SHOPS (CLOSING HOURS)

HC Deb 18 November 1952 vol 507 cc1783-834

1.29 a.m.

Mr. W. E. Padley (Ogmore)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Shops (Revocation of Winter Closing Provisions) Order, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 1862), dated 21st October, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd October, 1952, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled. I regret that it is at an early hour of the morning that such an important matter, affecting the working lives of about one and a half million people, must be discussed. Nevertheless, I hope that the issues involved will receive adequate attention from the House.

As many hon. Members will know, I am the President of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers' Union. My view, therefore, on the question of shop closing hours is inevitably influenced by my association with distributive workers. I want, however, to emphasise at the outset that this is not an issue in which consumer interests are opposed to those of shop workers. I shall demonstrate that all the great representative organisations of working women and consumers support this Prayer. I shall demonstrate that if the Government succeed with this Order they will penalise the consumer by higher prices as much as they will penalise the shop worker through longer hours.

In public discussion on this Order there appears to have been a good deal of confusion, so I think it desirable that I should state quite clearly what the position is with regard to the Shops Act and the Winter Closing provisions which have been in existence for the last 13 years. The Shops Act of 1928 provided that the general closing hour for shops should be 8 p.m., and 9 p.m. on one late night. In 1939 the winter closing regulations provided that the general closing hour should be 6 p.m. with 7.30 p.m. on the late night, local authorities having the power to extend these hours to 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. in cases of proved public need in the localities. Therefore, the effect of the present Order is to resurrect the closing hours of a quarter of a century ago.

Tonight, I want to argue that a Conservative Government, above all other Governments, should follow the precedent laid down many years ago. During the First World War powers were taken, under D.O.R.A., with regard to the general closing hours of shops. These emergency powers were continued by the Coalition Government, by a Labour Government, and by a Conservative Government from 1918 until 1928.

In 1946 the Labour Government set up the Gowers Committee to investigate the whole question of shop hours. That Committee found, among other things, that the hours which this Order will restore were quite unnecessarily late. They proposed amending legislation to provide for general closing hours of 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., with the right of local authorities to reduce those hours to 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. in appropriate circumstances.

My submission is that the precedent followed after the First World War is the correct line to be taken after the late war. It is true that some of the reasons which were advanced at the time the winter closing regulations were brought in in 1939 have now disappeared, but others remain and have as much force today as they had then. Certainly, the black-out and the blitz have disappeared, but I am not convinced that the need for fuel economy in heating, if not in lighting, is any less important now than it was then.

Moreover, one of the biggest considerations was the question of manpower. Between 1939–44 insured workers in the distributive trades dropped by 900,000, and one powerful reason why changes were required in the closing hours of shops during the war was that there were virtually no reserved occupations in the distributive trades. Today, the need for manpower economy is still urgent if Britain's economic problems are to be solved.

I want right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen to understand the anger and bitterness which has swept through the distributive trades on this issue. Before the House rose I warned the Home Secretary that this Order would be regarded as a gross attack on the working conditions of shopworkers. There is a long and bitter history attached to the fight for reasonable hours in the distributive trades. Until the winter closing regulations came in in 1939 the average working week in shops was about 55 hours; and a Select Committee of this House, reporting in the early thirties, talked of 80, 75, and 73 hours being worked, and concluded that probably 100,000 persons were working 60 hours or more a week. That was when the general closing hour was 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock on the late night.

Some people will say the consumers' interest should be paramount. Fortunately, at the time of the Gowers inquiry substantial information was collected on the attitude of large organisations in this country. The T.U.C. represents 8 million workers, including 1,317,000 women workers, and it should be a reliable witness on the real needs of vast bodies of working people, including working women. In evidence to the Gowers Committee, the T.U.C. said that they were concerned to ensure (a) that reasonable shopping facilities are provided for all classes of workpeople, and (b) that reasonable hours are worked by work-people in the distributive trades.

They proposed that the general closing hour should be 6 p.m., that local authorities should be empowered in cases of proved local need to extend the hour up to a ceiling of 7 p.m. on weekdays and 8 p.m. on one late day, and that local authorities should also have the power to fix a closing hour earlier than 6 p.m. In short, the T.U.C. supported the general view I am arguing now.

Moreover, that evidence submitted by the T.U.C. is in favour of general closing hours which are permitted in all respects by the winter closing regulations. They have also the Standing Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations, which is far and away the most representative organisation in Britain of women, housewives and women working in factories. Its evidence, broadly speaking, followed that of the T.U.C., and the specific hours it advocated are well within the terms of the winter closing regulations, which are the subject of this discussion. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) will elaborate the view of the working woman with her own robust eloquence.

Next, let me take the Co-operative movement, with its 11 million consumers as shopkeepers. They elect their own boards of directors. They can go to their quarterly or half-yearly meetings and discuss policy, including shop hours. Has there been any demand up and down Britain in the Co-operative movement, at its democratic meetings, for later closing? There has been no demand at all. I challenge the Home Secretary to produce a single instance.

But although the T.U.C., the Standing Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations and the Co-operative movement are a formidable collection of organisations, representing millions of people who support the policy I am advocating tonight, they are not alone. There is another body, with a distinguished, representative membership and a long history. I refer to the Early Closing Association.

The Early Closing Association certainly cannot be said to be under the influence of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. The present Prime Minister has long been associated with it. Today, he remains its President. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] Since I was going to make that reference to the right hon. Gentleman, I sent him a note when I thought the Prayer would be taken on Thursday saying that in view of his long association with the early closing movement, I hoped he would be able to attend personally. The Vice-President of the Early Closing Association is the present Minister of Fuel and Power. In days gone by, you yourself, Mr. Speaker, rendered distinguished service to that organisation as Parliamentary Chairman.

The Early Closing Association advocates a 6 o'clock general closing hour. It has no other purpose than the objects of the Prayer. Therefore, I was counting on powerful contributions tonight both from the Prime Minister and from the Minister of Fuel and Power. At least, I was aware that the Prime Minister had real qualifications to speak, because in 1911 the subject of tonight's debate was identical with the subject of a speech from the Prime Minister, from which I propose to quote. In supporting the Second Reading of the Shops Bill of 1911, the right hon. Gentleman, among many other excellent sentences, said this: Do not let us be deterred by any of these difficulties from coming forward to grapple with the real evil and from applying an effective remedy and relief to that evil. The lives of nearly a million shop assistants, many of them in the joyous years of youth, are under such a pressure of circumstances at the present time that they are lives of continual deprivation the work of this great body of people being stupidly, aimlessly spread out and sprawled over the whole of the week. The shop assistants of this country do not mind hard work … What they ask for with increasing force is that after the work is over there shall be a fair and reasonable opportunity for rest, for leisure, for recreation, for the pleasures of the country, and for the pleasures of family life …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1911; Vol. 23, c. 1752–3.] In those days, the Prime Minister succeeded in getting two of the points of the 1911 Shops Act—a weekly half-holiday and provisions for meal-times. The third clause, which is the subject of this debate, was dropped because he was harassed by the party opposite and by some men in his own party. That Clause was the clause of limiting the working week of shop workers to 60 hours. It was defeated in this House in 1911, and I have already illustrated that until the winter closing regulations were introduced in 1939, on the testimony of a Select Committee of this House, probably 100,000 persons were still working the 60-hour week against which the Prime Minister spoke with feeling and passion, and in noble prose, way back in 1911. When he considers that piece of history, perhaps the Home Secretary will understand that I was not exaggerating, before the House rose, when I warned that this action on the part of the Government would lead to anger and bitterness.

If this Prayer fails tonight, the general closing hours become eight o'clock, and nine o'clock on one late night, except in those cases where local authorities have taken advantage of the powers to reduce them to seven o'clock and eight o'clock. That extension of hours will be costly to the consumer, it will damage the working conditions of the shop worker and, as I shall demonstrate in a moment, it will be bad from the point of view of the national interest.

Some people argue that it would be possible for the hours proposed by the Government—in the sense, at any rate, that they will be the hours which will be permitted if this Prayer fails—to be operated without hardship to shop-workers, if there were shift and rota systems. In Britain today, on a narrow definition, there are 550,000 shops. On a wider, and for the purposes of the Shops Act a more responsible definition, there are nearly 750,000 retail establishments of one kind or another. Every accepted authority in the distributive trades agrees that the average number of workers per shop is one and three-quarters. That obviously includes many shops where there is no assistant at all, beyond the owner; the average shop with one or two assistants; and the relatively few shops with larger numbers.

Shifts and rota systems would be practicable only on one of three conditions: first, a fundamental re-organisation of the distributive trades, eliminating all small shops; secondly, an enormous increase in over-time working; or, thirdly, an enormous increase in manpower in the distributive trades.

Someone may ask how it was possible for the hours of eight o'clock and nine o'clock to apply before the war. The answer is simple: there are today about 400,000 fewer workers in the distributive trades than there were before the war. In the middle of 1950, the research department of my own union calculated that there were between 300,000 and 400,000 fewer, and we concluded that if account were taken of part-time workers it was much nearer the figure of 400,000. In February, 1951, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), speaking with the authority of his pos- ition as Minister of Labour, confirmed the 400,000 figure.

Make no mistake: when due allowance has been made for minor factors, such as the very, very limited introduction of self-service, the curtailment of some competitive delivery services—as, for example, in the case of milk distribution—the overwhelming reason for that reduction in manpower is the changed shopping habits of the public and the earlier closing of shops.

Does any hon. Member in this House contemplate with equanimity a rapid growth of manpower in the distributive trades by several hundred thousand? Where shall they come from—from the coal mines, the steel mills, agriculture, engineering, building? Would it really be in the national interest? It would be costly. An additional 400,000 workers would cost well over £100 million a year. But let us be moderate. Let us say that no more than 300,000 should be taken into this calculation, which I am making tonight. The cost of 300,000 would be in the region of £75 million a year.

I have already pointed out that the average hours worked in shops before the war were 55 a week. That is brought out by the research work of my own union, and by the evidence in the Select Committee of this House on shop assistants, and if hon. Members are interested they can look up a speech by Mr. Ernest Brown, who was Minister of Labour in 1936, confirming the figures that I have just given. The average of 55 hours included people working in strongly organised firms under trade union agreements where the hours were 48 or less. It also included those working over 60 hours. But about half the total number of shop workers were working between 53 and 57 hours a week. Today, the working week is between 44 and 46 hours.

