§ No person shall he convicted of an offence under section one of this Act who shall not at the date of the alleged offence have attained the age of eighteen years.—[Mr. Hale.]
§ Brought No, and read the First time.
442§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)It may be convenient to discuss this new Clause and the following one "Adjournment of case in certain circumstances":—
Where a woman who has attained the age of eighteen years but has not attained the age of twenty-one years at the date of an alleged offence under section one of this Act gives an undertaking at her trial to cease forthwith to exercise the occupation of prostitute the court shall adjourn the case for such a period as it thinks fit and shall if satisfied that during such adjournment the undertaking has been carried out dismiss the charge."—together.
§ Mr. PagetI should like to move my new Clause "Cautions" as Mr. Speaker said that the two new Clauses could be discussed together. I should certainly like to move it formally.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerNo. I have no instructions to that effect. I understand that the two are discussed together but that there would be no Division on the second one.
§ Mr. PagetWith great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, when two Clauses of this sort are discussed together, is it not the practice to allow them both to be moved and a Division to take place? This is a matter which we regard as extremely important, and I should certainly like to divide the House, as I am sure many of my hon. Friends will.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerI have no doubt they might, but it has not been selected. and I cannot do anything about it.
§ Mr. Anthony GreenwoodFurther to that point of order raised by my hon. and learned Friend, is it not the case that much of the discussion on the Home Secretary's new Clause would have been out of order if my hon. and learned Friend had not been in a position at a subsequent stage to move his new Clause
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerCertainly not. It has been discussed, but there was no question of its being selected.
§ Mr. PagetThe new Clause deals only with the question of judicial appeals from a caution, and the question whether the terms of the caution should be put in the Bill and whether it should be administered by a constable or somebody else would be wholly out of order on the 443 Home Secretary's new Clause. In fact, I think that two-thirds of the debate would have been out of order on the Home Secretary's new Clause but for the new Clause in my name which was discussed at the same time. With great respect, I have very often heard the Chair say, "We cannot have a debate unless there is a Question before the House." As to two-thirds of the debate, if the Question on my new Clause is not being put, there would never have been any Question before the House at all.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerYes, indeed, there was. The first new Clause was moved. I was not in the Chair, but the two were discussed together. There was no question at all of a Division on the second one. I was never given any instructions on that. It is true that sometimes one says, "We will give you a Division if you want it," but that never was the case here to my knowledge.
§ Mr. S. SilvermanMay I respectfully point out, further to that point of order, that the whole of my speech, almost every word of it, was directed to the single point whether the caution ought to be part of the statutory offence or not, and that was the difference between the two new Clauses—almost the main difference —and the Attorney-General's reply was devoted mainly to that point? I certainly thought, when making my speech, that I was supporting my hon. and learned Friend's new Clause. I think that many of us would like the decision of the House on that specific point, which we cannot get in any other way.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerThe two new Clauses were being discussed together, and anything that was in order in the discussion of the second one was discussed, but there was no question of a second Division at all. Mr. Hale.
§ Mr. PagetFurther to that point of order. Surely this is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs? There was never any division in the House in the ordinary sense of the word on the Government's new Clause. Everybody agreed with it. The Government's new Clause went half way to meet me, and the whole of the discussion and the whole of the difference between us has been entirely on the second Clause. That is what we have 444 been debating, and I am sure that it is very unsatisfactory if we cannot vote on it.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerIt may be unsatisfactory, but the whole point is that they were being discussed together. The first was being called, and the second one was not being called, for a Division. It has been discussed, but it has not been called. I never asked anybody to move it.
§ Mr. HaleI understood you to say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that it would be for the convenience of the House to discuss this new Clause with the following one also in my name and the names of some of my hon. Friends. I think there will be no inconvenience at all except my own inconvenience, and I will argue both Clauses, I hope, consecutively and chronologically.
Perhaps I should be permitted to say a few introductory words. I do not much like the Bill. I am not really in favour of it. I am never in the least annoyed by the invitation from the lady in Old Compton Street who addresses me as "Dearie", though I understand that there is a case for the mother of a young girl who feels that her girl has been concerned. So far as I am concerned, I should much prefer to vote against the Bill, though, in view of the fact that the Bill has every chance of going through, I have quite sincerely tried to draft Amendments to improve it, and have put them in that sense.
Putting them in that sense, and with no desire to raise controversy, my one main criticism is that no one has troubled to find out very much about prostitution. The Home Office knows nothing about the causes of prostitution, and very few of us know anything about it. Most of the surveys, sometimes with Home Office financial help, have been conducted by independent institutions, and most of us know very little about the fundamental causes that drive an adult girl into prostitution. The theory that used to be favoured on these benches, that it was due to the over-exercise of the jus primae nocti by lords of the manor, has now been abandoned, and we now realise that the issue is rather less political than that.
6.0 p.m.
We know at least a little about the things that drive a young girl into this 445 condition. We may have our own views about the girl of 25 who is making a substantial income out of prostitution and handing it over to Mr. Messina—who appears to be outside the scope of the Bill. Perhaps I would be out of order on this Clause to speak about him, but it seems a suitable opportunity to say that I think it is a pity that Mr. Messina is outside the scope of the Bill. It may be that he is covered in another Amendment to the effect that if the women are prosecuted so should these men be, but I respectfully suggest that a Bill that draws a heterosexual line here is almost indecent—
§ Mr. Anthony GreenwoodI agree with my hon. Friend, and I think that he will be glad to know that, thanks to the assiduity of the Opposition, the maximum penalty for those living on the earnings of prostitution has been increased from five years to seven years.
§ Mr. HaleI should like to discuss the question of how one could make these people disgorge the profits which they make out of the trade, but I think that both sides of the House now want to discuss the problem of these young girls.
A survey was organised by an organisation calling itself the British Institute for Social Biology, which has a very distinguished membership. The survey was published under the general editorship of Mr. C. H. Rolph, who does not mind anyone revealing that he is Inspector Hewitt. He has had distinguished experience as a policeman and as a social reformer. He is a man of distinction and has quite singular ability in this connection. That survey conceded at once, as it must inevitably be conceded, that such facts as one can gather are never very conclusive; that such study as may be made produces suggestions and information rather than final determinations. But there are one or two facts about this problem of the young girls that are constant in all available information.
