NOISE

HC Deb 02 December 1955 vol 546 cc2665-740

11.5 a.m.

Sir Lionel Heald (Chertsey)

I beg to move, That this House notes with concern the detrimental effect of noise and vibration on the health, wellbeing and efficiency of the nation; and urges Her Majesty's Government to give careful attention to the importance of research and education in this field, and to the need for more effective measures for the protection of the public. The question might be asked, "Why noise, when so many other pressing problems arise for debate in the House?" I think there are two answers to that question. The first, surely, is that this is essentially the kind of problem which is suitable for a Private Member's Motion. This is the kind of thing which Governments are apt to ignore until some pressing reason arises why they should cease to ignore it. Private Members' time is one of the precious methods, indeed, the only method which the private Member has of bringing such matters forcibly to the Government's attention. Indeed, it may be that the very fact that the Motion has appeared on the Order Paper today has had some repercussions in Government Departments.

The second reason is this: the very fact that such a question can be asked —"Is it worth while debating the subject?"—demonstrates the urgency of the problem, because it surely suggests that man is fast losing the battle in that war between man and machine which was so vividly predicted by H. G. Wells and other imaginative writers.

Having espoused this cause, I have been very glad to find that there is a considerable amount of support for it, not only in the correspondence which one receives but also in the public organs of information. I have been glad, too, to find that many professional societies and individuals have drawn attention to the importance of the matter quite recently and in increasing measure. My purpose today is to challenge that attitude of pessimism to which I have referred, and to ask the House to adopt a constructive and critical attitude towards this whole question.

May I first explain to the House that in this matter I am not a fanatic or, I hope, a crank, or a kill-joy or what I believe is known in modern scientific language as a cerebrotonic? I am not out to prohibit the use of planes, motor cars or radios. I myself have travelled 25,000 miles by air during the year. I have been an enthusiastic member of the Automobile Association since 1916, and first-class television sets are made in my constituency. The House will therefore assume that I am not against anything of that kind.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)

The right hon. and learned Member is also a vice-president of the Association of British Aero Clubs.

Sir L. Heald

Yes.

In some respects noise is a rather indefinite thing. It has been described as "any sound which is undesired or not desired by the hearer." There are other definitions of it. There is a rather good one in an Australian Act of 1928: A loud or harsh sound, or a din, or a disturbance made by one or more persons. Of course some hon. Members here today would not object to things which come within that definition. For example, I suppose one would say that there may even be hon. Members who would not think that the sound of a cork issuing from a bottle was an unpleasant sound. Indeed there must be a number of hon. Members who would think that a noise made by a large assembly was not an unpleasant thing, so long as it was cheering and not anything of a more unattractive nature.

One realises that there is a matter of degree in this, and we must have a sense of proportion. As we get older we get more fussy and more easily irritated, but we must remember that the younger generation like a bit of noise. I am not out to stop them—it would not be any use if I were, because they would not be prevented, even from the earliest days of their lives, as some of us know—but all of us, I think, like some kinds of loud noise.

There must be very few people here who really dislike the sound of a really good brass band. It was said by the famous Sydney Smith of a well-known Victorian gentleman of his time that his idea of Heaven was eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. Tastes differ, and we must remember that here we are in a field of great difficulty. The trouble is that, just as it was said that dirt is simply matter in the wrong place, the same applies to sound. I read in one official publication what appeared at first sight a rather obvious truth, that the best way of dealing with sound when it became a nuisance was to move it as far away as possible. That sounds an admirable precept, but unfortunately, in our island we cannot do it very well.

The other side of the picture is this. People may tell us that it is no use trying to do anything about it as that is so difficult. I would venture, in all respect and humility, to remind the House of something said during the war when some point was said to be a very difficult one, "Pray do not tell me about the difficulties; the difficulties will speak for themselves." I think it just as well to appreciate that, far from it being impossible to do anything about noise, a great deal can be done, and much has been done already.

Failure to appreciate the efforts of those who have tried would be unfair to the pioneers in medicine, science and industry who have expended on this subject a great deal of time, energy and money; in medicine, for example, the late Lord Horder and his followers—and recently very important work has been done at King's College Hospital by Dr. Littler and others. In the Building Research Station at Garston, near Watford, which is part of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, some splendid work has been done. An immense amount of information is available, but the trouble is that it is not taken advantage of in the way it should be.

Incidentally, I think the House would probably be interested to hear later, if it can, whether the Government, in their new buildings put up recently and being put up, are taking advantage of modern knowledge and information about soundproofing and things of that kind for, after all, example is one of the most important leads in a matter of this kind.

Then there are the aircraft manufacturers, for instance, Messrs. Vickers at Brooklands. If one goes there one may see great Valiant planes being built, and there have silencers—"mufflers" I believe they are called—which are brought up like vast pantechnicons behind the jets and have a very beneficial effect in minimising the noise when the engines are being run up. I know that Messrs. de Havilland and others are doing the same. There is a very interesting description of their work in the scientific journal Discovery, of March, 1955, in which we are told authoritatively that a considerable amount of money is being spent on this question of dealing with aircraft engine noise.

Equally, I am afraid, there are many people who have done nothing at all, and they sometimes seem to think that nothing need be done. I believe they mistake public opinion about this, and I hope we shall find that I am right in saying that they also mistake the opinion of this House.

I think it is necessary to be frank, and to say that a study of the OFFICIAL REPORT for the last twenty years does not disclose any great interest being taken in this subject by any British Government. Some foreign Governments have done a great deal. In Sweden, for example, there has been a great deal of medical concern, particularly in regard to road noises. I understand that new regulations are being considered there in order to try to deal with that. I understand that in Finland the Government have actually gone so far as to lay down numerical limits, which, of course, is a very difficult thing to do.

I said that nothing much had happened here in the last twenty years because it was about the period of the 1930s, in two successive Governments, that, first, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, as he then was, and then the right hon. Member for Lewisham. South (Mr. H. Morrison) really paid some attention to this aspect of the matter in connection particularly with motor vehicles on the roads. I refer especially in this connection to motor cycles because I have received a lot of correspondence about them, as, I know, have other hon. Members, particularly about the latest models which produce that rather excruciating high-pitched note which many hon. Members will have experienced.

About the period of the 'thirties, those two Ministers in succession appointed several committees, notably one under the late Sir Henry Fowler, and those committees went into the matter quite deeply. Various suggestions made made about possible noise standards and the measurement of noise in which learned references were made to decibels or phons. I do not know whether the latter word is the origin of the word "phoney," but it is a measurement suggested for this purpose. Alas, very little has resulted from that in legislation or Regulations.

It is depressing today to read, in the second Report issued in 1936 by the Departmental Committee: It is evident that the high performance of motor bicycles has outstripped the art of silencing them. That is a rather depressing observation, and one asks the question, can matters be said to be better than that today?

Again, it says: The achievement of an equal degree of quietness "— that is to say, in motor cycles as in cars— is of necessity bound up with such questions as the sacrifice of power and increased cost. I read that, in 1937: The Minister of Transport is willing to receive a deputation of interested parties to protest against the proposed silencer regulations. It is, perhaps, not altogether surprising that when the new Regulations—now called the Motor Vehicle (Construction and Use) Regulations—came out in 1937, it was seen that absolutely nothing at all had been done to tighten up the provisions relating to silencers since 1912, when they still referred, I think, to "locomotives on highways". If anything, the position had weakened. I wonder if hon. Members, taking this as a test case, realise how futile the silencer regulations are today? Nothing more has happened since the war, although the House has recently repeated these Regulations in the same form in Statutory Rules and Order No. 482.

I should like to read to the House what now is the law on the subject of the silencer. This is the language of Regulation 21 of the present Regulations: Every vehicle propelled by an internal combustion engine shall be fitted with a silencer, expansion chamber or other contrivance suitable and sufficient for reducing as far as may be reasonable the noise caused by the escape of the exhaust gases from the engine. "As far as may be reasonable." How on earth would anybody decide the noise made by one of those things is reasonable?

After all, in 1912, things were, as I say, if anything, better, because in those days one had to reduce the exhaust noise "so far as reasonably may be practicable." Some of us had experience of that expression in another connection a year or two ago, and it is not a very satisfactory one. In those days, however, it meant that manufacturers had to show that they had considered what was practicable and had tried to do it. Today all we have to consider is whether the noise is "reasonable." Is it any wonder that we have to put up with that noise that we do sometimes suffer from that kind of vehicle?

I should like to ask the Government these questions. Do they consider that noise reasonable or not? If they do, what is the criterion of reasonableness? If they do not, why is nothing done about it? The answer, of course, is that a regulation of that kind is almost completely useless, and, indeed, it is a dangerous thing, because every year we go on allowing noises of that kind the more incentive we give to magistrates and everyeone else to say, "If all I have to do is decide whether it is reasonable, then I have to consider the standards of the day, and, after all, noises are much noisier now than they were even five years or ten years ago, and all I can do, having regard to the general standards, is to say that I am not prepared to say that it is not reasonable."

Another interesting example I find is a provision in an Act of 1934 that one must not alter a machine or vehicle, after it has been sold, so as to make it offend against the law if it does not offend against the law to start with. That is Section 8 (2) of the Road Traffic Act, 1934.

I read, in the journal, World Science Review, of December, 1955: Should we permit low-powered cars to be 'hotted up' so that, as one statement about them says 'we get off to a most satisfying roar.' Motorists pay up to £35 to produce this, to them, satisfying roar. To the passerby and to residents on main roads, the roar is far from satisfying. I should like to know, for example, why such a noise as that is not an offence against the Road Traffic Act, 1934.

It is significant that in that connection some interesting statistics were given a day or two ago in answer to a Question to the Home Secretary regarding prosecutions for noise offences in connection with motor vehicles. The unfortunate thing about it is that my right hon. and gallant Friend, after instancing the Regulations concerning motor vehicles, had to say I regret that it is not possible to subdivide these to show separately offences against Regulations 20, 77, 81, 82, 84, 85 and 91…'—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1955; Vol. 546, c. 154.] In other words, no separate records are kept of silencer offences, and I am afraid that one cannot but conclude that the Government do not attach very great importance to that problem as they do not even keep separate records of the offences. I would venture to think there ought at any rate to be separate statistics kept and real attention paid to this subject, and consideration given to whether something better in the way of a regulation could be found. That is only one example, but, I think, rather a striking one.

Of course, no question of party arises in this matter at all. The record of both parties since the war is equally bad in this connection. During the war, obviously, nothing could be done. I cannot find that anything positive was done between 1945 and 1951. On the other hand, I find the then Minister of Transport saying on 27th April, 1950, that he had no reason to believe that the silencer Regulations were unsatisfactory. That is all he had to say. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South was at that time engaged with other kinds of noise and silencers as Leader of the House, so he was not able to attend to that.

I am afraid that we on this side of the House cannot claim a much better record since 1951. We brought in the same Regulations—which I have just been criticising—again in 1955. When I inquired at the National Physical Laboratory I was told that there was no definite programme of research into noise problems at the present time.

There was a reference in this House in 1953 to another field of investigation which, I think, I must quote, as it illuminates rather luridly the nakedness of the situation. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) asked the Minister of Labour: Whether he has noted that about half the number of men employed in chipping, riveting, stamping, plating and heading become deafened to speech at more than three feet after 20 years' exposure to the noise created at their work. The Parliamentary Secretary replied: My Department is aware of the recent report of a committee of the Medical Research Council on the medical and surgical problems of deafness and that exposure over many years to noise above certain intensities may cause deterioration in hearing. Much research is being carried out into this question and … a committee has been set up jointly by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Medical Research Council which will consider, among other things, the effect of noise in relation to human efficiency."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 31st March, 1953; Vol. 513. c. 1011.] That joint Committee has, at any rate, achieved one notable thing. It has achieved absolute, complete, perfect 100 per cent. silence, because nobody has ever heard from it since. I made inquiries about it the other day because there was considerable doubt as to whether it existed, but I was told eventually that it was still sitting. It is rather like Brer Rabbit, but I do not think that the Government can complain, because they seem to be more like Gallio.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

During that time was not the right hon. and learned Gentleman Attorney-General and a Member of the Government? What noise did he make about it?

Sir L. Heald

My business was to enforce the law. If it did not exist, there was not very much to be done about it.

As regards the extent and seriousness of this problem, I disclaim any alarmist or sensational attitude. There is never any object in overstating a case. For example, I do not know whether there is any truth in the story, which appeared the other day in one of the evening newspapers, that the air raid siren on the top of the Empire State Building in New York will burn the fur off a rat. That may or may not be true. Nor do I know whether Miss Dorothy Sayers' famous story about the man who was shut in the belfry is founded on scientific fact. It might have broken his ear drums, but how much more it would break I cannot say. Neither can I say whether there is any basis for the theory quite seriously advanced by Mr. Laird, who was a worker in this field, when he said that jazz music appeared to increase human strength because the grip of the dancers became tighter when it was played.

I have read in the October, 1953, edition of a journal called Scope, an interesting magazine for industry, an apparently verified account of the researches of three scientists who subjected a guinea pig to the noise of a jet engine. They found that sufficient heat was generated to burn it to death. Those gentlemen also say that men exposed to the same noise suffered from heating of the skin, vibration of the cranial bones, a weakening of the muscles, impaired vision and loss of hearing. As those gentlemen themselves said, the matter can, of course, be exaggerated, but it is clearly wrong to pretend that the danger to health does not exist or, still more, that it does not matter.

Nor would it be right or sufficient to say that no direct clinical proof of injury is available, even if that were true. The late Lord Horder, who was a very good friend of the human race, and even more than that to many people who owe their health or, perhaps, even their lives to him, was always insistent that it was not sufficient to say that one cannot see any outward sign. He said that the lack of sleep or the disturbance of sleep was one of the most serious things, as well as the effect upon nerves, upon efficiency and care and so on, leading to all kinds of results, accidents and everything else.

I can support that by current evidence from London hospitals. I know from patients and staff that the traffic noise is causing serious difficulty. It cuts right across the urgent need for rest after serious operations, and there is also evidence of interference with such processes as diagnosis, examinations, the use of scientific instruments and so on. In particular, outside University College Hospital, where I have some recent direct evidence, there is a car park which causes acute distress to those who are seriously ill.

There was also a complaint the other day, which I happened to hear from someone who was there, that that delightful process of unloading a load of steel scaffolding had been taking place. Apparently the men delight in throwing a bundle of pieces of this material, and a few minutes later along comes another bundle. It is rather like the man who sent a message to the gentleman upstairs, who had already dropped his first shoe, saying "Please drop the other one, because I am waiting to go to sleep."

That is not really a joke, for I understand from scientific examination and experiments that if someone was to hammer really loudly once a second not far away from even the very finest of first-class typists, within five or ten minutes the typist would be making the most serious mistakes. She simply could not help it. It might not be thought that she hears the noise, but it has that mental effect.

