My Lords, we have all learned with very great regret the news of the condition of the noble Marquess who leads the House. We trust that the bulletins will indicate a progressive improvement. I am sure I am expressing the wishes of all your Lordships when I say that we feel a deep attachment to the noble Marquess and greatly regret the misfortune that has befallen him. I wish to ask the noble Marquess opposite, who will conduct the business of the House during the absence of the noble Marquess?

My Lords, I am quite sure you have all heard with great gratification the remarks of the noble and learned Viscount opposite. I need not tell your Lordships that to us, his colleagues, the serious illness and absence of the noble Marquess the Leader of the House is a very grave loss indeed, and I speak not only as an intimate colleague but as an old friend of the noble Marquess whose association with him goes back almost as far as I can remember. I think I share a longer friendship with the noble Marquess than even the noble and learned Viscount, which is saying a good deal.

I am glad to say that the news which reaches us is satisfactory. My noble friend passed a very good night. An operation of that description is always a matter of some anxiety, but so far as our information has gone it could not be more favourable. With regard to the last observation of the noble and learned Viscount, I hope your Lordships will allow me to do my best to replace the noble Marquess as long as it is necessary. I hope it will not be for very long.

My Lords, this is a Bill with which your Lordships are already familiar, because it passed through your Lordships' House last Session very much in its present form. It was not successful, however, in passing through the other place. Certain amendments have been made in it since it was first introduced, but they are amendments inserted by your Lordships' House itself during its passage last year. A very few words will be necessary for me to explain to your Lordships the effect of the Bill. The principle of the measure is the same as that of a great many other measures. It is designed to protect those who buy therapeutic substances from being misled as to their character. If it be necessary that such provisions should be inserted in laws governing the sale of ordinary commodities, it is specially necessary in respect of these particular commodities, because upon the proper standard and strength of these therapeutic substances depends the health of the persons who use them. Indeed, even the medical profession itself is unable to be rightly advised as to what is being prescribed unless there is some standard regarding these therapeutic substances upon which reliance can be placed.

In some cases, of course, the mischief of uncertainty goes still further, because certain of them are highly poisonous in their nature unless they are taken in very carefully guarded strengths. In cases of that kind, if there is uncertainty, very formidable consequences indeed may follow. I do not suppose that there is anything of which it is more obvious that the standard ought to be fixed by law than these therapeutic substances. They include a number of different things. There are sera and vaccines and there are also special preparations like salvarsan which, as your Lordships know, is a very important drug. The substances of which I have spoken cannot be tested by chemical analysis, but have to be tested biologically, and consequently require to be submitted to very competent persons. Legislation in respect of these matters is here merely following the example of very many other countries. Such control is provided in Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In the United States the manufacture is subject to the most rigid inspection. In Denmark they go still further, and no such medicines are allowed to be prepared except at State institutions, so that your Lordships will see that there is abundant precedent in the legislation of other countries to justify our action.

To give examples I take, first, salvarsan. One of the constituent elements of salvarsan is arsenic, I am afraid I am no chemist and have very little claim to be considered even passably scientific, but I understand that it is impossible to detect the amount of arsenic in salvarsan except by a biological test. If you turn to other drugs there is the pituitary extract, a very important glandular extract, and so uncertain is the present figure that I almost hesitate to give it. The present standard may actually vary in the proportion of one to eighty without any legislative control. I cannot doubt that your Lordships will be convinced that in these matters some kind of standard is necessary, and in consequence some kind of control of that standard is required. Although there is nothing so variable as I have described in the case of sera and vaccines, it is nevertheless very clear that unless you know to some extent the strength of the sera and vaccines which are being prescribed even the doctors may be misled as to what they ought to do.

Now I come to the Bill itself. The proposed procedure is that these therapeutic substances shall be the subject of licences to the persons who are entitled to prepare them and to the places in which they are allowed to be prepared. These licences are to be protected with conditions which, in turn, are to be laid down in Regulations, and these Regulations are to be laid before Parliament. The authority whose business it is to make the Regulations will be, according to the proposals of the Bill, a Joint Committee consisting of the Minister of Health, the Secretary for Scotland and the Minister for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, the reason being that, the Bill has operation in those three parts of the United Kingdom and accordingly a responsible Minister of Health must in each case take, his share in the administration. There is precedent for allowing a Ministerial authority to have jurisdiction of this kind. I need not add that it is not suggested that the Minister himself should act, but that a representative of the Minister of Health in England and of the corresponding Ministers in Scotland and Northern Ireland should carry out the necessary work of administration. There is also to be an Advisory Committee to help this authority. This Committee is to be composed of representatives of the three Departments which I have mentioned, and also of a representative of the Medical Research Council, a representative of the General Medical Council and a representative of the Pharmaceutical Society. Your Lordships will see that great care is taken that proper scientific advice of the most responsible kind is at the command of these Ministerial authorities whose business it will be to administer this Bill if it becomes law.

I have merely to add that the therapeutic substances which have to be dealt with are included in the Schedule of the Bill and that there is power to increase the category of substances by Ministerial act. There are subsidiary Regulations in addition. The therapeutic substances which come in from abroad have to be subjected, very properly, to exactly the same tests as those which are produced in this country. I have to add that an exception is to be made in respect of certain examples of these therapeutic substances which are introduced into this country or made in this country, not for the direct purpose of medical use, but for the purpose of research. They must be allowed to be varied in strength and not be held to an exact standard of strength. But even here there is to be protection by means of special licences,—that is to say, all the persons who are allowed to be connected with this research work are to receive special licences.

There is, I think, only one other matter which I need mention. This subject of therapeutic substances has been before the appropriate authority of the League of Nations, and this authority has come to the decision to move the various Governments to protect the standard of purity of therapeutic substances. The result will be that if other countries adopt these protections—and I have pointed out to your Lordships that many of them have done so already—then these substances, when produced in England, will, unless they are similarly protected, be excluded from those foreign countries. That is the inevitable result of international action. That would be very unfortunate by itself, although not a matter of first importance, because what we produce is very good, and there is no reason why it should not have proper sale abroad like anything else. For these reasons I have the honour to move the Second Heading of this Bill and I hope that it will have an easy passage. Of course, if your Lordships should desire to make any amendment, I should be most ready to consider it on behalf of the Government.

My Lords, as to the principle of this Bill that is right, and it was the principle of the Bill which was introduced by the late Government; but there is just one question which I should like to put to the noble Marquess and which I think would have applied to the Bill which we introduced. It relates to subsection (2) of Clause 3. Under that subsection any man of science who wishes to make a research has to obtain a special licence, and when I look at the Schedule, particularly at the first class of substances in the Schedule, there are several things which a man of science may very well naturally want, and want at short notice. I have come a good deal in contact with men of science and I know there is one thing they will not do, and that is apply for licences. It is not in accordance with their practice to conduct correspondence with Government Departments. They dislike doing so very much.

I am concerned lest subsection (2) of Clause 3 of the Bill may interfere with a great deal of very valuable research, and I would suggest to the noble Marquess that that can probably be got over by special instructions given to the Department that when any well-known investigator, who is recognised to be a proper person to receive permission to import small substances, asks permission, he should not be required to go through formalities, but it should be at once recognised that his position entitles him to get in small substances. If you do not give exceptional treatment to people of that kind you will stop a great deal of scientific work. I am not speaking out of my imagination, but from what I have been told by people engaged in the business of research.

My Lords, I need not say that I will most carefully consider the suggestion made to me by the noble and learned Viscount and see whether any amendment is required in the Bill to carry out what he wishes. Whether we ought to insert such an amendment and whether it is possible to do so I cannot say without inquiry, but the authority of the noble Viscount on the subject is very great and I will give it my most earnest consideration.

My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It has already, I think, passed your Lordships' House without amendment, and I will save your Lordships' time by-saying very few words about it. This Bill came up first in 1923. It passed this House and went on to another place, but the time was too short to get it passed through all its stages. It has now already passed the House of Commons, and although on Clause 2 there will have to be a slight alteration in consequence of an undertaking already given in another place, I think you will not wish me to say very much about the Bill. The object of the measure is to save both money and time, to assimilate the law with regard to any increase which may be necessary in the number of councillors in a borough, and to bring it under the same process as now applies with regard to any alterations in the boundaries of wards. It simply applies existing procedure in place of recourse to Parliament, and I do not think, as your Lordships have already passed the Bill through all its stages, that it is necessary for me to say more in order to ask you to accord it a Second Reading.

My Lords, in the absence of Lord Peel, who uttered a protest from the Benches opposite last year. I should like to ask the Government whether they arc able to give the same assurance as was given on behalf of the late Government when the Bill was brought in last year. The point, very shortly, is this: that there is a difference between the procedure outside London and inside London in the way in which the alteration is made. It will be noticed that the alteration of numbers can only be made in the country on the petition of the borough councils, whereas in London the Home Secretary, without having received any petition or even consulted with the borough councils, may make the necessary alteration on his own account. I understand that there are some difficulties, because of the alteration of wards, in making the position the same for London as for the rest of the country. On the other hand, it is felt by a great many people in London that the local authorities should be consulted in an important matter of this kind. On behalf of those for whom I speak I would say that we shall be quite content on receiving from the Government the same assurance as was given by the representative of the late Government last year.

I imagine my noble friend is alluding to Clause 2 of the Bill, which gives the Secretary of State the power of making the alteration practically himself. I may say that this Bill is warmly supported both by the Association of Municipal Corporations and by the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee. As regards the assurance which my noble friend asks me to give, I think I shall be quite safe in giving it because it was given before in this place.

My Lords, this is the third time that this Bill has come before this House. It is very much a matter of form and procedure, and is intended to facilitate the operation of what is largely a local concern. I think the noble Lord is pretty safe in giving the assurance which was given last year as I see it was on very vague and general lines. As he has said, the agreement of the County Councils Association and the Municipal Boroughs Association has been obtained. From this side of the House I may say that we hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading and that it will be given full facilities in another place.

My Lords, I shall have an Amendment to move on this Bill in the Committee stage. Perhaps I need not go into the merits of it now, because I understand that in smother place the Government would have accepted it had it been moved. Owing to an error it was not moved, and I propose to move it—it is to Clause 1—when we go into Committee.

My Lords, this Bill is introduced in order to continue the Agricultural Rates Act, 1923, which will otherwise expire on March 31. Your Lordships are, of course, familiar with this Act, which provides that occupiers of agricultural land should be liable to not more than one-quarter of the amount, per pound of rateable value, payable in respect of buildings as regards rates for public purposes other than a rate levied specifically for the benefit of the land. I need not say that it is not the intention of the Government, nor would it be the intention of any Government, to allow that Act to lapse. It would naturally have been put into the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, I suspect, by the late Government, but, as a matter of fact, it could not so be done because of a technical matter relative to the Financial Resolution in another place. Consequently, we have to have a new Bill. The new Bill, however, has been so drafted that the particular difficulty will not occur again.

As regards the Bill itself the first clause merely does what I have described, but there is a second clause which has special reference to the Scilly Islands. It appears that this Act never applied to the Scilly Islands though it ought to have applied to them, because the rating authorities there are the overseers, as they were formerly in England—the overseers under the supervision of the select vestry; and as those are not a spending department they do not come under the terms of the Act which is about to expire, as they ought to have done. By Clause 2 of this Bill that particular omission has been remedied. That is the whole matter of the Bill. I beg to move.

My Lords, there can be no objection whatever, of course, to the Second Reading of this Bill in the form in which it has been moved, and I quite agree with what the noble Marquess has said. The reason, no doubt, why this could not be placed in an ordinary Continuance Bill is that under Section 15 in respect to Scotland—not England—the charge is placed on the Consolidated Fund. In England the assistance given to agricultural rates does not come from the Consolidated Fund, but out of the Local Taxation Account, and this is the distinction between the two.

There is one thing that I should like to ask the noble Marquess, or perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, might be in a position to assist us on this point. This is the continuation of a "dole" system which has been in operation for some time, but a far more important point is this. When is the whole matter of taxation, particularly as regards agricultural land and its relation to the labourers and to the tenants as well as to the landlords, to be fully considered. I recollect that when I was speaking for agriculture last Session on the other side of the House the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, made a speech in which he said he was very anxious that agriculture should be dealt with on a broad national basis. That is a statement with which we all agree, and if you are to deal with agriculture on a broad national basis one of the great questions is that of valuation and the incidence of rating. I was very anxious that so far as valuation is concerned it might be taken in this House, but when the matter was looked into it was found that the question of valuation was so intimately mixed up with the question of the incidence of rates that that could not be done.

Everyone who is interested in agriculture feels that there is a very large amount of unnecessary expense in connection with agricultural rating, owing to the number of valuations. There is the Imperial valuation basis, the county variation basis, the district council valuation basis, and, in some cases, a borough council valuation basis as well, and I believe everyone is of opinion that one valuation as the basis of assessment for all charges, whether Imperial or local, is a reform which ought to be carried out at the earliest possible moment. Of course, I know what the difficulties are, but when the members of the present Government were in office before they made a suggestion, and submitted it to the various local authorities. I should like to know whether it is likely that a Valuation Bill, with only one basis for all purposes and only one valuation authority, is likely to be introduced. It really is a matter of very great moment. I may say in my own case—and, of course, it affects the tenants, too—that to have to appeal to four different bodies in order to have a rating question put right is a heavy burden, and one which ought not to be thrown on any industry or any person.

There is one other question—namely, the incidence of rates. I dislike intensely—and I may speak as an agriculturist in this case—the idea of any industry having what has sometimes been called a special "dole." I think that is entirely wrong, and I object to it very much. When the Royal Commission on Imperial and Local Taxation made their Report, I think in 1896, they called attention to the fact that, although they were providing temporarily for half the rates at that time—it is now a quarter—it was very important that the question should be put on a sound basis. I regret to say that nothing has been done from that day to this, except the change from the half to the quarter, a change beneficial in itself, but still only limited to the "dole" principle. There is a great deal to be said when you come to the question of agricultural rating. It was pointed out in the Report of the Royal Commission to which I have referred, and which was presided over by a very well known member of this House, the late Lord Balfour of Burleigh, that in order to come to any true basis of rating, particularly agricultural rating, you must draw a distinction between the onerous charges and charges which are beneficial to a particular locality, and that, unless you do that you cannot place the local rating on a right footing, and you will have the constant source of expense and extravagance (as I consider it) of "doles" in aid from Imperial resources.

I should like to ask, upon these two points, whether the Government can give any indication of what their policy is likely to be. I ask now because when a Eating Bill comes up to this House in its ultimate form there are great technical difficulties in dealing with it here in anything like an exhaustive manner. If you were to have a Valuation Bill, as distinct from a Bill dealing with the incidence of rating, I believe there are more members of this House than of any other body who have experience and knowledge of that difficult topic. It has been before us all at Quarter Sessions, and I recollect, in old days, acting for some years on a board of guardians rating authority. There must be many other members of your Lordships' House who have very special experience of this question. If the Government could give some information on this point I should be much obliged.

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord opposite said he spoke as an agriculturist on these rating questions. I dare say he did, but he also speaks as a great authority on rating, and an authority in that very special technical branch of the learned profession which he has always adorned. I confess it was not without a certain amount of apprehension that I heard him embarking upon the very difficult and intricate subject of rating reform and valuation reform at the present moment. The present Bill has a very much humbler scope. It merely aims at continuing in the present form an Act of Parliament which, as at present advised, I am sure that none of us—certainly not the noble and learned Lord—would like to see lapse.

In these circumstances, perhaps your Lordships would not expect me to go into the intricate question of rating reform and valuation, but I should not like it to be thought that His Majesty's Government are blind to the necessity of dealing with this subject. On the contrary, I hope that within a very short time, certainly in the course of the present Session, we shall submit proposals which will be quite intricate enough to test the technical skill even of my noble and learned friend. At the present moment, however, he will not wish me to anticipate them. I can assure him that, even on this subject, we intend, if we can, to deserve, I will not say his confidence—for I am afraid we have not got that—but, at any rate, his respect.

This is a merely formal matter. I propose, if noble Lords opposite will allow me, to take the next stage of this Bill on Thursday. The Therapeutic Substances Bill, I thought, might be put down a week hence if the noble and learned Lord will allow me.

Yes.