referred have not raised any objection. Nor has any other member country. It is accepted internationally that we have been perfectly justified in what we have been doing.
  It is not correct to say that there is any danger of retaliation. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, retaliation is not a matter of individual proposals. It is a matter of a country satisfying the I.M.F. or the O.E.C.D., as France has done, that it is entitled to put a restric-
  664
  tion on travel in this way, always assuming that most of its visitors come from countries which are members of the two organisations.
  There is no doubt that in terms of international obligation we are fully justified in what we are doing. But the right hon. Gentleman concentrated more on the internal justification. I hope to satisfy him about that by comparing the hardship suffered by the individual with the benefit accruing to the community. I will deal with hardship first. I am alleging that there is no hardship at all. For illness, business and educational needs, a special allowance is given on a generous scale. We are really concerned about the effect of this limitation on holidaymaking. I know that these figures have been gone into before, but I should like to put them before the House in a commonsensical way.
  Let us consider the average man with a wife and two children who is contemplating a holiday abroad. He will first have to take into account the cost of his journey. If he goes by air it will, on average, be £200 for the four of them. If he goes by rail and ship, it will probably be £100. Those figures are additional to the allowance. The allowance is £50, plus £15 in sterling notes which he is legally entitled to take out and to exchange abroad. So he will be entitled to spend four times £65—£260—plus £100 or £200, as the case may be. So an average man taking his family abroad will be contemplating whether he can spend either £360 or £460 before considering whether there is any limitation.
  It must be within everybody's experience—I think it must be well within the experience of my hon. Friends—that spending £460 out of taxed income on a single summer holiday is something which many people would wish they were able to do but are totally incapable of doing. Therefore, I suggest that there is no hardship, because in the average case it is not a question of exchange limitation, but a question of the bank account which determines how much is spent.
  Mr. Maudling: The Chief Secretary has misunderstood my point. I was concerned with freedom, not hardship.
  Mr. Diamond: The right hon. Gentleman was concerned with justification, and

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  I am giving him the justification. I am saying that in the ordinary case the average individual is not in any difficulty concerning foreign exchange; the difficulty is providing the funds in his bank.
  That this is the case and not conjecture on my part is demonstrated by the fact that for each of these years that we have had this restriction the full amount has not, on average, been spent. But I recognise immediately that there are people below and above the average. There are obviously those below who have not spent their full amount and there are those who would have wished to spend more had they been allowed to do so. Therefore, I want to concern myself with the situation, with which I am familiar, of a man who, for example, wants to go on a skiing holiday to Switzerland and finds the limitation on foreign currency the real difficulty. Having measured the difficulty, hardship or inconvenience to which the individual is put, my justification must be to set against that the benefit to the community. This is where I come to the figures with which the right hon. Gentleman asked me to deal.
  Of course, exchange control affects the non-sterling area holiday, but we are equally concerned with the saving to the balance of payments, the saving on the reserves, which is the United Kingdom balance of payments. So I will deal with that first and see how we reconcile the effect of that on the second.
  There is obviously no possibility, unless we scrap the whole of the sterling area system, of restricting control in the sterling area. The figures for the non-sterling area have been given before, but I will give them again. Comparing 1965 with 1968, there has been a reduction of £39 million in holiday expenditure. That is a reduction from £164 million to £125 million. The proportion is substantial— nearly a quarter. If there had been no restriction the expenditure would have risen, on the best estimate that I can put before the House, by about £20 million. I do not claim any precision for that figure. It is the best estimate. I am giving it to make clear that the figure with which we have to deal is not the £39 million, but what, in addition, would have been the increase. We are, therefore, dealing with a fall of probably £59 mil-
  666
  lion or, in round figures, £60 million. So that the effect of the restriction has been a gross figure of £60 million, against which we have to set a number of things.
  We have to set the switch from sterling area to non-sterling area—that is the point that the right hon. Gentleman asked me about—and we have to set our estimate of the money which has not come to official notice. We have to make a calculation for all these things, and the best calculation which I am advised can safely be relied upon is £25 million a year. I am advised—and the right hon. Gentleman knows exactly what I mean when I say "I am advised"—that that is the best calculation which can be made by my officers who he and I know go to enormous trouble and lean over backwards to be fair and objective when asked for figures to be put before the House. I rely on that not as a precise figure but as a safe minimum figure. My view is that the figure is likely to be more than that.
  Sir Frederic Bennett: In the figures that the right hon. Gentleman has just given, can he say whether increases in requests for additional business allowances and other additional allowances, including health, which he has given to me in figures in HANSARD within the last few days, have been taken into account?
  Mr. Diamond: We have taken those fully into account. The hon. Gentleman will know, because he asked the Question himself—I cannot rely on my recollection for the precise figures—that business expenditure has gone up by the amount we would expect, and there is no reason to believe that it includes anything other than normal business expenditure. The increase is normal.
  The other item is within £1 million— the same as before. Therefore, there is no reason to adjust the figure that I am giving for those other items. They were taken into account and examined before arriving at the conclusion that £25 million is a safe calculation. I believe that £25 million is a saving well worth having. Balancing against that saving, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, the complete absence of hardship, although there may be inconvenience for some people, I think that anybody looking at the matter objectively would take the view that this is fully justified.
  Mr. Peter Bessell: I know that the Chief Secretary wishes to help the House. He has referred to the possible increase of £20 million, had there been no restriction, and to the figure of £25 million, and said that these calculations were arrived at by members of his staff, and that the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) would understand this. But may I ask him to explain how these calculations are arrived at?
  Mr. Diamond: If the hon. Gentleman wants full details about the £20 million, he must put his question to the Board of Trade, because it is that Department's officials who go to great lengths in arriving at these figures. There are a number of items of adjustment which are within the knowledge of officials and the bank officials who deal with this matter every day. All I am saying is that I accept that they have taken into account every possible adjustment that ought to be made, and that, knowing the way that Treasury officials prepare the figures, I am satisfied that the figures are on the safe side. They have given me this figure as one which can be relied on as a safe calculation, and I am putting it to the House in that way. There is nobody who can put a better calculation before us. There is nobody who has the experience of and access to all the facts who can put a better calculation before us. The right hon. Gentleman, as a matter of debate, can challenge them, but that will not carry any conviction, because he knows as well as I do where the authoritative sources lie.
  Mr. Maudling: Are these figures based on small samplings? On what are they based?
  Mr. Diamond: There are a number of sources for the figures. They are based on returns, Bank of England figures, on Board of Trade collections, and on large samplings as well. They should include all those things. It is not possible to get a view of the whole position unless one does sampling as well.
  We are fully justified in the view that we have taken, and I think that the vast majority of people in this country have understood that and accepted it, having regard to our difficulties. I do not imagine that any citizen has thought that the Government have done this as a matter of perverseness, because, as every-
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  body knows, this kind of restriction is used by Governments of all parties. We have had these restrictions in force for three years. Our predecessors restricted the amount available for travel for eight consecutive years. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about how ridiculous all this is. It was just as ridiculous when his Government were in power. They had a similar situation. They took the view that one cannot restrict trade but that one can restrict foreign travel. They varied it up and down for eight consecutive years.
  Whatever their view may have been, our view is that this is a restriction. We do not intend to keep it for a moment longer than is necessary, and it is bound to—
  Mr. Dalyell Mr. Dalyell rose—
  Mr. Diamond: I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to continue, because I am anxious not to curtail the debate even further than it has been by earlier events.
  We are anxious to bring this restriction to an end as soon as it can safely be done. We delight and rejoice in the fact that the balance of payments situation has made a marked improvement, and that brings the matter very much into consideration. My right hon. Friend considered this and said as recently as 21st October:
  "I … hope to be able to abolish the restrictions before long."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st October, 1969; Vol. 788, c. 953.]
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: What does that mean?
  Mr. Diamond: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what it means. Abolishing means what it says, not what is on the Order Paper. What is on the Order Paper refers to increasing the £50 travel allowance. When hon. Gentlemen opposite were the Government they made a series of changes up and down compared with what we are proposing. They inherited a limit of £100. They proceeded to reduce it first to £50 and then to £25, then they raised it to £40, and ultimately they raised it to £100. There were different allowances for adults and children. There were different allowances for different countries. They revelled in the complexity of their restrictions. I shudder to think of how many officials must have

  669
  been engaged unnecessarily in working out the complexities, and how much public money must have been wasted. The complexity was totally unnecessary.
  The Chancellor is not attracted by a change which would lose most of the benefit to the reserves without any reduction in complexity of administration, and therefore the only question that remains is what is: meant by "how long", as the one silent Member on the Front Bench opposite asked me. I want to help the House as much as I can on that. We know that people are naturally anxious to plan their holidays well in advance and want to know where they stand with the travel allowance. We are anxious to avoid causing inconvenience to travel agents who also want to make their plans well in advance. It would be wrong to assume that there are no precedents for varying the travel allowance as from a date other than the commencement of the travel year, that is to say, at the beginning of November. There are a variety of precedents, mostly provided by the Government of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  In 1952 an announcement was made at the end of January. In 1953 an announcement was made in March. In 1966, during our Administration, an announcement was made in July. I want to make it clear that I am not making any prophecy of any kind but simply making the point that there are precedents for dates other than the beginning of November. My right hon. Friend would not therefore feel compelled, on the ground of lack of precedents only, to continue the restriction longer than was necessary, but he has made it clear that it would be premature to take action immediately, and that it would be wrong to do so before it is certain that the improvement in our balance of payments is secure and can be maintained.
  Our policies have been shown to be attended with a considerable measure of success, and my right hon. Friend's judgment in this matter has been shown to be right. The House can have full confidence in that judgment, and I can add my assurance that these restrictions will be kept under continuous review and will be removed as soon as it is safe to do so.
  5.47 p.m.
  Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) will recall, Chief Secretaries to the Treasury sometimes have the experience of being put up to defend the indefensible, and we have had an extraordinarily good example of that in the very able speech of the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman did, however, overdo it, because he presented two arguments in favour of this restriction, either of which might have stood by itself, but which collapsed in company.
  The right hon. Gentleman began by saying that the amount which is allowed at the moment, given air fares on top— and the right hon. Gentleman took a very high figure for that; a great deal more than is required to go to the north of France or to the Low Countries—was as much as the average family could afford anyway. That argument, so far as it went, was something, but the right hon. Gentleman then went on to demonstrate that, despite that fact, a quite substantial surplus to our balance of payments was achieved by the operation of this restriction. It was a very gallant attempt to have it both ways, but it simply does not stand up.
  The right hon. Gentleman's argument about savings also does not stand up when one sees his assumption that but for this restriction expenditure would have risen a great deal more, and therefore he says that we have saved that. It seems to damage the average man's budget argument, and, taken by itself, it is absurd. The right hon. Gentleman compared 1965 with 1968. He of all people should recall the changes which occurred over that period, in particular the increases in personal direct taxation. Most people, when their taxation rises, cut back their holidays or cut them out altogether.
  The right hon. Gentleman also ignored the fact that devaluation, by making it more expensive for people to go abroad, discouraged foreign travel anyway. Therefore, his assumption, on which this argument for a saving mostly rests, that this amount would have increased but for this provision, does not seem to match up to the normal Treasury standards. But even if one accepts it, one is involved next in the figure of £25 million a year.

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  No one will say that that is negligible, but it is well within the corrections involved sometimes in one month's trade figures. Yet this is an annual expenditure. Against the sum total of the balance of payments, it is not of startling significance.
  Yet the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand what damage this does abroad, not only as my right hon. Friend so well said, to individuals, but to this country's standing and, I suggest, to sterling. If the Englishman on holiday in Europe is conspicuously the poorest man in the hotel, if it is the Germans and the others who have the best rooms and the best tables and the Englishman has a special cheap rate arranged for him, does not that operate perpetually to remind foreigners that there is something wrong with the British economy and the British currency? Is it not a standing advertisement that the £ is perhaps a currency that people had better be cautious of?
  I put this very point to the Chancellor when he made his statement on 21st October. Perhaps I might remind the House of my supplementary question to him:
  "Is it not a fact that the true value of the £50 allowance is reduced every year by inflation in this and other countries? How does the Chancellor expect confidence in sterling to be re-established when every British tourist is a walking advertisement for the fact that crisis measures are still in force in Britain?"
  The right hon. Gentleman replied:
  "It is, of course, the case that the value of the £50 allowance is less now than it was when it was introduced. It is, however, still a good deal more than the £25 which was in operation during quite a part of the period when the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury … as well as for a short period following a year's surplus in 1952."—[OFFICIAL RF.PORT, 21st October, 1969; Vol. 788, c. 958.]
  The Chief Secretary himself went into this same argument. Regrettably we all know it—the argument of a Minister in trouble—"It may be a silly thing to do, but other people have been silly as well."
  The Chancellor introduced it. The briefing in the Treasury is extremely good and never lets one down but it makes an interesting comparison. The Chief Secretary reintroduced it. I want to follow this up. As he knows, I did follow it up.
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  I asked the Chancellor to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table setting out the value of the travel allowance in cash terms and in terms of real value at 1969 United Kingdom prices for each year since 1951. The Financial Secretary, after, I think, the full week's permitted delay, which suggests that the occasion gave him some heart searching, replied on 4th November in Written Answers at columns 71 and 72.
  Of course, that reply establishes that, for the year to which the Chancellor referred, although, in the quotation, he reduplicated 1952, the travel allowance was £25. But the Chief Secretary did not bring this, as is necessary for a fair comparison, up to mid-1969 prices, as I insisted in my Question. If he had, the figure would have been rather different; it would have been £42, not all that short of £50. But that was one year—
  Mr. Diamond: I apologise. The right hon. Gentleman will recollect that we are comparing £42 with £65—£42 in his time, £65 in ours.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman is entitled simply to add the £15 to the travel allow ance—
  Mr. Diamond: I am.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It is my recollection that a certain amount in notes was permitted to be taken out under the old system.
  Mr. Diamond: If I might give the House the facts: I am entitled to do this, because this can only be done legally as the result of the Statutory Instruments introduced during our time.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It was certainly a practice at that time, and to the best of my knowledge no attempt was made to interfere with a reasonable number being taken out. I will compare like with like. But even if I gave the right hon. Gentleman that point, it does not prove much, because, in the next year, it went up to £40, which, brought up to mid-1969 prices, is £63. The following year, it went up again to £50, equivalent to £80 in 1969, and the year after that, to £100, the equivalent of £155.
  At that point, the right hon. Gentleman's personal argument collapses,

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  because I left the Treasury, but the successive improvements year after year are the exact opposite of what has happened under the right hon. Gentleman's Government. The allowance was introduced at £50 in cash value in 1967, equivalent to £55 at mid-1969 prices, and, of course, has dropped marginally in the years thereafter. It has gone down, in fact, by 10 per cent.
  So the picture is of a low figure in one year at the beginning of the Conservative Government. The right hon. Gentleman will, I hope, forgive the argument, but it was a Government which followed six years of war followed by six years of Socialism, and for whom some allowances should, therefore, be made. But the limit introduced at that bottom level in one year was steadily increased, whereas the picture under the right hon. Gentleman's Government is that it was introduced at a low figure which has been further eroded by inflation each year. Indeed, the figures favour the Government. I used, to get a fair comparison, British mid-1969 prices. The House knows how rapidly they have risen, but in view of devaluation the answer would have been even worse for the Government had I taken the price levels of most of the countries which tourists visit.
  Then, the right hon. Gentleman went on to taunt my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet with having done this. He should look at his own table. The Financial Secretary should have showed it to him before he published it. My right hon. Friend was Chancellor from 1962 to 1964, but over the whole period from 1960 to 1966 inclusive there was no limitation at all. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to shelter behind the practice of my right hon. Friend or of my right hon. and hon. Friends, he has the answer. It was the Chancellor who introduced this comparative league tabling. The fact is that we started at a low figure in a difficult situation, increased it and then abolished the limitations during the years which my right hon. Friend was in charge, whereas this Government have introduced it at a low figure and allowed it to be eroded each year.
  I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman really thinks that this is the way in which to prepare this country—if
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  he wishes it—to enter Europe, if it is going to be made deliberately more difficult for British people to meet people in Europe. If he is going to think up just one limitation in the use of foreign exchange, as my right hon. Friend so well said, need it be using of it to go and meet foreigners in their own countries? Is that the way to make us good Europeans?
  The right hon. Gentleman then finished with a very curious, but, from my study of the right hon. Gentleman I believe that it was meant to be, significant, observation. He said that it is not necessary to make these changes in the autumn. He said that there are precedents for making them at other times of the year. Indeed, there are. I venture this prophecy, that in the course of this year an increase will be made, and, by a happy coincidence, this will be shortly followed by the announcement of the dissolution of Parliament.
  5.59 p.m.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: I should like to offer some praise to the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in setting an example on these occasions by keeping his speech very brief —something which is not often done by the Front Benches—especially when through no fault of his own he ran into time difficulties. That example was followed by the Chief Secretary. On the odd occasions when this happens, the back benches should at least show some appreciation of it.
  I listened to the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) with interest, because, like him, I am not against foreign travel. Nor do I say that necessarily because some people cannot afford it in this country therefore it should be cut back. I like foreign travel as much as anyone. He was worried lest when he went abroad he would be conspicuously the poorest man in the hotel. If our economic destinies were controlled by what was thought by the head waiter of the Grand Hotel in Nice or Le Touquet, it would be a matter for concern. As we know, the economic destinies of Britain are not controlled by head waiters of tourist hotels or even by the friends one meets abroad. They are more under the control of financial ministries, bankers and city and financial journalists. Their

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  opinions rather than those of the tourist industry are the ones to heed.
  When one considers the effect on bankers, editors and financial ministries abroad, one realises that those people are less concerned with the poverty of British tourists, temporary though that is, than with our desire to make an efficient economic recovery as a nation.
  My proposition is that in asking for the travel allowance to be increased or for the restriction to be abolished, we are risking inviting the man who has just had 'flu to get out of bed too early and to find that his recovery is not advanced but only postponed, simply by the fact that actions have been taken at too early a stage.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Naturally, the views of hotel waiters are only of interest to hotel waiters. The hon. Gentleman will agree, however, that for hundreds of thousands of people to advertise conspicuously by the way they go on that they come from a country which still has severe restrictions cannot be good either for the health of sterling or for confidence in the British economy.
  Mr. Dalyell: One can put it another way. The people in Europe who make the decisions want to know if we are serious about getting out of our balance of payments difficulties. I therefore draw different conclusions than does the right hon. Gentleman from the same facts.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite have said that these Measures are ineffective. I am not so sure, because I do not know exactly by what standards one should judge these matters. However, it seems from the facts published by the Board of Trade that, whereas in 1968 £282 million was spent by 4·8 million foreigners and visitors to this country, Britons abroad spent £271 million, but they numbered 7·3 million. Prima facie that means that the restrictions have been reasonably effective, for the spending per capita has been much higher among those who come here than among Britons abroad. Have not the restrictions had something to do with that?
  Again, on the question of effectiveness, the figures I have obtained show that in 1968 we spent £271 million abroad while in 1967 we spent £274 million. Thus, at
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  a time when world spending on travel was rising, British expenditure was stabilised. Either we are serious about tackling the balance of payments or we are not.
  One is provoked by the remarks of hon. Gentlemen opposite to raise the question of abuse. While undoubtedly there have been minor abuses of the controls, it is the nature of British travellers abroad to be reasonably law-abiding. I suggest, therefore, that the claims of hon. Gentlemen opposite are somewhat exaggerated. If we look for abuse, we should not look for it in only one direction. There may be others. What, for example, is the feeling of the Treasury about those who spend thousands of £s buying property in countries like Portugal? There are certain Treasury restrictions in this connection, but there is a feeling that these could be abused, and I hope that the Chief Secretary will raise the matter.
  Still on the question of abuse, the right hon. Member for Barnet raised the issue of Australia. I had the good fortune to be on an official visit from this House to Japan and Indonesia at Whitsun, and I went on to Australia. The Chief Secretary can confirm this, but my experience was that each traveller's cheque taken to Australia was over-printed with the words, "Not valid in countries outside the sterling area".
  Nowhere in the world have I seen passengers so carefully scrutinised and questioned as we were serutinised at Sydney Airport. It was the most rigorous Customs survey I have seen. Perhaps it was due to certain unusual circumstances or that it was purely accidental. I mention this merely to point out that the right hon. Member for Barnet was not right in his references to Australia.
  Sir Charles Taylor: My right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) was saying that when Australians go into non-sterling areas they are allowed to take a larger amount than we are allowed to take to Europe. Naturally, if one takes sterling cheques to Australia they can be cashed only in a sterling area, as it were. Australians coming to Europe, however, have a larger allowance than we have.
  Mr. Dalyell: The facts can be checked. The allowance for Australians may be

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  larger, but I believe that there are restrictions on the amount that Australians can take to the dollar area. Thus, this argument is open to question.
  The right hon. Member for Barnet went on to say that this was the only restriction. I did not hear from the Chief Secretary a list of the restrictions that are imposed by Her Majesty's Government or that have been imposed by previous British Administrations in the sphere of foreign exchange. However, I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman was not correct when he spoke of this being the only control.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I think that my right hon. Friend said that it was the only restriction on personal spending. He clearly recognised, of course, that there were restrictions on the export of capital.
  Mr. Dalyell: I accept that. Perhaps I misunderstood his point.
  Reference has been made to the psychological effect of maintaining these controls. Have hon. Gentlemen opposite considered the psychological effect of abolishing them too soon? It would be foolish to reverse such policies as these so soon after moving into a substantial balance of payments surplus. We would be acting prematurely, to say the least.
  I urge hon. Gentlemen opposite to leave matters of this sort to those who control the day-to-day management of the economy. On a matter like this— as the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames said so many nice things about Treasury officials and advisers— we should leave to them some of the decision-making, for we must accept that they and our Ministers know what they are doing.
  The improvement in our balance of payments position must be secure and we must have a good prospect of maintaining it. It would be odd, to say the least, if, as we begin to show economic progress, the first concession we make is to those who wish to spend their holidays abroad. This would be regarded as very odd indeed by those whose opinions matter at home and abroad and I do not believe that the maintenance of this control is nearly as silly as the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames would have us believe.
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  The right hon. Member for Barnet said that the whole question of freedom was involved here. I will not detain the House with a philosophical discourse on the nature of freedom, except to say that our freedoms are so restricted in so many different ways, as they must be in a modern society, that it seems curious to pick out this, of all things, as an example of a limitation on freedom. There is freedom to and freedom not to be due to. To make the accusation against this side of the House as if in some way we are limiting freedom seems to be a distortion of the position.
  I find it very strange that in a valuable three hours on a Supply day, when hon. Members opposite could have a three-line Whip, they chose this subject of all subjects. Would it not have been better to choose many of the urgent subjects about which the Leader of the House is questioned on Thursdays, such as Biafra, or abatement of pensions? I think this a very bogus Motion.
  6.10 p.m.
  Sir Frederic Bennett: Tempted although I am to follow some of the observations of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell)—with virtually none of which I agree, and in which he was factually wrong in regard to Australia and elsewhere—I do not wish to do so.
  I do not dispute one word said by my right hon. Friends this afternoon, but I want to devote a few minutes to another aspect—the validity of the figures.
  I assure the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that I am not for a moment suggesting that a group of civil servants and Ministers have got together to compile bogus figures, but I do not think the material on which the figures were based give any ground for confidence. The right hon. Gentleman knows that from a succession of letters and Questions I have been trying to pursue this question ever since the Queen's Speech. I think he made a point which was not fair, that the business allowance had gone up only as one would have expected. I received a breakdown of these figures from the Treasury. They were first published including all money spent abroad for holidays, business and other purposes, including health. I then asked that they should be broken down into figures for

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  the non-sterling area and the sterling area. It is agreed that this afternoon we are dealing primarily with the non-sterling area.
  In the non-sterling area the figure has gone up for business from £30 million to £39 million in just under three years. It has gone up by a full 30 per cent, at the rate of 10 per cent, a year. The right hon. Gentleman regards that as a normal increase. Yet inside the sterling area, where we do just as much business as elsewhere, the figure for business claims has gone up barely at all, from £10 million to £11 million, yet in the non-sterling area from the moment the restriction was introduced it has gone up by 30 per cent. This requires more clarification than the right hon. Gentleman gave.
  On the figures the right hon. Gentleman gave this £25 million or £30 million saving—I believe he said £25 million, but it is occasionally referred to as £30 million—but if we lump together the figures as they were given to me for the sterling area and the non-sterling area, the amount is only £19 million. I do not think even that is valid. After the Queen's Speech, in every way I could I tried to get some information on which Ministers had calculated these figures. Oddly enough, for a Government who, goodness knows, love to gather statistics on every aspect of our national life, I found that no attempt at all had been made to find how many travellers' cheques had been drawn upon the Treasury or Bank of England, or of what amounts, and no attempt to find how much foreign currency had been drawn by people going abroad.
  After pursuing this question with the right hon. Gentleman's colleague, I asked: If the Treasury do not check this, how do they base this information? After a little trouble I received the last letter on this matter only this afternoon and discovered that they rely in obtaining the figures put before us today on the International Passenger Survey, of which I have a copy here. It is included in the Registrar-General's statistical review. As far as I know what the International Passenger Survey has computed is the only available evidence to arrive at the figure of £25 million.
  I wish that I had time to read it all, but I will read only four short sentences.
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  This is how it is checked to see how much people are taking abroad in travellers' cheques and foreign currency. It says:
  "At London Airport and Prestwick: nearly 7 per cent. of outgoing and 4 per cent. of incoming passengers on the long air routes are interviewed; 2 per cent. in winter and 1 per cent. in summer of short air route passengers are also interviewed there. At smaller airports: the percentage sampled varies between half of 1 per cent. and 4 per cent. …
  On short sea routes: about 1 per cent. of winter and half of 1 per cent. of summer traffic is interviewed.
  On the long sea routes: … nearly 7 per cent. of the outgoing passengers and 7 per cent. and 4 per cent. of the incoming passengers are sampled."
  But, of course, those going on long sea routes do not generally come into the category of people going away on holiday, but in the other groups we see what a minute sample is relied upon by the International Passenger Survey and the Government for the Minister to say how much is saved.
  When we had a large allowance—when my right hon. Friend was in charge, up to £250—there was no statutory provision for taking £ notes abroad, but a discretion was given that £5 or £10 was not quarrelled with. I have done it dozens of times. One declared what one had and this was readily acceded to.
  Mr. Diamond: To help the House to get this clear I should say that there was no objection to taking the currency abroad. What one could not do was to exchange it abroad for foreign currency.
  Sir F. Bennett: I did not expect the right hon. Gentleman to make that point. He is indeed naive if he thinks that people who take £5 or £10 abroad do so for the purpose of buying a Scotch while in an aeroplane. He knows that is nonsense. In addition to the £15 which people are now allowed to take, they can take an unlimited amount of silver. That did not matter so much in the old days, unless one carried it in a haversack, but now with the 50p piece one can take much more value in silver.
  The right hon. Gentleman must know that tourists, almost without exception, regard the £15 as being added to their allowance for changing when they get to the country of their destination. The figures he gave are based on a £50 allowance, but if we take into account

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  that all the travellers who have been going abroad since this restriction came in also have their £15 and spend that in addition to travellers' cheques and foreign currency, a very different figure appears. About an extra £30 million has gone abroad in this period. If we take that into account we see that there has been virtually no saving because when previously there was no particular reason to take £15 as one could take as much foreign currency as one liked, and no one in his senses would take £ notes when he could take travellers' cheques and foreign currency for he would get a better exchange.
  A point which my right hon. Friend did not make about the prestige of the British economy abroad is that anyone who has been to travel offices abroad knows perfectly well that travellers' cheques are put on one side and £ notes on another. The £ notes are exchanged at a reduced rate compared with what can be obtained for travellers' cheques. This is certainly not a good thing for the image of the £ at present.
  I do not think the right hon. Gentleman was fair in dealing with the question of loopholes. On the one hand he said that only a very few people would spend a great deal more than £50 if they had the chance. The average man, he said, would not be able to do so; but, of course, a richer, smaller number of people go to Bermuda and the Bahamas. Quite a lot, too, go to Malta.
  The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that in Bermuda and in the Bahamas the dollar is freely interchangeable with the currency notes of those places. Therefore, any of the minority that he mentioned can go straight to the Bahamas and to Bermuda and when he is paid in a shop, a hotel or anywhere else in dollar notes, can use those dollar notes elsewhere for anything he wishes. The notes are in his pocket. Those figures do not appear in the right hon. Gentleman's statistics.
  Anyone in Gibraltar—not merely a Gibraltar resident, but anyone who is staying there—can draw £15 worth of foreign currency to leave Gibraltar, either to go to Morocco, or, if he is lucky enough nowadays, to go into Spain. A person leaving Malta can get much more than £50 whether he is a United Kingdom resident or not since the banks there
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  do not know whether a person is a resident of Malta or on holiday there.
  It is this aspect that I find most intolerable about the Government's decision—not just the restriction itself, but because I believe that they are enforcing the restriction on thoroughly bogus grounds. If all the factors which I mentioned and other factors are taken into account, I do not believe that, in the face of all this nonsense which is being inflicted upon people, any real saving is being achieved. It is for this reason, above all others, that I urge the Government to drop the restriction.
  6.21 p.m.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said that Britain had six years of Socialism following the war. If he would read the first 132 pages of John Strachey's book on the Theory and Practice of Socialism, he would realise that, although we had a Labour Government from 1945 to 1951, it was not anything like a Socialist Government. In fact, Britain has never had Socialism.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will talk about the travel allowance.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: I was dealing, Sir, with a point raised by the right hon. Gentleman in your absence.
  I have my regrets. I do not regret—in the terms of the Motion—Her Majesty's Government's refusal
  "to increase the £50 travel allowance".
  What I regret is that the Government have found it necessary not to increase the £50 travel allowance. We must get our priorities right. We must put the interests of the nation before the interests of individuals.
  I love going abroad, but if it is necessary in the national interest to restrict my allowance and that of other members of the community to £50, I am wholly with the Government. We must conserve our sterling balances. If people had put the national interest first in the past few years, things might have been different. Whether it is wild-cat strikes and unofficial strikes on the part of dissident members of trade unions, whether it is obstinate and pig-headed attitudes taken by

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  management, or whether it is shopkeepers raising their prices far above the level to which it is necessary to raise them, it does not matter. People have placed their own interests first and the interest of the national last. That is why we have to keep this restriction on the allowance.
  I urge the Government, however, not to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I refer to the question of evasion. It is often said that if a man steals £100 from the till he is guilty of larceny, but if he does it on a very large scale, involving hundreds of thousands of £s, or even millions of £s in companies that go bankrupt, that is called not larceny but high finance.
  In this context a person who, in this country, evades the law and tries to take abroad a sum in excess of £50—say, £100 or £150—is brought to justice and will be prosecuted. If he does it on a very large scale, however, he might not be touched. In France, the situation is different. I quote from The Times of 25th November, dateline Paris:
  "People who have speculated against the franc since July, 1968, when exchange control regulations were introduced will be charged and brought to court if the alleged offences are serious. They risk fines of between … £170 and … £100,000 and terms of imprisonment ranging from one to five years, or both … Between November 25 1968, when a wave of speculative capital drained from France in the wake of the monetary crisis, and the end of September, the customs authorities had recorded 14,279 breaches of exchange control regulations covering a total amount of more than F.280 million."
  We know full well that certain things are happening between Swiss banks and United Kingdom citizens. A few days ago my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett) asked my right hon. Friend the Chancellor
  "what action he proposes to take on the collusion between Swiss banks and United Kingdom citizens for the purpose of evading exchange control … and if he will make a statement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1969; Vol. 792, c. 189.]
  The Minister of State gave a rather noncommittal reply.
  Vast sums of money are being taken out. I urge my right hon. Friend, if he can catch the culprits, to have them prosecuted so that further breaches are
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  discouraged and stopped. If it is not possible to prosecute them under present law, legislation should be passed quickly to enable them to be prosecuted so that they cannot continue with their nefarious actions.
  I urge my right hon. Friend, while shutting one door so as to stop all petty evasions, not to leave another door open, through which people can take out hundreds of thousands, even millions, of £s.
  6.26 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Bessell: I will follow the example set by previous speakers and speak briefly. Every responsible right hon. and hon. Member will agree that the first duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to protect the present improvement in our balance of payments situation. Anything which happened to cause any decline in that improvement would be a matter of serious regret, and the Government would be guilty of irresponsible behaviour.
  There is another factor to be taken into account. Whether we like it or not, there has been a hidden assistance to some British resort areas as the result of the imposition of a travel allowance. It may have been very small, but it has assisted at a difficult time hoteliers and others in constituencies like mine.
  I believe that for these reasons the Motion is particularly well worded. It does not call for the abolition of the travel allowance. It regrets the refusal of the Government to increase it from £50. Although the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) was arguing more for abolition than for an increase in the allowance, I believe that it is right that we should consider the possibility of an increase rather than the abolition of the restriction.
  The cost of living has risen in virtually every country. Since the travel allowance was imposed, its value has declined both by virtue of that increase in the cost of living and by the effects of devaluation. As long ago as October of last year I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he was
  "aware that the allowance was fixed before devaluation."
  I continued:
  "Will he consider increasing the allowance to compensate for the effects which devaluation has had on it?"

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  The right hon. Gentleman gave this important reply:
  "It might possibly be said that such a case could be made out, but devaluation has involved certain other sacrifices. I do not think that it is unreasonable that the foreign travel allowance should bear a small measure of the sacrifice. Looking at the matter—and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have looked at it closely—it seems that a small adjustment would be costly without giving any great benefit. I would, therefore, prefer to wait until it is safe to abolish the restriction altogether."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th October, 1968; Vol. 770, c. 188.]
  That seems to indicate, unless the Chancellor has considerably altered his point of view since he gave that answer, that we shall not see any increase in the allowance but, instead, we shall have to wait until it is abolished entirely. That would be very unfortunate. I do not— any more than the Motion does—call for abolition, but I hope that there will be a substantial increase, and that that increase will be followed at a much later date by abolition.
  The value of the allowance has fallen considerably as a result of inflation and the effects of devaluation. Today—I have made my calculation as carefully as I can—the £50 which was worth £50 when the limit was first imposed is now worth a little less than £35, for example, in the United States of America. This gives added weight to the arguments already advanced for an increase, though not abolition of the restriction.
  It is closely linked with something more important, the deeper problem of the business allowance. Many business men are compelled to use their £50 holiday allowance to augment the totally inadequate business allowance. If the right hon. Gentleman says that it is not inadequate, let him consider that the £20 a day business allowance is worth 48 dollars a day, which is completely inadequate to meet the minimal needs of any business man who has, for example, to seek to attract dollar investment to this country. I have worked out a sum, but I shall not waste the time of the House with it, although I shall be glad to submit it to the right hon. Gentleman privately. I assure him that I have found it necessary on my own business visits abroad to use the £50 holiday allowance for business purposes, and I am certainly not alone in that.
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  I promised to speak briefly, so I shall not continue the arguments so ably advanced already from this side of the House. I add one comment only on the question of evasion. Evasion must be looked into seriously. There is nothing worse than a law which causes evasion. It was said in one newspaper recently that it is known that ladies travel abroad with £100 in £5 notes tucked into their "bras", and that they can do this safely without fear of search. That is the kind of evasion which should be discouraged, and the best way of discouraging it would be by an increase in the allowance.
  I hope, therefore, that the Government will take note of the Motion, and take early steps to improve the present limit.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. Julian Snow: Like other hon. Members, I was surprised to see this Motion put down. I cannot understand who it is the Opposition think they are representing. I have made inquiries in my own constituency, and I have not received a single complaint about the inadequacy of the travel allowance. This is so probably because most of my constituents, whom I try to represent, and, I hope, represent adequately, are not people with a great deal of wealth. The fact of the matter is that in the pages of the Sunday newspapers devoted to travel advertisements there are hundreds of good opportunities advertised which take into account the travel allowance, and these are taken advantage of by many people in my constituency. After a reasonable holiday abroad, they may, indeed, come back with a few pounds unspent.
  I was interested to hear the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) say that he is a director of a company dealing with package tours. I am, perhaps, a little out of date, but at one time I was in the travel business myself. I do not for a moment consider that an increase in the travel allowance would bring an improvement in the prices of package tours. On the contrary, the restriction—which I do not personally like—has resulted in extremely competitive and good value being given. In another context, we all know that reductions in taxation—they are too few and far between—are not followed by reductions in prices. Although, in theory, the removal of restrictive regulations should

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  reduce prices, it has been my experience over the past few years that they do not. Reasons are always found either for maintaining the price or, sometimes, even for increasing it.
  The package tour system has now become a matter of widespread interest to a much wider public. The initiative of restricting foreign expenditure has created a huge public for the package tour— and long may that interest continue. My experience is that miners and their wives and children who go abroad now are able to have an extremely good holiday in places and circumstances which would not have been open to them a number of years ago.
  This seems, therefore, an extraordinary subject for the opposition to raise. They could have raised all sorts of matters about which, no doubt, there is political sensitivity. One hon. Member mentioned the question of the pensions scheme a few minutes ago, a matter which was pressed at the business question time today and which we could quite well have discussed. Whom do the Opposition think they are representing? I do not know, unless it be the rentier—the rentiers of Bournemouth, Torquay and places like that, I suspect. They are quite mistaken if they imagine that this restriction is resented by the broad mass of the people. In fact, people fully understand the reasons for it, and they have taken advantage of the good competitive prices which are offered for holidays. The Opposition have made fools of themselves.
  6.38 p.m.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: The hon. Member for Lich field and Tamworth (Mr. Snow), who has just joined in our discussion after coming in only a few minutes before—
  Mr. Snow: Quite wrong.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: —apparently did not listen to the speech made 20 minutes earlier by his hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). Otherwise, he would not, I am sure, have wished to repeat almost word for word what had already been said from his own side.
  Mr. Snow: In fact, I was here for quite a long time this afternoon. I heard the speeches. I prefer to express my own
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  views in my own way and not copy from others.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman did, since we are trying to confine the debate within a brief period, and pure repetition of identical argument already advanced only wastes time.
  I prefer the freedom of movement rather than the freedom to guzzle or the freedom to eat. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) when he says that freedom for people to travel is, perhaps, more important than being able to bathe in champagne or guzzle caviare. I regard the right, in the modern age, to move about the world freely as an important freedom. I believe that young people do, too.
  It is idiotic to suggest that the £50 travel allowance is sufficient because it enables a family of husband, wife and two children to have one good holiday. Nowadays, the young people of the world —and a great many of us as well—want to be able to go abroad two or even three times a year on various objectives, and there is no earthly reason why they should not. When the Conservative Government were in power, there was a steady relaxation of the restriction, until it was finally abolished, and at all times in the later years people could go abroad as much as they wanted.
  The sooner the present restriction is abolished the better. The situation is utterly absurd, not because evasion cannot be prosecuted or prevented but because the whole scheme is an evasion in itself. First, if one goes to any sterling area country, whether the Caribbean, South Africa, Hong Kong, Australia or many other parts of the world, one can convert one's money and obtain whatever currency is needed, so long as one has sufficient means to get there.
  The particularly unfortunate aspect of this is that it deliberately hits the person of moderate means and allows the person of substantial means to do exactly what he pleased. For example, a car allowance can be obtained, and then not be taken up, so that the total amount is increased. It is very simple for people with friends overseas to make arrangements whereby they are looked after in each other's countries. People who have

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  many friends abroad are usually people who have been abroad, and are therefore usually well-to-do. Those who are hard up do not have those arrangements, and cannot make them so easily.
  We find today that a large number of people who are destitute are repatriated. There are many cases of money allegedly being lost overseas that is not really lost, and that enables those concerned to obtain more. There are a score of ways in which the whole scheme can be shot through from beginning to end. Therefore, evasion is something that requires not prosecution but just an end of this fruitless system.
  Mr. Diamond: Is the hon. Gentleman making a case that all the evasion would not take place at a higher limit?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I am saying that we need the abolition of the limit. I think that it is true that raising it to £75 would assist those of moderate means. It is for that reason, and that reason only, that I support an increased limit. I would rather have that if we cannot have abolition, because it would at least be fair to the pensioner, the retired person who wants to continue to be a resident in Great Britain and cannot go abroad more than once in the year. It is such people living on small fixed incomes who can spend up to about £75 to £100 abroad, and could have both a winter trip and a summer trip, who suffer most severely. That is the main reason for an increase in the limit.
  With a certain amount of experience in this matter and of the travel trade, I can say that the essence of tourism is international. Its essence is to enable us to fly "back to back". When we send people to the United States those ambassadors that are our tourists bring Americans back in ever-increasing numbers. The same is true of other countries. The more we can use those ambassadors, the greater will be the increase in tourism in this country.
  6.43 p.m.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: We have had a very curtailed debate, for reasons which we all appreciate, but it has provided an opportunity for an important matter to be given an airing.
  I should perhaps deal straight away with the arguments of the hon. Members
  690
  for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow). They sought to argue that the matter was of very little importance, and were perhaps echoing a line the Press was given in guidance two or three days ago, that that was the Government's view, although the Chief Secretary did not use the argument.
  Nothing could illustrate more clearly the differences of principle and approach between the two sides of the House. Hon. Members opposite regard the limit as perhaps a rather convenient restriction. It appears to have little or no impact on those whom they believe to be their supporters, and they still nurture the fond illusion that it is of benefit to the balance of payments.
  We on this side of the House regard it as an absurd and illogical curtailment of the individual's freedom of choice. The alleged benefits have never been proved. On the contrary, the existence of the control damages the position of sterling, and, because it is felt to be unjustified, it is subject to widespread evasion, leading to a contempt for the law. It is the sort of restriction which, if it is to be maintained, must be justified up to the hilt. If it is to be operated fairly, it must command a wide measure of support.
  Having listened to the debate, I feel that neither condition has been met. Like other speakers, I do not intend to take long, because time is limited, and I shall not go over the arguments that have been rehearsed. But I would add one point to the telling speech and the telling figures quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) from the answer he had on 4th November. Those figures left wholly out of account the impact of devaluation on the £50 travel allowance, which knocked £50 down to £42, and inflation since then has reduced it to perhaps not more than £35.
  Mr. Diamond: What about Spain?
  Mr. Jenkin: Spain is perhaps an exception, because there was devaluation there. I take the point, but there are many other places to which people can go. Many hon. Members opposite are trying to encourage as many people as possible not to go to Spain.

