§ No body of persons or trust established for charitable purposes only shall be deprived of the exemption granted under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section four hundred and forty-seven of the Income Tax Act, 1952, solely by reason of the fact that the body of persons or trust issues an annual report or any transactions free to members.—[Mrs. White.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The object of the new Clause is to assist learned societies and similar charitable bodies who have relied until recently for part of their income on covenanted subscriptions on which they were allowed to have tax rebates from the Inland Revenue. I raised this matter, which is of considerable concern to a large number of learned and cultural societies, during our debates on the Budget speech.
I am not sure whether all hon. Members are aware how many societies with varied interests have been affected or believe that they may be affected by the recent activities of the Inland Revenue in disallowing covenanted subscriptions. Societies dealing with subjects as diverse as chemistry, astronomy, numismatics, anthropology, folklore, genealogy, Egyptian, Roman and Hellenic studies and ornithology, and a vast list of similar subjects, have been put in a state of apprehension and confusion by a decision which affected a society with characteristics rather different from those of many of the societies which I have mentioned.
9.15 p.m.
When this matter was raised in the Budget debate we did not have a reply from the Government and I therefore took the opportunity of writing to the Financial Secretary on the matter, from whom I received a reply dated 19th June. In this reply the hon. and learned Gentleman referred me in particular to the case of the National Book League 1134 which was heard in the High Court in July, 1956, after being heard previously by the Special Commissioners and also in the lower court. The Minister wrote to me as follows:
In relation to the matter you raise, the most relevant case, as you know, is the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the National Book League case.Far be it from me to chop legal logic with the Solicitor-General, whom I believe is to reply to this debate, but I would like to emphasise that in that case, on which the Financial Secretary based the whole of his letter to me, the Master of the Rolls in delivering judgment pointed out at page 470 of the "Tax Cases Reports" that:The present case must turn upon its own special facts; and, as I shall observe presently, I think the facts in the present case are special in a marked degree.In other words, as the Master of the Rolls considered that the case of the National Book League was special in a marked degree, it is not satisfactory to base one's reply in this matter on that case because there were in that instance some special circumstances. I do not wish to detain the House by going into them in any detail, but anyone who has studied this case knows that the National Book League is indeed a charitable body. Its pursuits are most admirable, as all the judges in the Court of Appeal agreed, but it has certain characteristics which do not obtain with many of the other societies mentioned. Among other things, it provides a restaurant and certain facilities which might be considered to be equivalent to club facilities. Also there were other circumstances of a rather ill-advised letter sent by its chairman to its investing subscribers offering them unusual advantages in return for their covenants.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralHe gave the show away.
§ Mrs. WhiteThat I would grant, and I am not wishing to dispute the judgment of the Court of Appeal. Far be it from 1135 me to do that. What I am saying is that it disturbed me very much to find from the letter sent to me by the Financial Secretary that it appears that the Treasury is still considering that the case of the National Book League should be regarded as a test by which one should judge the various other societies concerned in this matter.
§ Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas (Leicester, North-East)It gave the show away.
§ Mrs. WhiteIndeed the letter of the Financial Secretary gave the show away completely to my mind.
So far from accepting the case of the National Book League as one which should be universally applicable, as the Solicitor-General is no doubt aware, a number of learned societies came together and decided to put forward two other organisations as possible test cases. I believe that the British Academy and the Society of Antiquaries are making cases to the Special Commissioners and that these are to be considered in a few months' time. It seems to those of us who have looked into the matter that there is more than a question of law at stake. There is also a question of public policy. While I hesitate to dispute any legal matter with the Solicitor-General—
§ Mrs. White—I am not yet a Portia come to judgment—I want to put as forcibly as I can the question of public policy which appears to be involved.
The societies concerned vary from great national learned societies whose names are universally known to small local bodies, local archaeological societies, for example, and I believe that in certain areas there are friends of cathedrals and bodies of that kind whose position is at least in doubt if they issue publications. There are bodies like the Wild Life Trust and similar bodies concerned with the study of natural history and so on, some of them with a small membership and appealing to a limited number of persons, but doing valuable and completely disinterested work in their own line and who find it by no means easy to survive in the present age when the ability of 1136 private patrons to support them is not great.
Therefore, as a matter of public policy, we should seriously consider whether, instead of pursuing the societies—quite legitimately, perhaps—the Inland Revenue should not be directed to take a different line. The societies vary enormously in size and character, conditions of membership, the nature of their publications, and so forth. I admit that it is not easy to legislate satisfactorily for all of them.
Some whose covenants have been disallowed are in a special position. I am thinking of the society to whose secretary I spoke only today. I am told that this society has lost about £500 a year as a result of the refusal of the Inland Revenue to allow its covenanted subscriptions. On the other hand, it is one of those bodies which, through the Royal Society, which presents these applications to the Treasury, is eligible for a grant from the Government towards the cost of scientific publications. It therefore hopes to obtain by one means what it is losing in another. The society is in that happy position and is not unduly worrying about the £500 a year revenue loss, because it hopes that it will get that back since it ranks as a scientific society within the ambit of the Treasury fund for supporting scientific publication.
However, there are many other societies, especially the smaller and local ones, which have no such reinsurance arrangement with the Treasury. They will be hit very hard. There is the possibility, at which Lord Evershed more than hinted in his ruling on the National Book League case, that some of the societies could reorganise their subscriptions in such a way that they could covenant for part of the subscriptions and not for some other part. That is a lawyer's way out and no doubt fat fees will be earned by members of the legal profession for advising societies how best to do all this.
