I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I confess that I feel slightly like the Member of Parliament who is reputed to have fallen into a deep sleep after an all-night sitting and been dreaming that he was making a powerful speech in this Chamber, only to wake up and find to his horror that he actually was.

The problems raised by mock auctions have interested both Houses of Parliament off and on for a very long time. I think it will be clearly agreed today that this issue is a non-party one. Indeed, the Bill is supported by six of my hon. Friends and by five hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), whom I am glad to see in his place, has been most persistent over the years in drawing attention to the undoubted malpracttices involved in mock auctions. He raised some of the problems involved in a series of Questions in 1953, and also in the same year on an Adjournment Motion.

The hon. Member's main contention was that some of the practices which distinguish mock auctions from genuine auctions, although, possibly, contrary to the existing criminal law, should be clearly made illegal. The Government did not accept that view at that time, any more than did a Select Committee in another place which, reporting on the effort of Lord Gorell in 1929, reported that it did not see any need for new legislation. The official view then and until recently was that the law was not in need of amendment.

About two years ago, Lord Denham made a careful study of the methods used in mock auctions. On the basis of his researches, which took him into interesting and unusual paths, and after taking counsel's opinion, he gave detailed consideration to three possible methods of dealing with the problem. The first possibility was by the licensing of auctioneers. It seemed then, and it seems to me now, that there are at least three objections to this suggestion. First, the licensing system—a system of licensing auctioneers—was abolished in 1948. In any event, there had been no qualification for a licence, which simply cost £10. Secondly, it would obviously be difficult to assess the necessary qualifications that an auctioneer must have. This would involve the setting up of new machinery. Thirdly, since mock auctions as such—I emphasise "as such"—are probably not illegal, there could be no grounds for refusing licences to mock auctioneers.

The second possibility considered was the registration of the premises in which auctions are permitted to be held. It is possible to enact that all premises used for auction sales must be registered by the local authority and to insist that the premises maintain certain standards. The Corporation of Brighton, which borders on my constituency, included such a Clause in a Private Bill introduced in 1956. Leeds and Blackpool followed suit with Clauses which I think were identical. This method is again subject to the fundamental criticism that mock auctions, as such, are not apparently illegal, or, at any rate, there is very grave doubt about it.

The main effect of these Bills has been to move the mock auctioneer to happier hunting grounds. Another effect has been that the three authorities concerned have used the powers taken in those Bills, which were not really intended for this purpose, to control the activities of genuine auctioneers. This process of local legislation could, theoretically, go on until the whole country was covered by Private Bills, although this would involve all the authorities concerned in considerable expense, and many of them could ill afford it. Again, this suggestion comes up against the fundamental snag that mock auctions, as such, are not apparently against the law. Furthermore, one successful appeal by a mock auctioneer against a refusal to register his premises would nullify the whole effect of such a Bill.

The third method considered was prohibiting in law certain of the practices or abuses which are customarily adopted in mock auctions which distinguish them from bona fide auctions. After a great deal of work and after taking the advice of many organisations which could be affected by legislation of this sort, Lord Denham decided that this was the only feasible course to follow and that it had much to recommend it. Thus he introduced a Bill in another place in the Session 1958–59, its straightforward object being to prohibit certain 'practices at sales purporting to be sales by auction. The Bill received its Second Reading on 12th March, 1959, and passed through the Committee stage on 12th May, during which it was substantially amended. It was reported on 2nd June and read the Third time on 4th June.

I then took over this Bill in this House, and, again, the Bill had all-party support, broadly the same as has the Bill which I am now moving. Unfortunately, however, because the Bill came here late, it was not possible to find time for it in private Members' time, and the Government, although sympathetic and friendly, did not feel able to give me exceptional facilities. It was clear then, however, that the Government had had second thoughts about the desirability of legislation, and that their opposition had changed at least to benevolent neutrality.

In the last Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Sir S. Storey), who is a supporter of my Bill today, drew a low place in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills and re-introduced an identical Bill. It had no chance of reaching its Committee stage unless it received its Second Reading "on the nod," but, because there were objections to the Bill, it was not able to make any progress. In fact, it was the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards)—I am glad to see him in his place, and he will not mind me saying this—who had these objections. I am glad that he will today get a full opportunity to make a rather longer speech than he was able to do on the occasions when he objected to the Bill in the last Session. I should like to assure him that I understand his point of view, which I believe to be based on his fears that the Bill will interfere with certain legitimate auctioneering practices, and I shall say something more about that in a moment.

In any case, I look forward to hearing his views at greater length, and I feel confident that any constructive suggestions which he and other hon. Members may make can be met during the Committee stage of the Bill. Further, in a House which is inevitably thin after an all-night sitting, nobody would wish to frustrate the widespread support for this Bill by using a Parliamentary device, however well recognised.

I have little hesitation in saying that every local authority throughout this country in whose area mock auctions have taken place or are likely to take place supports the objects of this Bill. They are also strongly supported by the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Association of Urban District Councils, the National Chamber of Trade, and the National Association of Goldsmiths, which is the organisation of retail jewellers, silversmiths and horologists—a horrible word. Expressing its disappointment that the Bill I introduced in 1959 did not become law, the Board of Management of the National Chamber of Trade said:

"We are determined that when the new Government is formed, one of their first jobs shall be to tackle this menace."

showing how strongly it felt about this practice.

The Bill introduced by Lord Denham was also discussed by the Councils of the Chartered Auctioneers and Estate Agents' Institute and the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers, both of which bodies decided that they would not oppose the Bill. Consultations also took place with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. I am giving these details simply to inform the House of the widespread support which the objects of the Bill have.

In its present form, I myself have no reason to believe that the Bill could have any possible adverse effect on recognised and reputable auctioneers' activities, with one possible minor exception. I have had a letter—and this is the possible exception—from the National Market Traders' Federation, writing from Sheffield, in which the Federation says that it is strongly opposed, and always has been so opposed, to mock auctioneers' practices, but fears that the Bill as drafted may interfere with legitimate sales usually known as "Dutch auctions", and conducted by people commonly known as "pitchers". The hon. Member for Stepney may share these anxieties, and they may be the main anxieties in his mind. I look forward to hearing him develop that point, but it is not the intention of the Bill to interfere with such auctions, and I personally doubt whether it has that effect. After studying the Bill with the utmost care, I doubt very much whether the Bill has this effect, but if criticism proves to be well-founded, I do not think there should be any difficulty in amending the Bill. I believe that the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford has been in touch with these organisations and will confirm that they have these anxieties.

The main intention of the Bill, therefore, is to close the existing gap in the law which has enabled mock auctioneers to operate for so long, but not to affect in any way bona fide auctions of any kind whatever. Since some hon. Members may not be entirely clear what constitutes a mock auction, I will give the House a brief description of one, based on my own observations. I have been to quite a number, both here and in America, but anyone who wishes to read a fuller, very accurate and carefully worded description may like to look at the OFFICIAL REPORT of the House of Lords for 12th May, 1959, columns 1122–1128.

Very few hon. Members will know what I mean—I think the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford will—when I say that—

…the Top Man operates his joint by nailing the steamers among the plunder-snatchers in the pitch got by his frontsmen, running out the flash gear or hinton lots as N.S. lots, to ricks and gees or to hinton, and gazoonaphing the sarkers with swag and plunder, while the raving Noahs are silenced with bung-ons and the bogies are smitzed to hinten to noise the edge."

I doubt if even you, Mr. Speaker, fully understand what I have just read, but the translation of this jargon, which is really quite a new language to many of us—somebody ought to produce a dictionary of it—runs like this: the mock auctioneer operates his stall by ensuring the attendance until the end of the sale of those who are "mugs" rather than those who are just out for free gifts among the crowd collected by his men, pretending to sell as bait to his victims genuine goods, which in fact are never sold, to accomplices among the crowd or to nonexistent bids at the back and tricking those of the mugs who have enough money to buy his cheap trash while any member of the crowd who tries to warn the rest is kept quiet by being given a present, and dissatisfied customers from previous sales who have returned to complain are taken behind the rostrum to avoid trouble.

That is a long sentence and almost as difficult to understand as the previous one, I think.

I should like to give the House an account of a typical mock auction sale. When the law is being amended in a quite important respect, although a minor one like this, it is very important indeed that it should be very clearly understood what exactly we are trying to legislate for and stop. I would ask the House to be kind enough to bear with me, because it will take me two or three minutes to read this account of a typical mock auction sale, but I do feel that my Second Reading speech would be incomplete if I did not get clearly on the record just what happens. I hope the House will forgive me if I read this. It has been written for me by Lord Denham, who has specialised so much in the study of this business, and in order that I may get it absolutely accurate.

A mock auction usually takes place in shop premises at the rear of which there is a high counter which is used as the auctioneer's rostrum. Behind that again is a curtained-off partition. I would observe that the facts which I am giving can naturally vary in detail all over the country, but broadly speaking this is a typical auction I am describing.

The sale can be divided into five parts. The first is collecting an audience. A man stands at the door of the shop behind a table on which are displayed, perhaps, the following items, several cigarette lighters, several alarm clocks, two table lighters, two leather cases containing shaving kits, two electric razors, a second-hand camera, perhaps a second-hand pair of binoculars, and a pair of chromium plated candlesticks. The man bangs on the table with a hammer and as people stop to watch—the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford will correct me if I am wrong, because he knows more about these things than I do—he explains to them that the articles on the table are examples of the sort of thing that later on will be sold inside the shop. He also points to each item in turn and says how much it will be sold for. The cigarette lighters and alarm clocks will go, he says, for a shilling each, the table lighters and the shaving sets for half a crown, the electric razors for "ten bob", the candlesticks for, say, 2s. As a crowd collects he moves the table further and further back into the shop, and when enough people have gathered, the articles on the table are put on the counter, the table is folded up and put away, and the auctioneer takes over from behind the counter. The audience has been collected.

The second stage is known as "nailing" The auctioneer first points to the articles on the counter and repeats the price at which each is to be sold. Then he produces several cheap articles such as plastic sponges, toothbrushes, pencils, which he sells to the crowd for a few pennies, or even gives away free. Next he produces a sealed package. He says that he will not say what is in it but asks the crowd if any of them are sport enough to make a bid for it without knowing the contents. He promises that the man who gets it will not be disappointed. He puts it up for auction and knocks it down when the bidding has reached 10s. The money is collected from the successful bidder but the package is not handed over.

The auctioneer then puts 11 more similar packages on the counter and asks who else will be sport enough to buy one for 10s. This time he adds that only those who buy a sealed package will be allowed to take part in the rest of the sale. Eleven more people offer to buy a package, and the money is collected from each of them, but the pack- ages are still kept on the counter and are left there till the end of the sale. Their owners are given a plastic token to show that they are eligible to take part in the rest of the sale.

The object of these sealed packages is twofold. It sorts out the mugs from the rest of the crowd. Anyone who buys a sealed package for 10s. is stupid enough for anything. Since both the money and the packages are retained by the auctioneer it ensures that they stay in the shop till the end of the sale. Hence these packages are called "nailer's." The mugs are nailed to the sale.

The next stage is the "hinten lots" The auctioneer now turns again to the articles which were displayed on the table by the door and which are now on the counter. He picks up a cigarette lighter and asks who will give him 1s. for it. Naturally, all the mugs are eager to do so. The auctioneer says that to be fair he will put it up for auction. He knocks it down for 19s., and tells his assistant to go and collect the money from the successful bidder. While the assistant is doing this the auctioneer gives away more pencils, sponges, and so on, so that the audience do not notice to whom the assistant goes to collect the money. In fact, the cigarette lighter was knocked down to a non-existent bid at the back of the shop.

The assistant walks round the back of the crowd and, while their attention is diverted, produces the money from his own pocket and hands it to the auctioneer. The auctioneer then says, as though to the bidder, "You have paid 19s. for this lighter, but I am not going to charge you 19s., 10s., or even 5s. "Turning to his assistant he tells him to take the lighter to the back premises, wrap it up, and give it to the buyer together with all but 1s. of the money, that is, the amount he had previously said the lighter would be sold for. The assistant takes the lighter and the money behind the scenes, and, since there was in fact no buyer, leaves them there. In this way the auctioneer pretends to sell all the articles on the counter, articles known as the hinten lots, interspersing each with some cheap articles which are genuinely sold. In fact, of the articles displayed at the door of the shop at the beginning of the sale only the candle-sticks which are practically worthless anyway, are in fact sold. The audience see the cheap articles being handed to customers and assume that the others are, too. The lots which are knocked down to non-existent bids at the back of the shop are known as "hinten lots."

The mugs have now seen all these articles, as they think, being sold by auction, knocked down at a fairly high price, but being charged for only at a fraction of the amount bid. They think that, whatever they bid, they will be asked to pay only a fraction of that amount. They are therefore eager to bid and ready for the auctioneer to take their money off them.

The fourth stage is the main part of the sale. The auctioneer now says that he is coming to his final lot. He puts four new articles which have not been seen before up on the counter. They are perhaps a set of cutlery in a smart case, a lady's dressing-table set, a pair of canvas bags, a wrist watch, and each of these articles looks expensive but is in fact very cheaply made and virtually worthless. "Now," he says, "I am only going to let one of these articles go. This is by way of an advertisement for the sale." The highest bidder is to have the choice of which article he has for his money, and the rest of the articles are to go back into stock. He puts the lot up for auction and the bidding is eager. The hammer goes down at £5—this time to a genuine bid. He then asks the successful bidder for his fiver, and when he has got it asks him to choose which of the four articles he will take. The man makes his choice and the auctioneer turns again to the back of the crowd and pretends to hear a remark from the back of the audience to the effect that the successful bidder is a friend or accomplice of his, the auctioneer's, and that this particular part of the sale was rigged. He repeats what he has pretended to hear to the audience and he denies it strongly. Furthermore, he announces his intention of disproving the allegation—"If it costs every lot I have got in the shop" he says. He asks his assistants how many more of each of the four articles displayed they have, and it appears that there are three or four more of each of the articles.

He demands that these be up on the counter, and offers to let everyone who has bought a sealed package have one of the articles at the same price as the first was knocked down for—£5—and he promises to treat each of them as he was going to treat the first. His assistants try to dissuade him from this reckless generosity, but he is adamant. If each of the mugs hands up £5 he can have his choice of cutlery, dressing table-set, watch or canvas bag. Most of them take advantage of this offer and their money is collected.

"Now," he says to them, "you have all bid £5 for a lot; were all your bids genuine ones?" They all say "Yes", and he adds, "Then, if you walk out of the shop with nothing but the article you have chosen for your £5 you will be perfectly satisfied?" In spite of the way this last question is worded, they still think that they are going to get most of their money refunded, and they say "Yes" again.

The auctioneer says that he promised to treat them well and that he will do so. He produces a cardboard imitation of a leatherette case in which are a pen, a pencil and a ballpoint pen. This, he says, is not for sale but it is given away to each of the people who paid £5, in addition to the articles they have chosen. They do not get any of their money back. He finally produces a bottle of scent in a cardboard box. This, he explains, is the content of each of the sealed packages. The scent, the pen and pencil set and the article chosen are put into a carrier bag and handed to each of the mugs and the sale is over. For £5 they have each got a bagful of worthless goods.

The essential difference between the mock auction swindle and the simple selling of shoddy goods at high prices is that the purchaser in a mock auction is tricked into parting with more money that he realises he is spending. So ends the swindle, only to be repeated as soon as enough new mugs have been nailed to the pitch.

The Bill has four Clauses, and I am very glad to say that it now has the Government's full support. I should like to take the opportunity of thanking my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Department, and his Department for the help that I have been given and any future help that will be forthcoming. I should also like to say how much I appreciate the fact that, belonging as my right hon. Friend does to a Ministry with an enormous amount of legislation on its hand, much of which is very good—[Laughter.] I have no wish to be controversial, and perhaps I should not have said that, and having an important engagement early this afternoon, I much appreciate the fact that my right hon. Friend is able to be here to give us the benefit of his advice. I hope that it will not be necessary for us to keep him too long.

As is usual, perhaps I ought to give the House a quick account of what the four Clauses aim to do. Clause 1 (1) makes it an offence to permit or conduct or assist in the conducting of a mock auction. Subsection (2) sets out the penalties, and subsection (3) defines a mock auction by describing clearly the three practices which distinguish the mock auction from the genuine auction. Clause 1 (3, a) is the selling of an article at a price lower than the amount of the highest bid and includes the case where the amount of the bid is paid and part of it subsequently returned or credited. This is the procedure used in disposing of the "hinton" lots.

Subsection (3, b) is the confining of the final stage of the auction to persons who have been "nailed". Subsection (3, c) is the giving away of articles—the "plunder"—or the offering of articles as gifts, which is the practice used to attract a crowd and then to hold their attention during the course of the auction. Subsection (4) ensures that where the practice described in paragraph (a) occurs at a genuine auction for one or other of the justifiable reasons specified in the subsection, it does not convert the auction into a mock auction.

Clause 2 deals with offences by bodies corporate and follows the common form for this type of provision. Clause 3 (1) defines

"sale of goods by way of competitive bidding "

and subsection (2) defines

"lots to which this Act applies"

and "prescribed articles". Subsection (3) defines the word "stated" as it is used in subsection (4) and in Clause 1 (3, a) and (3, b). They deal with cases where non-existent bids are stated to have been made by imaginary persons and articles stated to have been sold are not in fact sold to anyone. Subsection (5) brings in things done in connection with a sale by competitive bidding whether done before or after the sale. Subsection (6) is designated to make sure that the creation of special offences in the Bill relating to mock auctions does not remove any other civil or criminal remedies in connection with them.

Clause 4 gives the short title of the Bill and subsection (3) of that Clause has been included because the subject of the Bill is one on which the Northern Ireland Parliament has power to legislate and has, in fact, done so by the Auctions (Local Control) Act (Northern Ireland), 1957.

The Bill, as I said earlier sets out to stop up the existing gap in the law by making illegal certain special features of mock auctions which amount singly or together to calculated fraud. The Bill takes care not to go beyond this, and it is rightly not attempting, as some have suggested it should, to stop the auctioneering of rubbish for the highest prices that genuine auctioneers can obtain, for the answer to that is custodeat emptor— "Let the buyer beware".

Caveat emptor.

I am sorry. I am afraid my Latin is very bad. The racket of mock auctions is at least 100 years old, and may be 200 years old as far as I can find out. Until four very recent cases there have been only three prosecutions during the last 100 years—in 1869, in 1900 and in 1928. It therefore became clear over the years that mock auctions as such were probably not illegal. To prove conspiracy with attempt to defraud—and two of the cases I have mentioned involved such a charge—was just too difficult to be worth trying, not least because it was nearly always impossible to get people who had been defrauded to advertise their own gullibility by giving evidence.

Mock auctions have regularly taken place in at least 26 municipal boroughs, eight urban district areas, in Oxford Street and on a large scale in Petticoat Lane, where two shops and as many as 16 of the stalls have been used for these purposes. There were two successful prosecutions in Bournemouth in 1960. In one of them five men were fined a total of £1,050 for conspiring to defraud by means of a mock auction.

One newspaper commented: "

the evidence at the lower court was that the public were unmercifully fleeced; it was said that the auctioneer's employees ran up the bidding, that the articles members of the public were given—already wrapped—were not the ones they had successfully bid for, and that in at least one case a bidder did not get his purchase at all. The whole operation was designed to get the highest possible price for the goods by almost any means, and to get gullible customers to hand over money that they would not have parted with in their right senses."