  691
  I shall confine my arguments to three points, beginning with the alleged benefits. I dismiss the ludicrous argument, repeated by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth, which appeared in The Times the other day, again as a result of guidance, that:
  "… the sterling limit has kept down the cost of overseas package holidays for British working-class families at a time when prices would otherwise have risen steeply."
  It is complete nonsense. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) made it clear that the prices have been kept down wholly as the result of intensified competition in package tours. Even if it were true that the restriction had had that effect, where does that lead us? The Prime Minister said on 20th July, 1966:
  "… direct action on the balance of payments is required."
  After announcing cuts in defence, he went on:
  "Private overseas expenditure must also make its contribution."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1966; Vol. 732, c. 632–3.]
  He then announced the limit of £50.
  What would the reaction in the House have been if instead of justifying it by reference to the rising figures of overseas travel expenditure, the Prime Minister had said:
  "We believe that this restriction will reduce the cost of package tours, and so bring the advantages of foreign travel within the reach of still more working-class families."?
  The House would rightly have thought that he had taken leave of his senses. It is astonishing that we should have heard that argument from the hon. Gentleman. It is typical Socialist logic. I hope that I am not straying out of order when I remind the House of the groundnuts scheme, in which nearly £40 million of expenditure was wasted, and the justification—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's hope is unfounded. He was straying out of order.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I shall leave that topic straight away.
  Now hon. Members opposite seek mainly to rely on the alleged figure of £25 million gain to the balance of payments. I said in the debate on this subject on 30th June:
  692
  "It is remarkable that no Minister who has had to deal with the matter has ever been able to be any more specific, and no Chancellor, despite repeated questioning, has felt able to publish his calculations in arriving at this figure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1969; Vol. 786, c. 91–92.]
  That statement is as true now after the Chief Secretary's speech as it was when I made it.
  In that debate I challenged the Government on a number of issues. What about the loss to the airlines? The nationalised airlines have been among the most vocal critics of the restriction. Has the right hon. Gentleman taken any account of the loss of income on the investments in foreign hotels made by British tour operators? Many of those hotels, particularly the more expensive ones, have been outside the range of the travel allowance. Yet, as a recent report of the European Travel Commission made clear, those items are both substantial.
  We have not yet had a proper justification for the limit. Any Minister who seeks to satisfy his critics by justifying the figure must take those points into consideration, but the Chief Secretary has not even attempted to do so.
  What about expenditure in the sterling area? My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) made this telling point. Here the expenditure is rising sharply. I will quote a paragraph from an article by Alan Day in the Observer:
  "The truth is that the legal distinction between sterling area holidays and those in the rest of the world has had precious little justification since convertibility was re-established over a decade ago and now has practically no justification as a way of helping our balance of payments. Whether I spend my money in Sicily or in Malta, I am adding a deficit item to the British balance of payments which is liable to be paid out in gold or dollars. And these days, sterling area countries show no great reluctance to convert sterling into dollars if it suits their convenience."
  Perhaps I could answer the right hon. Gentleman's jibes about the controls operated by my right hon. Friends by saying that that was before convertibility applied. Until 1958, when quotas were on imports and there was no general licence, it made sense to restrict all sorts of expenditure. But once the general licence came in, the restrictions were abolished and remained abolished until 1966, but this one form of personal current expenditure has been singled out for restrictions. This is what makes it so completely illogical.

  693
  My second point is that, because it has failed to be justified, there is undoubtedly widespread evasion. Many methods have been quoted. Some hon. Members opposite have tried to say that evasion is very limited, but I wonder whether they read the report in the Daily Mail by Vincent Mulchrone on 16th October, 1968, in which he said:
  "In Greece earlier this year, our travel editor, Peter Whelpton, questioned 40 English tourists. Four out of five admitted that they had brought extra cash."
  That is only one stray poll, but it is some indication of the widespread nature of evasion. There are other devices, and, had there been time, I would have elaborated on this, but the way in which those firms controlling both hotels and airlines manage to have cross-sub-sidisation so as to reduce the amount of the V form which has to be allocated to the hotel, leaving the holidaymaker with more spending money, is apparently legal, because it is obviously sanctioned by the Bank of England.
  But the real harm of this is the damage that it does to confidence. Here, perhaps, I can rely on a recent personal experience. When the Chancellor made his announcement, I was in America, and this was one item out of very few which made the columns of the Press in the Middle West. I was asked for an explanation of the introduction of this limit. I explained that the £50 tourist allowance was the equivalent of about 120 dollars. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that that was greeted with cries of incredulity. The immediate assumption of my audience was that if British citizens were allowed to take out of the country only that much, the economy must still be in a critically dangerous state. I was trying to persuade my audiences, because I was speaking abroad, by quoting the figures, that the British economy seemed at long last to be beginning to turn the corner. But immediately, this very measure cast doubts on the veracity of my claims on behalf of my country.
  This is the real damage, the damage which is done to confidence in the £. As The Guardian said on 22nd October:
  "… this is not the act of a country that has mastered its economic difficulties and recovered its nerve. It will confirm the impression that Britain is the poor relation of Europe, and still down on its uppers. The British abroad will continue to be known as the tourists who cannot afford to tip the waiter."
  694
  If the Government wanted to undermine confidence in the £, they could hardly have devised a more effective method than sending out millions of our people who have to count every centime, every pfennig, every peseta and every cent they spend.
  Confidence always has been and a mains a critical weapon in the Chancellor's armoury. The sooner that this niggling, irksome and illiberal restriction is removed the better. I have rarely felt more justified in asking my right hon. and hon. Friends to support a Motion in the Lobby.
  6.56 p.m.
  Mr. Diamond: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to the debate. I will come to the comment of the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) about removing this restriction a little later. I should like first to answer the questions put to me.
  The first was about the business allowance, and came from the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell). Twenty pounds a day, as he will recognise, is a reasonable allowance, apart from the United States, and in the United States or in any case in which a business allowance greater than £20 is required, a businessman has only to submit and justify an application and he will get more. This sounds a large figure, but the hon. Member and I both know that one sometimes needs more. We are anxious for exporters to go abroad, and we rely on their discretion in deciding on the best method of getting exports.
  I turn to the suggestion about Australia. Australia and all other countries in the sterling area co-operate fully with these restrictions. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) was absolutely right: a United Kingdom resident does not get more than the amount to which he is entitled here. We get that full cooperation.
  I was asked about purchasing property in Portugal. It is true that purchases can be made legally, but they are made with property currency from a pool of money which is available for that purpose, and at no cost to the reserves. There have been illegal purchases and there have been prosecutions accordingly. On travel

  695
  offences alone, on this same point of prosecutions, we of course follow up cases which we find out about. The Customs is very active about this, and in the past 12 months there have been 64 prosecutions, resulting in fines totalling over £12,000. In addition, the Customs has seized a total of £120,000.
  Someone asked about the figures of visitors here and suggested that the present limitation of travel allowance was discouraging visits. The fact is that so far this year the number of visitors to the United Kingdom is up by 24 per cent. Those are the main points which were put to me.
  Three main arguments have developed on this Motion. First, how right the hon. Member was to support his Motion by arguing for abolition. He and the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said the same thing. They both argued for abolition, and not a single speech— with the solitary exception of that of the hon. Member for Bodmin—contained an argument for an increase in the allowance. The case put to me is that the figures are bogus. Every hon. Member opposite has said that. What do they mean by that that the figure I gave of £25 million saving overstates the position and does not understate it?
  Yet the Motion is for an increase. Of course, if the allowance were increased, this figure, which all hon. Members say is less than £25 million, would be even smaller, would it not? On the £100 which they maintained for five years, the saving would be negligible—a maximum, on my figures, which they may say are overstated, of £5 million a year, quite a ridiculous thing. As my right hon. Friend said, on any worth-while increase the saving becomes negligible and the Motion utterly fails on that ground alone.
  The right hon. Member for Barnet said how ridiculous it was that one could import a string of Mercedes but could not spend more than £50 on a holiday. He proposed a Motion to increase the allowance. Of course, once one can spend £75, for example, abroad, it is perfectly justifiable to import as many Mercedes as one likes. It is only improper to do so when the allowance is £50.
  Mr. Maudling: The right hon. Gentleman must not distort my argument. I
  696
  made it clear that one cannot totally abolish the allowance without giving complete freedom of capital movement. But the Government would not dream of allowing free capital movement.
  Mr. Diamond: There is certainly no intention in the foreseeable future of denying to the Government the safeguard which comes from control of capital movement. The Motion has nothing to do with that. It criticises us for not increasing the allowance. The hon. Member for Bodmin brought out that point, and another hon. Member made it clear that, although he was supporting the Motion for a limited reason, he wanted total abolition. All the other speeches were in favour of total abolition. I have made it clear that to increase the allowance would be pointless. It would cause difficulties would be of limited benefit and would save only a very small figure to the reserves. That is why we are not prepared to do it.
  The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford made once more the excellent speech he delivered on a previous occasion about prestige. I think that is the only other argument which comes into this. I cannot quote what he has just said but I can quote his words on a previous occasion, since they were the same kind of words. On 30th June, in our previous debate, he said the following, quoting from his favourite author:
  "If the Government had wanted to set about undermining confidence in the £"—
  the words he used again today—
  "if they wanted to blazen abroad to ordinary people like the French hotelier, the German restaurateur, the Italian taxi driver or the Swiss ski instructor, by giving the impression that our economy is in a dangerously parlous state, they could not have devised a more effective method than to send out millions of our people counting every centime, every pfennig, every lira or every cent they spend. If, as I believe is true, confidence is a critical weapon in the fight for prosperity, the sooner these niggling, irksome, illiberal and petty restrictions are abolished the better."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1969; Vol. 786, c. 97.]
  It is good stuff. He was arguing that what was preventing confidence in the £ was the maintenance of this restriction.
  I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman —and I am sure that he and his right hon. and hon. Friends rejoice with me, although their rejoicing is in a somewhat minor key—that since that date confidence

  697
  in the £, shown by what has been happening in the exchanges and with regard to the flow and generally throughout the world, has risen very substantially. We have seen a completely different aspect in our circumstances. There has not been one good argument for increasing
  this allowance, and, therefore, I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote, as they spoke, against the Motion.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 239, Noes 294.

  Division No. 19.]

  AYES

  [7.6 p.m.

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Marten, Neil

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Maude, Angus

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Astor, John

  Goodhart, Phillp

  Mawby, Ray

  Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Awdry, Daniel

  Cower, Raymond

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

  Baker, Kenneth (Acton)

  Grant, Anthony

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Grant-Ferris, Sir Robert

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Balniel, Lord

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Grieve, Percy

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Batsford, Brian

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Monro, Hector

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Gurden, Harold

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Bell, Ronald

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)

  Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizos)

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Bessell, Peter

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Biffen, John

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Murton, Oscar

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Neave, Airey

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Blaker, Peter

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Nott, John

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Onslow, Cranley

  Body, Richard

  Hawkins, Paul

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Hay, John

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Boyd-Carponter, Rt. Hn. John

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Brewis, John

  Heseltine, Michael

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Pardoe, John

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Hill, J. E. B.

  Percival, Ian

  Bryan, Paul

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Peyton, John

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus,N&M)

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Buck, Antony (Colchester)

  Holland, Philip

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Hordem, Peter

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Burden, F- A.

  Hornby, Richard

  Pounder, Rafton

  Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Hunt, John

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Pym, Francis

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Clark, Henry

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Cooke, Robert

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Rees-Davies, W. R,

  Cordis, John

  Joplig, Michael

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Corfield, F. V.

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Costain, A. P.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Crouch, David

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Kimball, Marcus

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Currie, G. B. H.

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Kitson, Timothy

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Dance, James

  Lambton, Viscount

  Royle, Anthony

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Dean, Paul

  Lane, David

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Scott, Nicholas

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Dodd-Parker, Douglas

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Drayson, G. B.

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

  Silvester, Frederick

  Eden, Sir John

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Emery, Peter

  Longden, Gilbert

  Errington, Sir Eric

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Smith, John (London & W'minster)

  Farr, John

  MacArthur, Ian

  Speed, Keith

  Fisher, Nigel

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Stainton, Keith

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  McMaster, Stanley

  Stodart, Anthony

  Fortescue, Tim

  McNalr-Wilson, Michael

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Foster, Sir John

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh(St'fford & Stone)

  Maddan, Martin

  Tapsell, Peter

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Maginnis, John E.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Wall, Patrick

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Temple, John M.

  Walters, Dennis

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Ward, Christopher (Swindon)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Tilney, John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Worsley, Marcus

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Wright, Esmond

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Wylie, N. R.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Wiggin, A. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Waddington, David

  Williams, Donald (Dudley)

  Mr. Jasper More and

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Mr. Reginald Eyre.

  Walter-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Judd, Frank

  Albu, Austen

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Kelley, Richard

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  English, Michael

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Allen, Schotefield

  Ensor, David

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Anderson, Donald

  Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen)

  Kerr, Russell (Feltham)

  Ashley, Jack

  Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)

  Latham, Arthur

  Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Lawson, George

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)

  Finch, Harold

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Lee, John (Reading)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric(lslington, E.)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Barnes, Michael

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold (Cheetham)

  Barnett, Joel

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Baxter, William

  Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Beaney, Alan

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Ford, Ben

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridge-ton)

  Forrester, John

  Loughlin, Charles

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fowler, Gerry

  Luard, Evan

  Binns, John

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Freeson, Reginald

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Blackburn, F.

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  McBride, Neil

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Gardner, Tony

  McCann, John

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Garrett, W. E.

  MacColl, James

  Booth, Albert

  Ginsburg, David

  MacDermot, Niall

  Boston, Terence

  Golding, John

  Macdonald, A. H.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

  McElhone, Frank

  Boyden, James

  Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

  McGuire, Michael

  Bradley, Tom

  Gregory, Arnold

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Grey, Charles (Durham)

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Brooks, Edwin

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mackie, John

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

  Griffiths, Wilt (Exchange)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Brown,Bob(N 'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Buchan, Norman

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Mahon, Simon (Boot:?)

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Hamling, William

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hannan, William

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

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Harper, Joseph

  Manuel, Archie

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mapp, Charles

  Carmichael, Neil

  Haseldine, Norman

  Marks, Kenneth

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hazell, Bert

  Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Chapman, Donald

  Henig, Stanley

  Maxwell, Robert

  Coe, Denis

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Coleman, David

  Hilton, W. S.

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Concannon, J. D.

  Hobden, Dennis

  Mendelson, John

  Conlan, Bernard

  Hooley, Frank

  Mikardo, Ian

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Horner, John

  Millan, Bruce

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Cronin, John

  Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Hoy, Rt. Hn. James

  Moonman, Eric

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Hunter, Adam

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)

  Hynd, John

  Moyle, Roland

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Delargy, Hugh

  Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)

  Murray, Albert

  Dell, Edmund

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Neal, Harold

  Dempsey, James

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Newens, Stan

  Dewar, Donald

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Norwood, Christopher

  Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(H'b'n&St.P'cras,S.)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Dickens, James

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Ogden, Eric

  Doig, Peter

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  O'Haltoran, Michael

  Dunn, James A.

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Dunnett, Jack

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Oram, Albert E.

  Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Eadie, Alex

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Orme, Stanley

  Edelman, Maurice

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Oswald, Thomas

  700

  701

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Owen, Will (Morpeth)

  Rose, Paul

  Urwin, T. W.

  Padley, Walter

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Varley, Eric G.

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Rowlands, E.

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Paget, R. T.

  Ryan, John

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)

  Wallace, George

  Panned, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Sheldon, Robert

  Watkins, David (Consett)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Weitzman, David

  Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)

  Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Short, Mrs. Renee(W'hampton,N.E.)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Whitlock, William

  Pentland, Norman

  Silverman, Julius

  Wilkine, W. A.

  Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Slater, Joseph

  Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Small, William

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Probert, Arthur

  Snow, Julian

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Pursey, Crndr. Harry

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Willis, Rt. Hn. George

  Randall, Harry

  Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Rankin, John

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Rees, Merlyn

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Winnick, David

  Richard, Ivor

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Woof, Robert

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy

  Swain, Thomas

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Roberts, Cwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)

  Taverne, Dick

  Robertson John (Paisley)

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St.P'cas)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Tinn, James

  Mr. R. F. H. Dobson.

  Roebuck, Roy

  Tomney, Frank

RURAL BUS SERVICES
7.16 p.m.
Mr. Michael Heseltine: I beg to move,
That this House regrets Her Majesty's Government's decision to permit the withdrawal of subsidies to those rural bus services which have replaced discontinued rail services without taking adequate steps to measure the effect on rural populations and at a time when the replacement of these subsidies by local authority support is prejudiced by the severe pressure on local government expenditure from the central Government.
Without doubt, this week has seen the pressures build up on the Minister of Transport's desk. On Tuesday, the Christmas traffic was threatened. Yesterday saw, I suppose, the gravest crisis that the British ports have ever faced. Today we are dealing with a new collapse in the rural transport industry. The Minister might wonder whether he was wise to have left the relative tranquillity of the Foreign Office. It is not as though I have a shred of hope to offer him, because the odds are 2 to 1 on that he will be sacked and not promoted at the end of his tenure of office. However, if the right hon. Gentleman believes that tomorrow never comes, I warn him that this is precisely the attitude on which so much of the Government's transport policy has been based and which has caused so many of the problems with which we are now dealing. That is why
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the legacy with which this fourth Minister of Transport in four years is faced so serious and why the time for action is so imminent.
The rural bus services are, however, only a small part of the transport industry. However small they may be in turnover, in terms of human cost the situation is very poignant. We are familiar with the elderly couple who move to a quiet rural area to find that within a year or so the rail and bus links are cut off and they are without any means of communication with the neighbouring towns. We are aware of local parish councils watching young married couples taking their children away because they cannot get to play with children in neighbouring villages. We are aware of those who, because of physical handicap or the disinclination or incapacity to drive, are faced with increasing isolation in the countryside. The House is as familiar as I am with mounting costs, falling demand and deteriorating services in rural areas. The only group of people who have any incentive to cope with this problem, if it is possible to cope with it, are the local authorities directly concerned.
Local authorities have been, on the most charitable explanation, not kept in touch with the Government's attitude to rural bus services, but, at worst, have been deliberately misled about the Government's intentions in respect of certain of these services. I must take

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the House back to the Transport Acts of 1962 and 1968, and particularly the 1968 Act, which is the root cause of so many of our transport problems today. As a background to the 1962 Act, it was provided that when British Railways withdrew services the bus companies might be invited to replace the rail services and that the subsidies necessary to maintain the bus services in operation would be financed and subsidised by British Railways.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) provided the ultimate protection for people living in country areas: that before any substitute bus services were withdrawn he would investigate the services which were being provided and the effects of the withdrawal. He gave no certainty of continuity, but he gave a guarantee of sympathetic investigation. The House and the Government fully accepted the implications of that policy.
The late Stephen Swingler, whom we all deeply miss in transport circles, spelt out the implications of that policy:
"The additional and revised bus services are a condition of the closure being effected. If, for any reason—for example, operators being unable or unwilling to provide them, or the traffic commissioners not licensing them —they are not provided, the closure cannot take place, unless or until my right hon. Friend varies the conditions. Let that be perfectly plain. The conditions are laid down and they must be satisfied according to these terms."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1965; Vol. 712, c. 871.]
Both sides of the House accepted the full implications of that policy.
Section 54 of the 1968 Act related to these substitute services and gave the Minister power to vary the conditions, but of course Section 54 was never discussed. The Government saw to that. They guillotined it in Committee and on Report, and it was never possible for the House to examine the implications of the power which the Government took in 1968 to vary the conditions relating to the closures.
One thought which crossed nobody's mind was, not that the Government wanted to vary the conditions, but that the Government might withdraw the conditions. It was an almost inconceivable thought, but that is what was in the Government's mind. The House was not
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told, neither were the local authorities. On the contrary, the right hon. Lady the First Secretary of State, then the Minister of Transport, painting a broad new horizon, said this:
"The Bill will come to the rescue of rural life in two important ways. …."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1967; Vol. 756, c. 1301.]
She went on to refer to the bus grants and the flexibility in the licensing system. Who could have thought, having heard what the right hon. Lady said, that this brave new gesture to the transport industry was not to inject new services and a new vitality but was simply to finance a subsidy which, until then, had been paid by British Rail. The right hon. Lady had done two things by her enthusiastic declaration of her new policy. First, she had created a sense of expectancy in the local authorities and the travelling public. Secondly, she had taken the power to pull the carpet from underneath their feet.
Her successor, the right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), gave the first jerk. On 17th January, 1969, the responsibility for the replacement services was transferred to the National Bus Company, and still, neither in this House not in local government, were the full implications of what was happening appreciated or understood. It was not until 5th May, 1969, that the ever vigilant hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), in the way that we have come to expect from him, asked the Minister of Transport in a Written Question what were the new conditions which he sought to apply under that Section. The answer to Written Question No. 68 is tucked away at the back of HANSARD and was not widely reported or commented on. Indeed, it will come as no surprise to you, Mr. Speaker, that it was neither reported nor commented on because the effects were not noticed by anybody except the Ministry of Transport.
The effect was to leave it entirely to the National Bus Company to decide whether or not substitute services which had been in existence for two years should continue. It was a rolling programme and, as year succeeded year, a new set of substitute services came up for eligibility for the "chop".
A major departure from a pledge given by the previous Minister of Transport,

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my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey, should at least have merited an honest public statement from the Government of what they had in mind. Before that pledge, honourably given and honourably accepted by that Government, was changed, at least somebody should have come to the Dispatch Box to tell the House and the country what the Government had in mind.
I have tried to find out the implications of all this for the local authorities by asking the only two representatives of people who have any real interest in combating the problems, the County Councils Association and the Rural District Councils Association, whether or not they were notified of the Minister's intention, and whether they ever understood the implications of Section 54 of the Transport Act, 1968. The County Councils Association replied:
"In so far as I am aware, the Association has never been consulted about this change and its possible implications for local authorities."
The Rural District Councils Association replied:
"The answer to both questions posed in your letter of the 25th is that the Association has not been consulted."
The House is left with one question: is this simply an act of bad communications, or is it a hope that the problem would never come to light?
I am not here to attack the view that transport costs should be borne where transport costs arise. I suspect that is the only way in which rationalisation will be brought to the industry, and we have a long way to go to achieve that result. To change to a more market-orientated economy in transport without telling people what is intended, without helping them to understand the problems that arise, and without providing transitional aid to cope with these problems is a lamentable feature of government, and the chaos resulting from this is beginning to accumulate.
Mr. Donald Anderson Mr. Donald Anderson (Monmouth) rose—
Mr. Heseltine: I must warn the Government that the 25 per cent. fare increases, the threatened withdrawal of transport services and the mounting resentment among local authorities is as
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yet nothing to what will happen as this rolling programme of decimation of the rural services continues.
I have tried to find out how the figures balance. The Ministry does not know how much it is spending this year on rural grants. It does not know what is the figure for next year. It knows that the figure for last year was nothing, and that the estimates it has provided for 1969 have not been taken up. One reason why they have not been taken up is because no one has told the local authorities the criteria which they must satisfy to be eligible for rural bus grants. The clear and inescapable fact that emerges from my investigation is that the Government today are spending less on rural bus grants than the amount of the subsidy which British Rail has withdrawn from the provision of substitute services. The brave new world of the right hon. Lady has turned out to be an economy for the national taxpayer. That might be what the Government wanted, but it is not what the Government said. The local authorities were never encouraged to understand the implications of what was coming; they were never given the opportunity to participate or to take any action.
In the meantime the Western Morning News of 13th November, 1969, reports the National Bus Company, through its spokesman Mr. E. S. Fay, Q.C., as saying that the withdrawal of the £129,000 payment to the companies by British Rail as a contribution to the cost of running services which had refused or discontinued railway services was a major factor in increasing fares. He went on to say that the National Bus Company which acquired the companies at the beginning of the year was not prepared to reimburse them this sum of money.
Similar examples are beginning to emerge from all over the country—from Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Essex, Cambridge, Suffolk and Herefordshire. The Midland Red is seeking a discretionary fare increase in the Rural District Council of Atherstone, which will put up the fares in rural services to a greater extent than is the case on equivalent urban services.
This may be good transport economics, but I wonder how hon. Gentlemen opposite can square it with what was said by

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the right hon. Lady the First Secretary of State in 1967:
"The National Bus Company and the Scottish Transport Group will have strong base from which to continue cross-subsidisation of rural bus services by healthier urban ones."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1967; Vol. 756, c. 1301.]
That will come as no surprise to those of us who have laboured under the right hon. Lady's policies.
The Parliamentary Secretary then stood at the Dispatch Box in January 1968 to justify the expenditure of over £50 million of taxpayers' money in acquiring the Midland Red and British Electric Traction Bus Companies. He said they saw Exchequer payments
"as a means of cutting through the vicious spiral of decreasing traffic and increasing fares which has been a feature of all bus operations over the past decade",—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th January, 1968; Vol. 756, c. 1729.]
We do not seem to have dented that spiral very successfully.
Wherever one looks the same inconsistencies apply. One finds the country buses of London being transferred to the National Bus Company at a loss so that the National Bus Company can subsidise the country bus services of London, but the country dwellers in the West Country, the Midlands and East Anglia are not permitted to do so.
It is not as if the Ministry of Transport representatives in this House even knew what was going on. As the Parliamentary Secretary will know, he told me on 13th November that there was to be no subsidy, but then, shortly afterwards, wrote to tell me that there was to be a subsidy to the National Bus Company after all.
What is urgently needed from the Government is an earnest declaration of policy in respect of rural buses. They must make it clear that they have a consistent attitude to what the ratepayer, the taxpayer and the fare-paying public at large pay. Wherever one looks one sees that their decisions are not taken on a basis of coherent transport policy, but on the basis of political opportunism and what they think they can get away with.
If local authorities are to respond to the urgent need in our rural areas, they must be given a clear declaration of what the Government intend to do. The Government must take this opportunity to experiment with a more flexible licence system,
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for which we asked some two years ago. The present system was designed for the 1930s. It is administered by a Government which is designed for an age a great deal earlier than that. The system threatens to strangle transportation in rural life. If the Minister will accept the warning given to him by those of us on this side of the House, he will understand that another aspect of the Government's transport policy is crumbling. If he wishes to remove himself from personal responsibility, he has not much time left.
Mr. Speaker: I would remind hon. Members that there are many who still wish to speak and that this is a curtailed debate.
7.35 p.m.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. BobBrown): The Opposition's Motion deals with one aspect of a very important and difficult subject, namely rural transport. Greater car ownership together with de-population of the countryside over the years has caused passenger traffic on rural public transport services to fall off substantially. This has meant that these services, which at the very best have only been on the margins of viability, have become more and more under-used and more and more uneconomic; and all this has been happening in parts of the country where transport—of one sort or another—has a very special importance. So it is timely for us to look at these problems.
The Motion confines itself to
"those rural bus services which have replaced discontinued rail services".
It gives the impression that there has been a complete reversal of policy, with no concern for the needs of rural dwellers, but with devastating effects which will call for massive support from local authorities made impossible by the limitations on their expenditure.
I shall seek to show that this impression is misleading and that what has been done is no more than a logical, beneficial, and businesslike extension of the existing policy.
Let us look at the facts. The Transport Act 1962 provided that any proposal to withdraw all rail passenger services from a line or station to which an objection was made must receive the Minister's prior consent. It also provided

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that he could attach conditions to his consent—including conditions requiring the Railways Board to provide or assist in the provision of alternative bus services for former rail users.
Most of the bus services so prescribed by successive Ministers have been bus services already operating in the area concerned. There has never been any question of a subsidy for these, nor has the Minister intervened in their regulation by the bus companies concerned subject to the overall control of the traffic commissioners. But the conditions attached to closure consents also often include conditions relating to additional bus services.
Until the Transport Act 1968, British Railways had to arrange with individual bus operators for such services to be put on after being duly licensed by the traffic commissioners. British Railways also met any deficits which these services might incur. The services could not be withdrawn or substantially reduced without the Minister's express approval. Some, but not all, of these services were in rural areas.
One of the features of the "new deal" for the railways announced in the White Paper on Railway Policy in November, 1967, was that the Railways Board should not be burdened with losses on socially necessary rail services, and that the community should explicitly take financial responsibility for such services. It was consistent with this philosophy that the board should also be relieved of its subventions towards rail replacement bus services. This cost, which in 1968 was running at the rate of £1 million a year, was part of the general deficit of the Railways Board which had to be met out of the annual Exchequer grant.
In paragraphs 59 to 61 of the subsequent White Paper on Public Transport and Traffic, Cmnd. 3481, the Government announced that the financial responsibility for these bus services was to be transferred from the Railways Board to the National Bus Company and the Scottish Transport Group. The White Paper said that the negotiation of contracts for bus services—
Mr. Michael Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the financial responsibility. To the best of my recollection, the White Paper did not mention the word "financial".
Mr. Brown: The responsibility was clearly that of British Rail.
The White Paper said that the negotiation of contracts for bus services was not a proper activity for the Railways Board. It made it clear that the cost of providing additional rail replacement bus services had been taken into account in settling the financial duties of the N.B.C. and the S.T.G. These two bodies could provide the services either through one of their own subsidiary companies or by contracting with another operator to run a particular service. They would also take over from the Railways Board responsibility for existing contracts with private operators and would in future negotiate the renewal of such contracts. If an individual operator was not prepared to have his contract transferred to one of the two new bodies, it would have to remain with the Railways Board until it ran out.
Section 54 of the Transport Act, 1968, also enabled the Minister to attach conditions to his closure consents relating to the provision of alternative services by or through the N.B.C. or the S.T.G. which were to bear the cost of such services.
At this point, let me remind the House that the change of ownership of the nationalised bus industry from the Transport Holding Company to the National Bus Company and the Scottish Transport Group gave the industry a substantial financial benefit. Under the 1962 Act the Transport Holding Company had to pay to the Minister part of the surplus that it made each year. On average, the bus side was contributing about £2 million to £3 million a year to the Exchequer.
The 1968 Act stopped this. There is now no requirement for the N.B.C. and S.T.G. to make any payment to the Minister on the former T.H.C. assets they now own. Moreover, the former B.E.T. companies which are now in the N.B.C. no longer have to think about dividends for the shareholders.
This change made it possible totrans-fer the financial burden of the rail replacement services to the N.B.C. and S.T.G. and still require them to break even. The Government were in effect, saying to them, "We will not meet the cost of these subventions as, in practice, we did with the Railways Board. Instead, we will

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relieve you of the requirement to make extra surpluses and make payments to us." In fact, the Government are helping them even further, and other sections of the bus industry too by other measures introduced by our 1968 Act. Under this, the N.B.C. will receive in the current year some £1½ million in additional fuel tax rebate, and it received over £2 million a year from the 25 per cent. grant towards its expenditure on new buses. That is not a small financial contribution.
The financial duty of the N.B.C. and the S.T.G. is set out in Section 41 of the 1968 Act. They have to break even after taking account of
"all charges which are proper to be made to revenue account".
These have to be worked out. In any circumstances it takes time, and, in the case of the N.B.C, it had to create a new organisation, both operational and financial, when it took over the bus interests of the T.H.C. at the beginning of this year. All this was a brand-new organisation which had to be set up. So we have had this interregnum while the financial targets are being worked out.
Unfortunately this year the companies have been faced with sharply increased costs—largely arising from negotiated wage increases. So many of them have had to make application for increases in fares before they know precisely what financial targets the N.B.C. intended to lay down for them.
As a purely interim arrangement, therefore, the subsidiary companies have tended to spell out in their applications the effect on their finances of all the changes that have taken place since their last applications—as they have seen them at the time. By far the main factor has been the wage increases. On the debit side, they have also shown the payments previously made by the Railways Board. They have had offsetting credits; for example, the reduction in costs from the fuel duty rebate. From the evidence I have seen, they seem in the main to have adopted a very reasonable attitude in this interim period of claiming fares increases which would produce well below the total increases in their net costs.
All this was spelled out in the White Paper on Public Transport and Traffic
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(Cmnd. 3481), and I invite the Opposition to read carefully in particular paragraphs 58 to 61.
In answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) on 5th May last to which the hon. Gentleman referred, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) gave the House a progress report on the implementation of this policy. He said that the obligation in relation to services operated, or arranged, by their own subsidiaries had already been transferred to the N.B.C. and the S.T.G. He also said that negotiations about the transfer of responsibility to the N.B.C. for services run by independent and municipal operators were now to take place. These negotiations have not yet been completed. He also informed the House of a modification in the procedure. Formerly, the Minister's explicit consent was required for changes in the additional bus services, however long ago the rail closure had taken place.
In passing, perhaps I might say to the hon. Gentleman that if he thinks that my former Minister's statement was neither reported on nor commented on, he should have a word with his research department in Smith Square. Clearly, it has not been keeping him "genned up".
These additional services in practice are no different from all the other bus services in the area, which were already operating before the railway service was closed. They represent the best estimate which can be made at the time the closure is being considered of what provision is likely to be needed, over and above that offered by the existing services. But the additional services are considered, instituted, and in practice operated, by the bus operator as part of the general services in the area.
It was reckoned that after the rail service was closed the travelling public would take some time to adapt itself to the new circumstances. A new pattern of travel would emerge, which was not necessarily possible to predict with any adequacy when the closure was under consideration.
The responsibility of the National Bus Company and its subsidiaries is to provide, as far as practicable and subject to the necessary approval and consent of the traffic commissioners, the bus services

713
necessary to meet the needs of the travelling public in all the areas they serve, including those areas where rail services have been closed.
It was therefore thought quite logical and reasonable that after two years— during which the new travel patterns would have established themselves—it could safely be left to the National Bus Company to decide what pattern of bus services best met the local needs. Moreover, its operations were subject to the control and supervision of the traffic commissioners.
There is thus no question of the N.B.C. suddenly withdrawing these services which originally replaced closed railways, nor of local authorities being suddenly faced with an unexpected burden in terms of rural bus grants if they want them to continue. These services will already be part of the N.B.C.'s general network of services, and the N.B.C. will accept the same responsibility for them as it does for its non-paying services generally—by cross-subsidisation.
Some of these services—and the same applies to rural services in areas which have never had a railway—may sooner or later come into the category where, although they may be needed on social grounds, receipts are so low that no bus operator can be expected to maintain them without special financial help. This problem was recognised by the Jack Committee, appointed by the party opposite, which reported in 1961. I might ask at this stage why, when the party opposite introduced the 1962 Act, they did not take into it the recommendation of the Jack Committee and cater for rural services?
But the Government have thought of this problem, too. We have brought in the rural bus grant scheme so that local authorities can give financial help to these services with the central Government making a direct contribution of 50 per cent. This is an important new power, and we hope local authorities in all rural areas will look very carefully at the needs of their populace to see what assistance could, with advantage, be provided. This is directly in line with the recommendation of the Jack Committee which the party opposite completely ignored.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds) rose—
Mr. Brown: I will not give way. I have not time. Many back benchers want to speak and, in fairness to them, I cannot give way.
So far we have had comparatively few approaches from any of them about these new powers. We have had discussions with them, and several councils are going ahead with small schemes. One very interesting development pioneered in Devon is that several local authorities have in mind to co-ordinate their policy within their county so that there can be a uniform approach to the problem and a planned allocation of resources. This will obviously be useful, particularly where the services provided by a predominantly rural bus operator are getting to the stage where help is needed for a number of them. So if any local authority wants to go ahead with a scheme, or to get advice about one, my Ministry will be glad to hear from them.
The last part of the Motion suggests that all this is useless because the local authorities are being asked to restrict their expenditure so severely. It is right for them to have the prime responsibility because transport should be a local responsibility. But the Government will be assisting them with over three-quarters of their costs. Rural bus grants by local authorities attract a direct grant of 50 per cent. But the 50 per cent. of cost falling on local authorities is taken into the reckoning of the rate support grant, which provides some 56 per cent. of local authority expenditure.
We know that local authorities are facing difficulties over their finances. But certainly the cost to them of any conceivable rural bus grants is marginal, to say the least—even in the transport scene. Their own expenditure on roads and public lighting was £422 million in 1968–69. It is a question of the priorities that they themselves set, and surely there is room for assistance to public transport.
From what I have said I hope that the House will agree that there is no question of the Government having contemplated as a general policy that rail replacement bus services—any more than any other lightly used services in urban as well as rural areas—should in future have to stand on their own feet so that if they could not pay they would be withdrawn unless the local authority met their cost.

