Sitting of 4 February 1974

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

    Electricity Supplies
    Mr. Jesselasked the Minister for Energy if he will make a statement on current electricity supplies.
    Mr. Palmerasked the Minister for Energy if he will make a statement on the present availability of electricity supplies.
    The Minister for Energy (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I have nothing to add to the statement I made in the House on 25th January 1974.
    Mr. Jessel: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the figures for the ballot in the miners' unions for a strike today showed conclusively that the Government were right to restrain the use of electricity as from several months ago?
    Mr. Jenkin: I shall not comment on the miners' ballot today as there is to be a meeting at No. 10 this afternoon with representatives of the TUC. But my hon. Friend is right; the figures of the rundown of coal stocks over the last few weeks have shown that we should now be in a parlous state had we not taken action as we did in December.
    Mr. Palmer: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the electricity supply industry is as well organised as it should be to cope with the present emergency? What advice does he take on these matters?
    Mr. Jenkin: The electricity supply industry is extremely well organised to
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    cope with the emergency, in that stocks of fuel—both coal and oil—will give it a good many weeks of endurance, even if we have to face the damage caused by a miners' strike. We take advice from a wide variety of sources on these matters.
    Mr. Stanbrook: What would the reserve stocks of coal be now if they had decreased at the rate of use prior to the three-day working week?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is a hypothetical question. At the time we introduced the three-day week, the power engineers were still in dispute, we had no idea what the weather would be like, and we had many weeks of winter ahead of us. As it appeared to the Government then, and as it appears to most impartial commentators, the Government took the right action in calling for restrictions as early as they did to ensure that we had the endurance needed.
    Mr. Benn: Is it not clear that if the Government had allowed free negotiations between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers, the £1,500 million worth of production that has already been lost would not have been lost? Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the Prime Minister, now that the silent majority in the mining industry has spoken in support of its leaders, that a settlement must be achieved on a fair and honourable basis?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have already said that a meeting with representatives of the TUC is taking place at No. 10 this afternoon, and I do not wish to comment further on that. As to whether there will be freedom to negotiate, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the Government, like many other Western Governments, are determined to combat the domestic causes of inflation as best they can. The counter-inflation policy, as the reports of the Pay Board and the Price Commission have shown, is making a contribution to that end.
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister for Energy what legislative plans he has to compel householders to economise in the use of electricity.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: None at present. I am confident that householders will

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    continue to make sufficient economies voluntarily.
    Mr. Hamilton: Can the Minister say where this silly and sinister idea came from? Does he not recognise that even if the worst happened and a strike took place, such legislation as has been suggested would be completely unacceptable and, indeed, unenforceable, and that a knock at the door at three o'clock in the morning is not part of "A Better Tomorrow" that we were promised?
    Mr. Jenkin: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there would be grave objections to legislation of this sort, but I think he will be aware that many industrialists who are facing extreme difficulties as a result of the restrictions which have been imposed on them feel that, from their point of view, it would not be unreasonable to impose restrictions on householders. Every time I have referred to this possibility I have been very careful to stress that any such controls have serious objections. The problem of enforcement to which the hon. Gentleman refers is not the least of those.
    Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that if the miners' strike does take place rota disconnections to domestic consumers will be inevitable, and can he predict when that might start to take effect?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is a hypothetical question. I recognise that rota cuts might well be one of the ways in which the Government would have to respond to a strike, but I should not want to commit myself on that today.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: How can the Minister justify the farce of closing down television at 10.30 pm, since it saves less than one-thousandth of a normal day's consumption? Is this part of the Government's psychological warfare—its propaganda to put the people against the miners? If so, it is failing.
    Mr. Jenkin: I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is not done with that in mind at all. At a time when it is necessary to ask the public to make substantial economies in the domestic use of electricity, now to relax in terms of television hours would, I think, not be understood.
    Mr. Rost: Would not the public respond even more to voluntary restraint if more were done to switch off more of the public motorway and road lighting than has already been done?
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Switch off dishwashers.
    Mr. Jenkin: I can tell my hon. Friend that the vast majority of local authorities—with exceptions that could perhaps be numbered on the fingers of one hand—are collaborating fully with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries, who has called for a 50 per cent. cut in the use of electricity for street lighting. This is being done by many authorities in a very sophisticated way, keeping lights on the most dangerous roads and reducing them substantially on roads where the danger is less. I pay tribute to local authorities for their collaboration in this matter.
    Mr. Allaun: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister for Energy whether he will provide for discretion to be exercised in the application of emergency regulations on the supply and consumption of electricity to take account of difficulties caused on religious grounds.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Peter Emery): A general discretion is impracticable, but the option allowing industry and commerce to use electricity on Wednesday instead of Saturday will, I hope, alleviate these difficulties.
    Mr. Willey: While agreeing that there has been an improvement, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that it is unusual and exceptional to ride roughshod over religious beliefs without any consultation? Now that he has the opportunity, will he ensure that these consultations take place? Is he aware that in my constituency the Jewish community was particularly hard hit by the first version of the three-day week?
    Mr. Emery: I personally have had consultations with representatives of a number of Jewish organisations, including a representation from the Chief Rabbi, so

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    it would be quite wrong to suggest that we did not give serious consideration to the views that were expressed.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that consultation after a decision has been taken and announced is not consultation at all? It is the setting down of a diktat. Is he also aware that there is a small but significant number of firms in my constituency with owners and/or employees who are observing Jews which have still not been given any concession, and their three-day week is de facto a a one-and-a-half day week?
    Mr. Emery: As I probably knew the hon. Gentleman's constituency even before he did—
    Mr. Mikardo: Before 1930?
    Mr. Emery: Before the hon. Gentleman was the Member. I understand the position of small industries there, the problem of the orthodox Jew, and work on Friday, which is a serious matter and has not been alleviated by the Wednesday and Saturday recommendation. I realise that, and this matter is being seriously considered by the Government.
    Mr. James Johnson: Does the Minister exercise any of his famous discretion in the matter of sport? Is he aware, for example, that 12 men can play badminton for four or five hours in the evening in a school ablaze with light, while householders nearby are being exhorted by people like himself to economise? Does the right hon. Gentleman use his discretion in this matter?
    Mr. Emery: Certainly my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport has cooperated with my Department in order to ensure that wherever lighting is used indoors for sporting purposes it is kept to the minimum.
    Later—
    Mr. Mikardo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you be good enough, with your usual kindness to hon. Members, to provide an opportunity to the Under-Secretary of State for Energy to withdraw his statement that he knew my constituency before I did, in view of the fact that I lived in it 45 years ago, that I was married in it 42 years ago, and that my two daughters were born in it 41 years ago and 38 years ago, respectively?
    Mr. Emery: I shall be delighted to withdraw any inference against the hon. Gentleman, and I state only that I was the candidate for the constituency 25 years ago.
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister for Energy what is his latest estimate of the cost per kilowatt of electricity supplies to the national grid based on fuel oil at current prices, and on estimated prices for 1974 on home-produced coal assuming all subsidies are removed and the latest National Coal Board offer is implemented, imported coal, and nuclear sources, respectively.
    Mr. Emery: Future generating costs will depend on a large number of factors which it is impossible to quantify. I am asking the Chairman of the CEGB to write to my hon. Friend on current costs.
    Mr. Osborn: Is it not important that the nation should have more information about this? Is it not a fact that electricity generated from oil is still more expensive than electricity generated from coal? Is it not also true that if the CEGB were charged economic prices by the NCB, particularly when any offer to the miners is implemented, and if subsidies were included in that price, imported coal would be competitive with home-produced coal?
    Mr. Emery: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the price of fuel oil will depend very considerably on the arrangements which are being made at the moment concerning the importation of oil into this country. To believe that one can give a single figure at this time would be unrealistic, but I agree completely that there is need for these factors to be made known to the public, when they can be published.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Do not those facts demonstrate clearly that the only sensible thing for the Government to do now is to negotiate a sensible agreement with the miners?
    Mr. Emery: The hon. Gentleman will realise from the tone of all the questions today that the Government believe that there is an absolute need to continue with a degree of counter-inflation policy but at the same time to be able to ensure that a settlement with the miners can be

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    made. That is what the present negotiations are about.
    Mr. Ridley: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the price of coal can now rise a great deal while still remaining competitive with oil and other fuels? Will he estimate by how much the price of coal could rise while remaining competitive?
    Mr. Emery: No. Sir. It is impossible at this stage even to know what the average price of imported oil will be over the next three months.

    Petrol Consumption (50 mph Limit)
    Mr. Sydney Chapmanasked the Minister for Energy what savings have been made in petrol consumption by private motorists since the 50 mph speed limit was introduced; and what estimate in percentage terms have been calculated in a full year.
    Mr. Emery: It is not possible to quantify the overall savings already made which can be attributed directly to the introduction of the 50 mph speed limit, nor to estimate such savings in a full year. However, as an indication of the sort of fuel savings that can be achieved, a typical 1,500/1,600 cc private car travelling at a steady speed of 50 mph on a motorway will consume around 20 per cent. less petrol than one travelling at 70 mph.
    Mr. Chapman: Does my hon. Friend agree that, notwithstanding the recent price increases in petrol, most motorists can still drive just as many miles for less cost if they observe the 50 mph speed limit? For that reason, will he confer with his right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries about mounting a publicity campaign to inform motorists of the savings that they can make?
    Mr. Emery: It is certainly true that the continuation of a 50 mph speed limit provides not only financial savings but major savings in the use of petroleum. The 10 per cent. current reduction in deliveries of petrol will mean a saving of about 1½ million tons over a full year. I shall certainly consider whether more publicity should be given to the financial aspect.
    Mr. Marten: Without wishing to be made a PPS, may I congratulate the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on not having been bounced into premature rationing of petrol last year?

    Advertisements
    Mr. Kaufmanasked the Minister for Energy why on 17th January his Department decided to change the text of advertisements for publication in the Press on 18th January, and to cancel advertisements due for publication on 21st January.
    Mr. Emery: The proposed advertisements had been planned to explain the combined effects of the various orders restricting the use of electricity by industry and commerce. When it became evident that certain relaxations might be possible, I decided that to proceed with the prepared advertisements could lead to confusion.
    Mr. Kaufman: Does the hon. Gentleman deny that this change from total panic to sudden optimistic exhortation by his Department was not based on a change in the fuel stocks position but was the result of an opportunist switch in political strategy? Is it really fair for his publicity department to be asked to brush up its advertising copy in the dark?
    Mr. Emery: The hon. Gentleman could not be more wrong about panic in the Department. What the Department was seeking to achieve was to inform the public had we been able to go to a greater use of electricity for industry. When it became evident that the miners would ballot, the statement was made by my hon. Friend in the House. For that reason, the advertisement was not carried through and a savings advertisement was put in its place. That advertisement was ready for substitution and was worked in in the most efficient manner.

    Oil Supplies (Supplementary Allocations)
    Mr. Skeetasked the Minister for Energy if he will supply, or arrange to be supplied, to companies with a substantial export commitment additional supplies of oil so that further use may be made of standby generators.
    Mr. Emery: I am considering whether limited supplementary allocations could be made available to run standby generators for industrial production.
    Mr. Skeet: I am much obliged for that answer. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that those who participate in the new Iranian deal will be able to use their oil for their own requirements, and that it will be a reward for the initiative of those who have been able to put aside standby generators for this very purpose?
    Mr. Emery: I realise the use which industry has been able to make of standby generation. Of course, the Government want it to continue, subject only to overriding problems concerning electricity and supplies in the weeks ahead.
    Mr. Carter: Is the Minister aware that at a time of increasing difficulties in exports and imports Britain's chief export earner, the car industry, is being strangled by the three-day week? Does he not think that the Government should move with rather more urgency, come to terms with the miners, find a settlement and put this vital industry back on to a five-day week?
    Mr. Emery: I hope the hon. Gentleman will make that speech just as strongly to the mining union as he does to this House. May I also correct him on a matter of fact? The major part of the motor industry is considered as a continuous process and is working on a 65 per cent. full five-day week, not a three-day week.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend accept that firms in my constituency will be pleased that he is seriously considering providing additional supplies for standby generators? Will he further accept that firms in my constituency, both those on continuous process working and others, are managing to keep up to about 85 per cent. of production with the assistance of these generators, thus keeping up exports?
    Mr. Emery: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks, and I thank industry and the unions, too, for the way in which they have co-operated in many instances to keep production as high as they have.

    Nuclear Power Advisory Board
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Minister for Energy if he will take steps to ensure that all members of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board declare their personal financial interests in any companies likely to be linked in any way with the advice given to the Minister by the board.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Nuclear Power Advisory Board is an advisory and not a statutory or executive body. My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, who chairs the board, is satisfied that the financial interests of the members do not conflict with their duties on the board.
    Mr. Atkinson: Many Members will consider that a disgraceful answer. Is the Minister aware that no reputable British nuclear engineer or British physicist believes it necessary for Britain to abandon its own gas technology and purchase light-water reactors from the United States? Is he further aware that Lord Aldington, for instance, is not only the Deputy Chairman of GEC and Deputy Chairman of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board, but Chairman of the National Nuclear Corporation? Therefore, if he advocates going to the United States to buy reactors for a commercial reason, surely the Minister should turn a deaf ear to those who are likely to make personal profit from the Government's decision.
    Mr. Jenkin: The noble Lord, Lord Aldington is not Deputy Chairman of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board. I correct the hon. Member on that. The board brings together many people with wide knowledge and experience in the nuclear sphere, as well as some people with a completely independent view. Just as hon. Members have wide experience and specialised knowledge to bring to bear on the affairs, for instance, of the Select Committee, so I think it would be quite wrong for the Government to refuse to accept advice from those who have knowledge and experience in industry.
    Mr. Palmer: Will the Secretary of State for Energy follow the bad example set by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in himself taking the chairmanship of this advisory board, which is

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    contrary to the advice given by the Select Committee on Science and Technology?
    Mr. Jenkin: My right hon. and noble Friend is taking the chair of the board. In the circumstances it would have been extremely difficult to change that practice in midstream as it were. I am quite confident that the advice that we will get from the board's members will be the best that they can give, having regard to their knowledge, experience and skills in dealing with this industry over many years.
    Mr. Dalyell: When will the Department set up a chief scientist's organisation to evaluate such matters within the Department of Energy?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is a matter which we have under consideration.
    Mr. Strang: I acknowledge that the Minister will not wish to comment on the Select Committee's report today, but does he not agree that the taking of evidence in public from leading individuals in the nuclear sphere, and in particular from four members of the advisory board, has increased rather than decreased our chances of reaching the right decision? Similarly, does he not agree that public confidence in the Government's final decision would be ensured if they published the advice that they received from the board?
    Mr. Jenkin: I would not wish to comment on the procedures followed by the Select Committee. I have, of course, read its report and a great deal of the evidence tendered to it, and I have little doubt that this will be invaluable in helping the House and the Government to reach a conclusion. The advice tendered by the Nuclear Power Advisory Board will, like any other advice given to the Government, not be published, because it is essential that it should be given entirely openly and clearly to the Government without its members fearing the consequences if it were to be published.

    Paraffin
    Mr. Moyleasked the Minister for Energy when he expects to be able to announce a controlled retail price for paraffin.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Under an order which was laid before Parliament on 21st December 1973 the maximum retail price
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    of paraffin became subject to control the next day.
    Mr. Moyle: Is the Minister aware that at least in my part of London paraffin is being sold at many differing prices and that many people—for example, old-age pensioners—are having to tramp the streets to try to save the odd penny or two per gallon? What does he intend to do about it?
    Mr. Jenkin: There is a maximum price. If retailers are choosing to attract custom by selling below it I should have thought that that was something the hon. Gentleman would applaud.
    Miss Fookes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in my constituency several retailers are not selling paraffin at all, because the wholesale price is too great? Would it not be advisable to control the wholesale price as well?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend says because my Department has had no recent complaints of customers being unable to buy paraffin. We are, of course, aware of the problems of the retail market and we have this matter under investigation in conjunction with the oil industry emergency committee.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Is the Minister aware that he would be hard pressed to find anyone selling paraffin below the recommended or stipulated price? Will he bear in mind that the main customers for paraffin are the elderly, and that they are having difficulty not merely in getting cheap paraffin but in getting any paraffin at all? Will he further bear in mind that when they can get paraffin they often have to pay well above the price laid down by the Government? Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the report in the London Press and the Sunday Mirror, in particular, giving examples of retailers blatantly ignoring the price set down by the Government?
    Mr. Jenkin: The Government are well aware that supplies of domestic paraffin are used substantially by the poor and the elderly. That is why, under the allocation scheme, supplies of paraffin at present being made available for domestic use are running at 120 per cent. of supplies in the comparable period last year. For that reason we want to make absolutely sure that there is no shortage. If the

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    hon. Member knows of specific cases of retailers not observing the price control to which I referred in my original answer I hope he will bring them to the attention of my Department.
    Mr. Moyle: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Conservation
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Minister for Energy what further proposals he has for saving power during the present shortage.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I shall take whatever steps may be necessary in the light of the developing situation.
    Mrs. Short: As the present energy crisis is entirely the result of the Government's determination to have a confrontation with the miners and thereby break the miners' determination to fight for what they believe is right, and this has manifestly failed, does the right hon. Gentleman not think it is time the Government called an end to this farce? Will he close his mind to the pernicious suggestion from his hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) to cut down any further on motorway or street lighting, which would nullify the saving in life that has been brought about by the 50 mph speed limit? Does he not think he ought to look at the waste of electricity and power by discotheques, bingo halls, night clubs and similar establishments, which are allowed to continue through the night using tremendous amounts of power and electricity?
    Mr. Jenkin: While not for a moment accepting the hon. Lady's premise, perhaps I may make the position clear about places of entertainment. They are subject to the heating and lighting restrictions which were introduced in November. The hon. Lady will have seen the advertisements this weekend in which we have drawn public attention to the continuation of those regulations.
    The other point is that the electricity authorities advise that it is possible that less electricity is used by keeping places of entertainment open, because if they were not open people would be at home using their own heating and lighting.
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    However, I assure the hon. Lady that we have been having discussions with the trade associations representing these bodies to see what further contributions they can make towards saving electricity.
    Mr. Sydney Chapman: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the greatest incentive that could be given to householders to save power would be to get the regional electricity boards to change their tariff system so that the more electricity a household uses the greater the cost per unit, instead of the reverse, which is the case at the moment?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have seen my hon. Friend's suggestion before. There would be great difficulties in short-term tariff adjustments for the purposes he has in mind.
    Mr. Benn: Is the Minister aware that his latest suggestion that people are serving the national interest by going to bingo halls so as not to use electricity at home simply makes the situation more ridiculous? Is he also aware that there is a moderate majority among industrialists who would like to see the acceptance of the TUC proposals for a settlement? It is his responsibility as Minister for Energy to convey to the Prime Minister the fact that industrialists do not accept the leadership given by the CBI which does not represent its members on this question.
    Mr. Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman was going very wide with the last part of his question. On the first part, which arose out of the Question of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short), the Government's concern is to see that electricity is saved. We have no wish to encourage people to do this or that; we wish to encourage the saving of electricity, and on that we take the advice that I indicated to the House.
    Miss Quennell: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that if domestic householders were given some acknowledgement of the support that they have given the Government in the present crisis it might encourage them to save even more?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity of saying in the House what I have said on a number of occasions through the media.

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    The Government are extremely grateful to the millions of householders who are making great efforts to save electricity in the national interest.
    Mr. Grimond: Will the Minister reconsider his answer about the use of electricity for gambling, and so on? It is causing great resentment. Of course, by not going to a discotheque one may use electricity at home. By not turning on the television one may turn on an electric blanket, or even read a book, which presumably would be fatal.
    Mr. Jenkin: The closing remarks of my earlier answer may not have been fully heard in the House. I reiterate that we are discussing with the bodies representing these interests what further contribution they can make towards saving electricity.

    Severn Barrage
    Mr. Adleyasked the Minister for Energy if he will now conduct a reappraisal of the Severn Barrage scheme, in view of the reduced differential in the cost of power generated thereby in relation to the cost of power generated by conventional fuel caused by the increased price of oil.
    Mr. Emery: I have little to add to my statement made in the Adjournment debate on 9th January. A tidal power station must be compared with the cheapest alternative source of electricity, which, in the future, is most likely to be nuclear. A recent review within my Department indicated that a barrage in the Severn would not be economically viable, but I stated that we would keep this matter under active review.
    Mr. Adley: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he not agree that unless and until a full hydrological survey of this project is undertaken nobody will be able to do other than put forward opinions as to its viability or otherwise? In view of his latest letter to me, will he now get together with the CEGB and Bristol University to see whether he is prepared to consider setting up just such a hydrological study?
    Mr. Emery: As I implied in my letter, I am only too willing to ask the CEGB to take all the active advice it can on this matter and then advise Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Rose: Will the Minister also consider seriously the possibilities in relation to the Morecambe barrage and the Solway Firth? Will he consider the other tidal estuaries whose viabilities have now been affected by the sharp rise in oil prices? Will he look also at the coal mining industry in exactly the same way, because the economics are equally applicable and make complete nonsense of the Government's policy in relation to wages in the mining industry in the post-oil-crisis era?
    Mr. Emery: I refer the hon. Gentleman to my answer to an Adjournment debate. As for the hon. Member's suggestion about wages, he must bear in mind the overall desire by both sides of the House to ensure that inflation is overcome.
    Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman will agree that the Adjournment debate was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). As the hon. Gentleman has said that the Government are making a reappraisal of indigenous energy resources because of the oil price and energy crisis, will he assure the House that in that reappraisal the Government are studying all aspects of indigenous energy resources? I emphasise the production of oil from coal and shale, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is to be found in the constituencies of West Lothian and Midlothian.
    Mr. Emery: I am only too willing to repeat that the new Department is considering all forms of energy and reconsidering all previous investigations into methods of obtaining energy.

    Nuclear Reactors
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister for Energy if he will make a statement on his latest discussions with the Canadian Atomic Energy Authorities and Mr. Lorne Gray of Atomic Energy Canada on the possibility of British-Canadian joint co-operation in the development of CANDU type reactors and British steam generating heavy water reactors, in view of the import content of light-water reactors, involving the purchase of pressure vessels, steam generators and control rod drives from the United States of America.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: A number of discussions have already been held about CANDU, and more are due to take place this week.
    Mr. Dalyell: In the absence of a chief scientist's organisation, which astonishes my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Freeson), who is a former Minister, would it be unfair to ask whether the Government dispute Mr. Lorne Gray's assertion that if we took CANDU we could have a reliable electricity supply from it within six years?
    Mr. Jenkin: Those are matters that will be explored when we meet Dr. Gray and the Canadian Minister for Energy, Minerals and Resources and the Ontario Minister for Energy, I hope later this week. There are obviously extremely important issues to be discussed and I do not wish to comment further at this stage.
    Mr. David Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the merits of SGHW have been consistently advocated by hon. Members on both sides of the House for a number of years and that, equally consistently, the Government of the day have underestimated those merits? As the SGHW is technically close to CANDU in concept, is it not a reasonable compromise between indigenous technology and imported technology to get together on what are two similar reactor systems?
    Mr. Jenkin: These are immensely difficult questions that we have under study with the help of the Nuclear Power Advisory Board, and we shall certainly take note of the Select Committee's report, which was published this morning. Beyond that I should not wish to go at this stage.
    Mr. Freeson: Does the Minister accept that many of us are astonished and seriously disturbed at the abolition of the chief scientist's division of his Department, which it inherited from the old Ministry of Power? Is he aware that this division, limited as it was in size, was eminently suitable for technical and economic evaluation of the subject referred to in my hon. Friend's Question and such matters as barrage schemes which have been raised at other times?
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    Will the right hon. Gentleman seriously consider taking action to re-establish the chief scientist's division without delay?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have already indicated that the organisation and staffing of my Department was one of the matters to which we turned our attention as soon as the Department was set up. Clearly, the question of scientific advice, as well as economic advice, and so on, is of the greatest importance. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter is daily engaging the attention of Ministers.
    Sir John Hall: In view of the need to take an early decision in the matter, will my right hon. Friend say when the House is likely to debate the subject?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but it is fair to say that he has already indicated that after the publication of the report—and it has been issued today—a debate would be appropriate before the Government reached or announced a decision.

    Fuel Stocks
    Mr. Whiteheadasked the Minister for Energy what is the current level of coal and oil stocks held in the United Kingdom; and what were the comparable figures for 4th February 1973.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchellasked the Minister for Energy what is his estimate of the number of days' reserve stocks of oil and coal currently held; and how it compares with the figures for 1st February 1971, 1972 and 1973.
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Minister for Energy what is the current level of coal stocks, distributed and undistributed; and what are the comparable figures for 1973.
    Mr. Meacherasked the Minister for Energy what is the present level of coal and oil stocks at Central Generating Electricity Board and South of Scotland Electricity Board power stations.
    Mr. Emery: The latest estimates of coal and oil stocks were published last Thursday. Oil stocks are lower than in the last three years. Coal stocks are higher than in

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    February 1971 but lower than in February 1973. In 1972 figures could not be collected due to the miners' strike. With permission, I will publish the detailed figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Whitehead: Does the Minister agree that the figures, though perhaps lower, are not so significantly lower as to justify the premature imposition of the three-day week? Are the Government now prepared to agree that the three-day week was imposed prematurely in an attempt to coerce the miners? Does the hon. Gentleman now admit, too, that a four-day week, with perhaps other savings of energy thrown in, would produce a far better climate for the negotiations which the Government must now have with the mine workers after the emphatic ballot about which we have heard today?
    Mr. Emery: I most definitely reject the suggestion that the three-day electricity working week was unnecessary. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider the facts. In the eight weeks before the regulations were introduced, coal stocks fell by 4·1 million tons, compared with 02 million tons the previous year. If stocks had continued to be depleted at 900,000 tons a week, which is the amount by which they were being depleted two weeks before the regulations were introduced, by now we should be very nearly at a critical level.
    Mr. Rost: Is it not totally irresponsible for Opposition Members to criticise the Government for having taken the prudent measure of conserving coal and oil resources at this critical time? Would it not be more realistic for the Opposition to co-operate with the TUC in trying to get a settlement?
    Mr. Emery: I sometimes wonder whether Opposition Members want a settlement and to see the industry back in order.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Minister aware that if a miners' strike takes place now, given that the three-day week has reduced power station coal consumption by less than 500,000 tons a week, the 6 million tons critical level will still be reached as early as the last week of March? Even if we had a two-and-a-half-day week, that critical stage would be reached four
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    days later than that. Why waste another £1 billion or £2 billion in lost production before being obliged to give the miners another £20 million or £30 million, anyway?
    Mr. Emery: The hon. Gentleman's figuring entirely ignores the amount of fuel oil that the electricity generating stations may be able to use. That factor is entirely a matter of endurance. Any Government should have full contingency plans to protect the electricity supply of the country against whatever might arise.
    Mr. Biffen: Do the figures available to the Minister bear out the assessment that has been made by Dr. Finniston as to the available supplies of coking coal, with the sombre implication that they would enable the steel industry to proceed for only about eight weeks?
    Mr. Emery: Questions about the position of the steel industry should be put to my right hon. Friend. None the less, the iron and steel industry is still the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry. Let it be clearly understood that the problems of obtaining coking coal are serious and are a major problem in the supply of steel to the country as a whole.
    Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman is aware that the House can sympathise with him to some extent, for hon. Members understand that there has been a change of jerseys in the Department since the decision that he has been discussing with the House was first taken. Surely the hon. Gentleman will want to give the assurance that there is a new mood in the Government to settle the miners' dispute, and that the Government will not want to defer that settlement in order to justify a decision that is now discredited in the eyes of the whole country, namely, that the whole country should go on a three-day week.
    Mr. Emery: I reject immediately the suggestion that the need for going on a three-day week is discredited. Newspaper support for this move is universal. Regarding the second part of the question, I am certain that the hon. Gentleman would want to do nothing that would do other than assist—as I think he is trying to—the discussions that will take place at Downing Street later today.
    Following is the information:

    COAL

    6th February 1971

    5th February 1972

    3rd February 1973

    26th January 1974

    NCB stocks (million tons)

    …

    …

    6·4

    Strike

    11·2

    9·8

    Stocks at main power stations (million tons):

    CEGB

    …

    …

    11·9

    SSEB

    …

    …

    1·7

    NOSHEB

    …

    …

    —

    All main power stations

    …

    …

    7·8

    7·7

    15·1

    13·6

    OIL

    1st February 1971

    1st February 1972

    1st February 1973

    26th January 1974

    Stocks held by oil companies:

    Days' supply

    …

    …

    66

    67

    60

    56

    Million tons

    …

    …

    19·9

    21·5

    19·2

    18·8

    Stocks at main power stations (million tons):

    CEGB

    …

    …

    0·71

    SSEB

    …

    …

    0·06

    NOSHEB

    …

    …

    0·03

    All main power stations

    …

    …

    0·34

    0· 54

    0·60

    0·80

    North Sea Oil
    Mr. Douglasasked the Minister for Energy if he has completed his review of licensing policy for the United Kingdom sector of the Continental Shelf.
    Mr. Millanasked the Minister for Energy if he will make a statement on Government policy on participation by foreign countries in the exploitation of North Sea oil.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: We are reviewing all aspects of licensing policy. A report will be made to Parliament when the review is complete.
    Mr. Douglas: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, in view of the autocratic promotion of his right hon. Friend in another place, this House needs a White Paper dealing with all aspects of licensing policy, and in particular the relationship which the Department has with the oil companies and the contractors with a view to producing designs for equipment which are United-Kingdom based, avoiding the fiasco of the Drumbuie inquiry?
    Mr. Jenkin: I said in my original answer that when a decision has been reached it will be reported to Parliament. We shall naturally consider whether a White Paper will be the most helpful way.
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    On the question of relations with the oil companies and the designers of equipment, the offshore supplies organisation is now part of the Department of Energy, and this is a matter which we have under consideration with the designers and the oil companies.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Can my right hon. Friend say anything about discussions with the Japanese concerning the exploitation of North Sea resources? Many people, whilst understanding the need for the most rapid exploitation of those resources in the interests of the consumer in this country, are none the less a little concerned that the Japanese may get their foot in the door and take what should rightly be ours.
    Mr. Jenkin: When I met Mr. Nakasoni when he was in this country, he expressed to me the desire of the Japanese to play their part in the exploitation of the North Sea. I asked him what advantages he felt there might be for this country in their so doing—whether they could bring in additional technology or speed up supplies in any way. Those are matters which, no doubt, the Japanese Government will be considering. However, I made it abundantly clear—and Mr. Nakasoni accepted this—that there was no question but that the oil here is British and that we would require it to come to this country.
    Mr. Millan: Is it not absolutely ludicrous that the Minister for Industrial Development should go to Japan and invite the Japanese to get involved on the supply and equipment side, specifically inviting them to get involved with the construction of oil rigs, when the one oil rig company in this country—Marathon, at Clydebank—is not even able to get exemption from the three-day working week?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have seen reports of what my right hon. Friend has said in Tokyo and I have reported to the House on the discussions I had with Mr. Nakasoni, the Minister for Industry and Trade, when he was here.
    Mr. Grimond: Will the Minister consider one aspect of the foreign participation in oil exploration? Why should British vessels not be allowed to serve British rigs off the coast of America when American vessels are allowed to serve all rigs off the coast of Britain?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is a matter which we have under discussion with the American Government.
    Mr. Skeet: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lot of North Sea oil will have to be exported, and that those who buy it will have to pay the world prices? It might be a good idea if he considered the possibility of a posted price for North Sea oil.
    Mr. Jenkin: The question of pricing North Sea oil is one of the major matters which my Department has to consider, but, of course, it will be some time before the oil is flowing ashore in substantial quantities. I confirm what my hon. Friend says. North Sea oil is by quality a premium oil, and it is likely that the return to this country will be higher if it is exchanged for oil of a lower quality which we can use and the North Sea oil is sold at the highest possible price overseas.
    Mr. Dell: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is the Government's view that the rise in oil prices has so completely outdated the basis upon which the licences have been issued that the whole position—concerning not just the future but the four rounds of licensing in the past—must be reconsidered? Will he also say when the Government, at long
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    last, will make the statement that he promised?
    Mr. Jenkin: On the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I am sure that he would wish the new Ministers to give proper consideration to what is perhaps one of the most important single aspects of the North Sea before making a statement.
    On the first part of the question, it is not the least of the advantages that this review has taken as long as it has, because we are now able to reach conclusions in the light of the up-to-date energy situation, with all the changed conditions to which the right hon. Gentleman has drawn the attention of the House.

    Plastic Gas Pipes
    Mr. Goldingasked the Minister for Energy whether he will issue a general direction to the British Gas Corporation that in the interests of public safety external plastic gas pipes should include a strip of detectable metal.
    Mr. Emery: No, Sir. On present information this is not technically practicable.
    Mr. Golding: Is the Minister aware that it is absolutely essential that those digging trenches should be able to detect the presence of gas mains, which is most easily done by incorporating a metal strip or pipe? It would be most unfortunate were a severe explosion to occur because a plough was put through a plastic tube.
    Mr. Emery: I accept that full and proper safety precautions should be taken by all people digging in an area where there are gas pipes and gas mains, but the introduction of a metallic strip in a plastic pipe as part of the extrusion process would inevitably reduce the mechanical strength of the pipe and introduce the risk of a running split if damage occurred.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Does the Minister not accept that since the introduction of the use of plastic piping the public utilities have made a careful record of all newly-laid plastic pipes? It would be nonsense for any public utility to dig willy-nilly without checking with the authority to find where the plastic pipes are laid.
    Mr. Emery: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that it is absurd for anybody excavating in an area of pipes not

    875
    to consult the necessary authorities to ascertain where pipes are laid.

    Windscale (Radiation Accident)
    Dr. John A. Cunninghamasked the Minister for Energy when he expects to receive the report of the nuclear installations inspector concerning the radiation accident at Windscale in the autumn of 1973; whether the report will be published in full; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations is currently considering a report on this incident, which he expects to submit to me before mid-February. When I have received this report I will consider whether it should be published and whether a statement would be appropriate.
    Dr. Cunningham: I thank the Minister for that reply, but is he not aware that for the public good in my constituency the report on this incident should be published in full? Is he not further aware that the incident has given rise to a serious on-going labour dispute on the site and it is most important that the trade unions should be in full possession of the facts so that they may fully represent their members in the negotiations?
    Mr. Jenkin: I should want to consider the question of publication. It is not entirely straightforward, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recognise. For instance, in the report there would be details of the inquiries and of the dosages of radiation received by individuals. It is questionable whether that information should be made the subject of a public report. Some of the information in the report is of a commercial nature to British Nuclear Fuels Limited and there, too, there could be damage to the public interest if the report were published. I undertake to consider the matter carefully. I realise the interest of the hon. Gentleman's constituents. It is a matter for thanks that no member of the public was injured in the accident, although a number of employees at Windscale were.
    Mr. Strang: Will the Minister give an assurance that the Government will pay close attention to the statement by the nuclear inspector, published in today's Select Committee's report, that it would take him at least two years to decide
    876
    the safety of the PWR reactor in British conditions?
    Mr. Jenkin: That concerns a fuel treatment plant and not a reactor, but, naturally, the Government would be closely concerned with the views of the chief nuclear inspector, whose evidence I read over the weekend.

    Climatic Research Unit
    Mr. Stanbrookasked the Minister for Energy whether he will seek to provide Government assistance for the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia with a view to making use of its services within the Government's energy resources programme.
    Mr. Emery: There are no present plans for providing direct financial assistance to the Climatic Research Unit. The Natural Environment Research Council provides finance for fundamental research in the atmospheric sciences, while the funding of basic services for university research is the concern of the university and the University Grants Committee.
    Mr. Stanbrook: Is my hon. Friend aware that the unit has already done a lot of useful work, that at the moment its funds are being provided from private sources which are nearly exhausted, and that it could make a great contribution to the Government's energy resources programme?
    Mr. Emery: Yes, Sir. My officials are already in contact with Professor Lamb at the University of East Anglia, and we have invited him to discussions with the Department.
    Mr. Dalyell: How do these officials arrive at any meaningful decision in the absence of any kind of chief scientist's organisation?
    Mr. Emery: I think that the hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. The chief scientist's organisation existed within the Department of Trade and Industry and is still being used by many of the people who have been carrying on this work with the DTI. My hon. Friend has made quite clear that we are considering the position of a separate organisation for the Department of Energy as a matter of urgency.
    Mr. Tom King: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the most futile efforts

    877
    to discredit the Government's imposition of the three-day week is the lunatic suggestion by certain Members, including the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), that the Government should have based their forecasts and plans on the long-range weather forecasts? Will he confirm and reassure the country that the Government do no such thing, but found their forecasts on much sounder bases?
    Mr. Emery: Yes, Sir.

    Nuclear Power Stations
    Mr. Fortescueasked the Minister for Energy whether, since Magnox nuclear reactors are now accepted as safe, he will reconsider the present policy of not siting nuclear power stations close to centres of population, with a view to utilising disused dock areas in cities such as Liverpool as sites for such power stations.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: No change in Government siting policy for this type of nuclear power station is contemplated.
    Mr. Fortescue: Safety, of course, must be paramount at all times, but if the two-thirds of the heat produced by these generators which is at present wasted could be utilised in district heating systems, and since the Magnox reactor is now accepted as safe, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is worth looking at the policy again because the economics of nuclear generation of power would be transformed if these generators could be sited near centres of population, where their waste products could be utilised?
    Mr. Jenkin: Clearly, the change in the costs of energy will have altered the balance of costs in using part of the reactors' output for district heating. I am sure that my hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that safety must be paramount. That remains the Government's view.
    Mr. Palmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman make available to the House an outline of the criteria that govern the siting of nuclear power stations? Is he aware that those criteria were relaxed in 1967, I think, but no public statement has ever been made?
    Mr. Jenkin: It is with diffidence that I differ from the hon. Gentleman, because the then Minister of Power, on 6th February 1968, made a statement in the
    878
    House on this subject. I shall consider whether anything more needs to be published.
    Sir John Tilney: Is it not true that experts in the Central Electricity Generating Board think that it is now quite safe for nuclear producers of electricity to be situated in urban communities?
    Mr. Jenkin: This must be a matter on which the Government are advised by the nuclear inspectorate. While the advice of the Central Electricity Generating Board is clearly relevant, the advice of the nuclear inspectorate, under Acts passed by this House, must be paramount.
    Mr. Freeson: Is not the advice of the nuclear inspectorate precisely the same as the advice being proffered by the CEGB on this matter?
    Mr. Jenkin: It is not customary for the advice given to Ministers by their civil servants on that matter to be made public in the House.

SERVICES' MOTOR COACH (EXPLOSION)
Mr. Kitson (by Private Notice)Mr. Kitson (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence and Minister of Aviation Supply if he will make a statement on the explosion on the coach carrying Service personnel to Cat-terick on Monday 4th February.
The Secretary of State for Defence and Minister of Aviation (Mr. Ian Gilmour): Shortly after midnight this morning, near Batley in Yorkshire, an explosion occurred in a privately-owned coach taking Service men and their dependants from Manchester to Catterick after the weekend.
Of the 53 people on board, 11 were killed—eight soldiers and the wife and two children of one of the dead soldiers. A further 14 were injured, one of them seriously, but the majority are expected to be discharged from hospital today.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army is in Yorkshire at this moment visiting the injured.
The police forces concerned have initiated an immediate investigation. Army bomb diposal experts are also on the scene.

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It is not yet known who was responsible for this despicable attack on off-duty Service men and their dependants and upon other civilians. I understand that no terrorist organisation has so far claimed responsibility, but whichever persons or organisations were responsible, nothing could justify this appalling crime. The indiscriminate taking of innocent life has unqeustionably caused utter revulsion throughout the country.
I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning this atrocity and in extending our heartfelt condolences to the relatives of the dead and injured.
Mr. Kitson: May I, too, express my sympathy to the relations and friends of those killed and injured in this appalling and cowardly outrage? Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will review the security arrangements to safeguard both Service and civilian personnel connected with Service establishments and that he will swiftly implement any safeguards he may think necessary?
Mr. Gilmour: As my hon. Friend knows, the security arrangements at Catterick have recently been intensified, but I certainly give him both the assurances that he seeks. However, I should perhaps emphasise that it was a civilian bus service, operating from civilian ground in Manchester.
Mr. Peart: May I on behalf of the Opposition convey our sympathy to the relatives of those who have lost their lives. We, too, strongly condemn and abhor those who were responsible for such a dastardly, cowardly, callous act.
I believe that this is not just a constituency matter, although I appreciate the views of the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson), who raised it. It is of national concern, for it affects the security and support of the Services. Our Services have a difficult task on behalf of all of us, and we must sustain, defend and protect them.
I am glad that security has been mentioned, because in today's Evening Standard there is a statement by one of the soldiers who was on the coach commenting about security. I hope that this matter will be taken up by the Secretary of State, and that he will give us a report on it.
Mr. Gilmour: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is a matter of national concern. I should perhaps say that the constituency Member concerned, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Proudfoot), has been at the scene today, and he commented very strongly on the extraordinary skill of the driver in keeping the coach on the road under the most difficult possible circumstances.
I have not seen the Evening Standard report, but of course any comments that have been made will be investigated urgently.
Sir R. Cary: I join in expressing sympathy for those who have been concerned in this ghastly deed. Will my right hon. Friend be at pains to consult the Chief Constable of Manchester, which was the starting point of the coach journey, because it is a matter of importance where the bomb was put into the coach?
Mr. Gilmour: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We are already in touch with the Manchester police.
Mr. Hooson: May I on behalf of the Liberal Party express our deepest sympathy for the victims of what can only be described as a cold-blooded murder. Am I not speaking for all hon. Members when I say that we in this country feel that it is time these dastardly acts were brought to a halt? There has been an escalation of this kind of murder, justified sometimes on political grounds, and there is now a feeling in the country that every civilian and every soldier owes it to the community to report anything that can bring the criminals to justice.
Mr. Gilmour: I am sure that the House will agree entirely with the hon. and learned Gentleman. I think that he is right in saying that this is a new escalation of violence, at least in this country.
Mr. Goodhart: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the next-of-kin of the victims of this despicable outrage are eligible for the same improved terms of compensation as are paid to the next-of-kin of soldiers killed in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Gilmour: Yes, Sir. Dependants of Service men killed or injured in this incident will be eligible for the greatly improved Service pensions that I

881
announced last year. However, the exact details cannot be known without further investigation.
Mr. Rose: May I express the deep horror and revulsion that must be felt by the people of Manchester, where the bomb was planted, at this act of wanton and indiscriminate murder of people who have nothing whatever to do with any political situation that may exist in any part of the United Kingdom, people using a bus on which many of my friends and, indeed, my brother used to travel when in the Forces? Will the right hon. Gentleman pay particular attention to a matter I have raised previously—security at provincial airports, which are particularly vulnerable to people flying in, planting bombs such as that in last night's explosion, and then possibly escaping in the same way? Will the right hon. Gentleman note that the incident reinforces those of us who have always supported those people who have trodden the path of reconciliation in one part of the United Kingdom rather than the path of violence?
Mr. Gilmour: I give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that all our security procedures will be tightened up, if necessary, and will certainly be investigated at provincial airports and elsewhere.
Mr. Wilkinson: I join in the expression of sympathy made from both sides of the House. I wish to add a note of congratulation to the emergency services in West Yorkshire which dealt with this desperately difficult situation. Will my right hon. Friend agree that this incident has shown, yet again, that no woman is too vulnerable and no child too defenceless or too innocent to be a victim of these merciless murderers? Will my right hon. Friend consult the Home Secretary about identity cards being issued for all United Kingdom citizens as well as passports being required for persons travelling to this country from the Republic of Ireland, as such action might help the overall situation?
Mr. Gilmour: I agree with my hon. Friend's comments about the behaviour of the emergency services. Both my hon. Friends the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army and the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Proudfoot) have confirmed what my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West
882
(Mr. Wilkinson) says. As my hon. Friend knows, the other matters which he raised are under review.
Mr. Ginsburg: Services in my constituency have been involved in the rescue work. May I therefore join in expressing sympathy with the families of the dead and injured. Will the Government tighten up security measures and will they, as requested by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson), seriously consider the introduction of identity cards in this country, which I believe would meet with widespread approval?
Mr. Gilmour: As I said, the second point is under review. We shall intensify our security precautions but when dealing with people who are prepared to go to any lengths of depravity or degradation to commit crimes, it is impossible to devise absolutely foolproof precautions.

SPEECH THERAPY SERVICES
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): With permission Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on behalf of myself and my right honourable Friends, the Secretaries of State for Education and Science, for Scotland, and for Wales about the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Speech Therapy Services which was published in October 1972.
The Government accepted in May of last year two important recommendations of the report that the speech therapy services should be unified and that they should in future be organised under area health authorities in England and Wales and under health boards in Scotland. This new arrangement will be effective from 1st April this year.
My right honourable Friends and I have now, subject to modifications and reservations to which I shall refer later, accepted the remaining recommendations which concern us directly, and we shall be commending the report to the new health authorities on which the burden of implementing it will mainly fall. The House will appreciate that the new health authorities, which will be given guidance on various aspects of the report, will be able to proceed only at the pace economic circumstances permit. Any measures they introduce will have regard to other priorities and will have to be

883
kept within the resources of finance and manpower available to them.
In the present economic situation progress will inevitably be slow. We have already invited the College of Speech Therapists to discuss the integration of the speech therapy services into the new health service.
On other points of particular importance which we shall also wish to discuss with the college, we recognise the aspirations of the profession that in the long term all training should be at degree level, but we consider that a mixed pattern of diploma and degree courses will have to continue for an indefinite period, and we need to examine in more detail the proposals for a Central Council for Speech Therapy and the provision for advance at national level.
In conclusion, my right hon. Friends and I should like to pay tribute to the work of Professor Quirk and his committee on the preparation of their report. It has proved to be a most thorough and constructive document and will be regarded by all as the starting point for a better organised and more effective speech therapy service.
Dr. Summerskill: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his statement, which was so eagerly awaited by so many, is, in fact, a non-statement and that it will be extremely disappointing to the speech therapy profession and to the people it serves? There is no excuse for inactivity, bearing in mind the length of time the Secretary of State has had the report. He has had the report long enough. He will be aware of the wishes of the profession from the degree of consultation which I know he has had—I took part in the consultations on one occasion. The House has debated the report.
Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that in commending the report to the area health authorities he is, at the same time, putting them in a financial straitjacket?
The House will recall that the report presented a depressing picture of the speech therapy services battling against acute staff shortages, unsatisfactory working conditions and inadequate professional status. What is the Government's target for recruitment to the profession. The
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number of people now engaged in full-time speech therapy in Britain is approximately 900, yet 2,500 was the figure recommended as a target by the Quirk report. What special steps are being taken towards recruiting more married women and, more important, towards preventing wastage from the profession? Why could not the Minister concede the crucial demand of the College of Speech Therapists for the establishment of a central council for the approval of training courses and registration and for the appointment of national advisers at departmental level? Is there any possibility of Government finance to encourage urgent implementation of the Quirk recommendations, such as those dealing with improved accommodation, training facilities, research into speech defects and refresher courses?
Last, but not least, has the Secretary of State any intention of carrying out improvements, or of encouraging improvements, in the pay of speech therapists, who continue to be another exploited group of women who are involved in the running of the health service?
Sir K. Joseph: There will be some disappointment that the Government cannot push down the accelerator in connection with the recommendations by Professor Quirk and his committee, but any such move would have to be matched against competing priorities and inevitably limited resources. The report makes many recommendations.
The Government accept the report's target of 2,500 speech therapists, plus 1,500 speech therapy aides in post, compared with the present total of 900. The target would mean a quadrupling of the service, but, as the report recommends, we accept that that target should be tackled over a 20-year period. That is the recommendation of the Quirk committee.
We shall certainly seek within the budget available to encourage the authorities to improve accommodation in order to reduce the sense of isolation within which speech therapists work. We shall rely upon the Chief Scientist's committee to encourage research, but I must point out that pay is a matter for the Whitley Council.
Dame Irene Ward: I have had a lot of experience, over many years, with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and

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supplementary medicines groups. I would prefer to hear from those bodies about their views on the report rather than necessarily hear from the Opposition. Will my right hon. Friend accept—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Of course he will accept my feeling that when he puts up a light with the Treasury, the Treasury pays more attention perhaps to industrial workers than it does to professional bodies. I wish to be assured that the professional bodies get the amount of attention which they ought to get from the Treasury. I am not happy that as a party we do all we ought to do for the professional bodies, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me an—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a case of a bad example leading to a similar development, because on the Opposition Front Bench the hon. Lady made three statements and asked about 11 questions, or so it seemed. Will the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) please ask a question?
Dame Irene Ward: Mr. Speaker, may I just say to you that as for years I have represented in Parliament the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Lady has not."] Indeed, I have.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate this matter. I have called the hon. Lady for a supplementary question.
Dame Irene Ward: My supplementary question is: will my right hon. Friend, when he hears the views that have been expressed to me, allow a debate on the subject so that the professions can have their case presented properly and not just from the Opposition?
Sir K. Joseph: The House will be very pleased to know that my hon. Friend has recovered so promptly from the accident that she had earlier today. We are very glad that she has suffered no severe damage.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we take the condition of the professions intensely seriously.
Mr. Pardoe: Will the Secretary of State say exactly why it has taken 15 months to announce, after the publication of the report, that progress will be slow. Is he aware that there is a desperate shortage
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of speech therapists throughout the country and that this is affecting the quality of education in the whole education service? While noting that the right hon. Gentleman is going to commend this report to the health authorities, what they will want to know is—how much cash? May I ask him how much cash there is in it?
Sir K. Joseph: The House will recollect that eight months ago the Government accepted the two most important recommendations, and announced that through my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Consultations on the remaining recommendations have continued during those eight months. I have told the House that progress on this, as on many other matters vital to the health authorities, must be contained within the overall finance available to the health service and is, as hon. Members opposite must surely be ready to accept, essentially a matter of priorities. I am constantly deploring the fact that this country's growth rate is not such as to enable us to expand the health and other services faster than we can. However, the expansion of the services has been relatively fast—not fast enough for anybody, but relatively faster under this Government than ever before. Within those expanding resources this is a new priority which must be accommodated by local decision.
Mr. Costain: Does my right hon. Friend recall that when he made a statement on this matter earlier I drew his attention to the wonderful work being done by speech therapists in Australia? What inquiry has he made there? Does he realise that whilst I was there over Christmas speech therapists considered that investment for rehabilitation after motor car accidents could result in money being saved and not wasted?
Sir K. Joseph: Alas, the same truth applies to many other improvements in the service. They would be good investments if we had the resources for them. This is a service which we intend, on the excellent advice given us, to improve and expand.
Mr. Driberg: Would not the resources be increased greatly if the right hon. Gentleman could stop prescribing under brand names? Secondly, would the right

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hon. Gentleman say whereabouts in the Government's scale of priority he puts the most under-privileged group of all, who need speech therapy and much more besides—the relatively few children and adolescents who are autistic?
Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman has picked on one of the most clinically intractable groups where we need more knowledge as well as more resources if we are to be able to help. As for brand names, the health of the people of this country, and indeed of the world, has benefited enormously from the profit-based research which has led to the extraordinary success of drug companies all over the world, including those in this country.
Mr. Maude: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, whatever may be the hopes for the future, a great many parents and relatives have found it almost impossible to get adequate treatment in time during the last year or two? Is he aware also that, although we recognise the need to consider priorities, in this case it is often true that the longer treatment is deferred the more difficult it is to get adequate treatment in the end?
Sir K. Joseph: I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said. Alas, it applies not only to speech therapy but to many other aspects of the National Health Service. It remains true that we are providing increasing resources—never enough, but we have to use those resources to the best of our priorities.
Mr. Pavitt: I welcomed a most excellent statement by the right hon. Gentleman in my constituency a few hours ago on a different matter, but is he aware that that makes this one appalling? Does he realise that unless he considerably shortens the 20-year time scale he will not have a speech therapy service in 20 months? On the question of cash, does it mean that the career structure which allows increases under phase 3 will permit under the area health authorities a principal in the National Health Service who is now getting £2,000 to be equated with someone under the Inner London Education Authority who gets £2,900? Will he appoint a central advisory officer on speech therapy in his Department as well as one on each area health authority?
Sir K. Joseph: I must defer the answer to the last point until the consultations have been carried out. I ask the House to note the end of paragraph 7.52 of the Quirk Committee's Report, which specifically recommends us to aim to reach our target within 20 years at most.
Mr. John Wells: I appreciate the economic difficulties of the time which make a very difficult background for my right hon. Friend's statement, but may I ask if he can say anything further about the 1,500 aides whom it is aimed to produce within this period, because this must be coupled with my right hon. Friend's other phrase about the ending of the isolation in which speech therapists work? As regards the requirement about better premises, can my right hon. Friend give some specific assurance that speech therapists will get better premises to work in, because, although this may cost money, the throughput of patients will be much greater if the therapists do not have to deal with the paper work? For very little money we shall get a very much better throughput of patients.
Sir K. Joseph: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend, who has taken such an interest in this subject, says. The Quirk Committee proposes that routine work should be delegated to aides working under the supervision of speech therapists. We shall be discussing with professional and staff interests the way in which this can be achieved. The aim recommended by the Quirk Committee is not 1,500 aides, to which I wrongly referred, but 1,900 aides.
Mr. Marks: The Secretary of State has said that he cannot yet put on the accelerator. Is he quite sure that he is not going to go into reverse? Can he assure the House that in 1974–75 the service and the linked educational service will not be actually cut?
Sir K. Joseph: There is no intention whatsoever of going into reverse. The problem in this service is not so much one of recruiting as the wastage, for very well known reasons such as young women leaving to marry. Our job with the new health authorities is to try so to arrange conditions, including premises and removing the sense of isolation, as to attract back the more mature women who have been trained originally as

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speech therapists. This will be our purpose.
Mr. Gardner: Wastage is certainly an important factor. Is my right hon. Friend aware that speech therapists in my constituency, no doubt in common with those in constituencies throughout the country, have over the last year or so been expressing their severe anxiety about recruitment to the service? Is he aware that these people look forward eagerly to the full implementation of this report ultimately?
Sir K. Joseph: The answer to both parts of my hon. and learned Friend's supplementary is, "Yes, Sir."
Mr. William Hamilton: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the professional organisations with which he has been in consultation have agreed with the bulk of his statement or parts of it? Is there anything in his proposals now or for the future which will erase the wastage which is a major problem within the service?
Sir K. Joseph: Not for a moment would I expect the professional interests to be content with the pace of progress either recommended by the Quirk Committee or accepted by the Government. I have to consult the professional interests on the implications of the acceptance by the Government of the recommendations in the report.
Mr. Money: In the light of the important long-term effects of what my right hon. Friend has said, will he give an assurance that he will recommend to the regional hospital boards that the areas which are acknowledged to be most badly served will be specially considered? Further, will he say something about research?
Sir K. Joseph: Yes, I shall be urging regional and area health authorities to improve speech therapy services within their budgets. I must emphasise that they will have many priorities to serve within their only slowly expanding resources. I have said that I shall be asking the Chief Scientist to advise the Government how research into this matter, as recommended by the committee, can be fitted in.
Mr. Atkinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he does not expect the growth rate to be as much in the next 20 years as it has been in the past 20
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years? Does he not anticipate that by 1994 there will be sufficient growth for him or his successors to allocate that which is recommended by the report?
Sir K. Joseph: If we could better organise our affairs, including industrial relations, I should have no doubt about Britain's capacity to improve enormously its growth rate. However, to quadruple the number of staff in service is not a mean target even for 20 years.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. Sneaker: Order. On Thursday of last week, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor) asked me to rule about a matter which I would define as the proper use of the time of the House during Question Time. This is a most important House of Commons matter, which has exercised my predecessors, and about which recommendations have been made more than once by Procedure Committees.
I fully recognise that when a Minister is being questioned about matters of great national importance, Front Bench and back bench Members alike, quite rightly, regard it as their duty to see that no significant aspect is overlooked. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that a long supplementary question by one Member may have the effect of excluding another Member altogether.
It gives me no pleasure to cut a Member's supplementary question. I hope that the House will assist me in this matter, remembering that usually the shorter the question the more effective it is.
Sir C. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to you for your ruling and for your comments. As the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), the Leader of the Liberal Party, are not present, and as they were the two who hogged Prime Minister's Questions last Thursday, could your ruling be sent to them with a little underlining?