Some of the societies which I have questioned have said that they dislike the idea of having to undertake something which they regard as something of a "wangle", feeling that that is something which bodies of their nature should not be asked to undertake. They feel 1137 that it is beneath the dignity of great learned societies to have to stoop to this kind of—it would not be a fiddle, of course—wangle. Possibly the Treasury has very little sympathy with that.
I suggest in all earnestness that we should look again at the relations between the State and these societies which are charitable by nature—that is not in dispute at all—and which are pursuing learning in some shape or form. There are various anomalies. For example, as Lord Evershed pointed out, the National Art Collection Fund is apparently allowed to retain covenanted subscriptions, although it offers certain benefits to its members in that they may visit collections free of charge which would not be available to ordinary members of the public.
The National Trust, I believe, although it allows its members free access to various houses and estates, has also managed somehow or other to get round the Inland Revenue. On the other hand, there are other bodies which provide publications and lectures which are available to the public, and libraries open to any bona fide students free of charge; in other words, amenities which seem to me to be no greater in degree than those offered by the two bodies I have mentioned, but which have not been allowed to keep their covenanted subscriptions. Therefore, there is a great deal of confusion in this matter.
If we take as our main object that we should regard it as a matter of public policy to foster these bodies, we should look at this whole question in a different way. The new Clause which we have submitted is not intended to be a complete answer to this problem. We recognise that the problem is a complex one, and the aim of the new Clause is to secure to the societies the absolute minimum to which we think they should be entitled as a matter of public policy. We suggest that a body which issues an annual report or transactions free to its members should not, for that reason, lose the benefit of covenanted subscriptions.
There may possibly be other considerations, such as there undoubtedly were in the case of the National Book League, which would lead the Inland Revenue to suggest that the benefits received in return for covenanted subscriptions were such that they could not be regarded as 1138 free income profit, which is the phrase used to cover these matters. We suggest that, at the very least, these societies should be assured that if all they give to their members is an annual report or transactions in return for subscriptions, those societies should feel that they at least were in the clear.
Unless we give them this assurance, it means that these bodies have to have all the worry and anxiety of not knowing what income they have at their disposal. They have to prepare a case for submission to the Special Commissioners, brief counsel and so on. Why should they be put to all this trouble and worry if we really wish to support them and the objects for which they stand?
It may be said that the word "transactions" may cover a wide variety of publications, and I am sure that a lawyer could make it mean that. I am happy to know that the Solicitor-General raises no objection on that score, and I think that the proposal we make is the minimum reasonable proposal that could be made to show that we wish to support the activities of these bodies.
9.30 p.m.
If we look at the wider question of the relationship between the State and these bodies—and I think the House ought to do so—we see that something more is needed than the Clause. The Minister of Housing and Local Government has set up the Pritchard Committee to deal with the cognate problem of the difficulties of rating societies of the kind that we have been discussing. The time has arrived when we might have a Treasury Committee to look into the whole relationship between the Exchequer and societies of the kind that we have been discussing.
§ Mr. SpeakerI dislike interrupting the hon. Lady, but I do not think that rating is involved in the Clause.
§ Mrs. WhiteI was not discussing rating, Mr. Speaker. I was merely mentioning, by way of analogy, that a Committee had been set up by another Minister to consider the question of rating, and I was suggesting that it might be desirable for the Treasury to set up a Committee to study the question of taxation, as opposed to rating, as it affects these societies.
The Chancellor will remember that when Entertainments Duty applied to 1139 theatres and similar bodies, other than cinemas—to which it is now applied exclusively—there was an arrangement whereby the duty was remitted not according to the particular performance but according to the nature of the organisation which undertook it. Something similar to that ought to apply to our dealings with the learned societies and cultural bodies which experience this difficulty.
I grant that that is too complex a matter to deal with in debate today, but there is a very strong case for dealing with these matters not according to the strict logic of Inland Revenue law but according to the aims of public policy. That case might very well be met better by looking at the nature of the body rather than too strictly and in too great detail at the precise benefits which its members receive. But at this stage, in order to sustain these societies, we suggest as a minimum that the issue of an annual report or transactions, of itself, should not debar them from the advantage upon which many of them depend for a large proportion of their revenue—the advantage of receiving subscriptions under a covenant and obtaining the benefit therefrom.
§ Mr. E. FletcherI beg to second the Motion, which has been so admirably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White)—with all the eloquence of a Portia come to judgment.
I must admit to a certain personal interest in this matter. I cannot conceal the fact that I am a member of one or two learned societies. I hope that that will not disentitle me from seconding the Motion with a complete sense of objectivity, impartiality and brevity—and with no lack of enthusiasm.
The Clause deals with a very serious issue, which the Tory Government must face. In this day and age learned societies are faced with a very serious financial problem, largely as a result of the quite adventitious decision of the Court of Appeal in the case concerning the National Book League. I have no doubt that the Solicitor-General has read the article in the Observer entitled, "The Inland Revenue v. the Learned Societies," but what a tragedy it is that there should have to be such an article. Why should the Inland Revenue be against learned societies? Surely it is the duty of the Inland Revenue and of the Government 1140 to do what they can to succour and sustain learned societies, not to pillory and harass them at every stage.
The learned societies, heaven knows, have frightful economic problems. They are fighting the cause of learning and scholarship. They are dependent upon their subscriptions, paid by heavily taxed taxpayers in order that those societies may maintain a certain level of scholarship for which this country has obtained a reputation in the years gone by. The plight of these learned societies has become very serious indeed, because, as the Observer said, of a decision, reluctantly taken, in favour of the Inland Revenue in the case of the National Book League.