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What the Government have done is to transfer financial responsibility from one nationalised body, where it was not appropriate to two other nationalised bodies better fitted to the task, and to enable the transport needs of areas where rail services have been closed to be assessed as a whole and met in a flexible and integrated way by the operators on the spot and best qualified to form a judgment.
I am quite sure that these operators— the National Bus Company and the Scottish Transport Group—can be relied on to give rural dwellers a square deal and to show by their actions that the Opposition's Motion is very wide of the mark.
The hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) asked for an honest and clear declaration of our policy. I feel that I have satisfied the House in satisfying him.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. Many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. Mr. Pardoe.
7.55 p.m.
Mr. John Pardoe: I must admit to being somewhat bewildered by the wording of the Motion, although I am in sympathy with any expression from the Conservative benches that the Government have no rural transport policy. I am not sure whether the Motion is asking us to say that the Government have done the wrong or the right thing. I fully understand that they promised one thing and, whatever the Parliamentary Secretary said, undoubtedly did another. That is absolutely true. But is what they promised right and what they have done wrong, or is it that what they promised was wrong and what they have done is now right?
The Motion does not offer any hope to rural transport passengers in North Cornwall, which is vitally affected by the whole pattern of rural transport. If the subsidies on these limited services were implemented, they would not make a great deal of difference. The difference would be marginal and, indeed, transitory, because rural transport is undoubtedly in decline. It has been in
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decline for almost as long as anybody in this House can remember, and for a variety of reasons.
First, it exhibits all the classic ingredients of an industry in decline. For instance, it has personnel who are subject to an appallingly low morale because of the decline of the industry. They exhibit a sense of hopelessness in dealing with the problems taken to them by the travelling public. Their hopelessness is the only way that they can face the frustration and anger of the travelling public. I have sympathy with anyone working in this industry because nothing can be more depressing than to work in a hopeless industry.
Secondly, it is an industry in decline because of increasing prices, increasing costs, about which we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary, and, of course, the vicious circle which, because of the decline, means that costs will inevitably increase. To travel around by bus in North Cornwall is for many people, particularly those on supplementary benefit and the greater part of those who do not have private transport, virtually prohibitive. Because it is prohibitive there are fewer passengers, and those passengers are making fewer journeys. National buses in the rural areas of Cornwall at any time of day or night are invariably empty, or have just one or two passengers.
Thirdly, there is an inevitable desire on the part of those running the industry to crowd in a few more stops between the main points. This slows down the journey between the bigger towns from where the bulk of the traffic comes. This makes for longer journeys, so the whole thing goes on declining.
The reasons for the decline of rural transport are fairly easy to adduce. We have more cars. Cornwall has a particularly high incidence of car ownership in the population. This is not because people in Cornwall are wealthier than elsewhere, but because they cannot get around without a car. In fact, very few people can get to work without a car. So we find people in Cornwall on a low level of family income having to give a high priority of that income to the ownership of a car.
There has also been an increasing centralisation of the population in towns in

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rural areas. This can be seen, for instance, by the varying demand for council houses in the villages, which has almost dried up. More and more we find that people do not want to live in the villages; they want to live in the towns.
Moreover, like most industries in decline, rural transport in Cornwall is caught with the wrong sort of equipment and the wrong sort of organisation to adapt to a modern 20th century task. Most of the buses are designed for bigger loads. Indeed, they cannot be diverted to pick up a few passengers from this or that hamlet because they are too big for the lanes. Because of the introduction of a new size of bus, it is often found that they have to change routes and miss out certain villages or hamlets. This is what I mean when I say that they are caught with the wrong kind of equipment and the wrong kind of investment. Unfortunately, because the industry is in decline, it has no capital to adapt. Therefore, it is forced to make do with existing buses, which will never be profitable because they are the wrong kind of equipment.
If the industry is in decline, what should we do about it? How do we ensure that rural transport remains? Indeed, is it necessary that there should be any kind of public rural transport? The first essential element in the demand for public rural transport is from those people without cars. I accept that in Cornwall we have a larger incidence of ownership, but, nevertheless, there is still a very large proportion of the population who do not have cars. Perhaps it is a declining proportion, because to a large extent it is made up of older people who never did have cars, and therefore perhaps have never qualified as drivers, or who do not drive, or who cannot drive for health reasons, and perhaps people who are too young to drive.
The second major factor of this demand for public transport in rural areas comes from housewives whose husbands have cars and use them to get to work, with the result that the housewife has no car to fetch her children from school, to do the shopping, or to lead any kind of free existence. But housewives need cars for reasons other than doing the shopping and taking their children around. The
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influx of new industries into some of these development areas means that there is at least a demand for their services in light industrial works, but, unfortunately, it is virtually impossible for them to get to that work.
I have here a letter from the manager of one of the new factories at Launceston He says:
"The general difficulty of bringing employees in to work from the villages is one of the company's main anxieties."
I have had repeated discussions with the industries in that town, and in other parts of the constituency, to try to solve that problem, but I do not believe that it can be solved through the existing National Bus Company.
This factor of no transport to bring labour in from the villages, labour which is there and anxious to work, is grossly uneconomic, because it means that these people are living on unemployment pay, or supplementary benefits, when they could be deriving wages in the factories, and the lack of transport is inhibiting industrial and economic progress.
Another factor is the tremendous demand in rural areas for school transport, and I do not see how, in assessing the whole problem of rural transport, and whether we ought to be paying subsidies, we can separate that from the massive problem of school transport. Earlier this week I asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he would amend the regulations relating to school transport to bring them into line with new factors such as the massive incidence of traffic on the roads. The idea that a child of eight could walk two miles to school may well have been all right in the early fifties, but with the massive incidence of traffic that we now have, it is dangerous.
The factor of school transport is of immense importance, as some figures which I have from the Cornwall Education Committee show. Conveyance costs alone in 1967 were £218,000. The total number of children for whom conveyance was provided was 10,900, nearly 11,000. There were 36,000 children who were not conveyed. In addition, there were 1,250 children who had permissive seats on contract conveyances and paid a flat rate of 15s. for that. The total cost in 1967 of return pupil journeys was £2,187,000,

719
and they cost almost exactly 2s. per journey. If one compares that with the total number of public transport journeys in the area of Cornwall, one sees that that is an immensely important item in the total number of journeys being traversed. It is true that the education committee is keeping certain buses going on school services in order to ensure that the N.B.C. keeps those buses operating on a scheduled service for later in the day. It could well provide school transport services at less cost if it were to do that by private contract, or even by owning its own buses.
What are the solutions? First, there is the solution of subsidy, which the Motion is primarily about. I want to express the dangers of this. I had hoped that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) was going to honour us with the kind of speech that he made during the hotel debate, when he came in late in the proceedings and told his Front Bench rather more of what they ought to know about economies than they apparently knew.
There are grave dangers in accepting too facilely the idea that we can go on subsidising the running costs of all rural transport ad infinitum. How do we know that we shall have the subsidised services where they are needed? How do we know that the subsidies are going where they are most needed? In rural areas the problem is one of deciding the minimum demand which justifies the provision of a public service, and there is a chronic lack of market information on which to base this.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Liberal Party commissioned a report from a private consultant on the transport problems of his constituency of North Devon. One phrase of that report reads:
"… a field where"—
it is talking about rural transport—
"for 40 years it has been generally assumed that the producer knows best."
That is what I mean when I say that there is a chronic lack of market information. There is no point in going on subsidising these services for the sake of it if they are unwanted services, and if there are no objective criteria on which to decide whether they are wanted or not.
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I accept that a local council—and this, I think, is the point which the Tory Front Bench is making—can undoubtedly judge better than the Government or the National Bus Company exactly where these services should be, but it cannot judge it better than the consumer, and I should much rather have a market orientated service in the long run.
Moreover, those who want public transport are not necessarily the people who pay the highest rates. If one bears in mind the incidence of water supplies in rural areas, one appreciates the prejudice against spending rates to supply mains water to the people who pay the lowest rates. It is this attitude which will be prevalent in providing subsidies for rural bus services.
I do not think that the attitude of local authorities will be very generous. From my experience of trying to persuade them to take up the Government's idea that they should supply concessionary fares to old-age pensioners I know only too well that it is virtually impossible. When the Bill was passed, I wrote to all eight local councils in my constituency. Every one of them said that the pensioner was the problem of the Central Government, and that they did not want to know about it. The problem of persuading them to do this is somewhat difficult.
I think that subsidies must be regarded with great care, and indeed scepticism, and it seems to me that if we are to have subsidies—
Mr. Peter Walker: Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of his local authorities subsidising old-age pensioners, or against it?
Mr. Pardoe: I see no reason why local authorities should not come to an arrangement with existing bus companies if a scheme can be adapted, and I put forward a scheme whereby that could be done.
In the general context of rural bus services, if we are to pay subsidies at all, I want them paid only in the short term. They should be capital subsidies which enable rural bus services to adapt to the new situation. I do not want them to be running cost subsidies at all, because no community can have any self-respect if it is dependent on charity. I do not

721
want the rural areas of Cornwall to become Red Indian reservations.
Rural transport policy should be a policy, not to provide subsidies ad infinitum, but to adapt and overhaul rural transport so that it can stand on its own feet. What is needed is an acceptance of the fact that fare stage operations in rural areas is virtually dead. There is no future for it. The N.B.C. loses money on its fare stage operations throughout the South-West, and it makes it up by mystery tours and contract work. We need much greater flexibility than fare stage operations can offer. We want buses where they are wanted, for those who want them, and subscription co-operative transport associations if necessary. The difficulty of setting these up is a capital one. It is also a difficulty of persuading the local bus companies to accept competition on their routes.
The last matter is the need to use existing services to a much greater extent. I have already mentioned school transport. Although school buses run at odd times of the day for most passengers, they could be used to a greater extent than they are now by the travelling public. A great deal of hospital transport crosses these rural areas and is not used by the general travelling public. It could be so used. In my constituency, the members of a doctors' practice recently wrote to me saying that they are now, having invested considerable sums of money—not all theirs: some of it is the Government's —in providing new practice premises in five areas, making soundings about a practice minibus. That would save an immense amount of time in running the practice, but there are major difficulties in raising capital. I hope that the Government will consider this carefully.
By using these sorts of services, by extending the contract system, by admitting that the fare stage is dead and should be buried as a rural transport concept, I believe that the Government will be able, in the long term, to do far more to help rural transport stand on its own feet. I shall vote for the Motion, not because I agree with every dot of every i or the cross on every t, but simply because it is the Government's job to bring a rural transport Bill before us, and this they have manifestly failed to do.
8.11 p.m.
Mr. Archie Manuel: I do not intend to detain the House very long, because some of my hon. Friends are keen to speak. But I wanted to refer to the fascinating display given by the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Heseltine). I do not think hon. Members opposite realise what they are doing. They seem to be convinced that they should advocate the running of uneconomic rural bus services, which should be paid for ever from public subsidy. They would never adopt this philosophy for private enterprise or in their own businesses and it is not to be found in the strand which holds the Tory Party together. They believe that the profit motive is the deciding factor and that whatever is not making a profit should go into oblivion and wither away. One of the Whips there, the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson), has often advocated this in the country and I am sure that he would not deny it tonight.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Tavistock has left us. He talked of the massive resentment of local authorities about this. The uneconomic services of British Rail could not be carried for ever, and I am pleased that the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) recognised this. Obviously, it would have been grossly unfair on British Rail to have to continue shouldering that onerous burden. If, after two years, the Government decided that they would transfer these services to the National Bus Company, the people in the area would have a second avenue, because the local authority could come to a very good arrangement whereby the deficit would be halved between it and the Government.
We should not forget that, although the growth of the motor car has caused many problems in these areas, it has strengthened the rating return because more garages have been built. If the local authority wants some return here, they should allow more garages to be built, and the provision of more cars which weakens the rural bus services could help to pay for the continuation of the bus services.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths Mr. Eldon Griffiths rose—
Mr. Manuel: No, the hon. Member is very good in other debates, on America and so on, but I do not want to give way now.
Another point which should be driven home is that these services replaced withdrawn rail services. Local authorities can get massive help for replacement services from the Government. Surely hon. Members opposite would not say that we should continue to support the philosophy that British Rail, which cut out very uneconomic rail services should for ever carry a loss on the bus services which replace them. If we have done this for two years, we are doing quite well.
I would advise local authorities to go into this in detail and accept this gift from the Government. A Tory Government would never have offered this. I went right through the Committees on the 1962 Transport Act before many of these youngsters came into the House, blown in like froth at a general election that little material considerations was given to the real problems. But now they come along with transport philosophies, many of which cannot be considered if we are thinking in terms of a healthy rail system and of treating other transport services as they should be treated.
8.17 p.m.
Mr. Angus Maude: I recognise the vested interests of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) in the railway system, but have not been accustomed hitherto to hearing him as a champion of the rural bus services. He did not seem to advance the argument much further than the Parliamentary Secretary did, which was not very far, apart from a vicious, quite unprovoked attack upon my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond. Yorks (Mr. Kitson). It is clearly understood that Whips are muzzled and cannot defend themselves on these occasions. It seems unfair to pick on an hon. Member who has the largest rural constituency in England and attack him as having adopted a Powellite line, to the detriment of rural bus services. I am sure that my hon. Friend frequently supported the subsidisation of rural bus services by various means—and quite right too.
The Parliamentary Secretary did not answer the attack made by my hon.
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Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine). In a speech which had obviously been carefully prepared before my hon. Friend spoke, he omitted to include an answer to the gravamen of the attack, which is simply that these bus services have now been removed from a special position, with the guarantee which was clearly understood in advance, and have been put in a position which, as the Parliamentary Secretary himself said, is exactly the same as those of the other bus services run by the rural bus companies.
This is precisely what we complain about. It is no good the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire saying that the local authorities can give massive help. They cannot, in this instance—
Mr. Manuel Mr. Manuel rose—
Mr. Maude: No, the hon. Gentleman would not give way and I know that that was what he said—
Mr. Manuel: I said that the Government would help.
Mr. Maude: Local authorities will still have a considerable responsibility to undertake.
The removal of the special position which these services have had is alarming those who rely on rural bus services where rail services have been closed down. This particularly applies to those who are faced with the future closure of rural railway lines, for they know that the arguments which were put forward at the time of the inquiry—I have a case like this in my constituency—have now been changed.
Local authorities which will be relied on for this massive assistance were not consulted before this change was made, and this is a genuine criticism of the Government's action. These services have been put in the same position as rural bus services, which are subject to a continuous downward spiral of service. This worries the people who use these services.
The Parliamentary Secretary was challenged to produce a policy for rural bus services which would be some encouragement to the people who rely on them. He gave no encouragement and there is no reason to suppose that the situation will improve. As for the special services, it is clear that the position will

725
get worse—and we know from experience that the ordinary rural bus services are getting worse all the time. Thus, the position of village dwellers and others who rely on local services is becoming progressively more serious.
I do not blame the bus undertakings for this state of affairs. I never have. I have always consulted the local management when an issue has come up, and I am satisfied that local managements are right when they say that, with costs rising and with the number of motor cars increasing, it is becoming progressively more difficult for them to operate economically.
We know this to be true, and when I get complaints from a small village about the absence or cutting back of a service I go to great trouble to discover the potential number of travellers that the village is likely to raise. I often find that the number is four, five or six, It is clear that a normal bus is a totally uneconomic undertaking in such circumstances. There is far too little flexibility in the choice of buses and services.
Moreover, this is a downward spiral because, as costs increase, rural services serving small villages or acting as feeders to main routes become less profitable. Fares are raised, not only on those services, but on other routes which are subsidising the smaller and less frequented routes. Then passengers drop off, even on the profitable routes, as the result of fares being increased. The total result for urban and rural bus services is lower profitability, a lower rate of use of the capital involved and a downward spiral of service to all.
At some stage somebody must make up his mind about what must be done in this situation. I am not saying that any Government have really faced this problem entirely, but it must be faced before long. The private motor car will not meet this problem and some new thinking is required. Either we must recognise that this is a matter for subsidy, because it is a social service, or find another solution; but I would prefer to find an alternative solution, and to this extent I agree with the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe).
We may have to put services for very short routes out to tender to small private contractors with vans or mini buses, the
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contract going to the contractor who requires the lowest subsidy. We could see how that worked out for one year and at the end of that time it might be possible to lower the subsidy.
Sooner or later the Government must consider the possibility of doing what is done in other countries which is using the postal service for passenger transport. We have small postal vans going to every village and travelling almost every route at some stage in the early morning and often in the afternoon and evening as well, delivering and later collecting.
As these vans must be replaced, it should be possible to replace them with dual purpose vehicles. I appreciate that this might be difficult, for security reasons, for the Post Office, but I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of man to devise a system to use the postal services—full-time labour is already being used and a considerable amount of fuel is consumed for the loads carried—for passengers, too. I hope that we will have the Minister's views on this subject.
8.28 p.m.
Mr. Donald Anderson: Charles Dickens defined a hypocrite as being like a signpost which points the way to go somewhere but never goes there itself. Opposition spokesmen who have taken part in this debate are guilty of this sort of thing. On the one hand we have had strident cries of cutting public expenditure and going back to the harsh law of the market a la Powell, but when it comes to the crunch they come out in theory in opposition as much softer. We have had a similar exercise over agricultural price support. We first heard about supporting the farming community through the market, then there were the braces and now the belt and braces as a result of the latest Press conference of the shadow spokesman for agriculture.
What is the history of this rural bus problem? Clearly, as the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) suggested, it is the problem of an industry in decline faced with the massive onset of the motor car. The Jack Committee in 1961 recognised this and recommended a fifty-fifty share of subsidy between central and local government. This was of course ignored in the subsequent 1962

727
Act which led to a wholesale series of rail closures and has led in part to the problem we are discussing.
I recall my right hon. Friend who is now Minister of Defence, Equipment, saying that whenever hon. Members opposite complained to him on behalf of their constituents about rail closures in their areas he had in his pocket their voting records on the 1962 Act and brought them out to suggest that they might have thought of raising those objections when voting on that Measure.
The leading spokesman for the Opposition this evening suggested that the Government were wrong in removing these bus services set up after rail closures from the privileged position they now enjoy. Part of the answer is that one cannot expect these bus services instituted after rail closures, indefinitely to have such a privileged position. One has to look at the total rural bus services to make the best assessment. Of course there is no reason for alarm given the policy so far pursued by the National Bus Company and the financial assistance to the N.B.C. which the Parliamentary Secretary outlined.
The hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) quoted from letters he had received from the County Councils Association and the Rural District Councils Association saying that they had not been consulted. I am sure that if in those letters they had gone on to complain about the action the Government have taken, the hon. Member would have been very quick to have continued quoting from those letters. He did not do so and that omission is very significant.
The hon. Member also suggested that the withdrawal of this subvention had been a major factor in the increase in costs of the South-West group of companies. I had assumed that this point would be raised and I came armed with figures of what he called a major contribution to increased costs. According to the figures the bust companies put before the Traffic Commissioners, the total in increased costs of the three companies since the last fares increase application was made was over £500,000. Of this the loss of subvention by British Railways for the replacement bus services was £129,999, showing the "major factor" which the hon. Member sug-
728
gested. Even if we were to assume that the whole of the loss of subvention had to be made up by fares increases, the average effect on fares would be just over 2 per cent. on this account.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Sock it to him.
Mr. Anderson: I am socking it to him.
This is the "major factor" in escalating costs suggested by the hon. Member for Tavistock. It is rather useful that one can answer this by the relevant figures. The 1968 Act adopted the Jack solution of a fifty-fifty subvention by local authorities and the Government. This is likely to provide the best solution in the short term, relieving British Rail of social costs and transferring them to the other nationalised body by putting a social obligation, not on British Rail but on the N.B.C.
Having tried to expose what I consider the very opportunist attack by the Opposition, I agree that there is a very real problem in rural transport today. I was very struck by two cases recently brought to me. One was in the Llanthony Valley in my constituency where an isolated old person told me that she was afraid to ask people who were using their cars to go to town to transport her when the bus service had been removed. She was a completely isolated unit as a result of the withdrawal of the rural bus service.
In another case in my constituency, a public meeting was called to discuss the impending withdrawal of the local service and a poor farmer said that rich commuters living around him said, "We don't want a bus service; we all have cars." This poor chap was afraid to speak up and his sole communication with the outside world has been cut off.
I know of several groups of council houses in my area which now stand empty because of the changing pattern in the countryside and the withdrawal of rural bus services. The solution of course lies in part in the subsidy arrangements which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary outlined. It can also be tackled in a much more imaginative way. Ways have been suggested by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North and the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude). One suggestion was that Post Office vans should be used. One is now operating in Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire. The use of school buses to transport isolated people in the countryside, and any other

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means of public transport, such as hospital mini buses, would help.
The other provision of the 1968 Act providing concessionary bus fares for old people in the countryside should also help to solve this problem. These, with the subvention described, should go part of the way to solve the problem.
I am confident that the House will reject this very opportunist Motion.
8.35 p.m.
Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Eleven years ago the Council for Wales established a committee to inquire into the question of rural transport in Wales. That Committee antedated the Jack Committee by about a year, but its findings were almost exactly the same as those of the Jack Committee. The conclusions of the Committee under the chairmanship of Professor Aaron were:
"The Council are satisfied that, while minor alleviations may be possible, the problem cannot be solved without some provision for financial assistance from outside the industry itself."
It found that
"the decline in rural bus services has caused hardship and serious inconvenience' to a significant minority of people in Welsh rural areas."
Nothing was done after those Reports were published. Ten years later still nothing has been done. The position in England is similar to that in Wales but is not as acute. The position in Wales is very grave because of the great social affliction of depopulation. It is not only rural depopulation, but it is found to a great extent in rural areas, it is true. The populations of eight of the 13 Welsh counties are smaller today than they were in 1921. The equivalent number in England would be 24 counties; but in fact not one English county has a smaller population than it had in 1921.
Although depopulation has many deep seated causes, the matter of transport is an important contributory cause. It aggravates the situation. In my constituency, which is a very large one geographically, a substantial number of small rural communities are now completely isolated in the matter of public transport. Since the Reports of the Aaron and Jack Committees were published, many Welsh railway lines have been closed. This has aggravated the situation. No assistance
730
has yet been given to rural bus companies. Many such companies in my constituency are in serious difficulties. In two cases which have occurred recently the difficulties were caused by the recent closure of lines—that is, within the last few years—and by the withdrawal of the public bus services. Places with lovely names like Llanartlnau and Llanpumpsaint now have no services.
The inhabitants often have to work in the nearest town. The population of Carmarthen, which is only 13,000 by night, rises to 27,000 to 28,000 during the day. People must come in from rural areas to work in Carmarthen. They are finding it very difficult, and the difficulty is growing.
I have just had another instance of this kind of thing. The village of Penygroes has lost its bus service. People there—about 30 of them—used to use the bus to go into Llandeilo to work. Many of them have been unable to continue working at Llandeilo and have had to find employment elsewhere, which is a great hardship.
The situation also affects the schools, especially the secondary schools which in rural districts draw pupils from a very wide geographical area. One of my boys is now taking part in the school play, which means that he must stay at school after school hours for the rehearsals. Such extra-curricular activities are very difficult for rural children to take part in. But for a bus running from Llandovery to Llangadog, he would be unable to take part in the play, and the service is in serious jeopardy. Thought is being given to withdrawing it, which is a grave matter for people in my constituency.
We have heard tonight from many hon. Members that the main cause of the problem is the great increase in the ownership of cars. It has become increasingly difficult for people in rural areas without cars even to get to work.
But there are other matters which put the rural bus companies in a grave predicament. It is almost impossible for many of them to carry on. The growth of television has meant that cinemas have closed, and they are still closing. Shopping in towns is made less necessary by the growth of mobile shops and so on. Whatever one may say about the speed of rural buses, there is no doubt about

731
the speed at which their operational costs are rising and their custom is declining. In this crisis of their existence, at least six companies in my constituency have made appeals for public assistance. They have said that they cannot carry on unless it is quickly forthcoming. Two or three companies have already gone out of operation.
Therefore, a situation is developing in rural Wales in which only people who can afford cars will be able to live in the countryside. A Welshman looks with envy at Switzerland in this matter as in so many others. The Swiss Post Office operates the kind of service that two hon. Members have suggested tonight. We have an experiment along those lines in Wales, but not long ago Switzerland could boast that not a single bus service run with the mail had been withdrawn, although even as long ago as 1958 75 of the 440 routes in Switzerland averaged only three or four passengers. There is reason for us to look with envy at that kind of situation. Alas, we are not governed as efficiently as the Swiss, and are not likely to be from this place. There is no hope for that kind of public support for our rural bus services in Wales.
But a substantial amount of public financial assistance is absolutely necessary, and it is needed most urgently if we are to retain even the skeleton services that we now have. I hope that it is not too much to ask that within six months assistance will be forthcoming from public funds so that those services which survive will be kept in existence. It would cost only a small fraction of the £250 million that the Government have just written off for London Transport.
Welsh local authorities, including my own county authority for Carmarthen, are very anxious to help. I do not think that there would be any difficulty in getting them to co-operate. They are impatiently awaiting a communication from the Welsh Office. The Secretary of State, whom I am glad to see here tonight, has told me that he will before long give them a code of guidance. I hope that financial help can be speedily organised.
8.45 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I have been in this House for nearly two and a half years and it is a long time
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since I heard such hypocritical humbug from hon. Members opposite as we have suffered tonight. Essentially, what we are discussing are the Tory chickens of 1962 coming home to roost. No doubt the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker), when he comes to wind up, will make great play of the safeguards which the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), when he was Minister of Transport, was thought to have inserted in that famous, monumental structure which devoured the railways— the Transport Act, 1962.
If the hon. Gentleman carefully examines how effective those safeguards were and are, he will see that what has happened in case after case is that, very quietly, bus companies have applied to withdraw their services, and have consulted the traffic commissioners, which have said that they could not find sufficient evidence of demand and have consequently consented to the withdrawals. I would not mind betting that the hon. Gentleman will not produce any figures, because he would not like to, of the number of bus services which have been withdrawn despite the safeguards which the right hon. Member for Wallasey was supposed to have inserted in the 1962 Act. But if those safeguards were not adequate, that is another reflection on the Tory policy which led to the Act.
In 1961 the Jack Committee represented that, on a subsidy by contract basis, the central Government and the local authorities should contribute 50–50 to rural bus services. What did the party opposite do? Nothing. In 1962 a second study in Wales and Monmouthshire was initiated and gave a slightly different recommendation. It recommended that a subsidy should be paid by the traffic commissioners. What happened? Nothing. What happened when the Tory Party in 1961 instituted a rather similar inquiry, for perhaps rather similar reasons, which came to be called the Highland transport inquiry? That inquiry again recommended subsidies, by a different authority. Again, there was no action. We now have the spectacle of the Tory Party lamenting the withdrawal of subsidies when, in office, they did nothing about three consecutive reports which lay before them recommending the use of subsidies for rural transport.

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On top of that, in the 1962 Act they ensured that, by restricting the powers of the Transport Users' Consultative Committees so that they could only consider hardship, more and more railway closures than ever before could take place. One of the things which sickened many people, both inside and outside the House, was that some hon. Members opposite, having voted eagerly for the Act and for the Beeching Plan, were the first to go cap-in-hand to the Ministry of Transport when their own particular railway lines were due to be axed.
We shall see the same thing under the Transport Act, 1968. The same Tories sitting opposite tonight fought tooth and nail against that Act, voting against the railway subsidies and the bus subsidies that it included. But as soon as their bus services or railway lines start to be affected, they run to the Ministry to the steps of St. Christopher House with their begging bowls.
This is why we are having such an unparalleled barrage of humbug from the benches opposite tonight. We have had many examples cited to us of the rather different financial arrangements which now exist under the 1968 Act. If the hon. Member for Worcester wants to appreciate some of the unparalleled financial arrangements introduced by his party when in office, he should look at the 1962 Act.
This was an Act which placed pretty well the same obligations on British Rail as the 1968 Transport Act places on the National Bus Company; namely, the duty of making a return on capital, but at the same time subsidising services which no one else wants to subsidise. What happened when there was a conflict under the 1962 Act between the duty to make the railways pay and the duty to keep uneconomic services going? The uneconomic services were discontinued, without the kind of safeguards to which the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) has referred. Yet the hon. Member has the cheek to come here and accuse this side of the House of trying to follow his party's example in the 1962 Act. It is not so.
The 1968 Act has improved the situation in the country. Let me refer to some of the speeches made by the hon. Member in Committee and on Report during the 1968 Bill. It was that same
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Member who steadfastly day after day and night after night defended the present system. "It's O.K.", he said, "Keep the traffic commissioners. They are doing a very good job. Although conditions in the countryside might be getting a little worse, let us keep the system going as it is." Yet that same hon. Member tonight makes a massive attack on the traffic commissioners because he says the whole system is falling to pieces. I suggest that either the Tory research department at Smith Square, if there still is one, or at least his own research assistant, tries to write some kind of continuity into his speeches.
I am not denying that the National Bus Company is about to try for a change in subsidy policy for rural transport services. No one is denying that. What I am saying is that in the 1968 Act there are more safeguards for rural transport than any other Government, on either side, has ever put into a Measure. For the first time since the 1930 and 1933 Acts, which are still the major Road Traffic Acts governing licensing, provision is made for the flexible licensing system that the hon. Gentleman has demanded time and again.
I respectfully suggest that at least hon. Gentlemen should do this side of the House the courtesy of reading our legislation. The 1968 Act involves a more flexible licensing system for smaller buses, which will deal adequately, I hope, with several points raised by hon. Gentlemen. As has been said, for the first time in a piece of transport legislation, a Government—from this side of the House— have made definite provision for rural subsidies. That will not be found in the 1953 or 1962 Acts. This has been done by this Government as a declaration of faith in rural transport.
It has also been suggested that the National Bus Company will run down the services in the areas surrounding big conurbations. The hon. Member for Worcester must remember all the arguments he used against the passenger transport authorities. It is these same authorities which will have the power to keep rural transport services going. In addition, we have the rather generous grants, totalling £60 million to £70 million in a full period, from the Chancellor to get rural railway services going. If all of that does not add up to a pretty generous

735
piece of assistance for rural transport I do not know what does. But that is not all.
For the first time, rural bus operators will qualify for capital grants, exactly the same kind of grants for which the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) was asking. Apart from that, bus operators, particularly in the rural areas, will be able to quality for an additional fuel tax rebate. Not only will rural bus operators get their capital costs reduced but they will also get their running costs reduced with a total fuel tax rebate. In addition, the National Bus Company has been relieved of some of its capital payment obligations to the Treasury.
Hon. Members opposite should read about these things. The Transport Act, 1968, was a pretty comprehensive and far-reaching piece of legislation. I suspect that many hon. Members opposite who have spoken tonight have not read it. Before they have the temerity to complain as they have done tonight, they should read it. Anybody who takes the care to look at the policy of the Opposition and the Government on rural transport will know which party has made a sounder declaration of faith in the rural areas.
On those grounds, the House should totally reject the Motion.
8.56 p.m.
Mr. John Brewis: Having listened to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield), I am more alarmed than when I read the Motion. What surprises me is that there has been very little recognition from hon. Members opposite of the social need for rural bus services. There will always be a social need for rural bus services. Their existence is of even greater moment in Scotland, where distances are greater and populations sparser, than it is in England.
When railway closures have taken place considerable savings have been made by introducing express bus services. While they are not as satisfactory as train services, they accomplish a very large saving to the national Exchequer. When the Stranraer-Dumfries railway line in my constituency was closed, I was relieved to be given a firm assurance from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), who was
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Minister of Transport at that time, that there would be as many express buses as there had been trains and that they would take only about ten minutes longer on a journey of two and a half hours than the trains had taken. The Labour Party showed a great deal of interest in this line, and its candidate in the 1964 election gave an express assurance that the line would be kept open. As soon as the election was over, the Labour Government broke that pledge and closed the line. Therefore, I am naturally suspicious of what they intend to do next, and I want the firmest assurance that the express buses will continue with at least the present frequency.
I would not exclude a review of the time at which they run, but I strongly resist the suggestion of the former Minister of Transport in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), that such special services should be properly regarded as part of the general public transport system. If this were accepted, the journey from Dumfries to Stranger would take at least four hours. It already takes a person wanting to visit a relative in Dumfries Hospital practically the whole day to get there and back. If the service were withdrawn considerable hardship would be caused in my area. It would make a complete mockery of the assurance given to the people of the area when the railway was closed.
I emphasise the great dissatisfaction which is felt in rural areas about ever rising fares and the lack of frequency of the services. I would guess that the cross-subsidisation of rural services by urban services is beginning to break down.
Some years ago an excellent report of a Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Kilbrandon suggested that there should be a new body equivalent to the traffic commissioners which would subsidise these services. It was a great pity that the Transport Act of 1968 adopted the Jack Report and gave the power of subsidising to the local authorities. The local authorities with the largest area of country road are usually those with the lowest rateable value, and the subsidising of country services is therefore much more difficult for them to afford. I do not see any solution to this problem

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coming from the Wheatley Report, which gives larger regional groupings to the Highlands and the South-West.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I am at a loss to understand why the hon. Gentleman is bewailing the financial responsibility being a burden on the rates. Surely he knows that the local authorities to which he referred are those which will receive most in rate support grant from the central Government?
Mr. Brewis: I concede that, but, even so, it is to much for counties in the Highlands and the South-West to subsidise out of their rateable value all the services which should be subsidised. The proposal made by Lord Kilbrandon was much more satisfactory. I would prefer to see a proportion of the hydrocarbon oil duty earmarked to subsidising rural services.
Mr. David St. John Thomas, in his book "Rural Transport Problems", suggested that a comparatively small sum of £3 million to £5 million spread over the entire country would be enough to keep a reasonable service going if the distribution were left to a body such as the traffic commissioners.
Country buses are largely a problem for country women. The men are likely to be employed on the farm, in the next village, or at any rate within bicycling distance. The wife needs to shop and the daughters want a job in a shop or office in the town. We have heard much about the family car, but the possession of a family car is not enough. It may not be available when it is needed, and a high proportion of country women even now cannot drive a car.
If we want to stem depopulation, we must pay as much attention to rural transport as to rural water supplies, housing grants and agricultural subsidies and, as the Government are clearly trying to get out of their obligations to rural transport, I am glad that we shall be voting on the Motion.
9.3 p.m.
Mr. John P. Mackintosh: I am glad to participate in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) on his most able speech. He put his finger on one of the central
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problems, the most unfortunate procedures resulting from the 1962 Transport Act.
In terms of railway closures, the procedure which this Act inflicted upon British Rail was quite fantastic, in that British Rail had to propose a closure and the public then had to fight an uphill battle against British Rail to prove the case for keeping the line open, thus creating the maximum ill-feeling between the public and British Rail and giving the impression that British Rail wished to shut down a line when the matter was still open for decision. I also agree that the remit to the T.U.C.C., being confined to hardship, was ludicrously narrow and long-winded, and frustrated large sections of the community who wished to make a much more positive case for the retention of services.
The second weakness of the Act relates to the lack of safeguard in the subsequent withdrawal of bus services. Hon. Members are right when they say that, an express bus service having been offered as an alternative to a rail service, it is possible for this bus service to drift away, to be cut down bit by bit, so that the alternative no longer remains, or no longer remains in the original form.
It is a tremendous step forward that the Government have agreed to a measure of subsidy of rural transport. I should like to consider the best use of the total resources in an area with social subsidies of this kind. I am worried that we are still not getting the balance between the different forms of service as accurate as we could for the needs of each particular area.
When it is decided whether a railway line should be closed down and a bus service supplied as an alternative, there is a great difference between the small rural villages and the commuter centres outside the major city. They are in two different categories. To take the commuter services and the provision of bus services as an alternative, there is a single formula which determines social cost. In weighing up the loss on the line and the social cost of putting a whole number of extra private cars and buses on the roads, there is a satisfactory formula in terms of total individual content, but it does not fit each area in the same way.
I would be much less hesitant in accepting an express bus service as an

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alternative to a commuter train where there was a good bus company operating modern, warm, efficient buses, and on a motorway. People would then know that if they got on a bus they would arrive on time and would enjoy reasonable facilities and comfort. This makes a difference when calculated in terms of social cost. However, in parts of my constituency roads into the city are very bad. There are traffic bottlenecks, and an extra 200 or 300 cars or buses on the roads would add enormously to the congestion and the travelling time.
We are offered as an alternative an allegedly express bus service which fails to keep to the timetable. It is not getting people to work on time. All sorts of difficulties make such a bus service not strictly comparable to the rail services for which it is supposed to be a substitute. For instance, it worries many people in areas where the bus goes out to the rural village through the suburbs of the city that it may often fill up in the suburbs, leaving no room for the villagers on the outer fringes.
One then has services in which buses are inadequate, break down, and are cold and draughty. I have had voluminous correspondence with the Scottish Ministers and the Scottish omnibus companies protesting about old, broken-down, inefficient buses which are not providing an adequate service as an alternative to rail. Their reply has been that they cannot get crews for the buses, cannot get the proper maintenance carried out, and that the pressure of summer bus excursions is too great. All these matters should be taken into account by a local passenger transport authority when it is considering the proper use of social resources in subsidising a given area. These matters cannot be adequately worked out by hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench or the officials in London since they do not know the local roads and other characteristics in the areas concerned.
I was surprised to hear the Joint Parliamentary Secretary say that he expected certain of these bus services to be cross-subsidised by other bus services. This was not taken into account in deciding on the economic case for closing railway lines. If we had been told whether or not the bus services were to be subsidised, it would have been an important factor
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to be taken into account. One assumes that the bus services are supposed to make a profit and that if they do not make a profit the bus service in a particular area will be allowed to decline. If that is the case, then that is the sort of matter to be considered.
I suggest that as part of the policy of Government subsidy for these areas they should consider even more integration. We should also take into account the state of the roads in deciding how much we are prepared to subsidise a railway line in such an area We should try to put road and rail together in some instances by having the bus station beside the railway station and having transferable tickets so that members of the public can take either the available restricted train service or, if it is better, the bus service.
We could do much more in our rural areas to make an intelligent use of what we have. In the case of commuter services, we should either run feeder buses to the stations or provide more parking space at stations so that commuters become accustomed to driving in, leaving their cars, and using the commuter train service to town.
Thus, I have now dealt with the problem from the point of view of an area such as my part of the country and the commuter service from a rural area into a city.
Quite a different problem is that of a small village off the main road where possibly there was once a train service which no longer exists. It is a problem of the cyclical decline spoken about by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude). These are villages which are beautiful to live in, entirely rural in character, whose life has changed completely in the last 20 years. Whereas before such a village was the centre for an area into which people travelled to do their shopping and so on, it is now a place for people to live, and it is empty during the day because its inhabitants go where there is industry. The vast majority have cars. We are faced with a situation where people living in such villages have their own transport and tend to do their shopping in the local county town or the nearest major town. As a result, there tends to be a closure of the facilities in such villages, which become dormitories to the larger towns round about.