Many of these girls—indeed, a very high proportion of them—are the sort of bad girl of 15 who has got into trouble at home, has quarrelled with her parents, committed a criminal offence and gone to an approved school. That is the background—and one knows the trouble that 446 the approved schools have in dealing with those girls, and it is no criticism of the schools to speak of their failures. The fact remains that we have a great deal of failure in all our efforts to deal with the problems of youth.
There is another curiously constant factor. We get the case of the girl running away from home and getting some form of work. I am not making any reflection on a very honourable occupation, but time and time again we find that a girl goes as a young waitress behind the counter of a cheap all-night caf´ that pays bad wages, where she is exposed to a fair amount of obscenity late at night from customers who have had a drink or two and who make financial proposals to her.
Then we have the wretched business of the colony in Stepney that seems to accept young girls with rather more freedom than do most places. So many go there, are given a little training by older girls. then go to Hyde Park—where they do not need the support of capital—to embark on this sort of life in the worst possible conditions. I have no great objection to the kind of establishment described by Guy de Maupassant, but I have great objection to young girls hawking their bodies about Hyde Park. often being compelled to grant their sexual favours against a tree, and then drifting home with what they can get to try to pay the rent.
What can we do about it? We must be fair to the police. They perform a very difficult task, and perform it very well. I think that most prostitutes would say that the police are not brutal, although, in some districts, the police arrest them fairly often, which is a bit tough. Nevertheless, the figures show that the police now try to exercise the caution. Where they find a young girl on the streets they try not to arrest, and, considering the number of these youngsters one sees about the streets, the number who are arrested early in their career is remarkably small. That is a decent thing, and it is something for which we can admire the police.
There is everything to be said against labelling a girl under 18 years of age as a common prostitute. That is just as indelible a label as was the scarlet letter in the American colonies. And there is no necessity for it, because the girl can already be dealt with as one in need of 447 care and protection. I am not quite sure, offhand, whether the upper age limit is 15, but that could certainly be amended. I do not regard the ages that I have suggested as being necessarily the wisest. I speak only on the issue of principle, but we can give these girls advice, and a chance.
When we used to discuss labour and health legislation years ago, thousands of Tories would get up—I do not want to make a derogatory comparison, but as there are not the thousands of Tories in this House I must count them, as prostitutes are counted, by the number of their appearances and not per capita—and say, "But this is stopping the whole field of social service. All these Measures are robbing people of their right to serve the community voluntarily."
I must say that I always listened to that argument with a certain amount of sympathy. I do not want to see people debarred from making a contribution, by personal service, to the well-being of the community. I believe that if the Home Office would try, it would find many thousands of people in London prepared to find a home for a girl under 18 whom they think might be saved. I believe that sincerely, and I do not see why we should not do it. Therefore, I say that if we are to make a serious attempt to deal with this problem we should draw one or two lines of demarcation by age.
Let us be fair about this. We know that girls of 16 and 17 will be hawking themselves in Hyde Park tonight, and they are bound to be doing that in some sort of organisation. It may not be a Mr. Messina, but a gentleman in Stepney, or an older lady somewhere else, but they do not get organised in this way on their own. Therefore, if anything is to be done for them we must get them away from that sort of thing. But once a girl has been condemned as a common prostitute, once that is on the records and once it has been published and made known to her parents, her family and the neighbours, there is not a fat lot that one can do.
Unfortunately, it goes a little deeper than that. If one condemns a young girl as a common prostitute she usually dare not go home at all. Whatever chance she had of going back to her parents is often stopped by the fear of the con 448 tumely and hostility that will be heaped on her when she goes back.
The other of my new Clauses that we are discussing deals with girls between the ages of 18 and 21, and here I must tell hon. Members that I am not under any illusions. Of course there can be hard girls of 19 and tough girls of 20, and there may be girls for whom there is not much hope. But I am thinking rather of the community at large, and the community would like to be satisfied that these girls are given a chance. We have a responsibility here and we should make sure that everything is done to give them a chance. And all we can say to girls of 18 to 21 is, "Are you willing to give it up? Will you make an effort?"
We have probation officers. We have moral welfare organisations. In addition, we have something which is now of absolutely vital importance in that there has been a complete change in the background public opinion attitude to this subject. The sort of moral indignation which afflicted so many people thirty years ago has gone. Organisations like the Church of England Moral Welfare Society are doing some very constructive, thoughtful and progressive work in this unhappy field. We shall not now have the background of everyone's finger being turned against the young girl. She can be told: "You have a chance. Why not take it?"
All that I suggest is that the courts can say to young girls under 21, "Here is the probation officer. Have a talk with her. Are you prepared to give an undertaking that you will give up this life? We shall not necessarily accept it, but before we impose a final conviction upon you we will adjourn the case and see if you carry out your undertaking. If you do not, you will be brought back and be liable to conviction."
I cannot see why that should not be tried. I know the kind of arguments that the Home Office sometimes make against any proposal of this kind. I am not trying to be unfair. I know that the Home Office does some very progressive work, but few people will deny that a passionate desire for change is not the animating view of any Government Department. Even when it exists, it is always a passionate desire for change in some other Government Department.
449 Those are the two main questions. I want to say one concluding word about girls of 18. I spoke about the common factors. We have never found out how those factors arise. Speaking from a fair experience of sexual crime, I say that there is one factor which crops up time after time. It is the girl who reaches puberty prematurely. It is the girl who has become sexually developed and has her menstrual periods at an unusually early age. One can say that, because she is developed, she is probably exposed to suggestions for intercourse which would not be addressed to her if people knew that she was younger, or at least they would less frequently be addressed to her. From that, one can say that she is more apt to intercourse. In this connection, there is a very clear correlation to be found in nearly all the court descriptions of the over-developed girl who has never had the maturity of mind to exercise the judgment she might have been able to exercise with a little more experience.
I implore the Home Office to take this problem very seriously and do something about it. It should be conducting a special survey into the incidence of prostitution among young girls, into the connection between prostitution and delinquency and into the connection between prostitution and the impossibility of obtaining a roof under any other conditions, which is yet another factor. The Home Office should be seriously engaged in trying to find out why it happens. It should also be trying to stop it.