Shorn of all technicalities, the position is that for a long time many learned societies of various kinds have published transactions of various kinds, historical, geographical, archæological or anthropological. They have depended upon covenanted subscriptions by people in different parts of the country. Because those people pay by covenant, the societies have been able to recover the tax.
Some of these societies hold meetings in London, and some have premises while others have to hire premises. Because of the unfortunate decision in the case of the National Book League, the Inland Revenue now says, "Some of these members may get benefit from their subscriptions if they live in London because they can use the library or the rooms when they go to a meeting". That is perfectly true, but the vast majority of the people do not have these amenities. They pay their subscriptions by covenant and they receive a volume of transactions. They have been doing that for a number of years and, therefore, the societies have been able to get benefit.
In the National Book League case, the Court of Appeal said, "These people choose to pay in that way. There may be some benefit. Therefore, this cannot be regarded as a purely voluntary subscription which entitles the society to relief of Income Tax". The Court came to that decision with very great reluctance. There is no doubt that learned societies are faced now either with resorting to subterfuge, which they do not want to do, such as splitting up the subscription into two parts, or with having a legislative 1141 remedy. The obvious remedy, as the Court pointed out, through Lord Evershed, Master of the Rolls—and as every other intelligent person has pointed out—is that of legislation. We have therefore put a quite simple new Clause on the Notice Paper and we hope that it will receive the support of the whole House.
I cannot conceive of any argument against the proposed new Clause on its merits. Surely the Government, who pretend to have at heart the interests of learning and of scholarship, and make various subventions with that in view, should have the common sense to see that the right way to aid learned societies is to accept the proposed new Clause and so remedy the great injustice, anomaly and absurdity that has been caused by the National Book League decision.
I realise that the Conservative Party is always regarded as the stupid party. I happen to think that this particular Conservative Party is the most stupid party we have ever had in this country. I do not think the present Solicitor-General is the most stupid Solicitor-General, but I do think that the whole of the Tory Party stands condemned of a great deal of stupidity and obscurantism. This Clause, the Second Reading of which my hon. Friend moved so eloquently, is the real acid test as to whether this stupid Conservative Party, which has always prided itself on its stupidity, has the intelligence, the decency and commonsense to realise and recognise the cost of learning and scholarship and the learned societies of this country or not. We shall hear the answer to that question when the Solicitor-General replies.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralWith regard to the customary speech of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), I do not know how the matter lies. I am grateful to the Opposition for raising the basic question of public policy here, and I am not going to run away from it for a moment. I am going to invite the consideration of hon. Members opposite to points I have to raise, but as to the test of which is the stupid party I am bound to take the point that on the best advice I can get and in my own view the effect of this Clause which is to be the saving grace of the learned societies would be absolutely nil.
§ Mr. E. FletcherQuite wrong.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI am told I am quite wrong, and before I move to public policy I must explain the point because that is essential to an understanding of what we are here concerned with.
The Clause makes an assumption. It assumes that the charity or learned society could lose an exemption, with which the Clause is concerned, by reason of rendering services by publishing literature, or whatever it may be; but that is not so. The assumption is wrong. The exemption under Section 447 is an exemption related to "annual payments." Cases like that of the National Book League, where the charity was held not to be entitled to recover the tax purported to be deducted by the payer when he pays the subscription, proceed not on the basis that the charity or learned society loses its charitable status, not on the basis that it loses its exemption in relation to annual payments, but that the effect of what it has done is to make the payment not an annual payment for the purpose of these provisions. That is why the Clause would have no effect, and I am bound to say at the outset that it would not assist anybody in any way because it works on the basis of an assumed "annual payment."
I do not seem to have made that very plain. Perhaps I may develop it so as to make it quite plain. Annual payments within Section 447 are payments which are not the subject matter of a condition or counter stipulation on the part of the charity. The phrase which the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) quoted from Lord Greene is exactly right, in order to constitute annual payments they must be pure income profit in the hands of the charity or they are not annual payments for the purposes of the Section.
That is the basis of all this argument, the reason why there have been cases like the National Book League case, where the charity has not been entitled to recover tax is just on that basis. The payer is not entitled to deduct tax when he pays unless the payment is an annual payment for the purposes of the law, and, therefore, the charity is not entitled to recover tax when it receives the money unless it be an annual payment for the purposes of the law.
1143 The reason in the case of the National Book League why the charity cannot get the benefit back is not that it ceases to be a charity for the purposes of the enactment. I hope that, having made it quite clear that it really would not be sensible in any way to accept this new Clause, because it would not have any effect at all, I may turn to the serious matter of public policy.
§ 9.45 p.m.
§ Mrs. WhiteI am sorry, but those of us who are not learned in the law are still not clear. The Solicitor-General keeps using the technical phrases "annual payment" and "pure income profit." I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman needs to explain it in a little more detail, and slightly more lucidly, for us to appreciate fully what he means and why the Clause that we propose falls on that ground.
As I understand it, "pure income profit" means, among other things, that the recipient of the subscription—the organisation—does not have to enter into expense. That is one of the conditions, is it not? And after all, if it is issuing reports or transactions, there is some expense in doing that. I do not know whether I am on a point there which is acceptable; perhaps the Solicitor-General will explain further.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralOne of the strange matters about this is the hon. Lady's modesty in bandying law with Solicitors-General. I hope that when in a new incarnation she takes up one of her many natural and attractive rôles, as Portia, it will not be my misfortune to have to conduct cases against her.