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It is more disastrous for the people who are left in them. They have not the shops, the post office, the place where they can get a haircut, and so on, and we have to consider how best to meet their needs.
I have the good fortune to have a postal minibus service in my constituency, and I am grateful to the Minister for the co-operation which I received in this matter. I suggest that a great deal can be done with these minibus services if a few changes are made. At the moment the minibus service in my constituency is subsidised by the post office. It has to fit in with post office runs. That is understandable when it is run mainly by the post office. As a result, the minibus cannot offer the service that people want, because it goes slowly out to the outlying villages in the morning, delivering all the way, and comes quickly back.
What is wanted is the reverse. People in the villages want to be run to the county town in the morning and brought quickly back at night. What is necessary to make the minibus service pay and not require subsidy from the post office is the recasting of the postal delivery service to fit in with passenger needs. I appreciate that that is difficult, but I believe that a lot of people in my area would not mind getting their letters delivered later in the morning if it meant, in addition, having a local bus service in and out of the town when they wanted it. In addition, where the Government and local authorities are committed to running school bus services, it should not be impossible to run minibuses offering passenger facilities as well. In some areas it might be a little easier to run a school bus service if there were other passengers in the vehicles along with the children.
I see no reason why we should not have a more flexible policy of this kind designed to give bus services to our remoter rural villages where transport is needed. Where we have decided to provide social subsidies for commuter areas where there is a restricted or discontinued train service, we should calculate our social costs on the basis of the problems of the area, related to the area and to the demands of the people in the area.
That is why I welcome the possibility for people to contribute something in the form of subsidies to the maintenance of the transport system in their areas. In
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this, we have the bones of a policy. We need to decentralise it and to decide our passenger transport requirements area by area based on a knowledge of local conditions. We need to be more flexible, taking into account the capacity of local bus services, the state of local roads, the desire of local people, and their shopping patterns. If we can do that, we can offer a service which will meet our needs at least for the next decade.
9.15 p.m.
Mr. Evelyn King: The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) said that we were discussing the Conservative Act of 1962. That was a Parliamentary blunder of the first order. We are not discussing anything of the kind. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) fell into the same error. He made a delightful speech and I enjoyed listening to it. But it is time that we came back to the Motion, which is that the Government, within the last six months—it is an extremely narrow Motion—have committed one particular blunder for which in particular circumstances they should be condemned. That is the Motion before us tonight.
I represent a constituency consisting of five towns and 60 villages. If it was not 9.15 in the evening I should enjoy delivering to the House my philosophy of what a complete rural bus service should be. I do not intend doing that. We are not discussing that tonight, and I am anxious to indicate where the Government have blundered, how they have blundered, and why.
Their first blunder—I do not mean this in a personal sense, but in a Parliamentary sense—is Parliamentary arrogance. The Motion would never have arisen and the debate would never have taken place had the Government allowed proper discussion of the 1968 Act. It is because Section 54 was never discussed in the House that this debate is taking place.
Like other hon. Members, I am often asked to talk to sixth formers, rotary clubs, and so on, about the way that Parliament works. Over the years all of us have done this. I have always proudly said that while we differ on many matters, nothing ever goes through by accident. We have Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage, Third Reading, and

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the House of Lords. We are thorough. Everything is properly discussed. That was the speech I used to make. I am increasingly uncertain whether I can make it truthfully now. That is the charge of Parliamentary arrogance.
The second charge, which I think is well substantiated—I will try not to use harsh words—is sharp practice. This is how the matter arose. The Government took some action, as the Parliamentary Secretary conceded in his speech, which cost bus users about £1 million a year. I am not now arguing whether that action was right or wrong, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not conceal that that action was taken without consulting local authorities and without any announcement to the House. Indeed, but for a Written Question by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), which caught the sharp eye of a Dorset town clerk, I doubt whether this would have come to light. The Answer, which ran to 37 lines, was in terms of such gobbledegook that nobody understood what it meant. This is where the sharp practice comes in. If a Minister seeks to remove £1 million, however good a case he may have, he should at least say so and see that it is understood.
The third charge is muddle. I hope that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will not take it just from me. I have here the transcript of an inquiry held by the traffic commissioners of the western traffic area in which an application was made by four bus companies, which cover inter alia the area of Dorset with which I am particularly concerned, for a substantial rise in fares. The chairman of the commissioners in giving his decision and having to decide whether the increase in fares is reasonable or unreasonable is required to have regard to all the facts. He opened his judgment, after referring to considerations of matters which appeared to have been
"legislated for by Ministerial letter and answers in the House"—
we do not make the task of people who have to deal with the results of this type of legislation any easier—with these words:
"We are still in the dark as to the precise position",
and being in the dark he is called upon to give a decision which will greatly affect
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the amount of the fares paid by my constituents.
So is arrogance proved. So is sharp practice proved, so is muddle proved, and finally before the traffic commissioners themselves, one gets at least the likelihood, through no blame on them, of injustice proved. Those are the charges which we are discussing tonight, and those are the charges to which I at least propose to stick.
The next charge is to some extent that of callousness, and here I come to my constituents. I do not wish to say of them anything that I would not equally say of rural populations in many other parts of the country. In the Western area alone, of which Dorset forms a part, the amount of cash taken out of their pockets by this act is £129,000. That is the amount established by the chairman of the traffic commissioners who investigated this case. That is a large sum. I am not for the moment concerned with future policy. This is the immediate effect upon a rural population which has been hit hard and many times by this Government.
I could not help noticing this afternoon that in answer to a question it was said that a London docker is dissatisfied because he has been offered only £33 a week. I make no comment on that. I do not represent him. If he can get it, well and good, but the Government are paying to a docker in Portland, a man primarily employed by the Government in the dock-yard there, a sum which does not amount to £14 a week. That is the contrast between the rural dweller and the urban dweller. A couple of months ago, for the first time in the history of our yards so dissatisfied was the Portland docker that he went out on strike and asked me to address a strike meeting outside the dock gates. My sympathy was with him. Many dockers live in Weymouth, and their bus fares will be put up over everything else. A man there is required to keep a family on £14 a week, and yet have to pay additional bus fares.
I shall not dwell on the difficulties which arise in rural populations. The House is familiar with them, but I draw the attention of those who dwell in towns to the fact that we have a 4½ per cent. unemployment rate, something which not many people associate with Dorset. It is a low-wage area, and hon. Gentlemen

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opposite who are familiar with wages paid in towns may find it difficult to realise that the wages paid, often by the Government, in the area that I represent ere beginning to impose hardship after hardship, and that the rural areas are rapidly growing poorer whilst cities get richer.
That is the charge against the Government. It is one to which I hope the Minister will respond. The charges against them are Parliamentary carelessness. The Bill was never properly debated. They are charged with inefficient practice. Having taken what I believe to have been an unwise decision to remove £1 million, there was no proper consultation. They are charged also with muddle, in that when the cases came before the Traffic Commissioners the Chairman was forced to take decisions on the basis of insufficient information. Finally, they are charged with callousness, because by this Measure there has been imposed on at least one rural population a greater degree of hardship than the people there ought to be called upon to suffer.
9.24 p.m.
Mr. Ronald Atkins: I realise how few minutes there are left, so I will confine myself to one or two important points.
It surprises me—perhaps, on second thoughts, it does not—that the Opposition have made no attempt to justify the central theme of their Motion, that the railways should pay subsidies to those bus services which replace rural train services. There will always be difficulty in running rural bus services profitably, as there is with rural railway services. It is sensible that the Government should arrange for these services to be subsidised from public funds, with half the cost borne by local authorities.
If the local authority is partly responsible, it will be more moderate in its demands. In the past, when they had no financial responsibility for bus or rail services, local authorities made many demands as long as they did not have to pay for the consequences. Now they will have to consider whether a service is worth while and the money spent is justifiable, and many of their electors will have to bear in mind, when making demands, that they will have to pay for them as ratepayers.
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Most important of all, they will do something to remember the importance of rural transport when they are planning. I was a member of a rural district council, which was also a planning authority, for nine years. Every time we considered plans for houses, schools or anything else, we did not consider the accessibility to public service transport. Yet this should always be considered when planning. If we want public services to prosper, we must feed them. For instance, if we are concerned about an area's accessibility to sewers, why not consider its accessibility to transport? Schools and council houses should be built on main bus routes.
So far, this factor has been totally neglected in planning. Local authorities may take more care of this in future, when they have some responsibility for these services. Many public passenger services have failed because this point has been neglected. In parts of Wales and East Anglia, council estates have been built after a public transport service had been withdrawn. If the plans had been known beforehand, the services could have been maintained.
There will always be difficulties in running rural services, but public transport will have to be helped, partly by public funds, but most of all by planning. This new half-and-half method of financing which the Government have adopted is just the right way. The whole cost would be too much for local authorities. This is nothing new, since we are merely following the example of many European countries, where local authorities contribute to public transport services.
9.30 p.m.
Mr. Peter Walker: This has been an interesting debate in which we have heard from the Leader of the Welsh Nationalist Party in the House of Commons, which is always pleasant, and from the Liberal Party. Somebody once said that the Liberal Party was rather like a herring in that its backbone was to the left or the right according to how one opened it.
The first part of the speech of the hon. Member who represents the Liberal Party was to the right, when he said that there should be no subsidies whatever, while the second part was to the left, when he advocated capital subsidies, subsidies for old-age pensioners and the rest. It was a typical Liberal performance.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) made a number of constructive suggestions, while a cogent analysis of the parliamentary record of the Labour Party on this topic was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King).
The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) accused my hon. Friends of ranting and raving at times, a matter on which he is a great expert, both as a practitioner and as one who analyses it. I remember the days when Midland Red was under free enterprise. At that time the hon. Member for Nuneaton ranted and raved throughout the Midlands about the fares being charged and the services being provided under free enterprise. I hope to hear him ranting and raving now that Midland Red is increasing its fares throughout the Midlands and is, in the view of those who use it, providing services which are not seeming to improve.
The Opposition Motion has exposed a remarkably incompetent state of affairs resulting from the policies of the Government. The Parliamentary Secretary's explanation of what has been happening was remarkable because he said that the National Bus Company would lose about £1 million in subsidies from the railways but that it would gain because it no longer had to provide £2 million to £3 million in profits, with the result that, on balance, it would be better off than it would have been under the old system.
Yet the National Bus Company is, throughout the country, asking for increased fares on the basis that its financial position has deteriorated. If the Parliamentary Secretary is correct, it should be asking for reductions in fares. "Ah," the hon. Gentleman explains, "the major part is the cost of wages. On balance, with the subsidy, it is better off." Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the National Bus Company is appearing before traffic commissioners throughout the country giving as one reason for its request for fares increases the fact that it is losing the subsidy?
The Parliamentary Secretary tried to brush this off by saying that the National Bus Company had been formed, that it had lots of subsidiaries, that in its first
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year it did not know what its subsidiaries were doing and that it had not given financial targets to those subsidiaries. The subsidiaries were, therefore, applying for increased fares because they had not been instructed from the centre and, in any event, they really did not need the extra fares.
The Parliamentary Secretary revealed a remarkable state of affairs. It was peculiar, to say the least, to hear a Minister admit that a nationalised industry for which he is responsible is in such chaos that it is making representations to traffic commissioners throughout the country when those representations are absolutely untrue and unjustified.
One hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned the Rural District Councils Association and accused my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) of reading only one portion of a letter which the association had sent out. I will read more of the letter. Writing to my hon. Friend, the association said:
"You already know the situation in their Western Area, where the information about subsidies for rail replacement services came out at the hearing of an application for a fares increase."
That was the only one mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary. He referred to it as a sort of mistake on the part of a subsidiary.
The association went on:
"A similar application from one of the major bus operators in East Anglia, Eastern Counties, is being considered by the Traffic Commissioners for the Eastern Area today. Last week there was a joint hearing of the Traffic Commissioners for the East Midlands, Eastern and Metropolitan Areas to consider an application for an increase in fares by United Counties, when reference was made to the loss of the subsidies. Two South-Eastern and South Wales Traffic Commissioners said that the question of such subsidies has been raised with them."
All over the country the National Bus Company, for which the Minister is responsible, is asking for fare increases on the basis of losing the subsidy; yet the Parliamentary Secretary says that overall it is better off than it was. This demands an explanation. It demands that the Minister should call on the chairman of the National Bus Company to explain why the subsidiaries are making wrong applications. Representing a

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subsidiary of the National Bus Company, Mr. Fay, Q.C. said:
"The applications firstly resulted from wage increases and secondly from the withdrawal of £129,000 payment to the companies from British Rail to contribute to the cost of running services which had replaced their discontinued rail equivalents."
He went on to say:
"The National Bus Company which acquired the companies at the beginning of the year is not prepared to re-imburse them this sum.
This is the case put before the traffic commissioners by the National Bus Company; yet the Parliamentary Secretary says that the N.B.C. should be going to the traffic commissioners and saying, "We have lost £129,000 in railway subsidies, but we have gained about £300,000 by not having to show a profit." A terrible act of non-disclosure is going on. The Opposition will have brought to the attention of the country that never again can the National Bus Company make that sort of representation.
The complacency of hon. Members opposite as to the costs of the rural bus services is quite remarkable. We have heard a great deal about the workings of the various Transport Acts. Hon. Members opposite have spoken about railway closures being the responsibility of the 1962 Conservative Government. The hon. Member for Central Ayshire (Mr. Manuel), with his considerable knowledge of this subject, knows that there have been more miles of railway closed during the lifetime of this Labour Government than there were during the lifetime of the last Conservative Government. If hon. Members opposite are to talk about humbug on this side of the House when appealing for the reopening of railway services, we should call attention to the humbug of hon. Members opposite who fought the whole policy of railway closures and who since they came to power, have closed more lines of fail-way than any Government in history. This is a simple piece of hypocrisy.
Mr. Manuel: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we closed 11,000 miles against the 8,000 miles recommended by Beeching.
Mr. Walker: It is all very well—
Mr. Manuel: I mean the other way round.
Mr. Walker: I recognise that the hon. Member made a mistake, one of many. It cannot be maintained by hon. Members opposite that it was the wicked Tories who brought in a policy of railway closures because the party opposite continued that policy.
The remarkable case of the Parliamentary Secretary was that all is well with rural bus services. When people living in rural areas read of the complacency with which the Parliamentary Secretary presented his case they will be shocked. He said that was is happening is reasonable. There are at present applications for increases of 25 per cent. in rural bus fares all over the country. If this is the Parliamentary Secretary's view of what is reasonable following the 1968 Act, it is in direct contradiction to all the speeches made by hon. Members opposite at the time of the passing of the Act. They tried to create an atmosphere which suggested that the rural bus services would be considerably aided and would obtain additional assistance. As he well knows, the safeguard of the bus services resulting from railway closures has been taken away by this Government—and taken away by a parliamentary procedure designed to obtain the minimum of publicity.
I again quote the words of the late Minister of State:
"The additional and revised bus services are a condition of the closure being effected If, for any reason—for example, operators being unwilling or unable to provide them, or the traffic commissioners not licensing them—they are not provided, the closure cannot take place, unless or until my right hon. Friend varies the conditions. Let that be perfectly plain. The conditions are laid down and they must be satisfied according to these terms."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1965: Vol. 712, c. 871.]
It is this safeguard that the Government have taken away.
When the Labour Government came to power, a general impression was created in a number of rural constituencies that the Government were dedicated to giving more help to rural bus services. The nearest estimate which can be made is that rural bus fares have risen by between 30 per cent, and 40 per cent. since October, 1964. At present, following the 1968 Act, following all the assistance that the Government stated would go into rural bus services, there are many

751
proposals throughout the country to increase rural bus fares by a further 25 per cent.
So under the Labour Government rural bus fares will have the distinction—it is a rare distinction—of having risen faster than the general cost of living.
It is not only the question of the subsidies that we raise tonight. As the Minister well knows, when Labour came to power petrol was 4s. 9½d. a gallon. It is now 6s. 6d. It is true that the Government have produced legislation for this to be rebated, but it is rebated three months in arrears. The result of its being rebated three months in arrears is that the total cost on bus services of the increase in petrol, despite the rebate, is about £½ million a year.
There is then the question of the impact of the selective employment tax on rural bus services. At present the bus companies make a permanent loan to the Government of £7½ million as a result of selective employment tax. That £7½million loan has to be financed at the enormously high rate of interest imposed by the Government.
Rural bus services, as well the Minister knows, do not obtain much benefit from the investment allowances for new buses because, by their nature, rural bus services tend to use the older buses and not the newer buses. [Interruption.] Then in Scotland they are very lucky: they have all new buses in the rural areas.
I am saying that bus operators in both urban and rural areas, quite understandably, put their older stock into the rural areas rather than submit the newer stock to that use. Therefore, rural bus services are particularly hard hit by the high cost of repairs. Likewise, selective employment tax adds to the cost of insurance.
So the Government have on petrol, on selective employment tax, on the cost of repairs, and on insurance costs, added to the burden of rural transport. The Government have mismanaged—at least, the National Bus Company has mismanaged it for them, so it is said—the manner in which they considered that they would aid rural bus services. What we have
752
exposed tonight is an appallingly incompetent state of affairs for rural transport, and, what is much worse, a complacent Government who are not interested in the fast spiral of fares and costs for rural transport.
9.43 p.m.
The Minister of Transport (Mr. Frederick Mulley): Hon. Members who have heard the whole of the speech delivered by the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) will realise that the hon. Gentleman has relieved me of a good deal of responsibility for replying, as the hon. Gentleman put it, to the very narrow point about increased costs occasioned by the switch of the former Railway Board's subsidies. Having made this first point about the vote of censure on the Government, the hon. Gentleman went on in most eloquent but somewhat exaggerated terms to give a thousand and one other reasons why costs over the whole sector of public transport have risen, and thus he put that small sum of the subsidy into proportion.
I shall endeavour to deal with the other points which he made as I go along.
I welcome this debate—I am sorry that it has been so short—because it gives me an opportunity to state the Government's policy. In view of the short time, I thought that I should not ask for too long to reply, so I ask hon. Members who have raised detailed points to allow me to answer them in writing. To the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude), who asked for an immediate reply, I say straight away that some of his interesting suggestions were considered by the Jack Committee, on certain of which it made recommendations which have been put into effect, and with others of which it found reason to disagree. I shall send him a note about the interesting points which he raised.
There are real difficulties in road passenger transport in urban as well as rural areas, and I shall not disguise from the House that these difficulties will not be easily resolved. We all know that the difficulties arise not from policy decisions but from the basic circumstances of the situation. The increase in motor cars, the spread of television, which has meant

753
less demand in off-peak times to go to the cinema and so on, the staff difficulties—all these were well analysed by the Committee on Rural Bus Services set up by the party opposite in 1959, under the chairmanship of Sir Daniel Jack, which reported in 1961. Most hon. Members who have spoken have accepted and discussed these basic difficulties.
With the exception of the two Front Bench spokesmen and the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King), I think that all hon. Members on both sides have tried to address themselves to the genuine problems. Fare increases are, obviously, extremely unpopular, but we ought to be a little careful in bandying percentages about. If one has to increase a 2d. fare it can be increased only to 3d., and that is a 50 per cent. increase. Equally, if one increases a 3d. fare to 4d. it is a 33⅓ per cent. increase. It is easy for hon. Gentlemen opposite to maximise and make the most they can of it. I noticed that they did not attack the London newspapers which this week put up their prices by 20 per cent.—the only way to do it with the only possible increase being 1d.
The Front Bench opposite has tried to make a lot of political capital out of very little factual evidence, financial or statutory—and how little I shall endeavour to show. Broadly, they set their record against ours, and their claim is: "Trust us, and we shall help rural bus services". Perhaps the hon. Member for Worcester is glad that he did not put it in quite those terms, because he would come very badly out of it. I did not hear from any hon. Member opposite the favourite theme of their weekend speeches about reductions in taxation. We should be interested to hear how these unspecified, unquantified subsidies are to come from a lower tax revenue.
The Opposition have rightly said that this is a narrow point, the question of the former Railways Board subsidies being withdrawn after two years. First, one should make clear that it has never been the practice to subsidies all the alternative services which are there when a railway is closed. In most cases, the alternative services are existing services.
754
The element of subsidy applied only to the additional services which the Minister required to be instituted.
I turn for a moment to the valuable ultimate safeguard for the rural communities established under the 1962 Act, as the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) described it when he referred to the work of his right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), the rural population's friend. His subsidies amounted in 1963 to £92,000, and in 1964 to £81,000. These figures are all in the Railways Board's reports. It is true that under the present Government by 1968, when the Transport Act changed the situation, the figure had risen to £1,012,000.
Mr. Heseltine: Does the Minister agree that that is the most conclusive proof we could want that the present Government have closed railways faster than we did?
Mr. Mulley: Not faster. We have been in power longer since the closures than the party opposite. Hon. Members opposite want to divert me from the real facts that I want to put before the House.
The 1962 Act, which was claimed to be the friend of the rural communities, followed the Jack Committee Report, of 1961, which analysed all the problems of rural transport and made many recommendations on how to cope with them, including local authority subsidies shared with central government. Although that Act came only one year after its Committee had reported, the party opposite did absolutely nothing in it to help any kind of road passenger transport, although it was a general Transport Act. [Interruption.] The sum of £81,000 was the total subsidy by the party opposite, through the medium of the railways to the whole of road passenger transport when the present Government took office. At the same time as the right hon. Member for Wallasey was paying out through the medium of the railway deficit the handsome sum of £81,000, he was taking back from bus companies between £2 million and £3 million by way of dividend, because the 1962 Act laid on the Transport Holding Company, the publicly-owned section which has since become the National Bus Company, the obligation to operate as a

755
commercial enterprise. Section 29 of that Act provided that it had to operate
"as a company engaged in a commercial enterprise…"
When we quite properly introduced the National Bus Company in the 1968 Transport Act its terms of reference included collecting for its combined revenues not less than sufficient to meet the charges properly chargable, taking one year with another. It is not required by Statute to make a surplus for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No wonder the party opposite thought that the 1962 Act was so wonderful. It was paying out £81,000 and getting back £2 million or £3 million from the rural bus services.
If the hon. Gentleman does not understand why bus fares have increased in the circumstances that have occurred throughout this century, he is beyond redemption.
Mr. Peter Walker Mr. Peter Walker rose—
Mr. Mulley: I must get on.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about the bus fuel grants. The tax paid by bus companies today is 2s. a gallon. In 1964, when we came to office, it was 2s. 9d. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that one loses that 9d. because one gets the refund only after three months, I wonder how he gets on in the City, what he really pays by way of interest charges. In the present year in the Estimates we are providing £6 million clear, over and above any increase that there has been in the case of fuel, for the whole of the road transport industry, of which about £1¼ million goes to the National Bus Company. In addition, we are providing a new bus grant of £5¼ million, making a provision of £11¼ million, much of which goes to rural communities. Next year we are estimating a total of £14½million, against the £81,000 that the party opposite was giving in 1964, at a time when they were taking £2 million to £3 million from the bus companies.
Does anyone really believe that undertakings charged by Statute to operate as commercial enterprises were going to take a more reasonable view of cross-subsidisation and running uneconomic services than undertakings on the traditional and proper basis of the nationalised
756
transport industry? In addition, we provide infrastructure grants and, under Section 34 of the 1968 Act, the opportunity not having been taken in 1962—[Interruption.]—we implemented—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have had a placid debate so far. There is too much noise on both sides.
Mr. Mulley: In Section 34, we implemented the main recommendations of the Jack Committee, the Tory Government, whose report it was, having neglected to do so in 1962. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) rather suggested that this had not been done and a number of other hon. Members asked about the provision. It is true that at present only a small number of local authorities have made application under Section 34, but I pay tribute to the Devon County Council here, which has been a pioneer in this and has had consultations both with the Ministry and the National Bus Company. I am only sorry that when the hon. Member for Tavistock conducts his investigations, as he calls them, he does not do it a bit nearer home, since he would then realise that people actually concerned with these problems are aware of what has been done.
If rural people were asked to choose, they would have no doubt as to their choice. [Interruption.] I know that they are intelligent enough to realise that £14½million is better than £81,000. They also know that, if the 1962 Act had been carried out further, it would have been a total disaster for the rural areas.
I do not promise any easy solution. It would be dishonest for me to do so. Yet that is the impression which the party opposite is trying to create. There are extremely difficult problems in road transport, urban as well as rural. The case hon. Members opposite have tried to put together in this Motion is nonsense, and I invite the House to treat it as such. If the Opposition have followed the debate, as I hope they have, and have learned a little about the statutory position, they will withdraw the Motion.
Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the main point of the debate.

757
He has talked of the increase in Government subsidy but has not said a word about increases in fares.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 235, Noes 283.

Division No. 20.]

AYES

[10.0 p.m.

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Goodhew, Victor

Monro, Hector

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Gower, Raymond

Montgomery, Fergus

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Grant, Anthony

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Astor, John

Grant-Ferris, Sir Robert

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)

Gresham Cooke, R.

Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Awdry, Daniel

Grieve, Percy

Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

Baker, Kenneth (Acton)

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Gurden, Harold

Murton, Oscar

Balniel, Lord

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Neave, Alrey

Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Batsford, Brian

Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Bell, Ronald

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Nott, John

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

Onslow, Cranley

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)

Harris, Reader (Heston)

Orr, Capt. L P. S.

Berry, Hn. Anthony

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

Biffen, John

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Osborn, John (Hallam)

Biggs-Davison, John

Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

Page, Graham (Crosby)

Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

Harvie Anderson, Miss

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Black, Sir Cyril

Hastings, Stephen

Pardoe, John

Blaker, Peter

Hawkins, Paul

Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

Hay, John

Percival, Ian

Body, Richard

Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

Peyton, John

Bossom, Sir dive

Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

Heseltine, Michael

Pink, R. Bonner

Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

Higgins, Terence L.

Pounder, Rafton

Braine, Bernard

Hiley, Joseph

Price, David (Eastleign)

Brewis, John

Hill, J. E. B.

Prior, J. M. L.

Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

Hirst, Geoffrey

Pym, Francis

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Holland, Philip

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Bruce-Gardyne, J.

Hordern, Peter

Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

Bryan, Paul

Hornby, Richard

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. sir Peter

Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus, N & M)

Howell, David (Guildford)

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Buck, Antony (Colchester)

Hunt, John

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Bullus, Sir Eric

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

Burden, F. A.

Iremonger, T. L.

Ridsdale, Julian

Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

Carlisle, Mark

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Robson Brown, Sir William

Cary, Sir Robert

Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Channon, H. P. G.

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Chataway, Christopher

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Royle, Anthony

Chichester-Clark, R.

Jopling, Michael

Russell, Sir Ronald

Clark, Henry

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

St. John-stevas, Norman

Cooke, Robert

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Scott, Nicholas

Cordle, John

Kerby, Capt. Henry

Scott-Hopkins, James

Corfieid, F. V.

Kershaw, Anthony

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

Costain, A. P.

Kimball, Marcus

Silvester, Frederick

Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Sinclair, Sir George

Crouch, David

Kitson, Timothy

Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

Crowder, F. P.

Lambton, Viscount

Smith, John (London & W'minster)

Cunningham, Sir Knox

Lancaster, Col. C. G.

Speed, Keith

Currie, G. B. H.

Lane, David

Stainton, Keith

Dalkeith, Earl of

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Stodart, Anthony

Dance, James

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Summers, Sir Spencer

Dean, Paul

Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'd field)

Tapsell, Peter

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)

Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Longden, Gilbert

Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)

Dodds-Parker, Douglas

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

MacArthur, Ian

Temple, John M.

Drayson, G. B.

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Tilney, John

Eden, Sir John

McMaster, Stanley

Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

McNair-Wilson, Michael

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Emery, Peter

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

Errington, Sir Eric

Maddan, Martin

Vickers, Dame Joan

Farr, John

Maginnis, John E.

Waddington, David

Fisher, Nigel

Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Marten, Neil

Walker, Peter (Worcester)

Fortescue, Tim

Maude, Angus

Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Foster, Sir John

Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

Wall, Patrick

Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

Mawby, Ray

Walters, Dennis

Gibson-Watt, David

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Ward, Christopher (Swindon)

Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

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

Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

Glover, Sir Douglas

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Weatherill, Bernard

Glyn, Sir Richard

Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

Miscampbell, Norman

Wiggin, A. W.

Goodhart, Philip

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Williams, Donald (Dudley)

Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

Worsley, Marcus

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

Wright, Esmond

Mr. Jasper More and

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Wylie, N. R.

Mr. Reginald Eyre.

Woodnutt, Mark

NOES

Abse, Leo

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Lipton, Marcus

Albu, Austen

Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric(Islington, E.)

Lomas, Kenneth

Allen, Scholefield

Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

Loughlin, Charles

Anderson, Donald

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Luard, Evan

Armstrong, Ernest

Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Ashley, Jack

Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)

Ford, Ben

McCann, John

Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)

Forrester, John

MacColl, James

Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)

Fowler, Gerry

MacDermot, Niall

Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Macdonald, A. H.

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Freeson, Reginald

McElhone, Frank

Barnes, Michael

Gardner, Tony

McGuire, Michael

Barnett, Joel

Garrett, W. E.

McKay, Mrs. Margaret

Beaney, Alan

Ginsburg, David

Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

Golding, John

Mackie, John

Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)

Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

Mackintosh, John P.

Bidwell, Sydney

Cray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

Maclennan, Robert

Binns, John

Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

Bishop, E. S.

Gregory, Arnold

MacPherson, Malcolm

Blackburn, F.

Grey, Charles (Durham)

Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

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

Booth, Albert

Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Manuel, Archie

Boston, Terence

Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

Mapp, Charles

Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

Marks, Kenneth

Boyden, James

Hamling, William

Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard

Bradley, Tom

Hannan, William

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Bray, Dr. Jeremy

Harper, Joseph

Mayhew, Christopher

Brooks, Edwin

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Broughton, Sir Alfred

Haseldine, Norman

Mendelson, John

Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

Hazell, Bert

Mikardo, Ian

Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

Millan, Bruce

Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

Henig, Stanley

Miller, Dr. M. S.

Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury)

Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

Milne, Edward (Blyth)

Buchan, Norman

Hilton, W. S.

Mitchell, R. c. (S'th'pton, Test)

Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

Hobden, Dennis

Molloy, William

Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

Hooley, Frank

Moonman, Eric

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Horner, John

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Carmichael, Neil

Howarth. Robert (Bolton, E.)

Morris, John (Aberavon)

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

Moyle, Roland

Chapman, Donald

Hoy, Rt. Hn. James

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Coe, Denis

Huckfield, Leslie

Murray, Albert

Coleman, Donald

Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Neal, Harold

Concannon, J. D.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Newens, Stan

Conlan, Bernard

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Norwood, Christopher

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Hunter, Adam

Oakes, Gordon

Crawshaw, Richard

Hynd, John

Ogden, Eric

Cronin, John

Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)

O'Halloran, Michael

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)

O'Malley, Brian

Dalyell, Tarn

Janner, Sir Barnett

Oram, Albert E.

Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Orbach, Maurice

Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)

Jeger, George (Goole)

Orme, Stanley

Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St. P'cras, S.)

Oswald, Thomas

Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

Owen, Will (Morpeth)

Delargy, Hugh

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Padley, Walter

Dell, Edmund

Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

Dewar, Donald

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Paget, R. T.

Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

Palmer, Arthur

Dickens, James

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Dobson, Ray

Judd, Frank

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Doig, Peter

Kelley, Richard

Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)

Dunn, James A.

Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

Pavitt, Laurence

Dunnett, Jack

Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)

Kerr, Russell (Feltham)

Pentland, Norman

Eadie, Alex

Latham, Arthur

Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

Edelman, Maurice

Lawson, George

Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Leadbitter, Ted

Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

Price, William (Rugby)

English, Michael

Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)

Probert, Arthur

Ensor, David

Lee, John (Reading)

Randall, Harry

Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, yardley)

Lestor, Miss Joan

Rankin, John

Faulds, Andrew

Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold (Cheetham)

Rees, Merlyn

Fernyhough, E,

Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

Richard, Ivor

Finch, Harold

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

760

761

Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy

Small, William

Weitzman, David

Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)

Spriggs, Leslie

Wellbeloved, James

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W)

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kennet (St. P'c'as)

Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

White, Mrs. Eirene

Rodgers, William (Stockton)

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Whitlock, William

Roebuck, Roy

Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

Wilkins, W. A.

Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

Swain, Thomas

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Rose, Paul

Taverne, Dick

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Ross, Rt. Hn. William

Thomas, Rt. Hn. George

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Rowlands, E.

Thornton, Ernest

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Ryan, John

Tinn, James

Willis, Rt. Hn. George

Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)

Tomney, Prank

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Sheldon, Robert

Tuck, Raphael

Winnick, David

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Urwin, T. W.

Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

Varley, Eric G.

Woof, Robert

Short, Mrs. Renée(W'hampton, N. E.)

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptord)

Walden, Brian (AH Saints)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Silverman, Julius

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Mr. Neil McBride and

Sheffington, Arthur

Wallace, George

Mr. James Hamilton.

