Sitting of 15 October 1976

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRITS
For Walsall, North, in the room of John Thomson Stonehouse, Esquire (Chiltern Hundreds).—[Mr. Michael Cocks.]
For Workington, in the room of the right honourable Thomas Frederick Peart (House of Peers).—[Mr. Michael Cocks.]
For Newcastle upon Tyne, Central, in the room of the right honourable Edward Watson Short (Manor of Northstead).— [Mr. Michael Cocks.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SEXUAL OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
  11.7 a.m.
  Mr. John Lee Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth) rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to move the amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies), Amendment No. 28, in the place of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who is not present?
  Mr. Lee: I am, Mr. Speaker.

  SEXUAL OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL
    Clause 4

      ANONYMITY OF COMPLAINANTS IN RAPE, ETC. CASES
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 28, in page 5, line 19, after 'trial' insert 'before any conviction'.
      Mr. Speaker: With this we are to discuss the following amendments:
      Government Amendment No. 29.
      Amendment No. 30, in page 5, line 26, at end insert—
      '(4) If at the conclusion of a trial at which any person is charged with a rape offence the accused is acquitted the name of the complainant should be published unless the judge rules otherwise'.
      Amendment No. 31, in page 5, line 39, at end insert—
      '(5) Restrictions upon the disclosure of identity of the complainant shall not apply to any rape offence after the conclusion of an inquiry at a magistrates' court by examining magistrates where the magistrates concerned decided that there was not case to answer and dismissed the case.'.
      Amendment No. 32, in page 6, line 45, at end add—
      'Provided always that no restrictions stipulated in this section shall apply after acquittal of a person charged with any rape offence if such acquittal shall have been caused by the direction of the trial judge before or at the end of the case for the prosecution; or if at the conclusion of a trial resulting in the acquittal of the defendant, costs, or part of costs, are awarded to the defendant against the complainant or out of public funds.'.
      Mr. Lee: These amendments were grouped together when this matter was before the House on 21st May. It is understandable that they were so grouped. I do not have a copy of Hansard for that date, but I believe that it was indicated during the last few minutes of the debate then, just before 4 o'clock, that these amendments were to be so grouped.
      I think that it would be of assistance to the House if I were to remind hon. Members of the contents of the amendments. Government Amendment No. 29, in line 26, on page 5, seeks at the end to insert:
      "'; but a direction shall not be given in pursuance of this subsection by reason only of an acquittal of a defendant at the trial'."
      Amendment No. 30, in line 26, seeks at the end to insert
      "'(4) If at the conclusion of a trial at which any person is charged with a rape offence the accused is acquitted the name of the complainant should be published unless the judge rules otherwise'."
      That was the amendment standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies). Also grouped in the same bracketing are two amendments which stand in my own name. Amendment No. 31 seeks in line 39, at the end to insert
      "'(5) Restrictions upon the disclosure of identity of the complainant shall not apply to any rape offence after the conclusion of an inquiry at a magistrates' court by examining magistrates where the magistrates concerned decided that there was no case to answer and dismissed the case.'."
      I also tabled Amendment No. 32, on page 6, line 45 at the end to add
      "Provided always that no restrictions stipulated in this section shall apply after acquittal of a person charged with any rape offence if such acquittal shall have been caused by the direction of the trial judge before or at the end of the case for the prosecution; or if at the conclusion of a trial resulting in the acquittal of the defendant, costs, or part of costs, are awarded to the defendant against the complainant or out of public funds.'."
      These matters were grafted together, and it is understandable why that should be done. The whole of this clutch of amendments is concerned with the position of anonymity and the circumstances under which it would not apply. Indeed, that is the whole basis of Clause 4.
      I would deal briefly with the distinctions which may be drawn in respect of them. The hon. and learned Member for
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      Thanet, West had only a few minutes at the end of the last debate to develop his argument, but I think he was about to advance the case that an acquittal by itself should not necessarily indicate that the complainant in the case was a liar. That is putting it bluntly. I suppose the hon. and learned Gentleman was bearing in mind the arguments used by the Court of Appeal in the case of the Queen v. Sporle and others—one of the many Poulsonic cases which have been before the courts of the land as a result of the shenanigans at Newcastle—when the Court of Appeal rejected the appeal of Mr. Sporle, the one time boss man of the Wandsworth Borough Council, who had advanced the argument that as Dan Smith had been acquitted in a separate trial, in which Dan Smith was the briber and Mr. Sporle the bribee, and as Dan Smith had been inexplicably acquitted and Mr. Sporle convicted in a separate case, the Court of Appeal should quash the conviction on the grounds of inconsistent verdits. The Court of Appeal, in a very learned way, was noticeably rude about the argument advanced and said that two different juries were entitled to take two different views and "not guilty" included "not proven" and that the only circumstances in which inconsistent verdicts could be brought in would be where the same persons were arraigned in the same trial and before the same jury.
      As I understand it, although it is a matter of speculation, that was the way in which the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West would have advanced this argument. Perhaps he might also have argued the case that if once one concedes the principle that anonymity should apply—it is a principle which totally and utterly repudiate—one should not lightly depart from it. However, as will be seen, the amendments which stand in my name go in a rather different direction. To be fair to the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West he does suggest a rather different approach in Amendment No. 30 on the basis that if
      "the accused is acquitted the name of the complainant should be published unless the judge rules otherwise'."
      11.15 a.m.
      In other words, it places upon the judge the burden to decide why a complainant's name should not be published. Presumably a successful defendant who was

      835
      acquitted could invite the judge to say in terms "This woman has been disbelieved. This woman at the very least may be a liar and a perjurer. I have been subject to the ordeal of trial by jury, with all the awful consequences which might have flowed from conviction"—that is something that perhaps this House may have very much in mind in view of some of the events which have occurred this year—"and having been exonerated, I feel that it is now time for the person who has been disbelieved to bear the odium of the publicity which I consider she ought to bear."
      That is the important point of Amendment No. 29 although it does not go far enough. I, therefore, turn to my own two amendments and in doing so I am tempted to quote the case involving a former Member of this House. It seems unfortunate that we have to quote cases of Members of Parliament in respect of this matter. It concerns Mr. Raymond Blackburn who many years ago, by some strange quirk of the selection panel, was once a Labour Member of Parliament before he became an anti-pornographic fanatic. After he had ceased to be a Member for one of the divisions of the city that I represent—he was hon. Member for Northfields, as I recall—he was tried and convicted for an offence under the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act. He appealed and his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal, as it was in those days, although the House knows that that court no longer exists having been incorporated in the Court of Appeal simpliciter.
      He then sought to go to the House of Lords by way of the Attorney-General's fiat as that was the only procedure by which it was possible to take a criminal appeal matter before the House of Lords. The then Attorney-General, Sir Lionel Heald, declined the certificate on the ground that there was no matter of exceptional public importance meriting a further appeal. Mr. Blackburn, as I recall, then applied for the mandamus procedure to direct the Attorney-General to reconsider the matter. The Lords adjudicated in this case in ringing terms, saying that there must be finality in criminal law and that there can be no greater finality than acquittal by a jury or conviction followed by a refusal of
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      leave to appeal in the way that I have described.
      Nowadays, the procedure would be a little more protracted because the final stage is that the Court of Appeal has power itself to certify that a point of law of general public importance is involved—not of exceptional public importance as was the case before 1961—if the House of Lords refuses leave to appeal to itself. That is the final point involved.
      If there is finality in matters of conviction, there must surely be finality in matters of acquittal. Although there is, under a recent provision, a rather peculiar exception whereby there can be an appeal to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division after acquittal on a matter of law so that the Court of Appeal can have a second look at the matters of law canvassed, even if the trial judge is reversed, that cannot derogate from the acquittal. The acquittal stands and the acquitted defendant is not a party to the proceedings before the Court of Appeal. There have been very few cases under this head. I think that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who has had more experience of these matters and knows more about them than I do, will know to what I refer. I think that he will agree that have accurately stated this novel situation, which might at first sight seem to derogate from the principle of finality of acquittal but which in practice does not.
      I have said that whether or not a jury acquits a defendant heavy with suspicion and believing that the case was almost made out but not quite—in other words, believing that the defendant was probably guilty of rape—or whether it is a state of mind of total conviction of the defendant's innocence, an acquittal is an acquittal. The verdict covers the whole spectrum from extreme suspicion to total exoneration.
      I will forget for the moment the problems of Scottish law, although I may have to refer to the Scottish verdict of "not proven", and I am sorry that the Lord Advocate is not here to help us on these matters. But in those circumstances it seems wholly wrong that any trial judge should be placed in the invidious position of deciding whether an acquittal was convincing or not.

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      I hope that I shall not tread on the corns of procedure if I refer to the Nabarro case. So far as I know, no one has had the hardihood to use it in the courts, although I have been tempted sometimes to refer to a "Nabarro order on costs".
      The late Sir Gerald Nabarro was convicted before one jury, his conviction was quashed on the grounds that other evidence had come to hand which was not available at the trial and ought to be admitted, the case was sent back for retrial and he was acquitted at the end of a trial in which, as far as I can recollect, none of that new evidence was adduced. He was nevertheless awarded costs after acquittal, no doubt because the learned judge very properly took the view that, whatever the tortuous path which had been described previously, an acquittal was an acquittal and that was the end of the matter.
      If that is the case in such a situation, it is right that, after an accused person is acquitted of rape, he ought to have the right to say, "That woman is a liar and I demand that her name shall be disclosed".
      There may be one or two exceptional cases, such as those of juveniles, which are governed by a different concept of law, in which the principle of anonymity is rightly applied to defendants, convicted or otherwise, and in which the procedures are much more in secreto, for social reasons. But when the person concerned is an adult, taking the oath and giving evidence as an adult, and he is disbelieved, it seems to me right—[Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) will listen to me. Our proceedings today may be shortened if he is minded to accept my amendments. No doubt he will express himself on that subject in due course.
      Having, I think adequately, enunciated that principle, perhaps I might give one or two examples. Madame Tussauds on two notable occasions has had to pay damages for libel for making a waxwork image of someone who had been acquitted of murder. There was the celebrated case of Monson, I think in 1892. Somewhat tactlessly, the owners of that interesting and admirable establishment of
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      entertainment for the young made a waxwork image of that gentleman, who was acquitted by a jury. They paid heavy damages for it.
      They had to do the same, I think—I hope that I am not doing them an injustice—in the equally celebrated case of Harold Greenwood who was charged in 1920 with poisoning his wife. This was the famous Kidwelly murder case in the Famous Trials Series. He was acquitted right at the end of the trial, not by judge's direction on the way but by a jury, and he successfully sued Tussauds for defamation.
      Those two cases illustrate convincingly the fundamental constitutional significance for the citizens' rights of acquittal on indictment, whether it occurs early or late in the proceedings. I know that distinctions are drawn which from the subject of separate amendments, but because they are bracketed together, I shall refer to them one by one.
      I should like to refer first to Amendments Nos. 31 and 32.
      11.30 a.m.
      The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): Although this is in no sense my Bill, I have discussed Amendment No. 31 with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett), and we have agreed that there may be a valid point in what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) is saying, although on a rather more limited scale than his amendment suggests. If, therefore, he will not press it, I will undertake to consider the matter, reply to him by letter, and if necessary put the matter right and incorporate such point as there is in the amendment in another place.
      Mr. Lee: I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Minister of State may not be able exactly to formulate what he wants, but before I do what he suggests perhaps he can clarify. He says that the point applies in a rather more limited sense than my amendment suggests. Can he indicate in what sense my amendment should be whittled down? Unless and until I know that, it is difficult for me to decide whether what he has in mind would meet my wishes, whether it would go far enough to satisfy me.
      Mr. John: My hon. Friend will know —if he does not, I need to remind him—that there are certain evidential points which may lead to a dismissal. It may be that in certain exceptional circumstances the magistrates' court does require, in the very exceptional circumstances we have in mind for publication, to have that power. It is in that sense that I invite my hon. Friend not to press Amendment No. 31 at this stage.
      Mr. Lee: I hope I have it right, but do I understand that my hon. Friend is alluding to the fact that the dismissal of a case at the magistrates' court in committal proceedings is not an acquittal, that it is not an absolute bar to further proceedings, that matters may therefore be further introduced, that one cannot plead autrefois acquit?
      Mr. John indicated assent.
      Mr. Lee: I see that my hon. Friend nods. The trouble is how one can draw a distinction. I do not know of any exception that he has in mind. Perhaps he could make it a little clearer. If he could, perhaps I could meet him.
      At the moment, as far as I know—and I may be wrong on this point of criminal law—whatever the circumstances which lead the magistrates to dismiss a case before them on committal proceedings, whether it is because, having read the depositions or the committal documents, they are not satisfied that it all adds up to sufficient evidence, or whether, having heard the evidence on oath, they listen to a submission and then dismiss the case, it seems to me that the same provision applies. If my hon. Friend thinks that I have it wrong, he can say so, but it does not seem to me that he is drawing a distinction that is valid. Whilst he is ruminating on the point, I will describe why I think the provision should be applied in any event.
      Although, as I have said, dismissal of a case before a magistrates' court is not a bar against further proceedings, in practice it is unlikely—and the exceptions are very rare—that further proceedings will take place. Of course, if a man, having been discharged from a magistrates' court after what we lawyers tend to call in our slang a Section 2 or Section 3 acquittal, outside the court tells a Press conference that he did commit the
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      offence, whereas following a jury acquittal he cannot be retried on the matter on which he has been acquitted, in this instance he could be re-arrested, and one can envisage circumstances in which he would be, rightly, so re-arrested.
      But if one leaves such peculiar exceptions on one side, it does not seem to me that in practice there will be many instances where that kind of thing is likely to occur. Let us consider the situation of a person who is discharged from a magistrates' court, not technically acquitted but where, for one reason or another, the magistrates are so dissatisfied with the case that has been put before them that they do not think that there is even a case to answer and that it is not right that the public should be put to the expense and inconvenience or that the defendant should be put in peril of the ordeal of trial, and therefore bring matters forthwith to a conclusion. What is the position then? Should a man be left for weeks, months, perhaps years, with the possibility of the reintroduction of proceedings hanging over his head at the behest of some person still enjoying the cloak of anonymity? I cannot believe that that would be a just approach.
      I remind the House of a case in which a former Attorney-General, who, thanks to Lord Attlee's sense of humour, served in a Labour Government, had to consider a case. The Attorney-General was the present Lord Shawcross and the case was that of the murder of Joan Woodhouse in 1948. I shall not mention the name of the person who came before the magistrates' court, because it would be wrong to do so. I remind the House of what happened, and although I speak from memory I think that the details I give are essentially correct.
      In the summer of 1948, the girl was found murdered in the estates of the Duke of Norfolk near Arundel. A man was shortly afterwards closely questioned and detained—the euphemism is "helping the police with their inquiries"—for some time. He was not charged and he was released.
      Nearly two years later he was arrested on private information, the details of which were heard in closed court by the magistrates, who issued a warrant, having heard the evidence that was given in camera before them. The man was

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      charged with murder and brought before the court. There was in those days no such thing as a Section 1 committal—a documentary committal—but in any case it would not have been an appropriate treatment for such a case. The evidence for this private prosecution was paraded before the bench, and after a submission on his behalf the defendant was discharged.
      An application was then made by relatives of the dead woman to the then Attorney-General for his assistance in the preparation of a bill of indictment. He—and none of us would regard him as exactly Trotskyite—considered the matter and replied tartly to the then hon. Member for Gateshead, East, Mr. Moody, that it was the duty of the Crown to prosecute, not to persecute, which is an unexceptionable sentiment. One cannot keep raking over matters again and again. That is the answer on the point we are now considering.
      The gravamen of my argument in support of Amendment No. 31 is that, for all practical purposes, this House ought to regard the discharge of a defendant from a magistrates' court on submission as if it were an acquittal, notwithstanding the fact that in law it is not, strictly speaking, a bar to further proceedings.
      One may use another analogy—the Attorney-General's powers of entering a nolle prosequi, not often used, and not absolute bar to further proceedings in law. Nevertheless, for practical purposes it is treated as a bar and I can think of no instance where it has been withdrawn and matters have been further proceeded with.
      Let me give another example of this grey area short of acquittal. Time and again for various reasons—because it is expedient to do so, because a defendant has been convicted or acquitted of something else, or because matters have been outstanding for so long—prosecutors ask that untried counts on an indictment, and indeed whole indictments, shall lie on the file and not be proceeded with without the leave of the courts or of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division). In practice that means that the matter goes into deep freeze. All of us who have dealings with the courts know that once a matter lies on the file that is the end of it for all practical purposes, though there may be rare exceptions.
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      Would it be right if a rape count lying on the file, and therefore not the subject of an acquittal, gave the complainant an indefinite right of anonymity? I cannot believe that my hon. Friend the Minister of State would answer "Yes". I am sure that he accepts the substance of my argument.
      One of the great objections to the whole Bill is that it tilts the scales of justice against an accused person. It is not a respectable or worthy argument that any libertarian would accept that because genuine rape is a horrible offence one should cut the corners of justice. That is an abominable doctrine. The more serious the offence, the more scrupulous the courts should be in protecting the rights of the accused.
      11.45 a.m.
      With Amendment No. 32 we come to the trial, where there is acquittal and in law total finality. I should like to remind the House of the various stages at which acquittal can occur. First, before arraignment, defence counsel can move to quash an indictment on the grounds that it is improperly constituted and that the offence, if there be any, revealed in the committal documents does not square with the indictment—I put it in rough lay terms, which is probably the best way to put it—and therefore there can be no trial. That is what used to be known as demurrer proceedings. A plea of demurrer is rarely used nowadays.
      Acquittal comes at the second stage if the judge looks at the documents and bluntly takes the view that the whole matter is a nonsense and should never have been brought to trial. It is not a bad thing that a judge should take a robust view in that way from time to time. I remember reading of a case a year or so ago when a High Court judge took one look at the depositions, said "This is a load of rubbish" and physically tore them up. That saved the defendant the ordeal of a protracted trial, saved the public the expense, and saved the jury the tedium of several days of protracted adjudication.
      The third, and much more common way in which a trial can be brought to an end is what is known as getting the case slung, to use our lawyers' vulgarism

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      at the end of the prosecution's case, submitting that the evidence does not add up, that no offence is revealed, that the offence revealed by the witnesses is not appropriate to the counts on the indictment, or that although there is evidence it is so unsatisfactory as to be unsafe to leave it to a jury. Lawyers for ever invoke the celebrated case of The Queen v. Young. The Young doctrine has applied time and again in the courts.
      Fourthly, having heard the defendant in the box, the learned judge may decide that it is clear either that he is innocent or that his explanations are so cogent as to make it impossible for any jury to find the case proved beyond reasonable doubt. He therefore stops the case there and then. If we are to draw a distinction between one kind of acquittal and another in these first four categories, I submit that it is only here that it can be done with any propriety.
      Finally, there is acquittal at the end of everything, when the defence and prosecution have had their say, the judge has summed up, and the jury—whether they have retired for five minutes or five hours—acquit the defendant.
      In law, all those acquittals are of equal value. Whether they come at the beginning, or the middle or at the end of the trial, they are all irreversibly valid. One can see some argument for drawing a distinction between some of them. That is rationale behind Amendment No. 32. It could be said that if the judge decides that the defendant should not even be called to give an explanation of his conduct in the witness box—in other words, that he has no case to answer—it must have been a pretty weak case.
      I turn from the general to the particular. A rape case involves the quirks and idiosyncracies of witnesses, and in such circumstances as I have outlined it is a reasonable inference that the judge has concluded that the woman is a liar, a neurotic fantasist, or otherwise so unreliable a witness that nobody should be convicted on her words. In case anybody should think that this argument is exaggerated, let me mention what is contained in an extract from the Daily Telegraph of 6th October sent to me by
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      an obliging constituent. I do not know whether the rape case outlined in that article has finished, and I shall not refer to any names because that would be wrong, but one passage is underlined in red ink by my correspondent. It came out in cross-examination that the woman who had made the accusation in the current case had on more than one previous occasion made an accusation of a similar kind against other persons, and those accusations were discovered to have been unfounded. Therefore, let us not have any talk about the impossibility of the existence of neurotic, perjurous women complainants, because they exist and they may put at risk the liberty, reputation and livelihood of innocent people.
      I turn to the second half of Amendment No. 32 and to the words:
      "or if at the conclusion of a trial resulting in the acquittal of the defendant, costs, or part of costs, are awarded to the defendant against the complainant or out of public funds …"
      We are back to the situation in which judges, unsatisfactory as the situation may be, sometimes draw distinctions between some acquittals and others. Sometimes they award costs to a defendant who has had to bear part or all of the costs of his defence, and sometimes they do not. In so far as that is the practice—and I have said that I do not like it—the inference that should be drawn in that the judge, in the privacy of his own thoughts, has concluded that he agrees with the acquittal and takes the view that the defendant should not bear, in addition to his other ordeal just completed, all or part of the expense of his trial. If that distinction exists, it is at least arguable that where a judge in that peculiar and indirect way indicates his view of an acquittal by agreement with it, there is a slightly stronger case for disclosing the name of the complainant than if no award of costs is made.
      It is unsatisfactory from another point of view because the defendant may be wholly legally aided and on a nil contribution basis—in other words, he has had to bear no part of the costs whatever. If that is the situation, the judge cannot even make a distinction in an indirect way by showing that he agrees with a jury's verdict because there is no basis on which he can award costs. There is no need to do so because nothing has

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      been paid by the defendant. Even if it were proper—and I am not sure it is—for a judge to be able to indicate whether he agrees with a verdict, it does not apply in the case of poor people who, rightly, do not bear costs at all. That is one more reason why one should disclose the name of a person who has not been believed.
      I summarise my argument by saying that I believe that this is a bad Bill involving a bad principle. I have already said —and I shall not repeat myself—"Why should rape complainants be treated with greater privilege than attempted murder complainants who may be in fear of their lives rather than of their reputations?". Having seen the terrified barmaid in the "Blind Beggar" public house case give evidence against the Kray brothers, I know what I am talking about. This peculiar Bill tries to give privilege in relation to a particular kind of offence, and that is wrong. It should be the aim of this House to improve the scope of any Bill and to seek to diminish the damage that it may do.
      12 noon
      Mr. John: It might be convenient if I indicated at this stage the Government's attitude to these various amendments and dealt also with Amendment No. 29, which stands in the name of the Home Secretary.
      Amendment No. 28 would deal only with a period before conviction. It would be unsatisfactory if the discretion of the judge were to be limited to any particular stage in the proceedings. Amendment No. 30, in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) would make publication of the name at the end of the trial automatic unless the judge ruled otherwise.
      Where I part company from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) is when he appears to suggest that there is no case of acquittal other than that which suggests that the woman has lied or made up a story against the defendant, or otherwise behaved disgracefully. We know that there are many other circumstances in which there can be no doubt that rape has occurred but, because of some procedural difficulty or doubt on the part of the jury, there could be an acquittal. In those circumstances it would be monstrous and quite against the spirit of the Heilbron Report if a person were then to be faced with the
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      spectre of the automatic publication of her name.
      My hon. Friend was good enough to say that he opposed both the Heilbron Report and the Bill. However, the House has accepted the Heilbron Report and the principle of this Bill. The consequences for the majority must follow that. The Heilbron Report in paragraphs 152 to 162 fully rehearsed and canvassed the reasons why there should not be automatic publication or publication of the victim's name. If the burden of automatic publication were to be imposed, it would mean a reduced willingness on the part of a person who had been raped to complain, because she might feel unable to face the ordeal.
      Secondly, such persons as did then complain would feel, because publication would follow, that they had a stake in the prosecution. There would be an adversarial, personalising effect on the trial far removed from the traditional prosecution view that what is needed is a fair presentation of the facts without colouring. I believe that such colouring might follow if a woman thought that the alternative to the defendant's being convicted was the publication of her name.
      I come now to deal with Amendment No. 31. My hon. Friend the Member for Handsworth appears to be the only man I know who cannot take "yes" for an answer. I accept what he says about autrefois acquit. There are, in certain exceptional circumstances, arguments for the publication of the woman's name. The magistrates not having any such power at the moment, I am asking for time to consider whether there is an additional power which should be given to them to deal, not with the automatic point, which is what my hon. Friend has raised—and I accept that I go nowhere near his amendment in securing automatic publication of the complainant's name—
      Mr. Lee: Why not?
      Mr. John: For the obvious reason. My hon. Friend has not been listening, although he enjoined everyone else to listen to his arugments. Because of our acceptance of the Heilbron Report, we do not believe that publication should be automatic. But there are certain exceptional circumstances involving the sort of person who my hon. Friend thinks infests

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      these cases in gay abundance, namely, the person whose conduct is very bad indeed. There may be circumstances in which magistrates would need this power. I am inviting my hon. Friend not to press this amendment and to let us consider the matter. We shall contact him and suggest how this situation may be put right.
      Amendment No. 32 is diametrically opposed to the Heilbron Report. The House has accepted the principles of that report as enshrined in the Bill. Such an amendment as this can do nothing but wreck the Bill. There are circumstances in which an acquittal may arise, not because the person raped has been disbelieved but because of many other factors. I do not believe that publication of the complainant's name would be a desirable feature in such a case. If there were wilful contempt, the papers could be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration of other proceedings. That is what Heilbron said and that is the correct course.
      Mr. Lee: What about the position where it is desired to institute proceedings for malicious prosecution? The taking out of a writ is a public matter. The naming of a person in a writ is public. What bearing does that have on the situation?
      Mr. John: My hon. Friend will know that in proceedings for perjury or any other proceedings in connection with such a case the anonymity rule does not apply. If my hon. Friend had read the Bill more carefully, I do not think that he would have made that point.
      The last part of Amendment No. 32 reads:
      "costs, or part of costs, are awarded to the defendant against the complainant".
      That would be a highly unusual affair unless the complainant was the prosecutrix. Section 48 of the Courts Act 1971 makes that clear. My main reason for rejecting the amendment is that it goes to the root of the Heilbron doctrine, to the root of the principle and it is highly dangerous for the House at this stage to depart from its acceptance of the principles of Heilbron and of the Bill.
      Amendment No. 29 seeks to make it clear that it is only when the conduct of the complainant warrants publication that the judge should have a discretion
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      under Clause 4(3) to publish the name. The mere fact of an acquittal does not of itself warrant a direction. The acquittal may be for reasons other than the conduct of the complainant and, therefore, it is unfair that she should face this kind of hurdle race with possibly a vested interest in the result of that hurdle race in circumstances in which she is not morally to blame. In exceptional circumstances, the judge has a discretion. I think that that affords all the protection that is necessary.
      My hon. Friend referred to the effect upon the defendant of these proceedings. He will know, as I do, that, if the defendant is acquitted, the effect of New Clause 1 will be to prohibit publication.
      Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I think that it is right that the Opposition should state their view shortly on these amendments. Our attitude to the whole Bill has been made clear on previous occasions. We are not on the whole enthusiastic about it, but we shall not vote against it and certainly we shall not delay its passage by lengthy speeches.
      However, we should have preferred certain of its provisions not to be there, because they distort the fabric of our law for no good enough reason. In some instances they introduce a complicating factor to the understanding of the law and give an impression of change which in reality does not exist because the practice and the operation of the law of rape in our courts is already along the lines of some of the proposals in the Bill.
      We have doubts about the anonymity provisions in the Bill as a whole, although no such doubts about anonymity in the case of the complainant. But the fact remains that, having got a Second Reading, the principle of anonymity having been established and having been accepted by the House, there does not seem to be much advantage in making exceptions to it.
      Mr. Lee: Are we to understand from that that whenever in future a Bill receives a Second Reading, the Opposition will consider themselves bound not to alter it in any fundamental way? That will be very interesting for those people moving the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
      Mr, Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Before the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) takes up that point, I must point out to him that, strictly speaking, most of his contribution so far has been a Third Reading speech. I hope that he will address himself to the amendments under consideration. I presume that there will be a Third Reading debate later. Therefore, I invite the hon. Gentleman to confine himself to the amendments.
      12.15 p.m.
      Mr. Lawrence: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for being general. However, I felt that it was important to make a few general introductory remarks in order to explain the Opposition's attitude to these specific amendments.
      In answer to the question put to me by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee), I laid down no generalised principle. Clearly, he was not listening to me. I make it specific if I did not do so before. In this Bill, the principle having been accepted, there does not here seem to be much advantage in making the exceptions proposed. The balance of advantage and disadvantage in giving publicity to the complainant in cases where there have been forms of acquittal is in fact very narrow.
      The hon. Member for Handsworth has given some very strong reasons on one side why the complainant should be disclosed by name after these events. But there are strong reasons on the other side, and one has been referred to by the Minister.
      I pick up just one of those reasons. It does not necessarily mean that because there has been an acquittal, there has been a false accusation. There may be a situation, for example, where truly the complainant was raped but where the jury decided that there was either no corroboration, or no satisfactory corroboration, resulting in a situation in which the judge had to say to the jury "If you do not find that there is adequate corroboration, you must bring in a verdict of 'Not Guilty'" It would be the grossest of misrepresentations of the truth of the situation that in every case of an acquittal in a rape charge the complainant has been falsifying and, if she has not been falsifying in any case, it is unfair within the principles of this
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      clause that the finger of scorn should he pointed at her.
      The balance being a fine one and the principle being established as a result of the Second Reading debate, the Opposition do not feel minded to challenge the Government if this amendment should go to a Division.
      I make one brief comment on Amendment No. 31. I am not quite clear why the Government consider that the other amendments would be a breach of the principle but not where the magistrates' court has dismissed the case.
      Mr. John: I did not say specifically that I accepted that it was necessary to breach the principle. I said that, within the principle and within the limited exception allowed, there might be a need for the magistrates' court to have some power such as is given to a judge to order publication. That is what I wanted to consider. I gave no undertaking that it would he done.
      Mr. Lawrence: I accept that, and perhaps when the matter is considered in another place, the proper result will be achieved.
      Government Amendment No. 29 is the mere battening down of the hatches against the amendments and, therefore, consistent with everything that I have said. We have no wish to vote against that.
      In the result, there is some consolation for any of us with doubts about whether these amendments should be opposed by the realisation that the matter will or may be fully considered by the House of Lords before coming back to this place, during which time, I understand, the opinions of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, for which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) asked on 21st May when this matter was previously before the House, will be in the hands of the Government so that their decision may be wiser than some of us think it is at present.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Mr. Lee was appointed a Teller for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to

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      act as the Second Teller, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.
      Amendment negatived.
      Amendment made: No. 29 in page 5, line 26, at end insert:
      '; but a direction shall not be given in pursuance of this subsection by reason only of an acquittal of a defendant at the triar.—[Mr. John.]
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 5, line 43, leave out 'any editor and any publisher' and insert 'and any editor'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take the following amendments:
      No. 45 in page 5, line 44, at end insert
      'or publisher thereof having knowledge of such publication'.
      No. 46 in page 6, line 1, at end insert 'knowingly'.
      Mr. Lee: Two principles are involved here. With respect I think that these amendments are rather oddly grouped, because they deal with two quite different matters. One deals with the question of publication responsibility and the other with our old friend the principle of mens rea—whether the act is committed knowingly. The Minister offered us half an olive branch in the last debate, but he did not give any undertaking that he would necessarily introduce an amendment in another place. Perhaps that is because of the absence of enough Labour Peers to ensure a Government majority. I would have thought that there was no difficulty in creating enough Peers for the purpose. Certainly the qualifications for a life peerage are so low that there should be no difficulty in getting enough people to go to the other place. I am not sure that the Minister's undertakings will be enough. If my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) comes forward with proposals of that kind, I shall look favourably on them.
      Quite clearly this Bill seeks, through the aegis of Clause 4, to embrace a large number of persons who might conceivably be involved in some way in improper publication or disclosure of the name of a complainant. To a large extent it is understandable that the sponsors of this Bill should wish to widen the scope in this respect so that there will not be any loopholes to negate the principle
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      in the clause. At the same time it would be wrong to pass over the provisions of the clause without comment, because there are a large number of categories of persons who in some way or another are involved by it.
      I wonder about these categories. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead is a journalist and he knows that even though editors have diminished in importance since the days of C. P. Scott, they bear a can-carrying responsibility, largely related to what appears in their newspapers or periodicals. It does not seem to me to be a really adequate answer to say—and I imagine this is what is behind my hon. Friend's purpose in enumerating a large number of categories of people he wishes to involve—that the law of libel can apply to a wide category of persons who are in some way involved in the publication of defamatory matter and, therefore, for the same reason, we should involve a large number of persons here as well.
      I should have thought it would be sufficient—if one accepts the principle behind the Bill, and I do not—to involve the person who wrote the article which disclosed improperly the name of the complainant and the editor or sub-editor responsible for vetting the copy. Publishers are comparatively remote people. One might just as well argue that the owners should be incorporated in the scope of the Bill, and why not? The owners dominate the newspaper and periodical world. We still have an edifying situation, in contrast with broadcasting, whereby newspapers, like professional footballers and cattle, are hawked and sold around from one tycoon to another.
      We had the invasion by Lord Beaver-brook and the painful consequences of that many years ago. In recent years we had the late Lord Thomson of Fleet who made a comprehensive takeover bid for the whole of Fleet Street, and even more recently we had Rupert Murdoch doing much the same kind of thing. If the movers of this Bill really believe that publishers should be involved in the scope of the penalty clauses, why not the owners as well? Hon. Members will note that I am being brief. I want to move on because there are very important matters which I want to discuss later in detail.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There is no need for the hon. Member to tell us now what he intends to discuss after 2 p.m.
      Mr. Lee: I turn now to the top of page 6. Clause 4(5)(b) says
      "in the case of other publications, the person who publishes it".
      I want to insert the word "knowingly". When one word in this context means such a great deal, I would have hoped that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) would take a rather less unheroic view of the duties of the Opposition than that which he has indicated so far. What he said on the last amendment will delight the Government Whips. He indicated that once the Second Reading has passed, that precludes drastic amendment of matters in the stages which follow:
      It is no use his saying that this should apply to one Bill, and not to another. I am afraid he does not fit very well into the role of the Grand Old Duke of York. I shall look anxiously to see him join me in the Division Lobby later, or otherwise one can only wonder whether the Iron Lady is not a soft-leaded lady after all.
      12.30 p.m.
      During the 1966–70 Parliament Lord Hailsham, as he now is, sounded off philosophically, as he does sometimes, against the alarming increase in statutory offences. Such offences do not require as an ingredient of the defence the concept of mens rea. He was right to do so. This is a disturbing development in English criminal law. Some of his extravagant language and his forebodings about democratic tyranny—I think that was the term he used in the Dimbleby Lecture—would be more appropriately directed towards this kind of situation than to the wider scheme of the sovereignty of Parliament, which sovereignty has been in some measure destroyed by our unfortunate adherence to the Common Market.
      If we do not include the word "knowingly" in the Bill, there is a danger that the principle of a statutory offence will be applied to this part of the Bill. The very fact that the clause enumerates such a large number of categories of persons who may be deemed to have committed an offence points in that direction. Some
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      of those persons are remote from the act which would give rise to the complaint. After all, presumably only one person would be writing down the name of the complainant, and only one or two people —the sub-editor and maybe his editor—would be vetting that copy. A number of other persons would of necessity be fairly remote from the act complained of. Would it not therefore help to mitigate the matter if we followed the course I am suggesting?
      I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead is not here. I would have thought that the temperate and tolerant way in which he viewed amendments on 21st May indicated his willingness to accept my line of argument. We shall have to do without him and the other sponsors of the Bill, who seem to have gone off for an early lunch.
      Is it not desirable ex abundanti cautela that we should include the word "knowingly"? The House will remember the furore which occurred a few years ago when, to people's considerable surprise, the Divisional Court in the case of Sweet v. Parsley decided that someone who owned a house in which, unknown to the owner, cannabis was being smoked was guilty constructively of the offence of permitting cannabis to be smoked. The furore was interesting because when the Court of Appeal made its decision there was, rather surprisingly, some correspondence in The Times, including a very powerful and cogent letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr), drawing attention to the peculiar situations that could arise if one held a person to be constructively guilty because, unknown to him, someone had committed an offence on his premises.
      It would be amusing to consider what would have happened if that decision had not been reversed and if someone had managed to smuggle cannabis in and smoke it in the cells below the Court of Appeal. Would that have made the keepers or the authorities of the High Courts of Justice constructively guilty of permitting cannabis to be smoked on their premises? Would it reductio ad absurdum have had the effect of putting Her Majesty's judges, sitting in the courts that day, in peril of inadvertently committing the offence?