It is quite obvious, therefore, that if we are to have a restoration of pre-war shopping hours it means, on a basis of strict calculation, at least 10 million hours overtime per week, and under the wages councils' orders that must be paid for time-and-a-quarter for the first two hours, and time-and-a-half thereafter. Any hon. Member who likes to do that sum will find that it totals £75 million a year. Again, let us be moderate. Let us assume that it is only 8 million. Then the cost would be about £60 million.

I want to emphasise that I am using these figures with caution and restraint. If I wanted, I could make a case that £175 million was the absolute minimum. I have made no allowance for overheads such as heating and lighting, but I am being moderate and I am saying that on the most cautious interpretation of the facts relating to manpower and hours, the cost will be somewhere between £135 million and £175 million a year. That is between 4s. and 5s. a week for each family of four.

In discussions on shopping hours, particularly in some of the newspapers, there is an assumption that a consumer service such as shopping hours is something which is given away. There have been one or two newspapers which have been gladly and gratuitously offering women of this country longer shopping hours. If the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who made a reputation with eggs during the last Parliament, hawked six eggs around and offered them to the housewives, no doubt he could give them away, but if he asked 5s. for them they would probably be refused. A consumer service such as shopping hours has to be paid for in the same way as any other commodity or service to the community. Someone may ask why this system of distribution was not so costly in the years before the war. The answer is simple—a wide-spread and brutal sweating of shop workers.

I have already referred to the speech of Mr. Ernest Brown on 8th May, 1936. My own union conducted an inquiry about the same time, and that showed that the average wage for adult shop assistants in the grocery trade was 38s. 6d. There were 22.3 per cent. receiving 30s. or less, 58 per cent. 40s. or less, and 89.9 per cent. were receiving 50s. or less. Let us also remember that these wage rates must be judged against a background of an average working week of 55, or even 60 hours in a considerable number of cases.

There will be the danger if the general closing hour of pre-war days is restored that the pirates will get busy. Neither the general public, nor the general body of employers want general closing hours of 8 or 9 p.m. The most representative organisations of working shopkeepers feel as passionately on this issue as do the representatives of the union with which I am associated.

Mr. Frederic Harris (Croydon, North)

It is not compulsory.

Mr. Padley

The reason why there is a danger of restoration of pre-war shop hours is the one referred to by the Prime Minister, in 1911; and that is that in conditions of no organisation, and a very great many different shops, the pirates will compel the others to keep open. Mr. Herman Kent, leader of the working shopkeepers in the grocery trade, has called them "rogue elephants", and I think that this action by the Government has given the green light to black reaction. The apparent leadership in the Government—and I emphasise "apparent"—in the move for later closing will encourage the "rogue elephants" in the distributive trades.

The Minister has given an assurance in writing that this is without prejudice as to whether 6 or 7 p.m. is the closing hour if and when amending legislation is brought forward. But I have searched the Queen's Speech, and there is no promise of amending legislation in that. Instead, we are asked, for an unspecified period of time, to return to the 8 or 9 p.m. closing hour laid down a quarter of a century ago. If this House fails in its responsibility tonight, there will be no alternative for my union, but to fight where we have the strength, and to use mass picketing in other areas. During the summer months, attempts were made by the pirates to keep open; but in South Wales, where we had industrial action, the pirates shut on the first night. In Kidderminster, where we were not in a strong position in the shop in question, we went in for mass picketing, and the pirates closed down within a few days. I put it to this House that that is not the ideal way to deal with these great social problems.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro (Kidderminster)

I was not quite sure whether the hon. Member referred to mass picketing in Kidderminster. Would he allow me to say that there is no evidence of mass picketing. In fact, there were eight or so members of his union or associated organisations who were immediately offset by about the same number of people representing the appropriate shop traders in the town and in that area. If that is mass picketing I am surprised. It seemed to me to be a puppet demonstration.

Mr. Padley

The hon. Member exaggerates the powers of members of my organisation. Apparently it was eight members of my union who defeated this attempt of the pirates to keep the shops open later. As for the counter organisation, all I can say is that it was so unrepresentative that his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not call it into consultation in August, when this issue was discussed with both sides of the distributive trades.

The action which the Government are taking threatens the interests of the shop workers. It threatens the return of longer hours and lower wages. It threatens the consumer interest because it will tend to raise the cost of distribution by £135 million or £175 million a year, or 4s. or 5s. a week for the average family of four. It threatens the national interest because it will lead to hundreds of thousands more workers going into the distributive trades. It will certainly not assist industrial peace.

I ask, therefore, that this Prayer should succeed, and if the Home Secretary will not move then I urge, by the pages of HANSARD, that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister should follow the paths of righteousness laid down by the Early Closing Association and countermand this Order.

2.2 a.m.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock (Liverpool, Exchange)

I beg to second the Motion.

I shall be very brief and I shall not cover any of the points referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley). I have been trying to find out who wants an increase in shopping hours. I cannot find anybody in any section of the consumers or among the shop assistants themselves. If the Home Secretary will give us some concrete instances of people who have made applications to him for an increase in shopping hours we might enter into a discussion about it, but I cannot find anyone anywhere, either in the chambers of commerce or the organisations responsible for small or large traders, who has made any application for such an increase.

I can only assume that this is another of the Conservative Party's promises in the last Election, when they stated that they were going to set into reverse various things that had been done previously. Setting into reverse means going back to some of the bad conditions. I was a shop worker in 1914–18, when the shops closed at eight o'clock each weekday and at nine o'clock on Saturdays. This sort of thing leaves the shop workers no opportunity for any sort of recreation. We have progressed since those days. The inquiries I have been making have shown that very many shop assistants, particularly the younger ones, use the opportunity they have been given by early closing to increase their knowledge by going to night schools.

By extending the shopping hours we shall completely deprive them of this opportunity of continuing their education. I do not know whether the Home Secretary has any information on this matter, but the information I have is that many young shop assistants go to night school for the purpose of learning dressmaking, housekeeping and other extra subjects. Today, we have a young population which is entirely different from that of the years between the wars. They want something different to standing behind a counter for 11 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on Saturdays. They have some other things to learn, some other opportunities to exploit.

I have been making inquiries in consumer circles. I cannot find anyone there who wants any addition to the hours. There were difficulties early on for the consumers, but they have adjusted their shopping arrangements to the hours now in operation. I have inquired from the nursing profession whether they find themselves in any difficulties with their shopping. I find, as everybody knows, that their hours have been considerably improved, and that everyone of them has a full day off per week, in which to do shopping.

I have looked at the question of pensioners, and have investigated whether it is necessary to have any increase in shopping hours because of the inability of the pensioner to shop on the day on which the pension is drawn. I find that pensioners of every type draw their pensions either on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, so there is no question of difficulty in shopping with them. I have also looked at the issue from the point of view of the industrial worker. They are paid on Thursdays or Fridays, and their position has been adjusted to conform to the reduced shopping hours. It would be foolish to upset the whole of the arrangements that have been made to meet the shopping hours by increasing those hours.

The skilled workers are working a five-day week, so that they have one day for shopping. The only people that I can discover who have any grumble at all about the shopping hours are the shop assistants themselves, and if the shopping hours are increased it does not help them, because they will be confined to the shops which are working longer hours. I can find no one else in the different sections of the community who want the additional shopping hours. Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us who does? Is it the big multiple shops or central organisations in the large cities who want additional shopping hours?

The suburban shops do not want it. They are quite satisfied with the hours they are working at the moment. If it is some of the big multiple stores who want longer hours, are they suggesting that the suburban shops should keep open, too, because I do not think that the suburban shops will remain open? The people living in those areas have adjusted their shopping to the hours that the shops are open.

We ought to be told by the Home Secretary whether it is some of the large multiple shops which are wanting these longer hours. Why are they trying to increase the hours of labour of shop assistants? Is it to draw trade from the suburban areas into the central parts of the cities and thus get extra shoppers? I do not think that is so, because those who have knowledge of the business know that many of these big multiple stores close their shops on Saturday afternoons.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Bucks, South)

I wonder if the hon. Lady's enquiries extended to leading the Gowers Committee, which had an enquiry made by the Government Research Unit at the time in 1947. It was reported that 30 per cent. of the shopping public want a closing hour after 6.15 p.m. As many as 41 per cent. of this group are persons mainly responsible for the household shopping.

Mrs. Braddock

I have read the Report of the Committee, but that was five years ago. Since that time, as I have said, people have made adjustments which enable them to obtain all the things they require during the present shopping hours. If any hon. Member, or the Home Secretary, can tell us who wants longer hours we will know what specific argument to put forward. I can assure the House that in all the investigations I have made since I was asked to second this Prayer I could find no body of people which had any strong desire to have the shop hours increased. Unless the Home Secretary can give us specific information on the point I hope that this Prayer will succeed.

2.12 a.m.

Mr. Cyril Osborne (Louth)

I think that the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) rather spoiled his case by overstating it. He said that unless the Prayer succeeded, longer hours and lower wages for shop workers were threatened. I think that that is utter nonsense, and that he knows it to be so. This Prayer does not affect wages. He also suggested that the only way the longer hours could be worked without increasing the cost of distribution, or increasing the cost of manpower, would be on a shift or rota system. Many other industries have to work shift or rota systems. Why should not shop assistants do what other workers do?

I want to answer the question which the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) put: who would like longer hours? In the city from which I come, Leicester, we have two main industries. I have to plead an interest, as I am interested in a number of hosiery factories. Eighty per cent. of the workers in the boot and shoe factories and in the hosiery factories are women, 75 per cent. of whom are married. During the war these women did a magnificent job for the country, and they are doing so today. After the war many of them went back to their normal domestic life. Then a Socialist Minister of Labour, I think in 1948, appealed to married women to return to industry to help the nation out of its difficulties.

As a result, thousands of married women went back into industry. The working hours in the two industries I have mentioned are mostly from 8 a.m. to 6.15 p.m. If the shops are closed at six o'clock, these married women, who are doing a fine job of work, have no chance to do their shopping. They work five days a week.