In the other case, four men were found guilty of conspiracy to default people at mock auctions and they were fined a total of £1,000. Last year there was also a successful prosecution in Morecambe where the men concerned were charged with conspiring together to cheat and defraud persons attending purported auction sales.

The Commissioner described their activities as

"dishonest, as bad and heartless as the picking of pockets … conspiracy which lived by cheating ordinary hard-working people out of their savings and hard-earned money."

Mock auctions, he said,

"are one of the most unhealthy growths that have ever come about in this country."

I think that that is a very fair description. One man received a jail sentence of six months and two others were fined £150 or six months and £100 or three months. Two months later there was a second case in Morecambe where the prosecution was successful.

In my opinion, these four cases, the only successful prosecutions for more than thirty years, are the very rare exceptions that prove the rule that the law is unclear and unsatisfactory. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that the law is badly in need of amendment and that mock auctions amount to coldly calculated confidence tricks. With the law in its present state of uncertainty, the police are put in an impossible position. Frequently they must stand by and watch while people are openly cheated, unable to take action. The effect on foreigners visiting this country—this hospitable country, where we pride ourselves on our honesty—needs no describing. Such people may be severely shocked to find that the law of the land permits them to be brazenly swindled, and it is cold comfort for them if they have to blame themselves for having been "mugs". No doubt they attend a so-called auction expecting something for nothing and they come away wiser and sadder, having had nothing for something. I submit that there is an urgent need for amendment and clarification of the law, and I feel that this Bill, therefore, deserves the support of the whole House.

I wish to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) and compliment him on having taken over this Bill, and for the way in which he has acquired a very good knowledge of the more intricate parts of one of the biggest and cleverest swindles that has ever been devised. I wish also to pay tribute to the persistence and skill of Lord Denham who, in another place, delivered one of the most amusing and persuasive speeches I have ever heard in either House.

I only wish that hon. Members could have heard him when he spoke in one of the Committee Rooms. He appeared dressed as if he had been to Ascot with his bag of "swag" and presented to us the shoddy goods—the almost unbelievably shoddy goods—which he had acquired—goods which one would never find in any other place than at a mock auction because they are specially made for mock auctions. No other trader, including street traders, would have anything to do with goods of this kind in their dealings with the public, and I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is right when he says that there must be an undertaking given that the provisions of this Bill, if it is given a Second Reading, will not hinder the activities of market and street traders who do a good job of work and give a fair deal when operating the technique of a dutch auction.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that mock auctions are a hundred or probably two hundred years old, and that is true, but the technique has altered very considerably in the last few years. As a youth I got a great deal of entertainment from watching men in the Newcastle market place selling shop-soiled articles by this form of auction. But now the articles sold are not even shop-soiled. They are goods specially made for mock auctions, and however little one may pay for them, they are of no value whatever. Some of the goods are sold with so-called guarantees. Carving knives are "guaranteed" as coming from Sheffield and being of the best British workmanship. The "guarantees" are probably bought for 7s. 6d. a thousand and are not worth the paper on which they are printed.

One of the most unsavoury aspects of the whole business, particularly as it is carried on in London, is the high percentage of overseas visitors who are taken in. At auctions conducted in the Edgware Road and in Oxford Street I have seen audiences 50 per cent. of which were people from the Commonwealth and other overseas countries. Some of them accepted these guarantees and took them home, together with shoddy articles they had acquired. This must damage the prestige of British trade abroad, and I hope that this Bill will assist in preventing that from happening.

I have always differed from the Home Office and the Commissioner of Police because I believe that under the existing law it would be possible for such people to be dealt with. But there is a wealth of evidence to indicate that there are weaknesses in the law and it is obvious that the Home Office desires to see some of those weaknesses remedied.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned that there was possibly some differences in the techniques which are adopted. I have visited scores of mock auctions all over the country, and I can say that there is no difference whatever in the technique. It is a matter of great concern to me that in Morecambe in Lancaster and in Bournemouth these auctioneers can be fined heavily, but when the same technique is operated in London the fine is different.

I was first attracted to this business when my attention was drawn to an advertisement in the theatrical publication called the Stage. The advertisement invited people who were out of work and had a knowledge of the stage to become "top men" or auctioneers in this business. They were told that there was a school to which they could go to be trained in the technique of mock auctions. This has developed into a big business, so much so that the country has been "carved up" and a limited number of people run these mock auctions. It really is a big business now and much different from the time when a man operated his own stall in the local market place. In Birmingham recently there were firms who made nothing else but goods for mock auctions. They were well-known firms, and because of the business they were doing they were prepared to debase some of their normal goods to sell for mock auctions.

It may be that some hon. Members with no experience of a mock auction may ask, "How can Parliament legislate to safeguard people who are determined to give away their money?" It is not as simple as that. One man came and told me of the experience of his father who was the editor of a well-known financial journal. He was on holiday, and because of our climate and the need very often to find some entertainment indoors out of the rain, this man, an intelligent gentleman, visited a mock auction. Ultimately, he put down some money for a gold watch, and the persuasion of the seller was such that this gentleman really believed that he was trying for a gold watch. If a man who writes for a well-known financial journal can be taken in by these peaple—I must say they are some of the cleverest people with their tongues that anyone could ever meet—it is not surprising that other and more gullible people may be taken in.

Some people attend mock auctions with no intention of buying but just to enjoy the "patter". They feel that they can afford a few shillings for what is called a "nailer" because they have derived more entertainment from the "patter" at the mock auction than perhaps they might have found at the local theatre. These "nailers" can be as low as 2s. 6d. Many people—I have done so myself—will pay 5s. because they think that the auctioneer has worked for the money and they wish to know what goes on. If one has not put one's hand in one's pocket at these auctions it can become particularly uncomfortable, and one usually gives something to the "top man" if one wishes to remain to enjoy the rest of the proceedings. Anyone who fails to part with some money soon finds himself the target of a very sharp tongue. People are influenced when they see what appear to be very good articles almost given away.

The auctioneers tell the public that it is their way of advertising their goods. Instead of paying for expensive advertisements in the newspapers this is the way they do their advertising. They impress people who tell their friends, and they in turn, they hope, will go back to buy. That is absolute nonsense because the top men are on commission. They have to make money and cannot give any away.

This is a blatant business, and, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, it is done largely on the system of the hinten lots. "Hinten" is a German word, although some say that it is a Jewish word. It means behind. The technique is that the lots which influence the public are never sold to the public at all. They are lots which always go behind ready for the next sale. They are knocked down to someone supposedly for very little money and then the floorman says, "I will take them and hand them to the bidder." But the top man always says, "No, let us do better than that. Let us have them wrapped up." So the goods are taken behind to be wrapped up and do not appear again until the next sale.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to a second-hand camera and to a second-hand pair of field glasses. They are always the property of the top man, his private property. The reason why they are second-hand is probably that he uses them at the races when not at mock auctions. Anyone who attends such sales regularly will have seen all the scratches and the dents in these articles. They are good articles, but they have been used.

I remember seeing in a mock auction room in Oxford Street a beautiful silver cigarette case complete with lighter. It was in the sale week after week and was sold to someone at each sale. The top man would say, "You will see that the only thing wrong with it is that the elastic band is missing" Since an elastic band can be bought for something like 2s. 6d., I am sure that the article is something that most people would like to have. Unfortunately for the top man, there was a small dent in the top righthand corner of the case, and therefore when I attended the sale week after week I could see that the same article was always offered to the public.

There is always a trayful of goods which are purported to be sold very quickly to people at the back but which are never sold at all. That has a great effect on people and influences them to bid quickly in the future. I remember in Petticoat Lane having a first-hand experience of what happens. At the back of the premises which were being used for the mock auction there was a tarpaulin to hide what went on behind. There was a small hole in that tarpaulin and I spent some time looking through it. I saw these lots being brought back waiting for the next sale.

As I have told the House, people are invited to go to school to learn the technique. It is the same technique all over the country, although the words used may be different. People are invited to become auctioneers. I made application myself to become an auctioneer. I gave a different name and address. No doubt I should have been allowed to go to the school but for the fact that a check-up was made at the address which I had given and when it was found that I did not live there nothing further happened.

The technique is extremely clever. It plays on human weakness. It frightens the meek and mild members of the public. The auctioneer says to them, "Trust me. You will never regret it. This could be one of the greatest days in your life." People part with money because, prior to doing so, they see other bidders being given their money back together with the articles which have supposedly been sold to them. It is the technique of the hinten lot. Without the hinten lot the business could not go on.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke about the wrapping up of the articles. That is an important part of the technique. Often the goods are shown around to the people, but they acre not the same goods which are eventually sold. The people running the mock auction are very careful to see that the goods are wrapped up. In many cases they are not only wrapped but are put into a carrier bag. If the person who has bought the goods attempts to open the bag in the sale room to see what he has got someone soon makes it obvious to him that he must not look at them there, giving the excuse, "Do not let the nosey-parkers who have not bid see what you have got."

This is a technique which often bamboozles people. Of course, there are some people who will not put up with being swindled. Having seen what they have been sold they go back and demand the return of their money. An important part of the mock auctioneer's technique is to avoid trouble with the police. A person who demands his money back in a determined way is likely to get it. But what usually happens is that the auctioneer says to that person, "If you come to our next sale we will see that you get a bargain."

If one goes to a mock auction to look for the obvious confederates—one can always tell them—one may see a country farmer or farm labourer who has obviously got nothing to do with it. He gets the bargain. Why? Because he objected to being twisted at the previous sale. Instead of giving him back his money they give him some of the bargains at the next sale. This often bamboozles the police who know that these people are not confederates. I have spoken to these people and asked them what happened and they have told me why it was done.

I have here a letter from a man who has a good knowledge (A the game. As a result, I am taking up the case with the Police Commissioner for the City of London. This man has been a mock auctioneer for many years. He now suffers from nerve trouble, largely due to the way that the Press, the B.B.C. and television have been making people aware of what really goes on at mock auctions. He has given up the work. He says that it is too nerve-racking.

Some of us might say that as the business of mock auctions is not so active at the present time we should not bother about it. But it is obvious that this business goes in cycles. After a spell of publicity, many of these operators low for a while. That is why it is necessary to have a law to curb their activities. This is his statemeint:

"I am pleased to note that you understand that there is no need for bogus associates and that the swindle is conducted by the hinten lots."

I have for some years been writing both to the Home Office and to Colonel Young, the Commissioner of Police, because it is the Metropolitan Police and the City Police that deal with mock auctions in Petticoat Lane. This is the reply that I received from Colonel Young:

"The use of associations as bogus customers is not practised, nor have there been any complaints to the police regarding either operator."

That is the excuse for not doing anything. It amazes me that the Commissioner of Police should be so far behind the times that he should ever refer to associates. There is no need to have associates on the floor. They would have to be paid. So they have their "associates" in the audience. The way in which they get away with it is by purporting to have sold some lot for £5, £6 or £7. The floorman stands in front of the auctioneer on the floor. The sale is always at the back of the crowd. In the meantime, as the floorman is slowly making his way through the crowd, the auctioneer sells a pencil, a knife or a comb, for a penny or sixpence, and it is the penny or sixpence that the man collects, and the £ notes he produces himself to hand up to the auctioneer. It is one of the cleverest things done.

I feel that there is something wrong somewhere and that there needs to be a stricter law.

There was the case which the hon. and gallant Member mentioned in connection with the Morecambe mock auctioneer. The Commissioner said that mock auctions were heartless and cruel ways of parting quite simple people from their holiday savings. One should know the miseries and uphappiness caused to holiday-makers by this process, and I am sure that the House will be very anxious to tidy up any weakness in the law.

Finally, I should like to mention the other case, which was at Bournemouth at the beginning of August last year, when, as the hon. and gallant Member said, fines amounting to £1,000 were imposed. It was said that sham bids and pretended sales were among the devices mentioned. That is the point that I make, that at every sale there are sham bids.

As I said earlier, there are a few people who use these areas to hold mock auctions and other people who, of course, become the auctioneers. The man who did this—he is mentioned in the newspapers—is Allan Gershon, 52, shop-keeper, of Wellington Road, London, and this same man operates in Petticoat Lane. It is a matter of some bewilderment to me to know how, using the same technique, he can be fined so heavily in Bournemouth and yet get away with it in Petticoat Lane. I have written to the Home Secretary who says that it is because of the difficulty in persuading complainants to come forward. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member that there are very few who are ready to admit how foolish they have been. The mock auctioneers know this and play upon it, so much so that if a person objects to having been twisted he can sometimes get his money back. But he is possibly only one out of 50 who is prepared to do that, and there are therefore some wonderful pickings to be obtained even if mock auctioneers have to give some money back.

I do not know much about complainants, but I believe that there have been some in Petticoat Lane. There was one case in which an auctioneer hit with an auctioneer's hammer one of the men who were protesting in the crowd. He was taken to hospital by two city policemen, and in hospital the complainant, I believe with a little pressure, was persuaded not to make any complaint, and for not doing so he was paid £50. It is true that there are many good reasons why people will not come forward, even if the law also requires to be altered. As the Home Secretary writes:

"Because of this difficulty there may well be a case for strengthening the law."

It is in that spirit that I support the Bill, with an undertaking that if there is any likelihood of the Bill, as drafted, in any way harming the genuine Dutch auction, I shall be a party to trying to alter it before the Committee stage.

As was mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish), I played some part in connection with a similar Bill in the last Session. I think that I should let the House know the reasons why I did so. In order to do that I must elaborate a little on what the hon. and gallant Member said about what has taken place since that Bill was introduced in another place.

It was introduced by Lord Denham in February, 1959. Lord Denham's original Bill dealt only with premises. It obtained a Second Reading upon that basis. In their speeches, both the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) dealt mainly with premises, and I assure the House that in this respect the Bill has my full support. I remember entering some premises in Aldgate, 45 years ago, and I came out of them without much money. It is true that I had not much money in those days, but I had even less after I had been into the premises.

In Committee, Lord Denham had to introduce all sorts of Amendments which were demanded by the Home Office, in the same way as the Minister of Transport demands Amendments when considering Private Members' Bills concerning transport which have obtained Second Readings. On return from Committee, Lord Denham's Bill was completely different from the one which had received a Second Reading.

I am sure the hon. Member agrees that the only major change in the Bill as originally introduced by Lord Denham was the deletion of Clause 1 (1, b). The reason that that subsection was deleted, as was explained in Committee, was that it appeared to catch the Dutch auctioneer and to make his practice illegal. It was to meet that anxiety, which I mentioned in my speech, that that Amendment was made. That was the main Amendment. The other Amendments were minor.

I have read the Report of the Committee stage in the House of Lords OFFICIAL REPORT and have a different impression from that given by the hon. Member.

A fundamental change made in Committee concerned the question of competitive bidding. The Bill which was given a Second Reading dealt with premises and did not contain the Clause on competitive bidding. The introduction of that Clause took the Bill outside premises and into the street markets all over the country. For the first time the Bill affected street traders in the markets.

I have an interest in the Bill. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford and the hon and gallant Member for Lewes mentioned Petticoat Lane, which is in my constituency. Petticoat Lane provides a great attraction on Sunday mornings not only to visitors from abroad but also to people from all over London and also many people from all over the country who visit London at the week-end, for example, to watch football matches. It is a very popular place. Competitive bidding has been going or in Petticoat Lane ever since I was a child. In my view—and I hope that I am wrong—the Bill will stop all competitive bidding and in my opinion that would take away the value of Petticoat Lane as a street trading market.

I know nothing about the cases to which my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford referred, but if he says that they happened, then I do not dispute his word. Nevertheless, by and large Petticoat Lane is a very popular place—just as popular in London on a Sunday morning as the Tower of London and other places which people visit while in London.

I appreciate the point which my hon. Friend is making. I have a letter from the chairman of the street traders, who are anxious that this Bill should be passed, because it is the mock auctioneers who are giving Petticoat Lane a bad name. The traders add that before the Bill is passed they would like to discuss the question of competitive bidding in view of the undertaking given.

I am anxous only about competitive bidding. The Bill has my fullest support in dealing with mock auctions in shops, and I shall not ask for that to be amended, but I am naturally interested in that part of my constituency which plays such a rôle in attracting visitors to London.

What worried me, after the Bill had been given Third Reading in the House of Lords, was that it appeared to come to this House as a cut-and-dried affair. Some Bills we pass on the nod. We have a chance of trying to improve others in Committee and to make amendments to meet our points of view. This Bill is different from any other Private Member's Bill which has been introduced in the last two Sessions, because it has already had a Committee stage in another place and the Government have inserted into it those Amendments which they wanted to insert. This makes it quite different from other Private Members' Bills.

I do not know whether the Government will say, in Committee in this House, that they can do nothing more to the Bill. If they are prepared to accept any representations which my hon. Friend and the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes desire to meet, I shall not longer be worried about the Bill being sent to Committee. Nevertheless, I ask hon. Members to recognise that the Bill is slightly different from the usual Private Member's Bill.

I am glad that we have had this debate. I am sure that it has cleared the air. If anything shocking is going on, whether it be by mock auctions or in any other way, it is the duty of the House to try to eradicate such diseases. We certainly ought to deal with the shop mock auctions. Provided that the hon. Member for Lewes and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford can keep to the assurance which they have given to the House that the provisions on competitive bidding will enable markets to function in a similar manner to that in the past—I do not say that fraud should be allowed—and that competitive bidding, which creates interest, will continue, I shall be perfectly happy with the assurance that these matters will receive consideration in Committee. I hope that the House is satisfied that I have not been doing other than air a point of view and help the House to get the value and benefit of a Second Reading discussion.

I want to intervene very briefly and first to announce an interest, in that I am a Fellow of the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute. I have com-ducted auction sales in the normal course of business.

There is no doubt that the mock auction brings into disrepute the method of sale by auction, which is a most valuable method of sale and is beneficial to the public interest and in every other way. The Bill is valuable if it will eliminate the cause of disrepute in that respect.

May I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) about competitive bidding? The fundamental difference between an auction and a mock auction is that in an auction or a Dutch auction one is making competitive bids against the market and against one's fellow bidders, whereas in a mock auction one is making a competitive bid against one's anxieties—for one is anxious to get something for nothing—and not bidding against the market. I think that the hon. Member need have no fears about the Bill. As I read it, it clearly avoids any infringement of the competitive bid. The hon. Member may rest assured that if a slight change of wording is necessary, it can easily be made in Committee.

The Bill will get rid of this very unsatisfactory procedure, I might almost say scourge, in the country, which is increasing in number. When I was articled immediately after the war there were no mock auctioneers in Cardiff, but they are in Cardiff now. It is important that the Bill should be brought into law before there is a considerable spread of the malpractice.

One point which has not been made, which is important and which may be overlooked, is that an auctioneer is not only the agent for the vendor. When he has dropped the hammer, the contract is settled at that point, and if the purchaser disappears through the door of the auction rooms, the auctioneer can bind the purchaser in law. It is therefore important that we should ensure that the auction is conducted with the utmost intergrity and in such a manner that everyone sees what is happening, and knows what he is buying and that there is no intention that he should be misled.

I have been to this type of auction to see what goes on. The slick talk is remarkable. I was interested in the description of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish). I am sure that his description interested many of my colleagues. He has done a great service to the community by bringing the Bill before the House, and I support it wholeheartedly.

I am sure that all hon. Members who are Londoners have witnessed mock auctions. In 1946 I was a victim of one of the practices the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) described. I parted with £2 10s. and received a large variety of shoddy goods. Unfortunately, I was not as persistent as the person of whom the hon. Member spoke, because he managed to get his money back.