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      The matter went on appeal to the House of Lords. The late Lord Reid, whose contributions to the courts can hardly be over-estimated and who was until his death one of our most distinguished judges, was sitting, and common sense reasserted itself. The decision was reversed. In other words, we were rescued from a situation in which an innocent person could be deemed to have committed an offence without his knowing or even suspecting that an offence had been committed.
      It is for that reason and because I do not want to see a repetition of the kind of contretemps which arose in Sweet v. Parsley that I move the amendment.
      Mr. John: Perhaps I may state the Government's view on the amendment. I accept that the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) on this point is reasonable. The Government might have accepted the amendment but for the existence of Clause 5(6). It is stated there that where a person is charged with an offence under Clause 4(5), it shall be a defence to prove that at the time of the alleged offence he was not aware, and neither suspected nor had reason to suspect, that the publication or broadcast was of such matter as is prohibited by subsection (1).
      I believe that provides the sort of protection my hon. Friend seeks. I ask him to accept, therefore, that the amendments are unnecessary, even though they have done a valuable service to the House in probing the matter.
      The matters involved in the amendments are peculiarly within the mind of the person concerned. If the amendments were accepted, they might place an unreasonable burden on the prosecution, but the overwhelming burden of my argument is that a defence is provided in Clause 5(6). This recognises the point made by my hon. Friend and provides a defence in these circumstances. I hope that he will agree that the amendments are not necessary.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Mr. Lee was appointed a Teller for Ayes, but no Member being willing to
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      act as the Second Teller, Mr. Deputy Speaker declared that the Noes had it.
      Amendment negatived.
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 47, in page 6, line 9, leave out "£500" and insert "£100".
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With this we may take Amendment No. 48, in page 6, line 9, at end insert
      'or on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding £1,000'.
      12.45 p.m.
      Mr. Lee: Though my confidence has been diminished since the start of the day, I am still confident that some of my amendments will prove acceptable to the militants who have brought forward this Bill. I shall continue to conduct my arguments on a fairly low key, as I hope I have until now. I notice that two hon. Members in the opposite camp—Members of the non-Opposition—agree with me.
      The first amendment seeks to reduce the penalty that may be summarily imposed. Even in these days of inflation £100 is still a sizeable figure. It is not desirable to vest in magistrates too much power for summary jurisdiction, not because they do not, for the most part, do their job well, but because, for the most part, their courts are overcrowded with work.
      Anyone who goes near any of the London magistrates' courts, especially during the summer, which has been appropriately described as the foreigners' shoplifting season, will know exactly what I mean. There is an endless succession of cases going through the courts, especially those north of the river near Oxford Street. We should not burden them with additional duties.
      When I considered tabling this amendment, I wondered whether it was right that magistrates should try these matters at all or whether it might be more appropriate to delete the provisions which grant them jurisdiction, particularly as I have tabled a second amendment which provides for trial on indictment. Once again the enthusiastic sponsors of the Bill have left the Chamber, leaving the Minister, the Opposition spokesman and myself to consider these matters as best we can without the benefit of their advice. I find

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      it strange, but I am not unduly surprised by their attitude.
      There are 11 sponsors of the Bill. One would have thought that they could take it in turns to stay in the Chamber. I have not seen some of the sponsors within the precincts of the House today. Others have flitted in and out in a rather spectral manner.
      If this offence is important, it falls into two categories. It may be committed through carelessness and inadvertness with nobody intending any harm. In that case I should have thought that a modest penalty such as that provided for in Amendment No. 47 was adequate. One can readily see a situation in which through some confusion the offence might be committed entirely by mistake.
      In that situation surely an apology, and perhaps a conditional discharge, would be a perfectly adequate way for justice to be done as between the offender and the complainant. In such a case the £100 fine, if anything, is excessive. Certainly it is an improvement upon the £500 fine, which, if I may hark back to the Oxford Street shoplifters, is regarded as being adequate to deal with wealthy people who go on a shoplifting spree. For what purpose they do so cannot possibly be imagined, except that it is rankly dishonest and anti-social.
      The second category is different altogether. Someone might decide to publish and be damned, to use what I think was the Cudlippian dictum. In those circumstances we are faced with someone who is deliberately seeking to defy the law. I believe that this is a thoroughly bad Bill and I still hope that it will not reach the statute book. Judging by the amount of work that has to be dealt with by the other place, the likelihood is that it will not get through. Indeed, I have reason to believe that some amendments will be moved in another place. That means that we are in for some more fun.
      Dealing with the Bill as it stands, and accepting and working from the false premise that it is right and proper that anonymity should be protected and that those who breach it unlawfully should be punished, we must carefully consider the penalties that are provided. Not even the most fervent supporters of the Bill have gone so far as to suggest that an
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      editor or writer, for example, convicted of an offence under Clause 4 should go to prison. In parenthesis, there might be circumstances in which a wilful and unlawful publication amounts to a contempt of court. I strongly suspect that that is the case. The penalties include imprisonment and imprisonment generally is the penalty. No doubt my hon. Friend will have something to say about that when he replies. I hope that he will do so a little less perfunctorily on this occasion.
      Leaving aside the armoury of contempt, which may make these penalty provisions unnecessary altogether, we still have to consider the proper way of dealing with the matter. If somebody deliberately flouted a court for no valid reason, it might well be that the penalty of £500 would not be adequate. The flouting might occur malevolently. That is one more illustration of the absurdity of the Bill—namely, that the whole of the anonymity concept can be destroyed by a person who has been acquitted taking out a writ for malicious prosecution. Although the chances of success are limited, all such a person has to do is to take out a writ in the High Court. When the name has been thoroughly circulated around the place—and these matters are news because writs for malicious prosecutions are extremely rare—he can issue a notice of discontinuance and drop the proceedings. In payment of a small amount of costs, he will have achieved his objective lawfully—namely, disclosure of the name of the complainant.
      That would be poor news for the sponsors if they were present, but if they read this debate in Hansard they will discover that this part of their Bill is a nonsense. However, we shall deal with it on the basis that it makes sense. I think that my hon. Friend will agree that if there should be a more severe penalty than is provided for in the Bill, the offender should have the right of trial on indictment. Some complicated issues could arise in such cases, issues that might be regarded as being too complicated for justice to be done in the magistrates' courts, with all respect to lay magistrates.
      The interpretation of much of the Bill will give no end of problems. My hon. Friend made much of what he thought was the adequate answer to Amendment No. 46 on the question of "knowingly".

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      I hope that he is right. I do not think that he is wholly right, but let us assume that he is. At all events, the Bill will provide the courts with some vexed questions to decide. If we accept the principle contained in the Bill, there might well be some cases—I say this in complete seriousness, I am not being facetious or ironical—when the offence is so flagrant and wanton that it merits a higher penalty than is provided.
      Certainly a £500 fine would be a fleabite to a newspaper organisation. Indeed, a £1,000 fine might be regarded as a modest penalty. If we accept that that be right, surely those accused of an offence should have the right of trial by jury. That is why I claim that the two amendments are self-balancing.
      On the one hand, I seek to reduce the penalties that can be imposed by a court of summary jurisdiction because I think that they are too great for the inadvertent offender. At the same time, they are not great enough for the wanton and flagrant offender who seeks defiantly, and maybe for some improper or malicious motive, to publish and be damned. If that applies, and if that principle is accepted, such persons should have the right of trial on indictment. Perhaps it is just about arguable, although I have not sought to do so in the amendment, that these matters should not be dealt with by summary jurisdiction but on indictment. Perhaps they all ought to be indictment matters.
      Looking at the realities of the situation, I think it not very likely that there will be many offences of this kind. However, where they are alleged to have occurred, it seems likely that they will raise quite complex issues, and where complex issues are involved, I should have thought that the House would agree that it is right that a jury properly directed by a judge is the right tribunal to adjudicate.
      1.0 p.m.
      Mr. John: In giving the Government's view of these amendments, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Binning-ham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) will not take brevity for lack of interest. I shall certainly reply to the points he made, but I shall do so briefly because I believe that, though important, they lie within a brief compass. That is why I do it, not through
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      lack of interest in his arguments or in the subject of the Bill.
      I found somewhat unfortunate my hon. Friend's description of debate on possible amendments to the Bill as "some more fun" in prospect. It is a serious Bill touching a serious matter not only for—
      Mr. Lee: Did my hon. Friend say that I spoke of "fun"?
      Mr. John: My hon. Friend said that there was some more fun in prospect in the House of Lords.
      Mr. Lee rose—
      Mr. John: No, I will not give way, because I heard what my hon. Friend said very clearly.
      Mr. Lee: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to intervene in this way, but quite clearly my hon. Friend has misunderstood me. If he thought I used the word "fun", I most certainly did not intend such a word, and he must have misheard. I do not regard this as a frivolous matter in the least.
      Mr. John: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is by no means a frivolous matter. I shall now deal with the specific points which he put. First, he says that £500 may be too severe a penalty for an inadvertent offender. He knows that the penalty is a fine not exceeding £500, which gives the magistrates adequate room for taking account of the offender who is inadvertent. The whole scale of penalties, ranging from a conditional discharge up to the maximum fine, may be applied in accordance with the seriousness with which the magistrates view the particular case. That is an answer to one of the points my hon. Friend made in urging support for these amendments.
      Second, my hon. Friend says that there are cases where a trial on indictment is more suitable, and therefore it should be taken out of the hands of the magistrates completely. To that I make two points in reply. The nearest analogy to these proceedings is to be found in section 3 (5) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, which deals with the question of penalties when a person publishes the name of someone involved in commital proceedings where publication of that name has not been sanctioned. The maximum penalty there

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      is a fine of £500. In the years since the passing of that Act, no one has complained about the adequacy of those penalties. Here, too, the figure is £500.
      I understand the reasons for which my hon. Friend desires a transfer of the work load to the Crown courts, but that runs completely contrary to the Report of the James Committee, which spoke of the overburden on the Crown courts, about which I am sure my hon. Friend will know from personal experience much better than I. The overburden on Crown courts makes it desirable that more cases be tried summarily. The James Committee also made certain suggestions about maximum penalties imposed by magistrates' courts which might, in the most extreme cases which my hon. Friend cited, make the punishment fit the crime.
      I am aware that the House has not debated the James Report and therefore I cannot speak for the House in this matter. However, it seems to me that, if and when the penalties which can be imposed in summary proceedings are considered, this Bill and these offences can be then considered.
      Magistrates already have power in similar cases to impose a fine up to a maximum of £500. That is the identical provision in this Bill. It has not been thought unsuitable for magistrates to try such cases. It has not been thought inadequate that they may impose a penalty up to a maximum of £500. That is why I ask the House to reject the amendments. Indeed, I ask my hon. Friend, having canvassed and probed the question, to agree that £500 at this stage is the proper figure.
      Mr. Lee: I shall reply briefly to what my hon. Friend has said. I had thought that the Opposition spokesman would have a view on this matter, but they appear to he completely speechless, which will be an interesting matter for comment on another occasion in a totally different context.
      My hon. Friend has in some measure answered the questions, and he is right when he says that the Criminal Justice Act makes similar provision. I am not sure that he is right to anticipate the James Committee quite as he does. We do not know whether the James Committee will have its recommendations implemented.
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      Its champion, whose names is so closely associated with it, is unhappily dead, which is a great loss to the criminal law, as my hon. Friend well knows, since Lord Justice James was one of the finest of our criminal judges.
      I am bound to say that my hon. Friend's observations—or lack of them—with regard to the problems likely to be thrown up in this connection do not really convince me. This will be a difficult problem when it arises, and I still do not think that the magistrates' courts are altogether the most suitable places for these matters to be played out. However, having said that—I presented the amendments with complete seriousness, not seeking merely to be cussed—I feel in the circumstances that I should beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 49, in page 6, leave out lines 12 and 13.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suggest that it will be convenient to consider at the same time Amendment No. 50, in page 6, line 17, at end insert
      'or be is accused by way of a bill of indictment'.
      Mr. Lee: These amendments can be dealt with briefly. It seems to me that the laying of an information is not the most appropriate way to bring a rape offence before a court. As far as I know, it is the kind of offence which, because of its seriousness, would normally be taken by way of a charge. The real objection here, however, is that, where proceedings are started by summons—as I say, that does not normally apply to this kind of offence—they often take a long time before they reach court.
      Summonses are frequently returnable a long time ahead. In these circumstances, it seems to me that one has here one more example of the scope of this change being enlarged beyond what is necessary. I shall take an example which, I think, will give more reality to the situation.
      There must be quite a number of cases in which rape is suspected and in which investigations are made and a person is suspected of committing an offence long before proceedings are taken. I am not

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      now thinking of the case of a man who escapes, so to speak, and is not found until much later, because that is a different situation altogether. However, there may be doubt in the minds of the police whether the sexual act was consensual and it may not be until a considerable time later, perhaps until forensic tests have ben carried out on clothing and perhaps a search has been made for corroborative evidence, and so on, that the matter materialises in court. It may take a long time before it does so.
      As far as I can see, under the provisions of the Bill, if it is enacted in its present form, there would be nothing to stop a man shouting from the housetops "I think I am going to be accused of rape by Mrs. Smith, who lives at …"— and from then giving the address and broadcasting it to the housetops.
      If he does that before proceedings are instituted, as far as I can see he commits no offence. Once he has been charged, the blanket of secrecy and silence descends upon the scene, subject to the exceptions that we have already canvassed and in which we have been involved already on earlier amendments.
      However, certainly this particular form of bringing proceedings does not seem appropriate to this kind of Bill. I should have thought that the Bill would be marginally improved by the deletion of subsection (6)(a).
      I turn to Amendment No. 50, which would insert the words,
      "or he is accused by way of a bill of indictment."
      Again, for the benefit of the militants who no doubt have the worst possible view of my motives in this matter, one will see that those words, if anything, widen the scope of the case. It seems an oddity that these secrecy provisions can apply to a person who is charged before a court but that where one proceeds by way of a bill of indictment, that does not apply.
      I notice that the Minister is nodding. I am beginning to wonder whether one of my amendments, at least, will be accepted today. It would make my day to feel that someone had actually listened to what I have said. This would strengthen a bad Bill, but strengthen it nevertheless. One would feel that it
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      should call down the encomiums of the militant sponsors for doing so.
      I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett), the progenitor of the Bill, has now returned to his place. I do not think that he was in the Chamber when I mentioned bills of indictment in an earlier context. Perhaps I may remind him that this is a procedure for which we provide as an alternative method of bringing matters before a court. Perhaps I may quote to my hon. Friend the appropriate part of the criminal lawyer's Bible, "Archbold", which deals with this point and defines it in literally the first paragraph, which states.
      "A bill of indictment is a written or printed accusation of crime made at the suit of the Crown against one or more persons. An indictment is a bill which has been signed by the proper officer of a court in accordance with the provisions of the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1933.
      By section 2(1) of that Act: 'Subject to the provisions of this section, a bill of indictment charging any person with an indictable offence may be preferred by any person before a court in which the person charged may lawfully be indicted for that offence, and where a bill of indictment has been so preferred the proper officer of the court shall, if he is satisfied that the requirements of the next following subsection … have been complied with, sign the bill, and it shall thereupon become an indictment and be proceeded with accordingly:
      Provided that if the judge … of the court is satisfied that the said requirements have been complied with, he may, on the application of the prosecutor or of his own motion, direct the proper officer to sign the bill and the bill shall be signed accordingly'."
      I think that that probably defines it adequately enough for the benefit of the discussion on this amendment, but I think it is already clear to the House that in their enthusiasm to get the Bill on the statute book, the sponsors of the Bill have made a "boob". I see that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) looks a little surprised. I do not know why, but that seems to be the situation. I am interested to know whether the Minister has decided to accept these amendments. One of them, I suppose, is a deletion the other is an addition. I should have thought that between them they provide some measure of improvement in the Bill.
      Mr. Lawrence: In an effort to be helpful, I should like to ask the Minister to

      865
      look again at the wording in subsection (6)(b):
      "he appears before a court charged with a rape offence".
      The time lag between charging a man and his appearing before a court charged with the offence may be fairly considerable. If the object of the exercise is to seal all the gaps by which the anonymity principle can be breached, this is one gap that might be blocked. It seems obvious, on the face of it, that the words
      "he is charged with a rape offence"
      would suit the Minister's book more adequately than the present wording.
      1.15 p.m.
      Mr. John: In response to that last matter, if the amendment is not pressed I shall undertake to look again at the wording to see whether all the gaps are covered. However, on the principle, I am bound to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) that he is half right when he anticipates my reaction on this matter.
      Concerning Amendment No. 49, I certainly would not advise my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) to accept its principle, because it would delay the beginning of the protection afforded by the clause, and I believe that that would be undesirable. My hon. Friend the Member for Hands-worth certainly made the point that before an information or a charge is laid, anticipatory noises can be made, but that seems no good reason for saying that even after a charge is made there should be a similar freedom.
      Concerning Amendment No. 50, I accept the spirit of what my hon. Friend said.
      Mr. Lee: Then why not accept the amendment?
      Mr. John: Parliamentary counsel look at these matters, and, unfortunately for my hon. Friend, my advice is that the wording is not wholly satisfactory. If my hon. Friend agrees with my advice, I hope that he will agree not to press the amendment, upon an undertaking that a suitable form of wording will be introduced in another place in order to meet the point that he has validly put forward.
      Mr. Lee: Is my hon. Friend giving an undertaking that it will quite definitely be introduced in another place?
      Mr. John: As this is a Private Member's Bill, what I can undertake is that if my hon. Friend accepts my advice a suitable form will be prepared for introduction in the other place.
      Mr. Robin Corbett: I am prefectly prepared to go along with that very helpful and sensible suggestion, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) will accept it.
      Mr. Lee: In those circumstances, overwhelmed as I am by this unusual attitude of co-operation and with the undertaking that a suitable form of wording will be introduced in another place, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment. I hope that my hon. Friend has a majority of people in the other place who would support this amendment. I hope that he has done some head counting among the peers, otherwise he may find some difficulties there.
      I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 5

      PROVISIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO S. 4
      Amendment made: No. 33, in page 7, line 29, leave out subsection (2).—[Mr. John.]
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 58, in page 7, line 45, leave out
      'or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of'.
      In a sense we have gone over much of the argument involved in this but that does not mean to say that one should lightly pass over defects which appear in this amateur piece of lawmaking. We have already talked about the difficulties which arise in relation to inadvertent offending when I moved Amendment No. 46 to include the word "knowingly".
      Again the same problem rears its ugly head because the principle of crime by negligence is a principle virtually unknown to English law. I find it odd that it should be introduced as a sidewind to this particular Bill. If I wanted to be

      867
      unkind I should probably say that it was as a result of being introduced through the ignorance of non lawyers, otherwise it would not be there. Let me just read the effect of it. Clause 5(5) says—
      "When an offence under subsection (5) of the preceding section which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly."
      Is this an attempt to produce a mass trial of everybody, from the office boy up to the managing director or the chairman? That is what it looks like. It looks very much as if not only does that apply but the principle of crime by negligence is involved. I do not want to appear inconsistent with the remarks that I made earlier when we were discussing the penalties. I tried to draw a distinction, but failed to prevail upon the Minister to accept it, between what one might call inadvertent publication on the one hand and deliberate and malicious publication on the other.
      In one sense the former is an example —I suppose it could be so construed—of being an offence committed by neglect or omission. If we are talking of that, what we are thinking of primarily is the position of somebody who through rank carelessness, doing something in their ordinary line of duty, should be on inquiry as to the possible risks involved in publishing the name of a person in relation to court proceedings. Therefore, it is just about right, but only just, that such conduct should be objectionable.
      What seems to be behind this particular part of the Bill, and which I seek to delete, is an attempt to deem an officer of a body corporate to be guilty of an offence if the offence comes to be permitted merely by virtue of the fact that they hold an office. Put in shorthand, is this an attempt to introduce Royal British Bank v. Turquand company law into the criminal law. Is that what we are trying to do? Otherwise, why is it there?
      Why should an act be attributable to a person? That is the most objectionable aspect. Either one commits an offence or
      868
      one does not. One does not have an offence attributable to him. That is the problem which arises and, in a sense, I ridicule it by using the example of the ower. It now looks as if somebody who owned an organisation such as this in a proprietary sense might get off scot free because although he was a director, secretary or other officer of the body corporate, no one could attribute it to the shareholders.
      I suppose the Minister will say "that is wholly in accordance with the principles of limited liability under company law at the moment. You can go against the shareholders of a company, or the torts, or the breaches of contract committed by the company, even if you are 100 per cent. owner of the shares until you happen to hold office as defined under company law." Therefore, it will be wrong for the shareholder, albeit the sole shareholder, to be deemed to be culpable in the same way as some officer remote from the offence itself but who nevertheless is an officer of the body corporate itself.
      I take the view that we should have a proper companies Bill before the House, as I hope we shall. I intend to put down a lot of amendments to it to get away from the principle of limited liability altogether, which was introduced in the 19th century in totally different circumstances. It is time that shareholders were made, as it were, to earn their dividends in more ways than one for as long as we have a mixed economy. I hope that we shall not have such an economy for very long.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman is straying from the sense of his amendment.
      Mr. Lee: I would not seek for one moment to argue with the Chair. Maybe I was permitting myself a few ruminations about the future situation. However, the Minister will say "We must deal with the situation as it stands here and now and as the law it". I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) is in the House. Perhaps he can say why this provision was included. I think that he will find that it adds very little to the strength of the provisions. It is not necessary, and probably it is undesirable, because at the end of the day it increases the risk that perhaps somebody will be found guilty of an

      869
      offence which he has not, in fact, committed. That is the basis of nearly all the objections to nearly every part of the Bill.
      Mr. Lawrence: May I briefly support the strictures of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee). Mere negligence should seldom if ever be the basis of criminal law and in our view it is wrong here.
      Mr. John: All I can say is that the recognition of both hon. Gentlemen of the wrongness of this matter is a rather fleeting recognition because my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) was accused of ignorance and, therefore, of defects in drafting by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee). I find, upon looking at the statutes, that this is a perfectly normal director's clause in every Bill which seeks to deal with corporate liability for a criminal offence.
      It is perfectly possible for both hon. Members to take issue with the generality of such matters, but I do not think that they can take issue with the fact that it is a common form of law. What my hon. Friend the Member for Hands-worth said about limited liability, and about company law generally, is irrelevent to this issue. It is relevant to the doctrine of the criminal law of a company.
      I do not believe that there can be any justification for making this case an exception to the whole body of criminal law by absolving directors and officers of responsibility for neglectful behaviour. If we say that they can publish a name and be neglectful about it, yet escape their liability, we shall be going a great way to making a mockery of this Bill. This is why I believe that my hon. Friend should resist the amendment.
      1.30 p.m.
      Mr. Lee: Surely there is a valid and practically definable distinction between neglect in the sense of carelessness or negligence—the concepts overlap—on the one hand and shutting one's eyes deliberately—in other words, behaving in a reckless way, not knowing or caring whether something has happened. As an illustration, one of the attributes of the offence of handling
      870
      stolen goods is whether a person knows or believes those goods to be stolen. He cannot escape his criminal culpability if he deliberately shuts his eyes to that situation. That analogy is appropriate here and the amendment would have helped to correct that situation. In other words, my hon. Friend's reply is misdirected.
      Mr. Lawrence: I would ask the Minister to look at this again. There is a difference between the liability which a company incurs as a result of a series of acts which are fraudulent and in which the approach to the handling of the company's accounts gives rise to details of criticism which in the end may or may not amount to fraud, and the situation which is envisaged here whereby a company, commits an act which would require a more specific intent than negligence if it were an individual person. Those are two different situations. It is not enough merely to say that because companies in one fraudulent type of offence are liable for negligence they must be liable for negligence in this matter which is of a wholly different nature.
      Mr. John: With due respect, what I said did not relate only to the question of fraudulent behaviour or fraud by a company. It had to do with every statute and every way in which a company could be criminally liable for acts. As I have said, my researches show, as far as I can advise the House, that this is perfectly common form. Nevertheless, of course I will look at the words uttered in the debate to see whether my advice is wholly correct.
      But I believe it to be a standard form. Certainly there is a distinction between negligence and recklessness, but what I am saying is that where other acts are committed for which the company and its officers are liable through neglect, it would be wrong to single out this Bill for treating directors or managers differently from how they would be treated in other cases. As I have said, I will make sure that my statements today are correct, but subject to that, there can be no objection in principle to the wording.
      Mr. Corbett: While I am happy to go along with that undertaking, the context in which we are discussing the amendment is that of the anonymity of the

      871
      complainant. That is one of the sensitive parts of the Bill. The reason for this provision is that we want to underpin that anonymity for the complainant in every reasonable way possible.
      I am not a lawyer—a fact for which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) berated me—but it seemed to us that the concept in other areas of the criminal law of neglectful behaviour could be an added and important buttress to that anonymity provision. I hope that, on the grounds that this matter can be thought about again before the Bill goes to another place, the amendment will be withdrawn or defeated.
      Mr. Lee: I am grateful that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) has come to my assistance. I am sure that the Minister has spoken in good faith. I should be happier if he said in terms that a clarificatory amendment would be introduced in another place. Whether he gives me that undertaking or not, I do not propose to divide the House. I am not trying to filibuster. Since the sponsors intend that the Bill shall complete its passage today, there will be no opportuniy for further discussion here and the only legislaive way to deal with it is for some announcement a least to be made when the matter goes to another place. If my hon. Friend says that, I shall be much happier.
      Mr. John: If what I have said is correct, no clarification is necessary, because the words are perfectly clear in themselves. It is only in the event of what I have said needing to be corrected that we shall need to consider clarification. I will advise my hon. Friend about the action he should then take in the other place.
      Mr. Lee: In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 6

      CITATION, INTERPRETATION COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT
      Mr. Lee: I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 8, line 41. leave out 'conspiracy to rape'.
      We now turn to a fundamental aspect of the law. I do not know how many
      872
      times in the past few years and in how many different contexts the law of conspiracy has vexed the House and people outside who are concerned with the liberty of the subect. On 17th March this year the Law Commission published a report on conspiracy and criminal law reform, containing a draft Bill which would rewrite the law of conspiracy. It certainly needs to be done.
      I should have thought that some of my hon. Friends, having seen the very word "conspiracy" in the Bill would want to take part in this debate. Many of them were exercised about the application of the law of conspiracy in the context of trade union disputes, and particularly in relation to the so-called "Shrewsbury Two".
      I will clear up any ambiguity by saying that in large measure, although not wholly, I share the sentiments of those of my hon. Friends who have inveighed against the law of conspiracy and its application where substantive offences could have been prosecuted and where those substantive offences carried with them lesser penalties on conviction than conspiracy per se. One can see that this is an important matter, and I think that it will have to be discussed at some length.
      I am glad to see the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) here. He has immense experience of the criminal law, and his knowledge of these matters far exceeds mine. He will therefore have a valuable contribution to make. He may not entirely agree with the sentiments I have just expressed—I would not expect him, from his point of the political spectrum, to do so. But I hope that he will have something to say. Trying to keep one's professional and political activities apart, I pay him the compliment of saying that he carried to the House of Lords the arguments in Shaw v. the Director of Public Prosecutions, a case of conspiracy, quite eloquently, and no one is better qualified to animadvert on the law of conspiracy.
      Mr. Norman Miscampbell: If the law of conspiracy is to be changed, that is another argument for another day, but it makes no difference to the inclusion of these words in this

      873
      Bill because, however the law of conspiracy is changed generally, the Bill will refer to conspiracy as it has been changed and redefined by the Law Commission. I make that point since the hon. Gentleman says that he is going to speak at some length. Could he deal with it in his remarks?
      Mr. Lee: I shall do so in two ways. The hon. and learned Gentleman is falling into the trap of enunciating the insupportable doctrine that once Second Reading has occurred, the House is precluded from fundamental amendment. It is a novel constitutional proposition that is quite wrong, and I am sure that the Opposition as a whole will rue the day that any of their spokesmen, either carelessly —I do not want to be rude to the hon. and learned Gentleman—or inadvertently enunciated such a proposition, because the Leader of the Opposition will have her nose rubbed in it time and again.
      1.45 p.m.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have warned the hon. Gentleman before. He must confine himself to the substance of his amendment.
      Mr. Lee: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      The second objection is that the law of conspiracy is in need of drastic revision, that there are numerous objectionable aspects to it. Then why not start now? Quite reasonably, the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) put to the Minister just now an argument for at any rate modifying an aspect which he thought was disturbing, that is, the possibility of equating negligence with a criminal offence. He was met with the argument that it has always been there but that if, in the alternative, it is not there, the Minister will say something about it somewhere else. That is backing two horses, but it is a perfectly fair way for a Minister to deal with an awkward situation.
      If the law of conspiracy is objectionable, as I suggest it is—although it has to exist in some form or another in certain circumstances—there is no better time than now to start changing it.
      We are dealing with a novel situation. This Bill is novel. Its rationale is to confer an element of privilege on witnesses quite unique in our criminal law—not
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      that witnesses have not, rightly so, had their names excluded from publication before. But the Bill introduces the novel concept of a statutory privilege in relation to the criminal law of a kind unknown in English criminal history as far as I am aware.
      If this is a novel Bill, why should we not have some other novelties in it as well? We should not be inhibited, as this is a novel Bill, from making novel provisions in relation to any aspect of it and the objection of the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) is ill-founded.
      One can think of some instances where, as a side wind of legislation, some quite startling innovations have occurred, and there are circumstances in which they have been insupportable. I readily concede that. But here we are dealing with the criminal law, and conspiracy is one of the central aspects of the criminal law.
      Perhaps I should begin by reading out the definition as given by the Law Commission of the present state of the law of conspiracy, whether it applies to rape, murder, or fraud or any other aspect of the law. Page 5 of the Law Commission's Report on Conspiracy and Criminal Law Reform states:
      "Conspiracy differs from other inchoate offences (whether common law or statutory) in a number of ways. The most important difference lies in the nature of the objective which will make the preparatory step in its direction criminal. In all inchoate offences except conspiracy the objective must itself be an offence. Conspiracy goes further. Agreement to commit an offence is, of course, one instance of the crime of conspiracy. However, in addition, an agreement to effect some "unlawful" object, not itself an offence if committed by one person, can amount to the crime of conspiracy. This is because of the wide meaning which has been given to "unlawful" in this context. The exact extent of these "unlawful" objects (other than crimes) is far from clear. A person remains liable to be prosecuted for conspiracy even if the object of the agreement has been achieved. The extended meaning of "unlawful" thus leads to the result that, so long as two or more combine, they can, in certain circumstances, be punished for doing something which would not be criminal if one of them alone had done it."
      Mr. David Weitzman: The words my hon. Friend is seeking to delete are "conspiracy to rape". Clearly, that is a criminal offence. It is not the same as a conspiracy to carry out something

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      which may be unlawful. If my hon. Friend pursues his arguments, he will fall foul of what was rightly said by the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell)—that the law exists as it is. If a draft Bill is introduced to deal with conspiracy the rights and wrongs can be considered, but to alter the law now and delete those words would be utterly wrong.
      Mr. Lee: I remind my hon. and learned Friend, whose experience in these matters is longer than mine, that the whole concept of conspiracy to rape can be and generally is a complete nonsense. At best, the words in the clause are otiose. At worst, they are an absurdity as well as a further recognition of what in my submission, and I hope in my hon. and learned Friend's submission, is a profoundly objectionable attribute of English law. One of the peculiarities about conspiracy is that two or more persons can commit the offence by doing acts which, if done singly, would be lawful or at worst tortious. One wonders therefore, what value there is in this.
      I now turn from the general to the particular. Rape cannot be committed, cannot exist as an offence, unless and until the victim has said and meant "No". We have not attempted, even in this Bill, to reverse the decision in Morgan v. Director of Public Prosecutions. That piece of oppressiveness has at least been spared us. Therefore, the victim must have said "No" in a way which, it can be proved, beyond reasonable doubt, the pursuer must have known was meant, or behaved in such a manner that the defendants could be left in no doubt of the victim's refusal. After all, sexual relations, whether consensual or not, are not always conducted with strict formality.
      How can there be an offence of conspiracy to commit rape if a number of persons consort with one another in a certain way? One may have decided views about the unpleasantness of the circumstances and one may have a low opinion of their moral attitude. But what is needed is something more than internal mental intent but less than an act directed against the intended victim. What they are consorting together for in this context is to have sexual relations with somebody. There may have been a horrifying
      876
      example in the Central Criminal Court this week. I am not trying to make light of the matter. I am trying to prevent innocent people being victims.
      Mr. Weitzman: The example my hon. Friend has given is absurd. If a number of people agree to rape a girl, there is a criminal offence. If they merely agree that sexual relations shall take place in some lesser degree, it is a matter for the judge and jury to consider. It is a question of degree. My hon. Friend must not confuse the issue in this absurd way.
      Mr. Lee: My hon. and learned Friend is wholly wrong. It is not a matter of degree. Either the offence is committed or it is not. There is no grey area under the law. One does not commit a half offence. One may commit a different kind of offence or a lesser offence. There is a whole host of gradations of certain kinds of offence against the person, from common assault, through assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault occasioning grievous bodily harm and assault under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 all the way up the scale to attempted murder. But that does not apply here.
      Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: The hon. and learned Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman) is partly right. I think that what he is saying is that conspiracy to rape, if it were ever indicted, is an agreement between two or more parties that they propose to rape a certain person, whereas aiding and abetting and inciting to rape is a somewhat different charge. But what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) is entitled to ask the Government is whether they know of any case in recent years in which people have been indicted for conspiracy to rape. Those of us who have many years' experience have not seen such an indictment, probably because it would be conspiracy to commit an offence, whereas in almost every rape case there has actually been the rape, which distinguishes it from other conspiratorial cases.
      Mr. Lee: I am very much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is the whole point of the matter. Where the case stays as a conspiracy, it is unprovable. No doubt there are unhappily cases where people of a positively sadistic