Therefore, I am very hopeful that today we shall not hear expressed on behalf of the Government the kind of view which was stated in a letter some time ago. I shall not say from which Minister it came; in any case, he is not present. But I suggest that this is what we ought not to say: I understand that there has been a good deal of enquiry into the effect of noise in industry, aviation and urban life but apart from certain occupational exposures to continued intense noise there is no evidence of specific harmful effects of noise on health. Background noise is an irritant but the human body has a remarkable power of adaptation to regularly recurring noises—for instance, those of railway trains or trams in close proximity. I hope—in fact, I am sure—that that is not the kind of attitude that we shall experience.

It is almost worthy of the strictures of Sir Alan Herbert, when he said recently: the priests and the slaves of Progress believe that all resistance to the Gods of Hurry and the devils of Noise is blasphemous or futile. I am quite sure that there is no danger of our hearing anything like that from my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary, whom we are all glad to see dealing with this matter. The fact that the Home Office is dealing with it, however, perhaps indicates that it is rather a case of what is everybody's business is nobody's business.

I know that we shall get every assistance from my hon. Friend, as we always do, but, so far as I can see, he is today representing nine or ten Departments which would be interested in this matter. According to my reckoning it involves the Home Office, the Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture, Transport and Supply, the three Service Departments and the Lord President of the Council, who is responsible for research. My hon. Friend is today representing them all and I am sure that he will do it adequately.

If anybody were to say that noise does not matter very much, I should have to remind him of the remark attributed to Herbert Spencer, when he said: You can gauge a man's intellectual capacity by his intolerance of unnecessary noise. There is no time for me to categorise all the various noises such as road drills, the over-loud radio or television set or the young man who says "Good-bye" to his young lady outside one's window, bangs the door of his car and "revs" up the engine for a long time in the early hours of the morning while she screams with delight and excitement. We all have to suffer these things.

Nor should I discuss aircraft noise, because others would like to mention that, except to say that if anyone tells me that the noise of aircraft—not supersonic bangs, but the passage of aircraft in flight—cannot do any physical damage, my own observation is to the contrary. I have actually seen that happening where glass is cracked. Anyone who wishes to see it can go to a place called Thorpe, where we have seen it happening, and the windows are cracked. There is no doubt about it. But other hon. Members will no doubt deal with that aspect of the matter.

There is one subject about which I should like to say a few words, because it is perhaps the most important of all. It is the noise connected with factories and manufacturing processes, which affects both those who live near the factories and those who are engaged in them. I hope that that is being considered by what I call the "Brer Rabbit" Committee. There is considerable activity abroad with regard to this subject and I hope that the Government will pay attention to the work that is being done, particularly in the United States. I was there recently, and heard something about it. Employers, trade unionists and everyone else are concerned about this noise problem. It was recently stated that about 500 scientists are engaged on the subject in the United States whereas here the number is more like fifteen or twenty.

There are some interesting data in the Scope article to which I have referred but I will not detain the House with them now. The work in this country has been very sporadic. A great deal was done more than a hundred years ago. A gentleman named Fosbrooke investigated the blacksmith's problem. Boiler-maker's deafness was recognised in 1880, and there was an act—still in force—in 1872 called the "Steam Whistles Act". I do not know whether that is applicable to anything nowadays. There is no information about official investigations in this country, and the reference I made to an Answer given in Parliament suggests that much cannot have been done.

I have information from hospitals of cases of acoustic trauma and neuroses of various kinds. There is not merely the sheer strain of continuous banging and crashing but there are these intermittent and regular sounds, such as I mentioned in connection with the typist. The effect of these things on efficiency, causing carelessness and clumsiness and so on, is marked. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) furnished me with the excellent example of aircraft carriers in which it was found that men who worked on the flight decks and were exposed to tremendous noise from aircraft and ventilating machinery became extremely careless, got into the way of the planes, fell over things and got themselves injured.

There is no doubt that people who work in noisy places are apt to be careless. I should like to give another example. Newspaper offices are notoriously some of the noisiest places in the world, and those who work in them are remarkably accurate when one considers that fact, but they are not always accurate. For instance, on Wednesday morning, the Daily Express gave a circumstantial account of an hon. Member—in fact it was the hon. and learned Member for Chertsey—attending a party on Monday, attired in a white tie, consuming refreshments and handing them to other people. As the hon. and learned Member for Chertsey had informed his constituents that he was going to be in the House of Commons dealing with the Finance Bill, that was not a very helpful thing to say. In fact, he was here on Monday from 3.30 p.m. until the Committee rose, and he took part in the Divisions. That perhaps is traceable to the noise made in that office. Possibly if the Daily Express made a little less noise and were a little more efficient it would be a good thing for all of us.

Other hon. Members who are better qualified than I am will make suggestions about what should be done about this noise problem, but I suggest that there are at least three things. First, there should he research and investigation. A great deal has been done already, but much more can be done, and the Government can help with research.

Next there is education. As Lord Horder said, the cause of most of the trouble with noise is selfishness. Noise is the greatest example of selfishness that one can find, and the House, in moulding public opinion, could do good work.

Thirdly, and definitely only thirdly, there is legislation, because one cannot make people quiet by Act of Parliament no more than one can make them good. Public opinion and public example is of the first importance. A very good example of that was given by Lord Horder, who described how he went to New York at the invitation of the Mayor of that city to address a monster meeting on the subject of quiet and the absence of noise. He received a message from the Mayor saying, "I agree that this a vitally important matter and I have arranged that you shall be brought to the town hall escorted by six police cars fitted with sirens."

We may perhaps be able to introduce some legislation and we shall be interested to hear from the Government about that possibility. The law of nuisance is of no use at all in this connection. The law officers can take proceedings for a public nuisance but the idea of a law officer chasing an offender who had an overloud silencer, calling on him to stop and taking proceedings against him is not a very realistic one. The law of nuisance involves very complicated and expensive proceedings. It is one of those instances to which one can apply Lord Darling's observation that the law courts are open to everyone, like the Ritz Hotel. Scientific assistance can also be obtained in getting something done about noise.

Finally, it would be an excellent thing if some single Department or member of the Government could be made responsible for the subject. Apart from anything else, it would give an opportunity for the application of Dr. Johnson's famous suggestion that … when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. If we had a single Member of the Government who knew that he was responsible for the control of noise it would concentrate his mind a great deal. The House might well support the Motion if it agrees with the simple point of view that quiet is essential for human happiness. It is gradually being destroyed. It must be restored and maintained.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South) rose—

Mr. Speaker

Is the hon. Member rising to second the Motion?

Mr. Bell

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) does not really require a seconder, but if the hon. Member wishes to second the Motion I am sure that the House will be glad to listen to him.

11.48 a.m.

Mr. Bell

I beg to second the Motion.

I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) does not really require a seconder. I would go further and say that in moving his Motion he probably needs very little support, because I do not think that we shall find the Motion very controversial. I am sure we shall find that it is one on which most hon. Members feel very strongly.

The degree of annoyance caused by noise varies greatly from one individual to another, but I believe that the general level of indignation is now very high. There was recently a correspondence in the Manchester Guardian. A man wrote asking for suggestions as to how he could escape from the ever-present nuisance caused by the noise of our present-day civilisation. The advice that he received in total was that he should seal his windows, hang blankets over the doors, disconnect the telephone, and retire to bed with wax in his ears and put his head under the pillows. That was very good advice which wise to follow, but us have to emerge order to carry out of daily life.

There is no doubt that noise has become one of the major annoyances, handicaps and even dangers which we have to meet. Formerly, as far as I can find out, the people who lived on this planet, and in this country, were not much troubled by unpleasant sounds. Nearly all old references to sound are agreeable. I can tell my right hon. and learned Friend that the story by Dorothy Sayers about belfries is quite wrong because the sound of bells is always melodious. The references we find in the literature of the past are always pleasant ones—the murmurous hum of bees on summer eves and the song of birds. We rarely find in the old writers unhappy references to noise. If nowadays an industrial worker were to go into the country, sometimes he has been reduced to such a state that he would almost wish that the birds would stop singing and that the insects would stop buzzing, in order that he could have that infinitely dear, precious, and now so terribly elusive thing, complete silence.

My right hon. and learned Friend was right in saying that the major weapon against noise is a change in the public attitude. I am sure that agitation is the first thing upon which we must concentrate our attention. In this matter the public is its own worst enemy. It is no longer the few who are inflicting an annoyance upon the many. It is most of us inflicting an annoyance upon all of us, because the noise in modern civilisation is made up of many factors and most of us are in some degree responsible for some of them. So I think that a more alert public consciousness is what is needed.

There is a good deal of self-righteousness about the making of excessive noise. It is no coincidence that presumption and the Tower of Babel are so indissolubly connected. I remember that this matter was raised in the House in relation to aircraft noise and at the end of his speech my right hon. and learned Friend referred to it. On that occasion I said to the present Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was then Minister of Transport, that the vital activity in this connection was continuous public agitation and continuous pressure from Members of this House. My right hon. Friend was good enough to agree with that. He said: My hon. Friend … has said that it is a very good thing for anybody, whether public or private, to have public pressure exerted upon him when he is dealing with matters which affect public welfare, and I would not dispute that general thesis. Then he went on to say, as my right hon. and learned Friend said— 'When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.'"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th July, 1954; Vol. 530, c. 1124 and 1125.] So that my right hon. Friend on that occasion was really referring to the Government Front Bench and what we want to do today, in all friendliness, is to concentrate the minds of the Government wonderfully by the thought of what will happen to them if they do not lend an ear to public opinion upon this matter. In this respect I think it is our duty as back benchers to make sure that the nine or ten Departments affected never relax into equanimity and never seek to escape by appointing committees, unless the committees report back to them, we hear something about it, and see something done.

The distinctive feature of the noise problem in modern Britain is not only its greater loudness but also its greater prevalence, the fact that we cannot escape from it. The most terrible thing about it is its diversity and its ubiquity. Noise can be tolerated much better if the person concerned knows that, like any other torture, it will stop in a certain time and then he can relax. Nowadays, however, we have lost that feeling, the certainty that somewhere, sometime one can find real and complete silence. The growing clatter of our modern civilisation follows us everywhere from our work to our rest, from Monday to Friday, and then again at our weekends. It is made up of so many different elements that we shall not find it easy to extirpate it or reduce it.

I should be sorry if a single Minister were made responsible for noise abatement because, in effect, he would become a Minister for the co-ordination of the reduction of noise, and we all know that Ministers for the co-ordination of anything usually finish up by doing nothing. I hope that is too sweeping a statement, but at any rate I am sure it would be true in relation to this subject because we have here a collection of problems which need particular and sustained attention by the Minister responsible for each one. Just think, Sir, of some of the noises which make up the modern clatter. One of the worst is that made by buses and commercial vehicles. In New York City commercial delivery vehicles alone are responsible for two-fifths, by volume, of all the street noise and in London the proportion would be even higher, especially if we add to it the diesel buses of which we now have so many.

Then there are the noises made by those appalling modern developments the scooter and the "mo-ped." With one exception, to which I will refer later, I think the power-assisted bicycle is the greatest noise menace of modern society. I am prepared to be a crank about this and to advocate eccentric remedies. I would tax these things upon the number of units of sound that they emit, so that the power-assisted bicycle if unsilenced would find itself paying a road fund tax of about £80 a year and the Rolls-Royce about £4 or £5. That would concentrate the minds of people wonderfully, as Dr. Johnson put it, on the question of the noise emitted by their machines. As long as the Government and Parliament take no effective action which makes the manufacturers and the buyers apprehensive, I do not think that anyone will do anything effective to silence these light and cheap machines, which take so long to pass that they are more audible and annoying than a four-engine bomber passing overhead.

Then there are the ordinary motor bicycle and the noisy private car. My right hon. and learned Friend has referred to the law on these subjects. I agree that it is unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, immediately after the present law was introduced in 1937 there were many prosecutions under it, there was a real drive made to make motor bicycles more silent, and it succeeded. What has happened now is that the law is no longer enforced with anything like the same diligence.

I do not discount the importance of the existing legal regulation of this matter. If anyone is inclined to discount it, let me compare the position here with that in some continental countries where motor bicycles are an outrage and, indeed, public opinion upon the matter varies from extreme exasperation to hopeless acquiescence. In Rome the lads have a favourite game of hiring Vespas for an hour and riding them round and round and round one of the squares. It is known amongst themselves as buying un ora di rumore—an hour's noise—which can be bought for a small number of lire. Very much the same is true of France, and it is fairly general throughout the Continent. We are very much better in this respect because we have these regulations, although they are admittedly defective. They want stiffening up in their content and, above all, stiffening up in their application.

Then there is the question of motor horns. Paris recently banned their use. Hon. Members will know that before the ban was introduced Paris streets were like Bedlam. Every Parisian driver drove on his horn. He tooted it at every crossing. Every time he saw a car which he thought, even in the abstract, he would like to pass, he blew his horn. The result was chaos. Then the ban was introduced upon the use of motor horns and Paris traffic now flows better, and we know that the numbers of casualties and injuries were immediately and dramatically reduced.

In England we have never suffered from the motor horn to anything like the same degree, but we do suffer from it quite badly in London. I ask my hon. Friend, in conjunction with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, to consider whether we could not try the same sort of ban in London. Most Londoners are considerate and reasonable, but there is a certain number of motorists who drive on their horns. One can hear the progress of such drivers sometimes for a couple of miles, tooting at each crossing instead of slowing down; driving across at full speed at the intersection of side streets relying upon their horns to get them along. You can hear them coming, and hear them going. Both amenity and safety would be improved if we tried, at any rate as an experiment, banning the use of the motor horn in built-up areas in large cities.

Then there are our old friends, the mortar mixer, the pneumatic drill, and the engine which drives it—which commonly makes as much noise as the drill —and all the miscellaneous noises of the streets. There are various remedies for them which I shall try to suggest later. We need not trouble very much about the railways, but we are certainly greatly afflicted by wireless sets. There is a vast diversity of land-based noises which come upon us from every quarter, and overhead we have the aeroplanes.

Mr. H. A. Marquand (Middlesbrough, East)

And on the ground.

Mr. Bell

And on the ground. This is a question which worries everybody very much, but most of all those hon. Members who have constituencies near London. As I said earlier, one of the worst things about modern noise is that it is not only intense, but that one cannot get away from it. If one goes out of the Metropolis, or out of any big industrial centre for the weekend, or on Saturday or Sunday, does one get rest and repose—the utter silence and remoteness of the countryside? One does not. It has been estimated that on a fine summer afternoon, anywhere near London, an aeroplane is within earshot for half the time. We do not even get peace at night, because civil airliners fly over, and night flying exercises are carried out by the Royal Air Force. There is every conceivable reason and excuse why aeroplanes should be flying about, sometimes quite low, at night.

Not only are aircraft one of the very greatest sources of noise by volume, but they have a disproportionate effect, due to the fact that their noise penetrates everywhere and stops never. They continue over the weekend, and during the night, when so many other noises stop. I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to redouble his efforts in this direction. After all, the Minister of Transport, in the earlier debate from which I have quoted, admitted that not much had been done in the past, but he said that the work was now starting and more was being done. He further pointed out that it is by agitation and continuous pressure that we shall keep the work going forward.