Slater, Joseph

Watkins, David (Consett)

A650, BRADFORD-WAKEFIELD (ACCIDENTS)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Armstrong.]
10.12 p.m.
Sir Alfred Broughton: I wish to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity of raising a matter of considerable importance to many of my constituents and to others who use a road passing through my constituency. The road to which I refer is the main Bradford-Wakefield road, otherwise known as the A650, and the part of it to which I wish to draw particular attention is a stretch of approximately three miles long between the crossroads at Bruntcliffe on the Bradford side and Tingley Mill on the Wakefield side. I do so because of the alarming number of accidents on this section of the road.
For many years this has been a busy road carrying traffic between the cities of Bradford and Wakefield, but, in addition to this local inter-city traffic, the road has also carried vehicles travelling to and from places beyond Wakefield, particularly Doncaster, and from there on to the Great North Road. As the number of motor vehicles has increased, so has the traffic passing along this road. From time to time there have been accidents, some fatal.
Recently the M1 was extended further north to Leeds, and this passes the A650 in my constituency where there is access to the new motorway. With the opening of the M1 there was a sudden great increase in the volume of traffic using the A650, and the number of accidents has reached terrifying figures and includes tragic fatal accidents.
The part of the road to which I draw attention is wide, has a good surface and runs through a built-up area. Frequently the fast-moving overtaking, heavy and numerous vehicles are an alarming sight. Crossing the road on foot can be at best a frightening experience and at worst fatal.
Grave concern has been felt for some time by many of my constituents, particularly mothers of young children. In the summer of this year there were some shocking accidents in which children were
764
killed, and so great was public concern and indignation that in August more than a thousand constituents signed a petition which was handed to me.
I passed on the information to the Minister of Transport, and at the same time I explained as best I could the problems. I should like to thank the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for his sympathetic and prompt reply to my request for further safety measures. I know that he instructed specialists to make a close study of the black accident history of the road and to make recommendations for lessening the danger. I am aware that a study of this nature takes time, and I am hopeful that my hon. Friend will now be in a position to give some idea of the safety measures that he intends to introduce. I am sure he understands the urgency of the matter.
I should like to acquaint my hon. Friend with the opinions of local people. I myself know the road well and use it every week as I travel about my constituency. I have had numerous discussions with constituents, including, I am sad to say, parents of some of the children who have been killed. We think that an important factor contributing to the large number of accidents is the speed at which vehicles travel. There is a 40 miles-an-hour speed limit, and local opinion is that this should be reduced to 30 m.p.h.
Another suggestion is that islands should be placed in the middle of the road at its widest parts to provide refuge for people crossing and to cut down the amount of overtaking. More pedestrian crossings are needed, and it is important that parking be prohibited near pedestrian crossings. Traffic lights have been suggested at some of the crossroads, and notices giving warning to drivers of danger have been mentioned.
At present the nearby Yorkshire-Lancashire motorway is under construction. I had thought that when it was completed traffic would use it to travel to the M1 motorway. But I am informed that the Yorkshire-Lancashire motorway will join the M1 at Lofthouse and that seven miles will be added to the journey for those who do not use the A650. As time is of more importance than distance to most drivers, I suggest that the only way to keep the A650 free from a great amount

765
of M1 traffic will be to ensure that travel along the A650 is slow.
The accident rate on the road about which I speak is appalling. I have coined for it the name "Tragedy Road". This month there have been more accidents, and in one of them a little girl was seriously injured. So great was public indignation when this tragedy occurred that mothers protested by going on the road and stopping the traffic at peak times. So local feeling is one of serious concern. The matter is urgent, and I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will now announce safety measures that will alleviate the present great anxiety.
10.20 p.m.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I very much appreciate the concern for road safety that my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Sir A. Broughton) has shown. Saving life and limb on the roads is an urgent and inescapable social problem in which we are all involved. Some of the action which can be taken must come from the Government. But there is much which can be and needs to be done by spirited local action. I congratulate my hon. Friend on the attention that he has devoted to this problem of reducing accidents on the A650 in his constituency.
The A650 is a busy route which carries much heavy commercial and industrial traffic between Bradford and Wakefield. It also carries considerable local traffic. Since the opening of the M61 in October, 1968, it has attracted extra traffic between Bradford and the M1. From time to time congestion has been caused by works in connection with the motorways.
The route is either urban or semi-urban. Between Gildersome Crossroads and Tingley Mills it is almost entirely built-up and is particularly liable to congestion because of its topography and the number of busy roads which join it. The whole of the A650 route gives us the traffic and safety problems which are associated with urban trunk roads, but the main difficulties are on the section through Morley. This stretch has two hills whose crests limit the drivers' line of sight, two major crossroads, and two staggered junctions. Because of the complex appearance of the accidents, I had
766
our area road safety unit at Dewsbury make a study in depth of traffic and accidents on this length of road. It reported to the divisional road engineer a fortnight ago.
I think this is the first time this House has debated a road safety unit's work in any detail. So perhaps I should explain that when it undertakes such studies a road safety unit examines the facts of all the accidents which have occurred over several years. In this case it took 1966, 1967 and 1968. In this way it is able to establish a complete picture of the accident pattern on the road; it notes exactly where each accident happened and, whenever the available evidence permits, how and why it happened. With such an analysis of the accidents and from observation of the conditions on the road, the unit is able to identify any features or conditions which have contributed to the accidents and to suggest possible measures to reduce the accidents.
From January, 1966, to December, 1968, there were 77 personal injury accidents on the 2½ miles of A650 between Gildersome Crossroads and Tingley Mills. That gives an accident rate of 3·2 per million vehicles. It is just about average for a trunk road passing through a built-up area.
When I speak of average statistics, I appreciate that they are no consolation to my hon. Friend nor to his constituents who have had loved ones included in the accident statistics in the shape of fatalities or injuries. I deeply sympathise with all concerned, especially the parents of the little girl who lost her life here so recently.
The unit's very detailed findings can be summarised by saying that there is a consistent pattern of overtaking accidents. This is not just cars or vans overtaking lorries. There were also instances of unladen lorries passing laden lorries. This overtaking may probably be associated with the delays caused by the motorway construction work. It creates hazards at certain points; for example, at bends and crests in the road. Radar checks showed the speeds of numbers of vehicles to be excessive, and at some points heavy goods vehicles generally were found to be travelling rather faster than most private cars. Skid tests

767
were taken, but the road surface appeared to need attention at only one site.
The obvious remedy may seem to be, as my hon. Friend has suggested, to reduce the speed limit from 40 to 30 m.p.h. I hate to disappoint him, but this almost certainly would not be the right solution. Experience has shown that, in such cases, a 30 m.p.h. restriction is almost always ignored, and the police are faced with an impossible enforcement task. There is also some indication that unrealistic speed limits increase overtaking and, consequently, the number of accidents.
Instead, the report recommends the general refurbishing of the road markings and much more use of hazard lines in the middle of the road and of double white lines to regulate overtaking. We intend to put in hand immediately a comprehensive scheme of traffic channelling along the whole length of the section. In addition, to assist traffic flow and increase pedestrian safety, waiting restrictions along the whole length will be adjusted to suit conditions, allowing limited waiting as circumstances demand, but with additional restrictions on loading and unloading during peak traffic periods.
The road safety unit found a number of definite accident clusters. The worst were at Gildersome Crossroads, Bruntcliffe Crossroads, the Scotchman Lane/Fountain Street junction of the B6123 with the A650, and the junction of the B6127 Bridge Street and the A602 Rein Road with the A650. No recommendations are made for special measures at the first two junctions. Gildersome Crossroads is currently affected by extensive motorway works which make it necessary to control the traffic according to the state of progress of the works. At Bruntcliffe Crossroads traffic signals have recently been installed and can be expected to improve safety there. The situation reflected in the accidents of the last three years therefore no longer exists. At the staggered junction at Scotchman Lane/Fountain Street there is both an accident and a capacity problem. Vehicles on the A650 are squeezed by the pedestrian refuges Those crossing from one arm of the B6123 to the other are often halted on the A650. The junction with Bridge Street and Rein Road is also a major source of difficulty because of the consistent flow of cross-stream traffic.
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In deciding what should be done on this section of road, and particularly at these two latter junctions, we must remember that the completion of the M62 in this area towards the end of next year will undoubtedly attract a great deal of the traffic at present using the A650. The whole of this route will be effectively by-passed by the Gildersome-Lofthouse section of the M62. This new road, when used with the section of M1 between Lofthouse and Carr Gate, will provide a much more attractive route between Bradford and Wakefield. I am sure that this will help a great deal.
My hon. Friend has suggested that, as the alternative M62 route via Lofthouse will be somewhat longer than the A650 route, the M62 route will prove attractive only if appropriate restrictions are placed on the A650. The M62 route will, however, enable motorists to complete the journey in a much shorter time, and experience has shown that drivers value savings in time even although they may travel a little further.
The area road safety unit's report indicates that, if things stay as they are, automatic traffic signals might be an appropriate solution at the junction of Scotchman Lane/Fountain Street. At the Bridge Street/Rein Road junction either signals or a scheme for road markings to channel traffic according to destination might help. But here I must make it clear that we doubt if we would be justified in providing automatic traffic signals at present. It would take seven months to have them installed, and they would only be in use for a few months before M62 is open. Once it is open we expect the traffic pattern to change, and it could well turn out that the signals were no longer appropriate. If so, we would have wasted the taxpayer's money.
Money for roads is not unlimited, and there are many other places where expenditure is also urgently required. No doubt every hon. Member has his own candidates. We must, therefore, ensure that proper priorities are strictly observed in the allocation of available funds. If, however, the erection of the signals still proves to be justified after the opening of the M62, the work will then be put in hand.
I should like now to mention briefly the main measures which we propose to

769
put in hand immediately, reading from east to west along the road.
At the Bridge Street/Rein Road junction a system of ghost islands—that is, painted white diagonal stripes—will be marked on the carriageway to provide a place for vehicles to stand whilst waiting to finish a left or right hand turn off the A650. There will be more lighting at the junction and the pedestrian crossing at Bridge Street. An elongated waiting bay will be built alongside the carriageway between Rein Road and Holmfirth Avenue where vehicles can stand after the waiting restrictions have come into effect. The carriageway from this junction to High Street junction will be marked to provide two 12 ft. traffic lanes in each direction and ghost islands will also be provided at the High Street junction. Between High Street and Fountain Street, a centre warning line is to be laid leading to further ghost islands on Fountain Street, that is the B6123. Markings will be provided on the staggered junction with the B6123 to restrict overtaking and assist crossing traffic.
Continuing westwards from Scotchman Lane, double solid white lines will be laid to the far side of the crest of the hill near Lewisham Street to provide two lanes for westbound traffic and one lane for eastbound traffic. This will prevent overtaking where there is limited visibility on this stretch. From here to the existing traffic signals at the junction with Howden Clough Road the carriageway will be marked with lanes to encourage good lane discipline. From this point to the end of the section no serious problem exists.
My hon. Friend will I think agree that these measures are in part what he has proposed—and I think that my hon. Friend deserves credit for the way in which he has pursued this matter on behalf of his constituents—and I assure him that where they differ they will, we believe, more effectively achieve his aims. He suggested the construction of islands in the wide sections of the road to help pedestrians to cross and to cut down overtaking. We consider that the measures proposed as a result of the Road Safety Unit's report will effectively reduce overtaking without reducing the effective width of the carriageway, as would be the case if islands were to be erected.
770
My hon. Friend also asked for more zebra crossings. On this I should point out that the road is primarily a main through route and we have found by experience that if there are too many zebra crossings on such roads the delays and resulting frustration suffered by drivers can lead to increased danger to pedestrians. My hon. Friend will recall that vehicles are already being delayed by the road works and that this appears to be one of the main causes of the prevailing accident pattern. So we do not think, as things stand, that the number of existing pedestrian crossings should be increased. But because the traffic pattern is expected to change soon we shall be keeping a close eye on this stretch of road.
I am glad to have been able to accept my hon. Friend's proposal for waiting restrictions to provide a clear view of existing crossings There are statutory procedures to go through, so changes cannot come into effect immediately. But we will get on with the necessary work with all possible speed.
When the Road Safety Units have reported on schemes like this and the suggested remedies have been implemented, they then keep an eye on things. We expect periodic before and after studies. Units have already achieved important reductions in accidents and casualties and I hope that this scheme will be chalked up among the successes. The Road Safety Unit will keep an eye on this stretch of road after we have implemented the measures that I have outlined tonight, and if further measures are needed we shall not hestitate to take them.
10.34 p.m.
Sir Ronald Russell: I do not know the road in question, but the Minister said that it would not be good policy to reduce the speed limit from 40 to 30 because the lower limit would not be kept. I agree about that, but it is my experience that if there is a speed limit most of the traffic goes at about 10 miles an hour faster than the limit, so it probably goes at 50. If the speed limit were reduced to 30 the speed of traffic might be cut down to 40, and thus make for greater safety. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would look at that, not only from the point of view of this case, but for speed limits in general. I think that that might help.
Mr. Bob Brown Mr. Bob Brown rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak. He may speak again only by leave of the House.
Mr. Brown: By leave of the House, Mr. Speaker. To reduce the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles an hour would make the limit completely unrealistic. Our
772
experience is that motorists will have no regard for unrealistic speed limits. This is why the previous Minister issued the Green Paper on speed limits for discussion, and towards the end of the year we shall be looking again at speed limits.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Eleven o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Chester):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Earl Alexander of Tunis—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

ROAD VEHICLES: MAXIMUM WEIGHTS
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: 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 action they propose to take over the suggestion for the increase of weight and size of commercial vehicles.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTER-BOTTOM): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are considering all the implications of the industry's proposals, which are mainly concerned with weight rather than size. The technical implications of the proposals, including safeguards against adverse effects, are being discussed with industry. As soon as there is something more positive to discuss there will be consultation with other interests, including those concerned with safety and amenity. If changes are then proposed there will be ample opportunity for public debate about them. The Government will make a final decision only in the light of full investigation and consultation, which will take many months.
The LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his very full Answer, may I ask whether he can give us any indication of when it will be possible for the Government to tell us what they have in mind? I also thank the noble Lord for the assurance that there will be a full debate before decisions are reached.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I can only repeat what I originally told the right reverend Prelate, that the inquiry will take many months.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, can the noble Lord also give further consideration to the question of size? I gather from my noble friend's remarks that only weight has been taken into consideration. Will he carefully consider the large volume of opinion that the size, and in particular the length of the vehicle, should not be increased any further than the present limits?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I agree that size enters into it, but only to a limited degree. It is proposed that the length of the vehicles should be increased by approximately half a metre to enable a full sized container to be carried in greater safety than at the moment.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, will the Minister give an assurance that the Government still stand by the policy adumbrated in the White Paper, Cmnd. 3057 of 1966? If the noble Lord will turn to the introduction, he will find that the Government refer to all the ills which have already resulted from the motor car —congestion in the streets of our towns, the misery of the journey to work for commuters, noise, fumes, danger and so on—and it says at the end that the aim of a rational transport policy must be to solve this paradox. Will the Government give an assurance that they still stand by what they then wrote?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, not having the White Paper in front of of me I am afraid that I cannot give such an assurance.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether Her Majesty's Government will bear in mind that the present road system of this country is simply not capable of bearing these enormous loads? They had very much better be carried by the railways.
LORD WINTER BOTTOM: My Lords, this is one of the factors which Her Majesty's Government will bear in mind.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will take into account axle weight rather than total weight, as under the new legislation this is a most important matter?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I seem to remember from an earlier debate that the whole question of plating depends upon this matter.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, as one of those who would have added his name to the right reverend Prelate's letter if it had been worded slightly differently, may I ask whether the Government will consider the possibility of restricting the roads on which these larger vehicles may travel?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is another, but I think an intelligent question.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, as one who signed the letter from the right reverend Prelate, may I ask whether the Government have made inquiries about experiences on the Continent; whether lorries of this size are being widely used in foreign countries and, if so, what experience has been gained?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, since on the Continent both larger lorries and lorry trains are used to a much greater extent than in this country, of course the information available from the Continent will be placed before the Committee studying the problem.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend what are the relationships between the suggested proposals and the Continental system which is being discussed, presumably, at the same time?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if my noble friend will permit me I will write to him on this matter. Obviously the two systems must be interconnected as Britain moves closer to the Continent.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether, in the request that he has had for consideration, it is not only that articulated lorries should be increased from 32 to 44 tons but that there is also a request to increase the weight of a drawing lorry and a draw-bar trailer to 56 tons, and is this a matter which the Government have under consideration?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is correct. The weight is perhaps of more importance
1382
than the consideration of size, and this point is under consideration.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh! Rubbish!
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend—while I agree with practically everything that has been said here this afternoon—whether he will bear in mind the important contribution which the container traffic can make to the economy of this country and whether he will take care to see that the container trade is not killed?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, my noble friend is quite correct. The addition of half a metre to the maximum length of the vehicle is for the reason he mentioned.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, if it is correct to assume that the weight problem is related to the bearing capacity of the roads and bridges, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will keep in mind that the length of vehicles is a serious matter in considering road safety?
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that it is necessary, when these regulations are being discussed, to remember that the distance between one lorry and another is as important as the weight or size of the lorries? I sometimes travel 1,000 miles a week in the South-West, and this danger is constantly obvious when one is driving.

USE OF SALT ON ROADS
3.8 p.m.
LORD BURTON: 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 steps are being taken to find a suitable alternative to salt for use on the roads in view of the highly corrosive action of salt.]
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we have no knowledge of any alternative which would be as effective or as cheap as salt. The corrosion problem can best be tackled by combining a suitable all-purpose inhibitor with road salt, and the Road Research Laboratory is currently

1383
testing two of the most promising inhibitors under field conditions. Results are not likely to be available for about twelve months.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister is aware that it is costing the taxpayer at least £6 million a year in exhausts alone, so that it would be well worth while spending a great deal more money on research.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the actual expenditure and cost is higher than the figure given by the noble Lord. On the other hand, studies have shown that the lessening of accidents and the greater safety brought about by salting in fact offsets the costs he has mentioned. However, we are not satisfied. The research undertaken by the Road Research Laboratory will be extremely thorough, and there is good promise that inhibitors may reduce the damage caused by salt on vehicles.

SALMON FISHING IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: 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, in view of the fact that Denmark, Sweden and West Germany have declined to accept the recommendations of the International Commission for North-West Atlantic Fisheries and the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission with regard to fishing for salmon in the high seas, what action they propose to take; and, in particular, whether they would consider placing some restriction on Danish imports to the United Kingdom.]
THE LORD ADVOCATE (LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE): My Lords, the objections lodged by these countries mean that the recommendation affecting the North-East Atlantic is not binding on any country and the position is similar in the North-West Atlantic. The action to be taken now is a matter for careful consideration, in conjunction with countries which share our views, and Her Majesty's
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Government are at present studying the possibilities, including the statement by Denmark that she is prepared to discuss other less far-reaching conservation measures than a total ban. On the question of restriction on Danish imports, we must of course have due regard to our international obligations, which, as the noble Earl is aware, generally preclude the application of import restrictions except for balance-of-payments reasons
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, which does not get us very far, may I ask whether he is aware that this irresponsible and greedy policy of the Danish Government may well lead to the extinction of the Atlantic salmon, as so very nearly happened in the case of the Pacific sockeye.
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: My Lords, I do not think that what the noble Earl has said correctly represents the situation as understood by Her Majesty's Government.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, is it not the case that if North Atlantic salmon stocks were to be destroyed both the Baltic countries and Greenland would in the long run suffer just as much as anyone else? And can the noble Lord say whether the refusal of these countries to accept this recommendation is simply because they do not think the evidence is yet sufficiently complete, or is there any other reason?
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: My Lords, so far as the first part of the noble Earl's Question is concerned, there is a difficulty in the way of answering it unequivocally. So far as the second part of the Question is concerned the answer is, Yes.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, the Lord Advocate, whether Her Majesty's Government are themselves convinced that fishing for salmon in the North Atlantic as it is being conducted now has a serious deleterious effect on the stocks of salmon coming to spawn in the rivers of the United Kingdom?
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's Question is, Yes.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, is it not clear that this is the best market or the richest market for selling salmon? Is there any reason why we should support the Danish trade to the extent that we do while they rob us of our salmon?
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: My Lords, in these matters we have to consider all our international obligations, and in particular those under GATT.

VIETNAM: BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES POLICY
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 will withdraw their support for the Government of the U.S.A. in their military operations in Vietnam in view of (1) President Nixon's rejection of a peace-making coalition government in South Vietnam and (2) of the withdrawal of American representatives at the Paris Peace Talks; and whether they will take the initiative among the non-involved nations to bring about the maximum international pressure for a settlement of the war on the basis of the Geneva Agreements.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND) COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): No, my Lords. Our attitude towards American policy in Vietnam is not affected either by President Nixon's refusal to accept Communist demands to overthrow the legitimate Government of South Vietnam, or by the resignation of Mr. Cabot Lodge, for personal reasons, as leader of the U.S. delegation to the Paris talks. The Americans have already put forward proposals which would lead to a settlement based on the Geneva Agreements; progress can be expected when the other side agree to discuss them.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that Questions like this affecting the operations of the United States do great disservice to the relationship between Great Britain and the United States, particularly when,
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unlike Australia and New Zealand, we have no participation in the operation?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I do not think it is for me to answer that particular point. I think it is for the House itself to decide, but I feel sure the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, would agree that we are a democratic society.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether Her Majesty's Government are sensitive to the deep concern in this country about what is happening in the war in Vietnam and about the Government's support of America's role in it? Is not the deadlock in the Paris talks due to the fact that there has been concentration upon mutual withdrawal of troops rather than on the constructive proposal that there should be at Saigon a broad-based Coalition Government which could bring about a settlement on the basis of the Geneva Agreement?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we are as sensitive to the horrors of Vietnam as any noble Lord or any person in this country. The noble Lord speaks of a broad-based Government, but we must recognise that the Government of South Vietnam is the legitimate and constitutional Government. The President and Vice-President have been elected. The Communists' demands for the Government to be arbitrarily and unconstitutionally replaced are unreasonable and unrealistic. The selection of the Government of South Vietnam is surely a matter for the South Vietnamese people.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, does the Minister recall that in country after country taken over by the Communists they have as a convenient step entered a Coalition Government? Are not those who advocate coalition with the Communists consciously or unconsciously furthering a Communist tyranny?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I would not say that that is necessarily so. I hope the noble Lord will appreciate that we have to live with the Communist societies and we must find some basis of living with them.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, although I well know the concern we all feel about this terrible problem, do the Government think that suggestions by the

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American Government as to how we should solve the Ulster problem would be acceptable to us, or do they conceivably feel that they might be counter-productive?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am not aware of the particular proposals; I may have been out of the country at the time. Clearly, on all problems we can all gain from advice given, but it depends upon what the advice is.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, would the noble Lord bear in mind that Ulster is a part of Great Britain and Vietnam is not a part the United States?
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is my noble friend, as I am sure he is, prepared to look at the probable consequencies of what is happening in Vietnam? It it not a fact that this Government of incredulity now in Saigon, with the very influential opposition to it, may fail to be representative of the South Vietnamese people? And is it not desirable that every effort should be exerted to bring about a really representative Government of the South Vietnamese people, so that there may be free elections for such a Government?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend must surely by now be aware of the views of Her Majesty's Government about the need for free elections in South Vietnam, and it is only in that way that we can in fact see that the South Vietnamese decide what Government they wish to have.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, when in history have the Communists been interested in free elections?
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, whilst this war has escalated in a terrible manner not foreseen, is it not a good thing to remind ourselves, and the various people who are now criticising the Americans, that they were, after all, invited in by the legally elected Government of South Vietnam to help defend themselves? I think that case was very well made by Mr. Stewart, the Foreign Secretary.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I would only say that this is Question
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Time and I try to provide information on a factual basis for question and answer. I have a suspicion that we are now moving into the realm of debate.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after half-past three my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on the industrial dispute at the Tilbury Container Depot, after which my noble friend Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe will be making a Statement on overseas aid.
TRANSPORT (LONDON) AMENDMENT BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
CUSTOMS (IMPORT DEPOSITS) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.
RENT (CONTROL OF INCREASES) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
3.20 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Liability for damage done by dangerous animals]:
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD FOOT: I should like to raise one point on the wording of Clause 2(2) of the Bill which causes me a certain amount of concern and anxiety. The words of the subsection as they stand provide that:
"Where any damage of any kind is caused by an animal which does not belong to a dangerous species, and—
(a) the animal has such characteristics that it is likely, unless restrained, to cause damage of that kind …"
If I may pause there, the question I want to ask is, what is the meaning of the words "that kind"? To what does the word "that" relate back? It appears to me, on the face of it, that the word "that" clearly relates back to the opening words of the subsection, that is to say
"Where damage of any kind."
If I am right about that, then one can read the subsection as it stands in this way:
"Where damage of any kind is caused by an animal which does not belong to a dangerous species, and—
(a) the animal has such characteristics that it is likely, unless restrained, to cause damage of "—
any kind, then the owner or the keeper of the animal is liable in damages. I wonder whether that is really the intention behind this subsection, because, on the face of it, it seems to me that if a dog has characteristics which may cause "damage of any kind" at all, then you are making the owner of an animal belonging to a non-dangerous species liable in all circumstances for all kinds of damage that may result from the ordinary characteristics of that animal.
Supposing a dog barks—that being one of the ordinary characteristics of that domestic animal—and causes someone to be frightened, or possibly causes cattle to stampede and damage is done, is it the intention of the Act that the owner of that dog, which is behaving in the perfectly normal, characteristic manner of a domestic animal, should be liable for any kind of damage which ensues from the dog having barked?
I should think that the real object of this subsection was to provide for the
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case of an animal belonging to a non-dangerous species which, nevertheless, has some peculiar characteristic of its own, not normal to that particular type of animal, and to make the owner of the animal liable for damage caused as a result of that peculiar characteristic of which the owner is aware. Therefore I would invite the noble and learned Lord, if he can, to resolve the difficulty for me. It may be that there is a simple explanation and that I am being obtuse about it; but, as I see it and as I read the clause at the present moment and in my present comprehension of it, it seems to me to be too widely drawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The wording of this subsection puzzled me a little when I first read it, but it is submitted that it is right. Under subsection (1) the keeper of an animal which belongs to a dangerous species is made liable for any damage caused by the animal, subject only to the defences set out in Clause 5 and that of contributory negligence. Subsection (2) imposes liability on the keeper of an animal which is not of a dangerous species but which has dangerous characteristics known to the keeper.
In order to succeed under the subsection a plaintiff will have to show that the keeper of the animal had knowledge or imputed knowledge of the animal's dangerous characteristics, and that the damage of which the plaintiff complains is such as is likely to result from those characteristics, or that although damage may not be a likely result from these characteristics it is likely to be severe if it does nevertheless result from them. If a dog has a tendency to attack people, damage by biting will be likely to result. On the other hand, if a dog has a dangerous disease, which is transmissible by biting but the dog is of a quiet nature, damage by the transmission of the disease is not likely to result; none the less, there will be strict liability under the subsection if the dog does transmit the disease by biting because damage of the kind which may be expected from the dangerous characteristic, the disease, is likely to be severe.
The subsection does not impose strict liability for damage resulting from the normal reaction of a dog to an attack upon itself, although its keeper knows that all dogs react in this way. Spine actions of animals, which although they

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are characteristic of their species in certain circumstances are probably excluded from this form of liability under the present law, will in future be covered. Young horses are generally frolicsome, and bitches with litters are prone to bite strangers; but the fact that these are normal characteristics of otherwise harmless animals at present probably exempts their keeper from liability. In future, he will not necessarily be exempt from liability for their harmful acts, where he knew about the propensity at the time of the injury. The factors which constitute knowledge of an animal's characteristics are of course elaborated in Clause 6(5). I hope that that meets the question raised by the noble Lord.
LORD SOMERS: I wonder whether I may ask the noble and learned Lord one question. Some dogs have in the past been kept as watchdogs for protection. If a dog, in the course of his ordinary training, attacks a burglar, can the burglar, although he has not actually, as yet, broken into the house, sue the owner of the dog if it bites him?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There are several defences open. It depends partly on Amendments that we are going to consider in regard to Clause 5. But of course it is a defence to any liability that the person injured brought the injury upon himself, or that he contributed to it by his own negligence.
LORD FOOT: I do not know whether it is permissible for me to follow up with just a couple of sentences. I am afraid that what the noble and learned Lord has said has not altogether removed my anxieties on this matter. As I understood him, he was saying that the clause, as he reads it, means that if an ordinary domestic animal, a dog, has some unusual propensity, of which the owner is aware, and in the exercise of that propensity causes damage of any kind, then the owner is liable. I entirely understand that. But it seems to me that, as the clause is drawn and because it refers to "damage of any kind", that would make the keeper liable for a dog which had no unusual propensity and was merely expressing its ordinary nature and characteristics. That was the cause of my anxiety, and I am afraid that what the noble and learned Lord has said has not altogether removed the anxiety.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I come in for a moment in regard to this point? The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has certainly stirred up a doubt in my mind on this matter, too. I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor can clear up the point now, or whether it is perhaps one to which we might return on the Report stage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I thought I had covered it fairly fully, but I agree that it is a complex matter. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Foot, would be good enough to read in Hansard exactly what I said, and we can return to the point, if necessary, on the Report stage.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Liability for damage and expenses due to trespassing livestock]:
3.30 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 17, after ("property") insert (("including animals")).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Henley. This is a very small point and is rather a probing Amendment. Clause 4 concerns the liability for damage and the expenses due to trespassing of livestock, and it is not entirely clear to me, and possibly perhaps to some other noble Lords, what the damage refers to. Clause 4(1)(a) reads:
"damage is done by the livestock to the land or to any property on it …".
My difficulty is that I am not entirely clear what the word "property" covers. Therefore, my Amendment seeks to insert after "property" the words "including animals" in order to make quite certain that animals are included, and to hear perhaps from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor exactly what the meaning of "property" is in this context. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, that there is no question at all but that the word "property", which is a very wide word, includes animals. Of course, as we have seen from the

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breathalyser cases, in criminal cases people will take any sort of point, and in a case in 1901 a sportsman sought to argue that a clase in the Larceny Act which included the word "property" did not include a dog. He did not get much sympathy from the court, and I cannot find that anybody has ever raised the question since 1901, so I feel safe in assuring the noble Lord and the Committee that "property" does include animals.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD BARNBY: This Bill affects so many interests and responsibilities in the countryside that in spite of the very clear explanation given by the noble and learned Lord at the Second Reading on the interpretation of this clause, as is the case in several others in the Bill to which I hope to refer later, I hope that in the course of the discussions on Committee the Government may find it worth while to give some elaboration of the words, "except as otherwise provided by this Act." In the event of incidents occurring which would call into question the operation of this Bill, it seems likely that people would depend on this clause which would, in turn, be dependent on all the subsequent clauses. For those familiar with the type of interests in the country which are aimed to be provided for in this clause, it would seem that, as with several other clauses in the Bill, it is the interpretation and the policing of the events which will possibly have to be dealt with under this Bill that will make it difficult for those interests in the countryside who frequently come across the problems which this Bill provides for.
LORD BALERNO: May I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether he can enlighten me on the application of this clause? Suppose that a cow suffering from brucellosis strays and goes on to the road, and that some kind passer-by, finding a stray cow on the road, opens a gate leading into a field of another proprietor where the cows are clear of brucellosis, and that the infected cow goes in and infects the other cows. Who is to blame, and what redress
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has the owner of the cows which are affected? Has he redress under this clause?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the noble Lord is really raising the next Amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, on which this very question will arise. The answer is that Clause 4 is, in substance, simply restating and modernising, in the form of the code, the existing law of cattle trespass, except that it removes an obsolete remedy for cattle trespass which was called distress damage feasant. Clause 4 provides for the circumstances in which the invading cattle may be detained and how the person whose land is trespassed on will get his money.
The answer to the brucellosis herd point is that there is at present no strict liability in that regard, and nothing in the clause alters that. Nor should it. Strict liability is very unusual in English law, and the reason why there has always been strict liability for cattle trespass (the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, will know this very much better than I do) is that this is something that constantly happens in country districts, and therefore the law should be absolutely plain and not depend on varying circumstances. The damage which animals trespassing do is usually relatively small. There are very few actions about it, because farmers know what the law is and they agree between themselves what is the proper sum if compensation is payable. Wholly different considerations arise here, however. A very large sum of money might be payable if every farmer whose cattle strayed into land where there was a brucellosis-free herd was to be held liable. It has never been the law that, in the absence of negligence, he would be liable in such a situation, and there is nothing in the clause which would change the existing law.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I wonder whether my noble and learned friend could tell me whether Clause 4 will cover an incident such as the following. In field A there is a bull, a bull of very lowly birth, a scrub bull; in field B, adjoining, there are a number of cows, those cows being of the class that would be entered in the bovine Debrett. Let us say that the bull escapes from his own field into the cows' field, and that he

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makes certain advances to them. Let us then say that they do not resent those advances, and let us assume that the processes of nature carry on from there. Will the owner of the bull which has trespassed be liable for any damage which it may have caused, either physically or to the reputation of the cows in the second field?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Again I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is more able to answer this question than I am; but under our existing law, and under the Bill, if the bull strays into the neighbouring farmer's land and causes damage to that farmer's cow, then the owner of the bull will be liable. What exactly causing damage amounts to in the circumstances dramatically narrated by my noble friend I am not sure. But the clause does not change the existing law.
Clause 4 agreed to.
3.40 p.m.
LORD ROWALLAN LORD ROWALLAN moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 4 insert the following new clause:
Liability for loss or expense occasioned to owner or occupier of land by straying livestock.
".Where livestock belonging to any person strays onto land used by a herd, or any part of a herd, accredited pursuant to a scheme for accrediting brucellosis free herds, and as a consequence of the straying, and in order to retain the accredited status, the owner or occupier of the land—

(a) is restricted in the use of the land, or any part thereof, for a period; or

(b) is restricted in any farming or business activity;

the person to whom the straying livestock belongs shall be liable for any loss or expense occasioned thereby to the owner or occupier of the land."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment deals with an entirely new problem which, so far as I know, has not come before the courts, nor has it been seriously considered. It is important—vitally important—to those who have achieved the accredited status, after, in many cases, a long, expensive and frustrating period. The accredited status raises a very big problem. If cattle from another farm stray into the pastures of an accredited herd, those pastures which have been trespassed upon by the cattle from the
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non-accredited herd are immediately closed to all cattle for sixty days. To those of us who are engaged in rotational grazing, that in itself may lead to very considerable consequential loss.
I had an experience with my own herd this year. Fortunately, it did not go any further than the closure of the pastures for 60 days, but during those 60 days I was losing between 15 and 20 gallons per day, and owing to the unsuitability of the grass which I had to use I was also losing the quality bonus of 3d. per gallon. But it would have been far worse if any of my cattle had been in that field when the trespassing cattle committed the trespass. All those animals would have had to be completely isolated. I should not have been allowed to take them to any of the important shows; nor should I have been allowed to send them to any sale of accredited cattle. All the work that I had done and the expense it had involved would have been nullified by the fact that I could not get the bonus that I had, I consider, earned by achieving accreditation.
But it would have been even worse still if any of those cattle had developed brucellosis owing to the trespass. I was talking only yesterday morning to a young farmer, a very progressive young fellow, who had laid out £5,000 on new courts and a bottling plant on his farm. Through Many years of family attention he had developed a milk round of 400 gallons a day. That all went. The cattle suffering an abortion storm, he is having no calves born at the proper time. His cows, shortly after producing their calves, have gone dry, and there is no milk. What will happen to that young fellow in the end I do not know, but it looks very much as if the only way in which he can ever get out of the mess he is in now and over the loss that he is suffering is by selling all those cattle as they go dry to the cast-cow market, at a loss of probably £50 to £60 apiece.
That herd was built up through three or four generations of his family. It would come to an end. He will be able to graze on the pastures and consume the silage which he has made only by putting bullocks on the farm, and it will be at least 12 to 18 months before he can hope to build up a heard of dairy cows again. That milk round of 400 gallons has probably gone for ever. It is to meet a case

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like that, or at any rate to give those who have achieved accreditation some compensation for the risks that they run, owing to that accreditation, from trespassing cattle, that I move this Amendment.
I think I have already said enough to show your Lordships the great damage which can come to a young fellow without any fault on his part at all. He has done his best. He has done what Lady Summerskill has often, in this House, encouraged him to do, in clearing brucellosis from his farm. But all that has now gone. I ask your Lordships to consider whether this Amendment should not be passed to meet the few but very tragic cases which comes from trespassing cattle. I beg to mave.
LORD BALERNO: I should like to support my noble friend in the case that he has made. The seriousness of it is without any question, and if we are to get rid of brucellosis, contagious abortion, and undulant fever in man, we must give every encouragement to the dairy farmer to do so. As things stand just now, the dice are loaded against the dairy farmer who is trying to become accredited. The clause proposed by my noble friend will go a long way to restore his confidence. The other thing that can be done to improve the confidence of the dairy farmer would be for the Government to proceed with the eradication scheme with more vigour than they are showing just now. If the eradication scheme were carried out with greater energy, we could be clear of the disease and these troubles generally within a relatively short time.
LORD CHAMPION: I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, in his plea that this clause should be added to the Bill. When my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was speaking on Clause 4, he seemed to me to be saying that damages caused by this sort of straying on to land which was in the ownership of someone who had a brucellosis free accredited herd would not be damages that could be assessed under Clause 4. If that is the case, and if he did say that, then clearly the clause moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, should be added to the Bill.
It so happens that I was for a time connected with the Ministry of Agriculture. During the whole of that period
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I pressed very strongly that we should do something about brucellosis. That stemmed from the fact that at one time I was in joint ownership with my brother of a small hill farm, and we were nearly put out of business as a result of contagious abortion. The seriousness of that is clear to anyone who knows anything at all about livestock rearing. The very fact that a man has taken the trouble to establish a brucellosis-free accredited herd is surely an indication of his excellence as a livestock-keeper, and, in my opinion, he should be protected by the law in every way possible. I think that this clause, so well moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, should be added to the Bill unless we can be assured that this matter is covered elsewhere and that a man suffering in this way would receive some compensation for the damage flowing from the slackness of an adjoining cattle-owner.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: I rise to support this Amendment, but it seems that one may be able to get only limited compensation. Suppose the owner at fault is a small man with one cow. It may be that he has a capital of only £100. What compensation can one expect to get? Would the Government or the Minister of Agriculture consider setting up an insurance scheme to allow accredited owners to insure against a contingency like that?
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: The new clause which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, has been seconded by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno. They are two of the greatest experts on animal husbandry in your Lordships' House. I very much hope that the Government will see their way to accepting this clause. Even if, for the technical reasons so often advanced, they cannot accept it in its present form, I hope that they can at least incorporate it in spirit into the Bill. Brucellosis is the same as contagious bovine abortion; and, unfortunately, just as bovine tuberculosis could be and often is communicated to humans so can brucellosis be communicated to humans. It is happening to-day to an ever-increasing extent. A considerable proportion of veterinary surgeons in this country are suffering from chronic brucellosis. I myself know of several extremely painful cases in my own area, cases not merely of veterinary surgeons but also of people

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quite unconnected with the direct ministration of animals who have contracted this disease and who are going on suffering from it for many years after they first got it.
If this clause is not to be incorporated in the Bill it will be a great deterrent to those who are preparing to clear their herds of brucellosis and in many cases it may well make them hesitate to do so. I am in the fortunate position of having cleared my Jersey herd and of not having a single reactor. I am also fortunate in that, for geographical reasons, the herd is unlikely to be infected from outside. There are a great many small dairy farmers who would like to get their herds clear but who are surrounded by other stock whose owners take no precautions whatsoever. What is the inducement to a young farmer with several reactors to get his stock cleared, when he knows that at any moment he may be re-infected from outside? This terrible disease, which is becoming more common all the time, must be eradicated. I am sorry that the Government have to date shown such reluctance to introduce the necessary measures for providing adequate compensation. It would be a step in the right direction if this worthy clause were incorporated into the Bill.
LORD BURTON: While I support the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, and all the other noble Lords who have spoken on this point, I have two reservations. First, I wonder whether one should single out any disease in this way; and secondly, whether this is the correct way of dealing with brucellosis. Brucellosis is probably the most damaging disease current in cattle in this country at the moment. Since brucellosis is such a complex matter and since, from what has been said this afternoon, there is considerable concern felt at the moment about it, I hope that before too long we may be able to devote a debate to this subject alone.
If anything is to be done to cover consequential loss as a result of brucellosis or other diseases, I am sure that a suitable clause ought to be added to the Bill somewhere; but I feel that brucellosis, though the most damaging
1400
disease at the moment, should not be isolated in this way. Tuberculosis is another disease that might be spread; and there are many others—and not only diseases in cattle or livestock but also those in cats or dogs. This should be covered by some clause in the Bill.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: I support this new clause but with one reservation. It appears to me that the owner of livestock is not covered for third party action. Take the case which happened this year of cattle being stampeded by low-flying aircraft. The herd smashed their way through a fence which was previously perfectly sound. It seems to me that while liability for that would be placed straight on the owner of the livestock, the damage could perfectly well have been caused through the action of a third party. I think this is a defect which should be cleared up.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I say a word of support for the new clause moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan? As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will have observed, the noble Lord has received a great deal of support from all sides of the Committee. I wonder whether the drafting of Clause 4(1)(a) does not already cover this point since, as the noble and learned Lord explained, "property" includes animals. But I think that the point was well made, at any rate with regard to accreditation of herds for brucellosis. There is a specific value there which should be protected and could be at risk in these particular circumstances. This is the kind of damage which could result in cattle straying on to other property and meeting an accredited herd. There is a specific point here and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to meet us on it.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): Perhaps this would be a convenient moment to move that the House do now resume in order to hear a Statement. I therefore beg to move.
Moved accordingly, and on Question Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