      877
      and perverted attitude consort among themselves and in the privacy of their own meetings say "We'll rape a young girl", although I am not sure how one would prove it. But the great majority of the cases that present themselves are ones in which people are conspiring to commit a sexual act. The element of rape arises, if it arises at all, only when they waylay the girl concerned. When that happens one is faced with a substantive offence—an attempt to commit rape or, if the offence is completed, rape. Therefore, the law is an absurdity.
      2.0 p.m.
      There could be a situation in which, following suspicion of activity by a group of youths, or indeed older men, deciding together to embark on an offence of this kind, somebody listening in with the aid of a tape recorder could be present while such a matter was being discussed and where there was a possibility of the commission of a sexual act of a non-consensual character with a victim.
      In those circumstances it is possible that evidence could be produced on which a jury, properly directed, would convict of a conspiracy to rape. In such circumstances it would be possible for the defendants to say "We meant it all as a joke. We did not do it because we did not mean it seriously". In that situation it would be difficult for a judge to direct a jury in any other direction than that it would be unsafe for that jury to convict.
      That is not the same as a situation of a murder without the body—in other words, where somebody disappears in circumstances where everything points to murder. The courts are reluctant to convict in such cases, but they can convict and have done so. That is not a properly analogous situation.
      There is another reason why we should seek to delete this provision. The Bill names a number of offences as being rape offences and, although the wording of Clause 6(2) speaks only of "conspiracy to rape" rather than of conspiracy to commit a rape offence—I suspect that this is another piece of loose drafting—there would be further difficulty in deciding whether a conspiracy could apply where the so-called conspirators were seeking perhaps to commit no more than an act of
      878
      indecency. That is one of the matters that is defined in an earlier part of the Bill as a rape offence.
      The situation is not confined to rape. In the situation of somebody having listened in to such a conversation with the aid of a tape recorded, I suppose that there could be a conspiracy to attempt to commit a rape. Indeed, so far as I can see, there can be conspiracy to do almost anything—in other words, people can conspire at large. How will the law, as amended, apply to acts against public decency or outrages against public morals? I notice that there is a redefinition in the Bill of what used to be offences against public morals falling within the Vagrancy Act 1824. There are certain loose ends with which we must deal.
      I turn to the objections raised by the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North. He will know that the report of the Law Commission has been in existence since 17th March, but nobody so far has indicated when the draft Bill is to be introduced, if at all. Judging by the legislative log jam which is likely to prevail in the coming parliamentary Session in face of the devolution measures, the measure related to elections to the so-called European Parliament—that peculiar Common Market thing—and a measure to tidy up companies law, we shall have a very busy legislative time on the Floor of the House. Obviously, constitutional measures have to be dealt with on the Floor and that will take a long time. Therefore, the prospect of an early tidying up of the conspiracy and criminal law reform legislation is somewhat remote.
      Although the law in that respect is badly in need of revision, it cannot be said that we shall have an early end to that situation. By way of analogy, any attempt to change the composition of the other place often meets a certain degree of opposition—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. For the fourth time, I must ask the hon. Gentleman to keep to the sense of his amendment.
      Mr. Lee: Perhaps I had better leave their Lordships where they are for the moment. I was seeking to point out that these provisions are undesirable for many reasons.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Unfortunately, the Minister was not in his place when the hon. Gentleman invited him to say whether in the records of the Home Office there was any case at all in recent years involving a charge of conspiracy to rape. When there is not a participation, that can only arise as a separate charge. If there is a participation, it would either be joint rape, aiding and abetting rape, or inciting rape as an observer encouraging the offence. The Minister might like to intervene to say whether we are seeking to deal with something that is never likely to occur.
      Mr. Lee: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies). For the moment I had forgotten that point. He is quite right. I suspect that the circumstances in which that type of offence occurs are extremely rare. I dare say that the Home Office has various bits of information winging towards the Minister and that he will be able to answer the point in due course. I suspect that charges involving a conspiracy to rape are as rare and would be as difficult to prove as, for example, the offence of attempted manslaughter. Whoever hears of a charge of attempted manslaughter being preferred in an indictment? The charge is either manslaughter or some lesser offence under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
      As the hon. and learned Gentleman rightly points out, we have here a situation in which the offence is complete, in which case rape is charged, or it is not complete, in which case attempted rape is charged. Where more than one person is involved and it is such as to amount to a joint enterprise, the substantive offence can be charged. There have been many instances, very properly, in which more than one person has been jointly charged with a substantive offence, because they have all been guilty, either directly or constructively. The law is perfectly adequate to deal with this situations without the complexities and wire crossings of the law of conspiracy.
      There are other objections to the law of conspiracy and the Minister knows of them. It is true to say that the law of evidence on what is admissible with regard to any one defendant are much more lax in a conspiracy charge than they are with regard to a substantive
      880
      offence. A number of matters which should be regarded as coming within the hearsay rule in relation to a substantive offence are not so regarded in a conspiracy charge and can be put before a jury. Although one can understand why —because the whole essence of conspiracy is that it is a plural offence—there is bound always to be difficulty.
      A well-known illustration of this, to those of who know the courts, occurs time and again, and is said with absolute sincerity, when the judge addresses the jury. I am sure that in many cases it is totally artificial and unintelligible to a jury. A judge will say to a jury, "What Mr. Snooks says when he is interviewed by the police is evidence only for or against Mr. Snooks and not Mr. Soaps. What Mr. Soaps says when he is interviewed by the police is evidence only against Mr. Soaps because Mr. Snooks was not present when Mr. Soaps was interviewed and Mr. Soaps was not present when Mr. Snooks was interviewed."
      2.15 p.m.
      I am sure that many juries listening to this regard it as mumbo-jumbo. In any case, they hear what is said. If one defendant says about the other something which is injurious or damaging, jury members probably shrug their shoulders and say, "It is all a game made up by the lawyers." That is difficult enough with a number of offenders tried jointly together on a substantive charge. In that case the judge is under a strict obligation to make those matters clear to the jury. One only hopes that the jury takes them on board. When the law of conspiracy applies, the same degree of stringency may not wholly apply. This is yet another reason why the invocation of the concept of conspiracy is something that ought, where possible, to be discouraged.
      I look forward to the day—I do not suppose for a moment that the Minister of State will be able to name it this afternoon—when in one form or another the provisions of the Law Commission are implemented, not only as regards this Bill but over a very much wider area. I am sure—I would lay a bet with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Weitzman)—that when my hon. Friend

      881
      gets up to answer me he will not be able to give me the date when the Bill is to be introduced implementing those provisions.
      If I am right about that, now is the time to start. Now we can go ahead and begin to make progress in putting right an aspect of the law which has worried politicians, libertarians, the National Council for Civil Liberties and judges. I know of a number of cases when judges have been rightly annoyed that conspiracy charges have been brought when it would have been perfectly adequate for the interests of justice to lay a substantive charge alone. If one may use the analogy of the "Shrewsbury Two" one of the causes of the furore there was that the substantive matters were left in limbo while the conspiracy count was pursued in the alternative. There is a worse situation than that.
      Mr. John: I preface my intervention by saying that there are no recorded cases of conspiracy to rape. While I do not want to be taken to be assenting in any way to the general point my hon. Friend has been making, on the practicalities of the matter it must have little effect whether there have been such cases. I have consulted my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) and, with his agreement, I will invite the House to accept this amendment.
      Mr. Lee: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I will draw my remarks very shortly to a close. It is gratifying to discover that one's views prevail, at any rate in one way. If there are two matters pursued side by side it confuses the jury. The Minister understands that and accepts that it is another reason, possibly the most important one, for accepting the amendment.
      This situation applies commonly in less serious matters, when a person is charged with careless driving, driving without due consideration, dangerous and reckless driving. He can be charged five or six times over for the same offence. Those are less serious matters than these but it is a highly objectionable situation. I am glad that the Minister has prevailed, behind the scenes, upon the sponsors of the Bill. It is bad to have a principle of cumulative charges in matters of this gravity.
      My final objection is that the penalties on a conspiracy charge are at large. It
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      is a little academic here because the maximum penalty for rape is so severe. At least it is defined.
      In conspiracy matters, the penalties are at large, and that is not the least serious reason why the principle of conspiracy is bad. The principle of conspiracy in relation to this Bill is bad and, to the extent that even at this late stage the sponsors of the Bill are prepared to mitigate it by removing this objectionable aspect of it, I feel somewhat gratified.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendments made: No. 34, in page 9, line 10, leave out
      'except section 5(1)(b)'.
      No. 35, in line 12, leave out 'but' and insert:
      ',except that section 5(1)(b) and subsection (4)(b) of section (Anonymity of defendants in rape etc. cases) shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument.
      (4A)'.
      No. 36, in line 14, after '4', insert:
      'and section (Anonymity of defendants in rape etc. cases)'.
      No. 37, in line 22, leave out
      ') and except section 5(2)' and insert 'and subsection (1) of section (Anonymity of defendants in rape etc. cases) as adapted by subsection (4)(b) of that section)'.—[Mr. John.]
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      2.20 p.m.
      Mr. Lee: It must be a strange situation when a Bill reaches its Third Reading and the persons who have committed their names to it have not a word to say on the subject, not even by way of a formal moving of the Third Reading. Indeed, I am minded to wonder whether a point of order arises, since the sponsors are not here formally to move the Third Reading, and whether the Bill will fall.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest on that point. Anyone may formally move Third Reading.
      Mr. Lee: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, it is strange when those who believe in this Bill are not in their places to speak in support of it.
      Miss Jo Richardson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I

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      am one of the sponsors of the Bill and I am right behind my hon. Friend—I mean physically, of course.
      Mr. Lee: I hope that my hon. Friend is behind me argumentatively, too. However, the proposer who has made all the song and dance about it all along is not here; nor are the more raucous supporters who manifested themselves at the end of the day when last this matter was considered.
      I believe that this Bill is a bad one and that it will occasion a great many acts of injustice. I suspect that it arises out of a laudable but totally misconceived enthusiasm and that what has happened is that, quite rightly horrified by a number of genuine rapes that have occurred—and there have been some pretty horrible ones in recent years—they have allowed that enthusiasm to run away with them and, in common with a lot of people who allow their hearts to run their heads, they have produced a piece of legislation which, whether they like it or not, will endanger the liberty of a number of people.
      One of the most disturbing aspects of the law—and it is one for which there is no answer under any legislation—is that by its nature it is an offence for which there are unlikely to be, except in the case of rapes committed by a number of persons, more than the victim and accused person present. Of their nature, sexual acts are not likely to be committed in public except in a Roman orgy and least of all when they may be of a non-consentual kind.
      If that be the situation, it will always be difficult to find reliable, detached and independent corroborative evidence. By restricting the scope of cross-examination, as the Bill does in Clause 2, the dangers of wrongful conviction are bound to increase.
      There are, after all, basically two defences in a rape situation. One is I did not do it, and it was someone else". The other is "She consented". The first must depend upon identification and, where the complainant and the defendant are unknown to each other—this will apply especially if the person is guilty but it may apply in other instances—
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      all the hazards of identification will come in a renewed and intensified form. In other contexts in recent years we have had case after case of wrongful identification. In some cases people have languished in prison for years before being vindicated and then often only by accident. I am thinking not only of rape but of other situations, and it is only this summer that a series of cases have been quashed in the Court of Appeal because the Court of Appeal decided that the matters were such that they could not be relied upon.
      I suspect that behind a lot of the people who are supporting the Bill—certainly the more silly and unthinking of them—is that, because they want to convict and punish people of rape, they want to bend the rules and make it easier to convict—never mind whether someone innocent is convicted. I suspect that that is behind the reasoning of the sillier of those who are sponsors of this Bill. It is a wholly deplorable situation in which the Home Office sits on the fence. It is an inelegant, unheroic and unhelpful posture which a Government Department ought not to have.
      The record of the Home Office in matters of civil liberties, heaven knows, is undistinguished and has been under one Government after another. Its attitude of moral cowardice is almost as bad as that which it has shown in matters of race relations until quite recently. I suspect that when this Bill is through we shall have another example of it in relation to the licensing legislation—legislation which I support unenthusiastically. But I share with the objectors the feeling of scorn that the Home Office passes the buck to private Members to deal with these matters.
      I cannot believe that if the principles involved in this Bill had emanated from a Government Department some of the obvious pieces of legislative carelessness and legal ambiguities which the courts will have to work out for themselves would have appeared in it. I have in mind the provision which we discussed earlier about crime by negligence, and the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) supported me in objecting to that.
      I cannot believe that if this Bill had emanated from the Home Office we would have had the asinine provisions which are in it now. It took a lot of talking

      885
      from me to drag out of the Home Office the deletion of the reference to conspiracy and to that extent the Bill has been improved minutely. I suppose that we must be grateful for small mercies because small mercies are the only ones that Back Benchers ever get, but the situation is still bad.
      If, as was reported the other day, somebody makes accusations against other persons of a sexual attack and these accusations are unfounded, defence counsel should have the right to cross-examine on these matters. It should be no part of the duty of Parliament to hinder the right of cross-examination. Clause 2 is a fundamental intrusion on the rights of advocates before the court in protecting the liberty of the subject.
      I only hope that when this Bill reaches the other place Peers will seek to change parts of Clause 2 for the better. If that happens, for once I shall be able to say something nice about the other place. Up to now I have always regarded it as a kind of anthropological zoo. However, if it can improve this Bill, it will serve a useful purpose. I hope it will not chicken out, as it did over the EEC legislation.
      I expect that we shall have a very strange situation arising over publication. Any acquitted person who really wishes —one can think of instances where such a person will wish quite rightly to parade the name of the disbelieved accuser before the public—has his remedy in taking out a writ for malicious prosecution. That will be public news, printed in the papers and people will know all about it.
      It is a very rare civil remedy and a very difficult one to pursue successfully to a conclusion, and there are many stages before a conclusion can be reached. However, one would not have to go that far with the action because the object of the exercise would be to get the name of someone in the Press, and it may well be that the perjuror would be exposed very early on. The wrongly accused person need take only a number of fairly preliminary steps in order to defeat the Clause 4 provisions.
      There are of course instances—as in the case of juveniles—where, right or wrong, honest witness or dishonest witness, it is right for over-riding reasons of public policy that names should not
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      be disclosed. That apart, I see no justification for Clause 4 in spite of he Minister's somewhat artificial examples which he sought to produce in order to rebut my amendments.
      For the rest of the Bill there is very little to be said. One hopes that when Parliament passes a nonsensical piece of legislation such as this, the judges have sufficient ingenuity to whittle it down. There are, and I choose my words carefully, many people who say "Thank God for Lord Denning" in respect of civil law. One hopes that the criminal side of the Court of Appeal and the higher courts will show the same constructive ingenuity in mitigating the damage which could be done by this well-intentioned, but wholly misguided and silly piece of legislation.
      If this Bill becomes law, a perjuror in a rape case may well be able to gain protection from public contempt and condemnation. A witness who gives evidence against a gangland murderer can have his name disclosed. I find it incredible that the Guardian felt prepared to give the name of a man held in a cell under constant threat of his life for giving evidence against some of the most dangerous criminals in this country. A newspaper which is so irresponsible that it publishes the name in that case will not be able to publish the name of a neurotic woman who fantasises about a rape. She can be protected, and for that reason I intend to divide the House.
      2.38 p.m.
      Mr. George Cunningham: Earlier this week there was a very highly publicised rape case in which a number of people were convicted of the rape of a girl and one of them was acquitted because he was under the age of 14.
      Mr. Lee: He was not acquitted.
      Mr. Cunningham: He was acquitted of rape because under English law the presumption is that one cannot be convicted of rape under the age of 14. This is a very curious presumption which suggests that a boy under 14 is physically incapable of sexual intercourse. That is a prepostrous ground on which to assert that he cannot be convicted of rape.
      I moved an amendment in Committee to remove that presumption but it was rejected. I hope that the House of Lords,

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      particularly in the light of the case earlier this week, will see fit to look at that particularly silly presumption in English law which has no parellel in Scottish law and make an amendment to improve the law.
      2.39 p.m.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friends and I tabled the motion on the Order Paper on Third Reading in order to enable a public debate on this stage of the Bill and to air the broad nature of our misgivings about it so that the House of Lords, if it has time to consider the Bill at all before the end of the Session, might take note of what we have said.
      Our criticisms are of substance but lest the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee), who has laboured long and assiduously to stop this Bill, should feel that he must take the opportunity to make a party political point about not pressing our objections to a vote, I would say that this opposition has not been and never will be, in the remaining short time in which we remain in Opposition, opposing simply for opposition's sake.
      Mr. Lee: Tell that to Maggie.
      Mr. Lawrence: Our Opposition has always been responsible, and we are being responsible in this debate.
      There seems to be no valid justification for delaying the next business even for 15 minutes. That time will be valuable for dealing with the next Bill, which is I believe relatively non-contentious. Because the Bill we are now dealing with will have to face further legislative proceedings, and since in due course the House of Lords may not have time to consider the matter and the Bill might lapse, there would be less justification for delaying it by irresponsible opposition, however strongly one might feel about parts of the Bill.
      The Opposition's approach to the Bill can be summed up as unenthusiastic. Clause 1 defines the meaning of rape and is unexceptionable in that it is no more than a restatement of the existing law which with one exception changes nothing in the practice of the law. In a sense therefore it is unnecessary, and I only hope that the public are not led to feel that because we are passing a Bill amending
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      the law of rape, in essence the definition has been changed to make the law more severe or to make it more likely that those accused are convicted.
      The public outcry which caused the Heilbron Committee to sit and the Bill to be produced has tailed off because the Cambridge rapist was arrested, the Committee was set up and reported and a Bill is before the House. The public doubtless feels that in future all will be well with the law of rape because we are doing something about it here. My hesitation is that, like so much of legislation that we pass, the Bill is little more than a placebo, and where it may be thought to change the law in substantial respects it changes it very little.
      The exception to the general principle that in definition the law is unchanged is in subsection (3). We see there a very serious danger in removing a qualification which hitherto existed that one cannot produce a charge of rape against the husband. There is a serious danger of the hateful and vengeful wife crying rape and using that as an excuse to rid herself of the unwanted husband. We have the strongest reservations on that score.
      Clause 2 gives us strong misgivings if it is intended to make it more difficult for an accused person to be acquitted by placing restrictions upon the evidence which he can adduce at trials for rape. That is a potentially very dangerous proceeding, particularly since it applies different rules from those which normally apply in criminal cases. It takes the judgment about the relevance and strength of evidence away from the jury, which hitherto has had that power in rape cases, and concentrates it in the hands of a single judge, who may or may not be the fairest forum to decide that issue. If we thought that judges were always the fairest forum to decide these issues of fact we would not have had juries at all. As has become clear during the Committee proceedings, we have considerable hesitation about the loss of this right to adduce evidence.
      We have further misgivings about Clause 4, particularly in so far as the defendant has to be protected by the cloak of anonymity. Of course, we see the logic of protecting a defendant if the complainant is protected, but many of us

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      would rather that there was no protection for either party. We genuinely view with some disquiet the fact that we are introducing here an element of private justice not open to the usual public scrutiny into a branch of the law which in other respects ought to vary little from the general principles of our criminal justice.
      2.45 p.m.
      Our approach to the Bill is concerned that the usual safeguards which apply in our criminal law for protection of the accused are to some degree being undermined here and that although the public may feel that it is a good thing to legislate again on rape and may feel that some of the steps in the Bill improve the law, it is doubtful whether, if the public fully understood all the parts of the Bill, it would wholly like all the fetters being placed upon the accused which may well make the conviction of an innocent man more likely.
      The usual safeguards which have satisfied the public over the years and have not been subject to the greatest criticism —the burden of proof being upon the prosecution, the judge's power to decide whether cross-examination is relevant, the fact that juries are the judges of issues of fact, and the fact that special rules to protect the accused are written into our law—are here being reduced to some extent.
      Experience has shown that some women have a propensity to make false allegations in some circumstances. Since these allegations are easily made and difficult to disprove, the law has always paid a special regard to sexual offences and has required, for example, corroboration. We are unhappy that the Bill reverses that approach. Instead of giving extra care to the protection of an accused in a sexual offences case, the sponsors of the Bill have deliberately and intentionally in some respects reduced the need for care.
      We therefore consider that this is a very substantial danger because it might result in some being unjustly convicted.
      We shall not vote against the Bill, as I have explained, but I hope that these matters have been registered so that the other place may consider them more fully. The Upper House in a matter of this kind is a pre-eminent institution for
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      considering changes in the law. It consists of a very large number of experienced and wise practitioners in this branch of the law. They have the time and the opportunity to consider the details and the principle much more fully than perhaps we have in this Chamber.
      Although we do not agree wholly with the conclusion of the Heilbron Committee, we pay a substantial tribute to its work and I congratulate the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) and his fellow sponsors on having produced this Bill. I hope that before it is dealt with in another place there will be further improvements.
      Some of us, however, on this side expect that this Bill will never see the light of day because of the weight of the legislative programme and that it will go the way that the Road Traffic (Seat Belts) Bill seems likely to go and not return here this Session.
      2.51 p.m.
      Mr. John: I intervene for a few moments because it would be wrong not to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) and all the sponsors who have done a magnificent job during all the stages of this Bill to set it on its way. It may not be a tremendous earth-shattering measure, but it will be extremely useful in clearing up misconceptions which may arise and it will make what has become trial by ordeal for many women with a legitimate cause for complaint an ordeal in which they have to suffer only that which is necessary for the trial of the offence and not an ordeal of extraneous matter and public opinion.
      The hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) spoke about his anxieties on Clause 1(3). He will know that this provision was deleted on Report and I hope that he will agree that the record should be put straight so that no undue alarm is caused.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) raised the question of age. This is being considered by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, assisted by the Policy Advisory Committee on Sexual Offences. I think that is the best way of dealing with the matter.

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      I should tell my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) that the Home Office welcomes the Bill. It is not sitting on the fence and nor does it believe that the Bill is a product of emotion. It is a product of the Heilbron Committee and if it is right to pay high though not unquestioning tribute to the depth of its investigation and conclusions, it is right not to praise it on the one hand and denigrate it by rejecting its conclusions on the other. It is because the Bill gives just treatment to the recommendations that I hope that the House will give it a chance to proceed further.
      Question put, That the Bill be read the Third time:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Miss Jo Richardson and Mr. Robin Corbett were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, and Mr. John Lee was appointed a Teller for the Noes, but no Member being willing to act as a second Teller for the Noes, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared the Ayes had it.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  ENDANGERED SPECIES (IMPORTAND EXPORT) BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  2.56 p.m.
  The Minister of State for Sport and Recreation (Mr. Denis Howell): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I shall give a short resume of the Bill and a few of the Government's opinions about it.
  The Bill has already been through another place and was introduced in this House on 20th May. It was entirely suitable that it should start its life in that other place, because many of their Lordships have great knowledge of conservation matters. Moreover, an Endangered Species Bill, which was a Private Member's measure with similar objectives, had already been extensively debated there.
  I had hoped that we could hold Second Reading in this House in Committee, and I regret that the necessary motion was not accepted by the House. I would not have thought that the Bill, important though it is, could be regarded as controversial in a party sense. However, I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Lord President has managed to find a slot in our crowded timetable to enable us to hold this debate this afternoon.
  The purpose of the Bill is to provide specific and rather better powers than we have at present to implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. I think it will be best, therefore, if I begin with the convention itself before turning to the provisions of the Bill.
  The convention was signed in Washington in 1973. It arose from one of the resolutions carried at the Environment Conference held in Stockholm in 1972. It was felt that many animals and plants were being driven to extinction by hunting and collecting and that steps were needed to regulate trade. The basic idea was for the industrialised nations which import most of the furs, ivory and so on to join hands with the larger and mostly developing countries which possess the biggest numbers and variety of wildlife. Import controls in the consumer countries would be linked to, and support, export controls in the countries of origin.

  893
  I want to stress at the outset that there is no intention of banning all trade in wildlife. Such trade has obvious benefits. Many developing countries obtain valuable foreign currency from such exports—furs, skins, and orchids, to name but a few of the items involved. This country is one of the major importers, although much of what we import we re-export, thanks to the skill of our breeders, propagators, manufacturers and dealers. We are not asking traders to stop trading, but rather to be sensible and avoid eating their seed corn.
  The convention provides for the control of both imports and exports of live animals and plants and of such of their parts and derivatives as are readily recognisable. The species to be most strictly controlled, which are those already considered to be threatened with extinction, are listed in Appendix I to the convention. Commercial trade in these is virtually banned for the time being. Other species which, though not in immediate danger, are considered likely to disappear if trade is not regulated are listed in a second appendix. For this second group trade must be controlled and monitored so that action can be taken if a threat to survival develops. A third appendix lists species which a contracting State may consider threatened within its own borders, and in respect of which it operates export controls. Other contracting States have to co-operate with such controls in these cases.
  The United Kingdom was one of a number of countries which signed the convention in 1973. Altogether 64 countries have now signed and 32 have ratified. The convention came into force in July 1975, following the tenth ratification.
  As the House knows, we implemented the main provisions of the convention in the United Kingdom on 1st January this year under the powers of the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939. But the use of these powers was intended to be only temporary pending the grant of a more specific power by Parliament. Before we implemented them we held consultations with representatives of the trades and industries likely to be affected by the new controls and with the voluntary conservation bodies. These consultations have continued during the various stages of this Bill and have proved
  894
  most fruitful. I am grateful to the bodies that have been consulted. Indeed, I think I can say that those consultations and the debate in another place have contributed to a Bill which will provide a far more satisfactory basis for our implementation than would have been the position under the existing legislation.
  I know that even with the changes in our present arrangements embodied in this Bill we shall not be doing everything that the most ardent conservationists would wish. But we have to hold a reasonable balance. The controls must be practical and in particular they must be effective. We consider it most important to avoid unnecessary interference with legitimate trade.
  We also have had the benefit of advice from our three scientific authorities that the Secretary of State has already established or appointed under existing powers. The Nature Conservancy Council, which is the Government's statutory adviser on all matters concerning nature conservation, gives advice on the wider issues of policy raised by the convention extending beyond the operation of the import and export controls. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew is the authority for plants and advises on the issue of licences for them. The Director of Kew has appointed a committee, with representatives of other major relevant institutions, to advise him on the operation of the convention.
  The third authority is the Scientific Authority for Animals, a newly established body of individuals with expert knowledge of the status of endangered species and related matters. Its chairman is Professor Wynne-Edwards, who is also the chairman of the Birds Advisory Committee for England, Wales and Scotland, thus providing a valuable link with the various controls under the Protection of Birds Acts.
  Mr. F. A. Burden: Were there any consultations with the Zoological Society?
  Mr. Howell: I am not sure whether there were consultations with that body, but I shall clear up that matter in the course of the debate. In fact, I have just been told that the answer is "Yes". The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that he gets the same swift answers

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  on this subject as I am able to give on drought matters.
  Mr. Burden: I hope that these are more accurate.
  Mr. Howell: My answers on drought matters have been most realistic— namely, to bring rain. The answer that I have just given is as realistic and accurate.
  I am pleased to be able to say that the United Kingdom has now ratified the convention. The necessary instrument was deposited with the Swiss Government on 2nd August. It is, of course, most unusual for us to delay ratification of an international treaty until after we have started to implement it, but there were two special reasons for this. The original intention had been for EEC States jointly to ratify the convention. This, however, did not prove feasible, and member States are ratifying as soon as they are able. The United Kingdom, after West Germany, was the second member State to ratify the convention.
  The other reason is that we wished to include as many of our dependent territories as possible in our instrument of ratification, since there is no provision in the convention for us to ratify on their behalf at a later date. Since many of our territories had no existing legislation to enable them to implement the convention, we have had to allow them time to prepare fresh legislation. I am sure that the House will agree that that was reasonable.
  Our reason for ratifying at the time we did was to enable us to play a full part in the first conference of the parties to the convention, which is to begin on 2nd November in Berne. A great deal of preparatory work has already been done to ensure that the United Kingdom makes a very positive contribution to this conference.
  I now turn to the main provisions of the Bill, which are designed to meet the requirements of the convention, to allow for possible future changes in it and to permit adequate flexibility in administration.
  Under Clause 1, which is the main substantive clause, licences are required for the import or export of all the live or dead animals and plants, and of the parts
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  and derivatives, covered by the schedules. The licensing will be administered in Great Britain by the Department of the Environment, in Northern Ireland by the Department of Agriculture and in the dependent territories by their own authorities. The licences may impose terms or conditions. The most common condition will be that, in the case of an import licence, the goods must have a permit from the exporting country.
  The Bill's schedules define the species and items to be controlled. Schedule 1 covers the animals in appendices I and II of the convention, and Schedule II the plants in both appendices. Schedule III lists those parts and derivatives of both animals and plants which are considered to be readily recognisable and therefore capable of control. I stress that the schedules to the Bill do not follow the same layout as the appendices to the convention but follow a layout similar to that which the House has approved on other occasions in other legislation.
  I shall now say a few words about enforcement of the new controls. The basic intention is to prohibit the import and export of unlicensed goods and so attract the provisions against illegal import and export in Customs legislation. There are, however, some extra provisions in the Bill which we think desirable to deal with the special problems posed by endangered species.
  Clause 1(6) makes it an offence knowingly or recklessly to give false information when applying for a licence. Clause 1(8) requires anyone in possession of animals, plants or the listed goods to furnish proof that their import or export was not or is not unlawful. Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State a permissive power to restrict the ports of entry for live animals if this appears desirable to aid enforcement.
  Clause 5 enables the Secretary of State to specify premises at which live animals may be kept so as to ensure that animals covered by appendix I of the convention are at least kept in proper accommodation used for approved purposes.
  Clause 1(3), (9) and (10) provide specific penalties for knowingly importing, exporting or handling unlicensed goods, and I ought to say a little more about these subsections.
  Mr. Burden: There is a matter to be clarified here and there may be difficulty since enforcement is to be done through the Customs. There are long lists of animals and plants, including dead animals and dead plants as well as live. What instructions and advice will be given to Her Majesty's Customs so that its officers may recognise the items subject to prohibition? That applies with special force in respect of the dead plants involved. Also, what instructions will be given to enable them to make their recognition fairly easily? It is essential that all these items, including the listed animals, be readily recognised.
  Mr. Howell: I would make two points on that. First, I do not think that it is possible to give Her Majesty's Customs and Excise instructions. The Customs service is totally independent and is required by this House to carry out the laws that we pass. However, obviously we shall be giving the Customs some advice—which is the word that I think that the hon. Gentleman might have chosen. It would be better if we dealt with this detailed point at Committee stage, which I understand will be taken on the Floor of the House, and I shall be happy to do so then as it will probably be more appropriate than dealing with it when considering the principle of the Bill.
  A number of the provisions in the Bill which I have just described were inserted or modified in another place. In most cases the changes were agreed and seem to me to be satisfactory. But subsections (3), (9) and (10) need some attention. We shall have to ask hon. Members to look at these in Committee.
  I am here dealing with the amendments which would allow private prosecutions. Hitherto, all prosecutions for illegal import and export have been reserved to the Customs. But it was felt strongly in the other place that, in the case of endangered species, private prosecutions should also be allowed as an aid to enforcement.
  These subsections were introduced against the Government's advice and, as they stand, I do not believe that they are workable. For my part, I value the contribution that private individuals and especially members of conservation groups can make in detecting and reporting
  898
  any breaches of our controls. They have a fund of expertise and a remarkable enthusiasm at their disposal which is to be most commended. However, it must be remembered that the primary responsibility rests on Her Majesty's Customs and Excise to police and enforce these controls. After mature reflection, I do not think that we can part from that concept. Any move to let in private prosecutions will be counter-productive if it hampers Customs officials in their work and cuts across Customs legal powers.
  I have given a great deal of thought to ways in which these apparently conflicting objectives might be resolved, as I am sure all of us wish to resolve them if we can. I have also held very much in mind the need to avoid the risk of unnecessary harassment of importers and traders. It seems possible, though not easy, I confess, to insert a provision which will widen the scope of prosecution in such a way that the activities of the voluntary bodies will be complementary to and not confounded with the activities of Customs officials. I therefore intend to table an amendment in Committee designed to achieve this.
  The Government are not firmly wedded to the principle of this amendment. It is an attempt in part to be helpful and to try to bring together the parties, Customs and Excise and the voluntary bodies. We are content to leave the House to decide later whether a power to bring private prosecutions is desirable or whether the amendment that I shall be tabling may achieve what all of us would like to achieve.
  My contention is simply that if the power is thought desirable, the Government amendment will be workable, whereas the subsections in the Bill as at present drafted are not workable. I am sure that no one in the House, whatever his views, would wish to pass into law an enactment that was not thought to be workable.
  There are a few other amendments that the Government will wish to bring forward. Clause 5, which deals with specified premises, has been heavily amended in another place, and could be reorganised to advantage. I shall be bringing in amendments to control otter skins, which were debated in another place, and to add one or two other items to Schedule 3. But I do not think I need