Ordered,
That the Rabies Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]

CRIMINAL LAW (EVIDENCE)
4.3 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the 11th Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee on Evidence (Command Paper No. 4991).
As this is the first time that the House has had the opportunity to debate this important report on the law of evidence in criminal cases, it is appropriate that at the outset I should express the thanks of the Government and of all hon. Members to the members of the committee, which was set up by the then Home Secretary, Mr. R. A. Butler, in 1959.
The Criminal Law Revision Committee has been a Standing Committee to examine such aspects of the criminal law which Home Secretaries may from time to time refer to it. Successive Home Secretaries have been fortunate, as I am sure the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) would agree, in having had the services given free and on a part-time basis of a most distinguished body of specialists in criminal law under the present chairmanship of Lord Justice Edmund Davies. The production of any report, and certainly a report of the size of the Eleventh Report, has meant for the committee a great deal of hard and meticulous work. The fact that on this occasion some of the committee's major recommendations have proved to be controversial will in no way diminish our respect for or appreciation of the work which the committee has done.
The report, on its publication in June 1972, attracted a good deal of attention. I recognise that many of its recommendations have been shown to be controversial. Many memoranda and pamphlets have been produced by various interested bodies and we have had the opportunity to pay them careful attention. We listened with great interest to what was said when the report was debated in another place. As was made clear then, and has been repeatedly said by the Government, we do not intend to reach conclusions on the report until we have had the opportunity of considering the views of hon. Members. It is in the light of today's debate and the debate which took place in another
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place, and in the light of the views expressed in the many representations received by the Home Office, that we shall formulate our proposals.
It was following certain decisions of the courts in 1963 and 1964 that it was decided that a comprehensive review of the law of evidence should be undertaken. I think no one who has practised in our courts would deny that it has grown up over the years as a patchwork of case law and statutory provisions. Accordingly, the then Home Secretary, Mr. Henry Brooke, referred the matter of rules of evidence in criminal cases to the Criminal Law Revision Committee.
The committee's terms of reference were:
"to review the law of evidence in criminal cases and to consider whether any changes are desirable in the interests of the fair and efficient administration of justice; and in particular what provision should be made for modifying rules which have ceased to be appropriate in modern conditions."
That was as long ago as 1964.
In November 1966 the committee was able to publish an interim report covering three aspects—namely, written statements, formal admissions and notices of alibi. The recommendations of the report were implemented by the then Government in Sections 9 to 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. Those sections provided that written statements may be admissible in evidence with the consent of the parties, that any fact about which oral evidence is admissible may be admitted on behalf of the prosecution or the defence, and that when an accused person proposes to raise the defence of alibi he must give advance notice of the particulars of his alibi.
That Act has now been working for some six years. Although some criticisms have been voiced from time to time, there is no evidence to suggest that its provisions are not in general working well. Its provisions have, I believe, been generally accepted. It is right to say that they were a not unimportant first part of the study of the law of evidence which has now been completed.
The main report took eight years to produce. But we must not forget that, as well as the interim report, during this period the committee produced its extremely important report on the law of theft. Further, we should not forget that

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the committee is composed of men who were serving part time whilst engaged in professional practice.
Those who criticised the report when it was first published went as far as to say that the committee which produced the report was out of touch with the work of the courts in that it included among its members no one actively practising at the Bar. The impression was given that the report had been produced by a group of people who had no experience of the effect of the rules of evidence on practical criminal cases. While it is true that the list of members at the time when the report on evidence was published did not contain the names of any practising members of the Bar, this was very much a partial truth. I suggest that the Home Office can hardly be blamed if those who it appoints to the committee as practising members of the Bar are elevated to the Bench during the period that they are working on the committee. It might be said that it shows that the Home Office picks rather well.
What can be said with certainty is that all the learned and distinguished judges on the committee at the time of its report had had extensive experience as practising barristers in the criminal courts, quite apart from their day-to-day contact with the courts as members of the Bench. Further, the solicitor member of the committee was an extremely experienced practising solicitor doing a great deal of criminal work.
Nor should we yield uncritically to the fashionable view that distinguished academic students of a subject may somehow be disqualified from contributing to the discussion merely because they lack practical experience. Whatever the merits or demerits of this report may be, it is the work of some of the best legal brains in the country, the work of a body with unrivalled knowledge of the criminal law. Its views are entitled to much more consideration and respect than was accorded them in some quarters at the time the report was published. The very fact that it is a part-time committee, with members giving their minds to the problem of law reform at the same time as they were immersed in day-to-day work in the courts, gives added weight to the committee's recommendations.
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I am not for a moment suggesting that the recommendations ought to be accepted, either wholly or in part, merely on the authority of the committee. Some of the recommendations undoubtedly touch on matters of fundamental importance and are issues which Parliament alone should decide. What I am saying is that the composition of the committee gives its recommendations the right to be treated as a weighty contribution to the solution of an extremely complex series of problems.
In addition, in view of the soundings which the committee had made—when it circulated its preliminary conclusions on the most controversial matters to those bodies professionally concerned and found that the majority of persons and bodies consulted at that stage agreed substantially with its provisional proposals—the committee had some right to think that its proposals represented a far greater consensus of opinion, particularly within the legal profession as a whole, than the immediate reaction following publication of the report may have implied.
There can be little doubt or dispute that the law of evidence is overdue for reform. It is one of the most complex areas of the law, encumbered by rules and precedents which are frequently difficult to interpret. Many of our strict rules for the exclusion of evidence in criminal cases were, as the committee pointed out, framed in conditions far different from those applying in our criminal courts today. They were framed at a time when the accused person was seldom represented, when there were few rights of appeal against conviction, and above all when, prior to the Criminal Evidence Act 1898, an accused person and his wife were, in many cases, not even permitted to give sworn evidence in their own defence.
The question to which the House should address itself, the question which the legal profession has to consider, is whether, despite the changes in conditions in the conduct of criminal trials that have occurred, it is still necessary to conduct those trials in accordance with rules of evidence promulgated as a necessary, even if inadequate, protection against injustice at an earlier stage in our history.
Much of the comment on this report has been set in the context of the rate

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of acquittal in jury trials and in the context as to whether the rules of evidence in themselves account to any significant degree for the fact that about one person in two of those pleading not guilty in contested trials in the Crown Court is acquitted. It is true that the committee referred in its report to the views expressed to it on this matter. The report refers in relation to this to the question of sophisticated professional criminals.
Leading from this, some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that the main purpose of the committee's recommendations is to make it easier to convict such professional criminals, regardless of the consequence to the rights of the innocent individual. Such a view arises from a misreading of this report. The committee, as I see it, was not unduly influenced by the increasing sophistication of the criminal underworld. This factor, to which it referred, was only one of a number of points which the committee put forward to illustrate how the position had changed over many years.
The chief grounds on which it proposed a removal of some of the restrictions on admissibility were twofold. The first was that there was no clear reason why some of those restrictions should ever have existed and, secondly, that the proposals would lead to a simplification of the law. As it said at the beginning of its report:
"ideally all evidence should be admissible which is relevant in the sense that it tends to render probable the existence or non-existence of any fact on which the question of guilt or innocence depends."
The committee went on to acknowledge that relevant evidence should nevertheless be excluded if it might be too prejudicial to the accused. We should remember that the committee's study was the first major review of the law of evidence in criminal cases this century. Its authors were chiefly motivated by the desire to propose what was in principle right and proper.
The Government have reached no conclusions upon the report and if, in my remarks on the details of the report, I make any comments on the merits or demerits I hope that they will be accepted as perhaps the occasionally permitted personal comments of someone who has practised in the criminal courts rather
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than the considered opinion of the Home Office.
I should like to channel today's debate along lines which I hope will enable hon. Members to concentrate on those areas of the report where comment would be most fruitful. Such recommendations in the report fall into four groups. The first is that group which is clearly favourable to the accused—those recommendations and proposals which have drawn little adverse comment and of which I mention two, namely the comments on evidence of identification and on evidence as to previous convictions as it relates to the cross-examination of witnesses for the prosecution.
Concerning evidence on identification, the committee proposes that where a case against an accused man depends wholly or substantially on the correctness of one or more identifications of the accused, which the defence allege to be mistaken, then the court should warn the jury of the substantial need for caution before convicting upon such evidence. The committee held mistaken identification to be by far the greatest cause of actual or possible wrong conviction.
The committee has, therefore, recommended for the first time that there should be a statutory obligation upon the judge to warn a jury of the dangers inherent in such evidence. If I may commit myself to a personal comment, it would be that one cannot be, or have been, a Minister in the Home Office, and involved in discussions from time to time on arguing the rights or the doubts of any particular conviction, without appreciating the importance and the nature of that proposal. I believe that it is allegations based on the wrongful identification of an individual witness that give rise to some of the searching problems with which those involved in the criminal side of the Home Office have to deal.
On the question of previous convictions and the imputations on character witnesses for the prosecution, the committee has proposed a substantial support of the defence over the matter of an accused's previous convictions. At present any imputation made against the character of a prosecution witness by the accused may result in the latter's previous record being brought before the court. As anyone who has practised in the courts will know, there are not infrequent occasions where an accused cannot put forward his

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defence without at least by implication making such an imputation.
In the most recent judgment on the matter—that of Selvey v. the Director of Public Prosecutions in the House of Lords in 1968—it was ruled that unless what is said amounts in reality to no more than a denial of the charge, and except in rape cases where the accused alleges consent, the accused may be cross-examined about his previous convictions, if the imputations are designed to show the unreliability of the prosecutor and his evidence and also if they are necessary to enable the accused to establish his defence.
I am sure that there is no practising lawyer in the House who will not from time to time have been put in the invidious position of considering whether certain questions necessary to a defence can safely be put to witnesses without risk to the character of his defendant. Under the Committee's proposals only imputations against a witness whose main purpose was to raise doubts as to the latter's credibility would put the accused's record in issue. The accused would, therefore, be free to put forward a defence which might impute misconduct on the part of a prosecution witness without fear of being forced to disclose his own previous misconduct.
The House should remember that this group of recommendations is clearly advantageous from an evidential point of view to the interests of the defender.
Secondly, large areas of the report, and of the attached Bill, are apparently completely non-controversial. I will merely list them. There are the hearsay clauses which relate to computer records and business and public records. There are also clauses about the opinion evidence of experts and many technical details about cross-examination. None of these has brought any measure of disagreement. In that group I would suggest that the removal of the right of the accused to make an unsworn statement from the dock, although it has been in part challenged, has generally been accepted, as equally have the committee's recommendations about competence and the fact that a spouse should be able to be a competent witness in all cases against her husband. I emphasise that I know that at the time there was some misunderstanding, but the recommendation of the committee is not that she
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should be a compellable witness against her husband in all cases; merely that she should be competent when she wished to give evidence for the prosecution.
The third area has recommendations which cover a part where undoubtedly confusion exists in the present law-confusion which demands review but where the recommendations of the committee are controversial in nature. I take only two—that on hearsay and on confessions. The law of hearsay, first, is generally recognised to be one of the most confused parts of the law of evidence and the one most in need of reform. There are obvious dangers in admitting statements made by persons who cannot be produced before the courts. At the same time there have been notorious cases in which the most compelling evidence was hearsay in character and which had to be excluded by the strict rule against it.
The Criminal Law Revision Committee has sought to produce a rational code to replace the existing welter of anomalies. Many of its proposals have been welcomed. On the other hand, it is an area where some of its proposals have met the sharpest criticism. It may well be urged that in some respects the committee has gone too far. I make it absolutely clear that the Government will pay the most careful heed to the criticisms that have been made. However, I have little doubt that a measure of rationalisation and simplification of the law of hearsay is an urgent need. I hope that in the light of the comments we have received it may be possible to bring forward proposals to meet it.
As for confessions, the present law is that for any confession to be admissible it has to be voluntary, in the sense that it has not been obtained from a person by fear of prejudice or hope of advantage. All of us involved in the law know the strictness with which that rule has from time to time been applied and the effect which it has had. What the committee recommends is to narrow the scope of what shall count as a threat or an inducement—to such threats or inducements as would be likely, in the circumstances existing at the time, to render the confession unreliable.
Even those who criticise that proposal admit that threats or inducements may well be harmless and not tend to render

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doubtful the truth of a confession. Surely the Committee is right to concentrate the minds of those concerned in these matters—not that merely a fear of prejudice or hope of advantage has been held out, but what effect that advantage or that fear has had on the reliability of the confession. I am bound to say—this is about the one purely personal remark I propose to allow myself—that I find the Bar Council objection to this provision somewhat inexplicable, other than, perhaps, because it is steeped in the natural conservatism of the profession to which I belong.
I turn finally to what are, in many ways, those two proposals which have given rise to most criticism. The first is the evidence of previous convictions and the second is the accused's right to silence.
On the first aspect—the circumstances in which previous convictions should be admitted—the committee said that it had
"… proved far the most difficult of all the topics which we have discussed."
But the nub of it is to be found in Clause 3(4) of the committee's draft Bill, which would have the effect of making it somewhat easier in certain cases to bring the accused's previous convictions before a jury. It is suggested that, where the accused admits the act but denies criminal intent, evidence of other conduct by him which tends to show in him a disposition to commit the kind of offence charged should be admissible for certain particular purposes. The chief of these would be to show that he possessed the state of mind necessary to make him likely to be guilty in respect of that conduct.
It is difficult to estimate what effect such a change in the law would have. Some recent studies have shown that, in the majority of cases, the accused admits that he was present at the scene of the crime but produces or attempts to produce an innocent explanation. It is then to be expected from other studies that in these cases, as in other cases, some at least of the accused will have previous convictions of a kind which would then become admissible under the committee's proposed new rules. We have no evidence of the effect of such a change, but I think that the important question to ask is whether the new rule would be fair. I am conscious that this provision has been
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strongly attacked by the Bar Council, amongst others, and by many noble Lords who spoke in the debate in another place, and again it is an aspect on which we should like the views of the House of Commons.
I turn now to that provision in the proposals which has given vent to the greatest controversy. This is Clause 1 of the committee's draft Bill and its effect on what has been defined briefly as the accused's right of silence. It is important fully to understand just what the committee recommends. The clause proposes that if, at the time of interrogation or when he is charged, the accused fails to mention to the police any fact which he could reasonably be expected to mention and on which he subsequently relies in his defence, the court and the jury may draw such inferences as appear proper, and that such a failure to refer to the matter at an earlier stage might amount to corroboration of prosecution evidence to which that failure is material. It follows from that proposal that the committee has also recommended various changes in the judges' rules and the wording of the police caution.
In view of the extreme degree of some of the criticism which has been made against this proposal, I want to make three points. First, it relates only to those matters which the person could reasonably be expected to mention; secondly, the inferences that can be drawn are only those as appear proper in all the circumstances; thirdly, without in any way detracting from the importance of this major recommendation, I suggest that it perhaps does not involve quite so great a change in our law as some people have implied, because at present, while a judge may not suggest to the jury that it should draw an inference of guilt from the defender's silence, or that they should "use their common sense" about it, or words of that nature, none the less he may say that the fact that the accused has not mentioned his story before is something which the jury may take into account when deciding the weight which is to be given to his evidence in court.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Is not a fourth important point the fact that all these matters were very seriously canvassed before the United States

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Supreme Court in the Miranda v. Arizona case, and that that very distinguished body came to a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of the Criminal Law Revision Committee on this issue?
Mr. Carlisle: There are many important aspects of these recommendations, and obviously one takes account of what has been said by the United States Supreme Court. I merely said that there were three points that I should make on the proposal to set it into perspective without in any way detracting from its importance.
Another of the committee's proposals makes similar provision so far as the trial is concerned, and allows the jury again to draw an inference from the fact that the accused refused to give evidence. It follows, therefore, that it allows the prosecution, as well as the judge, to comment on that failure, and, taken with the earlier provision in Clause 1, it allows the prosecution to cross-examine on any failure to give an explanation at an earlier stage or to invite the jury to draw its inference from that fact.
As I have said, we have had a great deal of comment on this matter. Some of the comments have been totally opposed, some wholly favourable, and some would accept it but only in certain circumstances. Obviously, there fore, we are anxious to hear the views of hon. Members.
Perhaps I may pose two questions. First, is it unreasonable that, when a man keeps silent when being questioned by the police and then goes into court and offers an explanation, he should be asked and challenged as to why, if the explanation is true, he did not give it before? Would an innocent man have anything to fear from such a situation? Alternatively, is it the case that people, when interviewed by the police in circumstances which are probably wholly strange to them, are quite likely, although innocent, to become nervous and tongue-tied to a degree, and that it would therefore be unreasonable to draw any inference from their failure to offer any explanation at that stage?
Mr. Emlyn Hooson: Is not the point here the practical one that a man may keep silent, not because he is protecting himself, but because he is pro
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tecting someone else and there may be other constraints on him? He may not give evidence for that reason. This was so in a case I handled. If an adverse inference was drawn in such a case, it would be a wholly unjust result.
Mr. Carlisle: There may be many reasons for a man choosing to remain silent which may not relate in any way to his guilt. But the weight of much of the argument is in the way I have put it. First, is it unreasonable that, when a man keeps silent when being questioned by the police and then goes into court and offers an explanation, he should be asked and challenged as to why he did not give that explanation earlier? Would an innocent person have anything to fear from such a situation? Secondly, do the very nature of the police investigation and the circumstances in the police station create a situation in which it is unreasonable to draw any inference from the failure of the individual to give any explanation at that stage? We expect to hear differing views from hon. Members on this issue.
I venture my own personal view. I wonder whether this question is quite so much one of black and white as some critics have suggested, or whether there is not perhaps a halfway house. I took note of the Law Society's evidence, asking whether there is not perhaps a major distinction between cross-examining an individual in the course of his giving evidence about his failure to offer an explanation at an earlier stage, with his opportunity to explain that failure to the jury, and one's invitation to the jury to draw what inference they think proper from the fact? Might one not accept that side without necessarily going so far as to say that the refusal to answer questions earlier should amount to corroboration of the case for the prosecution as it is being presented? One can draw a distinction between the effect of that failure to give evidence being corroboration and being a matter from which the jury can draw its own inference.
This issue raises important questions about police procedure in interviewing and interrogating people, to which the committee gave considerable thought. The committee looked at the arguments for and against a system of monitored or supervised interrogation. It did not favour supervised interrogation. The committee

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considered carefully the arguments for and against the tape recording of interrogations but without reaching a unanimous conclusion.
The minority of the committee argued that all interviews in police stations in the larger centres of population should be recorded so as to provide a safeguard both to the police, who may be subject to wild accusations of misbehaviour, and to the person interviewed, whose account of an interview would rarely be accepted if it conflicted with that of the police. The committee thought that Clause 1 should be suspended until that was done.
The suggestion of the tape recording of interviews in police stations is in many ways an attractive proposition. Those who practise in the criminal courts will be aware of the frequency with which defendants attack "the verbals". Sometimes the attack may be justified and sometimes it is the only possible defence. I have no doubt that an impartial mechanical record of what was said would be of value if it could be satisfactorily achieved.
However, the majority of the committee drew attention to several important difficulties and disadvantages. We cannot be sure how far the recording of interviews would reduce the effectiveness of criminal investigation by making people less willing to answer questions. The effect that tape recording in police stations only might have on the credibility of non-recorded evidence of interrogations again cannot easily be assessed, but it might be considerable. Even if there are tape recorders in police stations, there will be other occasions when evidence is given which is not tape recorded. Again, quite elaborate arrangements might be needed to exclude parts of recordings which could not be admitted in evidence or which were clearly wholly irrelevant. Finally, foolproof safeguards against tampering would be essential. All these drawbacks are of substantial weight.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread view, which I share, that we should look further into this question to see what is practicable. If the difficulties and disadvantages can be overcome—and I do not wish to underestimate them—the tape recording of interviews could be in the
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interests of the accused and, equally important, could serve to safeguard the police against unwarranted allegations. The recommendation made by the majority of the committee was that experiments should be made to see how far the use of tape recorders in interrogations might be helpful. The committee was not, however, able to consider all the practical problems of the kind I have mentioned, or to suggest how they should be solved.
The next step, in the Government's view, must be to carry out a detailed examination of precisely how an experiment could be carried out. In the language of technology, we need a feasibility study. Before any experiment can be set in train we need to be satisfied that we have worked out how to tackle all the practical and procedural problems that might arise, not only for the police but also for the courts and the legal profession.
I am glad to be able to tell the House that chief officers of police have agreed to participate in such a study of the feasibility of using tape recorders on an experimental basis. It is my right hon. Friend's intention to set up a steering committee to undertake such a feasibility study. We propose to invite to take part representatives of the Bar Council and the Law Society, together with representatives of the courts and the police. There will need to be a thorough and careful examination of the many difficulties involved, and it would be wrong for me at this stage to forecast how long that study will take.
I am conscious that I have spoken somewhat lengthily in opening the debate, although I am equally conscious that my speech compares in length of time with many of those made on this matter in another place. I have attempted to touch on some of the more important recommendations of what is undoubtedly an extremely important report, and I have attempted to set them in perspective, and I have tried to pose some of the questions that I believe must be borne in mind when deciding one's attitude to the report. The Government will listen with interest to the contributions of hon. Members.
The subject is one of intrinsic importance. It affects the whole relationship

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between those who may be accused of criminal activities and the judicial process. It concerns matters on which we need to be sure that any changes decided upon are right. It concerns matters which cross party views in the House and outside. I hope that the contributions that we shall hear in the debate will assist the Government in coming to the right conclusions on this matter.
Mr. Ernie Money: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall be grateful for your ruling on this matter. During his speech my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State adverted, as was almost inevitable in the circumstances, to the debate which took place in another place on Wednesday 14th February 1973. It is inevitable that during our debate in this House a good deal of our deliberation will turn on matters that were considered in another place. It is the tradition that the only views which are expressed in another place that may be quoted in this House are those expressed by the Front Bench. In the particular and rather special circumstances of this debate, I should be grateful for your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on whether the views expressed by noble and learned Lords from the cross benches will be admissible during the debate?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair considers that it would be in order for hon. and right hon. Members to refer to such matters as illustrations in the course of the debate.
4.50 p.m.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Despite the distinction of the committee which produced the report, what we are doing here today is burying Caesar, not praising him. The Minister of State has suggested that this is a sounding debate and that our opinions will be considered when the Government make decisions about the report's recommendations. But anyone who has seen the wave of criticism that has followed the committee's recommendations must find it difficult to believe that any substantial change in the law will follow.
It is true, as the Minister said, that the report contains some good recommendations. I hope that the good will not be interred with the bones of Caesar, but I fear that when one sees the way in which the committee got it wrong on the essen
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tial balance that ought to follow in the criminal trial, one must have doubts about almost every aspect of it.
I turn to make some fairly short observations on the recommendations in detail, because if I am right it would be a work of supererogation to deal at length with any of the recommendations. I want to try to understand why a committee as distinguished as this should have got it wrong. On the committee there were eight judges, three professors of law, the Director of Public Prosecutions and one legal adviser to the Home Office. None was barrister at the time that it reported, but some of the judges who sat on the committee were in their day distinguished advocates who had experience at the criminal Bar.
None of us who practises in the courts would wish to minimise the distinction of people such as Lord Justice Edmund Davies and Mr. Justice Lawton. We are dealing here with people who know what they are talking about, and I do not wish, in any criticism I may make of them, to suggest otherwise. If I may add a personal note, I learned my jurisprudence at the feet of Professor Glanville Williams and I doubt whether there is a more lucid mind in the law in this country. I always note with interest anything that he says on law reform. I am happy to observe that he was in a minority on a number of the recommendations, although he approved of the general thesis of the report.
The essential question is whether we needed to change the criminal trial in England in the ways that have been recommended. It is true that the law of criminal evidence is a patchwork of case law and statutory recommendation, but so is much of English common law. So what is the pressing need now for change?
We must remember when advocating change that the English criminal trial and the right of trial by jury are fundamental concepts in our understanding of what we loosely call the English way of life. It is part of our approach to the relationship between citizen and State that if a person gets into difficulties with the police there will be a fair examination of the evidence against him and of his response to it. Therefore, it is no wonder that there should be such widespread public concern about recommendations which are

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as fundamental in their changes as these are.
When the committee disparaged the suggestion that some of its recommendations might be considered unfair and asked what people meant by fairness in those terms, it underestimated the feeling of the man in the street, as well as the lawyer practising at the Old Bailey, about what is fair. I can give an example, from my own experience. In a recent criminal case I had occasion to make some imputations upon the character of one of the prosecution witnesses. I was immediately met by an application from the prosecution to cross-examine the accused person about his previous convictions. The application was made when the jury was out. It was granted, despite my objections, and in due course the points were put to the accused. The look of bewilderment that spread over the faces of the jury was immediate. Their response to my not objecting was clearly hostile.
When, in the course of the case, I explained why this had taken place and urged that, none the less, though it was strictly within the rules of law, it was wholly unfair, the jury clearly took the point. Although the case against the accused was strong, and though he had previous convictions, the jury refused to convict. There is an essential feeling in the British mentality that one has to act fairly in these matters because so much hangs on the consequence of a conviction.
Therefore, I approach this matter from that point of view. Why change? There are two major arguments. The first is that on which the committee proceeded—that it is logical to change and that it is logical in a criminal trial to allow in any relevant evidence unless there are good grounds for excluding it. One must basically, therefore, proceed on the basis of allowing in evidence and reducing to as few as possible the number of exclusions which will be permitted.
That was clearly stated by the committee in paragraph 14 of its report, which says:
"Since the object of a criminal trial should be to find out if the accused is guilty, it follows that ideally all evidence should be admissible which is relevant in the sense that it tends to render probable the existence or non-existence
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of any fact on which the question of guilt or innocence depends."
The language of the law, said Oliver Wendell Holmes, is experience and not necessarily logic. To substantiate the argument, I will use as an example the controversial recommendation about the right to silence.
The Minister says that if the police have reason to believe that a man is guilty of a criminal offence, and the matters on which they base that suspicion are put to him, it is right that he should be called upon at that point to give an explanation. In a memorandum of dissent to a report of Justice some years ago, the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) made this point. In those circumstances, the only one who may know what happened is the accused. It is logical to ask him to give his explanation at an early stage in the investigation so that the matter can be cleared up or can proceed.
As the critics of the report have said on a number of occasions, there are two basic reasons why logic in this case is a poor guide. The first was stated most convincingly by the Criminal Bar Association in its memorandum, a very powerful argument in view of what the Minister of State had to say about the Bar. It says:
"We would add the obvious: the great majority of people who fall foul of the criminal law, or who are suspected of doing so, are inarticulate, or weak, or fearful, or inadequate or deprived; the facts surrounding an alleged crime and the intentions and motives of the persons involved may be highly complex, most people find it difficult to sort out the relevant facts in a situation even when assisted in the friendly atmosphere by their own solicitor."
Those of us who have ever seen a brief prepared by a solicitor know that the proof often leaves out some of the most relevant facts that ought to have been included. I return to the quotation:
"even a simple road accident may afford seemingly impossible complications requiring thought and time properly to resolve."
That must be so. The apparently logical argument that the man who knows most about it ought to be called upon to give an explanation may fail by the inadequacy of the personality of the person concerned.
The best example of that is surely the case of Timothy Evans. Timothy Evans gave two confessions to the police. It is now accepted on all sides—despite the

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report of Mr. Justice Brabin—that Timothy Evans was not guilty of any of the offences with which he was charged. That was one case of an innocent man being hanged. Why did Evans give those two confessions? The reason largely must lie in the inadequacy, about which we know, of the personality of Evans. He was the kind of man who would be overawed in a police station. He made a confession but he might very well have said nothing at all in view of his inadequacy. Yet he was wholly innocent, confused and innocent. It is that kind of person the rules about the rights of silence are designed to protect.
The other reason why logic may not always be the right course stems from our experience of what goes on in a police station. Here I tread with some care. I do not want it to go forth from this House—certainly not from myself—that any of us would say that the practice of police officers is always bad—quite the contrary. But that the practice of police officers is sometimes bad is undeniable and we have plenty of evidence to substantiate that fact. Where I fear it is most widely in error is in the area where a good and honest police officer feels that he has got the man who committed the offence but he has not quite got the evidence that would be admissable to prove that he has the right man. In one sense he knows that he has got the man. What is meant by "knows" is that he strongly suspects that he has got the man. It satisfies his mind and therefore he wants the evidence to satisfy the court.
I might have some temerity in putting forward that argument if it were not contained in the report. Paragraph 52 sets it all out in detail and anybody who wishes to pusue the argument can look for it there. It is clear that the minority were doubtful about the majority recommendation in relation to the right to silence for this very reason, and justifiably so.
I will come to the question of Sir Robert Mark in due course but much of the thinking in the Dimbleby Lecture was based on the assumption that a 'copper" knows that the man is guilty and yet the man is acquitted. Therefore, there must be something wrong with the criminal trial.
Nobody, except the person present, knows what we have to try to do in the
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process of police investigation and criminal trial to find out whether it is proved that that happened. The rules of evidence are designed to ensure that so far as possible we can prove it without any unfairness to the accused or to the community as a whole.
I do not regard the rules of evidence as being merely a game which lawyers indulge in for their own enrichment, as the committee at one stage was apparently suggesting. I regard the rules of evidence as having grown up precisely to get to the point which the committee itself said was the object of criminal trial—namely, to elucidate so far as possible the truth in order to discover whether the accused is guilty of the offence which is alleged against him. I am not so preoccupied with logic.
The second argument is put forward in the report but, as the Minister said, the report did not use it as a strong argument. Indeed, the whole reason for considering this area was different. It has been strongly suggested by Sir Robert Mark and a number of other police officers, and also by sections of the Press, that too many people are getting off and therefore there is something wrong with the criminal trial.
I have had the advantage of spending an hour and a half with Sir Robert discussing precisely that aspect of the matter. I must pay him the tribute which almost everybody I have met pays to him, that he must be one of the most remarkable police officers that this country has ever had. He has an intelligent and extremely stimulating mind and I found my 90 minutes with him abrasive but rewarding.
However, I still feel that he suffers from that basic flaw in his reasoning. As he said in his Dimbleby Lecture, a failure rate of 50 per cent. shows that we cannot always expect to convict the guilty, or never to prosecute the innocent.
"But in my opinion a failure rate of one in two is far too high. I doubt whether it would be tolerated in many other kinds of activity, so I think it's something that certainly needs looking into. In the absence of any reliable research no one can say with any certainty why the acquittal rate is so high."
Personally, I do not think the acquittal rate is necessarily high. The figures produced suggest that it is no more than about 15 per cent. of the total number of people who are proceeded against in this country. If it is as high as 50 per cent.

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of those who plead not guilty, one still has to bear in mind that the number of people who so plead is only 30 per cent. of the total who are proceeded against. Seventy per cent. of people plead guilty and are dealt with on that basis.
Inevitably, those who plead not guilty are usually those against whom there is not a clear case, and it would be unusual if most of them were convicted when the matter came before a jury. The likelihood in those circumstances would be that there would be an even higher rate of pleas of guilty.
In his address to the Society of Public Law the Minister of State suggested that it was not particularly helpful to consider the statistics of the people who were convicted in this way, or of people who were acquitted, because it did not necessarily follow that any substantial inference could be drawn from the fact that a man who was acquitted had or had not any previous convictions. We were referred to the example of Mr. A1 Capone. Most people, however, think that it would be helpful to know whether Sir Robert has got it right. If he has, there may be some justification for changing the rules of a criminal trial.
Since Sir Robert first raised the matter, there have been some interesting researches into the subject. The Oxford Penal Research Unit carried out a study on a small sample of cases in the Oxford area. But published in The Guardian today is the synopsis of a much wider research programme, undertaken by Mr. Michael Zander of the London School of Economics. The full results of that research will be published in the Law Review as soon as the printing situation allows.
However, Mr. Zander has kindly provided me with a copy of his article. For the purposes of the argument and to have it on record, I shall quote Mr. Zander's conclusions, which he reached on the basis of the total number of cases he considered at the Old Bailey and the Inner London Crown Court. Those two courts are the busiest in the country and I am sure that it would be widely accepted—certainly by Sir Robert—that they deal with some of the most serious crime in the country. The study covered 100 cases
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in which there was an acquittal at the Old Bailey, 100 cases in which there was an acquittal at the Inner London Crown Court, and a substantial number of cases in which there were convictions. The total number of cases considered was 1,435. The conclusions were these.
First, Mr. Zander considered those who pleaded "Not guilty". His first conclusion is:
"The rate of not guilty pleas seems to be unrelated either to the seriousness of the offence or of the anticipated penalty."
He went on:
"The majority of accused persons in the higher courts plead guilty. This is true even of those with the worst records."
Mr. Zander then considered the acquittal rates in the light of the allegations made by Sir Robert that not only was it disturbing that about 50 per cent. were acquitted, but that this was allowing serious professional criminals to get away with it. Mr. Zander goes on:
"The acquittal rate as a proportion of the total number of defendants is around 15 per cent. and as a proportion of those pleading not guilty is between 35 per cent. and 50 per cent. depending on the court or area."
One interesting finding was that whereas the Oxford study had found that 50 per cent. were acquitted, the inner London study showed that about 40 per cent. were acquitted. On the whole, 38 per cent. at the Old Bailey and slightly fewer at the Inner London Crown Court were acquitted.
Mr. Zander continues:
"There is no evidence that courts which deal with the most serious offences or offenders have a higher acquittal rate than others—if anything, the reverse is true. The overwhelming majority of defendants in all offence categories are convicted—either after a guilty plea or on the verdict of a jury."
Mr. Zander then looked at the effect of having previous convictions in the light of the suggestion that it was the professional criminal who was able to get away with it. He came to the conclusion that the proportion in the higher courts of all defendants with a prior record was approximately 70 per cent. But a significantly higher proportion of those convicted had previous convictions than those who were acquitted. He said:
"Equally a significantly higher proportion of those with no prior record are acquitted than of those with a prior record."

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That is the most interesting finding of the lot—that where there is a previous record, an accused person is more likely to be convicted than if there is no previous record. As Mr. Zander remarked:
"The worse the record, the lower the acquittal rate."
Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: To what extent does the hon. Gentleman think that that is due to the fact that the modern sophisticated jury may realise that when a man's record is not put in and there is no reference to his character, it means that he has previous convictions?
Mr. Lyon: That may be something to do with it. It is also something to do with the atmosphere of the trial. I was coming to that in due course, so perhaps I may leave it until later. It is a matter which some critics fail to understand.
Finally, Mr. Zander went further. He asked permission of the commissioner, who had given his blessing to this study, to investigate the reasons for the acquittal, so far as the police or the lawyers could determine. Unfortunately, the commissioner could not give his consent in relation to the police, but he asked the lawyers who were involved. In 58 per cent. of the cases where there had been an acquittal, he obtained the opinion of both the defending and prosecuting counsel. In some other cases he obtained only one or the other, but there were comments from approximately 70 per cent. of the cases.
The interesting thing was that, just as in the case of the Oxford study, they found that the perverse verdict—the one where the jury had flown in the face of the evidence—was very rare. Almost a third of the cases were thrown out on the direction of the judge. One must, therefore, assume that it was a proper case to acquit. Of the other two-thirds, a substantial number were cases where the prosecution had failed to produce sufficient evidence for the matter to be decided against the accused.
In a great many other cases—in my experience, most of the cases, the prosecution are met with criticisms of the witnesses or the evidence that they give which they are unable to confute satisfactorily to the jury. The jury, therefore, feels that the case has not been proven. The perverse verdicts were reduced to about only 6 per cent. of the
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total, which was roughly the same as the Oxford study experience.
In those circumstances, can it be said that the English criminal trial is failing to do the job which was set out for it by the committee, namely to convict the guilty and to acquit the innocent? According to this research and a good deal of other comment which has come in since the committee reported, where there is an acquittal there is usually reasonable ground for acquitting.
In those circumstances, it is about time that the police recognised that merely because they have said that a man is the one whom the police think to be guilty, the matter is not ended there. If 12 men good and true have heard the evidence fairly presented on both sides, and have come to the conclusion that they are not satisfied, it is right that we should leave the matter there. It may be that some guilty men go free. I, for one, would prefer that than that any innocent man should be convicted. I can think of nothing worse than to have been convicted and possibly sent to prison for an offence that one did not commit.
On the occasions when I have defended men whom I thought were innocent and I have felt that they might be convicted, the strain on me has been enormous. If they had been convicted, I should have felt uneasy about our system. I am happy to say that in cases where I felt that way, they were acquitted. Perhaps it showed on my face. Therefore, on the general thesis of whether we need radically to reconstruct the English criminal trial, I am not at one with the majority of the committee.
I said that I would comment on the various detailed recommendations, though I do not want to hold up the debate for long. I wholly subscribe to the recommendation about corroboration of identification—if anything, I think that it is too slight. Merely to tell the jury that it is dangerous to convict is not to suggest that it cannot convict, and although if one man is absolutely sure that may be enough to persuade the jury, I feel uneasy about such a conviction. I do not find any difficulty in the recommendations about the introduction of previous convictions of witnesses for the prosecution.
On the matters which the Minister said were not very controversial, which he classified in his second category, I would

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not be sure that the recommendations about hearsay—certainly on the general recommendations about hearsay—are not controversial. I could accept the recommendations about hearsay in relation to specific kinds of evidence.
Mr. Carlisle: I did say that some of the provisions on hearsay were probably the most controversial of all, but I also said that there were others which could be grouped with those which had drawn no adverse comment whatsoever.
Mr. Lyon: I accept what the Minister said. It was not entirely clear. There was one item in the list on which I am not quite as complacent as most of the critics. The Minister is right in saying that there has been very little criticism, but I find some difficulty on the question of competence and compellability of spouses. I recognise, and the Minister is right to remind us, that what we are concerned with here is not compellability, where the recommendation for further compellability goes only slightly wider than the existing law, but competence. Is a wife competent to give evidence for the prosecution if she wants to? The case for the committee was that if a woman wants to give evidence against her husband why should she be stopped?
There seemed to me to be two possible arguments—first, that it might be very helpful in quelling criminal intentions that a man should be persuaded to discuss his possible future criminal activities with his wife and that she may be a restraining force. If the criminal realised that at some future date, when relations between himself and his wife might not be as good as they were, she could be called as a prosecution witness, he might be the more reluctant to discuss his affairs with her. It is a small point but it may be helpful in restraining some criminals from going that far.
Secondly, even if relations between a wife and her husband are not bad, by the time the trial comes along she is then, if the police ask her to give evidence for them against her husband, under a dual strain. One of the reasons for the introduction of the Bill was that it was not thought right for a wife to be put under that kind of pressure to give evidence against her husband when she had to consider her public duty. There are
916
many wives of criminals who feel some sense of anguish that their husbands should have gone so far as to commit criminal offences. They know that they can give some evidence against their husbands. In those circumstances, there would be some strain upon a wife and perhaps upon her relationship with her husband.
The Minister dismissed that on the ground that we were discussing competence rather than compellability. But I fear that he minimised the kind of social pressure that there would be upon a wife to give evidence for the prosecution because it was her public duty to do so. I am not at all sure that that is the right way. But I accept that my doubts are minority doubts on this argument and that others have accepted it.
I agree with the Criminal Bar Association about hearsay, but it is a matter that should be reconsidered by the Law Commission. It would have been better if the Criminal Law Revision Committee had proceeded in the same way as the Law Commission. It is all very well to say that it put its tentative proposals to a number of interested bodies, but it did not do it in the same way as the Law Commission—by producing a Green Paper open to comment by every organ of opinion.
In the light of our experience with the Law Commission perhaps we should abandon the whole idea of the Criminal Law Revision Committee and widen the Law Commission so that it may take in professional advice on criminal law. It should proceed in the same kind of way, taking advice from every sector, including the judges, issuing its general proposals as a Green Paper so that they may be discussed.
If that had happened in this instance, we should not have had anything like the amount of controversy. I hope that will happen in the instance of hearsay. The recommendations are complex and not necessarily the best for dealing with the situation. I much prefer further consideration by a body like the Law Commission.
I am not persuaded by the arguments on confessions, but I accept that confessions are a difficult area of the law of evidence and that we are in something of a mess. Here, again, perhaps the Law Commission should look at this matter

917
afresh in the light of the recommendations. I have already said what I wanted to say about the right to silence.
On the question of previous convictions, I cannot understand why it is regarded by the committee as being more cogent that a man has previous convictions in relation to his intent than in relation to the actus reus. It recommends that if a man agrees that he was at the scene of a crime, but he says that he was there for an innocent reason, it is right that one should be allowed to bring in his previous convictions against him. If the prosecution says that a man was in a yard in order to break into a building, but he says that he was in the yard in order to urinate, why should it be more helpful to the jury to know that his previous conviction was for shopbreaking? Even shopbreakers occasionally have to urinate. It may be that that was the honest reason for his being in the yard.
The jury may accept his explanation, but why should the added burden be put upon him because he disputes the intent? There seems to be no difference between the intent and the actus reus. Therefore I would not be prepared to accept that wider extension of the law.
I am afraid that, like the Minister, I have spoken for long enough. We can plead in mitigation only that neither of us has spoken for the length of time of the learned Law Lords in the other place. In the light of the sustained criticism from every source, the Minister in his address to the Society of Public Law and possibly Lord Widgery and the Lord Chancellor have been the only sources of comment favourable to the controversial opinions against them.
Mr. Carlisle: I am in good company.
Mr. Lyon: The Minister says that he is in good company against them. I am in much more distinguished company—a rare feat for me. But the fact that the Minister and I are discussing this matter, rather than the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend, suggests that this report will not see the light of day in sustained recommendation.
5.29 p.m.
Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Although I do not adopt the extreme conservative view expressed by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon), who has just spoken about the
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glories of our procedure, I agree largely with his approach, for slightly less idealistic reasons. I look at the matter rather more commercially, and I would not bargain away the right of silence, the right to have one's record kept secret, and all the other suggestions that the report makes for such a small mess of potage as the report offers.
The trouble with criminal trials today is that, because the police are so overstretched, they rely more and more on oral confessions and admissions and less and less on old-fashioned detection. I have seen this happen rather remarkably in my lifetime. Before the war I was a humble practitioner at the criminal Bar and then for 25 years never went into the criminal courts. Now in my old age I never seem to be out of them.
During those 25 years the enormous difference in the mode of trials has had a great impact upon me. In the old days the police regarded detection as their job, and they had the numbers to do it. The incidence of crime was so much less that they proved their case by detection. Nowadays they are so stretched that the temptation to prove it by confession or admission is overwhelming. I do not blame them. If it were otherwise we should all perish in our beds.
It is wrong to say that the lawyers are responsible for what is sometimes referred to as the imbalance in the fight in the law courts. The reason is that the police are so overstretched. I should like us to get back to proof of guilt by detection rather than by confession or admission. The proof of guilt by admission and confession leads to trials of great length. The fashion now is that there should be a trial within a trial to see whether the oral admissions and confessions made to the police were in fact made, and the jury is sent out for days while sterile argument rages over and over again and then has to be repeated in the presence of the jury. It leads to a great deal of expense and lengthening of trials.
Secondly, in the old days the only confessions and admissions were usually not in police cases but in cases in which the Customs and Excise or the Inland Revenue were prosecuting, and they conducted their interrogations—as they do

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still—in quite a different manner from the police because they have much greater opportunities of doing so. They have skilled persons who do little else. They have contemporary records and there is little challenge to what is said because everybody knows that it is a hopeless task.
Frequently, I think they press a bit hard. They seem to pay no attention when somebody says that he does not wish to answer their questions until his solicitor is present. They go on pressing him. They have a difficult task, and I make no criticism of those interrogating officers.
The public and certainly the profession are worried, not only about the present state of what are called the "verbals" but about the suggestion which the committee makes that interrogations by the police should be given an added sanctity by the fact that any refusal to answer before a man is charged with an offence, on being questioned by a police officer, is of great and public significance. I am not wedded to the law of the Medes and Persians about the right of silence, but I will certainly not give it up unless something is done about the "verbals".
One of the things which I was most pleased to hear from the Minister of State is that a trial experiment will be made in the proper recording of police interrogations. It is in that direction and down that avenue that we may come to a reconciliation of this problem. If some means, can be discovered by which police interrogation can achieve the sort of sanctity—respectability, I nearly said—that the Revenue and the Customs and Excise interrogations now, I consider, have, then if a man refuses to answer when he has perhaps had the opportunity of consulting his solicitor—or at any rate when a record of his refusal is unimpeachable from the fact that the tape is in the possession of a magistrate or other impartial person—it may be possible to proceed.
But I should not think that it would be safe to proceed with the present method of recording in a policeman's notebook, often 24 hours after the event, with all the difficulties and with a police force which is so gravely over-stretched and which, as the hon. Member for York
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so rightly said, is convinced that it has its man and does not see why the rigmarole should be gone through, with the chance of his escaping. That so often happens and it is so tempting for the police. It is what is behind the police criticism of the present procedure.
If the problem of the verbal confessions or admissions can be solved by means of an unimpeachable record in the way that will apparently be experimented upon, then we might consider the right to silence again, but for the time being, no—it is far too dangerous to sacrifice what has been a universal and greatly treasured privilege or right in this country so long as the present system of police recording remains in its unsatisfactory condition.
I would say again, judging this thing on balance and seeing whether the balance of forces is right—that is what, even though they do not say so, was at the back of the minds of the Committee—we should not allow previous convictions in for issues of intent or consideration of the mens rea or state of mind of the accused. It may be, again if other balancing factors are incorporated, and even though it may be illogical, that one would look at that again, but at present there is not enough in the report on the side of the accused person to say that the "trade-in" is fair. I am sorry to use these commercial expressions, but in my commercial way, that is how I look at it.
One recommendation I do support. I have always been an enemy, long before this report, of the hearsay rule of evidence. I believe it to be totally outdated in every field. Juries today are perfectly able to judge the value of hearsay evidence and to evaluate whether it is worth anything or nothing—certainly when properly directed. The hearsay rule, as every instructed person knows, was invented because juries were so ignorant, illiterate and ill-educated in the old days that they could not be trusted to evaluate hearsay evidence.
Juries are very different today. They take copious notes and ask copious questions, and follow the trial with immense interest, and they can be trusted to judge the value of hearsay evidence and to give it its proper value in any circumstances. This would shorten the trial enormously and it would be much less artificial in the

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minds of the jury. Nothing irritates the jury today more than to be sent out of court over and over again while some argument about whether something is hearsay or not is propounded.
There are three rules in our national life that I dislike. They all cause enormous complications and waste of time. I hope before I die to see the end of all of them. The first is the hearsay rule of evidence; the second is the earnings rule in social security; the third is the offside rule in association football. If we can get rid of all three before I am dead, I shall not have lived in vain.
5.41 p.m.
Mr. David Weitzman: This is an interesting debate. Throughout my time in the House I have never been so tempted to go into a report in great detail, but I know that that appears to be the prerogative of the Front Bench, and I will restrain myself.
I want to begin by dealing with the thesis that we in this country pride ourselves on a system of trial and legal procedure which is the envy of many other countries. That is not to say, I agree, that valuable changes cannot be made, but I have noted in latter years a tendency to try to alter our system in certain fundamental matters. In my early days at the Bar, most civil cases could be tried with the assistance of a jury. That right is now severely restricted. Then majority verdicts in criminal cases were introduced. Now the Criminal Law Revision Committee has made recommendations which are so fundamental that there has been severe criticism not only from lawyers but also from many well-informed laymen.
It is now being recommended, apparently on the ground that what is sought is the "ascertainment of truth", that we introduce into our "adversary" or "accusational system" elements of the concept of criminal jurisprudence from the Continental "inquisitorial" system. In a letter in The Times on 5th October 1972, Dr. Manfred Simon, a retired French judge, said that he had long had a deep interest in and admiration for the protection given to the accused under English law, that this had deservedly inspired lawyers and legislators in other countries and that any changes which would endanger the proper protection
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given by the English system to the accused were a matter of general, not merely English, concern.
His criticism of the proposed changes was that they would tend to introduce into English law certain features of the inquisitorial system without the safeguards that procedure in France had to protect the accused against arbitrary action by the police and judiciary alike. He said—and this is important with regard to what I have said about the tendency to change—
"It is a sad illustration of the insidious process whereby standards of even the most civilised countries can, under modern pressure, subtly but irresistibly be eroded."
What is the main reason put forward for the proposed changes? I know that the Minister of State has doubted that it was the reason put forward by the committee, but it seems to me from my reading of the report that it is undoubtedly one of the important reasons for the committee's recommendations on certain points. It is said that changes are required because of the increase in the incidence of crime. Yet there is no evidence that existing procedure has in any way accounted for that increase. It is, rather, a social question. My hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) referred to the report on the last investigation, which showed to a considerable extent how wrong was the view that changes are required because of the increase in crime.
It is said that hardened criminals escape because of our procedure. Perhaps some do, but there is little evidence to support such an allegation. Even if it were true, in crime the individual is the person dealt with, and crime rate should not affect our criminal procedure in any way.
As one who may claim to have had considerable experience over many years—I have had the privilege of dealing with hundreds of different cases involving crimes of all kinds, in which the questions of the right to silence, confessions and hearsay evidence have arisen—I profoundly disagree with many of the recommendations and have grave doubts about others. I propose to deal with only some of them.
I want to deal in particular with the proposed abolition of the caution and the curtailment of the right to silence. The right to silence is a constitutional legal

923
right. The accused person should be told by those who have the power and the right to question him that he has that right.
It is not the professional criminal who will be affected. As has been said by the Bar Council and many other bodies competent to judge, it is the weak, the inarticulate, the person who does not know his legal rights, the innocent person, who will suffer. To say of such a person, as is proposed by Clause 1(1) of the draft Bill, that from failure to mention any fact which subsequently was relied upon in the defence an inference could be drawn—presumably showing his guilt or tending to show his guilt—would be an unwarranted and unnecessary fundamental change in our law. It would be a breach of the principle we have long cherished, that the accused is deemed to be innocent until he has been proved, by evidence adduced by the prosecution, to be guilty.
I should have thought that the committee would have paid much more regard to the necessity for observance of the Judges' Rules and the need for a lawyer to be present when the accused is interrogated. I know that there was some discussion of those matters, to which the Minister of State has referred. But we all recognise that, although as a general rule the integrity of the police is beyond question, there has been considerable disquiet on a number of occasions about the accuracy of interviews between police and accused, with no independent witnesses present, and that there is a need for verbatim reports. I welcome the inquiry the Government are to carry out with regard to taped reports. I hope that it may be extended beyond that and that something can be done to see that when an accused person is interviewed by the police a lawyer is present to protect his interests.
I turn to Clause 2 of the draft Bill, dealing with confessions. The committee recommended that the present rule should be relaxed. It is proposed that confessions obtained by a threat or inducement are to be inadmissible only when they are likely in the circumstances, in the words of the clause
"to render unreliable any confession which might be made by the accused in consequence thereof."
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I have read carefully arguments that are said to support the proposed change. I do not think that they logically support the necessity for such curtailment.
In my experience, when we have a trial within a trial about the "admissibility of a confession", it is often difficult to deal with the matter. It is so easy for the police to advance their case that no threats or inducements were ever used. Yet very often damaging statements are put forward in the confession that are vital on the question of guilt or innocence. It would be very wrong to curtail the present right to keep out confessions in cases where they should be kept out.
I should now like to say a word about the power to compel defendants to enter the witness box. I do not suppose that the professional criminal would fear it or be affected by it. But, again to use the words of bodies that have considered the matter, it is the hesitant, the inarticulate, the weak, the innocent accused who might well suffer. My hon. Friend the Member for York gave some cogent illustrations.
Finally, there is the proposal to allow in evidence details of previous convictions. I strongly oppose that recommendation. Subject to certain exceptions, such evidence has never been admitted. A verdict is returned on the facts proved in connection with the crime charged. The mind of the jury should not be biased by references to the accused's previous history. After all, the accused has paid the penalty for his previous convictions, and damaging evidence of that kind should not be given.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York's wholesale condemnation of the report. I agree with the Minister that there are some valuable recommendations in it. I have no doubt that the committee gave a great deal of consideration to the matters before it, and we should be indebted to it for its careful consideration. However, far too much attention appears to have been given to aiding the police in their fight against crime and far too little to the protection of accused persons. Let us not forget that it is better that the guilty should escape than that an innocent person should be convicted.
Above all, let us do nothing to detract from the important principle in our law

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that a person is deemed innocent until proved guilty, and that he should be proved guilty only upon evidence properly adduced by the prosecution.
5.54 p.m.
Mr. Edward Gardner: I was glad to hear the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) say—I agree with him—that there are recommendations in the report which are undoubtedly valuable and which should be considered by the Government. I also associate myself with my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, in recognising the distinction of the committee. I share with the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) a certain nervousness about questioning conclusions reached by a committee of such eminence.
One of the most interesting points raised by the hon. Member for York was the question why such a distinguished committee had, in some major facets of its report, gone—in the view of some of us—so sadly astray. The reason lies in the fact that the committee was acting and was coming to its conclusion upon two basic assumptions. It is upon these two basic assumptions that the committee has mounted its argument for many of the major recommendations in the report.
Those two basic assumptions are the same assumptions as are the foundation of strong criticism of our system of criminal law by Sir Robert Mark, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The first of those basic assumptions is that juries are acquitting far too many guilty professional criminals, and the second is that by changing the rules of evidence there can be a cure for what is happening, as it is apparently supposed to be clear that the rules of evidence tend to favour the defence more than the prosecution. I have felt that there has been growing a snowball of doubt as to the validity of those two basic assumptions.
After the publication of the report, the Bar Council published in the form of a memorandum what can only be described as a devastating criticism of some of the major recommendations made by the committee. The Bar Council's memorandum has had a considerable—I am almost tempted to say prodigious-influence on the Government's thinking
926
and possibly has been responsible for the delay in any attempt to implement the committee's proposals by new legislation.
In its memorandum the Bar Council says in effect that the basic premise upon which the committee urged some of its main conclusions was incapable of being substantiated, and was wrong. The basic premise which it says was wrong was the premise that too many guilty professional criminals are being acquitted by juries because the laws of evidence tend to favour the defence. I have been asked by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival), who has unavoidably had to leave the House, to say that he wishes his name to be associated with the criticisms which have been raised by the Bar Council in its memorandum.
A new study of acquittals by juries has been released today and the hon. Member for York has provided a more than adequate precis of what it contained. I shall not go over the same ground. The author of the report, Mr. Zander, knows full well—he will forgive me for saying so—that he is a person with whom I do not always agree. However, I must now pay him a compliment, and I do so sincerely. The study of the acquittals by juries, clothed with convincing figures and facts, has two propositions which are contrary to the basic premise upon which the report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee was founded. The first of the propositions, based on the statistics set out in the study, is that professional criminals who commit relatively serious crimes are more likely to be convicted than the less experienced who come before some courts.
The second of the propositions which he seeks to support, and which in my view, on the face of it, is supported by what he has discovered, is that mere reform of the rules of evidence, as recommended by the committee, would have little or no effect upon the conviction rate. Mr. Zander's study of the random samples showed that most acquittals—and I would not think that any great analysis was needed to convince us of this—were acquittals for obvious reasons, such as the weak prosecution, the strong defence, the bad witness, the absent witness, and all those other reasons upon which one supposes juries act in acquitting people who are accused before them.