Mock auctions are an extremely bad advertisement far the main streets of London—such as Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. They are an extremely bad example to foreigners and tourists who come to this country genuinely believing that we have the finest legal system in the world only to discover that they are gypped literally the first day they go out in London. I know that the techniques differ considerably. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes said, in general, they all amount to nothing more nor less than swindles. No doubt there are cases when if a persistent client asks for his money back he gets it. However, the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford made a most important point. The average person who has been swindled feels a complete mug. He does not like to go back and risk giving evidence in a prosecution or an action, because his next-door neighbour will be able to pull his leg for a number of years over the folly he committed.

The object of the Bill is very clear. It is to abolish a very unfortunate practice, which not only obtains in London but has spread to the provinces. Mention has been made of the excellent description which Lord Denham made in the House when he brought articles here and displayed them. I was entranced by the very wonderful description my hon. and gallant Friend gave of the way in which these auctions are conducted. As he said, there is a grave doubt about the legality of mock auctions.

The private legislation applying to premises which my hon. and gallant Friend said two corporations had introduced could well be invalidated by successful prosecution. For that reason alone, the Bill deserves much consideration. Another point my hon. and gallant Friend made was that it would be an extremely expensive thing if every corporation had to introduce a Private Bill to cover these practices.

I am concerned about what the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) said. I do not think that we wish to interfere with any of the reputable functions of markets. What goes on in most of London's markets—whether it be Petticoat Lane, New Caledonian Market or any other market in London—is marché ouvert, where goods are sold at lower prices. With respect to the hon. Member for Stepney, I do not consider that the Dutch auction, which he said has been a practice in this country for hundreds of years, is part of the business of marché ouvert.

One thing about mock auctions is that the old maxim of caveat emptor does not apply, because when one gets into the atmosphere of mock auctions one feels, as the hon. Member for Erith and Cray-ford so accurately described, that one has had such a very good run for one's money that one would be a cad not to subscribe to it.

I should like one assurance from my right hon. Friend, namely, that the Bill will in no way touch the procedure which is adopted in the marché ouvert, not only in London but throughout the country. As the hon. Member for Stepney said, it is almost one of our institutions and one which attracts a large number of tourists, who regard Petticoat Lane and various other markets as national tourist attractions. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us an assurance that the Bill will in no way in future affect the legitimate practice carried out in the marchés ouvert throughout the country.

I have no hesitation in giving full support to the Bill, which removes an anomaly, an iniquity and an unfortunate practice, which is widespread throughout the country.

First, I want to tender my apologies to the House for arriving a little late today. Unfortunately, for some reason or other I overslept. I will calm the fears of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling). In case he has any doubts about my attitude to the Bill, I will tell him straight away that I support it. That is not an attitude which I normally adopt towards either Private Bills or Private Members' Bills, but on this occasion I think that the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), who is behind the Bill, has done a very good job of work during the gestation period, and I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) on taking advantage of the hon. Gentleman's early work to produce the Bill.

My fear is that the Bill does not go far enough. I entirely agree with it in principle, but my concern is that it will not be very easy to secure convictions under it. It may be necessary for some alterations to be made to it in Committee in order to facilitate its full operation, which I am sure is the wish of every Member of the House.

This will entail a Committee stage. As you may be aware, Mr. Speaker, we are having some difficulties upstairs in Standing Committee C in getting some of the Private Members' Bills through. I hope that it will be represented to my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary that, if there is any more careful consideration of some of the Measures confronting that important Committee, one of the Government Committees, when they have disposed of the Government business, which is also receiving exhaustive examination, could be used to get the Bill on the Statute Book.

The only point I wish to make about the Bill is on Clause 1 (3, a). I am a little worried about this and I hope that my right hon. Friend will comment on it. I find it difficult to see how anyone will be caught out under that provision. How are we to find out whether the money paid for some of the junk which is unloaded on to the unsuspecting public has ever been repaid to the man who is the phoney purchaser? It will be very difficult to prove. We may want to tighten up the Clause in Committee.

It should be tightly drawn, because some of these gentlemen are very smooth operators. I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn), was once caught, but fortunately the man who tried to extract my money was considerably smaller than myself and I was able to resist the entreaties he made for me to hand over the doubloon. These men are very smooth operators. I believe that there have been prosecutions for this sort of activity in the past, but it has been very difficult to get convictions. There have been very few convictions because, in the main, the case rests on charge of conspiracy which, as every hon. Member probably knows, is a very difficult charge to substantiate. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister of State can enlighten the House on the one point about which I am nervous.

I would assure the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) that I had no doubt at all about his attitude to this Bill, and that for a reason he has not given but which I am sure is very legitimate and earns his support. On occasions when we have been together in Committee he has expressed himself as being on the side of the village shopkeeper and wanting to look after his interests.

As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, some of these mock auctioneers go round the villages. They take a village hall, or something of that kind, and conduct mock auctions there which not only rook the local people but have a bad effect on the village shopkeeper. As I knew we were in perfect agreement on that, I was confident that the hon. Gentleman was attending this morning to support the Bill—

And does my hon. Friend appreciate that when these men go to the village halls they get the people to attend on false pretences by putting out leaflets saying that they are to sell blankets, towels, etc., but when the people get there they find the shoddy mock-auction goods?

I am sure that that is the kind of thing that happens.

I, too, want to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) on bringing in this very desirable Bill, and also on the very clear and, I thought, vividly interesting account of what went on at mock auctions. He did not have a very large audience this morning, but the record will be there, and anybody who wishes to refer to mock auctions in the future has, as it were, got a bible already written and can always refer to it.

I was glad to hear him say that the Bill, in its present form at least, has the backing of the Government. Whether or not we shall have to adopt the methods suggested by the hon. Member for Exeter to get the Bill through, I am sure that all of us will do everything possible to speed its passage to the Statute Book—

Would the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) assist in the passage of this Bill to the Statute Book by staying away from next Wednesday morning's meeting of Standing Committee C, when we may be able to get on with the next Bill.

The Consumer Protection Bill, to which the hon. Gentleman refers, is as important as this one, but that is something that we can discuss at a later stage—

I have only just come into the Chamber and, therefore, do not know what has gone on, but I may say that I am astonished to hear that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) came here—on a Friday—to support a Bill. Do I understand that he is actually supporting a Bill on a Friday?

On this occasion I am defending the hon. Member for Exeter from any criticism whatsoever that may be levelled against him.

I want to make one serious comment on the Bill. I had intended to make it in any case, but it also arose from a remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds). He said that some of the shoddy goods sold at these mock auctions included cutlery marked "Made in Sheffield" As is probably known, "Sheffield made" is an honourable and reputable mark, and the Sheffield Cutlery Manufacturers' Association—and I can say this because the subject has been discussed in public, and I know the manufacturers' views—has found it utterly impossible to trace the firms making this sort of stuff

Whether it is made in Sheffield, we do not know, but there certainly are un-scrupulous firms that put this mark on the "phoney" stuff, and they cannot be traced. If this Bill drives out of existence the selling of this shoddy stuff bearing the Sheffield mark, I am confident that the reputable cutlery manufacturers of Sheffield will be very glad, indeed.

I agree with the hon. Member for Exeter that as we go on we may find that this Measure has to be more tightly drawn. He made a very good point when he referred to the difficulties of finding out whether money has been returned to the man who is part of the concern. If the Bill has to be amended to meet the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) and other points, I think that we will find that its operation will not only deal with the mock auctioneer and put him out of business but will also have its effect on those who falsely describe shoddy cutlery by adding the Sheffield mark, and we will all be glad to see that. I am very glad that this Measure has now been reintroduced in another form, and that the Government are supporting it.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) was kind enough to thank me for coining to the House this morning, but I am glad to be here, because I came on many Fridays last Session when my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Sir S. Storey) sought a Second Reading for a similar Measure which then met with unexpected opposition. I am glad that we have had an explanation of that this morning. I should like to join in the congratulations extended to my hon. and gallant Friend, and to the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), who has persevered in this matter for so many years. I congratulate them both, too, on getting the support—a very unusual event on a Friday—of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams).

Whilst I am engaged on this vote of thanks, I should like to be associated with all that has been said about Lord Denham, who not only made a very entertaining and factual speech in another place but has undertaken much research during two or three years to bring this matter to fruition.

The hon. Member for Erith and Cray-ford was very kind; he did not say what he possibly felt several years ago—that the Home Office was rather lukewarm about this proposal, and I think that I should explain to the House why—as is, I hope, apparent—the Home Office attitude has changed.

The Department I represent receives an enormous number of requests for legislation which, in one way or another, would curtail the liberties of the subject. As we are, at the same time, concerned to defend those liberties, every such request must be carefully examined against the test of whether it is really necessary or is only a happy convenience.

The House is clearly agreed that mock auctions are most objectionable and should not continue. At the same time—and I am not advocating this view—one must have regard to the view that if adults enter into the risk of being fleeced it is not self-evident that it is in all circumstances the job of the State to protect them from the consequences of their own folly.

Furthermore, and this point has already been made in the debate, there has been some doubt as to the prevalence of mock auctions. According to my information, they have been limited to certain centres, and from time to time—and the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford made this point—they have decreased in number as publicity exposing their methods has increased. Also, there was a period of years when it seemed as if they might disappear of their own accord without the need of further action.

It was for those reasons that until two or three years ago the Government adopted a cautious attitude towards proposals for legislation, but more recently they have accepted the plea that the law should be strengthened, and have, indeed, been associated with the improvement in another place of the Bill originally introduced there by Lord Denham. I should make it clear that the Amendments proposed to that Bill were proposed, not at the demand of the Home Office but in an effort to improve the Bill, and as far as possible to meet any apprehensions on the part of the legitimate trade.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes has most lucidly described the procedure adopted at these auctions; he has described the state of the existing law, and has outlined the way in which the Bill proposes to deal with the problem. I do not seek to add anything at all to his words in that respect. He referred, however, as did the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford, to the recent successful prosecutions at Bournemouth and Morecambe, and the House should know whether, in the light of those prosecutions, this Bill is really necessary.

My own view is that the successful prosecutions tend to support the view that I know has always been held by the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford, that mock auctions are, in general, illegal, and can be dealt with under the existing law. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes was a little less certain about the illegality of mock auctions under the existing law. But the purpose of the Bill is to put the matter beyond all doubt.

Anyone who has studied in detail those three prosecutions—two at Bournemouth and one at Morecambe—will appreciate the immense deployment of police manpower that was entailed and the great difficulty in obtaining witnesses, who quite understandably are not anxious to come into court and admit that they had been fooled. The witnesses in the Morecambe prosecution were particularly reluctant in that respect.

The Bill strengthens the law in two important respects. For the first time it makes certain practices illegal, and these were explained by my hon. and gallant Friend. This is done in Clause 1 (3). The second point is that although witnesses will, no doubt, be obtained from time to time, it will be possible for a prosecution to be launched on the basis of what the police saw as the result of a small number of visits to a mock auction. I do not believe that this will give the police any greater power than they have in the prosecution of other offences, and it is very much our concern in these days that the police should not be required to spend an undue amount of time on matters of this sort when they should be engaged in the prevention of crime.

My hon. and gallant Friend also referred to the possibility of prosecution under private Bills, but I accept the argument that that is an expensive business and would take a great deal of time to cover the whole of the country in this respect.

I submit that this Measure removes any uncertainty, strengthens the existing law, and obviates the need for private legislation. For that reason the Government have been associated with the preparation of this Bill and its predecessors, although I want to make it clear that the initiative and credit should go to the hon. Members whose names I have mentioned. The Government will continue to be associated with the Bill if the House gives it a Second Reading, and we will certainly consider my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestions for improvement which may be raised at this or any subsequent stage.

I think it is possible—no hon. Member has referred to this—that in view of the recent prosecutions, the penalties proposed in the Bill may not be really adequate, but I should point out that these could only be increased if the offence were made an indictable one. However, this is something which could possibly be considered in Committee.

My hon. and gallant Friend, as I understand it, and the hon. Member for Stepney were both concerned lest legitimate Dutch auctions might be caught by this Bill. That is certainly not the intention, and my advice is that the wording of the Bill is such that it will not catch the legitimate Dutch auction. It will only do so if a Dutch auction is associated with some of the illegal practices mentioned in Clause 1 (3). I will certainly co-operate with my hon. and gallant Friend to make certain that that point is all right, and of course if the hon. Member for Stepney cares to elaborate any of the fears that he expressed I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will seek Home Office advice to ensure that legitimate practices are excluded from the provisions of the Bill.

I was glad to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Rees). He speaks with some knowledge of this business, and he felt that the legitimate profession would be safeguarded. As I understand it, the auctioneers' associations are now in full support of this Measure.

The Bill, I admit, is fairly complicated, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter said, it may not be easy to enforce, but there is no doubt that it will make the law much easier to enforce than the existing law. He was probably under a misapprehension when he expressed the view that subsection (3) of Clause 1 was weak. Possibly he had not directed sufficient attention to the all-important word "stated" in paragraph (a), in line 20. I agree that this is a Committee point and we must make certain in Committee that if there is any weakness in that provision it should be tightened up if possible.

The mere passage of legislation making these practices illegal will make it clear to those who might be tempted to engage in this trade that it is something of which this House and the country disapproves, and will make it clear also that these practices are illegal. I think people will be less tempted to contravene a law which they think can be successfully invoked.

I should make it clear and issue the warning that, following the words of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford, it may well be that the promoters of these practices are clever people and may be able to devise practices which evade the prohibitions in this Bill. Therefore, whilst the Measure will be of assistance to the authorities in preventing these practices, it still remains the duty of the general public to be constantly on their guard against the devices of those who attempt to deprive them of their hard-won earnings. I certainly give the assurance asked for that the Government will continue to watch the Bill and make sure that the legitimate practices to which my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) referred are in no way endangered.

With those reservations, I say again that the Government will assist the Bill in its progress through the House. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to the Government's attitude as being one of benevolent neutrality. I hope that my words today show that we have gone a stage further and will assist in the progress of this Bill through Parliament.

I apologise for not having been here during the early part of the debate on this Bill. I had another engagement.

I am happy to tell the House that this is a thoroughly good Bill, so far as I can see. The only thing that worries me is that I do not think it goes far enough.

I should like to tell the House some of the difficulties the Committee will face, and in this connection I should like to refer to Halsbury's Laws of England and to what is said there on the subject of fictitious bids. It is worthy of notice by the promoters of the Bill before it goes into Committee. Incidentally, I must apologise for the state of my voice the reason being that I have been heavily engaged in Standing Committee C.

This passage on fictitious bids is extremely difficult to understand. I am quoting from paragraph 159, page 79:

"Fictitious bids made by a third person without the privity of the vendor or the auctioneer do not invalidate the sale, nor do they affect the vendor's right to specific performance."

If that statement in Halsbury is correct, I am not sure whether the promoters of the Bill may not find themselves in some difficulty.

The remainder of the paragraph runs as follows:

"If two or more persons take part in a mock auction, by means of sham bidders and bidding, to induce persons to buy at excessive prices, they are guilty of a criminal conspiracy."

There would appear to be some contradiction.

As a practising lawyer, I suggest that Government Departments are not always right, and this matter should be studied very carefully because, in my judgment, subsection (3) of the Bill is much too loosely worded and does not go far enough.

I am delighted that all the auctioneers' associations are pleased with the Bill. The whole of the legal profession is delighted with the Bill. I give it a bunny welcome, but I also give the Home Office a very strong warning.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I think that every hon. Member will agree that on such a vast subject as highway law there will always be some room for improvement. That applies more than ever now when, every year, more and more cars and lorries are coming on to the roads and vehicles are travelling at higher speeds. No doubt many hon. Members will have ideas for the improvement and streamlining of the existing law. I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport probably gets more free advice than even the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Bill is a modest attempt to do some of the things that highway authorities have for a long time been discussing and agree, are very necessary. I believe that the Bill can be of real value to highway authorities at this time. Those Who have taken part in the drafting of the Bill have sought, within the limitations and, indeed, the hazards of private Members' legislation, to include a number of Amendments to the Highways Act, 1959. Most of these were mentioned and discussed in the Highway Law Consolidation Committee which was set up in 1959. Many things were discussed there, but, unfortunately, the Highways Act, 1959. being a consolidation Measure, the terms of reference of the Highway Law Consolidation Committee inhibited the Committee from introducing many desirable amendments to the law.

The genesis of the Bill is the Report of the Highways Consolidation Committee. We have been very careful not to include anything particularly controversial in the Bill and, with the exception of Clauses 1 and 2, the whole of the Bill has a "road safety intent". I am sure that hon. Members will agree that any proposals which will assist highway authorities, and especially local highway authorities, to take action Which will cut down accidents and minimise their severity will meet with general approval.

Before I discuss same of the Clauses of the Bill, I point out that it is for the benefit of all highway authorities including the Ministry of Transport which, as we know, is responsible for trunk roads and motorways.

I have never understood why, in drafting a Bill, sometimes its least important provisions have to be put first. Clause 1 for example is quite a minor Amendment of Section 46 of the Highways Act, 1959. It enables county councils, where it is convenient, to contribute to the expenses of parish councils in the exercise of their concurrent powers to maintain and repaid public footpaths and bridleways which are maintainable at public expense. The powers to make such contributions are purely discretionary but they would be useful. It is easy to visualise situations where it would be more convenient, and probably less expensive, for the local highway authority to pay the parish councils for doing this work instead of doing it themselves.

Clause 2 is a slight amplification of the present powers of a highway authority to plant and protect trees and shrubs on the verges of highways and to lay out grass verges. It is interesting that, although in a Ministry of Housing and Local Government circular every possible encouragement is given to a local authority and the private developer to stimulate the creation of these sort of amenities on highways, estates, etc., under the present law a highway authority, even if it takes over a road with these amenities developed on it by private enterprise, cannot itself maintain them because it did not plant the trees and verges.

There are quite a number of privately-owned housing estates which, as a result of encouragement given by local authorities, have done quite a good job of creating attractive amenities along the sides of roads but, under existing law, the highway authority cannot deal with these once it has taken over the road. Many highway authorities, however, get over that by using their maintenance staffs to do it, but that is not a satisfactory situation. If this Bill encourages, or rather does not discourage, builders of private estates to proceed with the development of such amenities, they will probably be more willing to do so. A good deal of the maintenance work could be done from the resources of local parish councils within whose boundaries such estates are situated but, again, under the present law they cannot be reimbursed for doing so.

Clause 3 is quite an important Clause with regard to road safety. It is concerned with the piping and drainage of open roadside ditches which otherwise form a very dangerous hazard. Hon. Members who live in rural areas are only too aware of the dangers of ditches, especially on curves, in wet or foggy weather and when it is dark. This Clause supplements the powers conferred on local authorities by Section 67 of the Highways Act, 1835, re-enacted in Section 103 of the 1959 Act. Local authorities cannot fill in these ditches without the consent of the owners. Mostly, the owners are willing for the work to be done, but there are occasions when, for some reason best known to themselves, the owners will not give their consent. There have been a lot of accidents.

Many hon. Members will know of examples of such accidents where somebody comes round a curve, skids or does not appreciate the angle of the curve and goes into the ditch. In Northamptonshire, some years ago, along a certain stretch of road with a sudden curve, there was a series of accidents, some of which were fatal. The county council, with the consent of the owner, filled in the ditch, and there was a startling drop in the incidence of accidents. There will always be accidents because some motorists take curves too quickly, but in the case I have quoted the drop, not only in the incidence of accidents but in the number of fatalities, was quite remarkable.