This is a serious and constructive suggestion as to how something can be done. If it is desired to use the voluntary spirit, let people be asked if they will help by offering prostitutes decent homes. I know the great public spirit which exists. I know that it is very difficult for a decent family to say that they will try and reform a tough old prostitute. If they did, they would be undertaking a frightfully difficult, almost impossible, task. Most of us realise that there is a stage beyond which there is little hope or chance of reformation But for the tiny, young girl, why not?
I earnestly commend these two fairly short and simple propositions to the consideration of the Home Office, and I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
§ 6.15 p.m.
§ Mrs. Lena Jeger (Holborn and St. Pancras, South)I beg to second the Motion.
The Government have made it clear that their main purpose in bringing the Bill before the House is to do something about the condition of the streets of our large cities, especially London. I believe that many hon. Members on both sides of the House hope that Parliament will take a more constructive attitude to the problem and take the opportunity in this legislation, however much we disagree with its chief tenets, to do something preventive and constructive.
I support these two new Clauses because I believe that the only point at which the drift into prostitution can be arrested is at the beginning. Society has to accept that once the girl becomes settled down to this weird way of life, talks with women police officers and moral welfare workers can do very little to change her path. The only hope is at the beginning. I feel that many girls have not deliberately chosen this job but have drifted into it through a number of accidental circumstances. Over some of those circumstances they have no control. It is very easy to condemn them, but I am sure that many experienced people will agree with me that the failure is not only theirs. The failure is, to a large extent, the responsibility of society. It is for all of us to see what measure of blame we bear, and what measure of help we can give.
For instance, I know of many families in my constituency living in one room. where adolescent boys and girls front early childhood have shared the life of their parents. They are children to whom the sex act is a frequent and familiar occurrence, often unaccompanied by any love or tenderness. What sort of background is that with which to provide young people with a fair and honest assessment of the significance of sexual relations?
We must ask ourselves what is the failure in our educational system that, with all the money we are spending, with all that we are trying to do, young people arc leaving school with so little training for life that we are confronted with this problem.
I was very impressed by what my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) said in moving his new Clause 451 about the girl who matures early, because this links up with the problem of the schools. There is now a measurable decrease in the age at which puberty begins. That has been made clear by many medical authorities. Therefore, our young people are often faced with a dilemma which they themselves cannot possibly understand, in that they are maturing physically at an earlier age and yet we are keeping them at school longer. Often, we are keeping them at school longer in overcrowded classrooms. Very often they are living in districts where there are lamentably few opportunities for the sort of activities which it would be much more healthy for them to follow. Many organisations and local authorities are trying to provide increased facilities for games and recreation of all sorts among young people, but we know what a problem that is.
Then there is the girl who has left home after a quarrel. Perhaps she has had a row about something quite unimportant. She may come to London from another town, or she may move from one part of London to another. She does not know where to go or what to do. Very often she has not much money. It is when she is standing hesitantly at a bus stop or at a railway station that suggestions are made to her about somewhere where she can spend the night or a cafe where she can be given a cheap meal. The whole thing starts as easily as that.
I often wish the local authorities would use the powers they possess more fully to provide hostel accommodation for young people away from home. The L.C.C. has done a great deal in this respect, but nothing like enough. All the voluntary associations in London—and I am very glad that there are large hostels, including the Y.W.C.A. and the Y.M.C.A., in my constituency—are faced with ever-lengthening waiting lists of young people who have to be turned away because no room can be found for them by these reputable organisations. At 15 and 16 years of age they are adrift in London looking for somewhere to live. All these problems are part of the background which has led my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and myself to feel that this Bill needs to contain some new Clauses under which we can help these young people.
452 As the Bill stands, the difficulty is that a girl of just over 17, after these two chats with a policeman—and, one would hope, with voluntary workers as well—could find herself charged as a common prostitute and even sent to prison. I suggest that if it was the intention of the Government to make it impossible for girls ever to be deflected from this life, it would be to allow the Bill to go through so that a girl of 17 would he labelled as a common prostitute. What hope can any of us have that after that, and possibly after the experience of a prison sentence, she will change her outlook, even if she wants to? How much are we increasing her difficulties? What sort of a job will a young girl get when she comes out of prison after a sentence of that kind? What sort of home will she find?
It is important to mention that the Wolfenden Committee was very concerned about this matter. The dilemma for many of us is that a great many of the problems that affect the behaviour of young people are not confined to the Bill which we are discussing today, but we have to accept that at present the care and protection age is 17 and under. The Wolfenden Committee said in paragraph 281 that suggestions were put to them that the age should be raised to 21, and proceeded to say:
We should ourselves like to see the age for care or protection' raised at least to eighteen, and if it were practicable to raise it even higher this would be advantageous from the point of view of dealing with the young prostitute.I cannot see any reason why we cannot have these new Clauses in the Bill although the general question of the care and protection age is still receiving consideration.There are special reasons why, in dealing with this problem, the age should be raised if possible to 21. Although I am sure we shall be told that a committee is considering the problem of young people, I would remind the House that the Ingleby Committee has been sitting for two-and-a-half years and I wonder how much longer we shall have to wait for its Report. We were promised, in connection with the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, that remand centres would be set up for young offenders between the ages of 17 and 21 to help this very age group about which we are concerned today, and yet, so far as I know, nothing has been 453 done in that connection. Therefore, if the courts so decide, the only possibility will be to send girls over 17 years of age to prison if the Bill stands in its present form.
I do not believe that there is much that we can learn from America in dealing with this problem. I do not like most American legislation on the subject of prostitution. There is, however, one experiment which has been tried in New York with success, and that is the establishment of a special girls court where girls up to the age of 21 are taken, presented on a petition rather than being arraigned on a complaint. These girls are not charged with an offence but are presented to the judge for him to determine whether their circumstances warrant a mandate of rehabilitation. I should have thought that the time was long overdue when we in this country should try to make some constructive effort, not necessarily along those lines, but in some way which would avoid the possibility that arises under this Bill of girls between 17 and 21 being sent to prison.
