Sitting of 12 January 1971

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock

ELECTION OF SPEAKER
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling)(addressing himself to the Clerk of the House, who, standing up, pointed to him, and then sat down): Sir Barnett Cocks, I have to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the resignation of the Right Hon. Horace King, lately Speaker of this House, gives leave to the House to proceed forthwith to the choice of a new Speaker.
2.35 p.m.
Dame Irene Ward: Sir Barnett, the Gracious Message from the Sovereign, delivered in another place, makes it imperative that we should now proceed to the election of a Speaker from among our number, and I therefore beg to move,
"That the Right Hon. Selwyn Lloyd do take the Chair of this House as Speaker."
The election of a Speaker is a matter of tremendous importance to the House, and I am delighted, as I am sure the
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whole House will be delighted, to recall that the conduct of our parliamentary affairs over many centuries has made our parliamentary system the envy and the pride of every country in the world.
Before I proceed to say what I want to say about my right hon. and learned Friend, I should like to put on the record, because it is important to do so, that one of the great responsibilities of a Speaker is to protect minorities in the House. This is particularly significant at this time in a very difficult world. The Speaker has not only got to protect political minorities as between Government and Opposition, but he has to safeguard the minorities within the Government party and the Opposition party. Indeed, he also has to safeguard the interests of some of those very illustrious men and women who have sat in this Chamber but have not conformed to any party or any splinter party. We have had many rumbustious Members who have found difficulty in conforming, but they have added to the character of the House and we shall always welcome them here, sure in the knowledge that the Speaker will see that their rights as a minority are safeguarded.
I have been fascinated and delighted at the interest shown by the House in the democratic procedure for the election of a Speaker. Even my worst enemy could not say that I was an automatic supporter of the Treasury Bench. Therefore, I hope that I shall be allowed to say that our

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procedure is based upon hundreds of years of tradition and that whatever the House may decide to do in the future—because we do alter procedures, and rightly so, from time to time—the alteration of a tradition should be undertaken only after very careful consideration. I do not think the House will mind my saying that.
I now wish to address myself to the actual qualities of a Speaker, which are of tremendous importance to the House. I want to deal first of all with the aspect of administration. I have observed during the time that I have been in the House of Commons that my right hon. and learned Friend has always had a wonderful reputation for negotiation in all the distinguished offices that he has held. This is tremendously important for a Speaker. Unfortunately for me, I have never been present when he has been negotiating at home or abroad, but I wish to point out that a good negotiator has clarity of expression and precision of mind. Clarity of expression and precision of mind to declare rulings from the Chair are of very great importance. These are great qualities for my right hon. and learned Friend to have if he is elected to occupy the Chair.
Before I finish my point about administration, I should like to add that the House, including many new Members, will remember that one can never argue with the Speaker. Therefore, it is all the more important that the decisions should be clear, precise and made in such a way that everybody can understand them. I believe that any Speaker who understands Erskine May is a very great man indeed.
My second point is on the question of personality. This is, of course, very important. I am sure the whole House would wish me to pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend for the modesty with which he has approached all his great positions, his lack of ever desiring to seek the limelight, and the wonderful way, when he ceased to hold high office, of helping the House in keeping it running as smoothly, fairly and justly as it is possible to do in rather difficult circumstances. I am sure this is a quality which we all appreciate.
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My real reason, on the personal side, for saying how proud I am to be able to propose my right hon. and learned Friend is that he has secured the affection of the House. This is very difficult to acquire. Affection is given to both men and women not because of position, capability, wit or brilliance; the person in the House of Commons who secures its affection is an absolutely first-class and real human being. If my right hon. and learned Friend is elected Speaker today, the knowledge that he holds the affection of the House will be of great help to him.
If my right hon. and learned Friend takes the Chair today, I shall be particularly proud and pleased in the knowledge that he has the support and affection of the House, and that, as the distinguished citizen which he already is, he will add another distinction to his high reputation by being a distinguished Speaker in what I and, I am sure, the whole House regard as the Parliament of the greatest country in the world.
There is just one other point I would like to make. In taking the Chair, although it is a great distinction and a great honour, which I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend recognises, the Speaker has to give up a lot in pursuance of the responsibilities he has accepted. He has to give up all his House of Commons friendships; he really has to isolate himself from House of Commons life. As in this speech I would like to make a little contribution myself of a creative character, I wonder whether, when we are discussing all the matters surrounding the election of a new Speaker, we could not find some way of reducing the isolation of the Speaker. This would be a great help, because the Speaker can be very lonely; he can be much away from the friendship and the affection of his parliamentary colleagues which he has previously enjoyed. If we could do something to lighten that burden, we should be taking another human step in the modernisation of our parliamentary democracy.
I was very proud to be invited to nominate my right hon. and learned Friend as Speaker, and I hope that the House will accord to him the honour which I feel is undoubtedly his and that in future he will serve, as I am sure he will, as a great and distinguished citizen

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adding to all the magnificent work he has done for the House of Commons and the country.
2.42 p.m.
Mr. Charles Pannell: I have very great pleasure in seconding the Motion that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) be called to the Chair.
The last time I followed the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) was at a great celebration of the implementation of equal pay for women in the public services—a battle in which we shared, and I pay tribute to that now. But that was at the Savoy Hotel. It was, of course, the Speaker-Elect who implemented that Measure following the decision of Lord Butler.
The hon. Lady did not always get on well with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I remember one occasion when she asked him a question. He, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave a rather frosty but flattering answer. If I remember rightly, she said, "Mr. Speaker, are you aware that I am indifferent to flattery, but sensitive to action?" I suppose that the significance of this Motion being moved by the hon. Lady is that women will get fair play under the right hon. and learned Gentleman as Speaker.
It is one of the rules that, once he is elected, the antecedents of Mr. Speaker must never be referred to, however lurid they may be. So, before the right hon. and learned Gentleman is elected, I want to say a word or two now. He has held a dazzling array of offices, including the Foreign Office and the Exchequer, and apart from that he has had a most distinguished career in peace and in war. But what brings him to our notice today is the fact that, having suffered the purge of 1962, he was brought to the leadership of the House in 1963 and had a reincarnation. He found himself no longer an aspirant for Government office but desired to be a good House of Commons man.
At that time, I was on the Front Bench for my party, dealing with accommodation and Members' facilities. I found him a most enthusiastic ally. Since then, he has served with distinction on the Select Committee on House of Commons Ser-
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vices—and people there speak glowingly of his work on behalf of Members. I know the generosity of his outlook as a trustee of the Superannuation Fund of the House—and I express the view that, as an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will if necessary twist the arm of the present Chancellor to see that Members get their due justice in the question of an increase in Members' pensions.
There is one disadvantage which the right hon. and learned Gentleman labours under. He is a lawyer—a Queen's Counsel. All the Speakers of this House, with about half a dozen exceptions, have been lawyers, but those half a dozen exceptions have been the great Speakers. So it is bad enough to be discussing next week the Industrial Relations Bill to put the trade unions in a strait-jacket. I hope we are not going to have the House of Commons put in a legal strait-jacket.
I want to express my good wishes to the Speaker-Elect and say something on which I think I will carry both sides of the House with me. I hope that the new Speaker will create a few precedents. As I said to Mr. Speaker King, no Speaker gets a footnote in Erskine May unless he creates a few precedents of his own, unless he makes a few rules himself without regard to what was done 150 years ago, ruling in the common sense of the moment and for the needs of the moment, obeying the context of "now". The Speaker must consider this with Standing Order No. 9 and when people rise to speak. I hope that the House will not plead any precedents to the Speaker if he takes upon himself the job of looking after the House of which he will be both servant and master.
I remember Mr. Speaker Hylton-Foster protesting against what he called, "The cheating point of order". I hope that, under the new Speaker, we will abolish that. It seems ripe for abolition, and I hope that we will get on to the business of the week far quicker than we do on Thursdays while Members think from their ankles on their feet what they want to discuss in future.
I join with the hon. Lady in expressing the hope that our new Speaker will not be so remote as previous Speakers have been, and that it will be the will of the House that we shall not look upon the person on whom we impose such heavy duties with the sort of restraints with

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which we surveyed Mr. Speaker when I first came into the House.
As a rule, the Member proposed as Speaker pleads his unfitness for that office. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not do so. I might remind him that, in 1801, Sir John Mitford broke with tradition by declining to declare that he lacked the necessary qualities for the office. After all, we would not be voting for the right hon. and learned Gentleman unless we thought he had these qualities. For a Speaker to say afterwards that he did not really deserve it, is, in a way, a piece of impertinence to the House. Let him come as the unopposed choice of this sovereign House of Commons.
I do not want to make this a long speech, but I want to say something in which I hope I shall carry the whole House with me. We know the onerous duties which we are laying upon Mr. Speaker-Elect. We know how difficult it will be and we know how often we have to rely not only on his judgment, but on his sense of equity and his sense of fair play, which have already been mentioned.
On behalf of the whole House, I want to say that I hope that when the time comes for Mr. Speaker-Elect to step down from the Chair, he will step down to an even greater respect and affection than the undoubted respect and affection which prompt us to send him to this highest of all offices today.
2.51 p.m.
Sir Charles Taylor: Sir Barnett, I should like to say a few words about our task of electing a new Speaker. Mr. Speaker holds the most honourable office it is possible for any commoner in this land to hold. There are many difficulties attaching to his job.
First, there is the awful job of having to learn the name and constituency of every hon. Member of Parliament. Secondly, Mr. Speaker has to be available at all times of the day or night. Thirdly, by the very nature of his high office and in the cause of impartiality he has to keep himself aloof from his fellow Members. The congenial surroundings of the Smoking Room, the Dining Room and the Lobbies are not for him. It therefore becomes a very lonely job. For a man
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who by nature is gregarious and friendly, as I believe Mr. Speaker-Elect to have been, continuous aloofness must be hard to bear.
Mr. Speaker must make decisions, sometimes very quickly, and, because he is not infallible, sometimes they may be wrong decisions. He may sometimes have to say things which are unpopular with large sections of the House. He has the advice of the learned Clerks, who deserve the highest praise for their advice and courtesy to hon. Members.
How many times have I seen an hon. Member leaving the Chamber with a horrible expression on his face and saying, "It's that old so-and-so of a Speaker! He never looks at me and never calls me." Some years ago, a new Member was heard to say this and an older Member asked him what he had done about it. For example, did he know about the green bag behind the Speaker's Chair? When the new Member said that he did not know about the green bag, he was told, "If you get a brace of pheasants and put them in the bag behind the Speaker's Chair, you may be certain that you will be called on the next occasion you rise." The poor chap had to have it explained to him later that the whole thing was meant as a joke.
As an old Member, I should like to express our sincere appreciation to the retiring Speaker. I think that he will go down in history as a good Speaker, and that is the reward for which every Speaker should wish to work.
To the new Speaker we offer our condolences for the hardships and burdens which he will have to bear on our behalf. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on the very high honour which will be his when he has been elected to this great office.
2.55 p.m.
Mr. John Pardoe: I rise not to propose another candidate, nor to attack the qualities of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirrall (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), but to express a back bencher's dissatisfaction with the way in which this election procedure has been handled.
This is not the first time that this sort of dissatisfaction has been expressed. In 1921, two hon. Members from the back benches objected in much the same terms.

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In 1959 the then Leader of the Opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, objected at some length to the way in which the matter was dealt with. Yet here we are again, and the procedure in 1971 is still the same and nothing has been done to change it.
I hope that my intervention this afternoon will at least afford an opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, or the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, standing in for the Prime Minister, to give us some indication of his intentions in the matter. Does he believe that the present procedure is adequate? Does he intend to set in motion the process by which it may be changed?
From the moment when I first turned the pages of a history book I have believed that the first parliamentary duty of back-bench Members of Parliament was to control the Executive. The House has continually failed in that rôle and has progressively surrendered to the Executive. People have been saying this for years, but that is no reason why this afternoon we should surrender again without making a protest, and that is my only reason for doing so. In the war to control the Executive, our right to elect our own Speaker was one of the most significant victories. It was a major item in the development of parliamentary democracy. How would parliamentary democracy stand if, for example, the powers within our constitution were divided thus: the House controls the Executive, the Speaker controls the House, and the Executive controls the Speaker?
It might be objected that the Speaker does not control the House, that he serves it, and so he does. But there are many instances when he has to make a choice and when he has to give Rulings, when in fact, if not in theory, he controls the House. Moreover, in so far as he is a servant, and only a servant, of the House, he ought to be, and ought to be seen to be, a servant of the whole House and of the House itself, and not of the Executive, or of the two Front Benches. Such can be the case only if the Speaker is elected in a proper democratic manner.
By far the best procedure which we could adopt would be for a system of nominations followed by a secret ballot. It might be said that if this had been done the result would have been exactly
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the same, and I do not entirely dissent from that view. But precisely the same defence could have been made, and, indeed, was made, of the old procedure for the emergence of the Leader of the Conservative Party. Can anyone seriously suggest that the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would be better today if he had emerged by the procedure which we are now currently proposing to use for the election of our Speaker than if he had been elected?
No doubt the Leader of the House will claim that he has followed precedent in all he has done. He is likely to use words similar to those which have been used in the House before; for instance, by his predecessor Mr. Chamberlain, who, on a similar occasion in 1921, said:
"In the election of every Speaker, as far back as we can go in modern times, it has been the practice of the Government of the day to ascertain, to the best of its ability, which Member of the House would be the most acceptable to the House. Having, as they think, ascertained that, the Government of the day have approached that Member with the request that he would allow his name to be submitted. In order to preserve the undoubted right of the House as against the Government and as against everyone else, the name has always been proposed on the Motion of an independent Member"—
and one cannot be more independent than the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) who made the proposal this afternoon—
"and the judgment of the House has been submitted upon it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th April, 1921; Vol. 141, c. 316.]
That is the procedure that Mr. Chamberlain set out in 1921, and I have no doubt that the Leader of the House will claim that he has operated it. He will be aware that even if he had followed that procedure in the letter and the spirit in which Mr. Chamberlain set it out in 1921, I would still have opposed it because it lacks democracy and is entirely inadequate to our purposes. Even if we were to accept that procedure as satisfactory we should still, and I do this afternoon, criticise the way in which it has been carried out in this instance.
In 1921 the then Leader of the House defended himself against charges that he had not adequately consulted the House by saying that he had appointed Lord Edmund Talbot to assertain the general sense of the House, to take soundings, to take the temperature of the House. It is hardly surprising that there were many

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Members then who did not believe that this was adequately democratic.
Where are we now in 1971? The first test which any Member of the House ought to apply to this is to ask himself: "Was I consulted? Was I asked for my views?" In the discussions that I have had I have found very few hon. Members who believe that they were consulted in any meaningful sense of the word. Were all three Whips asked to consult their party Members? Was there any meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party held to discuss the matter in advance, not after the matter had been decided? Was there any meeting of the 1922 Committee to consider the matter? Was even the executive of the 1922 Committee consulted? Such discussion as I have been able to have has led me to conclude that none of these things was done on this occasion.
Whatever information was gleaned about the matter by Members of Parliament was gleaned from the pages of the Press. It was for this reason that in the 18th December issue of the New Statesman the political correspondent, Mr. Alan Watkins, said:
"Last Thursday Mr. William Whitelaw announced to the assembled Lobby correspondents that Mr. Lloyd would shortly succeed Horace King as Speaker of the House of Commons."
In case the right hon. Gentleman protests that that is not a strictly accurate account of what he did say, perhaps he can explain how the following day, after that Lobby briefing, almost every newspaper in the country was able to announce, categorically without any reservation, that the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral would be the Speaker of this House? I hope that he will not rely on the same excuse used in 1921 to the same charge when it was said that the Press had got it all wrong and did not understand the forms and procedures of this House. The Lobby understands only too well the forms and procedures of this House, and it knew what it was told and reported accurately.
I maintain that the House was not consulted in any meaningful sense of the word. It was never asked who it wanted as Speaker, and even when two names somehow emerged, as if by magic from a hat—the right hon. and learned Member
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for Wirral and the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter)—the House was not asked which of those two it preferred. The right hon. Gentleman will doubtless protest that he consulted the Opposition Front Bench. Here as a back bencher I probably part company from the Opposition Front Bench in what I am saying. Parliamentary democracy does not reside on the Opposition Front Bench; it does not reside on the Treasury Bench; nor does it reside in some spiritual "never-never land" suspended in the either somewhere half-way between the two. It resides in this House, in the Members of this House, in the unfettered rights of individual Members to be consulted and to speak their minds on a matter of this importance.
I do not speak in personal opposition in any way to the candidature of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I have no personal animosity towards him at all, and he will have my loyal support if and when he takes the Chair. But I do believe that we ought to question whether the Speaker ought to be selected from among senior Ministers whether past or present. There are two reasons for this and I will set them out briefly.
Hon. Members: Oh!
Mr. Pardoe: I knew that this would be a somewhat difficult speech to make in the light of the desperate desire of the benches opposite to fix everything quietly and silently, and to push it under the carpet. It will not be pushed under the carpet. It will be openly discussed in the House this afternoon if I have anything to do with it.
There are two reasons why we might object to a former senior Minister—any senior Minister not just this one. First of all, the Speaker ought to be a protector of the rights of back benchers, and can a man who is imbued with the rights of Government ever throw off that mode of thinking entirely? I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me if I quote Proust in illustration. Speaking of M. de Norpois he said:
"…in the course of a long career of diplomacy, he had become imbued with that negative, methodical, conservative spirit called 'governmental', which is common to all Governments and, under every Government, particularly inspires its Foreign Office. He had imbibed, during that career, an aversion,

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a dread, a contempt for the methods of procedure, more or less revolutionary and in any event quite incorrect, which are those of an Opposition."
I do not suggest for one moment that the right hon. and learned Member is another M. de Norpois, but the objection in principle remains, and it is a very important objection to which we should continually call attention.
On this point I do not feel too unhappy. The right hon. and learned Gentleman left the Front Bench some years ago and since then has worked hard and long with considerable success to improve the lot of back benchers. Being the person he is, he is as likely to serve the interests of back benchers as anyone else.
The second major reservation I have about the appointment of a senior ex-Minister lies in the fact that he cannot fail to be a figure of controversy. That is inevitable. No one who knows this House would ever dream of saying that the fact that a Member of the House had been responsible at any time in his past career for a particular item of policy necessarily debars him from that Chair. I would not dream of saying that, and I do not for one moment raise the subject in that spirit. But if a right hon. Gentleman has been involved in what is one of the most controversial issues in modern history, if he is still a figure of controversy when he occupies that Chair—and inevitably this will be the case—then is it right that we should have a senior ex-Minister in this capacity?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is excellently well qualified to be a Speaker, but he is not the only Member who is well qualified. There are many Members on the back benches, some Members even of the Government Party, and of the Opposition Party, who could have filled this rôle. The reason why there is no alternative candidate today is the power of party in this House. This is why we have arrived at the situation where we have only one candidate. The pressures on individual back benchers not to stand are very great; they were undoubtedly very great on the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, and we all understand those pressures.
The right hon. and learned Member will therefore become Speaker, and as
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such he will have my fullest and loyal support, but I wish that he could have come to the Chair in a more democratic manner. I hope that the Leader of the House will take the opportunity to intervene this afternoon and tell us that he is prepared to set in motion processes which can change the procedures in the future and ensure that the next Speaker of this House is elected in a properly democratic manner and does not come to us by that curiously English system, dignified by the term "emergence", which is not democratic and does not defend parliamentary democracy as it ought to be defended.
3.10 p.m.
Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I agree with a tremendous amount of what the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has said.
There seems to be a certain amount of confusion about what the House can and cannot do. For instance, what rules has it to govern an occasion such as this? Two things are absolutely clear from the precedents. The first is that a Division can take place on the first nomination without any other proposition being made. There is a considerable number of precedents on this, from the election of Mr. Speaker Onslow to that of Mr. Speaker Harley. Moreover, in two of those precedents the person nominated did not even consent to his nomination and advanced excellent reasons—not just nominal withdrawal—for not being elected. Nevertheless, the House elected him on each occasion and that was why the tradition of dragging the Speaker-Elect to the Chair was more than a charade.
I have been able to find no Ruling by any Speaker and no Resolution by the House that those precedents should be overturned. We may, therefore, take it that the House possesses today the same right which it possessed then, for reasons which seemed good and adequate to it, to go into the "No" Lobby against the proposition that one of its Members should take the Chair as Speaker, without any necessity for a competing nomination to be made. We should be crystal clear about that. The Journal of the House for 10th February, 1700, sets out the matter in full in the case of Mr. Speaker Harley, as he subsequently

