HC Deb 15 December 1965 vol 722 cc1405-20

Lords Amendment: In page 1, leave out lines 10 to 16 and insert: to any such order made before 13th December 1970,

10.15 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl)

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The effect of the Amendment would he to continue the supplement for all owner-occupiers who brought their houses between 1st September, 1939, and 12th December, 1955, for another five years from 12th December, 1965, to 12th December, 1970. In order that the House should appreciate the significance of the Amendment it would help if I reminded it that owner-occupied houses which come within a slum clearance order fall into four different categories for compensation.

First, there are those owner-occupied houses which were acquired before 1939, which get only site value, those which were acquired between 1939 and 1950, which got market value until 12th December, 1965, when the present Act expired—which is the question that we are arguing about at the moment: those acquired between 1950 and 1955 which under the recently expired Act got market value, and which, under the Bill as it left this House will get at least 15 years' enjoyment before they will fall out of market value compensation, and, finally, those acquired after 1955, which get site value only.

The group which, under the Bill as it left this House, are going out of the protection of the Act, have had at most 26 years' and at least 15 years' enjoyment of the house before it was acquired. The group which are remaining under the provisions of the Bill as it left the House might, under the expired legislation, have had as little as 10 years' enjoyment, but, under the Bill, will be sure of getting 15 years.

I have drawn attention to the importance of this period of enjoyment and have pointed out that under the Bill as it left this House, these houses have had at least 15 years during which the people who acquired them have been able to write off the cost which they paid for them. That is fairly important, but a noble Lord in another place said that this was a quite unacceptable argument, and that the length of occupation had nothing whatsoever to do with the question whether or not the owners should receive market value compensation.

All I can say about that is that it was not the view of the last Government when they introduced their Bill in 1956 and it was not the view of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield), my predecessor, who said in the House earlier in this Session that he recognised the sense of the 15-year proposal.

If we depart from the 15-year test, there are no grounds for stopping short of giving all owner-occupiers market value compensation. If we allow the group who have held occupation for at least 15 years to continue their right for another five years, so that in some cases they will be having 30 years enjoyment of the house, there is no point in not giving it to everyone. Many cases in which hardship has been caused and which have had publicity are cases of people who acquired 30 or 40 years ago and who now have to leave their houses.

One of the great difficulties of the Amendment is that it emphasises the rigidity of the distinction between people who are in the Bill and those who are out of it. Under our scheme, on the other hand, the benefit tapers off. Under the Amendment, if one acquired in 1938 one would get nothing, and if one acquired in 1939 one could continue to have protection until 1970. This is a distinction which it is extremely difficult, to justify.

The Amendment has nothing to do with trying to extend the protection to these people. It does not attempt to do that, and to go into great detail arguing about the pros and cons of it would be to go much beyond what we are debating tonight.

I would simply make only some points which came out when we discussed the matter earlier. The difficulty is that in having a blanket arrangement by which everybody will get full market value we should undoubtedly drive up the cost of slum clearance. Once it had been established that there was a cast-iron undertaking that a local authority acquiring a house would pay market value for it, the unscrupulous vendors who were selling unfit houses would be able to say to the purchaser, "You need not worry. The price may seem high but you will get it back from the local authority because this is the market price".

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

The hon. Member knows that there is a Schedule in the 1957 Act which obliges a valuer to value on the basis of what the house is worth, even given the market value. It it is unfit and worth nothing, then the owner will get nothing for it. If it is worth something, then he will be paid the market value.

Mr. MacColl

It is valued at the price at which it is bought and sold. If there were no problem of scarcity there would be no problem of distinction between the two.

The more that we crystallise these differences between these arbitrary classes, the more difficult we make it to have a look at the more general problem of compensation for compulsory acquisition which, as my right hon. Friend said in the earlier debate, we want to do. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) is sniggering again. I thought that he had been cured of his sniggering during the earlier debates this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman addressed us, and no doubt with his usual modesty he gave himself high marks for his wit. I had not the privilege of hearing him.

The third difficulty is one which I know the hon. Member for Crosby feels very strongly about—that the Amendment will make a special distinction for owner-occupiers, which will create a feeling of injustice among small landlords, who, because they have let their houses to tenants, will get nothing.

A final difficulty to which I should draw the House's attention is the position of local authorities. The Association of Municipal Corporations went on record during the time of the last Government expressing their very great alarm at the proposal to extend the workings of the Bill, because of the resultant burden and the increases in costs of acquisition. I think that they would feel, rightly, some sense of injustice—no one thinks that they are enthusiastic about the Bill—if, when they had accepted it with a shrug of the shoulders, which is a reasonable view of their attitude, they suddenly found, as a result of the activities in another place, that their burden is greatly increased. They could reasonably feel that they had been treated unfairly, because these proposals which were not originally in the Bill, were not favoured by them.

We are not discussing what ought to be the final solution of the very difficult problems created by the development of slum clearance. We are discussing a Lords Amendment which makes a quite arbitrary restoration to the Bill of one group of people who are not now particularly distinct from either the people who went before them or the people who are following after them, the very latest group. That would be a very unwise thing to do——

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

If they cannot be distinguished from the persons who acquired their houses between 1950 and 1955, why does not the Minister extend to them the same treatment?

Mr. MacColl

Because that is not what was suggested in another place. I do not think that one should extend it to them because of the difficulties involved. Once one goes beyond filling this gap in the previous legislation—the unfairness to people who acquired during this period but who did not have enjoyment of their property for 15 years—which is what we are doing in the Bill—no line can be drawn. Therefore, it would be unwise of us to extend it in the way proposed in the Amendment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

The Minister made a Freudian slip when at the start of our proceedings he moved that the Lords Amendments should be now "discussed", rather than the more formal "considered". I am sorry that he did not stay to discuss them. I suppose that he has gone to console himself for the fact that in the Division on the Bill we have just finished discussing, even with Liberal support, his majority fell to 16. He left the Parliamentary Secretary to argue what is, frankly, an unarguable case. I think that the House felt a great deal of sympathy with the Parliamentary Secretary, the Casabianca of the Treasury Bench, left to argue the unarguable on the orders of his absent chief. The picture of a good man struggling with hopeless adversity arouses sympathy in the hardest-hearted opponent. We feel for the Parliamentary Secretary.

The Government are being needlessly and hopelessly obstinate. We had a very good debate, as hon. Members will remember, on a similar Amendment in Committee in this House. The Parliamentary Secretary will remember that, apart from himself, not one hon. Member who spoke from either side—and many did—felt happy about this Clause, limited as it then was, which the Lords Amendment would widen. Not one hon. Member who spoke expressed other than criticism.

10.30 p.m.

Indeed, if I may risk an invidious choice, I thought the most vivid illustration of the manifest injustice that the Government are seeking to achieve by the Bill in the form they want it to leave here came in the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler), who described a case where a matter of a few days in respect of two separate dates were going to make all the difference to one of her constituents whose home was being taken for a slum-clearance scheme.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary talked about paying a supplement. I am not sure that that is the right technical term. I doubt whether it is. In any case, we are not concerned with paying a supplement to somebody but with paying to an owner-occupier the market price for the home that is being taken from him so that the local authority may carry out a slum-clearance scheme.

When the Joint Parliamentary Secretary says "It will make slum clearance more expensive," I cannot believe that any local authority is happy at the idea that slum-clearance schemes must be financed at the cost of making people homeless, with only a pittance by way of site value and compensation. I do not believe that anyone wants to see slum clearance carried out on that basis.

Of course, the essence of the matter is this. On 13th December, the day before yesterday, the provisions of the 1957 Act ran out. Under that Act those who bought houses between 1939 and 1955, if taken up for a slum-clearance scheme, got the market value. From early this year hon. Members have been urging the Government to do something about it and, in the debate on the Queen's Speech, when it was announced—I forget by which Minister—that this was to be done, all of us, whatever our general views of the Government, were glad that they were at least doing one good, if limited, thing. How disappointed and disillusioned we were when it turned out that they were doing nothing for those who bought between 1939 and 1950 and only little for those who bought between 1950 and 1955.

The Lords Amendment would take them all on to 1970, but the Joint Parliamentary Secretary made very heavy weather of the difficulties that that would cause; that if one was going to deal with these one should deal with others. That is the traditional argument of a Minister in difficulties. I will not say that I have not used it when the rôles were reversed, although I was always conscious of the fact that it was a bad argument.

Here we have a specific and defined class of people, specifically defined by the 1957 Act. They are perfectly clearly ascertainable. There is, therefore, no real force in the argument that because other people may suffer an injustice we should not seek to remove the injustice from this clearly ascertainable class, a class of people who, until the day before yesterday, had protection in these circumstances.

With respect to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, it is absolute nonsense to say that this would make more difficult the review of compensation which his right hon. Friend and he are undertaking. Why would it? If these people are protected until 1970 it would at least enable the Minister to consider this difficult question of compensation more easily, with the knowledge that these people are looked after while that consideration is going on.

It may happen that when they have considered the matter the Government will bring in more classes or will extend the protection beyond 1970. At least the position would be held until then. I stress, even at this last stage, that that is well worth doing and that, so far from making more difficult would make more easy the general review of compensation which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary says the Government are undertaking.

This is not merely the view of this bench or, indeed, in another place only of this party. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) is no doubt aware that in another place, when the Amendment was put into the Bill, the noble Lords the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party there joined with the noble Lords of my party to insert the Amendment in the Measure, obviously for reasons which moved their Lordships to feel that this was right. Why cannot the Parliamentary Secretary take this message back to his right hon. Friend—or bring his right hon. Friend back here? I am glad that I have been able to … call spirits from the vasty deep. But the quotation goes on I think: But will they answer? I hope that the Minister will——

Mr. Lubbock

But will they come, when you do call for them?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will answer because, as he may have heard on his stately entry, I was saying that I hoped that he would, even at this stage, keep an open mind on this matter which has been urged upon him in another place by representatives of the Conservative and Liberal parties, and in this place by members of all three parties. I hope that he will not persist in obstinately turning this point down.

I do not want, just because the Minister has returned, to go over all the argument again, although I should like to think that he was prepared even now to consider it. I suggest that here he has a chance to do a limited act of justice to a limited number of people, and so preserve the position while the broader review of compensation that he has promised is undertaken. I am cer- tain that another place was right to table this Amendment, and I shall back it.

Mr. Lubbock

I do not want to rehearse all the arguments that have been put both here and in another place, but it seems to me that hon. Members in all parts of the House were unhappy about the Bill as it stood before this Amendment was put down and that it would be in accordance with the will of the House if the Minister were to accept the Amendment. The arguments put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary this evening are extremely feeble. This period of 15 years to which he referred is arbitrary, and is not to be justified in any way that I can think of, whereas the 1939 date which was in the original Bill has some objective reasoning behind it.

The reasoning is that at the beginning of the last war, schemes of slum clearance were suspended, and they were not reintroduced until 1955, so if this determination of the period was suitable when the last Measure was introduced, it must be equally valid today. To say that at the time of the 1956 Act the Conservative Government had planned that the provisions would cease at the end of 10 years is not an argument that cuts any ice with me at all, nor do I think that it cuts any ice with those of his hon. Friends who spoke in favour of an Amendment similar to this in Committee. I therefore add my voice to the plea of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) that the matter should be reconsidered even at this very late stage.

Mr. Peter Griffiths (Smethwick)

I support the Amendment. I think that similar terms were acceptable to the overwhelming majority of hon. Members in Committee. One remembers the opinions they then expressed. Since I last spoke on this subject, I have had numerous letters and personal approaches from people in my constituency who have pointed out that they only now realise the effect of the Bill. It was only when examples were given at that late stage that they realised what was happening.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that the people who are, as it were, being disfranchised were not distinguishable, but I suggest that they are, inasmuch as they are the group of people who believed that they were safe and would be so treated as to ensure that they received market value. They banked on that and assumed that the proposed legislation would continue to protect them in that way. Now that they find that it is not so, they are a particularly disappointed group. The present proposal means that only persons who have owned houses for less than 15 years are eligible for full compensation if their houses are adjudged unfit. It does not go back even to 1950 because, by the time this legislation is in force, we shall be in 1966 and it will apply back to 1951. This is a kind of creeping decontrol, which we have heard criticised in the past from the benches opposite.

There will be the further anomaly that the 15-year limit does not take account of the individual problems and circumstances of people who bought at round about the critical time. It does not allow for those who have owned their homes not for 14½ years but for 15½ years. There should be provision to ensure that there is not a complete dividing line so that six months or so can make all the difference between market value and site value.

In my view, all owner-occupiers should receive full compensation, because that is the only fair way, but, as the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) said, 1939 is at least a reasonable point at which to start. Since 1939, people have been affected by wartime and post-war conditions, and they may very well have bought properties which they would not have dreamed of buying before the war. By the housing shortage and changes in their place of work, they have been forced to purchase these properties, and they bought on the understanding not that they would make a profit on them but, rather, that they would stay on and make their homes there.

It is estimated that in my constituency more than one-quarter of the properties may well be adjudged unfit now, and a very large number of them were bought in the period which, without the Amendment, will disqualify the owners from benefit. Many such properties were purchased just after the war when people came home from the Forces and went to the industrial conurbations to set up home.

One point brought very directly to my attention in the past few weeks is that the 15-year limit will hit older people particularly. In the normal case, those who have lived in their homes the longest will be the older people, but they will be the ones to lose their homes and get little or no compensation. They expected that they would have to pay only the rates in their old age, and, goodness knows, the rates are high enough, but now they will have to pay municipal rents. A few minutes ago, the Minister reminded us that municipal rents had risen by 50 per cent. in 10 years. These people will find such rents very hard to pay out of their pensions. We ought to offer proper compensation for their homes so that they can purchase other properties, with 100 per cent. mortgages from their councils. Many local authorities are offering such facilities now, and we should encourage them.

In my constituency, with its densely concentrated population, we are finding that about 400 dwellings out of every new 600 built are taken up by people removed from development areas. It will be a terrible problem if everyone who could be covered by this Bill is given no compensation and has to go into a council dwelling. If we ensured that the majority of such people who bought between 1939 and 1951 were offered full compensation, they would have a chance to buy again instead of drawing on our social capital in the form of municipal housing.

10.45 p.m.

We should be seeking equity between neighbours. All the legislation produced by this House should be seen to be simple justice. How can it be simple justice if people on one side of a street, with identical houses to those on the other side, and which they bought at the same time, can be offered different rates of compensation merely because the local council's redevelopment scheme ended in in the middle of the road? The same applies to people living in different parts of the town who bought at different times but are offered different rates of compensation because some bought their houses a few months earlier than others bought theirs.

It is not too late to avoid this anomaly or the bitterness that is welling up. The Minister has received a number of letters from my constituents on this matter. This is of vital concern to areas like Smethwick and others in the great conurbations. I make an appeal to him on behalf of my neighbours in Smethwick who have shown humanity and understanding. I hope that, even at this late stage, this might be matched by the humanity and understanding which has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

If the Amendment were accepted we should see a restoration of public confidence and it would also encourage local authorities to proceed with redevelopment. At the moment some, my own in particular, are concerned that, with more redevelopment, they might do more injustice—created not through any fault of theirs but because of this legislation.

Sir Anthony Meyer (Eton and Slough)

I cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing my disgust at the Government's failure to accept the Amendment. I cannot understand the basis of their policy. If they maintain that only those people who were led to expect under the 1957 Act that they would get proper compensation for their homes when taken away should have their rights prolonged by this Bill, why exclude those who, by chance, have not had their houses purchased by the end of 1965?

If, on the other hand, the argument is that people are only entitled to 15 years' maximum occupation, at the end of which they are lucky if they get anything for their houses, why kick the stool from under that argument by refusing to accept an earlier date which would include people who were bought out after 1965? I hope that we shall enforce our disgust in the Division Lobby.

Mr. Graham Page

I hoped that the Minister of Housing and Local Government would rise. Is he so ashamed of this miserable little Bill and of throwing out this Amendment that he cannot even defend it? I am not surprised that he cannot defend it. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary introduced some irrelevant points about landlords. We are not dealing with them; we are not, indeed, dealing with purchasers outside a very narrow compass.

These purchasers were given benefits in the 1957 Act for very good reason. What is the logic of depriving them of it? I will quote the right hon. Gentleman an incident that occurred in the past fortnight. One of my constituents came to see me on Saturday, 4th December. He had purchased his property in 1947. He had heard that there was an intention to make a clearance order on the area. Had he not come to see me on 4th December he would now be £1,000 less well off. Because I saw that he would otherwise be deprived of his rights, I took him to see the town clerk, who was only too willing to advise his council to purchase the property during last week. If that constituent had not come to me on 4th December he would have lost £1,000. He did not know that this Bill was going through and that the Government intended to deprive him of that money. The right hon. Gentleman cannot defend this Bill. If he cannot accept the Amendment we must divide the House.

Mr. MacColl

I do not want to make a long reply——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey)

Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask leave of the House to speak again.

Mr. MacColl

I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. By leave of the House, I would like to explain to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) that we are not depriving anybody of anything. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, you are."] No. The Act, which was passed and is on the Statute Book, has expired. It has nothing to do with us. We are not taking away something. We are preserving something for one group of people.

I agree with a lot of what the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) said. His argument was a strong one, however, against having any kind of distinction of this sort. He pointed out the unhappiness caused by the fact that a person who bought a house a month before a certain date got nothing, but that a person who bought a month afterwards would get something. That was the position in the existing legislation, however, and that would exist under the Lords Amendment, because under that Amendment a person who bought in 1938 would never have got anything under any legislation, and under this proposal he would still get nothing. The hon. Member put his finger on the difficulty that when one tries to make arbitrary distinctions, it is extremely difficult to justify them.

There is a clear, understandable argument in favour of those who have not yet had their 15 years' run that they should get at least their 15 years. That is a clear and logical distinction between them and the other people who are affected.

Only a short time ago, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) was writhing in fury because we were paying only 75 per cent. towards rate rebates and saying how monstrous it was to put any extra expenditure upon the ratepayer, and yet this Lords Amendment, in favour of which he will divide, would put something like £5 million extra on to the ratepayer and on to the costs——

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Does the hon. Gentleman really not see the distinction between, on the one hand, the Government imposing a service upon local authorities and making them pay something for it and, on the other hand, a proposal to deprive a citizen of his house for a pittance?

Mr. MacColl

Our proposal does not impose a service. It relieves poorer ratepayers from something which is a burden

to them. The other thing is bringing in a level of compensation for them which is not in the existing housing legislation and which the last Government were happy and content to see expire at the end of this year.

Let the right hon. Gentleman remember that all his crocodile tears come back to the fact that the last Government did nothing. No one has suggested that they did anything at any stage to renew this legislation or do anything about it. They were perfectly happy to see it peter out, in which event all the hardship cases about which we have heard would have been far worse off. Because we have tried to get some kind of order and logic into the situation, we are being pilloried.

Mr. Graham Page

Is the hon. Gentleman really insisting on the Lords Amendment being thrown out of the Bill because it would cost £5 million? If it is to cost £5 million, that is the measure of the damage that the Government are doing to individuals, depriving them of £5 million.

Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—

The House divided: Ayes 143, Noes 131.

Division No. 13.] AYES [10.54 p.m.
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) Mahon, Peter (Preston, s.)
Alldritt, Walter Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Armstrong, Ernest Ford, Ben Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersffeld, E.)
Atkinson, Norman Freeson, Reginald Manuel, Archie
Bagier, Gordon, A. T. Garrow, Alex Mapp, Charles
Beaney, Alan Gourlay, Harry Mellish, Robert
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridge ton) Grey, Charles Mendelson, J. J.
Binns, John Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) Millan, Bruce
Bishop, E. S. Griffiths, Will (M'Chester, Exchange) Miller, Dr. M. S.
Blackburn, F. Hamilton, James (Bothwell) Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Blenkinsop, Arthur Hannan, William Molloy, William
Braddoek, Mrs. E. M. Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Bray, Dr. Jeremy Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret Morris, Charles (Openshaw)
Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan) Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough) Morris, John (Aberavon)
Brown, R. W, (Shoreditch & Fbury) Howell, Denis (Small Heath) Newens, Stan
Buchan, Norman (Renfrewshire, W.) Howie, W. Norwood, Christopher
Buchanan, Richard Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline) Ogden, Eric
Carmichael, Neil Irving, Sydney (Dartford) O'Malley, Brian
Carter-Jones, Lewis, Jackson, Colin Orme, Stanley
Coleman, Donald Jeger, George (Goole) Oswald, Thomas
Conlan, Bernard Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) Owen, Will
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Jones, Dan (Burnley) Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Crawshaw, Richard Kenyon, Clifford Palmer, Arthur
Crossman, Rt. Hn. R, H. S. Lawson, George Parker, John
Dalyell, Tam Leadbitter, Ted Pentland, Norman
Darling, George Lever, L. M. (Ardwick) Popplewell, Ernest
Davies G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Davies, Harold (Leek) Loughlin, Charles Probert, Arthur
Davies, Ifor (Gower) McBride, Neil Redhead, Edward
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) McCann, J. Rees, Merlyn
Dempsey, James MacColl, James Rhodes, Geoffrey
Doig, Peter McGuire, Michael Richard, Ivor
Donnelly, Desmond McKay, Mrs. Margaret Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Ensor, David Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen) Robertson, John (Paisley)
Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley) MacMillan, Malcolm Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Fernyhough, E. Mclnnes, James Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Rose, Paul B. Thornton, Ernest Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Ross, Rt. Hn. William Tinn, James Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Rowland, Christopher Urwin, T. W. Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)
Sheldon, Robert Varley, Eric G. Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.) Wainwright, Edwin Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)
Silkin, John (Deptford) Walden, Brian (All Saints) Wilton, William (Coventry, S.)
Silverman, Julius (Aston) Walker, Harold (Doncaster) Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) Wallace, George Woof, Robert
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) Watkins, Tudor Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Small, William Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley White, Mrs. Eirene TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Symonds, J. B. Whitlock, William Mr. Joseph Harper and
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.) Wilkins, W. A. Mr. Alan Fitch.
NOES
Agnew, Commander Sir Peter Gammans, Lady Murton, Oscar
Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian Gibson-Watt, David Neave, Airey
Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Astor, John Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife) Osborn, John (Hallam)
Atkins, Humphrey Glover, Sir Douglas Page, R. Graham (Crosby)
Awdry, Daniel Goodhew, Victor Peel, John
Batsford, Brian Gower, Raymond Percival, Ian
Bell, Ronald Grant, Anthony Pitt, Dame Edith
Berkeley, Humphry Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick) Pounder, Rafton
Besself, Peter Gurden, Harold Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Biffen, John Hall, John (Wycombe) Price, David (Eastleigh)
Bingham, R. M. Hall-Davis, A. G. F. Prior, J. M. L.
Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel Harvie Anderson, Miss Pym, Francis
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J. Hawkins, Paul Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Sir Martin
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward Hay, John Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Brewis, John Hendry, Forbes Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Brinton, Sir Tatton Higgins, Terence L. Russell, Sir Ronald
Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk) Scott-Hopkins, James
Hirst, Geoffrey Sharpies, Richard
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) Homby, Richard Shepherd, William
Bruce-Gardyne, J. Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P. Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)
Bryan, Paul Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington) Stainton, Keith
Buchanan-Smith, Alick Hunt, John (Bromley) Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Buxton, Ronald Hutchison, Michael Clark Studholme, Sir Henry
Carlisle, Mark Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) Talbot, John E.
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)
Chichester-Clark, R. Johnson Smith, G. (East Grinstead) Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) Jopling, Michael Teeling, Sir William
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.) Kershaw, Anthony Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Corfield, F. V. Kilfedder, James A. Thorpe, Jeremy
Costain, A. P. King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver Kitson, Timothy Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Crowder, F. P. Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone) van Straubenzee, W. R.
Curran, Charles Lubbock, Eric Walker, Peter (Worcester)
Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr) Mac Arthur, Ian Ward, Dame Irene
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry McLaren, Martin Weatherill, Bernard
Dean, Paul McMaster, Stanley Webster, David
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. Maddan, W. F. M. Whitelaw, William
Digby, Simon Wingfield Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Dodds-Parker, Douglas Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. Wise, A. R.
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward Meyer, Sir Anthony Younger, Hn. George
Errington, Sir Eric Mitchell, David
Eyre, Reginald Monro, Hector TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Farr, John More, Jasper Mr. Ian Fraser and
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen) Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Mr. R. W. Elliott.
Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 21, leave out subsection (2).

11.0 p.m.

Mr. MacColl

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is consequential on the last Amendment with which we disagreed.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee appointed to draw up reason to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their Amendments to the Bill: Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, Mr. Crossman, Mr. MacColl, Mr. Graham Page, and Mr. Rhodes; Three to be the quorum.—[Mr. Crossman.]

To withdraw immediately.

Reason for disagreeing to the Lords Amendments reported and agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.