May I try from the beginning, as I desire to make this point quite plain so as to have the agreement of the House about it? The hon. Member's Clause says this:
No body of persons or trust established for charitable purposes only shall be deprived of the exemption granted under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Section four hundred and forty-seven of the Income Tax Act, 1952, solely by reason of the fact that the body of persons or trust issues an annual report or any transactions free to members.The problem is, first of all, to see what is the exemption that they are not to lose, and I look at Section 447, paragraph (b), in order to see what it is. This is what the Section says:Exemption shall be granted"—1144 and then there is paragraph (a), which does not matter, and then paragraph (b) to which the new Clause refers. And paragraph (b) states:from tax chargeable under Schedule B"—I am sorry, that cannot be right.
§ Mr. E. FletcherIt cannot be.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralNo, the whole Clause is wrong. It must be because the reference in (b) is to tax chargeable under Schedule B in respect of lands occupied by a charity which cannot on any conceivable grounds be what was intended.
§ Mr. FletcherDoes this have any effect on the reason why the Government are not able to accept the Clause?
§ The Solicitor-GeneralNo effect whatsoever.
Here it is at (b)—
from tax chargeable under Schedule C in respect of any interest, annuities, dividends or shares of annuities, and from tax chargeable under Schedule D in respect of any yearly interest or other annual payment…We are here concerned with another annual payment charged under Case III of Schedule D—
§ Mr. Roy Jenkins (Birmingham, Stechford)I am a little confused about this. Perhaps the Solicitor-General can tell us whether he now thinks the Clause means what he originally thought it meant, which he thought did not achieve the purpose we had in mind, or whether he thinks it means something different from what he originally thought it meant.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI am obliged to the hon. Member, but I know that he will let me convince even him that the Clause is quite worthless for the purpose for which it was put down. I answer very firmly that I have so far read the Section, and I have told him what is true, that what we have to find in order to confer the exemption is an annual payment for the purpose of Case III of Schedule D.
By well-established principles of law, one does not get such an annual payment unless one has something that is received by the recipient charity as pure income profit. That is not a phrase to be found in the Statute, but it is well established in many of the cases, and the difficulty about a wide range of these cases where services are rendered or literature is issued by the charitable body is that the 1145 charity may be incurring expenditure which inures to the benefit of the subscriber and, in that sense, what the charity receives from the subscriber is not pure income profit.
Those are my reasons for saying that the Clause will have no effect, and then we get on to the main issue of public policy—[Interruption.] I am not sure that the hon. Member is assisting me, but if he is I am glad to have his assistance if only in regard to the point made about stupid parties.
Aye or no, the question is: is the service rendered by the charity or the literature put forward a matter of sufficient substance as to mean that the charity is incurring some expense which inures to the benefit of the subscriber? If it is, the payment ceases to be an annual payment, and this Clause has nothing to do with it, because it would not, in any circumstances, lose the exemption appropriate to the annual payment. It is just that the payment would not be an annual payment.
May I turn now to the question of policy, which is rather more important, perhaps, in its consequences. The hon. Lady, in courteous terms, was complaining that my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary had, in his answer, referred to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the National Book League case. I would be the first to concede that, of course, the National Book League case is one decided on very special facts; and that we lawyers are advised, as I venture to think is quite reasonable in the circumstances, to look not so much at the facts of the case as at the principle embodied in the judgment applied to them.
I am sure that what my hon. and learned Friend was asking the hon. Lady to do was to look at the judgment and to look at the principle, and I must say that I think it is a little harsh that the Revenue should be attacked here by the hon. Member for Islington, East, and by the article in the Press, which I read—
§ Mr. E. FletcherAnd the Court of Appeal.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI will only deal with two tigers at once, please—a little harsh that the Revenue should be attacked as though it had some discretion 1146 over policy in the matter. It has to apply the law, and if the law is wrong it is up to this House to alter it. That is why I am grateful to hon. Members for raising the policy matter here. That is quite right and sensible, but it is very different from launching an attack on the Revenue, which cannot defend itself. It gives me the opportunity of speaking of the principles on which the Revenue acts in applying the law. It does seem that justice in this field is quite well secured. Of course, if the benefits which the charitable body confers on its subscribers are just trifling, they may be quite properly ignored, and are ignored, and it will be the object of the Inland Revenue to ignore them.
I suggest that the right test is that contained, for instance, in Lord Justice Morris's judgment. I will quote from page 475. The learned Lord Justice was stating the question as he thought it should be stated, and said:
The question arises whether the payments can be said to be pure gifts to the charity. In the terms of a phrase which has been used, can the payments be said to be pure income profit in the hands of the charity? If the payments were made in such circumstances that the League was obliged to afford to the covenantors such amenities and such benefits of membership as would at any particular time be offered to all members, and if those amenities and benefits were appreciable and not negligible, then I do not think that the payments were pure income profit in the hands of the charity.That is the principle on which the Revenue in this field would seek to apply its test. It can be wrong like any other mortals. The question is for the Revenue in the first instance, but there is, after all, an appeal to the Special Commissioners and from the Special Commissioners to the courts; so it seems that if the Revenue was going wrong in its application of the principle it would very soon be put right.I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making the point for me, and to the hon. Gentleman, too, that one has here an enormous range of cases and it would be very difficult to legislate in specific terms in this field. I would seek to adopt the hon. Lady's phrase, but I have forgotten what it was. She said something in substance about the difficulty of legislating over a wide range.