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became, and there has been no precedent or Ruling since then by which the House is deprived of that right.
There then comes the question: is there a principle at stake, or is there only a choice of alternative personalities? There is indeed a principle at stake. It does matter to the House, not only who the Speaker is, but how he is selected or elected. The power which a Speaker wields can have an immense influence on such diverse factors as the progress Government business and the rights of individual Members. If the Speaker always allows debates to take place under Standing Order No. 9, he can frustrate the Government's business. If he is heavy-handed in refusing applications under Standing Order No. 9, he can effectively destroy the right of the House to deal with emergencies as they arise.
The Speaker's selection of Amendments for the Report stages of Bills cannot be challenged. If he selects a few Amendments the legislation goes through quickly. If he peppers the Order paper with them it is delayed and it may never reach the Statute Book. Therefore, it cannot seriously be said that it does not matter who the Speaker is because he is, after all, advised by eminent and extremely learned Clerks.
Why did the House of Commons take such trouble to assert its own right to choose the Speaker, instead of having its Speaker chosen for it by the Executive? The fact that the Executive was then the Crown and today is the Treasury Bench is immaterial to the principle at stake. Objection was taken in 1951 and in 1959 and everybody said what a ludicrous system it was; but it has continued, and there is one way to ensure that it will not continue. That is by an adverse vote on the principle which will ensure once and for all that it will not continue, which is within the power of the House.
There are those who say that the place to utter such thoughts is not the Floor of the House, and that the time to utter them is not when it is within the power of the House to correct such abuses. Surely the place to discuss this matter is the Chamber of the House, and the moment is now. We know that, worn-out as the past processes are for the election of the Speaker, even those processes have been used in a bizarre manner. After the
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presumed outcome of today's proceedings was, I understand, announced at the two party meetings—at neither of which, as it happens, was I present because I was at a meeting with a Minister on a constituent's affairs—I asked the first senior Member of the Opposition Front Bench, a senior Secretary of State in the last Government, whom I encountered, whether he had been consulted. He replied that he had not, and that he knew of nobody who had except, presumably, his own Chief Whip. How this emergence has come about either nobody knows except those who were involved in it, or no one is prepared to say. But what we do know is that the House of Commons as a whole has had no opportunity of participating in it.
Just as everyone who becomes a Member must be prepared to serve in the Chair if that is the wish of his or her fellow Members, so it is not for an individual either to put himself forward for election to the Chair or to announce that he has withdrawn his candidature since this is a burden—and it is a heavy burden—imposed by other Members upon one of their own number. There are ample precedents for showing that the protests have been genuine and that the reluctance has not been simulated by the burden having been imposed, but a vote of the House has always been accepted by the House and by the individual upon whom it was imposed.
Therefore, the question of principle on which the House should properly divide is embodied, not in the personality whose name appears in the Motion which was so ably proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), but in the method by which it has been done so that when the Chair is occupied no one outside or inside the House can say that it has become a place-man's pew and no one can have any ground for believing that its occupant has more reason to be grateful to the Treasury Bench and to the Opposition Front Bench, than he or she has to accept the honour, duty and burden imposed by the House.
Those are the reasons why I think the House should today re-establish itself. Opportunities come, but they are not always recognised as such. They pass and the siren voices which say that next time, not this time, is the time and that some other place, but not this place, is

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the place, subtly carry the day. I hope that that will not happen today.
Leaving that point of principle, lest you, Sir Barnett, should rule, if it is within your power to rule—and it probably is not within your power to make any ruling—that there can be no Division without an alternative candidate being nominated, I nominate for the position of Speaker Sir Geoffrey Stanley de Freitas.
3.20 p.m.
Mr. William Hamilton: I beg to second the proposal that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) be the Speaker-Elect.
In my recollection, there has never been a debate like this since I first came to the House 20 years ago, and the House is the healthier for that. I hope that it is not regarded as a form of words if I say to the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) that nothing that I am about to say is in any way a reflection on him as an individual.
It is not trite to say that no Member of the House who has had experience of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, either as a Minister or as a back bencher, but particularly as a Minister in his last office, would deny that he has served the House and the country very well indeed. Every hon. Member who has spoken in this debate has spoken not out of enmity or disfavour of the right hon. and learned Gentleman but because of the procedures which have brought us to this position. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was one of the best Leaders of the House under whom I have had the privilege to serve and in view of that experience, I am completely satisfied that, under his Speakership, the rights of back bench Members will be completely safeguarded.
My purpose in rising in this debate, however, is twofold: first, as the spokesman for the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has said, to protest against the complete lack of prior consultation of back benchers, on both sides. The Leader of the House was at pains to emphasise that he had followed the traditional procedure in what he had done, and, of course, we accept that. I certainly accept it. So much the worse for the traditional procedure.
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This afternoon, we are going through the farce of pretending that this House is electing its Speaker. We all know that whatever the theory might be, the fact is that this has been fixed and decided by the two Front Benches, most of whom, particularly my own right hon. Friends, should know that nothing irks back benchers more than for them to suspect that they have been by-passed by an agreement between the two establishments. They should remember the Bill to reform the House of Lords. They never seem to learn.
Certainly in my party there was no attempt whatever to consult back-bench Members. I remember the matter being raised at a business party meeting on a Thursday night and we were shrugged off—it was nothing to do with us. They did not know who was to be the Speaker. I suspect that they did but that they did not want us to know.
However that may be, in a circumstance like this—a uniquely House of Commons matter—steps ought to be taken to call an emergency party meeting so that we might go through the process of consultation. That was not done. The discussion, such as it was, took place between the two Front Benches. I understand that two names were put to my right hon. and hon. Friends from the Front Bench on the Parliamentary Committee and that it was they who decided whom the Speaker would be.
This is a unique situation. It behoves us to press upon the Leader of the House—and this is the proper time to do it—to refer this matter to the Committee of Procedure to see whether we can devise a more democratic way of going through the process of electing a Speaker.
The second point I want to make is this. When Mr. Speaker Morrison was elected in 1951, my party objected at that time that it was a serious break with precedent, the precedent being that of electing a Speaker who had not held Ministerial office. Mr. Morrison had held six Ministerial offices before he was called to the Speakership. In the previous hundred years, only two Speakers had been Ministers—Mr. Speaker Peel in 1884 and Mr. Speaker Lowther in 1905. If and when the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral is elected, he

19
will be the third successive Conservative-elected Speaker who has been elected after having held Ministerial office.
The main reasons for electing someone who has not held Ministerial office are twofold. First, a back bencher is best able to understand and sympathise with the wishes and frustrations of fellow back benchers. He is also less likely to yield to the blandishments of Ministers. I remember Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown, when he was in the Chair, ticking off Winston Churchill as Leader of the Opposition. He did that as a back bencher. Winston Churchill could hardly believe his ears when he was put in his place by Mr. Speaker simply because he had been a back bencher.
I would gladly have moved that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) should have been the Speaker. I did my modest best to persuade him. I do not think he is present. Perhaps, at the last moment, he withdrew from the fight—it may be, promised a knighthood in the next Honours List. I do not know. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I am merely suggesting a possibility. I do not know what the objection is. It is a quite proper suggestion. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheap."] The Prime Minister went out of his way to make a statement that this would be the practice.
If that is not accepted as a possibility, the hon. Member for Burton might have been persuaded by the arguments used by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd Carpenter) when he, too, withdrew from the fight. The right hon. Gentleman said that if there were a Division in this House, and particularly between two Members of the same party, it might detract from the dignity of the holder of the office of Speaker.
That is an absurd, specious argument. No vote taken in this House on anything detracts in any way whatever from the dignity of anybody or anything in a democratic country such as ours. If there is a vote today, it will not be on the merits or demerits of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral. It will be on the procedures by which we have arrived at our decision. If and when the right hon. and learned Gentleman is elected, he will have the full support of every Member of the House. I say this without fear of contradiction.
20
There is, however, another point that needs to be stressed, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), who seconded the Motion, referred to this. I think he is probably wrong in his reference. A former Minister he said, might not be quoted once he had obtained the Speakership of this House. I remember that when Mr. Morrison was the Speaker I was taking part in a debate on new towns and methods of financing new town development corporations and I had occasion to look up the Second Reading debate on what was the New Towns Bill—in 1946, I think it was. Mr. Morrison had been a Minister and was at that time a Shadow Minister, and he spoke officially for the Tory Party and made the most extravagant accusations about the new town concept. He was standing where I am standing now. Then he became the Speaker, and I quoted what he had said, and he had to sit and take it.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wirral will, no doubt, if he is elected, be sitting in that Chair when we have foreign affairs debates in this House, and, no doubt, some of us on this side will have recourse to reminiscing and, no doubt, will bring up the part he played in 1956.
That is the danger we get into when we elect to the Speakership of this House a Member who has held a highly controversial office and engaged in highly controversial policies. He was not only engaged in that disreputable episode but he was also engaged in freezing nurses pay. The hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) referred to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's term of office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. She was a champion—she alleges that she was a champion—of the nurses. I do not know what her attitude at that time was, but certainly if any question of an incomes policy comes up within the next three or four years and the right hon. and learned Gentleman happens to be in that Chair I shall be at pains to refer to what he said on those occasions when he was saying that nurses should not have in any circumstances whatever more than 2½ per cent. [Interruption.] It is as well to say these things, and we have got to put that on record, because this House is riddled with pretence and hypocrisy.

21
I have always been an instinctive protector of dumb animals. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is no dumb animal, but he will be when he gets into that Chair, and I want to protect him. Of course, I suppose it is an inevitable thing to say upon this occasion that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will make an excellent Speaker. I thought there would be unanimous cheers at that. Everybody is expected to make an expression of that kind on these occasions, and if he does not he is regarded as boorish, and I might be if I did not do so, but I am not going to be boorish; but I beg to second the nomination of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering.
3.33 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: In accordance with the custom of the House I now submit myself to its will.
May I begin with a word of tribute to the last Speaker? His outstanding attributes were humanity and kindness and he will be a difficult man for anyone to follow. As for myself, I appreciate very much what my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) have said about me.
I have been a Member of this House for over 25 years. I have formed many friendships in it. I have a deep affection for it. It is true, as has been said, that since I was for a time the Leader of the House my main preoccupations have been the attempts to improve the methods whereby we do our business and also to better the conditions of service both physical and financial of hon. and right hon. Members. Over the past seven years a certain amount of progress has been made, but I think there is still a great
deal more to be done, and I promise that, if I am elected to the Chair, those matters still will have my anxious care and attention.
As has been said, the Chair of this House is surrounded by great traditions—of utter impartiality, respect for the rights of minorities however or wherever they may be constituted, regard for the interests of back benchers against the Executive—and I do not think that it necessarily follows that because a Speaker was formerly a member of the Executive that disqualifies him from undertaking that very great responsibility; and finally, the maintenance of the dignity and order of our proceedings.
If the House does me the very great honour of electing me Speaker, I promise that I will do my very best to preserve and cherish those traditions.
3.36 p.m.
Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: I hope the House will understand and share with me the embarrassment I feel. I was not consulted in any way by anyone who proposed my name. I ask the House, therefore, to recognise the fact that I am a supporter of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) and I shall vote for him. I hope that in these circumstances those who mentioned my name in this way will be kind enough so far as is possible to withdraw my name from the ballot.
The Question was put by the Clerk, That the Right Hon. Selwyn Lloyd do take the Chair of this House as Speaker.
The House divided: Ayes 294, Noes 55.

Division No. 53.]

AYES

[3.37 p.m.

Adley, Robert

Bishop, E. S.

Burden, F. A.

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Body, Richard

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Alldritt, Walter

Boscawen, Robert

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Bossom, Sir Clive

Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Mornay & Nairn)

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Bowden, Andrew

Carlisle, Mark

Armstrong, Ernest

Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

Ashley, Jack

Bradley, Tom

Cary, Sir Robert

Astor, John

Braine, Bernard

Channon, Paul

Atkins, Humphrey

Bray, Ronald

Chapman, Sydney

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Broughton, Sir Alfred

Clegg, Walter

Balniel, Lord

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

Cockeram, Eric

Barder, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Brown, Ronald (shoreditch & F'bury)

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Batsford, Brian

Bruce-Gardyne, J.

Coleman, Donald

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

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

Concannon, J. D.

Benyon, W.

Buck, Antony

Cooke, Robert

Biffen, John

Bullus, Sir Eric

Cooper, A. E.

Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Cormack, Patrick

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Costain, A. P.

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Crawshaw, Richard

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Raison, Timothy

Critchley, Julian

Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

Rankin, John

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

Redmond, Robert

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Judd, Frank

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack

Kellett, Mrs. Elaine

Rees, Peter (Dover)

Dean, Paul

Kershaw, Anthony

Richard, Ivor

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Kinsey, J. R.

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Kirk, Peter

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Dixon, Piers

Knight, Mrs. Jill

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

Doig, Peter

Lane, David

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Dormand, J. D.

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Rost, Peter

Douglas, Dick (strilingshire, E.)

Le Marchant, Spencer

Royle, Anthony

Drayson, G. B.

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Russell, Sir Ronald

Driberg, Tom

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Dunn, James A.

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

Scott, Nicholas

Dykes, Hugh

Lomas, Kenneth

Scott-Hopkins, James

Edelman, Maurice

Longden, Gilbert

Sharples, Richard

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Loveridge, John

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

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

MacArthur, Ian

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

English, Michael

McCann, John

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

Eyre, Reginald

Mackintosh, John P.

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Fell, Anthony

McLaren, Martin

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

Simeons, Charles

Fidler, Michael

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Small, William

Foley, Maurice

Maddan, Martin

Soref, Harold

Fookes, Miss Janet

Madel, David

Speed, Keith

Foot, Michael

Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

Spence, John

Ford, Ben

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

Sproat, Iain

Fowler, Norman

Marks, Kenneth

Stainton, Keith

Fox, Marcus

Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard

Stanbrook, Ivor

Fry, Peter

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Steel, David

Gardner, Edward

Mather, Carol

Stewart-smith, D. G. (Belper)

Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

Mawby, Ray

Stokes, John

Ginsburg, David

Mayhew, Christopher

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Glyn, Dr. Alan

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Golding, John

Mendelson, John

Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

Goodhart, Philip

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Taverne, Dick

Goodhew, Victor

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

Miscampbell, Norman

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

Gower, Raymond

Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)

Green, Alan

Money, Ernie

Temple, John M.

Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Monks, Mrs. Connie

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

Grylls, Michael

Monro, Hector

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

Montgomery, Fergus

Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

Gurden, Harold

More, Jasper

Thomason, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Tilney, John

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Moyle, Roland

Trew, Peter

Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Tugendhat, Christopher

Haselhurst, Alan

Murray, Ronald King

Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

Havers, Michael

Murton, Oscar

Urwin, T. W.

Hawkins, Paul

Nabarro, Sir Gerald

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Hay, John

Neave, Airey

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Higgins, Terence L.

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Vickers, Dame Joan

Hiley, Joseph

Normanton, Tom

Walters, Dennis

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

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Warren, Kenneth

Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

Oram, Bert

Weatherill, Bernard

Hordern, Peter

Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

Weitzman, David

Hornby, Richard

Osborn, John

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

White, Roger (Gravesend)

Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

Padley, Walter

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

Howell, David (Guildford)

Page, Graham (Crosby)

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Palmer, Arthur

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

Hunt, John

Pavitt, Laurie

Woodnutt, Mark

Hunter, Adam

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Woof, Robert

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Peel, John

Worsley, Marcus

Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

Perry, Ernest G.

Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Pink, R. Bonner

Younger, Hn. George

James, David

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Janner, Greville

Price, David (Eastleigh)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

Dame Irene Ward and

Jenkins, Rt Hn. Roy (Stechford)

Probert, Arthur

Mr. Charles Pannell.

NOES

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

O'Halloran, Michael

Allen, Scholefield

Hardy, Peter

Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

Barnes, Michael

Horam, John

Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

Barnett, Joel

Huckfield, Leslie

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Booth, Albert

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n & R'dnor)

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Iremonger, T. L.

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

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

Sillars, James

Clark, David (Colne Valley)

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Spearing, Nigel

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Stallard, A. W.

Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

Kaufman, Gerald

Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.)

Kerr, Russell

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

Kinnock, Neil

White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Latham, Arthur

Whitehead, Philip

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Evans, Fred

Maclennan, Robert

Faulds, Andrew

Marquand, David

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Forrester, John

Mikardo, Ian

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop and

Gorst, John

Ogden, Eric

Mr. William Hamilton.

Whereupon MR. SELWYN LLOYD was conducted to the Chair by MR. CHARLES PANNELL and DAME IRENE WARD.
Mr. Speaker-Elect(standing on the upper step): Before I take the Chair as Speaker-Elect, I wish to thank the House for the very great honour it has paid me by electing me to the Chair. As has been pointed out, my political past has not been entirely free from controversy. Therefore, I was not surprised that there was some controversy today. But I promise those who spoke in a contrary sense and those who voted against the proposition that I shall have no hard feelings at all with regard to that matter in the future. Thank you very much indeed.
Mr. SPEAKER-ELECT sat down in the Chair.
Then the Mace (which before lay under the Table) was placed upon the Table.
3.53 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling): Mr. Speaker-Elect, it falls to me in the absence of the Prime Minister to be the first to congratulate you on behalf of the House. I am very happy indeed to do so as an old colleague of many years' standing. In a world which is rapidly changing the office of Speaker still commands the prestige and the magic which it has enjoyed over many generations. There is no higher distinction that this House can impose—and "impose" is the right word, because the job gets no easier. There is less physical danger in-
26
volved in the office than in the past, but intellectually it is as stimulating and as challenging a calling as ever it has been. It calls for qualities of intellect, character and understanding. All Members of this House without any single exception are confident that you will conduct yourself in the Chair in the highest possible traditions of this great office.
You bring qualities deepened and strengthened by experience of high office, which give you knowledge of men and of the affairs of nations. You bring to it proven qualities of wisdom, perspicacity, endurance and humanity, all of which you will need: wisdom to understand the points of order; perspicacity to anticipate them; endurance to listen to us all; and humanity to preside over the greatest free assembly in the world.
Your qualities are not only those which you have learned and tempered in high office. You have shown clearly your attachment to the rights and the problems of backbenchers. You have been Leader of the House, a Member of the Committee of Privileges and Chairman of the Services Committee. In all these jobs you have shown your concern for the traditions, honour and standing of this House, and no less your concern for the rights and facilities of individual Members of this House. Above all, you have shown to all of us a great love of the House of Commons. Everybody here today recognises in you a friend of the House of Commons and a friend of every single one of us, one who will be impartial, tolerant but firm; one who will be devoted at all times to the highest traditions of the great office to which

27
you have now been elected. Sir, we wish you all success.
3.55 p.m.
Mr. Harold Wilson: Mr. Speaker-Elect, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends I wish to join the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in congratulating you on your election by this demanding but ever-discriminating House. It is no derogation from the compliments the House is addressing to you to say that my right hon. and hon. Friends take the view, and indeed always have taken the view—they took it in 1951, 1959 and 1965—that, irrespective of personalities, the Chair is best and most appropriately filled by a backbencher, and not by an ex-Minister. But although, as you have said, you have held the highest offices of State, this is a fact which we shall now all forget, as you, Sir, will now forget, as occupant of our Chair with the full confidence of us all.
Nor is it any derogation from the congratulations which the whole House would wish to pay to you if I say that I am sure it would be the view of the whole House that as soon as possible, now that you are firmly and unchallengeably established in the Chair, we should consider, perhaps through the Select Committee on Procedure, the machinery relating to the election of a Speaker in future. We should seek to provide a degree of consultation, the lack of which has led to perhaps some unfortunate and unhappy events this afternoon; but perhaps should also look for a procedure to enable the House when electing a Speaker in future, if this is to follow a Speaker's retirement, to do so in a more orderly and seemly manner.
Indeed, on these occasions we could perhaps allow the retiring Speaker to preside over our proceedings as happens in every municipality in the world when a mayor is elected. This might well be a solution, though I have no view on it, one way or the other. But in this modernising age we should look at this subject. If, as we all trust will not happen in your time, Sir, the Speakership might be vacant for other causes, I am sure that even then we could find a more orderly way of dealing with this question. I am sure that, with proper consultation, it would then be easier to arrange events so as to avoid the sort of happenings we
28
have seen today so that these proceedings could be improved.
These considerations do not of course arise now that the decision has been made, and made with the good will of the whole House. I am sure I speak for every hon. Member who, for reasons other than lack of confidence in you, Sir, voted against your election this afternoon. I am sure that every hon. Member who voted now fully accepts the authority, independence and impartiality with which you will conduct the affairs of this House.
It is customary on these occasions to list the qualities assumed to be necessary in a Speaker of this House. I am glad that today we have got away from the most obvious characteristics which have been quoted of every Speaker in the last 400 years, namely, total deafness and selective myopia. I have not myself noticed these qualities in you, Sir, over the years I have known you, though no doubt you will progressively and selectively develop them as occasion demands. Rather, those of us who have sat with you as Members of this House for 25 years, and indeed those who have come along since, want to underline that in voting for you today we are electing you for qualities you have so clearly shown, particularly during your period as Leader of the House—your perception of and concern for the rights of minorities and the wishes of the House as a whole and of individual hon. Members of this House. In that concern which you have abundantly shown over these past years lies the strength of our parliamentary democracy.
You have shown the same qualities and the same concern more recently in the performance of your duties as Chairman of one of the Select Committees of this House, particularly in regard to the way in which hon. Members are able to do their work in this House, both their work for Parliament and for their constituents. You have long experience of the Committee of Privileges of which, as the Home Secretary rightly said, you were a member. More than that, you were Chairman of that Committee, because I had the privilege to serve under you in that capacity in 1963–64, when you were Leader of the House.
Finally, you inherit a vast array of parliamentary conventions and precedents of which even the weighty Erskine

29
May can be only a brief summary. With your sense of Parliament, you will know when to follow those conventions and precedents, but equally you will know when the better working of the Parliament of the 1970s demands a certain, if I may use the expression yet again, "selective myopia" about precedents which have outlived their usefulness. You will know when to break with precedent.
No one will envy you one of your most onerous duties—that of selecting speakers from a list which so often far transcends the number for whom time can be found. As a Privy Councillor of long standing, as you are, you will be assailed by other right hon. Members desirous, from the weight of their experience, their innate qualities and, as is true of all Privy Councillors, their power of brevity in expression, of exercising a priority right of speaking—and, of course, as this Parliament proceeds there will be on the Government side a growing number of right hon. Gentlemen gravitating from the Front Bench to the back benches and pressing themselves upon you for selection. I am sure, Mr. Speaker-Elect, that you will be interpreting the views of the whole House if you exercise a certain discretion in not following a convention of this House—which, in any case, I understand is no longer held—by giving back benchers who are not yet members of the Front Bench an equal opportunity of selection.
This afternoon I know that the whole House will wish to join in expressing our congratulations, in expressing our confidence and, above all, in expressing our personal good wishes to you in the lonely task which you are taking up, and in expressing to you also the view that if you can find some ways of breaking that loneliness, and even removing the convention of remoteness, you will have many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on both sides who will be willing to help you to do it.
4.2 p.m.
Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Mr. Speaker-Elect, I can imagine few more embarrassing things than to have to sit and listen to a eulogy in one's lifetime, even though the facts be true, and I do not intend to extend that embarrassment for longer than just a moment. In fact, I intend to prove the accuracy of the
30
prophecy made just now by the Leader of the Opposition about the brevity of speeches by Privy Councillors.
I would, however, if I may respectfully do so, like to congratulate you very warmly on the honour which the House has conferred upon you and, if I may without sounding presumptuous, say that I congratulate you as a friend for whom I have a very great affection. I was in no doubt as to your impartiality from the experience of having you as a kindly neighbour behind me when the Conservative Party was in Opposition: indeed, one of the many disadvantages of the change of Government was that you departed from that scene to sit opposite. But I had no doubt from comments—caustic, accurate, brief but charitable—directed at both Front Benches that you had the quality of impartiality.
I knew that in one regard having been a Minister could be a disadvantage, and that knowledge came from an experience which I recently had with you in a matter relating very strictly to foreign affairs. I well remember that it was my privilege to accompany you and the Foreign Secretary from the heart of Bonn to the airport, and I am quite certain that both those distinguished companions, stripped of their Parliamentary Private Secretaries, their civil servants, their permanent advisers, their official cars, their V.I.P. treatment, had they not had a humble back bencher like myself with them, would certainly not have caught the aeroplane and probably would not have arrived at the right airport either.
You, Sir, are a lawyer, and if I may declare an interest I believe that that is potentially a very excellent training for almost any position in the realm. I have no doubt that the skill, forensic and otherwise, that you showed in the courts will enable you to show the lucidity and objectivity which is a prerequisite of every successful Speaker.
As Chairman of the Services Committee, as Leader of the House and, indeed, if I am not likely myself to be committed for contempt for disclosing what goes on in the Committee of Privilege, as a very active member of that Committee as well, you have, if I may say so, shown yourself to be first and foremost a House of Commons man with