  899
  take up the time of the House discussing these relatively minor details now, as consultations are continuing and the intention is to table the amendments as soon as possible after this afternoon's debate.
  In closing, I should point out that it the Bill is enacted it will not come into force immediately. A little time will be needed to make the necessary administrative changes from our present control system. However, under Clause 9 (7) and (8) the Bill must come into force within six months of its being passed. The House has my assurance that I wish it to come into force as soon as possible and I would not, in any case, expect more than three months to be required to get the administrative arrangements in order so that it can be brought fully into effect.
  With that brief outline of the provisions of the Bill, which I like to think will enjoy all-party support, I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.
  3.15 p.m.
  Mr. Tim Sainsbury: I give the Bill a wholehearted welcome and assure the Minister, on behalf of the official Opposition, that we are anxious to see it having a speedy passage on the statute book. It was fully debated in another place, with the benefit of some very specialised knowledge. If one reads that debate it is of considerable interest to note what a variety of experts there are on various flora as well as fauna.
  I would also congratulate the many voluntary bodies on their articulate and energetically expressed concern, and their helpful and productive prodding of Government—perhaps the Opposition as well —that mankind should act positively in support of the endangered species. We were glad to hear the Minister refer to the ratification of the convention by the United Kingdom on 6th August. He also referred to the problem of dependent territories. I wonder whether he could tell us the situation with regard to Hong Kong, which is particularly important because it handles large quantities of some of the species which are endangered.
  I do not wish to delay the House at this hour and, as I said, we want to see this legislation on the statute book as soon as possible. There is one aspect to which
  900
  I would like to refer, to which the Minister has also referred. We certainly would not wish the Bill to fall short of achieving its objective for want of effective methods of enforcement. We know that this is an aspect of particular concern to the voluntary organisations, to which we are all indebted.
  Equally, as hon. Members are aware, this is a matter of concern to retailers. Perhaps I ought to declare an interest as a retailer, although not one whose organisation handles the products with which we are concerned. It is of concern to retailers who might be the subject of private prosecutions. That is a worry. We all recognise that one could have private prosecutions undertaken perhaps more with excessive zeal than on the basis of the weight of the evidence. That is a matter which we shall want to look at in Committee. We shall need to take into consideration the desire not to hamper legitimate trade, particularly since a lot of that trade is concerned with exports. I noted the Minister's comments with interest on this subject and we are grateful to him for them.
  We shall want to consider by whom these private prosecutions should be brought. There may be something to be said for restricting the right to bring private prosecutions to perhaps the stated voluntary organisations which have the known expertise in this field. We must also consider what shall constitute a defence in the case of a private prosecution. That is not a matter which should cause any unreasonable delay in Committee, but it is one that we shall have to look at somewhat carefully.
  I repeat my welcome for this Bill. It is nice for once to be able to congratulate the Government on a Bill, even when it is brought forward late in the Session. I can think of a long list of legislation that I would rather they had left out altogether or had brought in late with no hope of success in order to give this Bill precedence. If we have an early sight of the amendments that the Minister has promised, with good will all round I hope that the Bill will progress speedily and that we shall put on the statute book a valuable contribution to a worthy cause.
  3.20 p.m.
  Mr. Stephen Ross: I add my congratulations to the Government on this Bill. It might be late but

  901
  it is welcome. It is one of the better pieces of legislation to have come before the House in my time here. This is a matter in which I have a considerable interest. I hope that the Bill will have a speedy passage.
  It is a pity that time is short, because it is important to get this legislation right. We may not have another opportunity for five or 10 years, by which time some species may be extinct. Many are in grave danger now. As each year goes by, the problem becomes more acute.
  I understand the feelings about private prosecutions. I agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) about the use of recognised bodies. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, for example, has acted cautiously in this field—and almost entirely successfully. It has taken up the cudgels only when the Customs and Excise has decided not to proceed. The Society does not do so too readily because substantial expenditure is involved, which could be more usefully used in other fields. I declare an interest as vice-chairman of a wildlife organisation branch in my area, and for some years the chairman.
  There are some areas of disagreement with the Bill. First, I believe that private prosecutions for the sale of goods illegally imported should extend to prosecution for possession and for advertising. Many people feel that action should be taken in some examples shown on television recently. Second, applications to a magistrate for a search warrant should be allowed.
  Third, all products listed in the convention should be controlled. Fourth, licences should not be issued for rare animals for scientific research unless no other species can be used and that species cannot be bred. Finally, information about who has received a licence should be available for all convention species.
  I imagine that we shall have to compromise in Committee—I do not wish to hold up the Bill longer than necessary —but if some of these points could be covered, that would be an enormous step forward. I welcome the Bill and hope that it will have a speedy passage.
  3.23 p.m.
  Mr. F. A. Burden: I think that we all welcome the Bill. The
  902
  speed with which it is going through shows it to be one of the least controversial measures that the Government have introduced. In view of the controversy which has raged over much of the Government's legislation and which will continue to rage, it is a great pleasure to he confronted with a Bill such as this.
  Will it be possible to add to the schedule from time to time if and when other species are threatened? That would be a necessary step.
  The Minister took me to task for saying that Customs officials should be "instructed". But that is what I meant —instructed in recognition. I am convinced that many Customs officers will not be able to recognise many of these species without proper instruction. Is it possible for the Minister to consider the production of colour illustrations of the animals and plants referred to in Schedule 3 so that they can be put on display in the Customs areas where their importation may be considered?
  If this measure is to be effective, the Customs officers must be able to recognise the animals and plants concerned, and it is therefore necessary that they should have proper instruction in recognition. Especially is this true because, as the Bill stands, the Customs and Excise is to be the only prosecuting and enforcement authority. That will be no good unless it has the knowledge to enable it to enforce the law.
  I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider this aspect together with the possibility of perhaps allowing prosecutions, not by individuals but by established organisations with considerable knowledge of the subject. I am not an anti-vivisectionist, but in that area the only power of prosecution lies with the advisory committee, which is Government-sponsored. There has not been a prosecution for many years, if ever.
  It is no good bringing in a law and saying that it will be enforced if steps are not taken to ensure that it is enforceable. Under animal welfare legislation there are always warnings. People are told "You should not do this and you must not do it again" when in fact they are in breach of the law.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to give an undertaking that the recommendations in the Bill will be enforceable

  903
  and will meet the requirements of the organisations which have made representations to the Government, so that we can look forward to this Bill being a really good measure for improving animal welfare.
  3.28 p.m.
  Mr. Denis Howell: I am grateful to the House, and particularly to the three hon. Members who have spoken for their appreciative welcome to the Bill and their kind offer to support it.
  The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) raised the question of Hong Kong. I am glad to report that Hong Kong agreed to be included in the United Kingdom instrument of ratification, although it has some reservations on the questions of ivory products and reptiles. We would prefer to have Hong Kong ratify without reservations, but the alternative would be to have the colony excluded from the United Kingdom instrument, and we think it preferable that it should be included even with reservations rather than be excluded completely.
  Mr. Sainsbury: Does that mean in practice that Hong Kong has ratified but has excluded reptiles and ivory products from the effect of its ratification?
  Mr. Howell: I was about to say that the exact effect is a little complicated and that I prefer to write to the hon. Gentleman about it. This is not a matter within our control. Hong Kong's legislation to implement the provisions of the Washington Convention was passed only as recently as 4th August, but already separate management and scientific authorities have been established, which is very encouraging.
  I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about traders and private prosecutions. This matter is at the heart of the problem. One wants to encourage the voluntary bodies to help us ensure that no trader or organisation tries to find ways round this legislation, on which we all set so much store. But some traders are very concerned about trade information—for example, which licences are being approved—becoming available to their competitors. I agree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) that there is, or should be, a basic right to know, and as far as possible one
  904
  would want to see it. But we must have regard to the considerations mentioned by the hon. Member for Hove, who said that traders should not be worried unnecessarily and certainly should not be harassed.
  It was possibly for this reason that their Lordships considered whether it might be possible to protect traders from an over-enthusiastic person—I use that phrase to cover a wide range of possibilities—putting an improper degree of pressure upon them. I gather that their Lordships thought about the point raised by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), the question whether the names of certain bodies should be added to the Bill. Unfortunately, it seems that there are no obviously pre-eminent bodies that could be specified. But there is no harm in our discussing the matter further. I have said that I am approaching the Bill with an open mind and a readiness to consider alternatives, and I shall be happy to consider amendments.
  The question of the rights of private possession causes difficulty, and we should examine it in Committee. Should people be stopped in the street or elsewhere because they seem to be carrying, for example, a handbag made out of an animal of a species the use of which another person thinks is improper under the Bill? We must be careful to protect the citizen from that sort of thing. In encouraging responsible bodies to help, we must protect ordinary citizens against what might be silly and possibly unpleasant interventions.
  I was glad to note that the hon. Member for Gillingham, in regard to the Customs, used the word "instruct" in what is possibly its proper sense—to inform, to educate. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to inform and educate Her Majesty's Customs, I am sure that they will be happy to be on the receiving end of that process. In that sense I am happy to accept the word "instruct". We shall proceed on that basis. It is a difficult point to deal with in detail on Second Reading, but no doubt we shall return to the matter in Committee.
  The hon. Member for Gillingham also asked whether we could, by order, add words to Clause 3 when we found other species endangered. The answer is in the affirmative.

  905
  I hope that I have covered all the points, and I look forward to continued co-operation at later stages of the Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.— [Mr. Graham.]
  Committee upon Monday next.

  ENDANGERED SPECIES (IMPORTAND EXPORT) [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved—
  That, for the purposes of any Act of this Session to restrict the importation and exportation of certain animals, plants and items (the Act), it is expedient to authorise—
  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any sums so payable under any provision of the Act authorising the Secretary of State to defray or contribute towards the expenses of any scientific authority established under the Act;

  (b) the expenses of any government department in respect of the administration of the Act;

  (c) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other Act;

  (2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums received by the Secretary of State under the Act.—[Mr. Graham.]

  MOTORWAYS (HERTFORDSHIRE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Graham.]
  3.36 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth: I count myself fortunate to have this early opportunity of raising with the newly appointed Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Horam), the important matter of motorways and motorway construction in South-West Hertfordshire. I hope that the inauguration of the new Department will present an opportunity to end some of the sterile exchanges which have taken place in the past, much to the disenchantment of the public. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is now involved
  906
  in this process, and I am sure that his positive and constructive view of affairs will be helpful.
  On 24th and 25th September I conducted in my constituency my own informal and unofficial public inquiry into the choice of routes for the London outer orbital route, known as M.25, at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire. I wish to make clear that was entirely an unofficial and informal exercise. Nevertheless, I received representations from more than 36 individuals and organisations, more than 80 people attended the inquiry, and many gave oral evidence. I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the outcome of the inquiry held under the aegis of the Department of the Environment and of that public consultation process.
  I took the decision to hold the inquiry because I had observed the outcome of the various routes chosen for the motorway. I believe that there are useful lessons to be learned. I shall be submitting a transcript of the inquiry to the Minister and all interested parties to make sure that they have a complete record of what went on. A fruitful outcome for all concerned can be achieved only by a full ventilation of all the facts.
  There are a number of specific matters that I should like to draw to the Minister's attention so that they can be taken into account and so that no ill-considered or impetuous action is taken before any further motorway construction takes place in South-West Hertfordshire.
  If there is one overwhelming lesson to be learned from the inquiry it is that the public is extremely suspicious of the actions of the Eastern Road Construction Unit and the Department of the Environment. That is not to say that those suspicions are always well-founded. But it is a fact that such suspicions exist. I should like to explain why this is so. People felt that many of the decisions taken were reached behind closed doors. They felt that decisions were being taken in such a way that the public consultation and participation exercises were a farce or a charade carried out to deceive the public rather than as an attempt to take the public's views into account.
  There is unfortunately tangible evidence to support that view. I have learned this week that borings are being taken on the line of route 2, the preferred

  907
  route, across the land known picturesquely as the "Ovaltine Farm", under the instructions of the Eastern Road Construction Unit. This was brought to my attention by the local newspaper, the Evening Echo and Post, which posed the question: "Does this mean that a decision has already been taken, bearing in mind that there has been no public inquiry of any official nature?". There has been only an announcement of a preferred route and no detailed consideration. If this is part of a procedure which relates to the consideration of a number of alternative routes, I am in favour of such detailed investigations.
  It is clear from the report in the newspaper that the Department of the Environment has an "adversary" complex. Its spokesman is quoted as saying:
  "We can't win. … If we take one route we are accused of prejudicing the other routes, but if we examine all the routes, we are accused of wasting Government money."
  I do not think anyone is interested in accusing the Department of the Environment of anything other than making a judgment which it does not share fully with the public. I realise that there are difficulties and that these are technical matters. The public has lost confidence in the participation exercise.
  The participation and consultation exercise was designed to win public approval. One of the alternatives proposed meant tunnelling under an airport and putting the motorway alongside a hospital for mentally disturbed people with 1,682 patients, as well as tearing down a newly constructed spastics centre. I obtained evidence on that point. A Mr. Coe of Abbots Langley said:
  "The proximity of the proposed motorway to Leavesden Hospital would be a serious hazard to the inmates of the hospital. It is the common experience of residents to pilot ambulant patients 'home' to the hospital when they have wandered off and lost their bearings. (I have taken three by the hand in the last 18 months.) It is their right to walk out and we are quite used to them and their needs. But, what would happen as and when they wandered to, say, a bridge across the motorway, or to the end of the cutting? One can imagine the disaster if some of these poor souls got on to the hard shoulder."
  Do we really imagine that that was a realistic proposal? The spastic centre I referred to was opened in July 1975 at
  908
  a cost of £130,000, raised by voluntary subscription. The proposed route would mean tearing it down. It hardly seems a practical proposal.
  My concern is to make sure that we consider the facts and have true alternatives. My constituents feel that some of the ideas put forward are merely lines on a map, and a rather outdated map at that. They do not take into account the destruction of property which has been built after the preparation of the maps being used by the Department. There can be no surprise about the reaction among the public in such circumstances. That is the first lesson.
  The second lesson is that we need up-to-date road traffic statistics. The projections previously used were based upon 1973 information and were based on the belief that traffic would continue to increase at the rate experienced in the past few years. Earlier this year I tabled a Question to the then Minister about these projections. I was told that there was no need to review them. However, if we examine the M1 widening inquiry we find that there was a change of heart almost in the middle of that inquiry. When I asked the Minister why, he said that the Department had carried out a review of traffic forecasts in January 1976 and decided that it did not need eight lanes or even seven lanes but could do with six, after all. That suggests that there is a need to review the situation in the light of modern road traffic forecasts. That is what concerns me.
  Following that, because we know that there is to be another increase in the price of oil, we ought to consider whether we could not make better use of the existing road network. There is already a further widening of the A405. Surely we could make better use of that road widening, see how it works out and, when we have had a chance to consider it, look at the whole situation again. But to undertake a massive motorway construction project with substantial house demolition costs, and the acquisition of a considerable amount of agricultural land all seems to presume too much.
  In those circumstances, we want to see a thorough-going survey of what has taken place already and what is being done now. In the light of the MI evidence, my constituents feel that we are

  909
  ploughing on rather pigheadedly with an analysis taken a long time ago which is now out of date. We want a new initiative.
  We think that, first, we should complete the existing road network. Secondly, let us get an up-to-date evaluation of traffic flows and projections. That is only sensible and logical. Thirdly, let us make sure that all the alternatives are examined on the site by inspectors rather than as mere road lines on maps. I know that the Eastern Road Construction Unit is active, but has it been sufficiently active in looking at the lines which were used in the original consultative process? Fourthly—and this may come strangely to the Minister—we want decisions more easily defined, identified and taken more quickly.
  There is a section of the road between Maple Cross and Egham which urgently awaits a decision. I have myself pressed the Minister on numerous occasions, the last of which was on 8th October when I received a letter from the Under-Secretary saying that an announcement would be made very soon. But I have had previous assurances of that nature on many occasions. We need to know what is to happen at that section because there is a blighting of the area which we cannot afford.
  There are bottlenecks at Maple Cross because there is a completed section of the A405 bringing rapid traffic flows into a very narrow and restricted area. There are problems with traffic lights and supporting roads. I have been warned by my constituents that there is likely to be tragedy in this area. There are all the hallmarks of it.
  I have taken up the matter with the Hertfordshire County Constabulary and the planning authority. I believe that they have tried very hard to solve some of these difficult problems. But urgent action is needed, and the best way is for a decision to be taken on the next section of the London outer orbital route between Maple Cross and Egham.
  It will be observed from all this that I understand that in South-West Hertfordshire motorway construction has a complexity of factors and effects. It requires purposeful action by the Minister. I wish his new Department all success in solving what I regard as one of our very
  910
  modern and very difficult problems. However, I am grateful for this opportunity to present to the House the difficulties confronting my constituency, and I thank the Minister for his patience in listening to me.
  3.50 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): I thank the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) for his kind remarks about me personally and his hopes for the new Department. Obviously I share these hopes. I have a longstanding interest in motorways and road schemes generally and the whole business of transport planning. This Department gives us a chance to examine this area thoroughly and rationally and to reach the right conclusions. I recognise that there is considerable disquiet about these matters.
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to speak about the motorways, existing or planned, in his constituency. He takes a keen interest in these, judging by the number of parliamentary Questions I have had from him even in my short time in the Department, and I am always pleased to receive his comments and ideas on the proposed new routes which affect his constituency.
  I have noted with interest the account of his unofficial personal public inquiry into a proposed section of the London orbital route, the M25, between Micklefield Green and South Mimms. I have read his accounts and I found them very interesting, and look forward to reading a transcript of the full proceedings.
  The hon. Member made a number of points, all of which I have noted carefully. I take up one point in particular. He referred to the borings in the area of the Ovaltine Farm. That does not mean that any decisions have been taken on the route—quite the contrary, in fact. We have to go through all the formal and informal proceedings, and the borings, if they have taken place, commit us to nothing.
  The major motorway scheme in the hon. Gentleman's constituency is the M25 and there is also the M1 motorway, and the A41(M). This concentration of existing and proposed motorways indicates the problems facing people living in the hon. Member's constituency, problems which

  911
  derive both from construction and from use of these motorways. I know that the hon. Member has been particularly concerned about the M25. There have been numerous Adjournment debates about other sections of the M25 in which those concerned have referred on the one hand to the need for the road and, on the other, have emphasised the concern of those who deprecate the intrusion of a major motorway in their environment. This is clearly a dilemma which must also be faced in South-West Hertfordshire.
  The Maple Cross to Egham section of the M25 was mentioned by the hon. Member, who seems anxious to proceed with this southward extension of the M25. The public were consulted on the alternative routes in 1974. I am aware of the hon. Member's concern about the choice of routes in the area of Heronsgate, west of Maple Cross, and I hope that a decision on the preferred route can be announced in the near future. I assure him that every effort will be made to reduce the impact of the road on this charming village and on Ladywalk Wood.
  The hon. Member also referred to the Hunton Bridge to South Mimms section of the M25. The proposals for the gap in the M25 between Hunton Bridge and South Mimms were the subject of public consultation in 1974 when the public were asked to express their preferences on a number of alternative routes. In the hon. Member's constituency most people expressed a preference for "a postponement strategy". Of the alternative routes put forward in the consultation document, the main support was fairly evenly divided between the route starting just to the west of Hunton Bridge, then passing between Kings Langley and Abbots Langley, and that running from Hunton Bridge to far south of Abbots Langley. The local authorities concerned leaned towards the former solution.
  The consultative document explains that the route south of Abbots Langley compared unfavourably with the others because of its high cost and the need to demolish about 26 houses. In the event, it was decided last March that the route passing between Kings Langley and Abbots Langley should be the one to be safeguarded and designed for publication in draft orders under the Highways Acts. I expect that stage to be reached
  912
  late next year. All the alternaive routes put forward were investigated to the same degree.
  The hon. Member mentioned local Press interest in the possible effect of the orbital route on Leavesden Hospital and the newly completed spastic centre, but these would not be affected by the Department's proposals as they are not on the preferred route. The fact that they might be affected was one of the reasons we chose the preferred route. There has been some criticism of the possible effect of the orbital route on the Booksellers' Retreat at Kings Langley. The preferred route crosses Retreat land but does not affect the property itself. The Department is very much constrained by the proximity of the main London to Crewe railway line, which must be very noisy. Every effort will be made to mitigate the noise from the road, which may in turn act as a buffer against noise from the railway.
  The route selected for further study does not please everyone, but I am sure that the hon. Member would be the first to agree that no route in this area would be acceptable to all. I understand that the villagers of Kings Langley dislike the Department's preferred route. Those of Abbots Langley want the road to go between the two villages across the Gade Valley, as the Department proposes. The people in the two villages cross-examined each other at the hon. Member's unofficial public inquiry, I believe.
  While all this is going forward the Department has to select a preferred route. This is far from being the end of the story. The object of the public consultation is to inform people at an early stage in the planning of a new road of the practicable alternative routes or methods of improvement which are available, and to obtain a full expression of their views with the object of selecting one route to be prepared in detail for publication as a statutory proposal.
  One of the things which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will need to consider is what effect the recent improvements to the existing trunk roads in the area will have on traffic on the proposed M25. This is where I come to the point that the hon. Member made most strongly concerning the need for up-to-date traffic studies. I entirely take that point. Further traffic studies have

  913
  been taking place since the public consultation was held. These will take into account improvements on the A405. These figures are as up to date as they can be and they will be the ones used to make an assessment.
  Mr. Dodsworth: Will that information be published at an early date? It will be very valuable in obtaining public confidence.
  Mr. Horam: That is a very important point. I can assure the hon. Member that the information will be published as soon as is reasonably possible. It would certainly be available before a public inquiry. There is no question of secrecy. I am anxious to dissolve what is in this case a myth that there is a great deal of concealment about plans for motorways. We try to open the books up and to give the facts and figures as much as possible. The consultation procedure is designed to give everyone the maximum possible choice, so that we can finally arrive at the route which while not pleasing everyone will please most people.
  I have no doubt that a public inquiry will need to be held into the Department's proposals when they are formally published. This will be before an independent inspector and will give people who object to them a full opportunity to put forward their views and to suggest alternative routes if they wish. It will give an opportunity to question the Department's detailed case for the road.
  I hope that the public will take the opportunity of treating the inquiry as a forum to thrash out the complex issues of this proposed new road in a rational way. Only after my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Transport have considered the inspector's report and recommendation and all the objections and representations made at the public inquiry will the Department's proposals be put forward. These proposals may be for the preferred route to go ahead, to
  914
  be modified or to be abandoned altogether. The situation is therefore at an early stage and we must wait and see.
  The hon. Member mentioned the MI. The proposals for widening the motorway were considered at a public inquiry recently. The inspector's report is being considered.
  It being Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Graham.]
  Mr. Horam: I think I have covered all the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. We have dealt with the question of Ovaltine Farm, the new spastics centre and Leavesden hospital and the up-to-date road traffic statistics, particularly on the gap in the M25. We have also looked at the Maple Cross-Egham section, where the hon. Gentleman now knows the situation, and I have reassured him about the openness of the procedures which will be used. I attach a great deal of importance to open procedures and sensible solutions.
  We attach great importance to the M25. The fact that it is mentioned in the consultative document is an indication of its importance. It is designed as the route round London which will take all the radial routes that go into the middle of London taking traffic on unsuitable roads in many areas of the hon. Gentleman's constituency and others.
  It is important to get on with those parts of the M25 that we can as soon as possible while taking into account public expenditure considerations, which loom very large at present, and the legitimate concern of people living in a lovely part of the country who are obviously concerned about the environmental impact.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Four o'clock.

DEFENCE
  Personnel (Redundancies)
  Personnel (Redundancies)
  Resettlement (Ex-Service Personnel)
  Resettlement (Ex-Service Personnel)
  RAF Brize Norton
  RAF Brize Norton
  RAF Acklington
  RAF Acklington
  Personnel (Civilian and Service Ratio)
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ENERGY
  Nuclear Reactors (Safety)
  Nuclear Reactors (Safety)
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  Pneumoconiosis
  DEVOLUTION
  DEVOLUTION
HOUSE OF COMMONS
  Select Committees (Continental Visits)
  Select Committees (Continental Visits)
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Turbine Generators
  Turbine Generators
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Comprehensive Schools
  Comprehensive Schools
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  Sunderland
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  Minerals (Ministerial Functions)
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  Housing (Expenditure)
  Housing (Expenditure)
  House Conditions Survey
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  Colliford (Reservoir)
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  A21
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FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Nigeria
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  Secretary of State's Statement (Officials' Attendance)
  Secretary of State's Statement (Officials' Attendance)
  Mr. Paul Glover
  Mr. Paul Glover
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  Drivers (Provisionally Licensed)
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WALES
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  Company Directors (Government Nominations)
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PRICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Common Agricultural Policy
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TRADE
  Import Restrictions
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  Heathrow
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  Committee on Marine Safety
  Committee on Marine Safety
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Animals (Experiments)
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EMPLOYMENT
  Scotland
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NATIONAL FINANCE
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  Import Statistics
  Import Statistics
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Personal Incomes
  Personal Incomes
  Invalid Vehicles
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  Wheelchairs
  Health Education Council
  Health Education Council

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

CONCORDE SALES TOUR
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: 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—

(1) whether BAC are participating in full with a sales team and air crew in the proposed sales tour of the French Concorde to the Far East and Australasia, since these are areas of British sales and responsibilities; and

(2) what British Minister, of equal status to the French, will be participating in this sales tour.

Lord ORAM: My Lords, the Concorde tour of the Far East is to be undertaken jointly by the two manufacturers, Aerospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation. Both have been deeply involved in the preparations for the tour, and both will deploy strong sales teams. As Aircraft 203 is owned by Aerospatiale, it will provide the aircrew. M. Rossi, the French Minister for External Trade, will travel on the aircraft to Manila to fulfil other engagements there. No British Minister will be involved.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Can he please say why we do not have a British Minister going on what is obviously an extremely important sales trip and, particularly as I am led to believe that it is a British sales area, why we are not flying in a British Concorde?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the Far East tour is being led by the two aircraft manufacturers, with support from both the British and French Government Departments concerned with Concorde. The only ministerial involvement is that
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of M. Rossi, and he was already travelling to Manila. He will simply fly on the first day of the tour, so that it is not a ministerial participation from the French side in any full sense. As to the aircraft, Aircraft 202 is required for flight testing purposes, and no other unsold British aircraft is available. The manufacturers therefore decided to use Aircraft 203, which is available.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister again for that answer. As any publicity that has so far been evoked about this tour has entirely concerned the French, does the Minister not think that it is bad public relations on the part of the Government that we did not take the lead from the French for a change, and do something ourselves first?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, as I indicated in my opening Answer, this has from the start been very much a joint operation. Our posts abroad on the tour are fully apprised of the situation, and we shall get publicity equally with the French.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, is it not the case that Philippine Airlines have said that they might buy a Concorde if they are granted traffic rights into London? Is it possible that M. Rossi is going to offer them traffic rights into Paris, in the hope of selling an aeroplane?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I have no information about that. It is true that Philippine Airlines are showing an interest in Concorde.

INSHORE FISHING: TRESPASS PENALTIES
11.7 a.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the legal penalties applicable to foreign vessels trespassing within inshore fishing limits are adequate, in view of the development of Soviet factory ships whose

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"vacuum cleaner" methods and immense capacity enable them to poach in a few hours catches far in excess of those which a traditional inshore trawler could net in a week, and whether they will make a Statement.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government share the anxiety felt by the noble Baroness about the danger to fish stocks caused in part by the development of highly efficient methods of fishing, which is not confined only to Soviet vessels. It is essential to control fishing around the United Kingdom in order to conserve stocks. The noble Baroness will already be aware that Her Majesty's Government intend to be ready to extend the fishery limits of the United Kingdom early in 1977, and that we are pressing for a decision by all Member States of the Community to do this together. As regards penalties for fishing within the limits, the Government are aware that the present level of fines would not by itself be adequate in serious cases. But the courts also have power to confiscate the catch and the gear of an offending vessel, and that is a very severe penalty indeed.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that very encouraging reply, which I am sure will be very warmly received by inshore fishermen. Is he aware that even if we get a wider limit than the present 12 miles, we still want effective means to stop this poaching? Also, is the noble Lord aware that the trawlers used in the West Country vary from a hand liner, with a catch capacity of only 10 tons, to a long liner, which may have a capacity of 40 to 50 tons, but that these poaching vessels from the Eastern European countries have a catch capacity of 2,000 tons, and at yesterday morning's mackerel prices such a cargo is worth £108,000. Although I accept what the noble Lord said about the courts having power, does he not think it absolutely derisory that in a recent case in the West Country the skipper of one of these vast fishing vessels was given a reprimand, and that in another case the skipper was fined £565? I hope that what the noble Lord has said today will have some effect on the local courts, and that they will bear in mind that in two similar cases of
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poaching in Irish waters recently the courts implemented the full fine and the confiscation of catch and gear, which amounted to £78,000—
Several noble Lords: Question!
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH:—and if we could have some penalties like that it would help this country.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sure that there is a great deal in what the noble Baroness has said. I agree that under present legislation the fines are probably not adequate in the light of the problems of today. But I may remind the House that, as I said in my Answer, the catch and the gear may both be confiscated which, as the noble Baroness has said, is a very large deterrent. I may say that the Government are reviewing the level of fines in the light of the proposed 200-mile limit.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the phrase "the fine is not adequate" is clearly an understatement? If the evidence which has been given by my noble friend about what happened in Ireland is absolutely correct, it gives the impression that our courts are being very sloppy about a matter where sloppiness does not bring the answer that we want?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I will certainly bring what the noble Lord has said to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Viscount ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, it is easy enough to confiscate gear when it is in the form of nets, but will the noble Lord tell us how it is intended to confiscate the "vacuum cleaner" gear which is part of the main structure of a ship? Will the ship be confiscated as well? This will be interesting indeed.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, as the noble Viscount has so rightly said, the Government are aware of the serious damage to fish stocks that is caused by industrial methods. In our view, the important question is to establish an adequate conservation régime within adequate limits so that stocks can recover.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, is not confiscation of the catch also an

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empty threat? What on earth would the Government do with 2,000 tons of fish landed at some remote West Country port?
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask the noble Lord whether he would consider increasing naval vigilance? We have very few ships in the West Country and I think that the noble Lord will understand that the West Country fishermen are absolutely exasperated not only by the Russians but by other people from France and Scotland who come to poach. Surely we could have better naval patrol?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sure that it is a very good point which the noble Baroness has made, with her great interest in the West Country. I am glad to be able to tell her that several more Island class vessels have been ordered and further Nimrod aircraft.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, could we take the matter a little further? The noble Lord said that we were going to be ready when the extension of our fishing limits came in, but could he tell us what urgent steps are being taken in view of the fact that 50 per cent. of the fishery protection fleet sank the other day in the Firth of Forth? We are going to be a little pushed, are we not? A 10-knot ship was sent out to arrest this vessel and the Russian captain is reputed to have laughed until a frigate appeared. Is this really the situation?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I will look into the points which the noble Lord has made. If he likes to put down a Question, I will answer it.
Lord BURTON: My Lords, is refrigeration equipment considered to he part of the gear?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I should need notice of that question.

SCHOOL MEDICAL RECORDS
11.15 a.m.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government where medical records of schoolchildren are now kept, and what information about children's defects is passed on to teaching staff in schools.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is for the Area Health Authority to decide where the school medical records are kept. The decision would normally be taken by the Area Specialist in Community Medicine—that would be the Child Health section. These records are confidential but, with parental consent, teachers are informed about health matters relevant to a pupil's performance and general welfare.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that very unsatisfactory Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that not long ago a child in Darlington collapsed during a P.E. lesson from a heart complaint and the teacher had not a clue that this problem existed? Who would be responsible—the Education Department or the National Health Service—if there were a lasting disability?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Baroness is very unfair when she says that it is an unsatisfactory reply. She should look at the Question and she should look at the Answer and she would find that the Answer is indeed an answer to her Question. With regard to the matter which the noble Baroness has raised, if she had knowledge of it she could have told me beforehand and I should have done my best to find out exactly what had happened. It so happens that neither my Department nor the Department of Education and Science had any knowledge of the matter. If the noble Baroness will send me information about it I will certainly find out what is the situation and let her know.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is great and growing concern in the Education Service about the deterioration in the standards of the school health service since it was transferred to the National Health Service? Does not the Minister think that the stage has been reached where it is desirable

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to undertake inquiries in order to try to secure much more effective cooperation between the National Health Service and the Education Service so as to avoid the deterioration which is taking place and to improve standards, which was the purpose of the transfer of the service two years ago?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised an entirely different matter which has no bearing on the Question. I am not prepared to say that there has been a deterioration in the service. There are regular medical inspections and their whole purpose is to find out any physical or mental defects in a school child and, where there are physical defects, for the doctor to get together with the teachers so that the teachers know what these defects are. If, however, the noble Lord is saying that there has been a marked deterioration in the school health service I am sure that we should like to have some facts so that we can explore the matter.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister tell the House, in the light of his Answer to the noble Baroness, whether there is any requirement to ensure that teachers are informed of a child's medical history where it might affect the child's education and, if not, in view of its importance to the child's education and also its physical and mental well-being, whether he will ask his right honourable friend as a matter of urgency to ensure that such information is available?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, if the school medical officers come across a situation where the health of a child is likely to be a factor in relation to certain things that the child is required to do at school they are required to pass on this information to the teacher. However, the question of confidentiality arises, and time and time again your Lordships have raised the question of the breach of confidentiality. Therefore it is done, but it is done with the parents' consent.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, may I follow what I said before, in view of what the noble Lord has just said, by asking what directions have been given about medical confidentiality in order to
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make sure that the maximum amount of information is available in the school?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I would not use the word "directions"; I would say that advice has been given that school medical records and their contents must be kept confidential and they must be retained in a secure place. Having said that, in my view there is a clear obligation on the school medical authority—the doctor—if he finds something wrong with the child, to seek the parent's consent to pass that information on to the teacher or teachers concerned.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, am I right in deducing from the original Answer given by the noble Lord that the place where the records are kept—which is what the Question is about—varies from authority to authority? May I ask whether he recalls the many co-operative exchanges we have had across this table in which we have agreed that we should work towards a uniformity of practice in order to enable children at risk of non-accidental injury to be identified and protected? And may I further draw his attention to the first of the summary recommendations in the Maria Colwell report, which was directed towards enabling the field workers to know where the records relevant to the school children were kept? Can he put all that together and see that there is some means of correlating the two sources of information and responsibility?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Lord is working on the assumption that there has been a breakdown in communication or arrangements. There is no evidence of it at the moment. As I have said, we had no knowledge of this particular situation and had we been given some information about it we would have inquired into it. The records are normally held in the school clinic or in the office of the principal school medical officer and sometimes within the medical inspection room in the school. None of those three areas will be very far away and it is not always possible to say that in every school they must be in the same place.
Lord EILTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to accept that the question

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has nothing to do with the case that was raised in the supplementary question? Our concern, as is his, is one of prevention, and would he use this occasion as a means of furthering the efforts which he already has in hand of getting a nationwide standard of practice in child care?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: Most surely, my Lords.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, if I may ask one last quick supplementary question I should like to ask the noble Lord what contact exists between the school health doctor and the GP, and how is a child like Maria Colwell safeguarded when the parents do not send their child to school on the day of the inspection?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, with regard to the latter part of that question, my understanding of the situation is that some inquiry is made to find out why the child did not attend, and then arrangements are made for it to attend subsequently. If there is some kind of emergency that is dealt with. With regard to co-operation between the school medical officer and the GP I should have thought that the general practice in medicine—which many of us know fairly well—is that when one doctor in a particular situation is dealing with what could he called a child within the family dealt with by the GP, the information would be passed on.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, in reference to the Minister's rather unexpected reply to the supplementary question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, does the Minister agree that an answer may be unsatisfactory for at least one of two reasons: either because it has not replied to the question or because the answer in itself seems to the questioner to be a very unsatisfactory one, although entirely correct factually?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not accept that my Answer was unsatisfactory in relation to the Question.
Lord PLATT: I thank the noble Lord.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept that my noble friend the Baroness has raised a very important question?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am not denying that. What I am saying is that the noble Baroness must have known about this particular matter when she tabled her Question. The Question has been tabled for some time. Had the Government been informed of the nature of and reason behind the Question I could have come to your Lordships' House today and given a full report on it.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I think we have had a good run on this and the noble Baroness wishes to ask a second Question.

