§ 2.57 p.m.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the light of the debate in this House on June 16 last, they have considered any modification of their policy towards the undesignated federal and territorial officers, arising from the break-up of the Central African Federation; and to move to resolve, That this House is of the opinion that the said undesignated officers should receive recompense more in keeping with the debt that this country owes them. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Some noble Lords may require an explanation as to why this subject of the undesignated civil servants, both federal and territorial in Central Africa, which we discussed only as recently as June 16 of this year should be raised again in your Lordships' House.
§ The reason is a very simple one. On that occasion, I raised the subject in the form of an Unstarred Question which, as your Lordships know, does not allow of a vote. But the Government reply to the debate was so poor, and feeling in all parts of your Lordships' House as to the injustice which had been done to these unhappy people so strong, that I have been pressed in every quarter to raise it again in a form which will enable noble Lords to express their views in the Lobbies. In saying that the Government reply was poor, I do not do so in any spirit of criticism of the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, who spoke for the Government. He 893 did his best; but no one could have done any good with the material provided for him. After all, what were the main points on which the Government case was based?
§ First, it was said that agreement with the other Governments concerned had been signed, sealed and delivered; so that, whatever this House might think about it, the matter could not be reopened with those Governments. We all recognise that the negotiations with the other Governments concerned have been concluded and that the agreement, however bad, cannot be reopened with them. But we are not asking for this; what we are asking for is that Her Majesty's Government, having made, if they will forgive me for saying so, an initial blunder, and put their name to what I am sure many noble Lords will agree are totally inequitable terms, should now take steps, so far as lies in their power, unilaterally, on their own, to rectify the injustice done to people to whom we owe so much. They can do that, if they have the will, without any reference to any other Government at all.
§ This question of the inequity of the terms—and I think that those who heard the details of the cases which I and other noble Lords quoted on June 16 will agree that they are inequitable—brings me to the second main point made by the noble Duke in his reply. He said, in effect, that it could no doubt be argued that the terms obtained for these undesignated officers were not so good as some of us would have liked; but, he pointed out, if I understood his argument aright, that we must remember that the decision was not for us alone: that we should remember that we were only one out of five Governments and had, as it were, only one of five votes in the matter. My Lords, if that is the ground on which the Government based their case, I must confess that I, at any rate, find it rather shaming.
§ Here were we, one of the greatest and richest nations in the world—and still, I suppose, one of what used to be called the Great Powers of the world—and here were these other four Governments, small in area and influence, immature, only just emerging, as it were, from a political chrysalis. Can it be regarded as anything but ingenuous, in these circumstances, to try to equate our position 894 exactly with theirs? Nor, in any case, was their responsibility the same as ours, or as great as ours. And it was our civil servants, not theirs, who were in question. It was our responsibility, not theirs, to see that they were properly treated. That point is made very clear, I think in correspondence between one of the civil servants of Nyasaland and Dr. Banda, which I have been given permission to quote. This lady was not only an undesignated civil servant herself, but the daughter of a former Director of Public Works in Nyasaland.
Faced with a despairing situation, as a result of the decisions regarding undesignated civil servants, against which we are to-day appealing to the Government, she decided to make a personal approach to Dr. Banda. So she wrote to him, saying that it was only desperation that drove her to take this extreme step and asking him, as a fair man, to agree to the appointment of an arbiter to go further into this question of making an award of compensation to people, like herself, whose lives had been utterly ruined by the terms that had been imposed upon them. In due course, she received a reply from Dr. Banda's private secretary. The reply was couched in the most courteous terms, but this is what it said—and I will quote the exact words:
I am to say that the Prime Minister"—
that is, Dr. Banda—
has studied your representations, and while he appreciates the feelings which promoted you to address him on the matter he feels bound to observe that in essence the issue is one between the officers concerned and Her Majesty's Government.
The letter went on to point out:
These officers were recruited not by his Government but by the British Colonial Government working under the direction of Her Majesty's Government. To the extent that this was so, the responsibility for deciding what constituted fair treatment for such officers, in the circumstances of the constitutional changes which have occurred, rested with Her Majesty's Government.
The writer added—and this is the last quotation I am going to make from the letter:
It follows that the appropriate action for the officers concerned is for them to make their representations through the proper channels to Her Majesty's Government.
I do not complain about that reply. I do not think that any of us would. It is probably the only one Dr. Banda
could give, and it is, after all, very much in line with the words of Mr. Butler, when, during the Second Reading of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Bill in another place last year, he said that the future of the federal civil servants, European, African and Asian, lay in our hands. What does that mean in the present context? It means that the ball rests now entirely in Her Majesty's court. If there is anything to be done for these unfortunate people, this country must do it. And I know that, unless we have a satisfactory reply from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who is, I understand, to answer for the Government, this House will show, in unmistakable terms that that is our view.
§ If I am asked how, at this late hour, when the agreements with the other Governments concerned have been signed, sealed and delivered, that result is to be achieved, I would answer: by the payment of some lump sum of compensation, worked out on an actuarial basis, for the loss of their careers. That has already been given in the case of the designated officers, and there is nothing very revolutionary about it, for it has been already done quite lately in the case of locally recruited officers, on the break-up of the West Indies Federation only a year or two ago. If I am told that undesignated officers cannot expect exactly the same terms as designated officers, I think that that is no doubt arguable. But it does not connote that they must necessarily be given the mean treatment they have had up to now; and it would at any rate save them from their worst embarrassments, as in the case (which I think I quoted to your Lordships in our last debate) of a married man, with four children and a bond of £1,000 on his house, who, having enjoyed an income of £1,650 a year, suddenly now finds himself reduced, through no fault of his own, to an income of £256 a year. And that is not a single case. There are many others in very much the same position.
§ These officers, black, brown or white, are, I submit, our inescapable responsibility, and unless the Government say clearly to-day that they are willing to accept that responsibility and make ade- 896 quate provision for them, I shall have no option but to ask your Lordships to make it clear by your vote that, in the view of your Lordships' House, at any rate, it is a responsibility that we cannot and will not shirk.
§ Moved to resolve, That this House is of the opinion that the said undesignated officers should receive recompense more in keeping with the debt that this country owes them.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ 3.8 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I share, I think with most of your Lordships, gratitude to the noble Marquess for asking the House to reconsider this question of the treatment of undesignated officers in Central Africa and for asking the Government to change the policy which they have adopted until now. As the noble Marquess said, these are all Government civil servants, whose careers have been prejudiced by British policy, by the policy of our Government—namely, to dissolve the Federation and give independence to its territories. But none of these men has received either compensation for loss of his career or the treatment in regard to their retirement pensions which we have considered fair and equitable for members of the Oversea Civil Service. We cannot escape our responsibility for the damage that has been done to the careers of these officers by saying simply, as the Government have said, again and again, that they are servants of the Central African Governments, whereas the officers of the Oversea Civil Service are servants of the British Government. This line of argument, which blames others for our own faults, surely cannot be acceptable, either from an individual or from a Government.
I should like to start by reminding your Lordships (this is, of course, a rather technical subject, but I will try not to be long or complicated) about the position of the undesignated former federal officers. Last year, in December, the Government refused our request to secure compensation for these men. The Federation has now been dissolved—it was dissolved at the end of last year—and it is obviously impossible for the Government to reverse a decision when the Federation no longer exists. So we are in a more difficult position now than we were at that time. But surely we are still entitled to ask that these men, who 897 have lost their jobs and received no compensation, should not suffer an intolerable hardship if they plan to obtain alternative employment. Indeed, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, told us last month, it has been agreed that at least there should be arrangements to prevent this sort of intolerable hardship. The noble Duke told us that a relief scheme for redundant federal officers was already in operation in Salisbury. I think we all assumed—the noble Duke told us that—that this relief scheme would be sufficiently generous to enable these officers and their families to go on living at something like the same level as when they were employed: or, at any rate, at a level that would put them above the line of complete destitution. Otherwise, obviously, this scheme would be no better than a form of public assistance: it would be of no value at all.
In order to know whether the scheme is equitable, several other noble Lords and I asked the noble Duke for the terms of reference of the special Commissioner who was appointed by the Liquidating Agency and the rules he applied in deciding whether or not he should make a grant. The noble Duke promised to give this information to me and to my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. If the noble Duke would like me to refresh his memory, I can quote from Hansard, but I am sure he remembers that this undertaking was given. Neither my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition nor I have received this information. I am certain it was not an intentional discourtesy on the part of the noble Duke. However, I have been in this House now for something like 30 years, most of the time in Opposition, and this is the first time that an undertaking by a Minister to give information has not been carried out.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)
My Lords, I am sorry to hear that this information was not given. I am sure that this was an inadvertence. It may comfort the noble Earl, to some extent, to know that I propose to set out the terms of reference in detail when I come to reply to the debate.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord. I should like to say at once that I am grateful to him for honouring the 898 undertaking he gave me in December to give me information about the position of these officers, which he did shortly afterwards, when he had obtained the information. I am also grateful to know that we shall have this information when the noble and learned Lord comes to wind up the debate this afternoon. But the fact remains that we should have been in a much better position in this debate if we had had the information before we came to the House. There was also the undertaking that information would be put in the Library, and as I failed to get a letter from the noble Duke I asked in the Library whether any papers had been laid there, but I was told that this was not the case. So no noble Lords were in a position to obtain this information before the debate this afternoon.