TILBURY DOCKS CONTAINER TERMINAL
3.57 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I will with permission repeat a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the First Secretary of State about the present difficulties which are preventing the operation of the 0.C.L./A.C.T. modernised terminal at Tilbury. The Statement is as follows:
"Overseas Containers Limited and Associated Containers Transportation yesterday announced that in the light of the continued refusal of the No. 1 Docks Group Committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union to lift their ban on the implementation of the agreement reached in January this year, covering the operation of the O.C.L./A.C.T. terminal at Tilbury, they have decided to place on a more permanent basis at Antwerp the alternative arrangements introduced in March for the handling of the United Kingdom-Australia traffic. O.C.L./ A.C.T. are also taking steps to place their Tilbury terminal on a care-and-maintenance basis and to redeploy staff. O.C.L. is giving further consideration to the dismantling of equipment at Tilbury. I also understand that O.C.L./ A.C.T. are seeking an increase in freight charges to and from Australia to cover additional costs of transshipment of cargoes to and from the Continent.
"Although before January, 1968, a number of modernised terminal berth agreements negotiated by the Transport and General Workers' Union had come into operation, the No. 1 Dock Group Committee then decided to impose a ban on the further implementation of modernised berth agreements until a Stage II Devlin agreement had been reached for London as a whole. The lead in these negotiations has been taken by the employers in the Enclosed Docks and by the T. and G.W.U., and after intensive discussions, an offer by the employers, which provides in return for 2-shift working and flexible manning a standard weekly wage of £33 10s. 0d. for the great majority of dockers and £36 for those working on ships, was put to the men by ballot
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earlier this month. It was rejected by 3,090 votes to 2,442. Following the ballot, the No. 1 Docks Group Committee confirmed their ban on further modernised berth agreements, and at Tilbury yesterday the men rejected by a narrow majority a proposal that they should nevertheless bring the modernised berths at Tilbury into operation. It was these two events which precipitated the 0.C.L./A.C.T. decision to which I have referred.
"My Department has been in close touch with the two sides throughout these negotiations and has assisted in bringing them together. It has had joint meetings with the employers and with the full No. 1 Docks Group Committee in order to try to get the ban removed. I fully appreciate the concern of dockers over their future employment prospects in view of the reduced labour requirements which follow the introduction of modern cargo handling methods. In view, however, of the special protection against redundancy afforded to dockers by the Dock Labour Scheme, the successful operation of agreed voluntary severance arrangements introduced in June, 1969, and the introduction from the same date of improved pension and a lower retirement age, and also of the terms of the Enclosed Docks employers' offer to which I have already referred, I would urge the union to reconsider their attitude and, without waiting further on the conclusion of the Stage II Devlin negotiations, to lift the ban —in the interests of the country, the port and the men themselves.
"I am seeking an early meeting with Mr. Victor Feather of the T.U.C. and Mr. Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers' Union to discuss the serious position which has now arisen."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for having repeated that Statement, which reveals a deplorable position. As I understand it —and the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong— O.C.L./A.C.T. have paid a high wage to a number of dockers at their container terminal for over nine months in return for very little indeed; and this, I suppose, in the hope that sanity would return in a Devlin Stage II

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agreement. But as the noble Lord has said, it has not done so. I must say that many of us, including, I should have thought, noble Lords on both sides of the House, are baffled and cannot understand how any thinking man could make a decision of this kind; knowing, as he must, that that decision would certainly mean the decline of London as a port and, consequently, put his own job at risk.
So far as I am concerned, it is unbelievable, and it is up to the Government, I should have thought, to safeguard the national interest. As the noble Lord said in the Statement, freight rates to Australia must, and undoubtedly will, rise as a result of this action and the double handling necessary for sending the freight and the containers from Ipswich to Antwerp. And this now, of all times; just when our exports are rising and trade figures are doing better. My Lords, I think that this is a case where the Government really must intervene. Otherwise, goodness knows where we shall end!
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord for having repeated the Statement, which shows a grave situation—indeed, a shameful situation. I would certainly wish the Minister all success in the new initiative and new talks, but I hope that it will be possible to bring home to the people involved that this really is a very serious situation, and that if we in London refuse to accept these modern methods we are going to lose this container business for ever. There is no major port in Europe that is not trying to wrest this business from us.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the situation is a little more complex—the Statement cannot cover all the complexities—than I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, realises. Although I entirely share the view of all noble Lords about the seriousness of the situation I am a little hesitant about using words like "shameful" or just saying that it is "up to the Government" regarding matters which are the subject of free negotiation. This is not the type of area where this sort of issue arises for those of us who may have disagreement in relation to dealing with strikes and suchlike matters. I am sure that noble Lords
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appreciate this. I fully accept that the situation is serious, and I appreciate that noble Lords hope that my right honourable friend's efforts to get the seriousness of this matter fully understood will lead to a satisfactory conclusion.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, the noble Lord is surely not saying, that free negotiation means that one has no concern for the national interest at any time.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is always interesting to hear a noble Lord who sits on the Liberal Benches seeking to give the Government the power to tell workers and trade unionists what to do; and that he should confuse this situation with the obligation of the Government to encourage, persuade and get people to face their responsibilities. No one in this House, I believe, would wish the Government to order people to enter into a particular agreement. For that reason I think the important thing to be recognised is what is in the national interest and is good sense, and what is in the interest of the men concerned as well as of the country.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Leader of the House give some further clarification? Before I proceed with my question, may I declare an interest, having been a member of a firm that built the Tilbury dock which is the cause of all this trouble? By reason of that, and my continuous visits down there, I am familiar with the actual circumstances which are producing this great difficulty. Is the noble Leader of the House able to say anything further about the likely progress in dealing with this problem? I should also like to add, in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Byers, has said, that the delay over this matter of the container traffic, particularly as it affects the wool textile interests, is very great; and the transfer to the Continent as is being done now, is delaying any shipment. Any change from London would considerably increase the freight charges, and it is a matter of extreme urgency that a solution should be accelerated.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we know that the noble Lord, despite his youthful appearance, is of a considerable age; and whether he built the original Tilbury Dock or whether it was the

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present containers, or the present container agency, I am not clear.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I made clear that it was the dock about which this discussion has arisen, not the original one.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not disagree with what the noble Lord has said. I do not want to prolong this discussion too much, but it may help, particularly in the light of Lord Carrington's remarks, if I explain, briefly, the difficulty. There is a potentially satisfactory agreement in relation to Tilbury, and the P.L.A. had agreed terms and conditions for the operation; but the No. 1 Docks Group which covers the whole of London is refusing to allow this agreement to be implemented. The fact that the decision taken last night was taken only by a small majority clearly shows a division of loyalties. I think one needs to recognise this. We may consider that the men were misguided in their decision; and it is noteworthy that a very large number of people, including their own shop stewards, did urge the Tilbury men to implement their agreement and not to relate it to the delay and the failure to reach agreement on Devlin Stage II. It is in this direction as well as in respect of the implementation of Devlin, that one must hope for a solution. But I entirely agree that this is a very serious and important matter.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? There are many noble Lords here this afternoon who would like to speak on this matter. Would it not be possible to consider giving some time to debating it, so that we may all have a chance to make a contribution?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, unfortunately we cannot do that to-day, because notice has to be put on the Order Paper. But one hopes that negotiations and further efforts will produce the necessary results. It is of course always open to noble Lords in this House to debate aything. I am inclined to think that in a matter of this kind, where the Government are actively engaged in seeking a solution, it is not helpful to a difficult negotiation to have statements which may give rise to further exacerbation. But that is my personal opinion,
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and I have noted what the noble Lord has said.

OVERSEAS AID: FUTURE PROGRAMME
4.10 p.m.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Overseas Development. The Statement is as follows:
"The House will know that the Second United Nations Development Decade begins in January, 1971. Its purpose will be to help the developing world to achieve a faster rate of economic growth so that it may begin to have a fairer share of the growing wealth of the world. It is an objective supported in all parts of the House.
"The Government believes it to be of great importance that as a major donor country with a high reputation for the quality and organisation and size of its aid programme, we should play our full part in this new development effort. Despite our economic difficulties we have succeeded in maintaining official aid to the less developed countries at a high level during the life of this Government and we have greatly improved the terms of our aid in particular in the provision of interest-free loans.
"We have now examined our programme for the first three years of the Decade, and our purpose for the whole of the Decade in relation to the new target of 1 per cent. of gross national product set by the Second UNCTAD Conference and the particular recommendation of the Pearson Commission concerning this.
"Last February our White Paper on Public Expenditure gave estimates of £277 million for 1969–70 and of £235 million for 1970–71 for the total aid programme. Excluding the likely defence element in Britain's Special Aid to Singapore and Malaysia, this gives figures for economic aid of some £219 million for 1969–70 and some £277 million for 1970–71.

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"The Government has now decided that in 1971–72 all economic aid will be consolidated into one official aid programme and this will be increased from £227 million to £245 million, an increase of about £18 million.
"In 1972–73 it will be further increased to £265 million, an increase for the year of £20 million. In 1973–74, the last year of the present Public Expenditure Survey, the programme will accelerate by a further increase of £35 million to £300 million.
"These figures, together with the defence element in our Special Aid to which I have referred, will produce total figures of £270 million for 1972–73 and £305 million for 1973–74 which will appear in the White Paper on Public Expenditure. These figures are in cash terms throughout and relate to gross disbursements.
"These then are our decisions about the official aid programme up to 1973–74. This is the element of total financial flows from Britain for this period which the Government can determine and about which it can give a commitment. But private flows—that is private investment and guaranteed export credits—are the second element in total flow, as it is reckoned in terms of the 1 per cent. G.N.P. target. Net private flows, as well as net official flows count towards the target. The volume of private flows is not determined by Government, although it is influenced by Government policies. Their future level is difficult to predict and one can make varying estimates of the possible course of private flows during the 1970s. Taking a high estimate for private flows, we would expect to reach the 1 per cent. target not much after the date of 1975 recommended by the Pearson Commission.
"We recognise the element of uncertainty which is bound to attach to estimates of private flows six years hence. So we shall keep the progress of both official and private flows under review. In any case, the Government intends, unless our balance of payments position should preclude it, to reach the target of 1 per cent. total flow not a moment later than the end of the Second Development Decade.
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"We seek the end of poverty where-ever we find it—whether in the Britain we live in or the world we live in. Hunger and disease recognise no national frontiers. No Government has a finer record than ours in the drive to end poverty at home. In a renewed and strengthen international drive to end world poverty, I believe that our new aid programme can make a vital and effective contribution."
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for having repeated that Statement. We on this Bench welcome the increase in overseas aid and only hope that in 1974 the economy will be strong enough, under another Government, to sustain the full £300 million. I do not think that the Government can claim to have done very well so far.
There are one or two questions that I should like to ask the noble Baroness. First, what will the net figure amount to—that is to say, less amortisation? If we take the figure of £300 million in 1974, will it be £260 million or what figure? May I also ask what the official figures, excluding private aid, will amount to then in relation to the 0·7 per cent. recommended by the Pearson Commission—that is, purely for official aid? Thirdly, could the noble Baroness say what she thinks the return on the payment of capital will be on the sums mentioned? Finally, I should like to know how our aid figures compare with those of Germany and France, whose contributions I think are already well above the 1 per cent. of their own gross national product. I note from the Statement that we can expect to reach this percentage, in so far as total aid is concerned, only in 1975, and then only assuming a high estimate of private flows.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I should like to welcome both the sentiments of this Statement and the intention in it of the Government to try to honour the Pearson recommendation by 1975. But may I make a plea that we should have a much clearer statement on a subject as important as this? I find this extremely confusing. It muddles gross figures with net figures. I think I am right in saying that what really counts towards the target are the net official figures and the net private flows. If that is not so, this is what the Statement says.

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Yet we are given the figures in what is called "cash terms" throughout, which relate to gross disbursements. What I should like to know is an estimate of the gross national product in, say, 1973–74. At the moment I think that 1 per cent. would be £360 million. We are a long way off £360 million, and the figure will be higher by 1974. I should also like to know what is the estimate for the net official aid in that period and, if possible, what is the deficit that has to be made up by private aid. In view of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Fulton, and I have Motions down on this subject, I would plead that we should have a clearer statement than the present one.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, this is an extremely complicated question. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, will know that these figures on aid programmes have always been given in cash terms. Admittedly this complicates the matter. I think that he himself answered the noble Earl's point about the 1 per cent. of the Pearson Commission, a sum which, as I said in the Statement, we hope to achieve not much after 1975, which in fact is the target date.
On the actual figures, I think that it would be better if the House had time to read and consider the Statement. This is a very complicated matter to discuss at a moment's notice. I cannot agree with Lord Byers's statement about £360 million; I think it is more like £338 million. But this again is the sort of thing we can discuss much more easily in a general debate.

ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
4.20 p.m.
Committee stage resumed.
LORD CLITHEROE: I will not intervene for more than a minute or two. I support the principle of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan. I think I should declare an interest, because not only have I a brucellosis-free herd but also I had the experience about thirty years ago of suffering from undulant fever. I therefore know something about the subject. I think it is extremely important to do everything we can to effect the object
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which the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, has in mind, and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will consider the question of a possible insurance scheme as well as the actual terms of this Amendment.
I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, in his Amendment means that the straying livestock is straying owing to the negligence of the owner. If two farms are adjoining, the fencing is the liability of one farmer or the other, and if the farmer who owns the brucellosis-free herd lets his fence down and the other farmer's cattle strays on his land, that is the fault of the owner of the brucellosis-free herd farm.
LORD ROWALLAN: The authorities are very strict about having double fencing where there is the differential between the two.
LORD CLITHEROE: I know that that is so. But it is an important point that the damage should he due to the negligence of the owner of the straying animal. Otherwise I entirely support the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is clearly an important, if highly specialised, topic. In the first place, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Burton, was right in believing that this is not a matter which can appropriately be dealt with in this Bill, which deals with the general law on the liability for animals. This issue is a specialised animal welfare issue, and if it calls for special legislation it would be better covered in a Bill relating to agriculture. Such legislation ought not to be confined to brucellosis but would, as the noble Lord, Lord Burton, suggested, have to cover also other kinds of potential infection.
As there seems to be some doubt about it, may we be clear as to what the law now is? Ordinarily, if you owe a duty of care to a neighbour it is a duty so to act as not to damage or injure your neighbour. Under our existing law, I apprehend that if you are living next to a man who has a brucellosis-free herd and you act negligently so that your livestock gets on to his land, you are liable to him. I think the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, was under the impression that that is not so and that his Amendment would make it so. No Amendment

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to the law to provide for that is necessary. What this clause is discussing is something quite different, and it is this: in what circumstances, if at all, should a man be liable who has done absolutely nothing wrong and has exercised every care? This would be a very unusual thing to do.
Cattle trespass is an exceptional case, because in cattle trespass you do not have to prove that the other man has been negligent. If cattle trespass on your land, then the owner of the cattle is automatically liable. This, as I say, is very exceptional. The law exists as it is now, as I understand it, simply because it is something which happens in agricultural country. The damage is not much ordinarily. The fact that an ordinary herd strays from one person's land to another does relatively little damage. It has always been part of our law that a farmer whose herd trespasses should be liable for the damage. We used to have this old action of distress damage feasant to enable him to recover. This Bill makes no change at all in either case. All the Bill does is to set out a modern form of detaining the animal until you can get your money back: it provides for assessing the damages and so on. It does not alter the law on this point.
While many noble Lords have spoken (and I can well understand it) feelingly of the grave damage—because in this case the damage sustained would be very large—looking at it entirely from the point of view of the owner of the brucellosis-free herd, no noble Lord has given any sensible reason why a neighbouring farmer who has exercised every care, in spite of which, as sometimes happens, through accident or by the fault of third parties his cattle stray, should be liable for these large damages. He is not to-day liable unless he has been careless. Why should he be liable by an Amendment to this Bill? For these reasons, and because I think there has been some misapprehension on the matter, I hope the Committee will not accept the Amendment.
LORD ROWALLAN: I should like to point out that this is not exactly like the ordinary case of trespassing; it is trespassing of a very serious kind, with disastrous results. The noble and learned Lord says that it is covered by things as
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they are at present. I am no lawyer, and I admit at once that I am not familiar with these things, but I always understood that the prime responsibility was upon the landowner to fence his cattle in rather than to fence others out. Am I right in that, or not?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is no such general law, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and other noble Lords protest very much at any suggestion that they should have to fence in any circumstances. The hill farms in many parts of the country have no fencing at all.
LORD ROWALLAN: In those circumcumstances, and on the understanding that the matter will be fully discussed, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We can certainly revert to it on the Report stage, but I am afraid I cannot give any undertaking to accept it.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: Before the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, withdraws the Amendment, would the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor kindly answer the point that I put to him? Does not Clause 4(1)(a) cover damage of this kind?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No. It only covers damage done by the trespassing livestock to property, which may be land, or may be a motor car, or may be other animals on that land. There is no damage done by a herd which goes on to land which is brucellosis free but for the fact that it is not itself brucellosis free. It does not do any damage. Clause 4 covers the trespassing animal which has a contagious disease, but neither the brucellosis free herd nor one with brucellosis has what you would normally call an infectious disease. The person who creates the risk, in a sense, is the man who has the brucellosis free herd. If this Amendment were accepted, it would be a dangerous thing to have a farm next door to somebody with a brucellosis free herd. The thing that surprises me is that anybody who has a brucellosis free herd has not insured himself against the risk of non-free brucellosis cattle trespassing on his land. I dare say people do.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: As we are in Committee, I should like

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to put this further point to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I accept his practical point that insurance may well be the best way of dealing with this matter. If there is a trespass of straying cattle which are not accredited within the brucellosis scheme, on to ground where a brucellosis-free herd lives, and those cattle have contact with the accredited herd, the accredited herd will then lose their accreditation and thereby will depreciate in value quite significantly. So a damage is incurred there. Is that not covered by Clause 4(1)(a)? It would seem to me that it was.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is a loss incurred, but not damage. Clause 4(1)(a) is intended to reproduce the existing law which deals with the small amount of damage which trespassing cattle usually do. The amount of damage might be very considerable, as has been said. Ordinarily I should have thought that the herd owner would have insured against the danger of non-brucellosis-free cattle trespassing on his property.
LORD HENLEY: Does not line 25 cover that point? It says:
"… is liable for the damage or expenses …"
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Before the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, withdraws his Amendment, as I understand he intends to do, can the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor assure us that as a result of this debate on the proposed new clause the Government are now prepared to tackle the subject of brucellosis which, up to date, they have singularly and reprehensively failed to do?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not qualified to give any precise undertaking about that, because it is a matter for the Ministry of Agriculture. That is why I intimated that this and other infectious diseases probably ought to be covered in a Ministry of Agriculture Bill dealing with animal welfare.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am not certain that. I am quite clear about the extent of damage that could arise legitimately under Clause 4(1)(a) of the Bill as now drafted. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred to the straying animal
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that had a contagious disease which it passed on to the animals in the field into which it strayed. Would not this be damage which fell within the meaning of Clause 4? Therefore, if you could prove that somebody else's cattle had come in and actually given brucellosis to your own herd—this might be very difficult to prove, but it is conceivable that you could do it—then Clause 4 would possibly cover the case and there would be the strict liability. If, on the other hand, it is the land that is damaged only because of the scheme, then I think the damage is too remote. Is this not the distinction that is to be drawn between negligence point and strict liability?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that is so.
LORD BALERNO: May I ask the noble and learned Lord whether the Bill, as it stands, does not provide that if a dog enters a field and frightens the cows there so that they abort, the owner of the dog is liable for the cows that have aborted and the calves which become non-viable? But if a cow bearing contagious abortion disease gets into that field and infects the cows which then abort, is there no redress?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not know enough about brucellosis to know whether it is immediately contagious or infectious. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell me.
LORD BALERNO: If the noble and learned Lord will allow me to say so, the first action of brucellosis is really to cause the cows to abort, and almost every cow infected in a clear herd will abort, and the calves are away. That is just as much of a dead loss as if a dog, or some other animal, were to get into the field and chase the cows and in that way make them abort. So there is an immediate physical loss sustained by the owner of the herd that is clear of brucellosis.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I see no reason why that should not be recoverable. That is quite a different issue from the damage suffered by a man who has a certificate that his herd is brucellosis-free and suddenly finds his certificate is vitiated.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 [Exceptions from liability under sections 2 to 4]:
4.36 p.m.
LORD WILBERFORCE LORD WILBERFORCE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 31, leave out subsection (2).
The noble and learned Lord said: I put down this Amendment suggesting the deletion of subsection (2) of Clause 5 in order to explore for a little time the scope of this clause, and the scope for it, on which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had not the time to expand at Second Reading. I apologise to noble Lords for introducing a legal note into what promises to be a very pleasant, rustic debate. There are some legal points on the Bill, and this is one which one has to get right.
If noble Lords will look at Clause 2, what it does is this: it introduces what lawyers call the defence of volenti into this Bill. If you go into a boxing match and get punched on the nose you cannot complain at being injured—that is what the principle is. It introduces that as a defence in cases falling under subsection (2). If your Lordships look back at Clause 2, you will see that there are two cases: subsection (1), damage caused by dangerous animals; and subsection (2), damage caused by non-dangerous animals. The clause in question, Clause 5(2), deals with both cases—dangerous and non-dangerous animals. The reasons for this special defence are not really developed or explained in the Law Commission's Report. There are two passages in it which deal slightly with it. At the top of page 14 of the Report it says that there should be a defence:
"… that the plaintiff voluntarily assumed the risk of injury or damage arising from the dangerous animal …"
They limit it to dangerous, and they do not expand on why that is desirable.
As regards the existing law, the Law Commission deal with that on page 8, paragraph 9, where they say that under the existing law this defence of volenti may exist again in cases where the animal is fer nature, that is to say, dangerous under the old law. In order to understand the importance of this clause one has to look at two others, first of all Clause 5(1), which gives a defence in the case of negligence on the part of the person injured, and that is fairly far-
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reaching. There is another curious clause which is tucked away, that is, Clause 6(6), which deals with employed persons who are not treated as having voluntarily accepted the risks where they take charge of dangerous animals.
In the light of these two clauses in the Bill, one would like to know what is the scope or need for this other defence in Clause 5(2). Taking dangerous animals first—that is the Clause 2(1) case—one would like to know what is meant by the expression "voluntarily accepted the risk of damage". What is involved in acceptance of the risk? There are cases where dangerous animals are led around on a string; there are people who have cheetahs on leads; people who have tame snakes in the house; people who have tame crocodiles. Surely, the great majority of dangerous animals in this country are kept in various places for show or for exhibition, such as zoos or circuses, or in the parks of stately homes. People go there to see these animals usually accompanied by small children. It is quite obvious, one would think, that to go and see them may in many cases involve the taking of some risk—that the animal may escape; that the keeper may be careless; that something unforeseen may happen; that the animal may bite; that the elephant may swing his trunk; that the lions in Wiltshire may roar and cause nervous shock. These are all the kind of things which may happen. The question raised, to which one would like an answer, is this. Should these members of the public, the spectators, who go on to these places have to bear this risk; and should they be deprived of damages because they are treated as having voluntarily accepted a risk? In such a case is not the defence of negligence, which is available under Clause 5(1), enough?
Of course, noble Lords will remember the case of the camel, to which we shall come later in the context of another clause. In that case an apple was fed to a camel in Chessington Zoo, and this defence was raised. I have the report here. It was raised in these terms:
"That in placing himself in close proximity to the camel and in feeding it the plaintiff voluntarily took the risk of being bitten."
So this is not a theoretical point; this is the kind of point which does arise. People in feeding camels may do it very

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carefully, they may do it fully in accordance with whatever instructions are there, but they may still be bitten. But are they to be deprived of their remedy because they voluntarily accepted a risk?
What one wonders very seriously about this is whether the presence of this clause is not going to stand as an invitation to people who keep zoos, or parks with lions in them, to put up notices saying that the public is admitted only on the understanding that it is treated as having accepted the risk—the kind of thing against which, in our dealings with the public in consumer legislation, we are continually struggling to prevent. I would venture to suggest that this kind of liability, this kind of risk that people may be injured in circumstances of this sort ought to fall on the keeper of the place concerned—the zoo, the circus or the stately home—lie being the person who can protect himself by insurance.
Leaving dangerous animals and coming to non-dangerous animals, I have already made the point that neither as regards the existing law nor as regards the new law to be put into the Bill, does the Law Commission's Report, so far as I can make out, state any case for introducing this defence in relation to non-dangerous animals. I should again like to know, if the noble and learned Lord would be good enough to enlighten me, what is the meaning and scope of this clause in relation to that class of animal. Does not everybody who places himself in the proximity of a non-dangerous animal voluntarily accept some risk or other? Consider an animal of a non-dangerous species—a dog or a cat. Every time one feeds it, every time one plays with it, every time one strokes its claws, one accepts some risk or other. You think it is harmless, of course, but the owner (which is the hypothesis in Clause 2) knows in fact that it is possibly vicious and that it may cause some damage. In a case of that kind, what is it that this clause does? Does it deprive the person concerned of his remedy? If it does, ought it to do so?
Summing up, I formally propose the deletion of this subsection for these reasons: first, because the Law Commission's Report does not argue its merit or state a case for it; secondly, because the doctrine of volenti itself is an old-
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fashioned doctrine, shringing in its scope, is disappearing from the law, quite rightly—in factory legislation it now does not exist. Whoever heard of a defence being raised because a man put his hand into dangerous machinery? We have passed beyond it in civilised branches of the law, and one wonders whether it should not go here. My third reason is that when the Report deals with this defence of volenti it relates only to dangerous animals, whereas this clause applies it to both dangerous and non-dangerous animals; and I wish generally to have the benefit of learning from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor what is the case for keeping this defence side by side with the already existing defence in Clause 5(1) of negligence. I beg to move.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: May I say a brief word in support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilber-force, and his very cogent and lucid argument in favour of dropping this subsection. The defence of volenti is of course treated by the courts at the present day as a somewhat undesirable defence. It is extremely difficult to succeed on it, particularly when the courts usually strive as hard as they can to find that the person in question did not know the real nature of the risk. The other great disadvantage about this defence is that there is no scope for apportionment. if one establishes volenti, then one has a complete defence. This of course was the same position under our law of contributory negligence, and it was long thought to be unsatisfactory. The courts struggled hard over this difficult rule, and eventually Parliament intervened in 1945 and introduced the rule about apportioning in the case of contributory negligence.
One would have thought that in any case where volenti as a defence had any real validity at the present day it could be brought under the defence of contributory negligence, and in such a case the court would have a clear discretion to decide on the justice of the case whether this should have the effect of eliminating liability altogether, or whether it should be apportioned on a basis of 50/50 or 60/40, or whatever it may be. So one would have thought that, if this clause goes, there is still ample scope For a genuine defence on the lines that really

1419
the plaintiff brought the injury on himself. For instance, one could imagine a case where, perhaps at a circus, somebody is displaying some wild animal and invites a member of the audience to come up and hold the animal's paw, or something of this kind, and a person who does so is injured—the sort of case where there might be an argument of course for volenti. Here one would equally be able to employ the argument of contributory negligence, and the court would have a free hand to say, "Well, we think that he was 80 per cent. to blame himself", or whatever the proportion may be. Of course, if the court says he is entirely to blame, then there is no liability. Therefore, one has some considerable difficulty in seeing that Clause 2 as it at present stands really assists as a law reform measure. I would venture to submit, in respectful support of the argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, that it would be far better to drop this provision altogether.
LORD MOYNE: May I give an example without saying which way it cuts. We used to have an Arabian stallion—this House always likes practical instances, I know—and that Arabian stallion was quiet enough until people came and fed it across our fence with lumps of sugar. It then became dangerous because it looked for food and it wanted to bite. We then put up a notice saying: "Don't feed the stallion". People still came and did so; and then it became dangerous to us, dangerous to the people who looked after it. The people who were feeding it were endangering not only themselves but also the owners. I really do not know which way this instance cuts, but I throw it into the pool of our discussion.
4.49 p.m.
LORD FOOT: Might I add one further illustration to the very cogent argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce. It relates to children. It appears to me that, under this doctrine of volenti, very particular difficulties arise when the person concerned who is supposed to have voluntarily undertaken the risk is a child. If a child, aged six, in a zoo approaches a wild animal, even a non-dangerous animal, can that child be reasonably said to appreciate the exact risk it is taking? It seems to me that, if we allow this clause to stand, the courts
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are going to be beset with many particular difficulties in the case of children in having to decide at what stage, at what age, it can reasonably be said that the child ought to have appreciated the nature of the risk it was taking.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: I should like to add one question. It concerns the adult who knows that he is at risk of being bitten by, say, a crocodile but who, because he is accompanying a child, goes to help that child, mistakenly or not, if he thinks it is in danger of being bitten by the crocodile. In such a case is the adult doing it voluntarily, or not? He has not done anything stupid, and I think it would be a pity to discourage a helpful attitude on the part of responsible adults in charge of children. The point occurred to me simply as a result of what my noble friend has just said. It is really the problem of the legal position of somebody who goes to the help of another who has done something stupid, when the person who is helping is not necessarily (although he may be) stupid himself.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Ordinarily, in acts of negligence the principle of volenti non fit injuria applies. This Bill is not doing anything peculiar. So far as dangerous animals are concerned, it seems that in the case of Bowater v. Rowley Regis Corporation, in 1944, the Court of Appeal proceeded on the basis that but for the fact that the plaintiff was a servant the defence of volenti would have operated. So from that point of view this does not suggest anything new. I am not personally much attached to volenti, and I do not know that judges to-day are attached to it. What situation amounts to a case of volenti is entirely a question of fact and depends on all the circumstances of the case. I cannot conceive of any judge holding that volenti applies to a small child. The tendency rather is not to apply it. Nevertheless, it is the law, and I can see no real reason why it should not apply where dangerous animals are concerned.
So far as independent contractors are concerned, as I understand it one never employs a lion tamer: he is an independent contractor. Or take a veterinary surgeon. He has all the knowledge of animals—unless the animal involved is

1421
unusually or in some strange way dangerous. But if you accept the profession of veterinary surgeon you take on yourself the risk that from time to time you may get bitten, or may sustain some injury. It is not the fault of the owner of the animal: if the animal is ill, what can the owner do but send for a veterinary surgeon? Of course nobody outside a lunatic asylum, I should think, would go into a lion's cage. If you choose to do this, then obviously you go in at your own risk. If a man is a lion tamer, obviously he cannot do his work without it. That is why, I think, they are usually independent contractors.
Having said all that—although, as I say, I am not a great admirer of volenti, and I should not be very sorry if it went—I should like, if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, agrees, to reconsider this point at the next stage of the Bill. I should like to do that partly for this reason: What I have done and what the Law Commission have done—and it is something that clearly eases the position—is to say, "We do not think volenti ought to apply to servants". So that is an amelioration. But when we come to Amendment No. 13 the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, will say, I think, that we have to apply volenti there. So, as between the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who says that it should not be applied at all, and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, who says that it ought to be applied more, while, as I have made plain, 1 secretly have some sympathy with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, I should like him to withdraw his Amendment to-day and I will consider it again when I know what happens to the Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent.
LORD WILBERFORCE: I am completely satisfied with what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said. I suppose that the classic case of volenti in regard to lions is the case of Daniel, but I do not imagine that his case is repeated every day. I am entirely content with the proposal that the noble and learned Lord should look at this matter again, particularly when we see what has happened in the case of servants in Clause 6(6). On that basis, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.57 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 36, leave out ("if it is proved") and insert (" unless the trespasser can prove").
The noble Lord said: By leave of the Committee I should like to discuss with this Amendment Nos. 5 and 7, which arc related. it may also be that Amendments Nos. 6 and 8 are also related, but I leave it to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to advise the Committee as to whether they are nearly enough related for us to discuss them all together.
Proceeding to discuss the merits of my Amendment, its effect would be, where a trespasser has come on to premises on which an animal—whether of a dangerous species or a species that is not dangerous—is kept, to change the onus of proof from the owner, as defined in the Bill, to the trespasser. The first part of this combined Amendment refers to paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of Clause 5, which deals with the case where an animal is of a dangerous species and the owner, as the clause is now drafted, would have to prove that the animal was not kept there either to deter or to cause damage to trespassers. I do not place very great emphasis on this Amendment: the more serious one, in my view, relates to paragraph (b). At the same time, I think there is a point here in regard to guard dogs which on some properties are kept outside at night for the specific purpose of deterring trespassers or burglars. I suppose that guard dogs of that kind are, almost by nature, a dangerous species. In this case, it seems to me that the trespasser should have the responsibility of proving that the animal was in fact kept there to deter or to cause damage.
The more serious case with which I wish to deal refers to paragraph (b), where the animal does not belong to the dangerous species; and the animal I have in mind for my example is the ordinary house dog. The house dog is not kept primarily in order to deter or to do damage to trespassers: the dog is kept by the owner mainly as a companion. But there is no doubt that nowadays many people, especially people living alone, like to keep a dog in the house. Elderly ladies living alone, for example, are glad to keep a dog in the house which will give them some security, and while the

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animal is there primarily as a companion there is no doubt that if a trespasser came in with the intention of burgling the house and robbing the dog's mistress, the dog, if it was any good at all, would proceed to bite the burglar. I certainly hope he would. I am sure we should all hope that. It would seem that in such a case, as paragraph (b) is drafted, it would be for the dog's mistress to prove that the animal was not kept there to bite a trespasser in such circumstances; and I think she would have great difficulty in proving that.
It seems to me that it would be much more practical, and much fairer, if the onus was on trespasser to prove that the dog was kept there in order to bite him. I think that in most circumstances he would not be able to prove it; and I do not think he should be able to. So the effect of my Amendment would be to reverse the onus in both these cases. I am not putting great emphasis on paragraph (a); I think it is not a particularly good case there. But on paragraph (b) I think there is a very strong case, and I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will feel able to accept that part of the Amendment or, if he cannot accept it, at any rate explain in what circumstances the situation which I have described would be covered so that the ordinary house dog can perform its normal function. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not seeking to stop any noble Lord from addressing the Committee on this Amendment, but I would say this section is the only subsection in the Bill about which I have never been personally satisfied. It is as drafted by the Law Commissioners, so I thought I had better leave it as it was. But it does not seem to me really to apply the most practical test, and the fact that it has attracted Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 from four or five different noble Lords confirms me in my impression that it is not really quite right. I do not think this distinction between being kept there to deter and being kept there to cause damage really works out right in the case of the ordinary guard dog. I am at the moment engaged with the Law Commission in seeking a complete re-draft of the whole of that subsection. As I say, I have no intention
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of stopping any noble Lord from moving his Amendment or addressing the Committee, but I thought it might help if I made my position clear.
LORD BALERNO: Before the noble Lord withdraws the Amendment, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether the word "premises" includes fields as well as ground adjacent to a farmsteading?
LORD BURTON: Might I also ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—this may be defined in the Bill, but I cannot find it—what is the difference between a dangerous species of animal and a safe species of animal? It seems that a pet dog could be either.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is defined in the Bill in Clause 6; it provides what a dangerous species is. In reply to the question raised as to premises, I think it is quite clear that premises include fields.
LORD BALERNO: That means that you have to watch out for the bull. Therefore, I would support my noble friend's point and illustrate it by the instance of the bull which is allowed out into the field. There are of course times when a bull which one is suspicious about, not as quiet as some, has for the purposes of efficient mating with cows to be turned out into the field, and so long as there is no right of way or public footpath through the field, there should be nothing done to prohibit or make it difficult for the owner of the bull, the farmer, so to do. Therefore, I do think that the onus should be put upon the trespasser to prove his case rather than upon the farmer.
LORD CONESFORD: What the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said seems to me so eminently satisfactory that I shall not delay the proceedings for more than two or three minutes. I would tell him what was in my mind. The subject is, of course, dealt with in a single paragraph of the Law Commissioners' Report, paragraph 58, and there they really make it clear that they do not wish to interfere with the general law as between occupier and trespasser in the particular case of animals. Nevertheless, they include in a footnote on page 27 the sort of considerations that they thought might be applied if we were

1425
considering animals. It seems to me, though I can quite understand the form in which it is now drafted, that subsection (3), as the Lord Chancellor has rightly concluded, is unsatisfactory, and I will, if I may, give a single example to show that it is unsatisfactory. Take the case of an old person in a rural district, possibly living in a cottage alone. A really well-trained watchdog can be an enormous comfort to such a person, and it is most desirable that such a person, who is liable to violent attack by criminals, should be protected. It may even be possible to have a dog trained to defend the household against intruders by attacking them, and I think that case must be met.
The only thing I would add is that as I came into the Chamber I received a memorandum generally in support of what I was endeavouring to do, a memorandum from the Chartered Land Societies Committee of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Chartered Land Agents' Society, and Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute, strongly making the case for the revision of this subsection as drafted. I need not elaborate on that because I see the welcome news that the memorandum has been sent to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself. I would therefore only say how glad I am that he has indicated that he is re-considering this matter, and of course I do not move my Amendment.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: May I ask the noble and learned Lord his opinion of this example? The next door farm to mine is small and has suffered great depredations from burglaries and thefts. They have now two fierce dogs, and the notice on the door reads, "Danger, fierce dogs, survivors will be prosecuted".
LORD ALPORT: May I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—because I was not clear from what he said —whether in fact the restricting of this subsection, which presumably will be taken in conjunction with the definition in Clause 6(2)(b), means that a dog that is kept in a household with the object of protecting it will be excluded from the operations of this clause? As the noble Viscount has just said, most of us who live in the country keep dogs with the specific object of protecting our property.
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We do not have to be old ladies living alone in cottages. Anybody who lives in a country district at the present time has to keep a dog, with the object not merely of warning the householder that intruders are about but preferably for preventing intrusion into the house, or, if an intrusion takes place, helping with the defence of the household, particularly of women when they are alone in the house, or of children, as the case may be. I am not quite clear whether the Lord Chancellor has said that this practice will not be subject to the liabilities which appear to me at the moment to be placed upon the householder.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: In view of what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said, I will not move my Amendments. But may I ask him, when he is drafting his new clause, to take note of the words of my Amendment No. 9: that the person suffering damage ought to have known that the animal was to be "found", rather than "kept", on the premises? Many firms and individuals employ security firms to guard their premises, and the dogs are often not kept on the premises; they may be kept 20 miles away and brought to the premises at night; and of course it is possible that the dogs may be different dogs from one night to the next, and may even come from different kennels. Having made that point, I say again that, in view of what the noble and learned Lord has said, I shall not be moving my Amendments.
5.11 p.m.
LORD FOOT: While I agree that the clause as it stands is unsatisfactory in some particulars, I should like to issue a respectful word of warning against the suggestion that we should change the burden of proof from the keeper of the animal to the trespasser. It seems to me that, as a matter of principle that is wrong, because in considering the purpose for which a dog is kept the real issue is the intention and the state of mind of the keeper. Why he keeps the dog, whether he keeps the dog in order to do damage to trespassers, or whether he keeps it simply as a companion, is a matter which is peculiar to him and peculiarly within his own knowledge. In the great majority of cases, the trespasser will not in the nature of things, be able