MEDICATION WARNINGS
11.25
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that some skin medications are injurious to eyes, and do not carry a warning to this effect on their containers.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am aware that some skin medications are not suitable for application to the eye. Regulations on the labelling of medicinal products which will be laid before Parliament very shortly will include a provision that in the case of non-prescribed medicines any warnings and precautions which the product licence requires to be addressed to the patient or his attendant shall be shown on the label.
In the case of prescribed medicines it is generally regarded as the responsibility of the prescribing doctor to decide what warnings should be given to the patient. The general question of information to patients on prescribed medicines is under consideration by the Medicines Commission. If the noble Baroness would like to indicate exactly which medications she has in mind I will consider whether any further action is necessary.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer—and perhaps I may have a

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word with him afterwards as there is a shortage of time—may I ask whether he is aware that on many occasions a doctor prescribes and there appears on the label the words, "apply as prescribed by the physician"? The physician sometimes forgets to tell the patient how many times to apply the medication and sometimes the patient passes it on to somebody else, including children; not sufficient information is on the package and there might be lasting danger?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Baroness, but this is a situation which I do not think we can deal with. If the doctor prescribes medicine and he fails to tell the patient whether it is to be taken once, twice, three or four times a day, before or after meals, I do not think there is anything we can do about that. With the greatest respect, I should have thought that there was an obligation upon the patient to go back to the doctor, or to telephone the surgery, and ask how often it should be taken, or presumably the chemist could be asked. I think of necessity the obligation must be on the patient to find this out.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, with regard to the National Health Service, very much bulk packing is done by the manufacturers and the instructions that go to the chemist are not passed on to the consumer?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I would not know what percentage of medications or information about them reaches the general practitioner, but there is a data sheet with every product that is issued. I think most general practitioners receive all of them at one stage or other. My information is that on the data sheet there must be shown what are the good aspects and what are the side effects, so that the doctor knows; therefore in prescribing them he should know not only how often it should be taken but what the side effects are likely to be.
Viscount ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a lot of these medicines go to very old people, many of whom are rather forgetful and some of whom are not very clear as to what the
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doctor has said? Therefore, it is very important that anything that can be written should be written so that they may read it if they forget the instructions they have been given.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is a situation for which I do not see how we can legislate. I do not see that there is anything we can do: As the noble Viscount has pointed out, there are difficulties, but I do not see how society can deal with this matter unless there is somebody who is visiting the aged person and who can take this job on.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, in the case of non-prescribed skin medications which may be bought over the counter, would my noble friend not agree that, in addition to stating on the medicines that they are injurious to the eyes, some extra warning ought to be given that protective covering may be needed in the case of young people where the medication has to he applied locally to the face? It is most important that the fullest instructions should be made available where non-prescribed medicaments are concerned.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, we would be in complete agreement with that. In our view, the application of warnings on medicines is an important matter. It is a matter which the Medicines Commission is considering at the present moment, and on which it is about to have discussions both with the British Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical Society.
Lord PEART: My Lords, we have now spent 25 minutes on Questions, and I think we should proceed to urgent Business.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is the second time that the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal has cut out a Member of our Front Bench. This is very unusual. We know that the noble Lord is new to this and he is doing it very well, but this is still very unusual.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I sense the feeling of noble Lords on both sides of the House. There have been previous Front Bench speeches.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, Questions, not speeches.

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL
11.31 a.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 6 [Review of what is now dock work]:
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 7, line 4, at end insert ("by virtue of having, for a substantial period, been performed exclusively by registered dock workers.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 35. Members of the Committee will be aware that Clause 6 of the Bill as we have it today concerns the classification of dock work. We are happy with the arrangement tinder this clause in general, with the slight exception of the term "by custom and practice". These are not merely fine-sounding words; we think they are apposite and very relevant to the Bill. Nevertheless, we believe that they are liable to a great deal of misinterpretation, and we hope that our tentative addition to the paragraph will clarify most, if not all, the uncertainty.
We wish to ensure that what is now accepted as dock work in the Scheme ports should become what we would call a starting point; perhaps it could be taken as a bench mark, when the classification of what is and what is not to be dock work is carried out by the Board. Your Lordships will be aware that all sorts of differing work is carried out in the different ports around the country. A great deal of confusion arises in many cases where work is performed from time to time by dockers, and at other times by other workers at the port—they might be seamen, lorry drivers; they might be employees of particular concerns whose cargo or freight is being unloaded from the ship. Differing circumstances will apply in ports in different parts of the country, and differing ports will deal with all sorts of trade and different types of cargo.
We believe that it is very difficult in general to distinguish such work, because it varies from port to port around the coastline. If we take Liverpool, which is one very large Scheme port where a number of examples are readily available, we understand there are about 11 categories of work performed there, and among those categories are cargo lashing, cleaning the holds or the tanks, and discharging what, for want of a better term, I would call safe liquids. I think we can take that as meaning non-flammable or non-pollutant liquids. Occasionally, they unload bulk cargo and sometimes non-dock workers will drive vehicles from one berth to another taking packing cases or containers from one ship to another alongside the quay.
All these tasks can be performed by dockers or non-dockers, but we believe that the work, so far as possible, should be logically and properly classified. We agree that subsection (2) gives a fairly precise definition of what such work could be, but purely on what has been performed in past years. Indeed, the Minister in another place mentioned the Port of Liverpool as being the site for 11 different trades, but in that port alone. If we took another port, say, Hull, Aberdeen, Dundee or Southampton, we might well find 20 or 30 differing trades, because all these differing jobs being done on the port site will vary as we go round the coast.
When the Minister was considering the Port of Liverpool as an example in another place, he agreed that some of these categories of work could, and indeed should, be classified, and possibly that in Liverpool it should be classified under a new local scheme. At the same time, this classification might not fit into our present definitions as they are set out in Clause 6, as we understand them. Are not the arrangements for representations as to what may or may not be classified under the later clauses which we shall be considering, Clauses 7 and 8, much more widespread? We believe that under the other clauses representations from people who might be concerned first of all with the loading and unloading of cargo and then cargo handling are much more widespread. We feel that the arrangements under this particular clause, Clause 6, are a little too loose. We would like

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to tighten up the definition more than a little so that at least this clause can attempt to produce some reasonable definition of classifiable dock work when the Scheme comes into operation.
11.37 p.m.
Lord DRUM ALBYN Lord DRUM ALBYN moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment; Amendment No. 35A:
Line 1, after ("of") insert ("their being, and").
The noble Lord said: The point of my Amendment is a very simple one. It is simply to emphasise that work treated as custom or practice should be treated as current custom and practice, and that resort should not be had to what was custom and practice, perhaps a long time ago, or even not so very long time ago, as this could give rise to quite a lot of trouble. It is a small point, but I beg to move.
11.38 a.m.
Lord ORAM: I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, have put forward the Amendment for the purpose of clarification, as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said. I also recognise that he feels that the present provisions are too loose for the matter to be properly understood. But I am afraid I must advise the Committee that they are seeking their clarification by a method which would make things much too restrictive. For example, it would mean that any new work started recently, or performed for only a short period of time, although it is recognised by all concerned as work which should be treated as dock work, would not he reported, although everyone recognised that it was dock work. Then it could not he classified under the Clause 6 procedures.
Thus, if there were a recent agreement that a container coverage depot outside the port area should employ registered dock workers, such work could not be reported and the Clause 8 procedure would have to be used. There could well be work done very largely by registered workers but on which non-registered men were occasionally employed for a short time. The aim of the clause, I should stress, is merely to secure reports of what is agreed to be registered dock workers' work. It is to get a report on the existing situation.
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The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, referred to the discussions which occurred in another place. The Secretary of State said that he would consider whether these matters could be made clearer. Careful consideration has been given to this, but I have to inform your Lordships' Committee that it has not been possible to find a form of words which could better distinguish between work which is generally accepted as being by custom and practice dock workers' work, on the one hand, and work which, although partly done by them, is not so regarded.
I would call attention to subsection (3). This was inserted by a Government Amendment made at the Report stage in another place. It requires all those concerned to be sent copies of the Board's report, and this will make sure that any points of dispute are brought to the attention of the Secretary of State. He would then, by virtue of subsection (4), be able to refer the report back to the Board with his observations.
I hope I have been able to assure the Committee that this point, which was raised in another place, has been given proper consideration in the intervening period; but without making this clause much too restrictive for its purposes we cannot find any words which make the position any clearer.
11.43 a.m.
Lord LYELL: I should like to thank the noble Lord for his attempts to satisfy us. I must admit that I do not think we are very much further on than our colleagues were in another place. I am sure attempts have been made. Nevertheless we felt, and continue to feel, that "by custom and practice" is a little too open to misinterpretation, despite what the noble Lord has said about there being difficulty in finding precise words which would not add to the confusion and possible misinterpretation. But what we felt especially opposite in this Amendment was that there might be a case where skills or a need for a particular type of work might arise, now or in the future, or indeed while the Board is taking into account what is carried on at these ports in the immediate future or fairly near futute, within the next year.
There might be a need for a particular type of skill which had not been in use

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in that port or indeed, according to the dock area of the country, for two, three or four years, and perhaps dockers might, having performed those tasks three or four years earlier, have gone to other jobs, be carrying out other tasks, and have found work elsewhere. Then, owing to the changing pattern of trade—possibly there might be physical disturbances at some harbour, or a quay might collapse, or disaster might block a major estuary—a separate port would need to have skills which would have vanished from that port three or four years earlier, and immediately there would be a need for those skills to be reintroduced, possibly in a modified form.
We feel that there is a danger here that where these skills could be, and probably should be, performed as efficiently as possible, and that might or might not involve the employment of classified dock workers, there is a risk of misinterpretation—that should these new skills be needed within the next year, perhaps two years, there might be a feeling among registered dock workers to claim this type of work as their own, as registered dock workers, on the grounds that it, or possibly something fairly similar, might have been performed three or four years earlier. We believe that our Amendment restricts this possibility, and it means that there must be some continuity of work, that dockers must have performed this type of work within the last year. That is the point of our Amendment.
11.46 a.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: From my own personal point of view I do not think I would wish to press my Amendment, because of course this clause has to do with the report of a factual situation existing at the time, and also that representations can be made by those to whom under subsection (3) copies of the report are given; so I think perhaps, if the noble Lord is unable to find a formula here, we shall simply have to rely on the right to make representations in any particular case. I hope my noble friends will regard that as sufficient in the circumstances.
Lord ORAM: Frankly, I think that the position is as summed up by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I do not deny that there will be difficulties of implementation here. There are always
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practical difficulties that have to be examined on the ground and on the day, but I believe, after careful consideration, that those difficulties would be increased if the Amendment were to be written into the Bill; and the kind of situation that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, referred to in his earlier intervention, in regard to Liverpool, I think will best be taken care of with the wording as at the moment in the Bill.
11.48 a.m.
Lord LYELL: I should like to thank the noble Lord, and indeed my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, because I think my noble friend summed this up quite well. Representations are available. We just felt it was a matter of degree and that possibly it is better to involve people in consultations as opposed to sending out a report.
I take what the noble Lord had to say about subsection (3) and how this was added, and that it was hoped to give some kind of reassurance. It was just a thought that it might be a little better, if it were possible, to involve the recipients of a report at an earlier stage of the consultation. But I think the noble Lord will accept that this is a matter of degree. I hope that not too much ground divides us. With that, I would beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.48 a.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 7, line 38, after ("representations") insert ("and the Board has considered and reported to the Secretary of State any representations made and their conclusions thereon.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment relates to the procedure for considering representations made to the Board concerning reports made by the Board to the Secretary of State about the way in which the 1967 Scheme is currently applied in each port in relation to the various categories of work and the premises where it is being done in the 12 months before the appointed day. Under subsection (3) copies of the report have to be supplied to employers, to trade unions, and to "any

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other person appearing to the Board to be concerned". At least a month is allowed for representations to be made by employers and trade unions. May I refer to this point in passing. Curiously enough, it does not say that representations may be made by other persons interested to whom copies of the report have been supplied. Perhaps in answering this Amendment it might be convenient for the noble Lord to reply to that point rather than for me to raise it on the Question that the Clause shall stand part. I should like to know why it should be thought proper for employers and trade unions to make representations but not for other people who are acknowledged to be so interested that a copy of the report has to be sent to them.
It seems to me, to say the least, to be unusual that the Board should not be obliged under the Bill to consider any representations made. Some may think it is natural, but when you have an Act of Parliament in which there is no statutory obligation laid down then the answer can always be given, "But there was no obligation to consider this at all." I think it is necessary, and it is indeed reasonable to require the Board to include in their report their conclusions on the representations made, and to consider the representations, and that this should be said in the Bill. I recognise that we are here dealing with reports and not recommendations from the Board; in other words, we are dealing with facts as stated to the Board. But if the facts, or purported facts, are challenged in representations, it seems to me to be essential that the Board should be obliged to consider the representations and report them to the Secretary of State, and that the Bill should say so. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: I wonder whether I may first attempt to deal with the subsidiary point that the noble Lord made concerning the different treatment of trade unions and employers, under subsection (3)(a) and (b), from those mentioned in (c) in relation to the powers under subsection (5). I am not sure of the position here, but I referred to the fact that subsection (3) had been inserted at the Report stage, and it may be that a consequential Amendment later on in the clause might have been considered. I am not sure whether that
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is the position, but I will look into it and we could take it up subsequently.
As to the noble Lord's main purpose in moving this Amendment, if I may suggest it, I feel that he was perhaps under a misapprehension in drafting it, because it seems to me that the Amendment presumes that representations which employers and trade union might make, having received copies of the Board's report, will be made back to the Board itself. That is not the position. Following the Board's report, action then rests with the Secretary of State, and representations would be made direct to him. He, of course, would consider those representations, and it might be that in the light of the representations that he has received he would wish to refer the report hack to the Board with his observations, under his powers provided in subsection (4), and ask the Board to consider whether they had misdirected themselves.
It is important, I think, to appreciate that it is not the intention under this clause that either the Board or the Secretary of State should consider whether or not work ought to be classified. This clause, as I think I indicated in dealing with the earlier Amendment, is entirely concerned with preserving how the Scheme is currently applied. Its aim is to classify as dock work for the purposes of the new Scheme descriptions of work which either are dock work for the purposes of the 1967 Scheme or are so treated by custom and practice; that is, work on which registered dock workers were employed during the relevant period. In other words, the Board can be concerned only with matters of fact and not questions of opinion.
I would urge the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, to consider my first point, or rather I think it was my second point, that he may have been under a misapprehension about whose responsibility it is to take action after representations have been made. It is the Secretary of State's direct and not the Board's; therefore I believe the objective that he is seeking is already perhaps better provided for in the wording of the Bill as it stands.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I am obliged to the noble Lord, but is not the position this: we are dealing, here, in contradistinction to the next clause, with the work in

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each of the ports where the 1967 Scheme is in force. As I said in offering this Amendment to the Committee, we are, of course, dealing in this clause with matters of fact. But it could be that the facts might be in dispute. After all if copies of the Board's report are to be given to the employers, to the trade unions and to other persons, there might be disputes about precisely what we were talking about in the last Amendment; that is, about what is in fact treated as custom and practice.
I do not see much point in passing the copies of the report to these bodies unless they are to be permitted to make representations on it. If they are to make representations on it, querying the facts, either the Board or the Secretary of State should receive those representations. I agree with the noble Lord that probably I was in error in saying the Board and not the Secretary of State, but whoever is concerned at that point should receive those representations and should then give those concerned an opportunity to be seen, if necessary; in any case, the Secretary of State should be under an obligation to consider those representations.
It is generally the case where representations are allowed that an Act of Parliament says,
"…and the Secretary of State shall consider those representations".
It very often goes on to say,
"and shall give an opportunity to those making the representations to be heard".
That is the underlying point. I agree that my Amendment, in the way I have expressed it, is not appropriate; but wonder whether the noble Lord would consider that point. It is the principle of the Act saying specifically that the representations must be considered, whether or not an opportunity is given for an oral hearing.
Lord ORAM: I will, of course, consider that point about the Secretary of State being required to consider the report. I should think that it almost goes without saying, but if it is necessary to say it, after further investigation we will see what should be done about it.
On the point the noble Lord was making about the facts of the local situation
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perhaps being in dispute, he will appreciate that in practice the reports can be prepared only by the local boards, on which both the employers and the trade unions are represented. It is likely, therefore, that all interested parties will know what the report is going to say and any disagreements as to the work which should be included will have been well aired at local level. So I do not think there will be any problem about people not having had full opportunity of knowing the facts, knowing what is to be reported and being able to discuss and dispute them, if need be, at the local level before the board makes its report.
Lord DRUMALBYN: What is interesting is that the noble Lord in that answer has made it all the more important that the other parties interested should be allowed to make representations. We know that, as he says, the local boards will have considered this matter and both sides are represented on it, but not the other persons interested. They are not represented on it. I think this has been a useful discussion because it has emphasised the need for the noble Lord to look at the point about the right of the other parties interested to make representations, as he has kindly said he will. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.1 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 8, line 7, leave out ("the cargo-handling zone") and insert ("any dock labour scheme area").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is consequential on our Amendments in the debate on the zone in Clause 4 which we held last Wednesday. If it would be convenient to the Committee that I give the precise Amendments, it would be consequential on Amendment No. 10 and on my manuscript Amendment No. 11A. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: I accept that it is consequential in the way the noble Lord has indicated.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 6, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord PARGITER: On the Question, that the clause stand part of the Bill, there is one small point on which I should like my noble friend to advise me. What is "a month" in the context of this particular clause?
Lord ORAM: I am afraid my noble friend has caught me out on such a precise definition, but I will make inquiries and let him know.
Lord PARGITER: I think it should be more precise as to whether it is 28 days, 31 days, or whatever it might be.
Lord ORAM: Yes; I take the noble Lord's point and I will let him know.
The Earl of GOWRIE: Perhaps I can help bail the Minister out. Unless I am quite wrong, what "a month" means is a month from the appointed day by the Secretary of State after the Bill becomes an Act, should it become an Act. But the noble Lord opposite has, I think, pinpointed the enormously overriding and enabling powers which the Bill gives to the Secretary of State, and this is one of the things to which we on this side object.
Lord ORA1V1: The noble Earl has not bailed me out. I welcome his efforts, but my noble friend was asking for a definition of "a month"—whether it is a calendar month or a certain number of days. Someone else has bailed me out, and I can advise the Committee that it is a calendar month.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Loading and unloading operations.]:
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 38:
Page 8, line 16, leave out ("the cargo-handling zone") and insert ("a dock labour scheme area").
The noble Lord said: We claim that this Amendment is also consequential on Amendment No. 10 and my manuscript Amendment No. 11A. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 9, line 32, after ("if") insert ("(a)").
The noble Lord said: We are dealing in this clause with what may or may not be classified as dock work by recommendation of the Board though, as I have indicated on several earlier occasions, the Secretary of State can of course have overriding powers here. Clause 7 looks at ports other than the ports which were within the 1967 Dock Labour Scheme which we dealt with under Clause 6. Clause 7 can bring such ports within the scope of the Scheme within a month of the appointed day—as the noble Lord has told us, a calendar month—after the Bill has become an Act. Your Lordships will remember that on Wednesday the Committee amended the zone from the five-mile envelope to a much more precise definition of a half-mile area from harbours, themselves more precisely defined in previous legislation than ports. We therefore claim that these Amendments are also consequential on that decision of your Lordships last Wednesday. It is the intention of our Amendments to limit the zone to harbours or to within half a mile of harbours, so what we do not want now is the Board recommending for classification as dock work, work that is carried on along the coastline outside these harbours, particularly as they can, of course, be so recommended before the Scheme comes into effect. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: I am very pleased to agree with the noble Lord. In fact, Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 can be considered as consequential on earlier Amendments.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 9, line 33, after ("Act") insert ("or
(b) the work is done at premises which would be outside a dock labour scheme area designated under subsection (2) of section 4 of this Act.").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
12.7 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 9, line 39, after ("efficient") insert ("and cost effective").
The noble Lord said: I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if with this Amendment I might speak to

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Amendments Nos. 44 and 45 which are in the names of myself and my noble friends Lord Mansfield and Lord Gowrie, because we believe that these three Amendments are the first of several crucial points, above all in Clause 7, but in other ports of the Bill as well. This point in Clause 7 is, in our view, one of the most important in the clause and indeed has wider applications throughout the Bill because the common thread running through the three Amendments is that of costs and cost efficiency, and of financial viability to everyone concerned in operating and using all the ports. The clause considers loading and unloading—that is what it says in the margin—but, without entering into any semantic arguments, all the strands of the common thread are especially relevant.
First, we consider that the Bill must spell out in detail the duty of the Board to consider very carefully what will or could be the effects—and we believe they are as likely as not to be injurious—on the costs of the port should the Scheme be applied as far as loading and unloading are concerned at that particular port. I hope that no noble Lord will claim against us that we are seeking to maintain low standards of employment or pay, because that really would not be true, let alone fair. But I do not believe there is a question of fair or unfair in this; it just certainly would not be true. That is in no way what we intend, and in no way what we wish. What we seek by this series of Amendments is a written assurance that all factors relating to the costs of loading and unloading will be carefully considered, and we are seeking a written guarantee of that in the Bill at this point.
I referred earlier today to a slight lack of precision in Clause 6, but we believe that this aspect that we are discussing now is one on which we require the clearest indication that the Board shall—and that is very important; not may, or even might, or ought to—give consideration to the cost effectiveness of implementing the Scheme. As the Bill stands at present the word "efficient" can mean many different things to many of us, and to those of my noble friends on the Benches behind me the word does not imply actual and precise definitions of what efficiency could mean. We believe, especially in the present economic
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state of the country, that economic efficiency, especially in dealing with ports, and the exports and imports of our worldwide trade, is paramount.
Perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply may indicate that naturally the Board would certainly take into account the cost effectiveness of implementing the Scheme, and that our fears are totally groundless. I do not know which noble Lord is going to reply, but he may say that there is very little between us in intention on this. I am just surmising, but if that proves to be the case, why can he find any reason for not granting this Amendment substantially, if not totally?
The Second Amendment of the series of three to which I wish to speak at this point is concerned with the risk of unemployment rising, as we see it, through the financial implications of the full operations of the Bill. I mentioned the need for financial efficiency, for cost saving, and for flexible use of highly paid labour and equipment at all ports, be they large or, as I might call them, middling. We have heard in our previous considerations of this Bill in Committee, and we shall be hearing again later today and later on and in the next stage, that the smaller ports and the middling ports are particularly vulnerable to any increase in costs, however insignificant they may seem as part of a much larger port, a much larger estuary, or area. However large the particular area which may be served by this port, even if it is a fairly small port, if it is in a large area then any minimal increase in costs could well, and we believe will, have a considerable effect on the area served by that particular port.
What I have in mind in this particular case is where the Board deems the work of loading and unloading as requiring to be done by dockers, and possibly even in such cases as I mentioned earlier in discussing Clause 6, and these registered dockers would have to be brought in on what possibly might be a temporary or semi-permanent basis from outside the area served by that port. There is also the possibility of disagreement over how the work should be done, and indeed of differing practices which might be the practices of incoming dockers who might be learning different methods which would have to apply to that particular

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port and the trade which is carried on there. We have serious fears that should the Board not take into account, and be ordered virtually not to take into account, and pay special regard to the possibility that the port operations would be uneconomic under the Scheme, there is a great risk that there is going to be over-manning, with all the attendant risks of costs rising beyond what the users of that port can afford. Especially I believe this argument is apposite to the small ports. We believe that the only method of bringing the port into financial health in this particular case would be to lay off labour, or make it part-time or casual. All of these remedies are the evil which we, as indeed the Bill does, seek to eliminate.
The third Amendment to which I want to speak with this series is a lot more broadly phrased than the others, but I believe its meaning is similar and I believe is equally important. There cannot be a case for extending the Scheme to a port which already provides an efficient service to all the port users who export, or who may import through it, if indeed the work force, and everybody there, is enjoying benefits which are in most cases superior to the terms envisaged by the National Board. I am sure that the National Board will discover this when they carry out their inquiries around all the different estuaries, ports, and areas, and indeed throughout the country when they come to try to implement this Scheme.
In general this Bill, and particularly this clause and this series of clauses, 7, 8 and 9, is very comprehensive. The whole Bill is vast in its scope, and I believe it attempts to cover a whole host of points. Naturally it cannot be as precise as we feel might be desirable. But this particular clause is defective since in all the criteria, and in all the qualifications set out in the Bill and in this clause, nothing indicates that the Board shall primarily concern itself with the economic health of the whole port, the employers, the employees, the port users and, as the Government kindly through the noble Lord, Lord Oram, admitted at an earlier stage, the wider public interest. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, in our last deliberations promised that the Government would take special consideration of the public interest, and we are grateful for that
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assurance. But we believe that these Amendments fall into a category of the public interest at large, and we also take to heart the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, when he expressed his, and presumably the Government's, opinion that the rise in costs due to the implementation of the Scheme would be, I think he said, negligible. Perhaps he, or the noble Lord who is to reply, and indeed the Government, could give us a view as to how they are going to amplify this comment, because all of us on these Benches have the utmost concern over the implications of this particular clause on the financial health of the port industry as a whole.
12.18 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to support my noble friend Lord Lyell and again emphasise to noble Lords opposite that, in my view, so much of this Bill has been drawn up on the basis of the major ports fully occupied, or substantially occupied, in the export and import trade, and many of them in the hub of great industrial centres. But, as framed so far, this Bill could very well include very small ports only intermittently used for exports in their own hinterland. There are, for example, areas in the West country, Wales, and in Scotland where it has been found efficient and viable that regular supplying ships should transport cargoes in those ports that are by no means fully used.
Any reference to the employment records of some of these areas where the hinterland is probably mainly agricultural, and where efforts have been made to create a balance of some industrial undertakings, will show that it is common practice there for many of the local community to take alternative jobs in different seasons, and that they do not lose by that. They have their summer period when they take jobs created with the tourist trade; at other times they may be perfectly adequately and well paid for the work they do when the demands in the docks are there for them.
My fear of the Bill is the effect it may have in areas where there may be five days a month of cargo handling, efficiently worked out by local exporters so they know that their loads go on a given day or that their imports come in at given periods in the year, knowing that they will be

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efficiently and, as all the statistics show, much more cheaply handled. If it is considered that this limited amount of cargo handling demands the Dock Labour Scheme, it is inevitable that those ports will be forced to have throughout the year and be unable to sack people who they know from the start they cannot fully employ legitimately throughout the year.
We must also consider many of the other unions because the Government have not made it clear what the position will be, for example, on cargoes which may be taken by road. Some of the international companies which send imports to us will have to be considered if their present vehicles coming across to these ports will have an area where the handler is changing, where the exporter to this country does not know who will be handling his vehicles or his commodities. They may be going far distant inland and it is important that we should have some analysis of cost effectiveness. On this issue, the takeover of the smaller ports must inevitably split the work between two unions and greatly increase the costs of those ports and possibly make them no longer viable.
12.22 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I strongly support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Lyell and I particularly endorse what my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith said; in fact she said much of what I would have said, so I will not bore your Lordships by repeating it. Of the three Amendments under discussion, I wish particularly to direct the Committee's attention to No. 44 because it is crucial to an understanding of the implications of the Bill and it is, if for no other reason, why it is essential that the Board should take cost effective factors into consideration in preparing its report.
I do not know how many of your Lordships in recent months have been trying to help people find jobs. I have, and there are no two ways about it but that all firms, for reasons which I need not elaborate, are having to cut down not only on what they have but on any ideas they might have had of extending their labour force at all levels, from the most senior managers down. It seems therefore that anything which will create an artificial right to a job for a particular group of
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people will have the sort of effect which Amendment No. 44 seeks to avoid. The reason, of course, is purely economic and maybe this country will enter into a brighter phase in the future, though I suggest it will not until noble Lords opposite are sitting on these Benches. Be that as it may, it will not happen quickly, wherever any of us are sitting in this Chamber, and therefore at this time it is particularly important, if the Bill goes through, that the question of cost effectiveness should be of the highest importance for consideration by the Board in preparing its report on what are effectively the jobs which should be classified as dock work.
There are other factors. It is generally recognised, certainly by trade union members I have talked to, that dock labour costs more. I will not elaborate on that now, partly because it is a matter of opinion as to how much more and it varies greatly from locality to locality and firm to firm; but the fact is that it seems to be generally agreed that it costs more and, if it costs more, then it is an important point to be taken into account, and this group of Amendments seeks to ensure that the Board does just that.
Lord WIGODER: On behalf of those on these Benches I welcome and support this group of Amendments, though I doubt whether such support is necessary because I anticipate that the Minister will enthusiastically welcome it also. I say that because the purpose of this group of Amendments is to ensure that if the scheme is extended, the question of cost effectiveness will he taken into account. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, made it abundantly clear earlier in our debates that the Government believe that extending this scheme to the small ports would reduce the costs involved. I remind the noble Lord that on Wednesday he said that the scheme,
"…is very little else but decasualisation of labour. And decasualisation of labour does not necessarily increase costs. It has been my experience over the years that when you have part-time labour, to come at your request at the time you want it, you have to pay more for it per hour than you pay for full-time labour".
I suspect there is a logical fallacy somewhere in the contention that part-time labour is cheaper than full-time labour. But if that is what the Government believe,

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they will welcome these Amendments. Lord Jacques added in the next paragraph:
"There would, in the case of the dock industry, in our opinion, be some saving in costs, because of improved industrial relations."—[0fficial Report, 13/10/76; col. 322–3.]
The noble Lord was perhaps overlooking the 79 strikes that took place in 1975 among registered dock workers and the comparatively small number of industrial disputes that took place in the non-scheme ports. But if he believes that an extension of the scheme will improve industrial relations and will lower costs, it must follow that he will welcome enthusiastically this group of Amendments. Indeed, he will have the small ports and employers clamouring to he included in the scheme. In those circumstances, these Amendments speak for themselves and I invite the Government to support them.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I hope that in replying to the two important points that have been raised the Government will be specific as to what is involved. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, made plain that we are here dealing with mainly small ports, not with warehouses and so on in the cargo-handling zone. We are dealing with the loading and unloading of cargo in ports outside the 1967 scheme, and this is therefore a much more open field than ports under the 1967 scheme which were covered by the last clause we were debating. I imagine this would involve to a considerable extent the dealing with roll-on and roll-off cargoes and with containerisation in small specialised ports, but I hope that the Minister will he specific so that we may know exactly what we are talking about.
I entirely agree with what Lord Wigoder said and I think particularly of some of the ports in the outlying parts of Scotland where the people who load cargo on to ships or unload it from them are called to do that work when the ship heaves in sight and return to what are really their normal occupations when the ship finally puts out to sea again; as the noble Lord said, they have several occupations and handling cargo is one of them. It is not a casual occupation. There is nothing casual about it. This is part of their regular employment and we must be care
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ful about the use of the word "decasualisation". Quite plainly, however much more the chaps are paid for casual work, the cost would be enormously increased if they were in regular employment. I have seen estimates that in some ports the increase would be as much as 250 per cent. and might even go up to 500 per cent. if the postman and the person engaged in the fishing industry and the person with a croft of his own to run came along and their work was declared classified dock work so that they were permanently paid for all the time they were doing their postmen's job, their croft work and all the rest of it. It would be totally inapposite and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to deal with this kind of problem.
I also hope that he will be able to consider the problem of small ports. If small ports are to be manned by people who are "bussed" from larger ports, what would be the extra cost in terms of time lost in travelling from the larger to the smaller port? However, the major point here is that these factors should be taken into consideration by the Board. The Bill does not say this and it absolutely must do so.
12.32 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: First, may I remind the Committee that the Bill distinguishes between loading and unloading, on the one hand, and other cargo handling, on the other? The tests and procedures in the latter case are much more stringent and I hope that the attitudes of your Lordships will reflect that fact.
Amendment 43 is the first of three Amendments down to Clause 7 (and two others to Clause 8) which are concerned with possible economic effects of classifying work as dock work. This Amendment, unlike the other four, relates solely to the criteria which determine whether the work calls for the engagement of a permanent labour force. During Committee stage in the House of Commons an Amendment was discussed which would have added the words "and more economical" after "efficient". Commenting on that Amendment, the Minister of State said that the intention appeared to be that the Board should consider questions of the cost of employing a permanent labour force on the work.