On the presumption—which I shall make until I have heard otherwise from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack—that this relief scheme may not be adequate, I should like to adduce some evidence to show your Lordships that this fear is not unjustified. There is a widespread report in Salisbury that a man does not get relief until he is starving. In the second place, an applicant for relief (I have seen the application form) has to declare the value of his house, his household effects and even his vehicles. I should have thought it utterly wrong that a man should have to sell his house or its contents, or any of his personal savings, before he can qualify for a hardship grant. I hope that the Lord Chancellor, when he comes to reply, will satisfy us that this is not the case. If it were the case, I think the Government should tell us at once that they intend to alter the rules under which these hardship cases are judged; and they should be prepared, if necessary, to make a larger contribution to make it possible to pay a larger sum of money in grants to these men.
I pass now from compensation and hardship relief to the question of pensions for the federal officers, a matter on which I do not think the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, touched. The noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, again gave us a great deal of information about the arrangements for the payment of these pensions. On the whole, these arrangements were satisfactory; but there is still one respect, at least, in which there seems 899 to be a really unfair distinction between the designated and undesignated officers. The Oversea Civil Service officer—that is, the designated officer—receives an increase in pension according to any increase that may take place in the cost of living in the country where he has settled; and this he gets under the provisions of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1962. But the undesignated officer has no right to this increase, because he does not come under the Act. Surely the Government should be willing either to amend the Act or to guarantee that these officers, in retirement, get the same increase as their colleagues and are not alone penalised because of cost-of-living rises. As your Lordships are well aware, it is not only in this country that inflation takes place; it is going on all over the world.
I should like now to say a few words about the position of the undesignated officers in the service of the Territorial Governments. As most of these are in the service of the Government of Northern Rhodesia I shall ask your Lordships to consider their position as typical of this class of officer. The noble Duke told us that the reason why these officers were not designated under the Oversea Service aid scheme and therefore did not qualify for lump-sum compensation, was that they were recruited in Northern Rhodesia and not by the Colonial Office, and that they belonged to a grade not mainly recruited from overseas. I believe that this whole distinction between European officers, according to the place where they were recruited, is a purely artificial distinction, and I hope to convince your Lordships that this is so. It is no doubt useful for administrative purposes, but it is quite invalid as a reason for substantial differences in pay or terminal benefits.
May I give your Lordships an illustration of how this principle of awarding differently according to whether the officers were recruited here or in Northern Rhodesia works? Let us take the example of an Englishman who went out to Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, at his own expense in order to look around before taking the very important decision of deciding to leave this country and settle there. When he got there, he decided to settle and take a job in the service of the Northern Rhodesian Government. This man is not entitled to compensation. On 900 the other hand, if the same man had decided in London to enter the service of the Northern Rhodesian Government, and had had his passage out paid, he would have been designated and entitled to compensation, because he was recruited here and not in Northern Rhodesia.
This type of distinction between two different classes of European expatriate officers according to where they were recruited has never been held to make any difference as regards pay. It was accepted only this year, in a Report on the Northern Rhodesian Public and Teaching Services—a Report which was made to the Northern Rhodesian Government by officials who had been asked to report on the subject—that this question of recruitment should make no difference to pay. I should like to quote one sentence from the Report:A definition of the term 'designated officer' for the purpose of the scheme (that is is to say, the overseas service aid scheme) was no doubt necessary for the operation of the financial agreement between the Governments"—that is, Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Northern Rhodesia—but the effect has been to draw an artificial line"—I did not use the word "artificial"—across a group of officers all of whom were serving on the same conditions before the scheme was introduced and all of whom have external origins or associations.That is the view taken by the Northern Rhodesian Government.
There has, therefore, never been a difference of pay between these two classes of officers. If there is no difference in pay, what can the justification be for this enormous difference in their terminal benefits? We may ask—and it is a reasonable question—whether the Government of Northern Rhodesia warned these men when they entered the public service that they would be treated differently from their fellow officers when the country reached independent status. This is not the case. On the contrary, the Government of Northern Rhodesia did everything possible to make them believe that they would be treated in the same way as members of the Oversea Civil Service.
I should like to quote one passage from a circular issued by the Government of Northern Rhodesia in 1957, after the setting up of the Oversea Civil 901 Service. It was obviously intended to reassure the European officers of the Northern Rhodesian Government. The relevant passage is rather long, and perhaps I will not read it to your Lordships, but I am quite certain that any noble Lord who refers to this circular will see that the intention was to reassure the Europeans who were employed by the Government, and to reassure any European who wished to apply for Government service. I am quite sure that at the time these men were recruited—the men we are talking about at the moment—neither. Her Majesty's Government nor the Government of Northern Rhodesia had the slightest idea that they would be treated differently from other European officers, and denied compensation when the country became independent.
If your Lordships agree with the case for equal treatment for all these officers, then I think we should ask the Government to do certain definite things to improve the position of the undesignated officers, and to bring about something like parity of treatment. There are three things that I believe the Government should do. The first is to reconsider the marginal cases—I mean the cases of those officers who are on the borderline and do not quite qualify for designation. Many examples were given when this matter was discussed in another place, and I will not repeat them here. But I beg the Government to interpret the rules to qualify for designation in a much more generous spirit. The second thing I should like to ask the Government to do is to urge the Government of Northern Rhodesia to extend its compensation offer to these officers to cover voluntary retirement and the abolition of office.
The Government of Northern Rhodesia has behaved with unique generosity (the word "unique" is correct, because no other Government of a British dependency, on attaining independence, has behaved in this way) in offering these men half the amount of the compensation paid to the Oversell Civil Service officers. But this offer depends on two conditions: First of all, if these men are superseded for promotion by Africans or, secondly, if they are replaced in their posts by African officers. Those are the two conditions. But this, surely, is not 902 sufficient. The under-45s.with families should have the chance of immediate resignation with compensation like the other officers have, if they want to start a new career. Many of these men cannot afford to wait until they are older if they are to get another job. It seems only fair that they should have the same opportunity as Oversea Civil Service officers in this respect. This simply means extending the 50 per cent. compensation scheme offered by the Northern Rhodesian Government.
I think it would be unreasonable to ask the Northern Rhodesian taxpayer to pay the extra cost of this wider compensation scheme for these undesignated officers. After all, Northern Rhodesia is a very poor country, as the noble Marquess has pointed out, and we are in a much better position to foot this bill than the Northern Rhodesian taxpayer. Therefore, I think the Government should be asked to offer a small increase in financial aid to the Northern Rhodesian Government to cover the wider compensation scheme. I should like to remind the House that Her Majesty's Government are already paying 50 per cent. of the compensation offered to the Oversea Civil Service officer in Northern Rhodesia, and that this would be a very small addition indeed.
I apologise if I have spoken for too long and been too technical, but this is a matter that many noble Lords on both sides of the House have had very much at heart for a long time. May I say, in conclusion, that this is not a Party matter. All the political Parties have had until recently a good record for the treatment of civil servants in British dependencies when they become independent countries. I was at the India Office when we started the first major scheme for compensation for loss of career when India became independent in 1947. I can remember how determined my noble friend Lord Attlee was that these men should get a square deal. This principle of compensation has been applied ever since by successive Governments of all Parties. The fact that there has been no serious complaint of injustice—none at all—until the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, shows that the civil servants themselves in all these other dependencies have been satis- 903 fied that the British Government were giving them a fair deal.
The injustice that has been done to some officers who have served this country well in Central Africa spoils a record of fair dealing of which we can all be justly proud. That is why we are asking the Government to reconsider the position of these men, and to secure for them terminal benefits that are more in keeping with their deserts. I should like to say this. If the Government persist in the inflexible attitude which they have adopted hitherto, and if the noble and learned Lord cannot tell us that the Government are prepared to make some further concession towards these men, then we shall certainly support the noble Marquess if he decides to ask your Lordships to express your views in the Division Lobby.
§ 3.28 p.m.
§ LORD MILVERTON
My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships for more than two or three minutes on this subject. During the past few days I have had the opportunity to re-read the debates which we have had on this subject. They stretch back over the last eight months or so, and I am sure that your Lordships do not want me to recapitulate the details of them. But such study has only served to confirm my surprise that the Government should so obstinately maintain their inflexible and negative attitude in this matter. No one denies that, legally and technically, the British Government can decline to act as the noble Marquess urges them to do. But, speaking with great respect, this is not a matter for lawyers and accountants. It concerns the reputation of the British Government for fair dealing. Here, if ever, is the opportunity to apply the principle:High Heaven rejects the lore,Of nicely calculated less or more.We have been told that the British Government were not the employers of these federal and territorial officers. True, they were not directly so, but the policy and practice of the British Government was the main prop on which the life and livelihood of these men and women rested; and it was the supposed stability which this support supplied that encouraged them to take on the job in the first place. As was pointed out more than once in these debates, no reputable busi- 904 ness firm placed in an analogous position would refuse to take into account a moral obligation of the kind with which we are dealing to-day.
During 39 years of active colonial service I served under all varieties of British Governments—Liberal, Labour, Conservative and Coalition—I hope, with equal loyalty to all of them. One of the inspirations of that service has always been that when it came to fundamental principles of just and humane treatment of those who worked for British policy and who had trusted the British Government, political labels did not matter. All Parties shared alike a deep respect for the reputation of the British Government and the determination to uphold them. We of the Colonial Service tried to work to those principles in our dealings when we were in a position of authority. The British Government expected us to do so and would certainly, whatever the political colour of the Government, have insisted upon our doing so. All we ask to-day is that Her Majesty's Government should themselves observe these principles which have so long been honoured.
This Motion, as I see it, is no censure of Her Majesty's Government; it is merely an expression, supported by noble Lords on all sides of this House, of apprehension lest too close an adherence to the absence of legal liability should obscure the moral obligations that ought to transcend all other considerations whatsoever. I would, therefore, add my plea to the Government to look beyond the law and the profits—I may, with the greatest respect, so refer to the Lord Chancellor and the Treasury—and consider the stark corollaries of the moral code of the model employer.
§ 3.32 p.m.
§ LORD COLERAINE
My Lords, I lack altogether the experience of my noble friend Lord Milverton, and his deep and first-hand knowledge of the subject which is before your Lordships; but I should like to add my earnest plea to the Government to reconsider this matter. They can do so without loss of face and with enhancement of reputation. The noble Earl opposite concentrated upon one aspect of this problem and I should like in the few minutes during which I shall detain your Lordships to concentrate upon another. It is a very small matter. It concerns a dozen, perhaps 905 sixteen, humble but honourable people who certainly imagine themselves to have been shabbily treated; and I must say, knowing them as I do (I met most of them in Nyasaland three or four years ago), I think they have pretty strong grounds for the view that they take.
The case of the undesignated officers in Malawi, which was once Nyasaland, differs in one essential respect from that of the other two territories which comprised the Central African Federation. In Northern Rhodesia there were two services, a locally based service and an expatriate service. In Southern Rhodesia, which has of course been a self-governing Colony for forty years or more, there was only one service, a locally based service. But in Malawi, there was only one service, an expatriate service, and every member of the territorial service in Malawi was a member of the expatriate service if he joined it before 1959. I think I am right in saying that each one of these sixteen undesignated officers did, in fact, join the service before 1959. In other words, every one of the undesignated officers in the former Nyasaland Service came under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office and the Secretary of State in London.
It would seem to me to follow from this that the Secretary of State has for these people—at any rate those of them who joined the service before 1959—the responsibility which he accepted and which is defined in. Appendix A of Command Paper 1193, Service With Overseas Governments. I do not think there is any need to read it out because I have no doubt that your Lordships, and in particular the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, are familiar with it. If the Secretary of State did, in fact, assume this responsibility—and it seems to me to be indubitable that he did—it is equally certain that he has not discharged it, and I shall try to show your Lordships why he has not discharged it and in what respects he has failed.
These individuals of whom I speak—the dozen or sixteen undesignated officers in the service of what was the Nyasaland Government—have served anything from eight years (which I think was the lowest term) to nearly thirty years. The bulk of them fall in the bracket of having between fifteen and thirty years' service. 906 By the arrangements which have been made and through the lack of designation, their position has been most abominably, and I think most unfairly, prejudiced. How is their position prejudiced? First of all, they know that if they continue in the service of the Malawi Government they will be passed over for promotion in favour of Malawi citizens. There is no dispute whatever about that. They know that if they stay on in the service of the Malawi Government, within a very short time, as the process of Africanisation develops—it may be six months or perhaps two or three years—their appointments will be terminated and they will be compelled to retire.
As the noble Earl said in his reference to the undesignated officers in Northern Rhodesia, faced with that kind of choice at the kind of age at which these people are, and with the great difficulty that faces people in middle age of getting another job in this country, they really have no option but to retire now and make the best use they can of the time that remains to them. I do not think any of these people has any complaint about Africanisation. They do not complain that they are going to be passed over for promotion. They do not complain of the fact that, if they stay they will be retired in favour of Malawi citizens. They regard that as being perfectly fair. Malawi is an independent country, and it is natural that it should require its own Civil Service as soon as it can get it. What they do complain of is that, after many years of the most loyal service, Her Majesty's Government have washed their hands of them, of all responsibility for them.
My Lords, what terms have these unfortunate people been offered? The noble Earl indicated them so far as Northern Rhodesia is concerned. They are told that they are free to resign; they are free to take their accumulated pension with them, but not a penny more. I shall qualify that in a moment, but, in effect, until a matter of a fortnight or three weeks ago, that was the position. They could have their accumulated pension and not a penny more, not a penny of compensation, nothing to start them out in their new life. If they have been designated officers, as the noble Earl pointed out, their pen- 907 sions would have been higher by perhaps 20 per cent; they would have received a lump sum in compensation. I have in mind two particular cases where those two individuals, if they had been designated, would have received an increased pension, one of them would have received £8,000, and the other some £5,000, by way of compensation. They are receiving not a penny because they are not designated.
Why were these people refused designation? I wish I knew. Theoretically it was because they were not genuine expatriates. I cannot understand the relevance of it any more than the noble Earl did, but also I cannot understand how that statement can be made. These people were recruited through channels normally used by the Colonial Office. They were granted and took overseas leave. For the most part they sent their children home to England for education. In every case when they retire they will have to come to England to retire. I do not see really what the logic is in this distinction between designated and undesignated.
This is a very complicated legal and technical question, which I do not profess to understand, but clearly what was in the minds of the Government when they embarked upon this very complicated classification and demarcation was to protect the British taxpayer, and that is very laudable, very right. But I feel quite certain that in this case if the taxpayer really realised what was being done in his name he would refuse that kind of protection.
I do appeal to the Government to reconsider this matter. There is no need, as my noble friend pointed out at the beginning of the debate, to reopen negotiations with the other Governments concerned. It would be perfectly possible to make an ex gratia payment to these unfortunate people and others like them in the other territories, and I can only say for my own part that if the Government are unable to meet what I think is the clear wish of the House in this respect they will leave at the end of this Session, indeed at the end of this Parliament, a very nasty taste in my mouth, and I think the same thing will apply to most of your Lordships.
§ 3.45 p.m.
§ LORD COLYTON
My Lords, we have debated this question on a number of occasions and I think that I myself have spoken on it no fewer than four times. If we are returning to it to-day it certainly is not from any desire to embarrass the Government. It is not a Party matter in any circumstances; it is simply a question of justice, and I must say that if we failed to get satisfaction from Her Majesty's Government this afternoon I should not only be glad to join my noble friend in the Lobby, but also continue to press this matter in the next Parliament, whatever Government might be in power.
This question of compensation to overseas civil servants, Colonial Service officers as we used to call them, has always been a rather difficult one. I can remember that at the Colonial Office in 1955, in the concluding stages of Ghana's entering into independence, we had difficulties. There was first of all the problem of compensating a man who had spent his whole life in the Colonial Service for the loss of a distinguished career, and at the same time we had in Ghana the desire of Dr. Nkrumah to keep as many of his expatriate civil servants as possible. Therefore in negotiating these matters with the Government of Ghana what in fact we found ourselves bound to press for was very high terms of compensation and, at the same time, strong inducements to stay on in the Service for a year or two or more, in order to meet the wishes of Dr. Nkrumah. And so it has been again quite recently in the negotiations over Northern Rhodesia. So far as I know, in the case of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland it is the first time that the principle of giving proper terms for the breaking up of a man's career has been departed from.
What happened, of course, was that after the Victoria Falls Conference just over a year ago Committee "A" was set up to deal with a number of matters arising out of the dissolution of the Federation, and a special sub-committee was set up to deal with the Federal Civil Service and its future. I have no doubt —and I have had this from Federal civil servants who attended meetings of those 909 committees—that the British representatives, instead of pressing for the equivalent treatment that our own Colonial Service would have received, pressed for something quite different; they set their sights very much lower. There was no justification for this on financial grounds, except perhaps in the case of Nyasaland, but even there the territorial officers have received compensation on the usual sort of terms. There was, of course, no one to stand up for the rights of the federal civil servant. The Federal Government themselves did their best, but they were what the Americans would call a "lame duck" Administration, and in the last resort they had to give way.
May I remind your Lordships briefly of the course of events after that? My noble friend Lord Salisbury quoted Mr. Butler's statement in another place in the debate on the Second Reading of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Act. I doubt very much whether Mr. Butler is very happy about the way in which his promises on that occasion have been carried out; certainly the ex-federal civil servants are by no means satisfied. I myself, both in London and in Salisbury, have had a number of conversations with the Federal Civil Service Officers' Association and its successor, the Federal Pensioners' Association. I have here a copy of a letter, which I have just received, from the Secretary of the Federal Pensioners' Association addressed to their lawyers in Salisbury, who sent it to London, and this is what they say:It was only too clear that the only Government with the necessary powers to ensure proper treatment for all officers irrespective of race was that of the United Kingdom. The Service in general considers that Her Majesty's Government let it down, high principles were discarded in order to facilitate withdrawal. There is no doubt that a great deal of good will and loyalty has been lost primarily amongst officers of United Kingdom origin. However disagreeable the Committee "A" report on the Public Service appeared to the Service, officers clung to the last slender hope that Her Majesty's Government, as a signatory would see that its provisions were properly interpreted without prejudice to any level of the Service, but this hope has proved to be ill-founded. To-day, rarely in the Service or the Press does one find anything other than adverse criticism of Her Majesty's Government and the trend indicates that more and more people with moderate views both within and without the Service are moving increasingly to the right.I do not think this is a state of affairs we should welcome in Southern Rhodesia 910 in the difficult conditions of to-day.
I have given a good deal of thought to this question and I agree that a great deal could be done, as my noble friend suggests, by means of ex-gratia grants, but I feel also that there are quite a number of matters that could be dealt with either administratively or possibly in some cases by Amending Order in Council, as was indicated as a possibility by my noble friend the Leader of the House when we debated this matter on December 17 last year.
There are some eight matters which could be dealt with in one or other of these ways. The first is the fact that not only was there no general compensation but there was also no lump sum compensation for those who were not employed; and when this particular matter was turned down by the Committee of the five Governments, the Federal Government felt it was so important that they issued a statement. This is what they said in regard to those officers who genuinely wanted employment, but for whom no offer of re-employment had been made:On receipt of Committee 'A's' Report we have referred back to that Committee this aspect of the problem. This Committee"—it included its British representative—has undertaken to give sympathetic consideration to cases of hardship which may arise among officers to whom no offer of further employment can be made. It is on the understanding that this problem will have full and sympathetic consideration by all the Governments concerned that we"—that is, the Federal Government—have accepted the recommendation of Committee, as a just and equitable solution to an extremely difficult problemHaving heard the list of cases of hardship to which my noble friend has referred on two occasions, having heard from the noble Earl opposite again in regard to the degrading form of means test embodied in the application form for hardship cases, and the fact that, so far as I know, only two persons have been given any relief under this arrangement, I hardly think that that qualifies for the sympathetic consideration which was promised by Committee "A" to this matter of hardship at the time. So, subject to what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack may tell us this afternoon in regard to the terms of reference of the Special Commissioner, I feel 911 that we are entitled to ask for a review of the existing cases already dealt with by the Commissioner, for an extension of time limit to any others who wish to apply, and for far greater publicity than has been given in the past in regard to these arrangements for compensation for hardship
Then, secondly, there were the arrangements for persons who felt unable for good reasons—and they included such matters as questions of conscience—to take service under the Governments of either Southern Rhodesia or Northern Rhodesia. In this connection, my Lords, you can see very well that the problem of the case of Southern Rhodesia was that certain Africans felt that they would perhaps not get fair treatment, whereas in the North there were officers who were apprehensive about the question of Africanisation. In fact, they received assurances that in their cases there would be no Africanisation, but now Africanisation is being carried out. I believe—we dealt with this at some length in a previous debate—that special arrangements must be made for people in these categories who have either failed to join one of the Territorial Governments on grounds of conscience, or, having joined, in the case of Southern Rhodesia now find themselves at short notice about to be pushed out. I think they ought to be given the right to opt again as to whether to take the terms offered by the Territorial Government. I understood from my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire when he spoke on June 17 that conversations in regard to this matter are going on with the Northern Rhodesian Government.
Then there is the question of the position of the Northern officers, and it included—I was mistaken in my remarks in our last debate—Nyasaland as well as Northern Rhodesian officers who, when they joined the Federal service, removed with their departments from Nyasaland or from Northern Rhodesia to Salisbury, and who bought houses, often on mortgage. They were given a special housing allowance of £240 a year. These officers have counted on this to help in making up their budget, and they are suffering in consequence. In regard to these officers, if the Territorial Governments will not provide the money, I believe that Her Majesty's Government should do so.
912 Then there is the question of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1962, to which the noble Earl made reference. That was the Act under which the overseas territories were included in the various Acts in force in this country for increases in pension in line with increases in the cost of living. I would remind your Lordships that it was largely thanks to the efforts of this House that the former colonial servants were included. At that time we also succeeded in getting the Sudan Public Service included, and indeed the old members of the Egyptian Public Service prior to 1923, or as many of them as remained alive.
We are told that the Federal Public Servants cannot be included in the Pensions (Increase) Act because they are locally recruited. First of all, many of them were members of the Colonial Service; secondly, a large number, and especially technical people, were recruited directly from this country immediately following federation and in subsequent years, with the full encouragement of Her Majesty's Government. I cannot see how a Service such as this as a whole can be described as locally recruited. What I would ask of Her Majesty's Government is this: can we not have an undertaking from them that they will provide, whether by legislation or otherwise, for the inclusion of ex-members of the Federal Public Service in the Schedule to the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1962? That would mean that if they were not given rises in their existing pensions in accordance with increases in the cost of living, the British Government would come along and, as the expression goes, "top them up".
There is also the question of payment in sterling. At the moment, under the Central African Public Officers' Agreement which was published on the day of our last debate, these people will receive payment in Southern Rhodesian money, in Northern Rhodesian money and in Nyasaland money or in all three currencies; and there is no provision whatever in case any one of those currencies were to become devalued or if its purchasing power were to fall. I feel strongly that this arrangement should have been made in sterling, as was so forcibly urged by the members of the Association. I realise that it is too late now to put it into the Agreement; but I should have 913 thought that we could ask Her Majesty's Government to say that if there is any fall in the value of these currencies they will then step in and again "top up" the pension in sterling so that these pensioners will not be the losers.
Finally—this is a small point so far as the Federal Service is concerned, although it is a matter to which I drew the attention of my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire the other day—there is the question of the right of former federal officers to compete for admission to the Home Civil Service, which apparently, from what he said, was to be limited to those who had formerly been members of the Colonial Service. It seems to me that this is an invidious distinction, and considering the limited number who could apply the Government might well throw open the whole field to former members of the Federal Public Service.
I apologise for detaining your Lordships for so long, but I want to raise just one further, related point. It concerns the question of the Judges of the Supreme Court, a matter to which I referred in the debate of December 17. I pointed out then that as regards the pensions of the Judges of the Supreme Court, the first occasion on which the Judges became aware of the proposals relating to them—and they are most unsatisfactory proposals—was on Monday, November 25; and, if your Lordships will remember, the Order in Council actually came to us a week before our debate, on December 10. So the Judges themselves had only three weeks' knowledge of these proposals before they appeared in the Order in Council. These proposals relating to the Supreme Court Judges were not accepted by the Federal Government; they were not accepted by the Judges themselves, and two of them informed me personally when I was out there this April that that was so. These are distinguished gentlemen who gave up, in one case a seat in the Supreme Court of South Africa, in another case a seat in the High Court of Southern Rhodesia, and in another case a seat in the Court of Appeal of East Africa. They gave up all this in order to go to the Federation and take their places on the bench there.
It seems to me that this is a matter which, although it does not relate directly to the Civil Service, Her 914 Majesty's Government should be asked to look at again, in order to consider an ex gratia payment to these distinguished gentlemen commensurate with their services. They gave up a great deal to go on the Bench of the Federal Supreme Court and so far they have been very shabbily treated. There are many other smaller points in relation to this question; there is no need to labour them here. There are eight matters at least on which the Government could with little difficulty meet some of the real grievances of these unfortunate people.
Let us set aside the question whether Her Majesty's Government were in the last resort responsible for the break-up of the Federation—though, of course, as the Order in Council contained no fewer than twelve paragraphs about federal public servants in relation to many other matters, it would seem that they had some responsibility—and let us simply ask Her Majesty's Government, knowing the extent of feeling which exists in both Houses of Parliament and in all Parties, and among ex-federal servants themselves, to sit down and work out practical means of remedying these hardships. No question of race arises—Europeans, Africans, Asians, all are affected. No precedent would be created, for there is no other territory in any way analogous to the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The cost in terms of money would be small, and the British Government would have the satisfaction of knowing that they had dealt fairly and honourably with these loyal servants of the Crown who, through no fault of their own, found themselves deprived of their careers and in some cases with their whole livelihood threatened.
My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, seemed to give the impression that there were only a handful of these people, a dozen or a dozen and a half, involved, but I gather from the speech of my noble friend Lord Colyton that there appear to be a far greater number. Could the noble Lord give us any idea of the numbers involved?
§ LORD COLYTON
I think Lord Coleraine was speaking mainly in regard to Nyasaland civil servants. I was referring entirely to ex-federal civil servants of whom there are several hundreds 915 affected, and probably several hundred more cases would have come to light had there been greater publicity.
§ 4.5 p.m.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, sitting listening to the debate to-day I have been reminded of occasions in the past when one has had a brief for the defence and the case for the prosecution was put very strongly and forcibly but the facts were really not quite as portrayed by the prosecution. Nor to-day are the facts quite as they have been put by noble Lords who have spoken in support of this Motion. The noble Marquess, in a short speech, seemed to be assuming guilt on the part of Her Majesty's Government, and merely waiting to determine whether there was anything which could be said in mitigation. Indeed, although it may be said by the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, that there is no desire to embarrass the Government, that this is not a Party matter, this Motion is an indictment of Her Majesty's Government for agreeing to the Victoria Falls settlement.
I do not accept the many hard things which have been said. Reference has already been made to what my right honourable friend Mr. Butler said in the House of Commons. It has been said that what has been arranged was a breach of what he stated. Reference has been made more than once to mean and shabby treatment. I have discussed this matter with my right honourable friend, and I can tell your Lordships that he has told me that he is satisfied that the settlement reached through the machinery set up and agreed by the five Governments fully implemented the assurances which he gave. I, too, hope to satisfy your Lordships that the observations in relation to the conduct of Her Majesty's Government which have been made to your Lordships to-day and in previous debates are really not justified. I hope your Lordships will bear with me while I make what I fear must be a fairly lengthy speech in an endeavour to get the facts clearly before the House.
If your Lordships will look at the terms of the Motion moved by the noble Marquess, your Lordships will see that it refers to "undesignated federal and territorial officers". The last thing I 916 wish to do is to take any narrow or legalistic points, but it is important that we should get clear exactly what we are talking about. This is a very complicated and technical subject and it is very easy to become confused in dealing with it. It is to prevent confusion arising that I want to say at the outset of my speech that there really is not, and has not been, any such person as an "undesignated" or indeed a "designated" federal officer. Further, I want to make clear that no territorial officers, designated or undesignated, were affected by the terms of the settlement reached last year for the federal public service. I ask your Lordships to bear this in mind. The criticism made of Her Majesty's Government in the debate to-day, and in the debate of June 16, have related to the terms of settlement for the federal public service.
May I now explain exactly what is meant by the terms "designated" or "undesignated". In 1954 in the White Paper, Colonial 306, the British Government set out certain undertakings towards a particular class of officers serving overseas who had been recruited by or on behalf of the Colonial Secretary and for whose careers the British Government accepted a degree of responsibility. These officers were promised that if the territory in whose public service they were employed attained self-government, they would receive compensation from the Government of that territory in the event of their premature retirement because of constitutional changes. In 1960 a further White Paper (Cmnd. 1193) reaffirmed this and set out a detailed scheme, the Overseas Aid Scheme. This offered Territorial Governments, which were still dependent but on their way to self-government, financial help from the British Government, in order to assist them to recruit and to retain the services of expatriate officers coming within the category for which the British Government accepted responsibility under the 1954 White Paper.
The basis of this scheme was that by our meeting the additional cost, in terms of salary, leave and passage, privileges, et cetera, of employing such officers it would make it easier for their services to be retained in the territory in question. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, 917 commented upon the distinction drawn between "designated" and "undesignated" officers. That was inherent from the inception of the scheme. Not every expatriate officer is qualified for acceptance under the 1954 White Paper and the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. Those who qualified have been called "designated" and those who did not are normally referred to as "non-designated" or "undesignated". Those who were designated were those expatriate officers for whom the British Government accepted responsibility, primarily because they were concerned with their appointment. Those non-designated were those who, though expatriates, did not qualify under the 1954 White Paper or the Overseas Aid Scheme. In this way a distinction was drawn between those expatriates for whom the British Government had a special responsibility on account primarily of recruiting them and those for whom the British Government had no such responsibility.
A designated officer becomes eligible for the compensation promised by the 1954 White Paper when his territory becomes self-governing. The schemes for compensation have developed a standard pattern throughout the territories in which they have been applied. If these officers' careers are terminated in consequence of constitutional changes and control of the public service passing to the local government, they get a capital sum calculated on an actuarial basis of which the British Government pay half and the Territorial Government the other half. The amount will depend, just as it does now, in calculating a pension on age, length of service and salary enjoyed.
My Lords, I think I am right in saying that the White Paper and the Overseas Aid Scheme were debated in this House and there never was, and never has been, any question of applying the Overseas Aid Scheme and the 1954 White Paper to the Federal Public Service. No federal public servants were classified as designated or undesignated. In relation to that, the terms are wholly inappropriate. I do not wish to be thought to be attacking the noble Marquess for his use of language in his Motion, but it is, if we are to judge this matter correctly, important to get it clear that that Scheme never applied to the Federal 918 Public Service, and so the question of distinguishing federal officers by designation or non-designation never arose.
I now come to the next point. The Federal Public Service was from the beginning entirely the responsibility of the Federal Government. The British Government had no say in its composition or conditions of service or recruitment. It did not at the time of dissolution contain any officers who were designated and for whose careers the British Government were, in consequence, responsible, and for which the British Government had accepted responsibility. The Overseas Service Aid Scheme was accepted by the Governments of Northern Rhodesia and of Nyasaland, and in the public service of these two territories there were employed a number of designated officers. At the time of the creation of the Federation Southern Rhodesia had been a self-governing Colony for nearly 30 years. All members of its service had been recruited directly by the Southern Rhodesian Government. The Overseas Services Aid Scheme did not apply to Southern Rhodesia, and so no "designated" officers were employed in the public service of that territory.
Now I should like to remind your Lordships of what was done when the Federation was established, for it is relevant to bear that in mind when considering the settlement made on dissolution. As your Lordships know, various Territorial Government services were transferred to the Federal Government, such as health, post and telegraphs, European education and prisons. The question had therefore to be tackled of building up a Federal Public Service to man these departments, and of deciding the conditions on which territorial officers running them might transfer to the Federal Service.
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Constitution) Order in Council, 1953, in Sections 6 to 11, stated the transitional arrangements for these officers. In the first instance, pensionable territorial officers in the departments transferred to the Federal Government were compulsorily seconded en bloc for two years to the Federal Service. After that they had a further three years of secondment in which to decide to join the new Service. In this way 919 the continued manning of the departments transferred was secured and the Federal Government had time to work out its own conditions of service before territorial officers had to decide whether or not to join the Federal Service, and the territorial officers were thus given ample time to make their decisions. At any time after the first two years of secondment a territorial officer could, if he wished, retire on the terms provided under the legislation of his territory for abolition of officers; that is to say, although there were minor differences depending on from which territory he came, he generally earned pension plus an increase up to one-third.
The 1953 Order in Council was debated in this House and I do not think that any criticism was made of these arrangements. For the territorial officers seconded from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Her Majesty's Government, of course, continued to have the same responsibility during the secondment, for they still remained territorial officers of those territories. Her Majesty's Government had no responsibility for those who were seconded from Southern Rhodesia and they had no responsibility, and in my submission to your Lordships they have never had any responsibility, no matter what the noble Marquess may say, for those who joined the Federal Service from whichever territory or country they may have come.
About 5,000 territorial officers decided to join, and joined the Federal Service. It was made clear to them, my Lords, beyond any shadow of doubt, that those who joined the Federal Service—which, as I have said, was from the outset entirely the responsibility of the Federal Government—terminated their previous employment. This meant, and was clearly understood to mean, that those expatriate officers of Northern Rhodesia and of Nyasaland would, on joining the Federal Service, cease to be regarded as expatriate in any way. I would ask your Lordships to bear that in mind.
My noble friend Lord Malvern, when he was Federal Prime Minister, wrote a foreword to a Federal White Paper called Transfer to the Federal Public Service in which he said this:Many officers in the Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Services who are now members of what is very largely an expatriate service 920 are being asked to transfer to one which provides for them to make their careers, and I hope their homes, in the Federation.And in that White Paper it is clearly stated,Transfer to the Federal Public Service from a Territorial Service amounts to the termination of an officer's employment with his Territorial Government.
§ LORD COLERAINE
My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to ask him one question arising out of that statement. The question is this. Does he really believe that if any of those officers had had any idea that there was any likelihood that the Federation would be dissolved by the act of the British Parliament, they would have exercised this option? Is that not a consideration which the Government ought to keep in mind?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I did not interrupt the noble Lord and I was coming on to deal with that in due course. I have here a very long speech and I can deal with points only stage by stage. I dare say that if officers had had remarkable foresight and had been able to foresee that the Federation would come to an end, they might have decided not to join. The point I want to make is that they joined of their own free will and with the knowledge that their link with the United Kingdom Government and the Colonial Civil Service would be terminated on their joining.
My Lords, I am dealing with the time when that Federal Service was formed. During the currency of the Federal Public Service no one suggested that Her Majesty's Government had any right to interfere in the conditions of service adopted by the Federal Government; and no one ventured to suggest that the British Government had any responsibility for the terms and conditions of service prescribed by the Federal Government. It was the known policy of the Federation to establish a wholly local public service whose officers would go home every night and not once in three years; and, of course, those designated officers who joined the Federal Service lost their overseas leave privileges when they joined. It is true that the then Colonial Secretary, my noble friend Lord Chandos, expressed the hope that the majority of seconded officers would transfer to the Federal Service. He emphasised that they had five years in which to make up their minds. But the fact that he expressed 921 that hope did not mean, and, I suggest, could not be understood to mean, that the British Government would continue to have responsibility for those who joined the Federal Service from the Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Services.
My Lords, I have spent some time on this aspect, for I think it is a relevant fact to be borne in mind that right from the inception of the Federal Service the British Government had no responsibility for its members. At the time of dissolution, there were 35,000 in the Federal Public Service. Well over half were African officers. Over 15,000 were pensionable; and, of these, about 55 per cent. were European and 45 per cent. African. There were officers who had previously been in the territorial services, a large number from Southern Rhodesia, officers of all races, recruited locally in the Federation, as well as officers recruited by the Federal Government from the United Kingdom or elsewhere overseas. All these officers had joined a local public service and served on local terms, and the Federal Government was solely responsible for them.
There was no special category of Federal public servant for which the British Government were responsible, and the terms of service in the Federal Public Service took no account of race or origin. When the Federation was formed, the Postmaster at Blantyre and the Medical Superintendent at Bulawayo, Lusaka and Zomba continued to do the same job, but their employers changed. When the Federation was dissolved, their services in their posts were still required, not by the Federal Government but by the Territorial Government. But, as the terms of service took no account of race or origin, it would not have been right, I submit, on dissolution, to have different terms depending on race or origin.
In considering what terms should be offered on dissolution, three questions had to be considered. First, could the Territorial Government provide fully comparable—and I emphasise these words "fully comparable"—conditions of employment, so that, despite the change of employer, individual officers could continue their careers without loss or detriment in the service to which they belonged? It was recognised from the start that, because of its policy of Africanisation, the Nyasaland Govern- 922 ment could not offer employment to pensionable officers not born and bred or domiciled in Nyasaland which could fairly be regarded as comparable. It was therefore agreed that, where appropriate, Nyasaland would have to offer contract terms to the federal officers it needed to obtain, and that otherwise such officers should be treated as becoming redundant.
I listened with the closest possible attention to the case to which the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, referred, but I am not sure—I had not heard of that case before—quite how it fits into that pattern, because, on the information I have given, the sixteen officers to whom he referred, if they were federal officers, were clearly entitled to be treated as redundant—and I will come on in a moment to say what terms were offered to redundant officers. If I may pursue the point I was on a moment ago, from the outset it was considered that the only Territorial Governments which could provide fully comparable conditions of employment were those of Northern and Southern Rhodesia. It is right to say, too, that these Governments went out of their way to amend and adapt their existing terms of service in a number of respects so as to enable them to offer federal officers invited to transfer to their service fully comparable conditions of service.
The first question was, as I have said: could fully comparable conditions of employment be offered? The second question was: if they could, what was the right and fair way to deal with those who did not wish to transfer to fully comparable employment with a Territorial Government? My Lords, there was no compulsion put upon them. Provision had to be made for those who did not wish to transfer to fully comparable employment. It was decided to allow them to retire with the pension they had earned up to that time. I must say that I find it difficult to quarrel with that decision. An officer who had served a Territorial Government in one capacity and then the Federal Government in that capacity was not compelled again to serve the Territorial Government in the same capacity when the terms of employment were comparable with those he enjoyed when a member of the Federal Service. He was free to refuse 923 to do so; but, if the terms of employment were comparable, I cannot myself see that he had any great claim for compensation if he chose not to accept that comparable employment.
§ LORD COLERAINE
My Lords, I am extremely sorry to interrupt again, but I wonder if the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will bear with me. Did I understand him to say that comparable employment was offered in Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia but not in Nyasaland?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I did not put it like that. I said that it was recognised from the start that, because of the policy of Africanisation, comparable employment was not available in Nyasaland.
§ LORD COLERAINE
Does it not surely follow from that that these sixteen officers have not been offered comparable employment; that they cannot expect comparable employment? Yet they are offered no compensation. Is that fair?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, so far as the first part of the noble Lord's remarks is concerned, it may be the case—indeed, I would expect it to be the case—if they were federal servants; but the noble Lord is familiar with these sixteen officers whereas I am afraid I am not. All I am saying, and all I can say to-day, is that on what I have been told they were federal servants, formerly employed in Nyasaland, and that they would be entitled to be treated as redundant. I will come later to the question of compensation: I have said nothing about that yet. But, with great respect, the noble Lord is quite wrong when he says that there was no element of compensation in what was offered to redundant officers.
I will come back, if I may. to what I was saying. I was dealing with the second question: what should be offered to the individual who was offered comparable employment in Northern Rhodesia or in Southern Rhodesia, and who did not wish to take it? As I was saying, he was free to refuse it, but if he did so, I could not see that he had any great claim to compensation. In fact, if he chose not to take the post, he was allowed to receive the pension he had earned up to date. Ordinarily, as your Lordships 924 know, an officer does not get a pension except by full service to the prescribed age of retirement. But in this case those who did not wish to accept comparable employment got the pension they had earned; and they got it without regard to the fact that they had not reached the prescribed age of retirement. It may well be that in some cases the pension received was small. Its size would depend on the age of the recipient, his length of service in a pensionable post under the Federal Government and the nature of the post he held. But whether his pension was small or large, the man who did not choose to accept comparable employment was given that pension—and given it, it may be, many years before he would have become entitled to any pension in the Federal Service.
My Lords, I have mentioned two questions that had to be decided on dissolution. I now come to the third question, namely, what recompense should be made available to those officers to whom no comparable employment could be offered after dissolution? On the information given to you by the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, it would seem that the sixteen to whom he referred come within this category.
In all, about 400 officers, out of a total of 35,000, became redundant. The compensation provided for them takes the form of the benefits provided in the federal conditions of service in the event of abolition of their offices—and, when one regards them as becoming redundant, that is surely another way of saying that their offices have ceased to exist. And the form of compensation, under the federal conditions of service, on abolition of offices is earned pension plus up to one-third increase. I must say it does seem to me right in principle that those officers for whom no further employment was available should get the compensation to which they were entitled under their conditions of service if their offices were abolished.
Now, my Lords, I wish to correct two errors, made in our debate on June 16; and one, I think, was repeated by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in the course of to-day's debate. My noble friend Lord Salisbury, with great respect, was wrong in saying then that territorial officers had either to join the Federal Service when it was formed or retire with such pension as their service 925 entitled them to at that time. As I have pointed out, if they did not wish to join they could retire on abolition-of-office terms. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was mistaken when he said in that debate, and I think he repeated it to-day, that on dissolution those officers who failed to obtain employment received no compensation at all. That, as I have pointed out, is just not the case. They did not receive lump-sum compensation, that is true; but the noble Lord may have been using it to mean a lump sum——
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I was about to say what he has said. I was using the word "compensation" in rather a loose sense (and this he has now corrected), to mean a lump-sum compensation.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I thought that might have been what the noble Earl meant. Compensation can take many forms, of course, and the grant of a pension at an early age may be a valuable form.
My Lords, I have stated the answers to the three questions I said had to be considered. This was the settlement arrived at and agreed by all the five Governments. It is all very well for the noble Marquess to say that the other Governments were immature and young; but surely that description could not be applied to the Federal Government, even if it was going to disappear, or to the Government of Southern Rhodesia. And I venture to suggest that not one of the five Governments would have agreed to that settlement—and they all did—if they had thought that it was not just and equitable in all the circumstances. Despite the criticisms that have been advanced—and advanced on more than one occasion—I maintain that it was a fair and just settlement, viewed objectively.
Some of your Lordships, it seems to me, take the view that because the British Parliament passed the Act leading to the dissolution, there is a greater obligation on the British Government for the ex-federal officers, for whom there was no responsibility on the part of the British Government before dissolution. The noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, referred to our 926overwhelming greater responsibility for ensuring justice for the civil servants because the Federation was brought to an end by the decision of the British GovernmentThe noble Lord, Lord Walston, who I am sorry to see is not in his place, said that there was a moral obligation on the British Government to be generous to these officers, now that the merger which the British Government had been instrumental in bringing about had broken up. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, also spoke, as he did to-day, about our moral responsibility. As I have already pointed out, however, while the Federation was in being, we had no moral and no legal obligation towards federal officers. And unless one takes the view that the British Government were responsible for the break-up of the Federation, I do not see how it can seriously be argued that on dissolution a moral obligation on the British Government to the federal officers arose.
My Lords, I reject the contention that we broke up the Federation. In our debate on December 17 last year, I said, if I may remind your Lordships, that our action was simply a recognition of political realities; in short, that the Federation could not be held together except by force. If we had not recognised the situation, the Federation would have broken up in chaos. I know that there are some who do not accept this view, who feel that, somehow or other, the Federation should have been maintained, despite the wishes of the vast majority of the inhabitants of two of the three territories. But I feel that their unwillingness to accept the political realities is associated with some unwillingness to face facts which were inescapable. We were not responsible for that situation within the Federation, and we are not responsible for its consequences. I reject the view that we have a particular obligation to the ex-Federal officers because the Federation was dissolved. I really do not see how that is maintainable.
What we did was to accept the obligation, in concert with the other Governments concerned, to secure an orderly and reasonable settlement of all the problems to which dissolution gave rise, and one of the problems was to secure just and fair arrangements for the federal civil servants. The Territorial Governments, as the successors to both the rights and obligations of the Federation were 927 directly concerned. So were the Federal Government, in view of their responsibility for those officers since the inception of the Service.
Some very wild things have been said on one or two occasions, and I think again to-day, about the part played by British civil servants in the negotiations leading up to the settlement. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on June 16, alleged that they had been instructed to press for no compensation. While it would be contrary to long established practice for me to disclose what instructions were in fact given, I hope that the noble Earl will accept it from me that he has been misled and that there is no truth whatsoever in that allegation. At no time did British representatives oppose the principle of compensation, and the settlement provides, as I have said, for compensation for redundant officers and for payment of earned pensions to those who did not accept comparable employment despite the fact that the time at which they were entitled to receive a pension had not come. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, thought fit to allege that British civil servants forced ungenerous views on the representatives of the Territorial Governments; and he substantially repeated that suggestion to-day. It is, surely, a reflection not only on the British civil servants but on the representatives of the other Governments; and it really is not warranted. The settlement was evolved in full and free discussion in which the Territorial Governments played a major part, as successor Governments. There was no question of influence being brought to bear on them.
The settlement reached by all five Governments has been compared, to-day and on previous occasions, with that reached on the winding up of the West Indies Federation, and the British Government have been criticised for not securing on the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland terms for ex-Federal servants as good as those provided in the West Indies. My Lords, I do not think this criticism was in the least justified. The West Indian Territorial Governments unanimously and on their own initiative, proposed to treat their redundant ex-Federal servants exactly as if they were expatriate members of Her Majesty's Oversea Civil Service 928 for whom the British Government recognise responsibility to provide compensation on redundancy. The West Indian Territorial Governments undertook to meet the full cost of this, as successors to the assets and liabilities of the Federation.
So far as the British Government are concerned, we followed the same course as in relation to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. We joined in discussions with the Territorial Governments. We undertook no fresh responsibilities. In the West Indies Federal Service there were members of the Oversea Civil Service. We recognised and discharged our responsibility to them. We did not recognise or undertake any obligations to other West Indies federal servants. As I say, in the West Indies, the Territorial Governments accepted the burden of giving similar treatment to other federal servants.
In the Victoria Falls discussions, the Territorial Governments were concerned to see that there was equal treatment for all federal officers, irrespective of race and origin, and all agreed that enhanced pension, as provided for on abolition of office, was fair compensation for redundant officers. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, on June 16, said that the Government had passed over responsibility for paying these pensions entirely to the local Governments. I have already stated that we had no responsibility for them and so there was never any question of passing over any responsibility. What we have done is to undertake to make good 25 per cent. of any deficit in the federal pension fund, revealed by actuarial examination, in the amount necessary to provide for these pensions, the other territories providing the balance.
When the settlement was reached last September, the Federal Government, in endorsing it, said that they felt that there might be individual cases of special hardship among redundant officers. The other Governments agreed to give sympathetic consideration to the means of relieving any such cases. The Territorial Governments took the view that the proposals put forward by the Federal Government went far beyond what the Government had agreed to 929 consider. They took the view that the grafting of a scheme for general compensation for a particular class into the settlement reached would involve reopening the decisions on compensation which had been agreed, as well as discrimination between different categories of federal servants.
Finally, it was agreed that a Commissioner should be appointed by the Liquidating Agency appointed under Section 3 of the dissolution Order in Council, and that the appointment should be made on the nomination of the staff authority, the body set up to watch over the interests of federal civil servants. His terms of reference were as follows. I will comment on them, if I may, after I have read them to your Lordships. First, redundant ex-federal public servants only should be eligible for assistance. Secondly, a ceiling of £500 should be observed in any one case. This could be raised on application to the Agency if experience showed it was generally insufficient. Individual recommendations for sums in excess of £500 were to be referred to the Agency for decision. Thirdly, no long-term commitment should be entertained. Assistance should generally consist of ad hoc grants on a "once and for all" basis, and payment should not extend beyond the date the Liquidating Agency was dissolved. Fourthly, hard-ship arising within three months of dissolution was to be accepted as having arisen as a result of the break-up of the Federation. Hardship arising after three months would be the subject of review by the Agency. Fifthly, and finally, no award should include any element of compensation for loss of office, but should be restricted to hardship.
Your Lordships will see that there was no ceiling on the amount that could be awarded in compensation, and that there was no definition at all of what was meant by "hardship". These were the Commissioners' terms of reference, and I do not see that they can be justly criticised. But then, it is said that they have been interpreted harshly. There was no restrictive definition of hardship imposed on the Commissioner by the Governments. Within these terms of reference, it was agreed that the Commissioner should have absolute personal discretion. The criteria on which he should decide whether hardship had 930 arisen in an individual case were left to his unfettered judgment. He was not required to subject applicants to any form of means test.
A reference has been made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to-day to the particulars and information that were required to be given. The form of application, to which the noble Earl referred, was in fact designed by the staff authority which was there to watch over the interests of the federal officers. It was decided that the normal process should be that applications should go to the Commissioner through the staff authority, but any one was perfectly free, if he wished, to go straight to the Commissioner.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, may I ask a question arising out of this information, which I am grateful to have? Everything depends on the way instructions are interpreted by the Special Commissioner. Can the noble and learned Lord say, when a man supplies information about the value of his house and its contents, of his car and bicycle and his savings, and of any shares or Government stock he has purchased, whether in cases where grants have already been made (and the noble Duke said there were a certain number of such cases) the Commissioner has insisted on the disposal of all or part of this property before the grant was given?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord any information about particular cases decided by the Commissioner. I simply have not got it. If the staff authority wanted to establish that there was in fact a case of hardship, naturally they would want to have considerable information about an applicant's resources and means. I do not think that the letter form drafted by the staff authority really has any sinister aspect. What had to be determined by the Commissioner was whether there was any hardship. Out of 28 applications considered by the Commissioner, 21 have been rejected. I do not think that these figures show that he—and I understand that he is a man who is much respected—has acted harshly. If any inference is to be drawn from these figures, I think it is that the small number of applicants, 28 out of 931 400 redundant officers, and the small number of successful applicants are indications, on the contrary, that there was very little hardship in fact resulting from the general settlement.
In our debate on June 16, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, referred to three cases, which he alleged showed that the terms of the settlement were unsatisfactory. He referred to one of them again to-day. I wrote to the noble Marquess on June 26, asking if I could be given further information about these cases, for I said I would like to have them thoroughly investigated. The noble Marquess replied on the 29th, saying that he would send me all the information he could about these cases. Whether it is due to the postal difficulties we have experienced or to some other reason I do not know, but the fact is that I have not received any information about these cases from the noble Marquess. And so, much to my regret, it has not been possible for me to have them investigated.
But, my Lords, there do appear to be some odd features about the cases he cited. He referred to an officer employed in the Customs. He said he had nineteen years' service, that his salary with the Government had been £828 a year—and the noble Marquess threw in for good measure the fact that he was married and had 8 children, though I do not see how that could affect his pension entitlement—and he gets a pension of £68 a year. My Lords, the Federation was in existence for only just over ten years, so he could not have had nineteen years' service with the Federation. I am wondering whether the pension to which the noble Marquess referred was only the Federal pension. He may have a pension from a Territorial Government for his service with them, if he served in a pensionable appointment.
The noble Marquess also referred to an officer aged 54 who, he said, had thirty years' experience with the hydro-graphic survey. His salary was £1,700 a year, and the noble Marquess says his pension is £278 a year. Again I wonder whether he is in receipt of a pension from a Territorial Government, for it would seem that he may have served twenty years with a Territorial Government. If he did, the total he 932 receives in pension is likely to be three times the figure given by the noble Marquess. The third case cited by the noble Marquess was the case of a man aged 45, with a salary of £1,650 a year, who, he says, gets a pension of £256 a year. My Lords, his pension must depend on his length of service as well as his age, and the noble Marquess, unfortunately, did not tell us his length of service. I should indeed have liked to have these cases investigated, for without full knowledge of all relevant facts it really is not possible to come to a definite conclusion about them.
My Lords, I have almost finished all I have to say about the settlement arrived at for the federal officers. It has, I think, been assumed that a small pension was in itself proof of hardship that justified a higher level of compensation, irrespective of the length of service by which the pension was earned. The scale of lump sum compensation provided for expatriate members of the Oversea Civil Service appears to have been regarded as a yardstick for compensating some members, at least, if not all members, of the Federal Service. My Lords, just as there was no discrimination in the terms of service offered to those who joined the Federal Service, so I submit there cannot be discrimination of their being redundant.
I have sought to make it clear that right from its inception Her Majesty's Government had no responsibility for those who joined the Federal Service, and there really is no ground for accepting responsibility for some or all of them on dissolution. We have played a part in the negotiations with the other four Governments, and our common object has been to find a fair and equitable arrangement. I must confess that I cannot see that it is unfair to provide for those officers who became redundant on dissolution the same compensation they would have been entitled to if while they were serving the Federal Government or the Territorial Governments their offices had been abolished.
My Lords, there is one other matter I must deal with before I sit down. I apologise for keeping your Lordships for so long. Since dissolution, the Northern Rhodesian Government has adopted a policy of Africanisation. That Government has recognised that that has altered 933 the situation of those ex-federal officers who joined the Northern Rhodesian Service, and also of the non-designated officers in their services. They announced last January that all non-designated officers who would previously have forfeited all pension rights by premature retirement could either retire with earned pension at six months' notice or, if they served for two years from January, 1964, on abolition of office terms; that is to say, with a pension enhanced up to one-third. On further review they have recently amended the scheme to provide that if any such officer is superseded for promotion or required to retire because of Africanisation he may, at his option, receive in place of the enhanced pension half the lump sum compensation due to designated officers, plus his earned pension.
The ex-federal officer in the Northern Rhodesia Service has been given three options. He may retire with an enhanced abolition pension he would have received if declared redundant at the time of dissolution, and then re-engage on contract terms. He may convert to the same conditions of service as the non-designated officers, or he may opt to continue to serve on local conditions. These terms are entirely a matter for the Northern Rhodesian Government. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, suggests that we should seek to impress upon them the need to supplement them, or, indeed that we should supplement them ourselves. With the greatest respect to the noble Earl, if you continue to draw a distinction between designated civil servants, for whom we are responsible, and undesignated civil servants in the Territorial Governments for whom we are not responsible—and that distinction was implicit in what was done in 1954 and 1960—I cannot think it would be right just to ask Northern Rhodesia to treat designated and undesignated in precisely the same fashion.