I do not mind his saying that. I think that Ministers and Ministries are human being and human institutions, and they need prodding. They need to be told from the outside that a thing is important and urgent, otherwise the work upon it eventually loses its momentum. This is one of those occasions when, in response to what the Parliamentary Secretary's right hon. Friend said, I take the opportunity of exercising pressure upon the Ministry. People in my constituency and those of other hon. Members on both sides of the House who are anywhere near London Airport, Northolt, or the flying clubs which exist around the Metropolis, know of the constant annoyance, amounting sometimes to real suffering for the sick, which this noise causes. I know that a great deal is being done about it, but much more can be done.

A very interesting correspondence, started by Sir Alan Herbert in The Times, included a letter from Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, pointing out that the reason why aeroplanes were noisy was that they had been developed primarily during two great wars, when the last thing anybody cared about was noise; all that mattered was efficiency, speed, rate of climb, and so on. He said that if they had been developed in 50 years of peace they would be very much quieter than they are now. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with that. It emphasises the fact that, on the whole, aircraft are unnecessarily noisy because the line of their development has gone that way.

Research is very important in this respect, because many technical problems must be solved. I am not qualified to go into them, but I have read that the noise from a jet increases as the eighth power of the speed of the gas coming out of the jet. That is a fantastic progression. When the gas coming out of the jet exceeds the speed of sound, as it quite easily does nowadays even if the aircraft is travelling below the speed of sound, the rate of increase in the noise is as the fourteenth power of the increase of speed. That is quite frightening, when we remember the way in which the speed of aircraft and the jets that drive them is increasing. Research undoubtedly has a very large part to play, and I very much doubt whether the £100,000 a year which we are spending is really going to be sufficient.

But research is not the only need. We cannot reasonably ask aircraft operators to accept silencers on their machines; mufflers on their jets, and lower operating efficiency with greater weight and some loss of power, unless it is done by some kind of international agreement. That is obvious, and is something which we must accept. We cannot carry that very much further forward; the Government must do that, and, being as they are, the Government of a very heavily-populated island—in respect of which this problem is more acute than anywhere else—the United States has a population of 43 per square mile compared with our 560 per square mile—we should be the leaders in seeking for some kind of international agreement which will allow for the introduction of some limitation upon the efficiency of civilian aircraft, in the interests of silence.

The effects of all these matters have been very adequately dealt with by my right hon. and learned Friend. Some people talk glibly about getting used to noise. That is one of the greatest errors we can make. We simply cannot get used to noise. What we do is to divert to resisting it some of the energy which could be better spent in other ways, and at the end of the operation we are far more tired than if we had been working in silence. Noise is exhausting. Its effect upon the individual is fatigue and neurosis, from both of which we suffer in our modern life.

I am really more concerned with the effect on thought. There was a very interesting article in The Times recently, which started with a quotation referring to the fact that in the schools a child has to learn and the teacher has to teach in an atmosphere of constant primitive calls to action, because noise is a primitive call to action. Instead of the cloistered silence which we should all like to have in our places of education, and I know that the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who has some knowledge of this matter, will agree, our schools are not places of cloistered silence because of the noise which the inmates make. We should try to make it possible for them, and still more for older students, to work in silence, when they can experience concentrated thought.

I often think that the reason why most of the thought which goes on nowadays is of a second-rate kind, by a sort of grasshopper mind with the love of quick off-the-cuff comment on all serious subjects, the impatience with any long and closely-argued logical disquisition, the difficulty which most people have in read- ing and concentrating their minds on sequent arguments for any length of time, arises chiefly from the fact that there is so much noise going on around them normally that they find such concentration almost impossible to achieve. In our schools, when we are trying to teach our children, it is almost impossible to think quietly. From the modern school, which seems to be one of the noisiest places, with visual aids television and all that sort of thing going on, we are turning out a race of children who will not have the reflective capacities of earlier generations; and, to my mind, it is the modern clatter of civilisation which is primarily responsible for this. People cannot think straight for long against a background of noise, which has a sort of brain-washing effect and allows people to succumb to mass hysteria and an acceptance of mass values.

If these things are so, we ought surely to search for practical and early remedies, and I should like to suggest what should be done. First of all, there is scope for administrative action. For example, in London, we have all these diesel buses, and I hear that we are to scrap the remaining trolley-buses and replace them with the diesel. Surely, we should seek wherever we can to develop electric traction, rather than encourage the noisiest and smelliest forms of locomotion?

Secondly, we should have a programme of research and education, not under one Minister, but as the recognised responsibility of the Ministers for each of the noisy Departments, of which there are many. I think we have also to turn our minds to the amendment of the law. I have referred to the ban on motor horns and the enforcement of the existing law on noisy exhausts. May I say, however, that whenever I try to raise in this House questions of the enforcement of the law, I find that it is the slipperiest of subjects. It is almost impossible to get a Question past the Table on the enforcement of the law, because apparently it is nobody's responsibility.

It is not that of the Home Office, which has no responsibility for the enforcement of the law, unless it is through the Metropolitan Police: outside the Metropolis, I am told they have no authority. It is not the Law Officers of the Crown, except in relation to the criminal informations which they prefer. It is not the Secretary of State for Scotland; and so there appears to be no Minister responsible for the administration of the law and its enforcement. Therefore, it would appear that, except through Private Member's Motions in this House on Fridays, it is impossible to raise the question of the enforcement of the existing law.

Thirdly, I advocate that we should face up to the definition of noise, and that we should get away from the words "reasonable and practicable", and come down to the actual units of noise. I know that there is a slight reluctance to do that, and I am also aware that the unit of noise is the bel. [Interruption.] No, a decibel is a tenth part of a bel. I have no interest to declare in that matter. I do not think that we can rest in the modern age on the law as it has existed in the past, based as it has been on such words as "unreasonable" or "excessive". After all, who knows what is excessive? I am reminded that, a little while ago one learned judge, being asked to define excessive whistling, said that in his opinion all whistling was excessive. I have a certain amount of sympathy with him.

We cannot leave the law of public nuisance in regard to noise to go on in its present state, and Private Acts should contain better provisions for the enforcement against public noise nuisance. The law on private nuisances should also be amended, and I would go so far as to say that we should give the impression that no reasonable action brought on the ground of noise nuisance stood any chance of failing, whereas, at the moment, it is a most difficult action in which to succeed.

Last, and by no means least, the Government have a special responsibility about aircraft. I am not criticising in retrospect the Act of 1947, but the provision which it contains that aircraft are excepted from the private law of nuisance was not in the original Bill, as introduced by the Government, but was contained in a new Clause introduced during the passage of the Bill. It introduces a very striking innovation in our law, in that operators and manufacturers of aircraft are free from all the restraints placed upon the ordinary citizen about noise. One cannot sue a civil aerodrome, whatever is done there in the matter of noise, because the Act provides that one is not able to do so. Nor can one proceed against either the manufacturer or the repairer of aircraft.

I know that the seventh amendment to the Air Navigation Order has slightly improved the position. I quite concede that, but it still leaves the overwhelming responsibility of dealing with aircraft noises of every kind, including aerodrome noises, squarely on the shoulders of the Government of the day, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree with that. It is his responsibility primarily to ensure that the noise of modern aircraft is tolerable in our modern crowded society, and I would urge upon him that this point should never be overlooked. Having deprived the citizen of his normal remedy, the Government cannot sit back and leave this matter to the course of events, including the reporting of committees, because this is another direct sphere of Government responsibility.

Therefore, for these reasons, I would urge upon the Joint Parliamentary-Secretary and all my hon. and right hon. Friends that they should do everything in their power to meet this modern curse of noise and to see that it is greatly and rapidly abated.

12.20 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)

I suffer from the difficulty that I have never been able to understand the theory of noise, and it is only this morning that I have learned that a decibel is a tenth of a bel.

This problem of my ignorance has been in my mind ever since I went to a prewar musical revue to see a show called "Nine Sharp" in which appeared a lecturer on the subject of noise. He was a man with a whistle which was both invisible and inaudible. It was invisible except to the man who was blowing it, and inaudible, as he told us—such is the great difficulty of the theory of sound—except to a lady in Norwich who had the ears of an elk hound. These problems are difficult for a layman to understand, but any layman knows that he is disturbed by noise, and particularly the noise of aircraft.

I support the Motion, but I think it is right that we should get into its proper proportion the matter of noise from aircraft. We should give credit to the people who fly aircraft. They spend most of their lives on the ground and are also worried about noise. They do not deliberately make noise. I know from my own experience in the Air Ministry, and as a member of a flying club, that people regularly ask things like, "Why can't you be as nice and quiet when you are going up as when you are coming down." They could not possibly understand the nature of the simplest form of aircraft and regarded the airman who was going up on full throttle as deliberately making a loud noise because he knew the aircraft was going over their houses.

We must assume that pilots are sensitive to noise; of course they are. They are ordinary human beings and suffer from noise themselves when on the ground. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation is here, and I hope he will pass on to the operators and to all engaged in civil aircraft some of these facts about public feeling on noise. One of my hon. Friends in whose constituency is London Airport may have an opportunity of catching Mr. Speaker's eye, when he may speak on constituency points as well as matters of general interest.

My next point is the reason for my speech. It is a constituency point. Lincoln is in the heart of the airfields of the Royal Air Force, where the stations are principally bomber stations. One of the problems for the citizens of Lincoln is the noise of heavy bombers flying over the city. I have made many inquiries, both as a junior Minister and as a Member of Parliament and do not remember any case in which noise was caused by joy-riding or a silly deliberate act by the pilot. It was caused by the wind being in a certain direction for taking off or landing, or because of some navigational difficulty. There was always a good reason for the noise, but the fact remained that it did, and still does, disturb my constituents.

I make no complaint that the Under-Secretary of State for Air is not here. He has work to do with the Air Force in the country. I ask that these points be passed on to him by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Lincoln is proud of its association with the Royal Air Force, but it is also a very great sufferer from the heavy fourengined bombers which so frequently fly over it.

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs will do full justice to the speech in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman moved this Motion. I shall not attempt to repeat the many points that were in it. It is true that the Home Office comes into this matter, and so does a large number of other Government Departments. The Under-Secretary must pass on these points to the various Departments.

I want to stress the problems of traffic noise. I put a Question to the Home Secretary a few months ago asking whether the Metropolitan Police were studying the effects of the change in the law in Paris, to which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) has just referred. I got a disappointing reply. The Home Secretary did not seem to feel there was anything that we could learn from Paris. Let me recall what has happened in Paris. Not only is Paris now a silent city, a much pleasanter city than it ever was, but the accident rate has declined and the rate is now very much lower. Those two things must be connected. It is no use saying there is not a real problem here. We do not blow our horns much in London, but if by not doing so at all we could reduce the accident rate the slightest bit the change would be worth making. The fact is, however, that the increasing congestion of traffic and increasing irritation is bringing an increase in the blowing of horns.

Several friends of mine who live in foreign countries and who have come here in the last year or so have remarked that whereas London used to be easily the most silent of the large cities of the world, and probably still is, the margin of difference is not nearly so great as it was. This may be due to loss of temper by people waiting in traffic blocks, who spend a lot more time than they should when their car is stationary merely blowing their horns. It reminds me of the story of the rather languid young man whose car failed in a traffic block. He could not get it going. Meanwhile cars piled up behind him. In a large car just behind sat a driver who was blowing his horn continuously. Finally the young man went to the car, tapped on the window and said, "I'm sorry old chap, but if you can start my car I will toot your hooter for you." This hornblowing is usually a senseless practice.

This question of London traffic reminds me that the late Ernest Bevin said that when he was an organiser for the Transport and General Workers' Union he had to deal with complaints from tram drivers and bus drivers. He used to fit them into his very busy day by hearing bus drivers in the morning before they went to work. He knew they would have an irritable day and that by the end of the day they might often be very disagreeable. Mr. Bevin used to let them go home to their wives and take it out on them.

Tram drivers, on the other hand, had a much more peaceful job, except for the squeaking of the brake wheel as they wound it and unwound it. The vehicle moved in a predetermined course, so the driver could remain comparatively placid until the end of the day. I am not saying that that is a good reason for going back to trams, but it proves that driving a bus is an irritating enough job as it is without the irritation being added to by the blowing of horns. I would like the Home Office to consider in more detail the result of the Paris experiment and to see if there is not something that we can learn from it.

I am told that human beings can develop some resistance to noise. The country dweller is very much disturbed by the noise of underground trains, while the city dweller is wakened up in the morning when in the country by the birds chorus. I am told also that it would take millions of years for us to develop anything like a flap over our ears in the same way as we have eyelids over our eyes. I think it is doubtful whether we should ever do so. I trust the Government will accept the Motion, or very soon the silence-loving public will kick up a row.

12.30 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke (Twickenham)

I am sure that we are all extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) for moving this important Motion. Noise, of course, is relative, and, as the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) has just said, the townsman who is able to sleep through the noise made by the District Railway is wakened when he goes to the country by the crowing of the cock and the barking of the dog.

Noise can be made in a hundred different ways, but I propose to mention a few aspects of the noise made by the internal combustion engine, because, clearly, that is probably the most important of all noises at the moment. When I first came to London just over 25 years ago, I had lodgings in the Edgware Road. There was a bus stop outside the house, and I vividly remember in those days the starting up of the buses after they had picked up passengers at that stop.

First of all, there was a sort of spluttering of the engine, then a crash of gears followed by a juddering of the whole vehicle, and finally, the whining of the transmission as the bus driver changed gear when proceeding up the road. But there has been a tremendous improvement in this type of noise during the past 25 years. If one stands by a bus stop nowadays, the whole operation is incomparably smoother and quieter.

How has this lessening of noise been achieved in a mechanical vehicle? I find that it has really been achieved in four different ways. First, there has been an improvement in the design of the engine of the London bus, increased accuracy in manufacture, and the better timing of the gears, and so on. Secondly, in both buses and motor cars there has been developed the technique of covering in the engine by sound-deadening material. Thirdly, there have been improvements in the gears. For instance, all buses and motor cars are now fitted with syncromesh gears, and a bus also has hydraulic transmission through a flywheel. Lastly, and probably not the most important by any means, there has, of course, been an improvement in silencers.

To my mind, the nature of the noise is more important than its quantity. An irregular or a jagged noise is more striking than rhythmic flow. I will give a few examples from today and from fifty years ago. The clip-clop of horses hooves fifty years ago was striking, as was the rattle of iron tyres on cobbles. Today we have the staccato bark of the motor cycle not properly silenced.

However, if one stands at Hyde Park Corner today, which is one of the places in the world where there is the heaviest traffic, the noise is a giant dull roar rather like that made by the sea. Although I do not remember the noise of fifty years ago, I should imagine that the noise today is not very much worse. The really noisy vehicle today represents only about one in a thousand. There is always the sporty boy to whom my right hon and learned Friend referred with his extra large silencer.