31
an intense interest not only in the traditions of the House of Commons but in the welfare of its individual members.
Therefore, Sir, I wish you well. It might be less embarrassing to future Speakers if we could look at the procedure. Having myself set up machinery to investigate just those very processes within 24 hours of my own election as Leader of the Liberal Party—because precisely the same criticisms were levelled—I feel sure that I have done a good turn to all my successors, whoever they may be. I do therefore urge on the House the wisdom of taking that course.
In the position of Speaker one has to be, I suggest, more than judicial. It is very easy to be a judge; simply to give a judgment which the litigant has to accept or reject—and if he rejects it he then has the expense of an appeal. But I suggest that a judgment given in this House must not only be right on the precedents, but must have compassion and must have sense—and sometimes a little humour as well. Speaking for myself and my colleagues and, I think, for the whole House, we are confident that you have those qualities, and therefore it is in that spirit that I congratulate you, if I may, and wish you every good fortune in the very great, the very lonely and the very important task to which you have just been elected.
4.7 p.m.
Mr. R. H. Turton: Mr. Speaker-Elect, may I as Father of the House offer you my congratulations. Having sat beside you on this bench—and for even a longer period on a similar bench opposite—I know the high qualities you bring to that Chair. I also know, and it is even more important, your deep affection for the House.
I remember when we first met. It was at the beginning of the war, and we were both at the Staff College at Camberley. You were there as a second lieutenant. Within a very short time you became a brigadier on the staff of the Second Army in the invasion of Europe. You had profited far more than any other student at the Staff College from what you had learned there.
Equally quickly did you profit in this House. Right hon. and hon. Members
32
have spoken about the time when you held high office in the House, but what I think is more important to the Chair you now occupy is the fact that when you came into the House you were a very independent back bencher: independent in the cause of independent television; quite ready to fight your battles as an independent Member. Those are the qualities we admire. In many cases we confer an honour on a Member in making him Speaker, but in this case I believe that it is you who, by accepting this onerous burden, are conferring an honour upon the House.
This is the last occasion, Mr. Speaker-Elect, on which we can offer you advice without having to put down a Motion on the Order Paper. When Mr. Speaker King—whose Speakership I believe to have been one of the finest periods in the history of the Speakership of the House—was first appointed I offered him advice by saying that I believed that the whole House was ready to accept a greater measure of discipline from the Speaker, knowing that by the exercise of that discipline more hon. Members might be able to take part in debate. I repeat that advice to you, Mr. Speaker-Elect.
I am pleased that the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) drew attention to "phoney" points of order—a disease that has grown year by year and that has never been cured so far by any Speaker however eminent. By heredity you should be able to cure disease. As a lawyer and diplomat, even as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, the qualities you have used can be brought to cure this disease. I hope that by the time you feel you wish to lay down your Speakership this problem of "phoney" points of order will have been cured under your illustrious Speakership.
Mr. Maudling: I have to signify that it is Her Majesty's pleasure that this House should present their Speaker on this day at 5.15 p.m. in the House of Peers, for Her Majesty's Royal Approbation.
4.11 p.m.
Sitting suspended till 5.15 p.m.
On resuming—
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;
The House went:—and, having returned;
Mr. Speaker: I have to report to the House that this House has been to the House of Peers, where Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to signify by her Lords Commissioners her approbation of the choice of myself as Speaker to this House.
My first duty in the House is to repeat my respectful acknowledgements of the
34
honour it has done me and the confidence that it has reposed in me, and to renew the assurance of my entire devotion to the service of the House.

ELECTION OF SPEAKER

  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved,
  That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Six o'clock.

COUNCIL OF EUROPE CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY (UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION)
  COUNCIL OF EUROPE CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY (UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION)
  COUNCIL OF EUROPE CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY (UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION)
CABINET OFFICE CENTRAL POLICY REVIEW STAFF
  CABINET OFFICE CENTRAL POLICY REVIEW STAFF
  CABINET OFFICE CENTRAL POLICY REVIEW STAFF
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Soil Structure
  Soil Structure
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
AVIATION SUPPLY
  Concorde
  Concorde
  Supersonic Flight (Effects on Passengers)
  Supersonic Flight (Effects on Passengers)
CIVIL SERVICE
  Retirement Pensions
  Retirement Pensions
  CUBE CUTTING
  CUBE CUTTING
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  Student organizations (finance)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
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  Costs
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  Museums and Galleries (Sales)
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  Dental Students (Wastage Rate)
  The Arts Council
  The Arts Council
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  School Meals, Waltham Forest
EMPLOYMENT
  Electricity Supply Industry (Court of Inquiry)
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  Employees (Percentage at Work)
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  Industrial Relations Bill (Scottish National Party)
  Industrial Relations Bill (Scottish National Party)
  Index of Retail Prices (Increase)
  Index of Retail Prices (Increase)
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  Industrial Relations Bill (B.M.A.)
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  Egypt (British Property)
  United Nations Committee of 24
  United Nations Committee of 24
HOME DEPARTMENT
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  Delinquency (Council of Europe Resolution)
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  Select Committee on Consumer Protection
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  Radio Stoke-on-Trent
SCOTLAND
  Hunterston (Steelworks)
  Hunterston (Steelworks)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Ampicillin
  Ampicillin
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  Epilepsy
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  Road Accidents (Hospital Charges)
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  Retirement Pensioners, Waltham Forest (Supplementary Benefit)
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  Retirement Pensions
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TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Metrication (White Paper)
  Metrication (White Paper)
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  Pottery Exports
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  Damaged Aircraft (Cannibalisation)
NATIONAL FINANCE
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  £1 (Purchasing Power)
  £1 (Purchasing Power)
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  Clearing Banks' Cartel
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  Tax Frauds (Swiss Bank Practice)

Preamble
Reassembling after the Christmas Recess, the House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.

FIREARMS: SAFE KEEPING PROVISIONS
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the facts disclosed as to thefts of firearms in the Home Office Report on Firearms in Crime, they will impose more stringent conditions relating to the possession and safe keeping of every type of firearm.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, as I informed the House on December 15, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has asked H.M. Chief Inspector of Constabulary for England and Wales to review the present arrange-
2
ments for the control of all kinds of firearms, in consultation with chief officers of police. Safe keeping will certainly be considered as part of this review. Meanwhile, chief officers of police have power to attach to the grant of firearm certificates any condition necessary to ensure safe keeping.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his Answer, which is very satisfactory so far as it goes although it does not go very far, may we take it that this is an intimation that the total absence of any provisions for safe keeping in the Firearms Act is likely to be altered in the foreseeable future?
I should like to ask two other supplementary questions. The first relates only to shot-gun certificates. Is the Minister satisfied with the position in which an applicant for a shot-gun certificate, apart from giving his name, address, age and sex, is asked only whether he suffers from any mental disorder (I have yet to find someone who answers that question in the affirmative); secondly, whether he has been convicted of any offences other than trifling traffic offences; and thirdly, what is his height? Is the Minister satisfied that these are all relevant questions, and are all the relevant questions that should be asked? Thirdly, I would ask the Minister whether in this review there is any prospect that the Government will introduce a requirement that a registration book should be attached to every firearm in exactly the same way as a

3
registration book is required in the case of that other lethal weapon, the motor car?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, do not think the first part of the question is correct. The Firearms Act 1968 lays down certain rules, and in the case of rifles and pistols it is a mandatory condition that there should be attached to the certificate provisions dealing with the keeping of the firearm in a secure place, with a view to preventing access to it by unauthorised persons. That does not apply in the case of shot-guns: and it is the certification and registration of shotguns, as well as other forms of firearms, and air weapons, that the Chief Inspector has been asked to review. We shall certainly take note of the questions that the noble Baroness asked in relation to the form for shot-gun certification.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, as the Minister mentioned just England and Wales, and possibly Northern Ireland, may I ask him (and I may say that I thought about this question some time ago) whether the Inquiry into this whole matter will affect Scotland as well?
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes, my Lords; the arrangements affect Scotland, also.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government found that any felon convicted of robbery with the use of a firearm has received a certificate from the police for that firearm?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, in the case of an offence which involves the use of a firearm it is difficult to trace where the firearm comes from. It seems likely that most weapons used in the commission of crimes have not been registered at any stage. But this is a matter about which we hope to find out more information.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, on the last point, may I ask whether the Minister recalls the case of a murder in Glasgow where the weapon used was stolen from the open boot of a motor car? And would the Minister deal with my third question about the issue of a registration book.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to take note of the noble Baroness's second and third questions. A review is taking place: these are exactly the sort of detailed suggestions that should be considered.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I am obliged to the noble Lord.

MOTORING OFFENCES: AGE INFORMATION REQUIREMENT
2.40 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is a fact that the reason why persons charged with motoring offences are now required to state their ages is to facilitate identification when the issue of driving licences is centralised for the whole country; and, if so, whether they will publicise this fact, widely, in order to allay public misunderstanding and resentment.]
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right, and I am grateful to her for this opportunity to make clear that in ascertaining the date of birth—and sex—of persons who are disqualified from driving or whose driving licences are to be endorsed, the courts are simply obtaining the information which the driver licensing authority needs in order to identify the appropriate driver record. In the centralised driver licensing system now being planned the records of many millions of drivers will be kept together, and an aid to identification will be essential to ensure that endorsements and disqualifications are noted on the right record. This is in the interests of the drivers themselves and of road safety.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his reply. My Question asked whether the Government would take steps to make this more widely known. Are such steps being taken? There is misunderstanding about this procedure, and people are outraged, sometimes unnecessarily, when asked for their date of birth.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the Question asked by the noble Baroness to-day, coupled with her letter in The Times some two months ago, will no doubt help in this respect. The information is of course confidential to the court. There is one point that I can add. If you are summoned before a court you are entitled to give the date of your birth in writing to the clerk of the court. It does not have to be announced publicly.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, are we now to understand that a lady must disclose her age in front of a third party?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the third party involved need only be the police, the court and the Department.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I am sorry to pursue the matter, but may I ask whether the Minister could encourage police officers throughout the country to explain the reason for this request? What causes the misunderstanding is lack of explanation. No trouble is caused if people understand that the information is required in order to prevent people driving while disqualified.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I will bring that point to the attention of my right honourable friend.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, do Her Majesty's Government realise this is the only way of getting accurate information? It is well known that in the statistics of the Registrar General a number of ladies are 29 and 39 years of age, but comparatively few are 30 and 40 years of age.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, I thank the noble. Lord for that observation.

THE SPORTS COUNCIL
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are now in a position to
6
make a statement about the Sports Council.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, when the noble Baroness inquired last in December, I said that my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State had met the Sports Council to hear their views. The matter is still being considered. A statement will be made in due course.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I quite understand. I thank the noble Lord.

T. & A.V.R.: GROUP A EXPANSION
2.45 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: 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 progress has been achieved since the decision to increase the number of volunteers in the T. & A.V.R. to 10,000.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, the detailed implementation of the Government's proposals for expanding Group A of the T. & A.V.R., announced in the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1970, has been fully discussed with the Council of Territorial, Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Associations, and with the Associations themselves.
The new Armoured Car Regiment will consist of a headquarters, a headquarters squadron and three armoured car squadrons formed on existing Yeomanry cadres. A further 20 unit headquarters and 77 sub-units of company size for employment in an infantry role will be formed, in most cases by expanding existing cadres including those of the Yeomanry and Royal Artillery. Cadres which have not been involved in this expansion will continue on their present basis. Units will begin to form on April 1 and it is expected that all will have started to recruit by July 1.

7
Members of the Armoured Car Regiment will have the normal training obligation of 15 days annual camp and 12 days out-of-camp training. Members of the other new units will have the same annual camp obligation but their out-of-camp obligation will be for six days.
I will circulate with the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the places at which the units and sub-units involved will be formed.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, that is very valuable information. Will the noble Lord be kind enough to answer the main point of my Question; namely, whether the Government have managed to reach the target of 10,000? Unless they have done so, I am very dissatisfied with the Answer.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord misunderstands the position. I announced in the Supplementary Statement on Defence that we were proposing to recruit an extra 10,000 Territorials, and these are the plans on which the 10,000 will be recruited. Recruiting has not yet started.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, how long is to elapse before we reach the target? Does the noble Lord recognise (I am sure that he must) that because of the paucity of voluntary recruiting, and because few regiments are up to establishment, it is essential that we should have a strengthened Reserve? Is the noble Lord aware that unless we strengthen the Reserve I shall continue to pester, worry and harass the noble Lord until the Reserve is strengthened in accordance with the needs of our defence?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is a great pity that the noble Lord was not more successful in preventing noble Lords opposite from disbanding the Territorial Army. May I say to the noble Lord opposite that it would be unusual to achieve your target of recruitment before recruiting is commenced.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I have never ceased to demand a strong Reserve to assist the Regular Forces? I have done so for several years—indeed, ever since I was associated with Defence Departments. I do not care two hoots about
8
what the last Government did. I ask the present Government to face up to the situation.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I was not criticising the noble Lord's intentions; only his lack of success.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I am speaking as the honorary colonel of a T.A. Regiment which was reduced to eight men by the previous Government. Is the noble Lord aware that we are "raring to go" to recruit the 10,000 referred to? I hope that he may be able to give some assurance—or perhaps somebody else may be able to do so—that this matter will now be taken out of Party politics, so that we can get on with recruiting without fear of another axe in four or five years' time.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said. I, too, hope that we shall not have much difficulty in getting the extra 10,000 men. I of course agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has said about the need for these men.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, in order to make quite certain that we get the 10,000 men—and quickly—may I ask my noble friend whether he will consider allowing these units, which are going to be recruited first, I think, just to company strength, to wear the badges of their old county regiments which were recently taken away from them?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will look at the areas in which these regiments are going to be recruited. They are not going to be up to company strength; they are going to be to full strength. They are going to be battalions with separate companies in different areas, and we are at the moment examining the question of what these units will be called, and what cap badges they will wear.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, will the noble Lord say whether these recruits, who are now part of the plan—the cadres, and all the rest of the various units to which he referred—will have adequate training facilities, will have the necessary drill halls, and will be given up-to-date weapons?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords, Drill halls will be available; and we have

9
decided to form the units partly around drill halls which are still available. This new force will be armed with up-to-date weapons, although they will not have support weapons.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, may I ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he can fill out the details a little: for example, with names of any of the cadres?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the list of infantry cadres is very long, because there are 77 sub-units. The noble Lord might like to know about the new Armoured Car Regiment, which will be formed on cadres of the Northumberland Hussars, the Cheshire Yeomanry, the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry and the Ayrshire Yeomanry.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, it has been the case hitherto in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, for these units to be named after the clan from which they originated. Is this not a possibility?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend, and with the noble Lord who asked the Question originally, that the name of the regiment, and its traditions, are extremely important. We intend to do everything we can to perpetuate the name.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, is the Secretary of State for Defence able to publish a similar list for the infantry cadres? We are grateful for the information about the Armoured Car Regiment. Is a similar list to be published shortly about the infantry?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Following is the information referred to:
The following are the locations proposed for the new units (including detachments of sub-units). It is possible that minor changes may be necessary.

ARMOURED CAR REGIMENT
Regimental Headquarters, Headquarters Squadron and Light Aid Detachment— Tynemouth, Hebburn.
Armoured Car Squadrons—York, Northwich and Chester, Ayr.

UNITS IN INFANTRY ROLE
Northern Command
H.Q. and six sub-units—Bishop Auckland, Horden, Newcastle, Gosforth, Alnwick, Berwick, Kendal, Penrith, Scarborough, Guisborough.
H.Q. and four sub-units—York, Hull, Castleford, Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Huddersfield, Keighley, Bradford, Rotherham, Sheffield, Barnsley.
H.Q. and five sub-units—Sutton-inAshfield, Derby. Buxton, Belper, Nottingham, Mansfield, Retford, Newark, Worksop.
H.Q. and five sub-units—Northampton, Scunthorpe, Gainsborough, Grimsby, Leicester, Hinckley, Melton Mowbray, Ilkeston, Wellingborough, Corby.
Southern Command
H.Q. and four sub-units—Bury St. Edmunds, Dereham, Norwich. Braintree, Dunmow, Cambridge, Wisbech, Bedford.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Reading, Bletchley, Maidenhead, Portsmouth, Poole, Weymouth, Bournemouth.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Wandsworth, Camberwell, Hackney, Sutton, Edgware, Hounslow.
H.Q. and three sub-units—Horsham, Crawley, Folkestone, Dover, Faversham, Farnham.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Cirencester, Stroud, Gloucester, Salisbury, Barnstaple, Tiverton, Totnes.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Bath, Midsomer Norton, Falmouth, Camborne, Penzance, Yeovil.
Western Command
H.Q. and three sub-units—Preston, Ashton-under-Lyne, Liverpool, Burnley, Blackburn, Haslingden.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Clifton, Preston, Chorley, Wigan, Macclesfield, Crewe, Ellesmere Port.
H.Q. and three sub-units—Donnington, Stourbridge, Coventry, Birmingham, Stafford, Tipton, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Wellington.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Wolverhampton, Wellington, Shrewsbury, Whitchurch, Rosson-Wye, Ledbury, Worcester, Stourport, Droitwich, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
H.Q. and two sub-units—Wrexham, Prestatyn, Colwyn Bay, Caernarvon, Aberystwyth, Bangor.
H.Q. and four sub-units—Llanelli, Ammanford, Neath, Ystradgynlais, Bridgend, Abertillery, Cwmcarn, Blackwood.
Northern Ireland
H.Q. and two sub-units—Armagh, Killyleagh, Lurgan.
Scotland
H.Q. and four sub-units—Edinburgh, Penicuik, Glasgow, Galashiels, Dumfries, Hamilton, East Kilbride.
H.Q. and four sub-units*—Elgin, Keith, Buckie, Aberdeen, Falkirk, Dumbarton, Lochgilphead, Campbeltown.
* One of these sub-units will be the present company at Stornoway, whose present role will be assumed by the existing detachment at Kirkcaldy which will be expanded to rifle company establishment.

ROSKILL REPORT SUMMARY: AVAILABILITY TO PEERS
2.50 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I wonder whether I may ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House a Question regarding certain arrangements for the distribution of Papers to your Lordships. It will be recalled that on December 18 a Statement was made in another place with regard to the summarised version of the Roskill Commission Report, and the Minister concerned there said:
"I am arranging for copies of this Press release to be sent to hon. Members."
There were no arrangements, as I understand it, to make it generally available to your Lordships' House.
I am well aware that the Government Chief Whip did his best to distribute copies that were made available to him to Members of this House whom he or the other Whips knew were interested. But it really in intolerable when a statement as important as this is not available in the Printed Paper Office. [Interruption from the Public Gallery.] I hope your Lordships can hear me. I will not start participating in the "other debate". I wonder whether the noble Earl may wish to consider the Question of which I have given him Private Notice. It is unsatisfactory that this Report was not available, and it is very embarrassing for the Printed Paper Office. Perhaps the noble Earl the Leader of the House would now like to "have a go", and I will reserve further remarks.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for raising this matter, and also for his timing in that he managed to put his question at a moment which has enabled me to answer it more or less in peace. I am also grateful because it gives me an opportunity of expressing my regrets to your Lordships, for I think
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there was a slip-up here. The subject dealt with by the Report is a very important matter and one which has aroused great public interest, and copies should have been immediately available in the Printed Paper Office.
Of course, the only promise or understanding was tendered to Members of another place. Nevertheless, the digest of the Report should have been more freely available. My understanding is that the slip-up revolved round the rather technical point of who were "interested Peers". Arrangements were made, as the noble Lord has suggested, to send copies specially to Peers who were known to be interested in this matter. But, through sheer inadvertence, no central distribution point was arranged for this, and copies were not therefore in the Printed Paper Office. Copies of course are available now, and noble Lords who are interested in this matter will no doubt wish to avail themselves of that facility. But they should have been available before.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I certainly acquit the noble Earl himself, or indeed the Government Chief Whip, of any discourtesy to your Lordships' House, but it really is unsatisfactory. They are apt to forget the House of Lords. In the Press statement of January 4 it was said that a summary was released the same day to Members of Parliament and the Press—no mention of the House of Lords. Furthermore, summaries were not in fact available to Members of Parliament either, because they were sent to them by post. One had the unsatisfactory position of copies of a crucial statement being in the hands of the Lobby—and I do not criticise the Lobby's having advanced copies—and Members of Parliament and Members of your Lordships' House trying to get hold of them. I hope the noble Earl will make a protest to the Department concerned. If Departments are going to try to be clever about this, they had better be a bit cleverer still. The moment there is departure from the proper procedure, Members of your Lordships' House are going to be deprived of their rights in this matter. I am sure the noble Earl accepts this, and I am grateful to him for expressing the Government's apologies.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was Leader of your Lordships' House I think

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every Member of the House knew how jealous he was of our privileges and of our due rights, in order that we should be able to discharge our responsibilities. I should like to assure noble Lords that I am no less jealous of those rights and responsibilities, but I think the noble Lord must leave it to me how I see that they are properly discharged.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as we are on this subject, may I ask the noble Earl whether it was also sheer inadvertence that the announcement was made the day Parliament rose for the Recess? As this is a most important matter which involves both Houses of Parliament, ought it not to have been the subject of a Statement?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, this is rather a different matter. It was purely the timing of the workings of an independent Commission, and that is the answer I must return to the noble Lord. But, generally speaking, what we should do is await the full Report of the Roskill Commission before forming our considered judgments in this matter.
LORD LEATFIERLAND: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House (and I do so as one of those who have been interested in this matter) whether he will take steps to see that the full Report is available to Members of your Lordships' House well before any decision about the ultimate destination of the airport is taken? Is he aware that that full Report is likely to contain statistics about the validity of which there may be some question, and that some of us would like to have ample time in which to test those statistics?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I will certainly take due note of the noble Lord's point. I believe that already two Motions on this matter are down in the name of noble Lords, and I shall make certain that I listen to them. I do not think I shall need the promptings of noble Lords opposite to make sure that copies of the full Report are available to your Lordships.