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He pointed out that, where an employer was currently using casual labour on a regular and constant basis to avoid paying National Insurance contributions and making proper pension provision, it could be argued that engagement of a permanent labour force would raise his costs. He stressed that it was not the intention that the Board should determine for this reason that such work currently being done by casual labour should remain outside the Scheme, and he could not therefore advise acceptance of the Amendment. The point which the Minister of State made then is equally valid as regards Amendments No. 43.
A great deal of consideration has been given to this question since the debates in the other place, but it is still felt that it would be undesirable to insert a specific provision of the kind mentioned in these Amendments. The phrase "countervailing considerations" used in the Bill means that the Board must take into account all the factors which are relevant to its decision whether or not to recommend classification.
At this point, I should like to comment on an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith. She gave the example of a port where there was cargo on only five days a month and the people concerned with that cargo were normally working in agriculture. I would say that that situation—
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I am sorry if I expressed myself badly. I referred to the area being agricultural in the main but I added that industries were there. I hope I never suggested that the agricultural workers were drafted in to do the dock work. I think I aligned it with the tourist trade. I am sure that the noble Lord would not wish to misrepresent me and I believe that, if he reads what I said, he will not draw the conclusion he has.
Lord JACQUES: I am sorry if I have in any way misrepresented the noble Baroness. I certainly had no intention of doing so. I do not think it vital to specify whether these people are normally employed in agriculture or something else. I would say that if there is to be cargo on only five days a month the circumstances prevailing at that port would never pass
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the specific tests in the Bill for classification. Even if, by any remote chance, such a port did pass the tests, the Board is impelled by the terms of the Bill to take into account countervailing considerations. That is a last stop, as it were. However, I do not believe that we should ever get to the last stop in the sort of case mentioned by the noble Baroness.
I am, however, concerned about the question of financial viability which is inevitably raised when the subject of cost, cost effectiveness, economy is mentioned. In the Government's view, the Board could not have the expertise or the information necessary to take final decisions on financial viability. A judgment about financial viability would almost certainly require careful consideration of what, for the undertaking, would be sensitive commercial or financial information. The Secretary of State could justifiably ask for such information and the undertaking could supply it with the certain knowledge that confidence would not be breached. On the other hand, the Board might well feel that it would not be right to request such information—remember that there will be employers or, in other words, competitors on the Board—and, even if it did, the undertaking might quite properly feel that it was under no obligation to supply it. Therefore, the Board could, in many cases, be reaching views on the basis of partial information. These constraints would not apply in the case of the Secretary of State.
We believe, therefore, that the intricate questions of financial viability and whether the section of the work is concerned with loading and unloading or whether it should be the undertaking as a whole arc matters which must be dealt with by the Secretary of State who can reasonably call for the information and make a proper conclusion based on complete information.
Amendment No. 45 as drafted would mean that the Board could in no circumstances recommend classification if financial viability was affected. If the operations could be sustained only with the regular and constant use of casual labour it could well be right for the Board to recommend classification. To argue otherwise would be to condone the use of casual labour because the employer was, say, a man of straw who could not afford proper terms and conditions of employment. It would

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surely be wrong to argue that employers should not provide proper terms and conditions because they could not afford them.
We therefore feel that in many cases the question of financial viability will not be relevant. But where it is relevant—and there are many cases where it could be relevant—either for a section of the work or for the undertaking as a whole, we believe that it is best dealt with by representations to the Secretary of State who, without any breach of confidentiality, could he fully informed and come to a sensible decision based upon the whole of the information—
Lord WIGODER: I may have missed this point, but is there any reference in the Bill to the duty of the Secretary of State to consider financial viability?
Lord JACQUES: The recommendations of the Board have to go to the Secretary of State to whom representations can be made. He has to take into account those representations, and if they are on financial viability then he is concerned with financial viability.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Without wishing to jump ahead, perhaps I could help the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, by suggesting that if he agreeably, as I hope, will accept my Amendments Nos. 46 and 62, that perhaps would answer his problem about financial expertise which he says the Board would not have. I just throw that suggestion in so that my noble friends could perhaps bear it in mind.
Lord JACQUES: I am not disposed to discuss Amendments Nos. 46 and 62, with which I entirely disagree. But I would add that one representative on a Board with some commercial knowledge is not sufficient to justify that Board being regarded as having the expertise for dealing with the question of financial viability. But there is more than expertise raised here; there is the question of whether the information would be supplied to the Board. I do not think that it would be supplied to the Board. One would not supply information to a Board on which some of one's competitors are sitting. I think that for the reasons I have given the
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information should be considered by the Secretary of State and he should come to his conclusion.
Lord LYELL: First, I should like to comment on the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. I may in appearance be one of the younger Members of your Lordships' House and I may be one of the more gullible, but I am amazed by the noble Lord's reply. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, suggested to the Government—indeed invited them—to support the, I hope, beneficial intentions behind this series of Amendments. I cannot stress strongly enough that we on these Benches, and I believe the whole of the Committee, want to help the port industry. We believe that the Bill may in its intention wish to help the port industry, but we disagree as to how the Bill is to do that, particularly in the sphere of the three Amendments.
I really cannot accept that any attempts to ensure cost effectiveness should be classified as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Jacques said in opening his arguments to Amendment No. 43. To say that avoidance of bearing financial responsibilities for running the port is indeed the target is absolute nonsense. I cannot understand why the noble Lord, and indeed the Government, wish to link any reference to cost effectiveness to any form of evasion of responsibilities. Why can the port employers and the users not reduce their costs, while at the same time carrying out these financial surveys and perhaps changes in the pattern of work carried out at the ports, in conjunction with the work force? Anybody who knows anything about the workforce at the small, medium or even large ports will know that one cannot achieve any worthwhile improvement in industrial relations without consulting the workforce and indeed the port employers. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, in his belief over the fears of my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith about the small ports. I have not found anything in the Bill which spells out this position. I wonder whether the noble Lord wishes to give me chapter and verse?—perhaps not yet.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, mentioned the composition of the National Board. I think I heard him right when

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he said that the Board would not have the financial expertise to consider cost effectiveness and efficiency of the various aspects of the port industry. I believe that that was one of the most damning comments about the National Board and about the Bill as a whole. I am amazed that the noble Lord suggests that there would not be financial expertise. Surely that would be one of the prime responsibilities of the Board as a whole, and particularly, I hope, of the employers' representatives on the Board. Would the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, really believe that the trade union representatives on the National Board would have similar inexperience of matters which concern them? I just cannot believe that.
The noble Lord may wish to stick to his position, but I find it quite amazing. It is utter nonsense to believe that employers are unable to provide well paid employment to their workforce due to financial costs and pressures. It is very much in the interests of the port employers to provide the best conditions for their employees, and in many cases at the ports which I have argued about, both today and at earlier stages, the employees are paid better than they would be, I believe, under the Scheme.
But I am completely amazed that the noble Lord believes that the National Board would not have at least one member and I hope two members—certainly on the employers' side—with a working knowledge of finance, financial efficiency and cost effectiveness. One such member of the Board might be a specialist financial member, but I should hope that even two, three or four other members, or even the trade union representatives would have more than a passing knowledge of these matters. I am amazed about this. I wonder what other noble Lords feel.
Lord JACQUES: I want to reply to that. I wish to deal with three issues, starting with the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith. The case which she put would not pass the test in Clause 7 of the Bill, which is whether for its efficient performance the work requires a permanent labour force. Quite clearly the case which she cited, taking the facts as she gave them, would never get past that test—
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. But with great respect to him, I must point out that the job is efficiently carried out, but it is available only during limited periods in some of these docks. I am not suggesting for a moment that the handlers at present doing that work are not fully competent and capable of doing it. But my fear is that because there are only limited periods, however admirably the work is carried out, over say a month, the implementation of this Scheme on these docks would mean that people would be paid for a month's work when there was only five days' work involved.
Lord JACQUES: There is a misunderstanding here. I am not saying whether they are doing the work efficiently or inefficiently. I am saying that in the circumstances which the noble Baroness gave us, where a cargo is handled five days a month, it would in my opinion be ludicrous to say that it required for its performance a permanent labour force. It would never pass that test in the Bill. Even if it did there is a long-stop, which is that the Board is required to take account of countervailing considerations, even after it has taken account of the tests in the Bill. Now I come to the main question.
Lord BURTON: Before the noble Lord leaves that point, I wonder if he could define a little what he means by "efficient performance". Does he mean being cost effective; and, if so, why does the noble Lord object to this Amendment?
Lord JACQUES: I object to this Amendment because I have shown that there is already a provision in the Bill. Are you asking me to put something in the Bill twice? I have already shown that the question of the efficiency of the work is already covered in this particular clause of the Bill. In this particular clause, whether the work requires for its efficient performance a permanent labour force is one of the tests already laid down. The noble Lord is saying that it is the same test as cost-effectiveness. I am not going to argue about that, but if he is right it is already in the Bill.
Lord BURTON: The harbour authorities at Stornoway consider that, as the Bill is at present drafted—and I think they have

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had legal advice on this—it will cost them £25,000 a year extra. Does the noble Lord consider that cost-effective or efficient or does he think that the harbour authorities at Stornoway are wrong? Someone must be wrong somewhere.
Lord JACQUES: I cannot accept their estimate of £25,000. I have not got the information on which to come to a conclusion whether it is either right or wrong. Nor have I got the information which would lead me to the conclusion that the work would or would not be classified. It is ridiculous to expect me to answer for a particular port the kind of question which has been asked.
Lord BURTON: But this was raised on Second Reading, and the noble Lord, Lord Oram, gave exactly the same answer. One would have thought that, if he was wrong there, the Government would by now have made inquiries on this very point to see whether they were right or wrong.
Lord JACQUES: Inquiries regarding a particular port will be made when that port is under consideration. When that port is being considered, then the kind of factors which the noble Lord has put forward will be matters for consideration, but not in the meantime, not in the Committee stage of this Bill. The costs at Stornoway are not a relevant matter at this stage except by way of example.
Lord WIGODER: Would the noble Lord not agree that in our present economic and financial situation it is grossly irresponsible of any Government to bring forward as far as Committee stage such a Bill as this, when they have so manifestly not done their sums on any part of the Bill as to what the cost to the consumer will be?
Lord JACQUES: I think that is a completely unfair statement, and could not be fairly drawn from what I have said. What I have said is that it is quite ridiculous to expect me to answer questions on additional costs at one particular port, Stornoway. I was not dealing with the general issue of how much the overall costs would be and how much they would not be. I think that was an unjust inference that was drawn by the noble Lord. But I want, if I may, to continue.
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What I am submitting is that there are tests in the Bill, and, in addition to those tests, there is a longstop. The Board must take into account countervailing considerations. That is the longstop. In addition, I am suggesting that if cost-effectiveness, economical running and financial viability are going to be considered, then they have to be considered on the basis of precise information—information which the Board can ask for and which employers are prepared to provide. I am suggesting that it would embarrass employers to provide that information to the Board in many cases—not in all—and that it would be much better if that kind of matter was left to the Secretary of State when the recommendations are made to him. The information can he called for by him or submitted voluntarily to him in the knowledge that it will not be considered by other employers in the industry, and that it will be considered by the Secretary of State as a confidential matter; and, having got the whole of that information, he will be more likely to have the expertise available for coming to a conclusion as to whether the recommendations of the Board are reasonable or otherwise.
I am not saying that cost should not be taken into account; I am not saying that financial viability should not be taken into account. But I am saying that it should be taken into account only after full information is available to people who have the expertise to come to some conclusion upon the basis of the information so available.
12.56 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord has been telling us what he has not been saying, but I am astonished at what he has been saying because, in effect, he is saying that at the Board level there is to be no consideration of cost at all, or very little indeed.
Lord JACQUES: I have said the opposite. I have said that the Board must take into account countervailing considerations, and I have said that countervailing considerations would include all representations which had been made to it. If representations had been made to it on cost, then it would have to take cost into account. What I am saying is that if there is the much bigger question

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of financial viability to the undertaking, then that is best dealt with by the Secretary of State by representations after the recommendations have been made to him.
Lord DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord now switches it on to the grounds that there are wider considerations. Surely, all along the way the Board must know how many extra men would be involved by classifying the work. They must find that out. They must also find out what is the comparison of wages and conditions as between what exist at the present time and what would exist if the work were classified. It is a fairly simple sum. It does not need great accounting and financial expertise in order to he able to be able to find that out, and it would be absolutely astonishing if the Board were not equipped with sufficient expertise to do that. As to financial viability, I think perhaps the noble Lord is reading rather too much into what the Amendment says. It is financial viability of the operations constituting the work, not of the firm as a whole. It is the financial viability of the operations, and that is a very different matter.
I think that this is so central to the whole question that the noble Lord must look at it again. In the first place he must accept these Amendments, and then change his attitude to this Bill altogether because of the absolute necessity for the nation as a whole to make certain that we are keeping our costs as low as we possibly can. It is all very well for the noble Lord to say—and I wrote down what he said—"It surely would be wrong to argue that the employer should not maintain proper terms and conditions because he could not afford them". In some ways, of course, this may not arise very much because if he has to pay more he can presumably put up his port charges; and in many cases there is very little option as to which port should be used. So it will not be the employer who is suffering; it will be the public, the nation, the producers, the users of raw materials coming in, and so forth. The noble Lord does not seem to have any conception of this.
Apart from the fact that what the noble Lord has just said uses an extraordinarily question-begging word, "the 'proper' terms and conditions", I wonder what would be said if that were taken to,
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the IMF. I put down in my notes here, "Tell that to the IMF". Of course you must consider what you can afford to pay your workers, and this is particularly what participation means. You have to sit down together and decide what is the maximum that you can pay your workers, while remaining viable. That was a most extraordinary statement. It will remain on the Record, and will illustrate very strongly the attitude of this Government to the whole of our national affairs.
Lord SHINWELL: Why does my noble friend give way every time noble Lords opposite come along with petty-fogging trivialities? Everybody understands what they are driving at. How is it possible to define the circumstances which would justify an employer doing one thing or the other in connection with the handling of cargo, or with the container problem? It is quite impossible to decide that in advance. They know that very well and if they do not know it they are more ignorant than I believe them to be. If they want to divide, then let them divide. Why bother? Anyway, it will do them a bit of good to divide. They will justify their existence.
Lord JACQUES: Before there is any Division, may I just make three points? First, there will obviously be occasions when increases in costs are wholly justified, because there will be cases where an employer is escaping from his liabilities by the habitual employment of casual labour. I mentioned National Insurance and pension provision, and that increase in costs should not debar the Board from recommending classification. That is one danger that we see in these Amendments.
Secondly, there will be cases such as those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, where it is simply a question of calculating what is the present labour cost and what would be the cost if it were a full-time labour force. That is something which the Board ought to take into account. Then we come to other questions which have been raised on these Amendments. There is, thirdly, the question of financial viability of part of the undertaking, or of the undertaking as a whole. I have said that, because of the need for getting full information for which the Board might be reluctant to

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ask or may not receive, that matter should be dealt with by the Secretary of State when the recommendations are made to him. I regret that I can give way on none of these Amendments. None of them is acceptable. Nor can I say that we are prepared to consider them.
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
1.11 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 9, line 40, at end insert ("and
(iii) if classified as dock work can continue to be performed economically without any risk of the undertaking where the work is performed being rendered uneconomic with the consequent loss of employment.")
1.3 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 43) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 75; Not-Contents, 43.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Newall, L.

Allerton, L.

Glasgow, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Amory, V.

Gowrie, E.

Powis, E.

Ampthill, L.

Greenway, L.

Redesdale, L.

Balerno, L.

Grey, L.

Renwick, L.

Banks, L.

Gridley, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Barrington, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Davids, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

St. Helens, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hives, L.

Sandford, L.

Boothby, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sandys, L.

Burton, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sempill, Ly.

Caccia, L.

Inchape, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Ironside, L.

Sligo, M.

Carrington, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Somers, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Loudound, C.

Spens, L.

Clwyd, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Stamp, L.

Coleraine, L.

Mancroft, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Craigavon, V.

Marley, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

de Clifford, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Suffield, L.

Denham, L.

Melville, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Derwent, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vickers, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Monck, V.

Vivian, L.

Dundonald, E.

Morris, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Elles, B.

Mottistone, L.

Wigoder, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Faithfull, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Brimelow, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Peddie, L.

Brockway, L.

Henderson, L.

Platt, L.

Burntwood, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Champion, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Segal, L.

Chorley, L.

Jacobson, L.

Shinwell, L.

Collison, L.

Jacques, L.

Stedman, B.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Cudlipp, L.

Leatherland, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

McCluskey, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Wigg, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Pannell, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Pargiter, L.

Hale, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 9, line 43, at end insert—
("( ) The Board shall not so recommend if in their opinion the classification of the work would adversely affect the financial viability of the operations constituting the work.")
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord MOTTISTONE Lord MOTTISTONE moved Amendment No. 46:

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Page 10, line 5, at end insert—
("( ) The Confederation of British Industry and the Food and Drink Industries Council regarding the transhipment of food and other perishable goods.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 46 and to speak to Amendment No. 62 which is somewhat similar. In the matter of the writing of the report by the Board (which we have just been discussing) your Lordships will note that subsection (8) of Clause 7 says:
"The Board shall for the purposes of their report consult…and in particular consult—"
three public bodies which are listed. So far as Amendment No. 72 is concerned, when after going through earlier stages the Board is making recommendations about jobs that shall be considered as dock jobs, it is again asked "for the purpose of their recommendation" in Clause 8(6) to consult,
"…such persons as appear to them to be concerned with its subject matter; and they shall in particular consult—"
the three listed bodies.
There are three reasons why I suggest that these public bodies are not of themselves sufficient as consultees for the purposes either of writing a report or of making the recommendation. The first is that none of the bodies referred to is expert in the management of the activities in which the jobs will occur. They are public bodies which are not directly concerned with the management of companies. If it be argued that the National Ports Council will include members who have such management expertise, the implications of the Bill are that jobs will be considered in various forms of enterprise which will not necessarily belong to the National Ports Council. Therefore, the main and original purpose of my seeking to add to these public bodies free enterprise trade associations or groups of trade associations is that the expertise which is provided within the membership of such bodies shall he available for consultation in each of these two stages. There is no practical operating expertise available within the bodies mentioned so far.
The second reason for including, as well as the CBI, the FDIC (Food and Drink Industries Council) in both cases and the National Cold Storage Federation in the second case is that, as was made clear by me and by other noble Lords at Second Reading and in relation to other Amend-
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ments, one of the most important factors about the docks is that there passes through them 50 per cent. of the food requirements of this country, and the docks as they are today, let alone if they are extended, have potentially a stranglehold on the feeding of this country. I do not want to enter into any arguments about whether or not such a stranglehold will be used. That is not the point that I am talking about now. The fact is that because we all have to eat to live, because we are not self-sufficient in food and because a lot of the internal distribution of food goes in and around the ports anyway—even under the modifications in the Bill that we have agreed to in yesterday's Amendments—it is the food going through the ports which requires particular consideration with regard to its handling. It is the expertise of bodies who understand about the handling of food or, in relation to the cold storage people, the storing of food, that is of particular importance in deciding whether or not a job shall be declared a dock job. For that reason, I have added also the Confederation of British Industry and these food storage bodies in the two respects. These were my main reasons for putting down these Amendments.
However, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who in his answers to the previous Amendment reminded me of another very important factor. He will remember that we spoke at length about the knowledge of financial matters that might be held by the Dock Labour Board or the local dock labour boards; how he questioned whether the employers would be prepared among other things to release information on financial matters to such a Board and how he argued, therefore, that the stage at which these financial matters should be considered in the greatest depth was when the affairs had got to the level of the Secretary of State. I am sure that the noble Lord will correct me if I have not got the gist of what he was saying.
As the noble Lord knows, I work for a trade association, the Cake and Biscuit Alliance, and I have therefore the privilege of knowing how such bodies operate. I can assure noble Lords that my members are most reluctant—and will do so only under threat of legislation or something similar—to release information directly to Government Departments, particularly

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if that information is going to be compared with other information that somebody else may release to Government Departments. We have various ways and means of collecting information, but the most acceptable way is through the trade association. So jealous are my members of some of the information which they release that they will not do so even through the trade association; and in certain respects we have employed a firm of outside chartered accountants to handle the information which is provided on an anonymous basis.
These are the kind of measures which have to be introduced, but the only point which is relevant is that the trade association is an essential link in the chain. When these matters are considered and the financial viability of the proposals is taken into account, it would be useful if the trade associations concerned were consulted on an obligatory basis. Then they could, if asked, help to obtain information which may be needed relating to the points which were discussed in the last Amendment. They could do this more readily than Government Departments, unless Government Departments wished to be draconian about the matter—and my experience is that generally speaking they do not. Our dealings with Government Departments relating to these sensitive matters have been splendid.
The Government Department with which one deals in particular is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and it is mentioned in the subsection which I seek to amend. In the first of my Amendments, however, it is mentioned only in relation to fishery harbours and not in connection with food, but the subsection which is affected by my Amendment No. 62 is also concerned with food. I wish in no way to denigrate the good work and co-operation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, even though its title is the wrong way round. We believe that food should be treated more seriously than agriculture, but that is another matter which I throw in for good measure. However, I do not want to denigrate what that Ministry may or may not be able to do. Nevertheless, I think that the Ministry would say that in many cases it is easier to obtain information of various kinds from employers if they deal with a trade association. If
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that is the case, the Government may think that I should have inserted the words "the relevant trade association" in the Amendment, but this was not what I was seeking to do.
It seems to me that overall confederations like the Confederation of British Industries and the Food and Drink Industries Council are more suitable bodies to be listed in an Act of Parliament. The Confederation will refer as a matter of course to the relevant subordinate trade associations if there are any matters upon which their advice and help may be necessary. That is the way that the CBI works. In order to cover a wide range of goods—which does not relate only to food, important though food is in this context—it is better that the CBI should be there so that its expert knowledge, or the expert knowledge available to it, can be made available. With the greatest possible respect to the Government, the expert knowledge of the CBI is greater than that of the Government Departments listed—and always will be because it consists of people who practise daily the art of running enterprises and businesses.
In conclusion, may I say that these additions, which can be treated only as additional points of consultation, are not points through which a train has to go. In both cases we are talking only about the consultative level. Furthermore, all we are doing is to spell out a few more points of consultation, because the opening phrase of the subsection concerned says that the Board will consult anybody whom they think is suitable—or words to that effect. In this Bill it is important to make sure that the Board go a little beyond what they think is suitable and are guided to make a specific point of consulting the experts in the field who actually employ labour and know about jobs.
1.25 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: First may I draw the attention of the Committee to the clause concerned; namely Clause 7(8):
"The Board shall for the purposes of their report consult such persons as appear to them to be concerned with its subject matter".
It is at this point that the CBI and the relevant trade associations would be consulted. May I remind your Lordships that the CBI has to be consulted also

693
regarding the composition of the Board. Therefore, the CBI would have people there who would be able to speak for them when it was required that they should be consulted. The subsection continues:
"and they shall in particular consult —

"(a) the National Ports Council…

"(b) the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food… and

"(c) the Secretary of State as to any relevant responsibilities of his (under the Harbour Act 1964, or otherwise)…".

Lord LYELL: Then paragraph (c) says:
"in relation to marine works in Scotland".
Lord JACQUES: Yes, the Secretary of State for Scotland, in effect. These three people have to be consulted because they have statutory responsibilities, but neither the CBI nor the trade associations have such statutory responsibilities. In those three cases we are obliged to make it mandatory, but it would be a nonsense to make it mandatory in the cases which the noble Lord has suggested.
Let us suppose, for example, that the issue raised is timber handling. If this Amendment were carried, it would be mandatory upon the Board to consult the Food and Drink Industries Council and the National Cold Storage Federation in cases where it was completely irrelevant that there should be any consultation with them. Because the people concerned who are mentioned in the subsection have statutory responsibilities, it is mandatory for the Board to consult them in all cases. However, in the case of trade associations which may or may not be involved it is for the Board to decide and for those trade associations to be consulted when it is relevant to do so. I should also point out that if we give way on this Amendment there are many more trade associations whose goods are handled at the ports which would require that they should be consulted. Finally, I should point out that it is open to the bodies named or to any other interested parties to make representations to the Board because the Board are required to take those representations into account.
Lord MOTTISTONE: If I may take the three points which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, the first was that some of these bodies may have referred to them a matter which is irrelevant to their interests. It is a fact
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that all trade associations and similar bodies—and, I suspect, major trade unions—have many things referred to them, particularly by good Government Departments and by bodies such as the CBI (which is superior to individual trade associations), which are seeking to make quite certain that people's interests are not overlooked by mistake. These matters are referred to you and you write in, or even telephone sometimes, and say, "Thank you very much but we are not interested in timber. Go ahead and do what you wish".
To turn to the noble Lord's second point, that the inclusion of the bodies to which I have referred would give grounds for including many more, as the noble Lord did not pick up my point about financial expertise (regarding which I thought I was helping him on the previous Amendment, although obviously he did not think that I was) I will not pursue it. As the noble Lord did not take that up I will not pursue that line, but had he been a little more accommodating I was going to suggest that I appreciate that the food industry aspects of this are special and do not cover all the ground, and, as I explained earlier, I included them only because they are so important to the life of the country; and I think it would be good for the Government, and not only for public relations, to be seen to be concerned about the food supply of the country. That is just by the way.
I was prepared to consider that the Confederation of British Industry covers all the relevant interests and I would be prepared to consider sticking to them only and dropping the food people if the Government want to deny themselves the opportunity of being seen to be interested in the food supplies of the country.
Lord JACQUES: I do not think I can add anything useful to what I have already said; I should only be repeating myself.
Lord MOTTISTONE: In that case I shall have to consult with my noble friends, but it would seem to me that probably the best thing is for us to drop the matter now and to pick it up again at Report stage. Perhaps in the meantime I might be able to have a word with the

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Government spokesman to see whether we cannot find an accommodation which suits us both. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 7, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
1.32 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: This is a long and complicated clause and I do not think we have in any way discussed the machinery of it; we have rather been discussing its contents. It is about the reporting to the Board of work done in loading and unloading cargo outside the cargo-handling zone; outside the ports where the 1967 Scheme is in force. I should like just to consider the time factor here, because there is not much sense in doing an elaborate survey of this kind if you are going to get into a muddle and produce chaos; and you also want to give time for accurate information to be provided and, where consideration is necessary, as it is by the Board, for adequate time to be given for consideration.
First, the employers must report any such work and also the minimum and maximum number of individuals employed to do it in the month beginning with the appointed day. They are given three months to produce the report of the work that is being done in that month. After the Board have received the report they then have to inform any trade union mentioned in it and the union is given one month to make representations. Within that time the union will often have to make inquiries locally and probably send a representative down to see the employer. Allowing for the time for the Board to inform the trade union, for postal delays and all the rest of it, obviously the time up to that point will be at least four and a half months. It seems that one month for the trade union to make representations is hardly adequate; but if they do not make recommendations within that time then, to put it colloquially, they have "had it".
What will they do? They will probably feel obliged to make representations without adequate inquiries having been made because it is the only way in which to preserve their position, and that will
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not help the Board. How will the Board know whether or not they have made adequate inquiries? There is no means really by which they can know, so they will have to treat all these representations with great care, and that takes time.
Then the Board have to sort out all the information and make a report to the Secretary of State on every one of the reports that they receive from the employers, if I read the clause correctly. For that they are allowed the remainder of the nine months from the appointed day provided in subsection (6)(b). Thus the Board also have four and a half months. Each statement from each employer has to be considered individually in the light of the requirements of sub-section (7), with which we have been dealing, where in considering the report the Board have to consider whether the work is such that those who are employed on it need training. Whether they need training is a quite individual thing—and I quote:
"need training, aptitudes and experience the same as, or similar to, those of registered dock workers;"
and, secondly, whether the work,
"requires for its efficient performance the engagement of a permanent labour force".
We have just been considering what this requirement will mean and, quite obviously, it will mean careful inquiry at each of the premises to see how efficiently the work is being performed. Also in appropriate cases the Board have to consult the National Ports Council, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the interests particularly concerned—
"such persons as appear to them to be concerned with its subject matter"—
that again is a considerably time-consuming operation; they have to do all this in four and a half months—
"or such extra time as the Secretary of State may allow in particular cases".
I cannot see how they can possibly do all that work in the time provided. Admittedly the Secretary of State may allow extra time in the case of any particular work. I am not really clear what that means. Does it mean particular work at particular premises, or particular work in general? It is not so much the work as the harbours for which the extra

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time for consideration in the case of each harbour will be needed.
Let me ask the noble Lord this: First, the employers have to get under way. How does the noble Lord envisage that this will be "kicked off"? Is he going to issue circulars? Is he going to publish this when the Act becomes law, or is he going to rely purely on the legal advisers of the various employers subscribing in order to get the Act of Parliament? I really think that the noble Lord must give careful consideration to this because a penalty is involved. If they want to get the Scheme off the ground quickly, and the employers will only have three months to make the report, they must take special measures to see that all the employers are informed of the requirements of Clause 7—that is, all the employers in the small ports not covered by the 1967 Scheme. It is all right so far as the 1967 Scheme is concerned; there is no particular difficulty about that. Clause 6 is all right.
Most Acts of Parliament give the authority concerned the power to require information within such time as they may require in the notice rather than giving a specific time in which to do it. They say,
"within such time as is required in the notice, being not less than"—
a certain period. I wonder why that was not done in this case? In fact in Clause 9(3) that is precisely what is done. It says:
"The Board shall, within such time or extended time…report to him their opinion on the matters they ese directed by him to consider."
The Secretary of State may say, "Well, you are not just asking the Board to report; you are asking a huge number of employers to report, and therefore you must impose a particular statutory period". But almost the reverse is the case where you have so many people from whom to collect information, and you do require greater flexibility to meet particular cases.
It seems to me that there are other defects in the clause. It seems to me that so far as smaller ports are concerned, it will depend on the time of year when the appointed day happens to be, if there ever is one. The employer has to state the minimum and maximum number of individuals employed on loading or unloading cargo, and they must do that in regard to the individuals employed during the month beginning with the
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appointed day. It would well be that the number will be very different in certain ports at one time of the year as compared with another, and it will be purely accidental when the appointed day occurs. Sometimes in the year the number may even be zero. There is no requirement to say for how many hours the individuals were employed in that month. I do not see how, without that information, the Board can possibly form a sensible judgment on the matters on which they have to report.
How on earth can the Board decide whether work should be classified with the employers on the strength of the labour force and its permanency unless the Board know the number of hours at present being worked per month in the port? The Government have got their criterion wrong. First of all, you need the number of hours, and you need that figure over a much longer period. You can either get a figure for the number of hours worked for each month in the last 12 months, or you can strike an average for the last 12 months, otherwise you will not get the right answer. In some cases, you may get more than the average in that particular period, and in some cases far less than the average.
If the Government want a survey of this kind carried out, I believe they must allow whatever time is needed to carry it out properly. If they try to get a rush job, they will get—and deserve to get—a thoroughly unsatisfactory result. I wonder whether the Government or the Board have calculated how many extra employees they will need initially for this period of nine months when they are carrying out the survey. It has been argued elsewhere that there should have been a survey before the Bill had ever been drafted. These three clauses provide for that survey in fact. I suppose the Government feel they had better not have a survey, but must try to force it all into a certain time. I think they have reached the wrong decision here. Even if they want to specify a particular time, they must be more generous in the time that is allowed.
I should like to know what will be the extra cost of the extra employees who obviously will have to be employed for this survey. I should like to know how many extra employees will be needed to

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help the Secretary of State to examine the recommendations of the Board. From what the noble Lord has said, the job is going to be a good deal more onerous than we had thought. The Secretary of State will consider the cost aspects, and the cost aspects are so important. I hope that the noble Lord will find all the answers to these questions in his notes on clauses. If not, I hope that he will at least answer as many as he can today.
1.45 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to make one very brief point in support of my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn. I am thinking of three different docks. One has an eight-week circuit, in one case importing and in another mainly exporting fruit and vegetables. If the analysis is taken in December, it will make nonsense of the analysis. If it is taken in the height of the short season for exporting, the figures will be inflated. The same thing applies in a West country port where the only operation which is docker-handled is the importing of coal. If there is a very good summer when the stocks of coal are up, imports fade off, but given a heavy and severe winter the port carries a terrific load. I support my noble friend that this narrowing to one particular month cannot fairly reflect the conditions in docks which have seasonal variations in employment.
Lord BURTON: I should also like to support the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on the question of the month concerned. If the Government took the trouble to read the Second Reading debate, they would see that one noble Lord—and I cannot remember who he was—spoke at considerable length of the exports of grain from Scotland over a short period of time. If the appointed day happened to be in that period, those ports would all be thrown completely out of order.
Lord JACQUES: First, with regard to the questions of cost and manpower, these are in the usual place in the Preface to the Bill, where there is a paragraph dealing with the financial effects of the Bill, and the effects of the Bill on public service manpower. So far as concerns having firm periods which can be varied
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by the Secretary of State, I have no doubt that they are necessary. The Government have no doubt that there must be periods, but the periods must be reasonable. After consultation following the White Paper, and before the preparation of the Bill, we believed that the periods stated in this clause were reasonable. We certainly had no objection. Nevertheless, we will take into account what has been said by the noble Lord.
Lord AIREDALE: I should like to mention a drafting point. The first three lines of subsection (1) refer to "cargo", "ship" and "ports". The subsection proceeds to define "cargo" and "ship", but it does not define "port". So the reader might be excused for supposing that there was no special definition of "port" applying to this clause. But if he supposed that, he would be wrong, because if he had been reading the previous clause, he would have seen that subsection (6) says:
"In this section and section 7 below 'port' means…".
so and so. I do not think it is good enough in a clause to publish an incomplete list of special definitions, and leave the practitioner to search the other clauses of the Bill to see whether there is some other special definition which applies to the clause he is considering, although that definition is not given in the list of definitions in the clause itself. So at the next stage I shall be moving an Amendment to insert into subsection (1) the definition of "port" which is missing from the subsection at present. I just mention that now so that the Minister will understand my reasons.
Baroness SEEAR: The noble Lord is, of course, technically correct in telling us that the manpower implications are to be found in the usual place, but since it finishes up the manpower forecasts by saying that the requirement, if any, for further staff in connection with the operation of the new Scheme, which will depend on the provisions of the new Scheme and the extent of its application, cannot at present be estimated, I really do not feel that that message gets us very much further.
Lord JACQUES: If it cannot be estimated, I certainly cannot give a figure. Is the noble Lord, Lord Airedale,

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contending that the definition of "port", in addition to being in Clause 6 (6), should also be in Clause 7?
Lord AIREDALE: Yes. What I would move would be to leave out of Clause 6(6) the words "and section 7 below" and then in subsection (1) of Clause 7, at the end, insert:
"'port' has the meaning given to it in section 6(6) above".
Then you do not have to search from one section to another to find the special definition.
Lord JACQUES: I should just like to thank the noble Lord for giving us notice that he is going to move the Amendment. Certainly it can be thought about from now.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Is not the only place in Clause 7 where "port" is mentioned where the ports in the 1967 Scheme are included in subsection (1)?
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Cargo-handling operations in general]:
1.57 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 10, line 31, after ("Act") insert ("and in particular to subsection (1A) below").
The noble Lord said: With Clause 8 we come to a series of Amendments dealing with a different concept, the second major concept that we shall be considering today. If I might suggest to the Committee that I could speak to four Amendments on the Marshalled List—at the moment I am speaking on Amendment No. 47—I should like to link with this Amendments Nos. 50, 51 and 57. I hope that this arrangement might meet with the convenience of the Committee. The problem that we on these Benches feel—and we hope that these Amendments might go some way to rectifying the problem—is one of the labour force at premises which may or may not be classified under the Scheme. The series of Amendments are concerned with Clause 8, and it is headed in the margin of our Bill "Cargo-handling operations in general".
We had a preliminary skirmish, if I could use that term, earlier in the week
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when my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn was told that in almost all cases cargo would have to be imported or exportable goods; in fact, that they would have to cross the sea. I understand that that is the definition which is given fairly clearly in Schedule 3. Indeed, we have to consult that Schedule for some indication of the definition of "cargo", as well as some—if I call them "mere hints", perhaps the Committee would agree, of what work may be classified as dock work.
If I may first of all speak about the first two Amendments, Nos. 47 and 50, the Committee will gain a better indication. In all the discussions that we have had earlier in the Bill much has been said about the changing pattern of trade in and around our ports—at least after the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, we call them ports or harbours, but for the moment I will call them ports—about the differing and diffuse skills which are required to load or unload or to discharge the many types of gaseous, liquid and solid cargoes which arrive on or indeed leave our shores. Noble Lords will know that this type of trade never stands still and that the United Kingdom shippers and air freight specialists and other people handling exports and imports have to be competitive. This competition either arrives from elsewhere in Europe or grows within the United Kingdom.
So far as the former is concerned, competition arriving from elsewhere in Europe, rapid changes have, I would say, forced on the United Kingdom shipping industry into such diverse forms as roll-on and roll-off transport and containerisation, or even unitisation of bulk cargo, or much more specialised and skilled methods of shipping across the sea amounts of what we can call unorthodox freight. We shall be discussing these different and special cases later on in our deliberations on the Bill, but what I have in mind with these Amendments is mainly our large inland container bases and the food processing centres. Given that certainly over 50 per cent. of our total food supplies come from over the seas to the United Kingdom, these two industries are of the greatest importance to everyone in the country, because methods of transporting much of the food have changed swiftly, especially in the last nine years since the last Scheme came into operation; and that is a point