I have an interesting report from the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on the subject of prostitution which highly commends this New York experiment, and quotes Judge Murtagh, Chief City Magistrate of New York, as saying:
Many of the girls who appear in this court are not so emotionally disturbed that they cannot be helped. Supervision by a competent probation officer, diagnosis and therapy, guidance and assistance from various religious and social agencies and, in appropriate cases, detention and certain rehabilitation facilities should enable them to make a readjustment and become normal members of society.These possibilities, although they exist latently in this country, may be cut off from a girl once she has got herself into a position of being charged under this Bill, because whatever discretion the courts may have, they must pay some respect to the law and it would be impossible, so far as I can see, under the present Bill in certain cases for the courts to avoid sending these girls to prison.The danger lies not only in a court imposing a deliberate prison sentence but arises when girls are fined and, because they are in the situation which I have described—being on the run from home or being without a regular job—they are unable to pay the fine and so are liable to be sent to prison for default. So 454 the House would be wrong to think that it is only on the later offences that the question of prison arises.
It may be, as we were told more than once in Committee, that the drafting of these Amendments is not all that could, be desired, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West will take no offence from that remark. I have tried sincerely to explain the difficulties which are in the minds of many of us about this problem, and I hope that the Government, even if unable to accept the wording of these new Clauses, will assure us that between today and the appearance of this Bill in another place they will give more thought to the possibility of some preventive and constructive element being introduced into the Bill.
§ 6.30 p.m.
§ Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)I have been fairly assiduous in my attendances during the Committee stage proceedings on the Bill, but I did not have the opportunity of catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, on the Second Reading, or I would have made then the point which I am about to make now, although I cannot express myself with the eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).
I do not go quite as far as my hon. Friend in some of his observations to the House. We have had the Home Secretary labouring the point that the Bill was reformative rather than punitive in character. Therefore, we have not just to consider this matter as a nuisance only in the Metropolitan area, but to consider it in relation to the position throughout the country. Although the point has been made that the Home Secretary's diktat has no force of argument with the chief constables throughout the country, we have to consider not only young girls in London, of which there is a large number, but young girls in the country generally, particularly those who travel to London from time to time. Everyone representing a provincial city must know that London has a certain glamour about it. Young girls visit London and come back to their provincial cities which have their own way of dealing with this matter.
I do not go quite as far as my hon. Friends in favour of legislation dealing with care and protection of young people. I think that many of these young girls would not respond to care and protection 455 and that an argument based on remand homes would be a rather better argument to employ in dealing with this matter
§ Mr. HaleI agree with almost everything that my hon. Friend has said, but I used the words "care and protection". as a term of art in the sense of an actual charge in which a girl could be brought before a court as someone needing care and protection up to the age of 17 if she had been found wandering at night or had been known to have had sexual intercourse. All I am saying is that there is an alternative way of dealing with girls up to the age of 17.
§ Mr. PannellIf my hon. Friend is using the words "care and protection" in that general sense, I accept it. I also accept it in the rather narrower sense that I knew it when I was a magistrate. I do not think that that sort of care and protection applies here at all.
As the Bill stands at present, presumably a girl can receive two warnings from a constable and then be brought before the court as a common prostitute. All that I am arguing is that the latter part shall not apply if she is under 21. Surely we are not going to write off any girl after two warnings, or even after a third warning, as completely irredeemable and label her, before the age of 21, as a common prostitute.
The thing that plagues me in my opposition to the Bill is that I very much object to punishments being meted out to women simply because they are women. The behaviour that these girls are practising is the sort of behaviour that is sometimes condoned in the case of boys. I am referring to the high-spirited, fruity type of girl. We are not only dealing with girls who go on the streets in the normal way. Some of these girls are grammar school and university types who probably, if allowed to settle down, would render good service to the country and make some sort of contribution to society. It is fantastic that we should treat a superabundance of sex as a sin and say that before the age of 21 we are going to make a girl out to be a certain type. I should have thought that that sort of thing had been left behind. Young people do not accept it at all.
May I tell a story about a former Member of the House who was in trouble 456 recently which caused him to leave the House? I happened to be looking at television when two young people were looking at it and they said, "Poor man, he must have been very ill indeed—an intelligent man like that." That shows a sense of compassion in the young which is not the sort of compassion that was accepted many years ago when Shaw was writing "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and was adducing reasons that were relevant then but are not relevant now. I sometimes wonder whether we know very much about these problems of sex.
I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will realise that we are not dealing with incipient nymphomaniacs. We are dealing with the sort of girl who has wandered off the road. Sometimes they are girls of high intelligence, generous and not mean types. We are dealing with a form of aberration which may get them into trouble. Surely these girls must not be irrevocably written off in society before they reach the age of 21. If we say that they are to be, and the Home Office assert that point of view, then the Home Secretary is very much less humane than he set out to be on Second Reading.
§ Mr. EdeI want briefly to intervene in the debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), I support the general idea behind these two Clauses. I am not sure that I can accept the wording of the second Clause, because I think that it leaves one or two questions quite unanswered.
I want to plead with the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary and with the Attorney-General on the basis that I certainly hope that when magistrates feel that the course of action proposed in the second new Clause would be helpful to the person before the court, some form of words will be provided which will give them the necessary power to deal with that person along the lines indicated in that Clause.
During my years as a magistrate, I was frequently confronted with young people who evidently found that the fact that they had at last been convicted and were in the power of the court was a shock. That realisation, if properly used, could be very useful in deterring them from continuing in their course. This can be so not only in dealing with these particular offences, but other offences, and it 457 sometimes enables them to recover their position as good citizens.
I feel that this is the kind of thing that should be put into the Statute so that it shall be in the minds of magistrates when they are considering what they are going to do with a girl under the age of 21 who has at last reached the position where she is in the power of the court. There can be no doubt that there are occasions when magistrates in that position may be able, by a show of leniency which does not detract from the feeling of guilt that the person before them is showing, to help that person considerably.