TEACHING COUNCIL (SCOTLAND) BILL
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie).
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BRITISH COLONIAL TERRITORIES
2.58 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD rose to call attention to the problems of British Colonial territories, and the need for a full review of policy to improve the economic and social conditions of their peoples; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper. May I thank the Government Chief Whip for having made this debate possible this day, and also thank noble Lords who have shown interest in it by notifying their intention to speak.
It is not so many years ago that the Portfolio of the Secretary of State for the Colonies was one of the most important and most sought after in the British Cabinet. As a consequence of granting independence to some 700 million people since the last war and the merger of the Colonial Office into the Commonwealth Office, and then of the Commonwealth Office into the Foreign Office, the old responsibilities of the Secretary of State for the Colonies now rest with those of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. We all know and appreciate the very heavy work load and the many pressing problems that fall upon the Secretary of State. One must often give thought to how such a Minister will be able to carry out the detailed administrative decisions which are required in colonial territories. It

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was not so many years ago that there was a Colonial Service, a Service that offered to some of the best men of this country genuine and real career prospects: prospects of service to the community and, at the end of the day, the opportunities of high office. To-day the Empire has gone leaving only a few small territories for which we are still responsible, and instead of that large Service we have only a few officers overseas and we have a small Dependent Territories Division in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
It seems to me that the main purpose of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is to further the interests of this country with sovereign and independent countries, and one must question whether a small division in such an Office will be able to carry out its responsibilities to dependent peoples. I have given this matter careful thought over recent years, while I was in office and since, and my own view, which I think is shared by my colleagues with whom I served in the last Government, is that the results of merger have not as yet had any ill-effect upon our dependent territories. Certainly my right honourable friends, Mr. George Thomson and Mr. Michael Stewart, when they became Secretaries of State responsible for colonial territories, gave detailed attention to dependent territories. But I think there is a considerable risk that the interests of dependent territories could be lost. The main safeguard, if not the only safeguard, that the dependent territories would then have is Parliament itself.
There was a time when Parliament was deeply concerned in colonial measures. From time to time deep passion was to be seen in both Houses, but to-day, apart from odd Questions about individual policy in an individual territory—and again with the possible exception of Rhodesia—we hear perhaps only a whisper of colonial matters in either House. It is certainly a very long time since either House has considered what the role of this country should be as a colonial Power. Therefore I think we should remind ourselves at the outset that we are to-day a colonial Power and that we shall remain one for very many years to come, and the ultimate authority and responsibility, not only for good order
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and government but for the economic and social development of the people, rests with this Parliament. The economic problems of the Solomon Isles and the Gilbert and Ellice Isles in the Pacific are just as important to us as the problems of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and the racial tensions of Bermuda are as much ours as are those in Wolverhampton and Notting Hill.
This debate is important. It certainly gives us an opportunity to hear from the noble Marquess what the views of the new Administration are in regard to colonial territories and future colonial policies. I am certain that the noble Marquess is aware of a deep disquiet in colonial territories, first in relation to the proposed immigration policy, in which it appears that citizens of our dependencies are going to be treated in the same way as aliens. I think they also share the alarm of many that the Commonwealth appears to be at the edge of disaster. There is a real fear, particularly in the primary producing countries, that the consequences of Britain's proposed entry into the Common Market will have not only a severe impact upon their livelihoods but for some the effect of their whole economies being destroyed.
We have some 18 dependencies to-day, with some 5½ million people. There are 4½ million in Hong Kong, and at the other extreme is little Pitcairn Island where there are 120 people who rely upon the passing ship for a doctor. Except for Hong Kong most of our territories to-day have some form of democratic constitution. They have Ministers who strive against great difficulties to raise the standards of their people. By and large they are dependent upon officials who come from this country, and it is a great tribute to the Governors and other officials who serve overseas that they work so well with the colonial Ministers.
The Bahamas and Belize both have constitutions which could take them into independence, and as I understand it the date of going into independence is theirs. However, I should be grateful if the noble Marquess would confirm that his Administration support and stand by the view of the previous Administration that we should not hold back any territory that wishes to go into independence, but, on the other hand, we should not seek to push any territory faster than it wishes to go.

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In my own view the political developments within our colonial territories within the next few years will be marginal. Certainly adjustments are likely to be made, giving greater responsibility to local Ministers, but I do not myself see any major significant political change.
A policy to which I think we should be giving more attention than perhaps we have done in the past is on the improvement of the economic and social standards of the people. We have not neglected these countries; we have put considerable sums of money into them each year, but there is no doubt that more could have been done in the past. I believe this is due to the fact that our aid has been spread very thinly over independent Commonwealth countries. But with the small number of people who are left I think we should now give special attention to making a bigger impact upon these territories. If we exclude Hong Kong, with some 4½ million people who have a dynamic economy and who, I think, will be able to deal with most of their social problems, we are left with about a million people.
In the first place there are the Gilbert and Ellice Isles of some 200,000 people. This group of islands depends in the main on copra and phosphates. It seems to me that the real chances of industrial development there must be remote, in view of their isolation; they are some 2,000 miles away from Sydney, the nearest big city centre. Already there is severe unemployment and it is expected that in the next four or five years a further 800 who are to-day employed on Ocean Island producing phosphates will lose their employment. I wonder whether the noble Marquess can give us any idea of the decision of the Government on the review that was commissioned by the last Administration on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands? Further, can he say how the Government view the finances, particularly of the Gilberts, as a consequence of the loss of earnings from phosphates?
If there is isolation for the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, this is not the case with the West Indies Dependencies, the Turks and Caicos, the Caymans, the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat. These are relatively poor islands. In many of them the men have to go to neighbouring islands or to the United States, or Canada,
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to earn a living, and for that reason some of them are known as the "remittance islands". There is little change of agricultural development, but they see in surrounding islands increasing prosperity and development, particularly in the American Virgin Islands and in the Dutch and French Colonies.
There is no doubt at all that economies of these islands could be radically transformed through tourism but these are relatively small islands, and, as I understand the problem, in order to provide for a real infrastructure, for hotels and residential development, the developers will need to take considerable quantities of land as compensation for the cost of development. This will change drastically the whole racial balance in the islands. I saw one proposal which visualised some 30,000 or 40,000 Canadians, Americans and Britons going to dwell in an island with a local population of only some 7,000 or 8,000. The noble Marquess will be aware of the deep concern felt by Mr. Stoutt on some proposals that were agreed to a few years ago which created internal difficulties and possible internal security risk. Can the noble Marquess say what decision was arrived at and whether the Government were able to assist the Chief Minister in breaking that earlier agreement?
Then there are the Seychelles, those very beautiful islands in the Indian Ocean. Here again, they depend largely on copra and cinnamon, but with the advent of an international airport capable of taking the largest of aircraft there is to-day a real tourist potential. But a great deal will need to be done in technical education, particularly in the field of crafts, in order to deal with the tourist development. Can the noble Marquess say whether monies will be provided for this development in education, and can he say also what progress has been made on the major scheme of reclamation of Victoria? I should also be interested to know what progress has been made in the clearance of slums behind Victoria and their replacement by new houses. Housing in the Seychelles is a very major problem, and the scheme that was agreed by the previous Administration will make a considerable impact, if it is going forward.
Gibraltar raises a quite different issue. If it were not for the attitude of Spain,

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Gibraltar to-day would be a very thriving community. But circumstances do not appear to have changed or to be likely to change, and therefore I hope that the Government will confirm the previous Administration's pledge of full support to the people of Gibraltar. Can the noble Marquess say whether housing schemes are going forward, and also hotel development, and in particular the hostel project, which was essential if a housing scheme was to go forward. I believe that the real fear, however, in Gibraltar is the Government's new immigration proposals. The previous Administration, while they could not make a special alteration in immigration law so far as Gibraltar was concerned, were prepared to allow Gibraltarians to come into this country without hindrance. Can the noble Marquess give an assurance that this policy of free entry by Gibraltarians into this country will continue?
Much of our aid programmes in the past have been for the essential development of education and health, and these have made great impacts. But, in my view, what we should now be concentrating on is our investment in industry, if it is possible—agriculture if that is all that is available—in order to provide employment, so that the economies of the territories may eventually create their own expansion. I must say that I have profound concern about the ability of these territories unless a very special effort is made in the next few years. Money is important. I am bound to say that I have thought that even the past Administration could have found more money for some of our dependent territories, but it was always difficult to decide whether one should reduce what one was able to give by way of aid to countries like India and Pakistan. where clearly the need was greater than perhaps in the dependent territories. But I must say on reflection that these territories are our responsibility and therefore we should, even at the expense of independent Commonwealth countries, provide more for these countries for which we have this direct responsibility.
Money is not the only problem. We have in the past conducted a series of development programmes, but I should like to see placed before Parliament a comprehensive programme for all our dependent territories, for it to be costed
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both in terms of money and manpower, and for Parliament to undertake a specific commitment over five or ten years to fulfil that programme. I believe the present basis of working on three to four years, which is a stretch for the Treasury, is not sufficient, and is not adaptable to the needs of dependent territories. While money is important, I think, above all else, much more expertise and manpower overseas in the territories is needed. From time to time I became slightly cynical: one could get £4 million for Gibraltar, some £6 million for the Seychelles, but one could not help but have a feeling that the Treasury permitted such a figure, well knowing that the territory would be unable to spend that money in the given time. Few of these territories have the local planning abilities or even the supervisory resources. I should like to see a special effort in the field of manpower overseas.
Ministerial responsibility in the F.C.O. is important. In view of the fact that political development, political changes, are going to be minimal, and the real need is for economic development, I wonder whether it would not now be better if the Dependent Territories Division of the F.C.O., and the responsibilities for dependent territories, were now passed to the Minister for Overseas Aid, who is a Minister in the combined office. Such a Minister would not only be responsible for finding the money; he would have a responsibility to see that the money was spent. Another reason for such a change is this. I have always been slightly unhappy about a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for dependent territories, having also political responsibilities for the countries neighbouring the dependent territory. I think it unwise to have a Minister who is responsible—shall we say?—for Gibraltar, having political responsibility for Spain; similarly with the Falklands and the Argentine, and Hong Kong and China. Above all else—and this became very clear to me in the passing of the months—the dependencies need to feel that the Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is their friend and will fight for them, not only with other political Ministers but particularly with the different Departments who become involved in overseas affairs. They want to feel that when

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they come to London the Minister they see is a Minister who will go and fight for them.
I should like to turn briefly to Hong Kong. This is a territory which is a tremendous credit to its own people. I would pay a special word of tribute to Sir David Trench, the Governor. He has been Governor now for seven years, and he will give up office this year. Great developments have taken place. I remember defending the Hong Kong Government on education. I should have thought now, looking at the strength of the Hong Kong economy, that it would be possible for Hong Kong to adopt free compulsory education. The numbers are relatively small. I know it may be difficult to implement this, but If believe it would have a great psychological effect in the territory.
Personally I do not see any real democratic government developments in Hong Kong. The presence of China and the attitude of China will make it necessary for Hong Kong to retain very much the system of government that it has to-day. If that is so, there should be some authority who could inquire into the activities of officials in the territory. I was always a keen supporter of having an Ombudsman in Hong Kong. I took note of the views of the Governor and of the importance of UMELCO, and the creation of the city officers. I thought that if the general public had any criticism, or any doubt about official decisions, this provided a proper way of inquiry. But the more I have considered the matter and discussed it, the more I am convinced that an Ombudsman ought now to be appointed in Hong Kong; that he should be an official similar in position to that of a High Court Judge, and should have full powers of investigation. I should be happy to see such an officer working with members of the Legislative Council.
The Urban Council does present great difficulties. The area of responsibility is very narrow, and I wonder whether education could not be a subject which the Urban Council could take greater interest in and responsibility for. I should also like to develop a hobby-horse of mine, of which I have spoken on many occasions with my friends in Hong Kong. I have no doubt at all that the Legislative
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Council should have a much wider representation than it has to-day. This is very much in the hands of the Government, but I should like to see many more of the ordinary folk on the Legislative Council and fewer of the successful business and professional classes.
May I now come to the question of staff? We merged the Colonial Office into the Commonwealth Office and then into the Foreign Office, which meant that members of the home based Colonial Service had to opt to the Diplomatic Service or be returned to home Departments. Many officers felt that they could not undertake an obligation to serve overseas and, as a consequence, in the last two years we have lost many very valuable officers. When the O.D.M. has been merged with the F.C.O., I understand their officers are to be home based. Would this not now be an opportunity for inviting back into the F.C.O., into the Dependent Territories Division, those experienced colonial officers who may wish to join? The finding of experienced officers in the future is going to be very difficult. In many of our territories overseas we have to depend on contract officers. I hope that the Government will find ways and means of encouraging members of the Diplomatic Service to volunteer for service in colonial territories, clearly on the understanding that such service would in no way prejudice their future promotion within the diplomatic field. I take the view that experience of administration in colonial territories would be of great benefit to such an officer should he serve in an Embassy or a High Commission overseas.
As regards the future relationship of the home country and the colonies, as I have said the Bahamas and Belize will become independent, but it seems to me that there is no real desire for independence by the rest. Certainly, as a consequence of their neighbours' attitude, it is not an avenue for Hong Kong, Gibraltar and the Falklands. But I wonder whether there is some way by which the social stigma of colonial status could be removed. Gibraltar and the Seychelles wish to find something closer than colonial status and I do not know whether the associated States in the Caribbean could provide us with a possible answer. I take the view that the associated States in the Caribbean have been a very great

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success indeed, and we should not judge them all by the difficulties of one.
At the beginning of my speech I spoke of the importance of Parliament. To-day, there is a lack of interest in the colonies, as well as a lack of contact and knowledge. This is due mainly to the isolation of many of these territories and the distances involved for those who wish to visit them, as well as for those of their Ministers who wish to visit this country. Such visits are indeed rare and contact is minimal, but the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association has done a great deal. Members of Parliament visit those territories from time to time but at a heavy cost, particularly for the small territories. Furthermore, there is no real chance of a follow-up visit to assess the effect of changes. Hong Kong is perhaps an exception in that the Services provide annual visits, and it is possible for Members to visit there fairly frequently.
The Government could help by making more funds available to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for the special purpose of Members visiting dependent territories, but my own feeling is that that is not sufficient. What we need to-day is not only contact, but a far greater knowledge of what is going on in those territories, which is important if this Parliament is to fulfil its responsibilities to those people.
I have come to the view that there is only one way by which this aim can be achieved. I do not see Parliament finding time for regular debates, and even Question Time in another place is curtailed in regard to colonial territories matters. Therefore, I would ask the Government to consider very carefully—they should not dismiss this suggestion out of hand—whether it would be a good idea to set up a Select Committee on colonial matters on the lines of the specialist Committees in another place. Members would there have an opportunity to question officials and Ministers, and, regular visits could be made by members of that Select Committee. Also, I do not see why we could not make greater use of Service aircraft. I believe it is absolutely essential that Parliament should have greater knowledge and contact. But, above all else, we must give hope and encouragement to local Ministers
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and elected members to show them that they are not alone in trying to deal with deep and difficult problems. I am quite certain that a number of difficulties would disappear if there could be greater contact between this Parliament and the officials and elected representatives overseas.
I come back to what I said earlier. We have not neglected these territories, but we have a great deal more to do. I should like to see the Government undertake a review, perhaps bringing together the various existing development plans and those that are in the course of being prepared. There should then be a firm commitment by Parliament to carry out those policies, and to make the dependent territories something of which this country can be proud. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.36 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN): My Lords, I should like, first of all, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for introducing this Motion to-day and for giving the House an opportunity of discussing what he has described as an extremely important subject, to which Parliament may not always have given enough attention. I think we all know the noble Lord's interest in and knowledge of the subject, and I was very impressed by the thoughtfulness of his speech. I certainly undertake to read it very carefully and to consider the many points he has raised, of most of which I think I have taken note. It may be for the convenience of the House if I speak now, early on in the debate, and give your Lordships the general outline of the Government's thinking and policy towards the dependent territories. Then, if I may, at the end of the debate I shall do my best to answer some of the questions which will no doubt be raised during the debate.
Although, as the noble Lord has told us, the former Colonial Empire has now, in a sense, virtually ceased to exist, Britain is left with colonial responsibilities all over the world. To-day there remain 18 dependent territories with a total population of only five million, of whom something over four million represent the population of a single territory—Hong Kong. The populations of the other 17

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territories range from nearly 170,000 in the Bahamas, to a mere 80—that is my figure at the moment—on the island of Pitcairn. The majority of these territories comprise small scattered islands or groups of islands in the West Indies, and in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
It would be misleading to assume that, because the territories themselves are small, the problems connected with their administration and development are therefore easier to solve. The contrary is the case. Unfortunately, the diversity of their economic, social and political problems is as great as that encountered in guiding the larger former colonial territories to their present independent status. In some cases the difficulties are accentuated by the smallness of the territories concerned. The following examples illustrate the diversity and complexity of the problems confronting us. Gibraltar, British Honduras and the Falkland Islands are the subject of historic international disputes. In the New Hebrides we and France work together in a condominium. There is over-population in the Seychelles, accompanied by a high birth rate which slows the pace of economic and social development in a territory short of natural resources. In the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, with a total land area of only 383 square miles, scattered over 2 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean, difficulties of communication inhibit the development of central administrative machinery and hence any rapid improvement in economic and social conditions.
Problems of a different nature, my Lords, face the territories in the West Indies. Some of these smaller territories, lying in the shadow of the wealth of the United States, are subject to influences and pressures from the North American continent which would severely tax the political and economic expertise of much larger communities. Although the prosperity brought to some of these islands through the development and growth of the tourist industry is welcome, it has not always proved to be, as the noble Lord pointed out, an unmixed blessing. Such development has in some cases brought attendant problems in sharply raising the cost of living, to the disadvantage of the indigenous inhabitants, or creating acute shortages of labour and
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the necessity to employ immigrant labour. Against this background, the 18 remaining British dependent territories scattered around the globe cannot be regarded as presenting a single problem susceptible of solution by a single panacea. They represent 18 separate problems. The problems of each require and receive individual consideration by Her Majesty's Government.
My Lords, I do not intend this afternoon to deal with the rather special circumstances of Hong Kong, but I should like to echo what the noble Lord has said with regard to the tribute he paid to that Colony. I do not think I can let the opportunity pass without placing on record my admiration, and that of my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, of the way in which the Government and the people of Hong Kong have developed the Colony since the war and have overcome the really most formidable problems with which they have been faced; and I am sure that all thanks and tributes are due to Sir David Trench and his colleagues for the part that they have played. I will of course take into account the noble Lord's remarks concerning the Ombudsman, which is a very interesting thought, and I should like to give it some attention.
My Lords, the problems of running the remaining dependent territories have tended to be rather sharply divided between the political and the administrative. Some of the political problems are external ones involving third countries, and I think we can leave these mainly on one side this afternoon. The others are internal problems affecting the desires and aspirations of the inhabitants; and if we treat these as a special aspect of the purely administrative problems we have what amounts fundamentally to a question of management. Up to 1961 the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Colonial Office had sole responsibility for all matters concerned with the management of the dependent territories, and I think I need not go into details of the arrangements which were made in that year under which responsibility for the handling of aid and technical assistance, including the management of the Overseas Civil Service, passed largely to the Department of Technical Co-operation and later the Ministry of Overseas

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Development. The noble Lord, Lord Garner, was directly involved in the subsequent merger of the Colonial Office with the Commonwealth Relations Office, and he knows much more about the detailed effects of this decision than I do. But I think he will probably agree with me that, however desirable and necessary this merger was, the division of responsibility had the effect of complicating the management of the dependent territories, particularly since it was not always possible to make a tidy distinction between issues of "policy" and "administration".
It was partly with this sort of consideration in mind that the decision was taken last October to reunite these two aspects of policy and administration by bringing the Overseas Development Administration under the direct control of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. It is a statement of the obvious that the Secretary of State bears ultimate responsibility for the good government of the dependent territories. This responsibility is discharged in each territory by the Governor or the Administrator, working mainly through a body of dedicated civil servants. Now in most territories the vast majority of these civil servants are recruited locally, but in almost all of them the top civil servants and most of the experts, such as doctors, engineers and even teachers, still have to be provided from overseas. They come from four main sources: first, permanent and pensionable members of Her Majesty's Oversea Civil Service (in other words, the former Colonial Service), whose numbers are now inevitably diminishing; secondly, contract officers; thirdly, the Corps of Specialists, administered by the Overseas Development Administration; and then, finally, in recent years, a small number of administrators from the Diplomatic Service—and, in part answer to a question or comment from the noble Lord, it seems to us likely that the numbers in the last two categories, which include those in the Diplomatic Service, will tend to increase in the years ahead, and I quite take his point on this.
This provision of expert manpower cannot be regarded in the dependent
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territories merely as a bonus, as it can be in those independent countries to whom we make similar expertise available: it is an essential tool of government. Unfortunately, many of the territories are small and do not possess the more elaborate facilities available in the larger independent countries. To the extent to which this makes it more difficult to find suitable people to fill such posts and to provide continuity in them, we recognise that it is essential to make the conditions of service sufficiently attractive, and we hope in future to ensure that the dependent territories obtain a rather larger share of the experts available. Already, before the noble Lord tabled his Motion, steps had been taken to improve the situation. Indeed, he knows better than I that in 1969, while the Party opposite still held responsibility, two senior officials, one from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and one from the Ministry of Overseas Development, had presented a report on the future staffing of the remaining dependent territories. Following this report, in August, 1970, a new section was set up within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take over from the Ministry of Overseas Development sole responsibility for the recruitment of administrative staff for the dependent territories. This is now fully operative.
In September, the Assistant Under-Secretary of State in charge of the Dependent Territories Administration Division of the Office, in consultation with the Overseas Development Administration, began a review of other administrative problems in the light of changing requirements. In the course of this he has undertaken a comprehensive tour of the territories in the West Indies to examine conditions on the spot. This review is still not complete, but a further team, including the Assistant Under-Secretary responsible for recruitment policy in the Overseas Development Administration, is starting in February a tour of the Western Pacific dependencies in order to examine the effectiveness of the present machinery for the recruitment of expatriate civil servants, with particular reference to the terms and conditions of service now being offered; and the Hong Kong Government have put in hand a similar review of the terms and conditions of their public service.

