I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, after "fine", to insert:

"not exceeding one thousand pounds".

Would it be in order, Mr. Speaker, if I moved both this Amendment and the next, in line 15, after "both", to insert "such", together? The second one is consequential.

No, the hon. and gallant Member cannot move both Amendments together, but he may discuss them together.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Bill had a quick passage through the Committee stage. In fact, there were only two Amendments. The first one which was in my name, added paragraph (b) to Clause 1 (2):

"on conviction on indictment, to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to both a fine and such imprisonment."

The Committee accepted this Amendment without a Division since it was agreed that it is sensible and in accordance with normal practice to make higher penalties available to a higher court. By increasing the penalties which can be given for the offences described in the Bill, its deterrent effect has been strengthened. Put in another way, it was thought by the Committee that the penalties in the Bill were not sufficiently severe to match the seriousness of the crime. There was no limit on the fine imposed on conviction on indictment.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) who is unable to be present this morning, for which he has apologised to me, moved a starred Amendment during the Committee stage which I did not see until about ten seconds before the sitting commenced, I having been caught in a traffic jam in Birdcage Walk, and having arrived in the Committee very much out of breath.

The Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend sought to impose a limit of £300. As originally drafted, his Amendment did not refer to a maximum penalty at all and therefore a verbal Amendment to his starred Amendment was moved. All this was done at very short notice. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East has told me that he is willing to accept the Amendment which I have moved.

The short debate which we had on the starred Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend was interesting and rather learned. But the attempt to impose a maximum fine failed, after a Division, by one vote. I opposed the Amendment mainly because I had had no time to consider it. However, I did give an undertaking that I would examine the problem with great care before the Report stage. I have done so and reached the firm conclusion that, while there are good arguments for both points of view as to whether or not there should be a maximum fine, I much prefer in the circumstances to lay down a maximum.

Then I had to ask myself what the maximum should be. In order to try to decide this correctly I looked first at some precedents in other legislation, and in particular at the fines which were imposed in two recent cases, both at Bournemouth, where there were successful prosecutions. I found that in the first of them the ringleader was fined £500 or a term of twelve months' imprisonment, with costs, and the second most important man concerned was fined £400 or twelve months' imprisonment. In the second case, the ringleader was fined £600 or twelve months' imprisonment and he also had to pay costs. In fact, if I remember aright, he had to pay four-fifths of the costs, although that is an immaterial point. In both oases, the charges were conspiracy to defraud at a mock auction, and in both cases the smaller fry had smaller penalties imposed upon them. It seems, therefore, that we can gain something from studying the sort of fines which have been imposed in past cases and considered appropriate.

Some mock auctioneers have made themselves rich men by their swindling methods, and the courts must have power to teach them a real lesson. Mock auctioneers have been known quite often to make as much as £1,500 in one week, incredible as that may seem, and £1,000 in a week is by no means uncommon. When we bear in mind that practically all this is clear profit because of the shoddy nature of the goods sold, we realise that people who indulge in these practices have been able to make themselves rich. This offence is a serious one. It is a coldly calculated false pretence. I have come to the conclusion that the maximum fine should be fairly high and I have put it at £1,000—hence the Amendment, which I commend to the House.

I am very pleased that the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) has made this proposal. I hope that the House will accept it, because I am certain that as the Bill stands provision for a fine not exceeding £100, in view of what the hon. and gallant Member has said, would be mere chickenfeed. It certainly would not in any way stop these people taking the risk, because the fine would be so small.

The hon. and gallant Member has mentioned some of the fines which have been imposed following prosecutions. My regret is that the suggested amount is not more than £1,000. We should bear in mind that many years ago when these penalties were first imposed mock auctioneers ran their own stalls in various market places. Usually they sold goods which they got from reputable manufacturers. The goods were often damaged or marked in some way. That has now altered and for the last few years a handful of people have been doing this trade in a big way, not running the stalls themselves but engaging many people to work on them. They do not take damaged goods from reputable manufacturers, but engage in manufacturing shoddy goods themselves, and do this in a big way.

In the best interests of the public and for the good name of the country, the House should accept these Amendments, modest as they are. I am encouraged to accept them, because the vagueness of the law dealing with mock auctions will be so considerably altered by the Bill. I believe that there will now be less temptation for people to go in for these practices. Under the circumstances, possibly £1,000 is a reasonable amount for a fine. I therefore support the Amendment and hope that the House will accept it.

I wish to thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) for the way in which he has dealt with the criticism which was made in Standing Committee. I did not like the original suggestion that there should be no maximum limit, although I understand that that proposal would have found favour with the Home Office. I think that for all offences there should be an upper limit to the penalty.

I do not think that the £100 which was suggested would be in any way adequate for offences of swindling the public by these shady practices. The amount of £1,000 is probably adequate. It is a considerable sum for a fine and if a person is charged on indictment he could also be imprisoned for up to two years. He could also be forced to make a contribution to the costs of the prosecution if he did not have to pay all the costs.

I think that this is a reasonable suggestion and I commend it to the House. It would do much to discourage this type of individual. I believe that the Americans have a saying that there is "one born every minute". Other authorities maintain that three or four are born every minute. They are likely to be caught by such rascals as those we are to deal with by this Bill. Any legislation which we can pass effectively to discourage these malpractices should be given support. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend and hope that the House will see fit to pass the Amendment.

I must claim some responsibility for this Amendment, because it was I—and I think only I—who on Second Reading suggested that the penalty in the Bill when it was read a Second time would probably not be adequate and that the only way to deal with the matter was to make this an indictable offence. To that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) responded in Committee.

We then had the discussion about whether there should be a limit to the penalty on indictment. I took the view then that both the limit of £300 which was suggested and the £100 were inadequate to the gravity of the offence. I said that in recent years it had been the tendency not to impose a limit for the penalty for indictable offences unless it was desired that the courts should fix a low penalty. For offences of this nature it was not desirable that the courts should fix a low penalty and, therefore, it should be open-ended. We had a somewhat controversial discussion and I agreed to examine the precedents again.

I have done that and found that the precedents are very divided. Numerically, they are more in favour of a limit than otherwise, but in recent years the tendency has been to do what I suggested in Committee, to impose no limit. I cited the Radioactive Substances Bill. There was also the Building Societies Bill, 1960, and the Obscene Publications Bill in 1959. In none of those did the House seek to impose a limit to the penalty on indictment. I realise that it is a very arguable matter, although in the Obscene Publications Bill the then Solicitor-General took the view very forcibly that no limit should be imposed.

My hon. and gallant Friend has suggested that the limit should be imposed in this case. He has raised it from the very modest figure of £300 to £1,000. That suggestion has been supported in the House today and, under the circumstances, I have no wish to oppose it. The penalty would be raised to a reasonable figure. Numerically the precedents support his view, but in recent years the trend has been the other way. It is very arguable, but I suggest that the House should support the Amendment.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that now, when the law will be much clearer, it will therefore be much easier to bring these people to book, and that the question of the amount of penalty does not matter so much, provided it is fairly substantial?

I agree with the hon. Member that, now that the law is much more definite, the deterrent effect will be what matters.

We were in some difficulty when the starred Amendment was put before us in Committee in an attempt to put in a limit. I think that in the circumstances, with the agreement which is obvious about these two Amendments a satisfactory conclusion has been reached following a very difficult and rather confused debate in Committee. I am pleased that the Bill will go through with this maximum fine stated in it. After consideration of the debate in Committee, I came to the conclusion that there should be a maximum figure stated in the Bill.

Hon. Members may have seen that at the beginning of last week another Amendment on this subject was put forward in my name. It was for a smaller penalty. Naturally I withdrew that Amendment when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) proposed this more substantial fine. I wish to explain to the House that I support the general concept. I had proposed £500 as the right figure, but I am glad to support my hon. and gallant Friend because I think that the higher figure is more satisfactory. After conversations I have had outside, I am almost inclined to think that the figure should be still higher. I warmly support the Amendment.

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

This Bill was introduced in another place by Lord Denham who did an immense amount of work on it. This is frankly his Bill. It was passed in another place in the 1958–59 Session. In that Session, after it left another place, I took the Bill over, but there was not then time for it to be passed through the House of Commons. It was, however, reintroduced in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Sir S. Storey), who is today one of my supporters, but he held a low place in the Ballot and the Bill failed to make any progress.

I am very glad to see the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) in his place, because he is a supporter of the Bill, and I am only surprised that he has not appeared wearing the false moustache that he is alleged to have worn during the investigations that he made into the racket which this Bill seeks to stop.

The intention of the Bill is to prohibit certain practices adopted by mock auctioneers as a means of persuading the gullible to bid for shoddy goods at a price much above their true value. It closes a gap in the law which has enabled mock auctioneers to swindle many thousands of people for many years past. Mock actions as such—I emphasise the words "as such"—are almost certainly not illegal and that has accounted for the very rare successful prosecutions. There have been, I think, only six in this century.

In accordance with normal practice, I shall describe the Bill very briefly. Clause 1 (1) makes is an offence to permit or conduct or assist in the conducting of a mock auction. Subsection (2), as amended during the Report stage, sets out the penalties, and subsection (3) defines a mock auction by describing very clearly the three practices which distinguish the mock auction from the genuine action. 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 is the interpretation Clause, which is easy to understand and quite straight-forward, and Clause 4 states the Short title.

The Bill, therefore, is modest in size, deliberately narrow in its application, but by no means unimportant. Great care has been taken not to interfere in any way with bona fide auctions and no attempt has been made to protect the public against the sale of shoddy goods by normal persuasive methods.

The Bill does not make Dutch auctions as such illegal. The hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards), who is not in the Chamber today, was very anxious about this point. I can say that I think that I have been able to set his mind at rest. I looked at this point very carefully. I took the best advice available, and I am satisfied that "competitive bidding"—the words used in the Bill—whether upwards or downwards, is against the law "if, but only if"—I quote these words from line 19—any of the practices described in the three following sub-paragraphs, all of which practices characterise mock auctions, take place. None of these practices as described in the Bill is ever used by genuine auctioneers.

The Bill, as I explained on Second Reading, has widespread support. It is an all-party Bill. It has the Government's blessing, and I should like to thank the Minister of State for the help he has continuously given. The Bill is backed by the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Urban District Councils Association, the National Association of Market Authorities, the National Association of Goldsmiths, the National Chamber of Trade, and many others, and I have had hundreds of letters from individuals, every one of whom welcomed the fact that this legislation was before the House, and not one of them was critical. Further, and this is an important point, the Bill has the support of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute, the three bodies which represent the auctioneers and surveyors in this country.

The strength of the demand for the Bill and the support for it are therefore unquestionable. So, I submit, is the need for this legislation. Through the years, serious uncertainty in the law has led to a widespread racket. How many foreign visitors, fleeced by mock auctioneers, have been surprised that such obvious swindling could be conducted in such brazen and open fashion? The doubt about the law, furthermore, must very often have put the police in thoroughly invidious positions, knowing that such a serious offence in the form of a calculated swindle was going on under their noses, yet knowing, at the same time, how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to prosecute successfully.

I have high hopes that the Bill will soon become law, and that the highly successful and widespread confidence trick carried on by mock auctioneers will no longer be practised, not at any rate without the law breakers running the clear risk of prosecution and heavy penalties if found guilty.

I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) on choosing this important subject when he was successful in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills, and particularly on the way in which he has conducted the proceedings up to this stage. As he said, if we are to congratulate those responsible for the Bill, our congratulations must cover a slightly wider field. He mentioned Lord Denham, the hon. Member for Stretford (Sir S. Storey) and my hon. Friend the Member Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), all of whom have worked hard to get this very desirable Measure on the Statute Book.

I think that all in the House today would agree that this Measure should have been on the Statute Book some time ago. I am sorry that our procedure did not allow it to be on the Statute Book before this year's holiday season began, because it is at holiday time that the worst offences are committed. If, as the hon. and gallant Member said, the Measure could be put quickly on the Statute Book, it might be in operation before the beginning of the school holidays in August. I do not know whether that is possible, but I hope that it will be. I think that, in time, mock auctions—this form of fraud and sharp practice—will be remembered only by those who have been fleeced by persons practising these frauds. Future social historians will remember this unfortunate form of trading only by the very clear and interesting exposition of it given by the hon. and gallant Member during Second Reading. That is one of the pieces of exposition on the record that social historians of the future, when examining how people behave, particularly on their seaside holidays, will find of great interest.

I do not want to go over the ground again. I merely congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes on the way that the Bill has been conducted and for the speed with which he has helped us to get it on the Statute Book.

I should like to add my congratulations to those of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) for having piloted the Bill so far along its way to the Statute Book. At the same time, I join with my hon. Friend in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Denham, on the great work he did in another place to get the Bill forward. It was regrettable that we were not able to get it on the Statute Book in time last year.

Nobody will regard a few remarks about the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr Dodds) as amiss. The hon. Member has done a tremendous job in uncovering this fraud. I do not know whether hon. Members generally know that he has taken considerable risks in finding out all that he has discovered about this practice. He has been threatened with assault and in many ways his life was made unbearable for a considerable time when he was getting the evidence that was necessary to compile the Bill. The House and the country owe a considerable debt to the hon. Member for his tenacity in getting all the evidence which he managed to extract.

I am well known for not being very keen on Private Members' Bills. One of the attitudes I always take in examining such a Bill is to find out whether it is the product of the hon. Member who presents it or whether it is a concealed Measure coming out of either the Opposition Whips' Office or the Government Whips' Office. I am perfectly satisfied that in this case the Bill is the result of private Members' efforts. I do not know whether they have been assisted by Parliamentary Agents. Whether they have or not, they have produced a fine Bill which will bring great benefit to the people. They have achieved a nice balance between protecting the individual and not being grandmotherly.