Of course, the police can prosecute in cases of excessive noise, but one of the difficulties is that there are not enough police to do this. Beside the Construction and Use Regulation No. 20, to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred, there is also Regulation No. 81 covering excessive noise, which says: No person shall use on the road any vehicle which causes an excessive noise. In the old days the police used to poke a wire clown the silencer of a motor cycle to see whether or not it had baffle plates, but I have not seen that test carried out recently. Of course, the smaller the engine, the greater the difficulty to silence it. A small engine cannot tolerate too much loss of power which a silencer brings about. That is one of the difficulties about the scooter and the "Mo-ped," as it is called today.

I notice that the subject of horns has been mentioned, and I think that it is worth mentioning. A Parisien whom I entertained in London a year ago was so impressed by the quietness of the London traffic that he thought that it must be the law in London, as it now is in Paris, that horns must not be blown. I thought that rather a tribute to the phlegmatic British temperament.

I suggest that the real problem of mechanical noise today is that connected with aircraft. My constituents live near Heath Row and are extremely concerned about aircraft noise, as are people all over the country. They tell me that they are woken up by it at night and deafened by it by day. As was said in a recent article in The Times, research shows that in a room which has its windows open, speech on the telephone is difficult when a motor car with its engine running is 10 or 20 feet away, when a train is 200 feet away, and when an airliner is as far as one and a quarter miles away.

What can be done to make the noise of airliners tolerable? Can automobile technique be adapted to the aeroplane. The aeroplane has no silencing device at the moment so far as the outside world is concerned, although, of course, there is silencing for the passengers. Could a deadening material be used to cover the engine? Of course, it could if extra weight were carried.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) said, the propellor noise could be reduced by fitting more blades per engine. I understand that a double banking of blades would reduce the noise. I also understand that silencers or mufflers could be fitted without cutting the pay load too much. The Comet is to be fitted with it. The Viscount is quieter than the old piston-type aircraft, and the Britannia is likewise going to be fairly quiet.

I suggest that a major effort should be made to reduce noise in aircraft generally. At Heath Row we have some very fine underground roads, but we ought to have underground testing bunkers for the use of aircraft at night. As no doubt the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) will tell us later, many residents near Heath Row are convinced that the falling down of their ceilings is due to the vibration caused by aircraft.

The 1951 Report of the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research stated that this was not so, but it is a matter which has been much disputed in constituencies around Heath Row. I believe it was agreed that there should be some joint examination of whether aircraft noise was causing structural damage, but I do not think that anything has been done since then. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether that matter is still under examination and will be reported upon.

To sum up, I would say that noise is inseparable from movement. The greater the mass moved and the greater the speed, the greater the volume of sound. Much has been done to deaden the noise of the internal combustion engine on the road. What science and industrial effort must now do is to smooth out the peaks which are so objectionable to the human ear, and, in the field of aircraft, to find solutions which, broadly, have already been found for the internal combustion engine on the road.

12.40 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter (Feltham)

I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke), who has taken a great interest in the question of noise abatement. He speaks with some authority on the subject of motor engines, and he has added a very keen note to this debate.

I am very pleased that the Motion of the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) has come before the House. It was very kind of him to say that he would not deal at any length with aircraft noise, as he understood that that aspect of the problem would be referred to by other hon. Members whose constituencies are particularly affected by this problem.

I wish to speak mainly from the constituency point of view, although I recognise that everyone is affected by the noise of aircraft. A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to raise, on the Motion for the Adjournment, the question of low-flying aircraft from London Airport. In that debate, in which the hon. Members for Twickenham, Heston and Isleworth (Mr. R. Harris) and Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) spoke, we urged upon the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the need for research into noise abatement. I am sorry that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation is not here now. I was hoping that he would take part in this debate so that we could have had some first-hand knowledge of the research work that is now being done by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, and perhaps by the Ministry of Supply, into this problem.

In that Adjournment debate, the view was expressed that it should not be beyond the ability of technicians, engineers and aircraft manufacturers to reduce noise in aircraft. The hon. Member for Twickenham, who is an expert on motor car engines, agreed with that point of view. I have discussed this question with a number of people at London Airport, and I hope that the Ministry will consult more with the people who work there. If they did so, they would be amazed at the knowledge of the electricians and engineers who handle these giant airliners. They told me that apart from when it takes off, the Britannia makes very little noise indeed when in the air. There should be more co-operation between the Ministries concerned and the aircraft manufacturers to ensure that more airliners like the Britannia are used.

This will become a big problem. At the beginning of this century the motor car was introduced, and today we have a great problem because we are using a twentieth century machine on nineteenth century roads. With the passing of the years and with the increase of air and road transport, noise has become a burning question. I am convinced that the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey has done a great service in raising this question of noise abatement. Noise goes on day and night. This week I conducted a party of scholars from Lingford Road School, Feltham, through the Palace of Westminster. During the tour teachers told me that often they have to stop the lessons because of the noise of aircraft over the school.

I was interested to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey say that he never accepted the statement that vibration from aircraft did not crack windows. I have received a letter from one of my constituents saying that he was awakened at 1.30 a.m. by the noise of a low-flying aircraft over the rooftops and that then his ceiling had cracked, but the Ministry quoted the document of the D.S.I.R. in support of their contention that that damage was not caused by vibration. The opinion of the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey will please my constituents in the Cranford and Feltham area.

I should like to impress upon the Ministries concerned the need for research into this problem of noise. It is only by research that the problem can be solved, and this should not be beyond the ability of man.

12.46 p.m.

Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr)

We should all be deeply grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) for the amount of research that he has put into the speech which he has made this morning. It was very interesting, and I think that if the Government put anything like the same enthusiasm into their research into the problem we can be satisfied that we shall have speedy results.

The whole problem, as every speaker has said so far, is how to define noise. Indeed, the Motion recalls very vividly one which was introduced by our late very gallant colleague Lord Apsley, just before the war. You will probably remember the occasion, Mr. Speaker. It was a typically British summer. It had been raining for three weeks, and it was hot and muggy. We had all registered our names for the Ballot for Motions, and had then retired hopefully into the corner of the gallery, hoping that we should not be successful. Suddenly, to his horror, Lord Apsley heard his name called by the Clerk at the Table. He despairingly rose to his feet, succeeded in getting the correct wording to announce his intention, and then his mind became an utter blank. The rain was beating pitilessly against the windows, and so he announced his intention to call attention to the weather, and to move a Resolution.

It occurred to me that when my right hon. and learned Friend was moving his Motion he was moving much the same kind of Motion as Lord Apsley's, because just as the weather is unpredictable and presents an almost insoluble problem, so I believe does noise. It is of such magnitude and is so widespread, and in addition it is difficult to define. What is noise to one is music to another. We know how the wailing of a child sounds to the crusty bachelor living underneath the flat of the young married couple. No doubt, it is music to the mother. I understand that there are untutored Englishmen with no soul for music, who even find that the bagpipes—at which I believe, Sir, you yourself wield a lusty hand—make a noise. But in Scotland it is the favourite music of the population.

We come back again to the problem of the definition of noise. I live within a few hundred yards of Prestwick Airport —the bulk of the American Air Force is stationed there, too. At night every aeroplane that leaves or lands at that airport circles over my home. When I come to London after a long Recess I cannot sleep because there is no noise. Yet we are told that London is a noisy place. But one's senses become dulled and one's mind becomes attuned to almost anything. That is why there have not been the public protests about noise that we would have expected. In Sweden and Paris motor horns have not been used for years, and one can scarcely imagine the smoothness and calmness of the streets. These are one or two facets concerning noise which are worthy of exploration.

Then we come to the factories. In my constituency, there is a stamping works and a hammer is used there which is enough to drive one mad and does inevitably drive almost mad many men who work in that factory. I do not know what the answer is to that problem. I do not know whether research work can produce anything which will make the hammer less powerful or the noise less devastating.

These are some of the noises which are ruining the nervous systems of the people of this country, almost without their knowing it. One's mind, as I have said, becomes dulled and one's senses become dulled, too. We do not ourselves know to what extent our nervous systems have suffered until one summer evening, when among the new mown hay, one says to oneself, "Isn't it quiet?" One suddenly realises the balm that floats over one's whole system, and what quietness really means.

If the Government, by their research efforts, can find in connection with machines a method by which ease of mind and peace of mind can be brought into the lives of our noise-disturbed people, they will have done something which will earn the gratitude of those still unborn. I support my right hon. and learned Friend with enthusiasm and I only hope that that enthusiasm will be reflected in the Government's attitude towards his motion.

12.53 p.m.

Mr. Elwyn Jones (West Ham, South)

It is a rare pleasure to hear praised in this House the blessings of silence, even if it be noises made by others with which we are most concerned in this debate, and indeed noises principally made by machines.

The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) expressed the opinion that in the past centuries of our island, sound has been given agreeable connotations; it has been thought to be something pleasurable on the whole. I am not sure whether this is entirely correct, when one remembers some of the writings of the great figures of our literature. Sir Philip Sidney, in the sixteenth century—a pretty quiet time one would have thought—yearned for: … sweet pillowes, sweetest bed; A chamber deafe of noise… We find, in the seventeenth century, Henry Vaughan writing hopefully of a land to be attained one day where, There, above noise and danger, Sweet Peace is crown'd with smiles… So a yearning to escape from noise is not a twentieth century manifestation, although there are plenty of additional reasons for such yearning in this day and age.

There is no doubt that we become conditioned to noise, even if we do not accept it. There is no doubt that noise acquires a certain quality in a community; that almost a fondness grows up for it. Charles Lamb, in the eighteenth century, wrote this about London: Nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke,—what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes. So the association of noise with the life of London was something which Lamb, at any rate, found pleasurable, but what would he say today? I wonder whether he would be so happy in the Temple at the moment, the Temple, place of his "gentle engendure," with the enormous noise of building operations going on there. But no doubt that is all for a good purpose, and we shall not have to put up with it for very long.

When one compares the conditions of the days of Lamb with the conditions which prevail, for instance, in my own constituency, the urban area of West Ham, with great factory noises and shipyards, one has only to mention the physical problems of those places—the existence of the factories, of the great railways and repairing centres—to realise that in that community noise has now become an overwhelming feature of the lives of the people.

It is quite true, as the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) has said, that the law of nuisance, unfortunately, is of very little assistance in dealing with this matter. The view that the courts have taken through the centuries has been that "what would be a nuisance in Belgrave Square would not necessarily be a nuisance in Bermondsey." That view was expressed as long ago as 1879. The standard of comfortable living which the law has seen fit to apply takes, as the test of nuisance, not a single universal standard for all times and places, but a variable standard, operating in different localities and at different times.

The question in every nuisance case is not whether the plaintiff suffers what he regards as substantial discomfort, but whether the average man who resides in the locality would take the same view of the matter. The judges have said more than once that "he who dislikes the noise of traffic must not set up his abode in the heart of a great city." That is very fine and large, but, of course, the dwellers in the heart of a great city have no real alternative, and I fear that this attitude of the law, understandable as it is, has created a certain fatalism and a certain hopeless acceptance of conditions of noise which are fast becoming intolerable.

The major noise with which most of my constituents are troubled is the noise of factories. I hope that if the Parliamentary Secretary for the Home Office or his colleague is to reply, we may be given some information as to what the Factories Department of the Home Office is doing by way of research into this matter.

There have been enormous improvements in factory conditions in the last century, but one feels that the suppression of noise is a branch of factory welfare which has not been given enough attention. One is often conscious, when going through factory premises, of being in the midst of what would seem to be quite unnecessary and quite excessive noise. There is no doubt that the effect of that is to cause inattention. Indeed, it has been accepted by the judges as one of the factors which create fatigue which should be considered in deciding, for instance, when an accident has been caused, whether a workman has been negligent.

I hope that we shall be able to receive some assurance that the Factories Inspectorate is very much on the qui vive about this matter, because there is great room for improvement. The decibels of sound have increased in volume in factories in this century and we rarely hear of effective action being taken in regard to that problem.

The second main category of sound which bursts on our ears is the sound of traffic. As a traveller using the admirable facilities of the London Transport Executive, I admire much of its efficiency, but I wonder whether the intolerable noises of the brakes on the District Line trains are necessary. The Tube noises are tremendous, and one cannot help feeling, at the end of a hard day's living in London, the intolerable strain of the noise of the Tube trains in the confined area of the Tube itself. I feel sure that there is room for much improvement, and I do not think we compare favourably with some other capital cities in the noise factor attaching to our public services.

The last category of noise is the cacophonic. These are noises for which the individual citizen is responsible and about which we can only make a plea for restraint. New terrors have arisen. The quiet of the "pub"—if I may venture to mention such an institution in your presence, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—is being grossly infringed, in my constituency at any rate, by a new terror, the microphone, through which the voluntary singer can exercise his lungs—a truly terrifying development. Indeed, the making of noise seems to have become a major vice in many places. We have the loud speaker, with the all-day-long facilities of the B.B.C.—all three programmes available, if necessary—to increase the volume.

In this matter we must make a plea to the citizen to restrain himself. That goes for the man with a Klaxon horn at his disposal, too. I hope that one of the effects of the debate will be to remind our citizens that excessive noise, like unnecessary litter, is uncivilised. It may well encourage the citizen to exercise greater restraint. I feel that the Government Departments can give a lead and, in the matter of research, particularly in industry, can give much more encouragement to private industrialists and to others to play their part in reducing this unnecessary strain which is undoubtedly adding to the problems of life in the twentieth century.

1.3 p.m.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill (Norfolk, South)

After the many very full and informative speeches which have been made, I cannot help feeling that perhaps the most constructive contribution would be for an hon. Member to stand in silence for, say, four minutes, but I personally lack the courage to do that and I fear that I might in any event be ruled out of order.

One of the most remarkable scenes in a film which I saw of Her Majesty's tour of the Empire two years ago was that of her arrival at some Pacific Islands, which I think may have been the Fiji Islands—I wish I knew for certain—where the greatest mark of respect was to stand in complete silence. I recall how impressive that scene was.

I think The Times was right in its recent articles when it headed them, "The Curse of Noise." It seems to me that the quotation which has already been used, of noise being a primitive call to action, underlines the damage done by this curse. We are not distracted by noises which are rhythmic, as has been said, but the unfamiliar noise breaking in causes us some subconscious alarm and distracts our attention. That may, indeed, come through a moment of silence. The most terrifying moment of silence after noise familiar to a great many people—and indeed to all Londoners—was the moment when the engine of a V1 cut out.

I fancy that the familiar noise does not worry us. There is the instance of the gunner, not on duty, who was able to sleep while his guns fired a barrage. On the other hand, the unfamiliar noise distracts. The obvious example is that of a countryman coming to London and being kept awake by the rattle of milk bottles in the early morning, whereas his opposite number in London, going to the farm, is awakened about the same time by the lowing of the cows coming in to be milked.