927
A quarter of the acquittals in the cases he examined were acquitted on the direction of the judge. Mr. Zander must be right when he comments that in these cases no amendment or reform of the rules of evidence could possibly be expected to alter the fact that these people would be acquitted, even though the rules of evidence were different.
In only a small number of cases were the acquittals without explanation, or perverse, and it would be reasonable to suppose that no one would expect to avoid perverse acquittals merely by changing rules of evidence. If Mr. Zander's study of the acquittals of accused people is accurate, and if its conclusions are reliable and can be generally applied, the basic premise upon which the report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee is apparently based can no longer be any reason or guide for changing what Mr. Roger Parker, Q.C., the former chairman of the Bar Council, described as the
"whole ethic of the administration of criminal justice in this country… ."
One of the most important and controversial proposals of the committee is that the right to silence should be abolished. At present the right of the accused, after caution, is to say nothing, to decline to give evidence until his trial. That is a constitutional right of supreme importance to every citizen in this country.
I make no apology for quoting again a much-quoted passage from the summing up of Mr. Justice Devlin, as he then was—now Lord Devlin—in the case of Dr. Bodkin Adams who was charged with murder and who declined to go into the witness box and give evidence. Mr. Justice Devlin reminded the jury:
"We grant to everyone suspected or accused of crime at the beginning, at every stage, and until the very end, the right to say ' Ask me no questions. I shall answer none. Prove your case.' I hope the day will never come when that right is denied to any Englishman."
I believe that unhappily that day would come if this proposal to deny the accused the right to silence were accepted by the Government and implemented by legislation. An individual when he is in the hands of the police, at a time when he is entirely alone, beset—Heaven knows—by what emotions and fears, has one thing to protect him, and one thing only, against an abuse of power by the execu
928
tive, and that is his right to silence. To deprive an individual of that right is to put into the hands of the authorities a power which may well injure the accused very much more than it might help ultimately the successful prosecution of a guilty person.
If I may say so with deep respect to this committee and its distinguished members, the weakness of the committee and its conclusions is that the committee was looking only at the laws of evidence. I believe that it should have looked at the problem as a whole, including the problems of procedure. I ask the Government to be very cautious—nay, indeed to decline—to bring in new legislation adopting the proposals of this report until both the difficulties of evidence and the difficulties of procedure have been examined fully and thoroughly. Perhaps the most convenient, obvious and effective way of doing this would be to send this problem, as the General Council of the Bar invites in its memorandum, to the Law Commission.
I hope that this absence of legislation, if there is to be an absence of legislation, will not discourage the authorities from taking steps now, as indeed they can, to do something about what are known as "verbals"—that is, the oral statements made by accused people to the police in the course of questioning by the police.
The present system is quaint, and uncertain and provokes all kinds of suspicions—some founded, some unfounded—in the minds of jurors who have to consider the acceptance of evidence of this kind. The police ask a question; the accused or the suspected person answers it; an hour later, perhaps two hours later, the police officer who has asked the question attempts to put down in his notebook word for word what he has asked and what the accused replied. If there are two police officers there, it is all very proper; it is allowed. It is wholly artificial, but it goes on every day and presumably every hour of the day. The two police officers can get their heads together and they can copy out of each other's notebook until they come to an agreed version of what was said. It is nonsense.
Mr. Peter Archer: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the normal practice—

929
quite properly and without dishonesty—is for the two police officers actually to write up their notebooks together?
Mr. Gardner: Yes; there is no suggestion of any dishonesty here. This is to the disadvantage of the police just as much as it is of the accused. One is seeking justice, but this does not mean that one is pressing on one side or the other. One is going, one hopes, straight down the centre. It makes an artificial difficulty and one which we should abolish.
There has been some adverse comment in America recently about the use of tape recorders, but I have no doubt that tape recorders could be used without difficulty and with security.
I should like to see a new set of rules—it does not need legislation—by which oral statements taken down by police officers during the course of questioning are at some stage, a reasonably short and convenient time after the statements have been made, shown to the accused and read over to him, with the accused being given the opportunity of reading them and then signing them as being a correct version of what was asked him and what was said. Such a simple procedural system could do much to avoid and eliminate many of the difficulties—embarrassing to the police, injurious to the accused—which are at present suffered as a result of the present system.
Mr. F. P. Crowder: I agree with every word that my hon. and learned Friend says. I wonder whether the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) is aware that originally police officers were not allowed to sit down together and write up their notebooks. I have reason to know this because I appeared in Regina v. Bates in 1955 and the then Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Goddard, said that he saw no harm in it. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the position previous to that was that there was a police instruction that police officers were not allowed to sit down and write up their notebooks together? Whenever one asked them in court whether they had done so, they always replied that they had not, but one always knew full well that they had. With education as it is now, when people make statements why should they not write them out themselves?
Mr. Gardner: That may well be an improvement upon the simple amendment to the procedure which I have suggested. There is the risk—I put it no higher—of some misunderstanding between Sir Robert Mark, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and the General Council of the Bar. It would not be a bad idea if the General Council of the Bar arranged a meeting so that the problems which have just been outlined could be discussed and thrashed out with the Commissioner and we could bring to an end, as it is very desirable in everybody's interests that we should, the suspicions that so frequently arise in the minds of jurors as a result of the procedures which we at present use.
6.15 p.m.
Mr. Peter Archer: Alexander Pope once reminded us what mighty conflicts rise from trivial things. The terms of reference of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, which were read to the House by the Minister, appeared to invite suggestions for technical improvements in the rules of evidence. That was a perfectly proper but unexciting kind of request. What it produced were proposals which, in the words of the memorandum of the Bar Council,
"go far beyond the amendment of technical rules and in practice will impair fundamentally the constitutional position of the individual."
Debates about legal technicalities affect the ordinary lives of individuals. It is perhaps not surprising that suggestions as far-reaching as these produced a storm not only among lawyers but among the lay public. If, as my hon. Friend the Member for York says, we are present at the interment of these proposals, perhaps it is a little unfortunate—I appreciate that there are difficulties—that the House was not permitted to debate the proposals until the public debate had gone cold. That may explain why this debate is confined exclusively to lawyers, so far as I can see, and why the benches are so bare. The details of the proposals have been discussed so frequently and in so many places that there is little new that any of us can find to say.
The hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) put so concisely and clearly many of the points which I might have wanted to put that in another forum I might have been

931
content to adopt his submissions. I wonder whether we might use this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to discuss some of the rather wider implications arising from the committee's proposals. Perhaps if we do so we shall not be befogged by discussion of the merits or shortcomings of the distinguished jurists who composed the committee.
Without impertinence I ventured to say on a former occasion that when we discuss a snap reaction or judgment it becomes important to know the jurists who made it, but when we discuss a carefully-set-out argument or an analysis it matters not from whence it comes but whether it is valid. I do not propose to say anything further on the composition of the committee, save to say—I cannot refrain from getting in one parting shot—that I respectfully echo the comment of my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Gardiner in another place—namely, that after eight years' deliberations perhaps we could have hoped for a greater degree of unanimity. Perhaps that is uncharitable.
No system which human being devise can guarantee against mistaken verdicts. The only way to ensure that no one is ever wrongly convicted is never to convict anyone. The only way to ensure that no one is every wrongly acquitted is to convict everyone. Given that unhappy circumstance, it seems that two separate questions arise which have been confused in the course of some debates arising from the report. The first question is how we ensure that, where possible, our system of trials produce the right results. The second and separate question is, as the process of investigation, arrest, interrogation and trial must make up a single package, how we can ensure that when the system produces mistakes the balance is about right between mistaken conviction and mistaken acquittals.
It is fashionable to say that it is better for 1,000 guilty people to be acquitted than for one innocent man to be convicted.
Mr. Crowder: Hear, hear.
Mr. Archer: There are occasions when I reject the hand of friendship. I believe that that proposition is not self-evident. In uneventful times when the public had nothing to fear from the activities of the police, and when the police
932
had all the resources at their command and the situation was well under control, that might be a proposition which we could happily accept. However, in times when members of the public, including innocent women and children, are as vulnerable as would appear from the unhappy announcement made this afternoon, we must look a little more closely at that kind of proposition.
The Bar Council in its memorandum expressed the matter in this way when it set out some of the factors of which we should take account. It said:
"in our view fundamentally, the willingness of the system and the society which it serves to accept the occasional acquittal of the facually guilty if, in the last analysis, it is the necessary price to pay for the certain acquittal of the factually innocent."
In that form I doubt whether any of us would dissent. But if I may suggest that there is one flaw in an otherwise splendid memorandum, it seems that the council may have skated a little too lightly over the difficulties. A system which produces 95 per cent. accuracy in its results would be highly commendable, given all the factors which can lead to mistakes, but a 5 per cent. rate of inaccuracy could give rise to some real difficulties.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I hope that my hon. and learned Friend has read the speech in another place of the Lord Goodman. He said with great wisdom that no human institution can ever be perfect and that if we are to have imperfection it is better that we have the bias in favour of the innocent rather than in favour of the guilty.
Mr. Archer: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He was anticipating the broad conclusion at which I would have arrived. It is only right that this matter should be raised but clearly we can never decide it statistically. There is a question of determining where the balance of the pendulum lies. A thousand guilty people acquitted to one innocent person convicted—I am not so sure. But ordinary people are vulnerable, on the one hand, to the operations of criminals and, on the other hand, to what could be a far more crushing blow—namely, being convicted wrongly of a crime which they did not commit, and if the proportion of 1,000 to one is too high, the proportion of one for one is too

933
low. That seems to be a matter which at some stage we should debate. I am not sure how we can produce statistics—
Mr. Lyon: I am sorry that I interrupt my hon. and learned Friend twice. If Mr. Zander's figures are to be accepted, it seems that 6 per cent. of verdicts are perverse out of a total of 6,000 acquittals. My hon. and learned Friend can make what he wants out of those figures.
Mr. Archer: My hon. Friend has again anticipated me. I accept that some conclusions can clearly be drawn from those valuable statistics, but what we can never have are statistics of how many people brought before the courts were in fact guilty and how many were innocent. This is clearly a matter which can never be argued to a hard and fast conclusion. I claim no greater authority for my impression than that which Sir Robert Mark claims for his, but it is my impression that there is no reason to believe that the figure at the moment is too low. There is nothing to indicate that the balance is too far in the direction of upholding the defence rather than the prosecution. In paragraphs 21 and 22 the committee raised the question without ever indicating what answer it gave. It seems that it addressed itself to that question rather than to the other. I am content tonight, having agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for York, to put forward a plea for a more prolonged debate on that question at some subsequent time.
I turn to the other question of how to ensure, as far as we can, that the results which our system produces are accurate. The committee appeared to take the view that there were certain categories of criminals who were too frequently being perversely acquitted, and therefore there might be more accurate results if we could succeed in producing a higher proportion of convictions in that category. I do not think I could attempt to paraphrase what the committee said better than was done by Mr. Parker, who gave an interview as Chairman of the Bar Council on 30th January 1973. He said:
"This view is that the increase in the crime rate is largely due to the alleged fact that sophisticated criminals know that they can engineer acquittals in many cases by manipulation of the rules of evidence and procedure."
That, as I understand it, seems to be the premise from which the committee argued
934
its answer to the second question. Mr. Parker went on to say:
"The Bar Council does not agree."
Anyone who wishes to know why it does not agree can see the reason set out very fully in the memorandum.
The article by Mr. Zander, which my hon. Friend summarised, lends a great deal of support to the Bar Council's view. There may be some question as to how frequently professional criminals are brought to trial, if by "professional criminals" one means not the little man who somehow gleans a living from crime—although he is a professional criminal—but the highly sophisticated criminal who finds that he can make a better living from crime than from the professions and who uses all of modern technology in the process. There may be some doubt as to how many are brought to trial but, as I recollect it, very few who have been brought to trial have been acquitted.
But on the assumption, for the sake of the argument, that the committee was right in its diagnosis of the problem, the next question is how far each of its recommendations is directed towards the solution of that problem. I propose briefly to mention two recommendations, not because I think I can embellish what has been said elsewhere and during this debate but to try to explore how closely they approximate to a solution to the problem.
The first recommendation relates to what is said about the right of silence under interrogation. Obviously the right of silence in court is a quite separate consideration about which at the moment I say nothing. It has been said far more effectively than I can hope to say it that the person who needs a caution is not the highly skilled professional criminal. He knows that he does not have to say anything. Frequently, if he has planned his crime as carefully as the caricature of him which sometimes emerges seems to suggest, he has his explanation ready in any case. If he has not, he dries up and says nothing.
The person who is caught is the inadequate little individual who has probably never been in trouble before, who immediately gets flustered and blurts out an inarticulate account of the whole matter, leaving out what is vital. Anyone who has attended a legal advice centre to take instructions from someone under

935
stress will know how easily the most vital factor in the case gets left out unless someone deliberately prods to unearth it. And those of us who have drafted pleadings in civil cases know how easy it is, in the calm of our chambers, to produce pleadings which will not afterwards be criticised because some essential fact has been left out.
But here there are at least two other matters which ought to be borne in mind. Someone may leave out a vital fact not because he has forgotten it but because he wants to protect someone else, or not because he wants to conceal a crime from the authorities but because he wants to conceal the facts of the case from someone quite different, such as his wife. He may not want his wife to know that at the time of the accident he had another woman in the car.
Of course it can be said, and with some force, that all that is being proposed is that it should be left to the jury to draw what inference it thinks right from the omission. It is not suggested that it has to draw inferences. It is true that today juries are clearly more sophisticated, more awake, than they were a generation ago. But that argument leads to the abolition of the whole law of evidence. The purpose of having such a law is to protect juries, as sometimes even lawyers and judges need protecting, from information which is more likely to be prejudicial than it is to be helpful. If we are to have a law of evidence at all, those are matters which ought to be taken into account. If we are to rely entirely on the wisdom and common sense of the jury, let us burn all the textbooks on evidence.
The other danger of the proposal is that it endangers the inarticulate and possibly innocent in another way. We are all familiar with the police officer who is so convinced that he has got the right man that a little push over the line seems justifiable. So we get that revered institution, the "verbal". What this proposal invites is not (he inclusion of a "verbal" but the omission of one. This will be the injustice of the "non-verbal". And how often have we asked a client "Why did you say so-and-so?" and received the reply "I am not sure that I said it. I have no clear recollection of the interview. I was a bit confused anyway. If
936
I did say it, frankly I cannot remember why I said it."
One of the difficulties, as the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde said, is that the record of this kind of conversation is all too frequently a onesided record. The only person who has the record is the police officer.
One other recommendation which I would mention is the relaxation of the rule against evidence of other conduct in paragraph 92. The proposal is, if the actual presence of the accused is in issue, if the ostensible outward and visible facts are in issue, that evidence should not be admissible, but that where what is in issue is intention, it should be admitted. So much has been said about this that I do not propose to canvass the major arguments for and against. I only want to make the point that that recommendation was introduced rather as though what was being proposed was a fairly minor change in the law applicable to a limited number of cases. We know from the Oxford studies to which my hon. Friend the Member for York referred that a high proportion of cases turn on just that kind of issue.
Most of us know from our professional experience that far more cases turn on that kind of issue than on the issue of "whodunnit?" What is being proposed is a widespread change in the law at a time when one would hope that the tide was flowing in the other direction, at a time when it was to be hoped that someone who, in the course of a misspent youth, had made a mistake could live it down by going straight for a long period of time. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) is introducing a Bill which has precisely that provision in mind.
This recommendation appears to be going in the opposite direction. As the Bar Council has pointed out, it could be applied almost without limit as to what constitutes "other matters" and something dragged up from a past period is much more likely to tell against the petty criminal who did not succeed at his first attempt than against the highly professional criminal who had succeeded in escaping detection for a long time.
If we could have the kind of debate for which some of us have asked, we might mention not so much what the report contains as what it omits. For

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example, it omits the right while under interrogration to see a solicitor. Among all the other contributions which Mr. Zander has made to these debates, an important one was his article in the Criminal Law Review for January 1972 on the question of the right to see a solicitor. If these proposals were implemented, that right would be even more important. The fact that it was omitted rather lends colour to my submission that it was probably the balance of the pendulum which was in the minds of the committee rather than achieving accurate results. The time may come when we can debate all these matters in a different context. Meanwhile the police require some guidance of the kind which has been mentioned in these debates.
Some years ago the Association of Senior Police Officers asked the United Nations to begin discussions with a view to formulating an international convention to deal with the conduct of police. Unhappily the United Nations has not found time to discuss that proposal. Before the Council of Europe a fortnight ago some of us initiated a similar move in the hope that the Council of Europe would remedy that defect. Certainly the guidance for police officers ought to be in the form of rules which are debated in this House rather than in the form of Judges' Rules. It is not fair to ask busy judges to formulate such rules with their limited opportunities for consultation. And the rules should be debated fully among the people who represent not only the legal profession but the lay public. I hope that, when that wider debate comes before the House, the many points of detail which have been discussed during this debate will transpire not to have been lost.
6.37 p.m.
Mr. Norman Fowler: I have the one distinction in the debate in that I look set fair to become the only non-lawyer to take part. That is perhaps a pity because what we are considering is essentially the public interest. It may well be right that the views of lawyers and the public interest are the same. I know that hon. Members will forgive me if I say that that is not necessarily axiomatic.
This debate has been continuing for a long time, since long before the
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Criminal Revision Committee was set up. One of the interesting features about it is how general attitudes concerned with the proposals set out in the report have changed. Generally those who support the proposals in the committee's report tend now to be portrayed as the blackest reactionaries who are striking at the very basis of our law. Yet there was a time when such proposals, particularly that to alter the rule of silence, were considered radical. Mr. Ben Whitaker, a former Labour Member of the House, wrote an excellent book on the police in which he advocated a change in the rule of silence. He called in aid an impressive line-up of Bentham, Salmond and Glanville-Williams. If I may put it in non-legal terminology, the membership of this committee is also an impressive line-up. I make that point not to establish that the supporters of change in this area are automatically on the side of the angels any more than its opponents are by definition the sturdiest defenders of freedom in this country. What I do suggest is that the supporters of this report have a decent case, aimed not at putting the innocent man at peril but at trying to increase the certainty of conviction of the guilty.
Basically I support the principles of the report, although I have some reservations which I will come to about its immediate implementation. In this country we talk a great deal about civil liberties and rightly we take the greatest pride regarding it. We should remember that one of the civil liberties that the public most value is freedom from violence and freedom from crime. From that it must follow that those who are guilty of violence and those who are guilty of crime should be convicted. Just as there is no justification in allowing an innocent man to be convicted, there is also no justification in allowing the guilty to escape. Clearly everyone in the debate recognises that there is a balance to be struck and that the trial procedure should recognise the demands of the innocent while at the same time ensuring the conviction of the guilty.
But surely we should also recognise that conditions and times change, that the rules dating back to the last century and even further may not be relevant today and that there is an overwhelming and unanswerable case for reviewing the rules

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which at present obtain. Perhaps we should also remember the peculiar traditions in England itself concerning the tackling of crime. We hesitated much longer than many other countries to introduce an organised police force to detect crime. To prevent crime, we placed our faith basically in deterrent sentences, notably execution, but we balanced that by probably the most liberal trial procedure in Europe. In other words, many of our rules were drawn up to protect the innocent in situations where punishment was savage, where many of the accused were illiterate and where legal advice was rare.
Clearly that situation has changed. Legal representation is now much more usual and punishment is less severe. However, I suggest that it has also changed in one other significant way. That is, that in the last 10 to 20 years we have seen in this country and also in other parts of Europe—leaving aside the position in the United States and other major countries—the emergence of the professional and the semi-professional criminal.
On the whole, those are people who live basically on the proceeds of crime, whatever may be their other interests or fronts. There is a reverse side to the kind of description that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) gave of the criminal in this country. Anyone who believes that criminals today are all simple men who fall easy prey to the police has only to read the Daily Express of today to see a story of Ronald Biggs, who was released from prison in an organised escape, who evaded justice for eight years, travelling from country to country on a false passport, and who had plastic surgery so that he could try to evade justice even longer. The Biggs story is not only dramatic: it is serious. It shows that the day of the professional criminal has not only come but that it arrived some years ago.
I realise that the Biggs case is at the dramatic end of the scale but it is interesting to look back to the situation in 1963, the year of the great train robbery. In that year the number of robberies in England and Wales was 3,500. The number of robberies in England and Wales, including London, last year was
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almost 9,000. Robbery is only one guide to serious crime. I am not suggesting that every robber or person included in that category is a professional or a semi-professional criminal, but it certainly is true that many are and that the proportion of professional and semi-professional criminals has increased.
Any serious research done in this country, notably by McLintock at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, has shown that it is serious crime—crimes which the public would consider serious, notably crimes of violence—which has increased by more than average. I make this point not in order to correct what the hon. Member for York said but to show that there is also the other conclusion which we must take into account as well.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Biggs is one of several thousand criminals, but only a very restricted number could be placed in his class. But he was convicted.
Mr. Fowler: That is correct, but the point is not whether Biggs was convicted or whether he was released from prison. The point I am trying to make is that the robbery figure has shown a far more significant increase not only in the United Kingdom but in Europe generally. There has been an increase in professional crime in this country and on the Continent. That is a truth that we should recognise and not simply say that there are exceptions. The Biggs figure is an exception, but that there are many others who are professional or semi-professional criminals cannot be denied.
I want now to deal with what I take to be the heart of the report, the part referring to the rule of silence. I accept in principle the case put in the report for change. I think that in principle the case is overwhelming. I believe that the present rule provides an unnecessary advantage to the guilty, and that if an accused person refuses to answer a question it will not only hamper the investigation but make it very much more difficult for the truth to be achieved—and, after all, the truth is the aim of the criminal trial. It is not a game played between lawyers but an exercise in establishing the truth.

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Nor does the committee, contrary to what has been suggested, say that the right of silence should be abolished. An accused person may still remain silent, but the committee says that if he remains silent he will have an adverse inference drawn against him at his trial. That is the principle of the case. What of the practical implications?
I think we are all agreed that this is an area of importance and great delicacy and controversy. Rightly or wrongly, many people in the legal profession have come out against this proposal. As always, their opposition is and will be vocal and they will be and have been joined by others. One effect of the opposition may be to give the impression that if the proposal is implemented at this stage the scales of justice will be deliberately weighted in favour of the police. If that impression is received by the general public, it will be disastrous for the police. A successful police force depends upon public trust and co-operation. Any advantage that the police might receive from the kind of change suggested in the report would be far outweighed if that impression became general. Therefore, I be-live that the Government should not implement this proposal but should take three immediate actions which they could now take with general support and without prejudice.
First, the Government should commission a research project into this subject. Mention has been made of Michael Zander's research findings. I have only read the newspaper report—it was well timed to appear today—but even so I believe that Mr. Zander has produced a valued and interesting report. But I am sure he would be the first to agree that it is not necessarily conclusive. What Mr. Zander can do, the Home Office research unit can do as well, or can commission another body like the Cambridge Institute of Criminology to do.
If the results of the research suggest that the professional criminal is getting away with it—as not only Sir Robert Mark but many other police officers believe—that will increase the case for change. If the research does not show that the professional criminal is getting away with it, it will reduce the case for change. I do not suggest that such research will necessarily be easy, but it is about time that we as Parliament, with
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the Home Office, took this area of research rather more seriously than we have done hitherto.
We are spending a fraction of 1 per cent. of the crime budget on research. That is a pathetic figure. The United States Crime Commission said that there is no other area where so much money is spent generally with so little knowledge of what we are doing. This is a prime example.
Secondly, it follows that if there is to be more pressure on the accused to speak, we should ensure that his words are accurately recorded. I am on the side of the minority rather than of the majority of the Criminal Law Revision Committee in this aspect. I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend has announced a feasibility study. Such studies are all very well, but surely at this time we should go a little further. I find it difficult to believe that there now remain technical difficulties in preventing tape recordings from being tampered with. Surely one of the points emerging from the Watergate scandal is that one can now find out where tape recordings have been tampered with. The Home Office and the chief constables should study such evidence. I hope that, if the feasibility study goes ahead, these technical matters will be disposed of quickly. The tape recording of statements would be a safeguard not only for the public but for the police as well and would have a general welcome.
Thirdly, the Government should examine the whole question of legal advice, taking up what the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) was saying. The professional criminal has a lawyer from the beginning, but not everyone is as fortunate. Legal advice centres could very well be extended throughout the country, much to the benefit of the general public and also to the advantage of fairer trials generally.
Treating these three suggestions as a package would, I believe, preserve the balance which both sides of the House are so anxious to preserve. I suggest that such changes would protect the innocent and strike against the guilty. Above all, I hope that the hon. and learned Member for York was not right when he opened his speech by saying that we had come to

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bury Caesar rather than to implement the report. The worst and most disastrous thing that could happen would be for the report to be left to gather dust on a Home Office shelf.
6.55 p.m.
Mr. Ronald King Murray: I share the regret expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) that the report was not presented as a discussion document rather than as a formal report. It is an interesting attempt to change the law of self-incrimination in the light of present circumstances. That in itself is a dangerous exercise.
The law of evidence as now constituted has been built up not without considerable pain and suffering. One has only to remember that the cessation of confessions by torture dates from as recently as the glorious revolution of 1688 and 1689. We do not want lightly to discard legal and constitutional safeguards of such importance as those embodied in this area of the law.
On the other hand, the right to silence has never been absolute. The point of stress in the debate is the importance of the right of silence, and I broadly agree with the criticisms that have been made of the report in that regard. The right to silence has never been absolute, and the question is where the balance is to be set. I find it difficult not to agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) that the value of the caution is not to the professional criminal but to the person who happens to be caught in the police net, who might or might not be a criminal, who might or might not be a witness. That is the area where gross injustice could be done by some of the reforms contemplated in the report.
For instance, if someone who has been at the scene of an affray is speaking to a police officer about it afterwards, surely it is common justice that at some point he should be made aware that the account he is giving may lead to a prosecution against him. That idea may not occur to him. He may see himself entirely in the rôle of a witness. It is only a matter of common fairness that he should be made aware of the possibility that a prosecution may result. When a policeman
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is interviewing a professional criminal the matter is quite different.
One difficulty is to see how we can be fair to the professional criminal and, at the same time be fair to the ordinary citizen who may get caught up in the web of crime. We want the ordinary citizen who may get caught up to be assured of fairness at every level of the procedure. For that reason, I feel that the proposal to abolish the caution should be resisted.
Another matter that causes me concern is the proposed change in regard to confessions. Clause 2 of the draft Bill would alter the onus of proving that a confession by a suspect was freely volunteered. The advantage of placing that burden upon the Crown, where it is today, is a real one because it ensures that the police undertake carefully the procedure which ultimately results in the confession or alleged confession. If we get rid of that we do so without any corresponding advantage from the point of view of fairness to the accused, because the accused can challenge the procedure equally well whether the burden is upon the police to show that they have been fair or whether there is no burden on the police to show they have been fair. The change is negative and dangerous, and I am against it.
I accept that the right to silence could be qualified in certain ways, and I do not reject all the committee's ideas on this subject. One idea than commends itself to me is that of a simple and minimal change to allow the prosecution to comment freely on the failure of the accused person to give evidence. That is a small change that might point in the direction of improving the machinery of justice. On the other hand, it would be thoroughly retrograde to raise that kind of comment to a stage at which it would substitute for evidence or provide corroboration. That would be going too far. Such a modest idea should be considered carefully and tried before any more extreme advances are made.
I welcome the part of the report which proposes a warning about the dangers of identification where it appears that conviction may turn solely on the question of identity and where the possibility of mistaken identity is clearly in issue. In my experience in the criminal courts in Scotland, I have found time and again that my doubts are raised most in cases of that kind.

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On the other hand—to touch upon a relatively non-controversial aspect which may therefore readily be implemented—I draw attention to Clauses 31 and 40. It is more convenient to draw attention to the clauses because they focus upon a matter that is enlarged upon in several paragraphs of the report. Clause 31 proposes to enlarge the field of hearsay in identification. It purports to cover various cases, for example where a witness cannot be found, where a witness is not able to be identified, where he is dead, and so on. I have doubt—although I do not think that the draft Bill was intended to have such an effect—whether Clause 31, taken with the qualifications imported by Clause 40 to protect certain pre-existing rules, is sufficient to protect the present procedure at identification parades. The Government may care to note that the Bill does not catch the most obvious cases of failure to identify.
From my experience north of the border—and I do not imagine that experience is much different south of the border—the most obvious case of advantage to the machinery of justice in allowing this alteration of the law is when someone who identifies a person at an identification parade, or in a less formal situation analogous to it, refuses in court to identify the person whom he identified unambiguously at the identification parade. That case would not be caught by the provisions of Clause 31 or by the qualifications imported into it by Clause 40.
I have some sympathy with the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend 'he Member for York and accepted by the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner). It would be useful to have an inquiry into this topic extended more widely than the Criminal Law Revision Committee. Before any legislative action is taken, it would be useful to refer this matter to the Law Commission. Indeed, I would go a little further and say to the Law Commissions.
I say that because one difficulty about our constitutional arrangements is that a report of this kind can be produced by the Criminal Law Revision Committee and an American or Japanese coming to this country might imagine that the Criminal Law Revision Committee dealt with the United Kingdom, but, strictly speaking, it does not. It is the Criminal Law
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Revision Committee for England and Wales but, for reasons that I need not go into, it is not called that. It is unfortunate that when a report of this kind is produced the recommendations, which may have a big impact in the lesser jurisdictions of the United Kingdom—I refer particularly to Scotland and also to Northern Ireland—may sometimes in effect pre-empt perfectly fair considerations which may come from experience or ideas in those other jurisdictions.
Again I do not want to make too much of the point, but, as I come from Scotland perhaps I may be allowed to elaborate slightly. For example, the report proposes the virtual abolition of the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898. That is a United Kingdom statute of great importance and if it were to be virtually abolished in England and Wales, it would be anomalous for the Act to be continued almost entire in Scotland. Yet the Scots would have not a right to silence about whether that should be done but no right to be heard, and that is even worse.
Mr. Crowder: The hon. and learned Member has raised a matter of the greatest importance, namely, the matter of identification. We do not know the number of people at present in prison because of mistaken identification. Would the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it would be sensible to include in any future Bill the provision that in matters of identification there should be corroboration?
Mr. Murray: I entirely agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is a most helpful suggestion. Again as a Scottish practitioner, I would hesitate to uphold the advantages that our Scottish system has in some respects, but I think that corroboration is one of them.
That might be a useful point on which to elaborate my second complaint about the sense in which the report pre-empts consideration of matters affecting Scotland. For example, Clause 47(2) of the draft Bill reads:
"This Act, except insofar as it amends the Naval Discipline Act 1957 or makes any repeal in the Treason Act 1795 or the Representation of the People Act 1949, shall not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland."
It follows that to the extent mentioned the Bill is to extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland, notwithstanding that no committee comparable with the Criminal Law

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Revision Committee has any say in the report's contents.
One has only to take one example. I take the Treason Act 1795. The first line of the repeals Schedule shows that what should be deleted from the Treason Act of 1795 relating to evidence of what constitutes treason, particularly with regard to writing, are the words
"evidence upon the oaths of two lawful and credible witnesses."
So there, at a stroke, the Scottish law of corroboration would be abolished in the sensitive area of treason without any reference to any Scottish voice or learned Scottish body.
It seems to me that that is not the way in which to proceed in the United Kingdom. If it is really a united kingdom, we ought to be considering law reform in the whole of it, and where matters that affect the whole entrench upon these issues, they should be discussed in a wider context.
Perhaps I have used a long illustration to refer to the point of agreement from which I started. I strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York and with the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde that it would be useful to have this matter discussed further by the Law Commission. The advantage of doing so of course is that the Scottish Law Commission could also be brought in. I feel that if we had a further review of that kind, what is good in this report—and there is much that is—could be separated from what is controversial.
I conclude by expressing regret that a report of considerable academic quality, embodying, no doubt, considerable practical experience on both sides of the legal profession, should have become involved with the kind of dramatic controversy that has led to the rather extreme condemnations that have been made of the report. The report deserves careful study and consideration in a calm atmosphere, not the sort of atmosphere in which one condemns it as a whole or praises it as a whole.
7.10 p.m.
Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: May I start by saying that there has been a long delay between the House of Lords debate and the debate in this
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House? I should have liked more notice that it was due to take place today. We on this side of the House were totally unaware of this until last Wednesday or Thursday.
In ordinary circumstances, when one has only to read a Bill or a report of a debate in this House it is fairly easy. It was some months since I had read the Bar Council report, let alone the recommendations of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and what their Lordships said in another place. I should have liked rather more notice. This is why, with one or two exceptions, those hon. Members who are now present are in the legal profession, with fairly substantial qualifications for speaking. This is a pity, as we could usefully enjoy the presence and contributions of other speakers.
First, I should like to ask the Solicitor-General a most important question, to which I hope he will be able to reply tonight. If I read the Lord Chancellor aright, this subject is one that relates to the reform of and administration of the criminal law. If that is so, it is a matter for the Lord Chancellor's Department and not for the Home Office. It is more than a year since I asked that certain matters should be sent to the Lord Chancellor's Department and away from the Home Office.
The Law Commission comes under the Lord Chancellor's Department, as does the Scottish Law Commission. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) and I agree very much about this. We want positive and urgent action taken on the subject tonight. It should be taken by the Law Commission. The matter should go back to the Joint Scottish and English Law Commission to consider what should be done. I believe the members of that Commission were the proper people to deal with the matter in the first place, and they are in a strong situation. They can, of course, take whatever evidence is required now, as a matter of urgency, and I see no reason why they should not be in a position, probably in the next Session of Parliament, to produce a Bill for our consideration.
I profoundly hope that we shall not see any legislation now, as there are a

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number of matters which need to be dealt with, and this cannot be done without spending a certain amount of time on them. I come straight to them. First, we have what I wrote about some 15 years ago, the question whether we are to continue with the accusatory system in this country, or whether we should adopt some kind of Continental system, or a mixture of both.
The fundamental question which requires to be answered is whether an accused person should be compelled to speak. Every one of these main recommendations in the report of this committee depends upon this fundamental question: "Are you going to compel an accused person to speak or not?". There is no constitutional right of silence. That can be tested by taking the case of recent possession of stolen property. If a person is found in possession of recently stolen property and he makes no reply and gives no explanation, one is entitled to take that into account in considering whether he is guilty of that offence, either before the magistrate or the jury.
There is not a right to maintain silence. In the early part of this century, in 1906, the Judges' Rules provided that all accused persons would be given a caution. They were cautioned that they were not obliged to speak, but that if they did speak, their evidence would be taken down and possibly used in evidence at their trial. Hence there grew this idea that there was a right, so to speak, to maintain one's silence. It arose from a judge's caution. It is not a constitutional or inherent right.
However, there have been good reasons why those who are closely associated with the criminal law, and who see it day by day, recognise the importance of not forcing the accused person to speak. This is because we are not satisfied that there are any adequate arrangements by which he can be properly interrogated. It is upon this that it rests.
Over and over again in recent years I have advocated the vital necessity of having a system by which we can ensure that statements made to police officers are properly transcribed. There are many ways in which that can be done. It can, in certain circumstances, be done in a police station. It can be done by
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a properly qualified shorthand-typist from a pool of staff not employed by the police. It may be that it can be done by tape recording.
Personally, I do not think that any of those methods is faultless. One needs only to refer to the interesting views of a noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who spent many years as a journalist dealing with day-to-day crime, to recognise that there are many in that occupation who believe that one can bend or twist tape recordings. There is a good deal of evidence that the technique of tape recording has not yet been perfected.
At the same time, easily the flimsiest aspect of the report of this Home Office committee, the Criminal Law Revision Committee, is that part of it which deals with tape recordings. It is evident that most of the jurists would not like to get rid of the "verbals". They think there is no other method by which one could ensure that the evidence given by an accused person is properly taken down. The simplest method of all is that it should not be allowed in evidence unless the party to be charged has signed it, page by page. If one signs a statement and initials it page by page then—subject to intimidation—one has the best method of all.
But I think that there is an even better system than that. I believe that the accused should be questioned before a magistrate, or possibly a part-time panel of people who can be called upon to attend at Scotland Yard or at any other suitable place and be empanelled at short notice. In that way the police in any criminal cause or matter—whether it be robbery, fraud or otherwise—could call upon the accused persons to attend, either alone or accompanied by their legal adviser, for the purpose of being interrogated.
That would be a useful right for an innocent person, in addition to being an accusatorial right of those who prosecute. I believe that a person who is innocent would like to take an early opportunity of putting forward his case, but only after he has sought proper advice and had a reasonable opportunity to consider the matter.
I believe that it is possible to find a way round the present difficulty which arises from what is called the right of

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silence. This right of silence is not constitutional, it is merely inherent in the criminal practice which we have adopted. Let us not forget that criminal justice stands foremost, throughout the world, as a system that is fair to the accused person.
What it all comes down to is that we must ensure fairness for the accused. If we say that he is to be compelled to answer any charge made against him, we must be certain that he can do so in a manner that will ensure that what he says is properly recorded and brought to the attention of the party concerned and that the interrogation is properly conducted. If we can do that, we can all safely say that we are prepared to proceed.
Why do I say "all"? I do so because, having considered the views of virtually all the legal judiciary on the one hand, and the views of the journalists, police and others who are associated with this matter on the other, they all seem to me to be agreed that the priniciple is what is fair to the accused and, at the same time, what is fair to the public. The public will be protected because they will have the right, through the appropriate channels—in this case the police—to interrogate people.
How does the system work now? First, it works extremely well in company fraud cases. In the heavy type of company fraud case—and even in bankruptcy cases—although that may be unattractive from the point of view of publicity, long interrogations take place, and everything is properly recorded sheet by sheet and signed by the persons concerned.
Why is it that in one endless robbery trial after another one finds that there is no proper record? A case which finished on Monday, having run for more than three months, would have taken half that time had it not been for the contest over the "verbals". The "verbals" turned on the production of a book which contained a complete confession which had been obtained within five or 10 minutes of the interrogation of the accused, who maintained that the whole of it was untrue and that the book had not even been made up in his presence. The decision was an extremely difficult one in any circumstances for the jury, and the case also involved the admitted corruption of a police officer.
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That type of case takes time not because one of the police officers is corrupt, but because of the contest over the "verbals". That is why nearly all my lawyer hon. Friends on this side of the House are so anxious to get rid of the present system of verbal word against verbal word between police officer and accused in criminal trials today. Indeed, those Opposition Members who have spoken have expressed a similar view.
I believe that there is some useful content in the report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, certainly in regard to some of the smaller details. On the major fundamental question, however, the committee approached the matter in altogether the wrong way. It thought that in some way it could tone it down and, by tinkering with the problem, could come up with a satisfactory answer.
I firmly believe that the committee is wrong. We must ensure that this matter goes back to the Law Commission as soon as possible so that it can consider the various debates which have taken place and any further evidence it needs, and, I hope, come up with a system—I should prefer it to be before a magistrate or someone of that kind—under which a person charged with a serious criminal offence can be interrogated properly. If an accused person were to refuse to be interrogated in any circumstances whatsoever, I should be prepared to go along with the terms of the report.
One final word on the other aspect. I do not think that it can be right to allow previous convictions to be introduced in the manner set out in the report. I believe that to be wrong. That, too, can be considered by the Law Commission.
I believe that we must try to assist the police. I want to ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he will cooperate, and more particularly whether the Home Office will co-operate, with the Law Officers on this question. What guidance is to be issued to the police? The system of the "verbals" cannot be allowed to continue. Every trial is being unnecessarily prolonged because of it. In trial after trial one comes across this endless business whereby there is nothing to prove what has been said.

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I ask that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police should forthwith adopt a new system—that he should send out straight away a directive that in the event of verbal confessions or statements in criminal matters being made by those charged with robbery or other serious crimes, they should in every instance have the opportunity, where possible of having a shorthand writer present to transcribe it. If that is not possible and a statement is taken down, the accused person must be asked forthwith to sign page by page any confession he or she may make.
I ask, too, that the Minister should, at appropriate police stations where it is easiest, begin a test scheme for the use of tape recorders. Tape recorders should be installed, the statement should be recorded, and when it is concluded the party concerned should be given the opportunity to hear it.
Finally, there should be the right for a solicitor to be present, if not immediately after the person's arrest, at the earliest opportunity. That would provide some fairness for the accused person. It would largely assist in getting rid of the tremendous number of fights and contests which take place over an alleged verbal confession, and would materially shorten criminal trials and assist the administration of justice.
7.26 p.m.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Much was said by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) with which I agree, and with which I am sure the whole House will agree, particularly his demand for urgent action to deal with the vexed question of "verbals", which is something that I hope the Minister of State at the Home Office will take to heart. The hon. Member has rightly said that this is a matter that arises with such frequency today that it delays the due process of law and has the terrible added disadvantage of bringing the police into contempt in cases where they ought not to be. I was not sure what the hon. Member was arguing when he commented on the accusatorial and inquisitorial systems, but the report represents the worst of both worlds, because it seeks a hybrid between both without providing the safe-
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guards that the inquisitorial system provides.
It is a pity, as the hon. Gentleman remarked, that the debate has been sprung on the House at relatively little notice, particularly because the report is of great importance to the whole issue of civil liberties. It is a great pity that we have had only one non-lawyer participating in the debate thus far, and as I look around the Chamber it does not look as though there are likely to be any others. We have a large number of "silks" here. I am the only Member in the solicitors' profession speaking on the issue, heavily outnumbered by "silks" on this occasion. When issues of this gravity arise, whether it is a right or a privilege that is being eroded, civil liberties are at stake. It is a pity that the lay Members do not take a greater interest in matters of this kind.
I suspect that the main bulk of the report, which has been allowed to putrefy now for virtually a year since the debate in another place, will again be consigned to the depths. I should not be too disappointed about that. The pity is that, if that is done, some of the peripheral proposals will be similarly consigned.
But we are debating essentially the fundamental proposals in the report. One of the factors I find particularly disturbing is that almost the entire emphasis is placed on the trials in the Crown courts, whereas 98 per cent. of trials occur in magistrates' courts. The rules that are recommended in the report would apply equally to the magistrates' courts. For example, the rules about adducing evidence of disposition would apply equally in the magistrates' courts. How does one overcome the difficulties when dealing with the lay magistracy which are surmountable in the Crown court when the barrister addresses the judge without the presence of the jury? One cannot surmount that difficulty when the case is before lay justices.
The statistical argument, to which some reference has been made, is that approximately 1,750,000 cases are dealt with in the magistrates' courts under the present rules and that 90 per cent. of them result in convictions. There are only about 6,500 cases of acquittals dealt with by juries that we are considering in

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relation to the main burden of the report's proposals.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) placed great emphasis upon the professional criminal. He relied upon remarks of the sort made by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis—and they are in the report—that it is to catch the professional criminals who escape from the toils of these rules that we should change the law. It was my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) who pointed out that the professional criminals are, in the main caught and convicted. If it is a question of catching them, the rules are irrelevant. We need a higher incidence of detection. In order to achieve that we must have a higher-paid police force and better conditions in the police, and in that way we can build up a better respect among the legal profession, the police and the judiciary.
While one has some sympathy with the police when they suspect that somebody whom they have caught is guilty of an offence but they find it difficult to produce evidence in the court, one cannot begin to condone the sort of allegations that have been made today when it has been said that the police will "verbal" the victim. I cannot believe that the flimsy evidence that has been produced in this respect is a good reason for the massive change in the law that is proposed.
Mr. Money: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that this goes a little beyond the position of the professional criminal? What is at stake here is changing the law as it affects the whole body of citizens, with the risks inherent in that, in order to deal with what is being treated as a separate class of people.
Mr. Davis: I thought that was the point I was trying to make from the outset. At a time when in the United States, after the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, the courts have been determined to strengthen the right of privilege of silence, or whatever one might call it, it is disquieting that the substantial body of legal opinion which drafted this report should take a diametrically opposite view. I should have thought that at a time when democracy is under stress, we should be ever more vigilant about protecting those rights and liberties which
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have been built up. It is when one is under stress that these rights become much more precious.
It is also disquieting that the report says so little about protecting the accused. A number of hon. Members have mentioned that nothing is said about the right of an accused to have a solicitor present. All sorts of excuses are conjured up by unscrupulous police officers to prevent a solicitor from representing his client in the early stages of an investigation when the solicitor's presence is most required. Little or nothing is said about what ought to be an essential freedom.
This lack has been heavily criticised by the minority of the committee and in another place. The Labour lawyers, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association and all sorts of legal opinions have been very critical of it. It has to be remembered that, again in the United States, to have a lawyer present at the outset of an investigation is an absolute right.
It is hardly surprising that the report should have come under such strong fire, because so many of the proposals, under the guise of dealing with the technical rules of evidence, fundamentally affect the constitutional position of the individual.
As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) pointed out, it was outside the scope of those instructed to carry out this investigation. The Criminal Bar Association has rightly said that the report gives the impression of being directed more to the question of how it can be made easier to secure convictions than to ensuring that all those who appear before the criminal courts will receive justice of the highest quality combined with expedition and efficiency.
There has been a disturbing misunderstanding of what the legal system in this country is all about. It is not the basis of the criminal law that we are determined to find out the truth—that is the inquisitorial system and maybe it is a better system, though personally I do not think that it is. At present the burden rests upon the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. If, as recommended, there is to be a hybrid system, where in the report is the accused offered the protection that the inquisitorial system at present provides? There

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was a remarkable letter in The Times from Dr. Manfred Simon, to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) referred. He gave evidence before the Criminal Law Revision Committee and complained bitterly that the basis of the report, if implemented, would substantially erode those freedoms which he so much admired in the English legal system.
I turn briefly to some of the basic proposals. There is the right of silence, if the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet will forgive me for referring to it by that term. Unquestionably, that right would be gravely impaired if these proposals were implemented. I believe that they challenge the whole basis of our criminal system with its presumption of innocence and the basic axiom that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The abolition of the caution, or the introduction of the new caution which is suggested, would represent very little security for the innocent man. When I think of some of the people whom I am called upon to defend—people who are inarticulate and frightened by the very fact that they are in a police station, and who are sometimes innocent—I get very worried indeed about the drawing of an inference of guilt from silence. People may become terribly confused and anxious, perhaps worried about the women with whom they are associating, and do not want to reveal the whole truth in case it gets back to their wives. If a man was tense and frightened because he was in a police station under interrogation, it would be unfair if the failure to answer were held against him, and the failure to provide a complete defence then and there would be a matter for comment to the jury.
Although I feel that the three proposals made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet would certainly help in the interim, none of them would deal with the question of intimidation or other abuse by an unscrupulous police officer. That is the difficulty. How can we overcome such problems? I am not entirely happy about the suggestion that if an accused person were to sign a statement it would provide the sort of safeguard the hon. Gentleman talked about. One knows how often people challenge state
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ments written out by the police, frequently dictated by the police, with the accused being asked to sign them. I worry about the negative verbal that may arise from this. A failure to provide a defence, which is a matter for comment, may introduce the new notion of a negative verbal by the police officer. That is a danger to which we should be alerted.
I, too, believe that we should not accept lightly the recommendations with regard to hearsay evidence. The situation is not the same as in civil cases. In criminal cases a man's liberty is at stake and we should be more vigilant than we are in the rules relating to civil matters.
The other matter to which I wish to refer is the question of manufactured evidence, which is dealt with in the report. Those who produced the report are rightly concerned to prevent fabrications of evidence by the defence. Yet nothing is said about preventing fabrications of evidence by the prosecution. That is something about which we should be concerned. It is reflected in the committee's approach in Clauses 31 and 32 of the draft Bill.
I conclude by quoting a passage which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North did not quote in the letter from Dr. Manfred Simon. It said:
"I wish to state in conclusion that its proposals seem to me the first timid attempt to dismantle the venerable fortress built by many generations of British lawyers to protect the innocent and to challenge the arbitrary action of Government. It is a sad illustration of the insidious process whereby standards of even the most civilised countries can, under modern pressures, subtly but irresistibly be eroded."
With the pressure that has been exerted upon the Government tonight, and in another place, I sincerely hope that those dangers to our society will not arise.
7.45 p.m.
Mr. F. P. Crowder: I agree wholeheartedly with everything which has been said on both sides of the House. Let me recount a personal experience in these matters.
About 12 years ago I witnessed an accident at night. The police appeared on the scene very quickly and it was thought that the person who was driving one of the motor cars was, under the old

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Act, under the influence of drink. Accordingly, I was asked to attend the police station immediately. The police officer wrote out a statement with which I helped him. At the end he wrote that the accused's speech was slurred, he swayed, and so forth. I said, "No; he did nothing of the sort. He did not smell of drink, his speech was not slurred, and he did not sway." The police officer put the document in front of me and said, "You are here to help us. Will you kindly sign it?" I said that I would help him because I had seen what had happened, and I was a member of the Bar. That is the sort of thing that the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) spoke about and about which we must be very careful in criminal law.
In regard to the written statement, the Solicitor-General will be the first to agree when I say that I cannot think of any written statement in any serious criminal trial which has been written by the man who made it. It is always written by the police officer. Bearing in mind the amount of money we spend on education in this country, I see no reason why a person against whom an allegation is made should not be allowed to write it himself in his own words and in his own language. Time and again in criminal courts people say, "Oh no. I did not mean it in that way. The police officer wrote it and I signed it. I was under stress in the police station."
People can read and write. Why should they not be entitled to write their own statements? There is the preamble at the beginning, there are the words of the caution, which are words of advice, and there is the signature at the end. All the unfortunate person is probably thinking about at the time is, "Shall I get bail? How soon can I get home to see my wife and family? "
I hope I shall be forgiven for saying this—and I say it with no levity. A speech was made in the House of Lords which had a lot of common sense in it but in which a noble Lord said that any change, no matter how salutary, was to be utterly deplored. I agree that in 1974 that is carrying matters rather a long way. But is there any need for change in our arrangements in the criminal law today? I think they are working very well. All I
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say is that written statements, provided the accused person can read or write, should be written in his own words and in his own handwriting. It has been said:
"Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just
And he but naked, though lock'd up insteel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."
Alas, these are not my words but those of our distinguished poet, Shakespeare.
A statement from the dock should be removed; it is utterly to be deplored. It cannot be cross-examined or touched upon in any way. It has no value. If any legislation is to be put forward by the Government, I hope that it will be short and to the point and that that will disappear.
Another matter to which I wish to refer is contained in the All-England Reports of 1970, Vol. 3. It relates to the case of Mackenzie and it is the sort of feature that we are seeing in cases like that of the Angry Brigade:
"Any person, whether he be a professional man or not, may attend as a friend of either party, may take notes, may quietly make suggestions and give advice, but no one can demand to take part in the proceedings as an advocate contrary to the regulations of the court as settled by the discretion of justice."
That matter is giving some concern in the criminal courts and the Crown courts. No one should be represented except by solicitors and counsel in court. If he cares to represent himself, that is a matter for him. But to make a statement from the dock without that statement being considered and cross-examined is to be utterly deplored. It has no value and is a pure waste of time.
Something has been said tonight about the cost and time expended in our Crown courts. If one were to ask anyone from abroad what he most valued and considered of importance and of greatness in this country, I think that first he would say the monarchy and second the administration of the law and justice. It is something of which we are most proud. But the British people are getting justice on the cheap. When one thinks of the enormous sums taken in fines in the Crown courts, and particularly in the magistrates' courts every day, and especially since magistrates work purely voluntarily—apart from the stipendiary magistrates—one can say that the public are getting

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justice virtually for nothing. Any time which can be spent looking after the liberty of the subject is not to be deplored. We have to proceed with the greatest care in this respect.
We have a very thin House tonight considering this important matter.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: But of high quality.
Mr. Crowder: Indeed—and with particular regard to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). But it is shameful that we are not giving sufficient regard to matters touching upon the liberty of the subject.
I am very concerned about the question of identity in criminal cases. There ought to be some form of corroboration. No one can begin to estimate the percentage or the number of innocent people who are in prison. It is terrible and must be avoided. I hope that the numbers are small but I guess that those who are languishing innocently in Her Majesty's gaols are there on the basis of mistaken identity. That is why corroboration should be made essential in any Bill on this subject.
I was tremendously impressed by the debate in another place in which Lord Salmon said:
"I do not apologise for very briefly restating what these principles are. Every man is presumed to be innocent until, after a fair trial, he is proved by reliable evidence to be guilty beyond any reasonable doubt The purpose of the law is to ensure, so far as is humanly possible to do so, that no innocent man shall be convicted. We accept, therefore, that it is better that 10 guilty men should go free than that one innocent man should be found guilty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th February 1973; Vol. 338, c. 1604.]
Those are the principles that have been the essence of the law of England throughout the centuries. May they long so remain.
7.58 p.m.
Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I will not follow the hon. and learned Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Crowder) now, but I will return to some of his remarks.
It is regrettable that such short notice was given of this debate, since this is a matter of great public concern and the
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contributions tonight have been only from lawyers. I read the report many months ago and various representations were made to me. I cannot remember receiving so many representations from various bodies and individuals on any report as I have received on this one, yet the debate was sprung on us at very short notice.
As a lawyer, I have reconsidered my attitude to the report. So many lawyers have been opposed to it that I have begun to think that it must be right, or at least must have some value, bearing in mind the great tradition of our profession for being conservative in everything that concerns itself. Lawyers are the most radical people with regard to all other aspects of life, but when it comes to reform of their own profession or of the law they are excessively conservative.
My original view was that the main recommendations of the report were wrong, and despite my rethinking of this subject I still think that they are wrong. The report is valuable. It is rare as a report that emanates from distinguished lawyers in that it challenges a traditional view of the law. It challenges our society to restate the traditional view of the law of evidence and to try to justify it in the light of modern conditions.
We face a real dilemma, which has not become as apparent as it should have done from today's debate. For example, we have heard a great deal about unscrupulous police officers. No doubt they exist. But the committee was dealing, and perhaps dealt excessively, with the consideration of unscrupulous crooks who have been taking advantage of the law of evidence. The dilemma cannot be brushed under the mat by the legal profession or anyone else.
The committee was very distinguished. It had a very distinguished Lord Justice, Lord Justice Davies, as its chairman. No one had greater experience of the criminal law than he had. When I first became a member of the circuit of which I now have the honour of being the leader, he was its leader. He was the most successful criminal defender in my experience at the Bar, and he was also a fine prosecutor. Many of the other members of the committee were very experienced. I have the highest regard for Sir Frederic Sellers.

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No one has more concern for individual liberty than he has.
Therefore, I began my examination of the report thinking that I would agree with it. I agree with a good deal, but I think that its basic philosophy on its main and controversial recommendations, such as the right to silence, was wrong. It seems to me that the report was very much a product of the committee's age. The Minister of State said that the committee sounded various branches of the legal profession about its preliminary conclusions, I think in 1968. It received such replies as to make it think that its eventual report would represent a far greater consensus of opinion than there has turned out to be.
That is understandable because, if I am right in gauging discussion and gossip in robing rooms and so on, 1968 and 1969 were years when we were much more worried about the crime wave than we are now. We are having almost a panic reaction. One of the dangers of the report is that it represents what is almost an over-reaction of a frightened society against some of the developments of our age.
There is no doubt that much of our law of evidence has developed over the years in order to protect civil liberty. I disagree with the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), who regarded the right to silence as somethings which had evolved in the twentieth century. Surely it stemmed from the privilege against self-incrimination. I think of the Court of the Star Chamber and the Court of the Council of the Marches in Wales, the prerogative courts, which employed torture to extract confessions. The accused there had no protection; there was no privilege against self-incrimination in those courts, although there already was development in the non-prerogative courts which gave him certain protection.
In the case of Miranda v. Arizona, the case in the United States Supreme Court which has been much quoted in the House and in the debate in the other place, the distinguished judge giving the judgment traced very shortly the development of the principle of the right to silence as we have known it. He cited, for example, the well-known cases concencerning John Lilburn, the great leveller
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in Stuart and Commonwealth times. Those of us who had the privilege recently of reading the very good biography of Cromwell by the wife of a distinguished Member of the House will know that John Lilburn spoke a great deal during the Commonwealth times as well as during the reign of Charles I. He was one of the first to emphasise the right to silence, the right of the accused not to incriminate himself.
Our criminal law has developed and has rightly been regarded as a bastion of civil liberty. As we gained more and more individual liberty, that liberty was enshrined not only in the law but in the rules of evidence administered in our courts. Here we come to the dilemma of our time, a dilemma which the committee Was highlighted. To give that kind of protection to our individual citizens, the law necessarily had to be weighted over the years in favour of the accused.
The purpose of the criminal law is to convict the guilty and make sure that they are punished, and to protect the innocent. The law itself has changed. What was regarded as something that attracted guilt and punishment a few hundred years ago was vastly different from what we regard as attracting guilt and punishment.
As it developed in our democracy, the law was bound to be weighted in favour of the accused. The dilemma in our modern society, in which we have seen the development of highly-organised crime, is that professional criminals take advantage of the law, which has been so weighted in favour of the accused to protect his liberty that what is regarded as an essential protection for the innocent citizen has become a technical mechanism for the organised criminal to exploit, or to hire people to do it for him. There is no doubt that sophisticated international crime has developed greatly in this country in the past 20–30 years.
The problem could perhaps be solved if we could divide those who break the law into two classes. One would be the professional criminal who lives by the proceeds of crime. He is highly sophisticated in his approach not only to crime but to investigations by the police, the whole question of the administration of justice and his trial. Such criminals need a different kind of law; rules of a different

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kind from those which should be applied to ordinary citizens. But we cannot have one law for one citizen and another law for another citizen.
That is the problem the committee had to face. I think that it came down on the wrong side and that it was so concerned with large, organised crime that it did not realise where its recommendations would lead it.
Having considered the matter carefully, I have come to the conclusion that the proposal to modify the privilege of the right to silence would be an unjustifiable interference with the rights of the individual. It would leave too much to chance. I am sorry to say that, because I believe that those concerned with the administration of the law, those concerned with the police, must find a solution to the problem.
I had the opportunity over the weekend of re-reading the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate in the other place. I was greatly taken by the speech of that great jurist Lord Reid, who said that he found himself, unusually, in agreement with the fine report which emanated from Justice. He suggested that we should adopt what was virtually a partly inquisitorial system. Modifications to the right of silence are possible and acceptable only if we have something along those lines.
It is, for example, a great protection for an innocent man to be taken within a week of his arrest before a magistrate or some other person who is in an independent position and who is able to ask questions and have questions asked in his presence by one side or the other, and to have the whole conversation properly recorded. That is the right approach and one which would meet with the approval of many people.
The Minister of State, in opening the debate, gave a much more robust defence of the report than was given in the House of Lords. It is interesting to see the difference in approach as manifested here by the Minister of State compared with the speech of the Lord Chancellor—who, of course, spoke from a different viewpoint—in the House of Lords.
The Minister of State said that the committee was not exclusively concerned with the problem of the large, organised gang of criminals. The whole tenor of the report is concerned with the law
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being too tender to criminals. The committee indicated that it regarded criminals, in that particular context, as the highly sophisticated gangs of today. The committee mentioned, for example, that there was a notably high proportion of acquittals in contested trials on indictment. The committee was wrong in this belief, yet it was sufficient to cause concern in our society.
Statistics are not particularly helpful in this context. The statistics which are given are general statistics. Everyone concerned with courts knows, for example, that there can be a large number of acquittals in cases such as causing death by dangerous driving. There can also be a high proportion of acquittals in homicide cases, which involve emotional considerations and in which the duty of the jury is often to consider the state of mind of the person who has been charged.
However, it is not my experience that there is a high proportion of acquittals in cases in which people are charged with serious crime, such as bank robbery. The general belief of the committee, as expressed in the report, is not justified. Yet there are sufficient acquittals in cases of the kind I have mentioned to concern people who have regard to matters of law and order in our society and to cause them to find other means of dealing with the problem.
Mr. Ronald King Murray: The hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned statistics. I wish to point out that the statistical argument behind the report can be shown to be fallacious by reference to Scottish statistics. The protection of the accused is in Scotland stronger, if anything, than it is in England, yet the percentage of convictions where a plea of not guilty has been taken from accused persons on indictment is much higher in Scotland than in England and Wales.
Mr. Hooson: I am grateful for the intervention, which supports all the statistics which have been submitted to me. Michael Zander sent me some statistics, which I received this morning. They were contained in a preview of an article he has written for the Modern Law Review. Those statistics which are available seem to suggest that only limited use can be made of them in any event.