I was interested to hear from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes that I shall still be permitted to buy shoddy goods. If I am stupid enough to buy shoddy goods, I cannot expect to be protected by legislation from this House. What the people have a right to expect, however, is protection against deliberate fraud and swindle. That is what the Bill seeks to give them. I am happy that the practice known as mock auctions will receive a severe setback when the Bill is finally passed through another place and becomes the law of the land.

One of the other reasons why I give my support to the Bill is that I notice that there is no power under it for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to issue regulations. That is a matter about which I feel strongly where private Members' legislation is concerned. We all know what happens in such cases. Regulations are issued by the Government with the Whips on. I do not like that happening as a result of private Members' legislation. No criticism of that nature can be made about the Bill. It defines precisely the powers which are available to the courts; it is a thoroughly worth-while Measure and it deserves the support of the House.

I hope that the Bill will be rapidly passed through its final stages and receive the Royal Assent so that, as the hon. Member for Hillsborough, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, said, it can be in operation by the time that the children go on holiday. It is not the younger children, however, who are usually caught, but rather the stupid, older children. I should like to see the Bill pass through all its stages and in operation by 1st August. Once again, I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes on introducing it.

For me, this seems to be the end of a long road. Today, we are discussing one of the most unhealthy swindles ever devised, a most cruel and heartless way of parting quite simple people from their holiday savings. It is not only simple people, however, who have been caught in this way. I know of some intelligent people, prominent in public life, who, when on holiday, because the inclement weather has prevented them going to the seaside, have walked into the streets, found themselves in one of these run-outs—that is the name by which they are known—and then, inside, have listened to the patter and, without ever wishing to spend money, have found themselves, by the web that is woven around them, unable to refuse to put their hands in their pockets and, as a result, spend all their holiday money. Therefore, this is a very happy day.

I thank the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) for the generous remarks he has made about me, but there is one other thing that must be said. The Bill would never have come into being as a consequence of my own efforts, for the simple reason that I am never fortunate in the Ballot. For sixteen years, I have not even been in the first twenty to be drawn out. I must therefore thank the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish), who had many good Bills to bring forward but who saw from his own experience and from what he had been told that this would be a great social work if he introduced it. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) in congratulating the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes on the way in which he has handled the Bill in this House. It is a great credit, and the hon. Member will go down in history when many of us who are supporting him have been forgotten. He is carving a niche in history for himself, and millions of people will be able to thank him for helping them.

I wish also to pay tribute to Lord Denham. I cannot help thinking what a remarkable picture it is that I have been associated with a Member of another place and also a prominent Tory on the benches opposite. This shows what can be done in this House, even where party politics are the dominant factor. Lord Denham is a remarkable young man when one considers the tenacity with which he has fought this matter and the way in which he went into mock auctions to get first-hand information. I shall never forget the picture of him dressed as for Ascot, wearing his topper and with his cricket-type bag full of the shoddy goods which he demontrated downstairs. With the qualities that he possesses, Lord Denham could, but for the Bill, make a fortune in this way.

When the hon. Member for Exeter speaks of my experiences, I must say that I went into it as a greenhorn. I should never do it again. I have some amazing pictures. Night after night, morning after morning, telephone calls disturbed us at home with the most dreadful threats. I remember being lured into a room behind Shaftesbury Avenue, in Lisle Street, put down in a chair, the door locked and then being told that I would be so bashed up that my mother would not recognise me. But for the wits of a mock auctioneer saying that there was a detective in the street downstairs and that if anybody knocked a Member of Parliament about there was a fairly heavy penalty, I should not have been allowed to get scot-free without getting what, I believe, in their minds, I thoroughly deserved.

I shall watch the application of the Bill with great interest. I have been offered police protection. I have been given all the threats. I have been interviewed here by Scotland Yard. I have gone into police stations and told them of the technique, which was an absolute fraud and swindle. It is a matter of great amazement to me that in this London of ours, these people have been able to get off scot-free. Even Bournemouth has caught up with them. The same man, Allan Gershon, practises every week in Petticoat Lane, where he cannot be caught, yet if he uses exactly the same technique in Bournemouth, he can be fined £500. The Bill has been acclaimed by the Home Office. I welcome that, because it must be certain about this. It believes in the Bill. It believes that either the City of London Police or the Metropolitan Police will now be able to deal with the tactics which I have brought to light time and time again.

When the Bill becomes law I shall make at least one visit, probably several, to Petticoat Lane where these practices are rampant. I shall see whether at long last the efforts of Lord Denham and the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes have brought fruit. If people still carry on these practices, I hope that they will quickly be brought to book. My hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) was a little worried about this, but the Stepney street traders have been clamouring for the Bill for a long time. There is no doubt that one of the greatest attractions in Britain is Petticoat Lane. The first week I came to London I visited Petticoat Lane. I went there every Sunday for weeks. It is a terrific attraction. There are men there who give a good deal to the people who go there. They are proud of the good name of Petticoat Lane. However, in recent years they have been appalled at the type of people who have been fleecing visitors to Petticoat Lane.

Therefore, I shall have great pleasure in visiting Petticoat Lane when the Bill becomes law. I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes and Lord Denham will accompany me to see the way in which these practices are being cleaned up. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes. He must be very proud today, because he must know that in another place not one voice was raised against the Bill when it was brought up by Lord Denham before a crowded House. The hon. and gallant Member can look forward to the appointed day when the people of Britain will be protected when they are on holiday from these unscrupulous parasites.

This is indeed a rare occasion. Previous speakers have indicated why it is a rare occasion. I join with them in so describing it, but for two other reasons. First, this is one of the few and far between occasions on which anything with which I have been associated, in however humble a way, looks like reaching the Statute Book. I am very proud of the fact that I am one of the hon. Members whose names appear on the back of the Bill as sponsors. This Measure is long overdue and the utmost credit is due to the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), whom we are delighted to see here today still in good health and good form, which condition we hope will endure for many years to come, after the threats of violence to which he has been subjected as a result of the Bill.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) is not in his place, because I want to pay a tribute to him for his support of the Bill. This is one of the rare occasions on a Friday when I have not viewed his presence in the Chamber with my usual alarm and despondency. The fact that he was caught on at least one occasion by a mock auctioneer shows that even the most intelligent person can be hooked up. The whole process of the mock auctioneer is diabolically ingenious and creates such an atmosphere of mental confusion that I am surprised that brainwashing techniques have not incorporated some of the practices of mock auctions. If it were a question of creating a confused mental approach to any day-to-day problem, I am sure that the technique employed by mock auctioneers would stand very high in the scale of efficiency.

There is one other angle of the mock auction business which I view without any regret. Certain landlords of shop property will not now be able to make undesirable and immoral earnings by letting their shop premises to these shady adventurers. This has happened in many cases where leases have had short periods to run. I remember occasions when shops in the Strand and Oxford Street were placed at the disposal of mock auctioneers for certain periods. These people tend to nip in wherever there is property on the verge of being demolished or at the end of a long lease. Certain owners of shop property in the centres of towns and on seaside fronts have made unholy profits out of short lettings to these undesirable persons.

This is a great day. It will clip the activities of these undesirable people. I know that the general law of the land is caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. But there are certain circumstances in which it is necessary that the State should step in to protect the simple, average citizen against the activities of these sharks. It may be argued by very doctrinaire advocates of absolute individual freedom that people should reap the consequences of their own folly, but this is a case in which the caveat emptor principle—let the buyer beware—should not be carried to its logical conclusion. The mock auction business represents a very ingenious combination of fraud, psychological trickery, and all that sort of thing, against which the public is entitled to be protected.

For these reasons, the activities of the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford deserve the highest possible praise. This will enable both of them to occupy the niche in history—social history, if that expression is preferred—which they fully deserve as a result of the work they have done on the Bill. I welcome the Bill. Undoubtedly many people will, without knowing it, live to be thankful that the Bill is coming on to the Statute Book. It will enable their hard-earned money to be devoted to much better objects than the pockets of these fraudulent mock auctioneers.

I am very glad to have had the opportunity of catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, because I, too, want to congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) on the very hard work he did on this subject before the Bill was introduced. I have an interest in common with him, because we both come from Kent and represent considerable interests in the fruit-growing part of our county.

I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) made specific mention of the safeguards he envisages for the Dutch auction by virtue of the fact that honest bidding may go down as well as up in accordance with the Dutch auction principle. Those of us concerned with horticultural products and the various agricultural ideas which are coming into being, think that in the near future there is likely to be considerable changes in the methods of marketing this produce. So I am very glad that there are safeguards in this excellent Bill relating to this new type of auctioneering.

I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend mentioned conventional auctioneering, because the auctioneer plays an essential part in the world of agriculture and horticulture. We could not get on without him, although frequently he is misunderstood. Auctioneers perform one of the most valuable secondary services to agriculture and horticulture.

This Bill will be widely welcomed in all holiday areas. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford and I see many people going to the Kentish coast. We both go there for part of our holidays. I consider it most important that we get this legislation on the Statute Book before the school holidays this summer. My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) made a remark about the folly of older children, and I agree with him. But there are some young people who may have the bitter experience of being caught by "sharks". Many young persons have only a limited amount of spending money. They are made to feel foolish when they have to go to ask their parents for more money. There is nothing more unpleasant for a young person than to be made to feel a fool. I welcome the safeguards in this Bill and look forward to its early arrival on the Statute Book.

I welcome this Bill and congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) This is one of the few occasions on which I have the pleasure of agreeing with the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), who is my political neighbour and is a strong supporter of the Bill. I think it is the first time that I have had the pleasure of agreeing with him in this House. The hon. Gentleman did say that it was not always a question of lack of intelligence on the part of people caught at these auctions. I was grateful to hear that because, as I told the House on an earlier occasion, I was caught by a mock auctioneer in the Tottenham Court Road in 1946.

One of the important things about this Measure is that it will clean up certain areas, such as the Tottenham Court Road and other important thoroughfares and streets, which are visited by tourists. They are impressed by the first things they see. They may discover a crowd standing outside a highly decorated shop front. They may go in only to find that any impression which they may have formed is wrong. These places are an extraordinarily bad advertisement in every respect.

I understand that the same practices are carried on in South coast towns, and for that reason I welcome the provisions in this Bill. One aspect which pleases me is the fact that the Amendment introduced this morning places a ceiling on the amount of the fine which can be imposed. I am sure that when laying down penalties we should take account of the need to make the maximum adequate.

I know that this Bill will be generally welcomed. It in no way interferes with the proper business of auctioneers carried out by respected bodies. It will operate only against unprofessional and unfortunate practices which have crept into our society and which have not been exactly illegal until now, where even the most sensible and intelligent people may become the victims of a cleverly concealed fraud. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes on all the hard work he has put into this Measure. Its introduction today proves that once again the efforts of Private Members in this House may improve the legislation of our country.

I wish to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) and to the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish). My tribute is not only in what I say but in what I have done. I was interested in the principle contained in this Bill which, I thought, might be applied over a wider area. I turned my mind to drafting two Amendments to that effect. I shall be out of order if I pursue this matter too far, but I would add that after an agreeable conversation with the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes I was convinced that it was desirable that this Bill should not be delayed in its passage to the Statute Book. Had I put down my proposed Amendments a delay would have occurred.

I wish sincerely to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford and to pay tribute to the fact that he has run risks, and perhaps is still running risks in dealing with the vicious crowd which operates this practice. They operate not only in London but at some of our seaside resorts. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes on his good luck in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills and on producing such a sensible Measure. Not only has the hon. and gallant Gentleman done a useful job, he has vindicated the principle of allocating time to Private Members in this way.

I wish to turn now to something which I consider important about the Bill. There would have been another way to tackle this problem. It seems absolutely vital for the proper functioning of the commercial life of this country that auctions should be retained and run by competent people in an honest manner, and, if I may say so, by professional standards. One could have sought here to put the matter right by imposing such standards. But my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford has tackled the problem in the other way, by clearing up a particularly nasty mess. He has done it in a way on which he was congratulated by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) without being "grandmotherly".

My hon. Friend recognised that "there is one born every minute." Probably one was born when I was born. But it is certain that there is an unlimited number of people who can be easily separated from their money because their weakness is their fundamental honesty. It is beyond their comprehension that any human being can behave in the despicable and heartless way in which these rogues undoubtedly do behave.

Last week I was in the constituency of the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn), when I gave a lift to someone who was concerned with the purchase of a house. A lady and her two daughters came to the house where the "for sale" sign was still exhibited outside. This poor soul was in great distress because she had gone to an estate agent and parted with £500 without, so far as I could ascertain, obtaining a receipt. The man concerned—

Order. This would appear to be out of order here as well as in Clapham.

I readily agree, Mr. Speaker, that it would be out of order but for the fact that I am trying to relate this matter directly to the Bill. If I may be allowed to finish my illustration, I was trying to prove an added need to protect by legislation those people whose gullibility makes it neces- sary that they should be protected, and the need to devote some part of Parliamentary time to Private Members so that they may devise Measures to protect such people without being "grandmotherly". Perhaps this matter might be drawn to the attention of the police; that £500 was parted with, without a receipt being given, to an auctioneer who was not even the agent for the house. This unfortunate person handed over £500 as a deposit on a house, the auctioneer concerned having promised to get in touch through the man who was the agent and thence to the owner. This £500 possibly represents this person's life's savings. Certainly it caused great distress.

What happens at these mock auctions is only another facet of the same problem, that is going on all the time, namely, parting unwary people from their money, particularly when they are in a state of distress or in need of a house. Perhaps they have been turned out of their lodgings, maybe on a wet day. Perhaps they have a little extra money in their pockets and are trying to find another place to live. But the last thing they want to do is to lose that money.