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Meanwhile, my Lords, at home it has been decided to set up, as the noble Lord knows, a new department in the Office to deal specifically with general problems affecting the dependent territories as a whole. The final shape of the new Department is not yet settled, but it will absorb the existing section dealing with administrative staff recruitment, and in addition will deal, in consultation with the Overseas Development Administration, with terms and conditions of service for the whole body of expatriate overseas civil servants. It will also handle, inter alia, the complex economic and financial problems arising from differential rates of taxation, property development and the like. The establishment of this new Department will help to preserve the expertise inherited from the old Colonial Office, which would otherwise tend to disappear as a result of natural wastage.
It has been the policy of successive Governments to regard the reasonable needs of the dependent territories as a first charge on the aid funds which can be made available in any given year; and I should like to say something about aid. Most of the territories are small and, as I shall show, the sums already being spent on development and budgetary assistance are in some cases extremely high when measured on a per capita basis. But we propose to take this concept of giving priority to the dependent territories still further by extending it into the field of technical assistance, including the provision of expatriate civil servants, wherever vacancies cannot be filled by recruitment from within the indigenous populations.
In this way the flexible policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the development of political institutions in the dependent territories will be supplemented and reinforced by development programmes calculated to improve economic and social conditions with all possible speed. I say "with all possible speed" because the rate of social and economic growth of the remaining dependencies, as with all developing countries—and the noble Lord made a point of this—is governed as much by absorptive capacity as by the availability of capital aid. Our programmes of technical assistance of course go a long way towards increasing absorptive capacity by the provision of training facilities for indigenous people
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and in the interim by providing expatriate expertise: our capital aid is complementary to this, and in recent years the main constraint on the amount which has gone to the dependencies has been their ability to absorb it. This is a problem to which increasing attention must be given.
The 1969 figures are the latest I have for actual disbursements under the aid programme and there are some interesting points in them. In that year our total official bilateral aid disbursements were £179 million, of which over £13 million went to the present dependencies. In other words, those people living in the dependencies—far fewer than 1 per cent. of the population of the developing world—receive about 8 per cent. of our bilateral aid. Looking at the 1969 figures in another way—on an aid per capita basis—the same preference in favour of the dependencies is apparent. For example, the figure of aid for St. Helena was over £80 per head, for the Turks and Caicos Islands £69 per head, for Monserrat £22 per head, and for the Solomon Islands £20 per head, all of which are far in excess of the comparable figure for the independent countries of the developing world.
In the capital aid field I should like to acid another tribute to our predecessors in office and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in particular. There was indeed a dramatic upward rise in aid disbursements to the dependencies over the four years prior to 1969. To give one example, the capital aid for the Pacific dependencies almost doubled in that period. Present plans provide, over the coming four years, for the dependencies as a whole a further substantial increase.
In the time available to me I cannot go into all the many ways in which development has been hastened in the territories that we are considering, but one or two examples may be helpful. In the Caribbean region many of the problems and the professional skills required to solve them are similar. With this in mind the Overseas Development Administration (and its predecessor) have since 1966 maintained a British Development Division in the Caribbean, based in Barbados. The task of the division is to ensure the effective deployment of the British aid effort in the region and to provide technical assistance to the Governments of the area. It has experienced

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technical and professional staff, considerable delegated powers and widespread contacts with the island Governments and with other donors, including the newly-formed Caribbean Development Bank, also situated in Barbados. It is therefore able to take a regional view on all appropriate issues and is able to provide a continuous stream of expertise. The help of the Development Division is available to the dependencies in preparing applications for aid. devising terms of reference for technical assistance missions, briefing experts, supervising works and assignments and evaluating results.
In the Pacific, the economic problems caused by small territorial populations living in tiny communities spread thinly over thousands of square miles of ocean are enormously difficult to solve. For the past two years a specially constituted economic planning unit has helped the local Administrations to identify and examine a number of important developmental opportunities. The growth of private investment in the Solomons (particularly in timber, oil palms, and milling) holds promise for the future, and even in the far less richly endowed Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony progress is being made with the family planning programme, in coconut improvement, and in training of merchant seamen for overseas employment.
My last example is the Seychelles Islands and it illustrates particularly well how a large injection of development aid at the right time can bring dramatic changes. For this also we are deeply indebted to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. Formerly the economy of these islands has been almost entirely dependent on exports of copra and cinnamon, supplemented by capital and budgetary aid from the United Kingdom. But with the opening of the new international airport in mid-1971, the Seychelles will have the opportunity to generate, through the development of tourism, a large new source of revenue. With the aim of fostering the orderly development by private investment of a successful tourist industry, the Government have to establish the economic, social and political conditions which are necessary to attract investors.
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In consequence we are financing the building of a new port at Victoria, the capital, and the provision of adequate public services such as electricity, water, sanitation and roads. In addition, funds are being devoted to the expansion of agriculture, education and low-cost housing so that all the inhabitants of the Seychelles may be enabled to participate actively in the development of their economy and to benefit directly from it. The cost of all this is high, some £8 million over five years. But the result is worth while. The economy, once relatively stagnant, is now expanding, and the Islands now have a reasonable prospect of becoming economically viable within the next decade.
In addition to development aid and technical assistance, we shall continue to provide budgetary aid to those dependent territories whose own revenues are insufficient to cover their recurrent expenditure; that is to say, the day-to-day running costs of their administrative, economic and social services. Neither we, however, nor most of the territories concerned, like this form of aid. We do not like it for two reasons. From Her Majesty's Government's own point of view, budgetary aid represents an open-ended commitment. In common with the peoples of the underdeveloped world generally, the inhabitants of the dependent territories expect to share in the increase in world prosperity; they expect better schools, medical services, roads and administrative services generally. This is only right and proper and perfectly natural; but to the extent that the revenues of the dependent territories do not grow pari passu with the cost of those services, a growing burden of budgetary support is thrown on the British taxpayer.
From the point of view of the dependencies, budgetary aid is, by its very nature, an unproductive form of aid. Of itself it creates no new economic resources or sources of revenue. Moreover, territories receiving budgetary aid are subject to unpalatable financial controls from the United Kingdom. The degree of control has been progressively relaxed in recent years, but even so, my Lords, it tends inevitably to have an inhibiting effect on local endeavour. This tends to militate against our traditional policy of encouraging the peoples of the dependent territories, through their elected or nominated representatives, to assume increasing

33
responsibility for the conduct of their affairs. We intend, therefore, to bring budgetary aid to an end wherever possible.
This does not mean that we propose to limit the dependencies' expenditure more rigorously; on the contrary, the emphasis is on increasing their revenue. We shall assist them liberally with aid, technical assistance and also with development aid to exploit their natural resources to that end. The economic outlook for most of the remaining dependent territories has undergone a remarkable change in recent years. For example, who could have foreseen a few years ago the spectacular growth of mass tourism and the increasing demand for homes for holidays and for retirement? This has opened up exciting and interesting prospects, particularly for the Seychelles and the Caribbean dependencies, enabling them to turn their resources of sun and climate to economic advantage.
The commercial exploitation of the mineral deposits of the Solomon Islands is now beginning and the markets for their timber and copra seem likely to expand. We confidently expect that over the next decade these developments will gradually reduce, and eventually eliminate, the territories' dependence on Her Majesty's Government for budgetary support. We recognise, however, that we may need temporarily to increase the level of our support during the first critical years when the costs of development are high; but results have not yet begun to appear in the form of increased revenues.
My Lords, I am afraid that I have taken rather a long time, but I hope that what I have said indicates how very deeply Her Majesty's Government are conscious of their responsibilities towards the peoples of the dependent territories; and that they are actively and effectively engaged in improving the machinery under which the territories are administered. I should like to leave the matter there for the time being and, by leave of the House, at the end of the debate to deal with some of the more detailed points.
4.3 p.m.
EARL COWLEY: My Lords, I ask your Lordships' indulgence as I speak in this very important debate, important especially for Bermuda particularly at this time. I have lived in Bermuda for
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the past eight years and I hope that what I have to say about the economy and problems of that tiny Colony will be of interest to your Lordships. Bermuda covers an area of only 21 square miles. It has a resident population of 50,000, of which 60 per cent. is coloured. This number is increased by 400,000 tourists per annum, 90 per cent, of them coming from the United States and Canada. As well as being one of the country's greatest assets, the tourist trade is one of its greatest problems. After the 1968 riots a Committee was set up under the chairmanship of Sir Hugh Wooding, former Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, to investigate the cause of the riots. Its Report was published in 1969. On tourism it stated:
"The Bermudan living in Bermuda is encompassed always by the artificialness of holiday enjoyment."
Further, it stated:
'The place is small and all of it is geared to providing attractions such as will keep it high on the list of famous resorts. This is important and keeps the economy buoyant, but it breeds a holiday attitude towards daily life on the part of many, particularly the young."
Tourism in 1969 produced an income for Bermuda of £27½ million, a very large proportion of which was in American dollars. The tourist industry is designed to cater for the demands of the American tourist which makes the problem of economic independence worse. On the one hand, my Lords, Bermuda is a British Colony with a British-style Government and the trappings of British colonialism; yet on the other hand its economy is very closely tied to the American dollar. Until the beginning of last year there were three legal currencies in use in Bermuda—the American dollar and the Bermudan and English pounds sterling. Now there are only two—the American and Bermudan dollars which are on a par with each other.
Like a tug-of-war this Colony treasures its ties with this country in order to offset the very strong and real influence of America. Because of Bermuda's geographical proximity to America, 43 per cent. of its imports come from there; whereas the United Kingdom provides only 21 per cent. of its imports. Thus it is unlikely that Bermuda would ask Her Majesty's Government for complete independence because there is a fear of complete economic domination by the

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United States. The Colony's desire for economic independence can best be shown by its attitude to the last devaluation of the pound sterling, which was not popular and which resulted in the introduction of the split bank account system; so that any exterior sterling accounts would suffer from a future devaluation of the pound sterling.
Another very large form of income to Bermuda is from exempted companies, incorporated either by private statute or by registration. Each company bears a duty of 480 dollars per annum and a duty of a per cent. of the nominal capital. At the present time there are more than 1,700 exempted companies in Bermuda. I am sorry, my Lords, for not being more precise, but the Bermudan Government said that their statistics were rather vague in this field. These companies have written guarantees of exemption from any taxation up to and until March, 1996. In Bermuda there is no income tax, capital gains tax, taxation on profits, or death duties; but what is far more important, my Lords, is that there are no tax treaties between Bermuda and any other countries so that financial information can be exchanged. The only forms of taxation are, therefore, import duties, purchase tax and a land tax; and coupled with tourism, the total effect of this on the economy is reflected in very high retail prices.
Just before the first election under the new Constitution in 1968, Bermuda underwent its first major riots following a serious strike. The rioters were few in number and were mostly young people. They were influenced by the Black Panther Movement of the United States and a local Black Beret cadre was set up. Most of the damage in this not was done to coloured-owned property. The result of this was a major swing to the United and Bermuda Party, basically a Conservative Party, on the part of many coloured and white voters away from the Progressive Labour Party, basically a Left-Wing Party. The P.L.P. came under attack from the Wooding Committee for its part in the riots. The Committee reported that in their opinion the P.L.P.'s platform assumed a positively racial character. The Report advised urgent reforms, that there might be full racial
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integration if civil strife was not to take place again. It stated:
"Black men and women must be, and must be seen to be, in truly authoritative positions in Government, in commerce, in the hotel industry, in the professions everywhere."
The Bermuda Government have made reforms and have brought in a much tougher version of the British Race Relations Acts. The Government leader, Sir Henry Tucker and his colleagues, fervently desire an integrated society, but the problem is whether the changes will come fast enough to wipe out the concept of an antiquated white oligarchy, or whether the coloured people will not wait any longer and put the tourist industry and foreign investment in jeopardy.
One of the main areas in which racial tension has arisen is in the Bermuda police force. The Bermuda Government have tried to find coloured recruits from Bermuda and the Caribbean but with little success, due to few applications and applications from people who do not fulfil the required qualifications. So in order to keep up the numbers, it has been found necessary to recruit policemen from the United Kingdom, which has caused ill-feeling on both sides. The police force has been attacked as being biased towards the white community, and the white policemen strongly object to this unjustified slur on their integrity.
During the last two years, the problem of drug peddling has increased in Bermuda. Because of its geographical position and of the number of airlines using Bermuda as a destination or as a stopover from all over the world, there is a great danger that the Colony could become a clearing house for drugs. The authorities, both American and Bermudan, have tightened up their controls considerably, with remarkable results; but this has only pushed up the retail price of drugs in the United States. This results in high rewards for the smugglers and more people willing to take the risk of being caught. The real problem can only be solved by stopping the source of supply, which cannot be done without an international agreement. In fact, there exists a complete vicious circle.
The influence of the Black Panthers is limited at the moment. But the main problem of the Bermuda Government is: Can they solve the discontent of the young coloured community fast enough

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to pacify them, without at the same time antagonising the small but influential Right Wing section of the white community? Perhaps the 1970 disturbances show that they have not succeeded in this task; but I contend that the next elections will be the real testing ground.
In conclusion, I feel that Bermuda's problems can only be solved by the Bermudans themselves. Any solution arrived at by Her Majesty's Government would at best be only of a temporary nature.
I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government three questions, of which I have given prior notice. First, what do Her Majesty's Government feel would be the effect on trade with Bermuda and on Bermuda's trade with other Commonwealth countries and EFTA countries, if the United Kingdom joined the Common Market? Secondly, what is Her Majesty's Government's attitude to the split banking account system as practised in Bermuda? And lastly, what specifically do Her Majesty's Government think their obligations and responsibilities are to Bermuda?
4.12 p.m.
LORD GARNER: My Lords, there falls to me the extremely agreeable task, on your Lordships' behalf, of congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, on his maiden speech. It is particularly refreshing for one who has retired from the public scene, the subject of our debate this afternoon, to hear a voice so young but ready to join in this discussion. I gather that for the noble Earl the agony of a maiden speech was even more trying than usual, since it was in November last that originally he put down his name to speak in this debate. The debate was deferred twice, and therefore for the whole of the Christmas Recess he had hanging over him the worry, which ought to have been well behind him two months ago, of speaking to-day. The voice may be young, but the mind is certainly mature. I am sure that all noble Lords were impressed by the first-hand account of the noble Earl, in a speech full of common sense and valuable information, and I trust that we shall often hear him speaking to us in the future.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for initiating this debate, and for giving us an extremely useful analysis and some very thoughtful proposals,
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leading to a helpful and informative reply from the noble Marquess. It is somewhat embarrassing for me, a Cross-Bencher, to comment on speeches, first by a noble Lord who has been my Minister, and secondly, by a noble Lord who would have been my Minister, had I stayed in the Service. But I think I have detected a sufficient degree of harmony between the two Front Benches this afternoon to remove any potential awkwardness.
The obvious factor about the dependent territories which has been underlined in both opening speeches to-day, is of course that they are an incongruous lot with really very little in common. I do not want to speak in detail this afternoon about any of the individual territories, except to give one general impression about Hong Kong, which has come into the debate. I visited Hong Kong. It left a strong impression on my mind, and I should like to refer to that. It is a most extraordinary place. Statistics alone show that it has increased in population from half a million to 4 million since the war. It is calculated that since 1950 one million refugees have come in from China; and not only has Hong Kong coped with the refugees, and with many other things at the same time, but the Colony has produced an area which is thriving, flourishing and clean, with excellent public buildings and schools—possibly there could be more, but there are some very fine schools—and with an extraordinary housing development programme of which any town or city in this country could well be proud. It is calculated that no fewer than 40 per cent. of the total population are housed in Government housing. I think that this is an achievement worthy of note, and worthy of the tribute that has been paid. It is due to successive British Administrations. I would certainly like to add my name to the tributes paid to Sir David Trench, who in my experience has always shown the most unruffled determination to get on top of his problems.
No doubt the Government in Hong Kong is a somewhat strangely anachronistic authoritarianism; but it suits more or less the peculiar circumstances of Hong Kong at the present time, though I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that there is scope for some changes. When I read of the enthusiasts in the United Nations talking about

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colonialism being a crime against humanity, I wish very much that they would go to Hong Kong and see what has been done, because few such small areas in the world have made anything like a comparable contribution towards solving the refugee problem and other problems. They are taking (I think the figure is) 50 refugees every day, and have been doing so for years on end.
As for the territories in general, as I say, there can be no single big plan for all this miscellany, no overall plan, because they simply do not fit into any single pattern. Indeed, the only link between them is their historic association with Britain and also, perhaps, their uncertainty about their distant future.
Over the years many plans have been made for new arrangements, to give a new status or to devise new names. There has been talk in the past of a new statehood, implying something that was short of total sovereignty and full Commonwealth membership. There has been talk of free association. It was hoped that this arrangement would, for example, meet the criteria of the United Nations. There has been talk of integration with the United Kingdom, often with the consequence that there would be representation by the individual territory in the Parliament at Westminster. In other cases, there has been talk of federation with neighbouring territories. But all those ideas bristle with difficulties, and not one of them will work satisfactorily in every case.
In recent years we have gone pretty far down the line in accepting mini-States as independent full sovereign Powers, separate members of the United Nations and of the Commonwealth. Indeed, we have gone very much farther than anyone would have thought possible or likely, even 10 years ago. But it does not really seem to us to make sense to go farther still. A prophecy is always dangerous, bearing in mind what I have just said about how ideas have changed in the last decade, but most of the dependent territories have no hope, and few of them have any desire to stand on their own feet in complete independence. I was attracted by the idea that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, threw out for a Select Committee to focus ideas on the dependent territories. I particularly welcome this
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if it is seen as a means of keeping contact and understanding between Britain and the territories abroad. I should be a little more worried about it if it were to intervene in questions of administration—although I do not mean to imply that everything in administration is right.
I agree very much with Lord Shepherd's analysis of how things developed over recent years. Personally, I should have an open mind about his idea that the dependent territories should be linked together with the Overseas Development administration. Obviously they have to work together very closely, and are under the same umbrella, because that is so much easier. I certainly should not be one to claim that nothing needs to be done. Indeed, I feel that I have some personal responsibility, because, as the noble Marquess was suggesting, I was implicated in a number of changes in recent years which to some extent, I think, call for remedial action now; because nothing is more important in our relationships with the colonial territories than a development of close personal contacts between those in headquarters, both Ministers and officials, and perhaps others, and those in the field—or perhaps it is more appropriate to say in the bush or on the Rock. What is essential is to develop understanding, mutual trust and personal knowledge.
By and large, I think this worked well in the days of the old Colonial Office in its prime. But then what happened over the last ten years? As the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said, first there came about the creation of the Department of Technical Co-operation, as a result of which the Colonial Office lost a large portion of its staff: it became a shrinking department; and I think I remember the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, saying at that time, when he was Secretary of State, that his job was to work himself out of a job. There was no future; it attracted no new blood, and morale was sagging. So in 1966, when I was still in the Service, the old Colonial Office was merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office, and then two years later the new Department was merged with the Foreign Office.
I am not saying that any of those decisions was wrong: far from it; I think they were entirely right. But, as the

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noble Marquess reminded your Lordships, I was a party to them. All I am saying is that they had certain consequences, of which I will mention just two. For example, theoretically, in the days of the old Colonial Office the Secretary of State or the Permanent Under-Secretary could devote 100 per cent. of his time to colonial affairs. In the Commonwealth Relations Office, theoretically (obviously this is theory) one could devote, say, 10 per cent. of one's time to colonial affairs. In the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on the same analogy, theoretically one could not expect the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary to devote more than 1 per cent. of their time. Of course, that is a theoretical figure, and I am sure that the officials and Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will tell me that the percentage is much higher: no doubt it was higher in the days when Anguilla was rather a problem. But that sort of perspective shows the kind of change that has come about.
Secondly, there is the working level—and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, touched on this point, too. The Diplomatic Service officer, with his wide general experience, may be absolutely first-class, but he is a very different sort of animal from the man who has spent his whole life in the Colonial Service, who knows his territory intimately and has worked down the years with the man on the spot. That is a very different situation. I warmly welcome what the noble Marquess has told us this afternoon about the idea of establishing a new department in the integrated Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be a sort of general focus for the problems of the dependent territories as a whole. Just as I regarded some focus on the independent Commonwealth as an essential element in the merged Foreign and Commonwealth Office when that came about (and in my experience this branch has done absolutely invaluable work), so I should have thought that some similar focus for the Colonial Office was highly desirable in the integrated Department, so that one has a single point where all the knowledge and expertise from the colonial past can be brought together. This is no detraction from the complete concept of the integration of the single department. On the contrary, it streng-
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thens the merged Department by enabling it to draw on all the traditions which it has inherited.
There are two points that I should like to urge on the Government. One is that, in sprite of the exigencies of the Diplomatic Service, of which I used to be fully aware, staff should be given a reasonable spell at a time in dealing with the problems of the dependent territories, both at home and overseas, without more changes than are absolutely necessary and desirable. Secondly, I feel that staff in London, and particularly the junior staff which carry the day-to-day responsibility, should be encouraged to visit the territory for which they are responsible and really get to know its problems.
There are many ways in which we can help the dependent territories, and a number of thoughtful ones have been suggested by the mover of the Motion. The noble Marquess has told us about the plans for budgetary aid. That I would welcome warmly, because it should have the effect of enabling the territories to be more self-reliant and perhaps more go-ahead in the future. Another way in which I personally hope that the Government will show their understanding of dependent territories is while recognising that these people fall to be dealt with within the regulations under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the Government nevertheless accept that, as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, they are in rather a special category and should be treated with all the generosity that we can show. But I think that the most important thing we can do for the dependent territories is to show them that we are aware of their problems; that we are interested in their future; that we accept our responsibilities and will do all we can to help. My Lords, I believe that this debate will have served its purpose this afternoon if it can send out a message to the people in all those territories that your Lordships' House cares.
4.28 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords who have spoken in thanking my noble friend Lord Shepherd for initiating this important and interesting debate. I share the view of the noble Lord who has just spoken (although he will find that I do not reflect his attitude to Hong Kong) that it should go out to the colonies that

