HC Deb 15 November 1957 vol 577 cc1300-18

Order for Second Reading read.

12.45 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The purpose of this Bill is to transfer the Royal Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth from the Admiralty to the Minister of Health. This hospital has had a varied history. It was completed in 1811 as a hospital for wounded in the Navy in the war with France, but none ever came to it. It became a hospital for soldiers, then a barracks, and then a military lunatic asylum. On the outbreak of the Crimean War it was fitted out to take naval wounded from the Baltic, but again none came to it. It became a convalescent home for soldiers. In 1863, however, the Admiralty claimed the building and, since then, it has been used by the Admiralty continuously as a mental hospital. It is in use as a mental hospital today.

The admission of patients to this hospital is restricted by the Yarmouth Naval Hospital Act, 1931. That Act limited admission to naval and Royal Marine patients, certain civilian patients who were ex-Navy or Royal Marines with certain qualifications laid down by the Act, and persons the cost of whose maintenance was wholly or partly met by the Ministry of Pensions. The hospital has 236 beds. There are no naval patients. There are 28 ex-naval patients and 123 for whom the Ministry of Health as successors to the Ministry of Pensions have responsibility. The other 85 beds are unoccupied and cannot be occupied while the restrictions imposed by the 1931 Act remain in force. Two of the patients are voluntary patients.

Clause 1 of the Bill provides that the hospital and its equipment shall be transferred to the Minister of Health on a date to be appointed by order and that it shall be a mental hospital within the National Health Service. It is intended that it shall be administered by one of the hospital management committees appointed by the East Anglian Regional Hospital Board.

Mr. R. J. Mellish (Bermondsey)

Is that a hospital management committee which is already in being?

Mr. Thompson

Yes that is so.

There are four main reasons for this proposed transfer. In the first place, it has to be noted that there are no serving naval personnel in the hospital. The patients are either those for whom the Ministry of Health has a responsibility or for whom the National Health Service would have responsibility if this hospital did not exist. It is somewhat incongruous that the Admiralty should be running a mental hospital, perhaps even more so when it is a mental hospital for civilian patients and when there is a National Health Service more appropriately fitted to undertake this task.

I am sure the House will agree that integration within the mental health service is to be welcomed. Secondly, although the financial responsibility for a large number of the patients now rests with the Minister of Health, the Admiralty Vote is in fact bearing the full cost of running the hospital, there being no cross-accounting between the Departments. This Bill will transfer the financial responsibility to the National Health Service Vote, where it more appropriately belongs.

Thirdly, the hospital is only partly used at present while there is great need for accommodation for mental patients in the region, other hospitals being very overcrowded. As part of the National Health Service, the hospital could undoubtedly be put to better use. Fourthly, the arrangements for certification and detention of patients in this hospital as laid down in the Act of 1931 are out of line with current practice elsewhere giving as they do unusual powers to the Admiralty.

Patients detained under the Act of 1931 fall into three categories. They comprise patients detained upon an order made by the Admiralty, founded on two medical certificates; patients detained upon an order made by the Admiralty taking effect upon their discharge from an institution for persons of unsound mind in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland; and patients who were detained in the hospital before 1931 and who, by the Act of 1931, were deemed to be detained there under an order made by the Admiralty.

At present, the only method of securing discharge is by appeal to the Admiralty. The Royal Commission on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency criticised these arrangements. This Bill will repeal the Act of 1931 and do away with them. The effect of Clause 2, which, I am afraid, is necessarily somewhat complicated, is that patients who are lawfully detained by the 1931 Act at the appointed day will continue to be detained as if they had been admitted to the hospital under the ordinary law relating to certification and detention of mental patients. Thereafter, they will be in the same position as patients in other mental hospitals. Voluntary patients will be able to remain without fresh application being made.

I think that I should give some explanation to the House of the effect of the proposed transfer on patients and staff. I should like to make it plain that there is no intention of removing patients from the hospital. The hospital will remain a mental hospital, and it will have the advantage of closer links with the mental health service than in the past. It is hoped to make greater use of the hospital in the future and to send there, in due course, some patients from overcrowded hospitals in the area. But every effort will continue to be made to take any ex-naval or pensioner patients whose relatives express a wish that they should go there rather than to other hospitals.