I realise that in what I have to say I must be careful, but the principle with which I thought to amend this Bill stems from the knowledge that there is another aspect of auctioneering which is used to separate members of the public from their money and which is called the "painless extraction system"—taking money from people who enjoy having it taken. I see from the expression on your face, Mr. Speaker—

The expression on my face was not due to any difficulty in understanding painless extraction. My difficulty is to ensure that the hon. Member remains within the rules of order.

While I consider this to be an appropriate matter, I shall not press it, for it would be wrong for me to dwell upon the subject. It may be that my ignorance of the law is such that the Bill will apply to the matter anyway. But I would like to have added two words to make certain and, after "goods", to have inserted "or animals" in Clause 3 (1).

I may be able to help the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that the question of goods can necessarily be related only to inanimate objects. The Bill, therefore, possibly covers the point he has in mind.

I had been so advised. Even unamended, the Bill will, I believe, cover the case I have in mind. The reason why I wanted to include animals was to make sure that the Bill would be concerned with selling races, where horses are entered to be sold and the last thing those who enter the horses want to happen is that they should be sold. Thus, after their horse has won, they go along and offer a contribution so that their horse will not fall into other hands and to prevent a bid being made for it.

This selling race matter is causing widespread anxiety, and I hope that the Jockey Club will take steps to prohibit selling races for two-year-olds. I also hope—

I hope that the hon. Member will be kind enough to take the hints I have been giving and will keep in order.

I think I can help the hon. Gentleman. In the interpretation clause, Clause 3 (2), he will find that the Bill clearly covers plate and plated animals, glass animals or pictures of animals.

While I had no doubt and had accepted that it could apply to animals, if I had tabled the Amendment I had in mind it would have made the position perfectly clear. I hope that the stewards of the Jockey Club and the National Hunt Committee will carefully read the Bill and will note the principle it contains and will apply that principle. The work of my hon. Friend the Member for Belvedere—

May I inform my hon. Friend that the people of Crayford will be disappointed if my hon. Friend keeps on saying "Belvedere". My constituency is, in fact, Erith and Crayford.

When I was in Kent I thought that they were one and the same place.

I was going to say that the principle enshrined in this Bill, and the way the whole subject has been tackled, is so valuable that others should take notice of it. I hope, therefore, that the stewards of the Jockey Club and the National Hunt Committee will carefully read the Bill and will note the principle contained. I also hope that when the luck of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford changes he will go further and clear up a racket—

I do not want to have to order the hon. Member to sit down.

I expressed myself badly, Sir. I was merely expressing the hope that the hon. Gentleman would turn his attention to other rackets.

I cannot conceive that proposition to be in order on the Third Reading.

In that case, Mr. Speaker, I shall end as I began, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Frith and Crayford on the good work that he has performed, and I hope that this good work will continue for many years along similar lines.

Since the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) referred to my constituency with regard to the subject of the "painless extraction racket", I hope that he will let me have the details of the case he mentioned.

Certainly.

I am tempted to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in the last point he raised because of my interest in that field, but I shall not do so. With respect to the point he raised relating to the constituency of Clapham, he may be interested to study the reply I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams).

I would like to be associated with all the tributes that have been paid not only to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) but to his predecessors in this field over a period of three years. The work that has been performed in this regard can be seen in the files of the Home Office. I consider this to be a good example of Private Member's legislation, because this has required a great deal of work, research, inquiries and drafting which has all been undertaken by hon. Members of this House and of another place. Then they had to win the support and interest of the Government Department. They then had to secure a place in the Ballot, and then they had to persuade the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) and some of his hon. Friends that this was a desirable Bill.

In all respects, therefore, I am sure that this is a good example of the use of Private Members' time. All that the Home Office has done—and I can re- assure the hon. Member for Exeter on this point—is to help in the drafting of this piece of legislation. I thought that the hon. Member for Exeter was revealing about his attitude towards Fridays, and I have no doubt that my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite will take heed of the words he used.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hills borough (Mr. Darling) hoped that this Bill would become an Act before the holiday season starts. I see no reason why it should not be on the Statute Book by the beginning of August. I hope, equally, that another Bill, to which I gave my blessing this week, will also be on the Statute Book by that time. The Bill we are today discussing has already been through another place in almost exactly its present form. It has an eager sponsor in another place, and, in view of that, I am sure that there need be no fear about time being wasted in its being passed.

It is interesting to note that the reason why more prosecutions have not been undertaken is because there is a great deal of uncertainty involved, and this Bill will help to make these prosecutions possible. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) was right when he said that the mere fact that the law is now more certain will be a deterrent to those who might undertake these practices. Prosecutions, as I say, will be very much easier. The difficulty in the past has been the securing of witnesses who would be prepared to come forward to give evidence in these cases. That will, in future, be far less difficult.

Therefore, in every respect, this is a desirable Measure. I am sure that it will be welcomed by all those engaged in the trade, because if we can eliminate the disreputable elements in any practice, the more reputable people will be hardened and strengthened in carrying out their practices. I said on Second Reading that those who had been carrying out these sort of disreputable activities are very resourceful and that they will, no doubt, endeavour to find a loophole through this piece of legislation. I cannot say with complete conviction that it will be impossible. Therefore, the vigilance of the public in this respect is still very necessary.

I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford and his Friends are going to Petticoat Lane. No doubt, if they find any abuse of the law or any new practices introduced they will bring them to the notice of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, who, no doubt, would be ready to introduce a further Measure.

The Bill has been well debated in this House and a similar Measure has been through another place. I wish it well, and I feel convinced that the deterrent effect will put a speedy end to these practices.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 17, after "say" to insert: "subsection (8) of section eleven."

It might be convenient to take with this Amendment those in page 3, line 28, and line 30.

Yes.

The purpose of the first Amendment is to enable schemes for the construction of bridges or tunnels over or under navigable waters to be made by two or more authorities jointly. Hon. Members who took part in the Committee stage will remember that a new Clause was introduced which gave further powers to local authorities to construct bridges, tunnels or roads over navigable waters. The Amendment will enable local authorities to make joint arrangements between themselves determining their respective responsibility for the various highway functions in connection with a bridge or tunnel.

As Clause 3 was originally drafted, provision was made only for a single authority to make a scheme. But, as it very often happens that navigable rivers form the boundaries between local authorities, it is quite usual for local authorities on either side of the boundary to promote schemes for bridges and tunnels as joint enterprises.

I do not think there is anything startling about the Amendment. I hope that it will be accepted. The other two Amendments are consequential on the first.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 19, at the end to insert:

(4) A highway authority shall not exercise their powers under subsection (1) of this section in such a manner as to be likely to cause damage to or affect the drainage of any land or works used for the purposes of a railway or canal undertaking, except—

(a) after giving not less than fourteen days' notice to the undertakers of the manner in which it is proposed to exercise those powers; and

(b) in accordance with any reasonable requirements of the undertakers of which notice is given to the authority within fourteen days from the date of the authority's notice;

and any question whether any such requirement is reasonable shall, in default of agreement, be determined by the Minister.

This Clause is intended to give a highway authority power to fill in a ditch adjoining or lying near to a highway which constitutes a danger to people who use the highway. As an alternative to filling in the ditch, there are powers in Subsection (1, d) to lay pipes in the ditch, or on land adjoining it, to deal with drainage, and thereafter to fill in the ditch.

The new subsection (4) is intended to give some protection to the British Transport Commission where that type of thing is done by a highway authority. I should explain that Clause 6 is based upon powers which several county councils as highway authorities have obtained under local Acts. When those local Acts were before Parliament, the British Transport Commission sought and obtained various protective provisions. It is not, therefore, surprising that in this public Bill it has pressed for similar protection.

The Committee must remember that the Commission is under certain statutory duties to carry on its railway and canal undertakings and has very heavy responsibilities placed upon it by Parliament, to ensure the safety of its work. In many enactments, both private and general, Parliament has recognised that this is the situation and has been willing to give the Commission the necessary protective provisions.

Railway and canal undertakings are, of course, a little different from some other types of property with which the Bill is concerned. Not only do railway and canal works have to be properly drained, but in many cases the general drainage system of the land which they traverse had to be preserved when the railway or canal was built. That was done by making ditches alongside embankments, or carried under embankments, over bridges or structures by means of pipes or culverts. If a highway authority exercised the powers to be conferred by the Clause in an injudicious manner, that could have a serious effect on the work of the under- takings, and in some cases the results might be dangerous. We should therefore be willing to insert some limited protection in respect of railways and canals.

Hon. Members will see from its text that the Amendment does not invite the undertakers, the British Transport Commission in this case, to refuse its consent to the carrying out of the works. All it does is to give the Commission the right to be informed of the manner in which the works are to be done and to impose reasonable requirements for its protection. For instance, if it chooses, it can require that the pipes should be of a certain capacity, or that any proposed connection of pipes to an existing railway culvert or drain should be so contrived as to enable the undertakers to inspect and maintain the culvert as previously.

I hope that the Committee will think that this is a reasonable and sensible Amendment to make.

On a point of order. Would it be convenient for you to tell the Committee. Sir Gordon, whether you intend to call the Amendment in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), in page 9, line 1 [Clause 12], leave out subsection (6), which also deals with drainage?

That Amendment has not be recommitted. We are now dealing with the recommittal stage.

I am a little unhappy about this Amendment. The operative word in Clause 6 is "danger". These operations arise only when there is an anticipated danger to the public on a public highway. When there is, the highway authority carries out its statutory and moral duty to protect the public. A sensible highway authority will not seriously endanger a railway or canal if it can avoid it, and it can reasonably be expected, if it has time, to consult the British Transport Commission. However, in some cases it may have to step in fairly quickly.

I do not like the idea of one public authority being placed under a legal liability towards another when carrying out its statutory duties. The precedent of what has happened in Private Bills on this matter is not a good precedent, because it is common knowledge that in getting through a Private Bill one has to bargain and make concessions.

I can well understand a county council trying to get a Bill through and buying off the opposition of various transport authorities. Opposition to Private Bill legislation can often be well organised and effective. However, to say that Parliament dealing with the same problem ought to give in to the same kind of pressure is another matter, and I have some misgivings about the idea that a highway authority should not be expected to act sensibly.

I am somewhat unhappy about having a transport authority placed in a sort of special privileged position when a public duty is being undertaken by a highway authority, which is an elected authority, for the protection of the public. That ought to be the prime concern and everything else should be subsidiary to it.

I cannot fully agree with the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl). This is a matter of mutual responsibility. There may be a road which a local authority, or whoever is responsible for its maintenance, thinks should be properly drained in case the road subsides. Alongside the road there may be a railway or canal undertaking which has to have special arrangements for its protection because of the nature of the undertaking. It is not unreasonable to say that if the road authority alters the system of drainage it should inform the canal or railway authority. It might be that by making some reasonable alteration to the drainage of the road the drainage of the canal or the railway undertaking would be adversely affected. It is not unreasonable that there should be some sort of consultation for both undertakings to arrive at a system of mutual benefit.

However, I would like my hon. Friend to say where the final responsibility is to lie. It may be possible to drain the road, or fill in the ditch, or whatever it is, at a very low cost, but it may be that owing to the adjacency of the railway undertaking or the canal, very complex and difficult arrangements have to be made by the authority repairing the road. It might be involved in a great deal of excessive expenditure. Is there any sort of arrangement about who would pay for the final scheme if its costs were in excess of what it would have reasonably cost to drain the road?

The Amendment raises an issue of very great importance. Clause 6 says:

"If it appears to the highway authority…that a ditch on land adjoining or lying near to the highway constitutes a danger…"

It is not that it is, not that anybody says that it is, not that anybody faces the responsibility if anything should go wrong, not that anybody exposes himself to an action for damages if he makes a mistake. It has only to appear to the highway authority that there is a danger. If there is a danger, someone somewhere should do something about it. The Minister then comes along under pressure from the Transport Commission and puts in a form of words which in the quietness of his room seems reasonable.

indicated dissent.

The reason why we get into this position is that it is proposed to give power far beyond that which was thought necessary by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken). I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his good fortune in being able to introduce the Bill, but the idea behind it is so important that the Government have taken over the Bill. It is their Bill and not the hon. Gentleman's. The Government are hiding behind the Bill because if they came along with a Bill of this kind and had to face their supporters in the 1922 Committee they would be in difficulty.

We hear about Crichel Down and so on, but would the Minister find himself in political difficulties if he did what common sense demanded? If there is a danger, of course something ought to be done. If it concerns a private individual, if it is me, or one of my hon. Friends, action is taken without reference to us, but if one happens to be big enough, never mind how great the danger, one has to be given fourteen days' notice. In the meantime, people can be drowned, or break their necks, or a dozen and one things can happen. There is no concern about the danger or the size or gravity of the problem provided that the influence which one can bring to bear is powerful enough to make the Minister come down to the House on a Friday and ostensibly put down an Amendment to a Bill introduced by a private Member.

This Bill ought to be taken over by the Government. We ought to call the proceedings on this Bill to an end today. The Government should take it away and introduce it in their time. If they hold the view that the Bill is right—and I think that the idea behind it is sound—they should accept the political responsibility of putting through a Measure of this kind. If there is a danger, let us deal with it. If the rights of the Transport Commission are infringed, or if it is put in a position of difficulty in running its organisation, that should be taken into account, but do not let us put vague and nebulous words into a Bill. Do not let us give limited powers in one direction and restrict them in another.

If it were a ditch belonging to an hon. Gentleman opposite, or to one of my hon. Friends, this would not arise. This is not the way to treat the House of Commons. This is why things are continually going wrong. This is the idea of a Government who have lost their way. They have lost their theme. Everything is being done ad hoc. A staff officer in the War Office, describing one of their military operations a few years ago, said that it should be described as per ardua ad hoc. The Government should think about those words, for their handling of the Bill is another example of that approach. I hope that they will accept responsibility for what is a good Bill. I hope that they will take it away and slop cluttering up the business of the Committee today because we have other more important Measures with which we want to deal. I hope that if the Bill comes to an untimely end today the Government will deal with it as Government business.

I do not think that I want to follow the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) too closely, because if I do I might not have his good fortune in keeping within the rules of order.

On a point of order, Sir Gordon. That remark is a grave reflection on the Chair. I am sure that if I had been within a thousand miles of being out of order you would have drawn my attention to it.

The hon. Member was on the periphery.

That was the point I was going to make. I cannot hope to be as skilful as the hon. Gentleman. As he said, we want to get on to the other interesting legislation on the Order Paper. In particular, I want to say something about the Motor Vehicles (Passenger Insurance) Bill.

My view of the Amendment is different from that of the hon. Gentleman. I agree that this is a complicated Bill and that it might have been better if it had been brought forward by the Government. I am in favour of the Amendment to the extent that I accept the principle behind it, but I do not think that it goes far enough.

If the filling in of a ditch with affect the British Transport Commission, the Commission should have the right to be consulted. I do not consider it desirable that there should be the possibility of assets under the control of the British Transport Commission being seriously damaged by unwise work done by a local authority. The Commission ought to be able to warn the authority concerned that if the work is not carried out in such-and-such a way there is a serious danger of embankments or whatever it is, which the ditch had been put there to protect, subsiding.

Railways are different from other statutory undertakings. The tracks sometimes go for miles along the side of a road and might be seriously affected by ditches being filled in. The works of other statutory undertakings are usually underground, or high in the air. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the railways are in a different position?

Perhaps my hon. Friend did not hear what I said. I agree with the idea behind the Amendment, but I do not think that it goes far enough. I am concerned about other people who are likely to suffer, and I think that this was the point made by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl). He was concerned about damage being done to other people's interests because they had not the right to be warned by a local authority that some work was to be carried out.

I think that I shall be within the rules of order if I give some examples. A church in Devonshire has a ditch on one side of it. It is conceivable that if one is walking round the church and one has bad sight one might fall into that ditch. The local authority may then say that the ditch must be filled in. This ditch has been there for many years, and I am told that if the ditch is filled in serious damage will result to the structure of the church. That point ought to be borne in mind.

I think that the Amendment should go further if my hon. Friend will give an undertaking that in another place he will seek to extend the scope of the Amendment, I might find it possible to support it now. I would find it very difficult to support an Amendment as limited as this which is designed to protect the British Transport Commission but which excludes the Church Commissioners.

The next example relates to factories. I know several factories which have ditches round them. If they were filled in by the local authority, serious damage might be caused to those factories. There may be accidents involving hundreds of people. I do not consider it wrong in principle to ask that this protection, which I maintain is rightly given to the British Transport Commission, should be extended so that other bodies would have similar chances of voicing their disapproval of action proposed to be taken by local authorities.

1.0 p.m.

I see that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is having ammunition delivered to him. I hope that he can set my fears at rest but, if he does not, I must warn the Committee that I should find it very difficult to let this Amendment go through without challenge. If I could get an undertaking from my hon. Friend that between now and the passage of the Bill through another place, careful examination would be made of this point, I would be prepared to support the Amendment now but, as I say, I should find it very difficult to do that if it were to be allowed to go through another place in its present form and, possibly, become the law of the country, so giving protection to the British Transport Com- mission but leaving out other worthy bodies that I have mentioned.

I support the Amendment because our canal system is at present facing grave difficulties and, unless it is protected in small matters like this, there is always a risk of further deterioration. It is quite essential that the British Transport Commission should have the safeguards offered to the canals by this Amendment.

I have a slightly different view about the railway position although, obviously, one cannot have half the provision and not the other half. The argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) that the railways run for miles and miles alongside the highway seemed very reasonable, but my experience in the West Country is that the railways are by no means the best of neighbours in dealing with matters of ditch maintenance and the filling in of ditches.

Matters concerning ditches are among the most frequent causes of conflict between neighbours in the country areas, so why should the railways, who are bad neighbours, get preferential treatment? The argument for the canals is strong, because alterations of the drainage system are important matters, but the railways should be pulled up lather smartly and reminded of their duties, and should not be given further safeguards when they themselves neglect their neighbourly duties.

I support the Amendment in all respects, and I think that some hon. Members have misconceived its purpose. I do not think that Clause 6 is meant to deal with something immediate and active, such as a landslip which has caused the road to be fenced off, or a flood which causes a subsidence. The danger envisaged here is a potential danger arising from a situation that is potentially dangerous. That, perhaps, is a lawyer's way of putting it, but, if I may give an example, I would point out that dangerous driving does not always end in a collision, and a situation of potential danger can exist which, if properly dealt with, can be alleviated without any actual damage resulting from it.

That is the type of danger that I believe subsection (1) has in mind and, applicable to everyone are two safeguards. First of all, by subsection (1, a) the occupier has the right to refuse his consent. If he consents, the ditch is filled in at once but, if he objects, the authorities have to act under subsection (1, b) and must

"…place in the ditch, or in land adjoining or lying near to it, such pipes as they consider necessary in substitution for the ditch…"

I think that safeguard is adequate.

The purpose of the Amendment is plainly this. By the action of the local authority under paragraphs (a) and (b) a danger, in the potential sense, can be obviated by work done on the property of a private individual, and what the Commission quite rightly wants to ensure is that that danger is not transferred from a public highway to its own premises which are, in other senses, just as much a public highway as are the roads. The Commission wants a special degree of consultation in respect of that.

Water, when uncontrolled does funny things, and what might be of little damage to the property of a private individual might cause serious trouble if diverted into a canal or other railway undertaking. The Commission is right to ask the Minister for this Amendment in order that it might have some small degree of prior power to decide how far the work ought to be done in relation to its own specific problems.

I see no more in this Amendment than that. If that is the position, I commend the Amendment to the House as a very necessary degree of protection for railway and canal undertakings, and I here dissociate myself from any "cracks" about the nationalised industries as such. We are here considering the railways and canals in the light that they, in their sphere, run a type of service to the community similar to that performed, in their sphere, by the highway authorities.

I should like to answer some of the criticisms that have been made of this Amendment. It is important to realise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) has just pointed out, that Clause 6 is intended to deal with a situation that is not of immediate but of potential danger. In Clause 8 there is provision for the removal of an obstruction on the road or in the road, which may be an actual danger, but the roadside ditch can really become a danger to traffic only if a vehicle gets off the carriageway, on to the verge and thence into the ditch. As we said in the Standing Committee, there are numbers of such ditches, and we think it right to do something to put that matter right.

There has been a good deal of criticism of the fact that this Amendment gives special treatment to the British Transport Commission. I feel sure that no hon. Member has put forward criticism of that kind simply because this is a nationalised industry, or simply because he has views about the railways or canals. The plain fact is that the Commission operates railway and canal undertakings all over the country. It is under a statutory obligation, placed on it by our forebears in this House, to see that its permanent way, its methods of operation, and so on, are safe. What it fears. I think rightly, is that unless there is some protection for its undertaking, the powers in the Clause could—and I emphasise the word "could"—be used in a way that might make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Commission to discharge that statutory obligation in respect of some parts of its undertaking.

Perhaps I may be permitted to give the Committee an example of how this would arise in practice. Let us imagine that a stretch of railway has been built over an embankment. As part of the drainage arrangements for that embankment, water may be allowed to run off into a ditch that passes across open country and runs alongside the road.

Under the powers of the Clause, unless the Amendment is made, the highway authority, if it considered that that particular part of the ditch which ran alongside the road was dangerous, would have the power to go ahead and fill it in, or pipe it and then fill in, and the authority might possibly fill it in without regard to the fact that this stretch of drain or ditch was on integral part of the drainage system of the embankment of the railway some distance away.

All that the Amendment says is that before a highway authority exercises its powers it has to tell the British Transport Commission how it proposes to do the work. It does not have to obtain the permission of the Commission. It simply has to inform it of the way the work is proposed to be done, and paragraph (b) of the new subsection in the Amendment would expect the British Transport Commission to ask the local highway authority to carry out the work in such a way as to preserve its drainage rights.

This case can be distinguished from that of statutory undertakers, such as gas and electricity, for the simple reason, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) said in an intervention, that those undertakers have their apparatus above or below the ground. They do not have to deal with questions of drainage as does the Commission in respect of canals and railways. The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) asked whether there would be a good deal of delay if there were this provision in the Clause. It is possible that there could be delay but, as I have already said, we are not seeking to deal with an immediately dangerous situation such as some structure coming on to the road, for example a fallen tree. We are seeking to deal with a roadside ditch which might become a hazard to traffic. Therefore, I do not think that the argument that delay would be caused by the requirement to tell the Commission what the highway authority was doing and how the work was to be done would have all that significance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) asked what would be the financial position, and whether if the Commission wanted rather elaborate work done the highway authority would be obliged to meet the complete cost. That possibility could arise, but these matters as between public authorities are frequently matters of negotiation and it will be seen that the last two lines of the Amendment read:

"and any question whether any such requirement is reasonable shall, in default of agreement, he determined by the Minister."

In this case it is the Minister of Transport.

I apprehend that if there were a dispute or failure of negotiations on the financial side between the Transport Commission and the highway authority on a matter of this sort it would be for the Minister of Transport to arbitrate and finally decide the matter. Obviously, he would seek to hold the balance equitably between the two authorities but I think that the possibility of argument arising between them and getting to that stage is pretty remote.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), asked whether this protection could not be conferred on other people, for instance, the Church Commissioners. I think that my hon. Friend has not read with his customary assiduity the first part of the Clause to which this is an Amendment, because subsection (2) points out that the provisions of Section 103 of the Highways Act, 1959, are attracted by the Clause. That Section gives power to local highway authorities to compensate anyone damaged by the exercise of the powers to lay pipes and construct ditches. Therefore, if some other person was afraid that he would be damaged by the way the local authority would fill up the ditch, he would have the right to compensation. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend, who is not here at the moment, will note this and will decide that he can support the Amendment.

1.15 p.m.

The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) criticised us for hiding behind my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds and he suggested that we should take over the Bill. Anyone who has been concerned with the Bill since it first saw the light of day, and with respect I do not think that the hon. Member has been, will know that at an early stage the Ministry of Transport was approached by the County Councils' Association, which represents all the highway authorities in the country, and was asked to give assistance in drafting and to agree to various provisions in the Bill. In fact we have helped my hon. Friend and we have done most of the drafting ourselves.

There was no question of our trying to hide behind a private Member. Here was my hon. Friend with a perfectly good Bill but some of the provisions were not technically correct in their drafting. We helped and we added a number of powers which highway authorities, including my right hon. Friend who is himself a highway authority, might well have.

It is not therefore a sensible suggestion on the part of the hon. Member for Dudley that we should withdraw from the proceedings and introduce the Bill in Government time. We have perfectly good time here for private Members. Here is an excellent Bill with which we have done our best. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member will not resist what we are doing and that the Committee will agree to the Amendment, which ought to be made, which is reasonable, and which will not have disadvantageous repercussions on other people and authorities. I hope that it will be added to the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman is pushing at an open door for the second time. He makes an absolutely cast-iron case on behalf of action in the interests of the British Transport Commission. We all accept that. He looked at me in a pained way when I suggested that he was hiding behind the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken). There is nothing disgraceful about that. The hon. Gentleman does not have to attack me. I did not attack him, and I welcome action.

Does the hon. Member remember the words of the old song: "It ain't so much the words he said, but rather the way he said 'em"?

Such vulgar songs pass over my head. I was paying the hon. Gentleman a compliment. Here is something that should be done. The Government did not want to do it themselves. I leave their motives on one side. They see that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has had good fortune in the Ballot and the good sense to promote this Bill. They then say, "Here is a stalking horse. We will help him to do something we ought to have done years ago." There is nothing wrong about it. It might not be courageous on the part of the Government but at least it is action.

May I relieve the rising tension by saying that I do not mind in the least getting all the help I can from the Government? The Bill has been greatly improved as a result.

May I remind the Committee that we are discussing the Amendment?

May I, with respect, say that, if I am attacked by a Government spokesman, with all the authority that he exercises from the Treasury Bench, surely I can say a word in my defence. Again I repeat that I testify to the wisdom of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds in accepting all the help he can obtain. This is a good Bill which the Government ought to have promoted a long time ago.

Then the Minister, as an alibi, as it were, as an additional reason or as a defence against me, says that it is not so; and that he has taken the trouble to find out that the County Councils' Association is the candidate for a stained glass window in this matter.

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but he must deal with the Amendment.

I am coming to the Amendment but, with respect, Sir Gordon, it was not I who introduced the County Councils' Association into this discussion. It was the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I am pointing out that it does not add to the merits of this Bill that the County Councils' Association and not—

Order We are not discussing the merits of the Bill, bust only the Amendment.

I agree, Sir Gordon. I am coming to the Amendment. I am making a point, in answer to the Minister, about what he regards as a matter of great virtue. I found out a long time ago that the County Councils' Association, which properly wanted something done, could not get the Government to do it, and so it got the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds to do it. But, as the Minister has admitted, the Government have done most of the drafting. Now they come with the proposition that,

"If it appears to the highway authority…"

it is all right for everybody else.