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this House cares. The purpose of my speech to-day is to try to tell people in Hong Kong that this House cares, but perhaps not in exactly the same way as the noble Lord who has just spoken.
Those of us who have travelled widely are fortunate people. When we visit the colonies of what was the great British Empire, we must experience a sense of guilt when we find conditions of life that are reminiscent not of this century but perhaps the last century. I quite understand that these conditions—the lack of social services and so on—often stem from the fact that there is abject poverty; that Britain cannot make an adequate contribution because of the other calls on our national purse. But that is not always the case, and I want to focus attention to-day on the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, which I believe is failing to raise the standard of living of its people in step with its increasing prosperity.
I listened to my noble friend Lord Shepherd very carefully. He described the economy of Hong Kong as "dynamic", and he is quite right. He also said, I think, that because of this they can well look after their own social services. May I, in the first place, remind the House of a certain aspect of this dynamic economy? Hong Kong is now industrialised with an economy based on exports rather than on domestic markets. It produces, in the main, light manufactures of all kinds, garments of all kinds, footwear, furniture, foodstuffs and cigarettes. I have a little magazine sent to me quite regularly in which I see advertisements for wigs and electronic equipment, including television sets, watches and clocks. Furthermore, manufacturing processes have also been introduced to local industry which enables it to compete in quality with the highly industrialised countries of the world. No longer need we say: "This only comes from the East—it is rather cheap and nasty". The quality of the manufactures from Hong Kong to-day are very high. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1968 Hong Kong's principal customers, in order of value of trade, were: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan.
Hong Kong has grown to be one of the world's largest ports. Its airport is regularly
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used by 23 airlines, and many charter planes, which provide frequent services to Europe and America. As a sign of the quality of the airport, there are night-flying facilities and a precision approach radar. The adverse balance on visible trade is offset by a favourable balance on invisible account from remittances from overseas Chinese, investment, shipping, insurance and tourism. The public revenue—and this is the important point—well exceeds public expenditure. The prosperity of Hong Kong is undoubted, yet in many respects the social conditions of the country fail to reflect its commercial success.
The noble Marquess knows that I told his Department that I was going to ask certain questions. If he has not managed to get the answers for to-day, perhaps he will let me know them in due course. I should like to have answers to most of my questions. I should like to know how far the profits stemming from these light manufactures are based on the exploitation of cheap labour—particularly that of women and girls. They, as we know, have nimble fingers, and in the field of light manufactures they can earn fortunes for their employers. It was many years ago that the industrialisation of the Far East focused attention on the exploitation of the labour of women and children. Regulations were introduced governing the conduct of industry, and the employment of woman and child labour. I should like to know how these regulations have been improved with the years; how they are enforced, and what is the size of the factory inspectorate. Can the noble Marquess also tell me what is the rate of pay in these factories, and what is the minimum age at which a young person may be employed?
I asked some questions on education of my noble friend Lord Shepherd, and I think he referred to them when he spoke just now. If I may say so, I do not think 116 found the answers very satisfactory when he gave them, and I was very pleased with what he said to-day. I certainly did not find the answers satisfactory. It seems that in this prosperous Crown Colony of ours only 51 per cent. of children are financed wholly or in part by the Government for education, and even primary education is not compulsory. As poverty, combined with

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ignorance, provides the background which brings grist to the mill of the ruthless employer of cheap labour, would the noble Marquess tell me why the Government are not ensuring that illiteracy is eradicated through compulsory education, which Hong Kong can well afford? No longer can they plead poverty. It was over 100 years ago that members of all Parties in this country denounced child labour, and denounced it strongly. We sit back to-day and talk about the prosperity of the Crown Colony, Hong Kong. I have described the conditions, and yet we permit the exploitation of little children and deny them even a primary education.
When we come to building, the noble Lord, Lord Garner, congratulated the Government on the building work in Hong Kong. I do not know how many blocks of flats the noble Lord went into. I understand that in building a block of flats the builder may incorporate factory accommodation on one floor. This enables workers to be easily available—in fact they are practically living on the premises—and leads to appalling overcrowding, with resultant health hazards. The factory is often badly lit, and women and girls are compelled to work in conditions which would not be tolerated in any Western industrialised country. It seems that owing to the nature of the work—these light manufactures—fires are very frequent, and regulations to protect the workers are either disregarded or are unenforceable.
On the question of housing, I should like to know what is being done to house the floating population. By "floating population" I mean those who live in boats. The living conditions of those people who live in boats in Hong Kong make the homes of those who reside in the Gorbals area of Glasgow luxurious by comparison. They are the worst degrading kinds of slum you can possibly imagine, in which a woman has to have a baby, bring up a family and conduct her life. What is being done about this in our prosperous Crown Colony? Are we facing up to the problem? Are we recognising that it should have priority?
I understand that the health services are handicapped by a shortage of doctors. The noble Lord mentioned that Britain
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had to help in bringing people with expertise into our dependent territories. I do not know whether this applies to Hong Kong, where there is a great shortage of doctors. I want to know what grants are provided for the poor but able student to study medicine in Hong Kong. I find it difficult to understand why the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which was inaugurated in 1963, does not have a medical faculty. Is not this a serious omission, considering that 98 per cent. of the population are Chinese? Why is English still the only official language? Surely Chinese should also be regarded as an official language in order that the graduate from the Chinese University should not be handicapped vis-à-vis the graduate from the English Hong Kong University.
My Lords, I have limited myself to just a few questions to which I should like to have an answer. I have plenty more, but time is limited. I recognise that probably the noble Lord, Lord Garner, has not made the same investigations as I have; but he is very pleased with the administration of Hong Kong, and thinks that we should be contented with its condition to-day. I should not like that attitude to go out from this House unchallenged. On the subject of the administration, I agree with my noble friend Lord Shepherd. Why, oh why, cannot we have people with knowledge, although not necessarily very wealthy, working in Hong Kong for the betterment of conditions there? Today, my Lords, I have simply directed my attention to Hong Kong, but I have no doubt that the social conditions in other colonies call for an equally careful examination, and I hope that this will proceed without further delay.
4.40 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, the dispersal of the British Empire has left, as other noble Lords have said to-day, a number of disparate colonies around the world which have very little in common with each other. But they do have certain things in common which we can consider. There are ties of tradition, ties of honour, ties of friendship between this country and them. They also have in common, quite often, because they are small and, to a certain extent, unviable countries, that they are politically embarrassing in terms of international politics and real power. For instance,

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Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and Hong Kong have all been mentioned. All these colonies have their own particular problems. They are all extremely different. I suppose one could not find two places much more different than Hong Kong, about which we have already heard much this afternoon, and Bermuda, about which we heard so ably from the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, in his informative maiden speech.
However, when we are talking about these colonies, particularly those which set real problems in the international field, we must be prepared to weigh these two things together in the same balance. We must be prepared to talk about our care for these places and what we owe to them and to their citizens; and, at the same time, we must be realistic about what is their real situation in the future of the power politics of a divided and all-too-human world. We must be prepared to realise that, sometimes, not only are we not the strongest Power which has something to do with what happens to them, but we are even the weakest. In Hong Kong, for example—obviously, on the doorstep of China, near Japan and Taiwan, with the great presence of the American fleet nearby—Britain, except in so far as it is the Government of the colony, is probably one of the weakest Powers which has to deal with the whole future of the colony. That is something which must be borne in mind when we are thinking about its future.
When we are thinking about these colonies there are three points which we can say definitely apply to each one of them and which should be the basis of any policy. The first is that we must always regard it as our duty to forward the interests and liberties of the population of dependent territories. The second is that we must have due care not to exacerbate difficult international situations. The third is that where there is a difficult international situation we must be prepared for the worst. We must be prepared for things to go wrong and, therefore, to discharge our obligations to the peoples of these territories if things do in fact go wrong.
This afternoon I want to speak for a very short time about Hong Kong. We have already heard a lot about it in this debate; we shall probably hear more.
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But it contains over two-thirds of the population of the dependent territories at the moment and has a very important role to play; therefore it is important that we should consider it. It is clearly the opinion of the Government of Hong Kong and of the powers-that-be in Hong Kong, mainly the big businesses, that it is to China's interest that Hong Kong shall continue as independent for as long as possible, because it is through Hong Kong that China obtains a very great amount of her foreign currency. Hong Kong is a great channel for the prosperity and the wellbeing of China. But also it must be acknowledged—and it has not yet been said—that very few people consider that Hong Kong will stay outside the hegemony of mainland China for ever. In fact, we are looking at a colony, at a dependent territory, which one day will come under mainland China. What we must try to do, in everybody's interest, is to see that we keep Hong Kong prosperous and dependent as long as possible, because I believe that time is on our side. I do not believe that China is going to remain a complete, hard-line pariah in the community of nations for ever. The more China can be brought into the community of nations, the more China can be humanised, the better will be the fate of the people of Hong Kong if eventually they come under her.
There are various dangers that China might wish to draw Hong Kong into her fold earlier than that. The first (and possibly the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, did not take this fully into account) is that Hong Kong will not be much use to China as independent of China unless Hong Kong continues prosperous. It is Hong Kong's prosperity which is important to China. Secondly, Hong Kong will not be tolerated by China for one moment if there is any danger of her becoming a third China. A second China on Taiwan, Formosa, is embarrassing enough for the Chinese Government. Any possibility that Hong Kong would either turn into a dependant of Formosa—and there are a great many supporters of Taiwan in Hong Kong—or achieve independent status as a kind of third China, would be intolerable to the Republic of China.
And there is a third danger, in that there is a real problem when the lease

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of the new territories falls in. It is not so much that Hong Kong would be unviable without the new territories as that an opportunity like this, which would be presented in the eyes of the world to China to take back a part of what she regards as her territory into herself, would be very difficult to resist without losing a great deal of face before the world.
From these facts—and I think they are facts—we can draw certain deductions as to what the policy of Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government should be. First of all, we must continue to draw China into the counsels of the world. We must continue to try to encourage diplomatic negotiations. We must try to obtain for China a seat in the United Nations. This is in spite of the fact that there is a slight danger that if China gets a seat in the United Nations, she may again be exposed to the kind of taunts and pinpricks by, say, the Committee on Decolonialisation, which will prompt her to feel that she can no longer afford to let Hong Kong sit as a colony on her doorstep. But, in spite of this, I am sure we must encourage China's emergence into the worldwide family of nations.
Secondly, we must ensure the economic strength of Hong Kong. Here an important point must be made. Hong Kong must either get special treatment when, as I hope, (or if, if your Lordships prefer) we go into Europe; or at the very least there must be some guarantee that Hong Kong will be represented as an underdeveloped nation, that she will come under UNCTAD. If Hong Kong were to slip those two chances—if, on the one hand, she got no special treatment at all when we go into Europe and, on the other hand, she did not have the benefit of UNCTAD, she would be in a very bad way indeed. It is up to us to see that these things do not happen.
The next point, which was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, is that we must have more welfare. I take the point very strongly that the boom in Hong Kong is not all that secure, and that there is no sin, as such, in surplus budgeting; but I do think that the Government in Hong Kong are a little too cowardly about this. In my view more money needs to go into welfare, and I particularly support the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the noble Baroness, Lady
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Summerskill, when they speak about compulsory primary education. It seems to me that the reasons which have been given for not having compulsory primary education do not stand up. We are told that it could not be enforced and that there is no point in putting it forward if it cannot be enforced. My Lords, it will not be enforced unless it is put forward, and the only way of seeing that we get universal primary education is by making it compulsory; and this will be a very good weapon indeed against the child labour about which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was speaking.
The other matter which I think should be mentioned is that we must support stronger unionisation in Hong Kong. A great deal of the trouble in Hong Kong, and the weakness of the position of the working class there, is due to there not being strong unions. I do not think that the Hong Kong Government have been particularly helpful about this matter over the last year or so.
On democracy, I believe there should be one or two changes. A little expansion of democracy would not do any harm, although, as I have already said, I take the point that we must not establish a third China, and I am sure that there is a strong case for setting up an Ombudsman in every colony, particularly in Hong Kong.
Lastly, the one essential is to have contingency plans in case all this goes wrong. There are many people in Hong Kong to whom we owe a great deal; there are many people in Hong Kong whose welfare we must look after. If I speak particularly about the Eurasian community it is not because I do not know that there are others in the same boat but because it is the Eurasian community above all which has given to Hong Kong such valuable, important and worthwhile service. These are people of whom one can say, "This is their only home and something must be done for them". I do not expect Her Majesty's Government to make public their plans for contingencies, but I very much urge Her Majesty's Government that they should have plans for helping, particularly all those with British passports, so that, should the worst happen, we do not have to go through the disgrace and the farce that we have seen in past months over the question of East African Asians.

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I do not believe that the worst will happen, but I urge Her Majesty's Government to bear in mind that we owe a lot to a great many people in these dependent territories, and, if necessary, we must be prepared to pay out and help them. This applies particularly to Hong Kong. Hong Kong asks little from us and gets less, but the time may come when Hong Kong will need our help. When we go into Europe and into international negotiations, when finally Hong Kong may have to go back to China, whenever she needs help we must be prepared to give it. I am sure that this is true of all the dependent territories, but of none more than Hong Kong.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
4.55 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE): My Lords, I beg to acquaint the House that a Commission has been issued under Her Majesty's Great Seal to several Lords therein named authorising the said Lords to declare in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty Her Majesty's approbation of the choice of the Commons of the Right Honourable John Selwyn Brooke Lloyd to be their Speaker.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
5.22 p.m.
THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS (THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE), THE EARL JELLICOE (THE LORD PRIVY SEAL), THE EARL OF LISTOWEL, THE LORD REA, and THE LORD SHACKLETON) being seated in front of the Throne, and the Commons, having been sent for, being at the Bar:
MR. SPEAKER-ELECT (THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN SELWYN BROOKE LLOYD), addressing the Royal Commissioners, said: My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that Her Majesty's faithful Commons, in obedience to the Royal
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Command, and in the exercise of their undoubted rights and privileges, have proceeded to the election of a Speaker, and that their choice has fallen on me. I therefore present myself at your Lordships' Bar and submit myself with all humility for Her Majesty's gracious approbation.
The Commission having been read:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, we have it in command from Her Majesty to declare Her Majesty's entire confidence in your talents, diligence and sufficiency to fulfil the important duties of the high Office of Speaker of the House of Commons to which you have been chosen by that House; and in obedience to the Commission which has been read, and by virtue of the authority therein contained, we do declare Her Majesty's Royal allowance and confirmation upon you, Sir, as Speaker of the House of Commons.
MR. SPEAKER: My Lords, I submit myself with all humility to Her Majesty's Royal will and pleasure, and if, in the discharge of my duties and in the maintenance of the rights and privileges of the Commons House of Parliament, I should inadvertently fall into error, I pray that the blame may be imputed to me alone and not to Her Majesty's faithful Commons.
Mr. Speaker and the Commons then retired.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

BRITISH COLONIAL TERRITORIES
5.32 p.m.
Debate resumed.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, before we were interrupted by the interesting and historic ceremony which we have just witnessed, we were devoting ourselves to the affairs of the 18 remaining dependent territories in the Commonwealth, and I felt impelled to take a brief part in this debate because I was the last Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in—I was about to say the independent Colonial Office, but perhaps the separate Colonial Office would be more strictly

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accurate. I think we must all of us have felt the disadvantage of trying to discuss the affairs of 18 territories which are so entirely disparate in their size, problems and economic, social and political conditions, and I hope very much that the Government may take very seriously into account the suggestion which was made by my noble friend Lord Shepherd that we should consider possibly having a Select Committee of persons who could pay much closer attention to the individual problems of all these separate, small dependencies.
I am sure that those of us who had the pleasure of listening to the maiden speech of the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, felt what a breath of fresh air he brought into your Lordships' House—someone who has immediate, first-hand and very thorough and detailed knowledge of one particular territory, in his case Berumuda—and how valuable it would be if, in the course of debates in both this and the other place, one could rely upon more immediate and up-to-date knowledge than I am afraid very often is the case with regard to places so many of which are far distant and not easy to reach, particularly by those who may not have the means in either time or money to make their way there. When I was Parliamentary Under-Secretary I had the privilege of going to a number of the then dependent territories, many of which, I am happy to say, are now independent; but I know enough of those which have not yet reached that stage, or which may never do so, to realise how very often they feel that their affairs are somewhat neglected. In saying that, I cast no reflection whatever either on the Ministers or on the officials concerned; it is just that, in the nature of things, when you are small arid very far away you feel that those concerned here in Whitehall or in Westminster do not always know accurately and comprehensively just what your problems may be.
I referred to those territories which may possibly never reach the status of full independence because I think we have now reached a point where very few of the 18 are likely to wish for that status. I thought it was a little odd, frankly, that the noble Marquess did not explain to the House the circumstances in which, as I understand it, the United Kingdom has withdrawn from the Committee of 24. I heard only a brief news report of
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this, but as we are discussing dependent territories I very much hope that if by leave he speaks again the noble Marquess will enlighten us as to the attitude of Her Majesty's Government to the Committee of 24 and the circumstances in which it was decided that we should withdraw. I am not for one moment criticising this decision, because I have always felt that the Committee of 24 has been one of the most unreasonable and unrealistic bodies attached to the United Nations, and I have always found it extremely irritating, quite frankly, to have ourselves belaboured and preached at by those whose intimate knowledge of the territories for whose welfare they presume to speak has often been notable by its absence.
I think we have suffered in the international sphere by some, at least, of the activities of this Committee. I would not suggest for one moment, of course, that it has been without its uses, hut, for example, the way in which it has entirely refused to take account of the circumstances of the Associated States is a case in point; and I would warmly agree with those who say that, while we have had a particular local difficulty over St. Kitts and Anguilla, this does not mean that the concept of an Associated State is not one which is sensible and fruitful in certain circumstances. As your Lordships will know, an Associated State is one for whose external affairs and defence the United Kingdom takes responsibility but which is independent in its own internal arrangements, and that this relationship is one which can be terminated at will by the State if it so wishes and thinks it is in its own interests.
But the attitude of the Committee of 24 has been that some of these small dependencies should be attached to the nearest large geographical unit regardless of whether this would be consonant with their wishes, their history or their interest. There are some obvious cases where this simply is not practical; there are others where I think most of us in this House would surely regard it as undesirable. I feel that it is quite right that successive Governments in the United Kingdom should stand very firmly by the principles which were enunciated by the last Administration, which are that we would not force any dependent territory into independence against its will, nor would we force any territory into an association

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with some other country which it did not desire. This seems to me to be a perfectly proper line of policy, and I am glad to feel that Her Majesty's present Government will follow the lines which we laid down.
There are a number of matters which have already been discussed in this debate, and I would not wish to weary your Lordships by going over them again. However, I should like to pay my own tribute to the devoted service of those who were in the Colonial Service and in Her Majesty's Overseas Service serving in the Colonies, and to echo what was said by my noble friend Lord Shepherd; that is, that if there should be opportunity, with the various reorganisations now taking place in the combined Office, those who were at one time on the staff of the Colonial Office (who were, as I know, dispersed throughout Whitehall because, very often for family reasons, they were not able to undertake unrestricted overseas service) should at least be offered a chance, where appropriate, to return if they wish. I can think of several people I had the pleasure of working with in the Colonial Office who had to go to what was then the Board of Trade or the Department of Education and Science, and so on, and I felt at the time that a great deal of valuable experience was being dissipated. I hope also that we shall have assurances from the noble Marquess about the position of the dependent territories when it comes to legislation on immigration. I appreciate that he is not in a position at this moment to go into details; but I think he should know that many of us who have a longstanding interest in the dependent territories feel that they have a very particular claim upon this country and that we expect it to be taken into account in any legislation which may subsequently be put before us.
There is also the question of their position in relation to the negotiations for entry into E.E.C. We have had this afternoon some powerful speeches on the subject of Hong Kong. I have no doubt that there may be difficulties in relation to Hong Kong; but many of us are concerned about those territories which are dependent upon sugar or other particular crops which may be affected—although most of the "sugar countries",
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if I may call them that, are now independent, among the most recent being Fiji. I had the pleasure of lunching to-day with the High Commissioner for Fiji, who assured me that the negotiations on their constitutional problems that I had to conduct were very much more difficult than those which my noble friend conducted prior to independence—and I feel a certain gratification in that.
My Lords, looking at the position of the various remaining territories, but without going into the details of too many of them, I appreciate the point made by the noble Marquess that nobody likes budgetary aid if it can be avoided. As he said, it is apt to distort the relationship between the Government here and the Government in the territory concerned and it limits the range and scope of local decisions. I was very pleased to hear the noble Marquess say that surveillance from Whitehall is somewhat less detailed than it used to be. I was always horrified at the amount of detail determined in Whitehall for far off territories whose problems were not always fully appreciated here.
While admitting that one wants to reach the point of financial independence for current expenditure as soon as possible, this leaves on one side expenditure for capital development aid and so forth. Nevertheless, one must be careful not to encourage a territory to go in for those types of development which may be remunerative but which can bring the most serious problems in their train. I refer particularly to tourism, because while the noble Marquess referred, in rather cheerful voice, to the exciting prospects for tourist development, those who have been to these territories will appreciate that while tourist development is all very well it sometimes brings in its train the most appalling social tensions and political tensions. Unfortunately, in many of these territories the social and political tensions are also racial—as the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, said about Bermuda. Jamaica is not one of the countries that we are now discussing; but I shall not forget my own shock when I went to Jamaica years ago and saw the palatial hotels, too expensive to breathe in, on the North shore and compared them with the abject poverty, not only in the slums of Kingston but in many rural areas. That is the kind of change which one would