Damage falls into three categories. First, physical damage is probably related to the degree of noise, and excessive noise may do a real injury. Noise was likened by a pre-war doctor, carrying out experiments, to temperature; it was suggested that if we moved from a noise of 95 decibels down to 60 decibels, the relief was comparable with moving out of a temperature of 95°F. into a temperature of 60°F.

It is clear that operatives in such trades as ship building, rivetters, and users of pneumatic drills tend to suffer from industrial deafness. The cases where they get to the degree of being casualties can be measured, but that there is a general injury to health is probably borne out by the fact, as I understand it, that the sound in cinemas in areas of heavy industry tends to be run at a higher level than elsewhere in the country.

The influence on health is seen in hospitals where not only does the construction and the routine of hospitals emphasise the necessity of avoiding noises which distract—rubber flooring used in construction, for instance—but also advantages are gained by having lights instead of bells to call the nurses. In addition, the practice has grown up of not having loud wireless sets in wards but of having individual earphones. All these things show that there is a measure-able injury to health.

The second kind of injury which is not easily measurable is the economic loss through mere distraction. I think it is agreed that the endurance of sound uses up nervous energy which results in a loss of time and efficiency. How many times in how many thousands of offices is it said, on the telephone, "I could not hear you; would you say it again?" We know of the comparative length of time dealing with the agenda of a meeting at an office on a busy corner compared with the fact that the same agenda may be completed much more quickly in a quiet room at the back of a building.

Hon. Members have mentioned the difficulty teachers have in schools in face of the interruptions caused by noise. Many of us can perhaps recall the attractive distractions of noise—for example, the noise of a hand-pushed mowing machine on a summer's day, which certainly made us think of cricket to come rather than of the lessons which the teacher was endeavouring to bring to our attention. Today, with large classes, it must be extremely difficult for a teacher to fight against noise in helping a child who has missed what she said, in a large class, to catch up with the others. One cannot measure that; it is comparable to the effect of smog in some respects, except that smog now is capable of measurement. We do know the loss inflicted on our economy as a result of which we are legislating for clean air.

Lastly, there is the loss of amenity. Many hon. Members have already drawn attention to the noise they may have to suffer in the countryside and the roar of traffic in towns. In particular, mention has been made of the din caused in several countries on the Continent by the prevalence of small motor cycles. During the Recess I visited Florence for, as I had hoped, several days, but the interruption and noise caused by those small Vespas made me prefer to move away from that great city after only two or three days.

There was no surprise at all at the hotel when I wished to move. Apparently people had been doing that at different times during the summer. When I went to an hotel on the sea coast I was asked whether I preferred a room with a view of the sea coast, plus the traffic, or a room at the back, which perhaps was quieter. The manager of a travel agency there told me that this noise had become a very grave problem. It was ubiquitous and the Italians, I understood, were seeking to introduce a model in which the silencing would be improved.

The point I wish to make is that so far we have been spared this superfluous and avoidable noise, which I think could easily come if those small machines dominated our lives. They are so small that they can go everywhere and they do make a great deal of noise. We are protected to a certain extent by our erratic weather, whereas in Italy the weather is more sure to be fine and people can use these machines in the 50's and 100's without fear of getting wet in bad weather. They have not yet caught on here to the degree which I think they will, as they are a popular form of locomotion, and a very desirable form. But I hope they will be effectively silenced.

Co-operation is needed between the Government and the manufacturers, because it is unreasonable to expect someone who buys such a machine for use thereafter to make extra provision to silence it. These machines have made the life of some Italian cities very unpleasant from the point of view of the visitor. I cannot help feeling that even in Florence had Leonardo da Vinci been alive he would have wanted one of these motor cycles, but he would have constructed one with a silencer.

1.14 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand (Middlesbrough, East)

Like other hon. Members who have taken part in this debate, I should like to congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) on his choice of subject. He has undoubtedly drawn attention to an extremely important question. I should also like to congratulate the right hon. and learned Member on having taken the opportunity to make a public explanation and to correct the misleading report which appeared about him in the Daily Express. It has been generally agreed by every hon. Member who has spoken today that individuals vary in their reactions to noise. We all know the person who seems to find it entirely satisfactory to have a radio on all day and who, when one visits him, expects one to carry on a conversation. Probably most of us visiting factories at some time have been astonished that the imposition of a musical programme on top of the noise of machinery has been found to increase output. We evidently differ in these respects.

I had the uneasy feeling listening to the debate so far that we have here today a collection of cerebrotonics. That is a word I discovered in the large amount of literature one of the obliging librarians got for me and which, from his speech, I gather was also seen by the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey. It describes persons like myself who find noise extremely difficult to cope with. We think very much better in quiet surroundings; indeed we find it almost impossible to think at all amid noise.

What I should have liked to have seen in this debate would be the participation not only of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones), but also my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis). I should also like to have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock). Some of those hon. Members are much more successful in getting reports of their speeches in the newspapers than I ever am. They ought to have been here today in order that this debate should have publicity. I am well aware of the fact that I have been asked by my right hon. and hon. Friends to speak in the debate because undoubtedly I am the least noisy Member who ever sits on this Front Bench. We should have the assistance of some of our colleagues to make a noise because today, although our debate has been carried on very peacefully and quietly, it has been dealing with the subject which ought to draw a great deal more attention than it does.

Although unquestionably we all have within our bodily framework means of adjusting ourselves to noise, I think every scientist who has studied the subject is agreed that that adjustment in itself requires a considerable output of nervous energy. As the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) pointed out, that leaves the person who makes the adjustment physically exhausted afterwards. That adjustment has to be made every time the noise is encountered, and even though people working in a very noisy work-place do, in a sense, become accustomed to it, they have to reaccustom themselves every day. Lord Horder said about this: I have no doubt that noise wears down the human nervous system so that both the natural resistance to disease and the natural power of recovery from disease are lowered. That is a serious statement from a very eminent medical authority, and it was not challenged in any way in the subsequent discussion which took place on his speech at the Royal Society of Arts, from which I have taken that quotation. Noise is definitely injurious, and must be injurious even to those persons—although perhaps in a less degree than the rest of us—who, apparently, at first do not find it annoying. One of the greatest injuries is, of course, loss of real sleep. It is possible to sleep through noise, but not properly, adequately and fully to refresh the body for the next day's work. Lord Horder also proved that in his speech.

Mr. Stephen McAdden (Southend, East)

Did Lord Horder also go into the question of the person who makes a noise while he is asleep and whether that person's sleep is an adequate, sound, fresh sleep?

Mr. Marquand

I have a great deal of experience of this matter and am well aware that a person who listens to the noise I make when I sleep has strong reactions about it. What my own reactions are, I have been unable to discover, although it seems that the sounder the sleep, the greater the temptation to make the noise to which the hon. Member alludes.

It appears that noise is a serious problem in three main spheres of life: in buildings, in traffic and in industry. So much has already been said about buildings and traffic that I should not like to add very much, and I do not think I could usefully say a great deal more about it. Many hon. Members have spoken about the apparent lack of enforcement of the existing law for silencers on motor cycles and other vehicles on the roads, and I look forward to hearing what the Joint Under-Secretary has to say about that. I hope he can give something more than merely a statement that it is a difficult matter.

While we are on the subject of noise in traffic, it seems that although the aircraft nuisance so far has been severe near the airfields and has affected very badly the minority of the population nearby, it is likely to get very much worse. Before it gets worse, surely, we should try to discover ways and means of preventing that kind of development.

Because I was travelling in a train this morning which was unfortunately very late owing to fog, I had time to read more newspapers than usual, and I read the Daily Telegraph, which contained a report of a speech by Mr. Peter Masefield, a great authority on civil aviation, who said that looking twenty or thirty or more years into the future", he forecast that the use of vertical takeoff aircraft on the lines of the "Flying Bedstead" would reduce air travel time between the centres of London and Edinburgh to 15 minutes. According to the report, he went on to say that In supersonic aircraft, noise was a difficult problem, but these planes would be able to climb to 5,000 feet in about 15 seconds. If we build in our city centres underground airports with cooling towers for the aircraft to go up, maybe we could get the noise tolerable. "Maybe"! Anyone who has ever heard the Comet taking off from an airfield must be filled with horror at the thought of what is apparently to come.

Those are not the idle words of a journalist. They are a serious speech by the President of the Institute of Trans- port, who until lately has been very much concerned with the whole business of civil aviation. I hope, therefore, that that part of the Motion today which refers to the necessity for research and education will be warmly welcomed by the Joint Under-Secretary and that he will be able to tell us something about further measures which the Government have in mind to foresee and to cope with the possible enormous increase of noise which seems to threaten us.

But I want to talk mostly about industry. It seems to me that the offence or nuisance of noise is at present much more formidable, objectionable and injurious in industry than anywhere else. Comparatively little reference has been made in the debate so far to that fact. I base myself largely on the article in the magazine Scope, from which the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey has already quoted. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, injury to workpeople by noise was apparent at least as early as 1831, when research was undertaken into boiler-makers' deafness. Even as long ago as that, it was quite clear that in certain occupations there is a definite hazard due to noise, and that an injury to the worker who has to submit to this kind of infliction every working day of his life undoubtedly in course of time appears.

It is also said in the magazine that subsequent research found that no less than 83 per cent. of workers in the metal industries of Russia were found to be partially deaf. It almost seems as if in this country we have passed over these undeniable facts about the special hazards in particular industries and the almost certain association of deafness with occupation, in the same sort of way that we pass over so casually the injury that is done to our general health by the prevalence of soot and fog.

People in the North of England have said, "Where there's muck, there's money" and have somehow almost taken it for granted that it is impossible to carry on industry or effective production without creating fog. Similarly, people have too easily accepted that it is impossible to have industrial production without noise. They put up with it. They have assumed somehow or other that we can do nothing about it, and yet from examination so far in this country it is reliably estimated that 26 per cent. of all inner ear deafness is occupational in origin. That is a very large proportion of inner ear deafness, which, as hon. Members will know, is incurable. It is a very serious thing if this is so, and it appears from the magazine article to which I have referred that it is fairly well established.

In many industries these conditions are getting not better, but worse. If we had had a spokesman today with intimate knowledge of coalmining, I am sure he would have told us, for example, that in the coalmining industry today the use of conveyors and other mechanical equipment in the mines which did not exist 20 or 30 years ago has almost entirely changed the character of the occupation. In particular, the noise that is generated down below is a serious handicap to productive industry.

When I made inquiries of the Ministry of National Insurance, I was not surprised to hear that there is no known case of a workman receiving compensation under the provisions of the industrial injuries legislation as a result of injury or affection by noise. There might be instances of a sudden noise having caused a man to jump backwards and fall into scalding water or something of that kind, but there was no instance of payment of industrial injury benefit for deafness resulting from noise.

That is not surprising, for we know very well the difficulty that is raised under that scheme by the difference between "accident" and "gradual process". Where gradual process is concerned, the disease has to be prescribed by the Minister and written into a schedule. Deafness is a disease, like rheumatism and others, which admittedly it is difficult to put into schedules in that way, because their onset may be due to so many causes outside the occupation. It is rather difficult to pin them down to specified occupational groups. I know that difficulty exists, and I appreciate it. Indeed, I have read with care the report recently made by a committee to the Minister on this question of scheduling diseases under the Act.

However, in spite of this difficulty, it must be the same wherever mankind lives, and in whatever part of the world man works. In Russia, in Germany, in France in Denmark, in Czechoslovakia, in Bulgaria, and in most of the States of the United States of America there is legislation which makes it possible for a worker to receive monetary compensation for deafness due to his occupation. As we very well know from the history of workmen's compensation in this country, the liability to pay compensation of that kind has very often been the main incentive to undertaking the preventive measures which are necessary to make it impossible for these troubles and accidents to arise in the future, or less likely that they will. I certainly believe that the incentive to insulate factory processes properly, and to reduce noise by the introduction of proper building materials and the like, or to bed machinery upon rubber floors, and to pursue all the other ways there may be of reducing noise, would be very much greater if it somehow could be ensured that if that is not done a penalty will fall upon the employer.

There is no question at all, is there, that the productivity of industry would be increased if the deafness of work-people could be reduced? As I have already said, the very existence of the necessity to adjust oneself to noise all the time reduces the level of human efficiency, and when, after a long period of years, inner ear deafness is well established in a worker, it undoubtedly reduces his ability in many circumstances to take care of himself or to take care of others who are working with him.

So I would ask whether the Government are considering the possibility of introducing some system of periodic medical examination of workpeople working in places where excessive noise prevails. If there were medical examination on entry, and if there were periodic medical examination of the worker afterwards, I should think that without doubt the onset of inner ear deafness, if it did occur, would be detected, and the worker could be removed to a more suitable occupation before the damage went too far. The Motion suggests nothing about legislation, and I am not necessarily suggesting that legislation is the appropriate remedy for this difficulty.

I am asking, however, whether the Government have undertaken already, or will undertake in the future, to have further consultations with the Trades Union Congress about this problem. It is a matter surely in which, having collected sufficient information, having examined whether the sort of information given in the article in Scope is reliable and accurate, the Minister of Labour could undertake an examination of the problem with the Trades Union Congress and the British Employers' Federation. If only attention could be drawn to these things, if only additional research by the Industrial Health Board could be directed to this subject, I do believe we could thereby obtain an improvement in the health and wellbeing of our factory workers and coal miners and others subject to noise, and that we could increase the efficiency of industry itself and improve our output.

Judging only from personal observation and experience, and not from any research or lectures by eminent people which may have been published, I should say that it does seem true—does it not?—that the older we get the more difficult it is to adjust ourselves to noise. All of us when young like to make a noise. We all know that that is a natural thing. We like to provide opportunities for the children to make a noise, so long as they are far enough away from grandfather. Grandfather finds it harder to put up with than father does. As we get older we find noise more annoying, more difficult to cope with. Probably it is because our natural bodily ability to adjust our nervous mechanism quickly to some change in circumstances is less as we grow older, as so many other bodily abilities are less.

If this is true, and if it is also true that we would all agree that there should be more opportunities for elderly people to continue at work, then we ought to study particularly the suitability, from the point of view of noise, of various industries for the employment of older workpeople. Some study might be entered into as to how far it may be true that inner ear deafness and its unfortunate results are more prevalent amongst the elderly seeking work, and to discover what sort of occupations they have had, and into what kind of industry they ought to be advised to go by the Ministry of Labour in fulfilling its valuable job of steering labour to the most suitable opportunities.

Despite all that I said at the beginning, I hope that what we have said today will receive notice not only by the Government but outside this House, and will make all engaged in industry, work-people and employers, and the general public feel that there does exist here a problem about which more ought to be done and about which each one of us can in his own way do something active and valuable.

1.37 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth)

I rise now, not with any intention of bringing the debate to an end but because I think that it is a convenient moment for me to express the views of the Government. We have had a most interesting debate, and I am sure that the House should be grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) for raising this subject.