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It is important for us to consider in the House of Commons the serious question of the alienation of the police in our society. I feel sure that the committee has considered this. We have seen signs of this alienation between the police and the legal profession. We would be foolish to disregard the signs in our modern society of a growing feeling among the police that lawyers are there to obstruct them and at the same time a growing feeling among lawyers that the police often invent or twist evidence. This cannot do the police or the legal profession any good. We all know that there are a few "bent" policemen, and if lawyers are honest they will admit that they know that there are a few "bent" lawyers. It behoves neither the one section nor the other to give any words of comfort to help those weak vessels on either side, on the side of the police or in the legal profession.
It is necessary to devise a procedure which will instil greater public confidence than exists at present in the "verbals," of which we have heard so much today. "Verbals" are that section of the evidence which always cause the greater controversy. We have reached a stage in society where it is widely believed that certain police officers, being convinced that the man in the dock is guilty, gild the lily a little on the "verbals." I wonder how many times a lawyer has looked at the evidence on the depositions and seen that all the evidence suggests that the result might well be an acquittal until he sees a reply of, perhaps, two sentences in the "verbals" which put a different complexion on the whole matter. There must be a greater temptation on police officers to do this if the other evidence is thin and they are convinced that they have the right man.
On the other hand, there are criminals who are so sophisticated that they know that the very "verbals" they have uttered—either their exact words or words very like them—constitute the area for an attack if they are to mount a successful defence. This raises a dilemma for those concerned with defending and those concerned with prosecuting.
It does not seem that the problem can best be solved by implementing the recommendations of the committee on this matter. I have considered the recom
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mendations carefully. I was at first rather attracted by them. The more I have considered them, the more I have become convinced that they should not be implemented. We return to the question that there should be some permanent record. The only safe way is for the accused to be brought before an interrogating official within, say, a week of his arrest. Lord Reid was right to suggest that this might result in a great saving of time.
The whole House will have been very pleased to hear the Minister of State say that there are to be experiments on tape recordings. This is obviously a valuable undertaking and should be conducted as soon as possible.
There are many points in the report with which I agree and many with which I disagree. The basic and fundamental problem, to which I do not think that the committee found a reply and to which I do not think that the House or the country has yet found a reply, is how to ensure that the individual citizen is protected from oppression when arrested by the police. How do we protect the individual as against the State and yet ensure that our procedures are sufficiently sophisticated and sensible to deal with the problem of the professional criminal?
The report is most valuable. It is right that we should all be asked to consider anew our traditional attitudes and ask ourselves how we justify this or that rule in modern society. For that reason alone, we should welcome the report while being very dubious about its detailed recommendations.
8.20 p.m.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: It would be a great pity if the very volume of the criticism levelled at the report were to lead to its rejection as a whole. That would not only be unworthy recognition of the work which has been done by the committee and its distinguished members but it would leave undisturbed an area of our law which needs reform—namely, the law of criminal evidence, which has been at the centre of the committee's deliberations.
I recognise that special criticism has fastened upon certain proposals made by the committee, but a great deal of the report has been accepted or ignored and I believe that at least that part of the report deserves to be implemented. The excellent report prepared by the Criminal

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Bar Association goes out of its way to commend those parts of the report which deserve to be adopted. Indeed, it goes further and makes positive proposals in those areas where there is the strongest criticism.
The reason for our having a report and the need for reform are matters which deserve to be more Closely studied. It is not fair to say that the report stems from a desire to secure a higher rate of criminal convictions. There are recommendations which appear to be favourable to the defence and others which appear favourable to the prosecution.
It is true that there has been public disquiet about the apparently large number of cases in which criminals have escaped justice. That is a matter of public concern and, therefore, a matter of legitimate interest and concern for us all. Since the report was discussed in another place we have had the benefit of a long lecture by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Robert Mark. He has expressed public concern about the failures, as they might be called, of the jury system, of the rules of evidence and the dishonesty of some lawyers. It is idle to pretend that the public do not share feelings of that kind.
An examination of the ways in which the law of evidence can be reformed and considered should be borne in mind so that criticisms can be met. It is a matter which is urgent from the public's point of view. Further, it is urgent because the law of evidence in criminal cases is somewhat confused. In another place Lord Diplock called it,
"illogical and in a mess, and needs to be cleared up."— [OFFICIAL REPORT,House of Lords, 14th February 1973; Vol. 33S, c. 1647.]
I believe that the background of the problem is one which is not sufficiently considered against the specific and legitimate criticisms which have been made about some of the proposals.
The first background aspect is the criminal statistics and the appalling rise in the rate of crime. The second is that there is what appears in the public's mind to be a high rate of acquittals in criminal cases. It has been suggested that that is exaggerated and that the rate is not greater than in the past. Statistics are sparse on that matter.
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Perhaps it is not right for us to consider the reform of the law of evidence without considering the background, for example, in London, where the police force is 5,000 under strength. We should consider how many cases would be more successfully prosecuted and how much evidence could be produced if there were more policemen available in London.
This is a problem of criminal law, of law and order. It is not a problem of the cost of living. It is a matter which ought to be solved, whether it needs more money spent on salaries, equipment or accommodation or on other methods of raising the morale of the London police. These are matters which go to the root of public concern about the enforcement of law and the results of criminal cases.
Secondly, with regard to the high rate of acquittals, we have to consider whether it is the rules of evidence which produce a state of affairs in which, as Sir Robert Mark has suggested, many lawyers are able to twist the rules or take advantage of them to cloud the issues. Is that the only cause? I submit that it certainly is not. There are a number of other reasons for the insufficiently high rate of convictions.
There are, for example, cases where, as a general rule, jurors are less willing to convict than they are to acquit, even when other things are equal. The very climate of our so-called permissive society is one which permits a greater indulgence. It enables a juryman to think that he is entitled to exercise a little more sympathy in cases where he believes sympathy is deserved, in cases, for example, where the defendants are women or children or where, for some other reason, there seems to be some sort of provocation or excuse, notwithstanding the terms of the law and the way in which the jury has to follow them.
In such cases a juryman will not have any qualms about agreeing with his fellow jurors to acquit, even though up to a certain stage he may have been convinced of the guilt of the defendant. He requires more assurance if he is to agree to a conviction. There is a general tendency for juries to be more indulgent towards defendants. For that reason there is a general tendency for the rate of acquittal to rise. We also have the problem, certainly in London, of intimidation

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of jurors, It is not always intimidation in the striot, violent sense of the word. There are other means, such as influence, which are used by the friends of defendants when approaching jurymen.
It follows, for example in the London area, that it is undesirable for jurymen to be chosen to try the cases of defendants whose addresses are in the same area as their own. There have been a number of long cases at the Central Criminal Court recently, involving a large number of defendants from a particular area of London in which members of juries have sometimes, perhaps inevitably without anyone being able to do anything about it, come from the same district as the defendants. One suspects that this sometimes leads to contact being established and jurymen being induced or influenced not to do their duty as they should. This is perhaps another manifestation of the first influence I suggested.
Then there are the judges. If there is one thing that can be said about the report, it is that with the best will in the world it seems as if there is a desire to circumscribe the actions of judges conducting criminal trials. I believe that the safer and wiser course would be to simplify the law as far as possible and leave more discretion to the judges in the hope that in their wisdom they can take the appropriate course or direct the jury in the appropriate manner. It would be undesirable if we in this country got to the stage reached in some courts in America where the judge has to read out directions to the jury using particular statutory language for that purpose and where his position as a referee of the trial is so closely confined and defined that he has no power of exercising common sense during the course of the trial.
One cannot allow too great latitude. It is clear from one's experience of the courts that too many trial judges make it too obvious to the jury that they think that a conviction is appropriate. When they do that, those of us who practise in the courts find that the jury often tend to go the other way and acquit against all the weight of the evidence. It also follows—unfortunately there are many examples in London—that judges are offensive to counsel and to witnesses, or are generally bad tempered or in some other way obviously biased. On those occasions
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juries, being English, are always animated by the spirit of fair play and by their nature display an obvious reaction. That spirit accounts for many of the recent acquittals. Of course there are other reasons. A chief reason is certainly that of confusion in the minds of jurors as a case proceeds and at its conclusion.
Very few cases lasting more than a day or so do not introduce certain complex issues which are difficult for a layman to understand and on which he looks for guidance to the judge. Often, however, he cannot get that guidance because of the nature of the rules of evidence.
Many jurymen are genuinely puzzled by aspects of a case. They would like to know the reason why a certain thing was not mentioned or, if it was mentioned, why it was done in a peculiar way and why officers appear to have been led in their evidence at one stage and not at other times. We know of cases in which jurors understand that the antecedents of a defendant are revealed to show that he has a clean character and that in other circumstances, when they are not revealed, the assumption is that the defendant has a bad character. For all those reasons the task of jurors these days could be made easier by a more radical reform of the law of evidence than perhaps some of us are prepared to concede.
I turn briefly to the report. I share some of the misgivings expressed by hon. Members. I believe that the particular criticisms of the abolition of the so-called right of silence ignores the very real possibilities of improvement in this sphere that could be obtained if there were some form of compromise concerning the committee's proposals. I submit that the source of the so-called right of silence—I think that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) referred to it—is in the burden of proof being on the prosecution, the right not to incriminate oneself. A defendant may at any time say "I am saying nothing. Under the spirit of our laws it is for the prosecution to prove the matter, and if it cannot do so by its own evidence I cannot be convicted." That is the source of the so-called right of silence. It goes back much further than 1898 when defendants were first allowed to give sworn evidence on their own behalf.

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Unfortunately, a great deal of the criticism of the report has been devoted to this aspect of the matter on the basis that the right of silence derives from the Judges' Rules of 1898, from the understanding—this is a fact—that since, in our law, a defendant may be told that he need not say anything unless he wishes to do so, there can therefore be no criticism of him if he does not say anything. He follows the invitation and says nothing. It seems to me that this is a genuine difficulty, and in some ways it runs contrary to common sense.
If there is, as there is now, a positive invitation to remain silent in the caution which is administered by the police officer, clearly there cannot be any criticism of a defendant if he so elects. I believe, however, that if the caution were abolished and there were not to be an invitation to him to keep silent, no great harm would occur as a result, because if we simply said that a defendant might say something or not as he pleased, the position would be that what he said could be quoted and if he did not say anything that would be a matter for the jury to consider. We should not go on to say, as is suggested in the report, that his decision to remain silent would be something from which an adverse inference could be drawn.
I do not think it possible in fairness to say that the fact that a defendant remained silent would in some way provide positive evidence on the side of the prosecution. That, I think, would be wrong. It would be going too far. Equally, therefore, if a man remained silent when he was charged and the accusation was put to him, I do not think that that fact could be corroboration, because corroboration is by definition positive evidence of a material particular.
Nevertheless, it is worth considering—I believe that my hon. and learned Friend suggested something of this kind—dispensing with the present absolute right of silence because, if we were to leave it that a man might say something or not as he pleased, it would be open to counsel at his trial to ask "Why did you not say that when you were arrested?" There could be an explanation for it, and no doubt the jury would
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take that explanation into account when considering his credibility
But the basic proposition, advanced by Lord Reid, is that all interrogation should be fair. Therefore, if one did not give this cloak of the invitation to remain silent to a person being interrogated, one would be able to present the evidence as it stood: either the defendant gave answers to the questions or he did not.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The hon. Gentleman has raised a point which the Minister of State raised. I ask him a question which I did not raise with the Minister in my own speech. What is the difference between the prosecution commenting on the absence of an explanation by the accused in interrogation and saying that it is positive evidence for the jury to consider that he remains silent? Surely the effect upon the minds of the jury is the same if one makes an adverse comment and no reasonable explanation is made in rebuttal.
Mr. Stanbrook: That is the point. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that silence is the rule in court during the trial, one supposes that that will have been the case throughout. If that is so, the defendant has to answer the prosecution's case as presented in such evidence as the prosecution possesses. It cannot be said in the circumstances that a properly directed jury will say that the fact that a defendant is silent is positive evidence supplementing the prosecution's case. If there were not sufficient evidence for the man to be convicted on the case of the prosecution, the fact that he had remained silent would not, I believe, add to the weight of that evidence.
One other thing that is overlooked is that juries are not slaves of the judge or of court procedure. They are generally chosen for the very reason that they are men and women of common sense and worldly wisdom. Therefore, whether or not the judge says anything about adverse inference, it would be perfectly normal and reasonable—it probably occurs in most cases—for juries to take an adverse inference when the defendant was silent.
In discussing this problem we are shadow-boxing and not dealing with the world as it is. Juries are to a great extent influenced by considerations of prejudice and ordinary, robust common sense.

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Whatever the judge may say, in whatever way he may direct them and however the words which he has to use may be laid down for him by statute, the 12 members of the jury in the retiring room out of earshot of the judge may still come to the commonsense conclusion. We cannot avoid that in any event.
It does not seem to be unfair that we should be able to say in future that if a man chooses to say something in reply to questions that is fine, and that if he chooses to say nothing, that is equally fine. We will not hold it against him in the sense that it is extra evidence against him. But that does not mean that he cannot be asked "Why did you not say it at the time?" That is common sense and what the jury expect, and for that reason the proposal deserves commendation.
8.42 p.m.
Mr. Ernie Money: Like the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) I regret that this has been basically a lawyers' debate. I regret it, first, because we are involved here with something that goes far beyond the law of criminal evidence as an academic subject and affects the basic rights and privileges of every person in this country. That situation was admirably summarised in the remarkable speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Salmon, in which he said:
"… the law of evidence is necessarily technical, perhaps dull—at any rate, hardly pulsating with human interest. But the issues raised by this Report go far beyond the realm of arid technicalities; they go to the very roots of British justice, which as it now exists commands the respect and admiration of the whole civilised world. The principles upon which our system of justice rests are well known, generally accepted and have hitherto never been threatened. My Lords, they are threatened now, not, of course, intentionally, but nevertheless in my view really threatened by some of the recommendations contained in this Report— OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th February 1973; Vol. 338, c. 1604.]
If the House were to vote in support of legislation implementing the basic principles of the report, we should be under no illusion about what exactly we should be doing. We should not be dealing with the technicalities of proof in the way in which in 1968 the House dealt with civil evidence and dealt in other ways which are entirely to be
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applauded with simplying the question of proof in civil matters. The House would be introducing legislation which would create a shift in the whole principle of the burden of proof. We should be standing at the top of a slippery slope, moving via the hybrid system which the report considers from the accusatorial to the inquisitorial system.
It may be that that is what the House might intend. It may be that this is what in the circumstances of our time there would be a call for from the people of this country—though I do not believe that this would be the case. But at any rate let us be under no illusions as to what we should do if we implemented reform to the extent involved in this report. If this report were to be implemented to any great extent it would basically change the system on which the accused person takes his trial in this country.
I also regret that it has been a lawyer's debate because of the remarks which fell from my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State when he referred to the natural conservatism of the profession. I think those remarks were echoed to some extent by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson). This is one of the circumstances in which the legal profession has every right, and indeed every duty, to be conservative. For what it is being conservative about is not privileges of its own, but to bring before the public the question of their fundamental rights. That is why I am sorry that there are so few of the lay Members of the House here to represent the public as such—the issues which involve them.
I hope that at no point will the very distinction of the committee which produced the report override the deep concern which there has been about the nature of many of its recommendations—deep concern expressed in the memorandum of the General Council of the Bar. Although no one would wish to underrate for one moment the immense experience and distinction of the membership of the committee which produced the report, it is right to underline that the members of the committee which produced the memorandum of the Bar Council included seven practising "silks", including one former Treasury counsel and a former prosecuting counsel to the Revenue; three senior Treasury counsel at the Old Bailey,

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who by the nature of things, are hardly likely to fall over backwards in favour of the accused, and five junior counsel with considerable experience of both defence and prosecution in criminal cases. In the debate in the other place, speaker after speaker whose names carry enormous weight in the legal profession at this time expressed serious concern and doubt about the possible effects of this report.
That is why I say, with respect, that, if there is to be change, let it be change openly done on the open basis that we are to alter our system, that we are to go in for the inquisitorial system, that we are to have some system like the juge d'instruction, and not on the basis that we are changing in some way the details of the system of the law of criminal evidence.
It is right that so much of the time of the House tonight has been on the issue of the right of silence. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) who referred to the right of silence having no constitutional basis. It is proper to remind the House how dearly many of the rights which are privileges of the present-day accused were fought for. Legal historians frequently speak in terms of almost embarrassing esteem of Lord Coke, but nothing could be more horrifying to the present-day practising member of the Bar than to read of the way in which Coke behaved in open court to Raleigh during the State trial at Winchester Castle and of the brutality with which no counsel today would dream of treating anyone, let alone a distinguished former colleague.
Indeed, as has been repeated to the House more than once, it was only in 1898, as a result of public concern about the Oscar Slater case, that it was made possible for a defendant to go into the witness box and give evidence in his own defence.
Therefore, although there may be real concern about the possible effects of an adverse acquittal rate, I would ask the House to consider whether, in view of the concern that is being shown—and rightly so—about the sophisticated professional criminal, we are not running a serious risk of eroding our liberties, eroding them at a point where we may greatly need them in future.
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Again, when one turns again to what at first sight might seem like a mere detailed lawyer's point over the wording of the new caution, and the Judges' Rules these to the public—and perhaps even to a jury may sound technical. But changing from the present caution to one which in the words of the statutory committee would read
"You have been charged with [informed that you may be prosecuted for]—. If there is any fact on which you intend to rely in your defence in court, you are advised to mention it now. If you hold it back till you go to court, your evidence may be less likely to be believed and this may have a bad effect on your case in general. If you wish to mention any fact now and you would like it written down, this will be done."
—would be to induce the individual to make a statement.
More serious, perhaps, is the inference that could be drawn—and English law has never been based on inferences, but on facts—from "silence in court", that a magistrates' court could commit for trial on the basis of there being no explanation to the police, that a court could hold that there was no case to answer on the same basis, that a court or jury could convict or could hold that there was corroboration of any evidence given for the prosecution. We would have come a long way, if that were to be the case, from the classic definition of the right of silence as summed up by Lord Devlin in 1957 in the case of Bodkin Adams, when he directed the jury in these terms:
"Dr. Adams has the right not to go into the witness box … and he has not done so. Therefore there is no evidence from Dr. Adams…. But let me tell you this, that it would be in my judgment, indeed more than my judgment—I can add it as a matter of law—utterly wrong if you were to regard Dr. Adams' silence as contributing in any way towards proof of guilt. It does not and it cannot. A prisoner who goes into the witness box goes there for his own benefit and for his own defence … and the duty of the prosecution is to prove their case before even the question arises as to whether he should be called or not."
Later he said:
"You sit to answer one direct question: has the prosecution satisfied you beyond reasonable doubt that Dr. Adams murdered Mrs. M.? On that question he stands upon his rights and does not speak. I have made it clear—have I not?—that I am not criticising that: I do not criticise it at all. I hope the day will never come when that right is denied to any Englishman. It is not a refuge of technicality … the law on the matter reflects the natural thought of England. So great is and always has been our horror at the idea that a man

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might be questioned, forced to speak and perhaps to condemn himself out of his own mouth that we grant to everyone suspected or accused of crime at the beginning, at every stage until the very end the right to say, ' Ask me no questions. I shall answer none. Prove your case.'"
If we intend to change that part of our heritage then let us accept that, by doing so, we shall fundamentally change our law, and we shall be doing so basically because of a concern that there are a substantial number of acquittals in the criminal courts today.
I end as I began, with the words of Lord Salmon. He said that during the seven years that he was a puisne judge:
"' There were not more in all that number than about half a dozen cases in which the jury acquitted when I considered that they ought to have convicted—and, on reflection, when I look back on them I came to the conclusion that at any rate as far as some of them were concerned there was a good deal to be said for the jury's point of view. A 1 or 2 per cent. wrongful acquittal of guilty men is surely a small price to ensure that the innocent should go free. In any event, those acquittals never bothered me, but I should not have slept in my bed if any innocent man had been convicted by the jury. Fortunately, that never happened."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th February 1973; Vol. 338, c. 1605–6.]
8.56 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Davidson: I agree with the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) that it is a pity that this debate has been almost entirely dominated by lawyers. He is quite right. The issues raised are much more important than merely how lawyers conduct cases in court or what may be the technicalities of criminal procedure. The issues raised by the report go to the most precious freedom that any man has—his right to keep silent and his right to be acquitted if he is innocent.
I am not surprised that this debate has been the exclusive prerogative of lawyers. I disagree with what one or two other hon. Members have said, namely, that if the debate had taken place at another time, perhaps others who were not lawyers would have spoken. I do not think that is true. Anything that is called by as dull a title as the "Criminal Law Revision Committee, Eleventh Report, Evidence (General)" will not pull in the crowds. Many people in the House would say "It only concerns lawyers, so we will leave it to them." Then, when things go wrong, the lawyers are criticised.
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I agree with the criticisms that my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) made of the conclusions of the committee. There are one or two good points in its favour, of course. I agree that it strengthens the hand of the defence in one or two of its recommendations, but in the main, if the report were to be implemented—I strongly suspect that this will not be the case—I firmly believe that the result would be substantially to weaken the position of the defence, and it would weaken it for no good reason.
I know that the Minister of State said that the report was not based essentially on this thesis, but underlying the report is the thesis that too many hardened, sophisticated criminals are getting away with it. That is unquestionably the message of the report. There is no definition of what a hardened, sophisticated criminal is, which in itself is an indictment of the report. Neither are there any available statistics in the report to substantiate that thesis.
If one is framing a report and altering the rules of evidence and procedure to fit the need to deal with sophisticated criminals, by and large one is wasting one's time. The sophisticated criminal is in a position to exploit the rules legislation the House passes based on those rules. The sophisticated criminal would have his story ready before being picked up by the police. He would not be unduly affected by the arguments over his right of silence. He would have ready in his mind the facts which he was prepared to disclose and the facts about which he would keep silent. He would have his defence available at the very start, just as he would doubtless have his defence lawyer available at the very start.
Therefore, the harsh and perhaps regrettable reality is that the hardened criminal can look after himself and will continue to do so. He will exploit the law and continue to exploit the protection that the law gives to the citizen, including himself. The people who need the protection of the law are not the hardened criminals. The people who need it are confused, frightened, isolated and, as has been said frequently, inarticulate and unintelligent—people to whom being picked up and interviewed by the police and finding themselves in a police station is a terrifying experience.

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It is possible, and is frequently the case, that somebody who is weak, inarticulate, frightened, unintelligent and confused—the lot—can also be guilty. But equally true is the fact that a person who is all those things can be and frequently is innocent. The weakness of the report is that it fails to give sufficient weight to the fact that a man may be and frequently is acquitted not because of any defect of the law but for the best reason of all, namely, that he is genuinely innocent.
The damage that Sir Robert Mark's speech may have resulted in—I am sure unintentionally—is to devalue the worth of an acquittal, to give the impression that an acquittal is too often engineered by a trick, by a false alibi or by a sharp, "bent" lawyer. Acquittals in such circumstances are an infinitesimal number of the totality of acquittals. It would be doing a great disservice to the administration of justice if it were thought that there were degrees of acquittal and if the worth of an acquittal were, therefore to be devalued or diminished. An acquittal is an acquittal. If it is thought a good thing, as we are frequently telling people, to win the esteem and respect of our fellow men, it is equally worth while to be found innocent by our fellow men. Therefore, I hope that we never have a state of affairs in the country in which some acquittals are regarded as second-rate acquittals.
I believe that the strength of our legal system, particularly the jury system, is the belief by almost everybody who appears before a jury that the system is fair. He feels that he will get a fair hearing and that he will be protected from pressure, persecution and the abuse of power. He is right. By and large he is so protected.
That is in contrast, as right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will know, with the state of mind of people who appear in magistrates' courts, for instance, on motoring offences. One often hears them say "There is no point in even defending the case. They are bound to find me guilty. The magistrates' courts always believe the word of the police." This is not necessarily true, but it is certainly a belief which is held by a wide section of the community. They do not feel the same, however, about trial by jury. I feel sure that if one were to implement
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the recommendations of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, the same attitude could well prevail with regard to the public's opinion of the fairness of the jury system.
If one takes away the belief that people will get a fair trial and a proper hearing, one brings about the very state of affairs which Sir Robert Mark and everybody in this House would want to avoid, namely, the belief that the law is not worth while and a tendency to indulge in anti-social behaviour, with a consequent obvious increase in crime.
There has been considerable argument and discussion about the statistics of acquittals. I think that any argument about statistics is an unrewarding occupation. Certainly argument about criminal statistics of convictions and acquittals is even more unrewarding.
I found the figures quoted by my hon. Friend on the latest study by Michael Zander extremely convincing. He quoted a figure which indicated that 6 per cent. of all acquittals were perverse. Broken down, this means that less than 1 per cent. of all cases coming before the higher criminal courts result in what could be called a perverse verdict. That hardly seems to me to be any sort of evidence at all to suggest that hardened professional criminals, or indeed any sort of criminals, are being capriciously acquitted by juries.
The reason why any discussion of statistics is unrewarding and tends to disprove the fact that hardened professional criminals are escaping conviction is that it is extremely difficult to break down the sort of cases which result in acquittal. Amongst the cases which frequently result in acquittal, for instance, are those involving drunken driving. That is hardly the occupation indulged in by hardened. sophisticated, professional criminals.
Shoplifting cases, particularly those involving trivial sums, the stealing of a tin of salmon and so on, frequently result in acquittals. Those are hardly crimes indulged in by professional criminals. As the Solicitor-General knows from his experience when he was appearing in such cases, many are often brought against the advice of the police. Experienced police officers would not prosecute in such cases, but stores often decide to

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bring prosecutions based on the evidence of store detectives.
Included in the statistics are cases of mistaken identity which, because identity is in issue and because of the arguments about the dangers of convicting put forward by Members on both sides of the House, often result in acquittal. Also lumped in the statistics are cases that have been withdrawn by the prosecution before they have been started; because the evidence is so weak, the prosecution decides to offer no evidence. The result is that the jury is instructed to bring in a verdict of not guilty. That is not a case of a professional criminal escaping due to the rules of evidence. In some cases a person is convicted on a lesser charge and is found formally not guilty on a more serious charge. Those cases, too, are lumped in the "not guilty" verdicts, although the facts of the case have resulted in a conviction. Cases thrown out by the judge as being not strong enough to go before the jury are lumped in the statistics too.
I submit that on any analysis there is no evidence to justify the underlying theme of the report—that there is evidence of hardened, sophisticated criminals being acquitted due to the weakness of the rules of evidence.
While we are talking about figures of acquittals, it should be pointed out that the report does not indicate what figure the committee regards as an acceptable figure for convictions. Understandably the police, who bring prosecutions, do a great deal of research and a great deal of questioning, and are convinced, because they have brought the case, that the accused person is guilty, would like a 100 per cent. rate and would feel that this was the only right and justifiable conviction rate. Naturally, in anything other than a Fascist or a Communist State it is not possible to achieve a 100 per cent. conviction rate. I hope that no one ever suggests that that is right. In any system of law in a democratic society there will always be acquittals, and acquittals which some people regard as unjustified. That is the price we pay for protecting the innocent.
A part of Sir Robert's speech that attracted a great deal of attention was his so-called attack on lawyers. That was the least important part of his speech,
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because lawyers, like hardened criminals can look after themselves. They are articulate and they will survive. The most important part of his speech was its underlying theme. It seemed like an attack, although he may not have intended it to be, on the jury system itself.
It would be dreadful if as a result of Sir Robert's speech—and I pay tribute to him, as we all do; we are lucky to have a man of such integrity as Commissioner, and he has a very difficult job to do—the public were to believe that the jury system was not working. It would be only one step away from some people advocating its abolition. I am not for one moment suggesting that it would happen under the present Home Secretary or any other in the immediate future, but it could happen if people were to start saying "Abolish the jury system. Let's have something more efficient and speedy. Let's have trial by a single judge". That would be a retrograde step and one to be thoroughly deplored.
I come to the proposals which have formed the core of this debate, namely, the abolition of the right to silence. By abolishing the right to silence one takes away one of the most basic rights—basic in the sense that perhaps it is the one fact of the law about which most people know. Even if they have never had a brush with the law or been interviewed by a policeman, they realise that they do not have to say anything. The value of the caution—even if perhaps it is wrong to over estimate its value—is that at some stage during the questioning, which can be a terrifying experience—even those the police are conducting in a proper manner—the person who has forgotten that right or who is not aware of it is made aware that he is not simply being interviewed about some matter unconnected with himself but is being interviewed about something which might result in his being charged.
The temptation to an unscrupulous police officer to bolster up a weak case, once the right of silence has been taken away, is very great. I agree with everything that has been said about the police. Most police officers conduct their interrogation in a just manner and are scrupulously fair. But it is not always the case. The temptation for a police officer to say, "He never said that" when in fact

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the defendant said it is irresistible. That not only can happen with the corrupt or the "bent" police officer but is a temptation for the tired, overworked police officer who is carrying out an investigation in the early hours of the morning, as often happens, when he has not had very much sleep, he cannot get anything out of the man and the case does not appear to stand on its feet. When he genuinely thinks that he has the right person, the temptation for him to omit a certain piece of evidence because he knows that omission of it can corroborate certain facts and perhaps put the case on its feet could be irresistible.
I therefore feel that the omission of the right of silence would result in far too great a power being given to the police without its being replaced by any compensating factor of protection for the individual. Certainly the replacement by the new caution which was read out by the hon. Member for Ipswich would be totally inadequate.
A lot has been said about "verbals" and how the person being questioned can be protected from the police officer who is over-zealous or who perhaps puts in a word which has not been said. The suggestions have centred round the proposal that tape recorders should be used in police stations. I am open-minded about that suggestion. I bear in mind that verballing, if it is done, can be done before the police station is reached. I am at a loss to see how that can be avoided by the use of tape recorders.
Another obvious difficulty with tape recorders which has been highlighted in the legendary Watergate case is that they can be tampered with. "Ah, well," someone will say, "Watergate has proved that you can get expert evidence to show that the tapes have been tampered with." It is all right to have a lengthy argument lasting days over something as vital in a national sense as the Watergate tapes, but if one has any concern for trials being conducted in a reasonably expeditious manner I shudder to think what would happen to similar arguments and similar investigations into some minor verballing in an equally minor case involving, for instance a pub brawl—a clutch of Judge Siricas would be needed to settle that.
While tape recordings might possibly put the police on their guard and protect
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them as well, and also enable the accused to realise that he was making a statement and put him on his guard, I think that the objections are fairly overwhelming. But I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State that a committee is to look into this matter.
The only other conclusion of the report with which I want to deal is the conclusion that would enable confessions to be admitted as evidence, even if they were obtained by means of threats or inducements, so long as the judge considered them reliable. This is an offensive and totally objectionable conclusion. Admittedly the report says that oppressive treatment would invalidate the worth or the value of the confession or, indeed, the confession itself, but anything that would tend to encourage any officials—for this applies to officials as well as police, store detectives, presumably, or private security firms and so on—to feel that they could go a little bit further than they ought would result in dire consequences to the liberty of the subject.
We all accept that the task of the police is difficult, frustrating and dangerous. Anyone who has prosecuted in courts will know the sense of anger, frustration and disappointment that police often feel when they know deep down, or feel they know, that they have the right man. Maybe they have been tipped off, or maybe their inquiries lead them to believe it. There is nothing worse than spending days and weeks on inquiries and then finding that the man has been acquitted. But it is not their task to decide: it is their task to assemble the evidence. It is for the court and jury to carry on the work from there. It would be a sad day if any outside body were to abrogate to itself the task that has been traditionally that of the courts.
In opening the debate, the Minister said that the Government were open-minded and wanted to bear in mind the views expressed by the House as well as the views which had been expressed elsewhere. I do not think that the Minister needs to be a member of a jury to realise that the views of hon. Members have been overwhelmingly against the report, as have been the views of the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Criminal Bar Association and almost anyone else who has commented upon it.

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I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will be as good as his word, as he always is, and will sense that the overwhelming body of opinion against the report believes that it is based on insufficient evidence and that its proposals would seriously erode the present safeguards for the individual. I hope he will take the report back and give it to the Law Commission or some other body to examine or, best of all, quietly and calmly forget all about it.
9.28 p.m.
The Solicitor-General (Sir Michael Havers): I should like to add my gratitude to the committee for the immense trouble and care that it took during the years that it considered the problems eventually leading to the publication of its report.
This is a "take note" debate and as such has proved extremely valuable. I should not have expected the report to be met with unanimous acclaim. The debate in the other place, the reaction from the Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association, the Law Society and the many other bodies and professional writers who have considered it certainly put me on my guard. I knew that it would not be an easy ride today.
If I may express one or two personal views—I emphasise "personal"—about the report, I must say that there have been a number of recommendations about which I have at least had some doubts. I have one strong reservation, which I do not think has been mentioned today, about the draft Clause 31, relating to the hearsay rules dealing with confessions or statements made by co-defendants when jointly charged. That seems to be quite impossible.
All of us who have had any experience in the criminal courts know very well that when two or three people have been arrested by the police in the course of an investigation into an offence which they have probably committed together, or are thought to have committed together, they are put into different rooms. They each believe that the other has implicated them and they then make statements in which, in many cases, they seek either to exculpate themselves at the expense of the other men, or at least to play down the part which they played at the expense of the other men.
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The idea that those statements should be used in court without defending counsel having the opportunity to challenge and cross-examine the maker of those statements and thus the jury having an opportunity to form its own view by seeing the men seems a proposal which will be difficult to accept. That is a personal view.
During the course of the debate, as was quickly pointed out by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) the right to silence has been one of the principal objections. The hon. Member said that he had come here to bury Caesar and not to praise him. He said that he had doubts about a number of aspects of the report which he hoped would be lost. Perhaps Caesar would have to be hung, drawn and quartered so that something could be buried and the rest preserved. Speaking in the same vein, one might feel sympathy for those members of the committee who, after the report was published, realising from which quarters the attack came, might have said "Et tu, Brute" to some of them.
Some time was spent by the hon. Member for York on the difficulties of making an attack upon a prosecution witness, thus running the risk of letting in one's own client's character. He spoke in moving terms of the look of horror on the faces of the jury when that happened.
Perhaps I may remind the hon. Gentleman of occasions on which a man's character has not been put in either because prosecuting counsel did not seek to do it or because the attack did not go far enough. In spite of that, the accused is convicted, and the jury, who perhaps came back with a little trepidation about convicting, hear the police officer speak about the previous convictions. They heave sighs of relief when they realise that that slight doubt, though not big enough to justify an acquittal, is no longer something which need cause them any anxiety.
In perverse verdicts—all verdicts, all acquittals, all convictions—it is terribly difficult for anybody to analyse how they came about. Not defending counsel, not prosecuting counsel nor anybody else knows.
Very early in my career I defended a man who was charged with driving under

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the influence of drink. His defence was that he had been working all that day—a Sunday—in a cold store and had inhaled gas and so was unsteady and his car performed the manoeuvres that it did perform. The evidence was very strong against him, but he was acquitted. It was either my first or second jury trial, and I went home very pleased with myself.
About three days later somebody came up to me in the street and said, "You won't know me. I was a juror in that case." I preened myself and thought I should be told how well I had done. He said, "Of course, your chap was guilty, but we thought, ' Good man; he had worked all Sunday to save that chap's stock in his cold store'; we could not possibly convict him". That was a perverse verdict.
Equally perverse are those about which the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) spoke—the shoplifting cases. One can see it exactly: as a recorder I have tried a number of those cases; it may be the elderly lady, or the professional man, a teacher or somebody of that sort, who, for the price of 3s 6d worth of stewed steak, is liable to have his professional career finished. If one applies the term strictly, those are perverse verdicts.
From such of Mr. Zander's report as I have been able to read, it having come into my hands only just before the debate started, and from the correspondence in the papers today, I think that it is still too small a sample for me to be sure. A much more detailed inquiry ought to be made. Acquittals can follow so many different reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) gave a number of examples, and I could give others—long delay, complication of the case, too much paper; sometimes the photostat machine does not help the prosecution, too many counts in the indictment, too many defendants in the dock, delay, and so on.
Those are various reasons why a jury sometimes despairs about a whole case. In the end the jurors become so confused that even though a judge, seeking to help them, takes three days to sum up, it probably would have been better—as one judge at the Old Bailey was famed for doing—to take half a day and do it
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much more efficiently and often get the right verdict as a result.
Mr. Clinton Davis: The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Zander report was based on too small a sample. It is a long time since the committee's report was published and it is a year since it was debated in another place. Why have not the Government done some research into the subject?
The Solicitor-General: I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that. A number of matters have to be considered here. It was known that Mr. Zander was going to make this report, because the Home Office and Sir Robert have given him many facilities to carry this out. But it may be that it is not until one gets his report that one sees some of the shortcomings.
I do not accept the general proposition that the basis of the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report is the treatment of sophisticated criminals. Even if that were so, that is not sufficient justification for condemning it. I should like to see the whole of the law of evidence, particularly criminal evidence, looked at again. Lord Diplock in another place used a phrase about it which I do not remember exactly but which one can paraphrase as "a terrible muddle".
Some of the matters which the Criminal Law Revision Committee considered were not simply on the basis that the number of convictions would be increased but that a certain area of the law was getting so confused and was to some extent so judge-made that it should be looked at again and perhaps—I think probably rightly—put on a statutory basis. That does not mean that I am suggesting that the draft Bill should be accepted. I am anxious that every sort of consideration should be given—that is why this debate has been valuable—to all the views which have been expressed.
Mr. Fowler: My hon. and learned Friend expressed sympathy for a fuller inquiry on the lines of that conducted by Michael Zander. Is he saying that the Government are prepared to give sympathetic consideration to producing a research report on their own initiative?
The Solicitor-General: That is a matter not for me but for my right hon. Friend

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the Home Secretary. But I certainly should like to see that fuller inquiry made because it is such a difficult task ever to get this information without doing the one thing that one can never do—that is, ask a jury why they came to a particular verdict.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) raised a matter very close to my heart when he said that if the right to silence were to be altered it should not be given up unless some safeguards could be provided. He said that some sanctity, or almost respectability, had to be obtained, in which case it would be a different matter. This approach has run through practically every speech.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Crowder) referred to statements made in notebooks. I have argued for a long time that when the opportunity exists—that would be when two or more police officers are present—one officer can perfectly well make a sufficient note of what is being said, which can then, after the interview or, if it is a long one, when the tea is brought or there is some other natural break, be read back to the accused or suspected person, so that he can be given an opportunity to challenge anything which he says has been wrongly included before he signs it.
This would have a great deal of effect before a jury. All of us have, when we have defended someone, known the second, third and fourth policemen come and give identical evidence. They speak of an occasion probably eight to 10 months before. If one says, "Put down your book and tell me yourself" he says, "I have no recollection of the incident".
I have said, "If there were 30 of you there and they were all brought here in a bus, would they all say exactly the same?" The officer says, "Yes." because, in the case which I regret my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood apparently lost in 1955, Lord Goddard agreed that two police officers were entitled to put their heads together to get an accurate recollection of what had happened. When they had no recollection save for their note, one can imagine what could be said, if one wanted to make a joke about a serious matter.
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It is like a Greek chorus, with the senior police officer at the table writing it down surrounded by all the others. If skilled counsel say what I have suggested, in the course of cross-examining police officers, they make such a farce of the whole thing that juries are inclined to disregard the police evidence, although it may be absolutely accurate.
I do not say that in a sense of criticism of the police, because such evidence has been accepted by the Court of Criminal Appeal since 1955. But the police might like to consider—this is entirely my personal view—whether the system, if properly cross-examined to by skilled advocates, becomes in the end counter-productive to them when the cases are considered.
The hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) spoke of confessions and trials within trials. He said that it was easy for the police to deny that any threats or improper inducements were made. In some cases there may have been the most trivial breach of the Judges' Rules. The police officer may have hinted to the accused that he will not let him see his wife until the next day, or may have said, "We shall have to talk about bail after you have made your statement." The accused probably says that the statement is true, and it therefore seems to me illogical that such a confession can be excluded even though the persuasion used was not enough to render it unreliable.
There is something to be said for a reconsideration of the position with regard to confessions, where whatever has been done is not enough to make them reliable, and where the word "oppressive" in the report, or whatever phrase one likes to use, gets nearer to the fundamental truth that should exist in those circumstances.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) spoke in slightly emotive terms of the risk of an abuse of power by the executive if the rule of silence were taken away. In fact, we are dealing with police officers at the initial stage of an investigation. My hon. and learned Friend said that if possible the notes should be signed. I have great sympathy with this.
I have thought for some years that the caution as such is almost a joke. If

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we are to alter the right of silence in any way, what sort of safeguards are suggested by the debate? One possibility is not to have "verbals" put on. The phrase that particularly impressed me was "the injustice of the non-verbal", where somebody has given an explanation which should go before the jury but which is conveniently forgotten by the interviewing police officer.
We have had a helpful debate. Various suggestions have been made, although at the top end I can see a great deal of difficulty about finding a number of magistrates prepared to be called out of bed in, say, the West End of London on a busy Saturday night after a Cup Final. That would probably stretch their resources. We had other alternatives suggested, down to the tape recorder and having a solicitor available. There is now the sort of early-warning system which will be of some assistance later with solicitors, but it does not apply at this stage. There is also what I have suggested might be at least a stop-gap, the signing of the notes taken in the notebooks in the proper circumstances.
One can see exactly what the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) meant about the public debate having gone cold. If we had not had the Zander report so beautifully timed for this morning, the public debate might have been a little chillier than it has been. I have no doubt that what has been said in the House today will stirr up the debate again. I hope that it will, because every assistance we can be given in this problem will be very welcome to those responsible in the Home Office and to the Law Officers' Department in the advisory capacity. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member particularly on the coining of the phrase "the injustice of the non-verbal".
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) gave the case for change, which he put under a number of headings, one of which was the research approach. He said that Mr. Zander's report had been valuable and interesting, but I should like to see a more detailed study if it is practicable. There are objections concerning Mr. Zander's report. It is not necessary to go into detail about this, but the method he used could be open to criticism.
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It is not all that important that we should have to establish that professionals are getting away with it. That is not the only test. Consideration must be given to a much wider issue, as to whether the general law of evidence in criminal cases has got into such a muddle that it has to be tidied up.
The need for the accused's words to be accurately recorded is common ground in the House. The availability of legal advice, which has also been mentioned, raises a difficulty which cannot be resolved in any compulsory way, such as by having solicitors available to be called out at all times. However, we are moving by stages to try to have solicitors available at a much earlier stage after a charge has been made against an accused person.
I agree with the view of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) that the right to silence is not absolute. The problem here is where to draw the balance. The hon. and learned Gentleman raised a point which I had not thought of, but I shall now look into it. It is the question of draft Clause 31 having an effect on our identification procedures. I had formed such an antagonistic view of draft Clause 31 in the other respect which I have indicated that I had not considered the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman raised. I shall look into it and, if necessary, write to him.
There was also reference to the Law Commission, particularly the Law Commission in Scotland. The terms of reference of the committee were to:
"examine such aspects of the criminal law of England and Wales …".
There was no intention to pre-empt Scotland. I am surprised that the hon. and learned Gentleman had anxiety about it, in view of the anxiety and care which his opposite number on the Treasury Bench shows when any issue about Scotland is raised. There was no intention in the report or in the draft Bill that Scotland would in any way be preempted.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) spoke of delay and complained of the short notice of the debate. I cannot deal with either matter, but the delay was to some extent calculated, because after

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the report was published a number of people, organisations and professional bodies wrote begging the Government to take ample time before any steps were taken. The ample time may have spread a month or two beyond what it should have gone, but, as hon. Members realise, matters cannot always be taken on the days originally intended.
I do not see what would be gained by urgent action being taken by the Law Society. In considering criticisms of the report we must bear in mind who were the members of the committee. Ten of the 14 members, whose names appear on page 3 of the report, were at one time practising members of the Bar or practising solicitors, for example Lord Justice Davies and Lord Justice Lawton. I know Lord Justice Lawton in particular, because he was head of my chambers and was one of the greatest advocates who practised at the criminal Bar since the war. He certainly has never been, in my experience—I think that this would be confirmed by others who have appeared before him—someone who by any stretch of the imagination could be accused of being prosecution-minded. I can only say that if this matter had been sent to the Law Commission the proposals might have been strengthened.
The time has come to gather together all the evidence and reports, to study the debate which took place in another place and this debate, and then perhaps—this is a matter for the Home Office—to make such proposals as it is thought right.
The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) made the sort of comments which I have come to expect and which I sympathise with. He said in particular that the right to maintain silence was a theme which ran right through this debate.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood took the strong view that no change was needed, save that the statement from the dock should be got rid of. That is an aspect which was not mentioned by anybody else but on which I agree. It seems inconsistent nowadays to maintain that archaic relic which had to be preserved up till 1898. My hon. and learned Friend seemed to be taking the view that those who wish
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to alter the right to silence are wrong, because during the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), who argued that it was unjustifiable to interfere with the right to maintain silence, my hon. and learned Friend yet again reaffirmed his state of mind by saying, "Hear, hear".
I draw the attention of the House to a pamphlet which, curiously enough, was published in the same month as the committee's report and in which my hon. and learned Friend appears to have taken rather contrary views to that which he has expressed today.
Mr. Crowder: I have had the opportunity of having consultations with people with far greater knowledge of the law than I have and who are well known to my hon. and learned Friend. I have rather changed my view. However, I wish the Government would not follow everything I say when I write a pamphlet. It is there for discussion.
The Solicitor-General: Perhaps I, too, can now say, "Et tu, Brute!".
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, in a most impressive speech which balanced the difficulties with great care and responsibility and outlined the dilemma between unscrupulous police, on the one side, and unscrupulous crooks, on the other, spoke of the attitude which perhaps now exists when juries have to consider cases. The hon. and learned Gentleman welcomed the safeguards of tape recording. I thought that he was absolutely right to say that the report makes us look critically at the rules of evidence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington, who was perhaps the most outspoken hon. Member today in favour of at least parts of the report, spoke of public concern that criminals should escape justice and he gave a number of reasons, to which I have added a few, for juries' acquittals when ordinarily if it had been left to a judge alone the verdict might have been different.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) spoke of the danger of shifting the balance of proof—I quote his words, because they worry me—thus leading us on to a slippery slope via the hybrid to the inquisitorial system.

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If I suspected what was proposed in the report or if I thought that what was put before the House by way of legislation would lead to an inquisitorial system, I could not support it. I do not think that that is the consequence that must be drawn from these recommendations. When we were speaking of an inquisitorial system I saw the right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) come into the Chamber. I wondered whether he had heard "inquisitorial system" mentioned and thought that he had another opportunity to discuss the Common Market.
The hon. Member for Accrington put the matter too high when he said that if the recommendations are accepted it must mean that a man will not get a fair trial or a proper hearing. If the hon. Gentleman thinks about it he will realise that that is putting the matter too high.
Mr. Arthur Davidson: If those were the words which I used I must have slightly mis-stated what I meant to say. I meant that if the recommendations are accepted a man will not think that he will get a fair trial. At present he believes that he will. It is important that people should continue to believe that they will have a fair hearing.
The Solicitor-General: This has been a useful and valuable debate. I can assure all hon. Members who have taken part, and all those who have encouraged hon. Members to take part, that their reports and recommendations will be considered. As Lord Diplock said in another place, the law of evidence is,
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"illogical and in a mess, and needs to be cleared up."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th February 1973; Vol. 338, c. 1647.]
All that has happened is that the Committee has recommended ways of doing so. It is worth remembering that many of its recommendations are uncontroversial and that some assist the defence. Other recommendations have met with criticism. Some of that criticism has been severe. Both the report and the criticism are valuable because the report has made critics concentrate their minds and focus on the problem. As the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery said, some of the alterations and variations which have been recommended are valuable and will be considered.
This is not the end of the road because even if the report in the form of a draft Bill was put before the House we would still have the safeguard of both this House and another place where amendments could be made. We are now much better informed of the difficulties than before the report was published. I hope that the final proposals for reform which are ultimately made will not only produce the necessary improvements to the branch of the law which we are considering but will command the support of all those whose experience and learning entitles them to judge.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the 11th Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee on Evidence (Command Paper No. 4991).

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  LEGAL AID BILL [LORDS]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House—[Mr. Hall-Davis.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
  Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

  LEGAL AID BILL [LORDS]
    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hall-Davis.]