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not wish to see repeated in some of the smaller territories.
I see that there is discussion of tourism even in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands; and we have had the Seychelles mentioned, with its new international airport. It can bring the most acute problems. More than that, it may mean that certain territories, in their anxiety to increase their economic affluence, may enter into agreements that they subsequently regret deeply. My noble friend referred to the British Virgin Islands. We should like to know just where matters now stand; because here we have an almost classic example of a very small territory possibly impelled, or partly impelled, by the American Virgin Islands—which, as we know, are rather better equipped than the British ones—to enter into agreements with the developers, which have since been regarded as being against the true interests of the inhabitants of the British Virgin Islands. They have been seeking the assistance of Her Majesty's Government to get them out of this difficulty—and this is not something which happened in the distant past; it happened in 1967.
So, with all our enthusiasm for tourist exploitation and with all our dislike of budgetary aid, I implore Her Majesty's Government not to encourage development of a nature or at a speed which can bring into territories that have not hitherto suffered from them some great social and perhaps racial difficulties. Nor should there be any encouragement for them to enter into arrangements such as we have heard of in Bermuda, agreements which do not bring very much benefit in the long run to the territory concerned but which can be of great benefit to exploiters who come from without. I trust that we may have some further reassurances on these matters.
Finally, my Lords, while I do not intend to go into the detailed affairs of all those territories in which I am very interested, it may be known to your Lordships that I have a long-standing interest in Gibraltar; and I should like to know from the noble Marquess where matters now stand. We heard a great deal last year about the "honeymoon" period; and it was suggested, I think, in October, that the honeymoon was at an end. I should be happy to know how matters now stand in Gibraltar. I should
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also like to know how Her Majesty's Government view the developments of the economic affairs of Gibraltar. There was a Beeching Plan for Gibraltar—not quite so drastic as that for British Railways but a plan which suggested that Gibraltar could within a measurable time be self-sufficient. From what I have heard, this appears not to be entirely acceptable to the people of Gibraltar—particularly in relation to the need for workers from outside the territory to be brought in to help the tourist industry. The President of the Chamber of Commerce, who is in the United Kingdom, not long ago said that the dream had developed into chaos. Perhaps he thought that it was really a nightmare. I hardly suppose it to be as serious as that; but it would be interesting and useful to know something of the present position in this particularly sensitive part of the world. If Spanish pressure has been reduced because of pressures on their own territories in North Africa, I can only say that it is time that that happened.
I should not wish to press the noble Marquess to say anything more about the Falkland Islands, but that also is a difficult area and one which has given rise to considerable headaches. I should be glad to know about the rate of progress in the New Hebrides; because the effects of the condominion in earlier days were that was the least developed and almost the least cherished of all our dependent territories. I hope very much that we have been able to resolve some of the difficulties of that rather peculiarly difficult form of government and that now we may be slightly less ashamed than, frankly, I always was, at the way in which we handled—or failed to handle—the problems of the New Hebrides. I shall be interested to hear what the noble Marquess may say about some of these matters, and I would reiterate our gratitude to my noble friend Lord Shepherd for having given us the chance to discuss them.
5.50 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I have looked forward to this debate, and with particular interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. He always speaks with the greatest sincerity, and this afternoon has certainly spoken with sincerity and ability. As a former Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the previous Government, the

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noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, made many visits overseas. He travelled extensively, but the great experience which must have come his way as a Minister is reinforced by other experiences perhaps nearly as important. For a time the noble Lord lived and worked overseas. I am sure that he found the experience and the knowledge gained through his first-hand association with people in overseas territories of value to him when he became a Minister. It is certainly of value to your Lordships' House that we should have noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who are able to speak with such experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, sought a good deal of information about the present policies of Her Majesty's Government, particularly for the betterment and well-being of the inhabitants of our remaining colonies. This I expected from the noble Lord, bearing in mind the way he conducted himself as a Minister. I am sure that the noble Lord is deeply concerned for the welfare of peoples overseas. He covered a wide canvas, referring to the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert Islands, Gibraltar and so on. I particularly liked his idea of a comprehensive five-year plan for the development of our remaining colonial territories with an opportunity to debate this in Parliament. I hope that the Government will give the most careful consideration to the noble Lord's proposals.
In the context of Hong Kong, and referring to an incident which I cannot now recall, the noble Lord spoke of the removal of the "colonial stigma". This is the only point on which I disagree with what Lord Shepherd had to say. As a former member of the Colonial Service I cannot accept that there was any stigma attached to the colonial era, but I will deal with that at the conclusion of my speech. Similarly. I did not like the words used by my noble friend Lord Lothian when he referred to the disappearance of the Empire without referring to the Commonwealth which evolved from the Empire. It may be that I am rather over-sensitive in these matters, but I feel that in this context the words used are of the utmost importance.
To put the matter in its proper perspective, I should like to touch briefly
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on the subject of aid to and development of the dependent and independent nations, because this has an important bearing economically in the terms of the noble Lord's Motion. As regards the scale of development and assistance to colonial territories, in the ten years from 1945 this amounted to £120 million. To assure the continuation of this assistance after independence, the new policy, announced in 1958, provided for making loans available for independent Commonwealth countries as well as for the colonies. Under the aid legislation enacted since the Second World War, Britain has disbursed a total of £2,400 million in aid. This is no mean achievement; but in addition, my Lords, Britain is also a major contributor to the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations. As well as providing funds, Britain provides more experts and advisers to the United Nations programme than any other member country. I understand that all this is to continue under the new Overseas Development administration. We have progressively reduced the conditions upon which development loans were originally granted, and in appropriate cases we have halved all interest due. In some cases we have dispensed with interest altogether.
I have touched briefly on the subject of aid which has been and still is a contribution to the social and economic welfare of the colonial peoples. But if aid is to succeed and to be sustained, and even increased in future, it must be understood that the provision of aid as a policy of any British Government has the support of the British people; that is to say, of the taxpayer. It is an unfortunate fact—this is my personal view—that over the past twenty years or so the British people have on occasions been the recipients of irresponsible attacks at a time when aid was being disbursed and when there were social problems in Britain which needed financial aid and which were crying out for a solution. Housing is but one of the many examples which could be quoted. I am of opinion that attacks made on us by some coloured leaders of emergent nations, their distortion of our past association with them and the questioning of our motives during the colonial era have been triggered off in many cases by extreme Left-wing speeches made in this country.

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My Lords, after serving for thirty years in the Colonial Service I must say that I never thought I should see that happen. If during that time there had been any question in my mind about the sincerity of British policies, or the justification for them, I could never have been as happy among people overseas as I was; and to-day I should not have the privilege of the friendship of many of those people. Of course we have to understand that speeches attacking us and which are made on occasion by coloured leaders from overseas are possibly for home consumption and do not necessarily reflect the private opinions of the speakers. And so, my Lords, I would make a plea for tolerance: that we should understand the position of the overseas leaders in this connection. But I cannot be tolerant about irresponsible speeches made in this country impugning former motives and policies to which I have given a lifetime of service. I say this to-day because the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, refers in his Motion to
"the need for a full review of policy …
As sincere as I believe the noble Lord to be, I think that if there were to be any review great care would have to be exercised; and certainly we should proceed on the record of our past and not allow it to be distorted. If we are to get matters into the right perspective we must stop, or at least answer, such distortions when we meet them. If we do that, and I believe it is right that we should do so, we shall regain not only respect at home but also something which is of equal importance, respect overseas. With this established and for the reasons I have given, I venture to see not only a better future for the colonial territories and emergent nations but also a strengthening of the ties which all of us wish to see.
6.0 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, this Motion unites two fundamentally distinct propositions, each with fundamentally different arguments, into one argument to increase our aid to the dependent territories. Supporters of this Motion believe that we should maintain our links with the dependent territories for the same reason as they argue for the maintenance of the Commonwealth. They start with that proposition. They then argue in favour of an aid policy with the same
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reasons as they would argue for an aid policy for the emergent countries. I would argue that the proposition that we should maintain our existing links with dependent territories just as they are is no longer a correct policy, and that the aid to them should not be considered outside the total aid policy to all emergent countries. Therefore, I shall devote my speech to attacking one of the assumptions on which the terms of this Motion is based.
I shall make only one remark on the question of giving aid to a special degree to dependent territories. I think that we should look at what is happening in other fields. In the field of Commonwealth trade, undoubtedly the tendency is towards the establishment of an equal footing for Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries. In the last part of the 1960s we supported at Geneva, at UNCTAD, a move for what was rather clumsily called the non-discriminatory preferential treatment for developing countries. The Commonwealth is also likely to lose preferential treatment in immigration. I believe that, in keeping with these tendencies, aid to Commonwealth dependent territories should be considered according to whatever general principles are used with regard to developing countries as a whole and should not be accorded priority for the simple reason alone of their dependent relationship to us. Therefore, the arguments for aid, the amount, the form it takes and the distribution of it, would better be advanced and opposed in a debate on our policy of aid alone. I do not propose to say anything more about aid, but since some of my arguments would apply equally to the Associated States as well as to the dependent territories, I shall be drawing some examples from those territories, even though they are not explicitly mentioned in the terms of the Motion.
I should like to recall a recent occasion when the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, was speaking in this House. In the Defence debate on November 5, he was arguing against the Government's proposals to have a permanent base in Singapore. He used a convincing argument. It was an argument of principle. It was a radical argument. He sought to undermine the whole basis of the Government's

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policy. It was also an intelligent argument—indeed, it was one of the most intelligent arguments I can remember from the noble Lord. He said two things. He asked, in the first place, whether the Government could be really sure that in the event of their being needed, British troops would not become involved in internal security operations; and he argued, in the second place, that if an attack had to be met from outside, the relatively small force would either have to be withdrawn or be reinforced on a massive scale.
Now what is the difference between that situation, where we assume peace-keeping responsibility in a part of Asia, and the situation we are discussing to-day, where we assume responsibility for in some cases defence and external affairs only and in other cases internal affairs as well, in a host of islands and territories scattered throughout the world? How is it possible to base the argument for opposing a British presence in Singapore on the arguments which the noble Lord used and yet continue to support the arrangements we have with these dependent and Associated Territories? The assumption of responsibility in both cases is the same. Even the token show of force is the same, though in this case the force has often perforce to be a travelling show.
There is a small Army garrison in Honduras. There are Royal Engineers and aircraft in Anguilla. There are two frigates, some helicopters and a detachment of Royal Marines "operating" (in the words of the 1970 Statement on the Defence Estimates) in the Caribbean. There is an ice patrol ship which goes down for the summer season to the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic. There are some Royal Engineers on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and on the Solomon Islands. And so on.
It would be a mistake to assume that our intention to defend them is only formal. In 1968, in a debate in this House on the Falkland Islands, one of the Ministers then responsible, who happened by a coincidence to be the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said this:
"I did in fact say that so long as the sovereignty of the Falklands resided with Britain their defence was our responsibility and that responsibility we should discharge."
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So we are apparently ready to go to war—or so some people believe, or at least some people say in public that they believe for territories some thousands of miles away from us, when the territories are without value to us and might, without our support, be without value to their present inhabitants.
If one believed that there was less likely to be a need for defence in these territories than in the case of the Far East of Asia, I think this would be a dangerous belief. Régimes change, and change even drastically. Power shifts from one group to another in a country, and relative power changes between one country and another. New groupings are attempted; secessions are attempted. Even the mood of the same Government may change. All these things can be expected to happen. It is impossible to predict the variety of situations in which we could feel obliged to defend other countries.
Let us remember the curious situation of Anguilla. In that case, we were responsible only for defence and external affairs. I should like to quote paragraph 146 of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry which says:
"Associated States, it is said, are in exclusive charge of their internal affairs and Britain's responsibility for their defence and external affairs does not extend to intervention in any controversy over a domestic political issue. This raises the delicate question—when, if ever, does an internal affair cease to be exclusively an internal affair and become an external affair or partially so? What if a change of Government is promoted by subversion from abroad? What if the Government is overthrown by force of arms imported by a small but resolute group? Are external affairs involved if action is taken which threatens or breaks up the integrity of an Associated State? The permutations are many. And they give rise to serious issues."
Involvement, even where we have only external responsibility, goes deeper than the matter of defence or of dealing with the problems of federation. We stretch our imagination beyond the point of realism in order to try to believe that the territories may become more self-supporting. We are made to look ridiculous; as we were made to look ridiculous in the case of Anguilla precisely because this was an imperial action without relation this time to any need of our own.
Why do we run these risks? Is it for economic or for commercial reasons?

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These territories, as we have heard this afternoon, are perpetually expensive. In virtually no case do we have vital or substantial trade with them. We shall hardly benefit from the economic prosperity to which some of them may finally attain. Do we do it to have them in the sterling area?—perhaps one day for our middle class to have a British holiday in the sun, from a country still beset by balance of payments problems? Plainly not, it is not essential for a member of the sterling area to be a member of the Commonwealth. Is it for strategic reasons? Though some of these islands may be well placed now, deterrent warfare lies surely with submarines, with longer range missiles, or even with the use of space, not with strategic islands. Even those that are well placed will become quickly useless, as some others once did when sail gave way to steam. Defence will become a neighbourhood matter, or in the case of world defence, for groups of Powers or for giant Powers. At any rate, our lingering pretension to a global role must, I believe, be absolutely abandoned, for in reality we have almost abandoned the readiness to make the commitment that the role demanded.
These reasons are not the answer. We maintain this relationship because we simply do not know how to get rid of the problem; and we do not know how to get rid of the problem because we dare not do anything which the inhabitants of those places say they do not want us to do. That is the long and the short of it. Do they want independence? If they want independence, they can have it, because it is our policy to give them what they say they want. If they want us to continue a pledge to protect them, and support them to an economic level which they will never otherwise be able to reach in the places that they inhabit, we will agree to this because it is our policy to do whatever they ask us to do.
If our policy was to become, as I believe it should become, one of disengagement, then it would make some sense to start with commitments from which it is easiest to disengage, in particular those to the Associated States where we are responsible for the external affairs only. As the noble Baroness, Lady White, made plain, the agreements are terminable freely by either party. So why should we interpret that to mean that
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we should wait for the other party to wish to terminate it? I would certainly not suggest that this is a policy which should be adopted with brutal suddenness, nor that it should necessarily be applied in all cases at the same time; and perhaps there may even be good reasons for not disengaging at all in some cases. I do not suggest that this should be done without consulting the wishes of the inhabitants: merely that their wishes should cease to be paramount. I suggest only that we should have a general goal, and that that should be disengagement.
In the cases of clearly dependent territories it is more necessary to distinguish between different examples. The most familiar perhaps are Hong Kong, the Falklands and Gibraltar. They have in common the unfortunate fact that they belong geographically—I repeat, geographically—to other countries. Of the three., Hong Kong I believe alone will solve itself. I believe that Hong Kong continues to exist by virtue of the tolerance of China, a tolerance which is based partly on usefulness; that its connotation to the British people is primarily as an economic and commercial unit, and that its economic future must belong to Asia.
The Falklands and Gibraltar are the most difficult of all the cases. They are difficult because unquestionably there exists an emotional claim on them by the people of this country. On the face of it, it is difficult to understand this emotional solidarity in face of the different characteristics of the peoples of these two territories as between each other, and as between the peoples of the territories and the people of this country. I believe that the explanation lies in the identity of the two countries that lay claim to them. Both of them are Catholic and Spanish speaking. There has been a tradition of imperial enmity between us and the old Spanish bloc which is almost as it comprehensible to our traditions as China, and I believe that our support for these two territories is only explicable in terms of a continuance of this political polarity. Our powerful demands for sovereignty over Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands are the last concrete expressions of a cultural protest.
I would respect these emotional demands. I think that we must simply bide time. The picture will change if Spain wishes to become a modern country

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and a partner in a modern Europe. The picture will change if we join Europe, and if they join Europe. The picture will change if Argentina establishes a Government that in time we are able to accept as being a popular Government. In the meantime, a policy of combining negotiations with Spain and Argentina with an obstinacy over principles of sovereignty seems to me correct, provided that in the process we do not persuade ourselves that our present position has to be the final solution.
I should not like it to be inferred from the arguments that I have used that in my opinion all the territories should be shed from us. Perhaps there may be reasons of proximity for maintaining our ties with Bermuda, if Bermuda wants them; there may be reasons of history for keeping St. Helena, and of profit for keeping the British Antarctic Territory. I only argue that the selection should depend on the political facts of the present and not those of the past.
There will be protests that an abandonment of the principle of choice by the inhabitants is inhumane. But this principle of humanity that will be invoked is simply a mask for our inhibition from taking the initiative. There are desperate areas ignored in other developing countries in order that areas within the Commonwealth should be considered simply because they are within the Commonwealth area. It will be protested that some of the communities may not survive. Well, I doubt whether we can force communities to survive if modern conditions make it unrealistic for them to do so. I strongly doubt if the Gilbert and Ellice Islands can be integrated as a single community into a modern world with our help alone.
There will be protests that some will be defenceless. Well, there are other countries which are realistically defenceless from their neighbours, yet are independent, or are forced by a recognition of this defencelessness into pacts or groupings that are more dependable or realistic than any that we can offer. We must discover that by commanding that tradition be observed we may be forcing others (even if only by the bribery of economic aid) into being the victims of our own illusions.
6.19 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I propose to refer entirely to Gibraltar, for, like the noble Baroness, Lady White. I have a long-standing interest in and affection for the Rock and its people. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in his interesting opening speech made two important points. One was that the Minister responsible for Spain should not also be responsible for Gibraltar. The other excellent suggestion, as I thought, which was supported by the noble Baroness, Lady White, was that a Select Committee should be set up with regard to colonial matters. I think that such a Select Committee could provide a most desirable form of direct political access to Westminster and its Members, for elected members of dependent territories such as Gibraltar and others.
Now I should like to turn to the Constitution of Gibraltar. If I may call it such, I would term it "the 1969 Shepherd Constitution". I would say to the noble Lord opposite that, on the whole, I think it is a reasonable Constitution, though perhaps not so reasonable or workable as the Lansdowne Constitution; but I will leave it at that. I think, though, that friction could—I repeat "could"—arise from the anomalies which are created by the Dispatch of May 23, 1969, which accompanied the Constitution, and which may be found in the Gibraltar Gazette. It is interesting that this Dispatch is not included in the Gibraltar Constitution Order 1969 which is available in this country. I am wondering why it is not, because it is an interesting document. At this point I should like to stress very much indeed that remarks that I make are in no way intended as a criticism of the present Governor, Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Varyl Begg, who is certainly doing his best to interpret the Constitution as liberally as possible.
To return to the Dispatch which, in effect, represents instructions to "a Governor" on how to interpret or implement the Constitution, certain anomalies exist. For instance, Section 49(1) says, under the heading "Consultation with Gibraltar Council":
"Subject to the provisions of this section the Governor shall consult with the Gibraltar Council in the formulation of policy and in the exercise of all powers conferred upon him by this Constitution or any other law."

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Then, on page 3 of the Dispatch, referring to the Governor's responsibilities, one reads:
"Although the Governor has this responsibility, Section 49 of the new Constitution provides machinery under which such matters may continue to be discussed as appropriate with Ministers in the Gibraltar Council."
Do not the words "as appropriate" mean that the Governor has the power to debar any discussion on any topic?
At page 4 of the Agreed Communiqu· on the Gibraltar Constitutional talks of July 24, 1968, we find the following words:
"Decisions of the Council of Ministers will take effect unless the Governor requires that any particular decision should be referred to the Gibraltar Council on the grounds that it is within the scope of the matters for which he is executively responsible or closely concerns those matters."
Does this not mean, in effect, that a Governor can forbid any discussion in the Council of Ministers?—for any matter (if so required) can be deemed to be closely concerned with, or to overlap or to appear to overlap. I am referring to domestic and non-domestic matters.
I turn now to page 4 of the Dispatch which reads as follows:
"Civil servants will work to the Deputy Governor in respect of matters which remain within the direct responsibility of the Governor. In respect of defined domestic matters, which are the responsibility of Ministers, the civil servants concerned will work direct to the Ministers responsible. But when and where matters arise which overlap or appear to overlap both fields, there will need to be direct contact between the civil servants concerned and the Deputy Governor."
Does this provision not place a civil servant in an invidious position? Is the civil servant required to go through the Minister concerned regarding matters which overlap or appear to overlap; or does "direct contact" in effect mean that whatever a Minister may discuss with him can cause the civil servant to report to the Deputy Governor?
I think it is an important point because it can debar (shall we say?) discussion on certain important matters between a Minister and his civil servants. The Minister may feel: "Here is a matter on which I should like to seek his advice", but he may hesitate to do so because the civil servant could find himself in a position whereby he would have to report directly and immediately to the Deputy Governor.
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Turning now to page 5, we find that the Communiqu· says:
"The Commonwealth Office shall arrange for an expert team to visit Gibraltar to advise on the administrative arrangements needed to implement the merger of the legislative council and the city council."
Would my noble friend not agree that possibly the time has come for some management consultants to be sent out to Gibraltar for a few days with a view to bringing about a high wage and high productivity society on the Rock? For instance, they could consider the streamlining of the departmental structures in the processes of government for greater speed and effectiveness. They could also consider the improvement of productivity in administrative services, public works and municipal services. Perhaps they could also consider the question of the raising of the level of managerial skills. I believe I am right in saying that the Conservative Party in 1969–70 engaged a firm called P.A. International Management Consultants Limited to conduct research into the mechanisms of government and ways of streamlining the Civil Service structure. I am wondering, my Lords, whether, in effect, a similar survey could not be undertaken in Gibraltar.
Regarding economic development, I believe Ministry of Defence expenditure represents 60 per cent. of the economic structure of Gibraltar, while the private sector represents the balance of 40 per cent. As one cannot foresee that the Ministry of Defence expenditure will increase over the years, I therefore feel that there is a strong case for doing what we can to assist the private sector if one wishes to see an increasingly self-sufficient and self-supporting economic future for Gibraltar. This private sector lives mainly off the port, tourism and trade. Therefore, for Gibraltar's wealth to increase it has to become a communication centre by sea and by air, since by land it is now isolated by the Spanish frontier blockade, as was stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. As at the moment air communications or civil aviation is not a defined domestic matter under Section 55 of the Constitution, would it not be desirable to have in Gibraltar a committee or council similar to the regional advisory committees which are referred to in the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960, Section 5(2)(h), which would be consulted by the Air Transport Licensing Board, as required?