The problem of noise in the twentieth century is one which affects the whole community. As long ago as 1839, Parliament thought it right to pass an Act, applying to the Metropolis of London, which made it possible to control the cries of street vendors and noises made by horns and such like instruments. Of course, since those days there has been a very great increase, not only in the kinds of machines which make noise, but in the area of our country which is subject to it. The mechanical revolution has resulted in a vast extension of sources of noise, and each new development has brought with it an extension of the area within which people are subject to noise.

When the railways were built a new source of noise was introduced into the life of the people, but it was confined to comparatively narrow belts around the railway tracks. The introduction of the internal combustion engine on our roads has spread a background of noise through most of our cities. Finally, the invention of the aeroplane has, within the last fifty years brought in sound from a third dimension, and has spread the background of noise beyond the town and into the countryside so that there are few places within Great Britain today which are free from noise.

Noise is perhaps an inevitable by-product of mechanical processes, and in a mechanical age it is unavoidable that there should be a vast increase in the amount of it which is produced. There is in theory no reason why a large amount of this noise should not be suppressed.

The way to suppress or reduce noise may not yet be known in respect of the latest kinds of machines, but it is usually only a matter of time and study before the answer to the problem of suppressing this noise can be found.

The process of suppressing the noise, however, may involve a loss of efficiency or, what is much the same thing, an increase in cost, and a gain in one direction may bring a loss in another. Indeed, the matter may go beyond mere questions of efficiency or expense, for there may be an aspect of individual freedom involved. For example, the noise made by children playing at school may cause great annoyance to people living near-by, but no one would suggest that it would be right to stop the children from making it.

To take another example, it might be possible to reduce the noise of passenger-carrying aircraft at the cost of restricting their size and speed. The effect of their noise on people on the ground must be measured against the freedom of travellers to reach their destinations as quickly as possible. It may be a matter of a careful choice in any particular case—and indeed it may be a matter of opinion and argument—where the proper balance lies.

The considerations are often highly technical, as hon. Members will have appreciated after listening to the debate, and it is for this reason that Government responsibility must rest with individual Departments. The problem which has been raised in the Motion is therefore not one for any one Minister. It is the responsibility of most Departments and indeed of the Government as a whole. The matters which have been raised in the debate have ranged widely and have touched on the work of many Departments. I will try to reply on behalf of all of them and, as far as it is possible, to give an integrated answer, but I think the House will appreciate that it is a formidable task.

First, what is the effect of this general background of noise on people? I am not speaking now of those who have particular occupations, those referred to by the right hon. Member for Middles-brough, East (Mr. Marquand) who are exposed to excessive noise by reason of their employment. I will say something about them later on. I am now speaking of ordinary people in their homes or going about their business who are affected by the noise of vehicles, aircraft, children shouting and playing, loud wireless sets and so on.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

And pneumatic drills.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

No one would deny that this background of noise can cause distraction or even acute irritation to some people who have not been able to adjust themselves to it, but there is no medical evidence to support any suggestion that this background of noise has any effect on health or efficiency. The Medical Research Council has considered whether this is a matter which could be made the subject of research, but it has concluded that it is too intangible for any measurable results to be obtained. Such medical research as can be carried out is concerned with particular noisy occupations, and I shall have something to say about that later.

I cannot, therefore, give the House any statistics or any helpful yardstick or indicate any particular target at which we should aim. It would be quite wrong to suppose that universally agreed standards of noise or noise meters, much less meters which could be accurately used on the roads without a high degree of technical knowledge on the part of the operator, are just around the corner, but that certainly does not mean that there is nothing to be done.

Many hon. Members have asked what is being done to protect the community from the worst effects of noise. This question can be considered under three general headings. The first is concerned with the actual sources of noise and what can be done to control or to reduce the amount of noise actually emitted. The second is the protection of people in buildings, by good design and good insulation. The third is the legal or administrative remedies which can be made available when there is a local source of noise which is unreasonable and excessive.

Under the first head, I will say something about the steps which the Government have taken or are taking in the case of the most troublesome sources of noise, which I think have all been referred to in the course of the debate. The Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, 1955, which were made under powers conferred by Section 30 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, contain various provisions which are relevant to the Motion. They have been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. They deal with such matters as silencers, mechanical defects, the sounding of motor horns, and the running of engines. The House will see that even within this limited class the Regulations are necessarily somewhat piecemeal in character. Any question of making any further regulation, for example, by laying down a standard of exhaust noise, would raise highly technical issues.

The largest problem here, of course, is exhaust noise. This cannot be eliminated completely but it can be reduced to a reasonable level by efficient silencers. Before the war, the Ministry of Transport took the matter up and received an assurance from the manufacturers that they would voluntarily keep to reasonable levels of maximum noise. Since the war the Ministry has not reopened the matter with the manufacturers of motor vehicles generally, but where queries about certain vehicles are raised, they take up the matter with the firm concerned with a view to securing any necessary improvement.

Of course, most of the annoyance is due to a minority of motor vehicles but it can arise from many different causes. Almost any exhaust noise can be annoying in the quiet of the morning or the evening or at dead of night, and in confined spaces it may produce an irritating echo. The control of noise is partly in the hands of the police, but to them the problem is one of manpower, of opportunity and of obtaining the necessary evidence. Also, as I have said, it is partly one for technical consideration between the Ministry and the manufacturers. I assure the House that this matter is very much in the mind of the Minister. My right hon. and gallant Friend has asked me to give an undertaking that he will personally consider the points which have been raised in the debate today; and, in fact, I have been in touch with him since the debate started.

I turn now to the question of aircraft. Of all the noises that are made, that made by jet aircraft is about the worst I know. The problem of reducing it is an intractable one but it would be wrong to sup- pose that nothing was being achieved. The College of Aeronautics, the National Physical Laboratory and the Universities of Southampton and Manchester are all carrying out basic research into noise reduction. The Minister of Supply is coordinating this work. Research is also going on under the Minister of Supply into the possibilities of reducing jet engine and propellor noises.

Since the propulsion given by jet engines comes from the efflux of the jet stream, it is almost impossible to silence jet engines in the air by the addition of silencing apparatus which would harness this energy. Rolls-Royce has, however, designed jet nozzles with corrugated lips which are meeting with considerable success in their experimental form, and this principle will be applied wherever practicable to other jet engines. The reduction of noise achieved is about half of the audible sensation of the noise created by other jet engines of comparable thrust.

A new principle which is embodied in the Conway engine is claimed to effect a further reduction in noise. Despite these successes it is improbable that we shall be able to do more for some time than keep pace with the increasing thrust of new jet engines. Hon. Members have looked to the future, and I can only say that although I do not think that inventions will gain on us, I cannot promise that we shall gain upon them.

To try to develop and to apply silencers of the exhaust type for the current fleets of piston-engined aircraft would be very costly and would take a long time and much research effort. It would only yield results when piston engines were becoming obsolete, at least for the larger aircraft which are those that give the most trouble. In the view of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply, the technical effort of noise reduction can be better directed towards the problem as it emerges with the new types of aircraft.

The industry is very much alive to the need for noise reduction, not only in the public interest but for passenger comfort, and in order that future aircraft may operate from existing airfields. Companies designing helicopters are particularly aware of this problem, and research is continuing urgently into the various possibilities of silencing the different forms of propulsion which may come into use in helicopters.

I do not know whether the House is aware that it was a condition of approval of the helicopter service operating between the South Bank and London Airport that the aircraft should be fitted with silencers. Indeed, it was that stipulation which considerably delayed the start of the service. However, it would be wrong to disregard the great problems in weight penalty and loss of engine power and the consequent revised limits on the economical use of such aircraft, which these endeavours have to face.

Now I will say something about supersonic bangs. I believe that these are an inevitable phenomenon of aircraft flying supersonically. The air pressures which come to the man on the ground as a bang vary in accordance with several factors, few of which are within the control of the pilot in the aircraft, if the aircraft is to be flown and tested thoroughly. Moreover, a pilot can only tell from his instruments, and then not immediately, that his aircraft is becoming supersonic, and in the course of a manoeuvre the aircraft may become supersonic momentarily without the pilot being aware of the fact. The bang is continuous along and beside the line of flight so long as the aircraft remains supersonic, and it can be heard over an area of many miles outside the aircraft.

Careful measures of control of supersonic flying are taken by the Ministry of Supply and applied with relatively slight modifications by the Air Ministry and the Admiralty. The first aim is to reduce supersonic flying to the essential minimum. Most supersonic flying if it is consistent with the safety of the aircraft and the pilot, is directed out to sea. Over land there is a general minimum height limit of 30,000 feet. Exceptions to this limit are made only with special authority.

Apart from steps to reduce the noise emitted by aircraft, a great deal can be done to minimise its effect.

Mr. Marquand

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves this point about supersonic flying, may I ask whether I would be right in concluding that, as some authority is apparently available to limit the amount of supersonic flying, the forecast of Mr. Peter Masefield that within twenty years everybody will be travelling at 1,500 miles an hour is inaccurate, and that this cannot be allowed to happen?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I am advised that the view expressed was a purely personal view, and it is a matter of so technical a character that it is not possible to debate it in this Chamber.

Dr. Reginald Bennett (Gosport and Fareham)

Is it not a fact that when aircraft begin to fly at speeds which are more than marginally supersonic—that is, at several times the speed of sound—the bangs will be heard not merely in the direction in which the aircraft is flying but in all directions, so that once aircraft become really supersonic, which may be quite soon, we may expect to have these noises all over the country no matter which way the aircraft concerned are flying?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

At the present time, as I have told the House, this matter is subject to strict control. I cannot claim to be an expert in these matters—I do not know if any hon. Member is an expert—and I should hesitate to look very far into the future.

Apart from steps to reduce the noise actually made by aircraft, much can be done to minimise its effect upon people. The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, in co-operation with the civil air authorities, seeks to control the manner of flying. Wherever possible, runways for take-off and landing are chosen with an eye to the reduction of low flying over inhabited areas. I must emphasise, however, that it is generally impossible, in the case of major airports near large centres of population—especially London Airport—to avoid causing a certain amount of disturbance, whatever arrangements are made. Restrictions have been placed upon flying at night.

Upon aerodromes owned or run by the Ministry of Transport, it is now the practice of the Ministry to include, in the leases of hangars and ground let to the airline operators, clauses defining the operators' responsibilities for noise abatement. The operator is prohibited, under the lease, from making a noise which may be a nuisance to the neighbourhood and which can be mitigated or avoided by the adoption of all reasonable measures for the time being available for noise abatement. The operator must also take whatever steps the Ministry requires him to take to reduce or avoid noise caused by the running up and testing of engines in test beds.

In general, operators are much alive to their responsibilities in this connection and approach the matter in a public-spirited way. An example of this which may interest the House is B. O. A. C. 's initiative in putting up a 30 ft. bank of earth around a new site at London Airport, where it proposes to maintain the Britannia when it comes into service. The Ministry of Supply and the Hawker Aircraft Company have had considerable success with the development of mufflers to silence the noise of jet aircraft on the ground, and the principle is being applied by other companies to meet the needs of their own aircraft. Once noise-reducing equipment has been proved, the Ministry of Supply insists upon its use by aircraft manufacturers generally.

Complaints that vibration caused by passing aircraft has caused damage to property adjoining London Airport have been continuous over a long period. Some have been voiced by the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) today. The survey of houses whose residents allege that damage has been caused by vibration was undertaken by the Building Research Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The view of the experts, expressed in a detailed Report, was that the defects observed in the houses inspected were such as are commonly experienced in houses of similar construction in various parts of the country, and that the passage of low-flying aircraft, or the testing of engines, had not contributed either to the incidence of the defects or their magnitude.

Mr. Hunter

That report has not been accepted by the Cranford Residents' Association.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I recognise that, but I am telling the House that that is, in fact, the effect of the Report of a highly qualified body. The Residents' Association, of course, has never accepted the conclusion of the D.S.I.R.; it has pressed for a statistical survey designed with a view to showing that houses of similar value and construction situated near to airports have a shorter life, or higher maintenance costs, than those situated elsewhere. To be of any value such a survey would have to be very detailed and extensive, and my right hon. Friend has taken the view that in the absence of any valid scientific reason which might suggest that such a survey would be useful, he would not be justified in spending public money upon it.

I now turn to the question of protecting people from noise inside buildings. For some years, the Building Research Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has been conducting work of great importance in this connection. Everyone is familiar with the problem of the internal transmission of noise between one dwelling and another in flats and terrace houses. I think it is fair to say that the continuous nagging of a neighbour's wireless set can be even more irritating than the occasional roar of an aircraft, although it is softer. The properties of sound in traversing such buildings have been the subject of a very through study by the Building Research Station in recent years, and a great deal is now known about this problem.

From that the Building Research Station has been able to go on to devise means of reducing the transmission of sound. It is largely a question of cost. The Station has already developed satisfactory methods of sound insulation for most existing forms of construction, but it is continuing to work on means to reduce the expense. The results of its work have been published and are available to builders and architects. It is at present engaged on measurements of noise levels within buildings from different types of aircraft in flight, so as to get a measure of the size of that problem.

I was asked by my right hon. and learned Friend whether the Government took advantage of these discoveries. We certainly do. Of course, there are many aspects of public building which have to be considered, and I shall say a few words about some of them. The design of special types of buildings is only a special application of the general methods upon which the Building Research Station has been working. In the case of schools, for instance, the Architects and Buildings Branch of the Ministry of Education has done a good deal of research into the technical problems connected with the prevention of excessive noise inside schools, and it urges local educational authorities to pay attention to them in designing their buildings. The problem of siting schools to serve areas near airfields is a difficult, one, but a good deal can be done by consultation between local authorities and airfield authorities.

Noise is one of the perennial problems in hospitals. Several hon. Members have referred to that aspect of the matter. The Ministry of Health is clear about the sort of things that must be done to keep noise in hospitals to a minimum. There is the problem of noise from outside, connected with the siting of the hospital, and other problems of construction. Regional boards, architects and planning committees and the Ministry's architects do their best to minimise the incidence of this type of external noise along the lines to which I have already referred.

The main problem in the case of hospitals is noise generated within the hospital in its day-to-day activities. Slamming doors, footsteps on stone floors, clattering trolleys and lift gates are examples. A Committee of the Central Health Services Council which considered the reception and welfare of in-patients in hospitals produced a Report, in 1952, which included a recommendation which I should like to read to the House: We cannot stress too strongly that the elimination of noise should be taken seriously and attacked with the energy appropriate to its importance. In each hospital, an analysis of the source of noise should be made with the help of patients and staff, and means found to obviate it. This Report was circulated to all boards and committees, with the Minister's approval of the recommendations of the Committee. Inquiries are constantly made by the Minister's medical and nursing officers when they visit hospitals, and there is evidence that much has been done to improve the position.

The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East spoke with much knowledge about noise in factories. There is no doubt that deafness may be produced in individuals who are subjected for long periods to noises of high intensity, particularly in such occupations as boiler-making, riveting and drop-forge work. Other less tangible effects have also been attributed to exposure to noise of this kind, such as mental fatigue, impairment of efficiency in various kinds of work and psychological disturbances.