  HOUSING (NEWPORT)
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Hughes: I welcome this opportunity to discuss the question of housing in Newport. At present there is speculation about the possibility of an early General Election. I hope that if that election comes, one of the principal issues in it will be this vital question of housing. The home is the very basis of family life. Nothing sickens me more than when I am given details of the conditions in which people in my constituency of Newport are forced to live. It is in this crucial area that the Government's policies have been such a dramatic failure.
  Yet the Conservative manifesto at the last General Election promised a new housing drive for the Seventies. There were three objectives—to house the homeless, to bring about a great increase in home ownership, and to see that the tenant, whether of a private property or of a council house, received a fair deal. These are all commendable objectives, yet this Government have taken housing back to the 1930s. Nowhere is this more so than in my constituency.
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  The housing statistics issued a few days ago showed that new house building is now at its lowest ebb since 1947. There were 107,500 council houses completed last year. There has been a sharp fall in private house building. Land is at a premium. Whereas property speculators can make fortunes overnight mortgage rates are at record levels. What chance have young home buyers? In Newport building contractors are offering to sell to the Corporation complete housing estates because they are in despair. People just do not have sufficient income to raise a mortgage.
  It has long been felt that the Government have had some sort of vendetta against council tenants. The Housing Finance Act has been enacted. In Newport there are over 600 individual projects about rent increases being forced on tenants against the advice of the local authority. Yet this is the Government which promised to increase the independence of local authorities. In South Wales there are three major housing authorities. Cardiff, the capital city, has a waiting list of over 5,000. Swansea has a waiting list of over 3,000. In Newport, according to the figures given by the Housing Manager, Mr. Bader, in a letter a few days ago, the waiting list of Newport District Council is likely to be in excess of 3,600. In addition to that he says that there is a considerable redevelopment programme.
  It will be borne in mind that Newport has approximately one-third of the population of Cardiff so that on a pro rata basis Newport seems to have the worst housing situation in the whole of South Wales. I must be fair and say that all of the blame cannot be placed on the Government. The Newport Corporation has a lot to answer for. From 1967 to 1971 we had the Government's local counterparts in control in Newport, buttressed by a small number of Ratepayers. Certainly from a housing standpoint that four years was a disaster. In 1968 not one house was started in the town. Yet major redevelopment schemes were allowed to go ahead. Where they expected people to live in the years ahead no one knows.
  Added to this inaction and neglect was the fact that the corporation's attitude at the time was given some sort of official sanction by the statement of the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter

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  Walker), now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who was advising local authorities not to build houses. His tenure of office as the Secretary of State for the Environment was equally disastrous as is his present term of office at the Department of Trade and Industry.
  The Newport Corporation at that time were not without sound and practical advice. The then Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), described its housing record in this House as "pitiful" and exhorted it in every way he could to build houses.
  From 1960 to 1967, for example, nearly 500 houses annually were being completed in Newport. One does not need much imagination or to be a mathematician to realise that if that level of building had been maintained there would be nothing like the housing shortage of today. Now even hardship cases have to wait for over three years, many living in what are acknowledged to be deplorable conditions.
  I want to give the House two examples that have reached me in the past week or so. I interviewed a lady at my surgery and from the notes I made at the time I wrote to the housing manager. I said that the lady lived with her husband and two small children in a top-floor flat. The bottom-floor flat was now vacant, having been previously occupied by her father who died 2½ years ago. Other houses in the street had been boarded up and the house next door, which was a disused shop, had a fire some time ago. The flat was in a deplorable state with damp running down the walls, and both children had bad chests.
  The lady struck me as a respectable woman. She pointed out that, due to general, dilapidation in the area, the house was infested with mice, which were running over the children while they slept. In the morning she found mice droppings on the pillow. In view of those circumstances I hoped that some emergency action would be taken about the plight of the family.
  The housing manager acknowledged that many families in town are living in similar conditions. I am glad to say I have had a letter from the housing manager indicating that this family, at least,
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  have now been placed on the priority list for rehousing. It makes one wonder whether young children such as the two I have referred to have first to develop either pneumonia or tuberculosis before their family can be rehoused.
  The second example I give concerns a letter I received a few days ago. The writer, a lady, asked whether I could help her "With my living conditions," as she put it. She added,
  "I have a flat. I have got one bedroom and living room. My cooker is on top of the landing and my sink is on top of the stairs. I have got to share the toilet."
  She goes on to illustrate all the inconveniences resulting from that situation.
  "I have got two children, a boy nearly three and a girl 5 months. We are overrun with mice. I have had poison put down but it is still there untouched. I have had boxes of baby's food gnawed through; teats of my boy's bottle gnawed. I have woke up in the night and have found mice on my baby's forehead and also in my son's cot. I have had to buy trunks to put my clothes in because they are eating my clothes. I have wrote to Dr. Clarke "—
  the Medical Officer of Health—
  "and he sent someone down. The man went over my place and I told him that my bedroom is damp and showed him the wallpaper falling off the wall in the bedroom. Also I said that I had nowhere to put a single bed for my son to sleep as there is no room and I don't think it's right that four should sleep in a room. There are five adults and three children in the house. The man told me we were not overcrowded. I am on the council list."
  She goes on to say that her son has nowhere to play and that his health is being affected and so on. She continues:
  "I am afraid I have had enough being overrun with mice and overcrowded and not being able to sleep in the night. It is also affecting my husband. He is a driver on Newport Corporation Transport, and some weeks he has to get up at four o'clock in the morning. If he does not get his proper sleep I am afraid he will make himself ill. A man after finishing work likes to come home to the comfort of his home. It is the other way round with my husband. He dreads coming home."
  These cases illustrate the situation of the terrible conditions in which people are living. I have deliberately not mentioned the names and addresses, but I am prepared to let the Secretary of State have the correspondence. I suggest that he should send one of his housing inspectors to see the conditions at first hand. As I say, these cases illustrate the conditions in which people are living in prosperous Newport in 1974. Many other

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  similar cases could be cited, as the housing manager all too readily admits.
  But, alongside this stagnation in house building, major redevelopment schemes in the town have been allowed to go ahead. Hundreds of houses are being bricked up. In the Pillgwenlly area of Newport, which has largely been mutilated, the decay is all too evident. This was a closely-knit area with a wonderful community spirit, and one asks what sort of life the people who remain are living.
  It is clearly laid down in the Housing Act 1957 that a local authority must satisfy itself that it can provide sufficient accommodation in advance for people who are displaced as a result of redevelopment. This condition is not being met in Newport. Many of the bricked-up houses have been unoccupied for several years. Families could have been living in them. The council's policy in this respect needs looking into.
  I accept that certain limited progress is now being made, but the housing manager speaks of the state of frustration he is in at present. He points out:
  "… it appears that contracts for Council house building are the least attractive for any builder and, therefore, it has been almost impossible to obtain tenders for developments and when tenders have arrived, these have been so far outside the limited cost yardstick that they could not be accepted."
  He goes on to say—and I want to be fair—that the policy of the Welsh Office has been a bit more liberal in recent months and that this has been of some help.
  Then there is the question of the compensation paid for houses which are subject to redevelopment. I say without fear of contradiction that the sums paid in compensation are completely inadequate, and many examples could be cited. The Government should ensure that the compensation enables the owner-occupier to purchase a similar house in an equivalent area. It is even more relevant that the redevelopment in the town should be slowed down. That should have been done some years ago.
  I have described the position in Newport, but I know of many other areas in which there are similar housing shortages. Drastic action is required, but I do not have much faith in the Government in this respect. During the four years in which they have been in office the situa
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  tion has deteriorated. The Housing and Planning Bill which the House will discuss tomorrow is only of limited value.
  The Labour Party has far-reaching proposals for dealing with housing. It calls for full public ownership of building land, repeal of the Housing Finance Act, the provision of mortgages at a reasonable rate of interest and an increase in the subsidies that the Government have cut, because housing is vital. It is necessary to ensure an adequate rate of council house building, together with a reasonable level of rents.
  The building industry needs long-term stability, not the slump and boom periods of recent years. There must be no more Centre Points. Inessential office building must be cut out, and the "lump" ended. Craftsmen must be persuaded back into the building industry. More apprentices must be trained. The process of prefabrication must be examined and speeded up.
  Action is now required, and the people in my constituency are demanding it. Our town needs a five-year crash programme. If the Government are not prepared to produce the emergency measures that are required they should make way for a Government who are prepared to do so.
  10.18 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Thomas): I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes) on securing this Adjournment debate and on raising the very important subject of Newport's housing problems. I am well aware of his intense interest in the subject because he has written to me and to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Welsh Office about the subject on numerous occasions.
  Let me say right away that I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a housing problem in Newport. Newport County Borough Council also agrees that there is a housing problem in Newport. In fact, the local authority is doing its utmost to find a solution, both short term and long term, to these problems, and my officials at the Welsh Office are giving every support to the local authority in its endeavours. This situation is not new. We have been aware of it for some time, and all those who are involved are exerting themselves to the utmost. The hon. Gentleman is pushing at an open

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  door in suggesting that more should be done to deal with Newport's housing problems.
  Perhaps I may comment on some of the individual problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. He spoke of fair rents and referred to protests that are being made in his constituency. As he will be aware, Newport County Borough Council and its tenants are exercising their statutory rights to make representations to the rent scrutiny board about the board's determination of fair rents. The matter is therefore sub judice and it would not be proper for me to comment on the merits of the case.
  I think I can, however, safely make one general comment. When the fair rents are eventually fixed no tenant need suffer hardship because of the level of his rent. Any tenant who cannot afford to pay his rent can apply to the local authority for a rent rebate, and the level of rebate allowing under the Housing Finance Act 1972 is generous.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the waiting list in Newport. I believe he said that there were over 3,000 names on it and that it is anticipated that there will be more. He will appreciate that houses cannot be provided quickly, although in one respect, to which I shall refer again later, the local authority is coming close to achieving even this. The hon. Member was fair enough to say that all the blame cannot be placed on the Government. That, of course, is a very fair remark. He knows that the provision of housing takes years of forward planning, and to find the cause of the shortage of houses today the hon. Member, as he did, must look back several years. He mentioned that in 1968 not a single house was started. I am sure that the council now has the matter in hand, and it has plans which will ensure an adequate supply of housing in Newport in future years.
  At the end of 1973 Newport County Borough Council had schemes in progress which will provide 488 dwellings. A further 386 dwellings are in the pipeline, and for the near future over 1,100 houses are at the planning stage. Looking further into the future, the programme aims at building some thousands of houses by the early 1980's. Sites have been earmarked in various parts of the authority's area for the progressive
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  development of the housing programme, and the long-term outlook seems bright.
  Understandably, the hon. Member is concerned about the effects on his constituents of the short-term situation. I said that I would refer to efforts by the authority to provide housing quickly. This it hopes to achieve by buying houses built or in the course of construction for immediate allocation to persons on the waiting list.
  As part of the endeavour to find a rapid solution to the current housing problem, Newport CBC and my Department are investigating as a matter of urgency the feasibility of reducing noise pollution from the M4 motorway at Coldra to a tolerable level so that the site there can be used for housing purposes. Up to now the problem of motorway noise has been an inhibiting factor, but various methods of providing sound insulation are being examined and these offer some hope that the site can be made usable for housing.
  Another effective short-term remedy which has been applied in Newport is the increased use of the improvement grant. Figures of improvement grants tell their own story. In 1968 and 1969 the numbers of improvement grants paid were 85 and 83 respectively. In 1972, the first full year when the benefits of the 1971 Housing Act were felt, the number of improvement grants paid was 851. Since 1970 improvement grants have been paid on over 1,600 houses. This is a massive contribution to Newport's housing problem, as a house improved is a house saved from unfitness and made available as better living accommodation.
  The hon. Member referred to the problems created by redevelopment proposals. There is a problem here, in particular in the Pill area. I share with the hon. Member his respect and admiration for community spirit. This is a feature of life in Wales of which we are very proud. It exists not only in the Pill area to which the hon. Member referred but also in the valleys and in many other areas throughout the Principality.
  The hon. Member referred to the Pill area as a close-knit area. The Welsh Office is always anxious to preserve community spirit, community relationships and community facilities. When the hon. Member studies the Housing and Planning Bill which we are to debate

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  tomorrow he will find that community considerations figure prominently in Part IV.
  Newport County Borough Council also recognises the importance of community spirit. It has borne this very much in mind in planning for the redevelopment of the Pill area. It has established an information centre in the very heart of the area, to which any resident can go—indeed, is encouraged to go—to find out how the redevelopment proposals affect him, what benefits and safeguards are available to him and even how he can make his opinion felt on the redevelopment proposals. Substantial modification to some sections of the redevelopment plan have already been made in response to representations from the residents. This illustrates how anxious the council is to respect the wishes of the community.
  Nevertheless, there comes a point when other action must be taken. Some houses have reached the point of no return. To spend money in an attempt to rehabilitate them would be just pouring ratepayers' and taxpayers' money down an open drain. The sensible thing to do in these circumstances is to clear and rebuild. I have every confidence in the local authority's judgment in this matter.
  I know from the continual discussions which the local authority has with my officials in the Welsh Office that it is striving to follow a policy of improvement wherever this is at all practicable in order not to disrupt or destroy existing communities and facilities. But in the local authority's judgment—it is ultimately a matter of its judgment—there are houses in the area which are no longer improvable.
  I am quite sure that the hon. Member, who gave examples of housing stress, would not advocate that people should continue to live in totally unfit accommodation solely on the grounds that community spirit must prevail—and by totally unfit accommodation I mean accommodation which is manifestly detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of the occupants and not merely accommodation which is technically unfit because it lacks, say, one of the standard amenities prescribed by the Housing Acts.
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  I recognise that it is a wrench for the occupants to be moved from dwellings for which they have formed an affection as their homes of many years, and I wish that there were some way of sparing them from having to make the change. But, having said that, I must stress that in our experience those who have made the change in many other parts of Wales have, once the settling period is over, realised that it is immeasurably for their benefit that they have been moved into accommodation of a much higher standard.
  Local authority practice on the question of improvement or clearance must rest entirely on the circumstances. Local authorities may have to make very fine judgments in some cases, but in the long term the occupants of unfit accommodation cannot but benefit from being moved into better standard dwellings. As the hon. Member will know, Newport council is not proposing to displace the Pill community permanently. Some measure of displacement is inevitable initially in order to free one or two blocks of housing for a start to be made on clearance; but until the site is clear there can be no rebuilding.
  As far as Pill is concerned, the intention is to rebuild on the identical site. After the first stage the present residents can stay in the same area, the area which they have known all their lives, and there is no reason why the community spirit should not be retained and protected.
  From 1960 to 1968 Newport had a flourishing housing programme, which provided over 4,000 houses. In 1968 and 1969 a halt was called to this programme, for reasons which seemed good to the council at the time but which, with the benefit of hindsight, are now seen to be not so good. But no one concerned is sitting down idly. Newport Council is tackling the shortage in a vigorous manner, and the figures I have given demonstrate that the object is to renew the building programme on a large scale.
  My office is giving every assistance consistent with my responsibilities under the various Housing Acts. No restrictions have been imposed and no obstacles have been placed in Newport's way. Where problems have arisen, the local authority

  1009
  and the Welsh Office have co-operated in finding a solution.
  I do not wish to look back to 1968 and 1969. What matters is that the Newport housing situation is now firmly in hand, and the hon. Member's constituents
  1010
  should reap the benefits in the years to come.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Schools (Bristol)
  Schools (Bristol)
  RHODESIA
  RHODESIA
EMPLOYMENT
  Acro-osteolysis
  Acro-osteolysis
  Earnings
  Earnings
  Strikes (Compensation Fund)
  Strikes (Compensation Fund)
  Cost of Living
  Cost of Living
  Pay Settlements (Scotland)
  Pay Settlements (Scotland)
  Wales
  Wales
  Building Workers (Merseyside)
  Building Workers (Merseyside)
  Disabled Persons (Wales)
  Disabled Persons (Wales)
  Training
  Training
  Motor Industry
  Motor Industry
  Industrial Disputes (Benefit)
  Industrial Disputes (Benefit)
ENVIRONMENT
  Water Supply (Lead Content)
  Water Supply (Lead Content)
  Palace of Westminster
  Palace of Westminster
  M16 Motorway
  M16 Motorway
  A329(M)
  A329(M)
  Roads
  Roads
  Office Development Permits (London)
  Office Development Permits (London)
  Road Fund Licences
  Road Fund Licences
  Drill Hall Site, Hither Green
  Drill Hall Site, Hither Green
  Rent Rebates and Allowances
  Rent Rebates and Allowances
  Compulsory Purchase Order (Hull)
  Compulsory Purchase Order (Hull)
  A57, Aston-cum-Aughton (Casualties)
  A57, Aston-cum-Aughton (Casualties)
  Grimwith Reservoir
  Grimwith Reservoir
  Sports Fields
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  Miners' Wives (Employment)
  Miners' Wives (Employment)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  World Population Conference
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HOME DEPARTMENT
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  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (FINANCIAL INTERESTS)
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  WORLD POPULATION CONFERENCE
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NATIONAL FINANCE
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  Tax Evasion
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  Company Profits
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  Company Profits and Dividends
  Company Profits and Dividends
  ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
  ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
SCOTLAND
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  Erskine Bridge and Clyde Tunnel
  A9, Cromarty
  A9, Cromarty
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SOCIAL SERVICES
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ENERGY
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POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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  Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill
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WALES
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TRADE AND INDUSTRY
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  Horizon Holidays Midland Limited
  Horizon Holidays Midland Limited
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
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  Cattle (Intra-Community Trade)
  Fertilisers
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  Southwick Park (Planning Proposals)
  Poultry
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  Wine
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  Food Prices
  Food Prices
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CIVIL SERVICE
  University Chair (Edinburgh)
  University Chair (Edinburgh)
  Pay Board and Price Commission
  Pay Board and Price Commission
DEFENCE
  Northern Ireland
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  Civilian Employees (Scotland)

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

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DEFENCE
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 which are the non-nuclear nations, not associated with Eurogroup, who have been so far involved in planning for the possible defensive use of nuclear weapons; which nations have been consulted; and with what result.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL FERRERS): My Lords, nuclear planning in the North Atlantic Alliance is carried out under the ægis of the NATO Nuclear Planning Group. The only non-nuclear nations which are members of the Nuclear Planning Group but which are not members of the Eurogroup are Canada and Portugal. Planning and consultation take place within the Nuclear Planning Group both at official level and at the biannual Ministerial meetings when policy plans, programmes and procedures for the possible use of nuclear weapons are established and reviewed.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the Nuclear Planning Group consists of eight members—and, by the way, despite what the noble Earl said, includes Canada. How does he account for the statement made in November of last year by the Nuclear Planning Group that they proposed to involve the non-nuclear nations in their consultative procedures, when in point of fact there are six members of the Nuclear Planning Group that are non-nuclear nations?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord said that there were eight members of the Nuclear Planning Group. In fact, there are twelve members, and Canada is one of them. Of course the role of the Nuclear Planning Group is to submit policy recommendations on the nuclear affairs of the Alliance to the North Atlantic Council and to examine specific aspects of the planning procedures for the possible use of nuclear weapons. This is, of course, the purpose of the Group, and that is what they do.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Earl has given that answer. Apparently he has not done his homework. I have in my possession the summary of current affairs, and I find that the members of the Nuclear Planning Group are Britain, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. There are not twelve members but eight members of the Group. What I want to know is why the Nuclear Planning Group associated with the Euro-group have decided to consult the non-nuclear members of the Group. It is not my submission; it comes right from the Government, that they have decided to consult members of the Group who are non-nuclear.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that somewhere we must be at cross-purposes. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would let me have that piece of paper afterwards, and I will certainly study it. At the moment I am not cognisant of the particular point to which he refers. I can assure the noble Lord that the members of the Nuclear Planning Group are Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. I would assure the noble Lord that the duty of the Nuclear Planning Group, and its objectives, are totally different from the Eurogroup, because the Nuclear Planning Group deals with nuclear matters and the Eurogroup deals with trying to effect more harmony within NATO of the European countries.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, in view of that statement, may I quote from the Government's supplement?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD SHINWELL: Why not? Is it not better to be accurate about this matter?
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, if the noble Lord would put it in the form of a question he would be in order.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is perfectly in order to quote in support of a question in your Lordships' House provided the quotation is not too long.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, in this summary does it not appear as follows:
"The Defence Ministers of the eight NATO members who make up the Nuclear Planning Group"—
That is marked "1", and at the bottom is the footnote:
"1. Britain, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States."
It is not twelve members. Would the noble Earl be kind enough to look into this matter again and furnish an accurate reply to my Question?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I like to think that the reply that I furnished was accurate, but I shall certainly look into the noble Lord's point and get in touch with him. If in any way I have given inaccurate information, I will certainly let him know.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, how is it that Portugal is associated with this Group? Is it not the only nation, other than Canada, which my noble friend corrected, which is associated in this way? Is it not a semi-Fascist country, and almost the only Government now openly colonialist?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I would prefer not to answer the latter part of the noble Lord's supplementary question. With regard to the prime part of his question, in fact the Nuclear Planning Group consists of virtually all the countries, other than Iceland, France and Luxembourg.

SMOKING AND HEALTH: TURKISH CIGARETTES
2.42 p.m.
LORD SUDELEY: 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 for what reason Turkish cigarettes have not been included in the table issued by the Department of Health and Social Security giving tar and nicotine yields of cigarettes.
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, the brands of cigarettes which have been tested for tar and nicotine yields by the Government chemist and for which the results were published by the Department of Health and Social Security in April, 1973, are those brands which had sales in the United Kingdom of 10 million cigarettes or more a year. Before tests began in 1972 cigarette manufacturers and importers, including manufacturers or importers of Turkish cigarettes, were asked to name such brands but no brand of Turkish cigarettes was put forward. The list of brands for inclusion in the testing arrangements is kept under continual review and when other brands reach the required level of sales these are added to the list for the next testing period.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he aware that the tar and nicotine content of Turkish cigarettes is less than that of Virginian and that there is an unsatisfied demand for Turkish cigarettes?
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, I would remind my noble friend that manufacturers and importers have been informed that manufacturers of a brand which sells under 10 million cigarettes per year—and of course this is so in the case of Turkish cigarettes—can request that it be included in the list to be published. Such a brand would be accepted if the workload on the Government chemist permitted.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider promoting the advertising of Turkish cigarettes in order to stimulate their sales as compared with those containing Virginian tobacco?
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, that is right outside the purview of Government affairs, and it is also outside the original Question.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any firm evidence about the incidence of diseases, such as lung cancer, in smokers of Turkish and similar rather rich and aromatic cigarettes which are not much smoked in this country?
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, I approach this matter with some caution, because in the Report of the Royal College of Physicians Smoking and Health Now, of which I think the noble Lord was the chairman or one of the principal officers, there was no specific mention of Turkish cigarettes as such, and I think the Report discreetly referred to "no specific brands." Therefore I cannot answer the noble Lord on that point.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may I say that that is precisely why I asked the question—because I know there was nothing in the Report. Just to get the Record straight, it was with the First Report of the Royal College of Physicians that I was associated.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the well-known interest in this matter in this House and in another place, can the noble Lord ask somebody in his Department to communicate with his opposite number in Turkey and ask what are the conditions there—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: This is not a laughing matter—and what is the incidence of carcinoma of the lung there?
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, I think there are figures available from the World Health Organisation of the incidence of lung cancer in various parts of the world. If we have such information from the World Health Organisation, I will communicate with the noble Baroness if she so wishes.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much. I shall be delighted if he will do so.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind, before he
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communicates with anybody there, that Turkish tobacco is grown not only in Turkey? Will he also bear in mind that most American cigarettes contain a higher proportion of Turkish tobacco than cigarettes here, and that that might be a useful point of research? Above all, will he use all his efforts to stop people from smoking altogether?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, if this is the first time that the noble Lord has answered Questions from the Dispatch Box, may we congratulate him on the masterly way in which he has done so?
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Lord say when the next list of nicotine content of various brands of cigarettes is due to be issued?
LORD SANDYS: Yes, my Lords. It is due to be issued later this week, and there will be a Written Answer on this subject to-morrow afternoon in another place.

BRITISH AIRWAYS: HELICOPTER DIVISION
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: 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 have under consideration any proposals for the disposal by sale to outside interests of the Helicopter Division of British Airways.
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords, no such proposal is under consideration.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, can the Minister give an assurance that if at any time such a proposal is brought forward, Parliament will be informed and will have an opportunity of considering it before any decision is reached?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I would certainly undertake that if any significant policy decision were taken about the future of the British Airways group, or any part of that group, my honourable friend would inform Parliament.

NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES: "PUBLIC" AND "NATIONAL" INTEREST
2.48 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will define the terms "public interest" and "national interest"; and explain any differences arising in so far as nationalised industries are concerned.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I regret that I cannot answer this Question in abstract. I will try to clarify the use of these terms by Government spokesmen in any particular case.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, can the Minister get legal advice on this matter? Is he aware that in most evidence published by the nationalised industries the terms "public interest" and "national interest" seem to occur and seem to mean the same? It would be helpful if we could have an answer to my Question. Secondly, can he tell the House whether it is correct that these terms have never been interpreted by the courts, and that therefore nobody can take up any dogmatic position on them?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness is correct in the second part of her question. I do not think these terms have been challenged in the courts. If she has in mind our recent discussions on the question of the West London Air Terminal, I can say that we took legal advice as to the implications of Section 40 of the Civil Aviation Act 1971, and we were advised that in that instance it did not give the Secretary of State power to intervene.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was really asking about the wider issue, although that question was part of it? Is the Minister also aware that I am anxious to know whether these two terms mean the same or something different, because they seem to occur at odd intervals in
558
evidence that is published with no difference between them?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, as the noble Baroness is well aware, this is a matter for the courts to interpret. I have some personal ideas about a slight difference between the words "national" and public", and I think we can discuss this matter outside.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, do I understand the noble Lord's definition to be that the question of what is the public interest is a matter left to the judgment and discretion of the Minister? Is that the position? Is he aware that this constitutional issue was clarified during the time of the Attlee Government of 1945 to 1951, and that it was made perfectly clear that it was not entirely a matter for the judgment and discretion of the Minister, but that when a decision had been reached, either in your Lordships' House or in the other place, on an important issue concerning the public interest, the nationalised Board responsible, whichever one it was, had to take account of it?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the issue raised by the noble Baroness, I understand, is whether there is any difference in the Statutes between the terms "national interest" and "public interest". This is the constitutional issue that she has raised, and my answer is that this would be a matter for interpretation by the courts if it was challenged.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, is it not true to say that these words are used in an absolutely arbitrary way, cannot be defined and usually simply point to a difference of political opinion?
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords, I do not think they are used in an arbitrary way in the Statutes. It may be that individual speakers use them in an arbitrary way, because we are all apt to use different words fairly freely.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that in practice" public interest" and "national interest" frequently mean two completely different things and sets of values?
LORD ABERDARE: That is perfectly true, my Lords. Very often they mean the same thing, but there are certain instances where they mean different things.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, do not the natural meanings of the words convey that the "national interest" is the interest of this nation among the nations of the world and the "public interest" is the interest of the members of the public within this nation?
LORD ABERDARE: No, my Lords; I would not even go so far as to say that. I think that "national" is a more embracing term; but "public" can have a more limited meaning than the noble Lord has given it.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord—and I agree that there is a difference between the two—whether he would refer this question to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and ask him to give us an explanation?
LORD ABERDARE: I can think of nobody better qualified, my Lords.
LORD HALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that if he refers to the case of Nordenfeldt v. Maxim Nordenfeldt and to the judgment of Baron Herschel he will certainly find a considerable and able dissection on what is "the public interest"?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord.

GRENADA
2.54 p.m.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question of which I have given Her Majesty's Government Private Notice, namely—
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the situation in Grenada in the light of the current disturbances and the anxieties of Commonwealth and United Kingdom citizens.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, we have had no reports of violence in Grenada over the past week, nor have we had any reports of any threats to the safety of United Kingdom and other Commonwealth citizens.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, while overcoming my astonishment, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that his Answer will be very saddening to many Members of your Lordships' House? Are the Government really oblivious to the fact that anxiety has been expressed by United Kingdom citizens, by the people of Grenada and by the Governments of other Commonwealth countries? Is the noble Earl aware that according to the newspapers, which I am sure he believes to be in general reliable, there has been a breakdown of legitimate law and order in Grenada and that the secret police are behaving quite outrageously? Is it not a fact that Grenada is on the verge of bankruptcy, from which she is being saved only by the gift of £100,000 from the British Government? Further, is the Minister not aware that the team of Churchmen led by the Archibishop of Trinidad and Tobago left Grenada in what they described as "a mood of deep pessimism" about the future of the Island?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am aware of some of the divergences of opinion to which the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, has referred, and I am also aware of some of the reports which are in the newspapers; but I would assure the noble Lord that the Deputy British Government representative who is normally in St. Vincent has for the past two weeks been reporting on the spot in Grenada. During that time he has reported twice a day that there have been no outbreaks of violence. Of course we are aware of the problems concerned, and we shall certainly take account of anything that may happen which may affect the lives of any British or Commonwealth citizens. But, as I said in my original reply, at the moment these people are not threatened.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while endorsing the surprise at the reply which has been given, may I ask the Minister whether the fact that the visit of Prince Richard for the opening celebrations has been cancelled does not show that there is a very exceptional situation in Grenada? Is it not the case that if the noble Earl had referred to ten days ago, instead of a week ago, he would have had to report severe violence in which people were killed and injured? Is it not the case that

561
the Opposition, quite extraordinarily, represents the Chamber of Commerce, the trade unions and the Churches; and in view of this situation surely Her Majesty's Government should do something before Independence is granted next Thursday.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, is entirely right in saying that Prince Richard's visit was cancelled some ten days ago, but in fact the British Government now consider the situation in Grenada sufficiently stable to allow the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office to go to take part in the celebrations. Indeed, he has left to-day to do so. It is a fact that three people were killed in Grenada between January 20 and 26, but the internal defence of Grenada is not our responsibility. The Act allowing independence was passed by both Houses of Parliament, and it is correct that this should go forward.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, will the Government accept that we genuinely wish the Under-Secretary of State well in this situation, although of course all of us sympathise with him in being regarded as expendable by his own colleagues? If the Government have no power to intervene in this situation, or have not the will to do so, will they at least give us an assurance that they will think very hard indeed before creating a situation in another dependent territory which means that a century and a half of friendship and mutual trust ends in what can only be described as a squalid shambles?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, with the greatest deference, I think those last few remarks unfortunate in the light of what is going to take place in three days time. On Thursday, that country will become independent, and we should wish them success. My honourable friend the Under-Secretary is not expendable—I can assure the noble Lord of that—and had it been thought that he might have been expended then he would not have gone. But the Government consider it appropriate and suitable that we should send a representative to take part in the celebrations, and we wish the Grenadans well in them.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, while sharing some of the misgivings that have been expressed about the future of this
562
Island under the leadership of Mr. Gairy, whom I have known for 22 years, may I ask: is it not a fact that Mr. Gairy is still the Head of a democratically elected Government, much though one may deplore it? And since when have we taken part in upsetting democratic régimes in the Commonwealth?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Reigate. He is perfectly right. Mr. Gairy is the Head of the Government of that country; the request for independence was agreed through their Legislature and in both Houses of Parliament here, and that is the reason why we think it should go ahead and, as I have said, we wish them well in it.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, simply for the sake of the Record may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that the democratic nature of the elections in Grenada has been open to question, and that one would have been more impressed by Mr. Gairy's devotion to democracy if he had had the guts to face a referendum in Grenada?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that really is a slightly wider point, and I do not think it would be appropriate to comment upon it.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, with respect, the referendum is very much germane to this issue. It was within the power of the British Government not to accede to the request for independence without a referendum having been held. It was the act of the British Government, as I understand it, to consent to that situation. Some of us feel very strongly about this and the representations which we have had from Grenada. The noble Earl may have heard of someone called Pontius Pilate.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am bound to say that I did not know that he came from Grenada.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: But, my Lords, he washed his hands.
EARL FERRERS: The answer to the substance of Lady White's supplementary question is that Section 10(1) of the West Indies Act 1957 allows a referendum provided that there is a two-thirds majority

563
in the referendum and provided also that there is a two-thirds majority for Independence in the Legislature. Had that been the case, the British Government would have been obliged to grant independence. In fact, Grenada did not have a referendum, and it was under Section 10(2) of the Act that the request to Her Majesty's Government to give independence was granted.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that noble Lords on this side of the House are just as concerned about the future of this Island and its prosperity under independence as are Her Majesty's Government, and it is because of that very concern that we are putting our questions? Is it not the case that Mr. Gairy, the Prime Minister of Grenada, has adopted authoritarian methods and has his own private police force, and that it is the Opposition there, who were his main supporters at the last election, who are disillusioned in his rule? Will the Government carefully consider even at this last moment, whether the Constitution should not be suspended, in view of conditions in Grenada, and the Order in Council for Independence postponed until a member of the Government has been able to go there and to report on the situation?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am certainly well aware of the general concern over this position expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and other people. It was expressed on the occasion when the Act was going through Parliament. Of course, there has been concern, but the decision was taken. The question of Independence was part of the election platform on which Mr. Gairy stood, and he received an overwhelming majority in Parliament, where there were only two Opposition Members. Even they were not against independence. This matter has been discussed in Grenada and in both Houses of Parliament here, and the decision was taken that Grenada should be given independence. Although we accept that there are some people who have expressed views to the contrary, I think it would be quite wrong for Her Majesty's Government at this juncture to say that Grenada should not be given independence.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, would it not be true to say that the Government would be in just as much trouble if at this time they held up Independence? All my experience at the United Nations tells me that this would be so.
EARL FERRERS: I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. Although many people may complain about the grant of Independence, I think the holocuast of complaint that would arise if we decided against it would be even greater.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, may I add a word, or, rather, ask a question, in support of what the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, has just said? There are many anti-Colonialists and anti-Imperialists on these Benches who feel that Independence is not something that we grant; it is something that people are entitled to have. They may learn to use it well, or they may learn to use it badly. But it is not part of the job of ex-Colonial Powers to decide who is good and who is bad in the Island; the islanders must find that out for themselves.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, for what he has said. It is up to each country granted Independence to steer its own course, and we wish them well.

SPEECH THERAPY SERVICES
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House my noble friend Lord Aberdare will be making, a Statement at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. on the Quirk Report on Speech Therapy Services.

PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT BILL [H.L.]
3.5 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (BARONESS YOUNG): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair]
Clause 66 [Regulations about motor fuel]:
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 182:
Page 72, line 2, at end insert—
("(c) require manufacturers of motor vehicles to fit systems of exhaust emission controls to all new motor vehicles.").
The noble Viscount said: I want this regarded as a probing Amendment. I am chiefly concerned here with motor vehicles driven by petrol engines. While a number of vehicles are driven by diesel engines, the problem with such engines is not so great. Provided diesel engines are properly maintained they do not emit a great volume of poisonous gases. A diesel engine becomes dangerous when it emits smoke. This happens because the engine has not been serviced properly. In this country we have regulations, and the Ministry of Transport, in conjunction with police, may stop diesel motor vehicles to check on the emission of smoke. I think I am right in saying that London Transport have a check on the power of their engines to ensure that they cannot emit smoke, the engines being not allowed to develop full power.
Motor cars with petrol engines exported to the United States of America have to have some system of emission control to cut down the noxious gases. To me it has always been surprising that if we export motor cars and lorries to America the manufacturers have to obey rules about the emission of gases, but there is no equivalent rule in respect of vehicles for the home market. Apparently it is all right to poison British citizens, but you must not poison American citizens. I quite agree that conditions in America are different from those in this country. Some parts of America are plagued by chemical smog which we do not get in this country where we are very fortunate from the point of view that we are an island, with the Atlantic on one side and the North Sea on the
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other, and therefore have a lot of wind. In another respect we are not so fortunate about the wind, and we have seen some of the gale damage which has been caused lately. But anyone who walks during the rush hour in London on a hot July day cannot but be affected by the carbon monoxide in the air and the smell of thousands of petrol engines idling while the vehicles are stationary in traffic jams.
Obviously, car manufacturers are reluctant to add to their manufacturing costs, but surely where public health is in danger—and I understand that it has been amply proved that if you get a certain density of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere it is a great hazard to public health—the motor manufacturers ought to be forced by Statute to try to cure the problem even if to do so entails extra expense. I am aware of the great deal of research that has been going on into this problem; but it has been going on for many years and though, as I said earlier, certain strides forward have been made in diesel engine exhaust, so far as I can see very few strides have been made in petrol engines regarding the emission of obnoxious gases. It seems extraordinary that we can walk on the moon, travel through space and do the most marvellous things but we still run about in vehicles that can slowly poison us. We must somehow try to control this danger. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard, indicated at Second Reading that he would raise this matter at Committee stage and he has said this afternoon that he looks on this Amendment as a probing one. I hope, therefore, that what I say will satisfy him on the points that he has raised.
His Amendment seeks to impose a method by which vehicles might comply with emission standards. The difference between his Amendment and what is Government policy on this matter is that it is Government policy to prescribe emission standards but not to prescribe the methods by which they are met. The fact is that powers to prescribe emission standards are already available under Section 40 of the Road Traffic Act 1972. These standards can be used, of course, to meet the kind of conditions that he has described. The regulations include those

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prescribing emission standards for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and smoke.
My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard, talked about emission controls of the type used in the United States and elsewhere, such as catalytic converters and after-burners. These are not necessary to meet the emission standards prescribed in the United Kingdom and in most other European countries where geographical, climatic and traffic conditions are different. My noble friend raised the point that there is a difference between cars sold for export to the United States and those produced for the home market. The reason for that of course is that cars for export must meet the conditions imposed by the importing country. We believe that for many reasons, including geographical and climatic reasons, conditions in this country are different and therefore different types of standard apply.
There is, however, yet another point. Even if emission standards as stringent as those in force in the United States were introduced into Europe, the use of American-type control systems would not necessarily be justified. Their use causes increases in fuel consumption, which is a very real point in our present-day difficulties over oil. We hope that advanced designs of engine which are more efficient than the present types may be able to meet the most stringent emission standards without loss of fuel economy; but that is something for the future. I have given this explanation because I hope that it answers the points of my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard and that he will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD LEATHERLAND: When the noble Viscount comes to reply could he elucidate one point for my benefit. He said that people in London streets were repulsed by the smell of carbon monoxide. Fifty years ago when I used to attend large numbers of inquests on people who had been poisoned by gases of various kinds, we were always assured by the coroner that carbon monoxide was odourless. Let us achieve chemical accuracy for once, shall we?
LORD ENERGLYN: May I intervene in support of the noble Viscount and say that although he may regard this as a probing Amendment, I personally would have liked to see this provided for in the
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Bill, for several obvious reasons that the Minister has carefully explained, but also if only to form an incentive. To me, exhaust systems are terribly crude and represent two factors concerning the internal combustion engine: efficiency on the one hand and inefficiency on the other. Gas emission must be coupled with noise, and I am very pleased that the noble Viscount used the phrase "new motor vehicles", presumably to include these dreadfully noisy things called motorcycles. A straight through exhaust pipe of course creates great efficiency but it also creates unused hydrocarbons. It would seem to me that if we are going to leave any air fit to breathe in this country we ought to take the appropriate steps and they should be included in this very apt Bill. Therefore I should very much like to support the noble Viscount in pressing for this insertion because it would create an incentive such as has not existed previously, for the motor engineer to create better exhaust systems.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I never thought the day would come when I should wholeheartedly support the noble Viscount. Always before when he has put down an Amendment I have had great reservations, and sometimes I have expressed them on other matters. But to-day he is quite right in demanding a new standard, and in the next Amendment I shall explain to the Committee why I feel so strongly that the emissions not only from cars but also from other machines should be limited by law.
LORD ROBBINS: Could the noble Baroness, Lady Young, explain a little further the phrase which she used in her reply to the noble Viscount regarding "geographical and climatic conditions"? In what respect do these conditions differ on different sides of the Atlantic in regard to this particular problem? To me it is still a mystery.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like to thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness who supported me. May I say that I think the noble Baroness is wrong in saying that she has never before supported me. The noble Baroness has very often supported me. I could name about twelve occasions. The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, took me up on the question of carbon monoxide. Of course I

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know that carbon monoxide does not smell, but I was under the impression that I said "exhaust". I meant the smell from the exhaust.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I registered that with great accuracy and attention. The noble Viscount said that the people in the London streets were repulsed by the smell of carbon monoxide.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: Were repulsed by the idea of carbon monoxide poisoning the atmosphere. I will put it in that way. I am fully aware that carbon monoxide is odourless; I have done a little chemistry in my time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that we had standards in this country concerning the exhaust emission of poisonous gases, but I do not think she said—I cannot remember, because unfortunately I lost my pen and could not write down what she said—what percentage that standard was. What is that standard? Would it trouble her very much to repeat that part of her answer? What standard have we in this country to improve the gaseous substances in the exhaust emissions from petrol driven engines?
BARONESS YOUNG: The answer to my noble friend Lord Massereene is that there are powers under the Road Traffic Act to prescribe standards in this country which meet the standards which are current in Europe. I do not have details of all of them, but I will certainly write to my noble friend about this. Perhaps I might take this opportunity to answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, who said that he supported this Amendment because it would give an incentive to motor manufacturers to improve their exhaust systems. Again, we do not think this is really the right way of dealing with the matter. We think it is better to prescribe the standards which are to be allowed rather to prescribe detailed methods of achieving those standards. The noble Lord, Lord Robbins, asked whether I could describe weather or climatic conditions. I believe the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene, said that as we are an island our climatic conditions (because of the Gulf Stream and other factors) combine to give us an atmosphere which is different from that obtaining in the United States. For
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instance, we do not suffer from the smog that is experienced in New York. I am told that in Los Angeles it is also very bad and that this is very largely due to different atmospheric conditions. For that reason, we have used different methods in dealing with these problems from those used in the United States.
LORD ROBBINS: Is the noble Baroness really sure that we on this side of the Atlantic are immune from such conditions? It so happens that just before Christmas I was in Madrid, which is one of the most rapidly growing capitals on this side of the Atlantic, and there they are beginning to suffer from precisely the same conditions as I experienced in Los Angeles.
BARONESS YOUNG: I would hesitate to comment on Madrid, but the United States' clean air legislation was passed very largely to deal with special conditions in California where the climate and geography cause frequent conditions of petro-chemical smog. We are very fortunate that we do not have such conditions in this country.
BARONESS WHITE: I am sure most of us would agree with the noble Baroness that it is not our practice to define methods whereby certain standards are achieved, and of course the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount refers to methods rather than to standards. However, I should be very unhappy if the impression were given that we in your Lordships' House were satisfied with the conditions in our streets in the more congested areas. Those who have to cross streets with a heavy concentration of vehicles in them, with engines ticking over, know how extremely unpleasant this can be. I am not certain as to how deleterious it is to health, but I am only too well aware that it is intensely disagreeable and uncivilised. Therefore I should be sad if we were to take it from what the noble Baroness has said that there is any degree of complacency in Government Departments concerning this question. It may well be that we have set certain standards under the Road Traffic Act of 1972 to which she referred: but certainly we would hope that those standards can be improved. We should have been more pleased had the noble Baroness indicated that there were some proposals for improving those standards.

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If it means that motor manufacturers have to improve their methods and technologies, as my noble friend Lord Energlyn suggested, so much the better.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her explanation. Perhaps I might just point out that on the question of standards I believe I am right in saying that London Transport have drawn up standards which are higher than the prescribed standards. If London Transport can do this, I do not see why it might not be made to apply throughout the country. In the hope that the noble Baroness will "ginger up" her Department on this question, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.26 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN LORD O'HAGAN moved Amendment No. 181:
Page 72, line 2, at end insert—
("( ) Regulations under this section shall provide for—

(a) the reduction of the lead content of petrol; and

(b) the elimination of the lead content of petrol by 31st December 1980.")

The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, standing in the name of myself and that of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is unable to be here to-day and has asked me to express his regret. This Amendment covers some, though not all, of the area we have discussed on the previous Amendment, and I am very grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene, for providing an introduction to this Amendment. Whereas his Amendment went fairly wide, mine is much more specific and therefore, I hope, more attractive to the Government. It is limited both in its objective and in the way it seeks to reach that objective. For example, it does not prescribe detailed methods, which was the criticism levelled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, against the previous Amendment.
This Amendment concentrates on the lead content of petrol. Your Lordships may wonder why I bother to take up time this afternoon to discuss this—as indeed I have done on previous occasions by means of Starred and Unstarred Questions. I hope to show your Lordships
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that the object I am pursuing is a worthy one. I would ask the Government, using whatever system or methods they choose and at whatever speed they wish, slowly to eliminate the lead content of petrol until, by the end of 1980, it has been totally removed. I should like to chance my luck by briefly explaining why lead is put into petrol. Although I am not a chemist or a scientist, I understand that lead is put into petrol in order to adjust the octane. This means it is possible to make petrol suitable for high-compression engines, not by refining it closely and with precision, but merely by the addition of a certain proportion of lead. In other words, it is a cheap and sloppy way of refining the petrol in order to make it suitable for high-compression engines.
I move this Amendment because I am not satisfied with the explanations I have so far received from various Government spokesmen that the Government have really examined the probable consequences of putting this lead into petrol. I am not sure they have looked closely at the complex ramifications entailed by this dissemination of lead into the atmosphere (and therefore into our drinking water and food and, above all, into our children). I am informed that about 10,000 tons of lead each year go into the atmosphere and that a great deal of this comes from petrol. I am sure this is a problem which has increased very rapidly over recent years; but it is not something to which we have become constitutionally inured because the number of motor cars, and therefore the amount of exhaust fumes, have increased very markedly over the years. There is always a practical, short-term argument, a money argument. In this case the money argument is that our motor manufacturers, on whom we are so dependent for exports, are accustomed to making cars whose engines are capable of working efficiently only on petrol which has lead in it. This is a reasonable argument, one that I accept, and that is why my Amendment says that the elimination of lead in petrol should not be until December 31, 1980. There will then be plenty of time for engine adjustments to be made.
There is another argument which says that by removing lead out of petrol, one harmful substance, you will cause other

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forms of pollution. There are hydrocarbons and other wicked substances which you will cause to be put into the atmosphere. This may be so, but let us set this against the other point that we can examine when we are looking at the economic argument against removing lead from petrol. I have driven in a car that works on lead-free petrol. Porsche are manufacturing one now because the Germans are getting ready for lead-free petrol. It is technically and commercially possible. The old arguments on the economic side against taking lead out of petrol are out of date. I suggest that the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on February 28 last year (col. 749 of Hansard) in answer to an oral Question are not fully in tune with to-day when we live under the threat of ever-increasing oil costs, and when the price of petrol has accelerated enormously. The noble Lord said:
"The development of high output and specific power in modern engines has been made possible by high compression ratios and high engine speeds. This requires petrol of a high quality which can only be obtained by the use of anti-knock additives. Lead is the basis of the additives most frequently used because of its economic and technical advantages."
If we talk about high performance and high compression, surely we are not really thinking of modern conditions where petrol is a resource that we cannot afford to throw away as we were doing a few years ago in an almost extravagant manner. Nowadays petrol is something to be conserved. Although the 50 m.p.h. limit may be removed, we are going to be restricted in our use of petrol. I submit that that argument begins to fall down. The noble Lord's comment that lead is the basis of additives most frequently used because of its economic advantages is worrying, because the amount of lead we can obtain is continually diminishing. Lead is a finite resource and is getting more and more expensive. I know this because I have a house which needs lead on the roof and the price increases in the past few months have been phenomenal. There are forecasts that lead may run out within twenty years.
Lead has a deleterious effect on engines; even though it raises the octane level in petrol and makes the engine work better, it stops the engine working in another way by causing rot. I submit
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that the economic argument is important but it is by no means overwhelming because the health risk is the centre of the matter. This is the real core of my disquiet and the reason why I have troubled your Lordships so often on this matter; because I have not been satisfied, and I remain unsatisfied, that the Government have taken the fullest possible steps to assess the possible health risks of lead in petrol. When we think of lead in petrol we may think, as we did when listening to the discussion on a previous Amendment, simply of noxious fumes in the street. But, long after the car has gone and the coughing passer-by has moved on, lead remains. In the countryside it could be blown on to growing crops or a reservoir holding water for our great cities. It may go anywhere once it has been disseminated from the petrol. We cannot be confident, unless the Government have new figures, that we know exactly where it has not gone. I have figures which show that up to 5 per cent. of household dust in London consists of lead children stick their fingers in lead. The direct causal connection between household dust and car exhaust emissions may not be easy to prove, but we are getting these concentrations in dust and there is a strong possibility that it comes from lead emissions from the exhausts of cars. I would want the Government to be sure that this lead in household dust did not come from exhausts before I can be satisfied with what I take to be their present acquiescence in the situation.
I am not getting into the area of how much lead we absorb from the air comes from cars. I accept that this is a scientific and technical question of great complexity, and it is difficult to assess how much of the lead in the air comes from car exhausts and how much we absorb in our lungs. This is a matter on which scientists differ. It is the wide variety of sources from which we can get lead that ultimately derives from car exhausts that makes me extremely anxious, because while adults may recover from lead poisoning children do not. I understand children are known to have a lower resistance to lead. If a child has brain damage from lead, then that damage is permanent. If dust contains a high degree of lead and this goes into children's mouths then those children's lives will

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perhaps be spoilt. We do not have controlled experiments on children judging how much dust it takes to damage their brains, but it is known that animals in New York Zoo have died and are dying of lead poisoning because of the amount of lead that they absorb from the atmosphere. I should have thought that that was a worrying enough indication.
When we are talking about tons of lead it is just as well to remember that we measure the effects of lead in one-thousandths of a gramme. There is a scale which indicates the degree of the problem. I do not wish to speak for much longer. A great deal of the lead in our daily intake comes from petrol; the distribution of lead is closer to the clinically recognised toxic levels than any other pollutant, and the health risks do not outweigh the short-term economic dislocation that we might incur if we were to take measures against lead.
I wish to refer to one document, because I understand that whether or not we pass this Amendment the European Economic Community are preparing to take action in this field. I have in my hand a frightening document the reference number of which is about three times as long as my name. On page 17 of this proposal for draft legislation for the E.E.C., it says:
"At the latest before January 1 1980 the Commission will present proposals for an overall solution of the problem of lead content in petrol."
Earlier on it says:
"As from January 1 1978 regular petrol shall be placed on the Community's internal market only where its lead contents do not exceed 0·15 grammes per litre."
Our present standard is likely to be 0·45 grammes per litre by that date. So the Community is proposing at the least a standard three times as stringent as our own. I hope that your Lordships will act in a different way from the noble Baroness on a previous occasion when, on the Endangered Species Bill, she was using our membership of the Common Market as a reason for not acting. I would hope that your Lordships would see that the Community is proposing to take a forward step in this area and that your Lordships can help the Government to live up to their Community obligations
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by accepting this Amendment. I beg to move.
3.40 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. He has gone into this subject in some detail. The Committee have listened to him before and we admire the energy and effort which he gives to examining this question of lead pollution. I have always felt that we in this country have taken lead pollution much too lightly. We had a debate last year on the subject of lead dust from a factory which infected the children in the neighbourhood. Their blood lead content was so high that the children had to be removed from the vicinity of the factory to new houses in the country. In central Birmingham a survey showed that the dust inside houses contained up to 3 per cent. of lead, with the highest levels being found in their main roads and in certain factories; no doubt in main roads because of petrol emission and the conditions which the noble Lord has described.
This is of a very serious nature. It is believed by some researchers that the foetus may be specially liable to damage, particularly the developing nervous system including the brain; and this could constitute the most serious aspect of lead pollution. As the noble Lord has said, acute poisoning in children is especially dangerous, leaving the child with permanent brain, kidney and liver damage. All this is not very spectacular in the child—nobody can see it; its legs are straight, its arms are straight, it is not blind, it is not got diphtheria, but there has been damage in ways which can seriously limit the child's expectation of life if not kill it. I am delighted to hear that the European Community has decided to take action. What a pity that we, who are in the forefront of public health in the world, are dragging our feet and that the Community has to come along and show us which way we should go!
I recall last year the amount of publicity given to the factory in South London where the emission of dust was so great that it became a public scandal, with pictures on television and so on. I find it difficult to understand how this can occur again. Only a few months ago I read an account of scandalous conditions in regard to another factory outside

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which a high content of lead dust occurred and from which children were suffering. In this long debate on the environment—and I congratulate the noble Baroness opposite on still looking fresh despite the fact that she has to answer all these points—we are all speculating on possible sources of pollution. That is as it should be in a debate. But these things are known. We have not got to speculate on these things; these are facts. We know the source of the lead; we know the diseases from which people are suffering as a result of taking lead in their food, in their drink, and, as the noble Lord quite rightly said, by children in industrial areas taking it on their fingers. And yet we sit passively and say that very little can be done.
All I am asking is, if the Government have decided to sit back and not accept any of these Amendments, that at least they stimulate the factory inspectorate. The factory inspectorate is all we have to rely on. They are very small in number, and they cannot possibly sufficiently inspect all the factories in the country to warrant tha this kind of tragedy will not be repeated. I ask the Government, if they refuse to accept Amendments of this kind and refuse to do what the Community has decided to do, at least will they—
LORD O'HAGAN: May I interrupt the noble Baroness? To be precise, the Commission has proposed this: the Community has not yet fully accepted it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I understand that as there are nine countries pushing for it there is a good chance of acceptance. All we have here is the factory inspectorate. I ask the noble Baroness to do a little prodding to ensure that factories where lead is emitted in the dust and which are absolute danger zones should be inspected more frequently.
LORD PLATT: I should like very strongly to support the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, in the Amendment he is proposing. I think we are perhaps jumping the gun a little in assuming that the Government are going to do nothing whatever and are not going to write lead into the Bill. I hope that the Government will write lead into the Bill, if not in the words of the noble Lord's Amendment
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then in some other form, otherwise I think there is no incentive to do anything about the problem. I agree entirely that the effect of lead is subtle and dangerous. It is very slowly excreted from the body. It is stored in the bones and elsewhere and goes on doing its damage. It is very difficult to know when it is reaching a dangerous level and to know exactly where the lead is coming from. You cannot always correlate the amount of lead in the blood and the body with the amount of lead in the ambient air to which the child or the adult has been exposed. This is probably due to some of the facts which the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, described; that is, that the lead is being put into the air in large quantities all day long and it settles here and settles there, is blown by the wind and gets into the plants and into the soil, and gradually bodies contain more and more lead. This is an undoubted fact. The dust around us, as the noble Lord has said, contains more and more lead, and unless we are prepared to do something about it quite soon is could become a very serious hazard.
Any medical man will remember in his student days, when studying kidney disease, the interesting story of children in the Northern Territory of Australia who had a very high incidence of chronic progressive and fatal disease of the kidneys. This was traced to the fact that in their dry summers the lead-containing paints peeled from the verandas, and when the rains came the children used to lick the raindrops off the paint; and this mysterious kidney disease from which they were suffering was in fact lead poisoning. In parts of Australia it still exists in that form. I do not know that we are getting much of this in this country. I am not putting it forward as a reason for supporting this Amendment, but as an illustration of the subtlety of lead ingestion and lead poisoning.
I was talking yesterday, or the day before, with perhaps the greatest authority in Britain at the present time on atmospheric pollution, a man who greatly helped the Royal College of Physicians in their volume on atmospheric pollution which was published a few years ago. He agrees that it would be very prudent to have a paragraph about eliminating

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the lead hazard over the next few years. He emphasises that there are many difficulties; that a great deal of research is still necessary. But the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has given us a six-year or seven-year period for research, so that difficulty is surely met. There is the difficulty of reducing the efficiency of the engine and thus producing fumes of other kinds which may bring other hazards. But these difficulties can be overcome. I think that unless we put something specific into this Bill about the lead hazard, the usual laissez-faire attitude may be in danger of taking over and nothing will be done.
3.53 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I have no idea how my noble friend on the Front Bench is likely to answer the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. While I have a great deal of sympathy with what lies behind his argument in putting forth the Amendment, I should not like your Lordships to feel that nothing is being done. It is a fact that the petrol companies have continuously been reducing the content of lead in petrol, particularly over the last two years. In very recent months they have in fact reduced the octane rating of quite a number of grades, with not only the lead-content factor to consider, but other points as well. It is a fact that raher than there being a laissez-faire attitude in this matter, the motor industry, through various and different manufacturers and also through MIRA have spent a considerable amount of time, energy and money on experimenting with the design of engines to run on a fuel with a lower lead content. So far their experiments have indicated a higher degree of other emissions which might be even more harmful than the current harm induced by the various emissions in the present petrol.
We have already heard that there are, under the Road Traffic Act, regulations which empower the setting of standards of emissions. I understand that there is a continuing monitoring process going on. It seems to me, therefore, that the Amendment, while drawing attention to the inherent dangers, is hardly necessary, in that we already have in force a monitoring system and regulations. It is equally fair to say that perhaps motor manufacturers have taken the engine as
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a relatively efficient piece of machinery, based on fuel that has been freely and cheaply available, very much for granted. It is to my certain knowledge that experiments in lower compression engines, using lower octane fuels, are being proceeded with at a far greater rate because of the present position. We have certainly now arrived at a situation where the economic value of running high compression engines en cheap fuel is removed. But let none of your Lord-ships be under the misapprehension that the industry itself has been unaware of health hazards. A considerable amount of work has been done—sufficient work, I would suggest, so that as the years advance, perhaps by 1980, a more complete solution to the problem outlined by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, might well be achieved.
BARONESS WHITE: I think the noble Baroness will appreciate that probably many of us feel that what we desire of the Government at this point in time is a firm declaration of intent. It might not be appropriate to put that in this particular clause, though I say that with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, who has taken a consistent interest in this matter. I am glad that the clause is an open-ended one and does not confine itself to lead. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has suggested that there may be other ingredients in or additives to petrol which also could be harmful in their various ways. Therefore, we would expect the Government to take a comprehensive view of their duties to safeguard us.
What worries me is this. Why is it that West Germany can have legislation which, as I understand it, is proposing to reach a level of 0·15 grammes per litre in January, 1976, when the rest of us (and in this I include most of the other Western European countries) are not aiming at any such type of standard? I should be glad if the noble Baroness could explain to us the reason why West Germany takes this very stringent view of their content whereas most other countries do not. It is, I believe, true to say that Sweden and Austria have already attained a standard as good as the standard we are merely aiming to achieve in another couple of years' time.