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we have to consider when taking the Bill as a whole and this clause in particular.
The use of refrigerated containers arriving either from Europe or from Scandinavia by roll-off and roll-on means, or as containers brought across the oceans in specially designed ships, has meant that what have already been described as traditional methods of dealing with these forms of cargo, of loading or unloading containers or of stopping or stripping these same metal boxes, have sometimes been moved inland, nearer to what are often the main centres of distribution.
Surely there cannot be anything sacrosanct about this particular work, or any reason why it should be totally, or indeed believed to be totally, reserved to dockers, if they were to make the claim that such work was theirs when it was performed in or around the dock area before these changes. But what has happened in the last nine years since the current, the 1967, Scheme was brought in is that completely new methods of packing and processing imported produce have been introduced and this has meant that much work has left the dockside areas, the wharves and the warehouses and is now carried out many miles inland. These new forms of work require very different skills and training from orthodox or traditional dock work but, unfortunately, the differences are often blurred and are subject to a certain amount of dispute; but, what is more, different unions have negotiated for the right to represent these new breeds of workers, if I can call them that, whose skills are developing very rapidly and have been developing from year to year. Thus we find that two unions, large and important unions, in particular the General and Municipal Workers' Union and the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers, have had and continue to have widespread negotiating rights in the cold storage and food processing industries. Those rights are strongly recognised and they are established by almost all the employers in the industries concerned.
It is here that we come this afternoon to the nub of this particular programme of industrial relations in dockland, and also outside the dockland, because all along we have said during this Bill's discussions here that industrial relations
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in the port, or indeed in the cargo-handling industries or in any related industries, as these indeed are, have to be settled at the local level; yet this Bill seems to help the National Board to investigate and to alter what are excellent arrangements. Surely we, in particular on our Benches, have learned that interference in what are at present very good labour relations is the start of all the unrest and confusion, not to mention fear, that have been mentioned in connection with this Bill.
The Government in their wisdom have done precisely what we feared. They have sown confusion and apprehension among employers and unions, we believe needlessly. Indeed, in another place, the Member for Liverpool, Garston, Mr. Loyden, pointed out that there was at least one cold store which had been built in the Liverpool Dock area and he stressed that labour relations there were excellent. Sadly, such cold stores and container bases still continue to be regarded as some kind of Eldorado for certain sections of dock workers. Yet this laudable wish causes fears to the employers; they fear that they may have to employ dock workers superfluous to their present requirements. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, earlier in our considerations today presented this dilemma very clearly.
Likewise, the employees and their unions fear—reasonably or unreasonably, I do not know, but they have certainly so represented to many of us in this House and elsewhere—the arrival of what my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn might agree would be deployed dockworkers. Those employees who do not belong to the particular dockworkers' union concerned are afraid. They see that the arrival of these deployed dockworkers will be fertile ground for endless demarcation disputes and worries. We know that there is provision in the Bill for existing agreements between employers and employees to be honoured, but both sides in the container industry are apprehensive—I hope needlessly; we shall look forward to hearing about that. I hope noble Lords opposite will accept that this is not mere propaganda, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, would have us believe, or at least as he tried to have us believe in our last deliberations. I think he did mention the word; he considered much

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of the lobbying and the information we had received to be propaganda.
Lord JACQUES: And before the propaganda a lot of scaremongering.
Lord LYELL: The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has, if I may put it into a sporting parlance, achieved a right and left, in that I think there is a double amount of somewhat extravagant language there. I do not think it is necessarily scaremongering, and I have stressed that we on these Benches want to assist the process of helping in the docks.
Lord JACQUES: I should be very happy to give the noble Lord clear examples, and give him the documents, of scaremongering.
Lord LYELL: Does the noble Lord wish me to produce examples at this stage? If I could have two minutes, I think I could produce from my files examples from a publication which I think goes under the name of Headlight, which I understand is the publication of the road haulage section of the Transport and General Workers' Union. They use somewhat unparliamentary language in referring to their brethren in the same union. I had probably better not risk quoting it, but they suggested there was "something" "to you, brothers", and there was a picture of one lorry driver bowing to a docker at the dock gates. This is a publication of the transport section of the Transport and General Workers' Union. I can produce a copy, if the noble Lord wishes me to, at a later stage. He asked for one example, and I hope I have given a partial reply at this stage. If the noble Lord wishes to say that this is scaremongering and propaganda, he is entitled to express that opinion. But much of the defence of the Bill which has emanated from the Government Benches here and in another place, and from around the country—I wonder whether it is necessarily propaganda—is in no way satisfactory.
Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, would call it, whether propaganda or scaremongering, connected to these fears that have been expressed to us, and I believe to many members of the Government and indeed to Members of another place who belong to other unions which
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are concerned in this industry, is the problem of how and where are to be spread the administrative costs which will be engendered by this split in the labour force. Should any concern or business where registered dockworkers are employed have to close down or otherwise reduce its labour force, there is going to be a responsibility on the National Board to provide, to see where alternative employment with other users of registered dock labour can be made available. Perhaps the noble Lord who is going to reply can inform us what should be the feelings of workers and employers at present working in the ports, and indeed of the users of these ports. I believe this is what lies at the root of our series of Amendments. These are indeed the fears expressed to us. I beg to move.
2.8 p.m.
The Earl of INCHCAPE: I should like to support this range of Amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Lyell, and particularly Amendment No. 51. I must first declare my interest. I am chairman of a merchant house which exports to most parts of the world, president of the Council of British Shipping, and chairman of a shipping company which also has road haulage interests. I am, therefore, a customer of the port industry in three capacities: as exporter, as ship owner and as road haulier. In each capacity I am very alarmed at the impact which this Bill could have on the haulage, warehousing, cold storage and packing industries, all of which are most important elements in any major port.
When I spoke in the Second Reading debate I referred to a recent speech of the Secretary of State for Employment, when he referred to the undesirability of splitting an integrated labour force in the docks by bringing some of them within the Dock Labour Scheme while others remain outside. Your Lordships now have an opportunity to avoid the risk of the sort of damaging split to which the Secretary of State referred. There are later Amendments which also attempt to deal with this problem. This one alone is not enough, but it is a good start. It would ensure that there was no risk of work being classified as dock work unless the majority of the work at the premises was classifiable. In these cases, at least,

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we will be spared the fragmentation of the workforce; we will avoid the workforce being split into main register dockworkers, extension register dockworkers and non-dockworkers.
It does not need much imagination to see that fragmentation would be bound to lead to inefficiency, high costs, demarcation disputes and other sorts of friction. This will hurt the customer and the proprietor, but it will also hurt the workers themselves. It could make the place a very unhappy one in which to work. It could also lead to the business, warehousing, cold storage or whatever it is, becoming uneconomic and uncompetitive. This would be a recipe for closure. The main register dockworkers might go somewhere else, but the extension register dockworkers and those not dockworkers at all might not be so fortunate, and the blame for those lost jobs would lie fairly and squarely on the Bill we are now considering. This Amendment provides a useful opportunity to avoid some of the risks of fragmentation which the Secretary of State outlined and which would be so damaging for all port users. I hope, therefore, that it is one which all your Lordships can support.
2.10 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, in these Amendments. Of all the clauses of the Bill, I think that not one has given rise to more confusion and doubt than this clause, both with employers and employees, not so much with those who normally work and operate inside the docks, but those from outside the dock area who use, in part or in whole, the port services.
We have, for example, the question of import agents with warehouses for their supplies of goods who perhaps in their range have both home-produced commodities and imported commodities. The imported commodities, in the normal way, will be handled from the export countries by dockers, brought in by dockers, but once they arrive, if that warehouse is within the zone, then it would appear that if they wish to send some of their goods, even for export, to a faraway port, then indeed a southern warehouse—because these are goods going for export—might
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have to use dock handlers although the job would normally be done, and at the moment is being done, by road hauliers of the Transport and General Workers' Union. That would be the position if those goods had to be sent from a zoned warehouse and were going right across the country from the South to Liverpool for export to one of the Scandinavian countries.
Just imagine the confusion of warehouses which deal, say, with furniture. Some scion of the Foreign Office retires from a posting abroad. His furniture is sent home, duly embarked and disembarked by dockers, and is then in a warehouse within the zone. It may take him a couple of years to find the house of his dreams where he finally wants to retire, and all his furniture stays in storage all that time within the zone. Has it then got to be moved from the zone to, perhaps, the middle of Stafford-shire by dockers because it is imported goods? I do not understand how anybody cannot appreciate what the cost is going to be in split unions; two unions, one claiming that anything for import or export they will move, and the present unions which have dealt with all the handling within that warehouse, to and fro docks or locations—they may be another branch of the Transport and General Workers' Union, they may be the Municipal and General Workers' Union, or they may be USDAW.
There are warehouses where a proportion will always be circulating within the United Kingdom and there are goods where supplies are built up by imports and sales are made by exports. These, when within the zone, will be claimed as what should be handled by registered dock workers. Imagine the confusion when somebody holds stocks and has to keep two entirely separate administrative units of goods going abroad or within the country, or even going right across the country to be exported from a port there, which would normally be handled as an internal job by the road haulier side and by the general union warehousemen in that warehouse.
I really do not think that the Government have given sufficient thought and consideration, at a time when industry is doing its utmost to provide services, to hold down costs, to the effect this union

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splitting between jobs is going to have on many of the high service industries, whether it be agencies which stock food or those which stock other commodities.
Let us take, for example, an agency that, as part of its operation, imports foreign goods—maybe electrical appliances, maybe garments from Hong Kong, Italy or the Eastern countries. For the purpose of dealing with those imports they have got to have dock handlers within the zone. Let us suppose that the present representations of the CBI and the TUC to curtail certain imports were successful and came into effect. Immediately the quantity of Hong Kong or any other foreign garments that can be imported is slashed dramatically. But a firm is already landed with 30 dock handlers whom they cannot sack, whom they have got to continue to employ. If the extent of a firm's business activities decreases, who are the men who are going to be sacked—the USDAW or the General Workers' Union members?—because the employer cannot sack those who have been imported into the factory ostensibly to deal with goods that came in cargo handled and are now within the zone.
These are headaches, frustrations and a potential source of very serious and unnecessary demarcation disputes which Her Majesty's Government should have thought out more carefully, giving far more consideration to the representations made to them, before they produce a Bill which is going to provide nothing in efficiency, which is going to do very real harm in many spheres to labour relations, and which is certainly going to be a longstanding headache for those trying to conduct their businesses efficiently.
2.16 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: The issue we are concerned with here is what is known as split premises. I understand from what the noble Lord said in leading this debate that he is regarding Amendment No. 50 as a paving Amendment. I should like to say that if Amendment No. 50 were adopted, it would have repercussions which I doubt whether he has thought of, and while I shall confine my comments at this stage to the main issue, that of split premises, if there is any question of a Division I should like to address the House on Amendment No. 50 by itself.
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Split premises are premises which handle both cargo as defined in the Bill and home-produced goods. The Government accepted that there could be problems in such premises, particularly where there is an integrated workforce with everyone working under the same terms and conditions and doing work of a broadly similar kind. Therefore the Government put forward an Amendment to the Bill which has now become Clause 8(5)(c). But in introducing that Amendment the Government made it clear that the situation—and the right action for the Board to take—could be very different in premises where cargo-handling work was being dealt with by a group which was quite separate and which might be in one part of the premises, while non-cargo-handling work was being done in a separate part of the premises. In the debate in another place, it was explained that the possible situations were so varied and complex that it was not thought right to impose a specific prohibition on the Board but rather that split premises should be a matter for the Board to give specific consideration to—that is to say, to consider each case on its merits.
This Amendment seeks an absolute prohibition on the Board's recommending classification when "the majority of the work" done on the premises is not classifiable. There is no indication of what is meant by "the majority of the work"—whether it means man hours spent or tons handled or numbers employed. Likewise, in Amendment No. 57, "one half" is used without explaining how "one half" is to be calculated.
However, the main argument is that an absolute prohibition would wreck a major aim of the legislation. That aim is to enable the coverage of the Scheme to take account of what the ILO Convention on Dockwork called the social repercussions of the changes in cargo-handling techniques on the employment opportunities of dock workers. Unscrupulous employers—and there are always some—would be encouraged to seek to mix their businesses so as to escape their obligations to the docks industry. It is our view that the effect of the Amendment would be to help defeat one of the main purposes of the legislation.
Lord DRUMALBYN: May I make one observation. From what the noble

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Lord has said, it makes it all the more obvious that if the Board is to make recommendations on matters of the kind that he has been talking about, the Board should be, and be seen to be, absolutely impartial. This brings us back to what we were discussing at the outset; the balance of the composition of the Board.
2.21 p.m.
Lord LYELL: I cannot say that we are convinced by the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. He started his reply by mentioning separate parts of premises, and this might well be a reasonable example. However, another example that I would wish him and the Government to consider would be what I would call two lines, or sets of loaders of, say, dairy produce, butter, or food, who might be packing or unpacking for import or export, or perhaps re-export. Let us suggest that there is one line of packers, or process line, loading a roll-on roll-off container trailer where the driver, or another worker belonging to another union, may well be concerned with the loading, or some aspects of it, and yet the same workers belonging to the same union as those who were doing the loading would be loading another container which could easily be going by rail. We believe that this is another example which we should like the Government to consider. It is equally relevant to the case that the noble Lord mentioned of separate parts of the same premises.
When all has been said by the noble Lord and the Government, and by my noble friends, and despite the fact that the noble Lord said that this was written in by the Government, we are not convinced—and indeed many of the representations which have been made to us have shown that others concerned by this clause in the Bill are not convinced—by the noble Lord's argument, nor indeed by the Government's argument. I must stress that we are not satisfied. I do not know whether the noble Lord has any further comments.
Lord JACQUES: We have made an Amendment to the Bill in Clause 8(5)(c), and I was trying to illustrate what the result of that would be on the consideration and ultimate decisions of the Board. Where there are two kinds of operations going on, one of which is classifiable and the other is not, and they are on entirely different parts of the premises, that would not be a very strong case for avoiding classification of the relevant part. Where there is an integrated labour force, then it is an entirely different matter, and of course there is a problem there which we recognised when we made that amendment to the Bill.
Lord LYELL: The noble Lord may feel that Clause 8(5)(c)—and I think it is the second part that deals with maintaining good industrial relations—is satisfactory, but I am afraid that we should like something even more definite on the lines of the Amendment. We do not feel that the second part of Clause 8(5)(c) is apposite or goes far enough to satisfy the fears that have been expressed to us. If the noble Lord has nothing further, or can give us nothing further on this clause, I am afraid we must seek to press this Amendment. Before we do this, I would confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, mentioned at the start of his reply; I do not think that from these Benches we are going to move Amendment No. 50. I think we shall be taking Amendments Nos. 47, 51, and 57 with this series of Amendments. The noble Lord mentioned that, if we wished to move Amendment No. 50, he would wish to make a separate reply. I do not think we intend to move Amendment No. 50, so I hope that he will not need to make a separate reply. With that, we stress that we want this Amendment in this Bill, and we seek to press it.
2.27 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 47) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 64; Not-Contents, 33.

CONTENTS

Amory, V.

Gowrie, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Ampthill, L.

Greenway, L.

Platt, L.

Barrington, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Redesdale, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hayter, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Burton, L.

Hives, L.

St. Davids, V.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

St. Helens, L.

Carrington, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sandford, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Ilchester, E.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Coleraine, L.

Inchcape, E.

Seear, B.

Daventry, V.

Killearn, L.

Sempill, Ly.

de Clifford, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Denham, L.

Loudoun, C.

Somers, L.

Derwent, L.

Lyell, L.

Spens, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Dundonald, E.

Melville, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Effingham, E.

Merrivale, L.

Suffield, L.

Elles, B.

Monck, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Elton, L.

Mottistone, L.

Vickers, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Vivian, L.

Gainford, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Newall, L.

Wigoder, L.

Glasgow, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Beswick, L.

Hale, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Brimelow, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Oram, L.

Brockway, L.

Henderson, L.

Pannell, L.

Champion, L.

Jacobson, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Chorley, L.

Jacques, L.

Shinwell, L.

Collison, L.

Janner, L.

Stedman, B.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Leatherland, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Cudlipp, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wigg, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

McCluskey, L.

Winterbottom, L. [Teller.]

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
2.35 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 10, line 32, leave out ("the cargo-handling zone") and insert ("a dock labour scheme area").
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 10, line 37, at end insert—
"(1A) Where the majority of work done on the premises is work which is not classifiable as dockwork the Board shall not recommend classification of any work done on these premises.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is consequential on Amendment No. 47. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
2.36 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 11, line 18, leave out ("(a)").
The noble Earl said: Once again we are dealing with the question of cargo handling. I remind the Committee that the context here is the power of the Board to make recommendations as to what can be classified as dock work. The Bill as drafted says that there are three grounds on which the Board can recommend that the work at any premises whatever may be classified as dock work. The original intention of the Bill, before our Amendments, was to apply a five-mile zone, a zone which would cover a considerable part of the industrialised areas of the country, I would say getting on for one-half of those areas, including in my view such unlikely candidates for a port as the City of Doncaster.
The Government also want powers to be able to classify any premises whatever within this enormous area as if they were cargo handling areas and as if effectively

715
they were docks. The Government have said that they probably would not use these powers or that if they were to use them they would submit any decisions to other tests. Nevertheless, the Bill enables the powers to be used and one of our objections to the Bill is that it is framed almost entirely in what I would call the future conditional tense; it does not give us much information as to what may happen, only as to what it is possible for the Secretary of State to enact.
As your Lordships will know from our proceedings on Wednesday, we have amended this zone to the much more tightly defined area—we contend an area under the guidance of common sense—of half-a-mile from the waterway. We are now saying that we also need tighter definitions of the grounds even within this new context under which the National Board can classify work as being dock work. The Bill as drafted says that the Board can pick any of the three grounds itemised in Clause 4, whereas we say that they cannot pick any of them—that that is much too wide—but that they must have the subsection (1)(a) and that with that they must also have either (1)(b) or (1)(c). In other words, they must have two of the three grounds and they cannot leave it as wide as originally framed.
As I say, we have got rid of the five-mile zone, but this tightening is necessary to definitions of what may or may not be classified as clock work within the new half-mile zone. We arc anxious, as my noble friend Lord Inchcape said with great clarity on an earlier Amendment, to see that there is no increase in the possibility of demarcation disputes. I remind the Committee of the point I made several times on Wednesday; namely, that most industrial relations disputes in Britain are not simply between employees and employers, still less between groups of employees and any given Government, but may arise over demarcation disputes between groups of employees. The Government have stated that it is their intention that dock work be recognised as a skill involving specific kinds of expertise and training—the dignity of a profession, if you like—and we utterly agree with that, but if that is to be achieved then a much tighter definition of what dock work is or is not must be indicated.
Lord JACQUES: In the Bill, it is only necessary for one of the grounds in Clause 8(4) to apply. If the Amendment were carried the deletion of "(a)" would mean that paragraph (a) would become a precondition and either paragraph (b) or paragraph (c) would have to apply. It would mean that it would be a precondition that the work concerned must be in substitution for work previously done by registered dock workers. In addition, either paragraph (b) or paragraph (c) would have to be satisfied.
The Consultative Document Dockwork explained that the application of statutory regulations to the ports has remained virtually unchanged since the introduction of the Scheme in 1947 and that its application varied considerably from port to port. The Document went on to explain that this could be the result of local traditions and practices which remained relevant today as in 1947. But the present coverage could perpetuate unnecessary and artificial distinctions between registered and non-registered dock workers which can hinder improvements in industrial relations and efficiency and which no longer remain relevant in the rapidly changing conditions of the industry. If, therefore, the Amendment is passed it would be impossible for the Bill to ensure that statutory control of employment can continually remain appropriate to changing conditions.
It would mean, for example, that the Liverpool tally clerks, who have expressed a strong desire to come within the Scheme and whose work is, in many respects, closely integrated with existing registered dock workers, would have to remain outside because the tasks they perform are clearly not in substitution for existing work. The fish bobbers in all the main East Coast deep-sea fish ports are all registered except at Hull. Again, that group has said over many years that its exclusion was the result of an historical accident and should be rectified in the interests of both the men and the industry. If the Amendment were made, that could not he done. It would put a stranglehold on the Scheme. It would insist that things which are now out of date in the ports where the Scheme is already operated could not be put right.
Another effect of the Amendment would be that if existing Scheme ports sub-

717
sequently opened new installations at some distance from the old port and those installations handled trade that was new to the country, then the Board would not, under the Clause 8 procedures, be able to recommend that the Scheme should be applied to such work. Such a situation would be a nonsense. Therefore the Government believe that there are certain circumstances in which it would be appropraite for only one of the prima facie grounds to be satisfied. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will feel that, in view of the repercussions his Amendment could have, he should withdraw it.
The Earl of GOWRIE: If I withdraw my Amendment it will not be because I am frightened of repercussions, for it seems to me that all I am doing is taking the words of the noble Lord and his colleagues from the Bill and trying to give them a tighter definition by insisting that the Board should consider the circumstances under paragraph (a). That seems to me to be entirely reasonable. I will not press the Amendment now but will look at what the noble Lord has said. However, I reserve the right to return to it at Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
2.45 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 11, line 25, at end insert—
("Provided always that the Board shall make no recommendation unless more than one-half of all the goods handled at the premises in any continuous period of twelve months within the preceding five years are cargo as defined in Schedule 3 to this Act.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is consequential on Amendment No. 47. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: May I point out that the Committee is doing a foolish thing here? In one part of Clause 8 we are using the word "majority" and in another we are saying "one half" and in neither case are we saying what we mean. I feel that these Amendments are making a mockery of this House.
Lord LYELL: Certainly, the present Amendment says
"one-half of all the goods handled".
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If we wish to get into a definition of "all the goods ", we might look in Schedule 3 for a perfect definition. Amendment No. 51 spoke of the "majority of work done on the premises". If the noble Lord wishes to go into a debate on work done and goods handled or exactly 50·005 per cent., measured or not, perhaps we might do so, but I feel that it is a little more than the principle. Does the noble Lord want to go into the detail?
Lord JACQUES: I am just saying that the attitude which the Opposition is taking is leading us to send Amendments to the other place which are quite unsatisfactory, apart from their purpose, and that this is making a mockery of this House. But by all means persist in it if that is what your Lordships want.
Lord LYELL: Can the noble Lord first define what he means by improving this particular Amendment? He asked me for a specific example. I gave him one off the cuff. Can he give me one now?
Lord JACQUES: When we dealt with these Amendments I explained that no attempt had been made to define either "majority" or "one-half". There was no indication whether it was tonnage or the number of people employed or anything else.
Lord LYELL: In each case, I should have thought; and I think that the House may agree with me. Whether it is a majority of the persons or of the work done, the latter might be measured in tons and the former could be measured in terms of the numbers of people. I should have thought that it was fairly evident how one measures the majority of the work done.
Lord JACQUES: Some work in a particular place is done by people alone; other work is done by people and machines working together. One could get all kinds of answers: there must be some criteria laid down in the Bill.
Lord LYELL: If the noble Lord is referring to Amendment No. 51 and is bringing in how we measure operators working on a machine—that is, by the amount of power used or the life of the machine, we could not go on. If the

719
noble Lord has suggestions as to how this might be drafted, by all means let him put them forward, but we believe that this is correctly drafted and it indicates what we have in mind. Certainly our minds are in no way imprecise. I feel that the noble Lord is being a trifle extravagant in saying that we are making a mockery. This is well drafted and, I believe, means what we intend.
Lord AIREDALE: This Amendment does not deal with numbers of people but merely with goods. It uses the words, "half of all the goods". I can see that the Minister has a point here. What does "half the goods" mean? Does it mean half the total value of the goods or half the number of hunches of bananas or whatever it may be? This is not crystal clear and, whether or not the Amendment is agreed, I should have thought that this expression, "half of all the goods" needs further definition before we send the Bill back to the other place.
Lord SHINWELL: Is there not a simple way of dealing with this complicated matter? As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, is asking the Minister to reconsider it or accept it. There is a better way of dealing with it. As the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, is not very clear about it himself and it is obvious that he is a little mystified about the whole business, why does he not take it back and bring it up at Report stage when his mind has been completely clarified? Would not that be a better way of dealing with the matter?
Lord LYELL: If it is in order for me to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I should say that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, raised not one Amendment but two Amendments. I was addressing myself to the criticisms of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, on Amendments Nos. 51 and 57. I understand that the matter concerning one-half of the goods is fairly clear. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has a point. But the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, asked me about the two Amendments. He said that it was not clear. I thought that we had disposed of Amendment No. 51, but perhaps not. That is my reply, I hope, to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell.
Lord JACQUES: Amendment No. 51 has been dealt with, but I can only say that when I saw these Amendments I did not think for one moment that they would ever be pressed to a Division; they were so imprecise. I said, "Well, these are probing Amendments" I was absolutely astonished when a Division was forced on Amendment No. 47, and I am also astonished at what is now happening regarding Amendment No. 57.
The Earl of GOWRIE: There is a very simple solution here. If the Government do not like the Opposition's Amendments all they have to do is phrase them in a better way and we should be delighted to support them.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 11, line 26, leave out ("more") and insert ("both").
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 12, line 3, after ("the") insert ("cost or").
The noble Lord said: I believe that these two Amendments to which I wish to speak, Amendments Nos. 59 and 61, are very largely consequential. They deal with the same points as we were dealing with on Clause 7 so far as cost effectiveness and economic efficiency is concerned. We had a fairly intensive debate there. There are no major points which we would necessarily want to raise on these two Amendments, apart from the fact that Clause 8 is somewhat wider ranging. I have nothing more to add. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: When we were dealing with Clause 7 I went out of my way to point out that the Bill took a different attitude towards loading and unloading in Clause 7 and other cargo handling in Clause 8. In the latter case there were much stricter tests and much stricter procedures. Arising out of that, I am prepared to look at the whole question of costs in Clause 8, but not in

721
Clause 7. But so far as Clause 8 is concerned, I am quite prepared to look at the whole question of whether the costs cannot be introduced and if this matter cannot be, I am quite prepared to let the noble Lord know in time so that he can put down his Amendments at a later stage of the Bill.
Lord LYELL: I am very grateful to the noble Lord and to the Government for pointing out that there are other points involved beyond what we were discussing in Clause 7, and with that I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 59.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Reference by Secretary of State to the Board]:
2.55 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 12, line 28, leave out ("the cargo-handling zone") and insert ("a dock labour scheme area ").
The noble Earl said: This is a consequential Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN had given Notice
of his intention to move Amendment No. 64:
Page 12, line 44, after ("the") insert ("financial implications of any such recommendation as is referred to in subsection (1) and on any other")
Lord DRUMALBYN: The object of the Amendment is purely to get an explanation of what this paragraph means, because I find it difficult. I should be obliged if the noble Lord will explain what is meant here. I understand that this matter has been discussed while I have been replenishing myself. I do not wish to move the Amendment.
The Earl of GOWR1E The Earl of GOWR1E moved Amendment No. 66:
Page 13, line 19, at end insert ("and —
(c) informing persons likely to be affected by any section he proposes to take of the procedure laid down in Schedule (Public Inquiries) for holding a public inquiry.").
The noble Earl said: We are now in Clause 9, where the Secretary of State
722
gets his powers; that is to say, he can recommend to the Board, he can direct the Board to recommend to him (which seems to me to be a rather poohbahish and bureaucratic way of going about this) when work on any premises can be classified as dock work within the zone or within our amended half-mile zone. This is a small matter, but it pinpoints some of the inner contradictions and absurdities of the Bill. We might get a situation where a Board did not want to recommend this to the Secretary of State—that is, the Board which he has set up to make recommendations to him. Accordingly, he is given powers to direct the Board that it does make the recommendations which it does not want to make.
This seems an extraordinary way of going about things. I should like to know from the Government whether they can think of any precedents where this set of procedures is relevant. We know that under subsection (5) the Secretary of State must then publish the Board's report of the recommendations that he is directed to recommend to the Board; but then he is in a position to say whether or not he accepts these recommendations which he is directed to recommend to the Board. It is getting into a costly and absurd area of legislation that we should carry on in this way.
I also remind the Committee that in our debates from the beginning of Wednesday, on Clause 1, the Government were at pains to say that the Board would be virtually a perfect Board, in which case we want to know what all these hyper overriding powers are in aid of. I beg to move.
Lord ORAM: This Amendment has some relationship to the Amendment which we discussed on, I think, Wednesday, in relation to a public inquiry. I am thinking in particular of Amendment No. 32. I think that we got a little mixed up with the drafting of that Amendment, so my recollection is not too clear. But that Amendment provides for the new Schedule, relating to public inquiries, to apply in cases where the Secretary of State proposes to make an order classifying or de-classifying work following a report under Clause 9, although the Board has not recommended that such an order should be made.

723
This Amendment would require the Secretary of State to draw to the attention of those likely to be affected the public inquiry procedure in these cases. It would, however, also require him to do so when the action he proposed to take was in accordance with the Board's report, which is the more likely situation, although in such cases the new Schedule would not apply. I think that this is clearly inappropriate. In view of this, I think it would be preferable if the Committee were not to pass the Amendment that the noble Earl has moved.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I should like to correct the noble Lord on one thing. We did not get in any sense muddled up on the enumeration of Amendments connected with the public inquiry. I think our problems were with the Amendments connected with the zones. I hope the noble Lord will accept that. Your Lordships will remember that at the end of the debate on the public inquiry issue we divided and carried those Amendments; and, therefore, the question of a public inquiry is now firmly part of the Bill. On this Amendment I would simply say that this is yet another instance where our arguments about the need for a public inquiry hold good; but since we have won the point about a public inquiry earlier on, I do not wish to gild the lily and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 9, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord AIREDALE: Perhaps I may mention a drafting matter. I see that in subsection (1) we have the expression, "the Board making a recommendation", and then in the last but one line of the page we have the Board reporting to the Secretary of State "their opinion". Do "recommendation" in subsection (1) and "opinion" in subsection (3) mean the same thing? Secondly, under subsection (1) the Board have to "take into consideration" certain things, whereas in subsection (3) we have reference to "matters they were directed … to consider". This may seem (to use a colloquial expression) nitpicking, but if you have two expressions in one clause
724
and they are slightly different, lawyers will argue till Kingdom come that there must be a difference because, they will say, "If there was not a difference Parliament would have used the same word". So, before the next stage, will the Government look at the drafting again and decide whether making a recommendation is the same as reporting their opinion; and will they consider whether taking something into consideration is the same as considering it; and, if so, will they bring the two expressions into line and use the one expression?
Lord ORAM: I am grateful to the noble Lord for suggesting that a careful answer to the points that he has raised might be more appropriate at a later stage, hut, off-the-cuff, I should have thought in relation to his first point that "recommendation" is a firmer, more specific word than "opinion", which is the second word to which he referred. "Recommendation" implies a recommendation that action should be taken, whereas "opinion" might be a looser series of views as a result of having taken the matter into consideration. But I will look carefully at what the noble Lord has said and, as he suggests, at a later stage we might have further comment on it.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: It is not proposed to go any further on the Committee stage of this Bill today. I therefore move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
[The Sitting was suspended at 3.5 p.m and resumed at 3.10 p.m.]