Mr. George Jeger (Goole) rose—

Mr. Osborne

I have listened most attentively to the Opposition speakers, and I ask for the same consideration.

Mr. Jeger rose—

Mr. Speaker

One at a time. Mr. Osborne.

Mr. Osborne

I am trying to make a statement on behalf of people who work in my factory. It is said that they could do their shopping on Saturdays. The hon. Lady said that many of the big shops were closed on Saturday afternoons.

Mrs. Braddock

Not all of them.

Mr. Osborne

That means that these married women who are still doing a fine job for the country are left with Saturday mornings to get their shopping done. They have also their housework and their children to look after. I am making the plea for my workers that the shops should be left open much later than they are at present. It does not mean that the men and women in the shops will have to work longer hours. If some shops wish to open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., and others from 12 noon until 10 p.m., why should they not do so?

Mr. Padley

On the day on which the hon. Gentleman can convince the Leicester Chamber of Commerce of that point of view his idea will be practical. As it is, his idea is pure fantasy because there is no group of shopkeepers in any city or town who share his views.

Mr. Osborne

I am not speaking on behalf of shopkeepers, but on behalf of industrial workers. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are justly concerned about this matter, and I was putting a point which I thought would appeal to them. One day last week I went round my factory where women are doing a very good job in the export trade. [An HON. MEMBER: "Close earlier."] Go back to the bar.

Hon. Members

Order, order.

Mr. Speaker

I do hope that the House can proceed without these exchanges.

Mr. Osborne

If I transgressed I withdraw my remark. At least, I was provoked. I have listened attentively to what hon. Members opposite had to say. I have not been given a hearing. What are they afraid of? [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I have withdrawn. Keep your ears open.

Last week I went round our factory and I noticed a number of benches only half filled. I said to the forewoman, "Why are these machines standing?" I was told that a certain number of these women had to take half-days off to do their shopping. Anyone who knows anything about production knows that if you have a certain number of benches undermanned the productivity of your factory, the flow of goods, is thrown out. Your production drops, your costs increase, and it is not possible to do the work you would otherwise like to do.

I put it to hon. Members opposite that these women have to earn their living in a highly competitive trade; they are not in sheltered industry, as are the shop assistants. Their livelihood is earned only in competition in foreign markets with the Japanese, Germans, French, and Italians, who produce similar goods. Therefore, it is wrong to overlook the interests of these married women workers who, in response to an appeal made by a Socialist Minister of Labour, have come back into industry and are doing two jobs extremely well. They ought to be encouraged, not penalised.

It should be possible for a certain number of shops to be left open well after 6.15 p.m., when these women finish their work, so that they can do their shopping. I warn hon. Members opposite that if the married women in industry are driven back to their home life our export trade will fall and we shall find our economic position even worse than it is today. Most prayers are answered, but this Prayer does not deserve to be.

To the hon. Member who moved it, let me say that I was very pleased to hear him quote the Prime Minister's speech of 1911. He paid tribute to him for the work the Prime Minister had done for the workers in those days. What a pity those words were not quoted at the Election, instead of the stinking "Finger on the trigger."

Mr. Padley

I also said the party opposite forced the right hon. Gentleman to drop the 60-hour maximum working week. That is why it could not be quoted about the Prime Minister at the recent Election, when he led the party opposite.

Mr. Osborne

Allowing for that, I heard the hon. Member say that the Prime Minister secured two of three objectives he had set his heart upon. Those two things were to the benefit of the shopworkers, but no credit was given to him.

Mr. Speaker

This is going very wide of the Order.

2.24 a.m.

Miss Alice Bacon (Leeds, North-East)

Mention has been made of the Gowers Report. Together with two hon. Members opposite, I was a member of the Gowers Committee, which sat for a considerable time hearing evidence about the closing hours of shops. I did not realise until I became a member of the Committee what a complicated business Shop Acts were. We had to consider such things as when a shop is not a shop, the laws with regard to extensions, the law with regard to tobacco and sweets in cinemas, and many other complicated questions. We had to reconcile the hours of shop assistants with the needs of the public.

Mention has also been made of the needs of the public. I am not going to say that everybody in the country does not at some time experience difficulty with regard to shopping. I would put, first, the difficulty experienced by those women who are at work and find that the shops are closed in the lunch hour. That is probably the most difficult thing that faces a housewife who works in industry.

I should like to refer to the basic principles of the Order. It has the effect of making the winter closing hours 8 o'clock, with 9 o'clock on the late night whereas hitherto the winter closing hours have been 6 o'clock and 7.30. I remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Gowers Committee recommended that the hours should be 7 o'clock, with 8 o'clock on the late night, but that local authorities should have the power to fix an earlier hour.

I should also like to quote paragraph 18 of the Gowers Report, which says, on shop closing hours: Our witnesses on this subject fell … into two classes, advocates of six o'clock with seven on the late night, and advocates of seven o'clock with eight on the late night. Opinion was practically unanimous that the hours laid down by the Act of 1928 (eight and nine) were unnecessarily late. We accept this view. The Gowers Committee said that they accepted the unanimous view of everybody who came before them that 8 o'clock, with 9 o'clock on the late night was much too late. But that is precisely what the Order will do. I am wondering whether the two hon. Gentlemen who sit opposite, one of whom occupies a seat on the Front Bench as a Parliamentary Secretary, will tonight vote for the Order when they signed the Gowers Report, which says that the unanimous opinion of the witnesses was against an 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock closing hour.

On the more general question, the Gowers Committee were not empowered in their terms of reference to make any mention of the hours of shop assistants, but the Committee did envisage some long-term protection for shop assistants. In paragraph 11, which deals with the evidence of the T.U.C., there is a quotation from the T.U.C.'s evidence to the Gowers Committee, which says: 'the method of securing a shorter working week for shop assistants by curtailing the shopping week, whilst feasible and desirable when shopping facilities were unnecessarily extensive, is now reaching its limits.' It goes on to say: 'We understand that the question is actually being considered by a Commission of Enquiry under the Wages Councils Act. We have had this in mind in making our recommendations.' I underline what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) that this was five years ago and that since that time many more industrial workers are working a five-day week. The Gowers Committee suggested many reforms in shop closing hours, but what the Order does is to single out one particular aspect and to provide later shop closing hours, but with no legislation whatever on the other things envisaged by the Gowers Report.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) said about the matter of cost is impressive, but I should like to say this to him. Eventually, with proper safeguards, we shall probably get to the point where every shop assistant is not in the shop at a particular time. I also think that from a long-term view we must consider the whole of the distribution system, and it may be that we can get some saving by not having as many small shops as we have at present. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes. We need a saving in distribution. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am only saying that this is one of the things we shall have to look at in the whole question of distribution.

The Government are asking us to reject this Prayer without looking at the long-term implications. I believe that the closing hours ought to have remained as they were until the Government were in a position to look at the whole question. I hope, therefore, that we shall approve this Prayer and shall not accept the Government's recommendations; and that we shall press for the whole question to be considered in the light of the Gowers Report and in the light of the whole of our distributive system.

2.31 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Bucks, South)

The hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, North-East (Miss Bacon) referred to the Gowers Report, and I think there should have been more reference to it, because it underlies the whole of the position. Leaving out the question of the late night, for the sake of simplicity, the Report recommends 7 p.m. as the closing hour for shops. The Shops Act, 1928, lays down 8 p.m. and the war-time Order, which has been continued year by year until now, made a 6 p.m. closing hour for shops. If we continue the Order, we have six o'clock, which is one hour earlier than the Gowers Report recommended; and if we abrogate the Order, we have eight o'clock, which is one hour later than the Gowers Report recommended. The hon. Lady asked the Joint Under-Secretary of State to the Home Department—

Miss Bacon

I did not refer to the Under-Secretary, but to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Mr. Bell

I apologise; I meant the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture. She asked him whether he would vote against the Prayer, having signed the Gowers Report, which says that the correct hour should be seven o'clock. I want to ask the hon. Lady whether she is going to vote against the Order and in favour of the Prayer, when she put her signature to this: We believe that arguments such as these, appropriate enough in the days when shops used to stay open until midnight, are now out of date. … It is now the public's turn for consideration. That was justifying the recommendation of seven o'clock, as distinct from eight o'clock, and—

Miss Bacon

Could I remind the hon. Gentleman that I said in my speech that, after considering the representations made to us by many organisations and the public generally, we came to the conclusion that eight o'clock to nine o'clock was not really in the interests of the public?

Mr. Bell

The hon. Lady cannot have it all possible ways. The Gowers Committee said six o'clock was too early, and said quite definitely and emphatically, "It is now the public's turn for consideration." It is perfectly true that they also said that eight o'clock was too late, but the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend both put their signatures to the Report, and what I am saying is that, whether we abrogate the Defence Regulation or continue it in force, we do not get what the Gowers Committee recommended.

Mr. Padley

Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that under the winter closing regulations local authorities can extend the hour from six to seven o'clock, and in one case to eight o'clock; and does not that meet the point he is making?

Mr. Bell

Of course not, because the Gowers Committee considered this point and recommended that the normal closing hours should be changed.

Miss Bacon

The Gowers Committee did not suggest that the local authority should have power to make an extension; they said they should have power to make it an hour earlier.

Mr. Bell

The Gowers Report recommends seven o'clock as a desirable standard hour for the closing of shops. That is the basic point about which this debate must turn, and there is no avoiding the fact that for the standard hour of the closing of shops we either get six o'clock, if we support the Prayer, or eight o'clock, if we support the Order. I am the first to agree with the hon. Lady—I did so last year under the previous Government when this matter was debated—that 8 o'clock, and 9 o'clock on the late night, is too late, and I think most hon. Members on this side of the House will probably agree with me.

The point, however, is that we cannot implement the Gowers Report without legislation. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not introduce legislation?"] It does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to ask that question. The Gowers Committee was set up at the end of 1946. I believe its terms of reference were dated 1st January, 1947. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and the then Secretary of State for Scotland specially asked that Committee to make an urgent interim report on the question of closing hours, and they made a separate interim report in April, 1947. That was very quick—four months. That was over five years ago. For 4½ years after receiving that Report the party opposite did nothing about it. For three of those years they had a majority of 200 in this House. They can hardly say that the reason why they did not do this was because they had more important things on hand.