581
I am not suggesting for one moment that there have not been great improvements even in the last couple of years, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has indicated, particularly in trying to sell grades of petrol which really have more lead in them than is needed for the type of car concerned. This was certainly true a few years back. I think that position has improved. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has indicated, the present relative scarcity of petrol may be sharpening the wits of the motor manufacturers. It is an ill wind. This is an insidious and subtle poison, and it is interesting that two of our medical colleagues have intervened in this debate because they are aware of this danger. It is not one of the more obvious killing substances. It works in much more insidious ways—particularly as my noble friend Lady Summerskill has indicated, the possibility of damage to the unborn child. It may be, therefore, that West Germany, with its memory of the thalidomide tragedy, has been particularly sensitive to this aspect of it. I shall be interested to know what the noble Baroness can tell us about that. What we really need to know now is what we in the United Kingdom are proposing to do. Are we going to wait for these discussions in the European Economic Community to come to finality or are we for once possibly going to take a lead?
4.0 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: I am well aware that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has for a very long time been concerned about this question of lead in petrol. He has, I know, raised it on previous occasions in the House, and we recognise his great sincerity and concern about this problem. I am sure that the whole Committee have been impressed by what the two doctors—the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and the noble Lord, Lord Platt—have had to say. Both of them have indicated that they, too, regard this as a serious matter.
The Amendment before us falls into two parts. I hope that I can show that the first part is in fact already being carried out. I hope I can say enough to assure the Committee that the Government regard this as a very serious matter, and that we have not in any sense been sitting by and letting other countries take the lead, while doing nothing ourselves—
582
and I was glad to have that confirmation from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, when he spoke. Further, I hope to be able to indicate to the Committee what we are trying to do.
LORD O'HAGAN: Could the noble Baroness say whether it is obligatory at the moment to reduce the amount of lead in petrol, or whether it is a matter of choice? Is it in Statute that it has to be done, or not?
BARONESS YOUNG: If the noble Lord will allow me to conclude my remarks, I hope I shall be able to answer his point. What we have said is that we intend to reduce the maximum permitted lead content of petrol to 0·45 grammes per litre by the end of 1975. I think this was the figure the noble Lord quoted. The limit was reduced from 0·84 grammes to 0·64 grammes at the end of 1972, and, as I say, we intend that by the end of 1975 it will be reduced to 0·45 grammes. I hope that indicates that not only do we intend to do it, but we have succeeded in going part of the way.
I should like to confirm that we are engaged in extensive monitoring of air pollution, particularly with regard to motor vehicles. This work is being done mainly by the Warren Springs Laboratory, at Stevenage. Monitoring is being carried out in five cities in the United Kingdom and also in the Cromwell Road, in London. Measurements are taken of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, lead, and nitrogen oxides. I hope I have said enough to indicate that we take this matter seriously and are already going some way to meet the standard we have set ourselves for 1975, and that the noble Lord will therefore agree that we have in fact met the point of paragraph (a) of his Amendment with regard to the reduction of the lead content in petrol.
The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, raised this important point about the European Economic Community. As he indicated, the Government are engaged in negotiating a common policy for the control of lead in petrol within the E.E.C. The position is that the draft Directive sets limits to the lead content in petrol in two stages, coming into effect on January 1, 1976, and January 1, 1978. We are awaiting opinion from the European Parliament before the matter is considered by the Council—the Economic Questions

583
Group. I should perhaps make it quite clear that this Directive is supported by us. I hope I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady White, who asked whether we took a lead in these matters, that in fact we have taken a leading part in the drafting of the European Community Directive on lead in petrol. The standards set in this draft are largely the outcome of British initiative. The noble Baroness is of course quite right in saying that the Federal Republic of Germany has asked for more stringent measures. She asked why it could have more stringent measures than we can. I think the answer is that one can have more stringent measures but at far greater economic cost; and of course one must weigh the balance between the desirability of higher standards and the fact that it would cost a great deal more in terms of the price one would have to pay for petrol, and possibly for buses and cars. However, I should like to make it clear—
BARONESS WHITE: Can the noble Baroness give us any information about the order of magnitude of the cost of reducing to the West German level? What exactly would it cost? Has she any idea? Presumably if in West Germany they are prepared to do it, they must know what it is going to cost.
BARONESS YOUNG: I cannot say what it is going to cost the West Germans, but I can say—because this arises from the second part of the Amendment put down by Lord O'Hagan—that we estimate that the cost of eliminating lead from petrol, while maintaining reasonable quality standards, would be very high. The cost in new refinery equipment is estimated by the petroleum industry to be at least£250 million spread over seven years—that would of course be until 1981. Any lowering of the quality would lead to increased consumption for a given vehicle mileage. So, as I understand it, if there is less lead in petrol, the quality of the petrol is not so good and so the consumption per mile is not as good as it is now, with a consequent increased cost to the motorist. Therefore, there would be an increased requirement at the same time for the amount of crude oil that we should either have to import or to produce ourselves. Therefore, so far as we are concerned, this would be a heavy cost to bear. That
584
is one of the reasons why it would be difficult at this moment of time to accept the second part of the Amendment.
However, I should like to continue to confirm that research is being done into this matter. We are looking at other methods of controlling lead emissions from vehicles; for example, by the use of lead filters in exhaust systems. Such a system is being evaluated by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. It is possible that it will prove to be a more effective and less costly approach to the problem than the other matters being looked at. So I hope I have said enough to indicate that we regard this as a serious matter.
Perhaps I might add one further comment on this question of children suffering from lead emissions, which I know is of great concern to everyone. The evidence that it is coming from exhausts from cars is not completely conclusive. I think it was indicated by one noble Lord who spoke that it may well be that children sucking or licking lead paint on houses may be getting lead into their systems in this way. This is a much more likely source of trouble than emissions from the air. But I should say, further, that a Government Committee are watching the effects of lead from all sources on the human body, and a comprehensive report has been prepared and will be published within the next two months.
If I may summarise these arguments, they are that we believe that we have met the first part of this Amendment. We take this matter seriously. We are aiming for a lower level of lead in petrol, and we have set a standard for 1975. We are actively engaged in these discussions with the E.E.C., in which we have taken a leading part and which we entirely support. We believe that this will be one of the ways in which we shall meet the second part of the noble Lord's Amendment. I hope therefore that, with those assurances, he will feel able to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD MOYNE: While the noble Baroness has expressed excellent intentions on behalf of the Government in this matter, while the Party opposite have been in agreement with those intentions, and while I suspect that the Liberal Party are perfectly sympathetic, although I do not think they have spoken on this matter,

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would it not be more logical to have provision in the Bill so that the Party, of whatever complexion, which is in power should be bound to these provisions, on which I think we are all agreed?
LORD PLATT: Perhaps I might ask the noble Baroness about something she said about children getting lead from sucking paint and that kind of thing. I gave an interesting example of how this happened years ago in the Northern Territory of Australia. But am I not right in thinking that there is no lead in paint nowadays, and has not been for a long time? Or am I quite wrong about this?
BARONESS YOUNG: I think the noble Lord is quite right in saying that there is not lead in paint now. I was referring to old paint on old houses. If I may answer the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, I do not think it would be to the advantage of this Bill to include these provisions. For one thing, we believe that we are already meeting them, and we believe this is a better way of making progress on this subject.
LORD PLATT: May I further say that it seems to me very unlikely that children get more lead from old paint than they do from lead which is being discharged into the atmosphere all day long by millions of cars and vehicles. Lead is a heavy substance which has to settle somewhere. It settles in the dust; it settles on the ground; it settles on vegetables.
4.10 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I do not feel at all happy about the reply which the Minister has made. This is a very serious problem. If the figure is 10,000 tons—and I am not sure that it is not more than that—10,000 tons of lead in petrol every year is enough to supply every inhabitant of this country with half a pound of lead, is it not? Half a pound of lead is capable of killing a large number of people, and a very small proportion of that, if it gets into people's systems will cause them serious injury. It is true that it is only comparatively recently that much attention has been paid to the problem of the effects of lead upon young children but the evidence is certainly clear that very small amounts can have extremely detrimental effects,
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and can even produce brain damage which is evidently irreversible.
It is all very well to say that there are other sources from which people may receive lead poisoning. That is true. The Government are not prepared to recognise this completely, but a large number of people are getting lead from their water supply because water is capable of dissolving lead from the pipes. Other people are getting lead from the innumerable containers in which toothpastes and many other things are sold to the public. So it is true that there are other sources of lead; but do not let us get this out of proportion. The amount of lead which is being distributed into the atmosphere from leaded petrols is enormous, and it is a very serious matter. The noble Baroness has said that it will cost a lot of money to put up refineries which are capable of producing petrol of the same octane as that which contains lead, but that is not necessarily the only solution. There are others.
Among other things, there can be modifications to engines which will be capable of utilising petrol with a lower octane. Do not let us shut our eyes to that possibility. We should not acquiesce in the putting of lead into petrol but we are not going about this matter very rapidly, in any case, because the figures which have been quoted by the noble Baroness this afternoon were comparisons of maxima, and the maxima have not been reached for many years. So the comparison is delusive. The comparison which ought to be made is not of the maxima but of the actual lead content of petrol, which is a different story. So I press that this matter should be taken more seriously. Injury to a large number of children will in all probability arise if we continue to permit lead to be distributed in these enormous quantities and that is not to be put into the balance against the cost of either adjusting the petrol or adjusting the motor car so that it can take other fuels.
LORD COLERAINE: I wonder whether my noble friend Lady Young would enlighten me on one point. As I understood it, one of her major arguments was that if the second part of this Amendment were accepted by 1980 (or whatever the date is) petrol costs would rise so much and the cost per gallon

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would be so high that motorists would not be able to motor many miles. But if that were so would it be the end of the world? And is it really the purpose of a civilised society to enable motorists to get as many miles to the gallon as possible, as against every other consideration? Among other considerations which the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and others have raised are some which are much more important than the cost of petrol to motorists.
BARONESS YOUNG: I wonder whether I might answer the two noble Lords who have just spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, spoke about the quantities of lead in the atmosphere. Approximately 10,000 tons of lead in the form of lead and alkyls are used as anti-knock petrol additives in the United Kingdom, and up to 75 per cent. of this amount is emitted into the atmosphere.
I was saying in answer to the Amendment that we are steadily reducing the proportion which is allowed, and we are monitoring that proportion. That is why we believe that the first part of the Amendment is unnecessary. Therefore I hope that answers his question. We are in fact taking this matter very seriously and are taking steps to deal with it. I also entirely agree with the noble Lord about new engines and, as I tried to indicate, research is going on into new exhaust systems. But we must await the results of that research.
The noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, asked about the cost of petrol and whether it was worth not accepting this Amendment for that reason. Perhaps I did not make it clear that there are three principal reasons why the second part of the Amendment is difficult. It is not because we are not concerned with this problem; we are. The first reason is that we are involved in negotiations with the E.E.C. at this moment and we must be sure that what we are proposing here, let alone writing it into a Bill, is in line with what is happening in Europe. We are prime movers in setting the standards, which we intend to fulfil. The second reason is that research is going on, to which I have already referred Thirdly, there is the cost to industry. I am not an industrialist and therefore I am not
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in a position to judge all the arguments, and I certainly would not rest my case purely on the price of petrol because the price may go up for a variety of reasons. But the fact is that we would be requiring industry to spend at least £250 million over seven years. It would also have the consequence of lowering mileages for cars and there would be a consequent increase of imports of crude oils.
If we are to weigh up all these arguments one needs to consider this in great detail rather than write it into a Bill at this stage without having considered all the extra costs, including the extra cost of transport, the carriage of goods and the increased price of all sorts of things which would flow from it. That would need to be considered very carefully against the background of what we are doing and what we propose to do.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: Did I understand the noble Baroness to say that we could not move any faster than the European Economic Community? If that is so, is it a principle of the Government that we cannot take steps to safeguard the public health of this country unless the E.E.C. has also taken them?
BARONESS YOUNG: I am sorry if I have not made myself clear to the noble Lord. I tried to indicate that we have got our own standards that we enforce, but that we are also looking to future standards in the E.E.C.
LORD COLERAINE: I do not want to harry the noble Baroness, but would not research be expedited if in fact this Amendment were accepted?
BARONESS YOUNG: I do not think it would and it would be difficult to accept this Amendment which would automatically oblige us to do certain things when we have not done all the necessary research beforehand
LORD O'HAGAN: The noble Baroness has summed up the case for the Amendment. She has said that the first part of it is already being done by the Government and that they were taking steps towards the reduction of the lead content This is true; but at any moment they can stop doing so, as they did recently. The effect of that part of the Amendment

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would be to ensure that the Government are under an obligation to move continually towards a reduction of the lead content of petrol.
I know that when I asked an Unstarred Question of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I was perhaps unnecessarily aggressive to him because of spending some time on this subject. I hope I have not been so again to-day; it is certainly not my intention. However, I find it very difficult to follow how the Government use our membership of E.E.C. as a way to prevent this House from doing things, either when we are lagging behind the E.E.C., as in this case, or, as in other cases, when we are going ahead of the Community. All the time we get the argument, as the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, was saying the other day, that the E.E.C. would stop this. This is not my conception of the E.E.C., seeing it from the inside. I think it is a Departmental bogy. I would ask your Lordships to reject this interpretation of the consequence of our membership of the E.E.C.
Of course, I cannot assess the costs of removing lead from petrol, and what the noble Baroness has said may well have the weight of her Department behind it, and the Alpha minds of the prompters' box may have been working on the matter. I cannot tell whether she is right or wrong; I simply do not know. But what I do say, following the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, is that this is not a matter of economics alone. There are also health considerations equally as important as economics and money, if not more so. For those reasons, without trying to be contentious at all, I would ask your Lordships to accept this Amendment, albeit not being wedded to the actual words—perhaps they can be refined at a later stage—but merely to give the Government some incentive to concentrate their minds on this serious matter.
4.23 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 181) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 58; Not-Contents, 55.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Erskine of Rerrick, L.

Platt, L. [Teller.]

Amherst, E.

Gaitskell, B.

Popplewell, L.

Amulree, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Rhodes, L.

Ardwick, L.

George-Brown, L.

Robbins, L.

Arwyn, L.

Henderson, L.

Roberthall, L.

Aylestone, L.

Janner, L.

Rochester, L.

Blyton, L.

Leatherland, L.

St. Davids, V.

Brock, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Segal, L.

Champion, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Selborne, E.

Chorley, L.

Lyell, L.

Shinwell, L.

Clancarty, E.

Maelor, L.

Slater, L.

Coleraine, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Snow, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Merthyr, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Molson, L.

Summerskill, B.

de Clifford, L.

Moyne, L.

Tanlaw, L.

Diamond, L.

Norwich, V.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

O'Hagan, L. [Teller.]

White, B.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Phillips, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Energlyn, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hood, V.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Craigton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Auckland, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Ironside, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Croft, L.

Kilmany, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Daventry, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Berkeley, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Birdwood, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Luke, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Ebbisham, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Bolton, L.

Effingham, E.

Northchurch, B.

Clwyd, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Cole, L.

Grenfell, L.

Oakshott, L.

Colyton, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Conesford, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Rathcavan, L.

Courtown, E.

Reigate, L.

Cowley, E.

Hawke, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Somers, L.

Teviot, L.

Sandford, L.

Strathspey, L.

Vivian, L.

Sandys, L.

Sudeley, L.

Young, B.

Sharples, B.

Tenby, V.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
BARONESS YOUNG: In order that the House may hear the Statement on the Quirk Report, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.

SPEECH THERAPY SERVICES: THE QUIRK REPORT
4.30 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. The Statement is as follows:
"I should like to make a Statement on behalf of myself and my right honourable friends, the Secretaries of State for Education and Science, Scotland, and Wales about the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Speech Therapy Services which was published in October, 1972. The Government accepted in May of last year two important recommendations of the Report that the speech therapy services should be unified and that they should in future be organised under area health authorities in England and Wales and under health boards in Scotland. This new arrangement will be effective from April 1 this year.
"My right honourable friends and I have now, subject to modifications and reservations to which I shall refer later, accepted the remaining recommendations which concern us directly and we shall be commending the Report to the new health authorities on whom the burden of implementing it will mainly fall. The House will appreciate that the new health authorities, who will be given guidance on various aspects of the Report will be able to proceed only at the pace economic circumstances permit; any measures they introduce will have regard to other priorities and will have to be kept within the resources of finance and
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manpower available to them. In the present economic situation progress will inevitably be slow.
"We have already invited the College of Speech Therapists to discuss the integration of the speech therapy services into the new Health Service. On other points of particular importance which we shall also wish to discuss with the College, we recognise the aspirations of the profession that in the long term all training should be at degree level, but we consider that a mixed pattern of diploma and degree courses will have to continue for an indefinite period; and we need to examine in more detail the proposals for a Central Council for Speech Therapy and the provision for advice at national level.
"In conclusion, my right honourable friends and I should like to pay tribute to the work of Professor Quirk and his Committee on the preparation of their Report. It has proved to be a most thorough and constructive document and will be regarded by all as the starting point for a better organised and more effective speech therapy service."
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord formally for repeating that Statement, and I am quite sure that the House will wish to congratulate Professor Quirk and his most distinguished Committee for a very full and thorough Report. As the Report itself says, although speech disorders are not so obvious as physical disabilities, many thousands and thousands of people suffer greatly through them, and suffer in all sorts of different ways. I am bound to say that, in view of that comment, the Statement which the noble Lord has repeated comes as something of a disappointment.
We already knew the two major things he told us: that the Government had accepted the recommendations about the speech therapy services being unified and that the area health authorities should look after them. He says in a broad sort of way, "We accept the other recommendations", but we should have liked

593
something of substance on the other recommendations: something, for instance, about the suggestions for interdisciplinary teams about speech therapy; something about facilities for early detection, which is so important; something of the very special difficulties with immigrant children. All we have from the noble Lord's right honourable friend is that all this is being given to the area health authorities, with the proviso that their progress will be extremely slow. I am bound to say that I am disappointed with the Statement, and in general I think the Government have laid a very small egg.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should also like to thank the noble Lord for repeating this Statement. I rather agree with the noble Baroness in that I am rather disappointed that things are not going to proceed rather more speedily than we thought. I have not done a great deal of work with children, but certainly I have been impressed in my work with elderly people suffering from speech defects at the enormous trouble one had if there was not enough speech therapy for them to recover. It was rather sad. Although we are making one step in the right direction, I am not sure whether that will lead to any great improvement in the service. I can only hope that both the noble Baroness and I are taking what will prove to be a pessimistic view and that things may not turn out to be quite so bad as we anticipate.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am sorry that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have been disappointed by this Statement. I do not think that they need be all that disappointed. The fact of the matter is that we have accepted almost all the recommendations in the Quirk Report, and surely that is a matter for optimism rather than pessimism. My right honourable friend had to put a warning in his Statement about the difficulties of quick implementation in view of the present economic situation. Unfortunately this is a fact of life that we have to face. It would have been wrong not to have made mention of it. Certainly we intend to go ahead as swiftly as we can. We intend to have discussion with the College of Speech Therapists, and we
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intend to issue guidance to the health authorities on all these points.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, arising from the Statement, would not the Minister agree that the Report is based entirely on making the new health authority committees the bodies responsible for dealing with the speech therapy issue? Can he state why the educational sector has been put to one side in this regard? After all, millions of children pass through the educational field in this country, yet from the Statement given by the Minister it would appear that this has not been taken into consideration.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, if the noble Lord would care to read the Quirk Report—though I am sure that he has read it—he will see that one of its central recommendations was that the organisation of speech therapy services should be unified and should be organised under the area health authorities. But of course there will be the closest liaison with the education authorities.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the courteous way he paid tribute to the producers of the Report. I notice towards the end of the Report a reference to immigrant children. The treatment of these children may not necessarily be of a pathological nature, or for pure speech therapy. But, since nothing divides people more than foreign languages or difficult intonations, may I ask the Minister not only that encouragement will be given to developing the therapy mentioned in the Report, but also that the maximum attention is given to speech therapy for immigrant children of all colours who have inherited foreign intonations and accents? This overlaps a little into training.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, clearly this is an important matter, and we believe that priority treatment groups should be a matter for local management to decide in the light of the facilities available. I hope that the area health authorities, where this is appropriate, will take note of the noble Lord's point. This is a point which no doubt could also be looked at in the general training of speech therapists.

PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT BILL [H.L.]
4.39 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 66.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 183:
Page 72, line 31, at end insert ("and section 33 of that Act shall apply to the exercise of powers under section 28 as applied by this subsection.
References to an offence under the Act in those provisions as applied by this subsection, except the reference in section 30(2) to an offence under section 28(5) or 29 of that Act, shall be construed as references to an offence under section 68 of this Act relating to regulations under this section.")
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment corrects an omission. It is desirable, for the protection of persons whose property is subject to any of the measures prescribed in Section 28(1) of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (inspection of goods; entry into premises; production of books and documents; seizure of goods or documents, or the opening of containers for vending machines) but who are not subsequently charged with an offence, that the provisions of Section 33 of that Act regarding compensation and disputes should be available. As the Committee will see, Clause 66(5) as drafted provides for the application of Sections 27, 28, 29 and 30 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, but not Section 33 which is concerned with compensation and disputes, and this Amendment puts that situation right. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 184:
Page 72, line 45, at end insert—
("(7) In Northern Ireland it shall be the duty of the Ministry of Commerce to enforce the provisions of regulations under this section; and accordingly this section shall have effect in relation to Northern Ireland with the omission of subsection (4), and it is hereby declared that in relation to Northern Ireland the references in subsection (5) to provisions of the said Act of 1968 are references to those provisions as modified by section 40(1)(b) and (c) of that Act.")
The noble Baroness said: Clause 66, which gives the Secretary of State power to regulate the composition of motor fuel, is one of the few in the Bill which apply to Northern Ireland. In Great
596
Britain the local weights and measures authorities are to be enforcement authorities. There are no such bodies in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Office propose that the regulations should be enforced by the Ministry of Commerce, which has responsibility for weights and measures duties. This Amendment makes such provision. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 185:
Page 72, line 45, at end insert—
("(8) The Secretary of State shall for each financial year pay into the Exchequer of Northern Ireland such sum as the Secretary of State and the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland may agree to be appropriate as representing the expenses incurred by that Ministry in enforcing the provisions of any regulations made under this section in so far as the regulations provide for matters with respect to which the Parliament of Northern Ireland does not have power to make laws.")
The noble Baroness said: This subsection follows Section 40(5) of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, which provides for annual payment to the Exchequer of Northern Ireland of the costs to the Northern Ireland Government of enforcing the provisions of that Act. Government policy is to provide funds from central Government sources to cover all expenditure incurred by the Government of Northern Ireland in the enforcement of statutory requirements which have been decided at Westminster, on which the Northern Ireland Government have no legislative powers. This Amendment makes such provision. I beg to move.
On Question, Whether Clause 66, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
BARONESS WHITE: I should like to ask one or two questions about this clause, because there are a few points which concern us. The first point is that under subsection (4), the enforcement subsection, a duty falls upon the local weights and measures authorities. It has been put to us by the local authority associations concerned that it would be helpful if the district authorities, or perhaps other local authorities, were given information by the weights and measures authorities about the results of analyses carried out in their areas. I

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should also like to clarify whether local authorities would have concurrent sampling powers if they desired to exercise them.
Another point which has been raised concerns subsection (2)(b), which states:
"(2) Regulations under this section—
(b) may confer, or authorise the Secretary of State to confer, exemptions from any provision of the regulations."
A similar phrase occurs in Clause 67(2)(c). This worries us, because it appears that whereas regulations which confer exemptions will be public and their conditions will therefore be fully known, if the Secretary of State can confer exemptions they will presumably not be public and will not be known. If the noble Baroness is not in a position to answer these questions now I shall entirely understand because I did not give her notice of them, and we could at a later stage put down Amendments which would elicit specific replies. But if she is in a position to answer now it will be very helpful and useful to know. I am sure that she will understand our concern on these points.
BARONESS YOUNG: I certainly understand the noble Baroness's concern about the points which she has raised. The first point was that district authorities would like to be given information collected by local weights and measures authorities as a result of their sampling. As she quite rightly said, the Bill places on local weights and measures authorities the duty to enforce the regulations, following upon the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. I do not know whether it is laid down that these authorities must produce the information, but it certainly seems to be a reasonable requirement that local authorities should have this information. I shall write to the noble Baroness and let her know the answer. The same answer applies in regard to the sampling powers, which again follow the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act, and I should have thought that what the noble Baroness suggested was a reasonable requirement. I am afraid that I do not have the answer to the question about the Secretary of State conferring exemptions but I will follow her suggestions and let her have the answer.
Clause 66, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 67 [Regulations about sulphur content of oil fuel for furnaces or engines]:
4.47 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 186:
Page 73, line 15, after ("duty") insert ("—(a)").
The noble Baroness said: With this Amendment I should like to speak to Amendment No. 187. Clause 67(3) places upon local authorities the duty of enforcing the provisions of regulations made under the clause with regard to limits imposed on the sulphur content of oil fuels. However, it would not be appropriate for local authorities to exercise this duty in respect of works registered under the Alkali Act, because the duty should fall upon the Alkali Inspectorate. These Amendments effect the necessary change in the provisions of Clause 67(3). I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: We shall probably be having a longer debate about the position of the Alkali Inspectorate in relation to this Bill. All I can say now is that here again we are putting outside the Bill enterprises which should be kept within it. That is the general philosophy behind our criticism of this Part of the Bill, but I need not waste the time of the Committee in elaborating it on this Amendment.
BARONESS YOUNG: I beg to move Amendment No. 187.
Amendment moved—
Page 73, line 16, at end insert—
("except in relation to a furnace which is part of a work subject to the Alkali Act; and
(b) of the inspectors appointed under that Act to enforce those provisions in relation to such furnaces;").—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Whether Clause 67, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
BARONESS WHITE: Again, I should like to ask one or two questions on this clause which is confined exclusively to the sulphur content of oil fuel. I am advised that sulphur is by far the most important substance and the only really significant contaminant of which we are

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aware at the moment. But is it wise to confine to one substance a clause in legislation such as this, when there could be others? I am told that, while these are of far less significance, there are nitrogen oxides and other additives that may have to be considered in the future. It therefore appears to me that it is possibly ill-advised legislation to draft a clause in such a way that it applies exclusively to one substance. I wonder whether further thought has been given to this.
I have before me the consultative letter which was sent out by the Department in August, 1973, and which I must say I found extraordinarily interesting reading. Apparently we owe this clause to our membership of the E.E.C., for the letter says:
"It is a result of our membership of the E.E.C. that we are virtually certain to be asked to agree to the introduction of a general scheme for fixing limits on the sulphur content of gas oils".
It goes on to say that the Bill, which of course is now before us, would provide an opportunity,
"to ask Parliament to confer appropriate powers upon the Secretary of State though there is no immediate intention to use them".
The letter continues:
"Indeed, having regard to prevailing conditions in this country it seems unlikely that the Government would be prepared to use them except to the extent that conformity to E.E.C. policy may dictate".
I must say that that displays a very reluctant attitude, to say the least, and I think it might be helpful to the Committee if the noble Baroness could elaborate a little on this. Either this is something which is worth doing, and therefore we ought to be doing it, or it is something which is not worth doing and therefore why should be be legislating about it? Are we doing this simply in order to keep our partners in the E.E.C. content, or are we doing it because we think it is worth while in any case?
BARONESS YOUNG: The noble Baroness has asked whether it is not a very unusual proposal to have a clause which quite specifically refers to one substance; and, of course, this particular clause empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations to prescribe the limits on the sulphur content of oil fuels. The noble Baroness asked whether this was being included because of our membership of the E.E.C. It is perfectly
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true that one reason why it is included is because the Commission of the European Economic Communities are preparing a draft Directive on the sulphur content of gas oil, which is a kind of oil fuel; and, on the assumption that a Directive on these or similar lines will eventually emerge, this clause provides the necessary powers for its implementation in the United Kingdom.
The noble Baroness went on to ask, having read from a letter: are we very reluctant to embark on trying to solve this particular problem? My information is that pollution from sulphur dioxide is not currently a serious problem in the United Kingdom, and ground level concentrations in urban areas are decreasing as domestic smoke control spreads and as the policy of dispersal of exit gases from industrial premises through tall chimneys is increasingly adopted. The fact is that the E.E.C. Commission, during the summer of 1973, were preparing a draft Directive on the sulphur content of gas oil and of diesel oil, and the underlying proposal of the draft Directive is that the percentage should be progressively reduced, first to 0·5 per cent. during the mid-'seventies and ultimately to 0·3 per cent. during the early 'eighties. More recently, the scheme has fallen into abeyance in Brussels as a result of certain oil supply difficulties—the de-sulphurisation process requires energy consumption equivalent to about 2 per cent. of the final product—but it could well be revived, and I imagine will be revived; and it is therefore quite possible that there will be Directives on the sulphur content of heavier oils. This clause is therefore designed to enable us to fulfil any such Directive, and that is the reason why it is included in the Bill.
LORD MOLSON: I should like merely to say that it seems to me peculiar that in Clause 66 the Secretary of State should be given powers to,
"impose requirements as to the composition and contents of any fuel of a kind used in motor vehicles",
whereas in the next clause, where it refers to oil fuel for furnaces and engines, the powers are confined to sulphur. I should have thought it would have been wiser to have a similar provision in respect of these, even if at the present time it is not necessary to use it.
BARONESS YOUNG: I had hoped that I had explained the particular purpose behind Clause 67, which of course is intended quite specifically to meet the possibility of implementing the E.E.C. Directive. Clause 66 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations on the composition of motor fuel for the purpose of either limiting or reducing atmospheric pollution. This of course applies to our country throughout, and its whole purpose is therefore somewhat different.
Clause 67, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 68 [Prevention of pollution: supplementary provisions]:
On Question, Whether Clause 68 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: On Clause 68 I have quite a small point. We are dealing with that Part of the Bill which covers regulations about the sulphur content of oil fuel for engines, for instance. Clause 68 deals with prevention of pollution, and subsection (2) states:
"Regulations under each of the two preceding sections shall, subject to any provision to the contrary in the regulations, apply to fuel used for, and to persons in, the public service of the Crown …"
I want to ask whether the use of the term, "public service of the Crown", includes the Defence Forces of this country. If not, why not; and ought it not to include them?
BARONESS YOUNG: My reading of this is that it does refer to the Defence Forces.
Clause 68 agreed to.
Clause 69 [Research and publicity]:
4.58 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON LORD CRAIGTON moved Amendment No. 188:
Page 73, line 39, after ("(b)") insert ("after consultation with the Alkali Inspectorate")
The noble Lord said: The short speeches from both Front Benches on Amendment No. 187, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, really made my short point on this Amendment. The Alkali Inspectorate are going to be an extremely important body in this Bill, as they have been for so many years; but now the local authorities are to be given added responsibilities. On reading this Part of the Bill I felt that one of the main
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dangers of the provisions giving the local authorities these added responsibilities would be that it would add to the possibility of conflict between the local authority and the Alkali Inspectorate.
Here in Clause 69 the local authority has powers to undertake and pay for research into air pollution, and to give publicity to such information. Surely this is the opportunity for Parliament to make it mandatory that the local authority should get together with the Alkali Inspectorate and discuss something as important as this. I know that officials can be difficult and I believe there will be some conflict between these two very important bodies; but if we write into this Bill, somewhere at least, that they have got to get together, then the officials will get to know each other and progress on Part IV of the Bill will be made more smoothly. That is why I have put this Amendment down, and I beg to move.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD SANDFORD): I would certainly agree with my noble friend that it is important in the particular field to which we are now coming, and with which his Amendment deals—namely, the publication of information about the problem—that there should be no conflict between the Clean Air Inspectorate, on the one hand, and the public health inspectors of the local authorities on the other, and that they should work happily together in harmony. But I think it important in discussing this to realise that they are operating in different spheres, albeit spheres within the whole field of air pollution.
The Clean Air Inspectorate is responsible for those registered premises using scheduled processes, amounting to something well under 3,000 in number, whereas the local authorities are dealing with 300,000 other industrial processes not registered or using scheduled processes, together with the whole business of domestic smoke control which amounts to five times the quantity of all the other emissions put together. This is a quite clear demarcation line between the authorities. I put it to my noble friend and to the Committee that it is not necessary for the local authorities dealing with non-scheduled processes, non-registered premises, or with domestic

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smoke control, to have any discussions with the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate because that is not their sphere. On the other hand, I can assure my noble friend and the Committee that wherever a local authority wants to publish information about emissions from registered premises and scheduled processes they cannot but consult the Clean Air Alkali Inspectorate because that is the body which has the information and the body to whom the local authority must go. So that in that case the consultation is fully assured; it is taking place now. The whole process cannot go on without consultation. With that information, I hope my noble friend will see that his Amendment is not really necessary in the one case or applicable in the other.
BARONESS WHITE: Can the noble Lord tell us something about a point raised on Second Reading? Just how far have the local planning authorities any right to obtain from the Alkali Inspectorate the kind of information they might need in order to reach an intelligent decision on planning applications? My understanding is that the Alkali Inspectorate regard the information they obtain from individual enterprises as being confidential. The local authority has no right to have it. They get it only by grace and with the discretion of the Alkali Inspectorate. Can the noble Lord enlarge on that matter, which is causing great concern in some parts of the country?
LORD SANDFORD: I should be glad to do that, but I suggest to the noble Baroness that we do it on Amendment No. 190 to Clause 70, which has been put down by my noble friend Lord Molson and which introduces the question of planning permission, rather than now, when we are discussing a point which deals with the publication of information about emissions that are currently taking place.
BARONESS WHITE: I beg the pardon of the Committee; I had temporarily overlooked that very important Amendment. The noble Lord is quite right; the matter I wish to raise is covered by that Amendment.
LORD CRAIGTON: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for his answer. I do not ask him to make any promises, but to look again at the point
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I have raised to see whether, even though the words are not essential, they would make for more good will in an area which is important. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 188A:
Page 73, line 39, leave out ("within its area")
The noble Baroness said: I seek to move this Amendment in the full knowledge that the words in the Bill are copied from Section 25 of the Clean Air Act 1956. In that Act also reference is made to publication of information within the area of a local authority. But if you publish something you publish it, and surely it is available for anyone whether they are inside or outside the area. This seems to me a fatuous form of words. I see no reason just to copy it in subsequent legislation because it happens to have been included in earlier legislation. I am also well aware that the Working Party under the chairmanship of Admiral Sharp mentioned the need for local information. One can understand what is meant there, but to say it ought to be published locally does not seem to me to make sense. Therefore, it would be a good idea to leave these words out of the Bill.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White. The intention, as she realises, in the use of these words in the Clean Air Act and in this Bill is broadly that local authorities are sticking to their last, and will deal with affairs in their own area, including the publication of information relating to their own area, in their own area. But once information is published it is available nationally and anyone can re-publish it. So what is the point of restricting a local authority, as this phrase does, to publication only in its own area? I think there is something to be said for confining it. Obviously the collection of information must be confined to a local authority's own area. So I think that the phrase is valid from that point of view. I agree about the absurdity of limiting publication to its own area, but I should like to look at it again.
BARONESS WHITE: The noble Lord cannot get away with that. If he reads

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the Bill it will be perfectly plain that the limiting term, "within its area "does not apply to the information but to the publication. He must agree that that is nonsense, so why take it away to look at it again? Anyone who reads this clause and who has the slightest intelligence can appreciate that these are conditioning words. Whereas they might be applicable to the information, they are not applicable to publication. In the clause as drafted they apply to publication. We are all agreed that it is a nonsense so why does not the noble Lord accept it and save the time of the Committee. Otherwise we shall have to go to a Division.
LORD SANDFORD: Let us do that, certainly.
5.9 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON LORD CRAIGTON moved Amendment No. 189:
Page 74, line 11, at end insert ("which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld.")
The noble Lord said: Maybe I shall be successful with this Amendment. Subsection (4) reads:
"… no information relating to a trade secret is disclosed, except with the consent in writing of a person authorised to disclose it."
There will be times when it is quite right for a firm to say, "No" to a request for the disclosure of information. But, as the Bill is drafted, a local authority has no power to insist upon such disclosure, even when they know or believe that a firm is being unnecessarily or unreasonably obstructive in saying, "No". Would this provision about not unreasonably withholding information strike a fairer balance?
LORD SANDFORD: Here again I take the point which the noble Lord is snaking. I do not think that his Amendment would be easy to operate. I do not think it would strike quite the right balance. But I should like to take this away and look at it. I think the noble Lord would agree that it is more complicated and needs more reflection. Then we can see in what form we could introduce an Amendment to meet the point.
BARONESS WHITE: I am not sure how we can best raise the whole question of confidentiality of information under this Part of the Bill but this may be as good
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a place as any, although in supporting my next Amendment I wish to speak on this matter. I am sure that any of your Lordships who have examined this Bill with close attention will appreciate that Part IV is by far the weakest section of the entire Bill. The Government have made very genuine efforts in Parts I and II to improve matters and to make real progress, but when one looks at Part IV of the Bill, and at the various restrictions which are either introduced or maintained concerning emissions to the atmosphere, and any disclosure of these emissions which may be noxious to the public, then one cannot fail to be seriously concerned.
The whole basis of Part IV is in contradiction of the philosophy which we understood the Government to be espousing, which was the philosophy contained in the now famous Second Report of the Royal Commission on Industrial Pollution. The relevant paragraphs of the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Pollution, which admittedly referred primarily to the pollution of water, were the terms of reference of the Working Party of the Clean Air Council set up by the Government to examine this whole question of information about industrial emissions to the atmosphere. Right at the beginning of its report the Working Party of the Clean Air Council quotes verbatim and in extenso the section of the Royal Commission's Report referring to the confidentiality of information about industrial wastes. In other words, the public was fully entitled to suppose that the Government intended to adopt towards emissions to the atmosphere the same attitude on confidentiality as they have at least attempted to adopt in Part II of the Bill concerning effluent to water.
The difference in the way in which they tackle the two areas is, however, almost past belief. I am fully aware that measuring emissions to the atmosphere is a much more difficult and often far more costly matter than monitoring effluent to water. That I entirely appreciate. One might expect, therefore, that somewhat less rigid conditions as to the technicalities of monitoring in this Part of the Bill would not be unreasonable. But it is the attitude that has been adopted by whoever drafted this subsection which leaves those of us who are devoted to the cause of conservation and the purity of our atmosphere, so far as it can be obtained,

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very unhappy indeed. We are so much disturbed that one hardly knows where to start. But if I may start, so to speak, at the beginning, under Part II there is a definite obligation upon the regional water authorities to examine and satisfy themselves as to the condition of the waters under their authority and as to the contents thereof. They have a definite duty so to do. It does not appear to be the duty of anybody to know what is in the atmosphere.
It is the duty of the Alkali Inspectorate to see what emissions emerge from certain registered works. But under this Clause 69 which we are now discussing, a local authority may, if it wishes, undertake or contribute towards the cost of investigating or researching into the relevant problems of air pollution. It is under no duty so to do. It can if it wants to, but it does not have to. It is not the job of anybody else so far as I can understand. If it has decided to take such action, and if it has decided that it wishes to do so, though it does not have to, it may issue notices under the following section and it may measure and record emissions, or make arrangements for them to be measured or recorded. Again, it does not have to. So we are in a very different situation from that which pertains to water.
We are also—and we shall be coming to this matter a little later on—not going to have under "emissions to the atmosphere" the kind of register which was appropriate for effluent under Part II. This matter was raised on Second Reading by my noble friend Lord Kennet. In return he received a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in which she endeavoured to explain why it would be inappropriate to have a register for emissions to the atmosphere although there is one for water. She points out that there are no fixed standards for levels of emission to the atmosphere, and consequently that there would be no registers which could be made available for public scrutiny. She says:
"In the sphere of atmospheric emission control is not exercised by consents to stated levels of emission."
I understand that, because the alkali inspectorate gives guidance rather than anything which is as fixed and specific and precise as the consents which might be given under Part II, but I am sure
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your Lordships will appreciate that in this general context, the disclosure of such emission as we have becomes of particular importance, and that is really the kernel of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton.
The general position is far less satisfactory and far less foolproof than in Part II. Therefore it seems to me that one must look even more critically at the arrangements in Part IV, and at this whole question of confidentiality. Here the Government do not seem to have accepted the philosophy of the Ashby Commission. I have with me a note which I received from the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, who had hoped to take part in this stage of our debates. He tells me that unfortunately he has duties in Cambridge which prevent him from being here; but he says:
"I do hope you manage to get through an Amendment which will put the air pollution registers on as good a footing as the water pollution ones."
That is a direct quote from the letter which I have received from the noble Lord. I am afraid that there is no such Amendment down on the Marshalled List, but it means that we should at this stage support all the more strongly the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, that at the very least consent to the publication of information shall not be unreasonably withheld.
I have had a great deal of correspondence, from scientists particularly as well as from others, about this section of the Bill. They are plainly very much disturbed about it. They say that it is carrying on the tradition which they feel has subsisted for too long in this country of allowing the polluter to be the only person with sufficient information to convict himself. As we go through this section of the Bill I think that that comment will become all the more justified. There is very considerable concern throughout this section of the Bill to protect industry; there is far less concern to protect the public or the environment.
Even such provisions as are included in the Bill are not in themselves really steps forward, as I have already stated in referring to an earlier Amendment. The first part of Clause 69 which we are now discussing is in fact taken from the Clean Air Act 1956, so there is nothing new about it. Some people apparently

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have been taken in by this. For example, the New Scientist in an article on December 13 obviously thought that these provisions for local authorities to undertake investigations and being permitted, within limits, to publish them, was a step forward—but of course this is nothing new. We should not allow there to be any illusions as to that,
I should like to make some further observations—I might perhaps be going a little wide if I did so on this Amendment—when we come to the Question that Clause 69 stand part. I hope I have said sufficient to make it plain that it is most necessary that we should have in the Bill at least the Amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: I would support the principle behind this Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Craigton, but I believe it will have to go further. If you are going to provide that consent shall not be "unreasonably withheld", you have also to provide as to who shall decide whether or not it is being unreasonably withheld. I do not know whether my noble friend has it in mind that this should be done by the law courts, by the Secretary of State or by other means; but the principle behind the Amendment is obviously right.
LORD MOLSON: I do not think that anyone can read the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Pollution without being very much impressed by what they desire to see introduced; in other words, a different attitude on the part of both the Government and industry towards the disclosure of what is passed as effluent into rivers or into the air. I have been looking at the Report again and it is quite true that most of the examples given (and the line of reasoning) apply chiefly to effluent which is passed into rivers. But there are a number of paragraphs which indicate that, while it is recognised that it is difficult to ensure the same amount of information being disclosed on what is passed out into the air as on what effluent is passed into rivers, they wish to see the same kind of policy adopted. Paragraph 10 summarises it in this way:
"We therefore urge the Government Departments involved in the control of pollution, particularly the Department of the Environment,
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to consult with the Confederation of British Industry, to devise measures which will increase the availability of flow and information on the production of and disposal of industrial effluent and wastes.".
As no Amendment has been put down dealing with this matter, such as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, hoped would be accepted, and as I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to draft such an Amendment and because I recognise that consultation with the Confederation of British Industry would be desirable, I should be glad if my noble friend would undertake that between now and the Report Stage the Government will approach the Confederation of British Industry to see whether it would not be possible to ensure a greater availability of information in the case of discharges into the air.
LORD SANDFORD: May I first answer the quite specific point put by my noble friend Lord Bledisloe. It is certainly the Government's intention that any change considered would be one which involved the Secretary of State as the arbiter or umpire in these matters, thus removing the feeling which causes doubt, if not suspicion, in the minds of the Committee that the industrialist is to too great an extent acting as his own judge. That would be the intention.
I welcome the intention of the noble Baroness to probe and, where she thinks proper, to seek to alter the general attitude of the Government in this particular part of the Bill—which is, after all, the object of a Committee stage. But I should have thought that the intention behind this part of the Bill, from Clause 69 onwards, is to build up the equivalent in each local area by each local authority of the kind of register we were considering in Part II of the Bill. I do not think one can take the comparison between air and water too far. After all, any effluent which goes into the air, whether from domestic or factory chimneys, is a pollutant of some sort. It is a question of deciding what is reasonable in all the circumstances, and the notices provided for in Clause 70 are designed precisely to enable the local authority to build up such a register. The exceptions are those we shall come to on Clause 71, regarding the trade secret, and the Secretary of State will be

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the arbiter on such matters. I think we shall have a number of opportunities while dealing with the next twenty or so Amendments to discuss this question of attitude, and I hope I shall be able to show the flexibility I have already shown in accepting one Amendment and agreeing to consider a second.
LORD CRAIGTON: I am grateful to my flexible noble friend for what he has said, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady White, for her support of this Amendment. I merely wanted something to which the local authority could draw the attention of the industrialist who might otherwise think that he could get away with something. It is even better now that my noble friend says the Secretary of State might be the deciding factor, because we all know that if the powers are there they will be very seldom used. I am grateful to my noble friend and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.27 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 189A:
Page 74, line 18, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move this Amendment, which is to leave out subsection (6). This refers to the subsection of the Clean Air Act 1956 which deals with disclosure of information. It brings in here a phrase to which many of us take exception: not only "trade secrets" but also—
"… information relating to any manufacturing process …".
If the Government are in earnest about doing away with unnecessary confidentiality, surely they ought not to include in this Bill the words:
"… an offence to disclose information relating to any manufacturing process …".
I said on Second Reading that even the phrase "trade secret" worried me because I could find no definition of it, but at least it is a more or less understandable term. However, "any manufacturing process" is surely far too wide a phrase if the Government believe that we are suffering from too much, rather than too little, confidentiality. As one of my advisers with considerable knowledge of industry wrote to me:
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"A trade secret usually means that it is secret from the public but not from other companies."
It was quite plainly the opinion of the Ashby Royal Commission that if a company could not keep its secrets, that was its lookout. Nevertheless, I am not taking too strong an issue on trade secrets, but I take a strong issue on including reference to "any manufacturing process". Such a reference is not included in Part II of the Bill. I know that we cannot draw too close an analogy between water and atmosphere, but what is the point of having this legislation, which was referred to in glowing terms as being largely drawn from the results of the work of the Royal Commission, if we pay no attention to their advice? I feel that we ought not to accept this provision, which again is derived from another Act which has been in force now for nearly 20 years. These are attitudes which are no longer appropriate. In any case, I am much concerned about disclosure and the way in which it is being dealt with in different parts of this Bill and in other legislation.
We ought to have a much more concentrated effort to have one intelligible attitude of mind towards disclosure. I had sent to me just before Christmas copies of articles which appeared in the Yorkshire Post—not normally an anti-Government paper—of December 21 last. Admittedly they were not dealing with the Bill now before this Committee, but were dealing with a Bill that will shortly reach us from another place, on health and safety at work. That Bill also includes disclosure clauses and penalties. Apparently in a draft of the Bill there was a proposition that anyone who disclosed a trade secret when he was trying to inform the public as to emissions to the atmosphere could make himself liable not only to an unlimited fine, but to no less than two years' imprisonment. So far as I can see (I do not pretend that I have had time to go through every word of the Health and Safety at Work Bill but I have looked at the disclosure clauses), possibly under the influence of the Yorkshire Post, which was extremely indignant about this print, this provision has been dropped.
But it leaves one with an unpleasant feeling that in this Bill we are proposing to legislate with an attitude of mind that

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is not appropriate to the present day. Admittedly the form of my Amendment—which, needless to say, I shall not press at this stage—is a wide one in the sense of taking out the entire subsection. I have sought to do so because I wanted to make reference to the relationship with an Act of 1956. At a later stage I may simply move to leave out "any manufacturing process" because I feel strongly about those words. One ought not in this day and age to include a phrase of that sort. I am unhappy about the different ways in which disclosure is approached in various enactments, and I do not think that has been dealt with satisfactorily in this Bill. I would ask the noble Lord in particular to explain in what possible way the Government feel justified in including the words "any manufacturing process". I beg to move.
5.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I would not quarrel with the statement by the noble Baroness that the phrase "any manufacturing process" is a very wide one. On the other hand, I do not think that we should ignore confidentiality, especially in industrial processes. In industrial processes there are trade secrets of more than one kind. Usually most companies in a particular industry know the theory of how something is made; but there is an entirely different confidentiality which is related to the know-how of plant-operating temperatures, pressures and timings. This can be absolutely vital to the operation of a plant. Several years ago, when I was overseas on business, I met a consultant who was well known to me and who worked for a highly reputable firm of technical consultants. We spent an evening together, and he told me that his firm was engaged to advise on the building and operating of a plant in that particular overseas country. As I knew his past history well I asked him from where he obtained his experience to give such advice. He told me that it was as a result of a job which his company had had from a local authority when they had considered effluent and emissions. The local authority had employed a consultant because they had nobody who understood the problem on the staff.
This man was perfectly respectable, and so was his firm, but the fact remained he had gained a lot of experience in this
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country in various factories operated by private companies and he was now disclosing information or experience to a competitor or an overseas country. It is not easy to stop this. Before a consultant is engaged several of them are usually considered to find out their experience. Naturally one would be engaged who had experience in the appropriate field. You cannot blame the consultant because, when he is employed on a job, he cannot deliberately forget a certain part of his experience. This is one of the ways in which information gets around, and although I would agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, you usually find the company in an industry knows the theory of how you make a product, but the question of know-how is very much a trade secret. I do not think we want to exclude the danger that information can be lost to competitors in this country. This is part of a company's assets and also forms part of a national asset, and we do not want to do anything which is going to encourage their loss from this country.
BARONESS WHITE: Is the noble Earl aware that under this clause we are dealing with local authorities and not with consultants or private persons? As I understand it, it is the local authorities which are precluded.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I appreciate that. On the other hand, what does a local authority do when it wants to go into the question of examining and finding out about an emission or effluent if it has nobody on its staff who is technically capable of doing the job? If this does not come within the purview of the Alkali Inspectorate, who are they going to employ? Presumably if it comes within the Inspectorate's purview they will look into the matter. It seems to me that the local authority has to look around in order to get people with sufficient experience; but I cannot imagine who else they can go to but a consultant. The particular example I mentioned was that of a local authority which had been faced with this problem. They did what many local authorities would do, they employed a consultant.
LORD SANDFORD: The purpose of having in the Bill this subsection which the Amendment of the noble Baroness would remove is not so much to add

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anything to the law, as to declare the law to be what it is at this particular point in the Bill. So the law as it stands is, as the noble Baroness says, as in Clause 26 of the Clean Air Act. I thought at first she was probing our intention, but if it is her desire to remove the phrase,
"any manufacturing process",
that would have to be done by an Amendment to the Clean Air Act.
If I could take the more general point, I think that the protection this affords to an industrialist is needed here. A local authority sends one of its officers, or causes some other person, to take measurements about emissions, and the publication of that information is governed by the various clauses in the Bill we are dealing with. The industrialist, if he wants to have that information withheld, will have to show that that information is itself the subject of a trade secret, and the arbiter in the case of an appeal is the Secretary of State. I think the Committee is happy about that. But as my noble friend said, in the course of finding this out—conducting these measurements, inspecting meters and so on—it may well be that that local authority officer will discover or gradually acquire information about some other aspect of the manufacturing process which is quite incidental to the job he is doing which it is indeed important should be kept secret from competitors. This information comes to him not directly through the execution of his duties in pursuance of this particular piece of legislation.
I think the Committee would agree that it would not be right that he should be able to disclose that sort of information which comes to him, as it were, by a side wind, and that if he does so he should be guilty of an offence. On my reading of it, to take the phrase—
"any manufacturing process"
out of the Clean Air Act, where it is now, would prejudice the industrialist and the secrecy of his processes rather seriously and gain us nothing in the information which very properly needs to be made public. I hope that the noble Baroness will not press the Amendment now and will reflect on those points before the next stage.
BARONESS WHITE: I have already indicated that I do not intend to press
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this particular Amendment, which is symptomatic of my whole attitude, as I do not think the Government have been doing an honest job on this part of the Bill; that is why one wants to move various Amendments to try to improve and strengthen it. However, at this point I do not seek to press the Amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 189C:
Page 74, line 24, leave out ("trade or business") and insert ("industry or trade")
The noble Earl said: This is quite a small point. It seeks to substitute the words "industry or trade" for the words "trade or business". The point is that a definition of "trade and business" is not included in Section 74 of the Bill while there is a definition of "industrial or trade premises". The Amendment attempts to achieve consistency in this part of the Bill and at the same time help to ensure that there is no overriding requirement to consult persons carrying on a business which is unlikely to produce atmospheric pollution. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I am glad to be able to offer an explanation here. In the definition we want a limiting phrase—industry—because "industry" generates emissions into the atmosphere and "business", in the sense of commerce, does not. Here I think we want the more embracing of the two terms so as to include many people who may have an interest in this particular field. It will include "industry"—or it has included "industry" in any rulings or interpretations in the courts. One wants to go rather wider than "industry" which, I think the Committee would agree, is the more limiting of the two terms.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: May I ask the noble Lord whether in that case there should not be a definition of "business" in the Bill?
LORD SANDFORD: I think not for that very reason. We want a term here which is broad and wide so that consultation can be broad and wide; this is not a point where we want a precise definition. I am sure it will lead to sensible discussions in each particular area and will

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certainly include industrialists with whose activities this Part of the Bill particularly deals, but I think the Committee will agree that provision should be made for the local authorities' consultations to go wider than that.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I must say that I find it very odd that the word "industry" is not regarded as wide but in view of the noble Lord's remarks I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE had given Notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 189B:
Page 74, line 36, leave out subsection (9).
The noble Baroness said: After further study of the Clean Air Act 1956 I think I now understand the reason for this particular phraseology, so I do not propose to move this Amendment.
On Question, Whether Clause 69, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
BARONESS WHITE: I do not think we should let this clause pass without some discussion—which has only been touched on in the last Amendment by the noble Earl, Lord Courtown—of the way in which it is proposed that local authorities should exercise their powers. I am looking particularly at subsection (7) which seems to some of us to be unduly restrictive. As we all know, the Government did not accept in its entirety the proposals of the Sharp Committee that there should be what I think they called Indemat Committees in various areas, which could be consulted about the activities of the local authority in this particular field.
Indeed, the proposal of the Government is, as we see from subsections (7) and (8) of this clause, that:
"a local authority … shall from time to time consult such persons carrying on any trade or business"
I would be happy to include "industry"—
"in the authority's area or such organisations appearing to the authority to be representative of those persons.…"
We take it that "those persons" refers to
"persons carrying on … trade or business".
If we are correct in this then there is no provision at all for consultation with other persons who might well have an
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interest in this matter. I am thinking of civic societies, for example, conservation societies, amenity societies of one sort or another. There may well be other groups of people such as those with a special concern for health, and also academic people who might have some part to play.
This is all the more surprising because Appendix I of the Sharp Committee Report indicates the composition of the informal industrial air pollution local liaison committees which already exist. They list 16 in England and another 4 in Wales, and the composition, it is true, varies rather surprisingly from one location to another. They all include some representatives of local authorities as one would expect. Some of them include what I suppose one would call assessors or observers from Government Departments. The Government Departments may be the Department of the Environment, the Department of Health and Social Security, the Department of Trade and Industry or the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. All those make their appearance on one committee or another. But apart from those, many of them include the residents associations; some of them include factory inspectors, mines inspectors, and so forth. One includes the editor of the local evening newspaper, and also two local Members of Parliament (which was highly democratic); only one so far as I can see, and that is in Bristol (this was a direct result of the Avonmouth trouble), includes direct university participation.
I cannot see what objection there can be under this clause to making it possible to have a more widely based consultative Committee than appears to me to be proposed. I should therefore very much like to have the Minister's comments on this. I had contemplated putting down an Amendment. However, I thought it would be fairer to the Minister to indicate to him the lines along which we were thinking. In any case he would only take the Amendment away and look at it again. It is just as well, perhaps, to give him some advance notice of what we have in mind so that we can learn from him just why the Government seem to have adopted this pretty narrow base of consultation rather than the wider, and, I should have thought, far more desirable one.
LORD CRAIGTON: Before my noble friend replies, may I say that I support the noble Baroness. This is a point about which we are all concerned. I hope he will give a good answer.
LORD SANDFORD: Perhaps I ought to have gone further in answering my noble friend Lord Courtown when I defended the use of the word "business" as being intended to go wider than, although including, industrialists. The intention is to give to the local authorities some guidance by circular about the setting up of these local liaison committees. This is the form in which the Government think it would be more appropriate to give effect to the Sharp Committee's recommendations. I am not myself certain at the moment just when that circular will be ready. The circular would give the Committee further asurances, which the noble Baroness wants to draw from me, about the width of these biennial consultations. Perhaps I could get in touch with her and tell her anything further I can about the way in which this is going to operate, and about the width of discussion and consultation which will go on under this clause.
LORD CRAIGTON: I must say I do not like the words,
"appearing to the authority to be representative of".
Would the noble Lord look at that point when he looks at the whole question?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes.
BARONESS WHITE: I would much prefer it if the Government would bring forward their own Amendment, because they have the benefit of Parliamentary draftsmen. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that, as drafted, this clause is unclear as to exactly what is intended. I have a number of questions about it. I feel this is a matter which it is really incumbent upon the Government to look at, and upon which to produce their own Amendment.
Clause 69, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 70 [Notices requiring information about air pollution]:
5.55 p.m.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved Amendment No. 190:
Page 74, line 42, after ("premises") insert ("or applicant for planning permission").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. This clause is described as requiring, "Notices requiring information about air pollution." But as drafted it says that:
"A local authority may by notice require the owner or occupier of any premises in its area to furnish … information …".
The purpose of my Amendment is to provide the local planning authority with information, which at present it is not easy to obtain, but which is extremely relevant, before it is decided to give planning permission.
Quite obviously, it is a very relevant consideration whether some new development is going to result in an emission which will be a nuisance to the locality. At the present time there seems to me to be little power for a local planning authority to obtain this kind of information. Generally, all that is required of an applicant at an inquiry is that he should show that he has been in touch with the Alkali Inspectorate. There is no guarantee that what he has indicated will be the amount of the emission will necessarily be observed. In one case the Chief Alkali Inspector wrote:
"We do not accept that the estimates submitted by the Company at the Public Inquiry are binding in any way. They were given in all good faith as typical of what emissions were expected in order to meet our targets on which the figures were based …".
It is one of the complications that we are going to see after this Bill has come into operation that, as I think my noble friend has said, in the case of the 3,000 registered establishments under the Alkali Act there will continue to be an Alkali Inspectorate who report to the Secretary of State. In every other case the inspection of air will depend on the local authority. It is of the utmost importance that the information should be available before planning permission is given. We ought to try to ensure that this Bill prevents pollution of the air from taking place, and does not merely result in steps being taken after the pollution has occurred. I beg to move.
5.58 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree, and I think the whole Committee would agree, this this is a matter which certainly needs to be dealt with, and dealt with fairly. I would confirm that the local planning authorities have all the necessary powers

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that they need to obtain from planning applicants whose premises are likely to emit anything into the atmosphere, whether from a registered premises using a scheduled process or from any other premises, all the information they need in order to decide upon the planning application. They have these powers now. The model application form contains a reference to the matter. The Alkali Inspectorate can, and do, assist with advice in either getting information, or assessing it when they have got it. Furthermore, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has it in mind to issue further guidance to the local planning authorities about the exercise of this power which they have already got.
I hope I may take the Committee with me in suggesting that this particular place in this Bill, dealing with notices which are required for service on industrialists in order to build up the register of what they are actually emitting to the atmosphere at the moment, is not the right place to build in something about the future. No applicant for planning permission could ask the question: What are you emitting into the atmosphere at this moment? That is a question which the planning authorities can ask, ought to ask, and are to be encouraged to ask with greater thoroughness and more searchingly than before; and I can confirm that the Alkali Inspectorate are there to help them in the discharge of that function. I put it to the Committee that it is for the planning authorities to do that. They can do it; they are doing it, and they ought to go on doing it even more thoroughly. But it is not, I would suggest, appropriate to add it at this particular point because this clause is dealing with a rather different matter. I hope that my noble friend will agree with me on that.
BARONESS WHITE: Could the noble Lord indicate to what extent local authorities are in effect bound by the provisions of Clause 71? I appreciate the point the noble Lord has made about the place in the Bill, and so forth. Nevertheless, as a matter of principle, if a person applying for planning permission takes the attitude which is suggested to him in Clause 71, is it then only the Secretary of State to whom his intentions
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are to be divulged; and how, then, is the planning authority to make up its mind?
LORD SANDFORD: The planning authority does not come into this particular clause or subsection; in fact, that was the burden of my argument. This is a notice served by the local authority on the owner-occupier of premises requiring him to say, by means of return or in any other way, what he is in fact emitting as pollutants into the air. The only escape and exemption from that is something we are coming on to deal with in the next two Amendments. I agree that the question of what new promises, for which planning application is being made, are going to emit, is highly relevant, not to the building up of this register but as a matter which the planning authority must take into account.
BARONESS WHITE: I am aware of the procedural difficulty on this matter, but the noble Lord was trying to reassure the Committee that we need not worry about planning applications. Quite apart from whether or not it should come into this particular Part of the Bill, he was making the general point of principle that one need not worry about planning applications because the local authorities already have powers to obtain all the necessary information, and that it was in the mind of the Department to issue further guidance to strengthen them in their resolve to find out all they need to find out. I am asking whether there is a "let-out" clause for that procedure comparable to the let-out clause in Clause 71 for the register?
LORD SANDFORD: I see the point the noble Baroness is getting at: Can they, in answer to the request from the planning authority, claim that a trade secret makes it unnecessary for them to divulge that information? I would prefer to take further counsel and to write to the noble Baroness specifically on that point. I am sure there must be a let-out clause, but whether or not this Bill operates in this way, I am not so sure; I rather doubt it.
BARONESS WHITE: I shall be happy to have yet another addition to my file of correspondence with the noble Lord.
LORD MOLSON: I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. In particular I greatly value the undertaking he has given that the Alkali Inspectorate