RACE RELATIONS BILL
3.10 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 45 [Codes of Practice]:
Lord JACQUESM Lord JACQUESM moved Amendment No. 2.
Page 26, line 22, at end insert—
("( ) In the course of preparing any draft code of practice for eventual publication under subsection (2) the Commission shall consult with—

(a) such organisations or associations of organisations representative of employers or of workers; and

(b) such other organisations, or bodies, as appear to the Commission to be appropriate.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the Report stage Amendments dealing with the code of conduct were withdrawn on the promise that the Government would put forward Amendments which achieved the objectives which the movers had in mind. These are the Government Amendments which, I think, fulfill all the points which the movers had in mind.
While I am speaking, I should like to make a declaration of intent. At the Committee stage of the Bill, there were Amendments regarding the composition of tribunals and I undertook that if the Amendments were withdrawn I would have consultation with my colleagues to see whether we could in some way meet the points of view of the movers of the Amendments. As a result of that, I have to make the following declaration of intent.
Following the very full discussions I have had with my colleagues at the Department of Employment and the Home Office, they have authorised me to say that further steps will be taken to appoint to the panel of lay members, after consultation with the two sides of industry, members who, besides having a general knowledge or experience of employment in industry or commerce, have also special knowledge or experience of relations between persons of different racial groups in the employment field. Once these people have been recruited—and, as your Lordships will appreciate, this may take some time to effect—the Presidents of the Central Offices of the Industrial Tribunals in England and Wales, and in Scotland, will be asked to make administrative arrangements so that wherever possible one such member will sit on tribunals hearing cases arising under the Act where
726
racial discrimination is alleged by the applicant from the outset. That is the end of the declaration of intent.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I had understood that we were debating Amendment No. 2 on the Marshalled List which had to do with codes of practice. I did not understand what the noble Lord's declaration referred to.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I was taking the opportunity of slipping it in.
Baroness ELLES: I am sorry, my Lords, but would the noble Lord mind not slipping things in? I should be most grateful if he would follow the Marshalled List and the Order Paper, which we have learned to follow for our proceedings in this House.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, this is the only time that I am speaking on Amendments. I had this declaration of intent to make, and I thought it was as useful a time as any to make it.
Baroness ELLES: I am sorry, my Lords, but the question of who sits on these industrial tribunals is a rather important matter, and I should have thought it might have been debated more fully, or, at least, that the Opposition would have had the advantage of being notified. I know that it has been extremely difficult and that people are under pressure, but am certain that my noble and learned friends would have wanted notice of this fact before it was declared in the House.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the undertaking was given to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness on the Liberal Benches, who moved the Amendments. They were given a written communication some days ago, I undertook to make the declaration in this House and I have made it. I beg to move.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I should like from these Benches to thank the noble Lord the Minister for producing this Amendment, which is in line with what we asked for both at Second Reading and in the Committee stage and also—even if slightly out of place—for the declaration of intent by the industrial tribunals.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord JACQUES Lord JACQUES moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 27, line 18, at end insert—
("(10) Without prejudice to subsection (1) a code of practice issued under this section may include such practical guidance as the Commission think fit as to what steps it is reasonably practicable for employers to take for the purpose of preventing their employees from doing in the course of their employment acts made unlawful by this Act").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is part of the same story. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 47 [Terms of reference]:
3.16 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 28, line 3, at end insert—
"(3A) Where the terms of reference of the investigation confine it to activities of persons named in them and the Commission in the course of it propose to investigate any act made unlawful by this Act which they believe that a person so named may have done, the Commission shall—

(a) inform that person of their belief and of their proposal to investigate the act in question; and

(b) offer him an opportunity of making oral or written representations with regard to it (or both oral and written representations if he thinks fit);

and a person so named who avails himself of an opportunity under this subsection of making oral representations may be represented—

(i) by counsel or a solicitor; or

(ii) by some other person of his choice, not being a person to whom the Commission object on the ground that he is unsuitable."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment and, if I may, will speak at the same time to the Amendment to Schedule 4 which deals with the Sex Discrimination Act. As the House will recall I promised at Report stage that the Government would be moving Amendments on Third Reading to meet some of the criticisms which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, had made of the provisions relating to formal investigations into suspected unlawful conduct. The main difference between the noble and learned Lord and myself in our earlier debates was not on the question of whether persons whose activities were being inquired into should have the right to know the case against them,
728
and to have an opportunity to reply to it, but on whether these rights needed to be spelled out in the Bill. We took the view that they did not, but, as I said on Report, we have accepted the strongly held views expressed on this matter in your Lordships' House. This Amendment, which stands in my name, has been put down in order to meet the anxiety expressed by the noble and learned Lord and others. My Lords, I beg to move.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we on this side of the House are most grateful for this Amendment. Of course, the noble Lord will be more aware than we are that it does not meet 100 per cent. what we asked for. There is no mention of the time in which the notice should be given and appearances made. But I hope that if the Commission are reasonable, as I am sure they will be, that point might be met under Clause 48(1), which states that a notice has to be issued in the prescribed manner, and I imagine that some kind of regulations would lay down the length of notice to be given.
Secondly, having read through the Amendment, it is with some sorrow, to put it at its least, that we see the small spirit of vindictiveness which, I am afraid, arises from time to time in this Bill, since a person of the choice of the respondent is not entirely a free choice, because paragraph (b)(ii) states:
"by some other person of his choice, not being a person to whom the Commission object on the ground that he is unsuitable."
We consider that this is unnecessary, and it is unfair that a person should not be represented by somebody of his own choice, because he is subject to the criticism or action of the Commission. However, since, on the whole, the loaf is slightly more than half, we are willing to accept the Amendment and we thank the noble Lord for it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.19 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 28, line 8, leave out ("and (3) ") and insert ("(3) and (3A) ".").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 63 [Assistance by Commission]:
3.20 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 38, line 30, leave out ("or claimant") and insert (", claimant or respondent,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be convenient to the House if I speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8 at the same time. All of these Amendments have a common purpose. The first is to give the public confidence that the Bill is not biased against them. By "the public" I mean specifically the native British population, but I mean also those immigrants who happen to be employers or landlords, and there are many of them. It appears to the man in the street—and this cannot be denied—that there is a definite tilting in favour of the alleged victim that runs like a thread throughout the Bill. It may he an unfair impression, but this is the impression that is given.
The second purpose of the Amendments is to prevent injustice being done to innocent people. The third purpose—I am referring specifically to Amendment No. 6 and to Amendment No. 7 which is consequential upon Amendment No. 6—is to assist the Commission by giving them powers which they may, solely at their discretion, feel like using in order to clarify and establish the law. Amendment No. 6 and the consequential Amendment No. 7 are identical to the Amendments which I moved in the very small hours of the morning on 1st October during the Committee stage. That was just before 2 a.m. I withdrew the Amendments then because of the lateness of the hour, and I had doubts about moving them again. However, I was persuaded to do so by an honourable and learned Member in another place who believes that they have very considerable merit.
There is a difference in scope between Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 and Amendment No. 8. Amendment No. 8 is both narrower and wider. It is narrower in that it restricts to advice only the help which the Commission can give to a person who is seeking information about his obligations under the Bill No expenditure of money is involved, apart from the cost of a stamp or a telephone
730
call. On the other hand, the Amendment makes it obligatory and not mandatory.
I put the issue raised in my Amendment No. 8 privately to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, the other day and I am sorry that he is not here now. He said that while he saw the point of the Amendment he would prefer that the obligation upon the Commission with regard to giving advice should not be written into the Bill for fear that ill-disposed people might pester the Commission with unnecessary telephone calls and clog up the smooth functioning of the Commission.
If the Minister can give an assurance at this point that the Commission will at all reasonable times give advice to inquirers about their obligations and not merely refer them to the nearest solicitor—after all, they may not have a solicitor or may not be able to afford one—I will gladly not move Amendment No. 8. While this point is fresh in the Minister's mind it might be opportune for him to give that assurance now, if he can do so, rather than at the end of my speech.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am anxious to assist the noble Lord but I should prefer to deal with the matter at rather greater length than I can by an intervention at this stage.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, reverting in that case to Amendments Nos. 6 and 7, when I raised the matter in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, replied at col. 1039 of the Official Report:
"I do not believe it would further the public interest in fulfilment of the Commission's objectives of working towards the elimination of discrimination for the Commission to have power to assist the respondent "—
which was the purpose of my Amendment. I believe—in fact, I grant entirely—that the noble Lord's reply would have been valid, even irrefutable, if the obligation that I was seeking to impose upon the Commission were mandatory, but it is not; it is purely discretionary. It could well be that in. 99 cases out of a hundred the Commission would say, "No, we cannot assist you; there are no grounds for doing so." But there must be occasions, now and again, when it would be in the public interest to clarify matters.
I was more impressed by the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, speaking

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from the Liberal Benches about the confusion of duties; that is, that the Commission has to act as law enforcer and also reviser and counsellor at the same time. She said that you cannot at the same time be enforcing the law and be perceived as the organisation with which you can frankly and freely discuss the problems you need to discuss. That seems to me to be the really important point. People should be able to feel that the Commission is a useful body to which they can put hypothetical or actual cases and obtain advice, without the fear of the heavy hand of the law descending upon their shoulders.
In Committee. I cited the hypothetical case of an Asian shopkeeper being pestered by English youths and wondering whether he could evict them from his shop without getting into trouble from the Community Relations Commission—or whatever we finally decide to call it. There was a case at the time of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus following the Nikos Sampson coup where it was reported that in North London Greek Cypriot workers had gone on strike in protest against the appointment of a Turkish Cypriot foreman and demanded his dismissal. This would be an extremely useful thing for immigrants themselves to know exactly how they stand. After all, many of the alleged discriminators are likely to be quite poor people who may not know how to deal with a solicitor and they may not have the money to do so.
Then there may be a case of general public interest such as is mentioned in Clause 63(1)(a) on the ground of whether it is a question of principle, or possibly subsection (1)(c), "by reason of any other special consideration". If we take the case of a landlady, it does not really matter what her nationality or race is. Let us say that she has three double rooms in her house apart from accommodation for herself and her family, but she also has a box room in which an occasional camp bed is put up. This is an interesting point of law in respect of this Bill: is she exempt under Clause 22, which deals with small dwellings, or is she not? That is the sort of thing that my Amendment would enable to be discussed. It is a reasonable Amendment: it does not impose any obligations upon the Commission if it does not want them; no expense is
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being incurred and it will give the possibility of help to a great many people and, above all, reassurance. I beg to move.
3.28 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, perhaps I may first deal with Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 and then with Amendment No. 8. As the noble Lord, Lord Monson, has pointed out, we have gone over this ground before. We discussed it in Committee, albeit in the early hours of the morning, and on that occasion I explained why it was that the Bill, like the Sex Discrimination Act, gives the Commission specific discretionary power to help individual victims of discrimination in addition to its principal strategic role. As I have said on more than one occasion, discrimination is a difficult matter for those who are subjected to it to establish. It is also a widespread social evil which the Bill is intended to counter more effectively than has been done up to now.
The onus is inevitably on the victim to show that he has suffered discrimination. Under the present legislation, as the House is well aware, he places the matter in the hands of the Race Relations Board and in the future it will be for the individual to pursue his own case. It seems to the Government manifestly right that in a matter of such public importance the Commission should have the powers contained in this clause to assist him in appropriate cases, but only of course in appropriate cases.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, then came to the question of Amendment No. 8, the new clause. So far as this is concerned, I certainly accept that allegations of discrimination are not made solely against powerful organisations with ample resources. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, gave an example when we discussed this matter on Committee—and indeed he has given it again this afternoon—of a respondent who cannot be expected to know his position under this legislation and who may have some difficulty in clarifying it.
My Lords, the position here is this; as I understand it, the argument runs, to whom should such a person look other than to the Commission who would have a certain amount of expertise at their disposal? We entirely accept that the

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Commission will be the body best placed to give advice on the interpretation of this piece of legislation. I have no doubt that it will do so, especially to small-scale organisations and to individuals who need it most. The powers of assistance of Clause 63 are neither necessary nor appropriate for this, however, and neither is the requirement which the noble Lord sets out in his new clause. The new Commission will do all it can to explain the implications of this legislation. Its advice will be based on the experience it gains in carrying out the duties under it, but it cannot provide final and authorative interpretations of the law. Only the courts can do that. Therefore, I do not believe that the new Commission should be required in all circumstances to interpret the legislation.
There could clearly be circumstances when it would be quite wrong for the Commission to give advice of the sort which this new clause would oblige it to give, for example where cases were in fact before the courts. It is our view that the Commission must have discretion in exercising the role which the noble Lord envisages. The Government are confident that the new Commission can be trusted to do so without an explicit discretionary provision in the Bill which, as I have already indicated, is too widely drawn, and would place upon the Commission an obligation which we do not think would be in any way justified. But certainly on the point put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, it is our view that the Commission should assist people in the way in which he wishes them to do.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, in view of the assurance given by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, about my Amendment No. 8, of course I never thought that they could give the final interpretation. In a difficult case naturally I accepted that it would have to go before the courts. I wanted to avoid a situation where any requirement would be met by, "We cannot deal with this, go straight to your solicitors". I take it that it is not the intention of the Government that that should happen.
My Lords, I am not happy about the reply of the noble Lord regarding Amendment No. 6 and the consequential Amendment No. 7. It really does not impose any obligation on the Commission that the
734
Commission has to actually act upon. It may be that the cases in which the Commission can help the respondent will be extremely rare. The chances that the Commission will give legal aid—a point which worried the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, in Committee—would probably never occur so far as a prospective respondent is concerned, but the powers to give advice, although the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has said this would happen anyway, or to put people in touch with a solicitor or a lawyer seem to me to be valid. There may be interesting points of interpretation of the law where it would be useful to the Commission to have such powers. I am determined to test the feeling of the House on this.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
3.35 p.m.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 42, line 40, after ("or") insert ("grossly").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of Amendment No. 9 is to modify the word "insulting", which, as I pointed out in Committee, is a totally subjective word. Clause 67 is a clause which brings the criminal law into the Bill. We must therefore surely lean over backwards to knock out any danger of a miscarriage of justice to individuals who may inadvertently find themselves liable to two years' imprisonment for something they did not mean to do, in a situation where there was no criminal intent. Of course, as a result of an Amendment carried in Committee, the obligation to prove intent has been restored, but I have read in at least three or four newspapers that it is the Government's intention to try to restore the Bill to its original state, so far as that clause is concerned, in another place. If that is so, it is all the more important that we insert the word "grossly" to qualify the word "insulting".
Take a situation where a young reporter, addicted to purple prose as young re-porters tend to be, who was sent by an evening newspaper to cover the Notting Hill Carnival this year in the early hours, when everything was peaceful. He might have knocked out a piece along these lines:

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"Eyes glazed and half-closed, fingers snapping, feet tapping, the Caribbean crowd swayed rhythmically to the insistent pulsating beat of reggae."
This could possibly have been insulting to one or two—not many, but one or two—West Indians involved. It might have implied that they were more likely to be carried away by the jungle beat, if you like, than the European population. Had that report been published in the early editions of the evening newspaper, before the muggings, the rioting and the injuries to the police which followed, and had it got into the hands of ill-natured people who were in any case biased already against the West Indian population, this could be said, quite without any intention whatsoever, to stir up latent antagonism or hostility towards them. This is precisely the sort of thing I am trying to avoid. By inserting the word "grossly" I think one avoids any possibility of that.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said in Committee that to a lawyer the word "grossly" did not mean all that much. Another eminent Queen's Counsel to whom I spoke took the opposite view; he said that "grossly" must necessarily restrict the meaning of "insulting" and provide an additional safeguard. I think this is a highly important Amendment, and I beg to move.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to support this Amendment. I feel that it is necessary to include the word "grossly" because of the mere vagueness of the word "insulting". What is "insulting"? How can a court of law define it? It was said yesterday during the debate on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill that it was very difficult to define "industrial democracy". How much more difficult it is to define what is "insulting".
What is insulting, my Lords, depends very much on the person to whom it is said. They may take it as being insulting or they may not. I therefore feel that my noble friend has been quite right in pressing to include this word, because I certainly do not want grossly insulting words said on either side, either from whites to coloured races or from coloured races to whites. I hope, incidentally, that the words in the Bill, "A person commits
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an offence "mean a person whatever his nationality or race. Therefore, I sincerely hope that this particular section of the Act works both ways.
Baroness ELLES: If I may say a few words on this Amendment, I feel that Lord Somers has really, if I may say so, argued his own case away, because he has shown that an insulting term is entirely in the mind of the person who is insulted, and it is really impossible for a judge to say whether words are grossly insulting or not. It entirely depends on how the individual who is insulted receives the insult. If I may give an example, given to me many years ago by a Dutch lawyer friend of mine—and this is relevant to sex discrimination: in this country if someone was called a "cow" it would be considered grossly insulting. Dutch farmers apparently invariably call their wives "dear little cow". I think this is a classic example of how it would be impossible to decide whether an expression was grossly insulting or a term of endearment. The meaning is in fact a subjective one.
3.42 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: If I may say so, I do not think I will try that description this evening on my own wife; I think she might conceivably take a rather more unfavourable view. We are once again having a discussion, perfectly reasonably, on an Amendment we have discussed before. I think the noble Lord, Lord Monson, was mistaken when he implied that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, took the view that there was at least some possible distinction between "grossly insulting" and "insulting". As he may recall, what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said was that, on the analogy of what judges have said about "negligence and" gross negligence", "grossly insulting" is the same as "insulting" with the addition of a vituperative epithet.
Lord MONSON: May I correct the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I did actually say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, did not think there was much in the word "grossly", but another eminent Queen's Counsel thought that there was.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Well, I rejoice to hear that, but if I may seek

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to add a second authority to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, Lord Chief Justice Earle said of the term:
"I advisedly abstained from using a word to which I can attach no definite meaning; and no one so far as I know ever was able to do so."
I do not want to go over the ground again. I will, therefore, if the noble Lord will forgive me, content myself with making one or two points which arise fairly directly from the discussion this afternoon. First, I think it right to say to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and the noble Lord, Lord Somers, that they do, I think, underestimate the strength of the word "insulting It was held in the case of Cozens v. Brutus that it should be given its ordinary meaning, which is, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:
"to assail with scornful abuse or offensive disregard; to offer indignity; to affront ".
I think that that is by no means particularly weak.
Secondly, I think it is clear from the examples which the noble Lord gave in Committee that his fears about the possible application of the clause are unjustified. He cited, as an example of what might fall foul of Clause 67, language criticising and ridiculing the leader of a particular nation. With respect to him, even if the language in question came within the word "insulting", it seems to us to be considerably far fetched to suggest that it would be also likely to stir up racial hatred. Similarly far-fetched, and for the same reason, was his example of an intemperate criticism of a politician for giving an amnesty to illegal immigrants. The fact of the matter is that the test of whether language is threatening, abusive or insulting, whichever adjective is chosen, and is likely to stir up racial hatred is a difficult one to satisfy even if, as we propose, there were no requirement to prove an intention to stir up racial hatred.
Thirdly, the words "threatening, abusive or insulting" have stood the test of time without, so far as I am aware, giving rise to criticism, except perhaps that they are too strong. It is in fact the language to be found in Section 6 of the 1965 Act and also in Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 which deals with conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. For the reasons I have given I very much hope that the
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noble Lord will not press this Amendment. It is one of the occasions on which the noble and learned Lord and the Government were in almost full agreement and I think we should celebrate that fact. I hope that the noble Lord will join us in celebrating it by withdrawing his Amendment.
Lord MONSON: I really cannot say I am satisfied with the noble Lord's reply. Despite the amusing example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, it must be the case that "grossly" is more restrictive and more of a safeguard than "insulting" on its own. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, pointed out, from the Liberal Benches in Committee, if, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, then said, by definition any insult that was bad enough to start racial hatred would automatically be gross anyway, why not include the word grossly" in the Bill in the appropriate places?
I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Harris, say that my reference to the Kenya newspaper's description of General Amin could not start racial hatred against black people in this country. I hope he is right in that interpretation but, of course, what Parliament has decided one day, the courts have often interpreted differently a few months or years later. Similarly with my other example, I think that we must guard against a possible miscarriage of justice regarding innocent people. I therefore must press this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 69 [Power to amend certain provisions of Act.]:
3.46 p.m.
Baroness ELLES Baroness ELLES moved Amendment No. 11.
Page 45, line 14, leave out ("or member ").
The noble Baroness said: This is a consequential Amendment and I must apologise for the misprint on the Marshalled List; it should read: "or members". I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness ELLES Baroness ELLES moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 45, line 18, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment is also consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Amendments of Sex Discrimination Act 1975.]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 62, line 18, at end insert—
(" .—(1) After section 58(3) (terms of reference of an investigation) insert as subsection (3A) a subsection in terms identical with those of section 47(3A) of this Act.
(2) In section 58(4) for "and (3)" substitute "(3) and (3A) ".")
The noble Lord said: This is consequential on the earlier Amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.— (Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
3.48 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should just like to say a few words of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, Lord Jacques and Lord Harris of Greenwich, for the very considered way in which they have answered my Amendments, although I naturally cannot say that I am entirely happy about those I lost. I should particularly like to point out that I hope the Commission will keep in mind the question of religion, because I understood from what was said, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that although he agreed with much of what I said about this it could not be put into the Bill because it would mean too much redrafting. I think that was his major reason for not wishing to have it.
I am grateful that consideration was given to the question of the name of the Commission. I was only trying to carry out what had been suggested in paragraph 27 of the Report of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration of 1st July, 1975, which stated that:
"After considering several alternatives, we believe that the new agency should be so named to emphasise that the Commission will be a new institution and also because we feel that it will now be appropriate and helpful to discontinue the reference to race relations."
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I think this is a very important statement in the report.
I hope that the Bill will now be really beneficial to all concerned and will produce good community relations in the future. I sincerely hope that this will be the last Bill we shall have to pass dealing with this matter, that it will not be necessary to enact any more legislation and that this will therefore prove the worth of the Bill to all concerned. It is a very complicated Bill, and I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Harris, whether, when it is finally printed and agreed, that there may be some pamphlet, particularly in the languages of the different races, that can explain this Bill so that there will not be any misunderstanding as to people's rights or otherwise under this new legislation. It is extremely important that they shall not think that it is going to produce Heaven on earth for all of them. On the other hand, I also think that it will be necessary for them to understand how to work it so that they can get the best benefit from it.
3.51 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, I should like to apologise to the House for insulting it, whether grossly or otherwise, for missing my Amendment. The only way to be on time now is to sleep in this Assembly. As my Amendment arose from an Amendment that I withdrew at Committee stage, and it was the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who suggested to me that it was acceptable after further thought by the Government, I was sad that he did not move it, if the rules of procedure would have allowed that. But perhaps he will say that it will be dealt with in another place.
I do not feel that dealing with these single and separate areas of discrimination by one bit of law after another is the right manner in which to approach the whole subject. When we have a new constitutional settlement, as suggested by my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham in his remarkable lectures—and, if I may say so, they were made vividly clear on the Jimmy Young show in an even more popular form this morning, which I enjoyed very much; the Constitution is now becoming a really hot subject and suitable for pop shows—and when we have the rights and duties of citizens defined

741
in a written Constitution, we can amalgamate all the hotchpotch of laws that have to do with discrimination and have one single law making quite plain what the individual citizen is not, and is, entitled to do. The way we are going at the moment, we are going to have a Bill to outlaw discrimination against people with wooden legs, or bent noses, or whose names begin with "P", and it reduces the whole Statute Book to absurdity to have one law after another for a single item against which people feel strongly and on which there may be discrimination.
The Committee, and the Report stage, which I missed through 'flu, have illustrated how absurd our present Parliamentary process is. We have not had a proper discussion of the Government's strategy. We have not had a proper discussion of the Commission's strategic functions. We have not had a proper discussion of the Government's views on the future of the inner city. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that readers of the Economist know infinitely more about the Government's strategy on inner cities than do Members of your Lordships' House who have attended or read the stages of this Bill. It is not treating Parliament in the right way to misuse the opportunities provided by this Bill for informing Members of this House about the underlying thinking behind the Government's policy.
I do not want to be argumentative at this time of day on Friday, but I hope that we will not have more Bills of this kind, and that when Members of your Lordships' House, including those now sitting on the Government Benches, are looking at the way in which we legislate about discrimination, they will give serious thought to making Parliament better equipped to deal with the complicated issues involved and to reforming the way we look at this type of legislation so that we do not reduce ourselves to absurdity by passing one discrimination Bill after another which inevitably conflict. Otherwise, I welcome, as I welcomed at Second Reading, the broad intentions to which this Bill is directed, and I very much hope it succeeds.
3.55 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I just endorse what the noble Baroness,
742
Lady Vickers, said in appreciation of the service of the Members of the Front Bench. I am just amazed at the way in which they spend hours and are able to deal with nearly all the issues which are raised. As a Back-Bencher I almost have reverence for the way in which they are fulfilling their duties. May I extend that to other Members of the House who have shown such interest in this Bill; the Opposition Front Bench, although I have disagreed so often with them, the Liberals, the Cross-Benchers and all who have indicated their interest. I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, into his discussion about the Constitution, except that I would say that I am in favour of a broad measure of civil rights and I think that such a measure might make unnecessary these separate Bills about discrimination. We do not have such a Bill and therefore this one is necessary.
The recent Chancellor of the Exchequer once described me as the author of legislation on race discrimination. That is not true. The first Bill that was introduced on this subject was by the late Lord Sorensen. I attempted to follow that up nine years in succession, introducing a Bill on the subject in another place, until at last the Labour Government adopted it and, since then, two amending Bills in this House. I wish to say how very much I welcome the original draft of this Bill. We did not discuss its major contribution very much in Committee. Its major contribution is the fact that it now gives the Commission the positive power to investigate and prevent discrimination in place of the negative power which it had in the past of merely dealing with complaints.
I hope it is not true, as is suggested by a comment in The Times this morning, that Her Majesty's Government intend to accept many of the Amendments which have been tabled by the Opposition Front Bench. In my view those Amendments in some respects mutilate the Bill, particularly in relation to clubs, partnerships and so on, and I hope that when the Bill goes to another place those Amendments will be rejected. While saying that, I wish to add that I am in sympathy with some of the Amendments which have been tabled by the Opposition Front Bench and which have sought to safeguard personal rights; we must be very careful

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when passing legislation of this character not to deny ordinary personal rights and I shall be quite happy if the Government in another place accept some Amendments to that effect.
I had intended on this occasion to make a review of what has happened to the Bill and the whole situation in the country relating to racial harmony, but I refrain from doing that in view of the hour and my great desire to see the Bill passed. However, I must say that, while legislation can contribute, as past legislation has, to modifying racial animosity, the fundamental issue must be the education and conversion of people to a belief in racial equality, and because of this I welcome the campaign which the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress are to conduct on this subject this autumn.
I wish that the Churches, the liberals—with a small I—the Liberal and Conservative Parties, the academics and all the representatives of our tolerant society would unite in a campaign in this country in the belief that human beings are equal, whatever their race or colour. I wish that could happen. There are proposals for a great national conference to this effect. I hope that it will take place. It is only by that change in human attitudes that we shall solve this question, but the Acts which have already been passed, together with the present Bill, will contribute towards a solution. I commend the Government for having introduced it.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, it is difficult to follow those eloquent observations by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. This Bill has been one of particular interest to my noble friends on these Benches, especially to my noble friend Lord Avebury who, unhappily, cannot be here this afternoon. It was a Bill that was always bound to give rise to certain difficulties, for the entirely proper attempt to use the law fully as part of the fight against the evil of racial discrimination was bound, from time to time, to conflict with the views of those who cherish our more traditional civil liberties.
Those difficulties have been resolved in this Bill and we believe that, on the whole they have been resolved fairly and that a proper balance has been reached. I know that my noble friend Lord Avebury
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in particular would want me to express his gratitude and that of all of us to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and the Government generally for the way in which they have listened and responded to various suggestions made in the course of the debates in an attempt to improve the Bill. We are grateful to them and we wish the Bill well.
4.3 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone expresses his deep regret that he is not able to be here. I say personally and on behalf of all my noble friends that we are very grateful for the contribution he has made to amending the Bill as it came before your Lordships' House. My noble and learned friend particularly asked me to say two things. The first was to express to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and his colleagues on the Front Bench our deep gratitude for the courtesy with which the proceedings in this Bill have been carried on in the House. It has been a difficult Bill; we have been at it throughout the day and sometimes throughout the night and we are grateful for the unfailing courtesy we have received from the Front Bench opposite. We should also like to thank the printers who have made our job very much easier by making the Bill available. This is no easy task and I say in all seriousness that the fact that the Bill was always ready the next day for us to deal with the next stage facilitated our work. I should therefore like to underline how very grateful we are to the printers and to all those who were involved in the work of preparing the Bill throughout its stages.
The second point which my noble and learned friend asked me to make was to thank all the Back-Benchers on our side of the House for the unfailing support that they have given throughout the Bill, again at all hours of the day and night. Perhaps I should say to my noble friend Lord O'Hagan that had he been on time to move his Amendment I regret that there would have been nobody there to receive it. As he arrived late, he did not know what had happened, but I think it fair to let him into what might otherwise be considered a secret of the proceedings of

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the House. He need not have been quite so apologetic as he was.
I should now like to say a few words about the Bill. In particular, I believe that it must be emphasised that everybody in this House, as has, I believe, been perfectly clear throughout our discussions, is united in rejecting discrimination on any grounds, be they race, colour, national origin or, indeed, religion, even if that is not included in the Bill. We all consider discrimination to be totally unacceptable and intolerable behaviour in our islands. Indeed, our history has shown that successive waves of people coming into the country for different reasons have always been made welcome and made to feel part of Britain and the British people. I feel that it would be difficult, even in this House, to find many people who are 100 per cent. English or 100 per cent. Scottish, or whatever it may be. I have always considered that it is one of the great elements of the British people that we do accept and we do make welcome people who come into this country.
Many of us on this side feel—and, again, I think this would be shared by many people throughout the country—that if the economy of this country was in a better state, if education was freely available in decent schools, if houses were freely available without restrictions and if employment was equally available to people in this country (not only equality of opportunity) we would never have the difficulties and tensions that we have today. If the emphasis was not made on the material benefits to so many people in this country there would be very much better community relations.
I strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said, that the Churches have a very great role to play in creating better community relations in local communities. I very much welcomed the remarks he made in that regard. However, I should say to him that if we had a Civil Rights Bill many of the clauses which were in the Bill and which we have managed to reject, would never have been able to get into the Bill in the first place. Undoubtedly some of the Amendments which my noble friends and others on this side of the House have managed to carry during the stages of the Bill have been directed towards preserving the principles of our legal system: that the
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innocent must first be proved guilty, otherwise he is innocent; that a criminal act must have intention, as well as there being the criminal act itself.
I should like to repeat—and I think it would be beneficial to remind ourselves of—the principles which guided us, particularly my noble and learned friend, when we introduced Amendments. These principles have guided us throughout the Bill, and they are contained in the Official Report of 27th September, on the Committee stage, at column 28. He sought to eliminate the unintelligible and the unenforceable, and to restore the legal principles which have served this country well for so many generations and which we hope will continue to serve this country and which indeed have been not only the admiration of many other legal systems, but have been imitated by them. We think that it would be tragic for this country to reject those principles which have served us well.
The fourth point which my noble and learned friend made, and which has come out very clearly in many of the Amendments, was to eliminate any element which might appear oppressive, either to the person accused or to the accuser. When so often we heard from the Government Front Bench that they were trying to create a fair balance, what we tried to do on this side of the House was to restore the balance in the scales of justice, the scales of justice which have served us and protected the freedom of the individual in this country for so many generations, and which we believe must be continued and protected in the future.
Finally, we must remember that race relations is not the objective in itself. If it is not applied fairly by the Commission, and the Commission is not seen to be a fair and respected body, we shall get extremists just as we had after both the 1965 and the 1968 Acts. We should remember that intolerable and oppressive legislation will not encourage the population of Britain either to be tolerant or to accept the immigrants whom we wish to live in this country as equals before the law and with equal rights as British subjects in our country.
4.9 p.m.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to say a few words before the Bill

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passes. First, my ideal civilisation would be one where there was absolutely no discrimination whatsoever between races. We may safely say that in the more civilised parts of our community it has, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. But, of course, there are other places, and the Government have decided that it is necessary to legislate about it. But my fear is that you will not destroy it by legislation. I think the only way to do it is by education.
I have another slight feeling of uneasiness, too. Are we, by introducing all this legislation, creating a privileged class? In other words, if I say to a white person, "What a silly old fool you are", it would remain there. If I said it to a coloured person, he could take me to court. I wonder whether that is not creating a privileged class. I should also like to draw to your Lordships' attention the fact that, for us who are English-born, bigamy is a penal offence. It is not, apparently, for those who come to us from countries where it has not been. Therefore, I wonder whether that, again, is not creating a privileged class.
I should like to see all races in this country completely equal, friendly and on co-operative terms, but I wonder whether those who are coming in from overseas, or at any rate a great number of them, realise that, in order to achieve that, there has to be a slight effort on their side as well. It cannot all be done by us; it must be done to a certain extent by them, in trying to live according to English standards and adopting English ways of life. My Lords, I am not in the least opposed to this Bill. Whether it will in fact have any effect, I am rather doubtful. But I sincerely hope that the time will come when all races are completely equal in fact, and not merely on legal paper.
4.13 p.m.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I, too, like other noble Lords in all quarters of the House, should like to pay tribute to the patience and courtesy with which noble Lords on the Government Front Bench have dealt with the Amendments discussed during the very many hours of debate that we have had on this Bill. I wish I could say the same for their flexi
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bility, but I realise that the flexibility permitted to them is strictly limited. The national Press have produced some pretty forceful headlines recently when discussing your Lordships' activities; for example,
"Peers maul Race Relations Bill",
and
"House of Lords savage Race Bill".
Technically, this may have been true, but I think it creates entirely the wrong impression.
Noble Lords who have participated in these debates hold widely varying views about the Bill itself. As a libertarian and an advocate of individual freedom, I dislike all coercive Bills indulging in social engineering. I believe that the inevitable evolution of public opinion, plus a sense of humour, are far more likely to do the trick. I have the impression that the Opposition Front Bench is not vastly more keen on the Bill than I am. Other noble Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, I suspect are not opposed to Bills of this nature provided they are neither draconian nor illiberal in the true sense of the word.
Other noble Lords, like the noble Lords, Lord Brockway, Lord Pitt and Lord Avebury, I think would have liked the Bill to be stronger in certain respects; but whatever our widely varying philosophies, we have all achieved one thing. I think that every single one of the Amendments moved has been genuinely constructive. I do not think there was a single wrecking Amendment tabled, let alone moved. I believe that the House of Lords has fulfilled its functions as a responsible revising Chamber and a guardian of the people's liberty. I hope that the other place will take this into account when considering your Lordships' Amendments.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, may I begin by thanking the noble Baronesses Lady Elles and Lady Vickers, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, my noble friend Lord Brockway and the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat for the kind things they have said about my colleagues and myself.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, the noble Lord can also include my name.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am grateful. It was very kind of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, to say that, particularly after his disagreeable experience this afternoon. I think a number of us were similarly surprised at the speed with which the last item of business was finalised. To all who thanked my noble friends for their contributions to this debate, I would respond by saying that I am grateful to a number of noble Lords from all parts of the House for the assistance they have given us during the debates on this Bill.
I will begin by saying something which is, I hope, only mildly controversial. I do not think that this Bill leaves this House better than it arrived. In a number of respects, I think it is less satisfactory. I will give only one example. I agree with my noble friend Lord Brockway that the clubs decision was a most unfortunate decision for this House to take. I would not in any way want to suggest that the Government would change their policy on what is a fundamental issue so far as race relations in this country are concerned.
Perhaps, my Lords, I may deal with one or two points which were made. The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, asked whether there would be some form of guide to the Bill. I think that she asked the same question in relation to the Sex Discrimination Act. My answer is the same: that there will be a guide to this piece of legislation on the same basis as for that particular Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, made one particular point on which I would like to comment. He said—and the statement he made has been echoed by others—that he hoped that people who came here from abroad would make some effort to understand and, to some degree adopt, the lifestyle of people in this country. We have to face the fact that to a very substantial number of our coloured community in this country, Britain is their home. They have been
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born in this country. It is not a question of coming here from abroad; it is a question of being born in Lambeth or Bradford or Birmingham; and the intention of this piece of legislation is to attempt to assure that they are treated on terms of equality with their white fellow citizens.
My Lords, I think we have to recognise that this is a most important piece of legislation. Its central objective is to ensure that we have civilised, tolerant race relations in this country. It is a matter of absolutely fundamental importance to the cohesion of the country that we succeed in our objective. Once again I want to thank all who have contributed to our discussions and who have attempted to ensure that this is the type of society which will be developed in our midst.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
The Chairman of Committees informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Order made on the 4th of October last discharged, and Bill committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
MAPLIN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (DISSOLUTION) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with an Amendment; the said Amendment considered and agreed to.
ARMED FORCES BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
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