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I should like to quote from this Act, which says:
"Without prejudice as aforesaid, the Minister may by regulations make provision …for the setting up of regional advisory committees for the purpose of advising the Board on matters relating to their functions under this Act with particular regard to the circumstances and requirements of particular areas, …"
As Gibraltar is in a cabotage area, I think there may be grounds for setting up a committee which would be consulted by the A.T.L.B.
On March 26 last, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, speaking for Her Majesty's Government (I am quoting from col. 1498 in Hansard) said:
"New services by a United Kingdom airline that were duly licensed by the Air Transport Licensing Board would be welcomed by Her Majesty's Government, who would also be pleased to see new services in Gibraltar by foreign airlines that were operated within the ambit of the United Kingdom's various bilateral air service agreements."
That, I think, is encouraging. That was said on March 26 last year. I should like to ask my noble friend what is the present position, and whether Her Majesty's Government have had any talks with the Portuguese Government with a view to implementing the possibilities as laid down in the Treaty series, Cmd. 8597 of 1952, which allows for an air service to operate between Gibraltar and Lisbon. I would say that I consider that Gibair could very usefully operate their Viscount, especially with a view to filling in hours on a yearly basis, between Gibraltar and Lisbon. I should like to remind the House, if I may, that the Dispatch to which I have referred considers, generally speaking (on page 3), matters which clearly affect the economy of Gibraltar, as matters of domestic concern.
However, Gibraltar Ministers would thus appear to be responsible for the ends (shall we say?), yet not the means of achieving these ends, for they cannot either determine or control the pattern of air communications on which so much of the economic growth of Gibraltar depends. This question of Gibraltar is a highly important one. I am sure that the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, will feel, as did the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that we must sustain the people of Gibraltar to the utmost.
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Finally, I should like to ask him this. As the last time an official Ministerial delegation came over from Gibraltar was in December, 1969, I believe, to have discussion on matters concerning Gibraltar and this country, are Her Majesty's Government in effect considering inviting the Chief Minister and other colleagues over here, or will a Minister from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office be visiting Gibraltar in the not too distant future?
6.33 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I appreciate the debating character of this House and therefore I should have liked to respond to the speech to which we have just listened, but I am going to ask the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, to forgive me if I do not. He raised important points, which I am perfectly sure the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, will consider. In concluding this debate, before the official speech, I think the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, will understand if I take a rather broader picture than that of dealing with the important problems of Gibraltar which he has raised.
I first want very sincerely to thank my noble friend Lord Shepherd for having initiated this debate. He was Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I know that during that period he was deeply concerned with the people of these dependent countries. I know on his last visit to them how he felt that the most constructive contribution which we must make must be in their social and economic sphere, and raising the standard of life of their people. The speech with which he opened this debate was characteristically constructive. I hope therefore that Her Majesty's Government will consider very seriously that there should be a five-year comprehensive plan to look at this whole problem.
The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, gave us a very clear picture of the development in this area. May I say just this to him: I was a little surprised that he limited the number of the dependencies to 19; my own list is longer. But perhaps in limiting it to 19 he grouped together many of the scattered islands which I have regarded separately. I was particularly interested in his indication that the intention is to set up a special department for dealing with this

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problem, and I wish it well. If we look at the remaining dependencies, the total population of which is only 5 million, compared with the 500 million at the end of the last war, we are inclined to think that the problem is small. Numerically it is, but the difficulties are very complex indeed.
There are three large, or comparatively large, areas within the remaining dependencies: Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Hong Kong. Perhaps I should add Honduras, about which I will say something later. I think we can accept the fact that, as with other large islands in the Caribbean, Bermuda and the Bahamas will pass to their independence, though we have to recognise that problems will be involved in the election by the majority of non-whites to control of their Legislatures, in relation to those who have economic and social domination.
I have not been able to listen to every speech in this debate, but I was a little surprised in the references which have been made to Hong Kong that it was assumed that our responsibility for those islands is to be long continued. Is it not the case that our lease to Hong Kong very shortly comes to an end, and then the problem of her future will have to be considered? At present Hong Kong is useful to us and useful to China. It is useful to us for trade and as a military base; it is useful to China as a continued outlet and communication with the rest of the world. What its future will be will largely depend on the development within China itself. There are now some signs that China is moving towards a more constructive policy of association with the rest of the world. And may I say that, while I disagreed with nearly everything else that the Prime Minister said in his speech at Delhi, I welcomed his strong advocacy that China should be brought into the United Nations. What happens in Hong Kong will largely depend upon what happens in China itself.
When we turn to the other dependencies, we see that there are economic problems and political problems. They are scattered in the Caribbean; they are scattered over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are islands of extraordinary beauty, and they are being made the sunshine playgrounds of the rich in the
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world. Bungalows which are bought are occupied for three months of the year during the wintry season of the homelands; and then let during the rest of the year to visitors. These palatial hotels, to which my noble friend Lady White referred, the private beaches for the visitors, the casinos, the night clubs, the stream of shops whose goods are almost solely within the reach of the visiting rich, are creating in those islands an artificial, a class and a colour division.
I was in Barbados at Independence by the generosity of the State, which placed me in one of those bungalows, owned, curiously enough, by a leading member of the opposite Party, where he dwelt for three months and which he leased for the rest of the year, and I know the extraordinary charge which the Barbados Government had to bear for me to be with my wife in that bungalow for one week. Tourism is necessary for these islands—it is one of the sources of their economy—but the contrast which one sees in the islands between the luxury of the rich who come from America, from Canada and from this country, and the lives of the people of the territory is a contrast which cannot continue if there is to be solution in those islands of their economic problems.
I see two ways in which we can begin to deal with this problem. The first is this: as the leases for properties which are owned externally by citizens of America, Canada, or Britain come to an end those leases should revert to the people of the islands, so that the wealth which comes from the visitors may pass to the people themselves. The second proposal is this. I have seen the prices which are charged, and honestly I am amazed that there are any people in the world so rich as to be able to afford to live in those hotels. The hotels, the casinos, and the shops are often externally owned—owned by Americans, by British people and by Canadians. Sometimes they are owned by the rich elite of the islands themselves. In that situation, if the wealth which comes from tourism is to pass to the people there must be the heaviest possible taxation of the extortionate profits and riches which result from the system of tourism as it exists in those places at the present time. The whole emphasis must be placed on giving the peoples of the islands the

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opportunity to rise to a higher social standard, which will primarily be by education: and the people from the rich countries of the earth who enjoy the sunshine and the beaches should contribute to the advancement of the people in that social sphere.
My Lords, the second subject to which I want to refer on the economic side is the manner in which the land, the raw materials and the industries of those islands are now becoming possessed by financial interests outside. In the past, British colonial economic policy regarded those islands only as a source of foodstuffs, principally sugar and bananas. Then bauxite was discovered, phosphates were discovered and financial interests came in to exploit them. Those countries, many of them obtaining their independence, understanding that they must correct the imbalance, give all kinds of privileges to financiers and capitalists to exploit their natural resources.
During this debate two references have been made, one by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who opened our debate, and the other by the noble Baroness, Lady White, to what has recently been revealed in this respect in the British Virgin Islands. I want to make a full reference to that subject. There was a developers' agreement in 1967. The peoples of the island wanted industrial development, they were prepared to pay almost any price for it, and the price they paid was almost incredible. The Anegada Development Corporation was given a 199 years lease on four-fifths of the total territory of the island and it was promised exemption for all persons and companies living or operating within the leased area—that is, four-fifths of the island. It was promised that there should be, for persons or companies, no taxes on income, no taxes on profits, no taxes on capital and no death duties. Wickham's Cay Limited, were given exemption from customs duty for all the materials used in land reclamation on the island. With knowledge of some of these contracts, I do not think I have ever read a contract which was so unfair as that.
Those who are practising certain self-government within the British Virgin Islands are now challenging. Their Chief Minister, Mr. Stoutt, has been in
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this country recently. He has offered 4·8 million dollars in compensation. That has been rejected by the developers. I understand that Mr. Joseph Godber, the Minister of State, is shortly going to the British Virgin Islands and seeking some solution of this problem. I do not know whether the noble Marquess is able to say anything about that matter. I only express the hope that Mr. Godber will find a basis of solution which will mean no continuing burden on the people of the island. My Lords, I sound this warning—it was intimated in that objective speech which we had from the noble Earl, Lord Cowley. Inevitably, under the conditions which I have described, there is now arising in these islands a militant movement; one can hardly go to a Caribbean island to-day without seeing Black Panther emerging. And unless we are able to deal generously and justly with this problem of the exploitation of these peoples by these external financial corporations, there will be movements arising where compensation will not be considered at all.
I pass from that economic survey to the political. The age of colonialism is passing. Britain, according to the Minister, has only 19 dependencies remaining. Yet I have the impression, listening to the debate to-day, that most of the minds of those who have spoken are still thinking in terms of our responsibility for colonies remaining for quite a long period. I do not believe that that is going to be true. I except Lord Reay's thoughtful speech, provocative in some ways; one agrees and one disagrees. I think we have to face the fact to-day that the responsibility of particular Powers for particular parts of the world is now ending. It is no longer a matter of certain British dependencies; these islands, scattered over the world, are possessed by many ex-colonial Powers, and we must face the fact that control by a particular Power of other territories is now obsolete, and that if any protection is to be given at all it must be under an international authority.
In recent years, and with some reason, the United Nations has lost some of its image. There is the war in Vietnam; it cannot intervene. There is Nigeria-Biafra; it has to stand aside. There is the Middle East—indeterminate efforts,

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decisions made which it cannot implement, even though those decisions are good in principle. The United Nations has decreased in international stature. We must recreate it. I believe there must be an international authority. And I suggest that one way in which we might recreate it would be to pass over all the dependent territories, not only of the old British Colonial Empire but of the other empires, to the direct trusteeship of the United Nations. And under that trusteeship I would give three alternative decisions for the people themselves to make. Some of them might group as new independent countries; some of them might associate more nearly with the mainland territory; some of them might have self-government under the continued protection of the United Nations.
My Lords, I conclude with one point which I feel will bring a response. We are now greatly concerned about environment. These islands in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, with their beauty, with their palm groves and their coral waves sweeping over the sands, these islands are nature's reserve for plants and birds and animal life which otherwise might so easily be destroyed. There is an island in the Pacific: phosphate is discovered there; a company takes over; the whole population is evicted; they return as labourers in a cement-machine, ugly island, where before there had been beauty. My Lords, I suggest that if we are looking at the problem of these small islands from a world point of view, we have to hope that there may be certain retreats of this natural beauty and of this simple life which may even correct in our own minds and our own spirits something of the deformation which comes from our materialistic and industrialised age. If that is to be done, I believe also it must be done on an international scale and not by one Power. I should like to see within a reconstructed United Nations an environmental conservation unit which would have the duty, in this utilitarian, industrialised environment in which we exist, at least to reserve some places of beauty and of retreat for our minds and for our spirits.
7.0 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships will agree that we have had a very useful
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and interesting debate this afternoon. It has ranged very widely indeed, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, can have no complaints to-day that this matter has not been properly considered by Parliament, and that we have not taken the greatest interest in it. Before attempting to wind up the debate, I can assure noble Lords that Her Majesty's Government feel that they can do nothing but benefit from the views that have been expressed to-day and the advice that we have received, and I can assure the House that it will receive every attention.
I have been asked a great many questions and I have been interested in a great many of the things that have been put to me. Before attempting to answer some of the questions I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, on his very interesting maiden speech. When he started his speech and said that he had lived for the past eight years in Bermuda, and then went on to describe the joys of so doing, I thought that we were very fortunate that we had managed to extract him at all to come to London at this time of the year. If I may say so, I hope that this process will long continue, and that we may continue to have the benefit of his special knowledge on this subject as and when it is needed.
The noble Earl asked me two or three questions which perhaps I may deal with at this stage. The first was the question of what the Government feel would be the effect on trade with Bermuda, and on Bermuda with the Commonwealth and EFTA countries if Britain joins the E.E.C. The position is that the Six have agreed in principle to the association of Bermuda with the enlarged Community under Part IV of the Treaty of Rome. Provided that the rest of our negotiations are successful, this will mean that, by and large, our trading relations with Bermuda will remain unchanged after enlargement. Any preference now extended to the United Kingdom will of course then have to apply to all members of the enlarged Community. Bermuda's relations with EFTA countries who join the Community along with the United Kingdom would be conducted along the same lines as those with ourselves, and relations with those EFTA countries who did not join the Community would be governed by the

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provision of whatever agreements these countries concluded with the enlarged E.E.C. I hope that when the noble Earl comes to read that in the morning it may be comprehensible to him.
His second question concerned Her Majesty's Government's attitude towards the split accounts and investments in Bermudan banks with regard to U.S. dollar accounts, Bermudan sterling, dollar accounts, et cetera. The answer is very simple; the Government have, and can have, no attitude towards arrangements made by the banks in Bermuda in the interests of their own customers, provided, of course, that they do not infringe Bermudan law in any way.
The third point he raised was as to the constitutional position. Bermuda has an advanced constitution under which the Governor retains direct responsibility only for defence, external affairs, and the maintenance of internal security and public order. In this last field he keeps the elected Ministers very closely informed of his thinking. I hope that the noble Earl will come again and ask us a great many more questions.
I shall try to answer some of the questions that have been put to me, but I hope I shall be acquitted of discourtesy if I do not answer them all. What I shall undertake to do, as is normal in these proceedings, is to write to any noble Lord whom I have not been able to satisfy. I was very interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and especially his survey of the future in so far as Hong Kong is concerned, and particularly in possible relationships with the E.E.C. I can assure him that this matter is receiving close attention by our negotiators and, as he will be aware, we are having a debate on the E.E.C. next week and possibly this matter, and other related matters which have cropped up this afternoon, may well be discussed then. I will take note of what he said about the question of an Ombudsman in Hong Kong—indeed, I think he thought there should be one in every colony. However, that is something that perhaps requires a little more consideration.
On the subject of Hong Kong, the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was good enough to warn me of some of the questions she was going to raise, and she
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was also good enough to say that she quite understood if I could not get the answers in time to reply this evening. I shall certainly write to her on most of those matters. I have not been able to get the information she requires. Some of it is fairly statistical, and it would be easier to follow in writing. What I can say at this stage is that certain of the matters that she raised—I am thinking of the primary education question, which I agree is important—are at the moment the subject of correspondence between the Government and the Governor of Hong Kong. I recognise her sincerity on this problem of Hong Kong, and I think the whole House shares in her worries about the situation. Although we must recognise that they have special problems which, to my mind, they have been overcoming extremely satisfactorily, of course there is a lot yet to be done.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garner, for his most interesting remarks. I shall certainly take note of what he said about encouraging home-based staff to visit the territories whose interests they are looking after. I am sure that this is very important indeed, and I will certainly do my best to encourage this as far as I possibly can. He said one thing with which I think we all agree, and which is perhaps the most important point of this whole debate; that is, that what we must do so far as the dependent territories are concerned is to show that we care. I think that the remarks made by noble Lords this afternoon go a long way to proving that this House does care, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for making the point.
The noble Baroness, Lady White, asked me a number of questions, about one or two of which I can give her some information. I should prefer not to discuss the immigration question this evening, because, as your Lordships know, this is something which is still under discussion. She asked me about the Committee of Twenty-four. I was glad that she did, because I had intended to raise the matter if nobody had asked me about it. However, she has given me an excuse for doing so. The position is roughly as has been stated in the newspapers; that the United Kingdom has played a full part in the work of the Committee of Twenty-four since it was established in 1962. However, our own process of

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decolonisation has now reached a stage where experience of the Committee's work has led us to question whether we, or even the Committee, can really offer any constructive help in resolving the remaining problems. Our doubts on this point have been reinforced by the recent adoption by the General Assembly of a thoroughly unrealistic programme of action, which is intended as a guide to the Committee's future activities. While we continue to observe the provisions of the Charter relating to non-self-governing territories, Her Majesty's Government have thought it best to withdraw from membership of the Committee with immediate effect, as was seen in the newspapers this morning. The Secretary-General of the United Nations was informed of this yesterday. The noble Baroness also asked me about—
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, before the noble Marquess leaves that point, may I ask whether we shall continue to provide information as to our administration of dependent territories? That is a different matter from that of the Committee of Twenty-four, but I should like it made quite clear that we shall continue to provide information about our administration.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: I take the point, my Lords. On the question of the New Hebrides, the noble Baroness may like to know that a recent constructive achievement, which we all welcome, is the drawing up by the local French and British administrations of a joint development plan for the years 1971–73. This is now under consideration by the two Governments, and if I have any more information about it I will let the noble Baroness know. I understand that the working relationship on the ground between the two Resident Commissioners is very harmonious. The noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, did not ask me many questions, but he gave the House some most interesting technical information regarding Gibraltar and its constitution. I will read his speech very carefully, and I undertake to investigate his point about the position of the airline and to write to him about it in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, made some points which I covered in my opening remarks, and I will let him know
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about some of his other points. But he may like to have an answer about one or two other matters which he raised, the first of which—and this was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady White, and by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, his very interesting speech—is the position of the Virgin Islands and Mr. Stoutt's recent visit to London. The discussions related exactly to one of the difficult situations about which anxiety has rightly been expressed this afternoon. The position is that Her Majesty's Government were able to offer aid funds to the Government of the B.V.I., with the help of which an offer was then made to buy out the developer. I understand that it has not yet been accepted, but Ministers both here and there take the view that it is a reasonable offer and is something on which a settlement might be based. I have no doubt that my right honourable friend, Mr. Godber, will be doing his best on his forthcoming visit to use his good offices to try for a solution, but I am afraid that at the moment I cannot give the House any more information than that.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I very much welcome that statement, but may I ask whether it means that the British Government are supporting the proposal which Mr. Stoutt has made, that compensation of £4·8 million should be paid?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I should not like to give the noble Lord an answer to-night about the details. I will let him know the answer in the very near future, but I hope he will forgive me for not having the information with me now.
Gibraltar was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the noble Baroness, Lady White. The noble Lord asked me about the housing problem there and I can gladly assure him on that point. The work on the hostel for temporary immigrant labour is well under way and should be completed quite soon, early this year. On the viaduct reclamation housing project, the consultants' preliminary proposals have been received and preparation for the next stage is in hand. Planning for the implementation of various other smaller schemes, including new medical and recreational facilities and hotel development, is also at an

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advanced stage. I may add, in general, that Her Majesty's Government intend to stand by the people of Gibraltar and to support them in the difficult circumstances brought about by the restrictions which are in force between Gibraltar and Spain. I am afraid I cannot say that the so-called "new climate" has been reflected in a very positive way by any action on the part of Spain to improve the atmosphere between Spain and Gibraltar, but, as the House will probably know, there has been a welcome reduction in the hostile publicity which was formerly directed against Gibraltar from Spain, and I feel that we must be thankful for small mercies in this regard.
Other noble Lords made most interesting speeches and I was interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said, was controversial. I did not accept a good deal of his reasoning, but I shall read his speech to-morrow and will certainly take into account what he said. I do not want to keep the House any longer, though I should like to say again how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for raising this subject. I hope he will agree that Her Majesty's Government, like the late Government, have the interests of the dependencies very much at heart, and that we are continuing to provide very substantial assistance in a variety of forms for all the dependent territories, with the aim of improving both living standards and economic and social conditions. I have been asked whether our policy on the political side has been changed. I can assure the House that our policy remains the same so far as the dependent territories are concerned. I should like to thank other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I undertake, if I have missed out anything, to write to all concerned and, I hope, to satisfy them.
7.18 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, before withdrawing my Motion, may I add my own congratulations to the noble Earl, Lord Cowley? I enjoyed his speech very much, and as he spoke I remembered with great pleasure the sunshine, the roads and the white houses of Bermuda. I suggest only that perhaps he should
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have made his maiden speech to-morrow, on road safety, because Bermuda is the only place, so far as I know, which has been able to put the motor car in its correct place. My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, for the two speeches that he has made. There were a number of questions which I fully understand he was not able to answer, but I hope that in due course he will do so by letter, which will give us an opportunity, if need be, to put down a Question for Question Time.
Am I satisfied with the debate? May I say that when I expressed disquiet about Parliament's concern for dependent territories it was quite genuine. I really wondered, when I put this Motion on the No Day Named list, whether it would sustain a Wednesday debate. I therefore suggested to the Government Chief Whip that we might have it on a normal working day, perhaps in conjunction with other business. As it is, twelve Members of your Lordships' House have taken part and have, I think, made outstanding contributions to this debate concerning those people for whom we in this Parliament are directly responsible. I thought that there was a general welcome for the idea of a Select Committee. I would not press it, but I hope that ways and means will be found to enable this Parliament to develop closer and more intimate connections with these distant and isolated countries for which we have a responsibility. If the noble Marquess will remember—and I hope the House will remember it, too—that the people in the Solomons and the people in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands look to us as much as the Highlanders and Lowlanders of Scotland do, then I think he will have got the matter in its proper context.
My Lords, I hope the noble Marquess will give careful thought to all the helpful suggestions which have been made this afternoon. He should not let his officials turn him down flat but should press on, examining and examining, if necessary coming back to us and letting us have another look at it. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  LOWER CROMWELL ROAD: PROPOSED FLYOVER
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