The effect of noise of this kind has been fully investigated by the Medical Research Council through its Industrial Health Research Board. One of the results of that work has been to determine the noise level above which serious damage is likely to be caused to the hearing. An investigation carried out in noisy weaving sheds showed that the wearing of ear defenders could increase personal efficiency, and I think that that is in line with the right hon. Gentleman's observations. Investigations at present being carried out are expected to throw light on the more general psychological effects of noise.

The Government, in a White Paper dated March, 1955 (Cmd. 9422), on certain recommendations adopted by the International Labour Conference in 1953, announced their acceptance in principle of paragraph 2 of Recommendation 97 of that conference. That recommendation called upon employers to take measures to eliminate as far as possible noise which constitutes a danger to the health of workers.

As the White Paper stated, the Government do not consider it possible to legislate in the present state of knowledge on the subject, and I think that that is the general view which has been expressed on all sides of the House today. Her Majesty's inspectors of factories do, however, in the course of their duties, encourage employers to keep noise to a minimum. I would certainly undertake to draw the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour to the suggestion which the right hon. Gentleman made about the possibility of consultation with the T.U.C.

Mr. Marquand

Will the hon. Gentleman please note that, in speaking of legislation, I was rather careful to say that I did not necessarily recommend legislation? It is not to be assumed from that, however, that if, after consultation with the T.U.C., legislation were thought to be desirable by the T.U.C., we should be against it. Indeed, we should be in favour of it.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I, too, qualified what I said by referring to the present state of knowledge on this subject. It is possible that a stage may be reached when that can be done, but it has not yet been reached.

If I may turn to the question of legal powers, I do not think the House will expect me to mention the long-standing power by Statute and under byelaws to control noises in the street made by human voices and noisy musical instruments. It is the more modern mechanical noises with which the House is concerned. The House will realise, from what I have said, that there can be no absolute standard by which a particular noise can be judged. As I said at the outset, the question of what degree of noise ought to be permitted may often be a matter of balance between conflicting considerations.

The test must be what is reasonable having regard to all the circumstances, and the degree of noise which may be reasonable in one place may be unacceptable in another. Since the test is not an absolute one, but one of reasonableness, it is a matter which is appropriate to be dealt with by the civil rather than the criminal law. There are powers under the civil law for the taking of proceedings for an injunction to restrain a person from making an unreasonable noise, although there are certain important statutory exceptions to this, some of which have been mentioned today.

The test which has been laid down by the courts is what is reasonable according to the ordinary usages of mankind living in society, or more correctly in a particular society". The right hon. Gentleman will no doubt recognise those words. In applying this test, the court looks at all the surrounding circumstances, and, with respect to a nuisance inflicting personal discomfort, such as noise, the courts have laid it down that a town-dweller must put up with the consequences of those operations of trade which may be carried on in the immediate locality, which are actually necessary for trade and commerce, and also for the enjoyment of property, and for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town and of the public at large". My hon. Friends who have said that these matters ought not to be dealt with under civil law but by some criminal procedure, must have regard to those words, and must appreciate that they are a statement of the real difficulty which we all have to face in confronting this problem.

Local authorities have, under the general law, no power to take action against a noise nuisance—except when their own direct interests are involved. There is a procedure in the Public Health Act, 1936, for dealing with what are termed "statutory nuisances", but under the Act noise is not one of them. However, some local Acts have extended the definition of "statutory nuisance" to include any excessive, unreasonable or unnecessary noise which is prejudicial to health or a nuisance", and under these Acts 372 local authorities have power to deal with noises under the procedure of the Public Health Act.

This means that the local authorities have power to serve an abatement notice upon a person responsible for making the noise, requiring him to abate the nuisance. If the person on whom the notice is served fails to comply with it, the local authority may proceed by way of complaint for an order of the magistrates' court requiring the abatement of the nuisance. A person who fails to comply with the court order is liable to a penalty, and the local authority may abate the nuisance and recover the cost of so doing from the person concerned.

I must apologise to the House for having spoken for so long, but it is a very large subject, and I am answering for about a dozen Departments. To sum up, the preamble to the Motion states: To call attention to the problem of noise". That suggests that it is a single problem, but the House will be in no doubt, from the way in which this debate has ranged today from one aspect of the matter to another, that it is not a single problem. There is a wide variety of causes of noise, and the measures which can be taken to deal with them differ equally widely.

Mr. A. G. Bottomley (Rochester and Chatham)

Is the Minister aware that the noise that has been the subject of this debate is nothing compared to the noise which will be heard if we do not discuss the next Motion on the Paper—which deals with the ever rising cost of living for old-age pensioners and others—in the name of one of my hon. Friends?

[That this House views with grave concern the result of the policies pursued by Her Majesty's Government which have precipitated a continuous and steep rise in the cost of living, thereby undermining the standard of life of wage and salary earners and depressing the subsistence level of old-age pensioners and others on small fixed incomes; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take positive action to reduce prices.]

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

It is my responsibility to answer this debate. Many hon. Members have raised difficult and important questions, and I think they would sooner hear a considered answer to them than hear any hon. Member opposite trying to make political capital at the fag-end of a Friday.

The problem of noise cannot be dealt with by any single stroke of Government policy. The long-established principle of this country that a man has a duty to behave reasonably towards his neighbour, introduces many highly technical aspects in our twentieth century. I have given some account of the various measures which the Government are trying to take to tackle this problem, and I do not wish to leave the House with any impression that the Government are complacent about the situation.

The Motion urges the Government to give careful attention to the importance of research and education in this field, and to the need for more effective measures for the protection of the public. I can certainly undertake that that will be done, and that the various Departments responsible in this matter will fully consider the many suggestions which have been made in this debate. I therefore advise the House to accept the Motion.

Mr. John Hall (Wycombe)

Can my hon. Friend say something about the use of factory hooters and sirens as a method of time-keeping and warning in the early morning, at the lunch-time break and at the end of the day? It is a method of warning which seems unnecessary in these days and causes very great irritation to those who are concerned with the factories in question, and possibly also to those who are not. Is it not possible for local authorities to take action under the Public Health Act, and to serve an abatement notice?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

Local authorities have the powers which I have just described, and would certainly be entitled to take appropriate action if the noise came within the scope of their powers. I cannot say whether in any particular case that would be so, but if it were a noise of the kind that my hon. Friend suggests it might be possible for the local authority to take action.

2.23 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett (Gosport and Fareham)

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for having missed the earlier part of his comprehensive answer to the many points raised in the debate, and I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for allowing me to add a few observations which I was not able to make before my hon. Friend stood up.

I would congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) on his excellent choice of subject, although the problem of noise is rather nebulous and difficult. I hope that this debate, like other debates which have taken place on Fridays in this House will, as time goes on, be the starting point of a major movement of public opinion in the direction desired, and that we shall see the beginning of a change in the climate of opinion about noise, with all the possibilities of action which could follow.

The problem of noise is extremely baffling, if only because of what scientists might call its "multifactorial" nature. There is no single big cause of all the noise, or indeed of most of it. It consists of small quantities from vastly diverse sources. Although we in London suffer the most appalling battering from noise, I believe that even yet we are luckier than the inhabitants of some other cities in the world. Some of the Middle Eastern cities which are growing rapidly because of the wealth brought by oil have a most frightful din from the thousand-odd screaming horns from large, new American cars which are thickly crowding their narrow streets.

We can call ourselves lucky. Even in towns which are not so newly established people are worse off than we are. In America, it is doubtful whether a man has time to get his car into gear after being held up in traffic before the fellow behind starts pressing his horn.

The sound which may be the most trying of all is that of the motor bicycle. From being a small, puny instrument more or less effectively silenced, the motor bicycle has grown bigger and bigger while less and less attention has been directed to the suppression of its noise. We have learned to put up with a level of noise in this respect that is constantly growing and to regard it as the normal, although with each year that passes the normal rises, as newer and louder motor bicycles come to be accepted as inevitable. The town dweller has a very rough time here. He seems to have all the noise, at least by day.

One hon. Member mentioned in the earlier part of the debate the hospital at which I got my medical education, St. George's, at Hyde Park Corner, which might be considered the most absurd and improper place to have a hospital. The noise of the traffic going round that corner is terrific. On the ground floor the rooms at the corner have to be devoted to a part of medical work which does not depend upon power to hear. Therefore the X-ray department has been established there for a long time. When, in the summer, the windows of the upper floors are open, the noise is one steady roar like the surf on the Atlantic coast, making it very difficult and sometimes almost impossible for medical students to hear what goes on inside a chest, when they are trying to learn the use of the stethoscope. It is prejudicial to the patients that such a hospital should continue to exist in such a situation.

I have an idea that people who live in the town are better off at night on the whole than people in the country. I do not believe that anywhere in the country there is such a deep, profound silence as reigns through the night, with the one solitary and significant exception, in this locality, of the Demon Milkman of Westminster. I am sure that all people who live anywhere near here know all about him.

He is a demon boy racer with a most powerful truck embodying a most ineffective silencer, to which I would like a policeman's attention to be directed. He goes roaring round at about a quarter to four in Westminster in the early morning, and punctuates his racing exercises with a very cheerful obligato on the milk bottles, with the occasional crashing of churns. He has had, I understand, a close connection with the Mothers' Union, which is situated just opposite where I live. I rather think they may have changed their dealer, because his main symphony does not seem to happen with such regularity so close to where I live. With the exception of that boy racer, the Londoner spends his night in a calmer atmosphere than the countryman.

It is remarkable how noisy night time in the country can be. I have a hide-out on the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, which might be thought to be a remote and delightful spot. Indeed, it is delightful, but we are entertained constantly and unceasingly by the grouped detonations from the Royal Marines at Eastleigh range across the water. They go off in groups of five throughout the day. Then we have the coastal batteries of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War on two sides of the place, which generally choose the late evening for their exercises, but occasionally loose-off during the day, making considerably louder explosions.

Then we have Her Majesty's ships exercising in the Channel outside, the gunnery practice of some of which can make the place shake, and many of them keep up a steady rattle of musketry and pom-pom fire throughout the day. Then we have the steady put-put-put of the little training aeroplanes from the aerodrome near by and the continually increasing traffic of passenger aeroplanes using that place. Again, we have the long drawn-out noises of the dear old Fleet Air Arm with its aeroplanes which trundle round the sky so slowly that the noise is with us for a long time. We have the whining drone of the Gannet which sounds like an angry sewing machine, and the labouring of the poor Merlin engine which pulls a Firefly round the sky.

From time to time, we have the double concussion of our friends flying supersonic aircraft. As my hon. Friend said, they are told to direct their contributions out to sea but, as the tip of the Isle of Wight is in a sense out to sea, we get these concussions to enliven our day. Also, from time to time, we have the lifeboat maroons going off. We get two ear-splitting explosions guaranteed to waken anybody, in case some members of the life-boat's crew are heavy sleepers or hard of hearing. We also have the siren of the local fire station which gives a blast that seems to last approximately three minutes and is sure to terminate sleep anywhere within a quarter of a mile.

All this is a normal day and night on the tip of the Isle of Wight. Even if the merciful blanket of fog descends, it does not, as might be expected, wrap the place in a pleasing silence, because, first, we have the dreary moan of the Nab Light Tower with its fog siren and the wailing of the disconsolate shipping. And then, should this be too trying and should one move to, say, Lee-on-Solent, what do we find there? We find that the Fleet Air Arm, in admirable deference to the practices of our American Allies, has adopted a new form of circuit for aircraft flying round aerodromes. This is nominally the height of the carrier's deck above the water, and in practice, at shore establishments is roughly rooftop height, or as low as they can fly safely and without destruction.

There is a well-known school in my district which is spanned by the circuit of this aerodrome. Owing to the noise, education at the school is being almost completely stopped. If we move away to the Hamble River, we find ourselves in the charming perfumes of the great Fawley Refinery. There we have the noise of the light aircraft, that irritating put-put-put which seldom seems to move away. We have also night flying by flying boats.

I doubt whether there are any parts of these otherwise attractive neighbourhoods which are immune from noise of a very trying character. The major part of the noise is, of course, caused by aircraft, and I think that aircraft noise is going to be a very difficult thing to solve. There are two problems connected with it. One is the noise outside the aeroplane. We all know about the noise of the exhaust which would require a silencer, but that has been proved in practice to be a minor factor in the din.

The real noise has been found to come from the tips of the propeller, but the problem is that if a lot of power is put into a propeller, it has to spin round very fast. If the noise is due to the cavitation of the air on the tips as they fly round at supersonic speed, it might, perhaps, seem a good thing to reduce the revolutions. But, if that is done, the length of the blade has to be increased, and, therefore, the tip sweeps a wider circle and achieves about the same speed. If, on the contrary, the radius of the blade is reduced, the speed of the pro- peller has to be increased, thus producing the same result, which is the biggest factor of the noise coming from a propeller-driven aircraft.

Now we are coming to something which I do not think that some hon. Members have met. It is a very sinister thing, and they will no doubt remember it when they meet it. It is the new little helicopter which is driven by a jet on the tips of the rotor blades. It is only a small helicopter, and two chaps could carry it like they would a piece of furniture. But the noise which it makes is simply incredible. It is like that of a very large double-handed saw going to and fro all the time. I wonder whether such machines, desirable and useful as they are, would ever be permitted within the limits of large cities. If helicopters are going to have, as I think they all must in time, jet propulsion from the tips of the rotor blades, I believe that they will be quite intolerable to everybody.

Then there is the jet aeroplane. As my hon. Friend said, some very clever inventions have been brought in to deal with the noise of running up and testing engines on aerodromes. We have the de-tuners or "splitters," as they are called, to tear up the noise so that it escapes in a ragged rather than in a large comprehensive mass. But the splitters are of no help when the aircraft is taking off. They are wonderful for testing the engine. I can see no prospect whatever of any appreciable silencing other than by the surroundings of the jet orifice being modified, but that, as my hon. Friend knows, would not have any great effect on the noise. However, I see no other hope for any other measurable silencing of jet-driven aeroplanes.

So much for the noise outside the aeroplane. Inside, the problem is very serious indeed. The standard which is acceptable is that of the crowded room with everyone talking at once. I think most people will agree that anybody who has tried to converse in a passenger aircraft and has been able to make himself heard to his immediate neighbour regards that as a relatively silent aircraft. As I say, the standard is that of a crowded room or busy street.

The result is, of course, bad on the passengers, because it produces very rapid fatigue. An hour's flying in a noisy aeroplane is far more tiring than a much more energetic occupation. First there is the vibration. The larger vibrations are not those which afflict the ear. They undoubtedly produce physical fatigue which is very hard to bear. The audible vibrations are very tiring, and in that respect I humbly submit that the new aeroplanes of which we are so proud, the Comets, the Viscounts and the others, are really not very advanced in this matter.