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will be helpful to local planning authorities. It has not been the experience of the Council for the Protection of Rural England in all cases. In August, 1972, when there was an application for planning permission for a fluorspar plant at Blackdene, in Durham, the C.P.R.E. asked the Alkali Inspectorate what emissions, if any, might be anticipated from a plant of that kind, and what levels the Inspectorate would require the applicant to adhere to. The Deputy Chief Alkali Inspector replied that the plant's processes would fall within the compass of the Inspectorate, but he declined to give any details of anticipated emissions. At the inquiry itself the Inspector was asked to invite the attendance of the Alkali Inspectorate so that questions might be asked about the emissions. However, the Inspector said that he had no authority to require the attendance for examination of any witnesses.
In view of what my noble friend has said about the Alkali Inspectorate's cooperating in this matter when planning authorities are considering the granting of permission for development, I hope we can be assured that this miasma of confidentiality will not be used to prevent the information of the Alkali Inspectorate from being available to a local planning authority. Having said that, I may follow up this discussion by writing to my noble friend after consulting the C.P.R.E. about the matter. But in view of what he has said, and the satisfactory assurance he has given on what is the intention of the Government in the future, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.7 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 191A:
Page 75, line 6, leave out from ("section") to end of line 10 and insert ("who does not have the required information readily available may apply to the Secretary of State for an exemption on the ground that to collect or obtain it would involve undue expenditure, and the Secretary of State may grant an exemption covering all or part of the required information.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 191A. The reason why I move it is surely self-evident. Subsection (3) of Clause 70, as drafted, states:
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"A person on whom a notice is served … shall not be obliged to supply any information which is not immediately available, and which cannot be readily collected or obtained by him without incurring undue expenditure for the purpose."
But under the clause as drafted he is surely made an absolute judge in his own cause. It is for him to say whether or not the information is available. The local authority has no means of proving whether or not the information is available. It does not know whether the person has been monitoring. He may have been monitoring and may have decided that the results are such that he would rather keep them to himself. Then he can say: "I am very sorry. The information is not available." If that happens, who is to prove whether he is telling the truth? If someone in the local authority suspects this, he may not be in a position to prove it, or he may be strongly deterred by the various punitive measures which can be taken for disclosure. Supposing he has found out in a visit to the factory on some other business that in point of fact information is available. Is he going to be allowed to disclose this?
The other point is this. Who is to decide whether the expenditure is "undue expenditure"? Again, is the man to be judge in his own cause? Is he just to say: "Either I do not know what I am doing or, if I do know, I am not under any obligation to pass the information on to the local authority, because I can always plead that to give complete information would cost me too much"? Who is to decide whether or not, again, he is putting forward a fair case? I can find no provision here for anyone to examine critically the plea put up by this person and say whether or not he is justified. Therefore, it seems to me that at least on the question of "undue expenditure" he ought to put the case to the Department, or to the Secretary of State, and prove that it really would cost too much to supply what the local authority has asked to be done. Again, this kind of drafting of this Bill simply enhances the very serious suspicions that are held all over the country—in local authorities, in academic circles, and in the amenity societies—that the Government are not serious about this Part of this Bill. It is for these reasons that I beg to move this Amendment.
LORD CRAIGTON: I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady White. When first reading this Bill I wrote against that paragraph the words, "What happens then?" Had the noble Baroness not tabled an Amendment, I had intended to do so. I am sure it would not have been in order but I had intended to table an Amendment to the next clause, Clause 71(1), which allows appeal to the Secretary of State, so that if there was any doubt about it the appeal should be to the Secretary of State. I have taken no action in the matter, and I am quite satisfied with what the noble Baroness has suggested, so I hope that my noble friend will be able to give a satisfactory answer.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: While I see the point of the remarks made by the noble Baroness, and of the Amendment, it seems to me the danger is that local authorities will ask in every case for information. They will not worry whether or not it is costly to obtain, and then the Secretary of State will be inundated with appeals. That again would involve skilled staff in assessing the whole thing. It is really a matter of the local authority and the local factory people and works people getting together, and I quite see the point made by the noble Baroness; that if a person says it is going to be too expensive, who is going to judge?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Is that not the precise point of this Amendment?
LORD FOOT: I should like to support this Amendment. The question has been asked whether undue expenditure would be incurred. If one looks at subsection (8) one sees that it is an offence to fail to comply with this demand. Therefore it seems to me to follow that the unfortunate people who would be required to decide whether any expenditure incurred was in fact undue expenditure would be the magistrates. How in the world are the magistrates to decide whether the cost of collecting the necessary information would be due or undue? I suggest that it is imposing an impossible burden upon the magistrates, and the cure for this suggested by the noble Baroness, making it a matter of appeal to the Secretary of State, is obviously good sense and is the way to get out of the difficulty.
LORD SANDFORD: I will persevere in an attempt to allay and assuage suspicions and to confirm the strong intentions of the Government. I do that in this particular case by agreeing with the noble Baroness that the clause as drafted is indeed too generous. The intention of my right honourable friend is to put matters right by amending Clause 71, as I indicated to my noble friend in his Amendment No. 189, by introducing this as a further subject for appeal so that the Secretary of State should be empowered in this matter, rather than by introducing this as a subject for exemption, as the present Amendment would do. If the noble Baroness would be content to agree with me that the clause as drafted is indeed too generous, and that we need the Secretary of State to enter into this as an arbiter—and here I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Courtown—I hope the Committee will accept the assurance from me that we shall introduce a Government Amendment, but to Clause 71 rather than to Clause 70.
BARONESS WHITE: I accept that an Amendment to Clause 71 would perhaps be a tidier way of doing it, although frankly I dislike the appearance of this subsection altogether. It is too generous and I wish that some form of words could be found for it in any case, although the actual mechanism of an appeal to the Secretary of State might come more neatly into Clause 71.
Following what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said, it would plainly be discourteous to press this Amendment to a Division, although I would point out that it has been supported from all quarters of the Committee. Nevertheless, I ask the noble Lord to ensure that we may see the proposed Government Amendment in reasonable time so that we may be able to make a fair judgment as to whether it meets our views or whether we should table an Amendment for the Report stage. I appreciate that it is not easy for the Department; but, after all, this is a Government Bill and when they agree with us that there is something which needs amending it would help us a great deal if we could see it in good time. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.16 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 191B:
Page 75, line 14, leave out ("is being") and insert ("might be").
The noble Baroness said: This is yet another scrap of evidence which reinforces our suspicions about this Part of the Bill. It says that in any work subject to the Alkali Act the local authority may not require information except of a kind which is being supplied to the alkali inspector. The alkali inspector might not be interested in that particular work; he might be getting towards the end of his career and possibly not be as active as he had been previously, and therefore he might not have asked for that kind of information or might not be currently asking for it. Yet, as I read this, the local authority would be completely stymied if it wanted particular information and it so happened that the local alkali inspector had not asked for it. I am sure this cannot be the intention of the Government, yet it is the way in which subsection (4) is phrased. So it seems to me that it would be entirely proper for the local authority to ask for information (which it is entitled to do otherwise) if it were in the power of the alkali inspector to require it, even if in point of fact he had not done so. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: The first thing I should like to say is that all the inspectors in the Clean Air Inspectorate are consumed with zeal in the prosecution of their important duties, but as my noble friend Lord Craigton said at the beginning of this part of the debate we have two separate jurisdictions: on the one hand, the Alkali Inspectorate, responsible for the registered premises, and on the other hand the local authorities, with their much wider responsibility for getting on for 300,000 different premises, to say nothing of domestic smoke. It is important that there should not be conflict, or potential conflict, between the two. Furthermore, the Clean Air and Alkali Inspectorate have power to ask for any amount of information, and to introduce the words, "might be" here would enable the local authority to ask for almost anything under the sun, but to ask for it from premises over which they exercise no other jurisdiction beyond that of a right to information for the purposes
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of making their publication under Clause 69(1) comprehensive throughout their area.
What will happen in practice is that if the local authority can show good reason to the Alkali Inspectorate that for the purposes of the publication of information (which is what these clauses are about) they need from the owner of registered premises information for which the Inspectorate are not asking, then the Inspectorate call ask for it. This is the way in which matters will develop, and I think the Committee will agree that it is a way which will ensure that there is no undesirable overlap between these two jurisdictions. If there is information which, for the purposes of the discharge of their function, the Alkali Inspectorate do not require but the local authority want for the purpose of exercising their powers under this Bill, they can ask the Inspectorate to apply for it and get it that way. That would be better than the local authority going in and asking the owner of the registered premises for information which the Alkali Inspectorate had not asked for.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I ask the noble Lord where in the Bill is the obligation laid on the Inspectorate to obtain the information at the request of the local authority? While I am on my feet, may I say that the Association of Municipal Corporations feel that this subsection of the clause is far from clear. They certainly would like clarification not only in the sense that my noble friend has been seeking to obtain it; but there seems to be a point at which it might be reasonable to ask that another look be taken at this subsection to see whether it can be set out in clearer terms to cover the point I have raised.
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think there is any need to provide in the Bill for what I have just said, any more than there is need to provide for what I said in answer to my noble friend at the beginning of the debate on these three clauses. The local authority must consult with the Clean Air and Alkali Inspectorate in respect of registered premises in its area in order even to make a start under Clause 69(1). There are two separate jurisdictions here only one of which rests in the local authority, that is publication. From this Members of the Committee can see that, on a whole

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number of points in respect of registered premises, there has to be co-operation and consultation between the local authority public health inspectors and the Clean Air and Alkali Inspectorate. I do not think anything would be gained by trying to spell it out in legislation.
BARONESS WHITE: The difficulty is that not all local authorities are by any means satisfied with the co-operation they receive from the Alkali Inspectorate as of now. I do not want to be misunderstood. It would be inappropriate to go into full details, but let us take the Avonmouth situation, where there was more than one local authority concerned. Under this subsection as drafted, if the Alkali Inspectorate did not consider that certain information was necessary, the local authority would be in a position of deadlock. Again there is no sort of appeal. In an ideal world everything would be perfectly straightforward because they would work hand in glove, but the world is not always ideal and the more serious the situation the more difficult the position could be.
I must admit that I am not at all happy about the answer given by the noble Lord on this point. I can quite see that theoretically the local authority might ask for a fantastic amount of information which the Alkali Inspectorate did not think was required, and I can perfectly understand that they should be under some obligation to consult with the Alkali Inspectorate. Nevertheless, we have two authorities and while one is responsible in one direction the other is responsible in another. It does seem to me that if it is proper for the information in question to be obtained under the Alkali Act then the local authority should have a perfect right to ask for it. After all, this can occur. I do not know what happens if you have an obstructive alkali inspector, for one reason or another, and the local authority is at a dead end. What does it do then?
LORD SANDFORD: If the noble Baroness would send me the example she has in mind which her Amendment, or something like it, would be certain to overcome, we can have a look at it. But, if the relationships are as bad as she says, or have been so in particular cases, between the alkali inspector on the one hand and the local authority public health inspector on the other, then it will need
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much more than this Amendment to put matters right, because the whole basis of the operation of this part of the Bill is that there is close day-to-day co-operation between the two sets of inspectors, as I am sure there must be. I do not see how one can rely on anything other than that. Certainly this particular Amendment would not put it right. If the noble Baroness would send me specific information, we can take a look at it and see what might be done.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: The alkali inspector is, surely, responsible to the Chief Alkali Inspector, who is responsible to the Secretary of State. Therefore, if any particular alkali inspector is not being co-operative surely the simple way of dealing with the matter is to write to the Secretary of State?
LORD SANDFORD: That is the kind of remedy that I should have thought appropriate, and when problems have occurred it has probably been followed. That is why I should like to look at the specific instance. I am doubtful whether we could bring this about by any legislative device.
BARONESS WHITE: I do not think we can carry this any further at this point of time, so I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 70 shall stand part of the Bill?
BARONESS WHITE: There are one or two points I should like to raise on the clause which have not been covered by the Amendments put down. In particular, in regard to subsection (8), can we know what the reason is for not having any provision for indictment? The only provision here is summary conviction, with a fine not exceeding £400. In certain circumstances it might be worth while for a very large enterprise just to pay the £400. It seems to me that one should at least make provision for indictment. This includes giving false information, among other things.
The other aspect of this clause which concerns us to some extent is what seems to us a rather generous interpretation of the time factor. Subsection (5) allows six weeks. There might he a situation—I mentioned the Avonmouth case a few

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minutes ago—in which six weeks was a long time for obtaining information. I should like to know whether the Government are entirely satisfied that they need allow as long as that. Again there is provision that the local authority may agree to some longer period so that this is by no means an absolute limitation. One can foresee circumstances in which six weeks might be too long for an authority to obtain the information it requires. I wonder whether the noble Lord could perhaps comment on that.
LORD SANDFORD: I should like to write to the noble Baroness about the indictment point, which I cannot answer here and now. If we were dealing with control of a seriously polluting emission I would agree that six weeks might well be too long. But what we are dealing with here is not control but notices leading to the building up of information about emissions, and I should have thought that in those circumstances it was a reasonable time.
Clause 70 agreed to.
Clause 71 [Appeals against notices]:
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 191C:
Page 76, line 4, leave out ("giving") and insert ("disclosure to the public").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 191C. I wish to know what is the real position envisaged in the first part of this clause. When we were dealing with effluents in water in Part II of the Bill there was a provision whereby someone concerned could appeal to the Secretary of State and indicate that it would be against his personal interest, and possibly against the public interest, if certain information were published. But here the clause seems to go very much further, because it says that the giving of information should be excused on the ground that it might be contrary to the public interest, or would prejudice some private interest. This is an entirely different position. This is not publishing it; it is supplying it to the local authorities.
I cannot see how a local authority can carry out its obligations to the public if even no officer of the local authority is
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to be permitted to obtain this information. I can understand that there may be limitations upon publication, even though I do not have a great deal of sympathy with them. However, we are not disputing that in principle. Am I correct in supposing that this would allow an enterprise not to give any information at all to the local authority concerned?
6.32 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: I should like to support the Amendment, and I hope that if it is accepted the Government will also be able to accept the succeeding Amendments to this clause standing in my noble friend's name. In support of what she said, I should like to put the following points. Clause 71 provides for an appellate procedure to the Secretary of State. If one looks at subsection (3), one finds language that seems to imply that the respondent, which would be the local authority, is to be entitled to appear in answer to the appeal, and, I suppose, to address the Secretary of State or such representative as he may appoint for that purpose. I refer to the words in subsection (3):
"The Secretary of State may … make regulations as to appeals under this section,"—
and then the important words are,
"and the circumstances in which all or any part of the appellant's case is to be withheld from the respondent."
I suppose that envisages a situation in which the local authority, by its representatives, is present at some appointment before the Secretary of State, or somebody he deputes to hear the appeal. Then the appellant, who has received the notice and appeals against it, wishes to refuse to allow the respondent council to know what the grounds of the appeal are, and the respondent council is left in the position of having to answer the appeal without having any idea as to the grounds of the appeal. All that the respondent council will know is that the appellant must be trying to satisfy the Secretary of State of the matters set out in subsection (1); namely:
"the giving of all or part of the information required by the notice—

(a) would be contrary to the public interest; or

(b) would prejudice to an unreasonable degree some private interest"—

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I do not know whose; probably people apart from the appellant as well as the appellant himself—
"by disclosing information about a manufacturing process or trade secret,
or that the information would be prejudicial in either of those ways if disclosed to the public."
By those words the appellant is given a very wide field indeed. He can raise a number of contentions within the scope of those words in an effort to try to induce the Secretary of State to direct the local authority to withdraw or modify the notice, or take such steps as may be specified by the Secretary of State to ensure that prejudicial information is not disclosed to the public. If it is envisaged that the local authority is to be the respondent—and, I suppose, to have the rights which normally, by the law of this country, we allow to a respondent; namely, the right to be heard, the right to oppose the appeal—it seems to me that we are reaching a very odd situation if the respondent is not to know what he is to oppose. The respondent is apparently to have no idea, if the Secretary of State makes regulations in a particular form, what ground, among those specifified in subsection (1), is chosen by the appellant in order to support his appeal, so that the respondent council goes there in a state of considerable embarrassment and some frustration. I would submit that that is undesirable, and that my noble friend's Amendments—the first of which, being one of a pattern with those others, is designed to limit closely the grounds which the appellant may assert, and to limit the powers of the Secretary of State on the hearing of the appeal—conduce to something far more workable.
The argument goes beyond that. It is desirable, I am sure the whole Committee agrees, that Clause 70 should work, and that when this information is asked for by a notice it should be forthcoming unless there are very solid grounds why it should not be forthcoming. I ask your Lordships to picture the situation of a local authority that has been represented at an appeal before the Secretary of State when the appeal has failed. Of course if the appeal succeeds, and the local authority is directed to withdraw the notice, cadit questio, one need not bother any more. But suppose either that the appeal fails, or that the Secretary of State directs that the notice is to be
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modified: in what situation then is the local authority to find itself when it is considering whether it should take steps which would initiate a prosecution under Clause 70(8)?
I do not know whether the local authority would be the prosecuting authority, or whether they would put information before the police and the police would be the prosecuting authority. Whichever is the prosecuting authority would have to face the situation that, under Clause 70(8), it has to be established against the accused recipient of the notice that he has without reasonable cause failed to comply with the requirements of a notice served on him. If the local authority, and the police authority, are in the position of not having known what the grounds of the appeal were, not having known what material was produced in support of whatever were the grounds chosen, how can they decide one way or another whether it would be appropriate in a given case to initiate proceedings leading up to a prosecution?
Suppose the appeal fails. It may well be that the appellant has produced quite formidable arguments and material in support of the grounds of appeal allowed him in Clause 71, but has not quite come up to the limit required in order successfully to establish his appeal. He may have had a reasonable case, but a case which, in the judgment of the Secretary of State, was not quite strong enough, with the result that the Secretary of State dismissed the appeal. When the local authority is considering whether or not to institute a prosecution under Clause 70, it will not have any information as to what the true situation is in this respect. Had the appellant sufficient grounds, if urged in a magistrates' court, in support of the contention that he had a reasonable case for not supplying the material? Had he grounds sufficient for that, even though they were not sufficient to produce the result that the Secretary of State directed the notice to be withdrawn? They will not know, and one reason, in particular, why I submit to your Lordships that my noble friend's Amendments to Clause 71 ought to be agreed to is that the provision as to prosecution in Clause 70 may otherwise not be workable.
It may be that, whenever there is an appeal which fails before the Secretary

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of State, local authorities will have to say to themselves, "I know that the appellant must have had some reasons which were not sufficient to satisfy the Secretary of State, but we, in ignorance of them, cannot say whether it will be possible for us to show beyond reasonable doubt that the recipient of the notice did not have reasonable cause for not complying with it." For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will accept my noble friend's Amendment and the succeeding Amendments which are down in her name.
If I may summarise them, I submit, first, that it is undesirable in principle that a recipient should not know an appellant's case; secondly, if a respondent is not to know an appellant's case the result, in practice, over a period of years may be—and probably will be—that in case after case local authorities simply will not know whether they ought or ought not to take steps to initiate a prosecution under subsection (8) of Clause 70, and that is a result which I am quite sure the whole Committee would deplore. The scheme should be workable. I hope that the Minister will feel that there is force in those contentions and will give further thought to them.
LORD SANDFORD: Am I right in thinking that the noble Baroness was speaking to Amendments Nos. 192A and 192B at the same time as No. 191C?
BARONESS WHITE: I did not mention the fact, but our general disquiet covers those other two Amendments as well.
6.43 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: Then I agree that it would be helpful if we kept them all in mind. The Sharp Report recommended that there should be two courses open to an industrialist with a trade secret at risk, and we are responding to that recommendation. The two courses are either to disclose the information to the local authority but not to the public, or not to disclose it at all. I think the Committee will agree that the latter course is necessary as a safeguard against occasions when disclosure of the information to local authority officials and elected members could endanger a trade secret, perhaps because—to give a rather stark example—a councillor was a business rival of the owner of the premises in question. It might also be necessary if
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the local authority could not provide sufficient security against accidental or illegal disclosure of commercially valuable information or of information prejudicial to the public interest, particularly as the Press normally attend committee meetings—something which we have been urging them to do for other reasons.
Since the authority would not be able to publish the information this safeguard would not hinder them unduly, provided they were assured that the reason for withholding information was genuine. This assurance can be provided by the Secretary of State, who must be convinced that the public interest or a real trade secret is at risk before allowing an appeal. He then also decides where the risk lies and how confidential the information must remain and directs the local authority accordingly to withdraw or modify the notice, if the authority are not to receive all the information or are simply to take steps not to disclose it to the public. The Committee will see that we are giving effect to the Sharp Report, and I hope your Lordships will agree that it is necessary to distinguish between giving information to disclose to the public at large, and giving information which stops with local authority officials.
In answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, I confirm that under Clause 71(3) the Secretary of State will make tightly drawn regulations, although we do not think that many appeals will succeed under this provision. But I hope the Committee will agree that if a local authority were given all the information for purposes of the kind which the noble and learned Lord rehearsed, the secret would have come out and the whole object of the appeal procedure would be lost. In answer to the noble and learned Lord's second point, I should have thought that if a local authority were dealing with an industry in their area where there had been an appeal under paragraph (a) of Clause 71(1) involving a trade secret, and they felt they were not in possession of all the necessary information, the common-sense course would be to consult the Secretary of State before initiating any proceedings. I do not see how it is possible to make any other provision which does not undermine the need—I agree, in a limited number of cases—to provide protection for an industrialist

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who satisfies the Secretary of State that he has a trade secret which is of such a character and of such importance that its nature should not be disclosed, even to a local authority. Our main objective is to make the distinction which the Sharp Report sought to make; namely, between the confidentiality of something which can be disclosed to a local authority—
LORD STOW HILL: I am sorry to interrupt, and I am grateful for what the Minister has said. But the difficulty is that if those regulations are made and a local authority go to the Secretary of State and, in effect, ask, "What were the grounds of the appeal? We want to decide whether or not to institute a prosecution", he will have to say to them, "I am sorry, but I cannot tell you." Therefore the local authority will not know where they stand and will be unable, in a large number of cases, to bring a prosecution.
With regard to the noble Lord's contention—and I apologise for interrupting at length—that if regulations of that sort were not made the whole point of withholding information would be lost, I should have thought there were other courses open. After all, it can be provided that information which is disclosed for a certain purpose, such as an appeal, must not be disclosed to anybody else under pain of penalty. I think there are provisions of that sort in this very Bill.
LORD SANDFORD: That is a point which would certainly be considered, but I do not think it arises directly from the noble Baroness's Amendment, and I do not think she referred to it in her remarks. I have already undertaken to write to her on one point, and I will certainly undertake to consider the noble and learned Lord's point about other ways of dealing with this matter. If he has any other suggestions, I will of course consider them. But I hope the noble Baroness will feel, having heard why this clause is so drawn—namely, because it is primarily intended to give effect to the Sharp Report's recommendation that there should be provision for some information to be disclosed to a local authority but not to the public, and for other information not to be disclosed at all—that it is not necessary to press her Amendment.
BARONESS WHITE: The noble Lord has made it very clear that the Government
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take a different view of local authorities from that which they took of water authorities, although water authorities include quite a number of local authority members. I dislike this way of proceeding, but I can see that the Government are unlikely to give way on the points we have made, so at this stage I do not propose to press Amendment No. 191C. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 192:
Page 76, line 7, leave out paragraph (b)
and insert—
("(b) would be unreasonably damaging to the interests of the person aforesaid").
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment is on a somewhat different point but it is one that we have touched upon before; namely, this phrase "a manufacturing process or trade secret". I have here sought to substitute the phrase which is used in Part II of the Bill; namely, that it
"would be unreasonably damaging to the interests of the person aforesaid".
What worries us about this attitude is that all the time it is the private interest which is being put first, and there is no provision anywhere in the Bill for the Secretary of State, on being appealed to, to say that the public interest would be better served. He can say that the public interest would be damaged if the information were disclosed, but nowhere in the Bill has he the power to say that, although a private interest might to some extent be damaged, nevertheless the public interest should supervene. Because, as I understand it, even in the circumstances of an appeal he would be bound to take cognisance of the actual wording of the Act; and it is of course a question of the interpretation of "unreasonable". What is "an unreasonable degree", to which a private interest must be prejudiced?
The Secretary of State might have doubts in his mind as to whether or not it would be unreasonable for the private person or the company, but nowhere can he say, "The public interest would be better served if the local authority" for example, "knew what was really going on". He does not have this recourse;

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he has to take account of whether or not the private interest would be damaged. I admit that possibly the Amendment as it stands does not entirely meet that point, but we can if necessary put down a somewhat different Amendment on Report stage. But I should like some comment from the noble Lord as to this point, which again has been put to me by a number of people: why should it always be the private interest which is to be regarded, rather than the public interest? That is the nub of this series of Amendments. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I cannot agree that the Bill is so drafted as to put private interests first. I do not think that that is what is happening here. I should like to put it to the Committee that what is happening is that, where somebody has a private interest to which he thinks regard should be paid and which should be regarded as confidential, an opportunity is given to put that interest to the test against the public interest, in this particular case, to publish information about the pollution of the air.
BARONESS WHITE: With respect, to receive information, not to publish it.
LORD SANDFORD: To receive information with a view to publishing it. Where a conflict is alleged, the Secretary of State is established as the arbiter between the two, and I would have thought that this was the only practicable way of doing it. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has all sorts of other interests in protecting the environment, and he is the right person to be the judge of an issue such as this. I have agreed earlier on with members of the Committee that at one or two points this Part of the Bill has been drawn with too great a generosity and too great a regard for the private interest over and against the public interest but what we are concerned with here is not to give the private interest any particularly favourable treatment but to bring the private interest to the test. That is what this particular clause does, and I think it does it in the only fair and practicable way in which it can be done.
BARONESS WHITE: I did not expect the noble Lord would give me any other answer. Perhaps this is partly because
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we have a different philosophy in this matter. Again, I am always unwilling to take up the time of the Committee, and I do not believe we should get very much further if I pressed the Amendment. I therefore beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 71 agreed to.
Clause 72 [Regulations about research and publicity]:
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 192C:
Page 76, line 22, after ("shall") insert ("subject to section 92(5) of this Act").
The noble Earl said: The regulations made under Clause 72(2) of the Bill will greatly affect local authorities and also industrial interests, and it is therefore only right that they should be consulted before the regulations are introduced. This Amendment simply ensures that such consultation will take place. Clause 92(5) refers to regulations made under Clause 71(3) of this Bill but not to this subsection, and I suggest that it should. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I would agree with my noble friend that it would be consistent with other provisions for consultation on the drawing up of regulations for this particular set of regulations to be subject to the same statutory requirement to consult. In order to keep the parity between the two sides of the Committee, having given one Amendment to the noble Baroness I take pleasure in accepting this one from my noble friend.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 193:
Page 76, line 39, leave out paragraph (e).
The noble Baroness said: This paragraph caused me almost more shock, I think, than any other paragraph in this Bill—which is saying a good deal. If noble Lords will look first at the preceding paragraph, paragraph (d), they will see that if a local authority wishes to enter into an arrangement with the owners or occupiers of premises
"under which they will record and measure emissions, on behalf of the local authorities",
it is given a power to do so. This, I think, is entirely satisfactory, because plainly there will be circumstances in

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which it would be quite unreasonable for the local authority to attempt to collect such information itself. But paragraph (e) says in terms that if the owner or occupier does not wish the local authority to come on to his premises he has a right—an absolute right, so it seems—to tell the local authority to keep out, and to say, "We are not having you on our premises. If you want any records or measurements of emissions, we shall take them; you will have to take our word for it that they are complete and accurate, and you will have no check that they are so." This seems to me an absolutely intolerable situation.
This would presumably not apply to registered premises, because the Alkali Inspectorate, I believe, would have a right of entry; but under this clause as drafted no one would have a right of entry, as I understand it. The owner or occupier of premises could just say, "We do not want you inside, thank you". They might perhaps have some reason in the circumstances envisaged in Clause 71; but unless the regulations are to say so, it will not be the Secretary of State who decides whether they have such reasons, and I can find in the Bill nobody else to crosscheck on the information being provided—alkali inspectors or anybody else. If the local authority does not carry out the inspections or cross-checking, who else is to do it? As it stands, this seems to me an extraordinarily unsatisfactory provision. I can find nothing else in the Bill. There may be something. If there is, no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will direct our attention to it. This is yet another example of how the Bill at any rate appears all along to be favouring the private rather than the public interest. If that is not what it means to do, I suggest it should be drafted somewhat differently.
LORD SANDFORD: The main point I would make in answer to that is that for control purposes the main powers of entry are in Clause 80 and there are other rights under Clause 69. But the noble Baroness is quite right to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that this part of the clause with which she is concerned is drawn too widely. We will look at it again to try to make sure that it ties in more closely with the two clauses that I have mentioned.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: One has to think about who the local authorities will send round plants. I have had experience of local authority people coming into a plant. Unless they are properly trained they are completely at a loss and could run into considerable danger, particularly where radioactive material is concerned. Clearly they cannot be allowed to wander freely throughout a plant. If leaving out this paragraph means that the local authority can employ consultants to come in and look round the plant, I do not see why they should. It does not say that the person has to be an employee of the local authority, or even that he has to be an alkali inspector. I should have thought there are Crown premises round which it might be a doubtful practice to let anybody go. While I am not saying that I do not feel that the subsection is too widely drawn, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said, I wanted to make those points.
BARONESS WHITE: I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, at least agrees with us that we were right to be highly suspicious. Again I should be greatly obliged if, between now and the Report stage, his Department would put down an Amendment. After all, this is a Government Bill and they should have looked at this kind of thing in the drafting. When we are working on a fairly tight timetable it makes it difficult for us if we do not see Amendments of this kind reasonably early on. But I am indeed happy to learn that this is a point on which the Government think that the Bill needs improvement. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.5 p.m.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved Amendment No. 194:
Page 77, line 16, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: It seems to me quite extraordinary that when the Secretary of State is given power to make regulations giving guidance about how the local authorities are to exercise their powers under this Bill he should be instructed to have regard to the practice of inspectors under the Alkali Act. The inspectors are an old and venerable body who have just presented their 109th annual report. In the course of 109 years

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they have not only built up a long chain of case law as to how they administer their duties, but also they have established a great prestige and a long tradition of bureaucratic loyalty. Their very distinguished service over this period of time has ensured that they enjoy great prestige. But it seems to me most extraordinary that the Inspectorate, which is largely responsible for advising the Secretary of State for the Environment, should have so high a prestige that in a Bill now before Parliament the Secretary of State is instructed, when drafting his regulations in future, to have regard to the practice of the inspectors under that Act.
I have not the slightest doubt that any Secretary of State would, naturally, have regard to the accumulated experience of an Inspectorate which enjoys great public esteem and has experience extending over 109 years. But it does not mean because they have this experience that the Secretary of State should be instructed by Parliament that in future he should not go any further than the established practice of the Inspectorate. I hope therefore that the Government will agree that this is both unnecessary and also disrespectful to the Secretary of State, and that my Amendment will be accepted.
I am not sure that I entirely understand the scope of this subsection. It says with regard to regulations under this section
"which relate to notices under section 70 of this Act; and … which apply to a work subject to the Alkali Act."
If we turn back to Clause 70 we find it deals with the new responsibilities of the local authorities, but in subsection (4) it says:
"If the notice relates to a works subject to the Alkali Act, the person on whom the notice is served shall not be obliged to supply any information which … is not of a kind which is being supplied to the inspector for the purposes of that Act."
I should have thought it possible to interpret the subsection which I am moving to delete as referring only to the work subject to the Alkali Act as defined in Clause 70(4). One would suppose that in drafting it would say that it refers to subsection (4) of the previous clause; although indeed one would hardly think that necessary because if that interpretation is right it seems to me that under the Alkali Act Clause 70(4)
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already protects the work from any questions which are not questions already being asked by alkali inspectors. Therefore, I am inclined to think that the subsection which I am moving to delete covers all the information which can be called for under Clause 70. If that is so, then it is a very serious matter indeed. We are now legislating in order to introduce a new inspectorate for ensuring the purity of our air, and it would obviously be even more serious if the powers given to local authorities under this Bill are to be limited to those which are at present exercised by the alkali inspectors. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: Here again the Government are being extraordinarily tender to the Alkali Inspectorate. So far as I can judge, this is a sort of "belt and braces" protection for their precious trousers. As the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has already pointed out, the local authority is limited as to the kind of information which it can require by notice under Clause 70(4). Why therefore do we have to say it all over again in this clause? I had proposed, in the next three Amendments, a rather more elaborate way of dealing with the position, but I shall be more than happy to accept the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, to delete the subsection entirely. It would then be quite unnecessary for me to move my three Amendments. As a method of dealing with the position I think that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, is simpler, more comprehensive and to be preferred. I therefore warmly support it.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree that it is not necessary in legislation to bind my right honourable friend to have regard in drawing up these regulations to the kind of things which he will in practice have regard to, in view of the experience, and so on, of the Alkali Inspectorate. I should like to consider what my noble friend has said, and anything else that the noble Baroness may care to say in respect of her three particular Amendments, with a view to accepting the intention behind my noble friend's Amendment and to delete this particular provision from the Bill. I do not know whether the noble Baroness wants to say anything more specific on her particular Amendments?
BARONESS WHITE: I do not want to press my Amendments if the noble Lord will simply accept the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson. If the Government have second thoughts it is always open to them to put down Amendments at a later stage. From the general tenor of the noble Lord's remarks, I am quite sure that he has great sumpathy with the noble Lord's Amendment. It would make life much simpler for us all and would save time to-night if the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, would simply accept the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, leaving us all free, if need be, to return to the matter at a later stage. I have no wish to discuss my Amendments if the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, can be accepted.
LORD MOLSON: I very much appreciate the friendly tone in which my noble friend has replied. I do not think it is necessary to take the matter back to ask the Parliamentary draftsmen to do anything about it. It is quite a simple provision, and I hope that as he has been so friendly he will be even more cordial and handsome about it and will accept my Amendment.
Clause 72, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 73 [Provision by local authorities of information for Secretary of State]:
7.15 p.m.
LORD CRAIGTON LORD CRAIGTON moved Amendment No. 195:
Page 77, line 28, after ("pollution") insert ("including pollution from aircraft").
The noble Lord said: I put down this Amendment because I felt that we all would like the Department of the Environment to have some status, some say, in aircraft movements and policy. We have been unable to discuss the worst pollution of all, and that is aircraft noise. But fallout from aircraft is, I hope to show, also a serious pollutant. If I am right, then the Department of the Environment should have some say in the routeing of aircraft in and out of aerodromes to ensure that the flight paths vary within the limits of safety and that the pollutants—and there are pollutants, as I will show—are shared as widely as possible, and also of course to have some say in the diminution of pollution itself.
I know that in the last 15 years the Clean Air Act has extended the hours of sunlight and has removed some of the more important air pollutants, particularly sulphur gases. Unhappily, as I have said, there are now indications of this new serious source of pollution from aircraft. Concern about this is widespread, and in the course of my investigations, pollution from aircraft, which I have discussed with a great many people, has been given a variety of descriptions. Many people refer to it as "unburnt fuel in art aerosol-like state"; others as "droplets of kerosene"; people concerned with horticulture have given it the description of "a greasy film over everything". Then a lady living in Datchet, which is right in the incoming path of aircraft into London Airport, said that when sunbathing on her roof she was covered by a fine red dust. I did not feel that it was right that I should go and see this for myself, so the lady in Datchet was kind enough to give me a sample of this fine dust which I have here in my hand, and I will gladly give it to the noble Baroness later on so that she may see exactly what it is. It is a dark red dust which my friend in Datchet said came from the black smoke from landing aircraft. With such varied descriptions one must ask oneself whether these unpleasant phenomena do come from aircraft flying overhead or whether they come from passing heavy articulated diesel engine trucks, nearby chimneys and agricultural processes. There are no heavy trucks and no agricultural processes to speak of in Datchet, and I myself have experienced this nuisance—though more in droplets—in a country area far removed from the usual sources of pollution but where at some times planes fly overhead in a steady procession hour after hour.
So far as I can ascertain, the only close scientific investigation of aircraft pollution was undertaken in about 1970 by Warren Springs Laboratory, mostly in the immediate vicinity of London Airport. The purpose of that investigation was to ascertain whether Heathrow itself was a source of pollution. The decision come to was, yes, there was some pollution from aircraft but it was not as bad as the pollution from motor cars on the nearby roads. But that was just around Heathrow Airport. No serious attempt was made then, or has been made since, to test for pollution

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elsewhere. All the evidence shows that it has now become highly desirable so to test for pollution, and perhaps as a matter of urgency.
It appears that the pollution from aircraft may spread far wider than just around the airport—to homes, to market gardens, and to other rural enterprises. The people living and working there have to endure the noise but they need not necessarily have to endure the fall-out as well. We do not yet know the extent of it, but it seems quite certain that there is fall-out under three headings. First, there is pollution from emissions from the engines themselves—that is the dark smoke that can be seen overhead. Then, in descending order of quantity, there are oxide of nitrogen, particulates, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. They are being spewed out all the time.
Then there is the type of pollution I referred to as unburnt fuel or droplets of kerosene. This is the dumping of fuel from drainage tanks of airborne aircraft. This can happen, I understand, at any height up to 9,000 feet, and the amount clumped is usually between one and two pints. This sounds little, but multiplied by the number of aircraft take-offs and the number of engines per aircraft it means that one is talking about millions of gallons a year discharged on to the ground below. I understand that the drainage tanks can be changed so as to circulate the fuel back into the main tank. The saving of fuel might well be less than the cost of the alteration unless, as may well be the case, the cumulative effect of this pollution of the countryside is shown to make the change of the fuel tanks worth while.
Finally, there is the smell: that unmistakable odour which those beneath the aircraft know so well. There is no imagination here, because the plotting of the complaints received by the Department of Trade and Industry, the British Airports Authority and the local health bodies has shown that the main body of complaints about smell comes directly from under the aircraft flight-paths.
I hope the Minister will agree with me that the aggrieved citizen should have the right to complain about any or all of the smell, of fuel dumped on the land and
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of fall-out from the exhausts, and that the Bill should include the power to provide an answer. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: We are not here dealing with the control of aircraft with a view to reducing pollution or noise: that is for other legislation. All we are concerned with in this clause is the provision of information by local authorities for the Secretary of State. Briefly, my answer to my noble friend is that his Amendment is unnecessary because the powers to deal with these matters are already available. Many local authorities, including the majority of urban authorities, already operate monitoring equipment which will pick up pollution from aircraft, if it exists, together with all other forms of air pollution. The results are collated and published by the Warren Springs Laboratory, which was mentioned by my noble friend. But this clause and the powers of monitoring include any pollution of the air which is caused by aircraft as much as by any other source; and three areas—Birmingham County Borough Council, Hillingdon London Borough Council and Staines Urban District Council—have already used their powers under section 25 of the Clean Air Act 1956 to monitor pollution from aircraft. In addition, the National Gas Turbine Establishment continues to ensure that smoke from aircraft will be decreased as much as possible. So the powers to do what my noble friend wants to see done are already in the hands of the local authorities and are being used.
The fact of the matter is that almost 90 per cent. of air pollution comes from domestic and industrial sources—by far the greater part from domestic fires. There is also 10 per cent. from vehicles, and only 0·1 per cent. from aircraft. We have to bear those figures in mind in order to keep this matter in perspective. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Young will be interested in the "red dust", but I hope that I have been able to assure my noble friend that the addition he seeks to put into the Bill here is not necessary because, as regards pollution from aircraft, the powers are already available to local authorities to enable them to deal with it.
LORD CRAIGTON: May I say that it is quite clear my noble friend does not live in the vicinity of London Airport.
LORD SANDFORD: I assure my noble friend that I live under one the landing paths.
LORD CRAIGTON: In that case, I apologise to him; and in view of the assurance he gives me that local authorities already have the powers to monitor pollution, perhaps those of us who are worried about this aspect should apply to the local authorities. Would my noble friend tell me whether we can report such a matter to the Department of the Environment?
LORD SANDFORD: Perhaps I might just reiterate what I said. The results of the monitoring which is operated by local authorities go to Warren Springs, which is a D.T.I. laboratory. I have mentioned three authorities who have exercised the powers available to them under the Clean Air Act, for which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is responsible.
LORD CRAIGTON: I am grateful to my noble friend, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 73 agreed to.
7.28 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 196:
After Clause 73, insert the following new clause
Power to local authorities to combine for purposes of Act
"Without prejudice to any powers of combination conferred on local authorities by any other enactment, any two or more local authorities may by agreement combine for the purposes of any of their functions under this Part of this Act."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, the object of which is to enable local authorities to combine for the purpose of discharging their functions under Part IV of the Act. If one looks at Clause 74, one finds that for the purpose of these functions the local authorities are the district councils. The object of the Amendment is simply to enable them to pool their resources for the performing of the functions placed upon them. A particular argument, which I think is probably relevant in this context, is that frequently a discharge into the atmosphere takes place in the area of one local authority but the deleterious result
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of that discharge does not become manifest or effective until it reaches the area of some other local authority. If the two authorities could combine, there would be a great saving of expense and resources, and the particular emission could be dealt with more effectively when the combined resources were brought to bear to deal with it.
That is the short case. It is appreciated that a possible alternative—which indeed is envisaged in the next Amendment on the Marshalled List—would be to bring in, along with the local authorities described in Clause 74, the councils of county councils. This Amendment does not actually provide for that, but it is respectfully submitted that so far as it goes it is useful and would lead to the result that the purposes of Clause 4 could be more effectively achieved when the local authorities that one is talking about—the district councils—could combine to take a joint part in the work of dealing with any particular emission. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I agree with the intention behind this Amendment and accept straight away that there may well be circumstances where authorities will be able to discharge these functions more effectively if they combine. I invite the Committee to resist the Amendment because in enacting the Local Government Bill a year or two ago we went into the way in which different local authorities might co-operate together. I hope the Committee will agree that we provided there a whole range of possibilities which would include straight combinations, but also a number of other possibilities which would apply in this case and provide greater flexibility than the noble Lord's Amendment.
Perhaps I may remind the Committee that we made arrangements for one authority to discharge functions as an agent of another authority. We made provision for two authorities to combine, as the Amendment suggests. We made other arrangements whereby one authority could borrow or share the staff of another, and so on. I should like to assure the noble and learned Lord that the purposes of his Amendment are fully met by the provisions in the Local Government Act and, because that provides a range of other possibilities and alternatives, it would be better to rely on that

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rather than on the terms of his Amendment.
LORD STOW HILL: I am grateful to the Minister. What had been done in framing this Amendment was to borrow the model of Section 272 of the Public Health Act 1936. But I gather from what the Minister says that that has been overtaken by the 1972 legislation. As he tells me that he is satisfied that the combination provisions contained in that Act would enable all these functions to be jointly discharged by local authorities, clearly this Amendment becomes unnecessary. I am most grateful for what he said and I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 74 [Interpretation of Part IV]:
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 196A:
Page 78, line 12, at end insert ("for the purposes of subsections (1), (4) and (5) of section 69 and section 73 of this Act, includes the council of a county and the Greater London Council and").
The noble and learned Lord said: This is an Amendment which is, roughly speaking, designed to achieve a similar objective to that which was envisaged in the last Amendment, but it takes a rather different form. In this case the Amendment seeks to bring in together with the local authorities the council of a county and, in the case of London, the Greater London Council, for certain specific functions. They are set out in the Amendment; namely, those put upon local authorities by Clauses 69 and 73 of this Bill. Both of those clauses impose upon local authorities the duty of, in effect, researching into and monitoring data with regard to emissions into the atmosphere, and, in one case, furnishing the results to the Secretary of State.
The case for this proposal is as follows. To begin with, one of the arguments I used in support of the last Amendment is relevant to this; namely, that an emission in the area of one authority may manifest its results in the area of another. Both areas may be within the area of a county council, with the result that in a situation of that sort the county council, I submit, could deal much more effectively than the two separate local authorities. But there are other and additional
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arguments in support of the proposal contained in this Amendment. As I have said, the duty in this case constitutes, in effect, research, monitoring, ascertaining and checking the meaning of data relating to given emissions. That must occasion a lot of expense and must require expensive equipment. In the first place, the instrumentation, the actual machinery used, may be very expensive and complex. In the second place, the utilisation of the results of that instrumentation may render it desirable that the results should be ascertained and investigated by specialised scientific staff. Those considerations point to the desirability of a larger authority being brought to the task which is imposed on the local authorities at the moment by Clauses 69 and 73.
There are a number of subordinate arguments and I will take one as an example: if tests—known as particulate counts—which are extremely valuable and necessary in this context, are undertaken, they should be undertaken by combined laboratory services which can be brought into being and operated by the larger authorities, but which are rather outside the scope and resources competence of the local authorities. At the moment, I believe it is the policy that these particulate counts should be utilised only in exceptional circumstances. The meaning of the expression, "particulate count", is apparently that the number of particles of a given pollutant substance in a given volume of atmosphere are counted. That is a test which can be very usefully employed for the purpose of sample tests and also for longer term quality monitoring.
There are other considerations which arise—for example, when planning applications are referred to the Secretary of State. Background information on atmospheric pollution is often vitally important for the purpose of deciding such an application, and there must be an effective system brought into being and maintained for building up a large volume of information on the atmospheric pollution questions that would be required to be answered in a situation when planning applications are so referred. The collection of that data on a systematic basis is a long process. It involves method and organisation and, necessarily, will occasionally require a considerable amount of expense. The short-term case for the

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proposals that I make in the Amendment are that, that being the task, and its successful accomplishment being as important as it obviously is, the appropriate authorities in many cases will be not the district councils but the county councils or the Greater London Council. They will have at their disposal a far wider range of resources in terms of both material and personnel, and for those general reasons I beg to move this Amendment.
7.39 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, argues his case with his customary persuasiveness. I would not attempt to rebut any of it except to suggest that we must not talk about the counties as higher and the districts as lower authorities: we are dealing with two different authorities.
LORD STOW HILL: I hope that I did not do that; if I did, I certainly withdraw it.
BARONESS WHITE: The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will surely agree that one has a much wider area than the other.
LORD SANDFORD: I would confirm once again that if in a particular case the circumstances set out by the noble Lord were to apply, then the districts concerned could agree to combine. They could agree together to invite a particular county council to act as their agent and do all the things which the noble Lord said a county council might be better fitted to do than a district or even a combination of districts. Once again, all the arrangements which the noble Lord rightly said might well apply in a particular case of districts combining and a county council acting as their agent in respect of some of these functions can be done within the frame work provided in the Local Government Act. I hope the Committee will agree that it is better to rely on that rather than making specific provision in this Bill.
BARONESS WHITE: Can the noble Lord give us some assurance that even if we do not attempt to amend this Bill and rely on the provisions for agency in the Local Government Act, nevertheless the Department will look seriously at this? There are circumstances—London is the most obvious case in point but it applies to the big industrial conurbations in other places—where it would be far more intelligent to use the services of the larger
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authority (not the higher authority) to perform these functions. From the information that we have, particularly in the London position, it appears to me that there are certain functions which will not be adequately carried out unless they are carried out over a much wider area than any single London borough commands. The same would be true within the metropolitan counties. We are genuinely concerned about this, because the whole policy of monitoring emissions to the atmosphere is likely to be far less good than it could be unless the Department gives guidance in fairly strong terms on these matters.
I do not know what my noble and learned friend feels about pressing this Amendment, but before we decide what we want to do with it I think we should hear rather more from the Government as to how far they have considered this matter. I have little doubt that they have received representations at some time or another on this problem. We are all agreed that monitoring emissions to the atmosphere is much more complicated and expensive than monitoring effluents in rivers—in general terms at any rate—and the kind of equipment that is required is more sophisticated and much more expensive in most instances. Also, trained staff is likely to be very scarce. So from every point of view, in the built up and highly industrialised areas there is a great deal to be said for this to be done on a much wider basis than borough or district councils. I should like an indication from the Government that they are going to take this seriously.
LORD SANDFORD: Certainly, but I think the main point is that the district councils are going to take it seriously, and I should have thought that on top of all the considerations which the noble Baroness referred to there are the economic ones. No authority is going to spend money doing things on its own which it can do more economically and more effectively in combination with others. I should like to confirm, in response to what the noble Baroness was saying, that I was answering the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, with a hypothetical case, but the fact is that district councils are already co-operating in the discharge of their clean air functions. The London Boroughs Association is another organisation ready to hand for the

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London boroughts and is serving in this capacity. The G.L.C. is also acting as the agent of some of the London boroughs in respect of other functions. This is something which is already happening.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I cannot see what possible disadvantage there would be in including the words as set out in the Amendment. I hope that the Government will look at this again. The object of the Amendment is to make it possible for a county other than London to combine with the Greater London Council. Frankly, I think the attitude of the Government on this is not understandable. It seems to me that they are over-sensitive about matters like this. I think the Amendment has considerable merit and as my noble friend has indicated, there is a feeling in the Greater London Council that there ought to be provision of the nature for which the Amendment provides.
LORD SANDFORD: The principle for which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, was arguing was entirely acceptable to the Government; namely, that there should be scope for district councils to combine together and for county councils to act as their agent. I accepted the force of his argument, but I went on to say that provision for all this to be done is in Section 101 of the Local Government Bill, but the noble and learned Lord did not make that point. The Amendment would provide duplication in legislation and this, I think the Committee will agree, could lead to confusion and not to the clear and precisely defined chain of responsibilities which is maintained under the various co-operative schemes provided for in the Local Government Bill.
LORD STOW HILL: I am very grateful to the Minister. I would ask permission of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment on this occasion with the proviso that I should like to reflect carefully on what the Minister has said in case, on thinking it over, we thought it desirable to return to the matter on Report stage. As he pointed out, under Clause 74 the county councils are specifically excluded and I propose a new jurisdiction, which is a current jurisdiction, as he has said. But I do not wish
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to prolong the matter at this moment. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 74 agreed to.
Clauses 75 to 79 agreed to.
Clause 80 [Rights of entry and inspection, etc.]:
7.48 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 197:
Page 81, line 6, after ("by") insert ("virtue of").
The noble Baroness said: Before moving this Amendment I should say that I did of course go back to read very carefully all that was said on a previous occasion on a somewhat similar Amendment to Clause 23. I would assure the Committee that the circumstances in each case are different. The Amendment is to attach the power of entry to functions which are conferred not by the Act itself but by the regulations which will be made under the Act. Unless these words are included this would not be clear. It is to clarify this point that they are suggested. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: I thought we had agreed to drop all references to "virtue" in this Act, but I accept the assurance given by the noble Baroness that "virtue" is required in this particular case. I see her point; it is not a direct authority, but an indirect authority. Therefore perhaps we ought not to object too strongly.
Clause 80, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 81 agreed to.
Clause 82 [Power of authorities to obtain information]:
7.50 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 198:
Page 83, line 3, after ("furnish") insert ("to").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move this Amendment. It is a drafting Amendment. I regret to say that a word was left out.
LORD AIREDALE: This is indeed only a drafting Amendment. This is what happens, is it not, when you use an odd verb like, "furnish," when what you

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really mean is "supply" or "provide"? I notice that in Clause 70 we have a mixture of terms. In subsection (1) we have,"… local authorities may by notice require the owner … to furnish … information …". Then when you get to Clause 70(3) there are these words: "A person … shall not be obliged to supply any information …". Then in subsection (8), we are back to the furnishing of information. Why does not the draftsman decide which is the applicable verb with which to describe the supply of information, and keep to it throughout? If you swap about and use different verbs, you lose prepositions on the way; and then you have to have drafting Amendments.
BARONESS YOUNG: I have certainly taken note of the points that the noble Lord has just made. I take it from what he has said that he is not very happy about the verb "furnish", but that he agrees that the Amendment, given that that particular word is in this clause, should stand to make it clear. Perhaps I may read carefully what he has said, and consider whether or not we should do anything further about it.
On Question, Whether Clause 82, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STOW HILL: On this clause, I should like to make a similar comment to those that other noble Lords, and I myself, have made with respect to other aspects of it. Is it really necessary to draw Clause 82(1) in the very wide terms in which it is drawn? Noble Lords will see that:
"a relevant authority may serve on any person a notice requiring him to furnish the authority … any information so specified which the authority reasonably considers that it needs for the purposes of any function conferred on the authority by this Act."
If anybody does not furnish that information without having a reasonable excuse for not so doing, then he is guilty of a criminal offence, and is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £400. I seek to submit that it is not desirable to draw the ambit of criminal offences as widely and imprecisely as that. It is left to the authority to form a view, which I agree must be a reasonable view, as to what information it requires for the purpose of any function imposed upon it throughout this long Act. It has to form
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a reasonable view; it cannot be a whimsivcal or capricious view, it has to be reasonable. But what a sensible person thinks is reasonable is very, very wide in scope. Here is a local authority given power, subject to the threat of criminal remedy, to hold any subject of Her Majesty under the obligation of furnishing, as I have said, this wide range of information for the purpose of any of the functions of the authority. I have not put down an Amendment for that, but I respectfully submit that this is a point which should be watched.
I hope that the noble Baroness will say that she will take this back and consider, between now and the Report stage, as to whether this is not an occasion when the terms of the Bill are really unnecessarily widely drawn, bearing in mind, if she will, that we are here dealing with a potential criminal offence. We are, I should have thought, always most careful in framing our legislation to draw the ambits of the scope of criminal conduct clearly and as narrowly as is reasonably possible. In this case I submit that principle has not been complied with. I ask the noble Baroness to say that she will consider it further with her advisers before the Report stage.
BARONESS YOUNG: I will certainly study very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has said on this matter. It may be helpful to the Committee if I explain the reasoning behind the clause. He has made the criticism that it has been drawn very widely and that this might well be interpreted as giving local authorities power to do quite extensive numbers of things. My understanding of it is that authorities may require information in connection with many of their functions in the Bill; but if they cannot point to a relevant function the powers in the clause are not available. The kind of detailed information which they want to collect is, for instance, information about trade and industrial waste on premises in order to prepare a waste disposal plan, as in Clause 2; water authorities might require information about effluents and discharges; local authorities might require information relating to noise in Part III of the Bill; the relevant authority might also require information for enforcement purposes—for example, about the ownership of premises or vessels; and information required for

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the purposes of Part IV would be obtainable under the more detailed provisions of Clause 7. I should add that Clause 82(2) enables the Secretary of State to restrict the categories of information for which local authorities can ask. I think probably this is the point which will meet the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. As I have said, I will certainly read carefully what he has said, but I hope that I have said enough to reassure him on the point.
LORD STOW HILL: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said. May I make just this one comment? If the Secretary of State can, by regulations, limit the type of information for which the local authority may ask, why on earth cannot this House and another place, Parliament as a whole, do precisely the same thing that the Secretary of State is now being empowered to do? If it is possible to limit by regulation the type of information which the local authority may require, why on earth cannot the limitation be spelt out in the terms of the Statute?
BARONESS YOUNG: My understanding of this is that the provisions, which would be made by regulation, would be very detailed indeed. I should have thought they would not be suitable for inclusion in the Statute. That is why they would be provided in this particular way.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I hope the noble Baroness will pay serious attention to what my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill has been saying because as the Bill is worded at the present time it does give local authorities very wide powers. It is always nice to be granted wide powers because it means one does not have to come back later and ask for anything else, and one does not have to specify in advance the powers needed. This is the kind of thing which any person wanting to draft a Bill likes to include in this general way because it makes life so much easier later. But easier for whom? Easier for the authority. The authority, we like to think, is some very high person or group of people; but in fact the authority may be an office boy, some relatively junior person, who thinks
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it is necessary or useful to have a certain kind of information—perhaps he wants to know the colour of a door of a house, or something like that. So this information is asked for.
This is the type of request which I should have thought we should not encourage, and therefore we ought to pay careful attention to the plea of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, that the matter be considered carefully. The noble Baroness should take the clause back carefully to see whether the powers cannot be more precisely specified. We all suffer nowadays from generality in legislation—generality which is put in because the thinking is not precise enough in the first place. What my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill is asking for is that the thinking be made precise at the present time. I should have thought that the noble Baroness would be acting on behalf of the community if she were to pay close attention to this point and see whether it is not possible to put a more precise definition on the powers.
Clause 82, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 83 [Prohibition of disclosure of information]:
On Question, Whether Clause 83 shall stand part of the Bill?
8.2 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: I take a contrary view about Clause 83. In various Parts of the Bill we have been discussing there are provisions about the disclosure of information, and I find it difficult to accept that one should put in a general clause, Clause 83, which will frighten anybody even possibly from carrying out his public duty in case he might be caught by the vague and unspecific provisions of that clause. After all, we have been arguing throughout our discussions that what we are trying to do is to provide more information to the public, and we are trying to carry out the general philosophy of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. While certain safeguards are necessary, which in the previous Parts of the Bill are almost all by reference to the Secretary of State, who shall arbitrate as to whether or not secrecy is desirable, yet here the Government seem to find it incumbent upon

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themselves to put in exactly the kind of clause which will make people hesitate as to whether they should do anything, and decide it would be more prudent in their own interests not to do anything. It seems to me that provisions are already made in the Bill against disclosure of information; it is prohibited in the different Parts of the Bill. But now you are putting in a very general provision. It seems to me to be against public policy to do this and to be against what I understood to be the spirit of the Government in introducing this legislation.
I can quite understand that this is just the kind of provision that a Department would like to put into the Bill to gather up any possible odd cases they feel they might not have provided for in their earlier drafting. But I believe it would be detrimental to the public interest to include yet another clause in this Bill saying, "Thou shalt not." I repeat: we provided for this at various stages in the different Parts of the Bill with the specific provisions that are made. I do not think that one should now have a general clause tacked on in Part V to enable one to prosecute the odd person who might not fall absolutely within the provisions of Parts I to IV of the Bill. I dislike this clause intensely.
BARONESS YOUNG: I am sorry to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady White, feels that this is an unsatisfactory clause and in any way goes against the spirit of the Bill. One of the provisions which have run right through the Bill, to which she referred, is the publication of a great deal of information which has never been published hitherto. The fact is that under this Bill officers of public authorities will have wide powers to require information from industrialists about pollution, and to enter premises in connection with these various pollution-regulating functions.
This particular clause is designed to protect genuine trade secrets and confidential commercial information about manufacturing processes. It is not intended to inhibit the publication of any information about pollution. If one looks at Clause 83(2) one will see that it explicitly says that any information disclosed in the performance of an officer's duty or
"(ii) in pursuance of Section 69(1)(b)"—
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which provides powers for publication of information about air pollution, or with the consent of the person concerned, or in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State, shall not be penalised. What we have tried to do here is to strike the balance between getting a great deal of information publicly available for the first time and, at the same time, the intention to safeguard a genuine secret. It is for that reason that this provision was put in. But I would assure the Committee that we have provided for disclosure of information in a way that has not been provided for before.
BARONESS WHITE: Will not the noble Baroness agree that in this clause she is bringing in by the back door something which has not been included in Part II of the Bill? There is no reference, I think I am correct in saying, in Part II of the Bill to this phrase to which I have objected already: "any manufacturing process". "Any manufacturing process" is referred to in Part IV; it is not referred to in Part II. Yet it is brought in, as I say, by the back door at the end of this Bill as a phrase which was not included in the substantive clause in Part II. It is now brought in in a way which, as I understand it, would cover Part II. I find this completely reprehensible. If one is trying in Part II to carry out the recommendations of the Environmental Committee on Industrial Pollution, and in so doing one does not use this obnoxious phrase, but then when one gets to the end of the Bill this clause is so drafted that that phrase is brought in, when it would not otherwise apply, I repeat that I find this absolutely reprehensible.
If the Government mean this in Part II, they should have the guts to put it in in Part II, because when one reaches the end of a Bill such as this, these odd parts, one is not so particular about reading right through. One looks at the section of the Bill that concerns one especially. Those concerned with water pollution would naturally concentrate on reading Part II. People would not expect to find this trap in Part V; and yet that is what it is. This is why I am so vehement about it. I think it is dishonest. I think that if the Government really want to put this into Part II they should do so and have it debated in Part II in its proper context—we would certainly vote passionately against it if it were put into Part II.