The question of literature, which the Clause raises, does cover a wide field. 1147 We have everything from the bald annual report, which is nothing more than an account of the stewardship by a charity to its subscribers to show that the money has been applied for the purposes for which it was subscribed and no more, to the other kind of publication, which we all know, the expensively produced volume with fancy pictures and specialised articles by acknowledged experts in certain subjects, which is usually sold to non-members at rather enhanced prices. We have everything in that range to deal with, and it is difficult to legislate. It seems easier to apply the test which the law now applies, and which I read from Lord Justice Morris's judgment: Aye or no, the question is: is what is done by the charity for the subscriber a negligible factor, or does it run into substantial amenities representing substantial expenditure by the charity to the benefit of the subscriber? The Revenue seek in this matter, and they have no other policy, not to be too rigorous in applying the law as it was in principle stated in that case.
There is another statement which the House might like to hear in the judgment of the Master of the Rolls. It begins in the report which the hon. Lady cited at the bottom of page 473, but in view of the desire of the House to get on with the matter I do not propose to read it all. The Master of the Rolls concluded at the top of page 474 by saying:
If the test be, as I venture to think it is, whether in all the circumstances, and looking once more at the substance and reality of the matter, these covenantors can be treated as donors of the covenanted sums to the charity, I have come to the conclusion that the answer must be in the negative…That is on the special factors in that case, and that is the test he applied.
§ Mr. E. FletcherThe right hon. and learned Gentleman is being highly technical. He is seeking to justify the view of the Court of Appeal, which is not the real issue here. Are the Government oblivious to the fact that a great many of these learned societies will be literally driven out of existence unless the law is changed?
§ The Solicitor-GeneralFor the present, I am dealing with the subject of what is the test which the Revenue applies and 1148 submitting to the House that it is a satisfactory test, if rightly applied, in a field where it is very difficult to legislate for a wide range of cases. For that reason, I was stating the test as stated by the Court of Appeal and saying that that is all the Revenue tries to apply and tries to apply without undue rigour. Indeed, it is the duty of the Revenue to apply it.
I realise that there may be an impression abroad that some kind of campaign is being launched against these societies by the Revenue. I am very anxious to disabuse the House and the public outside of any such impression. It is quite true that a number of cases awaited the decision in the National Book League case, and, to that extent, there has been some piling up of cases awaiting decision. Since then, there have been other decisions, by no means all in favour of the Revenue in this matter. They went one way or the other. I mean, of course, decisions by the Revenue. As the hon. Lady said, there are certain cases where it is desired to test the decision of the Revenue in a court of law, and the matter is still virtually sub judice. I should have thought, with respect, that that was a good reason, since there are cases still to be heard, for saying that no alteration should be made in the law now. I have no doubt that there is an accumulation built up as a result of the holding up of decisions by the Revenue until it had the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the National Book League case. There is, in fact, no new campaign.
Of course, the practice of covenanting subscriptions, if I may use that general phrase, has been growing very much lately. I venture to submit to the House the view that it might not be wise to try to legislate in some form which specified the literature which should not constitute a substantial benefit for this purpose. I do not know whether the hon. Lady, when suggesting the idea of having some committee or body to look into this question, had overlooked that the Royal Commission itself looked at it. I think it would be helpful to refer to what the Commission's conclusion was. I know the game of saying that people rely on the Royal Commission when they want to and do not rely on it when they do not want to, but in this respect it seems to me that the House would wish to accept 1149 the Commission's view. It is in paragraph 185. I shall not read it all, but at one point the Commission said:
We envisage therefore that charitable institutions will continue to enjoy the benefit of a return of income tax on sums paid under covenants that cover the prescribed period. We ought to add, however, that we expect care to be taken to ensure that a special concession of this kind is not compromised by doubtful practices which may easily become abuses. For instance, cases have occurred of institutions which offer subscribing members appreciable amenities so that the covenanted sum is in part a purchase of personal benefits.I do not for a moment present to the House that a naked annual report by a charity would be the provision of substantial amenities for that purpose, nor do I say that the Revenue would ever seek to assert that it was or that any court or Commissioners would uphold that view if it did proceed on that basis, but I urge that it is, perhaps, rather better, in this wide range of cases, to leave each case to be decided on its own facts and not to seek to define by law, which would have to be cumbrous and perhaps rather ineffective, what was the character of the literature which should not be regarded as a substantial amenity for this purpose. I submit that view to the House as a sensible one, worthy of consideration and in no way a departure from an appreciation of the needs of the learned bodies to which hon. Members have referred.
§ 10.0 p.m.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsThe speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General has left a few things clear and a number of things confused. One of the few things which emerged clearly from his speech is that, on his own assumptions, he could have accepted this new Clause without doing any possible harm to anybody and might thereby have saved a good deal of time, if not, perhaps, doing a great deal of benefit.
The Solicitor-General kept on saying that he would turn from the rather narrow legal grounds with which he thought it necessary to deal in the earlier part of his speech to wider grounds of public policy, but I am bound to say that we never got very near to these wider grounds of public policy in the course of his speech. I am reminded of the days when the Attorney-General used to be the Law Officer in charge of Finance Bills and his presence on the Treasury Bench used to be at once a symbol that 1150 we were approaching a very complicated part of the Bill and a guarantee that nothing would be done from the Treasury Bench to clear up the complication. I thought that there was a distinction between the Solicitor-General and the Attorney-General in the sense that I felt that the Solicitor-General understood what he was saying, but that he erected an impenetrable barrier between himself and almost every other hon. Member. So he was almost unique in that respect.