I have flown in both the Comet and the Viscount, and I would say that the noise inside the Comet, as opposed to the vibration level, is just about the same as that of a propeller aeroplane. It is just a matter of the air being ripped open by the passage of the aeroplane, which produces a very violent roaring along the fuselage which is of a low pitch and, therefore, is almost impossible to damp out. In addition, there is the very strong and high-pitched noise of the impellor in the front part of the cabin, and the very deep rumbling from the outlet at the after-end. Therefore I believe that the noise level, as opposed to the vibration level, is still an extremely difficult matter to deal with, and that we are very far from perfection in that direction.

There is no doubt that noise is a harmful thing. Its direct effects, as my hon. Friend has said, are very difficult to assess. They may be said to be largely psychological. I dare say they are, but, speaking purely physiologically on the mechanics of the matter, it is understandable why there should be fatigue from excessive noise. Sound is taken in by the ear, and the ear takes in merely the compression waves of the air according to what the sound may be. The ear takes in the sum of all the vibrations, records it on an instrument, and the record is passed to the brain. The brain has the job of sorting out the wanted and the unwanted noises. That is where the human body has a most baffling task, because it has to sort out and pay no attention to those noises which it has not selected to hear, whereas it wants to hear some individual thing which is at the same time obscured by the ancillary noise.

Therefore, there is this vast amount of distraction this effort to keep attention on the primary object, which is what fatigues the body. After a time the body becomes fatigued and the brain itself baffled and irritated, and therefore the person becomes almost "slap-happy" and the personality actually may change under the strain.

Mr. Ede

I gather that the hon. Gentleman is rejecting what the Joint Under-Secretary of State told us was the finding of the Medical Research Council, namely, that there was no proof that there was any harm to human beings from noise?

Dr. Bennett

I am not sure that I heard the whole of what the Joint Under-Secretary said. I think I came into the Chamber while he was talking. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will say that people are none the worse off for being subjected to excessive and disorganised noise. I certainly would never have said that.

Mr. Ede

My difficulty with doctors is that it is not possible to argue with any one of them. When they contradict one another, one takes one's choice. I choose the opinion of the hon. Gentleman rather than that of the Joint Under-Secretary.

Dr. Bennett

I am deeply grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. I would go further with him perhaps and say that there are medically proved examples of physical damage by noise, as in the case of people who are employed or compelled to stay in certain environments subjected to the same sort of noise for long periods. It has been discovered in post mortem examinations of experimental animals—I am not saying that they necessarily die directly from the results—that the recording apparatus in the inner ear which records the frequencies appropriate to the noise to which the animal was exposed has degenerated if the animals have been exposed for a long time to those particular frequencies. That is a medical fact. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman may take pleasure from this firm fact and not merely from a matter of opinion.

Mr. Ede

That is hardly the same as what the hon. Gentleman said just now, that it was the noises which one rejected when sorting them out which did the damage.

Dr. Bennett

I am talking about physical damage in this case, and I am talking about the psychological or fatigue damage in the other, which is not a direct physical matter. I said at the outset that it is a little baffling to discover what constitutes fatigue. When one thinks of those who are exposed for long periods to the same sort of noise, one may have great sympathy with the occupants of the Chair in this House and hope that they are not liable to any such occupational illnesses. My right hon. Friend said that some animals might be killed by the heat generated by the noise of certain sirens and instruments, but there again, I do not think there is any place, outside this House, where noise generates enough heat to do much damage.

Noise nowadays comes from the increasing power of instruments and engines. I do not believe that the problem is beyond solution, because when we consider the one-horsepower engine—I do not mean the one which uses hay for fuel; I mean the old type of gas engine or oil engine which weighed about one ton per horsepower and which clanked noisily round—and when that engine of fifty or more years ago is compared with the little one-horsepower electric motor which produces the same power, it is clear that power is not the only thing which gives rise to noise, and that noise should be perfectly avoidable even when power is increased. It is the diversity of the noises which plague us which makes this matter so difficult of solution.

I am greatly encouraged by my hon. Friend's hopes that attention is being and will become paid to all the various aspects of this problem which are the concern of the Government, but I am afraid that there are many aspects which are not the concern of the Government. I believe that what is desired is that a debate, especially one in which there is so much agreement, on a subject which proves at first intractable, should in the long run initiate a change in the climate of public opinion from which action may ultimately follow.

2.46 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Isle of Thanet)

I wonder whether any other hon. Member in this House could honestly put his hand on his heart and say that this subject we are discussing today is of the greatest paramount interest to his constituents. In the wide range of subjects which one might choose, I wonder whether in the country generally there is anyone else who can say and be reported in his constituency saying that this is a subject which is of the first importance to the whole of his constituents.

The subjects for debate which follow on this one are relatively unimportant, compared with the matter of noise, in my constituency of the Isle of Thanet. It is the most serious issue. It relates to air noise, and in particular to jet air noise—the jet air noise created by the Americans based at Manston. This subject, therefore, also raises the important question of Anglo-American co-operation, which I am happy to say is admirable, due to the courtesy and ability of the officers stationed by our Allies at that aerodrome.

We have heard today that a large number of Departments are concerned with the question of noise and research into noise. We have my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department who has made a very comprehensive and admirable speech covering at any rate, a wide range of topics, and sitting with him, paying great attention to the debate, there is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation whose Ministry is most intimately connected with this problem. There are also the Ministry of Supply and the Air Ministry, the Admiralty and the War Office which are most particularly concerned, to name just a few. Therefore, any decision which may ultimately have to be taken consequent upon this debate should clearly be taken as a result of a Cabinet decision.

The first point I want to make is that I hope that in the not-far-distant future the Cabinet will consider this vital question of noise and what is to be done to meet the problems of the present age in the light of the development particularly of jet and nuclear power. I want to deal this afternoon with air noise and only with air noise, particularly arising from jet aircraft. There have been a number of debates on this subject. I have read the reports of the debates in another place and previously in this House, as well as all the Adjournment debates which have taken place on the subject of air noise.

The first issue with regard to this matter is what is the proper test to apply to the question of nuisance. There, I think, we have a simple matter to determine. The question is, what is a nuisance? That has always been defined by the ordinary common law of this country in that certain rights belong to the citizens. The citizen is entitled to enjoy the ordinary physical comforts of human existence without interference. I think it is only right that we should remember, therefore, first of all, that in the ordinary way there was an action for common law nuisance against the aerodromes and against the other people who were creating undue noise which interfered with the ordinary comforts of the citizen. Therefore, it is for the Government and certainly not for the citizen to prove their case if they want to make undue noise. I think that was accepted on this question of the noise arising from aerodromes.

As an example, I would use Manston aerodrome. That aerodrome is sited immediately adjacent to three major towns of Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate. According to the direction of the wind every day, and at all hours of the day, the citizens suffer misery from low-flying aircraft that cannot, unfortunately, fly higher. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett), and that expressed in the intervention by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), when they said that people suffered from noise. I have no doubt at all that they suffer from noise.

May I tell the House this. Within a matter of 300 yards of the aerodrome at Manston is an old people's hospital, where there are people of 60 or 70 years of age, and over that hospital every day fly jet fighters and jet bombers. F.86 Sabre jets fly within 200 feet and 300 feet from the rooftops of that hospital. This is causing concern to a number of schools, preparatory, primary and secondary, and to other hospitals in an area in my constituency to which people come very often to die but remain to live, for in this area of beautiful air and sunshine people live to be a great age.

It is no idle statement to tell the House that when one goes there to retire one does not want youngsters boomeranging around the sky just over one's head or over the house in which one hopes to live in peace and comfort. This is a matter which these people regard more seriously than any other issue they are facing today. I will give one example to the House. My predecessor, the Hon.

Edward Carson, who will be remembered in this House, has a house, as has his mother, unfortunately right on the aerodrome. Lady Carson's house is on the aerodrome, where the conditions are quite intolerable, yet the Air Ministry is not prepared to take it over and pay due compensation for having reduced the value of the property by half. That is one of many examples which show the serious impact of this problem.

The first question that has to be decided is the siting of the airfields, and on this I endorse the submission made by Lord Carrington in another place: The heart of the problem, I think, is really that of airfield siting. Ideally—and I know that this is a point on which all your Lordships feel strongly—Service airfields at least should all be away from the important centres of population. But the fact is that we are so limited by strategic and logistic considerations, by the need for airfields to be sited on reasonably level ground, and on soil of adequate bearing quality, and by the need to avoid congesting the airspace, that it is absolutely unavoidable that some Service airfields should be near to major towns."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 3rd November, 1955; Vol. 194, c. 318.] I accept that statement as showing immediately that the first question, as a matter of national policy, is to review these strategic considerations in relation to the siting of airfields. I invite the Government to consider whether or not we have now reached the time when they must, in days of peace, consider reviewing this strategic necessity of each airfield. Manston, as in the case of a number of other aerodromes, is an aerodrome of great strategic importance. Obviously these aerodromes on the perimeter of the country are of considerable strategic importance and are usually well known as the leading fighter aerodromes of the country. Nonetheless, at some stage it will be necessary for these aerodromes to be changed in this sense—that I think it is necessary that we should review the strategic necessity in time of peace as against the time of war, or threat of war.

At the moment we are in conditions of peace, and the case goes altogether for retaining these bases on the grounds of strategic necessity. Therefore, the first question which I should like the Government to consider is the airfields and the siting of particular classes of aircraft upon them. This should be reviewed to see whether we cannot use the airfields near towns, as in the case of Manston, Gatwick and others, for transport aircraft and the little "phut-phut" aircraft which have been referred to.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

My hon. Friend suggests that these little "phut-phut" aircraft should be used over residential and built-up areas. Will he have another think on that question?

Mr. Rees-Davies

If my hon. and learned Friend would like to send to Manston the "phut-phut" aircraft which he objected to, I would be only too happy to let him have the jet aircraft which we have stationed there.

Dr. Bennett

With the best will in the world, I do not think we should have room for them.

Mr. McAdden

Do I understand that there have been protests against these low-flying aircraft as against jet aircraft in the hon. Member's constituency in connection with the necessity of flying at a higher level?

Mr. Rees-Davies

Not "phut-phuts." We have had objections to B.46's, and I am happy to say that as a result of the intervention of the commander of the base we have an assurance that that type of D.C. training will not occur in the future.

We have this difficulty at the present time. We have stationed there F.86 Sabre jet fighters and fighter bombers. Twelve months ago we were just able to stand the noise there, but the development of that noise is now just that degree further on so that it is now quite intolerable. So even within twelve months we are translated from a position which was just one side of the line into a situation which is infinitely worse than it was before, for this reason. On take-off these aircraft are quite unable to achieve a satisfactory height before they fly over the towns of Ramsgate and Margate. It is in no way the pilots' fault; indeed, if they based bombers there, as apparently may now be the intention, there would be a danger of accidents in the pilots' efforts to achieve height before turning in order to get away from the towns.

The first question, therefore, concerns the strategic necessity of reviewing the question throughout the country to see whether these jet aircraft cannot be sent to the country districts and other airfields and whether Transport Command aircraft and similar aircraft cannot be based at Manston and similar places.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend because I fully appreciate that his constituents must be very worried about this noise problem, but was not Manston of great value in the years between 1940 and 1945 as a fighter aircraft station? Would my hon. Friend not agree that if the aircraft were to be moved away at the moment the aerodrome would have to be put on a care-and-maintenance basis for possible use if hostilities should break out?

Mr. Rees-Davies

I entirely agree. I think at the moment one cannot even go so far as asking the Government to remove the fighters.

I am only prefacing and building up these arguments that the Government should review the position in order to bring home to them the undesirable conditions which people are suffering at present.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) has said is quite correct; the review must be carried out in such a way that Manston Aerodrome could be reactivated quickly against the threat of war. I have taken advice on this and I am told that to reactivate the aerodrome by sending fighter or fighter-bomber aircraft back to the aerodrome would involve a period of two or three months. In times of imminent war, therefore, it would be too dangerous for us not to use Manston, and that is why I believe the Government have a very strong case for saying that in present conditions they dare not take the risk. What I am urging is that they should always have it well in mind that when there is no risk, then undoubtedly Manston should be used as an aerodrome for civil aircraft or Transport Command in which case the noise would be considerably reduced.

If there is to be a proper review of siting of airfields throughout the country and an endeavour to create new airfields in areas where noise is not such an important issue, what further can be done? The question of jet noise can be considered under three headings. The first is the research into noise generally and noise in the air—the question of the effective use of silencers. A most important decision was the introduction of the new nozzle into engines, as promoted recently by Rolls Royce, and into the propeller of propeller-turbine engines, as promoted by the Bristol Aircraft Company.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Profumo), the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, made the following important announcement on 28th October: Rolls Royce have recently announced the results of experiments with corrugated jet nozzles, by which it is hoped that the audible sensations of noise by jet engines in the air and on the gound will be reduced by as much as half. Mufflers are being developed which can be used for various types of jet aircraft. The College of Aeronautics, the National Physical Laboratory and the Universities of Southampton and Manchester all have programmes of basic research for noise reduction, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply has asked me to say that he regards the question of aircraft noise as a most serious and urgent matter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th October, 1955; Vol. 545, c. 641.] I regard that as an important statement and as a satisfactory assurance. We have heard something further today from the Joint Under-Secretary of State about the developments taking place in respect of both mufflers and acoustic screens. I should like to ask one or two questions about that. I do not expect an answer today, but at a suitable time, possibly when the House returns after the Recess, it might be appropriate for the Minister to make a further statement on these assurances, perhaps in answer to a Question.

First, can jet nozzles be used effectively in jet aircraft? Will the production of them be sufficient to enable them to be fitted, not only to civil aircraft, but also to Service aircraft? I fear that they may have an effect upon the efficiency of Service aircraft, and I understand that they may reduce the speed of the aircraft, so that while they may be used for civil aircraft it may not be possible to use them for Service aircraft. If that is so, can anything be done to encourage the Americans to purchase the Rolls Royce jet nozzles so that they may be used in American aircraft?

The same considerations apply to the propellers in the propeller-turbine engine. I should therefore like some information about production and about delay. How long will it take to bring about the reduction in noise in the air by these methods which are now being introduced?

The next question concerns ground noise as opposed to noise in the air. Here, it seems to me, that there is solid ground for saying that the citizens who live near these aerodromes are entitled to have mufflers introduced at all major aerodromes, and that a great deal more can be done about acoustic screens. May I make this suggestion? If at London Airport we could build a very big tunnel through which all the motor transport could go there would seem to be, in the building of the runways, no reason why they should not be tunnelled. That is to say, the level of the ground on either side could be banked so that actual ground testing could be done in a tunnel. The warming up and ground testing of aeroplanes could be done at a level lower than the sides of the runway. In that way we could have the benefit, not only of mufflers and acoustic screens, but of tunnels, which would go a long way to reduce ground noise.

Also, at a suitable time I should be glad to hear how successful not only has research been in this field—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members not being present, adjourned at nine minutes past Three o'clock until Monday next.