I am sure that the highway authorities will always ask the consent of the owner but, in cases where they cannot get it, this Clause gives them an opportunity to carry out the necessary safety measures. At the same time, the owner is protected from any consequential damage and his drainage rights are completely preserved.

Clause 4 is an important addition to the penalty provisions of Section 117 of the 1959 Act. Under the present law if anybody puts on his own land an object or device for guidance or direction or some arresting signal of some kind, the local authority can give him notice to move it, and if he fails to comply it can remove it itself. If, on the other hand, somebody paints something on the road this can be quite as distracting as something on the side of the road. I have somewhat mixed feelings about this, because I remember in a recent electoral contest somebody painted on the road in big blue letters. "Vote Conservative". Whether he took counsel's advice on the legality or not, I do not know. At any rate, the effect was nullified the next morning by the word "Don't" having been added, strangely enough, in bright red letters, so whatever electoral advantage there may have been for me in painting that admirable slogan was soon nullified by someone else's action.

Under the law as it at present stands, one can paint almost anything one likes on a road. A person can put "No parking" outside his house, or anyone can paint rude remarks about individuals, institutions, political parties, or anything he cares to choose, and all the local authority can do is obliterate it. Quite apart from the inconvenience of having to obliterate any such signs painted on the road, the signs themselves can be very dangerous indeed as a distraction. The Clause, therefore, is designed to add a little extra power to the existing law.

Clause 5, again, is a safety measure. It is designed to supplement the existing powers under Section 128 of the 1959 Act by speeding up the procedure whereby local authorities can secure the removal of something left in the road. This could be quite important because very often, in narrow, dangerous roads, objects are left which could serious accidents. The Clause does no more than make possible a speedier application of powers which already exist. In other words, the local highway authority will be enabled to take action at once to deal with the obstruction. The fact that this is a necessary improvement of the existing law is proved, I think, by the very large number of local Acts which have been introduced from time to time to speed up this procedure for removing things left on the roads which are dangerous to highway users.

Clause 6 also is an important safety measure. It deals with obstructions such as trees and so forth which have fallen on the roads. It is designed to make the existing procedure much more effective than it is now. Highway authorities already have power to remove these things, but the object of the Clause is, first, to enable the highway authority to light and fence any such obstruction and, if that should prove impracticable, to remove it immediately if it is a dangerous hazard, and, secondly, to give the authority power to recover any reasonable expense incurred in taking that kind of action.

The principle that anyone who owns a tree, mud bank or something which is a potential danger to people using a nearby highway should, if the potential danger becomes a reality, be made to pay the cost of removal is, I think, generally accepted. It has been clearly established by Parliament in many local Acts, and I believe that the further provision which I propose here would make a valuable contribution to the reduction of accidents especially in places where alongside narrow roads there are many trees or obstructions which can cause hazards to present-day increasing traffic.

Clause 7 deals with dead, diseased or insecure trees. This is also very much in the interests of road safety. The Clause follows a specific recommendation of the Highway Law Consolidation Committee. The effect of it will be to add to the appropriate authorities' existing power to give fourteen days' notice to anyone who has a tree leaning over a road which is dead or diseased, and to give them power to deal not only with trees which are just leaning over a road but with anything which they have reason to believe is insecure or appears to be so. This is, perhaps, one Clause which may look controversial, but it is obviously necessary to give local highway authorities power to deal with potential hazards of this kind. Of course, the owner would have the right, as he has already in the existing law, to appeal to the magistrates' court if he has any doubt about the right or necessity of such action on the part of the local highway authority.

Clause 8 deals with the adjustment of boundaries to highways. Anyone who lives in the countryside cannot fail to notice the number of occasions when roads are being straightened. In my own constituency there are many winding roads which are very dangerous, and the local highway authority is now setting about straightening the roads and making the curves less dangerous. It is quite obvious that there is a very great wastage of land going on. I have received a number of letters about this on various occasions.

This is a very difficult problem for local authorities because the maxim "Once a highway, always a highway" has the effect of preventing a highway authority from making any kind of common-sense mutual arrangement with the local land owner which would make more suitable use of the land. Although very often the land which is out of use as a highway is quite useless to the authority, the authority cannot do anything about it under the present law. Clause 8 is intended to remove this difficulty and enable the highway authority to make a deal by exchange or in some other way with the adjoining owners to avoid this growing wastage of what is sometimes very good land.

Clause 9 contains the financial provisions. I shall not say very much about this delicate subject. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will say that the Minister will give the Government's blessing to the Bill and will provide the Money Resolution which is needed to carry it through. Of course, any charge which does fall on public funds as a result of highway authorities exercising these additional powers will be infinitesimal compared with the £150 million odd being spent on roads today —there will probably be more next year—and I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will accept it, in view of the help which I think the Bill will undoubtedly give to local authorities. I have good reason to believe that the local authorities favour the Bill very much, and I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

The best method of opposing a contentious Bill, I think, is to speak often and at length about it, as this side of the House has been endeavouring to demonstrate, fairly successfully, during the last few days, and the best way of supporting a contentious Bill—I am sure the Government side will agree with me —seems to be to speak as little as possible on it. If that general statement be true, it is equally true in relation to a Private Member's Bill on a Friday, a Bill which is not contentious and which is non-party, that those who support it do the best service if they speak as briefly as possible.

I support the Motion, "That the Bill be read a Second time." I speak not only as a Member of the House but on behalf of my own county council and on behalf of the County Councils' Association, both of which bodies give this Measure their wholehearted backing. Those hon. Members who know the County Councils' Association know that for a Measure of this kind to receive its commendation and support is something of very real value.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) on his good fortune in the Ballot, on the excellent choice of topic on which he desires the House to legislate, and, above all, this morning, on the clear, able and pains-taking way in which he set before the House the various provisions of this good Bill.

Those of us who work with local authorities and know intimately what they do know that the highway authorities of the country do a very good job. The recent floods have shown how vital is one aspect of their work in the care of highways, and I believe that, sooner or later, the highway authorities them-selves and Parliament will have to deal with that aspect of the matter if we are to continue to have floods on the scale we experienced last year.

As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Bill deals largely with preventive measures in respect of another aspect of the work of the highway authorities. With the increase in the growth of traffic and the increasing dangers on the roads, it is of the utmost importance that anything we can do to strengthen the powers of highway authorities to cope swiftly with anything which may interfere with road safety should be done. As the Bill will be of great help to highway authorities and will strengthen their hand a little. and as it clears up a number of ambiguous points, it will, in its own way, be a contribution to what I am certain every hon. Member has in mind—the prevention of road accidents.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman most sincerely on his Bill and on the excellent way in which he presented it. I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

In following the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), may I say how pleasant it is to observe the happy note of unanimity in the House at this moment. When we look at the Bill, I think we understand Why the leading textbook on highway law, Pratt on Highways, runs to over 1,000 pages. The law on highways is very ancient, and I find it very interesting. It is deeply rooted in history, and I feel that the Bill will be extremely useful in bringing it up to date.

Perhaps a special feature of this country is the way in which old institutions become adapted to serve the needs of more modern times. Highway law developed in ancient days, when the traction power of the horse was the main form of transport. Now it has to meet the needs of a community in which it is an everyday occurrence for people to travel at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. along the roads.

The Long Title of the Bill states that it is a Bill to

"Make certain amendments to the law relating to highways, streets and bridges in England and Wales."

The Bill contains eight substantive Clauses of a rather miscellaneous kind, all of them useful and deserving support. However, it would have been an even better Bill if it had contained one more Clause to abolish the legal defence of what is called nonfeasance Which is at present available to highway authorities.

The essence of nonfeasance is that no action will lie for damage suffered because of a highway authority's omission to perform its statutory duty to keep a highway in repair. If a highway authority carries out some repairs and does them badly, that is misfeasance and the authority can be sued. But if the authority does nothing at all, it is nonfeasance and it cannot be sued. To many people that seems to be a very illogical distinction.

May I give a simple example of how it works in each case? If a highway authority, while repairing a road, puts a heap of stones on the road and leaves the heap unlighted at night and somebody runs into the heap and injures himself, that is misfeasance and the person concerned can sue and recover damages. On the other hand, if a highway authority allows a hole to develop in a road but does nothing about it, that is nonfeasance and any action which might be brought is sure to fail.

As one may imagine, in time a detailed and complex case law has arisen distinguishing between examples of misfeasance and examples of nonfeasance. In many cases those distinctions have become rather narrow and artificial. The moral for a highway authority is that it is far cheaper for it to leave undone those things which it ought to have done rather than do those things which it ought not to have done.

This doctrine started with a case which was decided in 1466. We have, therefore, very nearly reached the quincentenary. I hope that we will not. In short, the history of the matter is that in the old days the inhabitants of a parish were bound to repair the highway. If they failed to do that the remedy was that they should be prosecuted in the criminal courts. The law remained unchanged until 1959 when that procedure of criminal prosecution was abolished in a consolidating Act passed in that year. But, as the inhabitants of a parish were not an incorporated body, it was impossible for procedural reasons to sue them in civil law in order to recover damages.

That is the historical origin of the rule. That immunity from being sued descended through the ages first to the surveyor of the highways, then to our modern highway authorities and recently even to the Minister of Transport, who is now the highway authority for trunk roads and special roads. When the Crown Proceedings Act was passed in 1947, the Treasury Solicitor was characteristically sure to put in a saving which would preserve this defence.

It is rather interesting that none of these distinctions exists in Scotland. No defence of nonfeasance exists there and no harmful consequences have resulted. As a member of my clan, I give that as an example of how in some matters the Scottish law is perhaps better than the English. In 1939 the Alness Committee on Road Safety addressed itself to this point and recommended that the law of England should be brought into line with the law of Scotland. That was over twenty years ago, but no action has been taken on that recommendation.

The rule has come in for a great deal of adverse criticism by judges in the courts. There was a case in 1894 in which Lord Justice Lindley said:

"The law on this subject is, in my opinion, very unsatisfactory."

In 1937 Mr. Justice Swift said:

"How long it will be allowed to continue a principle of the law of this country, I do not know; but there it is and we do not interfere with it."

I hope that perhaps we may be able to interfere with it in this Bill.

The doctrine dates from days when most people used the highway on foot and others on horseback or in slow-moving horsedrawn vehicles, and the skill of roadmaking was still in its infancy. It seems to most of us quite unsuitable that it should have survived until our day, when people in cars use the roads at high speeds. There is a special case for abolishing this doctrine on the roads that carry traffic at the higher speeds, namely, the trunk roads and the special roads such as M.1. The idea of applying a doctrine of this sort to other spheres of legislation such as the factory code would be unthinkable in these days, and yet it persists in the context of the roads.

To give another example to show the absurdity of the present situation, let us imagine the case of a railway accident which is caused by a defective or even a missing railway line. Naturally, in such a case, the passengers who suffered personal injury would be able to sue the Transport Commission with complete success. There would be no question that their action would succeed. On the other hand, if a subsidence or pit were to develop on M.1 between London and Birmingham and nothing were done about it, and people with their cars fell into it, as the law stands such people would have no chance of prosecuting a successful action.

One can think of other strange anomalies. There is the case of a private forecourt on land immediately adjacent to the highway where people are allowed to pass. If that were defective, the occupier might well have to pay damages if a person were to trip up and fall. If, however, such a person were to trip or fall two or three yards away on the pavement farming part of the highway, he would have no remedy.

It is not thought that if the change which I am seeking to see introduced were to be enacted, there would be a great many claims. While there are so many accidents, most of them are caused by people driving too fast or failing to keep a proper look-out, and a relatively small number are caused by defects in the road. Nor is anybody suggesting that in all such cases the highway authority should automatically be liable to pay damages. The protection that highway authorities would still have is that there would be no liability without proof of nuisance, or negligence on their part, that is a failure to take reasonable care.

The highway authorities could surely trust the courts to apply sensible standards in trying cases of that sort. For instance, defects which on an arterial road would clearly fall short of a proper standard of maintenance might be held to be not unreasonable in a quiet country lane. If, however, a highway authority is negligent, it would be right that it should be held liable to a person who suffers damage resulting from that negligence. Indeed, I am putting forward this proposal as a modest contribution to the cause of road safety because it would encourage highway authorities to improve road conditions.

There has been a powerful memorandum from the General Council of the Bar recommending wholeheartedly that this reform in highway law should be brought about. Last Session, I introduced a Bill on those lines. It made no progress, but, at least, it attracted a leading article in The Times, in which it was said that:

"There is today no rhyme or reason in all this. The case for reversing it now in toto appears unanswerable."

I should like to explain why it comes about that this proposal does not at present find a place in today's Bill.

I understand that in preparing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmund's (Mr. Aitken) received assistance from the County Councils Association. It is, perhaps, natural that local authorities should feel a little apprehensive and reluctant to give up their privileged exemption. It is rather like asking a preacher what he thinks about sin: he is bound to say that he is against it. I understand, however, that conversations are in progress on this subject between the Minister of Transport and the local authority associations. But however much one may sympathise with the viewpoint of the local authority associations, there is an interest that is higher than theirs. That is, our interest in Parliament for seeing that the law is fair and that where there is a genuine wrong, there should also be a suitable remedy.

Therefore, I support and commend the Bill. I think that it would be improved by the addition that I have ventured to suggest and I hope that when we reach Committee, it may be possible to put down a new Clause on these lines

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren) will forgive me if I do not follow him too closely in my contribution to the debate. My hon. Friend has concentrated almost exclusively on the legal side of the matter. His knowledge is obviously extremely detailed and something that I cannot hope to emulate.

I wanted to make a few observations on what I felt to be the main purpose of the Bill, which, I understand, is to make a number of amendments to the law so as to give highway authorities additional powers in carrying out their responsibilities. The fundamental responsibility of any highway authority is to take all measures that are possible to avoid the toll of accidents that casts such a sad picture on our road scene. Therefore, any change which they, in conjunction with the local authorities, can do to avoid that is extremely valuable and important.

I wish to confine my observations on the Bill to one or two details on that point. Clause 1 enables highway authorities to contribute towards expenditure incurred in maintaining footways and bridleways. I support that Clause, particularly because if what I suggest comes into effect, as I hope that it will, the bridlepaths and sidewalks will be mudh more greatly used.

It always seems to me that one of the main reasons for accidents on the roads, particularly on main roads with only single lanes of traffic in the country, or even on those with three lanes of traffic, is obstructions on the side of the road which are either not moving or—and I think this is even more dangerous—are moving slowly. In particular, I am thinking of bicycles, which represent a genuine irritant to the motorists because of the speed at which they move and also because of the uncertainty of their course, especially when, as I think is the experience of all hon. Members, we find two or three riding abreast.

The point I want to make is that there is no reason why we should not adopt the practice which is quite common on the Continent of encouraging bicyclists to ride on the footpaths and bridleways exclusively, and even—I do not say in the centers of villages and towns—in built-up areas in which there is not too great a crowd of pedestrians on the pavement. I know, as I expect we all do, many parts of the country where we have excellent small roads running alongside major roads which are never used by anybody. It seems to me that if we can encourage cyclists to use these roads instead of keeping on the main roads we shall do a tremendous lot towards helping the motorists. I think this is one of the important causes of so many accidents on the roads today, and this suggestion would avoid the kind of irritant which so many people feel when they have to draw in or take extra care when passing cyclists.

I want to make a point about built-up areas too, because it seems to me that what we obviously need there is some kind of regulation for giving some precise indication to a cyclist when he should leave the pavement as he approaches a town. There is no doubt in my own mind that in villages and towns there are wide pavements which very often are not adequately used but which could be used by both cyclists and pedestrians together, with no sort of danger, but with a good deal of profit to the motorist.

The point I want to make is that, obviously, if there are to be accidents and collisions, they will do very much less harm to the people concerned if those accidents take place between people travelling slowly, such as pedestrians and cyclists, than those going faster, such as motorists and cyclists, or, as often happens, when a motorist is travelling behind a cyclist and the cyclist swerves, the motorist is obliged to swerve into the middle of the road to try to avoid him, which may be the very moment when another car is coming along.

I feel very strongly that in that way we need to begin to take cyclists off the main roads and put them in the same milieu as pedestrians, which could, possibly and practically, be a real contribution to the saving of life on the roads. May I again emphasise that this is not an uncommon practice? It happens to a large extent in France and in other Continental countries, in Belgium, for example, and I have often felt that there seems to be no reason at all why it should not happen here. I should like to hear if there is any other reason. Quite obviously, of course, the places where the signposts are to go and where the limits are to be set would depend on careful consideration and selection by the local authority or the highway authority concerned.

The only other point I wish to make in that connection concerns Clause 2. Here, again, when we have a road with a four-lane highway and an area between the two contrary flows of traffic, it would be a great advantage to have trees and shrubs growing there, because anything that can be provided as a shield against the lights of oncoming cars for traffic in the opposite direction would be of great value and would provide rest for the eyes of the motorists concerned. There are many places where this is done, and done extremely successfully, but again it seems to be something that we should encourage by every means in our power. I wish to bring the suggestion to the attention of my hon. Friend who is to reply, so that he might bring that policy to bear much more widely in the country as a whole.

There are other points which I should have liked to make, and I am sorry that this Bill does not relate to Scotland. We have excellent roads in Scotland, but even they can always be improved, and I had wanted to mention—

I think it is impossible to include the suggested Amendments for Scotland of my hon. Friend, because of the very different highway laws which we have there. Indeed, the effect which they might have on the deficiency rate would make it a very complicated deal for Scotland.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The main reason why I regret that Scotland is not included in the Bill is that there were one or two observations which I wanted to make about our road situation in Scotland, but which, I imagine, I should not be able to make and keep in order on Second Reading.

I should like to close by saying that any Bill which contributes to the safety of people on the roads or on the pavements has my wholehearted and unqualified support, and I therefore commend it to the House.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) is to be highly congratulated on bringing in this most desirable Measure, which is a mixture of sound commonsense, road safety measures, and, last but not least, measures to improve the appearance and the amenity value of some of our roads.

We live in an age when vast motorways seem to be the necessity for the overburden of traffic which this country has to bear, and these motorways are necessarily somewhat hideous affairs. They can, however, be greatly improved, and I think that some part of this Bill may even apply to them, though primarily, I am sure, it is directed towards the country roads, and probably the second-class country roads, which are equally ripe for improvement, particularly from the point of view of road safety.

The Bill also covers a number of other desirable features which are not directly connected with road traffic, and I particularly welcome Clause 1, which relates to footpaths and bridleways. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen-shire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) mentioned such footpaths which run alongside our roads, but, of course, there are many others which go across country. They have to be maintained, and very often these days are not properly maintained !through lack of funds. These are a great amenity to the public who like to get away from the main roads and to enjoy the peace and quiet and beauty of the countryside. I particularly welcome the measures set out in Clause 1 which would improve the means of maintaining these footpaths.

The other Clause which I particularly welcome, and which I think may be far more important from the road safety angle particularly, is Clause 3 which relates to roadside ditches. My constituency in Somerset covers a mixture of highland and lowland. I say "highland"; we just about get up to 1,000 feet, but that is pretty high for that part of Somerset. A lot of it is lowland country which has to be carefully drained. Of course, these roadside ditches play a large part in that.