There is equally no intention of disturbing the staff. Apart from serving medical officers, who will be transferred to another station, all are civil servants. There is no intention of transferring them compulsorily with the hospital. All will be offered continued employment with the regional hospital board. If any wish to remain civil servants, the Admiralty will endeavour to find them employment elsewhere. If they cannot be found employment elsewhere, they will be entitled to the normal abolition of office terms for civil servants, but I hope that all will wish to remain at the hospital where a lob remains for them.

Most of the staff are established civil servants. If they choose to accept the appointments which will be offered them by the regional hospital board, they will he given the option to stay on their present terms and condition of service or to transfer to National Health Service terms. Temporary staff will also be offered appointments on National Health Service terms. There is no provision in the Bill for superannuation because it is possible fully to cover this under the National Health Service Act.

Mr. Mellish

Is it to be understood that the hospital will be administered by a hospital management committee? In other words, there is existing already a hospital management committee which will have work added to it by the addition of this hospital?

Mr. Thompson

It will be administered by a Committee under the regional hospital board.

I was speaking about temporary staff from the superannuation point of view. My right hon. Friend proposes, in due course, to lay regulations before Parliament which will provide for the superannuation of all staff and will enable those who are not at present covered by the National Health Service superannuation scheme to choose whether to come under it or to remain under the Civil Service scheme.

For administrative convenience, it has been thought desirable not to specify the date of transfer in the Bill itself. If the Bill is enacted in time, it is hoped to effect this on 1st April next, the beginning of the financial year being a convenient date for both the Admiralty and the regional hospital board.

The proposal has the full support of the Admiralty and will, I am sure, be welcome as bringing the administration of the hospital into line with that of mental hospitals generally, of removing the anomalous provisions about the certification and detention of patients and as being likely to contribute to the welfare of present and future patients.

12.55 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Steele (Dunbartonshire, West)

I should like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his clear exposition of the history of this hospital. He said that it had had a varied history. I think that he omitted one particular instance. That is that from 1890 to 1931 this hospital was administered by the Admiralty without any powers from Parliament or anyone else. In point of fact, the 1931 Act, to which he referred, was an Act to indemnify all those who had been associated with it from any legal consequences.

It would have been interesting to see the First Lord of the Admiralty and others in a white sheet in the dock in connection with what they had been doing with it. The fact that the Admiralty was able to carry it on from 1890 to 1931 without any authority from Parliament at all is perhaps nothing new for the Admiralty. No doubt, if one investigated many of the things it did, one would find that to be true.

Another thing that the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned was in connection with the powers of detention. He said that one of the reasons for this transfer was to get over the anomalous position which exists in the hospital. During the passage of the 1931 Bill, the Admiralty said that this was a hospital provision, and while arguments were put forward that in point of fact certification by only two doctors and the manner in which it was done was not right and proper, the Admiralty was able to convince the House at that time that this in fact was a good thing. The circumstances of this hospital have not changed very much since 1931, but the Admiralty at that time was able to convince the House that it was right and proper for the Admiralty to look after this hospital.

I do not know what has changed its mind. It may be that the cost of running the hospital now is looked upon by the Admiralty as being something which ought not to fall upon their Vote, and no doubt this is an economy which they could achieve. I trust that it is not a change of attitude of mind at the Admiralty in connection with the long history of that Department in the care and attention of its staff when they are sick or injured.

It is true, I think, that the Parliamentary Secretary has made out a case for the transfer of this hospital, even if it is from the point of view of making better use of the facilities that exist there. It is wrong that any legislation of this House should prohibit the use of accommodation, beds or whatever it may be, in one hospital when other hospitals are overcrowded, and I think that it is right and proper that legislation of this House should be altered to enable the full use to be made of this hospital.

In his closing remarks the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the problem of the staff. I should like to know the number of the staff involved, and I should like to know more about their present conditions of service. Am I to understand that they are naval personnel and that their conditions, their pay and their superannuation' are as those of civil servants under the naval code? I appreciate that the male nursing staff at this hospital are probably unique in the Admiralty; there cannot possibly be anything else like this. It would be interesting to know exactly how they are placed at present and what the proposals are for the future.

We should perhaps have given the Bill a very warm welcome had it not been for certain events which have taken place over the past few weeks. The Minister of Health has taken an action in connection with the Health Service and certain personnel employed in it. One wonders whether the personnel who are employed at this hospital now welcome the change. The Ministry of Defence has been asked by the House to give an undertaking to keep the payment of the Service personnel under review in connection with the need to recruit, but he Minister of Health, on the other hand, seems to have taken a different view. His action in connection with the pay claim of National Health Service workers and the Whitley Council has been rather different.

I wonder whether any consultation took place beforehand with the staff of the hospital and whether agreement was then reached about the transfer, and I wonder whether the Minister's decision has altered their views. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us a little more about how this option is to work? As I understand it, any of the male nursing staff or of the other personnel in the hospital have the option of retaining their present pay and conditions of service as if they had been retained by the Admiralty. Alternatively, if they so elect they can transfer to the Health Service.

If a man transfers, what happens to his pension rights and superannuation? In giving people a right to elect, there is always a danger that because of changes in circumstances a man may find in the future that the election which he mace was not to his advantage. That is always the difficulty, and perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can say something about it.

We welcome the Bill as far as it provides more accommodation for mental patients, but we are concerned about the staff, and from that point of view, in connection with the appointed date, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will hesitate before he brings the Bill into operation.

1.4 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Mellish (Bermondsey)

I intervene in this matter because some important principles are involved. It is a very great pity that the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) is not here, because the Bill concerns his constituency. I expect that he has a very good reason for not being here, but it is a pity that he has not taken part in the debate, because the Bill will transfer a hospital of 236 beds, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, to an existing hospital management committee.

The last thing I want is to have any conflict with the Chair. I have great respect for you as an individual, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as you know, and I want to state my case briefly before I enlarge upon it so that I may keep in order. This is a hospital of 236 beds which is being transferred to an existing hospital management committee, which means that the hospital management committee's staff will have more work to do. To administer a hospital of this size is no small task. Salaries and bills have to be paid and the whole financial structure of the hospital has to be catered for, and the work which goes on in the running of a hospital is very complex. I have some personal knowledge of this, because I am the chairman of a hospital management committee and know something of the problems of administering a hospital.

I therefore put it to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I am in order when I argue, as I shall, that the transfer of this hospital at this time to an existing hospital management committee, with staff problems existing throughout the National Health Service, is an unwise decision. I shall want far more assurance than we have had so far that the hospital will be administered properly, because the administrative and clerical hospital workers in the service are applying an overtime ban as from Monday. This means that they will work only their appropriate number of hours and will refuse to work any extra time.

The hospital management committee in Yarmouth is to have imposed upon it another hospital of 236 beds, for which the administration will be a big task, and I wonder how that will be done in the present situation. I therefore want to deal with the situation of the staff who will run the hospital, because I think that the introduction of the Bill is unwise unless it is accompanied with some assurance that some of these staff problems associated with hospital management committees can be overcome.

We all know that the overtime ban on Monday will have a very serious effect. Already we are very short of administrative and clerical workers for the hospital management committees throughout the National Health Service. We have explained the reason to the Minister, and it is that our rates of pay in this grade compare unfavourably with every other appropriate rate of pay in other services. I have a number of figures which I want to quote to explain the position. The Minister has applied a veto on a 3 per cent. award which was made—

The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith)

I keep making it clear—and I am sure the hon. Member knows it by now—that the term "veto" is entirely inappropriate. This is not a veto. This is a withholding of approval in the context of the present circumstances with an undertaking to review at an appropriate time. The word "veto" is wholly inappropriate.

Mr. Mellish

The Minister is a very able lawyer, as I concede, but it is hard to tell people that when an increase of 3 per cent. has been awarded and when the Minister has told them they cannot have it, nevertheless it has not been vetoed. I do not know why the Minister is upset about the word "veto." He said to these people, "Thou shalt not have", and that means that the award has been vetoed. I do not have to be a lawyer to understand that.

Mr. Walker-Smith

All I am doing is asking the hon. Member and others who think with him on this decision not to paraphrase a perfectly clear statement with a word which does not describe the position as it is. One does not need to be a lawyer to know that that is not the appropriate thing to do.

Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)

Did the Minister use his big toe, his little toe, or his veto?

Mr. Mellish

The position is that action has been taken by the Minister to withhold a legitimate award of 3 per cent. and that this has caused consternation amongst administrative and clerical staff, including the staff at the hospital management committee which will take over the hospital dealt with in the Bill. I do not believe that the staff there can possibly be ready to take over this hospital, and I am worried about the position. If the word "veto" upsets the Minister, I can assure him that it is exactly the term used by every hospital clerical and administrative worker throughout the Service.

Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett (Croydon, North-East)

I may have misunderstood the Minister, but surely this point is not relevant, because, as I understand, the Bill does not contain a date for the transfer. It is only an intention to do it on 1st April and, if the staff are not ready by then, why does the hon. Member assume that the transfer will take place then?

Mr. Mellish

We are discussing a Bill to empower the Minister to transfer the hospital to a hospital management committee on 1st April. I hope that by 1st April the Minister will have learned some common sense and will have dealt with the present position, but I am arguing that this is an opportunity for the House to consider the position of the staff which is to administer the hospital.

I was about to say—and I am glad. Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that, so far, I appear to be carrying you with me—that the position ought really to be stated fairly and honestly so that it may be known why the administrative staff of this hospital management committee in the Yarmouth area, which is to take over the hospital, is so upset. I think that some simple figures will illustrate the point.

First, by grading alone we are so very much worse off than local government or county government staffs. Even worse is the contrast of the basic increases which have been awarded to other grades of similar workers in other services to those which are applied to employees in the Health Service. For example, the clerical worker in the Civil Service who was on a salary of £385–£390 in 1948 has since had a 56 per cent. increase. In the teaching profession, the increase is 60 per cent.; local government, 45 per cent.; the electricity industry, 47 per cent.; and gas, 51 per cent.

The Health Service, however, has had only a 34 per cent. increase. There are many other rates that I could quote but I do not want to weary the House, or detain it. I wish only to take the opportunity to state facts that should be understood. Of course, when the Minister refused to apply the Whitley Council's 3 per cent. award these factors were not taken into consideration—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I hope that he will keep within the terms of the Bill. I quite see his point, but I do not think that he should go into too great detail on the matter he raises.

Mr. Mellish

I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I know that you recognise my difficulty here. I am very interested in this hospital. I understand why the Minister wants to take it over, and I think that they are right. However, if it is taken over in the situation that at present exists in the National Health Service, there is very grave danger that the hospital will not be administered properly and correctly. Therefore, I do not believe that the Bill should be given a Second Reading, and I am stating why, from every point of view, I think that there will he trouble with this Bill.

This is the irony of the situation. I have taken a great interest in the staff problems of hospitals, because I have always been aware of the anomaly existing between these particular grades and those in other industries. And here I: am not talking about private industry, but Government industry—the Civil Service, and so on.

On 6th February of last year I raised this whole issue on the Adjournment. I do not want to quote extensively from the OFFICIAL REPORT—looking back now, I think that I stated the case quite fairly. I raised particularly the question of staff and salaries, and the reply was given by the hon. Lady the Member for Chislehurst (Miss Hornsby-Smith), then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. She "told me off." She is very capable of doing that, as we know.

The hon. Lady, in a tremendous temper, "ticked me off" for having the impudence to raise the matter on the Floor of the House. She said: I will deal, first, with the machinery. The Whitley Councils are established on a recognised principle of negotiation, of joint councils of employers and employees. I have been somewhat surprised this week to hear, particularly so at Question Time on Monday, hon. Members suggesting that the Minister should intervene. In view of the authority that he carries, intervention could only mean hat one way or the other he would be overriding decisions. It would be a complete contradiction of what we accept as joint negotiating machinery if he were to do so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1956; Vol. 548, c. 1763.] As I say, the hon. Lady "told me off" for having the impudence to raise in this House the question of the salaries of these poor, wretched staff. Even a year ago I thought that their rates of pay were appalling. As one associated with the trade union movement for many years. I quite realised that the Floor of the House of Commons was not the place to raise matters of salaries and conditions, but, as I saw it, these people had no alternative but to rely on someone like myself. At that time I was supported by an hon. Gentleman opposite, because there are no party politics in this matter. I thought that to take that action was the only thing to do, but I was "told off" by the hon. Lady.

Quite frankly, this new Minister of Health has made a shocking impression throughout the whole of the Health Service. In this Government. Ministers of Health come and go. They are like Ministers of Education—one hardly knows who is in power at the moment. For the first time, I think, in the history of the machinery, the present Minister of Health, in five minutes, knocks out an award approved by the Whitley Council. That has appalled every trade unionist and every trade union in the country, and, as a result, we are to have an overtime ban operating from Monday next.

The hospital management committee of which I am very proud to be chairman has a number of hospitals in its charge, and already we are short of staff. The present shocking rates of pay do not allow us to have a full complement. We have a finance department that is responsible for a budget of £653,000—a lot of money to spend; for thousands of bills to be paid; for thousands of receipts to be collected. The running of the hospital—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think that the hon. Member is getting a little beyond the Bill, is he not?

Mr. Mellish

Not really, with very great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because this is what the staff at Great Yarmouth and the hospital management committee there will have to face if the Bill is given a Second Reading.

The one great feature of the National Health Service is that one can go from one management committee to another and see the same system being applied, particularly on finance. The accountancy of the financial side is laid down by the Treasury, which says how the thing shall be done. Some of its instructions are very typical of the Treasury. They are quite stupid, and make for a lot of wasted paper, time and effort. Nevertheless, we have to obey.

I do not know what the position is in Great Yarmouth—we may be told before the debate concludes—but the staff of the finance department of my hospital management committee is already six short. We administer £653,000 of the country's money, on Monday there is to be an overtime ban, and I am appalled at the future. I know that the staff quite sincerely mean it when they say that patients will not be affected. That is their intention—the last thing they want to do is to hurt the patients—but if bills are not paid, receipts not given, and the whole administration does not tick over, then doctors and nurses, too, will be affected, and if they are affected then, ultimately, the patients will be affected.

That is the stupidity of the Minister's decision. Why he selected these poor wretches I do not know. He allowed the 5 per cent. award for those earning over £1,200 a year. He let that go through. As you will probably know. Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I have gone into the matter very carefully, and I know the individuals on the management side of the Whitley Council. I do not propose to detail them, but it would be fair to say that they are among the most responsible citizens of the country. They represent regional boards and hospital management committees. They are people who have earned the respect of everyone in the country, and they all have unanimously agreed to this 3 per cent. Yet the Minister, despite all that, has vetoed their decision. I put it to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he is fortunate to have people willing to serve in a voluntary capacity in the way these people do and to give up hours of their time trying to assist in the running of the Service. It is not very satisfactory, when they have come to a unanimous decision, that the Minister should of his own volition refuse to agree to what they have recommended.

The Minister has completely undermined the whole principle of Whitleyism. He had done something for which he will never be forgiven by those in the Service. How can we possibly hope to put forward further increases in the future when we have the knowledge that the Minister may well veto, stop, block—he may use any word he likes—any particular award which may be made? I understand that there has today been demonstrations by the people concerned, and it has come to a sorry pass when a respectable body of people are compelled to take such action to bring matters to the notice of authority.

The Minister says that it has to do with inflation. I do not propose to go into that argument, because I wish to keep within the rules of order. We are concerned with this Bill which says that the Yarmouth Naval Hospital is to be transferred. I agree that from the point of view of the administration of mental hospitals it is a good thing. It is right that the hospital should be under the central control and within the area of a regional board. The Minister may like to know—probably he does not know much about it at the moment, but he will learn after a bit—that in the regional boards there are mental health committees composed of experienced people; and when this hospital enters a regional board area it will be given expert attention. It is right therefore that the hospital should be transferred to people capable and able to run it.

But everyone in the regional board is worried about the future with regard to staff. They want to know where do we go from here, what is the position of the Minister. Our position has been completely undermined. I do not know what more I can say to try to impress this on the Minister, except that even at this late stage he would not lose face were he to say on Monday that he had reconsidered this matter. I am one of those people who believes that if a person admits making a mistake it makes him a bigger man in the end, and—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Member may hold that belief, but I do not think we can deal with that now. I told the hon. Gentleman how far I think he should go in this debate, and I do not consider that we can discuss the matters to which he is now referring.

Mr. Mellish

I think you have been very lenient and fair, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I respect you for that.

When the Parliamentary Secretary replies, will he please explain the position about the staff of the hospital management committee to which this hospital is to be transferred? He should know, if he does not perhaps his officers can tell him. What is the position about the staffing of the hospital management committee which will take over the hospital? Is it able to absorb this hospital and administer it with the existing staff? Is there a staff shortage, and if so, how many? These questions have to be answered. There is no use talking about the position of patients in a hospital if we do not also consider the question of administration, because both are important. If we have not the staff to deal with the matter, we shall have to think about this transfer again. We want definite details about staff and we wish to know from the Parliamentary Secretary—the Minister has been "nattering" to him all the time I have been speaking and he may have told him this—whether there is any hope of an early settlement of this vicious problem to enable us to abolish the overtime ban and then to recruit more staff to make the Service even more efficient.

I in common with many others give up hours of my spare time doing a job of work for the Service, and I am only too glad to be able to do it. But conditions are bad enough with the present staff shortages without having the Minister making the position so much worse. The whole voluntary structure of the National Health Service—and this is often forgotten—is run by people who give up their spare time. We expect the Minister to support these people; and at least we ought to be able to receive a sympathetic reply today from the Parliamentary Secretary.

1.25 p.m.

Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)

It is difficult to convey to the Minister in the quiet atmosphere of a Second Reading debate on a Bill which is non-controversial the difficulty felt by some hon. Members on this side of the House regarding the problem so moderately outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). I wish the Minister could understand how his name is mud to many people who have defended him before, and who are part of an organisation built up over so many years; the sort of people who are not interested in vigorous political action, and who have been content in the past to believe that their conditions were in good hands.

The Minister must accept that hon. Members on this side of the House have to contest this attempt to hand over to him any more responsibility. Even were it only a question of handing over a horse-drawn ambulance, I should consider it my duty to oppose the Bill. But the Minister has the matter in his own hands. Will he give us an assurance that the date will not be fixed until after he has withdrawn his opposition—or whatever name he gives to it—to the granting of the legitimate increase in salary to the administrative staffs of the hospitals?

1.27 p.m.

Mr. R. Thompson

By leave of the House, I wish to make a few further observations in reply to the points which have been raised. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) gave the House some interesting historical details about the earlier administration of this hospital. The hon. Member will agree that whatever may have been the case in the past, the present arrangements have been effective in tidying up something which has perhaps not always been a particularly tidy arrangement.

The hon. Member may be interested to know, because he raised the question of the cost of running the hospital, that at present it costs the Admiralty about £60,000 per year. It is anticipated that after it has been transferred it will cost about £80,000, which is not a great increase in view of the additional beds coming into use and the fixed facilities which are already available.

The hon. Member referred to the problem of staff. All are civil servants. There are 77, of whom 58 are established, and I have no reason to suppose that they oppose this transfer. He asked what happened to pension rights. If the option is exercised to take National Health Service conditions, due allowance is made for approved Admiralty pension rights. The option regarding pension rights is a separate option. The staff can exercise options to get the best possible conditions for themselves under both pay and pension.

In any case, all this will be included in the regulations which, in due course, my right hon. and learned Friend will lay before the House. Those regulations will be subject to an affirmative Resolution, so that we shall be able to have another talk about that if we wish to.

I wish to say a word to the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), whose close interest in these matters, and experience, are very well known. The hon. Gentleman spent a good deal of time on a matter which was fully discussed during the debate on the Gracious Speech and in connection with which my right hon. and learned Friend made a definitive statement on 6th November. Although the situation at the moment is undoubtedly relevant to some extent to the future administration of this hospital after its transfer to the National Health Service, I do not think that we should allow the fact that there is now a dispute to stand in the way of giving the Bill a Second Reading. As the hon. Gentleman himself said, the narrow objects of the Bill are objects which he would support, and one cannot suppose that the dispute to which he referred is one which will be permanent. Therefore, I think that we should give a Second Reading to the Bill today.

The hon. Gentleman made one reference to the hon. Lady the Member for Chislehurst (Miss Hornsby-Smith), a predecessor of mine, and to a speech which she made some time ago—I think in February of this year. I would only say that when she was referring to intervention, which I think was the point which the hon. Gentleman made, my understanding was that she was referring to intervention at the negotiating stage. What my right hon. and learned Friend has done is what he has a statutory and inescapable duty to do, which is, after the negotiating stage, either to approve or reject. That is a duty which he cannot escape, whether he would wish it or not. All these matters have been very fully debated during the debate on the Address, and I cannot think that any words of mine today could usefully add to what has already been said.

The hon. Gentleman also asked what is the position of the staff, and, in particular, I think he had in mind this problem: can the existing hospital management committee which, in due course, if all goes well, will have the administration of this hospital on its hands in addition to the responsibilities it already has, be able to cope with these new responsibilities? The hon. Gentleman also wants to know whether the hospital could be administered with the existing staff, and which hospital management committee was to be responsible for all this.

I cannot tell him which hospital management committee is concerned, and this will not be settled until after this Bill has received a Second Reading. I think that is reasonable. I think it would be anticipating matters a little and putting the cart before the horse if we were to get down to too much detail before the Bill had received a Second Reading.

Mr. Mellish

Is there a hospital management committee covering the Yarmouth area now? I suppose there is and that it would be that one. It would not go to a body outside the area, would it?

Mr. Thompson

This matter will be settled by the East Anglian Regional Hospital Board, and it is really for that body to decide which the appropriate committee would be.

Mr. Mellish

Is it not obvious that it must be handed over to the nearest hospital management committee? The hon. Gentleman could not hand it over to the Bermondsey and Southwark Committee, could he?

Mr. Thompson

It will either go to the local one or to another mental hospital group, because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, this is a mental hospital.

The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) rather followed the same line as his hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey, and I do not think I could usefully follow him at this stage, because the effect of your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, was that we could not go too closely into matters of staff disagreement about pay and conditions and matters of that kind.

Mr. Mellish

On a point of order. Did you in fact rule that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? I do not think you did, because I thought you were very generous.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

No, I did not, but I probably ought to have done.

Mr. Parkin

Further to that point of order. Surely you would not have ruled out of order my simple question. In view of the depth of feeling on this matter, would the Minister undertake that the date of taking over should be deferred until he has approved the new salary scale?

Mr. Thompson

I was coming to that point, and can give a definite answer to the hon. Gentleman. No date has yet been fixed, but my right hon. and learned Friend would not be prepared to act in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Paddington, North.

I have tried to deal with the various points raised in this short but quite useful discussion, and I think that perhaps now we ought to agree, if the House thinks fit, to give the Bill a Second Reading. There is no doubt that additional hospital accommodation is urgently needed, and that the passage of this Bill will in due course make some measurable contribution to that very desirable end in an area in which it is particularly needed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Barber.]

Committee upon Monday next.