I certainly did not feel that in the course of his remarks the Solicitor-General made clear the difficulties with which he was faced. He read, which was extremely relevant, part of paragraph 185 of the majority Report of the Royal Commission. It seems to me that paragraph 185 sums up almost exactly what we are trying to achieve by the proposed new Clause. We do not wish to create a position whereby a body, which might or might not be a learned society, could give all sorts of benefits to its members amounting to what are normally benefits accruing from membership of a club, such as applied to some extent in the National Book League case, and be able to claim that it was giving no such benefits.
We simply wish to break down what seems to us to be the barrier between unreasonable and reasonable benefits. What we suggest are reasonable benefits are the publication of annual reports or transactions, even if that goes a little beyond a bare statement of the stewardship of the managing, body for the year concerned. That seems to be a perfectly simple and tenable proposal. The extremely complicated explanation by the Solicitor-General about what the proposed new Clause would or would not do did nothing to make clear why this point of view was not accepted.
Suppose that the Solicitor-General is right in saying that the Clause would not accomplish what we have in mind. After all, it was put down for debate in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) and myself and others who put our names to it withdrew the Clause in Committee entirely because we wished to expedite the progress of the Bill. I think that the Chancellor was grateful to us for doing that. However, the Clause was on the Notice Paper. It 1151 was legitimate for the Solicitor-General or the Chancellor's other legal advisers, if they were concerned, as the Solicitor-General would have us believe, about the problems in learned societies, to apply themselves to it, and, if they wished to achieve the objects that we had in mind without running up against these difficulties, surely, in the interests of learned societies, they could have brought forward a Clause of their own at this stage. After all, the Notice Paper is littered with new Clauses and Amendments from the Chancellor today. Why could not he have done something to deal with the difficulty?
The attitude taken by the Solicitor-General, speaking, presumably, on behalf of the Chancellor, has done nothing to counteract the Government's record in this sphere. I agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher)—who has, no doubt, gone to refresh his memory on an important legal point—that the record of the Government in learning and the arts is thoroughly bad. This was a small opportunity for the Government to do something to counteract this position. There was plenty of opportunity. All that we had in reply was the extremely complicated, unconvincing legal jargon from the Solicitor-General.
I hope very much that the House will not accept this. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is not even apparently prepared to consider the extremely moderate compromise proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East that a committee might be set up to look into these difficulties and to explain, for instance, what is certainly not clear to me, although I would not wish the National Trust to be treated in any other way, why the National Trust, which seems to me to confer benefits on its members substantially in excess of those which are involved in the receipt of an annual report, should secure exemption but why the position of the Society of Antiquaries and various other bodies should still be in considerable doubt.
I hope very much that in view of the extremely unsatisfactory and uncompromising answer of the Solicitor-General, my right hon. and hon. Friends will divide on the Clause.
§ Mr. Ede (South Shields)If I were a member of a learned society—and I am not; I have no qualification for any such distinction—I should be more perturbed by the Solicitor-General's answer this evening than I was before the debate began. What the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said is that each case be decided on its merits. That is the inevitable lawyer's answer, because it means that a good many cases will get into the courts.
Surely it ought to be possible to put at rest the minds of people like the committees of county archaeological societies, bodies which do a considerable amount of good work, which hear addresses generally from their own members, not from people outside to whom they pay big fees, and at the end of the year merely publish the papers, or sometimes only a resumé of the papers, that have been read to them. How big does that volume have to be before it becomes such a return to the subscription as to rule out the society from being a charity under the terms of the law? That is the kind of thing that people are now asking themselves. It ought to be possible to give a general definition that will enable people to know on which side of the line their society fell.
I have a great admiration for the National Art Collections Fund, but it so happened that for the first time this morning I met a person who was a member and not an officer of the Fund. This person gave me a description of an outing arranged by that society last Saturday, which seemed to me, on the definition we have had this evening, to take that society well out of the range of bodies that should secure exemption. I hope that it will escape, but we should not neglect the feelings of the small societies which do good work in the counties and in even smaller districts in keeping alive interests in various forms of culture, which is to the general advantage as well as to the advantage of the members of the society. I would hope that something more reassuring could be said to them tonight.
§ Sir L. Ungoed-ThomasI should like to put two short points to the Solicitor-General. It is rather shocking to hear that, apparently, the National Book 1153 League case has been taken by the Inland Revenue as a precedent for dealing with learned societies generally. I hear from the Solicitor-General that a considerable number of cases were waiting upon the decision in that case. Presumably, the Inland Revenue chose this as a test case for the purpose of covering all these other societies. It is a little alarming that, despite what the Master of the Rolls said and the treatment which this case received in the Court of Appeal as a special case, nevertheless the Inland Revenue should be seeking to press out of this case a principle of general application.
The principle on which the Solicitor-General relied was contained in the judgment of Lord Justice Morris, where, in the passage which the right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted, the test was made of a case where the benefits were appreciable and not negligible. The Solicitor-General seemed to think that that would cover a case where transactions issued by a society happened to have some coloured photographs, or some photographs, in them or be anything more than a thin annual report.
I am sure that the Solicitor-General would be the first to agree that when a principle of that kind is laid down in a judgment, the principle must be read in the light of the facts of that particular case.
§ 10.15 p.m.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI know that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not want to misrepresent me. I tried to describe a wide range of publications by taking the two ends of the matter. The end which I chose as the minimum end was the bare annual report. I did not express any view about the intervening cases, or how they would come out.
§ Sir L. Ungoed-ThomasI do not know how the right hon. and learned Gentleman is treating the intervening cases. It has been left to the discretion of the Revenue. What he is seeking to do is to read out of this judgment a principle of general application. What I am putting to him is that there is no justification for any such course of action. I am sure he will agree that the principle which is laid down here in Lord Justice Morris's judgment must be read in the light of the facts of that case.