Many of them in what we call our central Somerset plain, which is fen country, naturally will have to remain open ditches. In that part of the country many are commonly called "rhines"—the same word as in River Rhine, which means, of course, a watercourse. There are others which can well be filled in and converted into enclosed drains rather than remain open ditches. That undoubtedly will do a great deal towards road safety because some of these country roads where there are these open ditches are exceedingly winding, and in bad weather when there is water or ice or snow on the road it is very easy to skid into one of these open ditches, resulting in considerably more damage to the vehicle and even to the persons in it than would normally happen in a skid just into a roadside bank.

On Clause 4, relating to the painting of marks on the surface of the highway, I should like to question the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds. Will this Clause relate to a practice which is fairly common among motor cycle clubs and even light car clubs, which hold a sort of paper-chase or rally in which the leader usually goes along unfrequented roads leaving a temporary trail which he makes with a bag of dye? It is usually a powder form of dye which after a few light rain storms is washed away leaving no lasting mark, but I suppose that, strictly speaking, anybody doing that would be committing an offence under Clause 4. Strictly speaking, he is not painting, but he is making a mark on the highway, although not a permanent mark.

I think that it would be a pity to put restrictions on some of these light car and cycle clubs. They are usually conducted in a public-spirited manner and do not cause a great deal of nuisance, if any nuisance at all, to the public, and they do serve a useful recreational purpose. I think we ought to consider that.

I think that this is a point which might well be dealt with in Committee. Obviously, the question of a mark inscribed on a road and which is quite harmless and does not distract anybody driving or detract from safety in any way is one we might well deal with in Committee.

I am very glad to have that assurance from my hon. Friend.

I am very glad to see Clause 7. These is nothing so hideous as an old, dead tree, which is often a hazard to those who pass by. It is often, of course, an expensive encumbrance to remove. It requires labour and special equipment, and for that reason some of the old, dead trees are left cluttering some of our roadsides year after year. I feel that the measures in Clause 7 will go some way to removing this ugliness and this potential hazard.

Clause 8, too, I particularly welcome. It is applicable to second-class roads in country districts where it is often desirable to straighten out roads and to reduce the sharpness of turns and banks. If the road is adequately maintained it is sometimes possible to do it without taking any more land from one side or the other, but often, even with adequate margins, it is difficult to do this, and so I feel that this Clause will be helpful in allowing exchanges of the margin of the road on one side for private property which will be taken in to improve the alignment on the other side.

For these reasons, the Bill is very welcome indeed, and I would commend it to the House. I hope it will get an easy passage and that in Committee time will be available to consider so me of these minor points.

I have been most interested in the debate on this splendid Bill and particularly in the comments of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Welds (Lieut.-Commander Maydon) on the appearance of our roadways. This Bill will deal with the matter of cleaning up the highways throughout the land. I think that at this stage it is only right to pay tribute to the wonderful highways and by-ways of our land, especially when we compare them with some of those roads one has to traverse in the United States where there are car wrecks and other wrecks on display from one end of the year to the other. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) on introducing the Bill because I believe that it will deal with this problem of motor wrecks in this country, wrecks which are allowed to lie on our highways in the most disfiguring manner.

The real purpose of the Bill is to make it easier far all to move up and down the highways. It deals with obstructions, but with due respect to my hon. Friend I would say that he does not go quite far enough, for there is no mention in the Bill of the very serious and severe hazard of animals. To make the highway easier and safer to move up and down is a problem which I know has come before the House before, and it was debated in another place in 1958 when Lord Ailwyn provided some astounding statistics about our highways and by-ways and of accidents caused because the ordinary domestic dog was allowed free access to the roads and to run wherever it wished to do.

It might interest the House to know that in 1958 about 2,731 serious road accidents which caused personal injury were the result of dogs straying on the highway. In the same year accidents partly attributable to dogs numbered 237,265. In Committee it might well be a good thing to look into this whole problem of roaming animals. My family and I often travel to my constituency through the New Forest. One does not want in any way to see restrictions applied to such a beauty spot, but roaming wild ponies and deer cause very serious problems there. This also might be thought about in Committee and some provisions to deal with it inserted in the Bill.

Although motorists who travel through the New Forest are warned that they will be penalised if they feed the animals, nevertheless they do so and as a result the wild ponies keep close to the verge of the main highways. I suggest that the Bill should provide that this serious danger be met by the erection of fences on the verges of these main highways. I suggest also that the Minister of Transport should extend the "Clearway" provisions so as to avoid this serious danger, because then the motorist would continue on his way until he came to a suitable lay-by.

Would my hon. Friend also bear in mind that accidents are also caused by sheep straying on the highway, especially in highland areas where the road is frequently the only dry area where the sheep can lie down to sleep? The result is that many sheep are to be found at night on these roads, especially in Scotland.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that comment. I am sure that that represents an additional hazard.

I have always thought that there is an insufficient number of lay-bys on many of these roads. It would be helpful if that question were also looked into. I understand that lay-bys are under the control of local authorities, including county councils and in some cases also under the control of the Ministry of Transport. Generally speaking, these lay-bys are in a filthy condition and for that reason most people seem to avoid stopping at them.

Not in Hampshire.

Not always perhaps in Hampshire, but certainly in some cases. Something should be done to clean up these lay-bys the condition of which contribute towards traffic problems.

I am sorry that Clause 2 (3) specifically excludes London. This is rather deplorable because it ignores the present urgent needs of Londoners many of whom will be dismayed when they find that their interests are not covered by the Bill. For four years the residents of Kensington, for example, have been opposing the borough council's determination to im- pose a uniform pattern of concrete lampposts on a large number of streets, some of which are scheduled as being of architectural merit.

The reason for the exclusion of London no doubt is that the Bill operates by way of being an amendment to the Highways Act, 1959, which was a consolidation and minor amendment of the law relating to highways other than in London. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) would have liked to tidy up the laws of Kensington and places like that but it would have been outside the scheme of the Bill.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend but I should like, if I may, to complete my own comment.

Although the protests were originally based on aesthetic considerations, the effect if the council's plans are put into operation will not only be to destroy the architectural character of the streets concerned but also to provide a substantially increased volume of lighting, which complaining tenants are told is demanded by the police in order to cater for increasing traffic. This seems to be a case where either the council or the police or both together are acting in a way against the accepted modern principles of town and country planning, whereby the main flow of traffic should be confined to routes designed and able to cope with such traffic and other areas should be reserved for pedestrian and local traffic.

Victoria Grove in Kensington is a case in point. It is a short narrow street, confined in its main part between two small Regency terraces with a bottleneck at one end, yet this minor architectural gem is doubly threatened in this way. Having had my say on London, I leave the matter at that. I strongly welcome the Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds on introducing it.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken), whose speech introducing the Bill it was not my good fortune to hear. He will know that some of us were rather actively engaged during the hours of the night, and I was one of those who tried, not very successfully, to snatch a few hours' sleep before resuming my Parliamentary duties.

I welcome the Bill, and I am sure that it will serve a useful purpose if, as I hope, it reaches the Statute Book. There is a little congestion in Standing Committees at present, but I hope that that congestion will not operate to the disadvantage of this desirable Measure.

I want to make one or two small suggestions which may improve the Bill. These arise from the experience that some of us who live in the country have from time to time. It happens that occasionally a selfish or inconsiderate farmer drives his cattle along the public highway or along attractive country lanes and as a result the verges are trampled down and the ditches are blocked and serious inconvenience is caused to pedestrians and motorists who use these roads and lanes. I had occasion to conduct quite a lengthy correspondence with the Berkshire County Council on this very matter some time ago, and I was distressed to find that either the county council did not want to do anything about it or did not have the power to do anything. Apparently the county council, as the highway authority, could not take any action against a farmer whose cattle had trampled down the verges and blocked up the ditches and left what is euphemistically described in Clause 5 of the Bill as things on the highway.

If the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds could consider some addition to this Bill during the Committee stage to enable local highway authorities to recover the cost of cleaning up the roads and repairing damaged verges from the farmer whose cattle were responsible for causing the damage, I am quite sure that a great many people living in the country would be grateful to him. That is the only criticism I have of the Bill. Its provisions will strengthen the power of the highway authorities and prove of convenience to the general public. The selfish farmer will be restrained from using the public highway in a manner which may cause serious inconvenience to people living in the neighbourhood.

I am extremely sorry that the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has had his sleep disturbed because of the long sittings of the House. I am also sorry that we should have such long sittings, but I would remind the hon. Member that there are ways by which they could be abolished.

And the Bills.

I am sorry that the provisions in this Bill, for reasons which have been adquately explained, cannot be made applicable to London. It is an excellent Measure and will tidy up many of the anomalies and gaps which exist in the present legislation. At the same time it will facilitate the task of the highway authorities. I was interested in what was said about trees. Perhaps the provisions in this Bill may facilitate the planting of trees along the dual carriageways in a manner which will help to prevent accidents being caused by the lights of oncoming traffic.

Mention has been made of the danger caused by straying animals, and it is possible that in some way their numbers may be reduced. Perhaps the local authority might be able to contribute towards the cost incurred by owners in fencing alongside the highway. The whole question of animals straying is one which is worthy of serious consideration by this House. I refer not only to domestic animals, such as sheep and cows, but particularly to domestic pets. In my opinion, our legislation is sadly defective regarding the responsibilties of owners of animals. I hope, if not in this Bill at some other time, that it will be possible for the House seriously to consider the danger on the highway caused by straying animals.

I am concerned about Clause 4, although I do not share the anxiety which has been expressed about cyclists and their weekly tours. I am concerned that local authorities in places such as Kensington, of which my right hon. Friend has great knowledge, should place signs on the roads such as interrupted white lines. I find upon investigation that these signs have no legal effect whatever, and I wonder whether a private individual could bring an action against a local authority for putting them on the road. I should welcome some information on that point.

Clause 5 deals with the problem caused by depositing rubbish which I have encountered on many occasions. Both the hon. Member for Brixton and I can recall a notable example of this which occurred on the boundaries of our constituencies where rubbish was deposited in the street and it was almost impossible for the local authority to do anything about it. That is another reason why I am sorry that the provisions of this Bill do not apply to London. Clause 6 refers to the removal of obstructions and impediments in the highway and that is something with which local authorities should have adequate powers to deal.

I am particularly interested in Clause 8. So often in the past when road improvements have been made it has been impossible to do anything with extremely valuable bits of land to restore them to their proper agricultural or horticultural use. I may be wrong, but I think that local authorities have no power to dispose of such pieces of land once they have been dedicated as a highway. By this Clause we may be able to restore such land to its proper use. I have mentioned the problem caused by animals and I hope that legislation may be introduced to deal with that, although I do not consider that it would be suitable to do so within the scope of this Measure.

I share the anxiety of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren) and if he were agreeable I should be prepared to put down an Amendment on the point which he raised. It is a great iniquity that local authorities can, by pleading this extraordinary doctrine of nonfeasance, opt out of a liability for something which they have been paid by the ratepayers to maintain. If I step outside my house and I trip over a paving stone which is badly uneven, I have no redress whatever. But if on the day previously the local authority had raised that paving stone—to examine the drains or for some similar reason—I should have a right of action. This doctrine has no sense. An excellent example was given by my hon. Friend and it should be no defence for a local authority to be able to say, "We are not responsible" I do not share his anxieties about the number of cases which would be brought. There may well be a large number of fictitious actions brought, for instance, by some good lady whose heels are very high and who trips over a paving stone, or something of that nature, but, frankly, courts have adequate means of dealing with actions of that sort.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) says, it is extremely expensive, and I am sure that the figure of 200 guineas which he mentioned would deter many people from bringing actions of that nature. I shall certainly join with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West and try to add to the Bill a Clause which removes this ridiculous anomaly, in spite of what local authorities throughout the country may feel. It is not the local authorities which we have to consider but the public, to whom we owe a special duty. I shall most certainly endeavour to put down an Amendment, although I must confess that Amendments moved upstairs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter knows, do not always have the success which we should like them to have.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) for the excellent way in which he presented it to the House and also for the number of anomalies which it propose to remove, and I hope that it will get a Second Reading.

I too welcome the Bill and wish to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) on the admirable way in which he introduced it. I also wish to say how very much I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren) in everything that he said regarding the present position of the law of nonfeasance. I add my support also to what has been said by several hon. Members regarding the problem of straying animals on our roads. This is a major danger which sooner or later, I think, Parliament must solve. I hope that we shall not look at the matter entirely from the point of view of the motorist. On the numerous occasions when I find myself in near collision with stock belonging to farmers, I am often met with the remark, "Who was here first—the cows or the cars?" I sometimes find it difficult to answer that question.

I want to say a few words under two heads about Clause 8 of the Bill. It is a Clause which, for very right and obvious reasons, seeks to make provision for straightening our roads by means of what are, in fact, exchanges of land. I suggest that in these provisions there is a possible defect which might be looked at in Committee relating to the question of road ownership.

The roads in this country, broadly speaking, are now in the ownership, I think I am right in saying, of three classes of owners. Firstly, our new motorways belonging to the Minister of Transport. Secondly, our traditional roads are in private ownership as far as the freehold is concerned, except as regards a third category where they have been conveyed to or acquired by local authorities such as county councils, and the transactions covered by the proposed Clause will bring more areas of roads into that third category.

Whether we like it or not, we are drifting into a position where the ownership of our roads is becoming a kind of checkerboard, increasingly confused, and which in future will give rise to increasingly complicated questions—questions relating to the all-important matter of fencing, to which several hon. Members have referred and which, of course, involves the question of straying animals; questions of ownership of subsoil, and questions of trespass.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds clearly had in mind the question of subsoil, because subsection (7) states:

" Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting any mines or minerals under a highway."

In terms, that appears to be a direct contradiction of subsection (4, b) where the effect of this exchange is stated to be to

"operate to vest the land in the transferee for an estate in fee simple…"

I have no doubt that that has been looked at by the draftsmen, but I suggest that it might be a good thing if a second look at it could be taken in Committee.

The question of trespass might seem to the House to be a technical matter of no substance, but it is a fact, if one looks at the Law Reports, that there are a number of recorded cases where members of the public have been successfully sued for trespass by the owners of the subsoil of a highway. There was one case in particular where the owner kept valuable racehorses which were exercised in a field adjoining the road. Certain gentlemen of a particular profession found it in their interest to draw up at the side of the road on the highway and watch the horses. The only way in which they could be dealt with was by a civil action for trespass brought against them by the owner.

That may not strike the House as a very important matter, but I suggest that when legislation of this kind is put through the question should be considered whether, instead of an out-and-out transfer as is contemplated in subsection (4), there should not be an argument in favour of saying that the road newly to become the highway should be under the same legal provision as the rest of the highway, that is to say, not conveyed but dedicated.

I now come to the second observation which relates to what I was very glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) say in regard to lay-bys. This is a question which is becoming of increasing importance with the growth in our road traffic. It is exercising the minds of the County Councils' Association and many other associations, but it is too early yet to say that even a provisional solution has been reached.

Looking at the terms of the Bill, one feels that it is an obvious start in any scheme for making lay-bys or picnic sites for members of the public that we should use those sections of the highway which, on account of their being on corners or unsuitable, are no longer to be used for the highway itself. I suggest to the Minister that this new legislation might perhaps be looked at from that angle, and in conclusion I wish once again to give my support to the Bill and to congratulate those responsible for introducing it

I hate to spoil the effect of this mutual admiration society by saying that I do not like the Bill. I must say, however, that when I looked at the Bill I was astounded at the grip which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) has on the highway legislation of this country. I hope that he will be able to dispel or that my hon. Friend who is to reply for the Government will be able to dispel any thought that the Government are behind the Bill.

I dislike intensely the practice of introducing on Fridays Bills which have not really originated in the minds of the persons introducing them and which are merely an abuse of what is Private Members' Time for Government purposes. The last Bill which we discussed this morning was, as everyone knows, inspired by a private Member, and I think that he deserves great credit for it. I am not saying anything about my hon. Friend for introducing this Bill or even for having received assistance from the Government. I once did it myself. I introduced a three-Clause Bill the purpose of which was to allow ratings and officers of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines to have their births and marriages registered in England. What happened? It passed through this House, went to another place, the Title was changed, my three Clauses were knocked out, seven new ones were put in and it was sent back and it was still my Bill. I want to know whether that is likely to happen with this Bill.

This is a very complicated and difficult matter to deal with when there are so few Members in the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) made reference to the New Forest and to the fact that there was sometimes considerable trouble in the New Forest from animals. I have looked carefully through the Bill, and I cannot see any reference in it to any provisions for ensuring the safety of animals. If we are to have a Bill as wide as this, it seems to me to be a still further reason why it should be considered on a day when Government business is being considered and it should be dealt with in a very careful and responsible manner.

May I ask my hon. Friend if he has ever found any way in which we can legislate for animals? They cannot read, they have no knowledge of the law, and, if they are not under the control of a human being, I think that it would take very ingenious drafting to legislate for animals, even in this Bill.

That is the very point that I am making. Not only one but two hon. Members on this side of the House have referred to animals. One referred to racehorses and the other to ponies straying all over the New Forest

Is the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Wlliams) suggesting that the hon. Members who referred to what they would like to see in the Bill were not in order in doing so on Second Reading? Why should he condemn the Bill because of what other people have said on Second Reading?

The hon. Gentleman should know better than that. It is not for me to say what is in order but for Mr. Deputy-Speaker to pull up anyone who is not in order. I am saying that the Bill could have a very great effect and be very comprehensive. The two hon. Members who referred to animals will probably be contemplating putting down Amendments to the Bill if it ever gets to Standing Committee.

For years, on private Members' days, nearly all Private Members' Bills have related to animals. Therefore, when we have a Private Members' Bill which does not relate to animals, it is very natural that hon. Members should fall into that error.

I do not mind giving way, but I deprecate hon. Members making my speech for me. I was coming to the question of animal legislation, about which I wish to make some considerable reference.

There may be confusion in some people's minds whether this House can legislate for animals. I would remind you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that it will be within your recollection that this House has frequently legislated for animals, especially on Fridays. There was the Animal Boarding Establishments Bill. That was a monstrous Measure.

Reference to other Bills is in order but to go into a description of the Animal Boarding Establishments Bill when we are discussing the Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is going too wide.

I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. This Bill is trying to introduce Measures which were rightly turned down by the House of Commons when we were discussing the Animal Boarding Establishments Bill, which I resisted very strongly either here or in Standing Committee. This matter touches on a wide subject

In order that I should be adequately briefed to discuss this Bill, I have been studying this morning Halsbury's Laws of England. It will be within the recollection of the House that a great deal of Volume 19 is occupied with highway legislation. One point which I should like to hear referred to by the Minister when he gives the Government's views on this important piece of legislation is what effect the Bill will have on the Defence Acts. If he will refer to page 103, Volume 19 of the Third Edition of Halsbury's Laws of England he will find in paragraph 152 the statement:

"Under the Defence Acts. The Secretary of State for War may. without adopting any legal proceeding, stop up or divert or alter the level of any highway over or adjoining certain lands comprised in a declaration made and signed by his predecessor in office on or before 31st August 1861 "

Perhaps my hon. Friend will tell me the answer to that and what effect the Bill will have on that legislation. This Bill will have great repercussions on legislation passed through the House of Commons over the last hundred years. It will be noticed that the period since 1861 is almost a hundred years. I should like to know what effect the Bill will have on legislation dealing with highways between that time and now.

I feel that Clause 3 is a ruthless power to put into the hands of a highway authority. It reads:

"If it appears to the highway authority for any highway that a ditch on land adjoining or lying near to the highway constitutes a danger to users of the highway, the authority may—

(a) if they consider the ditch unnecessary for drainage purposes, fill it in; or

(b) place in the ditch, or in land adjoining or lying near to it, such pipes as they con- sider necessary in substitution for the ditch, and thereafter fill it in."