It may be suggested that the fact that the Northern Rhodesia Government has made these arrangements shows that the arrangements made at the time of dissolution were not fair. My Lords, does that necessarily follow? The arrangements made by the Northern Rhodesia Government are to deal with a new situation which has arisen since the dissolution. It does not follow that the settlement arrived at by agreement between all five Govern- 934 ments was not fair and equitable in the circumstances then existing. This was one part of the settlement on dissolution; that settlement dealt with many other subjects. I really do not think it is practical now, when so much has been done to carry out the settlement, to re-open it. What I gather is suggested is, not that the settlement should be re-opened, but that the British Government should now pay to all federal servants, or to some categories of federal servants, sums in excess of those agreed to.
I would ask your Lordships to bear in mind that half the Federal Service was African. I do not think it can be seriously suggested that all these African officers should have ben offered lump sum compensation as though they were expatriate officers whose careers had been brought to an end through transfer of responsibility from the Federal to the Territorial Governments. If this is not suggested, then presumably what is suggested is that there should be some discrimination in favour of the non-African federal servants. I cannot think that this would be right when one bears in mind that there was no discrimination in the conditions of service. But if there was to he discrimination, in whose favour is that to be applied? Just to the former members of the Colonial Service who voluntarily joined the Federal Service? That appears to be the view of some. But if you do that, how can you justify treating these former colonial federal servants better than those recruited direct from here by the Federal Government, or better than European officers domiciled in and recruited from Southern Rhodesia?
My Lords, although the criticisms have been strongly voiced, it is by no means clear what it is that the critics wish the British Government to do now. Although they have spoken bluntly, they have refrained from saying expressly that they want European federal servants to receive better terms than the non-European, but I must say that that appears to me to be the conclusion to which their arguments would lead. If that is so, I must ask your Lordships to reject their contention. This was a common service, in which no distinction was drawn on account of colour, race or origin. It would be quite wrong to draw any such distinction now. This was a Federal Service for which Her Majesty's Government had no responsibility. We have done our 935 best with the other four Governments to arrive at a just and fair solution—and I really do not think that any case has been made out for saying that the five Governments failed in their task, or for saying that, despite that agreement, the British Government and the British taxpayer should make some further supplemental payment over and above what was agreed when, as I have indicated, there was no responsibility on the part of Her Majesty's Government for the Federal Service and when to do so would clearly imply that the Federal Government and the three Territorial Governments, as well as ourselves, were at fault.
My Lords, I apologise for having taken up so much of your Lordships' time, but this is really, despite what may be said about it, not only a vote of censure on Her Majesty's Government for what they have done, honestly and sincerely, in seeking to arrive at a fair settlement, but it is also a vote of censure on the other Governments which took part in the Conference on dissolution. I ask your Lordships to reject the Motion.
§ 5.1 p.m.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, before I come to the main issues of the debate, I should like to say one word about certain cases which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor mentioned in the latter part of his speech. I had the faint impression that he felt I had been rather playing with the truth in giving the figures I did.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I should like to make it quite clear that I was not suggesting that for a moment. The noble Marquess may easily not have been told some very relevant facts.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I think it is only fair to the noble and learned Lord that I should explain what has happened. As soon as I had his letter I made inquiries of the source from which I had received the figures, and I had a letter from them later on saying that they had to check them on the spot and would possibly not have the information available for when I wanted it. But I have every reason to suppose that those figures are correct, because they come from a firm of solicitors of the higest repute, and I shall be only too ready to let the Lord Chancellor have all the 936 information when I have it myself. I quite realise that he had a perfectly good case in saying that I had failed to supply him with information which I ought to have had. I hope he will understand that it was not intentional.
Now I come on the main issues of the debate. I do not know what other noble Lords feel about what we have just heard, but personally I am afraid I remain quite unconvinced by the Lord Chancellor's speech. We ought to be grateful to him, for he has obviously taken a great deal of trouble about it, but it still seemed merely a piece of special pleading and to leave the position exactly where it was on June 16, when we last discussed this subject. There has, in effect, been no advance in the Government's attitude at all. He never said, in particular, any more than the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, said last time, that he thought the pensions were adequate. That has never been said, so far as I know, by any member of the Government during these discussions. All he did was to repudiate all responsibility on behalf of Her Majesty's Government for these people.
May I take one example where he did that? He said at one point in his speech—I had to take it down, but I think he will not accuse me of misrepresentation—that it was not right that officers who, when jobs were available and had been offered to them, had not taken those jobs. should receive compensation.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I cannot have made myself clear to the noble Marquess. I said there was provision for their getting something. They were not compelled at all to take a comparable job, but if they refused a comparable job and did not take it, then they were entitled to go with the pension they had earned up to date.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
But I understood the Lord Chancellor to say there had been no contribution for loss of career if they refused. The point I want to make is this. These people were not offered comparable jobs. They were offered jobs which had not the same security either as to their real value—because the real value of payment in the local currency might vary enormously, supposing there were deterioration in the local currency—or as to probable permanence of their employment. I think 937 it is quite natural for a man in that situation, even if he were offered a job, to say, "No, this is not in the least like the job I had before, and I am afraid I cannot accept it." I do not feel myself that it would be necessarily a reason for refusing him compensation for loss of career. However, the noble and learned Lord may not agree to that.
The distinct impression I got from the Lord Chancellor's speech—the whole speech—was that he repudiated all responsibility for these people on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. That was the gist of it—that the Government never had responsibility for them, and do not have responsibility for them now; that it was quite justifiable for the Government to wash their hands of them. Most of us cannot repudiate responsibility for these people. We cannot pass it on to the Territorial Governments with a sigh of relief, and then sit back and think that we have done all we ought to have done. The hard fact is that they were our servants—and good servants at that—for a long period of years and we ought not to leave them to penury, any of them.
Whatever the noble and learned Lord may say, I agree personally with what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel,
§ that there is a moral obligation on us in this particular case. Rightly or wrongly—wrongly, as I think, though other people think rightly—we broke up the Federation. It is perfect nonsense to say that we did not. If it had not been for Her Majesty's Government, I think the Federation would be in existence now. We put these people in their present unhappy situation. In these circumstances, I cannot regard the Lord Chancellor's attitude, which I recognise is not his attitude but the attitude of the Government, as being anything but mean beyond belief; and for that reason I must, without further ado, I am afraid, divide the House. I do it with regret, because I do not like dividing the House against my own Party. But here is a case, in my view at any rate, of obvious injustice, and this House has always stood for justice in all aspects and regions of public life.
§ 5.10 p.m.
§ On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 53; Not-Contents, 65.939
|Addison, V.||Douglas of Barloch, L.||Molson, L.|
|Airlie, E.||Effingham, E.||Monson, L.|
|Albemarle, E.||Faringdon, L.||Morrison, L.|
|Alexander of Hillsborough, E.||Forster of Harraby, L.||Morrison of Lambeth, L.|
|Ampthill, L.||Francis-Williams, L.||Portal of Hungerford, V.|
|Archibald, L.||Gaitskell, B.||Russell of Liverpool, L.|
|Attlee, E.||Harvey of Tasburgh, L.||Sainsbury, L.|
|Balfour of Burleigh, L.||Henderson, L.||St. Davids, V.|
|Balfour of Inchrye, L.||Hobson, L.||Salisbury, M.|
|Brocket, L.||Killearn, L.||Shackleton, L.|
|Burden, L.||Kinnoull, E.||Shepherd, L.|
|Burton of Coventry, B.||Latham, L.||Silkin, L.|
|Champion, L.||Lawson, L.||Stonham, L.|
|Chester, L. Bp.||Lindgren, L.||Summerskill, B.|
|Coleraine, L. [Teller.]||Listowel, E.||Twining, L.|
|Colwyn, L.||Long, V.||Williams, L.|
|Colyton, L. [Teller.]||Milner of Leeds, L.||Willis, L.|
|Crook, L.||Milverton, L.|
|Ailwyn, L.||Cowley, E.||Egremont, L.|
|Allerton, L.||Craigton, L.||Elliot of Harwood, B.|
|Amherst of Hackney, L.||Crathorne, L.||Falmouth, V.|
|Auckland, L.||Daventry, V.||Ferrers, E.|
|Balerno, L.||Denham, L.||Ferrier, L.|
|Bessborough, E.||Derwent, L.||Fortescue, E.|
|Blakenham, V.||Devonshire, D.||Fraser of Lonsdale, L.|
|Brecon, L.||Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)||Fraser of North Cape, L.|
|Carrington, L.||Drumalbyn, L.||Glendevon, L.|
|Chesham, L.||Dundee, E.||Goschen, V. [Teller.]|
|Conesford, L.||Ebbisham, L.||Grenfell, L.|
|Cork and Orrery, E.||Eccles, V.||Hanworth, V.|
|Hastings, L.||McCorquodale of Newton, L.||Sandford, L.|
|Hawke, L.||Margesson, V.||Sandys, L.|
|Horsbrugh, B.||Merrivale, L.||Soulbury, V.|
|Iddesleigh, E.||Mersey, V.||Strang, L.|
|Ilford, L.||Montgomery of Alamein, V.||Stuart of Findhorn, V.|
|Jellicoe, E.||Napier and Ettrick, L.||Swinton, E.|
|Lambert, V.||Newton, L.||Thurlow, L.|
|Lansdowne, M.||Redesdale, L.||Wakefield of Kendal, L.|
|Lothian, M.||St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]||Wolverton, L.|
|Mabane, L.||St. Oswald, L.|
Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.