I think that it would be better if this were in the Statute rather than to rely upon some general power of putting on probation. This particular class of offence may very well be regarded as one to which probation is not really applicable in the ordinary sense. If this were put into the Bill, I think that it would at any rate bring the matter to the notice of the magistrates' clerk, when the magistrates are in their own room considering what they are to do and they say, "What can we do with her?" If this is in the Bill it will be very vividly in front of the magistrates when they consider the answer which they receive from the clerk when they put that question to him.
§ Mr. G. B. H. Currie (Down, North)I am one of those who believe that young people sometimes do not realise the extent of their offences. I believe very much in the course of action which was taken, I believe, by the pioneer of leniency, the late Recorder of Liverpool, Mr. E. G. Hemmerde, who invariably, if it was at all possible, gave the opportunity to young offenders to make good. He did that principally by means of suspended sentence. If a young offender reformed and did not come before the court again, that young offender found that he had a straight course ahead of him in his life.
I entirely agree with many of the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I believe that young women who fall into the commission of this type of offence, when the matter is brought to their attention and they realise the full implications of it, will, if given the opportunity, make a fresh break in life and, as regards this offence, go straight for the future.
458 The new Clause will give that opportunity. I am not at all sure that one should necessarily limit the age to 21. Some people develop more slowly than others. We have, of course, had this kind of argument about the 11-plus examination, for instance, and in other connections, but I believe it to be true that some people reach the age of discretion even later than the age of 21. I suggest that the first offender and even the second offender and, possibly, the third offender, should be given the opportunity of turning over a new leaf and going straight in the future. The new Clause commends itself to me on those grounds.
Although I realise that the attractions of prostitution may be great to certain women, I believe that, when the offence and the disadvantages of it are pointed out, many, if given the opportunity, would decide to turn away from it and go straight. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider accepting the new Clause in the Bill. I am anxious that the young person who, for the first time, commits a criminal offence should be given the opportunity, without penal consequence, of reverting to a correct way of life.
§ Mr. James MacColl (Widnes)My right hon. and hon. Friends have used these new Clauses as a peg upon which to hang a discussion of the very important and difficult problem of the young prostitute. In that respect, there is nothing in what they said with which I quarrel. So long as the discussion ends there, I am entirely with them, but, when we come to examine the new Clauses themselves, I am bound to say that I think the House would be most unwise to accept either of them.
In the first new Clause, it is proposed that the Bill should not apply to girls below the age of 18. As my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. L. Jeger) pointed out, until the age of 17 there is not really a problem at all. The girls can be dealt with under the Children Act and the Children and Young Persons Act as being in need of care and protection, in which case the court has very wide powers. Indeed, so wide are the courts' powers in that respect that I am surprised that some of my hon. Friends who are so devoted to the cause of civil liberties should be happy about their extension to people who are almost adults.
459 One of my worries is that I am never quite sure how far it is right and proper to treat older girls with quite as much disregard for their personal liberty as one can have in treating a much younger child. Nevertheless, if it is right and wise to extend the powers of treatment now available far young girls to girls over 17, then the obvious answer is to raise the age from 17 to 18. This is something which is being very actively canvassed before the Ingleby Committee, and no doubt we shall hear something in its report about it in due course.
One of my hon. Friends asked why the Ingleby Committee had not reported more quickly about this matter. I am not a member of the Committee, although I have given evidence before it on two occasions. I think the answer is that the problem before the Committee is an extremely difficult one, as difficult in its way as the problem with which the Wolfenden Committee was faced. I do not think that the Committee will find it easy, looking at all the considerations, to raise the age to 18. However, if it does so and is able to overcome some of the practical difficulties, I feel that it would be a good thing, if it is likely to mean that remedial treatment will be available.
6.45 p.m.
If the new Clause is accepted, the powers under the Bill would be available to the court in respect of offenders past the age of 18. There would be a gap between 17 and 18 in which virtually nothing could be done. I cannot for the life of me see how that could be regarded as being in the best interests of the girls in any way. If we cannot deal with them as being in need of care and protection, I should think that the next best thing, rather than doing nothing at all, would be to deal with them as adults with the powers available to the courts in the way of making proper inquiries, using the services of probation officers, and so on.
At that stage, I am bound to join with my hon. Friends in what they said about the shocking record of the Home Office in the provision of remand centres and remand facilities for women. If a girl over 17 comes before the court and the court wishes to have a psychiatric examination made, wishes to make inquiries about the possibility of placing her in a hostel or wishes to find some 460 place for her, if she has not got an adequate home, there is nowhere for her to go except prison. One of the factors which any thoughtful bench of magistrates has to think about is whether it is wise to risk the effects of a prison remand on a girl of this age, whether the advantages of having the reports will compensate for the risk run.
This is an administrative matter not a legislative matter at all. It is a matter of fact that, because the opposite sex has, on the whole, kept out of delinquency, the facilities available for women are much less than those available for males who offend in sufficient numbers to use them. Even in the remand homes—perhaps this is trespassing a little because we are dealing there with people under the age of 17—the fact remains that, quite recently, in London it was impossible to remand a girl for reports without sending her as far away as Liverpool or Glamorgan. To try to administer the humane service of care for girls or to provide for adequate examinations in those conditions is virtually impossible. It is an administrative problem, and it will not be altered by changing the law.
The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Currie) told us what was the practice of the late Recorder of Liverpool. All I can say is that, if the late Recorder of Liverpool had found a loophole in the law which enabled him to give a suspended sentence, he found something which lay magistrates have not succeeded in finding. That might well be so; many lay magistrates think that the professional magistrates drive a coach and horses through the law when they want to, and the higher up they are the more they do it.
I do not really understand the difficulty here, provided that there are the facilities available for dealing with the girls and provided that the magistrates know what they are. If one took the second new Clause seriously, what would happen? If a girl gave an undertaking that she would give up the life of prostitution, it would be mandatory upon the court thereupon to adjourn the case regardless of where she could go, regardless of the pimp who might be sitting outside waiting to pick her up, and regardless of all other considerations of that kind. It would be necessary immediately to adjourn the case.
461 If it were possible for the court to proceed with the case, there would be nothing at all to stop a remand for inquiries if there were adequate facilities, as I say, which there are not. There could be a remand for psychiatric inquiries, domestic inquiries, getting in touch with the parents of the girl in whatever part of the provinces she had come from, and so on Those facilities should be made available.