Mrs. Braddock

Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that there was no necessity to do anything while the Order was in force? If the Order remains on, as it is at the moment, until there is time for legislation to deal with the recommendations of the Gowers Report, we have no need to be sitting here at the moment. But the suggestion is to alter it.

Mr. Bell

If there was no need for any legislation of that character, I cannot understand why the right hon. Member for South Shields, the former Home Secretary, asked for an urgent early interim report on the question of shop closing hours. It must have been because he thought something needed to be done about it. The reason why nothing was done about it was quite simply that conflicting pressures were being brought to bear inside the party opposite.

The Gowers Committee, which was appointed by the last Government, contained a membership which certainly drew upon all parties and all spheres of experience. I think that the hon. Lady who served on it would agree that there was certainly no Conservative bias on the Committee, and yet that Committee reported unanimously in favour of a standard closing hour of 7 p.m., and reported unanimously in the sense that it was now the consumers' turn for consideration.

That was the burden of their report, and that was a very difficult report for the party opposite to swallow when the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) was agitating in the opposite direction. I do not blame him for doing that. He represented the body of which he is the President, as he very properly told us tonight.

I hope that when the opportunity occurs, which I hope will be soon, my right hon. Friend will introduce legislation implementing the Report of the Gowers Committee. I think it was an admirable Report. It considered the whole question very carefully and impartially indeed, looking at it from the points of view of the shop assistant, the shop owner and the shopping public, all of whom ought to be considered in a matter of this kind. They reached balanced conclusions covering the whole field which certainly should be, and I hope will be, embodied in legislation. It is really a most unfair criticism to make of this Government that in the time at their disposal so far, they have not introduced a Bill which the last Government in over four years never introduced.

Just one word upon the broader aspect to which the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, North-East referred. We have one day to get down to a less clumsy method of restricting shop hours than simply closing the shop. There are many difficulties in the way, the hon. Member for Ogmore indicated some, but as the T.U.C. said in the Report which it submitted to the Gower's Committee, The method of securing a shorter working week for shop assistants by curtailing the shopping week, while feasible and desirable when shopping facilities were unnecessarily extensive, is now reaching its limits. I think that that must be the conclusion which ordinary, commonsense people will also reach. In the old days, when work went on until 11 or 12 p.m., the only way to root out the evil was to close the shops. The Gowers Committee states that that evil is cured—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Well, I will read what the Committee stated: On the former question, the first thing to observe is that legislation fixing the hour at which shops must close cannot in itself ensure to shop assistants working hours which are in line with present-day practice in industry or, indeed, any definite maximum at all. It is not an instrument apt for the purpose. We are satisfied that it has been of the greatest benefit in saving shop assistants from having to work hours grossly excessive. That has already been achieved. And then the Report comes to the comments by the T.U.C. which I mentioned a few moments ago.

That must be the line for the future, and I hope it will not be made a party matter, but that we shall try to evolve a method by which this desirable end shall be achieved.

I have not been to the United States, but I understand that there, to some extent, reasonable hours are combined with very extensive shopping facilities for those who want them.

Mr. H. Boardman (Leigh)

Is the hon. Member aware that the Anglo-American Productivity Committee on retailing has just reported that in some American towns there are shops working 17 hours a day?

Hon. Members

Shops, not assistants.

Mr. Bell

I do not want to get involved in a matter on which I am not really well informed; but I understand that it is shops, and not shop assistants, which are operating for those hours.

Mr. R. E. Winterbottom (Sheffield, Brightside)

Would the hon. Member agree that the recent investigation by a deputation from this country into shop conditions in the U.S.A. has reported that there is one late night at 9 p.m. and that all other days with the exception of the one day off end at 5.30 p.m.? Forty hours a week are worked and there is a five-day week, and if an assistant works in the evening extra pay is given for loss of leisure and extra pay is given for working on the late night.

Mr. Bell

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I gather, furthermore, that they work a 40-hour week. That is the sort of thing we should like to see here.

The fact is that there is a permissive power for the shops to stay open. I cannot believe that if there is no real demand for them to stay open they will, in fact, do so. If there is a real demand that demand ought to be satisfied. One cannot but refer to the inquiry which was carried out for the Gowers Committee under the aegis of the last Government in 1947, when they said that 30 per cent. of the shopping public wanted shops to remain open after 6.15 p.m. because those were the factory hours and they were working people who needed the facility to shop on their way home.

They considered the fact that there was Saturday morning on which shopping could be done, but they did not consider that that was adequate. They said: We doubt whether even in present circumstances six o'clock closing is free from hardship to the public. We asked many advocates of that hour the question when a woman who worked in a factory or office up to, say, 5.30 p.m. was to do her shopping. No-one gave us a satisfactory answer; some said on her way to work, some in the luncheon hour, and some on the late day. We do not believe there is a satisfactory answer. Those are considerations which the House has to weigh up in connection with this matter. I would point out that we now have a very considerable measure of full employment. The hon. Member for Ogmore referred to the question of economy in the use of manpower. I wish he had made that comment in the debate on the Address. The fact is that there is a very considerable demand for manpower in the distributive trades. They are not at all heavily manned at the present time. Therefore, the interregnum which may occur between the abrogation of the war-time machinery and the passing of legislation will not react to the disadvantage of the shop assistants, and, therefore, no real hardship is involved by the action taken by Her Majesty's Government.

2.48 a.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan (Ebbw Vale)

I have only two qualifications for intervening in this debate. One was revived in my mind by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley), who put his case with exceeding lucidity. I did not know until he mentioned it that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was pleading my case when he was making his speech in the House of Commons in 1911, because at that time and for two years previously I had been a shop assistant working until 12 o'clock on Saturday night and 1 o'clock on Sunday morning, and I would have been very much more grateful if I had known that he had been so eloquent on my behalf at that time.

The second qualification is that for a short time I was Minister of Labour and had to consider this question. It would be a great mistake for any hon. Member to regard this as a simple proposition. There is a real conflict here between the interests of the shop assistants on one side and the workers on the other. There always is a very great danger—against which one must always guard—that the worker or the producer is sometimes inclined to give himself a black eye as a consumer. The shop assistant can protect himself as a producer and, at the same time, give himself great difficulties as a consumer—and he can also cause other workers difficulties.

What may be a narrow and short view in the interests of the shop assistant as a worker may be against the general interests of the workers and also against his own interests in the long run; but I should have thought that if those were the considerations which were uppermost in the minds of hon. Members opposite they should not have allowed this Order to lapse, because if it be the fact that this has gone on for so long without too much inconvenience the Government ought to have waited until they had legislation prepared before doing what they are doing now.

There is no great urgency about this matter. Indeed, there is less urgency now than there has been since 1945. For six years, from 1945 onwards, production in Great Britain increased by 5 per cent., 6 per cent. and 7 per cent. each year. In the last year it has fallen. In fact, all the information we have goes to show that there is a slight—I do not want to exaggerate it—increase in unemployment; but there is a sharp fall in overtime and a very sharp increase in part-time; so that if there has been a case for revising this Order there is not a case now.

Mr. Osborne

Surely the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there is a case for revision in the case of the married women who went back into industry at the response of the Socialist Minister of Labour, in order to do a job from 1948 and 1949 onwards.

Mr. Bevan

All I am saying is that if there was any urgency in the matter it is less urgent now than it was then. What I am saying to hon. Members opposite—and we do not want to get into too partisan a spirit about this, because we are all agreed that there is a real social problem here—is that there is a problem of adjusting the needs of the shop assistants and the needs of the purchasing public.

Why, therefore, have the Government now thrown this apple of discord into the situation, because all that will arise from this, unfortunately, will be revenge legislation? If the Government do something which offends the psychology of the distributive workers they will seek the earliest opportunity of getting their revenge and we shall merely have a pendulum. I should have thought the sensible thing to do would have been to leave the situation where it is preparatory to amending legislation, and let us have the opportunity of considering it in a very much more calm atmosphere than exists at five minutes to three in the morning.

I come back to the point that I was making. Of course, there is inconvenience and frustration. The women who are working cannot get access to the shops, but that is less now than at any time. That is the whole point. In fact, there has been in many parts of the country a very sharp reduction in the number of women working. In Scotland and in South Wales there has been a reduction, and we should like to ask what is the mandate for this, what is the urgency, what is driving the Government to this action at this moment? Who has asked for it? I think the Home Secretary ought to tell the House why he is doing this at this time, when so much urgency existed before.

In the next place, I think that hon. Members ought to pay some attention to the highly significant fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore brought out, which shocked me when I heard it, namely, that the number of distributive workers in this country had fallen by 400,000 as compared with pre-war. That is a most extraordinary figure. I would ask the House to reflect what an enormous economy in manpower that represents. In other words, what it means is that more civilised behaviour in the shops—the concentration of shopping over a smaller number of hours in the day without too much inconvenience to the public—has saved the nation 400,000 workers a year. That is a very important consideration indeed.

It means that, apart from the individual justice that has been done, apart from the hardship that has been removed, apart from the real cruelty that has been prevented, the nation has benefited to the extent of 400,000 by insisting on the purchaser disciplining himself or herself in buying things at the shops. That is a very important consideration indeed, and ought to be taken into account when we are considering legislation of this sort.

I come to the next point in the earnest hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will not encourage the employment of blind alley workers in the shops. The point was made by the hon. Member for Bucks, South (Mr. R. Bell) that there can be shifts in shops. There can, of course, be shifts in some shops. The great multiple stores can be so organised that there can be shifts in them, but there cannot be shifts in small shops, and the small shops insist on having the same hours as the big shops. The small shops are much bigger in number than the big shops. Before you know where you are, you will have a very large number of small shops trying to eke out their hours by employing boys and girls.

Several Hon. Members

indicated dissent.

Mr. Bevan

It is no use hon. Members shaking their heads. I went to work when 11 years old for 2s. 6d. a week, though I may not have been worth more. The only reason that I was working there was that the man who employed me had to keep his shop open because the other shops kept open and he had to wait for the last customer. It is nonsense to argue that they do not keep open if it does not pay them to do so. The point is that they must keep open to the last minute to which their competitors keep open.