Is it right to do this? We had a considerable discussion a short time ago on a pipeline to be built to the Severn from Southampton Water. Strong views were expressed about it. It was thought monstrous that there should be this interference with private property by a company, which would put a pipeline over the southern part of England. It is wrong that a Clause as loose as this should be embodied in a Bill of this nature. It does not say how far people can go from the highway. It reads:

"…lying near to the highway…"

What does that mean? In these days we see on the roads the sign "Slow, Major Road ahead" I have never known what that means. If one is travelling at 80 miles per hour, has one to slow down to 60 miles per hour? That is the sort of vague and silly definition which irritates me. Clause 3 needs very careful consideration indeed in Committee. It will doubtless be a Government Committee; I do not think that it stands much chance of being sent to Standing Committee C.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch also referred to the state of lay-bys. Some lay-bys are filthy with papers, bottles, etc., lying about. A local authority can make use of powers which have been given by the House in an Act which I would have opposed had I been here, although I agree with the principles of that Act. I refer to the Litter Act, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir). The House passed that Act it provides adequate penalties for people who throw their litter about.

I say to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch that he should get his council to be as progressive as the Devon County Council. The latter has a number of inspectors who go round the country in their work. People who throw jam pot covers or ginger beer bottles or anything else which they like to fling about when they come to enjoy Devonshire in the summer can be jumped on and made to pick them up again. I am glad to hear from my hon. Friends that this is done elsewhere. In that case, I see no need for further legislation dealing with lay-bys.

Clause 5, again, is too much for me. It gives a highway authority power to remove

"any thing unlawfully deposited on the highway"

which

"constitutes a danger…to users of the highway;"

I wonder what that means. It has been held and sustained by the Court of Appeal that anything on a highway is an obstruction and therefore dangerous. No one has the right to be on a highway unless he is moving. Hon. and learned Members will support me in that statement. One has the right only to travel over the highway. Anything stationary on the highway is an obstruction. What will happen under the Clause? If someone's car runs out of petrol or the lights fail, will the local authority say that the car is unlawfully deposited on the highway, take it away and sell it under Section 128 of the principal Act, whatever that may be? This is a wide power to give to a highway authority. I agree that some power should be given to remove offensive articles on the highway—for example, a scythe which has fallen from the back of a cart—but I do not think that the powers should be as wide as this. In any case, certain powers already exist under other Statutes.

Clause 6 states what the highway authority may do with the article which it has removed from the highway. It can

"sell any thing removed …unless the thing is claimed by its owner before the expiration of three days from the date of its removal:"

The Clause says nothing about finding out who the owner is.

What about a child which has fallen out of a car?

I do not want to be frivolous. I do not think that that would come within the scope of the Bill.

Some provision ought to be made that steps should be taken to see who the owner of the property is before it is sold. The Clause says that the authority may

"recover from the owner of the thing which caused the obstruction…he expenses reasonably incurred…in carrying out the duty…".

There is no suggestion that a warning will be given to the owner before these expenses are incurred.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) referred to Clause 8, and I will not repeat all the points which he made. Apparently, in making an agreement to obtain land, all that is necessary is for the authority to publish

"once at least in each of two successive weeks…a notice giving particulars of the proposed agreement."

I do not think that that is satisfactory. We should always try to find out who is the owner of land. We may well find that he is abroad on holiday for a month or two. Surely it is reasonable that the owner of the land should be approached before this transfer takes place of a piece of his land to the highway authority. It is not sufficient to say that provided that a notice is published in some obscure local paper, that is all that need be done. We should see that the owner of the land is properly protected.

I am much averse to these complicated Bills being put through the House on a Friday. I shall have to consider carefully what steps to take when we decide whether to give the Bill a Second Reading. Whether it is given a Second Reading today or not, and whether I am successful in mounting enough support in the House to prevent it, I hope that if it reaches Standing Committee it will be changed by a considerable number of Amendments. I shall certainly put down a great number. I hope that the Bill will then return to the House in a very different state from that in which it is leaving the House this afternoon.

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) for not being in the Chamber to hear his speech moving the Second Reading of the Bill, but he knows that I moved the Second Reading of another Bill earlier. I hope that his Bill will be given a Second Reading, and I see no reason why it should not, but there are some points in it which give me cause for anxiety, and I think that the Bill will need to be looked at carefully in Committee.

The Bill has the support of the East Sussex County Council, in whose area my constituency lies. I received a message from the clerk yesterday asking me to support the Bill, and I am glad to do so, but I am not 100 per cent. pro-highway authority by any means. I think that they behave badly on many occasions, and if there is a serious fault in the Bill it is that it errs on the side of giving still more power to highway authorities and still less protection to owners of private property.

That is at any rate one supporter for me.

I certainly support some of the things which my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) said—everything he said on my Bill and some of the things he said on this Bill. Other hon. Members have referred to the fact that there is no provision in the Bill to deal with the problem of livestock which stray on the highway. There is in existence a Private Bill, sponsored by the R.A.C. and the A.A., which I looked at, the effect of which would be to make sure that if it could be proved in court that a property owner had not taken reasonable care to fence his property, for example, or a gate had carelessly been left open and cows had strayed dangerously on to the highway, then someone who had an accident and whose car was damaged as a consequence could make a claim against the owner of the livestock.

Is not that already covered by legislation? Although the fine, I know, is ridiculously small, the point is covered.

There may be some doubt about it in law. Last year when I was driving over Ashdown Forest, on the way to my constituency, I saw a large, fat ewe galloping down the road towards me at about 30 m.p.h. I was travelling at about the same speed, but I had time to stop, because I thought the animal might be slightly out of control. In fact it was, and when I was stationary it hit me at about 25 m.p.h. It did £90 worth of damage to my car. I have been driving since I was 17, which is quite a long time, and I am glad to say that, with this exception, I have had no accident. But I lost my no-claim bonus on this occasion, and I had no redress whatever. I took legal advice about it. It might be possible to incorporate in the Bill the kind of provisions which the motoring organisations suggest to improve the law in this respect. I make that suggestion to my hon. Friend. and perhaps he will consider it.

I am surprised that in Clause 1, which deals with footpaths and bridle-ways, the words "right of way" are not used. A great many owners of private property suffer from the fact that when a footpath is shown on the map it is regarded by many people as a right of way. They do not look at the bottom of the ordnance map, which makes it clear that the fact that a footpath is marked on the map does not mean that it is a right of way. Will my hon. Friend consider this point in order (to make clear the distinction between those footpaths for which highway authorities and parish councils have responsibility and others which cross private land and over which these bodies have no authority? I think that the Clause is on the right lines, because we know that rights of way all over the country have often been badly maintained. Sometimes one's own experience is more interesting than generalisation. There is a right of way across the corner of my small property in Sussex. It is sometimes overgrown with brambles and virtually impassable, and it has a stile which is a positive danger. It is not properly maintained. If this Clause gives highway authorities the power to co-operate with parish councils and others concerned to make sure that existing rights of way on the county council's map are properly maintained, I warmly welcome it.

Clause 2 deals with the powers of highway and local authorities to plant and protect trees in highways, etc. I want to draw attention to a most excellent Government publication entitled "Trees in Town and City", published by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. It costs 7s. 6d., which is jolly expensive, but it is very good value for money, although for 7s. 6d. one does not expect to get a paper-back. It is a very good booklet and I hope that every local authority in the country which has not studied it will read it with the utmost care.

One thing which horrifies me as a tree lover is that more often than not the the wrong trees are planted in the wrong places. In his introduction to this excellent booklet my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government says:

"Hardly a street could not be improved, if someone would give thought to planting the right trees in the right places."

The booklet contains ghastly examples of What I can only describe as vandalism on the part of local authorities—mopheaded street planes, drastic mutilation of trees, and badly treated lime and many other trees. It is full of photographs showing that over and over again people plant a little tree about 5 or 6 feet high and suppose that it will grow to about 15 or 20 feet when in fact the tree wants to grow to 100 feet. The bigger the tree gets the more they have to lash into it and the more horrible it looks. I hope very much that my right hon. Friend will look at the Clause to see if he can impose on local authorities the requirement to plant appropriate trees.

Far too often wrong trees are planted. Far too often trees are not properly looked after. It would be very pleasant if in a Bill of this kind it was possible to include a form of words which would go a long way to ensuring that the right trees are planted in the right places and are properly cared for. There should be a requirement on highway authorities to look after them.

Clause 3 deals with ditches and pipes. I have always felt that highway authorities are very high handed and show lack of consideration of the rights of private property owners, large and small—I mean people owning a quarter of an acre as well as large farmers and landowners —in the way in which they drain highways. Authorities frequently drain highways in the place which is cheapest for them and simplest but which does the maximum damage and causes the greatest possible inconvenience to landowners. For example, they do not bother to pipe water down a ditch into a natural drainage area. They pipe it through a culvert in the place which happens to suit them, and it floods somebody's woodland or field or garden. I am suffering from this. I do not want to plead my own case. I have already lost it, and I shall pay for a diversion. However, one's own experiences are illuminating. There are many cases in my constituency—many hon. Members will have the same experiences—where the highway authority gives far too little consideration to the rights of private property owners in the way in which they drain the highways.

Would it not be possible to include a provision in the Bill requiring authorities to give full consideration to the rights of property owners instead of simply giving the one answer every time, "We have a prescriptive right to drain the highway"? It does not matter when they started draining it, whether the village has been built up and there is far more water coming down the road, or whether there is a garage in the neighbourhood with paraffin flowing down the road and killing shrubs. None of these things seems to matter to the highway authorities. It is simply concerned to drain the highway. I hope that it will be possible to ensure that the rights of private property owners are given full consideration and that we do not simply extend the power of highway authorities.

Clause 6 deals with the removal of obstructions from highways. When I used to drive down to my constituency at the weekend—I still do—there was a road in the West Sussex County Council area which was obstructed for more than eighteen months. There was single-lane traffic. It is the main road to Eastbourne. It also goes down to Lewes and Newhaven in my constituency and, for instance, to Hastings and Rye. The road is absolutely packed with traffic every weekend. There were hundreds of cars piled up. Yet whenever I passed this spot there would be 15 or 20 men on the job, supposedly, with never more than one or two of them working.

Can we not require local authorities, not only to light or remove obstructions which somebody else may have put on the road, but also to light their own obstructions properly and get on with the job? Has the road user any redress against a highway authority which unreasonably obstructs use of the highway? In this case, about which I asked a Parliamentary Question and received a jolly bad answer, I am certain that the job could have been done easily within a month. It took more than eighteen months. There was a gross lack of consideration for highway users.

I do not mention these points in any carping spirit, because I think that the Bill on the whole contains some excellent things, but I think it errs too much on the side of giving more power to highway authorities without sufficient consideration being given to the ordinary members of the long-suffering general public. I should be very grateful if my hon. Friend would be good enough to look at the Bill in that light.

I apologise for not having been present to listen to all the speeches. I want to refer to one matter only which I understand has already been touched upon to some extent, but I am afraid I was unable to hear what was said. The Bill is a very useful one, and I strongly support it. However, I am sorry that the opportunity has not been taken to deal with the very vexed question of the non-liability of highway authorities in cases which come within the doctrine of nonfeasance.

This is an excellent opportunity of putting right a wrong which has persisted for a long time. It is extraordinary that we hold a highway authority liable for accidents which occur as a result of misfeasance—that is, as a direct result of something done, some positive act of negilgence on the part of the highway authority. However, in the many cases of accidents which have arisen—there have been some very grievous ones—resulting from lack of repair, want of repair, or failure to repair on the part of highway authorities, we shelter the highway authority behind the doctrine of nonfeasance. The result is that highway authorities are not liable for what in many cases are the serious consequences of accident.

This matter was discussed in great detail by a committee of the General Council of the Bar. The committee made recommendations and pointed out how very anomalous the position is and how very wrong it is that highway authorities are able to escape from liability on the grounds of non-feasance.

I do not wish to detain the House at any length, but I should like to read the reasons which were given for favouring some provision which would make it clear that a highway authority should be liable for the results of non-feasance. The committee said:

"1. It is a doctrine which finds its origin in reasoning which is no longer applicable or relevant to present-day circumstances. The original reasons for the exemption no longer exist."

That is true. The legal background appears to be that no action may be laid against an unincorporated body—that is, where all the members of the parish were liable. Although that has been changed and the position now is that a highway authority clearly is not in the position of an unincorporated body, non-liability still persists apparently because of the original reason.

The second reason is:

"It creates an exemption from liability in one particular branch of the law which qualifies it as a quaint anomaly."

It is curious that there should be liability on an individual or on anybody except a highway authority. Why there should be non-liability on the part of a highway authority I do not know.

The third reason is:

"It is one which from time to time leads to grave injustice."

There have been that.

Then we read:

"In view of the increasing number of road accidents any measure calculated to improve road conditions as desirable."

This is such a Measure, and the hon. Member has, by this Bill, a splendid opportunity to put right something that has been wrong for a long time.

The Committee also says:

"A situation in which highway authorities alone escape liability for breaches of their own statutory duties is hardly supportable."

Highway authorities ought to look after the roads under their control, and ought to have a positive duty of examining them from time to time and seeing that they are in good condition. It must strike anybody as being quite wrong that when the paving of a road has sunk because of neglect and someone trips on an edge and is injured, that person should have no right, because of that doctrine. to recover damages.

The Report also says:

"No single effective argument can be raised to support its continuance in modern conditions."

That, shortly, is my case. As I have said, this is a very useful Bill, indeed. A grave injustice has continued for a long period, and the injustice is well recognised, so I hope that in Committee the hon. Member will see fit to put something in the Bill to rectify that anomaly.

I should, perhaps, make it clear that in intervening in this debate I am not indicating any desire on the part of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation to make a take-over bid for any other transport functions. Indeed, I would be very sorry to be in the position to have to give to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) any more of those alleged unsatisfactory replies that he says he has received.

My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport is unwell, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is fulfilling public engagements in Lancashire that he could not very well cancel at short notice. I am sure the House will understand the position and why it falls to me to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) on having been successful in the Ballot, and on having taken the opportunity to introduce this very useful Measure.

I should like to add to the tributes my hon. Friend has received from both sides by congratulating him also on having explained the Bill's purpose so lucidly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren) said, much of highway law is of very ancient origin. This is, perhaps, less obvious since it has been consolidated in the Highways Act, 1959, but we have only to look at the Twenty-fifth Schedule to see that a very great deal of old legislation is involved in the consideration of this subject.

Like my hon. Friend, I had some time on my hands earlier this morning, and I took the opportunity to look up that old favourite, Pratt and Mackenzie's standard work on highways. Unlike him, I could not go through the whole thousand pages, but I refreshed my mind by re-reading part of Magna Carta, 1297, and the Highways Act., 1835.

Although many of the basic principles of our highway legislation remain essentially sound, it is not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West said, altogether surprising that same parts could be tidied up, since many of the old Acts dealt more with the conditions of the pack horse and stage coach than of the motor car.

I think that hon. Members on both sides will agree that the Highways Act of 1959 was itself a considerable achievement. It was badly needed, but it was only a consolidation, or, occasionally, a restatement of the existing law. Those who were responsible for it—and I am thinking particularly of the Committee on the Consolidation of Highway Law under the able Chairmanship of Lord Reading—were very conscious of the numerous gaps. defects and archaisms which required some remedy for the future. I am glad to see in the Chamber my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) who, together with the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), served with great distinction on that Committee and contributed very much to its deliberations.

I can tell the House that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport hopes in due course to undertake a complete review of some of the defects that exist, but that will inevitably take time. It is very obvious from today's discussion that highway law is not one of the simplest branches with which we have to deal. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes said, we have to reconcile and adjust the rights and duties of individuals and of public authorities, and hold a proper balance between private rights and public needs. We have also to try to resolve possible conflicts between various types of authority that have powers and obligations in respect of works on, under or over the same piece of land.

Meanwhile, I am sure that the House will feel that this Bill is a very valuable first step in the review of our highway law. I appreciate that in drafting it, my hon. Friend has had the advice and assistance of highway authorities and, in particular, the local authority associations. As the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) says, it is of very real value to have the support of such bodies as 'the County Councils Association in these matters. It shows that these Clauses, miscellaneous though they are, have been very carefully considered and represent what we feel can usefully be done at the present time.

Whilst, therefore, the Bill introduces no great innovations, the Government feel that it promises a useful amendment of the existing law, and clarifies a number of really important points. As my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) said, the content is a matter for my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds, and it is therefore not very appropriate for me to deal at great length with all the matters raised in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West dealt with misfeasance and non-feasance, and the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) and other hon. Members also referred to that matter. That is a much more controversial issue than those dealt with in the Bill, and I would only say that it might be a pity to miss a quincentenary when the oldest living inhabitants, as it were, who are accustomed to giving evidence at highway cases would have had a suitable opportunity for mild celebration.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will pay close attention to the detailed points that may arise on Second Reading, and I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government to the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend on the subject of tree planting generally. I certainly shall not try to bring various furry friends—cattle, sheep, ponies and the rest—into the discussion.

I think that the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter have been exaggerated, but no doubt he will pursue his points with his usual vigour at another time. I might point out at once, for example, that his references to ignoring the owner in reaching agreements under Clause 8 are, perhaps, not correct. As I understand the position, there has to be an agreement with the owner, and the notices are subsequently issued for the benefit of other parties who might be interested.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut.-Commander Maydon) said that Clause 1 would be useful because, among other reasons, it would prevent footpaths and bridleways not being maintained because of lack of funds. I think the mischief that Clause 1 cures is a legal difficulty rather than a matter which arises through lack of funds. As I understand it, county councils are the highway authorities for all public footpaths and bridleways maintainable at the public expense, and they are responsible for their maintenance, the parish councils having concurrent powers of maintenance under Section 46 of the 1959 Act as it now stands. Although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds explained, the county councils do the work of maintenance themselves, it is very often much more convenient for local people employed by the parish councils to do it. Unfortunately, if that happens at present county councils have no legal power to contribute to the cost of such works. Clause 1 will put right that defect in the law.

It has been rightly emphasised that the great value of this Bill is that it will enable the highway authorities to take useful action where necessary in the interests particularly of road safety and road users generally. It will enable them in many of these cases to act more swiftly and effectively without endangering any individual rights that ought to be protected. These new powers will be available to highway authorities generally—that is both to local authorities and to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport in relation to trunk roads.

I can give my hon. Friend the assurance for which he asked, that the Government will try to facilitate the passage of this Measure by providing the necessary Financial Resolution. We consider it a sound and admirable Measure, and I have no hesitation in commending it to the House.

I felt some considerable alarm when I saw the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation rise to his feet, because I can think of nobody who has a stronger vested interest in wrecking highways than the Minister of Aviation. But I have been mollified by the helpful account that he has given of the Government's attitude to this Bill, and I certainly agree with him that it is a highly desirable Bill and should be supported.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), I did not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken), but for different reasons. I was not asleep. I did, however, hear the speech of the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), and that removed any doubts from my mind that this Bill ought to be supported.

I have a small query about the question of nonfeasance and misfeasance. I think that before any decision is taken on including such a provision in this Bill, it is desirable to get the views of the local authority associations, because broadly in large rural areas the highway authority is at risk for a very large measure of financial responsibility—and that means the ratepayers—if there is a large area involved and if the highway authority is legally liable for non-feasance.