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It may be that this Bill has been drafted by various hands and the people who drafted Part II may not have been fully aware of what was going to happen under Part V. But this goes completely against the declared intentions of the Government and I take the strongest possible exception to it. I do not propose at this moment to move to delete this clause because I think it is only fair, as I did not give notice, that the noble Baroness should have a chance to look at it again. If you are putting in clauses in each Part of the Bill to deal with disclosure, then I do not think you ought to have this kind of clause tacked on at the end of the Bill.
BARONESS YOUNG: May I try once again on this point. There are four different Parts of this Bill. Clause 4(8) requires an open register for disposal licences; Clause 34, which I think is the reference to Part II to which Lady White is referring, requires an open register of discharge conditions and of samples of effluent; and Clause 56(7) requires an open register of noise levels in noise abatement zones. I think it is unfair to suggest that there is somehow something wrong by including this clause at the end; that we are in any way going back on what we have said. We stand by these provisions that we have made and, as I have tried to indicate, this is striking the balance on the point of a trade secret. I should of course have said originally that we have already agreed at an earlier stage to look at the point about "manufacturing process" and whether or not this should be deleted, so this would remove those words from the clause later on. But it would leave, of course, the question of a trade secret. I would assure the Committee that there is no intention to do anything to slide something in at a late stage. It is really a matter of holding the balance.
LORD AIREDALE: Is there not a Parliamentary device of saying in the various clauses to which Clause 83 applies: "subject to what is provided in section 83"? Then people are in that way put on their guard and look forward in the Bill to Clause 83 to see whether it affects the particular clause at which they are looking at the time. That is a possible answer to this problem.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: There is a logical difference between Part II and Part IV in that when there is a liquid effluent in Part II the samples can normally be taken at the outflow of the works, whereas when one is dealing with pollution of the atmosphere one must go into the works. Therefore I should expect to see the practices allowed in Part IV to be different from those in Part II. It seems to me that this covers the additional point that if people are going through processes in the works and have to go into the works and right through the process in order to get the proper information, they are covered, whether they are dealing with pollution of the air or pollution of water.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I am not quite sure of the propriety of my intervention, but the noble Earl has just said that one would have to go into the works to ascertain whether the actual atmosphere had been polluted or not. That is entirely incorrect. It would be perfectly possible to measure pollution from the outflow, shall we say, at the top of a tall chimney, to ascertain whether a certain quantity of, for instance, sulphur dioxide were being emitted. It is not necessary to go into the works in order to do this; it is something that can be done automatically. However, I am going to argue that point on a later Amendment standing in my name.
Clause 83 agreed to.
Clauses 84 to 87 agreed to.
8.12 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 199:
After Clause 87 insert the following new clause:
Duty to have regard to needs of agriculture
". In the exercise of their functions under this Act it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State and all authorities to which this Act applies to have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry and to the economic and social interests of rural areas."
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Henley I beg to move Amendment No. 199. The wording of this proposed new clause follows very closely indeed the wording of Section 37 of the Countryside Act 1968. When new works are proposed, such as for instance the provision of a dump for

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waste disposal or a new sewage works, the tendency is that the townspeople, on whose behalf largely the work is to be done, are in large numbers strongly in favour of it; but the country people, who will have to live with this new arrival, possibly almost on their doorsteps, will be very much less enthusiastic. They will also say to themselves, "Our voices ranged against the enthusiasm of the townspeople are not going to make much impact".
It is with some crumb of comfort for the country people that this proposed new clause is suggested, providing as it does that the authorities concerned in cases of this kind shall:
"have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry"—
which largely provide the livelihood of the country people—and have regard
"to the economic and social interests of rural areas."
I believe that there is always at the back of the minds of country dwellers a fear that the local townspeople will always be able to outvote them and to do things which are perhaps in the best interests of the townspeople but not in the best interests of the people living in the country. It is on behalf of the country dwellers that I beg leave to insert this new clause into the Bill. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: I have listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has said in speaking on behalf of his noble friend and I am glad to have a further explanation of the reasons he wanted to table this Amendment. Clearly it is desirable that everyone should have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry and to the economic and social interests of rural areas. This is in a sense, as he rightly said, rather similar to a kind of declaratory statement on these points about the environment. In all these problems, which are recognised to be difficult problems, we have to see how far we can control or regulate a particular form of pollution. It will depend to a great extent on the technical and economic factors of the case and will almost always involve striking a balance between the needs of industry or agriculture or forestry, or indeed whatever activity is in question.
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We can only give the assurance, which I have done at various stages of these Committee proceedings, that we believe that the new local authorities and regional water authorities, who will be largely responsible for many of the provisions of this Bill, will be strong and important democratic bodies. In the case of the new local authorities I should have thought and hoped that one of the principal benefits that will accrue from the Local Government Act would be authorities that unified and brought together representatives of both town and country into one organisation, so that they would have the opportunity to debate in a proper setting the different needs of their area. Also, of course, during the passage of the Water Bill there was considerable discussion about the composition of the regional water authorities, and the Government revised their original plan and gave local authority members a majority—albeit a majority of one, but nevertheless a majority—on these bodies. We believe that they must be expected to behave responsibly and to consider the different needs of each area.
I can only say that although I think it is very important and I fully appreciate the arguments used by the noble Lord, it could well be that in our towns and cities authorities will face in a very acute form the dilemma of a vigorous anti-pollution campaign which could possibly imperil jobs. There is some evidence of this in other places. So I think the argument is not entirely on the side of concern for the rural authorities; I think one could have concern for both. But what I hope I have indicated to the noble Lord is that we believe that in this Bill we are giving powers to responsible authorities who will be used to dealing with planning applications and considering and weighing in the balance of their deliberations all the various points which will arise in their particular areas.
BARONESS WHITE: For the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I do not feel that we could support this new clause as it stands. She is quite right in saying that one can have positions of very genuine difficulty in industrial areas as well as in rural areas, and so far as the Bill is concerned, in the regulatory and negative sense agriculture is very well treated indeed, because anything that

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can go by the name of "good agricultural practice" as applied by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, lets one out.
I think the Bill is defective on the more positive side, in relation to which, as I suggested in one of our earlier debates, other countries make some financial contribution to the farmers in the way of providing expensive plant which a farmer might not feel justified in providing for himself, but which can make a great difference to the impact of certain agricultural processes on the countryside and on the amenities thereof. France is a case in point. I am trying to collect further information about this; I have not yet succeeded in doing so. I should have thought that in the context of this Bill possibly some more imaginative policy of that kind would go some distance to meet the kind of sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. For the reasons I have given, I do not feel one can distinguish in the sense proposed by this clause between the agricultural and the industrial areas. I should be very much interested if at some later stage the Government could indicate that they are having some constructive and imaginative thoughts on ways in which they can reconcile agricultural interests with environmental and amenity interests.
LORD AIREDALE: I am grateful to both noble Baronesses who have taken part in what has proved to be an interesting discussion. I was not instructed to go to the stake for this Amendment, so I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 88 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Alteration of penalties]:
BARONESS YOUNG: I beg to move Amendment No. 200, which simply corrects a drafting error.
Amendment moved—
Page 97, line 43, leave out ("section 20") and insert ("section 24").—(Baroness Young.)
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 89 [Power to prohibit or restrict the importation and use etc. of injurious substances]:
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 201:
Page 87, line 18, at end insert ("or land").
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment seeks to include land with the other elements of air and water, because it seems to me that there will be conditions in which land also may be polluted. We are thinking particularly of pesticides and such substances, the effects of which can be very long-lasting. We feel that if we are legislating in this comprehensive way it is surely desirable at least to give the Secretary of State power to make regulations, if he so wishes, to make certain that substances of a kind which might have very long-term damaging effects are not used. This was the reason for putting down this Amendment. I cannot see any objection to it. If it is not necessary, the Secretary of State of course is not required to make the regulations. But it seems to me that one ought at least to include all the principal elements. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: I was very interested to know what example the noble Baroness, Lady White, would give when she moved the Amendment. When we looked at this particular part of the Bill the kind of example we had in mind was the curious foaming effect of a particular form of hard detergent. I entirely agree with her that we should put in the words "or land", and I am happy to accept the Amendment.
8.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 201A:
Page 87, line 21, leave out from ("consult") to end of line 21 and insert ("such persons or such organisations appearing to him to be representative of those persons").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 201A. This deals with the people whom the Secretary of State has to consult before he makes any regulations in connection with this clause. At present he is required,
"to consult persons appearing to him to represent persons whose activities are likely to be prohibited or restricted .."

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I suggest that he may want to consult persons including a company or organisation. This Amendment would give him greater scope and would bring the consultation into line with that provided for in other parts of the Bill. With the Amendment, the subsection would read:
"… to consult such persons or such organisations appearing to him to be representative of those persons whose activities are likely to be prohibited or restricted by the proposed regulations".
I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: I think it might be helpful to the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, if I explained why the clause is drafted in the way it is. The clause is concerned with an emergency situation which might arise where a substance was threatening serious pollution damage, and it is so drafted because it is impossible to predict before an emergency arises who might be the appropriate persons to consult. They may be represented by a professional or trade body, or there may be no such organisation and it may be necessary to consult representative individuals. The present wording covers both situations, because the expression "a person" in any Act includes a body corporate. That is provided for by Section 2(1) of the Interpretation Act 1889. On the other hand, if the noble Earl feels merely, as I think he was suggesting, that this Amendment could do no harm, we believe there could be a situation in which it might cause some difficulty. For example, if some unusual organisation turned up which was neither a person nor a body corporate, then if it was missed out in this consultative process the regulations might have to be withdrawn. The fact is that it would be the intention of the Secretary of State to consult all the appropriate organisations, where they exist, as well as the individuals, and I hope that with that assurance the noble Earl will withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I quite see that there are many different circumstances in which this might apply. In some cases it might be most appropriate to consult with an organisation first, as representatives of the people in that particular industry or trade, but with the assurance by the Government
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that the regulations would cover this, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 201B:
Page 87, line 33, leave out ("fourteen") and insert ("twenty-eight").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 201B. This is related to the same subsection. I suggest that 14 days is not sufficient time to allow persons to make representations in writing to the Secretary of State about prohibiting or restricting the import or use of specific materials. The persons concerned will often be small firms who may have their activities restricted, or even terminated, by the regulations. Indeed, they have useful information about the materials in question. This Amendment provides for the extension of the period to 28 days, which seems to be the minimum necessary to allow proper representations to be made. Almost certainly the top management of the company will be mainly involved, and anything less than 28 days would seem to make things extremely difficult. I would point out that in an earlier debate on Clause 29(1)(c) I moved an Amendment to reduce to 25 days a period of six weeks during which time a person might make representations against an application for a consent to discharge. This was resisted by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on the basis that six weeks was a reasonable time to enable representations to be made. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that in this case 14 days is really too short a time, and that in asking for 28 days I am being moderate. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: I hope that I can again give the noble Earl an assurance on this point. The kind of situation we are talking about in this clause is an emergency situation, or a situation in which there is some nuisance from pollution, and it may be necessary for the Secretary of State to act very quickly. That is the reason the period of 14 days has been written in as the period for objection. If the noble Earl looks at it he will see that it is a period of "not less than 14 days", because we do not imagine that we ought to allow longer than this as the period for objection. Clearly, it would not be our intention to

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rush through regulations if there were not sufficient cause, but if there were some kind of immediate danger or threat then it would be necessary to do something very quickly. I hope that I have said enough to meet the general point, and that the noble Earl will understand the necessity for this particular wording.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: So long as it is accepted that the proposed period of 14 days will be regarded as one that would be applied only if there were a real emergency, and that in any more normal circumstances at least 28 days should be allowed, I shall be pleased to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 89, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 90 [Disposal of waste etc. by Atomic Energy Authority]:
On Question, Whether Clause 90 shall stand part of the Bill?
8.31 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: I venture to offer a criticism with regard to this clause on rather the same lines as the criticism I directed against Clause 82; namely, the wide terms in which it is drawn. Periodically throughout this Bill the language has been much too wide. Your Lordships may remember at an earlier stage that some noble Lords were very concerned at what appeared in Clause 4(7); that is, "the doing of any other thing whatsoever …". I submit that this is another case in which the language is unjustifiably wide. Clause 90(b) enables the Atomic Energy Authority,
"to do anything which appears to the Authority to be appropriate for the purpose of exercising the powers conferred on the Authority by the preceding paragraph."
The preceding paragraph, paragraph (a), requires that the Atomic Energy Authority shall engage,
"in such activities relating to the treatment or disposal of waste and other matter as the Secretary of State may from time to time specify by notice given to the Authority;"
Those are wide terms of reference in themselves; the Secretary of State may tell them what to do. In addition to any other powers which the Atomic Energy Authority derives from other legislation—and they are pretty extensive—now one finds in Clause 90(b) that the Authority
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is empowered to do anything (I underline the "anything") which appears to the Authority to be appropriate for the purpose of dealing with waste.
Surely language like that is very difficult to justify. It is much too wide. Why do not the Government seek to spell out in the terms of this Bill the powers which the Authority actually may exercise? Under this general power, is the Authority to be able to say to itself: "We have a right, if we think it appropriate, to enter other people's land. We have the right to enter on other people's land and expel the owner from that land"? They might think it appropriate to do that to deal with waste, I do not know. So long as those who form the decisions form them bona fide and without any malice, or anything of the sort, I should have thought it is a decision which is not challengeable by the courts. If they quite unnecessarily enter into somebody else's land for the purpose of disposing of waste with quite inadequate grounds for so doing, so long as they act bona fide they do not commit a trespass and the owners, at least, could not sue them. All they have to do is think it appropriate. The decision as to whether the action is appropriate is not left to the courts; it is left to the Atomic Energy Authority and its officials. Those officials may do their level best, but they may form a completely unreasonable judgment in a given case as to what is, and what is not, appropriate for the purpose of enabling them to discharge their powers under this clause.
That really is bad drafting. I do not criticise Parliamentary Counsel, but I submit that this is entirely wrong in principle. I know that it takes time, but Parliament should spell out what the authority is to be enabled to do when dealing, for example, with the property of the private citizen. It should not be given a blanket power of this sort. I ask the noble Baroness to say that between now and the Report stage she will give further consideration to this to see whether the citizen cannot be informed, even if in fairly broad terms, what it is that the Authority is now being empowered to do for the purpose of carrying out these functions.
BARONESS YOUNG: As I always do, I have listened with great care to the points made by the noble Lord. It may

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be helpful to the Committee if I explain the purpose of this clause. It is to give the Secretary of State power to ask the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to undertake work in relation to the treatment and disposal of wastes. In the past, the Toxic and Hazardous Materials Group at Harwell has developed, under Department of Trade and Industry sponsorship, into an advisory and consultancy service on problems of waste disposal, and particularly relating to hazardous industrial wastes. This service is now being widely used by local authorities and private organisations, in many cases on a fee paying basis. I think that the important point is that it clearly fulfils a current need which can only grow with the proposed responsibilities for local authorities. The service will concentrate particularly on the problems of hazardous or toxic wastes mainly arising from industry. These are new fields for local authorities, and the Harwell service is particularly well placed to advise on the more sophisticated skills that will be needed both in surveying wastes arising from the industrial sector and in analysing particular disposal problems, preparing plans, developing new disposal techniques and storing information.
The clause is primarily intended to permit the development of the Hazardous Materials Service at Harwell, but it is drawn widely enough to enable other United Kingdom Atomic Energy Establishments to participate if it is considered appropriate. It may be helpful to the Committee to know that the Hazardous Materials Service, as currently developed, consists of three integral parts. There is a disposal service, which provides a consultancy service, and undertakes appropriate longer-term research and development without immediate commercial returns; the industrial waste enforcement bureau, which provides an advisory service to subscribers and others, based on a monthly information bulletin, and the supporting data bank on many aspects of toxic materials and waste disposal; also a chemical emergencies service, which is a long-stop support for the Chemical Industries Association's scheme to provide advice and assistance for the emergency services in the event of freight accidents
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involving dangerous chemicals, including wastes.
I have explained this at some length because these are serious problems in the disposal field, and it is enormously helpful to the Government, but quite particularly to local authorities, to have the benefit of the advice which such an establishment as that at Harwell can give. The clause is included to enable this advice to continue to be given. I will look at the points the noble Lord has raised, to see whether or not we have so drafted the clause that there could possibly be some doubt as to what they ought to be doing, and whether or not they have too much power. I have explained this at length to assure the Committee that we believe the intention to be one that would meet with the support of everybody interested in promoting scientific research into particularly the disposal of toxic wastes.
LORD AIRDALE: What the noble Lord is concerned with is the width of power which is given when it is a blanket provision empowering an authority to do whatever it thinks appropriate. If the power was to do what it considers necessary, some people would say that it is much too wide a blanket power to give; but if it is not even confined to what is necessary and is a blanket provision empowering the authority to do what it thinks appropriate, that surely seems far too wide a blanket power to confer.
LORD STOW HILL: I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, for what he has said and I entirely agree with him. May I thank the noble Baroness for her answer, but respectfully put to her that although it was most interesting and informative it did not deal with the point that I raised. Does she think, for example, that Atomic Energy Authority officials could invade some private property, tell the owner to clear out and stay out for a month, without notice and without paying any compensation? Does she think that that would be within the scope of the language? My complaint is that the language is too wide. Obviously, the Authority must have powers—I do not complain in the least of that—but, so far as is practicable, the powers should be spelled out in the Bill that we are now considering, and not be left in this generic form which leaves the ordinary

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private citizen in a state of almost total ignorance as to what he may have to put up with in a given set of circumstances.
BARONESS YOUNG: I have already indicated to the Committee that I will certainly look carefully at this point. I should have thought that circumstances such as the noble and learned Lord foresaw were exceedingly unlikely to arise, because we are talking here about a research establishment. But as I said, I will look at the point.
Clause 90 agreed to.
Clause 91 [Adaptation of enactments to metric units]:
8.42 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 202:
Page 88, line 34, leave out from ("1906") to ("or") in line 35.
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment deletes as unnecessary the reference to the Alkali, &c., Works Regulation (Scotland) Act 1951. That Act enables the Secretary of State for Scotland by order to extend or amend the list of noxious or offensive gases in Section 27 and the list of registrable works in Schedule 1 to the Alkali &c., Works Regulation Act 1906. Reference to the 1951 Act was made in Clause 91 (1) in order to bring it within the scope of the powers of the clause for the metrication of instruments made under it. The effect of such instruments, however, was simply to extend or amend the substantive lists (of both gases and works) in the 1906 Act itself and these provisions already fall within the terms of the clause. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: I believe that, strictly speaking, I am precluded by the Addison Rules from discussing this Amendment, because I am Deputy Chairman of the Metrication Board. Nevertheless I shall be greatly obliged if the noble Baroness will confirm that because this subsection covers the Act of 1906 it is not necessary to worry ourselves about the Scottish Act of 1951.
BARONESS YOUNG: The point of this Amendment is that the 1951 Act is already covered.
Clause 91, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 92 [Orders and regulations]:
8.43 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendment No. 202A:
After Clause 91 insert the following new Clause:
Prescription of rational standards as to noise levels and air and water quality
For the purposes of minimising noise and the pollution of air and water the Secretary of State shall from time to time prescribe national standards and objectives pertaining to acceptable noise levels and to air and water quality.
The noble Lord said: Subsection (2) of Clause 91 states:
"Any amendments made in pursuance of the preceeding subsection shall be such as to preserve the effect of the provisions mentioned in that subsection except to such extent as in the opinion of the Secretary of State is necessary to obtain amounts expressed in convenient and suitable terms."
The words, "amounts expressed in convenient and suitable terms mean nothing if those amounts are not enforced. It is irrelevant to say that the quantity of sulphur dioxide being emitted from a chimney shall be X grammes per 100 cubic feet of gas, or whatever unit is decided upon, if the quantity emitted is not enforced, and you cannot enforce any definition of what is a noxious quantity unless there is power to measure it. We have therefore put down this Amendment which asks that,
"… the Secretary of State shall from time to time prescribe national standards and objectives pertaining to acceptable noise levels and to air and water quality."
This is the sort of point which my noble friend Lady White mentioned earlier, when she was talking about honesty in legislation. It is no good legislating if you do not define the quantities of pollution which are unacceptable. For this reason, we are asking that the Secretary of State shall prescribe national standards.
It may be argued that it is impractical to suggest that there shall be not more than a certain amount of chlorine, of cyanide or of sulphur dioxide, and that the oxygen level shall be at a certain point. I consider that such standards are enforceable and I speak from a certain amount of personal study of work done in Canada for the purpose of controlling pollution in the Great Lakes, which is a very major problem. Having

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defined your standards, it is quite possible to monitor them. You have to start with a sensor, and sensors can measure either the statements of the President of the United States or the level of oxygen in the Great Lakes of North America. Having monitored the effluents by sensors, you can automatically record the levels on tapes, and can even devise machinery—which I myself have seen—which will automatically warn the police by radio emissions when pollution reaches a certain stage. If this mass of material which we have been discussing is to mean anything, the Secretary of State must define levels of pollution and must find means of enforcing them. We shall not need masses of inspectors. We can have some very simple machines consisting of sensors, recorders and automatic alarms which will tell us whether pollution is taking place, and steps can immediately be taken to stop it. That is the reason for the Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD ENERGLYN: I should like to support my noble friends in asking for the insertion of this new clause, because I feel that many people will say that certain standards cannot be easily attained and that many of them cannot be quantified. It had been my intention to put down a somewhat similar clause on much broader lines, to take account of the preservation of things which cannot be easily quantified, such as historic, cultural and aesthetic objects, to which no less weight should be given than is given to more commercial and economic considerations.
Under the chairmanship of Professor John Butterfield, Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham University, the environmental studies group have considered the clause in great detail. They would have liked to have a much broader clause dealing with the parameters which the Secretary of State must eventually have in coming to some conclusion regarding the possibilities of preservation. They would emphasise, as indeed many other institutions have, that parameters should be given or should be attained to which one could attach some importance in coming to judgments which are non-commercial and non-economic.
As the Bill has progressed I have been very impressed by the fact that many of these matters have been covered in one
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way or another, and I compliment the Government on that. But as this is a Bill which is destined to set the pattern of our understanding and control of the environment, it will do nothing but good, I suggest, to insert this new clause which has been presented by my noble friends. In giving this support, I think it is relevant to acknowledge at this point, towards the end of this debate, the achievements which industry have already made in repairing the damage which they may have clone to the countryside. This week I was very impressed by the statement of Lord Aberconway as chairman of English China Clays Limited. He stated—and I quote:
"Our activities in conservation and landscaping have been rewarded this year by the winning of two commended awards presented by The Times in conjunction with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors".
This simple statement illustrates to me two important aspects of the spirit which already exists in this country in support of this Bill. It typifies the concern of industry to introduce remedial measures, and also the wide-ranging interests of responsible bodies such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. I have been impressed by their realistic approach to conservation as they are, your Lordships may remember, the acknowledged authorities throughout the world as pioneers in the development of standards of measurements.
During the past decade, members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have been giving very deep consideration, not only to factors such as my noble friend has presented to your Lordships but also to those not easily quantifiable aspects, like aesthetic values, which ought to be protected in the interests of the community. These pioneers in this area of environmental studies are confident that they or some similar body will be able to reach some basis of measurement; and many of them, particularly Mr. Geoffrey Hanscomb of the Royal Institution, have given me, anyway, sufficient evidence to illustrate that this seemingly impossible task can be achieved. So although this may be an oblique kind of support to my noble friends, I appeal to the Government to allow this clause to be inserted into the Bill because it will, I think, help to encourage people in their thinking in this broader and very important field of environmental control.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I am not at all clear what this new clause means, because it refers to
"pertaining to acceptable noise levels and to air and water quality".
It does not say "at the point of emission". Presumably it does not mean the standard of water we drink or the standard of air we breathe: presumably it refers to the standard at the point at which it comes out of the factory. When we come to noise, of course, it is not the noise that comes out of the factory, or the point of the noise, that matters: it is where the noise hits the member of the general public that seems to me to matter. The same applies to air and water quality. I cannot see that this new clause could be right. In any case, if it does refer to the emission of the gas or air or liquid which comes out, surely this has to be adjusted to the environment. Clearly, the effluent that you put into a small stream must be of a far higher quality than the effluent which you put into the sea. In fact, it is for this reason that many factories are situated on estuaries and on the shore close to the sea, so that they can deal with this matter. It seems to me that standards should be developed on specific aspects, such as emissions from motor vehicles and so on, but that to try to develop (if I have interpreted this clause correctly) standards for effluents and emissions irrespective of the part of the country they are made seems to me an impossible dream at this stage.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: If I may reply briefly to the noble Earl, I think that what he is saying is rational. We are not saying in this Amendment that the Secretary of State shall immediately lay down standards but that he should consider the problem and from time to time prescribe national standards. What the noble Earl has said is in fact correct. If we emit X tons per day of sulphur dioxide from the top of a chimney or smoke stack, where is the damage going to fall? In point of fact, in the case I am thinking of it falls in Scandinavia. It is emitted in appalling quantities in the North of England and falls as sulphuric acid in Scandinavia. In terms of good neighbourliness, it may be considered by the Secretary of State from time to time that this is undesirable. Obviously, when the Secretary of State
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defines national standards and objectives he will take scientific advice. Secretaries of State do take advice. Nevertheless, I think legislation is useless unless we are going to define degrees of pollution, find ways of monitoring them and then enforce the legislation. Pollution can be measured only where it is discharged into a stream, where it comes out of a smoke stack or where it comes out of a place of work. You have to monitor it at the point of emission. What happens thereafter is a question for the Secretary of State aided by his or her scientific advisers.
LORD ENERGLYN: May I rise again to support my noble friend? I do not want to treat your Lordships to a scientific discourse, but I should like to assure the Committee that my noble friend is absolutely right. The monitoring devices that we now have are so simple and so reliable that it would seem to me sensible to insert this clause in order to achieve what we are all after; namely, to prevent trouble rather than dispel it after it has taken place. It really matters not where the effluent is to go. Surely it is sensible to have standards at the source, whether it be gas or whether it be water. The monitoring systems that we now have, as my noble friend has pointed out, are very reliable and not expensive, and I think they would give the answer which the Secretary of State must have if he is going to make any attempt at a judgment in any case.
8.59 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: I think those who are interested in problems of the environment probably divide themselves into two groups. There are those environmentalists who very much support the view put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that there should be these national standards laid down. I think this is a viewpoint which has been adopted by other countries in the world, but he will not be surprised when I say to him that it has not been the view in this country that we should achieve an improved environment by laying down nationally these standards for various aspects of the control of environmental pollution. I think the reason for this is that the scientific criteria of the standards alter from time to time as our knowledge becomes more complete. Circumstances change and they vary across the country. It is very much the empirical

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approach that is adopted to problems of this kind.
The argument about which is the right way to deal with these matters has run like a thread through all our discussions. I was re-reading what the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, said on Second Reading. I should have thought that as the Chairman of Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution he was a man with a great deal of experience in these matters. The noble Lord made the point that this Bill does not lay down these hard and fast standards, and he thinks that is a good thing because by discussion we can achieve a continual raising of standards. And after all, that is what we all want to achieve. It is better standards in waste disposal, water pollution, noise and smoke emissions that the Bill lays down. We wish to improve the environment in these respects. We believe the better way to do it is by traditional methods of consultation. Of course the question of measurement arose particularly in respect of the clauses dealing with noise, where we need to measure noise in the noise abatement zones and to keep a record to monitor what these standards are. We believe that this Amendment would not guarantee any improvement in the environment, and if one lays down national standards they can easily become minimum standards whereas by not having a quite specific standard laid down one encourages people to improve.
Having said that, I should say that the Government are always concerned to ensure that acceptable standards are set by relevant local authorities and, in particular, that they are aware of the latest medical and technical information to enable them to carry out their environmental duties satisfactorily. Where appropriate, advisory standards are promulgated and technical help is always available from central Government to local authorities to enable them to tackle particular problems and to secure improvements in standards. I regard that as a very proper way for Government to give advice and to collect information. I cannot accept that legislation would be useless unless we had these national standards, and I think the whole history of the improvement of our environment indicates that the ways of the past have been effective.
BARONESS WHITE: We expected that the noble Baroness would reply in those terms. As she properly said, we have had this thread of discussion throughout our deliberations, whether or not we should continue the philosophy of the best practicable means (I was surprised that the noble Baroness did not use that phrase) or adopt the transAtlantic system particularly of setting standards. I am fully aware, as I think I said on Second Reading, that there are disadvantages in using the American or Canadian ways of dealing with this problem. But what I think my noble friend is trying to do in this proposed new clause is to get the best of both worlds. It would leave the Secretary of State free to alter these proposed standards from time to time, and also the objectives. It is not only standards which are suggested. It might be a long while before the Secretary of State felt disposed to prescribe a national standard, but there is nothing to stop his prescribing an objective which is provided for in the new clause. If one relics exclusively on the best practicable means, it seems to me that very often one does not set a sufficiently stimulating objective for those concerned. For example, I am told that in the case of air quality the World Health Organisation has already advocated a doctrine of national standards and quality. I do not know how far consideration has been given to that by the Government.
What makes it necessary to look again at our additional philosophy in this matter has been stressed eloquently by both my noble friends who have spoken; namely, the great advance made in recent years in the techniques of assessing effluent and emissions of various kinds. Some years ago it would have been fairly unreasonable to make the suggestion contained in this new clause. Nowadays, so I am advised by my scientific friends, it would be regarded as far more reasonable than hitherto, and we might obtain the very best practice if we combined something of both methods, the best practicable means method, the essay on which we are awaiting with impatient interest (it was promised by Mr. Ireland, the Chief Alkali Inspector, in his annual report) and the possible setting out, if not of standards in the first instance, at least of objectives. I do not believe it beyond the wit of man to devise such things, and

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I should be sorry if the Government rejected this idea out of hand.
BARONESS YOUNG: When I spoke originally I indicated that this is a fundamental issue of principle and therefore I think it would be wrong for me to pretend to the Committee that this is the kind of Amendment that we could consider. It was not because I was unaware of that that I did not use the term "best practicable means". It applies to all four Parts of this Bill, and we believe that it has been a very effective method of raising standards. The noble Baroness Lady White, and the noble Lords, Lord Energlyn and Lord Winterbottom, referred to the new technical methods of measurement. All these could be used. They are not precluded from the "best practical means" system of working. One could use all these modern techniques in order to get the best results. But at the end of the day one is driven back to the "best practicable means", because if the industrialists said, "You set this standard and as a result I am going out of business and 5,000 people in this town will be unemployed", a good many people would hesitate. So the standard which might well apply somewhere else could not be applied as a national standard and then it would fall into disrepute. The system of the empirical approach enables one to weigh all these arguments and to judge at the end of the day what is achievable. That is surely what we want to get. This is an important matter of principle and it is only right that the Government's case should be stated fully. That is why I have done this.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: The noble Baroness who has spoken has accepted the seriousness of what we are proposing and the points I have made. I understand that the 1956 Clean Air Act was in many ways an imperfect Act, but it was enforced; and it is because an imperfect Act enforced is a great deal better than a perfect Act not enforced, that I am arguing the case. I know the benefits that the imperfect Act of 1956 has granted to this country because it has been enforced, and I want to see that the same powers of enforcement, which can only he based on measurement, are included in the present Bill. For this
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reason I cannot accept the noble Baroness's explanation.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 92 [Orders and Regulations]:
9.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 202B:
Page 89, line 28, leave out from ("notice") to end of line 30 and insert ("specifying—

(i) a period of not less than 28 days, beginning with the date on which the notice is first published, within which objections to the proposed regulations may be made, and

(ii) the person to whom such objections may be made").

The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 202B which seeks to secure a minimum period of 28 days for a person to object to the proposed regulations which have been made under Clause 23(5). As the regulations made restrict or even prohibit the carrying on of activities in the particular area, it seems right that persons affected should be allowed adequate time to collect and collate information by which they are to decide whether or not they should object. There is a wide variety of periods mentioned in the Bill in rather similar circumstances and I suggest that there should be inserted the period of 28 days which is mentioned here. If a shorter period is fixed, there is always the possibility of objections being made before they have been properly considered. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: In the clause as drafted, it is left entirely to the Secretary of State to specify an objection period in the notice, with no required minimum number of days. We think that where such a significant matter as this is under consideration the objection period will normally be longer than 28 days and certainly it is not unreasonable to specify a minimum period of 28 days. For that reason, I am glad to accept the Amendment.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 203:
Page 89, line 35, after ("held") insert ("in pursuance of section 85 of this Act").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 203. Clause 92(3) requires the Secretary of State to advertise any proposed regulations under Clause 23(5), which designates an area

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within which specified activities may be prohibited or regulated because they are more likely to result in water pollution, to consider any objections before making the regulations and to hold a local inquiry into unsolved objections by prescribed people with a particular concern in the matter. This Amendment ensures that the general procedural powers to hold local inquiries, which are explained in Clause 85, are applied to this particular kind of inquiry. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 203A:
Page 90, line 2, leave out from ("vehicles") to ("and") in line 3 and insert ("furnaces and railway locomotive engines and of fuels used therein")
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this Amendment. In Clauses 66 and 67 the Secretary of State is empowered to make regulations regarding motor vehicles, furnaces and railway locomotive engines, and the fuels used therein. In Clause 92 as the Bill stands at present, the Secretary of State is required to consult
"… manufacturers, producers and users of motor vehicles …"
but not of furnaces and railway locomotive engines.
This Amendment would remedy this omission and, if it is accepted, the words will read:
"… to consult such persons, including persons representative of manufacturers, producers and users of motor vehicles, furnaces and railway locomotive engines and of fuels used therein, and persons conversant with the problems of air pollution, as he thinks appropriate."
BARONESS YOUNG: As the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, has quite rightly said, in another part of the Bill the Secretary of State is empowered to consult various persons. In this particular Part it has not been easy to identify the manufacturers and users of furnaces and railway engines. There is no obvious parallel, for instance, with the A.A. and the R.A.C.; but in considering this matter we wish to consult the Petroleum Industry Advisory Committee and the C.B.I. before making regulations under Clause 67; and to those might well be added the railway engine and furnace manufacturers' associations, together with the British Railways Board, as users. I shall be happy to consider this Amendment and to see which would be the best form of words to use.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I am grateful to my noble friend for that assurance, and, in view of what has been said, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.19 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN THE EARL OF COURTOWN moved Amendment No. 203B:
Page 90, line 6, leave out ("section 71(3)") and insert (" sections 71(3) and 72(2)")
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this Amendment, which is a link with an Amendment I moved earlier, and which was accepted by the Government. Regulations under 72(2) will also greatly affect local authorities and industrial interests, as well as those under 71(3). This Amendment ensures that consultation will take place and it is linked with the Amendment in Clause 72. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: I had understood that the noble Lord had spoken to this Amendment and that we had dealt with it.
9.20 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 204:
Page 90, line 7, after ("authorities") insert ("within the meaning of Part IV of this Act")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 204. Clause 92(5) makes it the duty of the Secretary of State to consult representative local authority and industrial interests before making any regulations under Clause 71(3) concerning appeals against notices requiring information about air pollution. Because county councils have no clear air functions, there is no necessity to involve them in this statutory consultation. The Amendment restricts the ambit of statutory consultation to district and London borough councils.
As I hope I have made clear, this is because county councils and the G.L.C. do not have statutory functions in the clean air field and they and their repretative associations therefore are not in the same position as district councils and London borough councils. It is intended that there should be statutory consultation with them and, if the Secretary of State feels it desirable to bring representatives of the council or G.L.C. into

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the consultations required by the subsection, he may do so. This Amendment is moved in order to get our guidelines right regarding powers of local authorities.
BARONESS WHITE: We can see the point of this Amendment. This is constitutionally correct. But I assume from what the noble Baroness has said that the Secretary of State will pay careful attention to the situation which could arise, as we discussed earlier, where the county or G.L.C. might be engaged as agents, particularly under the clean air provisions, and it would therefore be sensible for such bodies to be consulted. I should have thought that the clause might have been left without tidying it up, but I quite understand that a purist in these matters might have felt it necessary to make the Amendment.
BARONESS YOUNG: I am able to give the assurance that we will meet that point. I hope that I have made it clear that the Secretary of State, where it was thought desirable to consult, either on an agency basis or for other reasons, would do so.
Clause 92, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 93 [Interpretation etc.—general]:
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 205:
Page 90, line 18, at end insert—
(" "owner", except in relation to Scotland, means the person for the time being receiving the rack-rent of the premises in connection with which the word is used, whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for another person, or who would so receive the rack-rent if the premises were let at a rack-rent;")
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment brings into the interpretation clause a definition of "owner", as many aspects of enforcement of the Bill might hinge upon issues of ownership. This definition is based on the similar definition in the Public Health Act 1936 as employed in many other Acts since. There are in fact rather more references in the Bill to "occupiers" rather than "owners" including all the places where "owners" are mentioned, and in addition throughout Part I, and at Clauses 43 and 51(1). There is no similar definition of
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"occupier" because whereas there are many possible definitions of owner there is no such problem with the occupier: only one person will be entitled actually to occupy and use the land. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 206:
Page 90, line 20, leave out ("and").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 206 and I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 207. These Amendments have the effect of transposing a definition of "vessel" from Clause 48 to Clause 93 so as to apply it to the whole Bill instead of just to Part II. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: I should just like to say that I am delighted we have now found the lost hovercraft.
BARONESS YOUNG: I beg to move Amendment No. 207:
Amendment moved—
Page 90, line 22, at end insert ("; and
"vessel" includes a hovercraft within the meaning of the Hovercraft Act 1968").—(Baroness Young.)
Clause 93 as amended, agreed to.
Clause 94 [General application to Scotland]:
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 208:
Page 91, line 28, at end insert—
("(8) In this Act "owner" means the person for the time being entitled to receive or who would, if the same were let, be entitled to receive, the rents of the premises in connection with which the word is used and includes a trustee, factor, tutor or curator, and, in the case of public or municipal property, includes the persons to whom the management thereof is entrusted.")
The noble Baroness said: This is in fact a Scottish Amendment and it is proposed here to insert the definition of "owner". For Scotland, the definition is derived from a similar definition in the Fire Precautions Act 1971 and goes back to the Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: In the absence of any Scottish friends on my side of the

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House, could the noble Baroness please explain what the term "tutor" means in this connection?
BARONESS YOUNG: I had a terrible feeling that I was going to be asked to define all these terms. It came to me just before I moved this Amendment. I think I shall have to end up with an extensive correspondence with the noble Baroness, Lady White, she representing Wales and myself representing England, on how we deal with these Celtic terms.
Clause 94, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 95 and 96 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Minor and consequential amendments of enactments]:
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 209:
Page 101, line 14, at end insert—
(". In section 17(1) of that Act (which sets out the general duties of river purification authorities), at the end there shall be inserted the words "and by the Protection of the Environment Act 1974".")
The noble Baroness said: Section 17(1) of the 1951 Act makes it the duty of river purification authorities to promote the cleanliness of rivers and other waters and to conserve the water resources of their areas and to exercise for these purposes the functions conferred on them by that Act. This Amendment is necessary because many of the functions previously exercised by river purification authorities under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act 1951, notably those relating to consents will now be exercised under the powers in this Bill. This Amendment links the existing general duty to those new functions. I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 210:
Page 102, line 28, leave out ("section 27") and insert ("sections 27 to 33").
The noble Baroness said: Section 10(1) of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act 1965 is concerned with samples of effluent taken in compliance with the conditions imposed under existing Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Acts. The present substitution
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of conditions imposed under Clause 27 of this Bill is too narrow since Clauses Nos. 27 to 33 refer to consents for discharges and the proposed Amendment widens the reference to cover conditions under all the new consent provisions of this Bill.
9.30 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 210A:
Page 102, line 36, after ("25th") insert ("or 26th").
The noble Lord said: This is a very modest Amendment and, since it is modest, reasonable. I hope that it will commend itself to the Minister. I think I can say, and I think it ought to be said, that we on this side recently showed ourselves to be in a very conciliatory mood; indeed, I would say a very accommodating mood. I should think that the reasonableness and modesty of this Amendment are such that it will be accepted as an indication that the spirit of conciliation is still with us. I should hate to have to press this Amendment to a Division because it seems to me so sensible as to not require over-much commendation.
Paragraph 16 of Schedule 3 amends Section 18(1) of the Civic Amenities Act 1967 which requires local authorities to provide places where certain refuse can be deposited at all reasonable times. The effect of the Amendment is to include among these reasonable times at least one period of time on the Saturday or the following day of each week, except the week in which the Saturday is December 25, Christmas Day, or New Year's Day. It seems to me that Boxing Day is not an easy day to persuade people to come out to work. It is regarded by a great number of people as just as much a holiday as Christmas Day itself, or New Year's Day. In fact, I think some people would attach more importance to Boxing Day than to New Year's Day. I am informed by those who are in the business of running local government that it is extremely difficult to persuade people that they ought to come out for work of this nature on Boxing Day. Without speaking further on this matter, I will content myself at this stage with the hope still prevailing that the Amendment will be accepted.
BARONESS YOUNG: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, will feel that I have been reasonable throughout this Bill in trying to meet all the Amendments that we have had. I was quite intrigued when I saw this Amendment down on the Marshalled List to know just what lay behind it. As the noble Lord has said, the Civic Amenities Act 1967 requires local authorities to provide places where residents may deposit refuse, other than trade deposits, free of charge at all reasonable times. The amendment of Section 18 of the Act which is contained in the Bill as drafted refers to the Saturday, or the following day of each week, but goes on to exclude a week in which the Saturday is December 25 or January 1. Authorities would therefore not be required to open the site on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day when they fell on a Saturday and Sunday respectively. The Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, would go further and would relieve authorities from any statutory duty to open the site on the Sunday after Boxing Day, when Boxing Day was on a Saturday.
This is an Amendment that I should like to consider, and if the noble Lord feels I ought not just to say, "I will consider it", but that I will accept it, I should like to go on and say that we are prepared to accept the Amendment in principle and to make a further exclusion in the case of the day after New Year's Day when the latter falls on a Saturday. We propose to put down an Amendment, or, having consulted Parliamentary Counsel, to include a regulation-making power if it is felt the whole matter is rather too detailed for the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will feel I have met his point.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I had a feeling that we were both speaking from the same brief when the noble Baroness was preparing the way to say that she would not only accept the principle of the Amendment but introduce an Amendment which would go a little further. It would indeed be stupid of me, not to say churlish, to refuse to consider what she has said, and I will withdraw the Amendment. May I say that of course we have found the noble Baroness extremely conciliatory. She is one of the most courteous of Ministers to speak from the other
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side, and it is always a pleasure to treat with her in Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Repeals]:
9.36 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 210E:
Page 104, in column 3, line 28, leave out from ("Act") to end of line 31.
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 210E, and should like to discuss with it No. 210F. No. 210B will not be required if the other Amendments are accepted. Earlier in our discussions it was pointed out, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, that in order to have a satisfactory Bill we ought to subsume into it certain other legislation. He was concerned with the Poisonous Wastes Act, as I recall, but I pointed out that we were being left with vestigial remnants of the two Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts of 1951 and 1961 and that it seemed very unsatisfactory not to bring them within the four corners of this Bill. As we have also pointed out, in the Explanatory Memorandum, although we appreciate that it has no legal significance, it was very clearly indicated that this had been the intention of the Government. If I may point out some of the absurdities that would remain if we did not carry these Amendments, we have, for example, in the 1951 Act, Section 11, one definition of "stream", whereas in Clause 48 of the Bill before us, we have another definition of "stream". That seems to me very unsatisfactory.
If one looks at the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1961, and examines the extent of repeal in the third column on page 105, one sees that all that one is left with of that Act is Section 10, dealing with samples of effluent—which, after all, is very much germane to the Bill which is before us; Section 12, which is a peculiarly obnoxious section in its own right—but if we are going to have it at all it should not be left skulking in this Bill but should be brought into the main legislation; and Section 15, sub-section (1) of which says that the Act may be cited as the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1961, and subsection (3) of

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which informs us that the Act shall not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland. It seems to me that we could dispense with all of this. So I hope very much that, in the light of our really most generous and chivalrous co-operation over the new clause, the noble Baroness will see fit to accept these Amendments.
BARONESS YOUNG: The noble Baroness, Lady White, is quite right in saying that we had a long discussion in Part I of this Bill over the Amendment which I think was proposed by my noble friend Lord Amory on the question of consolidating the Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act and the Civic Amenities Act. I indicated in that debate that we would of course consider this whole question of consolidation. I am therefore glad to say that I will do the same in this particular case, which I think the noble Baroness raised earlier, when we said we would discuss it when we came to the matter in the Bill.
BARONESS WHITE: Am I to take it to mean that the noble Baroness in fact accepts my Amendment?
BARONESS YOUNG: I did not say that I accepted the Amendment. As I said to my noble friend Lord Amory, we see the point of it and we will certainly look at it.
BARONESS WHITE: With great respect, that is not good enough. We were conciliatory over the earlier new clause but there is in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Bill—for which, after all, the Government are responsible, even though it does not have the force of law—a quite specific reference to these two Acts which is not included in the other legislation to which the noble Baroness has referred; but so far as these two Acts are concerned it is made perfectly plain that the Government had an intention, although presumably they did not have time to carry it out. Perhaps I may refresh the memory or the noble Baroness in this regard. "Replacing" is the word used. It says:
"… replacing the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts 1951 to 1961 (and the corresponding Scottish Acts)".
I did not presume to go so far as Scotland and I have not been able to consult my Scottish friends on this matter, but when the Government says, in the Explanatory
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Memorandum, that it is their intention to replace these two Acts I cannot understand why the noble Baroness is not in a position to accept this Amendment.
The other legislation to which, as I recall, the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and the noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred, was not specifically referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum and therefore so far as they are concerned I can fully understand that the noble Baroness would wish to take advice. There may be other problems connected with those two Statutes but in this connection it is perfectly plain that the Government intended to do exactly what I am asking them to do. Therefore I really cannot understand why the noble Baroness cannot accept this Amendment. If she were to find that there were particular difficulties over parts of it, then it would be up to the Government to table further Amendments at a later stage. I dare say there are parts of these Acts which ought to be included in this Bill, but that is for the Government to do: it is not the duty of the Opposition. So I really must insist. These Amendments to which I am speaking are carrying out the declared intention of the Government. I hope the noble Baroness will appreciate the points I am making.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: As I understand it, the noble Baroness, Lady White, is speaking to Amendments 210E, 210F and 210B. Is that so?
BARONESS WHITE: As I explained, if the first two Amendments are carried, then 210B is of no consequence.
LORD ENERGLYN: May I support my noble friend Lady White and urge the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to accept the logic of this Amendment. It would remove a lot of tiresome and irritating elements from the Bill.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I am not quite clear about this, but if Amendment 210B is carried then that takes out one section but leaves a substantial part of the Act. As I understand it, Clauses 10 and 12 are complementary to each other and surely one cannot be omitted without the other?
BARONESS WHITE: If the noble Earl will read the first two Amendments he will see that both Acts would be entirely

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repealed and therefore it is for the Government to decide which parts, if any, of those two Acts are really essential for the Bill as it now stands. There will not be any Clause 12 to deal with if the first two Amendments are carried.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: I appreciate that. As we were speaking to all three Amendments, if the first two had not been carried the third would have stood.
BARONESS YOUNG: I certainly did not mean any discourtesy to the noble Baroness, Lady White, when I said that I would be glad to consider these Amendments. I felt we had agreed, when we discussed similar provisions in Part I, that by this I meant we would take them away and hope to bring back Amendments of our own to meet the case. As she feels very strongly about this, I will accept the Amendments, and we shall have to look at them and see what the whole question of consolidation looks like on Report.
BARONESS WHITE: I beg to move Amendment 210F.
Amendment moved.
Page 105, in column 3, line 12, leave out from ("Act") to end of line 13.—(Baroness White.)
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: In view of the fact that Amendment 210F has been agreed to, Amendment No. 210B cannot be moved.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 211:
Page 105, in column 3, leave out lines 15 to 17.
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 211. This repeal is of the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1961. The provisions in question relate to Section 55 of the Public Health Act, 1936, which continues in force, but the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1961, are not wanted. This was originally included in the list of repeals when we had in mind to include provisions relating to the way in which buildings should be constructed so as to provide access for refuse collection et cetera, but subsequently it was decided that it would be better to deal with this in the reformulation of the building regulations to be
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undertaken under the aegis of the recently published Health and Safety at Work Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, Whether Schedule 4, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Anent Schedule 4, briefly, having not spoken much on the Bill, and certainly having no intention to delay the work of both the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and my own noble friend Lady White, who has worked manfully and long on this Bill, may I put in a caveat. Schedule 4 mentions the repeal of paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Radioactive Substances Act, 1960, a Bill upon which I worked in another place. To keep myself in order, I thought this was the appropriate place to make a one-minute comment. I have gone through this very important Bill. We have in Part IV provisions relating to pollution of the atmosphere, and hardly an important point being made about the possibilities in the future of pollution of the atmosphere by radioactivity. To-day's report from the other place on the possibility of buying new reactors is of fundamental importance so far as the health and the future of this country is concerned. I think it is important here to let the Government know that when the opportunity comes we shall have to work very hard indeed to see that the maximum of safety is offered to the public in regard to any new types of reactors for atomic energy that may be introduced, because of their fundamental importance to generations as yet unborn.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 97 [Short-title, commencement and extent.]:
9.49 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE Moved Amendment No. 212A:
Page 92, line 5, leave out ("Protection of the Environment") and insert ("Control of Environmental Pollution")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 212A. Your Lordships may have noticed that we thought we might have found a more felicitous way of expressing our views in the Amendment which now admittedly appears as a starred Amendment on the Marshalled List, and which was simply to alter the order of the words. I was by no

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means the only Member of your Lordships' House who at Second Reading pointed out that to call this Bill the "Protection of the Environment" Bill was really a misuse of words. It is a far narrower Bill than that. I do not mean to say that it is not a good Bill in many respects, but it is, I think, really deceivingly pretentious to suggest that it is a Bill for the protection of the environment.
I am strengthened in this not only by what was said by a number of noble Lords but by correspondence I have received, particularly from scientists in various parts of the country, who have commented on various aspects of the Bill and, almost without exception, have said that the Title is far too wide for a Bill of this kind. If it were subject to the Trade Descriptions Act, I should have thought that the promoters might even conceivably be prosecuted, because it cannot be called a Bill, in general terms, for the protection of the environment because there are so many aspects of the environment that are not dealt with.
The honest Title of the Bill, as we suggest, is Control of Environmental Pollution; and that describes exactly what the Bill does. The Bill is directed exclusively to this question of control of pollution in the various elements. It does not go any wider. I am not objecting to that: it is a perfectly respectable Bill. But why call it something else? It seems to be a bit of gimmickry, or really rather contemptible window-dressing to call a Bill, which cannot possibly meet the description of Protection of the Environment Bill, by such terms. It seemed to us the sensible thing to put down an Amendment which would give an accurate description of what the Bill is about and would not mislead people who have not had an opportunity of following all our debates. It would be much more honest and dignified a Title for a Bill of this nature. It is difficult for a Government who have come forward with a rather grandiose nomenclature like this to withdraw it. They may well feel it is a loss of face. But does that really matter? I can assure the noble Baroness that she and her colleagues will stand far higher in our estimation, not lower, if they accept the Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: It was interesting to hear the noble Baroness refer to the Trade Descriptions Act because that Act was known as the Consumer Protection Bill until the Short Title was changed in this House to "Trade Descriptions Bill". On that occasion we got rid of the word "protection", and this evening the noble Baroness is again trying to get rid of it in a Short Title. I wish her well.
BARONESS YOUNG: I am always anxious to stand somewhat higher in the estimation of the noble Baroness, Lady White. I am not sure that I am going to succeed in doing so on this Amendment. I re-read what she said at Second Reading, and what other noble Lords have said, but I felt on balance that the Bill had received a general welcome from all parts of the House. Whatever I may have thought on this particular point that was made at Second Reading, I feel that all my arguments have been reinforced after we have worked extremely hard on eight full Committee days on this Bill. To say that it is rather narrow in its terms, that its Title is mere window-dressing, and that it is doing nothing for the environment, makes me wonder what we have been doing through all these Amendments if we were not dealing with matters designed to protect the environment.
I started to make a list of all the matters we have raised, but at this late hour I am not sure that the Committee will want me to read them all out. We have gone into a tremendous amount of detail—which I hasten to say I have welcomed—and I think it has been very valuable that this House has been able to give all the time and attention it has done to this matter.
The Bill contains a wide-ranging set of measures designed to secure improved waste disposal, better control of water and air pollution, the abatement of noise and the regulation of potentially harmful substances. These are matters which affect everyone. One may regard the expression "the quality of life" as a very overworked one, but it is a concept which we recognise and we hope that this Bill will go some way towards improving it for everyone. I can see no reason for altering the Title of the Bill, which is descriptive of what it does, and I hope that all of us who have worked so hard—and I can

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certainly address these words to everybody here, because we have worked very hard over these Committee days—will see that this Bill really lives up to its name.
BARONESS WHITE: I am disappointed. I cannot see why the noble Baroness should shy away from the word "pollution," which is what we have been discussing. It is all the aspects of pollution and nothing else that we have been discussing, but if I were to outline the other things which we should have to discuss if we were really to protect our environment we should be here for a very long time. I should hate to deprive the noble Baroness of the opportunity of moving Amendment No. 213, which I would do if we had another Division and did not have 30 people here, so at this stage I do not propose to press this Amendment.
I was extremely interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I had not appreciated the reason why the Trade Descriptions Act came out with a more honest title, and I am sorry that we cannot repeat the performance. The Government would really improve their standing if they accepted an Amend-of this kind. I am not joking now. It is absolutely true that a considerable number of people who have no political interest have written to me asking, "Why in the world is this Bill called by this Title?" It is a point which has struck them. The moment they started to read the Bill they asked, "Why in the world is it called this?" An honest description would be the Control of Environmental Pollution Bill, which is a perfectly reputable Title. I shall not press this Amendment to-night, because that would be rather foolish and we should have to come back on another day in order to take Amendment No. 213. I have some sense of the ludicrous and I do not propose to do that. But the noble Baroness and her advisers should know what we believe. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 213:
Page 92, line 13, leave out ("and 90") and insert ("90 and 92(4)").
The noble Baroness said: I am very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady White, has allowed me to move this Amendment,
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and may I take this opportunity of thanking her for her co-operation in seeing us through this Committee stage. This Amendment extends Clause 92(4) to Northern Ireland. Clause 92(4) governs the consultations which are to take place before regulations are made under Clause 66, which deals with the composition of motor fuel, and since Clause 66 applies to Northern Ireland Clause 92(4) needs to do so as well. I beg to move.
Clause 97, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

  FUTURE OF U.S.A.F. RUISLIP HOSPITAL BLOCK
  FUTURE OF U.S.A.F. RUISLIP HOSPITAL BLOCK
  TONGA TERRITORIAL WATERS
  TONGA TERRITORIAL WATERS
  ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS IN THE NORTH SEA
  ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS IN THE NORTH SEA
  SOVIET CARRIER PROGRAMME AND MONTREUX CONVENTION
  SOVIET CARRIER PROGRAMME AND MONTREUX CONVENTION
  DEPENDENT TERRITORIES AND CONVENTION ENFORCEMENT
  DEPENDENT TERRITORIES AND CONVENTION ENFORCEMENT
  ALLOTMENTS
  ALLOTMENTS
  ENDANGERED SPECIES CONVENTION
  ENDANGERED SPECIES CONVENTION