Mr. R. Bell

Will the right hon. Gentleman not agree that during the summer, in the past few years, when the later hours have been allowed, shopkeepers have not availed themselves to the full extent permitted?

Mr. Bevan

I would have thought that that is the complete answer to his proposition. If the hon. Member will go to any provincial town he will not find any shop closing before the hour to which another shop is permitted to keep open. I think that on this matter hon. Members on this side of the House have a little more experience than hon. Members opposite. I therefore seriously suggest that the Government ought not to create once more the situation in which shopkeepers are encouraged to employ boys and girls in the evenings.

If this proposition goes through, permitting up to eight o'clock and nine o'clock on the late nights, it will mean, quite often: nine o'clock, close the shop, then do up the cash, then clean up and make everything ready for the following day. Then they go home, and perhaps their home is an hour's distance from the shop. So a boy or girl assistant reaches home at 10 or 11 at night. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is grinning about. It may be a congenital weakness. This is a serious matter indeed for a large number of people, and we believe that it is entirely frivolous on the part of the Government to have done what they are doing when they have plenty of time for reflecting about it.

Mr. Nabarro

It is also a congenital weakness on the part of the right hon. Gentleman constantly to exaggerate the conditions of employment of shopworkers.

Mr. Bevan

I thought the proposition I was putting was quite self-evident.

If we are to have staggered hours for big stores we cannot have them for the small shops. Therefore, if the mistresses and masters of small shops find it difficult to remain at the counter for so long they will have a disposition to employ a boy or girl quite unnecessarily waiting for customers to arrive. I should not have thought that an exaggeration. It is a moderate description. It is what happens in shops all over the country when there are long hours.

Unless we hear something from the Government we have not heard so far the best thing to do is to allow this Prayer. Let us have a proper examination of the whole situation in a spirit of mutual reciprocity, resolving that there is a genuine and real conflict in this between shop assistant and customer—a real conflict of interest that ought to be resolved without leaving bad feelings on either side.

3.3 a.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe)

I should like to say with all sincerity that I very much welcome the way in which the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) opened his speech and I should like him to believe that the difficulty which he poses was apparent to me when I had to consider this matter.

There is one point which I think we ought to have in mind, because I think some of those who addressed us have not had it in mind. That is that the provisions, whose revocation we are considering, substituted for the general closing hours of 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the late night laid down by the Act of 1928, the hours of 6 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. on the late night, for four months only of the year—from the beginning of November to the beginning of March.

Mr. S. O. Davies (Merthyr Tydfil)

During the winter months. Shocking.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

Yes, the winter months.

The point is a clear one, and a fair one to this extent, that for the other months there was no question of there being these restrictions, and it is significant that during the four years that have passed between the reception of the Gowers Report, and the coming into office of the present Government no action was taken with regard to the eight months when this Order did not apply. I do not make it a party matter, and I only put it as far as this: that following what the right hon. Gentleman has said it shows that there is a difficult balance in this matter. I hope that he will think that is a fair way of putting it. I am not trying to score a point about one Government acting and another not.

As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) pointed out, with great frankness, although it is now included in a Section of a purely consolidation Act, we are dealing with a Defence Regulation, because the Act lays down, in Section 7, that it must be treated as a Defence Regulation. Therefore, the criteria for judging whether a Defence Regulation must be maintained should be applied. When this provision was first introduced by Defence Regulation 60AB it was to save fuel, relieve transport, and to clear the shopping centres in the early evening as an air raid precaution. It was continued after the war partly, for one period, to save fuel and power and, partly, I suppose, to await the appointment and Report of this Committee.

The mover of the Prayer made quite clear that he did not support it on the grounds of A.R.P. or transport. He said that the question of electricity might be involved, but I am told that after 6 o'clock that is not important. Therefore, we are in the position that the original reasons for this Order have completely gone, and that point weighed not only with me but with those who came to see me and spoke to me about it.

Mr. Bevan

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggesting to the House that at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer has reduced the importation of food in Great Britain, because we cannot afford the foreign exchange to buy it, we ought not to economise fuel that we can sell abroad for foreign exchange?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I am told that after 6 p.m. that point has no relevance.

Mr. Bevan

It has.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

We are past the peak at 6 p.m.

Mr. Bevan

Really!

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

The right hon. Gentleman not only must make, but has made, better points than that. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) must try to contain himself. We gave the hon. Member for Ogmore an absolutely clear run, as I hope we always will to someone who has a cri de cœur on something he believes and believes strongly. It is only fair that, even if hon. Gentlemen opposite do not like sitting up as late as this, they should try to listen to an answer without spasmodic interruption.

The point has to be borne in mind that the effect of revocation here is that the general closing hours of 8 o'clock, with 9 o'clock on the late night, once more apply throughout the year instead of for merely eight months.

Mrs. Braddock

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say who came to see him?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I am coming to that. Surely I can select my points in my own way. I will deal with the points mentioned by the hon. Lady, but I cannot deal with them all at once.

Mrs. Braddock

The Home Secretary said that somebody came to see him.

Hon. Members

Sit down.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris)

Order. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be given a hearing.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I am going to deal with that point, and I shall try to deal with all the points that have been made. The hon. Lady is not a Fuehrer in this House and she cannot dictate in what sequence the points must be taken.

Mrs. Braddock

I do not know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about. We know his peculiarities in Liverpool, but he need not bring them into the House.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I am sorry, I forgot for the moment that the hon. Lady was a constituent of mine. We will keep these discussions for another time. I must be careful—

Mrs. Braddock

Very careful.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

—about the vote I get from Zigzag Road.

Mrs. Braddock

Very careful, indeed.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I promised the hon. Lady that I would come to the points that she mentioned. I was about to point out that under Section 8 of the Act, even if this revocation takes place, local authorities have power to make closing orders fixing earlier closing hours, but not earlier than 7 o'clock, for any trade or business throughout their area or any part of it.

I hasten to say that the procedure for making that kind of order is that the consent of two-thirds of the shopkeepers concerned is required and that the order must be confirmed. But, of course, it does meet the situation—that is why I quoted it—in the case where what the hon. Gentleman called the pirates or rogue elephants are acting contrary to the practice of the majority of shopkeepers. It is relevant to know that that order can be made, not only—

Mr. Padley

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I will give way in a moment. Not only can the orders be made, but orders are already in force in many local government areas covering a variety of classes of shops, although, I admit, few of these orders apply to all classes of shops.

Mr. Padley

That power existed before the war, but the position was still that which I described in my speech. How, therefore, can the Home Secretary claim that that is a safeguard?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

It is a safeguard to this extent. The hon. Gentleman put the hypothesis, which is, obviously, one hypothesis, that there may be a small number of pirates or rogue elephants who are spoiling the ground for the other people, and this is a procedure by which the other people can operate.

I have mentioned the general point, which is one which should not be forgotten. I do not want to anticipate a debate which is to take place tomorrow on emergency powers, but I think it is a point that everyone bears in mind, that if the necessity for making Defence Regulations no longer exists it is a very severe thing to keep them on when the conditions have disappeared.

I ask the House to consider one other point, because I have listened with great care to the speeches and nobody has made it so far. There no longer appears to be any justification for having different statutory closing hours in winter or summer. It is an interesting fact that nobody has suggested any reason in the speeches in this debate.

Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)

Is there not the point that since the war we have been very concerned about the number of accidents on the roads in the hour immediately following darkness, and will not this mean that people will be out at the very hour at which it is most dangerous to be on the streets?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

That is not a point which has ever been urged upon me, and I should want a considerable amount of evidence before I was prepared to accept it. I have been asked, and I want to tell the House, about the consultations which I had. As I told the hon. Member, I thought it right, in July, before I came to any conclusions, that I should hear the different points of view, and I was fortunate enough to have the hon. Member among those present. He will remember the people who were there. I will give the various groups and then the views which they took; I will not give the names of the people but of the associations which they represented.

There were the representatives of the National Federation of Grocers' and Provision Dealers' Associations, of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade, of the Retail Distributors Association, of the Multiple Shops Federation, of the Cooperative Union, Ltd., of the National Chamber of Trade, and of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, represented by the hon. Member and others, and the Early Closing Association.

The division was that the National Federation of Grocers' and Provision Dealers' Associations, the Co-operative Union Ltd., the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and the Early Closing Association were against revocation; the Drapers' Chamber of Trade, the Retail Distributors Association, the Multiple Shops Federation and the National Chamber of Trade were for revocation.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland made similar inquiries in Scotland. There consultation was by letter, and the result was that the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the men's outfitters, the ironmongers, and the paint and china merchants were strongly opposed to revocation; the Cooperative Union and the Chamber of Trade, after incomplete consultation with constituent organisations, were against revocation, but without strong views; the drapers were strongly in favour of revocation, and the bakers, butchers, chemists, fruiterers, shoe repairers and tailors agreed that revocation would be desirable.

I say at once that the hon. Member for Ogmore and his union gave me their views, and we have heard the reason for them. But the employers' organisations with the largest and most widely represented membership were strongly in favour of revocation, both on grounds of principle and on grounds of practice. In principle, they could see no justification for continuing these emergency regulations and maintaining the entirely artificial distinction between summer and winter hours. In practice, they said, the effect of revocation would be small, but they said there was an actual public demand for somewhat later closing hours than six o'clock in some trades in some areas, and that it was wrong that shopkeepers should be prevented from meeting this demand.

I agree that this is a matter of experience and, therefore, I want to put again—

Mr. Padley

I hesitate to interrupt again, but would the right hon. and learned Gentleman make it clear to the House that each one of the employers' organisations to which he has referred simultaneously pressed him to introduce amending legislation to implement at a minimum the recommendations of the Gowers Report?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

Certainly. I quite agree. I was not going to omit that point. The last thing I want to do is to give a coloured account in any way. What I wanted to make clear was—and I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree—that the arguments that were put to me against revocation were that the public had now been educated in their shopping habits and that few of them either wanted or needed to shop after 6 o'clock. The same arguments have been put in the course of this debate.