Like the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn), I wondered whether this Bill might not be useful in London. I know that there are not many grass verges or ditches in the Edgware Road, but there are certainly things dropped yin that highway, and this Bill might be useful in securing the removal of such things and cleaning up the highways. The county council is not the highway authority in London, and I do not know whether that would present any difficulties, but that point might possibly be considered at a later stage.

I warmly support the Bill and hope that it will have a happy progress through the House.

Perhaps I might deal with that point relating to London. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) dealt with it when he said that the difficulty so far as London is concerned is that the highway law has not in general been consolidated in the Highways Act, 1959. I think that raises considerable technical difficulties.

My hon. Friend means in relation to London, of course.

I beg to move, That the Bill he now read a Second time.

The broad affect of this Bill is to enact into the law of this country The Hague Protocol of 29th September, 1955, which amends the Warsaw Convention of 1929 relating to carriage by air.

The Bill proceeds by way of repealing the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, which embodied the original Warsaw Convention and by re-enacting the Warsaw Convention, as it is modified by The Hague Protocol of 1955. It follows from what I have said that the Bill is primarily a ratification Bill. It gives effect, so far as this country is concerned, to something in the nature of an international treaty which we cannot ratify until we have made the necessary changes in our own domestic law.

At the outset of this somewhat complicated Measure I should express my gratitude for the help which I have received in the preparation of the Bill. It would have been quite beyond the resources of an unofficial Member to draft a Bill of this character. It will, indeed, be a sufficient operation to carry it through its stages in the House.

In the consideration of the Bill it may be divided into two parts: that which merely embodies into our domestic law the terms of the Convention, and those parts of the Bill which make provisions which are not absolutely essential to the ratification of the Hague Protocol—and might be described as optional parts of the Bill. The intention of the Warsaw Convention was to unify the private law of different States relating to carriage by air primarily in respect to liability to passengers or their goods and in respect to documents of carriage. Those two separate aspects are linked together. As to the definition of "liability," the amended Convention which we are considering in the Bill, proceeds upon the same general scheme as its predecessor, the unamended Warsaw Convention, that there is, first of all, a limit to the compensation which may be recovered in respect of personal injury or damage to goods as the result of an air accident. Under the Convention at present in force in the 1932 Act, damages in respect of a passenger are limited to about £3,000 for death or injury. In respect of damage to goods, whether cargo or passengers' personal effects, the present limit, under the 1929 Convention and the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, is in round terms about £2 10s. per lb. avoirdupois. In fact, these things are calculated in a nostalgic unit called the gold franc, with the details of which I need not trouble the House.

On the first point, the change introduced by the Bill and the Protocol is exactly to double the maximum. The maximum under the Bill if passed into law will be £6,000 in respect of each passenger. On the second point, damage to goods, there will be no change in the maximum.

Are the limits which the hon. Member mentions with or without insurance?

This has nothing to do with insurance, which would be something additional to be effected by the passenger if he thought fit. The Bill is to regulate the liability in law of the carrier for what might be described as the wrong or injury which he does to the passenger or to the goods.

Does that mean that the operator will be responsible in the amounts the hon. Member mentions, quite apart from any separate insurance which a passenger might take out?

It is quite clear in our law and in the law of other countries also, as far as I know, though I cannot speak with any authority on that, that insurance policies are quite irrelevant to the amount of damages recoverable. They do not in any way diminish a claim for damages. They are additional to it.

Will my hon. Friend say whether there are similar limitations on compensation placed on carriers in this country? For instance, has the British Transport Commission to pay only a certain amount of compensation?

There is a very close analogy indeed with carriage by sea which is governed by similar international conventions and similar legis- lation in this country, but carriage on land has never in practice been governed by international convention. For what are, perhaps, obvious reasons, it has been regulated by contract between the parties, which, incidentally, has not always proved more satisfactory.

The next element of the scheme upon which the Convention proceeds, after limiting the compensation which can be recovered for these occurrences, is to extend the liability of the carrier by virtually, although not completely, providing that he has to pay whenever anything happens. He can escape liability if he can prove that he did everything necessary to prevent the occurrence, but since it has, very naturally, been pointed out that if he had done everything necessary to prevent it happening it would not have happened, the effect of the Convention in practice has been virtually to make the carrier the insurer of the passenger and of the goods up to those limits. Thus, the passenger, while he loses by a limitation on the amount which he can recover, gains by a much greater certainty amounting almost to total certainty that he will at least recover up to 'the amount. He will not have to argue about liability.

The House will find the various Articles of the amended Convention set out in the First Schedule. Article 22 which deals with the limit of compensation and Article 20 which gives the definition of liability are to be found on page 12 of the Bill as printed.

There are circumstances in which a passenger can obtain unlimited compensation from the carrier—for instance, where he can show wilful misconduct, or something equivalent, on the part of the carrier. That is a very difficult thing to prove and, in effect, it means that, except in a glaring and extraordinary case, it is the limits of the Convention which govern compensation. But in an extraordinary case it might be possible to show wilful misconduct by the operator leading to the damage.

Here I come to the second change which is made in the Protocol, because the wording has been very considerably tightened up. It appears in Article 25 on page 13 of the Bill:

"…that the damage resulted from an act or omission of the carrier, his servants or agents, clDne with intent to cause damage or recklessly and with knowledge that damage would probably result"

That is stronger wording than "wilful misconduct" and therefore would seem to narrow the right of a passenger to obtain unrestricted compensation.

In this country the change will have virtually no effect. It is made really to deal with American juries who have been rather willing to find wilful misconduct so that unlimited compensation is awarded where they felt it desirable. Our own courts here—we have not for some time had juries in civil cases of this kind — have always interpreted "wilful misconduct" in what one might call the expected sense. There is a considerable body of opinion which believes that it will have no effect in America either and that American juries will not be defeated by this small change of wording. However it is a change in the Bill.

The fourth element of the scheme concerns the time limit on claims by the aggrieved person or his dependants. In the case of personal injury, the limit remains at two years. In the case of damage to property, there were before some extremely harsth time limits of three, seven or fourteen days according to the nature of the damage to the articles. They have been extended in the Bill to seven, fourteen and twenty-one days which will be a considerable alleviation to people who have to make claims for damage to their chattels or cargo. The period may still seem rather short, but we must protect the operators as well as the passenger oar cosignoir. We must give the operator a chance of checking to see what has happened while the matter is still fresh. We are dealing with a bargain struck between fifty different countries, every one of which has its own ideas of what is fair and equitable. All that one can do is get the best bargain one can. Having got it, unfortunately, one has to take it or leave it. One can either ratify the Protocol or refuse to do so.

Another considerable improvement in relation to liability is the deletion of the exception for negligent navigation. Under the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, the carrier can escape all liability in respect of cargo and passengers' baggage if he shows that the damage occurred through negligent navigation. That is borrowed from the carriage by sea provisions, where it has always struck me as a rather extraordinary exception, but it is well established in them. It appeared in the Warsaw Convention, but I am glad to say that under the Hague Protocol it disappears. Therefore, that defence would no longer be available to a carrier and if damage were done to chattels, unless he could show that he had done everything necessary to avoid it is almost impossible to do if it, which damage happens, the consignor will succeed in recovering his damages.

I hope that the hon. Member will deal with one important point. Article 22 specifies the amount of damage or liability in francs. There is a complicated definition of francs in Article 22 (5) and the Bill states that the Minister may from time to time specify what that means. Would it not be better if we could have the reference in the Bill to liability in British currency, so that we know where we are?

At present, I am simply describing the changes introduced by the Hague Protocol, which is annexed to the Bill. Having done that, I will then come to the Clauses of the Bill, which introduce various glosses and what I call some optional provisions. What I have been saying up to now does not appear in the Bill but can only be derived from a reading of the Protocol itself in the Schedule to the Bill.

Now we understand.

The hon. Member will find that it is necessary to know what the Schedule does before one considers the minor, consequential and, to some extent, optional variations which appear in the Clauses of the Bill. I will deal with the point presently when I come to the Clause which deals with it.

Another change which appears in the Protocol and in the Schedule, but not in the Clauses of the Bill, is that the servants or agents of the carrier are protected in the same way as the carrier by limitation of liability. In the past, it was doubtful whether the servants or agents of the air corporations were protected by the limitation of liability. There was always the risk that a person injured in an air accident might sue the servant or agent and so escape the provisions of the Convention and, incidentally, visit possibly enormous liabilities upon an unfortunate employee of the corporations. That is corrected in Article 25A of the scheduled Protocol.

Coming, as I must, briefly to the documents of carriage, the changes are of three main kinds. The first is to reduce greatly the complication which is required in the ticket so that the carrier shall enjoy the protection of the Convention. At present, a quite minor slip in writing out the ticket will deprive the carrier of protection under the Convention, and not merely deprive him of the limit to compensation, but, by a strict reading of the existing Convention, subject him to unlimited liability even if he is not at fault and the accident should be caused by the negligence of the person injured.

Under Article 3, on pages 7 and 8 of the Bill, the carrier need only insert the particulars which are there specified, which are roughly these: the starting point and the destination of the journey and if these are not in different countries both contracting parties one stop in a different country to show that it is international carriage; and also a notice drawing the attention of the passenger to the fact that the provisions of the Warsaw Convention probably apply to his journey. The object of that is to warn him that the compensation would be limited and that he had better take out an insurance if he wants more reassurance against injury. It is essential that that warning should appear on the ticket so that the passenger knows where he is and can put his 2s. into the machine or take whatever consequential action he thinks proper.

Therefore, it is laid down in the Convention, as amended by the Protocol, that if that notice does not appear on the ticket, the carrier is open to unlimited liability, though not to liability if he is not really at fault, and, for example, the accident was the fault of the passenger. In that respect, there is a change—a very obvious change—for What I think must have been an inadvertence in the Warsaw Convention itself.

In relation to passengers' baggage, there is a distinction in the Convention that the carrier must issue a baggage check to the passenger in respect of all his baggage, except small articles carried by the passenger himself and for which the passenger therefore accepts responsibility. We all know how that operates when we make an air journey. One has a baggage check, but not for the things that are carried on one's arm. It is very difficult to distinguish, in law, between small articles which a passenger takes with him and perhaps larger articles which he also takes with him and for which he ought to have a baggage check. The Protocol clears that up, and provides that there are two kinds of baggage; those for which the baggage check is in fact issued, which come under the Convention, and those for which a check is not issued, which therefore come under the definition of articles which the passenger is taking with him and for which a single maximum figure is given.

Those are the main changes I wish to emphasise, because, at this late stage of the afternoon, I feel that we should not go into the enormous detail, which we could do when we come to analysing the Protocol, and I now turn to the Clauses of the Bill. The first Clause introduces a novelty into English legislation, because it annexes the Protocol in its French text to an English Bill. So far as I know, that has never been done in an Act of Parliament hitherto, but it seems to be inevitable, because the French text is the one which must prevail in the event of any discrepancy between the French, English and Spanish texts, which are the three texts. It has been found in relation to carriage by sea that even though the French text of the Carriage by Sea Convention was not scheduled in the Carriage by Sea Act, 1932, nevertheless, the courts have felt at liberty to examine the French text and modify their interpretation of the Statute by reference to it. Therefore, in this Bill the step has been taken of actually scheduling the French text.

Clause 1 also provides that the Clause, and therefore the Bill, comes into force only on such date as Her Majesty may by order appoint, and the reason for that is that the Protocol itself will not come into force until 30 States have ratified it, and up to now only 18 have done so. It is essential not to bring the Bill into force before 30 ratifications are available, because otherwise, owing to a slight oversight at the time of the Convention, the Warsaw Convention would be annulled before the Protocol came into force. That would be an unfortunate gap.

Clause 2 provides for the definition of High Contracting Parties, and that is merely to deal with a legal difficulty which arose in the past and with which I will not trouble the House today.

Clause 3, which seems a little enigmatic on the face of it, is merely put in to please Scottish lawyers who have hitherto been rather annoyed that Lord Campbell's Act has been inadvertently applied to Scotland for carriage by air under the 1932 Act. The Clause corrects that unintended invasion.

Clause 4 deals with some consequential provisions relating to the English law of joint tortfeasor, with which again I think the House will not have much concern, and it also makes certain that there can be no duplication of damages by the claimant proceeding in a number of different countries and getting accumulated totals each one limited by the Convention but undiminished by previous ones.

Then I come to the point which the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd), who has now left the Chamber, raised by way of an intervention, and that is the power of the Minister of Aviation to specify in £ sterling value the gold francs. That is a novel provision and one which certainly could be considered in Committee. Hitherto the practice enjoined by the 1932 Act has been for the value of the gold francs in sterling to be ascertained as at the date of judgment. That has not in fact produced any difficulty in operation though it probably has caused a certain amount of trouble. The gold quotation in London on the day that the judgment is given has to be ascertained. There is power under the Convention for each country to round the figure off in terms of its national currency, and it has been thought simpler that an Order in Council should give the actual amount.

At to the provisions which I mentioned relating to actions against servants or agents in Clause 5, a time limit of two years is applied to them because it was omitted from the Convention, possibly by inadvertance, and it is thought wrong that a person who is debarred by effluxion of time should recover damages out of time by going against the servant or agent because at the Hague in 1955 this point was overlooked. Therefore it is filled in by Clause 5, which also applies the Convention to arbitration.

I think the only other matter to which I ought now to draw the attention of the House is Clause 10, which allows Her Majesty by Order in Council to apply provisions of the amended Convention to carriage by air which is not international. The Convention itself only applies to international carriage as defined in it, which means carriage from the territory of one contracting party to the territory of another contracting party or at any rate with an intermediate stop. If it is internal carriage inside the territory of one contracting party there must be at any rate an intermediate stop outside that territory, and from that hon. Members will see that there is a good deal of carriage which is not international carriage, for example, carriage between the territories of countries which are not contracting parties, or our own domestic airlines which are entirely inside our own jurisdiction and to those to the Convention does not apply unless it is specially applied by an Order in Council.

The existing Convention has been so applied since 1952 and Clause 10 provides for the amended Convention to be equally so applied. There is a little difference here to draw to the attention of the House. The new provision is wider because it is thought desirable that it should apply to gratuitous carriage which hitherto has not been covered by the provisions of the Air Navigation Order and also to carriage by a carrier who is not an air corporation and at present lies outside the Convention.

The Convention does not apply to the Crown and hon. Members who have taken a trip in Crown aircraft know that they have been asked to sign something which is flippantly called a "blood-chit", because if they did not sign it the Crown might find itself open to unlimited liability if they were injured. The Bill would enable the Crown to take advantage of limitation of liability and the ordinary civil passenger rules to apply, and for what it is worth hon. Members would no longer have to sign a "blood-chit" whenever they went for trips in Crown aircraft.

There are other provisions such as those applying the Convention to stowaways who naturally enough have no tickets. There are many similar small matters in the Bill but I think that I have said enough to indicate the general nature of the Measure. While I appreciate that there will be many comments to be made about it in Committee and that the Bill will have to have detailed consideration there, I will say no more because I know that other hon. Members have some comments to make on it this afternoon

As one hon. Member who has signed quite a number of "blood-chits" I welcome the Bill, but it is not purely from selfish personal interest that I do so. I welcome it also because I think that it is an important Measure and I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) on choosing this as his subject. Like the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) I am very fond of animals but, as he pointed out, we have had so many Private Members' Bills dealing with animals that it is a welcome change to find that there are other subjects in which hon. Members are interested.

I feel some sorrow that the Bill means attending the funeral of the Warsaw Convention and the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, because they were very important and friendly Measures which brought order out of chaos. Before we had them there were no uniform rules or laws which defined liability, even in respect of passengers. National laws differed, with the result that there was great confusion.

After the last war I was told a little about this when the Convention was being examined by I.C.A.O. I spent a happy day in Montreal in 1945 with members of the Legal Committee who were then working on the Convention. They drafted what became the new Convention.

Although this is a Private Member's Bill, two of the questions which I should like to ask are inevitably addressed to the Government. First, there is the matter of ratification. Clause 1 (3) provides that Her Majesty by Order in Council may certify the day on which the Con- vention comes into force in the United Kingdom.

Clause 1 of the Bill which gives the force of law to the Convention is to come into force on that day. Thirty ratifications are needed and I did not know until the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South pointed it out that there have been eighteen ratifications so far. I should like an assurance that there will be no question of our not ratifying only because eighteen and not twenty-nine other nations have ratified. Timing is important in this matter. If we hang back, nobody will get anywhere.

I do not understand the point of Clause 3. I understand that the invasion of Scotland's principles of law by Lord Campbell's Act displeased the Scottish lawyers, but is the effect of Clause 3 to make uniform the United Kingdom law? Or is it to revert to the old national laws for different parts of te United Kingdom?

It is the latter.

In relation to Clause 4, I ask the Government for an assurance that they will keep up to date the orders giving effect to subsection (4). Over the years there has been an inflation of the value of the pound, especially in the last ten years, bringing its value down from 20s. to 15s. and that tendency, though not perhaps at the same rate, is Rely to continue over a period in the future. It is important, therefore, if the provision becomes law, that the Department concerned shall continually keep this matter under review and make changes in the law.

How can Parliament change the law? As I understand it, this gives effect to some international proposal, and there is no chance of the law on a Convention being changed unless we have another international proposal.

The fault is mine for using the word "law". If the hon. Gentleman will look at Clause 4 (4) he will see that it states:

"The Minister of Aviation may from time to time by order…specify the respective amounts which for the purposes of the said Article 22 and in particular of paragraph (5)…"

that is to say, they translate this gold definition into English sterling. We can discuss that more fully in Committee if the hon. Gentleman is interested. but at the moment I will not weary the House any further on the point. I do not know of any other case where there is a power like this for a Government Department, and it is up to the Department to see that it s brought up to date.

I am chiefly concerned with Clause 1 (2) which stales:

"If there is any inconsistency between the text in English in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act and the text in French of Part II of that Schedule, the text in French shall prevail."

The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South said that so far as he knew this was without precedent in modern times. It is true that for many centuries we worked with the French language, and we have had a variety of French, English and doe Latin. But now we have become accustomed to working in English and indeed in Erskine May, Chapter XIX, page 444, it states:

"A Member must address the House in English."

What happens when we are in Committee and wish to amend something? What is the effect if we are referring to the French text which, after all, prevails over the English text, if we can discuss that only in the English language? We have all experienced problems in the translating of English into French and French into English, and I should like some information on that point. I welcome the Bill and I feel that the hon. Member far Buckinghamshire, South will play the rôle of a rapporteur.

As was said by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas), my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) is to be congratulated on having introduced a valuable Measure which I am sure will be welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The object of this Bill, as he clearly indicated, is to make possible the ratification of the Hague Protocol of 1955 amending the Warsaw Convention of 1929 relating to liability of air carriers engaged in international carriage.

As my hon. Friend indicated, the Hague Protocol of 1955 provides for the doubling of the present limit of liability for injury or death of a passenger from about £3,000 to about £6,000; and for making other minor amendments, to which he referred, to the liability of air carriers for damage to passengers' baggage and cargo. I say "about" because as the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd), indicated in his intervention, the exact sums are expressed in the Convention in terms of a gold currency unit known, I think, as the Poincare franc, which does not now exist and which I do not think ever existed at all.

It exists notionally.

It exists notionally, certainly, for the purpose of this Convention.