That should not do for any hon. Member of this House. Nor for anything in relation to the ordinary lives and property of anybody. Nor—as we shall be discussing later—for their shrubs and trees. If it happened to appeal to some member of the county council, and if he were eminent enough, he could fill in ditches and tear down trees without giving any notice at all. But if is a case of the British Transport Commission, fourteen days' notice has to be given.

I do not think that is right. There is one freedom for all. This is tyranny, or the back-door to tyranny, and how tyranny starts—

It is Socialism.

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is Socialism, he has given a good reason why he has followed a misguided political future. If he understood Socialism he would be with me on this side of the Committee—

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not helping me. The Committee is discussing only this Amendment. It is not even discussing the Clause as a whole, far less the wider question of Socialism.

As you know, Sir Gordon, it is always my anxiety to help the Chair, and not to trespass on your kindness. But if I am continually interrupted, I must, in all fairness, explain where I stand.

I am not condemning the principle of the Amendment. It is a perfectly good Amendment to a perfectly good Bill. It is only that some of the words in it are wrong. I think it wrong that only in the case of the Commission—because they cannot face the arguments and the representations of the Commission—should the Government make this concession. Of course it is right that this concession should be made in respect of the Commission. But if it is right for the Commission, it should not be left to any highway authority to take any action which it likes to take, without giving notice, and without having to show cause, or without being accountable for its actions, merely because some anonymous individual on a county council says that something "appears to him" to be so.

I do not think that that is right and I am astonished that the Chamber is not crowded with hon. Members wishing to challenge the Government on this issue. I am sure that if the Government had taken responsibility for what I believe to be their Bill, a reactionary body like the County Councils' Association would not have had the temerity to come to the Government with such a proposition, because that would have put the Government in difficulties. So it chose another way, and that is what we are discussing today.

Regarding this Amendment and its relation to the Commission, I repeat that I do not share the view of the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams). I support the Amendment. I do not want to hold up the progress of this Bill. I hope that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds will be good enough to indicate that action will be taken in another place where there are still some supporters—not of liberty which is a nineteenth century word, but of freedom. I consider that the Anglo-Saxon word, "freedom", is much better. There are those who will defend the freedom of the individual against tyranny, whether exercised in Whitehall or in the county town of any county, and who will see that the rights and property of people are defended and not submerged for the benefit of administrative convenience.

If the hon. Gentleman or the Government—I do not know who will answer in this context would give an assurance that in another place the rights and freedom of the individual will be safeguarded; if they will be as responsive to those rights as they have been to the admirable case put forward by the Commission, I shall vote with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds if this matter goes to a division.

On a point of order, Sir Gordon. You wrongly announced the names of the Tellers. I suggest that the Tellers be called again.

I did correct the names of the Tellers to Mr. Lipton and Mr. Wigg.

With respect, Sir Gordon. You having called the names of the Tellers, many hon. Members had departed from the Chamber and the possibility exists that they will have been misled by the names of the Tellers. It is my respectful submission that the Division should be called again.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, to leave out from "taken" to "reasonably" in line 14 and to insert:

"such care as in all the circumstances was."

We now come to Clause I of the Bill, which is a new Clause added in Committee. Its intention, as hon. Members who were concerned with the Bill in its early stages will remember, is to abolish the age-old defence of non-feasance by which a local highway authority can avoid responsibility for any injury or damage done to a user of the highway simply as a result of its failure to repair the road.

In Committee, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) moved an Amendment to leave out the then

I corrected the matter straight away.

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is quoting or paraphrasing.

I am trying to tell the House roughly what happened in Committee. If the hon. Member will look at the last two or three pages of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee's proceedings, he will be able to refresh his memory about exactly what I said. I told the Committee that it seemed tantamount to placing a virtual impossibility on the shoulders of the plaintiff, because it would be very difficult for him to show in a positive way that the local highway authority had in fact failed to take steps to put things right. Having discussed the matter, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) told us that he was satisfied with the explanation. I gave an undertaking that I would have the point examined further and this Amendment is the result.

Local highway authorities have told us that they want to have the concept of reasonable care substituted for the words in the Clause:

"…such steps as in all the circumstances were reasonably required…".

They take the not illogical view that the reference to "steps" would require something positive on their part. They would not have been completely satisfied by a simple Amendment to leave out the reference to "steps" because they wanted it to be left open to them to argue, if necessary in court, that, even where they had taken no steps whatever, they had not necessarily failed to take reasonable care to avoid danger.

Their argument was that there may be, and probably are, a great many highways in different parts of the country where it would be perfectly reasonable not to repair the highways. Stretches of highway might be very little used in remote parts of the country, and it was their view that in cases arising out of this Clause and in respect of those places it would be putting a very heavy burden on them to have to say that they had taken steps. Accordingly, we looked again at the drafting and the Amendment before the House is the result.

The brief effect of the Amendment is to make sure that local highway authorities will not have to prove that they should have taken steps and that it was reasonable for them not to take steps. It will make clear that the care they have taken in the circumstances of each case would be such as would be considered by a reasonable person to be adequate. That, as briefly as I can explain it, is the purpose of the Amendment, and I hope that the House will agree to it.

I appreciate the good attempt that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has made to meet the wishes that, I understand, have been expressed on this matter, but I still have grave doubts about the effect. I hope the House will permit me to illustrate my thoughts with examples from my own constituency, because one's knowledge of the highway in any detail must be related closely to individual places.

In Kent, the main highway from Maidstone to Tonbridge is being altered and improved. While the work of alteration and improvement is going forward, the surface of the highway is extremely had, particularly towards the edges of the road, and it may well be argued, when the Bill becomes law, that the highway authorities are being perfectly reasonable in not doing anything about the surface of the road because it is being altered, and that they are therefore being wise and cautious in saving public money by not resurfacing, with a view to expending public money on taking out the bends, tearing down the hedges and making visibility greater.

In the meanwhile, there are many people, notably motor cyclists—and in the House today we are very concerned with the well being of motor cyclists—who are forced by virtue of the state of this highway to ride their motor cycles much too far towards the crown of the road. This is entirely due to the bad surface near the edges. If the highway authority were to mend the surface while the main works were still pending, as I think should be done, it might he said that it had acted unreasonably in its expenditure. Alternatively, it could be argued the other way, that by not mending the surface it had acted reasonably. Therefore, I am very puzzled about the effect that this defence will have where there are new, substantial alterations pending.

1.45 p.m.

We all know that there are many sections of the A.1 and other principal roads where the surface is extremely bad because works are going on. What is to be the defence of a highway authority where works are in progress of a completely different nature from the work of surfacing the road. Road works fall into two main categories, the category of providing safe roads, and the minor category of the yearly or bi-annual resurfacing, filling up potholes, and so on. What is to be the policy? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what the policy of his Department is or will be in the future concerning highways for which he is reponsible in this matter of maintaining the surface while road improvements and bend eliminations are going on. How bad is he prepared to let the surfaces go?

This Clause deals with the responsibility of highway authorities in general and not merely with that of the Minister where he is the highway authority. I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot speak for other highway authorities, but he may be able to give the House a lead about instructions or suggestions his Department may give to other highway authorities on this matter.

At the other end of the scale of road-making, there is the question of the many brand new roads and footpaths on housing estates just taken over from the contractors and builders. There is inevitable discusion about the surfacing due to the conditon in which the builders leave the road, and the highway authority very naturally has its rights in asserting the condition that it will expect when it takes over a new road.

There again, we have the considerable problem that after houses are newly built there may suddenly be last-minute changes about drains and so on. What will be the position of a highway authority which has just taken over a brand new road and which is picked up in part for a minor alteration? If it is near a housing estate it might be extremely dangerous because of small potholes. Is it to be the highway authority's defence that it was reasonable not to do anything because it was a new road? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will give some guidance about the policy of reasonableness in this matter of resurfacing where works are taking place, and on the point of resurfacing roads and footpaths newly taken over by a highway authority. He might be able to give some guidance on how far the power of his Ministry will stretch in dealing with highway authorities other than those for which the Minister is responsible.

We are dealing with a very important Amendment. In this Clause we are altering a long-established law of the country and making nonfeasance actionable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) said, we should inquire carefully into the defences which the local authority will have to protect it against any reasonable oversight, for example, when it is maintaining the roads. In this Clause we have to be reasonable. The Amendment is obviously intended to draw a balance between complete responsibility and the responsibility which it is reasonable for a highway authority to undertake.

As my hon. Friend said, we are dealing with two kinds of road work. First, we have what can only be described as temporary work. Often when travelling around the country one sees a sign, "Road works ahead". Provided that the warning system is adequate, I should have thought that a highway authority was in order to take up the road or to make any reasonable alterations to the highway at the same time, as long as the road was not unsafe. For example, as long as there are no large craters and no lack of proper signs, surely they should not be liable.

The second case, also mentioned by my hon. Friend, is that in which a road is being rebuilt and the existing road is being used only as a temporary road. I cannot see why a local authority should be compelled to spend a lot of money on a road which will serve the public for perhaps only a few weeks or months. If the local authority puts up a notice, "Temporary surface" or "Road under construction", and leaves it in a reasonable state of repair, surely that should be an adequate defence for the authority. I do not think that we should demand a perfect surface on such a road. One has to make a reasonable interpretation.

The Amendment seems to extend to more remote parts of the country where standards need not necessarily be as high as on the main arteries or in the towns. I think that in the Amendment we have achieved what we set out to achieve, which was to make non-feasance actionable but at the same time to give local authorities reasonable protection so that people do not bring vexatious actions against them without sufficient foundation.

In Committee we were all concerned about the possibility of pedestrians and other road users bringing actions against local authorities on flimsy grounds. We had in mind such examples as a lady with high-heeled shoes who tripped over a tiny unevenness of the pavement. We have to find some method of overcoming the danger of vexatious litigation. I think that the Amendment would cover those cases and would leave the Bill in the form in which we wish it to stand; nonfeasance would be actionable but at the same time a reasonable measure of protection would be given to the local authority to ensure that vexatious actions were not successful against them.

I strongly support the Amendment. I have been a member of various highway authorities for many years, and I have never felt meaner than when advised in various capacities by the clerk of the authority that, where an action for damages was brought against us, we had a cast-iron case although we knew that the road was bad and had done nothing to repair it. There is a way round even that difficulty, because the authority can be prosecuted at the assizes for leaving the road in a founderous condition. I have known the inhabitants of the parish in which I live indicted at Surrey assizes for that crime, and I have known them to be ordered by the judge to put the road into repair. But we do not want to go back to those archaic ways of dealing with the problem.

This is a reasonable compromise, and the words chosen cover all the points which have been raised by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) and the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn). Normally there is a notice "Road works ahead". If, in addition to those engaged in scarifying and relaying the roads, employees of the authority are there to see that the traffic is regulated, warned and helped, then the evils which have been suggested will not arise, and I think that the local authority will have a particularly good case to present to anyone who brings an action against it.

I was amused when a secretary of an association of local authorities told me that he had been asked to draft a brief to defend the existing law under which non-feasance is not actionable, for he said that after spending many hours he had had to give up in despair. That is the proper way to look at the present conditions.

I should have thought that the words in the Amendment dealt adequately with the case of the remote road in an isolated area which is rarely used by traffic. When I was Home Secretary, after travelling in the Home Office car and reaching a certain place, I heard my chauffeur say to the ostler at the hotel, "How many roads are there round here which are not suitable for use by a motor car?" He replied, "I think there are four." My chauffeur said, "I will bet you that my governor will find a fifth for you."

We know that in the remote areas there are often little-used roads, sometimes little more than accommodation roads from the main highway to a remote farm or estate. People using those roads ought to know what to expect of them. I should have thought that a local authority would be protected in such a case if it put up a notice at the commencement of the road reading, "Public highway"—thus accepting the general liability—"Motorists are advised to proceed with caution." Words such as that would indicate to those using the road that it was not the sort of road on which they should necessarily expect to find a concrete surface all the way.

Although the Bill applies only to England and Wales, could we not import an excellent idea which operates in Scotland? They put up notices saying that certain roads are category "C" roads.

I do not want to see too many notices on the side of roads. I was suggesting some kind of warning notice. Neither am I anxious to see Englishmen governed by the laws of Scotland. That is one thing we have managed to avoid, in spite of the length of time that Scotsmen spend trying to force their laws on us. It is no recommendation to me to say that they do this in Scotland. This is a reasonably workable compromise. If local authorities exercise their new freedom from anxiety reasonably so as not to create unnecessary anxiety among ordinary road users, the law of England will have been drafted with common sense.

With the leave of the House, may I briefly reply to the points raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) and Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn)? I am grateful to the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) for his support of the Amendment. I confirm the explanation he gave to my hon. Friends. As the Clause would stand if the Amendment were carried and the wording changed in lines 13 and 14, there is no doubt that the circumstances my hon. Friends had in mind would be completely covered. We are laying down a statutory defence which a local highway authority faced with an action for damages because it has not maintained the highway can raise. The words would be:

"it shall be a defence…to prove that the authority had taken such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required".

That is the answer to my hon. Friends. If a road is under repair or alterations are going on, those circumstances are obviously relevant in deciding whether the local highway authority has failed to keep up this statutory duty of care.

I am talking in this context about alterations to the highway itself. I am not talking about alterations to the highway as a result of the activities of statutory undertakers, such as the gas, electricity and telephone people. That matter is dealt with in a subsequent Amendment which I shall shortly move. There the obligation is rather different, but perhaps we can deal with that point when we reach it. As to the highway itself, I confirm that the Clause, with the Amendment, would have the effect of dealing with the situations my hon. Friends mentioned.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 35 at the end to insert:

(7) This section shall not apply to damage resulting from breaking or opening or tunnel- ling or boring under a street by way of code-regulated works, being damage resulting from an event which occurred—

(a) before the completion of the reinstatement or making good of the relevant part of the street in pursuance of the obligation imposed on the undertakers by subsection (2) of section seven of the Public Utilities Street Works Act, 1950; or

(b) where the relevant part of the street is the subject of an election under the Third Schedule to that Act (which, with minor exceptions, limits the obligation of undertakers to the execution of interim restoration), during the period mentioned in subparagraph (a) of paragraph 3 of that Schedule;

and expressions used in this subsection and in the said Act of 1950 have the same meanings as in that Act.

This is the Amendment to which I referred a few moments ago. It has been suggested to us following representations from the highway authority associations. They have been concerned at the possibility that they will become involved in actions resulting from a defect in the highway caused by statutory undertakers disturbing it when they exercise their power to break open or tunnel under the street for the purpose of laying, altering or maintaining their apparatus.

So long as the nonfeasance rule applied, no action could lie against anyone except the statutory undertakers, but when the rule is abolished a plaintiff might have a right of action against the highway authority for failing to make good the defective work of the statutory undertakers. This would be in addition to his right against the undertakers.

It is true—we discussed this point briefly in Committee—that the position of the highway authority would to some extent, if not entirely, be protected as a result of the operation of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935. If the authority was sued, it could join the undertakers in the action. If the court decided that the fault was that of the undertakers and not of the highway authority, the highway authority could obtain a complete indemnity for the costs and trouble to which it had been put. I do not think that the House would consider it altogether satisfactory that a highway authority should be put to all this trouble and difficulty of defending or becoming involved in an action of this kind, especially as the responsibility for the proper restoration of the highway rests fairly and squarely upon statutory undertakers as a result of the lengthy and clear provisions of the Public Utilities Street Works Act, 1950.

Highway authorities can quite properly be required to maintain the disturbed highway once the final restoration has been completed to their satisfaction by the undertakers. I remind the House that under Section 7 of the Public Utilities Street Works Act, 1950, the final restoration has to be done to the satisfaction of the highway authority. There is an alternative to this process. Under the Third Schedule to that Act an authority may exercise its right and elect to carry out the final reinstatement itself. In either that case or in the earlier case it then quite properly resumes responsibility for the fabric of that part of the highway. Where it makes such an election under the Third Schedule, there is a period of interim restoration where the disturbed portion of the highway may be in use, but the responsibility for its condition remains with the undertakers. The undertakers put down a temporary surface over the filled-in trench or the excavation, and that surface remains there until the filling has settled and compacted. Then the surface can be finally reinstated without the risk of future subsidence.

The effect of the Amendment is that, while the statutory undertakers remain responsible, the failure of the highway authority to maintain that piece of highway will not render it liable to action under Clause 1. Putting it as briefly as I can, the Amendment is intended to provide an additional defence of a kind for the local highway authority where the damage which is the cause of the injury is not of its making but the making of the statutory undertakers. We have sought in the Amendment to take account of the varying circumstances in which the situation may arise.

I am a little concerned about this, because I think that there is an opening up of responsibility. The normal procedure is that if the gas or electricity authorities want to carry out works they are authorised to do so. They dig up the road. Then then put down a temporary surface. The normal procedure is that the public authority later on repairs the road and puts it in its permanent form.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary said that local authorities could rely on the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act which, as far as I remember, allows parties to be joined. I should have preferred to rely on this, because if there is an accident or if a cause of action arises it is very difficult for a plaintiff to know exactly whose fault it is. He is not to know whether the repairs have been carried out by the electricity authority, the gas authority, or anybody else. He merely knows that there is a thoroughly bad surface on the public highway and that he has had a nasty accident.

I should have preferred to see this overlap covered by the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act. Under that Act a plaintiff can join both defendants, and it is then up to the court to decide who was responsible for the negligence. I should like my hon. Friend's assurance on this matter. If a plaintiff is not quite sure whom he can bring his action against—a statutory undertaker or the highway authority—will it still be open to him to use the alternative procedure which my hon. Friend mentioned, remembering that this Amendment cannot be used in connection with the Public Utilities Street Works Act. I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend can give me an assurance that that course will still be open to the plaintiff.

Perhaps I may speak again, by leave of the House. There is much to be said in favour of leaving things as they are and relying upon the operation of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, but we took the view that, as a result of our changing this very ancient law by legislation, it might happen that the highway authorities would be joined in many actions arising out of disturbances to the highway which were nothing to do with them but had been caused by statutory undertakers. It is a question of balance, and of trying to decide where the obligation should fall. We came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to put down this Amendment, which makes it clear that the highway authority, as such, is exempted from liability where damage has been caused by the activities of statutory undertakers.

It would be vexatious if highway authorities were liable to be sued as directly responsible for something which is not their responsibility, leaving it to them to go through the expensive and troublesome course of having to join statutory undertakers in their actions. We are concerned with highway authorities as representatives not merely of local authority bodies but of the ratepayers. A comparatively poor county might find the risk of incurring substantial expenditure of this kind a very serious matter. It is better to make it clear that the situation which arises from damage caused to the surface of a highway by statutory undertakers should be a matter of clear connection between the plaintiff and the undertakers, without the intervention of the highway authority.

My hon. Friend asked me how a prospective plaintiff would know that the hole in the road was caused by a statutory undertaker and not the highway authority. I should have thought that that would be a matter of normal inquiry. The obvious first step for anyone injured in this way would be to write to the highway authority, through his solicitors, informing it of the fact that injury had been caused.

The injured person might even do that without employing a solicitor.

Touché! I accept the rebuke from the right hon. Gentleman. But this was not intended to be advertising. In any event, the injured person ought to get in touch with the local highway authority and claim damages, and it would then be for the highway authority to say, "The hole into which you fell was caused not by us but by the gas board", or the electricity board, or whoever it was. "You have sent your letter to the wrong address." The injured person would then at once be put on notice that the highway authority disclaimed liability, and he would be able to apply to the right person. I am fairly sure that this would work well in practice.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 38, to leave out "arising" and to insert "resulting".

This is purely a drafting Amendment. Its intention is to preserve consistency of wording throughout the Bill. The words "damage resulting" are already used in page 1, line 9, and they were also included in the last Amendment with which we dealt.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 29, at the end to insert:

(4) The highway authority shall have power to recover the cost of replacing trees, shrubs and grass verges damaged by horses or cattle from the owner of such horses or cattle.

I very much regret that the satisfactory progress which is being made has to be impeded for a short while, for reasons which I propose to set forth. The Amendment refers to a point which I raised in the Second Reading debate. I then developed the argument to a limited extent, and asked the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) if he would consider an addition to the Bill in Committee. I said:

"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."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1961; Vol. 635, c. 1115.]

It was not my good fortune to be appointed to the Standing Committee which considered the provisions of this Bill, but I studied the Report of its proceedings with considerable interest, and I found to my great regret that, either owing to an oversight on the part of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds or for some other reason, no attempt had been made to introduce the Amendment that I had suggested or something on similar lines.

During the Second Reading debate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation, who was representing the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, who was unfortunately not well on that day, dealt with numerous points that had been raised during the debate, but made no reference to what I regarded as the interesting and valuable suggestion that I had made. In those circumstances, I felt it my duty to put down this Amendment.

I hope that it will find favour both with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and the Parliamentary Secretary. Farmers or other persons in charge of horses or cattle do drive them along subsidiary roads at the side of which there are verges and hedges and, on occasions, either the person in charge of the animals does not exercise sufficient care or there are not a sufficient number in charge of the drove going along those subsidiary roads. As a result, the verges are trampled down, the soil from those verges is pushed into the ditch and the hedges—

The British Railways ditch will be covered, because of an Amendment we passed earlier.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) to consider whether it is in order for the hon. Gentleman the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) to refer to an Amendment that was passed earlier.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) for that observation and, thus, I am obliged to both hon. Members for the contributions that they have so far made to this discussion. I hope that we shall hear the views of other hon. Members when I have concluded my arguments.

I was about to say that a drove of cattle might be taken along a subsidiary road where, particularly in winter, the verges are liable to be a little softer than usual. The verge may be trampled down, part of it may be pushed into the ditch and the other part scattered over the highway. The hedges may be nibbled and destroyed by the cattle or horses. It can and it does happen that perhaps an ordinary private resident has a reasonably nice garden, with one or two ornamental trees in the hedge. They may be destroyed or severely damaged. That can happen even though the cattle or horses may be under the control of someone acting on behalf of the farmer, that person perhaps taking the cattle from one field to another a hundred yards or so up the road.

Would it not be most unusual for the ornamental trees and other ornaments actually to be on the highway?

I am surprised at that intervention. I could take the hon. Gentleman to certain parts of the country, not far from London, where this sort of thing has happened more than once. I do not know what the conditions are like in Norfolk, or perhaps in East Anglia—

In Suffolk.

I am speaking in the broadest sense. It may be that the local farmers in these areas know how to behave, but in some counties some farmers—particularly city gentlemen who set up as farmers—do not know how to behave.

Surely my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) sees the class approach to this matter by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken), who cannot conceive the possibility of someone having an ornamental tree in a hedge in his front garden. The hon. Gentleman's conception is of a great stately drive in which the trees are miles from the road. Our constituents, on the other hand, have their ornamental trees growing alongside the road.

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. How can one make a highway authority responsible for something which cattle have done while moving along a highway which is not someone's private garden?

On a point of order. Is it not out of order to discuss trees in private gardens on this Amendment, which refers to verges only? I should have thought that the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) was out of order in discussing anything that happens in people's private gardens.

Further to that point of order. I am not sure whether we are in the gardens or on the roads, and unless we can get this cleared up we shall be in an impossible position.

The facts do not appear to have dawned on some hon. Gentlemen That may be because I have not made myself completely clear. It is possible for a hedge to be situated alongside a ditch. Let us proceed from there, by stages, because I want to make the matter as simple as possible or otherwise I shall be misunderstood. Let us assume that this hedge is alongside a ditch in a country lane and that it belongs to, or to some extent is the responsibility of, the owner of the house or garden behind that hedge. If the owner of that hedge allows it to become so unkempt that it protrudes over the highway, the local authority can require that owner, or the person responsible, to cut it back so as not to create an obstruction.

If the ditch is inside the hedge it is the responsibility of the local authority to keep the hedge tidy. But if the ditch is outside the hedge it is the responsibility of the owner.

I accept that.

Before my hon. Friend accepts that, is he quite sure about the position? I should have thought that it would have been exactly the reverse.

The situation will become a little more clear when all hon. Members who have views on the subject have expressed them. I hope that they will now allow me to adduce my argument because they will find that it is not without substance.

Hear, hear.

We have arrived at the stage where the damage is done to the verge, in the first instance—and, incidentally, the damage is done to the hedge as well—by the cattle or horses of the farmer about whom I have been speaking. The position of the person outside whose property the verge is situated becomes difficult. He can institute legal proceedings against the farmer, in certain circumstances, although it is not his verge, but if the ditch is blocked and he suffers some inconvenience, he may be willing to engage a good lawyer and go to the trouble and expense of fighting the case. He may, in those circumstances, establish a case.

But, in the meantime, someone must repair and unblock that ditch. In certain parts of the country county councils are not very anxious to undertake one ha'porth of work if they can possibly avoid it. Thus the wretched citizen is subjected to this inconvenience and damage and probably has himself to try to repair it; firstly, because the farmer refuses to do anything about it, and, secondly, because the county council, as the highway authority, refuses to do anything about it either.

That constitutes a serious hardship to people who may be living in small cottages along a highway which has been disturbed in the manner I have indicated. In these circumstances, in order to reduce the inconvenience to the utmost possible extent, the county council, as the local highway authority, should be able to do the necessary repair work forthwith and to charge the cost to the farmer whose cattle have been responsible for the damage.

If they can prove that the grass verge is the property of the county council.

Naturally, subject to that and similar provisos. I maintain that the local highway authority should have the power to recover the cost from the farmer who, in present circumstances, gets away with it altogether.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) in this matter, but is he right in agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede)? As I understand the purpose of the Amendment, the hon. Member for Brixton wishes the local highway authority to do the repairs and to seek to recover the cost from the owner of the horses or cattle. Is that the case and, if so, does the hon. Member for Brixton still wish to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields?

I am prepared to be as accommodating as possible in order to secure acceptance of this Amendment. Of course, it would be ridiculous for the county council to incur expense without the remotest possibility of ever being able to recover it, but in the countryside everybody knows who does what, and it is not very easy to avoid responsibility in this kind of thing.

Therefore, I urge the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds to view this Amendment with favour. It tries to remedy perhaps not a very widespread hardship, but a hardship nevertheless. We have before us a Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Let us add just one more miscellaneous provision for the protection of the dweller in the cottage alongside the road, who has been put to considerable inconvenience by cattle either straying or being driven along the highway.

I ask that this matter be considered seriously because acceptance of the Amendment would go a long way towards protecting the interest and the convenience of small people living in rural areas, who are not big farmers and who have quite enough to put up with from their local county councils in backward areas, would-be squires and that sort of thing.

I listened very carefully to what the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has said, but I confess that I still find the intention behind the Amendment exceedingly obscure. As drafted, it would authorise a highway authority to recover from the owner of horses or cattle the cost of replacing trees, shrubs, grass and verges damaged by those animals, however slight the damage, regardless of whether the trees were on the highway or not, and regardless of whether they were the property of the highway authority or of some other person.

Is the hon. Member seeking to put on to the highway authority responsibility for the property of some other person? That is what the Amendment would seem to indicate. As for damage to grass verges, they are usually put down in a rough condition and I should not have thought they would suffer much damage from wandering cattle. Indeed, it is probably desirable that the drover should keep his cattle on the verge if he possibly can, as it is much safer for all who use the highway. If trees and shrubs are damaged there is already power to recover from the owner of the cattle. If the hon. Member wished to confer on the highway authority power to protect trees on the highway which the authority does not own but which it is responsible for maintaining, there might be a case for this Amendment, but not otherwise.

I regret to say that I cannot see any need for this Amendment, nor can I see how the hon. Member can expect a highway authority to do a job for which it is not responsible.

I remember a case in my constituency of a man, not connected with agriculture, who was on his way to a factory and was knocked over by some beasts and received injuries. When he recovered he employed the services of an able lawyer and found himself immersed in tradition and law which went right back to the Middle Ages. Nothing is more complex than the law governing the responsibility for what beasts do upon the highway. There is a case for the whole of this problem to be reconsidered and for the law to be brought into line with present-day needs.

I remember driving along the road at my usual modest speed when suddenly an animal loomed up in front of me. I applied my brakes and avoided an accident, but a motorist who was following me told me that this was a fairly common occurrence. He himself had had a narrow escape and had protested to the owner of the animals, but all he had received was abuse because the owner thought that the highway was made for the animals.

It seems to me that my hon. Friend has not considered where the balance of argument rests. Most of what he said seemed to apply to animals which were going along a highway in the charge of a drover, the drover thinking of other matters and losing control so that the animals damaged a hedge or a verge belonging to a private person, the damage being of such a serious character that the highway authority should be responsible for repairing it. Is it the intention of the hon. Gentleman that if that were to happen the object damaged should be repaired by the highway authority which would then seek out the owner of the animal and recover the cost? There seems to be some doubt on that point. The Amendment might be of value if that were its purpose, and if the hon. Gentleman will give an assurance that he would accept something on those lines I would be prepared to accompany him into the Division Lobby.

Short of a re-examination of the law as a whole, which we cannot do today because we have other pressing matters to deal with later, and also because we should be out of order if we attempted it at this stage, we should try to introduce a concept which alters the balance of the argument to make the man who has cattle or horses aware of his responsibility in this matter so that the onus is on him to see that his animals do not get on to the highway.

It is all very well to say that the highway authority is responsible and that one can recover from it. But that is after the accident has happened. I agree with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) that this Amendment would not achieve this purpose, even if one were quite sure what my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) was after. But I am in favour of some form of words of this kind which would bring home to the owners of animals that if they allow their animals to go on to the highway they will be brought to account.

My hon. Friend is right about the problems which will arise if the offender is to be brought to account by another resident in the area, who is probably on Christian-name terms with him, drinks at the local public house with him and worships at the same church. He will be reluctant to go to a lawyer, because the countryman knows what might happen to him if he made a journey to the nearest town and instructed a lawyer.

That is not the way to do it. Here is an occasion to use the power of the highway authority to see that justice is done in the interests of highway users. To have a Measure of this kind in the background might have a very potent effect in bringing home the fact that if people are careless in this matter they might be hit in the pocket. It is far better to attempt this than to wait until there is a great build up of opinion and the Government are then forced to depend on the luck of the Ballot and on the success of a kind-hearted Member such as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds in introducing a Measure.

Short of the millenium, I hope that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds will see the force of the argument for the Amendment. I thoroughly understand the reasons why he cannot accept it, but if he can give an assurance that he will see whether the problem can be tackled in another place, I shall be willing to ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the Amendment, and to move on to more pressing business. But if he cannot do that I shall accompany my hon. Friend into the Division Lobby.

With respect to the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) the Amendment as it stands—and the House has to decide on this wording—obviously will not do for the purposes which he has in mind. The Amendment simply says that,

"The highway authority shall have power to recover the cost of replacing trees, shrubs and grass verges…"

It does not say where. It does not say "on a highway". They could be in the middle of Windsor Great Park or anywhere else. The Amendment continues,

"damaged by horses or cattle from the owner of such horses or cattle"

—and the horses or cattle might be anywhere in the country, and nothing in the Amendment makes clear which highway authority is concerned.

I appreciate that these are technical matters, for which I do not blame the hon. Member. We have all had trouble when on the back benches in trying to draft Amendments. But since the House must decide on these words, I must point out that clearly the Amendment will not do.

I will turn to the merits of the case. I hope that we shall make a little progress with the Bill, because time is getting on and there are other matters which await the attention of the House. It is not a very easy proposition to make that any damage which has been done by animals on the highway, whether they are under control or not, must automatically be compensated for by the owner of the animal. Let me refer particularly to grass verges. Grass verges are provided beside the carriageway and form part of the highway, and there is a legitimate and ancient right for anyone to lead animals along the highway. In fact, they lead them on the grass verges, those being part of the highway, for convenience, because the ground is softer than the hard surface of the carriageway, and in modern conditions they are thus not running the risk of being mixed up with vehicular traffic.

I hope that the hon. Member for Brixton will not press the Amendment to a Division but will withdraw it. As it stands, it will not do. If I may say so with respect, I do not think that it is well conceived. If what he has in mind is to ensure a change in the law relating to the liability for animals on the highway, I commend to him a Bill which was introduced this Session by his hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert), the Highways (Liability for Animals) Bill which as far as I am aware still stands on the Order Paper, and which has precisely that point in view.

2.45 p.m.

In all the circumstances, and since we are anxious to get on with the business, I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw the Amendment.

It is important that the agricultural and rural point of view should be stated, however quickly. I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for showing a clear understanding of rural life.

With great respect to the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), this is a wonderful townsman's Amendment which bears no relation to the realities of the countryside. This loose definition of horses and cattle would alter the fundamental definition to which we have all been used in respect of animals on the highway. I deplore not only the wording of the Amendment but the spirit of it. I thought that I heard the hon. Member say that he would not withdraw the Amendment. I hope that he will change his mind. The position of the farmer in driving his cattle becomes more and more difficult every year, with the increase in the number of motor vehicles, and the farming community must be given every reasonable opportunity to move its animals about.

The hon. Member reasonably seeks to prevent damage, but damage is far more often done by motor vehicles than by cattle. Motor vehicles backing and turning, sometimes with careless driving of one sort or another, do far more damage to the side amenities of the highway than farm animals ever do. In the interests of a sensible and responsible rural community, I hope that the hon. Member will think again and will withdraw the Amendment.

With the leave of the House I should like to add one or two words. The speech of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) almost tempted me to adhere to my original intention and to force a Division, but I have made my point, and I hope that some thought will be given to the general problem in the future. In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Wells, to move the Amendment in page 5, line 35, at the end to insert:

"Provided nothing in this section shall apply to the marking of trees during the course of normal forestry work."

In view of the clear understanding of rural matters shown by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, I will not move this Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 35, at the end to insert:

"Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to the inscription or affixing of any picture letter sign or other mark in connection with any Parliamentary action."

I will enter into the spirit shown by the Minister, because we are anxious to make rapid progress, and I will not dwell very long on the Amendment, although it is important. If necessary, however, we shall have to take it to a Division because it concerns fundamental issues.

There was a time when the squire and his relatives dominated the countryside. It is not so today. Nevertheless, there are parts of England where it is very difficult for the spirit of progress to make its voice heard. I think hon. Members will agree that all the power, wealth and social prestige in this country rests in the hands of the Conservative Party and that the challenge has always come from those who speak from this side of the House. Where progress has been made, it has been by the right of assembly and the right of public meetings, which has been considerably eroded by that barbarous modern invention, television.

At least at election times there should be a right of those who engage in the spirit of the hustings to chalk slogans on the highway—in the interests of both parties. The most vociferous sponsors of such bills these days are to be found on the opposite side of the House. At the last election my own modest hedge was twice set on fire by those who support the cause of the Conservative Party. I mention that in no mood of complaint.

Perhaps it was done by wandering cattle.

These were not wandering cattle. The hedge was set alight and my daughter had to comfort her mother, and they had to put buckets of water on the hedge to put the fire out. These are the kinds of thing which happen in the heat of an election. I do not want our elections to be too mambypamby, as long as they are carried on in good temper. If someone sticks a bill on a tree, at the crossroads, on a telegraph post, or chalks on the highway, good luck to him. If he is caught, either he rubs it out or takes the consequences of his actions.

While again appreciate that the views of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) are essentially common sense and right, I hope that he will agree to make an exception during the period of a Parliamentary election. The Amendment is in the interests of democracy as a whole. What it is concerned with is part of our political education. We want to encourage young people to come into political parties and to conduct themselves with good manners and vigour. The Amendment is directed to that end, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept it.

Like the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), I am all for any facilities which can be given to make a contribution to the vigour, hilarity, and acerbity of electoral contests. The hard fact which often emerges from one's researches on a Bill of this kind is that the sort of defacement of the highway which the Amendment would permit could be, not only a great problem to local authorities, but a very serious road hazard. A Parliamentary election can produce as many original but sometimes objectionable and unsightly forms of Publicity as any other.

Another point which the hon. Gentleman should consider is, where is this to stop? If a case could be made out for the use of these modern plastic paints and adhesives and plastic posters, and the like, it would be possible for this to grow into a quite serious inconvenience and hazard on the roads. The first question which most people will ask is: if it is right for political parties contesting a national election, why is it not right for local authority elections, local announcements and advertisements?

The Amendment would not only expose local authorities to a great deal of inconvenience and difficulty but—and this is my main point which I hope will induce the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the Amendment—there is no doubt that experience of local authorities has shown time and time again that these marks on highways or on structures are a hazard to drivers, especially if they are of an arresting and perhaps ribald nature, the sort of thing that we all love to see in an election. However desirable it may be to put vim, vigour and vitality into elections, that is the main point that we must consider.

On behalf of the Government, may I say that, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken), I hope that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will not press his Amendment. We must remember that this Clause is not intended to be beastly or horrible to those who would like to advertise or to write slogans or affix posters about political and other matters. It is intended to avoid a road hazard. That is the important point. It is undoubtedly true that if certain slogans, signs or pictures scrawled on the highway or on things adjoining the highway are sufficiently exciting and interesting, people driving along the highway are bound to let their attention wander from the job of driving in order to look at what is exhibited. Thereby a road hazard is created.

The Amendment is intended to put in a proviso to the effect that the Clause shall not apply to anything put up in connection with a Parliamentary election. Nothing is said in the Amendment about a municipal or local government election. In any event, a Parliamentary election is specifically mentioned. Although I have not been able to obtain full information and advice about this, I think that there are certain restrictions under town and country planning legislation and under the control of advertisements regulations which would, irrespective of the proviso which the hon. Gentleman seeks to introduce, prevent this sort of thing from being done.

It is also, I believe, contrary to the electoral law to do what is called fly-posting—that is, to affix posters, slogans or pictures to property which does not belong to us unless we have the permission of the owner so to do. Where a tree or structure is within the confines of the highway—not on the carriageway, but within the ambit of the highway—and therefore belongs to the highway authority, obviously that permission could not be given for a Parliamentary or local government election.

The Amendment, well-intentioned though it may be, would not work very well because it would run against what is already in the existing law, and I hope that the hon. Member will realise that, since we are trying to get rid of road hazards, however good the case may be for an individual type of sign, we must try to draw the line somewhere. We are trying to draw it in this Clause.

I wish to withdraw the Amendment in view of the plea of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) and of the Parliamentary Secretary concerning road hazards. I accept that. However, with regard to the other part of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech, I have done my homework as well as he. I looked at the Representation of the People Act and I sought advice about the town and country planning legislation. It is clear that during a Parliamentary election the normal procedures are loosened just a little. I did not specify other elections because there are so many of them, such as county council elections and urban district elections. By limiting the Amendment to Parliamentary elections, I thought that it would be acceptable. However, in my anxiety not to waste time, I accept what has been said and beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I do not wish to move my Amendment in page 5, line 39.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 1, to leave out subsection 6. I have no desire to detain the House.

On a point of order. Although I did not move the Amendment in page 5, line 38, I did wish to move subsequent Amendments.

I am afraid that there is an obstacle to that. They are not selected. I moved to the present Amendment as being the next selected.

I have no desire to detain the House and I am most anxious to get on. If it were possible for my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) to accept the Amendment, or indicate that he would go a long way to meet my requirements, I could save the House a long speech.

indicated dissent.

That is most unfortunate. What I dislike most about subsection (6) is that it gives more power to a statutory body. It is a most undesirable extension of public power arising from a Private Member's Bill.

The Telegraph Act, 1878, gives a definition of a telegraph line as:

"The expression 'telegraphic line' means telegraphs, posts, and any work (within the meaning of the Telegraph Act, 1863)"—

I do not propose to go into a paper chase looking that up—

"and also any cables apparatus pneumatic or other tube, pipe, or thing whatsoever used for the purpose of transmitting telegraphic messages or maintaining telegraphic communication and includes any portion of a telegraphic line as defined by this Act."

The Bill goes much too far, and I am sure that my hon. Friend should go half way to meeting me by trying to quieten down this provision in another place.

I am afraid that there are so many complications in this matter that it is almost impossible to give an answer straight away without giving some ideas of the requirements of the Telegraph Office. I would much rather that the Minister, with his greater knowledge of the details, should give the answer.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend does not feel inclined to meet me, because I am most anxious that he should get his Bill, and, if he is not prepared to do that with this bit of his Bill, I am inclined to think that he may not get his Bill at all, which would be very unfortunate.

This is an extension of power to which I take the gravest exception. Subsection (6) says:

"Where immediately before the conveyance of any land by a highway authority in pursuance of this section there is under, in, upon, over, along or across the land—

(a) any telegraphic line…belonging to or used by the Postmaster-General; or

(b) any apparatus belonging to or used by statutory undertakers for the purposes of their undertaking…"

That is far too wide. There are many types of statutory undertakings today and it is most unreasonable to extend these further powers to them. If only some arrangement could be found by which this subsection could be altered in another place—

From what my hon. Friend has just said, it is clear that he has completely misunderstood what this is all about.

Had the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) finished his speech, or is this a form of intervention? He finished speaking with a half-completed sentence.

I was under the impression that the Parliamentary Secretary was interrupting.

I have to put the Question when the hon. Member has finished speaking.

Perhaps I can finish my speech to see what answer we get, which might be the most convenient way to proceed.

I am sorry that I interrupted my hon. Friend. I was under the impression that he had finished his speech.

He has possibly misunderstood what the point of the subsection is. I admit that it is complicated. The whole Clause is complicated, but the purpose is quite simple. The Clause gives a local authority a power, which it does not have now, of adjusting the boundaries of a highway. If in the course of doing that it finds that it needs to take a small fraction of land, it is to have the power to exchange land of its own for the land it wants to take it is envisaged as a perfectly straightforward negotiation, between the authority and the landowner or landowners concerned, leading to an agreement. That is the purpose of the Clause, and that is why it is framed in this way.

Subsection (6) is intended to do nothing more nor less than to preserve the position of the owners of statutory undertakers' apparatus. A piece of land which is sought to be exchanged under the provisions of this Clause might well have under it pipes, cables, telephone lines or other types of apparatus belonging to statutory undertakers, and we must give them the opportunity of intervening in any bargain so as to get an assurance that the position of their apparatus will not be disturbed. If such an arrangement goes through there will be a change of ownership, and it is only right that the Postmaster-General and other statutory undertakers should, if they want, have the opportunity of getting their apparatus out of the land which is to be exchanged once it has ceased to be a highway.

If what we are doing is to allow local authorities to give up a piece of land to a landowner adjoining the highway in exchange for a piece of land which is to go into the highway, and if there is statutory undertakers' property under the highway and that arrangement cannot continue, we must make provision for the apparatus to be got out.

That is what the Clause is intended to do. If my hon. Friend looks at section 300 of the Highways Act, 1959, he will see what is intended in circumstances like this. I suggest to my hon. Friend that he has perhaps misconceived the idea of what he is trying to do, and I urge him not to press the Amendment.

While the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) is trying to make up his mind whether to accept the suggestion of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and to give him time to look up the Statutes relating to the matter, I should like to say that I find myself on the side of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. He has put forward a reasonable explanation for the inclusion of this subsection.

I feel impelled to make a further comment. In the course of his remarks the hon. Member for Maidstone used some rather threatening language towards the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) to the effect that unless either he or the Joint Parliamentary Secretary accepted the Amendment it was unlikely that the remaining stages of the Bill would be completed.

I do not, nor does the House, like this kind of threatening or bulldozing attitude. It may be that when the hon. Gentleman has been here a little longer he will realise that that kind of tactic does not pay—not here anyhow. It may pay in whichever constituency he happens to represent, but it will not work here. That is an additional reason why I find myself completely antipathetic to his argument, and if on this occasion he has the temerity to force the Amendment to a Division I shall be very happy to support the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary.

I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) for his helpful remarks. On looking at the principal Act, and in view of what my hon. Friend said, it appears that I should be well advised to withdraw the Amendment, and I beg to ask the leave of the House so to do.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 29, to leave out "of Transport".

This is purely a drafting Amendment. It is unnecessary to refer to the Minister as the Minister of Transport, because Section 295 of the Highways Act says that throughout that Act, with which this Bill will have to be read, any reference to the Minister means the Minister of Transport.

I have been disciplining myself most severely throughout the afternoon in order to do all I could to help the hon. Gentleman get his Bill through, but I am relieved to have the Parliamentary Secretary's reason for this Amendment. I thought that it was the final recognition that his right hon. Friend the Minister had given up any attempt to do anything about transport at all, and that this was just the final recognition of an acknowledged fact; that the right hon. Gentleman has ceased to have any really effective administrative powers at all. I am grateful to know that I am wrong.

It would have been susceptible of another explanation—that my right hon. Friend had tried to take over the whole of the Government.

May we be told by the Government which is right?

I beg to move, in page 9, line 41, to leave out from the beginning to "section" in line 46.

I think that it might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if with this Amendment we also took those in page 10, lines 1 and 4.

The object of these Amendments is to make possible the amendment, by an Order made by the Minister on the application of the relevant local authority, of any provision in a local Act that does not accord with the provisions of Clause 1 of this Bill which, as the House remembers, deals with nonfeasance. The difficulty is that there might in local Acts be provisions that would conflict with Clause 1 and, as a result, locally a somewhat confused legal situation might well arise.

In practice, of course, it would be quite impossible for us to make a complete examination of all the local Acts promoted by local authorities over the last hundred years or so during which the nonfeasance doctrine has been in force, and then to make quite sure that none of them made provisions which had been framed entirely on the assumption that the nonfeafance rule would continue. If there were such provisions, and if they were legally in force without there being the possibility in this Bill of getting them amended, the local authority might find itself having somewhat different rights, powers and duties under the local Act than under the provisions of Clause 1.

I should remind the House that when the 1950 Public Utilities Street Works Act was passed, a somewhat similar clearing-up operation took place, and in so far as that disposed of any provisions in local Acts relating to statutory undertakers that were not in accordance with the new code laid down by that 1950 Act, it seems unlikely that there will be many provisions left in local Acts that will be out of accord with the provisions of this Bill in regard to nonfeasance, but it is obviously desirable that we should have the power to eliminate any differences if they are found to exist.

We propose that a highway authority that finds itself in such a position should be able to apply to the Minister for an Order modifying the local enactment in any matter it may think suitable in order to take account of this changed position arising from the abolition of the rule of nonfeasance, and that the Minister should have power to make such an Order.

There is already a general provision in Section 288 of the Highways Act, 1959, for the Minister of Housing and Local Government to make an Order amending a local Act where the provisions are inconsistent with the provisions of that 1959 Act, or where they are redundant. In the present series of Amendments we are, however, going a little wider in the direction of giving the Minister of Transport a power to modify. The reason is that Section 288 of the 1959 Act is strictly limited to provisions in local Acts that are either inconsistent with the main Act or are obviously redundant.

These Amendments would allow a change to be made in the local enactment where, to use the words of the Amendment

"…it appears proper to alter having regard to the effect of section one of this Act.…"

Because we are asking the House to give us these rather wider powers, we propose to make any Order that the Minister of Transport may wish to make subject, in future, to the negative Resolution procedure.

3.15 p.m.

This is different from the procedure which is at present in operation under Section 288. It is possible that hon. Members may say that this is a very bad example of legislation by reference. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am sorry about it, but I ask hon. Members to consider the appallingly complicated situation we should be in if we found that, having made this general statute with general application abolishing this defence of nonfeasance, it was subsequently found that local authorities had private Act powers which had been erected upon the foundation of the continuance of the nonfeasance defence.

This is the difficulty that we face. The only alternative to the Amendment would be for us to go right through every local Act and check each one and make sure that the situation would be traced and each case would be cleared up by a fresh Act of Parliament. I suggest that to do so would be virtually impossible. I hope, therefore, that the House will agree with this proposal which is subject to a negative Resolution for any Order which we make, and I do not think that there will be many. I suggest that it provides all the flexibility that we need and obviously my right hon. Friend's Department would exercise it with great care.

Is this a new departure or is it common form?

Perhaps the hon. Member did not catch what I said. There is already under Section 288 a provision which in that case is vested in the Minister of Housing and Local Government. That is a very clear precedent. In the Amendment we are going a little wider, because we have to deal with a situation different from that with which Section 288 was concerned.

The more I listen to the hon. Gentleman the more I am impressed by the sweet reasonableness of his arguments. He almost convinced me, but not quite, because at the back of my mind was the thought that the doctrine that is being enunciated here is that of administrative convenience. If one accepts that doctrine one can accept the hon. Gentleman's argument. The hon. Gentleman argues with such persuasive charm, clarity and competence that if the Conservative Administration continues I shall put him on my short list to make some day a good Secretary of State for War, and higher praise than that I cannot give.

The deciding point, however, comes with the accumulation of this sort of argument as it weighs upon the private citizen, the poor chap with a grievance who goes to the ordinary workaday lawyer. What chance has he? This is the function of Government and what has happened today will surely convince anyone that this is a Government Measure. The Government ought not to argue that this is an almost impossible task and that they cannot discover all the cases on the Statute Book.

This is a completely convincing Departmental argument but I cannot accept it. I will accept the Bill as a stop-gap Measure as the Session moves towards its end, and to help the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) to get this admirable Bill on the Statute Book. But it is the Government who have tabled the Amendment and I would ask why they do not promise that some time in the future they will produce another consolidating Measure to put this matter right.

The argument is always the same. It never changes. It is always "almost impossible". The Joint Parliamentary Secretary is far too honourable to say that it is impossible and so it is always "almost impossible" to do these things. In other words, it is a confounded nuisance, and so the Minister is briefed to make these admirable speeches and he does his job with great charm. He has almost convinced me, but he ought to give hon. Members the credit for having second-thoughts on the matter.

I do not wish to hold up the proceedings for more than a minute or two, because I am sure that we are all anxious to discuss the Motor Vehicles (Passenger Insurance) Bill. But once more I must register a protest against the introduction on a Friday of Private Members' Bills containing provisions to give the Government power to issue Orders which are subject only to annulment by Resolution of the House. We know that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) may well be right in saying that this Bill was inspired by the Government—

That is not so. I should not wish people to think I said that. This Bill is the excellent work of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken). I accept that. But the Government see in this excellent Bill an oppor- tunity to do something which is a little difficult to achieve in other ways. The Government and the County Councils' Association have used this Measure to do something which they would never have dared to do themselves.

My apologies are extended to the hon. Member for Dudley if I misunderstood what he said.

I take the strongest exception, and so do many other hon. Members to the procedure of introducing private Members' legislation which gives power to the Government to issue regulations under a two-line Whip. No effective opportunity is afforded for private Members to upset regulations made as a result. I think it wrong and I hope that what I am saying will be noted by my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and by the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury who is at present on the Government Front Bench. I think it absolutely wrong that the Government should secure legislation in this way giving them the power to issue regulations which will be carried by means of Whips issued by the Government.

It may not have occurred to my hon. Friend to consider the help which is received by private Members from various organisations and the Parliamentary draftsmen. I think that there may be two views on the subject of Private Members' Bills. This Bill had nothing to do with the Whips' Office. It concerns a subject in which I have long been interested, the affairs of local government, and I saw an opportunity to do something which local government authorities have desired for a long time. I have had assistance from the County Councils' Association, the National Farmers' Union, the river boards and a vast number of organisations, to produce a lucid Bill.

Let me make clear that I am not saying that this Bill came out of the Government Whips' Office. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Aitken) has done a tremendous amount of work on it and he has quoted the authorities from which he obtained assistance. But here we have a Clause inserted which would give the Government power to issue regulations. It is that aspect of the Bill which I dislike intensely.

Protests have been made again and again against the technique of giving the Government these powers. The Government do not tell hon. Members that they may have a free vote on any regulations which may be issued. They are told that they will get a Whip telling them which way to vote. Pressure is put on back benchers by that means. I wish to register the strongest protest. If further legislation is introduced into the House next year giving the Government powers of this nature I shall obstruct it by every means in my power.

I was tremendously impressed by the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). The only justification for this proposal is that we are dealing with Private Acts. If we were dealing with Acts which were in the ordinary public Statutes, I think there would be no case for it at all, but it is a matter of common knowledge, not only that Private Acts go a long way back in history, but that sometimes they are difficult to find. It is not unusual for local authorities to search their basements to dig out a Private Act passed in the eighteenth century and suddenly to find something which is still operative.

Although it is a pity that some of our legislative machinery of the past has become obscure and confused, it is a fact. Therefore Parliament, having accepted the general principle about misfeasance and laid down a general principle of law, which I hope we are doing now, it is not unreasonable to think that the application of that principle in detail to any of these odd pieces of legislation which may turn up should now be done by this procedure, which I gather from the hon. Gentleman is in the Highways Act which itself was a consolidating Measure. It went through the House not very long ago as a consolidating Measure. The House has approved of the general principle. It would be a pity to hold up this Bill on that point of detail.

I speak again, by leave of the House. I understand the views of hon. Members. They are determined, and rightly so, to protect the public interest in these matters against bureaucratic interference or any attempt at dictation, but there is the precedent in the Highways Act of 1959. I have since been informed that there is an earlier precedent, which certainly goes as far as the points suggested in these Amendments, and very much further because it deals with the amendment of the public general law to which the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) referred. That Act is one to which I have referred already, the Public Utilities Street Works Act, 1950. Part I of the Sixth Schedule of that Act contains powers of this kind—not necessarily on all fours with this proposal but intended to deal with the same sort of situation.

I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) and other hon. Members who feel anxious about this matter will take a very firm assurance from me that it is not the intention of the Minister or the Ministry to use any powers of this kind in an oppressive or unconscionable way. It is simply intended as a convenience to enable us to deal with an impossible situation which might easily arise and cause a great deal of trouble, not so much to Parliament or to a Ministry, but to a local authority which many years ago may have had a private Act of Parliament. I do not think I can do anything more, but I hope hon. Members will agree that on balance, although one does not like legislating in this particular way, the circumstances are such as to make it justifiable.