The next argument—and this was the one pressed most seriously, so it appeared to me—was that if the provisions were revoked, individual traders were likely to steal a march from their rivals by closing late and so compelling others unwillingly to conform or to be put at a competitive disadvantage, and that because of that it would be a trend—I do not think it was put higher—in the direction of conditions before the war.

Mr. Julian Snow (Lichfield and Tamworth) rose—

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I do think that I ought to be allowed to develop my argument for a little while.

There was also the argument which the hon. Member for Ogmore has put on the question of the waste of manpower. I suggest that these views, especially when we remember that we are dealing with four months out of the 12 months in the year, were based on an unduly alarmist estimate of the probabilities. There is always the remedy, as I have said, of a closing order if two-thirds of the shopkeepers agree. But I want to make clear again that the decision taken is without prejudice to the question of what is a suitable general hour.

Being then in that position and having a balance of views and trying to address my mind to the question which the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale put so clearly to us, I turned to the Gowers Report. The Gowers Committee, at the time that they reported, came down in favour of seven o'clock. The hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, North-East (Miss Bacon) quoted part of paragraph 18, but it is very important to see the reason behind the conclusion which she and her colleagues came to in favour of seven o'clock instead of six o'clock.

Perhaps I might quote two passages from the next paragraph. In paragraph 19 the Committee say: Having carefully considered the arguments on both sides, we find ourselves unconvinced by those which were used to support six and seven. That is six o'clock, and a late day of seven o'clock: Much of what was said was, we thought, coloured by two fallacies. It is now the general custom of shops to close before the statutory hour, some long before it. It was argued that because people had become accustomed to shopping before six in present circumstances they would be content to go on doing so when there were plenty of things to buy, and no ration books or coupons. The other fallacy was a too ready assumption that the only question that needed to be asked was what was the earliest hour that would not be intolerably inconvenient to the public. Then comes the bit which my hon. Friend quoted about the 5.30 p.m. point.

Then, in the next paragraph, it is stated: These conclusions were strikingly confirmed by the results of the Social Survey. These showed that 30 per cent. of the shopping public want a closing hour after 6.15 p.m. As many as 41 per cent. of this group are persons mainly responsible for the household shopping. An occupational analysis of the group shows that 69 per cent. of it are workers including those in the distributive trades.

Mr. Padley

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the sample in that survey was 2,000 out of over 30 million consumers? When the occupational analyses were made, about 12 miners out of 650,000 were interviewed. Would he not agree that the number in the sample, and the geographical distribution offends every principle of the modern Gallup Poll?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

No; it is something on which Dr. Gallup, or anyone else taking polls, has very strong views. The difficulty is to try to find something to go on.

Miss Bacon

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted the whole of a paragraph without quoting the last sentence, which says: The survey also indicates that a closing hour of 7 p.m. would satisfy the vast majority of the public. The Prayer seeks to try to prevent that hour being 8 p.m.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I started by saying that the Gowers recommendation was 7 p.m., and I told the House that the hon. Lady and her colleagues had said that the 6 p.m. hour would not fit, in their view, the conditions of people who are housewives and also workers. That is why I came to the conclusion that there should be revocation. I came to the view that if 8 p.m. is too late, 6 p.m. is too early, and that revocation would be welcomed by the public, and was welcomed by the majority of the shopkeepers.

For these reasons, I decided that I should make a revocation. I agreed that these hours of 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.—and here I agree with the Gowers Report—must not be allowed to continue indefinitely—[Laughter]. The hon. Lady laughs, but I would point out and I do not want to make this a party matter, that the Labour Government had four years in which to do something and left these hours in operation for eight months of the year, and the Order applied for four months.

The Labour Government were content to leave these hours, and, therefore, I think it rather odd for the hon. Lady to laugh in that fashion, especially when I say that, after a year in office, I am prepared to consider legislation and to hurry on the consultations which must take place before any legislation can be made. That will be done. I cannot, of course, give promise when the legislation will be introduced, but I can promise that negotiations and consultations will take place. I have expressed my view upon the matter, and I hope that the hon. Member for Ogmore, having made his demonstration, will not proceed further with this Prayer.

3.30 a.m.

Mr. George Darling (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

The Co-operative movement has been mentioned in the discussion tonight, and I should like to express the point of view of that movement on the action of the Home Secretary in extending the shop closing hours. We cannot understand why he decided to revoke the Order, and after the defence he made tonight we are more mystified than we were before, because his case does not hold water.

In dividing the representation in the way he did, it is significant that the right hon. and learned Gentleman comes down on the side of the larger trading organisations against those who, like the Early Closing Association and the Co-operative movement, represent the consumer and the shoppers and not the shopkeepers. In fact, the point that the Co-operative makes on this is that there has been no general demand for the revoking of the Order or for the extension of shopping hours, and even in the discussion that the Home Secretary had with the trading associations he himself knows that there was considerable opposition.

I agree with the arithmetic of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because when we add together the Cooperative movement, the Grocers' Federation and other bodies opposed to the Order they add up to considerable sections of the trading organisation, and it is significant, I think, that it is bodies like the Retail Distributors' Association, which represent the large departmental stores, that weighed with the Home Secretary.

The Co-operative movement has not heard of any demand for any longer shopping hours. If there had been such a demand by the people who do their shopping at the "Co-ops"—and there are over one million of them in London—as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) said, representations would have been made to the societies. So far as I know, in no Co-operative Society in the country have the customers asked for an extension of the shopping hours, and had they wanted such an extension they had only to go to the quarterly or half-yearly meetings and make the point.

The Home Secretary has quoted a section of shopping opinion which has been included in the Gowers Report. I do not want to make a serious point of this at the moment, and I do not want to dispute too much about statistical methods, but I should be very loath to accept as a genuine representative opinion of shoppers in this country such a small sample, and a sample which was taken in such an unrepresentative kind of way. I am not convinced that that kind of statistical method helps us at all, but so far as the main argument goes—and it seems to me a simple one—the Co-operative movement feels that the present Order might well continue until we have the legislation we have been talking about so much tonight.

For the life of me I cannot see why there is any need to alter the system we have had, seeing there was no real public demand for a change. The demand for this change has come from certain trade interests. Why should we give in to that section to the disadvantage of economical trading in the retail side of our industry? Why should we make the alteration in the way that has been made in revoking this Order?

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), who said that if the other workers in industry could work shifts shop assistants might be able to work shifts, too. Since I started work at the age of 14 I have been engaged in industries in which there have been shifts, including this one. It has been pointed out in the Report of the Productivity Committee that have been looking at things in the United States—it is an obvious point—that double shift system can only be worked in an industry which is open for at least 16 hours a day. No one suggests that the shops here should be open for that period.

I quite agree with the hon. Member for Bucks, South (Mr. R. Bell) that we ought to look at some such system for our shops when considering future legislation, but we have not reached that point in this country yet. The shopping hours for workers have been cut down to 40 to 44 hours a week, and in any case the shift system would be exceedingly difficult to organise. We cannot do it fairly because of the large number of small shops in this country, and there is no comparison between the United States and ourselves on that point.

The Order has determined the shopping hours for the whole year, even though the Home Secretary was quite right when he made the point about the eight months' period. The point I want to make is that any alteration in the shopping hours is bound in present circumstances to increase the cost of distribution. It is bound to increase wages costs either by the assistants working overtime or by the engagement of additional workers without any additional trade.

No one has suggested that the increase in shopping hours that will follow from this revocation will, in fact, increase the total amount of goods distributed. It will still be the same amount. The cost of distribution is being increased when it ought to be brought down. In many trades retailers, as hon. Members opposite who are in the retail trade know, are operating on low margins, and any increase of distribution costs forced upon them by their small trading competitors taking advantage of the revoking of this Order, will be bound to lead to an increase either in employment of labour or in payment for overtime to existing staff. All that will mean an increase in the cost of distribution. The traders will have to pass that on to the consumer, which will mean increased prices.

To return to my original point, we still cannot see, after the defence we have heard from the Home Secretary, why the change is to be made now. There seems to be no reason for it. We could have gone on, for some years, perhaps, if need be, until we reached the point where we could introduce legislation to deal with the recommendations of the Gowers Report. Now the whole of this business has been thrown into the melting pot and will lead to acrimonious discussion which will not be helpful to retail distribution. The whole business seems to me to be unwise.

The Home Secretary can take responsibility for his actions in this matter, but the effect on retail distribution is going to be such that I think this Prayer ought to be carried, and that the Order revoking the Regulations ought not to be brought into operation. We ought to hurry up the legislation which will give effect to the recommendations of the Gowers Committee. In the meantime, we ought to retain the methods and closing hours which we have had for the last four or five years.

3.42 a.m.

Mr. Julian Snow (Lichfield and Tamworth)

I am sorry that the Home Secretary has left the Chamber. I have been in the Chamber during the whole of this debate, which is more than most hon. Members opposite can say.

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman's performance tonight, to put it kindly, was that of a very tired man. There is no other explanation of the lack of conviction with which he presented his case. As to the meeting which he convened, I think the House will take note that it was the interest of the shopkeepers which was allowed to prevail and not of the overwhelmingly greater number of shop assistants, whose interests were at issue. I will go further than saying that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech was dispirited and unconvincing: I do not think he was even frank with the House.

I think it is wrong to consider this Order except in the context of the economic state of the country. We are passing into a deflationary phase, and that must involve unemployment. Anyone who ridicules that idea is burying his head in the sand. I therefore suggest that the real motive for lengthening shop working hours is that the distributive industry can provide, has shown by the pre-war employment figures, that it can absorb, or can provide employment for, about 400,000, even half-a-million, additional workers. This is the agency which the Government hopes to provide to mop up the surplus labour which will be dismissed from the productive, as opposed to the distributive industries. That, I believe is the motive behind this Order.

Speaker after speaker tonight has asked where was the pressure for the lengthening of these hours. We have heard that it was not the chambers of commerce or trade which approached their local M.Ps., demanding such lengthening. I have seen no approach. I have not had any approach from individual shopkeepers or even from the Housewives' League—that body of Minervas in shining armour who seem to spend part of their time, according to the Birmingham and London Press on Monday, designing a human flogging machine.