Putting it bluntly, it seems that these two Clauses are very valuable in drawing attention to the problem. It is a serious problem, for which the right hon. If he provided the facilities, he could go a very long way towards solving some of the biggest difficulties. I am afraid that not even the right hon. Gentleman could solve the problem of the young girl who likes the profession and is prepared to go into it. Short of that, if anything on the lines of the new Clauses were put into the Bill, I think that it would be mischief-making in its effect, and I should very much regret to see it done.
§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)We have had a very interesting and helpful debate. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are equally concerned that we should pursue what methods we can to deter young women from going into a life of prostitution. I appreciate that the intention of the first new Clause is to ensure that prostitutes or, rather, girls under 18 are dealt with in some way which does not result in their having a conviction specifically as a common prostitute on the record against them.
One feature which we have strenuously pressed in Committee and in the House has been the cautioning system, the whole intention of which is to try to catch these girls at the outset, as informally as possible, to prevent their ultimately coming to court on conviction. It is the desire to persuade them by conversations with welfare officers or probation officers, or, indeed, by providing facilities for them to go back to their own homes, to change their course in life. I appreciate very much what the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and the hon. Member for Holborn and 462 St. Pancras, South (Mrs. L. Jeger) said about young girls who fall for the bait of the "big city". Indeed, a great deal of work is done in that sphere.
Our whole intention in the cautioning system is to give the girl two chances before a conviction arises, so that before ever she comes to court and is charged, or a conviction looms ahead of her, she will have ignored the two cautions and deliberately continued to solicit or loiter for the purpose of prostitution.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithI should have imagined that after two cautions—
§ Mr. HaleWe are talking about girls living in Stepney, trying to pay the rent, with men living in the house, girls who have no father and mother and who are "bunged" out to Hyde Park. What is the good of saying that they do this deliberately unless somewhere is provided for them to go, where they can be taken away from this atmosphere? What chance have they of getting away from it? It is all very well to give them a couple of warnings, but unless they are provided with a home or a hostel, or unless their parents are willing to take them back, what is the good of saying that this is a deliberate pursuance? It is a definite drifting. The girl who has no adviser, no home, or nowhere that she can be put, has no chance.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithNothing that the hon. Member has said alters the fact that for whatever cause, these girls will have deliberately continued in the path of prostitution.
We are at one in our desire to deter these young girls from pursuing this way of life. To follow the suggestion of the hon. Member for Oldham, West and say that no girl under the age of 18 could be subject to the penalties imposed under the Bill would introduce real difficulties. What alternative is there? Up to the age of 17, girls are dealt with as being in need of care or protection.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithIf, however, they are over the age of 17 and we take the 17 to 18 age group, if we accepted the new Clause the only offence for which 463 a young prostitute could be prosecuted otherwise than under the Bill would be, in London, under the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, or, in the provinces, under local Acts, where such legislation exists, for using insulting words or behaviour. If a girl merely loitered in a street frequented by prostitutes and did not actively solicit, it is not clear that proceedings could be brought for using insulting words or behaviour.
The risk of being prosecuted on that ground would not be as effective in deterring a girl from prostitution as the risk of prosecution for an offence under the Bill, because the penalties are much lower. In London, the maximum is £10 on first conviction and £20 on second conviction and no imprisonment. In the provinces, it is a maximum of £5 and in some areas only £2. That is the small penalty which at present applies.
We should remember what happens at present. Magistrates' courts may not impose imprisonment on a girl under the age of 17. From the ages of 17 to 21, magistrates' courts may not impose imprisonment unless they are of opinion that no other method of dealing with the case is appropriate. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) hit the nail on the head when he referred to the powers of the magistrates. In this part of the debate, we have been ignoring the wide discretion of the courts.
It is not axiomatic that the courts would send a girl to prison on the third conviction because a sentence of imprisonment happens to be available as a maximum penalty. When a girl comes to court, the magistrates, having taken all the points into consideration, have a choice. They can put her on probation. If she does not need supervision—if, for example, it is possible to get agreement from her that she will go home to her parents—she may get a conditional discharge. It is for the courts, in the light of the circumstances and of a girl's record, to use the powers available to them.
7.0 p.m.
One must remember that, taking the two new Clauses together, the ages from 18 to 21 give a girl a long and wide scope to get into the habit of prostitution. The hon. Member for Oldham, West suggested that few girls came into this classification at a young age, but, in 1957, 1,720 of 15,000 convictions, or about 12 per cent.
464 of all the convictions in England under the Metropolitan Police Act and under the Town Police Clauses Act or the Vagrancy Act, were of girls between the ages of 17 and 21.
§ Mr. HaleI said nothing of the kind. I said precisely the contrary. In my view, there were more young girl prostitutes because the police were unusually decent to the young girls and frequently did not prosecute as often in the case of youth. I said that there was a very large number of them. The figures are available.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithI apologise for misunderstanding the hon. Member. I thought he said "not such a large number". I accept his correction. In any event, about 12 per cent. of the convictions were of the group between 17 and 21 years of age. Obviously, the courts would be reluctant to impose imprisonment except as a last resort. It can come only after two cautions and not before the third conviction.
We must be realistic in thinking of the age groups of these young people. Are we likely to deter a girl from continuing in this profession if we say to her, "We will not convict you under the age of 18 and you can, in effect, get away with it by availing yourself of this power"—which would be mandatory on the court under the new Clause to act on—"that you will gave up prostitution. You then go to another area of the country, or to another police area, and you start again"? What possible sanction and deterrent over the four years from the ages of 17 to 21 would there be to deter these girls from continuing in a life of prostitution if they knew that they could not become liable to the wider penalties which are available in the Bill until they reach the age of 21?
Suppose that a girl of 17 responds to the call to come to the big city. Possibly, she is enticed by the bait of high earnings for prostitution. One of the things that distressed me most, and which was strenuously represented to us when we met deputations from Stepney, was the very young age, particularly in that area, at which these girls come into the profession. Indeed one of the difficulties of the police was to try to establish the correct age and whether girls were of the care or protection age group or even under the age of 16 and not older. because part of their art is to make themselves look older than their age.