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to produce any sort of evidence as to what was the real purpose of the keeper. Therefore, as a matter of principle, it seems to me that it would be quite wrong to throw on to the trespasser an onus of proof which, in the great majority of cases, it might be quite impossible for him to discharge.
I think I am right in saying (in the presence of noble and learned Lords I say these things with great diffidence) that in some cases, at any rate, of tĥe criminal law it is a principle which has long been recognised that where you have something which is peculiarly, possibly exclusively, within the knowledge of a particular person, then the burden of proving what the situation may be should rest upon him.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his most accommodating reply, since when he has had a good deal of advice on what sort of Amendment he should make. May I say immediately that I do not necessarily favour the form of my Amendment? I think the point has been well made all round that there is here a practical point. A number of us feel that a dog owner should be allowed to keep a dog in order to give greater security to the household, whether it comprises an old lady living on her own or any one of us. At the end of the day, after all, if the dog does bite the trespasser, that is what you hope the dog will do; and it is something that we ought not to make illegal. This is really a practical point. I am sure that the great skill of the noble and learned Lord will be sufficient to find a way of putting this subsection into an acceptable form. In those circumstances, I would be happy to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHAMPION: I did not quite understand what my noble friend said about this matter. Is he asking the Committee to vote this clause out of the Bill, so that on Report he may include an entirely new clause? Or is it his desire that we should leave the clause in and that he will come along later with a suitable Amendment to it? It seemed
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to me that he was telling us that he did not like the clause at all. If that is so, we ought to vote it out of the Bill at this stage, and force him to bring forward an entirely new clause on the next stage of the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is not the whole clause; only subsection (3). I did not like it myself, and I am most grateful to noble Lords for all their views. I have rather felt that perhaps Lord Nugent's Amendment was not the right one, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. It is always difficult to put on one person the onus of proving what was in somebody else's mind. But if I may think over everything that has been said. I hope that I may be able to come back on the Report stage with a complete re-draft of the clause.
LORD BARNBY: In regard to this clause I have some perplexity in interpreting some of the points that we have been discussing, particularly in relation to subsection (1) which refers to Clauses 2 and 4 and therefore includes subsection (3); and of course it also bears relation to Clause 5(5). What puzzles me is the question of liability. Again it appears to tie in with the question of problems under Clause 8, of animals straying on the highway. May I illustrate my confusion, which arises from experience, though not necessarily in a county predominantly agricultural, like Lincolnshire, where, in cases of proximity to large towns, circumstances have long existed which are easily interpreted.
To take a hypothetical case in the South of England, suppose one has a field containing in-lamb ewes, some horses and a donkey, and possibly some cattle. A dog gets into the field and causes damage by running the ewes. Severe damage may possibly be caused to the ewes by their being torn by the dog—and certainly there is the likelihood of damage at lambing time. As it happens, in this hypothetical case the horses and the donkey are severely scared by the dog running the ewes. They jump the fence, which happens to be alongside a road, and there they divide, the horses going in one direction and the donkey in another. In addition, the bullocks may move through the fence and go into somebody's garden. There,

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I think—although I should like the Lord Chancellor to confirm this—the position is perfectly clear: there is no liability for damage because the responsibility lies upon the owner of the garden who has not fenced his garden. The problem that I see now is in regard to the horses or the donkey.
Let us say that the donkey causes damage to a car coming along this road—it may not be a highway. Later on we shall talk about the situation in relation to animals on a bridle-path and so on; and the question then arises as to how one should interpret "highway". But in the case of more thickly populated areas there is the distinction created by a long stretch of passage which might be an unadopted road maintained by a body of private persons. Is that definitely a highway? What is the liability for the people who are damaging the car by the donkey that was on the passage? That is one of the problems that puzzled me.
Again, in the same considerations there seems to be absence of interpretation of what happens where stock pass out of the area where they should be and on to other areas, and then possibly on to a highway through gates being left open by other people. How will you find out who is responsible for leaving the gates open? That is very difficult to prove as reason for obtaining relief from the damage. Much straying of stock, not only in the vicinity of thickly populated areas but in the wider agricultural counties, comes through gates being left open, and as a result damage occurs. Problems of that sort are well within the knowledge of many noble Lords in this House.
After reading the Bill carefully, and even after the very helpful interpretation given by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on Second Reading, I find myself in a good deal of perplexity. I raise the matter at this stage of the Bill because it seems to be referred to in all the other points that I have mentioned, but it may well be that we shall get a more complete interpretation from the noble and learned Lord when he comes to Clause 8. I record my perplexity about such phrases as those in Clause 5(1), "the fault of the person suffering it". In the recitation that I have given there are so many angles to the damage: damage to the owner of the in-lamb ewes; damage to the owner of
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the fences; possible damage—I think one noble Lord referred to it—not to bullocks but to a cow that would slip her calf; and damage caused by the donkey that got in the way of a car and possibly caused loss of life. These demands for compensation will come from different angles, and it is very difficult to see what would happen. realise that in the main compromise is not difficult, but legislation is intended to try to provide for the exceptional case. It is in that spirit that I raise these points on this clause, fully conscious that the noble and learned Lord may tell us something more about it.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Interpretation of certain expressions used in sections 2 to 5]:
5.24 p.m.
LORD WILBERFORCE LORD WILBERFORCE moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 3, line 23, leave out ("generally") and insert ("commonly").
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment is really an explanatory Amendment directed to the expression "generally domesticated". I make no apology for taking a little time on it because it is one of the key phrases used in the Bill, forming, as it does, the basis of the distinction between dangerous animals and non-dangerous animals. The question is, is this the best expression? As noble Lords know, the accepted distinction for hundreds of years in our law was that between animals feræ naturæ and animals mansuetæ naturæ, wild as against tame—the distinction being as between wild animals which may have some individuals that have been made tame, on the one hand, and animals which are not normally dangerous but of which individuals may be vicious, on the other hand.
That is the traditional division, and it was pretty well understood until in 1940 we had the case of the camel. I know my noble friend Lord Conesford is the expert in this House on the camel, and I should hesitate to take his animal were it not that he had been called away. I myself am slightly more sensitive at the present time about elephants. The classic case of McQuaker v. Goddard was concerned with a camel, and it is the case that is important. There it was held by a judge, Mr. Justice Branson, and by

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the Court of Appeal, that a camel in Chessington Zoo, a camel in England, is a domesticated animal. The word "domesticated" is used. It was held that there was no such thing anywhere as a wild camel; a camel was the oldest domesticated animal that we have. That is its nature.
It was argued that the animal was wild in the legal sense because "it has not become a domesticated animal in England". If noble Lords will look at Clause 6(2)(a) they will see the similarity of language. That is what was argued. The Court of Appeal rejected that and said, "No, that is wrong. If no camel was wild anywhere, no camel can be wild in England". Which seems a conclusive proposition.
What one wants to know, and this House has a right to know, is what the Government intend to do about the camel. Is it their intention simply to reverse McQuaker's case? That hardly seems worth while, because both the learned Judge and the Court of Appeal said it was a matter of evidence, and they gave a more or less open invitation next time to call some better evidence which would show that the camel is a wild animal. That appears to be what the Law Commission's Report wants to do, and noble Lords will find the argument in paragraphs 15(1) and (2) of the Commission's Report, which I venture respectfully to think is an extraordinary example of muddled writing and muddled thinking.
What they say in 15(1) is:
"The crucial question should be the danger which the species presents in the particular circumstances of this country, although a court should of course be entitled to look at experience elsewhere. In our view in the camel case insufficient attention was paid to the first consideration."
How they would have got any further by considering the particular circumstances of the camel in this country I fail to see. Then, when they go on to deal with "general domestication" in paragraph 2, they seem to suggest that general domestication is inadequate, and yet in the end you will find it adopted as the test.
One would like to know what "general domestication" means. "Domesticated" means simply tame. If
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your Lordships look it up in the Oxford Dictionary you will find that the words are treated as synonymous. So the question is, what does "generally domesticated" mean? I venture to suggest that it is a very ambiguous expression. It could mean that if the animal is found in the United Kingdom at all it is not generally domesticated but is generally wild. It could mean that if the animal is found in the United Kingdom, though it is sometimes domesticated, it is not generally domesticated—that is to say, a commonly domesticated animal. It could mean that if the animal is domesticated in the United Kingdom it is not generally domesticated there but only in some parts of the United Kingdom, in Wales or Cornwall, or some barbarous island. It is really very ambiguous.
That brings one back to the camel. How general, one wants to know, is "generally" in relation to the camel? How many camels do there have to be in a state of domestication before they are treated as "generally domesticated"? We have a right to know the answer to these questions. How many camels are there in the country? Have the Government carried out any survey of camels to find out how many there are? How many are domesticated? How many are not domesticated? They might be surprised to find how many there are lying about in different places. Seriously, this raises great difficulties of proof, if the unfortunate man has to call experts to show how commonly, how generally, the particular animal is domesticated. Passing to the elephant, the present law is at any rate perfectly clear about elephants. It was laid down in 1890, in a case called Filburn, that it was a wild species of which individual animals may be tame. That is quite all right; that fits in with the conception. But if we are to have the test of what they are in the United Kingdom—and what is good for the camel must be good for the elephant—one will find only tame elephants in the United Kingdom; and again one wants to know how many elephants there have to be before they are "generally domesticated".
That is not the end of it, because one is faced with the problem of rabbits, pigeons and bees, and I appeal here to Professor Glanville Williams, who is a great expert on these things and who is

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quoted in the Law Commission's Report. He says, in an article:
"Rabbits, pigeons and bees may be wild in the sense that they are not generally domesticated, but they are not assumed to be dangerous".
There you have it that rabbits, pigeons and bees are not "generally domesticated" animals, so they are within Clause 6(2)(a) of this Bill; and you have then to consider, in relation to rabbits, pigeons and bees, paragraph (b). You have to ask whether they
"have such characteristics that they are likely, unless restrained, to cause damage …"
and in this Bill "damage" includes damage to property; it is not confined to damage to individuals. Everybody knows that pigeons are very dangerous to crops. They cause a lot of damage if they are given a free run. Rabbits, if released, if they exist here, again can cause serious property damage. I do not know about bees, but I suppose they have habits which may be damaging both to individuals and to property in certain cases. I simply bring this in because these are difficulties raised by the expression "generally domesticated", and it seems to me that it is going to invite litigation and in any case make it difficult for persons who are injured by animals to prove whether the particular animal or species is or is not considered dangerous in the eyes of the law.
Two things, therefore, seem to emerge. One is that the old test seems rather better than this one, unless the noble and learned Lord can give us a satisfactory interpretation of this expression; and for the moment I am inclined to think that the word I suggest, "commonly", is at any rate clearer. It may not hit the right nail on the head, but it does at any rate give a slightly more precise colour to the phrase than the word "generally". If one takes "commonly" and applies it to rabbits, rabbits are "commonly domesticated", one would say, even though the majority of them are not domesticated; and that is all right. As regards camels, elephants, cheetahs, snakes or crocodiles, they are not "commonly domesticated" in this country, although there may be some that are. So I should think that "commonly" hits both of the limbs rather squarer than the word "generally"; but I should be glad to hear what the noble and learned Lord has to say about this because on Second Reading
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this was not fully expanded and it is really a key definition in the Bill. I beg to move.
LORD SOMERS: I should like to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, because I, too, was worried about this definition. Take, for instance, the word "species". How are you to define that? For example, we have the species "cat". We have the ordinary domestic cat and we also have the Scottish wild cat. The domestic cat is not normally dangerous, but the Scottish wild cat, if you are unfortunate enough to have any encounter with it, most certainly is; but biologically they both come under the species "cat". The difficulty of definition is even greater when one comes to dogs, because dogs are very definitely individual characters, and whereas one may be perfectly harmless another of the same breed may be exceptionally dangerous. I cannot see how any broad definition of "species", or whether it is or is not domesticated, is going to meet the case. For instance, as the noble and learned Lord has already said, cerain animals are not "generally domesticated". For example, the badger is normally looked upon as a wild animal, but many badgers have been trained as domesticated animals, very happily; and the same is the case with other wild animals. I cannot see how the fact of domestication, which applies to all dogs, presumably, is going to lay down any guide as to whether it is or is not likely to be dangerous.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: If I may intervene for one second, I would inform the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, that camels are just as wild as elephants. There are large areas in Central Asia where there are many wild camels; and in the South of Spain, on the Guadalquivir delta, there are also a lot of wild camels. I understood the noble and learned Lord to say that camels throughout the whole world should be regarded as domesticated. In fact, there are a great many wild camels.
LORD WILBERFORCE: I am much obliged to the noble Viscount for that intervention. Of course, I was only repeating the decision of the Court of Appeal, and saying that they themselves left open the door to another finding if different

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evidence were produced. They made some remarkable statements, if I may say so. Mr. Justice Branson said that the camel cannot copulate without human assistance, which is directly contrary to the evidence of Herodatus.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: I am in a frightful muddle about the status of the mouse. I should like to know what the mouse is. Is it a dangerous animal or not?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The mouse is simple: but at the end of his interesting speech the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, produced a list of animals and invited the Committee to consider what their position was on the assumption that the word "commonly" was in the clause and not the word "generally". I thought, if I may say so, that all his findings were right, and that this division was correct. Here, under Clause 5, a species is dangerous if it:
"is not generally domesticated … and … whose fully grown animals normally have such characteristics that they are likely, unless restrained, to cause damage or that any damage they may cause is likely to be severe."
I think that "generally domesticated" is the phrase which is more commonly used (perhaps at that point I should have said "generally"), but I have no objection to the word "commonly". If one looks at the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, it says:
"Generally: So as to include all; as a whole, collectively. Universally; with respect to all or nearly all. For the most part, extensively. In a general sense or way; … As a general rule; commonly";
and, under "Commonly", the first meaning given is "Generally". I do not myself find that very helpful; but I have risen only to say that I have no objection to this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.40 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 3, leave out line 32, and insert—
(" (b) he is the head of a household of which a member under the age of sixteen").
The noble Lord said: I hope this change of mood on the part of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is going to last for a little while. This is an Amendment to the subsection which
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answers the question, "Who is a keeper of an animal?" It arises again, as did the last Amendment, out of an ambiguity of language. The ambiguity, I submit, is the meaning of the words "his household" in paragraph (b) of subsection (3). I suggest that "his household" can have one of two separate and distinct meanings. It can mean the household that belongs to him, that is to say, he being the head of the household; or it can mean the household to which he belongs, that is to say, any member of the household from the oldest to the youngest member. I venture to think that it is the first meaning that I have mentioned which is intended here. I therefore put down this Amendment for the purpose of making it abundantly clear that that is what is intended.
I would merely observe that if the other meaning is intended it leads to rather an absurdity, because it would lead to the position that in every household where a child under 16 owns a pet animal every member of that household is deemed to be the keeper or a keeper of that animal, from the oldest to the youngest member, including all the younger brothers and sisters of the child. I venture to think it is absurd that that meaning should be intended. I have therefore put down this Amendment to make it clear that what is meant here is that where a child under 16 in a household has a pet animal, the head of the household as well as the child itself is deemed to be a keeper of it and that no other member of the household is intended to be a keeper of the animal. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should be interested to hear any views about this Amendment. Really there are certain difficulties about the Bill as drafted and about the Amendment. My present impression is that the Amendment is an improvement. Of course, it is not intended to make everybody who lives in the house liable; it was always intended to refer to the person whose household it was. I think, therefore, that "head of the household" is clearer than "his household", which are the words in the Bill. Under both styles there are difficulties. I do not know whether it has occurred to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, that the house may belong to and be run by two widowed sisters. Who is the head of the household then? But

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that point would arise equally under the words "his household". No doubt in both cases the words would be sensibly construed. Unless any member of the Committee has any contrary view, I would advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Since under the Interpretation Act the single includes the plural, there could be two joint heads of the household within Lord Airedale's Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 4, line 6, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 12, and with it I should like to discuss Amendment No. 13. Here perhaps I should warn the Committee that we are now returning to the rustic groves that we left a few minutes ago. This is a point which is of some importance in the farming world, because Clause 6 as drafted would make the owner of livestock—and for this purpose I will call him "the farmer"—have an absolute liability in all circumstances towards the stockman whom he employs to look after his cattle. This would mean that if a bull which was normally docile became cranky and dangerous—and this happens sometimes—and the stockman did not report the matter to the farmer, and the stockman suffered an injury from the bull, the farmer would still be absolutely liable for that injury to the stockman. If I have the interpretation incorrectly, then I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will tell me, but I believe that I am right. The fact that the stockman knew that the bull had become dangerous and kept it to himself without telling the employer is to be disregarded, and the farmer is to be presumed to be completely responsible for the injury. That, I think, is the effect of the clause as drafted.
I consider that that goes much too far. It would not only reverse the present position as we believe it to be in the farming world—the present position in Common Law according to the case of Rands v. McNeil—but places a far more onerous liability on the farmer-employer than on any other employer. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will be able to tell us precisely what is the posi-
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tion; but I understand it to be that an employer is normally required to take reasonable care not to subject his men to unnecessary risk. If that is so, I suggest that this measure of responsibility as drafted in Clause 6 would place a duty on the farmer going far beyond what is placed on other employers.
I recognise, of course, that the Law Commission Report recommended that the law should be changed in this respect and that the noble and learned Lord has that on his side, but I suggest that they gave no very convincing reason why it should be so drafted. They merely said that the farmer could insure against this eventuality. My point, however, is this: why should the farmer-employer be asked to carry a liability so significantly greater than is normally carried by any other employer? This is the point of my Amendment, and I feel it is a strong point. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like to support this Amendment. Surely the question of whether the employee's knowledge of the dangerous animal should be imparted to his employer ought to be at the discretion of the court. There could be a situation where, for example, an employee is very fond of a certain animal. The animal could become dangerous and the employee could know that it had developed vicious characteristics; but he could be fearful of telling his employer lest the employer might have the animal destroyed. It would be hard lines on the employer to be blamed for any damage caused by that animal. There could be cases where the employer was abroad and where, the animal having turned dangerous—and domestic animals can do so very quickly—the employee might not have had any chance to pass this information to his employer. I can think of other cases—admittedly very unlikely—where an employee might have had a grudge against the employer. He might know the animal had become dangerous but he might not tell his employer, in the hope that his employer would get into trouble from this fact. Therefore, I support this Amendment.
LORD BELSTEAD: May I say a word in support of my noble friend Lord Nugent? I speak particularly of Amendment 12, which is an Amendment to strike out Clause 6(5)(b). It would seem

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that this refers back to Clause 2(2) whereby the keeper of an animal not belonging to a dangerous species is liable for such damage as the characteristics of that animal may render likely. That seems uncontroversial: you do not let your bull into a china shop or let your cattle into your neighbour's garden if you wish to avoid damages. But Clause 2(2)(a) adds that the keeper of such an animal is liable for damage likely to be severe. As the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, has just said, a whole host of diseases can suddenly cause an illness in an animal. Often these will lead to symptoms of dejection, interspersed with bouts of vicious temper. This may occur time after time on the farm. The stockman will discern that there is trouble afoot and he may, for genuine reasons, be unable to inform the keeper or owner who will be liable under paragraph (b) which the Amendment seeks to delete.
Very briefly, in only half a minute, may I give one example of an animal we have not referred to this evening? A sow is an animal which has jaws of such strength that it can break a man's leg. Let us suppose that a sow has had a litter of piglets and then suffers from some post-natal trouble which causes a high temperature. The owner is genuinely absent and so the stockman sends for the vet. But in the meantime, knowing the state of the animal, the stockman allows an accident to occur. Perhaps he fails to warn a colleague against entering the sow's pen, or he allows the sow out and she goes for someone; or, worse still, he goes in with the animal himself without taking precautions. Of course, it may be that in such circumstances there is some item in the case which makes the owner liable; but I am assuming for the moment that this is not so.
There might be—topically at the moment—the tragic case where the owner of a dog was abroad and rabies occurred in his dog, which was being looked after by someone at home who was being paid. The person knew that the dog was ill, but allowed it to get out and to bite a passer-by. It seems that under Clause 6(5)(b) no discretion is to be allowed to courts, though surely a discretion should exist; and I feel it might be provided by the acceptance of Amendment No. 12.
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May I add one point more about Amendment No. 13? It strikes me, perhaps wrongly, that subsection (5)(b) and subsection (6), taken together, could produce an absurdity unless amended. It might be that the farmer genuinely had no knowledge of the dangerous characteristics of an animal, due to any of the reasons I have just deployed; but under subsection (5) (b) this knowledge would be imputed to him. An employee, who alone knew of the animal's condition, might be injured, but under subsection (6) the employer is the person who is to be strictly liable. For these reasons I support these two Amendments.
LORD AIREDALE: Whatever may be the merits of the first part of paragraph (b) I cannot see any merit at all in the second part of the paragraph which permits an inquiry into the characteristics of an animal in the past. It refers to characteristics which:
"were at any time known to a person who then had charge of the animal …"
This paragraph seems to me to proceed upon the basis that an animal is born with particular characteristics and retains these characteristics until the day it dies. That proposition certainly is not true of human beings, and I do not believe that it is true of animals.
Take the case of a docile old pony of 15 which is safe for paraplegic children to ride. One day the pony is stung by a bee and it throws a paraplegic child off its back. The parent of the child might sue the owner of the pony. The owner would have no difficulty in proving that at the time of the incident the pony was a quiet animal. But the plaintiff might say, "I am going to rely upon this paragraph (b)—what were the characteristics of the pony at any time in the past?—and I am going to call a witness who was the groom employed by the pony's owner 12 years ago when the pony was a young colt. He will say that the pony was a vicious young brute in those days and was quite unsafe for any child to ride". I cannot see that that serves the ends of justice at all. Surely the only characteristics of an animal which matter in a particular case are its characteristics at the time when the incident happened. Delving into the past, as is done in the second half of paragraph (b), does not serve any useful purpose at all, and will only lead to

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mischief. If we cannot get rid of the whole of paragraph (b) I hope that at any rate we can get rid of the second part of it.
5.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: A vast number of cattle come through the marts every day of the week, and those cattle are unknown to anybody. The person who really knows their characteristics, or ought to know, is the farm employee who, if he has not learnt from the days when he was a halfling that an animal has to be treated with respect, would not be in that job. Animals are unloaded from the marts out of cattle floats, and it seems to me wrong that a farmer who purchases an animal should be liable. Probably he was not even present at the time it was purchased. He would know nothing about the characteristics of an animal he had bought, other than what it looked like, and so on. He could not tell the character of an animal, or whether it had been upset by the journey it had made, or any of the hundred and one things that could happen. The man who knows about this is the man who is trained to handle the animal, and it seems to me that it is up to him to take normal precautions. I do not think it is right to impute this to the farmer or owner who, as has been said, may not even be in the country.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: May I, very briefly, put the argument the other way? So far we have been presented with an argument which rather suggests that the farming community will be treated very unjustly and unfairly and in a way which is somewhat different from other people in other connections. Is it not being overlooked that this provision in the Bill does no more than exemplify the long-established principle in our law of vicarious responsibility? That is to say, if you put a servant in charge of some operation, his negligence, or knowledge, or whatever it may be, is imputed to you as the employer.
For example, I may employ a chauffeur who is a very careful person with excellent references. If I send him out on a journey, and I give him the strictest instructions that he must not drive the car faster than the approved speed limit, and that he must take all proper care and so on; and if, suddenly, in a moment of aberration during a journey which he
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is carrying out for me he suddenly drives much too fast and dangerously, and is involved in an accident, I am responsible, Nobody ever questions that as being a perfectly valid principle because I am the person who, so to speak, is in charge of the operation. I am the person who may be expected to insure against the various risks involved. This principle runs through the whole of our law.
I should have thought that when one is dealing with the question of knowledge of a dangerous propensity, and has a servant in charge of an animal, he has the opportunity of ascertaining the exact condition of the animal. It is neither here nor there that the farmer, the owner of the animal, may be in Timbuctoo, or on holiday in the South of France. It is his animal; he put a person in charge of it, and that person's negligence or knowledge is treated as the negligence of the owner. It seems to me that this provision in the Act does no more than exemplify that particular position. I cannot, at any rate for the moment, see that it works any particular injustice, unless of course we are going to repudiate the whole principle of vicarious liability. I should have thought that, at any rate, is a well-established doctrine in our law which nobody, so far as I am aware, has suggested is incorrect or unjust.
As for the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, I am wondering whether he has a completely valid point, because all that subsection (5) is dealing with is the question of knowledge; not the actual existence of characteristics of the animal. I think that if one looks at subsection (2), one has first to have the characteristics at the relevant time, which is the time when the accident occurred. Then knowledge must be proved, and that is done by showing that these characteristics were known to the person in charge, or, presumably, on the assumption that the characteristics had continued up to the moment when the injury occurred, that they were known at some previous time. It does not seem to me that Clause 6(5) is really seeking to say that we can impose liability by being able to show that the actual characteristics existed at an earlier date, even though they did not continue up to the moment when the accident occurred. If that construction is right, I should have thought that subsection (5)(b) is perfectly all right as it stands.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I should be glad if the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor could help me on two points. First of all, there is the question of damage being caused by an animal, which is known by the servant to be dangerous, although for various reasons the master of the servant may not know. I imagine that under the previous provisions of the Bill, particularly Clause 6(3), the servant is also a keeper of the animal, because in the circumstances he has it in his possession. Therefore, there is nothing to stop one suing the servant as well as the master—though it may not result in one getting a great deal of damages—and it may not necessarily be unfair.
I do not know whether liability goes too far in that it inevitably places a similar liability on the employer, even though he did not know, which is perhaps the point of the first Amendment. It would help if it were made clear that there is a concurrent liability on both master and servant as keepers. Clause 6(6) rules out the defence of volenti on behalf of the employer in the circumstance that my noble friend Lord Belstead gave, where the servant knew that a sow had become dangerous, could not tell his employer and went back into the pen and got himself hurt. I should have thought that the real question is whether he went back into the pen negligently and as a result of his negligence got himself hurt. The employer still has the defence of contributory negligence, so even though he does not have a defence under volenti, he can say that the servant was an idiot to go back and do what he did to the sow. The employer can say that his negligence was entirely counteracted by what the servant did and he should pay him only a farthing. If these two questions are right, I think that they are relevant to this discussion.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead said, this is merely an example of the rule of vicarious liability. None of us can get out of liability by shunting what we have done on to somebody else. If you choose to employ someone, what your employee does in the course of his employment is your responsibility, and knowledge acquired by a servant in his employment is your knowledge. In this particular class of case, the possibility of
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imputing a servant's knowledge to his master was first suggested in dicta in a case decided in 1864—Stiles v. Cardiff Steam Navigation Company—and firmly established in 1874, in the case of Applebee v. Percy, when a publican was held liable for the vicious acts of a dog whose character was known to the barman and barmaid. Since then, the soundness of these decisions has not been questioned and it would be a far-reaching change of the law to alter the principle now.
A master's liability, of course, does not extend to animals kept as pets by servants in their private capacity. The servant must have charge of the animal as his master's servant. The Bill is not doing anything new and is not altering the law in this field. There has always been this distinction between liability for dangerous animals and non-dangerous animals—tame animals so to say—having dangerous characteristics which you know or could be presumed to know, and what "could be presumed to know" is your servant's knowledge. The Bill does not alter the law. On the contrary, the Amendment would be altering a law which has existed with general satisfaction for nearly a hundred years. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw this Amendment.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I thank the noble and learned Lord for his answer to my Amendment and to the general argument that has been put to him by other noble Lords. Of course, I fully accept the point that the effect of these two Amendments would be to revise the normal doctrine of vicarious liability and I certainly would not be prepared to argue that this is exactly the right Amendment that should go into the Bill. I put the Amendment down because I wanted to make the point that, although I would accept, as I am sure everybody would, the normal doctrine of vicarious liability, I believe that in this case it goes too far. I was relying here, as I said in my opening remarks, on the leading case of Rands v. McNeil, where it was held that the defence of volenti was a reasonable ground for the employer to refuse responsibility for an accident which had occurred to his employee, especially where it was combined with knowledge

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in the employee which the owner did not share.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble Lord will forgive me, I think he is addressing himself to Amendment No. 13, to which I have not yet spoken. No. 12 was called and other noble Lords started to discuss No. 13 but I have not actually addressed myself to it.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I did preface my remarks by suggesting that as the two Amendments are so closely related, it would be helpful to discuss them both together and then I could move them separately. It would be helpful to hear the noble and learned Lord on Amendment No. 13 as well before I reply.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In my submission, there is very little connection between these two Amendments. Amendment No. 12 raises the question of whether it is right, when a man delegates something to his servant, that the knowledge of the servant should be attributed to his master. If the barman or barmaid knows that the dog is in the habit of biting people, can the publican say that he never asked them and they never told him? We would get to a state of affairs in which the publican could say to his barman, "If the dog starts biting people, don't tell me"—a simple way of avoiding liability for ever.
Amendment No. 13 deals with quite a different point, with whether the doctrine of volenti non fit injuria (that the injured person took the risk on himself) ought to be applied to servants. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, says that it ought not to be applied to anybody because it does not do justice, if I may put his argument shortly. There is a sort of compromise in the Bill in that it applies in general but not to servants. The Law Commission said this in paragraph 20 of their Report.
"We also consider that there should be no rule that strict liability in respect of animals does not apply as between employer and employee. The case of Rands v. McNeil suggests that strict liability is severely limited as between employer and employee by the application of the maxim volenti non fit injuria, but we think that in these cases the employee should not be taken voluntarily to assume risks incident to his employment in connection with dangerous animals. The rationale of imposing strict liability for a peculiarly dangerous
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activity is that the person carrying on is in the best position to take precautions against or to mitigate the damage which may flow from that activity. Insurance is one of the principal methods which he may ut lize to minimize the harmful consequences of his activity, and we think that in this con ext the employer is clearly in a better position conveniently to effect adequate cover against liability for his animal than is the employee to effect insurance against his injury."
The change accords with the principles adopted in other cases. For example, under the Factory Acts, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, referred, the servant does not have freedom of choice to accept or reject this. He is often inhibited by his fear of losing his employment. Where the servant assumed needless risks or acted recklessly, the master would still have a defence under Clause 5(1) if it was the servant's fault, and also a defence of contributory negligence. On balance, I suggest that the clause as it stands is right and should survive.
I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, says that there should he no principle of volenti at all. I think it is reasonable in general, but not really reasonable in a servant. Take the ordinary farmhand. There is a dangerous bull. Ought it to be held that he has taken the risk of being injured by the bull if he is not employed solely to look after the bull but as an ordinary farmhand? Who is the man who decides in what condition the bull is to be kept, and what the safety conditions are to be? The master. It is not the farmhand. I do not think it is fair in such circumstances to try to get out of liability, where it has net been the servant's fault, by saying: "Because you are a farmhand you have voluntarily taken that risk". I hope that on consideration the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, will not press this Amendment.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I thank the noble and learned Lord for dealing with the second point on Amendment 13 and, as usual, dealing with it so persuasively. I was not quite arguing the last point that he put to me. I was arguing the case where the stockman who was responsible knows of the changed condition of the animal—for the sake of example, the bull; and it does happen that an animal wh ch has been perfectly docile and manageable

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sometimes becomes cranky and dangerous—and has not reported it to his employer, the farmer, and the farmer, therefore, has not taken the measures which he would take if he knew that he had to deal with a dangerous bull. The point that I was making was that in those circumstances the employer, the farmer, should not be made liable for the injury and the damages that might follow. I accept that this is a pretty fine point.
I certainly would not argue on the other line. I would quite accept that in the normal circumstances of employment the employer should be responsible for seeing that the conditions, and if necessary the insurance, with regard to his employees adequately covered all the risks involved. But my point goes a little further. In the paragraph in the Law Commission's Report to which the noble and learned Lord referred they mention the Rands v. McNeil case, which has, I think, held the field until now in this particular respect. The effect of the Bill as now drafted will be to place some additional responsibility on the farmer. If he is going to meet that adequately he will be obliged to extend his insurance policy in order to cover this risk as well, and this would be an additional cost to him.
I do not feel that I should press this Amendment at the moment, but I do feel some concern that the effect of what we are doing here will place that additional responsibility, and therefore additional cost, on the farmer; and I am particularly anxious that at the end of the day, when the Bill becomes an Act, it should be recognised that we have placed some additional cost on the farmer. My own personal feelings in this matter are that insurance policies should go to the absolute length, because there is nothing more tragic than for a farm worker who is injured not to be adequately covered by insurance. That is something that I have seen happen, not on my own farm but on some other farm, and it may have tragic results. So I am entirely in favour of the doctrine here. But I want to make the point—and I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will concede it before the end—that if we agree to this clause we are going to put an additional responsibility on the farmer, who will have to pay
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more. If the noble and learned Lord would acknowledge that point, I am prepared to call it a day and to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 6, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD HENLEY: The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that he would say something about Lord Wilberforce's Amendment No. 3 in the light of what happened to Lord Nugent's Amendment No. 13.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly consider it. There have not been a great many views expressed as to whether volenti should remain in the Bill. I have no strong views about the point, and I will certainly consider everything that has been said.
LORD WILBERFORCE: I am perfectly happy. I understood that the noble and learned Lord was going to consider it, anyway. My only point is that I believe that if he reads again paragraph 20 of the Law Commission's Report he will see that the argument against volenti is just as good generally as it is in relation to servants. If I am in order in speaking on the Question that the clause stand part, may I also suggest that the drafting of subsection (5)(a) needs to be re-examined, in view of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, to Clause 6(3), which was accepted. That is just a suggestion for a later stage.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Detention and sale of trespassing livestock]:
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Before this clause becomes part of the Bill, I should like the Lord Chancellor to give me some information upon one point. This is quite an important clause from the point of view of the hill farmer, and particularly the man who keeps sheep. Sheep often stray quite a long way from the farm to which they belong, sometimes into another valley or glen, and it may be twenty or more miles from their original home. It is incumbent upon the finder of such a sheep only to inform the police

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that he has done so, and not, so far as I can see, to advertise the fact. It may be that the police station in one particular valley has little or no communication with a police station 25 miles away in a different valley. Therefore, the fact that the stray sheep has turned up may not become known to the original owner. The question I should like to ask is this. If the new possessor of the sheep does not expose it for sale after 21 days but chooses to incorporate it in his own flock, after what period, if after any period, can it be regarded as his property, and when does the right of property of the original owner cease to exist?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Under the scheme notice has to be given within 24 hours to the police and also if the person knows who the true owner is. There is then a right of detention which ceases in any of the events set out in subsections (3) and (4). Subsection (4) relates to a sale at a market, not less than 21 days afterwards, and so forth. But while there is a right to sell if nobody turns up to claim it, I do not know that there is anything to stop the finder from keeping it, if he had reported it properly to the police. If he knew who the owner was, obviously somebody would turn up. Otherwise, I do not think that there is anything in the Bill, or in the existing law, to prevent the finder from keeping it.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Do I understand that the original owner of the sheep, should he find it some miles away in someone else's flock after a period of 21 clays, could not claim it back?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No, I do not think that that is right. Unless it is sold, the ownership remains in the original farmer who owned the sheep.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: For how long?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Until anything happens to dispossess him of it. If it is sold under the statutory power contained in Clause 7(4) then his ownership is lost, and the true owner becomes the person who buys the sheep. If that does not happen, then, so long as there is nothing to deprive him of his ownership, he remains the owner. There is still a right of detention. I suppose that the longer the period before he claims
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it, the more expensive it may be for him, because he has not only to pay for any damage caused by the sheep, but also to pay for the keep of the sheep for all the time it remains with the farmer to whom it strayed.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, but I still think this is rather obscure.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8: [Duty to take care to prevent damage from animals straying on to the highway]:
6.22 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 5, line 18, at end insert—
("Provided that this section shall not apply to livestock straying on to public footpaths or bridleways.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 14, standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and myself. Clause 8 is one of the most important clauses in the Bill because it changes the law from the present common law position, where the farmer has virtually no responsibility if his animals stray on the highway, to a position where he will have this statutory responsibility as now defined. The effect of my Amendment would be to exclude from this change in the law footpaths and bridle paths. The Law Commission Report (which is our Bible in all these things) recommends in paragraph 47 that footpaths and bridleways should not be excluded, but should be included as highways, which technically they are, for this purpose.
Their argument (which, if I may say so, I thought in this case was rather a weak one; usually their arguments are extremely good) for saying this is that:
"… in the absence of vehicles the risk that the presence of an animal will lead to damage or injury is slight and therefore, save in exceptional cases, there will be no negligence and no liability."
I suppose there is something in that view: that if there is any injury there it is going to be only very slight. But it does not seem to me entirely satisfactory from the point of view o the farmer. Why should any liability, other than for a dangerous animal—like a dangerous bull in a field—be thrown on to the farmer in these circumstances?
These rights of way, as we all well know, in the nature of things run straight across farms, straight across the middle of fields, and they are very rarely fenced. Indeed, I do not know that anyone would particularly want them to be fenced; no one would seriously suggest that they should all be fenced. In the first place, the cost would be prohibitive; secondly, the effect of putting a couple of fences right across the middle would be to wreck the farming of the fields concerned. Thirdly, I think it would be very much against the amenity interest to have fences marking out all footpaths and bridle-ways all over our farms.
So I am sure that this thought cannot be in anybody's mind, and I assume that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will confirm that when he replies to this debate. We are really up against the point: should the farmer be made liable for the possibility of damage occurring through his cattle, his livestock, straying across a footpath or bridle-way? I accept that the cases will be rare and that possibly the damage will be small. But it seems to me that there are no grounds whatever for making the farmer liable for anything. I sincerely trust that noble Lords in this Committee will agree with this view. I beg to move.
LORD BARNBY: Before the noble and learned Lord replies, I hope that he will be able to deal with some part of my problem that I put on Clause 5. I would just anticipate the answer in regard to gates being left open, and the trouble that causes with regard to stock straying. Of course the answer would be, "Well then, lock up the gates". The disadvantage of that is that if stock strayed from some other field a well-meaning neighbour or user of the highway, wishing to reduce the inconveniece of the stock straying on the road, might wish to put them into the nearest field and lock up the gate; and then this frustration and damage could be caused. This produces another angle of damage. That is why I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor may deal with those hypothetical instances which I gave.
LORD BELSTEAD: I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor might possibly agree that,
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leaving paragraph 47 of the Law Commission Report aside, some of the other arguments which are advanced seem to support the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Nugent. This Amendment might be consonant with paragraph 40 of the Law Commission Report, which recognises that the readjustment in the law, as now to be laid down in Clause 8, must—and I quote:
"… take account of the economic and social importance of keeping animals and of the burden and practical difficulties which may be involved in ensuring that they do not cause damage on the highway …"
I think that possibly it was some such words as these that my noble friend Lord Nugent had in mind when he referred to the prohibitive cost to which this Part of the Bill that he is seeking to amend might lead.
It is true that the Law Commission then added, in paragraph 40:
"… but against these considerations must be weighed the danger to life, limb and property of those who use the highway."
On the Second Reading on November 11 (at cols. 537-8), the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, gave a compelling account of how times have outstripped the law with respect to animals and road safety. The noble and learned Lord also gave us some statistics of accidents involving animals, which make serious reading, and a description of legal opinions on this branch of the law. Nothing of what the noble and learned Lord said then affects this Amendment. The first part of paragraph 40 of the Law Commission Report, which I have quoted, is, however, relevant in that this Part of the Bill will place a heavier burden, and a heavier financial burden, on farmers.
Also, on Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord, describing roads before the advent of the motor car said this:
"… if you came across a horse or any kind of animal, there was no reason why this should cause a danger."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11/11/69; col. 537.]
Public footpaths and bridleways fall precisely into that category and provide no reason for an alteration of the law in this respect.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that this Amendment, if accepted, would be contrary to the principle. I cannot say that it would really make a vast deal

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of difference. There is already a duty to take such care as is reasonable to see that an animal does not cause damage. That duty applies while the animal is on the farmer's own land under the existing law, and as a result of Clause 8 will equally apply where the animal wanders on to the highway. On roads carrying motorised traffic the mere presence of the animal creates danger. But the presence of an animal on a footpath or bridleway does not normally create any danger. A footpath can be used only on foot, while a bridleway (as defined in Section 295 of the Highways Act 1959) may also be used on horseback or for the purpose of driving animals along it. A person lawfully using these ways is not therefore likely to come to any harm on account of the presence of a stray animal. Accordingly, the duty of care owed to those using footpaths or bridleways is not likely to be any greater than the duty which the owner would in any event owe to persons who may be lawfully on his land.
Where footpaths or bridleways run along the side of fields the principles applying to them are the same as in the case of adjoining roads and the smallness of the risk is no reason for treating them differently. The smaller the risk, the smaller the duty of care. Where footpaths run through fields it is doubtful whether the rule of Searle v. Wallbank—that is, the rule which excused from liability owners of animals who let their animals go on to highways—ever applied to them. The exception to the general liability in negligence effected by the rule relates to animals wandering from adjoining land on to the highway and creating dangers by their presence on the highway. It can hardly be said that an animal grazing in a field which is crossed by a footpath, strays on to the footpath; nor does its mere presence there create a danger. The Law Commission, in paragraph 47 of the Report, reject an exception for footpaths, bridleways and driftways and point out that, save in exceptional cases, there could be no negligence and therefore no liability. I hope I may have satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, with that explanation.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his reply. I am bound to say that he has not satisfied me. He has repeated, in the most persuasive
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form, the argument that this is a very small risk and a very small danger and therefore footpaths and bridleways can safely be left in. What I am arguing is just the other point: that because it is a very small risk, we ought to take them out. It does not seem to be right in the general context of this Bill—which, if I may say so, is admirable in its intention in a very confused field of trying to make the law clear with Statute Law—to throw even a small additional liability on to the farmer unless it is really necessary.
On the short debate we had on the previous point, I was glad to agree wth the Lord Chancellor that he had made out an argument that the liability must fall somewhere and the best place for it to fall was on the employer, although it would cost him more. But I do not think that that applies here, and I feel that bridleways and footpaths, in the very nature of things, ought to be out. I should like to press the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on this matter. I do not think, as he says, that it is going to make a very great difference at the end of the day, but it would add to the general confidence of the rustic world if this liability were out.
LORD HENLEY: Before the noble Lord presses the Amendment, which is in my name and his, I wonder whether he would agree to consider again a major point which I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made. That is that the rule of Searle v. Wallbank does not really apply to foopaths and never did. If that is correct—and it seems to me that it is an argument one may not have been aware of before—then I do not believe any additional burden is being placed on the agricultural industry in this respect. Before we press this point, I should very much like to consult with the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, a little further.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I think that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has certainly wor this set. There is now a slight division among noble Lords on this side, and of course I shall be only too happy to study again the point that the noble and learned Lord made—I took note of it when he made it. I do not think that I am going to change my mind, although I may, but in

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response to the interjection of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I am only too willing to look at this matter again, and then, if we are not satisfied, we can put the Amendment down again for Report stage. In the light of the debate we have had, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.35 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 5, line 18, at end insert—
("Provided that this section shall not apply to straying on to any special road being a motorway for which the Minister of Transport is the Highway Authority.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 15 standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and myself. My reason for this Amendment, which would have the effect of excluding from the effect of Clause 8 a liability for cattle which stray on a motorway, is that I believe that motorways by their nature fall into a special class. Indeed, they are called "special roads". For this reason, I think they should be excluded from the effects of this Bill. They are called "special roads" because they are in fact specially built to cater for fast, long-distance traffic. In order to keep them safe for this kind of traffic, certain classes of user are deliberately excluded and are not allowed to use them; for instance, pedestrians, cyclists, horse-drawn vehicles, L-drivers, and so on. Their construction has provided that they are driven straight through the countryside in order to give the best and shortest route between important centres, so inevitably they bisect farms and bisect fields.
In the course of construction special provision is made to link up again the farms that have been cut in two, and farmers are provided with either a bridge or an underpass so that they can continue to farm their farm although it has been divided into two; and, most importantly, so that they can have a connection to move either cattle or farm vehicles from one part of the farm to the other across the special road, the motorway, without moving on the surface, which would clearly be a very great danger. At the same time, in the construction of a motorway the Minister of Transport constructs
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top-grade cattle fencing at his expense. I would suggest that this type of construction, and the whole concept, is similar to the building of railways in this country in the last century, where the railway companies had put upon them by Parliament the responsibility for fencing the railway lines against cattle on the farms through which they went. This is precisely analogous.
In these circumstances I would say that the farmer should not have any liability with regard to his livestock straying on to these highways, and that the special roads should be taken out of the effect of the Bill. I am sure that this is inherent in the whole concept of these special roads, and I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will agree with this and that the Committee may be prepared to see that this Amendment is included in the Bill. I beg to move.
LORD HENLEY: The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor used a very interesting argument when he was resisting the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, about brucellosis. He pointed out that it is in fact the owner of a herd of brucellosis-free cattle who is putting his neighbours at special risk. The same argument applies here. It applies in fact over the whole field of Clause 8, in my opinion, but let us consider it in regard to special new roads. Here we have a state of affairs in which the public, wishing to transport itself very fast across land which was not formerly a road, has put the farmer and the landowner at a special risk, and I feel there is a strong case, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, has said, for treating roads in exactly the same way as railways were treated.
There is the extra reason that the Ministry of Transport already take responsibility for these fences but, curiously enough, they do not take responsibility for an accident which might occur through their own fence being defective. I dare say one could get round this point by the owner of the cattle merely suing the Minister of Transport because his cattle had escaped over a defective fence and caused an accident, for which the owner of the cattle was liable. It may be possible to get over the problem in that way, but it seems to me to be a roundabout way

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of doing so when it could have been much better done by excluding special roads from Clause 8 altogether. Therefore I hope this Amendment will be accepted.
LORD AIREDALE: It occurs to me that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor might be a little more disposed to accept this Amendment if the word "directly" were included, so that it said, "straying directly on to a motorway". Motorways are served by subsidiary roads, many of them being country lanes, and if there is a situation where an animal is carelessly allowed to stray on to a country lane and then off that country lane on to a motorway, the poor Minister of Transport cannot be expected to be responsible. Subject to that, I hope that this Amendment will be acceptable.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can well understand the National Farmers' Union feeling that the Minister of Transport ought to pay, but of course it is the Minister of Transport who provides the farm with a beautiful fence. As I understand it, the practice is that the Minister erects stockproof fences alongside motorways for which he is the highway authority, both to enforce the exclusion of prohibited classes of traffic and to protect users of the motorway from the risk of people or animals wandering on to it. Pedestrians, animals, cyclists and so on are not allowed on motorways. The Minister always covenants or otherwise arranges with adjoining landowners to erect and maintain a fence to prevent livestock straying on to the motorway, if such fencing is thought necessary at the time when the land is acquired. In practice, therefore, it is unlikely that a farmer would ever find himself in a position where he could be held liable for negligence for a straying animal on the motorway for which the Minister was responsible. This could occur only where he had become aware of a gap in the fence and had unreasonably failed to inform the highway authority to take temporary preventive measures.
In such circumstances, there is no good reason why there should be an exception to the general rule resulting from Clause 8. If an animal strayed from adjoining land on to the highway in circumstances in which the Minister, in accordance with his covenant, ought to have maintained a fence but had failed to do so, the
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adjoining landowner would normally have a right to recover from the Ministry any damages which might be awarded against him.
I ought perhaps also to point out that liability might arise where at the time when the motorway was built the land in question was used for crops and there was no livestock, and then the farmer suddenly decided to use the whole of his land as a chicken farm. No doubt this would put a liability on the farmer, probably for his own protection if he did not want to lose all his chickens on the highway.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I am afraid that I do not feel convinced by that answer. It is perfectly true, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said, that the Government are to erect the stockproof fencing and it is most unlikely that cattle would stray on to the highway, but if a gap appeared in the fence and the farmer failed to report it, then it would be his own fault. However, it seems to me that this is placing the responsibility in the wrong place. We have decided as a nation that we want to have these motorways driven right through the land in the general interests of transport—right across all the farms and properties—and therefore the Minister has decided to build them in this special way. I think this takes them right outside the concept of the liability for straying on the ordinary highways.
I quite accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, and I am talking about straying directly. There could be circumstances in which a fence had collapsed due to some subsidence of the ground, or possibly a fall of snow and the cattle went up on a bank of snow and got over in that way. There could be an accident, and of course it would be a bad one. I should have thought that in the whole circumstances of a motorway this is a responsibility which ought to fall on the Minister of Transport. This is a responsibility which he—and we—undertook as a community when we decided to have these motorways.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will accept that there is a certain philosophical point here which has weight, and that we are dealing with something quite different

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from the ordinary highway. On the normal highway I accept what the Bill is doing and, with one or two small modifications to which I hope the noble and learned Lord will agree, I believe that is a proper and right change to make. I think this particular case is different. I hope that the noble and learned Lord has not said his last word on this, because I think my noble friends might wish to press this Amendment if he does not feel able to accept it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly report to my right honourable friend what the noble Lord has said. I have no immediate authority to give way on this but I will confer with my right honourable friend and we will see what we can do.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord. In the circumstances, I think we should give the noble and learned Lord the opportunity to consult his right honourable friend. Perhaps between now and Report stage we can consult together and if necessary I can put the Amendment down again. I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.48 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 5, line 39, after ("green") insert ("or on land which is proved by him not to have been fenced during the previous 20 years as between that land and the highway").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Henley and myself deals with the point which we discussed at some length in the Second Reading debate. The problem is that of the liability of unfenced land which is private property in private ownership, mostly upland and almost invariably livestock-rearing land. There are many tens of thousands of acres of such land in the upland part of the country. Incidentally, I have been informed since our Second Reading that some 5,000 acres of this land are in the possession of the National Trust, who also are most anxious about what their responsibilities might be in this matter.
Briefly, if I may recapitulate, the annual value of this land is too low to
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support fencing; it is far too low for fencing to be economic. But we have decided nationally—and when I say "we" I mean noble Lords opposite, in their Government, and noble Lords on this side of the House, in our Governments—that we want this land farmed, and therefore the Minister of Agriculture gives special grants for livestock kept on the hills. In these circumstances it would be fair to say that it is in the national interest that this land should continue to be farmed. There is the additional point that in most of these areas it would be against the interests of amenity to erect fences. They would undoubtedly interfere with the view, and with the convenience of motorists who might like to stop to picnic at the side of the road.
As the Bill stands, common land is to be excluded, and my argument is that this land which is unfenced ought to be treated in the same way as common land. The definition which I have suggested for this land is:
"land which is proved by him"—
that is the farmer—
"not to have been fenced during the previous 20 years as between that land and the highway".
I should like, with the permission of the Committee, to amend my Amendment so that it would read as follows:
"or on land which is proved by him not to have been fenced during the 20 years previous to the Royal Assent to this Act".
Clearly, it would not be right for a farmer to strip his fences down in order to avoid liability in the future; but if we made the period when there had been no fencing 20 years prior to the Royal Assent to this Act, it would ensure that it would apply to land which had not habitually been fenced.
The present position with reard to this land is that the farmer gets the benefit of the common law as it now stands, under the leading case of Searle v. Wall-bank, and has no liability if his livestock strays on the highway and an accident follows. In practice, motorists driving through these areas treat them just the same as they do common land areas, such as Dartmoor and the New Forest and so on. They know that they are not fenced and therefore they look out for cattle or sheep which may be straying on to the road.
During the Second Reading debate the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor put forward certain arguments to justify retaining these areas of farm land within the scope of Clause 8(1). In the interval, naturally, I have studied all the noble and learned Lord's arguments and made such research as I could to see to what extent I could agree or produce counter-arguments. His main argument was that farmers could insure against this liability, and that the cost was liable to be small, if anything; and that the Law Commission Report took the same view. The noble and learned Lord supported the argument by referring to the position in Scotland, where the law is different, and he informed your Lordships that in Scotland the farmer who kept animals had a duty to take reasonable care to see that they did not escape on to the highway, and that there was no difficulty in Scotland about farmers insurance premiums in this connection. This was the point he made, I thought, very effectively, on Second Reading.
In the interval, as I say, I have been studying the material in connection with this. First of all, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would agree with the view expressed in the 12th Report of the Law Reform Committee for Scotland—I am sure he is familiar with the Report. In paragraph 9, they say:
"As we have pointed out in the preceding paragraph, one increasingly important aspect of the law, that concerned with liability for damage caused by the presence of animals on the highway, is in a highly uncertain state."
This paragraph seems to indicate that there is a considerable measure of doubt about what the position is in Scotland, too. It may be different here, but it is by no means crystal clear there. The practical point, I think, is this: that whatever measure of doubt or obscurity exists in Scotland, most of the Scottish farmers think it is enough to give them the benefit of it, so that, so far as I can discover, most Scottish livestock farmers, like the English, are not in the habit of taking out insurance policies against the risk of their stock straying on the highway.
The result is that the only solid point which can be taken is that if the Statute Law were changed, as in Clause 8(1), to apply to these unfenced areas, claims for damages would begin to arise, policies would have to be taken out, and the cost
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would inevitably rise, because the Statute Law would have defined where the liability lay. This is the general anxiety in the minds of farmers in England; and a significant additional cost would be thrown upon them if these unfenced areas were brought within the scope of the Bill.
I think there are very strong arguments for treating these areas in the same way as common land. That is what they look like to the motoring public when they drive through. We must all, I think, accept that fencing these areas is just "not on", so what we are really dscussing is where the liability should lie: whether farmers should be saddled with the additional cost of insuring against this risk from which they cannot protect themselves, or whether we should say, "Let us accept the physical reality of this and treat these areas in the same way as common land, with whatever public notices we think are desirable in order to warn motorists that the land is unfenced and there is livestock there", so that accidents may be reduced to a minimum. I feel that the balance here is in favour of excluding these areas from the effects of the Bill. I hope that the Committee may agree with me, and that the noble and learned Lord will be a little more accommodating to-day than he was on Second Reading. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I should very much like to reinforce my noble friend's appeal in this matter. I know all the Yorkshire moorlands very well; perhaps few people in this House know them better or have known them longer. I can assure the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, that all over the Yorkshire Moors, the North Riding and West Riding, there are vast areas which carry sheep. They do not carry cattle but they carry sheep, and the farmers are subsidised to carry sheep on this land by the hill subsidy, which every Government has supported. Of course they are not fenced; the sheep move about and there is hardly ever an accident. Motorists are careful; there are notices, and they know what the areas are. If there were any sort of obligation to erect fences, it could not possibly pay the farmer, whom you subsidise in order to have the sheep there. The only result of insisting on fences would be that the whole of your hill farming subsidy, or a great part of it, would go by the board,

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and the farms would cease to be farms of the kind which successive Governments have subsidised and on which they have insisted. There are no politics in this. I hope the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, will discuss this matter with the Minister, who, I feel sure, would have a clear understanding of what the needs and the facts are.
7.0 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: I do not know what arguments the noble and learned Lord is going to use to resist this Amendment, if he is going to resist it; but any arguments that he uses must apply to common land as well, and he has excluded common land. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor is going to tell us that, as with bridleways and footpaths Searl v. Wellbank never applied to unfenced land anyway. I do not know whether he is going to tell us that the position is perfectly all right because under Clause 8(1) you have only to exercise such care as is reasonable. Or he may be going to say that under Clause 8(2)(a) or indeed under several of the other paragraphs, (b), (c), (d) and (e) the nature of the land and its situation in relation to the highway may be used in mitigation of the liability. As I say, whatever arguments he uses to resist the exclusion of unfenced land from the Bill must surely apply to common land, which it has been found easy enough to exclude. I should have thought that it was not difficult to accede to this Amendment and to cut out unfenced land altogether.
It is not true to say that all this land is used by sheep. A great deal of it carries cattle as well. So, unlike the case with bridleways and footpaths, the risk is considerable, and the insurance for it will be considerable as well. Therefore, I think, as was said often enough on Second Reading and has been said tonight, it is out of the question to fence this land. I have made a calculation of the cost of fencing any given piece of unfenced land. It would work out at something like twenty times the capital value. Moreover, there is the amenity question. So I hope that the noble and learned Lord Chancellor will give careful attention to this particular point.
Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, pointed out that the Lord Chancellor had said that the law in Scotland was
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what he is proposing to make it here. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, pointed out that the 12th Report had said that it was in a highly uncertain state. I would add that in the leading case of Fraser v. Pate in 1923, two of the Lords Justices expressed the view that the law of England and Scotland on this subject was the same, which seems to be a different view from that of the Lord Chancellor. I strongly support Lord Nugent's Amendment.
LORD KILBRACKEN: Can the noble Lord explain how he can calculate the cost of enclosing an area of a mountain when he does not know the size of the area? If it is a large area that is being enclosed, then the cost of fencing it is likely to be more than if it is a small area.
LORD HENLEY: I can tell your Lordships exactly. I did not take a long strip, I took an area which was approximately square or approximately round. I calculated the mileage of fencing needed just to enclose the outside at present-day prices and with the labour costs put on. I took into account the number of times that you would have to replace the fencing, which is approximately once every 25 years, that being about the lifetime of that kind of fencing, and I came to the conclusion that it would cost about twenty times as much to fence it as the capital value of the land itself.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I happen to have done a great deal of fencing, and the poorer the land the more expensive is the fencing, because on the poorer land one has rock. That is extremely expensive to deal with, because you have to blast and you usually have to put in steel standards. So it is quite impractical to fence the poorer hill land.
LORD ABERDARE: I should like strongly to support this Amendment of my noble friend. He said, perhaps inadvertently, that there was anxiety among the farmers of England. May I add "of Wales", too, because in the upland parts of Wales, which are quite remote areas, at many times of the year there will be more sheep than there are cars; and there should be no obligation on the farmer in areas of this sort to prevent his livestock from straying on to the roads. I think it is more up to the driver who

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is driving in areas of this kind to take reasonable precautions to avoid any sheep or cattle that may have strayed on to the highway. Certainly that was the view of the Goddard Committee. They spoke of
"such parts of a highway as pass over any common, waste or unenclosed ground."
As I understand it, the only problem from the point of view of the Law Commission was that they had difficulty in accepting the definition of "waste or unenclosed ground". I hope that my noble friend's Amendment may satisfactorily define what we are after in excluding the farmer from liability in regard to these areas.
I am not a lawyer, but one learns a certain amount of the legal mind in this House. I was hoping that there would not be a case where a lawyer would argue that the Goddard Commission included common land, waste or unenclosed ground, Parliament having included the commons but excluded the waste or unenclosed ground for the moment, and that therefore it must be intended that the farmers had some kind of responsibility for their cattle straying on to these open spaces. I hope that that could not be argued. But I think we ought to try to make it perfectly clear that the farmer has no obligation in these cases. I do not think it is good enough just to say to him, "Never mind, old man, you are insured anyway". I do not think the farmer wants to feel in regard to any accident that occurs in these areas through his sheep straying on to the road that he is in any way responsible because he has not fenced it. I think this land should definitely be excluded, and I should like to support my noble friend's Amendment.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Before we proceed with the debate on this Amendment, may I make it clear that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, moved the Amendment in a different form from that printed on the Marshalled List. I think that I should read out the Amendment. I got it wrongly, and having been informed of the real wishes of the noble Lord I should now like to correct it. Perhaps he will agree with me that this is the form his Amendment should take. The Amendment should read:
"After 'green' insert 'or on land which is proved by him not to have been fenced
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during the 20 years previous to the Royal Assent to this Act as between that land and the highway'".
When I read out the Amendment before I omitted those last words. This regret and I should like to make the position clear.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I thank the noble Lord the Deputy Chairman.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: With the greatest respect, I think that the National Farmers' Union are making an awful fuss about this. First of all, nobody is going to be liable unless the farmer has done something which no reasonable farmer would have done, or has omitted to do something which any reasonable farmer would have done. Liability can arise only if it is his fault. I think that from the very start the Union have been quite unnecessarily concerned about this problem of fencing. They have said. "Look at the liability of the farmer on a hill farm in Cumberland, or somewhere else, at having to fence everything". Of course, no judge outside a lunatic asylum would say in a case of that kind that a reasonable farmer would have fenced. A number of judges farm themselves, and I should have thought that the farmers ought to trust the judges to act reasonably.
What they have to do is to take into account all the circumstances—the kind of road it is, whether farmers n the locality fence or not, the amount of traffic there is about, what it would cost to take whatever precautions it may be said should have been taken, and so forth. The farmer will be judged as a farmer, and there will be no liability if he has behaved as an ordinary, reasonable farmer would have behaved.
Various suggestions have been made which have been sympathetically considered by the Law Commission. Is there some way in which we can satisfy the farming community about this? This they were naturally anxious to do. What they wanted to do originally was simply to say in the Bill that there would be liability for negligence, leaving to the court to decide, as we do in nearly every other case, what negligence was, having regard to the facts of the case. It was largely to please the farmers that the Commission then set out in the Bill itself

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the list in Clause 8 of the matters that the judge is to take into account. Even that was not found to be satisfactory, and after the Report and the draft clauses of the Bill it was here, in order to please the National Farmers' Union, that there was specifically added the words,
"and, where it could have been avoided or reduced by fencing, the extent (if any) to which fencing is the normal practice in the area in which the land is situated".
That was a further concession to the National Farmers' Union.
Various alternatives have been carefully considered by the Law Commission; for example, excluding certain land geographically. Should it be said that there was no such liability in Cumberland? Could it be done on that sort of footing? Or could it be done on a footing that the land had not been fenced for a particular period? Could it be divided between enclosed and unenclosed?
In paragraph 43 of their Report the Law Commission say:
"Moreover, apart from the question of definition, it would be extremely arbitrary to fix an exemption from liability for negligence only by reference to whether land was enclosed or unenclosed, irrespective of other considerations, such as traffic on the road concerned. Such an exception might also discourage fencing or other preventive measures where it would be reasonable to undertake
them and perhaps even encourage the removal of existing barriers."
I feel that the difficulty about this 20-year proposal is, first, that it would cast on an injured person the onus of proving from which particular field the animal had come, a matter which it might very well be difficult for a stranger to show in a district in which some fields are enclosed and others are not. Proof of the existence of a fence throughout 20 years, although simple enough where roads run across completely open land, might give rise to difficulty and argument in areas of mixed enclosed and unenclosed land, or where fences and ditches maintained in earlier periods have been allowed to fall into decay. This applies particularly where it is the stranger who has to prove it, and I do not think an arbitrary choice of 20 years is really a sensible way of providing for this.
If I may respectfully say so, I think really what the farmers ought to do is to trust the judges, because you cannot lay down a set of rules as to when somebody
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is being negligent or not. Even in the driving of motor cars, everything depends on the circumstances, and if the judges take all the relevant circumstances into account a farmer is not going to be liable unless, judged by farming standards, he has done something which no reasonable farmer would have done. I am quite prepared to consider this point again with my right honourable friends the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Transport, but I am afraid I agree with the reasons why the Law Commission did not really think this was a logical way of dividing liability.
I forgot to say anything about insurance. The position, as I understand it, is that nearly all farmers have an insurance policy. I am told that if they will look at their policies they will find that they contain a clause indemnifying them against third party claims. If that is right their existing policy will cover them against this new liability. If we have added a new third party right, then they are already covered, and next time the premium is due, the only question will be whether it should be larger or not. So far as I could ascertain, the probability is that it would need to be increased by little, if at all.
The Scottish position is that it is quite true that at the time when the Law Reform Committee for Scotland produced a Report the law was much like here—well, it was very uncertain actually, and indeed in paragraph 35 of their Report the English Law Commission say:
In Scotland, where the law takes an intermediate position between the Civil Law and the Common Law, it appears that at least when the Law Reform Committee for Scotland made its Twelfth Report in 1963, it was uncertain whether the principle behind Searle v. Wall-bank was recognised in Scotland."
That is what the noble Lord was quite rightly saying. Then they say this:
"However, the Committee suggested that the Scottish courts might later rule that this principle was not applicable in Scotland, a forecast which seems to have been confirmed by Gardiner v. Miller."—
that was a case in 1967—
"Lord Thomson said in that case: 'In my view there may be, and in certain circumstances there is, a duty to take reasonable care to prevent … animals from straying on to the highway where there is a foreseeable risk of such straying causing injury to people using the highway.'"

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If that is right, Scotland has already got this law, and so far as I know it has not resulted in any increase in premiums.
LORD HENLEY: The question I wanted to ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was about the unfenced roads. I listened very carefully to his arguments and I confess they have very great weight. But if they have this weight why does that not also apply to common land? Why make a distinction of common land at all if the argument is sound with regard to unfenced land?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the answer is that with common land there is of course a right for commoners to pasture their cattle on the common, but there is no legal right—they do not own it—to drive a fence into it. That is as I understand the position. They have no legal right to fence. If they have no legal right to fence, obviously you cannot make them liable for not fencing.
LORD HENLEY: The noble and learned Lord has said that he quite agreed there was no question of fencing land that was at present unfenced. He accepted the argument, both on the grounds of amenity and of expense, that it was not sensible to fence it, so he cannot rely on the argument that the reason that the commons have been excluded is merely because they are not allowed to fence.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I did not mean excluded from the Bill. They always have been excluded. In any case, commoners could not be included, because if they cannot fence then they cannot be liable for not fencing. So far as other precautionary measures are concerned, motorists know when they go by a common that it is a common, and they take precautions accordingly. If circumstances arose in which a commoner had some cattle on a common (which naturally being a common would be unfenced) and when there was a lot of traffic about he shouted at them and pushed them into the highway, I cannot see any reason why he should not be liable.
LORD HENLEY: Some commons are in fact fenced; I know of some. Motorists do not necessarily know that a common is a common; so far as they
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are concerned they are going across a piece of unfenced land, and whether it is a common or whether it is not a common is not immediately apparent to any motorist, and I still cannot see that this makes any difference to the argument at all. I am still quite unconvinced that there is any difference between common land and unfenced land, that both ought not to be treated the same. If you exclude commons you should exclude unfenced land, and if you cannot see your way to exclude unfenced land then you ought not to exclude commons. Neither the argument about the ownership of the land nor the argument about the fences seem to me to apply.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I must thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his answer to our debate on this point, and especially for his undertaking that he would be prepared to consider this rather difficult problem further with his right honourable friends, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Transport. We are all very grateful to him for being willing to do that. I take the point about the difficulty of definition by reference to a 20-year period. Obviously, this is not a perfect definition. I take the point that great efforts are being made in Clause 8(2), especially in paragraph (e), to try to meet this point. I also accept the noble and learned Lord's assurance that judges are reasonable men. But it is the normal stance to take that one would much sooner see it in the Bill.
There are two points here. First, should something more go into the Bill? And, second, if so what should it be? I hope that the noble and learned Lord will accept that there is a strong feeling, not only in the National Farmers' Union but also in the Country Landowners Association, that something more is needed here. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, has argued most cogently the logic of the case of treating these areas the same as common land. I thought that my noble friend Lord Swinton also put a very powerful argument. So I hope that the noble and learned Lord will, with his customary generosity, have his mind open to the fact that there is some weight in this Amendment and will be willing to look at it to see whether some way can be found to give a little more certainty in the Bill than subsection (2)(e)

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of Clause 8 now gives. It has gone quite a bit of the way, but we should like it a little clearer. But after the noble and learned Lord's undertaking, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.20 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 5, line 40, at end insert—
("( ) For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that the mere fact that an animal was upon the highway shall not in itself be sufficient evidence of a breach of the duty to take care referred to in this section.")
The noble Lord said: I move this Amendment mainly in order to get from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor a few words of explanation as to how he sees subsection (2) working in practice, and particularly to calm the anxieties that still remain in my mind, and also perhaps in the minds of some other noble Lords, that the mere fact that cattle are found straying on a highway will not of itself be presumed to be evidence that there has been negligence on the part of the defendant. We have put the Amendment down in this form in the hope of getting a clearer understanding of just how the farmer will stand in this matter. We should like to know what will his prospects be when dealing with the sort of circumstances mentioned by my noble friend Lord Barnby, where a gate has been opened by a trespasser, or where the cattle have perhaps been driven by some unforeseen circumstance and have gone through a good fence; or where there has been snow and they have been able to walk over it—all the various circumstances which may occur where a farmer has made perfectly reasonable provisions with stockproof fences but his cattle are still on the highway. We want to ensure that in these circumstances there will not be an immediate presumption that the farmer has himself been negligent. I beg to move.
LORD BELSTEAD: In supporting my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor a particular point? —it is one in which I have no personal interest whatsoever. What is the situation under this Bill if the rider of a horse on a road comes off and the horse makes
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off, riderless? I should have thought that the very factor of road safety, which lies behind this Part of the Bill, is relevant here. Your Lordships may recall that recently a T.V. advertisement has warned drivers against speeding past ridden horses: the noble and learned Lord may have seen it. The advertisement ended with the girl falling from her horse, and the camera stopped at the moment at which the girl's head hit the ground. This point is not special pleading, but I think it is a factor in road safety, touching this Part of the Bill.
There may also be the occasion when a horse slips on a wet road or on a road which has been made greasy by vehicle oil, and again the rider is thrown. If such a rider is then to be held responsible for the riderless horse there will be concern among thousands of parents, whose children seem to be riding in increasing numbers these days, and also of course among the riding schools. Paragraph 28 of the Law Commission Report says:
"… it is not necessary or desirable to reverse the burden of proof in the cases affecting animals which turn upon negligence;…"
I must apologise to the noble and learned Lord, but I am not sure how this view, or the Bill as drafted, affects the case I have put forward. Many people who ride, or whose children ride, will be grateful for some guidance from the noble and learned Lord on this point.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If I may deal with the last point first, it there is a horse lawfully on a road then the question of negligence is entirely a question of fact. You may have two motor cars on the road, and the judge has to consider whether either driver, or both, has or have been negligent. If there are a horse and a motor car, he judges it in exactly the same way. We all know that accidents can happen without anybody being to blame. The only obligation, both on a motorist and on somebody riding a horse, is to do so with reasonable care—regard being had to the fact that the man with the motor car has the easier thing to control.
What this Amendment would do would be to take away from this branch of the law what lawyers call res ipsa loquitur. This is simply a doctrine which provides that, where something is entirely under

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the control of A and something happens which does not usually happen unless somebody has been careless, those facts are in themselves enough to call on A for an explanation; that is all. The onus of proof, of course, always remains on the injured person until the end of the case. One of the earliest cases of res ipsa loquitur was that of a man walking along a pavement underneath a flour mill when a barrel of flour fell out of an upstairs window and hit him on the head. Of course he did not know what had caused that. In properly conducted warehouses, unless somebody has been careless barrels do not usually fall out of windows. But, of course, a rope might have broken which the owners would have no reason to suppose would break; and at the end of the day it is always for the injured person to prove that what happened was due to the negligence of the defendant. There was another case in which, I think, a man broke his tooth on a stone when eating a bun; and of course ordinary, properly made buns do not have stones in them.
The only result here is that if an animal which is under a farmer's control escapes on to a highway, that is enough, prima facie, to enable the injured person to say, "This calls for an explanation from you as to how the animal came to be on the highway". But, of course, at the end of the day the onus remains with the injured person to prove that the accident was caused by the negligence of the farmer. One would not like this to be otherwise, because it is a commonsense provision of the law that the person who knows all the facts should in some circumstances have a duty to give an explanation. For example, if you write to a farmer and say, "How did your horse come to be on the road?", you do not want to get back a letter saying, "The National Farmers' Union's insurance company say I am not to say anything".
Before your Lordships say that this is fanciful, may I say that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and I know perhaps more about insurance companies, and the way they actually go on in real life, than most people do. I remember a client who went into an operating theatre for a simple operation on the uterus, and when she came out she had a permanently withered forefinger on her right hand. As she earned
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her living by doing a particularly delicate form of embroidery this was a serious matter for her, so she went to a solicitor.
He said, "What an extraordinary thing to happen. I will write and ask the surgeon what happened." So he wrote and asked the surgeon what happened, and the surgeon replied, "The Medical Defence Union say that I am not to say anything". So the solicitor said, "Well, this is an extraordinary thing. The only thing I can think of is that the anæsthetist must have used a very corrosive form of anæsthetic, and carelessly let some of it drop on your finger. Now who is the anæsthetist?" She replied, "Well, he came the evening before." This was not a National Health operation; she was paying for it all in a nursing home. Naturally, she had left the choice of anæsthetist to the surgeon, and so she did not know who the anæsthetist was. The solicitor told her: "Don't worry. I will find out." So he wrote to the surgeon and said, "Will you kindly let me know the name and address of the anæsthetist? "The surgeon said that the Medical Defence Union had said he was, "not to say anything". So, ultimately we sued the surgeon at the nursing home, the only person we could sue.
It has always been my experience in medical negligence cases that you win them only on the documents you get on discovery. As soon as we got the discovery it was perfectly obvious. There it all was: the cause of the trouble was a hot water bottle burn. When Legal Aid started we had a great many actions on hot water bottle burns. I remember a dreadful case of a small girl being terribly burned. As a result of the publicity over this case—although there was a great fuss by the doctors—they now taught nurses: "Don't forget this most important thing: if you apply a hot water bottle to an unconscious patient, you must test it to ensure that it will not burn." As I say, I do know the ways of insurance companies. I remember—but I should not be detaining your Lordships.
May I just say this? More remarkable, perhaps, than the last, is the case of a client who broke his right arm on a defective winch. He went to hospital; they set his right arm. He was there rather a long time. When he came out his right arm was perfectly all right, but

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his left arm was absolutely useless. And they said to him, "It would be much better to have, it off; it will never be any good to you." So he went to a solicitor and the solicitor wrote to find out what had happened. The hospital said, "Oh, the Medical Defence Union say that we are not to say." I was not then concerned with the case; but I think the solicitor should simply have sued the surgeon at the hospital. But the solicitor said to his client: "I do not see whom we can sue. We cannot think how this could have happened. All I can suggest is that you sue your employer and say, 'I broke my right arm on your defective winch. I went to hospital. I did what they told me—and this is the result.'" So he did that.
They then sent Sir Hugh Griffiths along to the hospital, and the hospital told him through the "old boy network" —saying, "Don't tell the patient"—that what had happened was that the Egyptian anæsthetist, when the patient's right arm was being set, had put pentathol into an artery instead of into a vein; and he had no idea of what had to be done when the patient collapsed. The young house doctor remembered having read an article in the Lancet about a year before saying what should be done when this happened. It was to inject something called hevrin—which he did, thereby saving the patient's life: but, unfortunately, at the expense of the left arm.
It demonstrates, if I may say so, the patient's difficulties in these cases. We could not find an anæsthetist in London who was prepared to go into the witness box and say that it was negligent to put pentathol into an artery. Sir Hugh Griffiths said so, because, as he said, the artery is at quite a different level and you can see the moment you test it that the colour of the blood is entirely different. After a couple of days in court they settled it and made up. I heard afterwards that the reason why they had
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made up was because the Medical Defence Union could not find an anæsthetist in London who was prepared to say that it was not negligence.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: We are obliged to the noble and learned Lord for giving us such an interesting bonus on that particular Amendment. In any event, I was not intending to press it. I have certainly learned a great deal about the problems of dealing with insurance companies, and in the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
LORD BESWICK: I think that this Bill has been looked at with most extraordinary care and thoroughness. I am sure that all concerned have shown remarkable stamina, not least the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I wonder whether now might be a good time to resume the House. I think the remainder of the Bill can be completed, if all would agree, on Tuesday.
House resumed.

INVALIDITY BENEFITS AND PENSIONS
LORD DRUMALBYNhad given notice of his intention to ask Her Majesty's Government: What representations they have received about, and what re-consideration they have given to, the proposals contained in paragraphs 25-27 of the White Paper (Cmnd. 4124) on Earnings-related Short-term and Invalidity Benefits dealing with Invalidity Pension. The noble Lord said: It has been mutually agreed that I should not put this Question this evening. Therefore, with the leave of the House, I shall put it down again on Wednesday.
NEW FOREST BILL [H.L.]
Referred to the Examiners.
  SEVERN BRIDGE TOLL
  SEVERN BRIDGE TOLL