That League, one would have thought, would have taken action in this matter if they thought their interests were adversely affected. I have received two letters—one from the local branch of my union, and one from a gentleman written characteristically from a well-off looking address, both pointing out that this Order will mean exploitation of the workers whose history of exploitation is a matter of shame to this country. I speak with a little experience. Before the war, when Development Areas, or derelict areas, were sending flocks of men and women to London and to big provincial cities to secure employment at very low wage rates, anyone who knew Oxford Street knew that young women came from Wales and Scotland to London to work at wages definitely below the maintenance level.

Trade union experience, during and after the war, has taught the families of those areas not to tolerate depreciation of the working conditions of the distributive

industries. I think there is another danger about this measure. It is going to force up consumption of goods on the home market. An inflationary tendency is something which the Government should not want. Another point is that the discouragement of the workers in the small shops when the interest of the employers is looked after so carefully by this Government will be serious indeed.

Everyone knows that in the Co-operative movement, and to an improved extent in the bigger shops, there is a recognition of the union in question, and working conditions are beginning to improve. In the case of the Co-operative movement they set a high standard indeed. Everyone knows, however, that in the small shops there has been an attitude of antagonism to the trade union, and in pre-war days any attempt to join the union meant the sack. It is because advantage is being taken of an army of people in the small shops who dare not join the union that the Government is taking the opportunity of trying to split the union and disrupt organised labour. This Order is reactionary. It will produce anarchy in the distributive trade, and I hope, for this reason, that this Prayer will succeed.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn)

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Mr. Fernyhough

On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker

There can be no point of order.

Mr. Fernyhough

I was on my feet before the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury rose, Sir.

Mr. Speaker

It does not matter.

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 288; Noes, 265.

Division No. 8.]	AYES	[3.46 a.m.
Aitken, W. T.	Arbuthnot, John	Baldwin, A. E.
Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)	Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)	Banks, Col. C.
Alport, C. J. M.	Assheton, Rt. Hon R. (Blackburn, W.)	Barbar, Anthony
Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)	Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)	Barlow, Sir John
Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)	Baker, P. A. D.	Baxter, A. B.
Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.	Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.	Beach, Maj. Hicks
Beamish, Maj. Tufton	Harden, J. R. E.	Mellor, Sir John
Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)	Hare, Hon. J. H.	Molson, A. H. E.
Bell, Ranald (Bucks, S.)	Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)	Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)	Harris, Reader (Heston)	Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)	Nabarro, G. D. N.
Bennett, William (Woodside)	Harvey, Air-Cdre A. V. (Macclesfield)	Nicholls, Harmar
Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)	Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)	Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Birch, Nigel	Harvie-Watt, Sir George	Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Bishop, F. P.	Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.	Nield, Basil (Chester)
Black, C. W.	Heald, Sir Lionel	Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Boothby, R. J. G.	Heath, Edward	Nugent, G. R. H.
Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.	Henderson, John (Catheart)	Nutting, Anthony
Boyle, Sir Edward	Higgs, J. M. C.	Oakshott, H. D.
Braine, B. R.	Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)	Odey, G. W.
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)	Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)	O'Neill, Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)	Hinchingbrooke, Viscount	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.	Hirst, Geoffrey	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)	Holland-Martin, C. J.	Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Brooman-White, R. C.	Hollis, M. C.	Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)
Browne, Jack (Govan)	Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)	Osborne, C.
Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.	Hope, Lord John	Partridge, E.
Bullard, D. G.	Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry	Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Bullock, Capt. M.	Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.	Perkins, W. R. D.
Bullus, Wing-Commander, E. E.	Horobin, I. M.	Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Burden, F. F. A.	Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence	Peyton, J. W. W.
Butcher, H. W.	Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)	Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Campbell, Sir David	Howard, Greville (St. Ives)	Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)	Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)	Powell, J. Enoch
Carson, Hon. E.	Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)	Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Cary, Sir Robert	Hulbert, Wing Cdr. N. J.	Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Channon, H.	Hurd, A. R.	Profumo, J. D.
Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)	Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)	Raikes, H. V.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)	Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)	Rayner, Brig. R.
Cole, Norman	Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)	Redmayne, M.
Colegate, W. A.	Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.	Remnant, Hon. P.
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.	Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.	Renton, D. L. M.
		Roberts, Peter (Heeley)
Cooper, Sqn-Ldr. Albert	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Robertson, Sir David
Cooper, Key, E. M.	Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)	Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)	Jones, A. (Hall Green)	Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Cranborne, Viscount	Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.	Roper, Sir Harold
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.	Kaberry, D.	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.	Keeling, Sir Edward	Russell, R. S.
Crouch, R. F.	Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)	Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)	Lambert, Hon. G.	Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)	Lambton, Viscount	Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Cuthbert, W. N.	Lancaster, Col. C. G.	Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)	Langford-Holt, J. A.	Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)
Davidson, Viscountess	Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.	Scott, R. Donald
Deedes, W. F.	Leather, E. H. C.	Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Digby, S. Wingfield	Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.	Shepherd, William
Dodds-Parker, A. D.	Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)	Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.	Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.	Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Donner, P. W.	Lindsay, Martin	Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Doughty, C. J. A.	Linstead, H. N.	Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm	Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norten)	Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)
Drayson, G. B.	Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)	Snadden, W. McN.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas (Richmond)	Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.	Soames, Capt. C.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.	Low, A. R. W.	Spearman, A. C. M.
Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)	Speir, R. M.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.	Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)	Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Erroll, F. J.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Fell, A.	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.	Stevens, G. P.
Finlay, Graeme	McAdden, S. J.	Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Fisher, Nigel	McCallum, Major D.	Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.	McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.	Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.	Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)	Storey, S.
Fort, R.	Mackeson, Brig. H. R.	Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Foster, John	McKibbin, A. J.	Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)	McKie, J. H. (Galloway)	Summers, G. S.
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)	Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Sutcliffe, H.
Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell	Maclean, Fitzroy	Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)
Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)	Macleod, Rt. Hon Iain (Enfield, W.)	Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)	Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)	Teeling, W.
Garner-Evans, E. H.	Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)	Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd	Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)	Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Godber, J. B.	Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.	Markham, Major S. F.	Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)
Gough, C. F. H.	Marlowe, A. A. H.	Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.
Gower, H. R.	Marples, A. E.	Tilney, John
Graham, Sir Fergus	Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)	Touche, Sir Gordon
Gridley, Sir Arnold	Maude, Angus	Turner, H. F. L.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)	Maudling, R.	Turton, R. H.
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)	Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Hall, John (Wycombe)	Medlicott, Brig. F.	Vane, W. M. F.

Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.	Watkinson, H. A.	Wills, G.
Vosper, D. F.	Webbe, Sir H. (London & Westminster)	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)	White Baker (Canterbury)	Wood, Hon. R.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)	Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)	Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)	Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)	Mr. Drewe and Mr. Studholme.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.	Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)
NOES
Acland, Sir Richard	Fienburgh, W.	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Adams, Richard	Finch, H. J.	Mann, Mrs. Jean
Albu, A. H.	Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)	Manuel, A. C.
Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)	Follick, M.	Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)	Foot, M. M.	Mayhew, C. P.
Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)	Forman, J. C.	Mellish, R. J.
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Mikardo, Ian
Awbery, S. S.	Freeman, John (Watford)	Mitchison, G. R.
Bacon, Miss Alice	Freeman, Peter (Newport)	Moody, A. S.
Baird, J.	Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.	Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Balfour, A.	Gibson, C. W.	Morley, R.
Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.	Glanville, James	Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Bartley, P.	Gooch, E. G.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Mort, D. L.
Bence, C. R.	Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)	Moyle, A.
Benn, Wedgwood	Grey, C. F.	Mulley, F. W.
Benson, G.	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Murray, J. D.
Beswick, F.	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Nally, W.
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)	Griffiths, William (Exchange)	Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Bing, G. H. C.	Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Blackburn, F.	Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)	Oldfield, W. H.
Blenkinsop, A.	Hamilton, W. W.	Oliver, G. H.
Blyton, W. R.	Hannan, W.	Orbach, M.
Boardman, H.	Hardy, E. A.	Oswald, T.
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.	Hargreaves, A.	Padley, W. E.
Bowden, H. W.	Hastings, S.	Paget, R. T.
Bowles, F. G.	Hayman, F. H.	Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth	Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)	Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Brockway, A. F.	Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)	Palmer, A. M. F.
Brook, Dryden (Halifax)	Herbison, Miss M.	Pannell, Charles
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Hewitson, Capt. M.	Pargiter, G. A.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Hobson, C. R.	Parker, J.
Brown, Thomas (Ince)	Holman, P.	Paton, J.
Burke, W. A.	Houghton, Douglas	Pearson, A.
Burton, Miss F. E.	Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)	Peart, T. F.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Plummer, Sir Leslie
Callaghan, L. J.	Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Popplewell, E.
Carmichael, J.	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Porter, G.
Castle, Mrs. B. A.		Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Champion, A. J.	Hynd, H (Accrington)	Proctor, W. T.
Chapman, W. D.	Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)	Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Chetwynd, G. R.	Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Rankin, John
Clunie, J.	Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)	Reeves, J.
Coldrick, W.	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.	Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Collick, P. H.	Janner, B.	Reid, William (Camlachie)
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.	Rhodes, H.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Jeger, George (Goole)	Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Crosland, C. A. R.	Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Crossman, R. H. S.	Johnson, James (Rugby)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Cullen, Mrs. A.	Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Daines, P.	Jones, David (Hartlepool)	Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.	Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)	Ross, William
Darling, George (Hillsborough)	Jones, Jack (Rotherham)	Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Shackleton, E. A. A.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)	Keenan, W.	Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Kenyan, C.	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)	Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.	Short, E. W.
de Freitas, Geoffrey	King, Dr. H. M.	Shurmer, P. L. E.
Deer, G.	Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Delargy, H. J.	Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Dodds, N. N.	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Donnelly, D. L.	Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)	Slater, J.
Driberg, T. E. N.	Lewis, Arthur	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)	Lindgren, G. S.	Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.	Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.	Snow, J. W.
Edelman, M.	MacColl, J. E.	Sorensen, R. W.
Edwards, John (Brighouse)	McGhee, H. G.	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	McInnes, J.	Sparks, J. A.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)	McKay, John (Wallsend)	Steele, T.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)	McLeavy, F.	Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)	MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)	Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)	McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.	Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Ewart, R.	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
Fernyhough, E.	Mainwaring, W. H.	Stross, Dr. Barnett
Field, W. J.	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

Swingler, S. T.	Watkins, T. E.	Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)
Sylvester, G. O.	Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)	Williams, Ronald (Wigan)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)	Weitzman, D.	Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)
Taylor, John (West Lothian)	Wells, Percy (Faversham)	Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)
Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)	Wells, William (Walsall)	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Thomas, David (Aberdare)	West, D. G.	Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)
Thomas, George (Cardiff)	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John	Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)	White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)	White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)	Wyatt, W. L.
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)	Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.	Yates, V. F.
Timmons, J.	Wigg, George	Younger, Rt. Hon. K.
Tomney, F.	Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
Turner-Samuels, M.	Wilkins, W. A.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn	Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)	Mr. Royle and Mr. Horace Holmes.
Wallace, H. W.	Williams, David (Neath)

Question put accordingly.

The House divided: Ayes, 265; Noes, 288.

Division No. 9.]	AYES	[4.0 a.m.
Acland, Sir Richard	Driberg, T. E. N.	Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Adams, Richard	Dugdale, Rt. Hon John (W. Bromwich)	Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Albu, A. H.	Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.	Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)	Edelman, M.	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)	Edwards, John (Brighouse)	Keenan, W.
Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)	Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Kenyon, C.
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.	Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)	Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Awbery, S. S.	Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)	King, Dr. H. M.
Bacon, Miss Alice	Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)	Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Baird, J.	Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)	Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Balfour, A.	Ewart, R.	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.	Fernyhough, E.	Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Bartley, P.	Field, W. J.	Lewis, Arthur
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Fienburgh, W.	Lindgren, G. S.
Bence, C. R.	Finch, H. J.	Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Benn, Wedgwood	Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)	MacColl, J. E.
Benson, G.	Follick, M.	McGhee, H. G.
Beswick, F.	Foot, M. M.	McInnes, J.
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)	Forman, J. C.	McKay, John (Wallsend)
Bing, G. H. C.	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	McLeavy, F.
Blackburn, F.	Freeman, John (Watford)	MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Blenkinsop, A.	Freeman, Peter (Newport)	McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Blyton, W. R.	Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Beardman, H.	Gibson, C. W.	Mainwaring, W. H.
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.	Glanville, James	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Bowden, H. W.	Gooch, E. G.	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Bowles, F. G.	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Mann, Mrs. Jean
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth	Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)	Manuel, A. C.
Brockway, A. F.	Grey, C. F.	Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Brock, Dryden (Halifax)	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Mayhew, C. P.
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Mellish, R. J.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Griffiths, William (Exchange)	Mikardo, Ian
Brown, Thomas (Ince)	Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)	Mitchison, G. R.
Burke, W. A.	Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)	Moody, A. S.
Burton, Miss F. E.	Hamilton, W. W.	Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)	Hannan, W.	Morley, R.
Callaghan, L. J.	Hardy, E. A.	Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Carmichael, J.	Hargreaves, A.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)
Castle, Mrs. B. A.	Hastings, S.	Mort, D. L.
Champion, A. J.	Hayman, F. H.	Moyle, A.
Chapman, W. D.	Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)	Mulley, F. W.
Chetwynd, G. R.	Henderson, Rt. Hon. A (Rowley Regis)	Murray, J. D.
Clunie, J.	Herbison, Miss M.	Nally, W.
Coldrick, W.	Hewitson, Capt. M.	Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Collick, P. H.	Hobson, C. R.	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Holman, P.	Oldfield, W. H.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Houghton, Douglas	Oliver, G. H.
Crosland, C. A. R.	Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)	Orbach, M.
Crossman, R. H. S.	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Oswald, T.
Cullen, Mrs. A.	Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Padley, W. E.
Daines, P.	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Paget, R. T.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.	Hynd, H. (Accrington)	Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Darling, George (Hillsborough)	Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)	Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)	Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Palmer, A. M. F.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)	Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)	Pannell, Charles
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.	Pargiter, G. A.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)	Janner, B.	Parker, J.
de Freitas, Geoffrey	Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.	Paton, J.
Deer, G.	Jeger, George (Goole)	Pearson, A.
Delargy, H. J.	Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)	Peart, T. F.
Dodds, N. N.	Johnson, James (Rugby)	Plummer, Sir Leslie
Donnelly, D. L.	Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)	Popplewell, E.

Porter, G.	Snow, J. W.	Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)	Sorensen, R. W.	Weitzman, D.
Proctor, W. T.	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank	Wells, Percy (Favarsham)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.	Sparks, J. A.	Wells, William (Walsall)
Rankin, John	Steele, T.	West, D. G.
Reeves, J.	Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)	Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.	White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)
Raid, William (Camlachie)	Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.	White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)
Rhodes, H.	Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)	Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.	Stross, Dr. Barnett	Wigg, George
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.	Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)	Swingler, S. T.	Wilkins, W. A.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)	Sylvester, G. O.	Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)	Williams, David (Neath)
Ross, William	Taylor, John (West Lothian)	Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)	Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)	Williams, Ronald (Wigan)
Shackleton, E. A. A.	Thomas, David (Aberdare)	Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley	Thomas, George (Cardiff)	Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.	Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Short, E. W.	Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)	Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)
Shurmer, P. L. E.	Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)	Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)	Timmons, J.	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)	Tomney, F.	Wyatt, W. L.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)	Turner-Samuels, M.	Yates, V. F.
Slater, J.	Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn	Younger, Rt. Hon. K.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)	Wallace, H. W.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)	Watkins, T. E.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
		Mr. Royle and Mr. Horace Holmes.

NOES
Aitken, W. T.	Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)	Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)	Cranborne, Viscount	Heald, Sir Lionel
Alport, C. J. M.	Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.	Heath, Edward
Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)	Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.	Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)	Crouch, R. F.	Higgs, J. M. C.
Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.	Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)	Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Arbuthnot, John	Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)	Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)	Cuthbert, W. N.	Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)	Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)	Hirst, Geoffrey
Astor, Hon. J. J. (Plymouth, Sutton)	Davidson, Viscountess	Holland-Martin, C. J.
Baker, P. A. D.	Deedes, W. F.	Hollis, M. C.
Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.	Digby, S. Wingfield	Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Baldwin, A. E.	Dodds-Parker, A. D.	Hope, Lord John
Banks, Col. C.	Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.	Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry
Barber, Anthony	Donner, P. W.	Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Barlow, Sir John	Doughty, C. J. A.	Horobin, I. M.
Baxter, A. B.	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm	Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Beamish, Maj. Tufton	Drayson, G. B.	Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Beach, Maj. Hicks	Drewe, C.	Howard, Greville (St. Ives)
Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)	Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)	Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)	Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.	Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)	Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.	Hulbert, Wing Cdr. N. J.
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.	Hurd, A. R.
Bennett, William (Woodside)	Erroll, F. J.	Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)	Fell, A.	Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Birch, Nigel	Finlay, Graeme	Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Bishop, F. P.	Fisher, Nigel	Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.
Black, C. W.	Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.	Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Boothby, R. J. G.	Fletcher-Cooke, C.	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.	Fort, R.	Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Boyle, Sir Edward	Foster, John	Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Braine, B. R.	Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)	Joynson Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)	Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)	Kaberry, D.
Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)	Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell	Keeling, Sir Edward
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.	Galbraith, Cmdr T. D. (Pollok)	Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)	Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)	Lambert, Hon. G.
Brooman-White, R. C.	Garner-Evans, E. H.	Lambton, Viscount
Browne, Jack (Govan)	George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd	Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.	Godber, J. B.	Langford-Holt, J. A.
Bullard, D. G.	Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.	Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Bullock, Capt. M.	Gough, C. F. H.	Leather, E. H. C.
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.	Gower, H. R.	Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Burden, F. F. A.	Graham, Sir Fergus	Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Butcher, H. W.	Gridley, Sir Arnold	Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Campbell, Sir David	Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)	Lindsay, Martin
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)	Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)	Linstead, H. N.
Carson, Hon. E.	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)
Cary, Sir Robert	Harden, J. R. E.	Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Channon, H.	Hare, Hon. J. H.	Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)	Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)	Low, A. R. W.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)	Harris, Reader (Heston)	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Cole, Norman	Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye	Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Colegate, W. A.	Harvey, Air Cdre A. V. (Macclesfield)	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert	Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Cooper-Key, E. M.	Harvie-Watt, Sir George	McAdden, S. J.

McCallum, Major D.	Peake, Rt. Hon. O.	Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.	Perkins, W. R. D.	Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)	Peto, Brig. C. H. M.	Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.	Peyton, J. W. W.	Storey, S.
McKibbin, A. J.	Pickthorn, K. W. M.	Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)	Pilkington, Capt. R. A.	Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Powell, J. Enoch	Summers, G. S.
Maclean, Fitzroy	Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)	Sutcliffe, H.
Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)	Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.	Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)	Profumo, J. D.	Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)	Raikes, H. V.	Teeling, W.
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)	Rayner, Brig. R.	Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)	Redmayne, M.	Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Markham, Major S. F.	Remnant, Hon. P.	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Marlowe, A. A. H.	Renton, D. L. M.	Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)
Marples, A. E.	Roberts, Peter (Heeley)	Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.
Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)	Robertson, Sir David	Tilney, John
Maude, Angus	Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)	Touche, Sir Gordon
Maudling, R.	Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)	Turner, H. F. L.
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.	Roper, Sir Harold	Turton, R. H.
Medlicott, Brig. F.	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Mellor, Sir John	Russell, R. S.	Vane, W. M. F.
Molson, A. H. E.	Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.	Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)	Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur	Vosper, D. F.
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.	Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.	Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Nabarro, G. D. N.	Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas	Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)
Nicholls, Harmar	Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)	Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)	Scott, R. Donald	Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)
Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)	Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.	Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.
Nield, Basil (Chester)	Shepherd, William	Watkinson, H. A.
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.	Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)	Webbe, Sir H. (London & Westminster)
Nugent, G. R. H.	Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter	White, Baker (Canterbury)
Nutting, Anthony	Smithers, Peter (Winchester)	Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)
Oakshott, H. D.	Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)	Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)
Odey, G. W.	Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)	Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)
O'Neill Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)	Snadden, W. McN.	Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.	Soames, Capt. C.	Wills, G.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.	Spearman, A. C. M.	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)	Speir, R. M.	Wood, Hon. R.
Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)	Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Osborne, C.	Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Partridge, E.	Stevens, G. P.	Mr. Studholme and Major Conant.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Butcher.]

Adjourned accordingly at Eight Minutes past Four o'Clock a.m., 19th November, 1952.