1154 When we turn to the facts of that case, considered as my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) mentioned in her speech, when we have it considered by the Master of the Rolls, the one thing which he emphasises most clearly is the peculiar nature of the facts in that case.
My hon. Friend referred to the passage where the Master of the Rolls said that the facts in the case were special in a marked degree. He later said:
I have said that the facts as it seems to me are in many respects special.He then went on to enumerate what the facts were. Among these facts were that in the Book League case there was the provision of a club. He then referred to the club premises and said that it was observed in the publication issued by the club that during certain hours use might be made of a reading room, a drawing room, a licensed bar and restaurant. That is more or less removed from the kind of case which the Solicitor-General now seeks to justify as being a case within the principle of that judgment. It is a little alarming to find the Inland Revenue apparently bringing forward for decision a case like a National Book League case to cover cases which are more or less removed from it and merely deal with transactions and with no amenities like club amenities at all. It is an unjustifiable line for the Inland Revenue to take.There is one other point, if the Solicitor-General finds difficulty on the purely technical point. The Solicitor-General referred to the provision in Section 447 to annual payments. His point, as I understand, is that an annual payment must be, in the jargon of these Revenue cases, pure income profit. Therefore, if a case is not pure income profit by reason of transactions being issued, it is not annual payment.
I have followed the right hon. and learned Gentleman so far. But now, if he will return to this proposed new Clause, what it does is to say:
No body of persons or trust established for charitable purposes only shall be deprived of the exemption granted under paragraph (b) of subsection (1)"—which is the relevant one—…solely by reason of the fact that the body of persons or trust issues an annual report or any transactions free to members.1155 Surely that is a comprehensive provision which would have the effect of preventing a transaction or annual report issued by any body of members being deemed to be an annual payment within paragraph (b) This is a pure technicality. There is nothing in it.As to the principle, it would be perfectly simple for the right hon. and
§ learned Gentleman to accept the principle of this Clause and to acknowledge that the National Book League case cannot justify it to be stretched to cover cases of transactions and annual reports, however elaborate their nature may be.
§ Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 180, Noes 221.
1157| Division No. 200.] | AYES | [10.20 p.m. |
| Ainsley, J. W. | Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly) | Paget, R. T. |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Griffiths, William (Exchange) | Palmer, A. M. F. |
| Allen, Arthur (Bosworth) | Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley) | Pargiter, G. A. |
| Allen, Scholefield (Crewe) | Hannan, W. | Parker, J. |
| Awbery, S. S. | Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.) | Parkin, B. T. |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Hayman, F. H. | Paton, John |
| Baird, J. | Herbison, Miss M. | Pearson, A. |
| Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.) | Hobson, C. R. (Keighley) | Pentland, N. |
| Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S. E.) | Holman, P. | Popplewell, E. |
| Benson, Sir George | Houghton, Douglas | Prentice, R. E. |
| Beswick, Frank | Howell, Denis (All Saints) | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale) | Hoy, J. H. | Pursey, Cmdr. H. |
| Blackburn, F. | Hubbard, T. F. | Redhead, E. C. |
| Blenkinsop, A. | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) | Reynolds, G. W. |
| Blyton, W. R. | Hunter, A. E. | Rhodes, H. |
| Boardman, H. | Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G. | Irving, Sydney (Dartford) | Rogers, George (Kensington, N.) |
| Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.) | Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T. | Ross, William |
| Boyd, T. C. | Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn & St. Pncs, S.) | Short, E. W. |
| Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth | Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) | Shurmer, P. L. E. |
| Brockway, A. F. | Johnson, James (Rugby) | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Broughton, Dr. A. D. D. | Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield) | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) | Jones, David (The Hartlepools) | Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill) |
| Brown, Thomas (Ince) | Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Skeffington, A. M. |
| Burke, W. A. | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.) |
| Castle, Mrs. B. A. | Kenyon, C. | Slater, J. (Sedgefield) |
| Champion, A. J. | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Chapman, W. D. | King, Dr. H. M. | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Chetwynd, G. R. | Lawson, G. M. | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank |
| Clunie, J. | Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Sparks, J. A. |
| Coldrick, W. | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead) | Lever, Harold (Cheetham) | Steele, T. |
| Cove, W. G. | Lever, Leslie (Ardwick) | Stonehouse, John |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | ||
| Cronin, J. D. | Lindgren, G. S. | Stones, W. (Consett) |
| Cullen, Mrs. A. | Logan, D. G. | Strachey, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Davies, Stephen (Merthyr) | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E. |
| Deer, G. | McAlister, Mrs. Mary | Sylvester, G. O. |
| de Freitas, Geoffrey | McCann, J. | Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield) |
| Delargy, H. J. | MacColl, J. E. | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Diamond, John | MacDermot, Niall | Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.) |
| Dodds, N. N. | McInnes, J. | Thomson, George (Dundee, E.) |
| Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch) | McKay, John (Wallsend) | Thornton, E. |
| Dye, S. | MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn |
| Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. | Mahon, Simon | Warbey, W. N. |
| Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse) | Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Watkins, T. E. |
| Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly) | Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfd, E.) | Weitzman, D. |
| Edwards, W. J. (Stepney) | Mann, Mrs. Jean | Wheeldon, W. E. |
| Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.) | Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. | White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint) |
| Fernyhough, E. | Mason, Roy | Willey, Frederick |
| Finch, H. J. | Mayhew, C. P. | Williams, David (Neath) |
| Fitch, Alan | Mellish, R. J. | Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery) |
| Fletcher, Eric | Mitchison, G. R. | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.) | Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.) |
| Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N. | Moss, R. L. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then) | Moyle, A. | Winterbottom, Richard |
| Gibson, C. W. | Mulley, F. W. | Woof, R. E. |
| Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. | Neal, Harold (Bolsover) | Yates, V. (Ladywood) |