§ Mr. Rees-DaviesI agree with all that my hon. Friend says concerning the two new Clauses, but is not the problem that the Government have to consider whether to alter the Children and Young Persons Act by increasing the age from 17 to 18, if not generally, for this particular problem, in relation to a charge under the Bill? Has this posibility been given careful thought? Is it possible to introduce that into the Bill or must it wait for separate legislation? The heart of the problem is whether to amend the age from 17 to 18, either generally or in this limited aspect.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithI am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was coming to that point, which, as he knows, is being considered by the Ingleby Committee.
To revert, however, to the question of the very young, some of the girls—I have been around Stepney and seen them there on the beat—are horrifyingly young. The hon. Member for Oldham, West and we on this side may differ in intent, but I assure him that we are equally sincere in our intention to do our utmost to help these girls. We believe that if the cautioning system is allowed to work, as, we believe, it will, with all the offers of voluntary aid and help from voluntary organisations, probation and employment services which can be offered at that stage when a girl has a conversation in the police station to see what help can be given, we can attain a great deal of what the hon. Member aimed at achieving when introducing his new Clause.
§ Miss Hornsby-SmithIt has been suggested that we should increase the care or protection age from 17 to 18 and the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South mentioned the recommendation of the Wolfenden Committee that that should be considered. It is part of the much wider problems of the Ingleby Committee, because it is not only in the field of prostitution that we are concerned with the behaviour of the young between the ages of 17 and 21.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is awaiting the report of the Ingleby Committee. This is, possibly, one of the most important items which that Committee has had to consider and on which 466 we are earnestly awaiting its report. I do not believe that it would be right either to accept what the Committee recommends merely in this one sphere, or to ignore the many other urgent claims of juvenile delinquency and crime which would have to be covered if the law were altered and the age raised to 18 or any other age. I can, however, assure hon. Members that the matter is under the closest consideration by the Ingleby Committee and that my right hon. Friend will be anxious and ready to study any recommendations from the Committee on this score. We believe sincerely that the acceptance of the two new Clauses would deprive the courts of much of their discretion.
There is, of course, the girl who is really hardened. One day, I saw three girls charged. I tried to be fair and to pick out the youngest and prettiest. I asked her whether she had any previous convictions. The sergeant looked at me as if I were a poor politician and said, "You might like to count the charges, ma'am" and gave me her card. She was very young—she may have been just over the age of 21—but in three years she had totted up 70 convictions. In the light of that type of record of a very young girl, should we really deprive the courts of their discretion and power by affording a girl a power to give an undertaking, which it would be mandatory on the court to act upon, that she will give up prostitution, or, indeed, with a girl of 18, who may already have been in the profession a year, saying that she should not be treated by the courts on the same basis as others who, perhaps, have not practised as frequently as she has done in the profession?
For those reasons—not because we are unsympathetic with the intention; we are as anxious as anyone in the House to deter these girls from going into the profession—we do not believe that the two new Clauses would achieve the desired result.
§ Mr. S. SilvermanNo one questions the sincerity of the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State. No one questions the sincerity of any Member of the House, on either side, whether he is enthusiastic for the Bill or not. in a desire to help in this matter. For all that, however, I am bound to tell the hon. Lady that her speech will have been heard by many Members, on both 467 sides, with deep distress and disappointment.
The hon. Lady picks out a case and says, "Here there is a very young girl with 70 convictions in three years." What becomes of her argument about the reluctance to prosecute? What becomes of the Attorney-General's argument about the efficacy of cautions which have been in operation for many years—most of this century? Surely, the point we are dealing with, the very reason why the Bill is before the House, is that all these old-fashioned remedies have hopelessly failed to deal with the situation.
And this Bill does not pretend to deal with the situation. The hon. Lady made a very appealing part of her speech that in which she talked about how we were all trying to rescue young girls from prostitution. There is nothing in the Bill at all about prostitution: nothing whatever. This is not a Bill about prostitution. It is not a Bill to prevent prostitution. It is not a Bill to save prostitutes from being prostitutes. It has a much more limited aim.
The aim of the Bill is not to make prostitution illegal. The aim of the Bill is to shove this ugly thing aside. If only we can produce a situation in which nobody sees it and the whited sepulchre can hide this thing, then there can be all the corruption anyone likes. It is hypocrisy—I know the hon. Lady did not mean it—but, in fact, it is sheer hypocrisy to say that anything done by this Bill has anything whatever to do with rescuing anybody from prostitution or dealing with prostitution at all.
If we made prostitution an offence—I do not say we can—one could follow the hon. Lady's argument, but when my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) appeals to the Government not, under this Bill, to convict children—because they are little more—under the age of 18, the hon. Lady, in dealing with the argument, must remember what is the offence under this Bill. It is not prostitution.
We begged the Government, on Second Reading and in Committee, and, I think, today, too, so far as we were able to get rid of this ugly phrase "common prosti 468 tute". But if soliciting on the streets is to remain an offence then it should be an offence by anybody and not merely an offence by a class who are relegated by the law to the position of second-class citizens. It is not merely conviction for prostitution which we are begging the Government not to fasten on children of 17. What we are begging them to do is not, before they are bound to do it, to stamp them for ever with this label which hangs on them all their lives of being common prostitutes.
That is a very different thing from saying that we must not try to prevent of save a girl from a life of prostitution with all its degradation and all its evil. We are saying "At least do not put them into this special class of people from which it is so very difficult to escape once the label is attached" It is only if a woman is already a common prostitute that she can commit an offence under the Bill at all. What the Government are being asked to do is, "Do not hang this label round a child of 17."
In Committee, we begged of the Government, "Do not prosecute people unless somebody has been annoyed." They would not have it. So a girl of 17 can be convicted under the Bill only if we label her and convict her of being a common prostitute already, and then even though she has not annoyed anybody. We begged the Government to take out the word "loiter" and to be content with conviction if solicitation could be proved. They would not do that. So a child of 17 can walk or stand in a street and be convicted under the Bill of an offence as a common prostitute.
7.15 p.m.