That is the difficulty which gives rise to the provision in Clause 4 (4) to which the hon. Member for Lincoln referred. The subsection provides for the periodical specification of the sterling equivalents of the liability limits in the Convention expressed in these gold currency units. I think, of course, we should all appreciate, if that is to mean anything at all, that the periodic review must take place as and when there is some fluctuation in the limit of liability through fluctuation in the price of gold or for some other reason.

No doubt the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South about the provisions under the 1932 Act and which were somewhat different can be discussed later in Committee. As the hon. Member for Lincoln said, the Protocol does not come into effect until thirty States have ratified. I think that my hon. Friend is right in saying that the number of States so far which have done so is seventeen or eighteen. I have no doubt that if the Bill is passed it will encourage further ratifications.

The hon. Member for Lincoln put some specific points on the effect of Clause 1 (3). The effect of that is to bring the Section into force on a day to be appointed. The reason for this is that the Protocol does not come into effect until ninety days have passed after the thirtieth ratification. The intention is, I understand, that a number of States, including the United Kingdom—if this Measure commends itself to the House—will deposit their ratification simultaneously so that the Protocol comes into force and the denunciation of the unamended Convention takes effect on a prearranged day. That is a matter of machinery which should work effectively and which we could, perhaps, discuss in detail later.

As my hon. Friend indicated, this Bill is modelled on the lines of the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, which it repeals and replaces, so perhaps the hon. Member for Lincoln is not quite right in thinking that it has disappeared altogether. The 1932 Act scheduled the original Warsaw Convention, and in the same way this Bill schedules the Convention as modified by the Protocol.

I understand the interest displayed in the provision of Clause 1 (2) which relates to the fact that the text in French in the Schedule shall prevail in the event of a dispute. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South pointed out, his Measure also schedules the text in French. The hon. Member for Lincoln raised an interesting point about what may happen in Committee when we start speaking in French. I do not think that we shall be able to amend the French text because, as the hon. Gentleman will see, one of the provisions of the First Schedule sets out Article 36 which states:

"The Convention is drawn up in French in a single copy whch shall remain deposited in the archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Poland and of which one duly certified copy shall be sent by the Polish Government to the Government of each of the High Contracting Parties."

That will be a duly authorised text. The Hague Protocol which amended the Convention was in three authentic texts—English, French and Spanish. It was provided that in the case of any inconsistency between these three texts the French should prevail

The House may feel that as the Bill affects the rights of individuals it may well be appropriate that a litigant who may not have access to the French text, although no doubt it will be placed in the Foreign Office treaty series in due course, should not be exposed to any risk of having it said at some later stage that some relevant matter in the Schedule was inconsistent with the French text. While in the particular circumstances of this Convention and this Bill it may be thought right to accept the text in a foreign language, I do not think that this ought necessarily to be regarded as a precedent for doing so invariably. I do not think that any difficulty arises so far as the courts are concerned because they have plenty of precedents for referring to French texts.

Does not this difficulty arise in the case of other protocols?

It may be on looking back that it would have been a good thing if we had scheduled the text in French to the 1932 Act. But one has to make a start somewhere and my hon. Friend has taken this course in this Bill. I do not think that it would apply to every Convention, certainly not to those Conventions which are concerned much more with the rights of States and relationships between States than with the rights of indivduals. This is a Bill which is particularly and peculiarly concerned with the rights of individuals to compensation. It is, therefore, particularly important that an individual litigant should be able to see in one document exactly what is the law which he is asking the Courts to interpret.

The hon. Member for Lincoln also raised the question of Clause 3. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South said that this applies to air fatalities the provisions of the Fatal Accidents Act, 1846, thereby creating an action in tort on the part of the deceased's dependents. This Clause does not apply to Scotland, but Clause 11 in fact contains adaptations to Scots law which results in the law of fatal accidents in international carriage by air being the same in Scotland as the law applying to other fatal accidents. The 1932 Act, as he pointed out, took a somewhat different line by including a second schedule applying uniform treatment in the case of air accidents occurring anywhere in the United Kingdom. I am sure that the House will probably wish to allow the Scots this measure of individuality. It is a point Which we could discuss, perhaps in greater detail, later on.

There may be a number of quite difficult points on matters of detail which will arise to be considered in Committee, but I hope that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading. My hon. Friend is to be congratulated on having introduced this measure. It is a helpful Measure, and I think that it ought to be widely welcomed on both sides of the House.

I should perhaps mention Clause 10 and confirm that what my hon. Friend said about the effect of that Clause. As in the case of Section 4 of the 1932 Act, under which such an Order was made, this includes non-international carriage, such as domestic carriage and carriage between the United Kingdom and a dependent territory. This goes a little further in so far that it will be possible to apply such an Order both to gratuitous carriage by a carrier as he mentioned, or to the carriage of stowaways. I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill.

At this late hour I do not want to go into the details of the Bill, but I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) on introducing it and on his lucid explanation of a very difficult subject. We compliment him on the way in which he presented his case.

This is a Bill for the rights of individuals. The subject has been raised in debates in the House before. It aims at bringing up to date the Warsaw Convention, doubling the amount of compensation for passengers and providing better compensation in respect of goods carried on air lines. The hon. Member did not explain whether it protected the houses and lives of people over which the aircraft fly and give them proper compensation which the Bill should, but at least it is a step in the right direction and can be amended in Committee. I understand that 18 nations ratified the Warsaw Convention, and the hon. Member explained that it can go no further unless 30 nations ratify these provisions. It is a move in the right direction, however, and I hope that the House gives the Bill a Second Reading.

I shall be extremely brief but I wish to register a protest against the type of Bill which is being put through as a Private Member's Bill. Hon Members need not worry; I shall speak for only two minutes and I do not intend to talk the Bill out.

This is a Bill of 14 Clauses and two Schedules, which the House has discussed for about an hour. That is not my idea of a democracy. If the Government want Bills of this kind to go through they should provide the time for them, and it is high time that some one said so.

I wish to reinforce the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Hicks Beach). It is monstrous that Bills of this nature should be pushed through on a Friday when about a dozen hon. Members are present. There is no detailed examination of them. Very important rights are to be taken away from people, and they will be forced to accept the limited rights granted under this Convention.

The hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) said that it was a step in the right direction. With great respect to him—and I have great liking for him—I do not think that this is so. The Bill means that if one is in an aeroplane and is injured as a result of misconduct or carelessness by a pilot, one's compensation is limited to £6,000.

At present it is limited to £3,000. The Bill will make it £6,000.

With respect to the hon. Member, I do not believe that it is altogether limited in this country to £3,000. I think that people who are injured within the confines of the United Kingdom have a right of action at common law agairlst the carriage company.

That is not so. They are limited by the terms of the Convention.

It is monstrous that they should be. If one has the misfortune to be killed as the result of misconduct by the pilot of an aircraft, one's relatives might well receive considerably less compensation than if one had stepped off the pavement in Piccadilly Circus and been run down by a bus. That is wrong.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

I do not want to talk the Bill out. I want to make a strong protest and to say that the Bill will be adequately amended in Standing Committee if I have the good fortune to be on it.

I want to talk for a short time about the appearance of farm buildings. This is a modest subject, but it has its place—a not negligible place, as I shall hope to show—in this country's physical development. It merits the brief and friendly discussion which I anticipate having with my hon. Friend. I apologise to him for detaining him here on a Friday afternoon when he should be restoring his tissues elsewhere.

About a year ago, speaking on the rather wider subject of surroundings and landscape, I mentioned this subject and expressed the hope that with a little more consultation and foresight between the interested parties we might get better results. I did not know, then, as I know now, that other and weightier influences —the Council of Industrial Design, the Country Landowners' Association, the National Farmers Union and, indeed, my hon. Friend's Department—were already giving the matter attention. I thought it might be useful to have a little discussion today to see where it has got us.

I will say something about the background. The Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and its successors exempt all farm buildings from comprehensive planning control. I have no doubt that is right. There are valid reasons for it, with one exception which I shall mention later. The period since the Act has coincided with a period of rapid, indeed revolutionary, development of land and food production. In particular, the growth of the broiler industry caused second thoughts a year or more ago. It then became apparent that very large and obtrusive developments related to agriculture—I hesitate to define the exact relationship could not pass unobserved and without arousing a great deal of resentment from those in residential areas who were confronted by structures quite unlike anything which had appeared in agriculture before and whose own developments were being rather strictly controlled.

From February, 1960, all farm buildings of 5,000 square feet and over have been decreed to require planning permission, with certain refinements. I think that has proved a reasonable solution to the immediate problem, but I have always doubted whether the whole answer to the wider problem created by modern extension of agricultural development would be provided by that control. I think that it is increasingly important that agriculture should appreciate that it has, quite outside the broiler industry, created a problem that it is tactful to consider; that is to say, agriculture's physical developments in relation to the physical developments of other people's property. I want to stress that aspect.

My hon. Friend well knows that since the war the pressures on the open spaces, or what is left of them, have been very formidable. Under the Town and Country Planning Acts those who wish to develop are normally subject to the sharpest scrutiny. I believe that an increasing proportion of domestic designs for the countryside are being rejected, and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to tell us what proportion of appeals to his Ministry are in respect of designs for buildings in the country. My belief is that that proportion is higher than ever before.

It is right to differentiate between bread-and-butter development—among which one would class the farm building—and private development, the cottage or the dwelling house, but they cannot be entirely separated. Both impinge on the landscape, and both raise planning considerations.

My principal reason for raising this subject today is not entirely an aesthetic one; it is a desire to avoid agriculture arousing an anger, an opposition, among those who, for less persuasive reasons, are refused building permission. Of course, the farmer who wants to build a milking parlour, a dutch barn or a new pig house has a stronger case than the man who wants to build a dwelling-house for his retirement, but if the farmer appears to get—as it were, "on the nod"—permission for a vast, white asbestos structure on the crest of the Downs, and his neighbour is refused permission to build—as he sees it—a discreet, architect-designed bungalow on the fringe of a village, a difficult situation arises, and it is arising more particularly in the Home Counties, where competition for space is a little hotter than elsewhere. That can cause bad blood between one set of people and others in agriculture, and it could lead to a demand from the majority for intolerable restriction on agriculture. That, really, is my main interest in the subject.

Short of reaching that pass, there is much more that we can do, with a little imagination, forethought and consultation about agricultural buildings. I do not say that more money should be spent. As I see it, even with political and social, as well as aesthetic considerations at stake, it is not sensible to press forward ideas that will cost a farmer more. Some mention has been made of special financial provisions for the National Parks, areas of outstanding beauty where, perhaps, some money might be spent on using materials of traditional nature. I am not sure about that; I think that it is arguable whether it should be done.

I think that agricultural England is best regarded, not as a park but as a workshop. In that workshop, the majority of farmers are working on very close margins, and it is quite futile to expect them to expend extra money on what they would see as the bows and ribbons of their farm buildings, but I think that, given foresight, we can do a lot more with practically no extra charge on the industry as such. The roof of a Dutch barn or a milking parlour or a pig house costs no more when it is at the right pitch than when it is at the wrong pitch. It costs no more when it is well-sited than when it has been ill-sited, but it may cost a lot more if it has been ill-sited, in terms of day-to-day use, than if it had been put in the right place.

I am not asking that traditional materials should be used, like Kentish flag or weathered oak beams and similar things of which we have all become fond and which we connect with the traditional English farmhouse. These are extravagances which no one in his senses could expect. I prefer to accept the simplest and most economical product, made from the most modern materials, from the factory—for example, Messrs. Silcock—provided that it has had thought and the hand of an architect who has the right considerations in mind.

A little more thought in the factory would produce enormous differences on the rural skyline. Indeed, an acknowledgment of this need to conform to the rural landscape would go a long way to help. I do not want more restriction, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary accepts that. That is the one thing that we have got to avoid. I hope that we have heard the last of Article 4 and all that, which is an admission of failure.

I want to see a clearer standard which can be followed. I want people to be induced to regard that as the best and to aim at it as something which creates no hardship and no extra expense. If we get this right at the point of origin, it will cost no more; indeed, it will save expense.

At least two bodies have illustrated in a practical way what I am theorising about. The Country Landowners' Association last year held a successful farm buildings competition in which 123 people entered. The entries were judged on general practicability, lay-out, value for money, efficiency and appearance. That is exactly the sort of thing that I have in mind. This Association recognises the tradition of good design and sensibly it wants to foster this tradition.

Another leading practical body is the Council of Industrial Design. That body has sensible ideas not only on how to achieve good design but on how to persuade other people to adopt its ideas. I acknowledge the work that the Council of Industrial Design has done in various regions to stimulate interest on this subject.

Not the weakest of the Council's arguments is that good design can be the most efficient and economical thing in the long run. It is true to say that there is no problem of good will on the part of the National Farmers Union, the manufacturers, the local authorities, my hon. Friend's Department and the Ministry of Agriculture. All are well disposed towards the idea of better design. But at the moment I think we lack the right degree of inducement to give it impetus.

I think that my right hon. Friend's Department could give a stout hand here. I believe he accepts the modest rôle that this idea plays in the English landscape. I am sure that his own role lies in stimulating good ideas, encouraging competition, treating design and siting of farm buildings intelligently and not following restriction, control or any of the roads that lie in that direction. I invite my hon. Friend to enlarge on the contribution which his Ministry has played and hopes to play in this expanding aspect of our surroundings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) never fails when he speaks to make a constructive, civilised and realistic contribution, but he does more than that, because he always seems to be sensitive to the deepest sort of trends running through our society. He realises, as his whole speech shows, that the nation is opening its eyes more and more and that this trend will increase as leisure and education grow.

Already urban developers are recognising that there is a critical public for what they do in the towns, and the same is becoming the case in the country. That trend will grow. Everyone realises, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford has stressed, that farmers are facing nothing short of a revolution in their industry. They are modernising and intensifying their productive processes, and the busier and more prosperous they are the better pleased the nation must be. It is true, as my hon. Friend has emphasised, that while all the rest of the community have to submit to planning control for practically every development that they may wish to carry out, farmers are almost entirely exempt.

My hon. Friend was correct in saying that the number of appeals to my right hon. Friend from planning decisions is increasing. They are running at a far higher rate than a year ago, which was higher than the year before. At the moment, the rate of appeals is well in excess of 12,000 a year and a substantial number of those appeals, in fact, the largest single class of appeal, are by people who have been denied their wish to build a house in the country.

I am sure that my hon. Friend is absolutely right in stressing that as a result of their exemption from planning control farmers bear a very special responsibility to the community to carry out their development in as seemly a way as possible. My right hon. Friend has the power, under Article 4 of the General Development Order, 1950, to withdraw for limited areas, if he thinks fit, the exemption from planning control of agriculture and it is true that agriculture is not wholly exempt from planning control in certain national parks and areas of outstanding beauty. It is also true that as a result of the introduction of intensive agricultural production techniques my right hon. Friend last year brought under control agricultural buildings in excess of 5,000 sq. ft. in area. Of course, that was done without any intent to hinder new and efficient methods of agriculture.

If it is agreed that agriculture has a special responsibility because of its exemption from planning control, what is it which is mainly thought to be wrong in its development already? Before dealing with this question, may I say that no one should forget the particular position in which the farmer finds himself. There is a large number of relatively small farms the owners of which are preoccupied with highly technical problems and are in the midst of adjusting their techniques to new discoveries and methods. They are being offered a range of new materials, which are not at all traditional, with which to satisfy their requirements for buildings and other structures. It is not surprising if they need help, advice, guidance and, indeed, pressure, to put up their buildings and structures with the maximum practicable attention to design and siting.

My hon. Friend has referred to the Council for Industrial Design. I wish to quote from an article by the Deputy-Director of the Council, Mr. J. Noel White, in Design of November, 1959, where there is a reference to the sort of objection that is made to so many agricultural buildings.

"Architecturally most of the designs suffer from the same faults: an unsatisfactory relationship between the roof and elevations, an unattractive pitch of roof in the smaller spans. a discord between the structural members and the cladding, and a coarseness of detailing. Frequently, these prefabricated buildings are visually satisfactory as a structural skeleton supporting a roof, but ill-considered cladding reduces th2m to clumsy boxes".

Very often, the position is made worse because no one carefully studies siting. As we all know, the landscape requires consideration not only in what is put there but in where whatever has to be put there is placed. These are the sort of complaints which can be made against agricultural buildings.

What can be done? My hon. Friend has himself referred to some of the interests which are trying to help. There is, first of all, the course of consultation very much encouraged by my right hon. Friend who has urged local planning authorities in a recent Circular to seek meetings with the National Farmers' Union and the Country Landowners' Association, those meetings to be attended by the lands commissioner of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. These are the sort of meetings which might explain to farmers through their representatives in the National Farmers' Union how important the subject is, where they can obtain advice, and what the objective is that they should set themselves.

Then there is the Agricultural Research Council of the Ministry of Agriculture. This Council has set up a farm buildings unit which is conducting research which, I am sure, wild make a great contribution to improving the materials and designs available to farmers. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has encouraged his officers to pay as much attention as is practicable to siting and design when advising farmers on farm improvements Also, he has pursued several opportunities to collaborate with the Council of Industrial Design and has arranged for its officers to address his own lands commissioners. There have been discussions between officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and the manufacturers of the prefabricated buildings which farmers have more and more tended to use. In fact, his exhibit "Looking Ahead" at last year's Royal Show contained three buildings which received a certain amount of praise as showing the right sort of trend in the design of agricultural buildings.

What is even more interesting is that all those whose services are necessary to improve the situation are beginning to some together. I make no apology for again referring to the Council of Industrial Design. In the Council's publication Design of August, 1960, there was a report of a discussion between a farmer, a member of the Council, the chief architect of the Ministry of Agriculture, a journalist from the Farmer's Weekly, two people from the manufacturing companies which make the prefabricated buildings, an architect, and two officials of the Council of Industrial Design, who met to consider the problem of how prefabricated buildings could be improved in both design and siting.

Anyone who reads the report of that discussion will begin to understand that, although everyone is agreed on what we want, the solution is not all that easy to find. However, I regard the getting together of all the people concerned as extremely helpful.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government is himself considering whether there would be a useful purpose served by trying to produce, with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and with the Council of Industrial Design, a technical publication about the design of farm buildings. That is under consideration now.

The public does expect that there shall be progress and development in the country as well as in the towns but that the progress shall be without ugliness, shall be seemly and shall pay attention to both design and the landscape. But here, where so many users and developers are farmers in a comparatively small way of business, responsible though they and their organisations are in trying to improve things, a big responsibility rests on the manufacturers of prefabricated buildings. These manufacturers are fewer but larger than most of their customers, and if they can pay a little more attention to architecture as well as to engineering they will do a great service to their customers and to the community.

Of course, farmers want the minimum of cost, maintenance and expense, but what they do not perhaps always realise is that a well designed building does not necessarily cost any more—in fact, it can often cost less—than a badly designed building. This is even more true of good siting, which should cost no more than bad siting. If there are cases in which a badly designed building costs less than a well designed building, here is an opportunity for the manufacturer to see whether he can possibly improve the situation by attention to detail in his designing.

The farming community and the community as a whole should be most grateful to my hon. Friend for the light which he has thrown on this subject, because what is vital is public opinion which we are so glad to see is getting more critical about design and siting in the towns. This criticism will certainly be directed also to development in the country. I hope that, without exaggerating the problem, the farmers themselves will recognise more and more the responsibility which exemption from planning imposes on them. I trust that the debate will show that the manufacturers have an equally great and, perhaps, even more immediately constructive part to play in improving the design of farm buildings. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are aware that, by encouragement and example, they must also play their part.