| Greenwood, Anthony | Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) | |
| Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R. | Oswald, T. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Grey, C. F. | Owen, W. J. | Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Holmes. |
| Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) | Padley, W. E. | |
| NOES | ||
| Agnew, Sir peter | Gresham Cooke, R. | Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R. |
| Aitken, W. T. | Grimond, J. | Morrison, John (Salisbury) |
| Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.) | Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans) | Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles |
| Alport, C. J. M. | Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury) | Neave, Airey |
| Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton) | Gurden, Harold | Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham) |
| Arbuthnot, John | Hall, John (Wycombe) | Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch) |
| Armstrong, C. W. | Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.) | Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan |
| Ashton, H. | Harris, Reader (Heston) | Noble, Michael (Argyll) |
| Atkins, H. E. | Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon) | Oakshott, H. D. |
| Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M. | Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye) | O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.) |
| Baldwin, Sir Archer | Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. |
| Balniel, Lord | Head, Rt. Hon. A. H. | Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.) |
| Barber, Anthony | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Page, R. G. |
| Barlow, Sir John | Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G. | Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale) |
| Barter, John | Henderson-Stewart, Sir James | Partridge, E. |
| Batsford, Brian | Hesketh, R. F. | Peel, W. J. |
| Baxter, Sir Beverley | Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe) | Peyton, J. W. W. |
| Beamish, Col. Tufton | Hill, John (S. Norfolk) | Pike, Miss Mervyn |
| Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.) | Hinchingbrooke, Viscount | Pilkington, Capt. R. A. |
| Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.) | Hobson, John (Warwick & Leam'gt'n) | Pitt, Miss E. M. |
| Bennett, F. M. (Torquay) | Holland-Martin, C. J. | Powell, J. Enoch |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald | ||
| Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth) | Holt, A. F. | Price, David (Eastleigh) |
| Biggs-Davison, J. A. | Hope, Lord John | Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L. |
| Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | Hornby, R. P. | Ramsden, J. E. |
| Bishop, F. P. | Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P. | Redmayne, M. |
| Black, C. W. | Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence | Rees-Davies, W. R. |
| Body, R. F. | Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire) | Renton, D. L. M. |
| Bonham Carter, Mark | Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives) | Ridsdale, J. E. |
| Boothby, Sir Robert | Howard, John (Test) | Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) |
| Braine, B. R. | Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J. | Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks) |
| Brooman-White, R. C. | Hurd, A. R. | Roper, Sir Harold |
| Bryan, P. | Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.) | Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard |
| Burden, F. F. A. | Hyde, Montgomery | Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R. |
| Carr, Robert | Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry | Sharples, R. C. |
| Chichester-Clark, R. | Iremonger, T. L. | Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.) |
| Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.) | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Spearman, Sir Alexander |
| Cole, Norman | Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) | Speir, R. M. |
| Conant, Maj. Sir Roger | Jennings, J. C. (Burton) | Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard |
| Cooper-Key, E. M. | Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam) | Stevens, Geoffrey |
| Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne) | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.) |
| Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E. | Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green) | Storey, S. |
| Cunningham, Knox | Joseph, Sir Keith | Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray) |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Keegan, D. | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Dance, J. C. G. | Kerr, Sir Hamilton | Summers, Sir Spencer |
| Davidson, Viscountess | Kershaw, J. A. | Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington) |
| Deedes, W. F. | Kimball, M. | Taylor, William (Bradford, N.) |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | Kirk, P. M. | Teeling, W. |
| Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA. | Lagden, G. W. | Temple, John M. |
| Doughty, C. J. A. | Lambton, Viscount | Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway) |
| Drayson, G. B. | Lancaster, Col. C. G. | Thompson, Kenneth (Walton) |
| du Cann, E. D. L. | Leather, E. H. C. | Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin |
| Duncan, Sir James | Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H. | Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.) |
| Elliott, R. W. (Ne'castle upon Tyne, N.) | Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield) | Tilney, John (Wavertree) |
| Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn | Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.) | Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H. |
| Errington, Sir Eric | Linstead, Sir H. N. | Vaughan-Morgan, J. K. |
| Farey-Jones, F. W. | Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.) | Vickers, Miss Joan |
| Fell, A. | Longden, Gilbert | Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F. |
| Finlay, Graeme | Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby | Wade, D. W. |
| Fisher, Nigel | Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.) | Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.) |
| Fort, R. | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Wall, Patrick |
| Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone) | Macdonald, Sir Peter | Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth) |
| Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale) | Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry | Webster, David |
| Gammans, Lady | Mackie, J. H. (Galloway) | Whitelaw, W. S. I. |
| Garner-Evans, E. H. | McLaughlin, Mrs. P. | Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.) |
| George, J. C. (Pollok) | Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster) | Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter) |
| Gibson-Watt, D. | Maddan, Martin | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Glover, D. | Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark) | Wood, Hon. R. |
| Glyn, Col. Richard H. | Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R. | Woollam, John Victor |
| Godber, J. B. | Markham, Major Sir Frank | Yates, William (The Wrekin) |
| Goodhart, Philip | Marlowe, A. A. H. | |
| Gower, H. R. | Mathew, R. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Graham, Sir Fergus | Maudling, Rt. Hon. R. | Sir G. Wills and |
| Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich) | Mawby, R. L. | Mr. Hughes-Young. |
| Green, A. | Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. |