We are not now arguing against the general scheme of the Bill. There is another opportunity, and there are other occasions for that. All that we are saying at this point is, "For heaven's sake, if you must do this thing, and you think that you will do any good by it, do not do it to children."
§ Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
§ The House divided:Ayes 90. Noes 163.
471| Division No. 87.] | AYES | [7.16 p.m |
| Ainsley, J. w. | Holt, A. F. | Pearson, A. |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Houghton, Douglas | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Awbery, S. S. | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) | Reynolds, G. W. |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) | Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) |
| Balfour, A. | Hynd, H. (Accrington) | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale) | Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) |
| Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.) | Irving, Sydney (Dartford) | Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill) |
| Bowles, F. G. | Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T. | Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.) |
| Braddck, Mrs. Elizabeth | Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Brock way, A. F. | Kenyon, C. | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank |
| Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Cliffe, Michael | King, Dr. H. M. | Stewart, Michael (Fulham) |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Lawson, G. M. | Stress, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.) |
| Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.) | Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E. |
| Deer, G. | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Thomson, George (Dundee, E.) |
| Diamond, John | Lipton, Marcus | Thornton, E. |
| Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. | McKay, John (Wallsend) | Viant, S. P. |
| Edwards, Robert (Bilston) | MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Wade, D. W. |
| Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.) | Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. | Warbey, W. N. |
| Fernyhough, E. | Mellish, R. J. | Watkins, T. E. |
| Fitch, A. E. (Wigan) | Mitchison, G. R. | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Fletcher, Eric | Moody, A. S. | Willey, Frederick |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Mort, D. L. | Williams, Rev. Llywelyn(Ab'tillery) |
| George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Car'then) | Moyle, A. | Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.) |
| Gooch, E. G. | Oliver, G. H. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| Greenwood, Anthony | Oram, A. E. | Winterbottom, Richard |
| Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R. | Owen, W. J. | Yates, V. (Ladywood) |
| Hall, Rt. Hn. Gienvil (Colne Valley) | Paget, R. T. | Zilliacus, K. |
| Hamilton, W. W. | Palmer, A. M. F. | |
| Hayman, F. H. | Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES |
| Hilton, A. V. | Parker, J. | Mr. Hals and Mrs. Jeger |
| NOES | ||
| Agnew, Sir Peter | Gibson-Watt, D. | McAdden, S. J. |
| Allan, R. A. (Paddfngton, S.) | Glover, D. | Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry |
| Amery, Julian (Preston, N.) | Glyn, Col. Richard H. | McLaughlin, Mrs. P. |
| Arbuthnot, John | Codber, J. B. | Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax) |
| Armstrong, C. W. | Goodhart, Philip | Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries) |
| Ashton, H. | Cower, H. R. | Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R. |
| Atkins, H. E. | Graham, Sir Fergus | Marlowe, A. A. H. |
| Baldwin, Sir Archer | Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich) | Mawby, R. L. |
| Barlow, Sir John | Green, A. | Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C. |
| Barter, John | Gresham Cooke, R. | Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R. |
| Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.) | Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury) | Morrison, John (Salisbury) |
| Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth) | Hall, John (Wycombe) | Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles |
| Biggs-Davison, J. A. | Harris, Reader (Heston) | Nabarro, G. D. N. |
| Bingham, R. M. | Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) | Niculson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch) |
| Bishop, F. P. | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Noble, Michael (Argyll) |
| Black, Sir Cyril | Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G. | Nugent, G. R. H. |
| Body, R. F. | Henderson, John (Cathcart) | O'Neill, Hn. phelim (Co. Antrim, N.) |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Henderson-Stewart, Sir James | Page, R. G. |
| Braine, B. R. | Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W. | Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale |
| Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.) | Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton) | Partridge, E. |
| Brooman-White, R. C. | Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe) | Peel, W. J. |
| Bryan, P. | Hill, John (S. Norfolk) | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth |
| Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden) | Hinchingbrooke, Viscount | Pike, Miss Mervyn |
| Channon, H. P. G. | Hirst, Geoffrey | Pilkington, Capt. R. A. |
| Cole, Norman | Hobson, C. R. (Kelghley) | Pitt, Miss E, M. |
| Conant, Maj. Sir Roger | Hobson, John(Warwick & Leam'gt'n) | Pott, H. P. |
| Cooke, Robert | Holland-Martin, C. J. | Powell, J. Enoch |
| Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Hornby, R. P. | Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.) |
| Courtney, Cdr. Anthony | Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P. | Ramsden, J. E. |
| Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E. | Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire) | Rawlinson, Peter |
| Crowder, Sir John (Finchley) | Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives) | Redmayne, M. |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Hughes-Young, M. H. C. | Rees-Davies, W. R. |
| Dance, J. C. G. | Hurd, Sir Anthony | Remnant, Hon, P. |
| Davidson, Viscountess | Hutchison, Michael Clark(E'b'gh, S,) | Renton, D. L. M. |
| de Ferranti, Basil | Hyde, Montgomery | Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) |
| du Cann, E. D. L. | Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry | Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.J |
| Duncan, Sir James | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Roper, Sir Harold |
| Edwards, W. J. (Stepney) | Jeger, George (Goole) | Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard |
| Elilott, R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne.N.) | Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) | Sharpies, R. C. |
| Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Shepherd, William |
| Errington, Sir Eric | Kerr, Sir Hamilton | Spearman, Sir Alexander |
| Farey-Jones, F. W. | Leavey, J. A. | Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.) |
| Fell, A. | Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield) | Stevens, Geoffrey |
| Finlay, Graeme | Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.) | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Foster, John | Linstead, Sir H. N. | Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.) |
| Gammans, Lady | Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.) | Storey, S. |
| Garner-Evans, E. H. | Loveys, Walter H. | Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray) |
| George, J. C. (Pollok) | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Summers, Sir Spencer | Wall, Patrick | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington) | Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth) | Wood, Hon. R. |
| Teeling, W. | Webster, David | Woollam, John Victor |
| Temple, John M. | welis, William (Walsall, N.) | |
| Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) | Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.) | Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter) | Colonel J. H. Harrison and |
| Viewers, Miss Joan | Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater) | Mr. Whitelaw. |
| Vosper. Rt. Hon. D. F. | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |