Commons Sitting of 30 June 1960

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
  Lords Amendments considered and agreed to.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Industrial Development, London Area
    Mrs. Butlerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will consult with the Minister of Housing and Local Government and local planning authorities in London and the Home Counties with a view to formulating a more effective policy for controlling the spread of commercial and industrial development in the area.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I consider that the policy of controlling industrial development in London and the Home Counties by means of industrial development certificates is effective. In operating it, I am in touch with my right hon. Friend and with local authorities. I have no powers over commercial development.
    Mrs. Butler: Does the Minister appreciate that, despite the efforts of planning authorities, employment in the area bounded by the Green Belt increased by 91,000 between 1953 and 1958, with consequent pressure on available housing accommodation, and now that the land in the area—not only in the centre but that adjoining the Green Belt—is reaching £100,000 an acre, pressure on planning authorities to permit greater development is increasing, because that is the only thing that can be done economically with land at that
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    price? Is it not essential that there should be co-ordination of land policy for the area as a whole if the build-up of commercial properties in the central areas of the region is not to be intensified?
    Mr. Maudling: I agree that the problem of expansion of industrial employment in the London area is a very difficult one. We are operating a fairly stiff policy with regard to it, but it would not be sensible to put a total ban on any additional employment because so much additional efficiency in industry would be lost if we operated any rule as stringent as that.
    Mr. Jay: While I agree that an absolute total ban is impossible, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with a situation in which, if he refuses an industrial development certificate for a factory, the Board of Trade does not have to pay any compensation, whereas if a London local authority refuses permission for an office building it is forced to pay heavy compensation? Does not the matter need reconsideration?
    Mr. Maudling: It may need reconsideration, but not, I think, by the Board of Trade.
    Mr. Jay: Then, does it not need reconsideration by the Government?

    European Free Trade
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will particularise his efforts during the last three weeks to bring together the European Economic Community and the European Free Trade Association; what degree of success he has achieved; and what further steps he intends to take to this end.
    Mr. Maudling: At the meeting of the Trade Committee in Paris on 10th June it was agreed to establish machinery for examining immediate trade problems which will arise as a result of the formation of the two groups and to continue discussion of the long term at a further meeting.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what industries were considered? Is he aware that the Scottish paper-making and fishery industries and others are vitally interested in the effect

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    which these complicated organisations and reorganisations will have upon their future? What steps is he taking to ensure that such Scottish industries, particularly those in Aberdeen, are adequately protected?
    Mr. Maudling: The hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned one or two industries which may suffer greater competition as a result of the European Free Trade Association. On the other hand, we feel that the gain that will come to Scottish industry as a whole as a result of a widening export market will more than counterbalance the difficulties, and we believe E.F.T.A. to be in the interest of Scotland and, indeed, the whole of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Has there been any significant change in the attitude of either the Government or the Common Market Powers which will bring about success in this field?
    Mr. Maudling: The position is quite simple. We have said on more than one occasion that we and our colleagues in the Seven are anxious to negotiate with the Six a long-term settlement, and we recognise that, in order to reach agreement, big concessions may be needed. But the Six at the moment are not prepared to negotiate in any way at all about a long-term settlement. Therefore, until there are two parties willing to negotiate, it is difficult to make any progress.

    Geneva Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade what decisions were reached at the sixteenth session of the Geneva Agreement on Tariffs and Trade at which Her Majesty's Government were represented and which ended in Geneva on 4th June, 1960; what estimate he has made of their effect on Scottish trade and industry; and what steps will be taken to implement these decisions.
    Mr. Maudling: The discussion at the session related principally to such general matters as the consistency of the European Free Trade Association with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the desirability of expanding the exports of less-developed countries. The Contracting Parties to the General Agreement took certain formal decisions;
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    for the most part, they were of minor importance and permitted individual Governments to take action which would otherwise have been technically contrary to the General Agreement. As the list of these decisions is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It would not be practicable to estimate the effect of these decisions, if any, on Scottish trade and industry.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that certain Scottish industries have been greatly prejudiced by the recent organisations and reorganisations referred to in the Question? What I really want to know is what steps he is taking to protect those Scottish industries.
    Mr. Maudling: The Question asked about the decisions taken at the last meeting of G.A.T.T., and I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the actual decisions taken. The hon. and learned Gentleman will see from that that they have not much relevance to the particular problem which he rightly has in mind.
    Following is the information:
    Decisions were taken by the Contracting Parties to the G.A.T.T. at their 16th Session, held in Geneva from 16th May to 4th June, on the following matters:

    (i) for the establishment of a Council to deal with urgent matters between Sessions;

    (ii) for the waiving of the provisions of Article I to permit South Africa to increase certain duties while incidentally increasing the preferences enjoyed by the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland;

    (iii) for the suspension of the provisions of Article II referring to the binding of duties to enable New Zealand to introduce a new tariff;

    (iv) for the extension for 60 days of the period granted to Brazil within which certain tariff concessions are to be put into effect;

    (v) for the extension of the suspension of the provisions of Article II to enable Greece to introduce a revised tariff;

    (vi) for the extension of the time-limit for the negotiations of modifications to certain tariff concessions;

    (vii) for the release of Ceylon and Cuba (under procedures in Article XVIII) from certain obligations so as to enable them to apply measures to meet special difficulties in the establishment or substantial expansion of particular industries;

    (viii) for the extension of the period prescribed in paragraph 3 (a) of Article XIX during which contracting parties might avail themselves, in the event of the failure of consultations with the United States about restrictions on imports of lead and zinc, of rights under that paragraph;

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    (ix) for the retention of paragraph (j) of Article XX for a further 5 years;

    (x) for the participation of Spain and Portugal, pending full accession, in the work of the Contracting Parties;

    (xi) for the extension of the date for accepting the Declaration on the provisional accession of Switzerland;

    (xii) for the establishment of Working Parties in the Latin American Free Trade Area, the Avoidance of Market Disruption, and Restrictive Business Practices.

    Moquette (Imports)
    Mr. Houghtonasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what decision he has reached on the application of the Moquette Weavers Association for increased duty on Belgian moquettes;
    (2) whether he is aware that imports of moquette now constitute 75 per cent. of the total trade in this material; and what reply he has given to the representations of the Moquette Weavers Association on the effect of imports from Belgium.
    Mr. Maudling: I am aware of the high level of the imports of moquette. The Board of Trade announced on 16th June that it was considering an application for increased import duties on moquette furnishing fabrics and invited representations from interested parties. A decision will be taken as soon as possible after these representations have been received and considered.
    Mr. Houghton: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may ask him why these things take so long? My vision of the Board of Trade is of a Department of diversified activities choked with piles of paper. Why do not things come out quickly?
    Mr. Maudling: Because we are determined to get a satisfactory answer, even, if necessary, at the cost of a certain amount of delay. An application was first put in to us in May 1959, but was revised and re-submitted in February of this year. The important thing is to give full opportunity to everyone concerned to put their views to us, because it is not only the home manufacturers who are concerned. It is the home consumer and also the importer. If people are to continue to have confidence in this machinery, it is most important that the Board of Trade should give everyone a full chance to state their case before it
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    reaches its decision. I know that this sometimes causes disappointment, but I think that it is the right policy.

    Reece Button-hole Machine (Import Duty)
    Mr. Fitchasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will remove the import duty on the Reece button-hole machine, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Wigan.
    Mr. Maudling: I will consider an application from a representative body of users for the removal of this duty.
    Mr. Fitch: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Does he realise that this import duty discriminates against the small tailoring firms and that its removal certainly will be welcomed by them?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that there is quite a problem here about removing the duty, which I will certainly consider if it is put to me, and remission in individual cases. I think that the problem is the rule that for administrative purposes there must be a minimum figure below which applications for remission of duty cannot be considered.
    Mr. Jay: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House the apparently rather extraordinary situation in which the fewer machines a person imports the higher duty he has to pay?
    Mr. Maudling: This was the result of the Wilson Smith Committee recommendations in 1954, which imposed a value limit. If the total value of machinery being imported was below £2,000, an application could not be considered. The point was to cut away the very large administrative difficulties involved in handling a great number of applications. It was a rule adopted as a result of the Wilson Smith Committee Report in 1954 and is, on the whole, a sensible rule.

    Oils and Petrol (Distribution)
    Mr. Darlingasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will introduce regulations to require that oils and petrol shall be delivered to garages and filling stations through approved flow-meters, so as to ensure that garage proprietors and filling station operators get the exact quantities they pay for.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power at present to make such regulations. Proposals for dealing with liquid fuel and lubricants will be included in the Weights and Measures Bill which is in preparation.
    Mr. Darling: I thank the President of the Board of Trade for the information that the new Weights and Measures Bill will cover this point. Can we rely on it that it will be covered in the Weights and Measures Bill when we get it? When are we likely to get the Bill?
    Mr. Maudling: It certainly will be covered when the Bill is produced, but on the timing of it I cannot add anything to what I said to the hon. Gentleman last week.
    Mr. Boydenasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has now decided to refer the distribution of petrol and lubricating oils to the Monopolies Commission for inquiry.
    Mr. Maudling: As I told the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) on 23rd June, I am considering further references to the Commission, but I am not in a position to make a statement on what they will be.
    Mr. Boyden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable discontent among small garage proprietors; that members of the public are probably being mulcted to provide the very large profits of the oil companies; and that we could very well allow a considerably greater amount of competition? Will he give this very urgent consideration?
    Mr. Maudling: I certainly am aware that these views are expressed, and the fact that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) gave notice that he would raise this on the Adjournment will no doubt stimulate me to more rapid action.

    Unit Trusts
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the President of the Board of Trade, since unit trusts are debarred from door-to-door selling but insurance companies are not, what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the public now that insurance companies are entering the unit trust field; if he is satisfied that it is in the public interest
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    that direct restraint on unit trusts should be maintained; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Maudling: Unit trusts are not prohibited from door-to-door selling but no unit trust sells units in this way and I am assured that the insurance company in question does not intend to do so either.
    As to the second part of the Question, my Department has been in consultation with unit trust managers about amendments to the Board of Trade requirements and hope soon to receive their comments.
    Mr. Osborne: I am obliged for that reply. Would not my right hon. Friend agree that, through unintentional misrepresentation as a result of high-pressure salesmanship, a situation could develop in which people would be buying at the door, which would not be desirable? If that situation were to develop, would my right hon. Friend watch it and ensure that some restrictions were imposed on this method?
    Mr. Maudling: We certainly will keep a close watch on it.

    County Durham
    Mr. Boydenasked the President of the Board of Trade how the figure of 10,000 new jobs in County Durham was arrived at; where the jobs are expected to accrue; and by what date.
    Mr. Maudling: The figure of 10,000 new jobs in the administrative County of Durham was based on confidential estimates by firms of their future employment within the next four years in new and expanding projects in the County. More than half these jobs are expected to accrue before the end of 1962 and a substantial proportion during 1960 and 1961. They are divided between the different parts of the County, excluding county boroughs, approximately as follows:—

    South Tyneside

    2,500

    Wearside, Central Durham and areas to the west of Durham

    3,400

    North Tees-side and the Hartlepools

    Over 3,000

    South Durham

    1,000

    Mr. Boyden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has certainly been

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    delay but not satisfaction? My constituency, or the exchange areas which serve my constituency, have had nearly 2,000 people out of work for over twelve months, and the figure is now running at about 1,700 and 100 boys. What steps does the right hon. Gentleman think will be taken, particularly in the mining areas? Very often the development takes place at Aycliffe and other areas. What developments can he anticipate in the mining areas of the south-west of the county?
    Mr. Maudling: Taking County Durham as a whole, I think that the position is a good deal better than it was. I entirely agree that there is much more still to be done, but I think that the figure I have given shows that there is probably a lot in the pipeline. In fact, 10,000 is a modest estimate. We can probably go a little higher than that.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are bound to regard these figures somewhat sceptically in view of our past history, when huge figures of potential employment have been stated but, when they have been worked out, they have been less than half of what we were given?
    Mr. Maudling: The House is probably entitled to regard any estimates made by Ministers with scepticism. That is one of the main functions of the House of Commons. Having looked at this closely, I feel that these are pretty firm estimates. They are based on what the companies have told us, and 10,000 is a little below the figure I could have stated if I had given the maximum.
    Mr. Pentlandasked the President of the Board of Trade what evidence, by way of research and economic studies, is being taken by his Department in order to assist him in the preparation of a plan to meet the long-term industrial requirements of the County of Durham.
    Mr. Maudling: The preparation of development plans is a matter for the local planning authority. My Department is, of course, responsible under the Local Employment Act for determining the development districts in which the assistance provided by the Act can be made available for the encouragement of new enterprises and reports on the
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    industrial situation in parts of the country, including the County of Durham, where special problems reveal a need for additional employment, are made by my regional officers in the area as occasion requires.
    Mr. Pentland: That is not enough. Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that what is really needed in the County of Durham is a positive plan that will indicate quite clearly what the county's future industrial prospects are? Is he aware that one-third of the working population of the county is engaged in the basic industries that are now in a phase of contraction? We already have much adult and juvenile unemployment, and the provisions in the Local Employment Act are only scratching the surface of the problem. What is to happen to the county in the future?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly tell the hon. Member all I can, but I am sure that the preparation of local development plans is best left to local authorities, who understand the position best. In the Board of Trade, we try to steer industrial development into areas like Durham, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where there is a serious unemployment problem, but I cannot predict what will happen in five years' time, because I do not know which industries, in five years' time, will be trying to expand and, therefore, what there will be available to steer.
    Mr. Pentland: Is it not the case that there is to be a contraction in the colliery areas? Is any plan forthcoming from the Government to meet that emergency when it arises?
    Mr. Maudling: Our plan is to try to steer industry to the area, and from the figures I gave I think that it is quite clear that quite a substantial amount of new employment is likely to accrue to the County of Durham in the next few years.

    Woollen Goods (United States Tariff Quota)
    Mr. Jayasked the President of the Board of Trade what response he has received from the United States Government to his request for a relaxation of the United States tariff-quota on imports of woollen goods
    Mr. Maudling: I had a helpful discussion of this matter in Washington two weeks ago with representatives of the United States Administration. I am satisfied that they are doing everything possible to find an early solution.
    Mr. Jay: As this is a peculiarly vicious form of restriction and as this argument has now gone on for several years, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much longer the industry has to wait for actual action by the United States Government?
    Mr. Maudling: I am fairly confident that it will not be very long now.

    Motor Vehicles (Toughened Glass)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will amend the British Standards specification for toughened glass for motor vehicles so as to specify a maximum as well as a minimum number of fragments per square inch.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power to amend a British Standard as my hon. Friend suggests.
    Mr. Johnson: If it were possible to specify a maximum number of particles, it would mean that the figure could be low enough to ensure being able to see at least the outlines of objects in the event of a windshield shattering, while at the same time providing the necessary standards of safety.
    Mr. Maudling: That sounds a very good argument. I must be very careful on this, because the British Standards Institution is a wholly independent body and I am sure that the Government should not in any way try to influence its decisions.

    Local Employment Act
    Mr. Peytonasked the President of the Board of Trade what further information he will now give concerning payments made to privately-owned companies under the Local Employment Act.
    Mr. Maudling: It will be my intention to include in the Annual Report to Parliament on the operation of the Local Employment Act figures showing the total payments made by loan and by grant to private firms under the Act
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    in as much detail as can be disclosed without revealing information about the agreements made with individual firms, which I do not consider it would be proper for me to publish.
    Mr. Peyton: Could not my right hon. Friend look at this again and consider giving the House information from time to time, both about the individual firms and the amount, if not the exact terms of repayment? Does he not understand how quite intolerable it is for the ordinary private Members of Parliament to see this spectacle repeated again and again—Parliament authorising action and then not being told the result of that action? I hope my right hon. Friend will take this point seriously.
    Mr. Maudling: I have looked at this several times and it worries me a good deal. What we will make available is the amount of money provided by the Government and the results obtained from the provision of that money, but to specify in detail what our confidential arrangements with individual firms were would frustrate our policy, and the readiness of firms to come forward into these areas and accept Government assistance might in a considerable degree be prejudiced if they knew that all that went on between us and them had to be revealed to the House of Commons. I know that it is very difficult, but after looking at it several times I am satisfied that it is the right decision.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Government's reticence in this matter an indication of the need to walk delicately in what is now realised as a foolishly-conceived policy? If not, can we have from the right hon. Gentleman a better justification that he has now given? For example, does he realise that the total amount of loans to individual firms such as Colvilles and Richard Thomas and Baldwins have been disclosed? Why cannot he state, in the form of a White Paper, the actual amounts, even if he has to withhold details of the terms of repayment?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly look at that. I want to give as much information as possible without frustrating the purpose of the policy which, whether or not my noble Friend agrees, we still believe to be the right policy, but to

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    give individual details of individual contracts with individual firms would really frustrate the purpose of that policy. We want to give the total picture of what the Government are doing. As to loans and grants, I can act only on the advice of B.O.T.A.C., an independent advisory committee. That is a precaution inserted into the Act by Parliament, and I think that it is a good one.
    Mr. Jay: While I think that there is force in the right hon. Gentleman's objection to giving the names of the individual firms—which, after all, follows the practice of the Inland Revenue—could he, without going as far as that, give more particulars, such as the rates of interest on the loans?
    Mr. Maudling: I have not yet settled the form of the annual report, in which I am anxious to include as much information as possible. I shall certainly take this suggestion and other suggestions into account when settling the form of the report.
    Mr. Peyton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the importance of this matter, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

    Soviet Trade Delegation (Talks)
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his recent talks with the Soviet Trade Delegation in London.
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the President of the Board of Trade what trade agreement has been made with the Soviet Trade Delegation in London.
    Mr. Maudling: These talks were the first of a series of five annual reviews of the operation of the Soviet Five Year Trade Agreement of May, 1959. Since the Agreement, trade both ways has increased substantially, and the range of goods involved has widened.
    The two delegations arranged for an increase in the total quotas for consumer goods, which will now amount to £4 million each way, and for the import of Soviet equipment up to a total value of £2·5 million against corresponding exports of United Kingdom goods. The detailed quotas within these totals are to be fixed in discussion with the Soviet Trade Delegation.
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    They also agreed upon arrangements for further discussions on trade including a Treaty of Commerce and Navigation.
    Mr. Osborne: I thank my right hon. Friend especially for the item on consumer goods that the Soviet Union will buy from us. What group of raw materials or goods can the Soviet Union sell to this country to give them the sterling they require to buy the goods we want to sell to them, and so provide more employment here? Did the Russians press for any special group of goods that my right hon. Friend felt could not be included?
    Mr. Maudling: They pressed very hard on oil, and we said, "No." The fact is that in recent years the value of Soviet exports to the United Kingdom has been twice as much as the value of the stuff they have bought from us, so I think that they are in a position to buy a lot more from this country. According to the Russian figures, our exports to Russia in the early months of the year have been up about 39 per cent. over our sales there a year ago. If so, I think that this trade is expanding very well.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Did they raise the question of having to divert orders from this country to Continental countries because of the Government's refusal to change their mind about oil imports?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not recall that, but the threat to divert orders from one country to another is part of the normal mechanism of trade agreements throughout the world.

    Machine Tool Industry
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet had a report from the committee set up towards the end of January this year to report on the machine tool industry; and what action he is now taking to assist the machine tool industry.
    Mr. Maudling: I understand that the Sub-Committee has almost completed its inquiries and has started to prepare its report to the Machine Tool Advisory Council. The question whether any further action should be taken to assist the industry will be considered when this is received
    Mr. Davies: While thanking the President of the Board of Trade for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that since the Report of the Metal Working Machine Tool Productivity Team in 1953, the Government have apparently taken very little action over this vital British key industry? When the right hon. Gentleman is considering help to the industry, are we once again to have a pattern of help in which masses of money will be given to private enterprise without a full report to Parliament? Will he look seriously at the four or five main criticisms—I will not repeat them—made of this industry in the past ten years? Unless Britain does something about this, we shall lose our place industrially in the world.
    Mr. Maudling: I think that the pattern of any help to be given to the industry must wait until we see from the report whether such help is needed and, if it is, what form it should take. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to decry too much the efforts of this very important export industry. In the first four months of this year its exports were 38 per cent. up on the same period a year ago—a fine achievement. I am sure that this is one of our most important industries, and a key industry whose products, as the recent exhibition at Olympia showed, compare with any in the world.

    Fertilisers (Monopolies Commission's Report)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade why there was a delay of four and a half years in the publication of the Report of the Monopolies Commission on the fertiliser monopolies in this country.
    Mr. Maudling: Although the reference was originally made on 29th October, 1955, work on it was much delayed by the discussions which resulted in the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956. After the Report had been received on 23rd July, 1959, the Board of Trade had to consider requests by the parties concerned for the excision of material that might be included in the Report. Publication was further delayed by the printing strike in the autumn of 1959.
    Mr. Davies: While once again thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware that some of us—perhaps on both sides of
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    the House—feel that these Reports presented to Parliament do not contain the material with which Members should be provided? Can he say why this Report, presented so late, did not give figures of profits and costs after 1957, when we are now in 1960? Is he aware that this industry costs the British public £30 million in subsidies to farmers, and that farmers pay £100 million to the fertiliiser manufacturers? Will he try to get the Report brought up to date, so that Parliament can be honestly and truly informed of the position in the industry?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that it was a very good Report and that, by and large, the impression given of the industry is very satisfactory. I think that there was a debate in which the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture took part, and my impression is that the information was then brought up to date.
    Mr. Willey: But it is recognised that the Report is incomplete, because the sulphate of ammonia agreements were excluded from the terms of reference of the Monopolies Commission. Will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to see that this is considered by the Restrictive Practices Court, because until we get those we cannot have a complete picture of the operation of monopolies in fertilisers?
    Mr. Maudling: I am afraid that the order and timing of taking cases by that court is in the hands of the registrar, who cannot be influenced by Parliament, but I am sure that note will be taken of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

    Soap Powders and Detergents
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make regulations under appropriate Acts to ensure that accurate measures of the contents, and where practicable a statement of ingredients, are clearly marked on the containers of soap powders, detergents, and similar consumer goods.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power to make such regulations but I am considering the inclusion of proposals about the marking of soap and detergent containers with the amount of the contents in the new Weights and Measures Bill.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. Has he considered the fact that modern point of sale design techniques make it very easy to produce extremely misleading packages and that the housewife has no means of knowing whether the giant packet of soap powder has in it more or less than the ordinary one?
    Mr. Maudling: That is a very interesting point and in framing the Weights and Measures Bill it is the sort of thing that we have in mind, but I cannot prejudge exactly what will be done about it.
    Mrs. Braddock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of these packets are filled by machinery and that the weight is known when it is put into the packet, but that very few of the packets are full when they reach the consumer? If the weight were put upon the packets when they were being filled, it would be of very great assistance to the housewife in enabling her to know that she was not being diddled.
    Mr. Maudling: I have precisely that sort of consideration in mind.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Could not we have the price put on these packets, because when one looks at one and sees "3d. off", one never knows what price the threepence is off?
    Mr. Maudling: That is a question that I have often wondered about myself and have wanted an answer to, but I have not known to whom to put down a Question.
    Mrs. Slater: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Co-operative movement already puts the weight of the contents on its packets? If the Co-operative movement can do it, so that the housewife knows how much she has bought for so much cash, is there any reason why other firms cannot do the same? Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long he thinks it will be before the Weights and Measures Bill is introduced?
    Mr. Maudling: I cannot comment on the competitive position of the Co-operative movement in these matters. I think that should be left to the consumer. As I have said, the Weights and Measures Bill is nearly ready and I hope very much that it will be introduced in the next Session.

    Imports
    Mr. Jayasked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the percentage increase in United Kingdom imports of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods, respectively, in the past six months, compared with the corresponding months one year earlier.
    Mr. Maudling: In respect of the six months ending 31st May, 1960, the increases are nil, 21 per cent. and 47 per cent., respectively. The last figure includes materials for further processing.
    Mr. Jay: Are these not rather striking figures which show that the present weakness of our balance of payments is not so much due to increased raw material imports because of industrial expansion as to the relaxations which the right hon. Gentleman has been making in the last eighteen months on imports of manufactured goods?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think so at all. I anticipated that supplementary question. As I said before, the category of industrial or manufactured goods includes a great deal of semi-manufactures which are required for our own industry. So far as I can make out from the figures, which I have studied very closely, the increase in the imports of finished manufactures is related to these liberalisation measures only to a very limited extent. On the other side there has been a very big increase in our export of these things. We cannot expect to sell them abroad freely unless we buy freely.
    Mr. Jay: Why is the increase in the whole class of manufactured goods so much greater than that of raw materials?
    Mr. Maudling: It is precisely because in that field people want to buy more things. There is a rising demand not, I think, because of liberalisation. Even without liberalisation measures one would have had an increase of very much the same size in this group.

    Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire
    Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the area which includes Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire is the only area in Scotland where unemployment is higher than in June, 1959; and what action he proposes to take to attract new industries to this area.
    Mr. Maudling: I am aware that unemployment in the Stranraer Exchange area has risen from 5·6 per cent. in June, 1959, to 6·2 per cent. in June, 1960, but unemployment in the other two exchange areas in Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire, Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart, has fallen. Stranraer is a development district under the Local Employment Act and the Board of Trade will continue in its efforts to interest firms in this area.
    Mr. Brewis: My figures are 1,499 and 1,455. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he does not think that is a serious position in such a large area, and whether he would not consider Dumfries and Dalbeattie very suitable centres for industry and schedule them under the Local Employment Act?
    Mr. Maudling: I will look into that point. The figure for Stranraer Exchange area is 6·2 per cent., but that for Castle Douglas has fallen from 2·8 to 2·3 per cent. and that for Newton Stewart from 3·8 to 3·2 per cent. over the last twelve months. There has been a definite improvement there.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the 6 per cent. Bank Rate and other restrictive measures will help to solve this problem?
    Mr. Maudling: It will help to keep the economy of the country stable and sound—
    Mr. Manuel: What about Stranraer?
    Mr. Maudling:—which is of fundamental importance to Stranraer just as it is to any other part of the country.

    Stranraer
    Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for assistance under the Local Employment Act have been received from the Stranraer development area.
    Mr. Maudling: None, Sir.
    Mr. Brewis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is very disappointing, and will he use his influence with other Government Departments, such as the Admiralty, to see whether Government contracts could be placed in the area?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly look at that. I agree that it is very disappointing, but the fact is that, although
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    we call this area and other areas to the attention of people who are expanding, there has not as yet been any application for help. We shall certainly persist in doing all we can.
    Mr. Ross: Are not the results here most disappointing? Will the President of the Board of Trade ensure that, in the panic to do something, his Ministry does not forget that new industries are wanted in Scotland, and will he tell his Department to stop trying to bribe with financial inducements firms to go out of areas of traditionally unstable employment, such as Kilmarnock, to other areas?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think that my Department is in a panic, nor do I think that we indulge in bribery. The problem in Scotland is to provide more jobs; whether they are from new or from existing industries I am not sure matters one way or the other. The great thing is more jobs.

    Milford Docks, Ltd. (Loan)
    Mr. Peytonasked the President of the Board of Trade for what reasons the Treasury has lent £128,000 to Milford Docks, Ltd.; and on what terms.
    Mr. Maudling: The loan of £128,000 as announced by the chairman of this company was made under the Distribution of Industry Acts for the purpose of providing the company with finance to enable it to handle the increased business expected to be offered at the dock and thereby to reduce the rate of unemployment in the locality. The terms of the loan are confidential.
    Mr. Peyton: Can my right hon. Friend say whether or not this company could have found the finance from normal sources without having recourse to the Exchequer? More generally, now that we have an instance of one chairman who is not quite so shy, does my right hon. Friend think that those companies which are getting admitted and definite advantage from public sources should not have their convenience subordinated to the interests of Parliament and the country?
    Mr. Maudling: It is not a matter of their convenience. It is a matter of making the policy work. I am not concerned with the convenience of the companies. I am concerned with getting

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    companies into areas where employment is needed. That is the important thing to bear in mind. On this particular case, the provision in previous legislation was that people could apply to D.A.T.A.C. for help only if they could not get money elsewhere. Under the new legislation recently passed by the House, the condition that the Government should be the lender of last resort no longer obtains.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Have not the Government and Parliament a special responsibility for employment in this area? We built a dockyard there and established hundreds of people there. Then it was closed suddenly and it was left a derelict area. Should not the Government be doing something now to repay the debt that we owe to this community?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that what the Government have been doing is helpful. This loan, like other loans, is made in accordance with the recommendation of the independent and expert committee appointed under legislation passed by the House.

  KENYA

    Unrest, Nyeri
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the causes of the unrest in Nyeri in Kenya; and what steps are being taken by the Government to remove them.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): There is some evidence of a revival of secret activity in Nyeri, including the administration of unlawful oaths, and the extortion of money by false pretences and intimidation. The police are vigorously investigating possible offences and a considerable number of people have already been convicted by the courts. In addition the murder of Wambugu Kimathi is still under investigation, and curfews continue to operate on four villages under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance.
    Mr. Swingler: In view of this disquieting news, has the Colonial Secretary examined how far this recent outbreak of violence and recurrent activity is connected with the very low standard of life and the lack of economic opportunities in the area?
    Mr. Macleod: Frankly, I doubt that there is a connection there. No fewer than 150 persons have been convicted of extorting money by false pretences, and I do not think that that could be explained by the circumstances to which the hon. Member has referred. Moreover, although the Central Province certainly has economic problems, they are, on the whole, less in Nyeri than in many other places there.

    Wages
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present minimum adult monthly wage in the rural areas of Kenya; and what are the average wages in the rural areas generally and in the rural areas surrounding Nairobi, respectively.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: At present, there is no statutory minimum wage except in Nairobi and other major towns. But discussions on the question of rural wages have been taking place for some time between the Kenya Government and the employers and workers, and the Minister for Labour will shortly put proposals for minimum wage regulations in rural areas to his Advisory Board.
    The average monthly wage for employment of all kinds in all rural areas is 99s., and in rural areas surrounding Nairobi 116s., but average agricultural wages are lower than this.
    Mr. Swingler: Is not this a matter of real urgency? Has the right hon. Gentleman seen reports that there are jobs available in the rural areas around Nairobi but the wages are so low that it is impossible for workers to support themselves? When his own Labour Commissioner in Nairobi says that 180s. a month is the minimum that should be maintained to support a man and his wife, is it not deplorable that wages of 99s., about half that amount, are being paid?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not think that we should attack the problem this way round. The Minister of Labour is putting proposals to his Advisory Board. I will remind the hon. Gentleman—I dare say he knows—that the Minister for Labour is an African, Mr. Ngala, who has an immensely important portfolio and who was, indeed, chairman of the African Elected Members Association at

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    the Lancaster House Conference here. It is enormously important for us not to suggest that he is not doing or cannot do his job. I am quite content to leave the matter to the Kenya Government and in his hands, with his Advisory Board.
    Dr. Stross: But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the cost of food in Nairobi itself is probably higher than it is here, and this aggravates the problem for men who attempt, quite naturally, to find enough food and shelter for their families?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, it does, but this Question is not concerned only with Nairobi but with all the other areas. I dealt with the Nairobi problem a week ago.

    Solidarity Centre, Nairobi (Official Opening)
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement about the official opening by the Governor of Kenya of Solidarity House, Nairobi, and, in particular, about the message of Mr. Reuther, the United States trade union leader, which was read at the opening.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The Governor formally opened the "Solidarity Centre" on 19th June. I understand that, contrary to certain Press reports, no message from Mr. Reuther was read out at the opening. Mr. Reuther's message was delivered the previous day at the annual conference of the Kenya Federation of Labour, at which no Government representatives were present.
    Mr. Wall: In either case, will my right hon. Friend draw to the attention of American trade unionists, or do his best to do so, that it is due to British Colonialism that we have the unique association of nations known as the Commonwealth which is expanding year by year in influence and in power?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, I agree, and I have said that firmly on a number of occasions in America. There are two slightly different points here. I disagree firmly with what he said, but I do not wish to attack his right to say it, which is a very different matter.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Will the Colonial Secretary take this opportunity of welcoming the development of strong trade unionism in Kenya?
    Mr. Macleod: I am, by and large, in favour of strong trade union movements everywhere.

  ADEN

    Political Parties
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he is taking to encourage the growth of political parties in Aden; and whether he will define the term "Adeni", without which definition it is difficult for political parties to organise and plan ahead.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: In his address to the Colony Legislative Council on 15th January, 1960, the Governor said that he regarded the development of an effective party system as fundamental to the kind of Parliamentary democracy which it is hoped to attain in Aden. I associate myself with this view. The formation of political parties must, however, be a matter for public action. A definition of "Adenese" has hitherto been attempted only in relation to membership of the Aden Civil Service. In view of the difficulties then experienced, I am not sure that it would be wise at present to introduce the term into any statement of franchise qualifications.
    Mr. Wall: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that there are two difficulties facing political parties in Aden, one being the widespread immigration from the Yemen and the other being the failure to define this term? One may not be able to do much about the former, but will he look again at the latter?
    Mr. Macleod: I will certainly look at the latter. In my main Answer, I gave my doubts about the matter, but I am quite content to look at it again.

  NYASALAND

    Detainees
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the number of detainees from Nyasaland; and when he proposes to release them.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Twenty; they will be released when the Governor is

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    satisfied that this can be done without serious prejudice to public security and order.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Does the Colonial Secretary not realise that it simply is not good enough to leave this very important matter to the decision of the Governor? Does he recall that all sorts of dire consequences were predicted if Dr. Hastings Banda were released, but that he himself took action and those predictions have been found to be absolutely false, the situation in Nyasaland being quite tranquil? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the danger that the Nyasaland Constitutional Conference will run into heavy weather unless he takes action to release the political detainees before the Conference begins?
    Mr. Macleod: The cases of all these men are under review the whole time, not just at the six-monthly review. I could not associate the holding of the Constitutional Conference with matters like this. I have made it clear on many occasions that these are not matters about which one can bargain; they are matters which must be considered only in the context of law and order.

  COLONIAL TERRITORIES

    Hospitals
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many hospitals of more than a hundred beds have been built since 1950 in Colonial Territories for which he is now responsible.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am consulting Colonial Governments and will write to my hon. Friend when I have the necessary information.

  TANGANYIKA

    Scholarships, United Kingdom Universities
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Tanganyikans are in receipt of scholarships at United Kingdom universities and are reading for an honours course.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Thirty-seven, of whom two are reading for honours degrees in science and 14 are taking postgraduate courses.
    Mr. Skeffington: Will the Colonial Secretary agree that this is a rather small number for a country of 8 million Africans which is closely approaching independence? Is he aware that offers are coming from universities in the United States, and from Iron Curtain countries, for Tanganyikans to go there, and would it not be a good idea if we gave greater encouragement for Tanganyikans to come to British universities?
    Mr. Macleod: The full figures are not as small as may, perhaps, appear. The hon. Gentleman's Question, of course, limited my Answer. There are 450 students in all, 77 of whom are at universities, and these, of course, are considerably higher figures that the one I gave. Naturally, I entirely take the point that, for a country which has progressed so far, the more students of this sort it has the better.

    Employment, South Africa
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Tanganyikans are now employed in South Africa, having been recruited in Tanganyika by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association; and what facilities are provided in this respect by the Tanganyika Government.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am asking the Governor how many Tanganyikans are currently employed in South Africa. The Tanganyika Government operates an employment exchange and transit centre in the Southern Highlands Province through which Africans wishing to proceed to South Africa can offer their services and can be medically examined. Last year, 8,568 Africans were engaged through the exchange for employment with this Association.
    Mr. Skeffington: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that a number of institutions and individuals are rather concerned at this export of some of the finest Africans from the Territory at a time when it will soon be facing very acute problems in increasing production? Will he investigate further and possibly make a statement later?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not think I need investigate here. For many years, it has been common practice for as many as 10,000 people or more a year to go from the country to work in the gold mines.

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    However, some questions on this matter have recently been raised in the Legislative Council in Tanganyika, as the hon. Member probably knows. I should have thought that it would be right, if any action is taken, for it to be initiated there.
    Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking or some information about assurances and facilities in respect of health conditions provided by this Association when recruiting labour? For instance, is it true that workers are taken on at a certain medical standard and that the Association or whoever employs the people concerned guarantees to look after the health of the people so recruited?
    Mr. Macleod: The Association does not, in that sense, recruit them. It takes applications from those who volunteer. On the point about medical standards, there is a good deal of very detailed care. I will itemise it in a letter to him, if my hon. Friend 'wishes.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Young Children, Ndola (Death Rate)
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of his responsibility for the care and protection of minors, he will state the death rate for children under 5 in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia; and how many of them died of malnutrition.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am consulting the Governor of Northern Rhodesia and will write to the right hon. Member when I have his reply.
    Mr. Dugdale: Is the Minister aware that, according to the Central African Examiner, 60 per cent. of all Africans who died in Ndola last year were children under 5 and that half of these died from malnutrition? Is it not right that the Colonial Secretary should personally inquire into what is a very serious state of affairs?
    Mr. Macleod: I have not seen that article. I shall, of course, send for it and look at it. The figures the right hon. Gentleman gives certainly seem to point to a very serious state of affairs. As soon as I have the Governor's reply, I will consider it in the light of what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
    Mr. G. M. Thomson: If the right hon. Gentleman finds that these figures are true, will he promise the House that he will take very urgent action to improve these conditions?
    Mr. Macleod: It is rather a mixed responsibility because the question of malnutrition, both as a disease and a subject, is a federal rather than a territorial matter. I will pursue with the appropriate people the right action as soon as I have seen the report.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Potash
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, in view of the fact that discussions with the principal buyers of potash have now been concluded, he will now include potash amongst those fertilisers receiving the benefit of a subsidy.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Hare): I am afraid that none of the objections to a subsidy on potash has been removed as a result of these discussions. A major part of our supplies is still obtained through one firm, but competition from other sources is increasing and we shall continue to watch the position.
    Mr. Hall: Does my right hon. Friend realise that that is a very disappointing reply, especially for those farmers who work on land similar to the Chiltern Hills in my constituency and require to use a great deal of potash? Will he make further efforts to remove the remaining difficulty in the way of giving a subsidy for this type of fertiliser?
    Mr. Hare: My hon. Friend will understand that, as matters are, with so much of the supply going through one firm, we would have no assurance that the subsidy, or some part of it, would not be passed back to the supplier, with little or no benefit to those whom my hon. Friend wants to help.
    Mr. Webster: Is my right hon. Friend aware that where intensive cultivation of crops is carried out for a long time over the same parcel of ground, such as strawberries, this type of producer-subsidy is of the utmost value?
    Mr. Hare: Yes, but my hon. Friend should realise that, in spite of the lack of subsidy, farmers and horticulturists are using nearly 80 per cent. more fertiliser than they did in 1952–53.

    BROADCASTING COUNCIL FOR WALES (CHAIRMAN)
    Mr. G. Robertsasked the Prime Minister what steps he took to consult Welsh opinion before making an appointment to the post of chairman of the Broadcasting Council for Wales.
    Lady Megan Lloyd Georgeasked the Prime Minister what reply he has sent to the representations made to him by the Broadcasting Council for Wales, protesting against the appointment of Mrs. Rachel Jones as the chairman of the Council.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I naturally undertook consultations before making a recommendation for this appointment. As a result, and after taking into account all the requirements laid down in the Charter, I am satisfied that Mrs. Jones is eminently suitable for this post, and I have replied to the Broadcasting Council for Wales in that sense
    Mr. Roberts: Does not that Answer show that there was no consultation with Welsh opinion before this important appointment was made? Is it not the fact that an increasing number of local authorities and other public bodies in Wales are protesting vigorously against this appointment and particularly the way in which it was engineered? In view of the prevailing strong feeling in Wales, is it not high time that the Prime Minister rescinded this decision and made an appointment which at least would be acceptable in Wales and defensible in this House?
    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I cannot accept those suggestions. I feel that the major part of Welsh opinion feels that the time has now come to allow Mrs. Jones a chance to see how well she can do this job.
    Lady Megan Lloyd George: As the Broadcasting Council for Wales is composed of distinguished persons of great experience in this sphere, as they are
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    in a special position to assess the qualities needed in a chairman of the Council and as our protests are supported by an overwhelming body of opinion in Wales, will not the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this totally unacceptable and unsuitable appointment?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot accept that this is the responsibility of anybody except the Government.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this appointment has staggered exiles from Wales as much as it has amazed and annoyed people in Wales?
    Mr. J. Griffiths: While I recognise that this is a Government appointment, surely the Government are obliged to pay some regard to the Charter which lays down certain requirements. I have never in my experience found an appointment so universally condemned. This is the universal opinion in Wales. I do not think that there are any exceptions to it. There was only one in the Council, and there are obvious reasons for that. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that he is at present regarded in Wales as having flouted the wishes of the people, particularly the one-third who take pride in preserving their language? Since we want an opportunity to discuss this matter fully on the Floor of the House, will the right hon. Gentleman make available, either in the OFFICIAL REPORT or by putting copies in the Library, the exchange of letters between himself and the Council?
    The Prime Minister: I will consider the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. With regard to the first part, I cannot accept that everybody who does not speak Welsh is incapable of understanding Wales or the Welsh people. The chief accusation against this lady is that she does not speak Welsh, and, as I have pointed out, she shares that disability with two-thirds of her countrymen.
    Mr. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he is Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom and not speak so patronisingly about a language which is the first language of many of us in the House and of many people in the country? Does he realise that, though he speaks

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    continuously in the way he does about the other one-third of the people, they are, in my opinion, among the best in the country?
    The Prime Minister: I did not speak patronisingly about the Welsh language. It is a very fine language, like the Gaelic language. Quite a lot of people in Scotland speak Gaelic. The view of many people and myself is that the future of the Welsh language depends, to some extent at any rate, on the support of non-Welsh-speaking Welshmen and on general interest in Welsh culture. For this purpose, I believe that this lady is very well suited.
    Mr. Gaitskell: As half the broadcasts in Wales are in Welsh, it is extremely difficult to see how the chairman can do his or her job properly without being able to understand them.
    The Prime Minister: There is such a thing as translation. But the function of this lady is to represent the Welsh point of view with the Governors of the B.B.C. I feel sure that she can adequately and successfully carry out this function.

    UNDER-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES (AID)
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Prime Minister what communication he has sent to President de Gaulle in connection with the latter's proposal to establish an agency for East-West co-operation in aid to under-developed countries.
    The Prime Minister: It is not customary to disclose the contents or existence of confidential messages exchanged with other Heads of Government, but there have been conversations on this subject with the French Government at various levels.
    Mr. Edelman: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that this valuable but neglected proposal was first put forward by the President in March in Paris and was later repeated in Washington? It was also put forward as a suggested item for consideration at the Summit Conference. In view of its significance, will not the Prime Minister consider revising the proposal and making approaches to Mr. Khrushchev about this important matter?
    The Prime Minister: I am very much interested in this question, which we are still discussing; but, unfortunately, the best opportunity when I hoped it might have been raised has passed from us. We must now seek how best to take up this and other matters at the most appropriate moment.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in principle it is desirable that we should find some means of working with the Soviet Government in the provision of economic aid for under-developed countries?
    The Prime Minister: At the moment, Western aid is about twenty times as great as the comparable effort of the Sino-Soviet bloc. Do not let us denigrate what we do. If other things had gone as we had hoped, we might have found a valuable field for co-operation between us and the Eastern bloc. That hope for the moment is more difficult, but certainly is not abandoned.

    PEACE AND DISARMAMENT
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Prime Minister whether he will appoint a Minister for Peace and Disarmament.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The functions which I think the hon. Member has in mind are fundamental to the responsibilities of the Foreign Secretary.
    Mr. Edelman: Will the Prime Minister consider rehabilitating the word "peace", and, in view of the great complications and difficulties of understanding exactly what is going on in Geneva, would not it be desirable to have this post so that ordinary persons may see exactly what the Government are trying to do in respect of disarmament?
    The Prime Minister: We on both sides of the House have done our best to contribute to the search for peace. We have had our setbacks, but we have not abandoned hope. As regards disarmament, there is a very complicated situation at the moment. I have tried to explain as best possible the present situation. This may be a matter for debate. But I know the hon. Gentleman's real interest. I will do anything that I can to set forward what he has in mind. I do not think, however, that

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    the appointment of a Minister other than the Foreign Secretary for this purpose would help us.
    Mr. C. Osborne: If on second thoughts my right hon. Friend agrees to this appointment, will he see that the gentleman's first task is to solve the problems of the party opposite?
    Mr. Chetwynd: The hon. Member is about two days out of time.
    Mr. Shinwell: In view of the failure of the Blue Streak policy and the failure of the Government, and of the Minister of Defence in particular, to provide adequate equipment for Her Majesty's Forces, could not this appointment be transferred to the Minister of Defence?
    The Prime Minister: I am never quite sure which side the right hon. Gentleman is on. But this gives me an opportunity of saying that I ought to have given my congratulations to the Leader of the Opposition. There was a moment when I was getting quite nervous.
    Mr. Callaghan: Does the Prime Minister propose to ask the permission of Mr. Speaker to reply to Question No. 46, in view of the lack of confidence in the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
    Captain Pilkington: Did my right hon. Friend see that, according to today's Daily Herald, the Government are now in a panic? Would he care to comment?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 4TH JULY—Supply [19th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the Agriculture (Threshers and Balers) Regulations.
TUESDAY, 5TH JULY—Report stage of the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 6TH JULY—Conclusion of the Report stage of the Finance Bill.
Consideration of the Motions to approve the Anti-Dumping (No. 1) Order, 1960, and the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Imported Hardwood and Softwood Timber) Order.
THURSDAY, 7TH JULY—Supply [20th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on Beach Pollution by Sewage, until Seven o'clock.
Afterwards, a debate will take place on an Opposition Motion relating to the Colonial Development Corporation.
Consideration of Motions to approve the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations and similar Regulations for Scotland.
FRIDAY, 8TH JULY—Third Reading of the Finance Bill.
MONDAY, 11TH JULY—The proposed business will be Supply [21st Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate on the Economic Situation.
Mr. Gaitskell: In view of the reports in the Press that the negotiations on Cyprus have been concluded, when may we expect a statement? Is it proposed to introduce early legislation dealing with the independence of Cyprus?
Mr. Butler: The negotiations have not been finally concluded, but we trust that they will be. When they have been, I will certainly discuss with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the possibility of making a statement. It is our intention and wish that following the successful conclusion of the negotiations, the necessary legislation will be in time to pass, through the House.
Mr. Gaitskell: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that the negotiations will be concluded and the legislation introduced in time to pass through both Houses of Parliament before the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. That is our hope. If things go according to plan, that should prove possible.
Mr. Gaitskell: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect the report of the Stedeford Committee on the Railways?
Mr. Butler: I can give no date in the immediate future for receiving the report
Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that on 1st June, a summary of the recommendations of the Chandos Committee was reported to the House? This is an important series of recommendations and reports for the future of the British shipping industry and, more particularly, the Cunard Line. Can my right hon. Friend give any assurance that this matter will be debated before the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: I cannot at the moment make a further statement on this matter. The best thing that I can do is to note the wish of my hon. Friend.
Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the grave disquiet in the country on the question of the price of land? Can he give an undertaking that this question, which is becoming a major scandal, will be debated, if not next week, before the House rises for the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: This is, naturally, engaging the intelligent attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Whether a statement will be made, I cannot say.
Mr. C. Osborne: In view of the fact that many of us on the back benches find it difficult to get into economic debates, and as the debate on Monday week will be the last time that we will be discussing economics before the long Recess, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the possibility of giving us an extra hour for that debate?
Mr. Butler: We have not got as far as considering that yet, but I will note what my hon. Friend says so that as many hon. Members as possible may be heard.
Mr. Donnelly: In view of the number of important changes which have taken place in the Government's defence policy since the Blue Streak debate, and of the transitory nature of defence, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the importance of having a defence debate before the summer Recess? Can he tell the House something about this?
Mr. Butler: I cannot discuss the merits or demerits of the question in answer to business questions. It does
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not, however, look very likely, in view of the pressure of business, that there will be time for such a debate.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is disquiet about the report that a very large sum of money is to be handed over to Archbishop Makarios for expenditure in Cyprus? Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that, before doing this, he should consider spending some of that money in Scotland?
Mr. Butler: The needs of Scotland have been already approached by the new legislation introduced into the House this Session. As regards the alleged money granted to Archbishop Makarios, there is no difference from the general plan envisaged throughout of certain grants and moneys made available for the future of Cyprus, which has been under discussion for many months.
Mr. Short: Reverting to the Public Service Vehicles (Travel Concessions) Bill, is the Leader of the House aware that recently the Scottish T.U.C. passed a unanimous resolution asking for this legislation? Will the right hon. Gentleman now put into practice some of the humanitarianism about which he so often speaks and give us time for this Bill?
Mr. Butler: If the hon. Member, with his usual pertinacity, would follow that up by sending me a copy of the resolution or views, I shall be glad to study them.
Mr. Roy Jenkins: Assuming that the Government cannot possibly have it in mind that we should adjourn for the Summer Recess without a debate on Britain's relations with Europe, can the right hon. Gentleman say when it will take place?
Mr. Butler: No, I cannot give a date, partly because this depends upon the evolution of policy and partly because it depends upon the discretion which may be displayed by hon. Members opposite in choosing different subjects of debate.
Mr. Wigg: While I have every sympathy with the Government in seeking to avoid a debate on defence, surely the right hon. Gentleman must have slipped a little in saying that it will be impossible to find time before the Summer

1561
Recess. He can find time if he wants to facilitate a debate, even if only on the Appropriation Bill. Can he not do that?
Mr. Butler: There are indefinite possibilities, including the possibility of hon. and right hon. Members opposite choosing this as a subject for debate. Certainly, on any occasion on which it is chosen, the Government case will be found to be resounding and effective.
Mr. Paget: The Leader of the House has used the word "evolution" concerning policy. May we take it that he recognises that this is a purely fortuitous process without application of human intelligence?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

  ORDERS OF THE DAY

    SUPPLY
    [18TH ALLOTTED DAY]
    Considered in Committee.
    [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1960–61
    CLASS VI

      VOTE 8. MINISTRY OF LABOUR
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a sum, not exceeding £15,035,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Labour, including expenses in connection with employment exchanges and the inspection of factories; expenses, including grants and loans, in connection with employment services, training, transfer, rehabilitation and resettlement; a grant in aid of the Industrial Training Council Service; expenses in connection with national service; repayment of loan charges in respect of employment schemes; expenses of the Industrial Court; a subscription to the International Labour Organisation; and sundry other services. [£7,513,000 has been voted on account.]

  APPRENTICESHIPS
  3.41 p.m.
  Mr. Austen Albu: In discussing the Vote for the Ministry of Labour we have chosen the subect of apprenticeship and industrial training because it seems to us to be one of the gravest problems facing the country at present. If I may start with a quotation, it will be from a letter which I have only just received from a youth employment officer.
  It reads:
  "The latest financial news makes me (and no doubt every other youth employment officer) tremble in my shoes. If production is cut down I can see another recession coming like the one which began about October, 1957, and which caused school-leavers so many headaches and heartaches in 1959. Only, of course, it will be much worse next time because the big bulge' will start in a few months' time. God help us and the kids if the recession and the bulge coincide."
  That is the theme on which I want to open the debate. My friend's anxiety is supported by the figures which have

  1563
  been given from time to time by the Minister in reply to Questions in the House, and they make a grim comment on the optimism expressed by the present Minister of Power when he spoke in the last major debate on this subject on 30th April last year.
  There are two main aspects of this problem and two considerations which we should bear in mind. The first is the social one, the problem of whether or not we shall be able to provide enough jobs, and adequate training in these jobs, for the boys and girls who will be leaving school in the next few years during the large increase in the number of school-leavers which is commonly referred to as "the bulge".
  The second is whether or not the quality of the training which these boys and girls will get when they go into industry will be adequate for the task which faces our economy in the next few years, an economy which will increasingly face competition from gigantic market bases, large-scale investment and a high degree of scientific and technical advance. During the current year—and no doubt the Minister will draw attention to this when he replies—the situation may temporarily have been relieved by the temporary fall in the number of school-leavers and by the General Election boom, but now we are beginning to face the bulge of school-leavers in the next two or three years at exactly the time when Government action has been taken to reduce the level of economic activity. This is a very serious situation indeed.
  By 1962, it is expected that there will be 494,000 15-year olds leaving school in England and Wales. The figures will start rising next year. This is an increase of nearly a half over 1956. The peak for the 16-year olds will be reached a year later, with 121,000. Here, the figure is about three-quarters over the 1956 figure. These are the years for us of challenge and of opportunity. They are a challenge, because if we do not cope with them successfully we shall do irreparable harm to the lives of the boys and girls and to the social future of the country. They are years of opportunity, because they give us a chance to make
  1564
  up the great backlog of training and education which we badly need to make up if we are to retain our industrial position in the world.
  How is industry preparing to face this opportunity and this challenge? I must worry the Committee with a few figures because they provide the only way which one can demonstrate what is taking place. The number of boys who have been entering apprenticeship or other forms of skilled training during the last few years and who are going into skilled jobs has gone up from 93,200 in 1956 to 98,700 in 1959. The 1956 figure was a very low figure. In fact, the actual rise for boys has not been a rise in the proportion of those entering employment, but a very substantial fall, from 39 per cent. to 34 per cent. of all those entering employment. The number of girls has risen from 17,352 in 1956 to 20,631 in 1959. I suspect that this also represents a fall, but I have no information about the percentages. In any case, the numbers for girls are very small.
  The figures for skilled training and apprenticeships for boys show a very serious fall, particularly because the apprenticeship market is very sensitive to economic conditions. In 1958, the number of school-leavers entering apprenticeships was the lowest for many years. The year 1959, when figures went up very substantially, was, of course, an economic boom year. Nevertheless, the figures for that year still show a fall when calculated as a proportion of those entering employment.
  Another way of looking at this problem of the amount of facilities for training that are available and of what the industry is doing is to look at the trends in part-time day releases, because most firms that provide decent apprenticeship schemes allow their apprentices at least one day release every week. Here the figures are again very alarming. In England and Wales, in 1957–58, 33·2 per cent. of boys under 18 in employment were given day release. In 1958–59, the proportion had gone down to 31 per cent., and numbers had dropped from 192,000 to 187,000. The number of girls increased from 50,636 or 8·7 per cent., to 51,743, but that was a slight fall in proportion because the

  1565
  percentage was 8·5. The main apprenticeship trades are engineering, shipbuilding and building, but even in engineering and shipbuilding the proportion of boys released under part-time day releases has fallen substantially in England and Wales, from 73·9 per cent. to 58·5 per cent. Last year, in Scotland, the figure was as low as 53 per cent.
  It is true that there is a very great variety—this is one of the problems—in the availability of apprenticeships and the amount of day release given as between different industries. It is not surprising that our nationalised industries do very well in this regard, as the figures for both apprenticeships and day release show—in the mining, gas and electricity industries, British Railways, and so forth. British Railways have first-class training workshops. I visited one at Crewe the other day However, I am sorry that British Railways could not bear the small cost of keeping on the 57 apprentice fitters which they recently sacked from the Doncaster works, thus not setting a very good example to private industry, which should also be doing better.
  However, by and large, no doubt, the nationalised industries do very well, as do many of the large firms, which do more than their share of providing skilled workers to enter industry, but the great mass of small and medium-sized firms, even in engineering and shipbuilding, which are the main apprentice trades, do not—even building, in which fewer than half the firms operate the national joint apprenticeship scheme.
  Not only do the opportunities vary greatly between industries. They vary greatly between different parts of the country. Last year, the proportion of boys entering employment who were able to obtain apprenticeships or training in skilled trades varied as much as from 23 per cent. in Wales and 32 per cent. in London and Scotland, to 42 per cent. in the East and West Ridings, and the proportion was very similar in the Northern region. In some cases these were very substantial falls in the proportions over the last few years, particularly in Scotland.
  Unfortunately, even these figures may be exaggerated. The Committee over which the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) presided reported on the difficulty of obtaining accurate statistics
  1566
  about the number of apprenticeships or the requirements of industry over the next few years. These figures are obtained, I believe, from youth employment officers, or largely from them, and those officers have very great difficulty in obtaining hard information. Those officers are dealing with young men and women when they leave school at 15, and apprenticeship does not begin until the age of 16. Therefore, the youth employment officer has to guess or take the word of the young men and women about whether or not they will be apprenticed.
  Many firms take on boys and girls—mainly boys—but if a trade recession comes along shortly afterwards they may refuse to indenture them at 16, although the boys and girls may be regarded as having entered apprenticeship. So the numbers will be less than at first sight they appear to be. Many firms take on several boys, but indenture very few of them. Yet those boys may well have told the youth employment officer that they were apprenticed. Consequently, the figures may be exaggerated. They are certainly inaccurate.
  This is the situation which we are now facing. There certainly is not much sign of our getting even the 20 per cent. increase in the numbers of apprenticeships and trainees in skilled occupations which is supposed to be the target of the Industrial Training Council, a target which is based on nothing more than the rise in the number of school leavers, and one which most informed opinion would believe is completely inadequate, because we must cater not only for the increase in the numbers of school leavers, but for the increased proportion of those who leave school and obtain training in industry.
  The situation from the point of view of the three interested parties is best summed up by the Crowther Report, in paragraph 509, which says:
  "Prospects for the next five years can he looked at in three ways. From the point of view of the individual employer, they may not be unsatisfactory—he stands a fair chance of getting all the apprentices he can usefully train and of being able to select them much more carefully than he could in recent years."
  That merely means that there is a surplus of boys and girls coming on the labour market.
  "From the point of view of an individual boy, the situation is alarming. Since the war,

  1567
  his elder brothers have progressively had a better chance of securing a job with day release—his own chance and his younger brother's look like being worse. From the standpoint of the State, the situation is also disquieting. It seems doubtful whether it can succeed even in holding the position to the present percentage figure of release. It looks to us as if a static situation, instead of the improving one to which we have become accustomed, is the best that we can hope for during the next five years."
  Later, in the paragraph, the Report says:
  "One of our witnesses quoted to us the remark of a German industrialist—' We envy you your bulge'."
  The Report goes on:
  "We trust that there may be no need to add 'But we are astounded at the way you have wasted the chance to build up your capital of skill'."
  I suggest that we are wasting our chance to build up our capital of skill.
  Turning from what I regard as a very depressing and even alarming picture to the measures taken to deal with it, I would say right away that I consider this to be a Government responsibility on two grounds. The first is that the Government must be concerned with the social well-being of the young people who will be growing up into manhood during the next few years and will be the citizens of the future. Secondly, it must be a Government responsibility to ensure that our economy is adequately equipped with scientific and technical training, with skilled craftsmen with an appropriate level of education, and sufficient investment to cope with the highly competitive world which our exports and our industries will face in the next few years.
  I believe that there is the beginning of a realisation of this on the Government side. An indication of this is the small scheme which the Minister of Labour announced in April to provide in Government training establishments a first-year apprentice training for apprentices from small firms. We must be clear about this and be careful that we do not confuse two things. We are not talking about pre-apprentice years; this is the first year of apprenticeship. I believe that it is, as such, a good idea, but the number of places which the Minister is providing—300. I believe—is utterly inadequate by comparison with the figures which I have quoted and will
  1568
  represent nothing more than a tiny pimple on the mountain of the problem which we are facing.
  Apart from that, the Government have confined themselves to a grant to the Industrial Training Council of £75,000 to further the appointment of training development officers. This year's estimates contain the "magnificent" total of £35,000; that will not make a great impression on an already reluctant and apathetic industry.
  Let us look at the first report of the Industrial Training Council, that for 1959, which has just been published. What has the Council succeeded in doing? It has appointed two training development officers and one assistant, and only one of the three has been appointed in a major manufacturing industry. It has set up an advisory service for small firms. I am tired of advisory services. We have had them all over industry during the last few years. I do not know what effect they have. The Council produces a great deal of propaganda material which I am sure will find its way to the place which most propaganda material sent through the post normally reaches.
  The British Employers' Confederation, one of the bodies represented on the Industrial Training Council, has circularised a large number of its member firms to urge them to take on more apprentices during the bulge period. One hundred and fifty-four large companies have promised substantially to increase their numbers, but 147 companies said that they could not for various reasons associate themselves with the appeal made by the President of the British Employers' Confederation. So it does not look as if they will provide much in the way of increased numbers. The fact is that there are no signs in most parts of the country that adequate provision is being made or is likely to be made to deal with this serious situation.
  Learning a skilled trade today depends on a number of chances. First, boys have much better chances than girls. It is time we began to look more seriously at the opportunities for skilled training for girls leaving school. The second is that the chances vary greatly in different parts of the country. They have a much better chance to get apprenticeships or a

  1569
  learnership for a skilled trade in Bradford than in Cardiff, or London, or Glasgow. The other thing, and this is quite important, too, is that there is a much better chance of getting an apprenticeship if the boy happens to know the foreman, the manager or somebody else in the firm. This does not necessarily mean that those who are most suited for training necessarily get it.
  In a recent inquiry which was conducted by the youth employment officer who recently wrote to me it was found that, of 100 boys who were interviewed coming from secondary-modern schools and comprehensive schools, 54 said that they wanted craft apprenticeships. Of those 54, 49 actually got them. One-third of those who got them had not been considered by the youth employment officer and the education authority as really suitable for training through apprenticeship, while one-third of those who were considered suitable did not get apprenticeships.
  This is an extremely inefficient way of going about the whole training problem, and it also leads to heartbreak. If we get many boys who really are suitable and who have the mental ability and adaptability to learn a skilled trade, and we shove them into some rather dead-end occupations, we shall merely break their hearts and may well turn them into delinquents. It seems to me that this is, socially as well as economically, an undesirable and inefficient arrangement.
  A good apprenticeship scheme needs, first, a good system of selection. I do not mean that, initially, it should be a sort of 11-plus examination which should determine for ever what job a person is to have and what degrees of skill a boy or girl should have and be trained for finally. Hon. Members may have seen an interesting letter from Dr. Alec Rodger, a well-known psychologist, in The Times of 17th June, in which he appeared to favour an arrangement by which there could be tests at different levels of training before final decisions are made as to exactly what degree of training and what exact trade a boy or girl should enter.
  There are some who say that there are not enough able youngsters, indeed, that there are not enough with the ability to train in this way. This is a defeatist and undemocratic argument, which has
  1570
  been applied to the universities, higher education and secondary education. We are always hearing it, but the fact is that it is completely untrue. Dr. Rodger went into some detail about it and points out that in two years' time there will be three able youngsters of 15 years of age for every two four years ago, and nobody can pretend that at present all those who leave school are getting the education and training—the Crowther Report strongly underlines this—of which they are capable.
  I am convinced that we shall not get progress either in the numbers we require being trained, or in the quality of the training, unless the Government play a much larger part in the process; and in this I am supported by a very interesting recent memorandum, which I have no doubt the Minister has seen published by the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes and the National Union of Teachers. I find myself in very substantial agreement with most of their proposals, and particularly I agree with them that the Government should accept a basic responsibility for ensuring that there are provisions in industry for training and that these are adequate. They suggest that in each industry, where it does not already exist, there should be established a joint national apprenticeship training council, composed of employers, employees and representatives of education and the youth service.
  On this, I have a comment to make. There are already over 100 such bodies with established schemes, but the trouble is that they are not operated by the firms within the industries. Very few of them are in active operation, and it seems that they never will be unless there is some kind of compulsion on individual firms, or some greater incentive provided by taxation or otherwise than at present exists.
  There was also the suggestion of the A.T.T.I. that regional and district committees in this national joint scheme, would help, and I should like to suggest that the schemes for different industries should be linked through local committees of the industrial training council which, so far as I know, does not exist at present. The A.T.T.I. has also suggested that it should be obligatory on all firms to provide appropriate training for every entrant into a skilled or semi-skilled

  1571
  occupation, and here the appropriate training means more than the formality of signing indentures or calling the boy an apprentice.
  Appropriate training today must, at least in the first year, mean that there should be training in special training workshops where proper tuition can be given by properly trained instructors. Any training scheme worth its salt should be under the charge of a proper training officer, who should not be, as at present, some sort of superannuated foreman or manager for whom the firm no longer has any use, or a retired Service Officer who has had no trainng whatever in training itself. He should be a person who has been properly trained to do the job, and there are people of that kind today.
  In fact, one of the advantages at a different level of the Government's sandwich scheme—the diploma in technology scheme, where one part of the qualification has to be met by training in industry, is that the firms are being forced to look more closely at the type of training they receive. The colleges themselves are demanding that a lad should get proper training in the other half of the sandwich scheme, although that is at the professional level, but what applies there applies equally at the craft and technician level.
  The training can adequately be given by the large firms, though there are many large firms in engineering which do not do so, particularly in shipbuilding, which is extremely backward in this regard, where too many young workers and apprentices are employed as cheap labour. The other smaller and medium-sized firms can find their way to do it by operating in group schemes, though there are not nearly enough of them. They are at least beginning to grow very largely encouraged by such bodies as the consultant firm of Industrial Administration running schemes for the Engineering Industrial Association, the Gloucestershire training group and now the Coventry Chamber of Commerce, and so on. These schemes are growing at much too slow a pace. Finally, there can be training in technical colleges or Government establishments, and the A.T.T.I. suggest that the cost of it should be shared. I believe that the Government will have to have far more of this
  1572
  sort of thing, partly by extending their own scheme to first-year apprentices and go much further if we are to catch up with the terrible backwardness with which we are now faced, and if we are to carry the scheme right on to give complete apprenticeship or training in some of the backward parts of the country.
  We have to face the fact that there are many of the smaller firms which cannot afford to recruit the extra numbers, or provide adequate training for them in the numbers that will be required in the next few years and who will not train more than may be immediately needed for production. They certainly cannot provide the quality of training that is required and far too many of them use their apprentices at any rate in the first three or four years of apprenticeship as cheap labour.
  May I now turn to the nature of the apprenticeship system itself and the quality of the training which it provides. It has not lacked examination during the last few years. There has been the committee under the hon. Member for Mitcham, the reports by Lady Gertrude Williams and Dr. Kate Liepmann, as well as the Crowther Report, which deals mainly with technicians and not so much with craftsmen, but which also contains interesting comparisons with what is done in other countries. All these reports are critical of our present arrangements, and I hope that both sides of industry will approach their study of our present apprenticeship system, both as to numbers and quality, with open minds.
  The difficulty is to see the pattern of employment in the years ahead—how many skilled workers will be required, what degrees of skill, what trades and industries are likely to expand and what to contract, and what new processes are likely to be discovered and introduced into industry. I believe that if we can get away from the concept of apprenticeship as an entry into a trade or profession, and look upon it solely as training for a trade or profession, it would, perhaps, be easier to deal with.
  I want to start with certain basic assumptions. The first is that in the future many of our individual craftsmen will have to be technicians, much more highly qualified and much more highly educated. Secondly, the number of both craftsmen and technicians—who may become more difficult to distinguish—will

  1573
  rise as our exports more and more become capital goods of an advanced design and requiring a high degree of scientific and technical skill in their manufacture.
  Thirdly, well-trained and well-educated craftsmen are adaptable, especially if their education and training is broad, and we shall need adaptable craftsmen and technicians in the years ahead. Fourthly, we shall need a large number of what we call semiskilled workers. They, too, will need to be very adaptable, because the products and processes of industry will be subject to rapid change, which we must accept. They will need much better training and a continuance of education, like the craftsmen themselves, although their training need not be as long. The vast majority at present receive no training and no further education.
  Fifthly, we have also to give much greater attention to the neglected occupations, of which agriculture is one, and certainly to the commercial occupations. The Meeking Report drew attention to this. In commercial education and training we are miles behind those who are likely to be our main competitors in the future, the countries of the Common Market in Europe.
  Finally, there must be more opportunities for girls to train. I am sure that the only way to deal with this problem is to treat apprenticeship as a continuation of the educational process, with proper standards and proper qualifications.
  It is sometimes said that the trade unions will never accept a system of qualifications, but in 1939, giving evidence to the I.L.O. inquiry on vocational education and apprenticeship, the T.U.C. agreed that it was desirable to co-ordinate and recognise certificates issued after examination on the termination of apprenticeships.
  It may be that individual unions at present, would not go as far as that, but, certainly, we could see a great extension of the use of the City and Guild certificates. The City and Guilds are working out a very good scheme for craftsmen, not technicians but craftsmen, at a level which is exactly right, and we should do everything we can to encourage people to take those qualifications.
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  There is a serious danger of our indulging in what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) said in a very different context last night was our national disease of complacency. We go on saying that British methods are the best. They are best, I suppose, because they enabled us to become the leader in the Industrial Revolution some time in the middle of the last century, when many of those methods were established. But, today, we have a great deal to learn from other countries who have picked up ideas and established methods of manufacture after ours were first established.
  We need much more research into methods of training. The inquiries which I have mentioned were mostly conducted by economists and sociologists and, so far as I know, nothing has yet been done in the way of a study by educational psychologists. For that reason, and also because I would like to break down the educational and social barrier which exists between apprentices and students—because today there should be a continuous progress in the degrees of education and training received by boys—I should like to see responsibility for industrial training transferred from the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education.
  After all, one half of the task is already in the hands of the Ministry of Education—the technical colleges are the responsibility of that Ministry. At present, we are falling down partly because responsibility is split. It is not because I have anything against the Ministry of Labour, but because I do not think that a Department which is concerned with employment conditions, as the Ministry of Labour is, is the right Department to deal with training which has become more and more an educational process.
  It would have an added advantage, because the Ministry of Education would then retain responsibility for all youngsters between the ages of 15 and 16 during the difficult transition period before the school-leaving age is raised, but while more and more youngsters are voluntarily staying on at school.
  During the next few years, the Government face a very grave responsibility. They have the responsibility of determining whether there will be jobs at all

  1575
  for those leaving school, or whether those leaving school are to have to stand around street corners, with the inevitable deterioration in their outlook and in their personalities, and whether they are to stand around without jobs.
  Even if there are jobs, are they going to be the sort of heart-breaking dead-end jobs which many youngsters have to go into today, or jobs with adequate opportunities for training? That is something which is definitely a Government responsibility.
  Lastly, will the quality as well as the quantity of training available match the needs of our industry in future, needs which many industrial employers do not yet themselves sufficiently recognise? It is only the most progressive employers who understand what will be the needs of the future. If we do not provide that sort of training, we shall certainly not be able to compete with our main competitors in the world, because we shall be able to do so in future only if we are able to produce and sell abroad specialised products of advanced design requiring great skill in manufacture.
  So far as I can see, there has been no real recognition of these problems. The Government's approach is the laissez-faire one of leaving it to industry to solve their problems. I think that I have shown that industry is not solving these problems and has no intention of doing so. If nothing is done by the Government, there are ahead of us all the elements of a grave social disaster.
  4.16 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Peter Thomas): First, may I say how much hon. Members on this side of the House welcome the debate. I agree with the hon Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) that this is a most important matter. It is extremely important, especially at this time, that we should not lose any opportunity to ventilate our views on the subject, because I am sure that our views, together with those of the people who are interested, can be of great assistance in overcoming what is clearly a problem in many cases.
  Perhaps I can be permitted sincerely to congratulate the hon. Member on what was a most effective and informed
  1576
  speech. I attempted to take down many of the points he made, but he made so many that, I regret to say, I am not in a position to answer every question that he raised. However, I am in full agreement with him about many of the things he said, and my right hon. Friend will be addressing the Committee at the end of the debate.
  The main point which the hon. Member put before us was that we must regard the problem facing us, that of training for skill, as the responsibility of the Government. He said that we had a laissez-faire approach to this matter because we were willing to allow the main responsibility to remain with industry. I should make perfectly clear at the outset what our view of the matter is. We feel that the responsibility for providing industrial training rests primarily with industry. That was the view, as the Committee will know, which was expressed by the Carr Committee.
  We may have differences on this subject, but most hon. Members will agree that, in practice, over the bulge years which are now upon us, there is no alternative other than for industry to furnish the major effort.
  The second matter is that although there is an obvious need, as the hon. Member proved, for a re-examination of training practice with a view to change and improvement, our traditional apprenticeship system should form the foundation of future training arrangements. At its best, that system produces a type of skill second to none in the world. There are some extremely fine training arrangements in the best of firms. The immediate problem is that the best in our system should be more widely spread.
  The third matter is the need for quick progress, and, therefore, as we have the bulge on us next year, we must build up on that which exists. If we think in terms of making radical changes in our training system we may well cause disturbance in industry which might defeat the purpose of our activities.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the bulge, and that is the most important consideration. In fact, it was the anticipation of this unusual increase in the number of school leavers which was the main reason that prompted the inquiry of the sub-committee of the National Joint

  1577
  Advisory Council, which led to what is called the Carr Report. The bulge has roused varying reactions. I have been around the country since becoming Parliamentary Secretary and it is interesting to hear those reactions. They vary between expressions of very grave apprehension as to what will be the effect of this large number of school leavers on the labour market, and expressions of optimism and welcome at the golden opportunity to remedy deficiencies that exist in our manpower.
  The Carr Committee's conclusion was that for the country as a whole the bulge will not present a problem of employment. But despite that firm conclusion a very large body of opinion is very seriously concerned about employment prospects for young people, particularly, as I found, in what can be called the more difficult areas. It was about this that the hon. Gentleman also expressed concern today.
  It would be wrong to be over-optimistic about the matter, and I do not intend to be complacent. But events since the Carr Committee's Report have not given us cause to question its conclusion that the problem of the bulge is not one of employment. We have passed through what has been called the "little bulge"—the bulge of 1957 to 1959. During that time we absorbed into employment over 150,000 more young people than if the pre-bulge rate of school leaving had remained constant.
  During that time there was a recession, and we are, therefore, able to test, to some extent, from past experience exactly what is the effect of a recession when we have a bulge. In January, 1959, for instance, which was at the height of the 1958–1959 recession, 88 per cent. of the school leavers at Christmas got into employment within a month. In January, 1960, when the economy was again fully on its feet, 90 per cent. of the school leavers who had left at Christmas were in employment within a month.
  These are interesting figures in as much as they indicate that in a recession the people who suffer most—because at that time, in 1959, there was a certain amount of unemployment—are not the school leavers. There were, however, less favourable areas, I know quite a lot about these and I appreciate fully the feelings which people have expressed about them.
  1578
  They are areas like Scotland, Wales and the Northern region of England. Nevertheless, even in those difficult areas—which were going through great difficulties at the time—in January, 1959, 80 per cent. of the school leavers got into employment within one month of leaving school at Christmas. In the worst region, which was the Northern—I regret that it possibly still is—94 per cent. of the school leavers were in work by the middle of February, 1959.
  Members have probably read the latest figures about school leavers at Easter. Over the country as a whole, 0·8 per cent. of the Easter school leavers were unemployed on 13th June. Even in the black areas, in the Northern region, all had been placed in work except 2·5 per cent. The June count of unemployment amongst youngsters between the ages of 15 and 18 is 11,700, but there were, at the same time, vacancies for 116,500. It is clear, therefore, that many areas face not a problem of absorption, but of a shortage of workers. Indeed, that applies to adults as well as to young people.
  Girls were mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. In all regions today vacancies for girls exceed the unemployed. In the Midland region the ratio is 40 vacancies to one girl unemployed; in Scotland, it is six to one; in the Northern region it is four to one; in Wales, where it always has been a problem, the ratio is three to one. But the House is probably more anxious about the prospects for boys. In areas of high employment the shortages are only a little less marked and the least favourable is, again, the Northern region. The number of unemployed boys exceeds vacancies by 100 to 86.
  Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Do my hon. Friend's statistics stretch to Northern Ireland?
  Mr. Thomas: I do not cover Northern Ireland, because it is not within the ambit of our regional areas. I am sorry that I cannot give my hon. Friend the figures for Northern Ireland. I am very glad that I am not responsible for the situation there.
  I mention all these figures to the Committee, but I do not want to minimise the situation. There are difficult areas and the situation is least favourable in

  1579
  the three regions which I have mentioned. Nevertheless, and, in particular, in the development districts, there has been a distinct improvement since last year. In Wales, the unemployment figure of young people between 15 and 18 has been practically halved. In Scotland, it has fallen by one-third. In the Northern region the signs of improvement, which are still somewhat tentative and recent, mean that the situation for young people is still a difficult problem.
  Mr. William Hannan: While not denying that the situation has improved, is not the hon. Gentleman aware that it is twice as bad as it was in 1957? Will he address himself to that point?
  Mr. Thomas: We have had many questions about the situation in Scotland, and I appreciate the difficulties, but I am putting forward facts. I do not want to avoid the difficult areas. I could have put in figures for Britain as a whole, for that picture is one of very low unemployment and very many vacancies—almost ten vacancies to one person unemployed. The position in the difficult areas is clear. It is bound up with the general employment situation. It is not peculiar to young people.
  The question everybody asks is this: what are the future prospects? As the hon. Member for Edmonton said, there will be a very steep increase in the number of school leavers in 1961–62. In 1961, the number of school leavers seeking work will amount to 660,000, which is 37 per cent. more than in 1956, and in 1962 it will probably be 720,000, which is almost a 50 per cent. increase over 1956. It is obvious that the prospects will depend primarily upon our ability to maintain an active and competitive economy and our success in steering industrial expansion to less favourable areas.
  I do not want to introduce something which is alien to the general content of the debate, but I thought that the youth employment officer who wrote to the hon. Member was being a little pessimistic about the Chancellor's measures, which, as we see them, are aimed at steady expansion and steady prices, which will be far healthier and
  1580
  more helpful than allowing the growth in the economy to go beyond our resources, and lead to inflation.
  In considering the absorption of the bulge into employment, the proportionate addition which the bulge will make to the general labour force gives a better indication of the size of the problem than a mere comparison between the annual leavers. By this yardstick the whole bulge, from 1956 to 1952, is likely to add between 3 per cent. and 4 per cent. to our labour force and, judged by the expansion of our working population in recent years, it should be absorbed without much difficulty. I say this because it is only right to endorse the Carr Committee's conclusion that the problem of the bulge is not so much one of employment as of the kind of employment and, in particular, whether there are sufficient training arrangements.
  The hon. Member devoted the major part of his speech to that consideration. In the course of it he said that inquiries had been made, without very much success, to find out what skill was needed for the future, and possibly what numbers would be required. I agree that it has been found difficult to obtain a precise estimate of industry's future requirements of skilled workers, but I think that all hon. Members would agree with the Carr Committee's conclusion that industry will require all the skilled workers that the bulge can produce. If any evidence of that is required it can be found in the large and persistent unsatisfied demands for skilled workers which we find all over the country. I should have thought that that was striking evidence of the need to expand training for skilled occupations.
  The hon. Member also talked about the progress that had been made. I do not want to pretend that progress has been other than somewhat disappointing in many ways. There is clearly a vital need for a determined and increased effort on the part of all concerned, in particular on the part of industry. Fortunately, this year gives us a slight breathing space, and it is important that the Government, the I.T.C. and the leaders on both sides of industry should use this interval in an effort to drive home to individual managements and union membership the fact that upon our investment in training hangs, to a large

  1581
  extent, the resilience and viability of firms in the long term, the future security of employment for their workpeople and, cumulatively, the economic wellbeing of the nation.
  Having said that, I still think that the outlook is not as depressing as it was painted by the hon. Member. There have been some slight, but hopeful, signs of progress. In 1959, the downward trend in the numbers entering apprenticeships and similar industrial training was arrested. Although, during the first half of the year, there was a continuing decrease, which caused very great concern, at the end of 1959 the total of apprentices, among boys and girls, coming into industry was almost 9,000 more than in 1958.
  As the hon. Member said, the increase in the number of boys was 5,500. It is true that because of the increased numbers coming on to the labour market—there were 46,000 more than in 1958—the percentage dropped from 34·4 to 33·6 in 1959. I have obtained the figures for girls, for which the hon. Member asked. The increase in that case was from 6·9 per cent. in 1958 to 7·4 per cent. in 1959. I agree with the hon. Member that, in the main, this was probably a reflection of the upturn in the economy, but I think that it was also a reflection of the efforts made to bring home to industry the lessons of the Carr Report.
  The second helpful sign is that although the overall figures are small there has been a steady increase both in the number and percentage of youngsters from 15 to 18 years of age entering employment leading to recognised professional qualifications, which, especially in the case of boys, offer prospects of progressive careers.
  Thirdly, there has been a steady increase in the quite high percentage of young people who have not taken up employment by the age of 18. In 1956, it was 21·4 per cent. and in 1958 it was 23·7 per cent. This reflects the extended use which is being made of the opportunities for higher education, and it is a reasonable assumption that this growing group of young people is taking jobs at a higher level of responsibility, and with better prospects of promotion.
  The hon. Member mentioned the suggestions put forward by the A.T.T.I. I have seen the suggestions, and I would
  1582
  say that they are quite revolutionary, that they introduce an element of compulsion, and would not be appropriate for the present situation, with the bulge immediately in front of us. But I do not want to go into the matter in any more detail.
  As for the I.T.C., that is a voluntary body composed of leaders of industry, and if we are to pursue a policy of persuasion I suggest that there is no better body to whom we can turn. It is difficult to see what body would have more influence with both sides of industry. Neither the British Employers' Confederation nor the T.U.C. has powers of control over the detailed policies of its constituent associations.
  The 'hon. Member said that the president of the British Employers' Confederation wrote to large companies and asked them substantially to increase their intake of apprentices, and received 154 firm commitments—-but that, unfortunately, 147 said that they could not commit themselves. I suggest that a figure of 154 firm commitments is rather good, in that it must be extremely difficult for a firm to be able to say unequivocally what it will be doing in the future. There were 154 firms who were able to commit themselves, and another 62 who said that they were in sympathy with the aim. This surely demonstrates the power of persuasion lying with the president of the B.E.C.
  Mr. Albu: If the idea is to increase the intake by 20 per cent., and only half the firms increase their intake by that percentage, surely the total increase will be only 10 per cent.
  Mr. Thomas: The firms were asked to commit themselves. That is a different thing altogether. It is to be hoped that all the firms will increase their intake of apprentices, but it is difficult for a firm to commit itself definitely to do so, and it is somewhat satisfactory to know that a large number of firms actually did commit themselves to do so.
  There has been criticism of the I.T.C. Its activities are directed towards an expansion during the severe bulge years, starting in 1961. It would be premature to criticise this body until we have had an opportunity to assess the results of its efforts. The main problem lies with

  1583
  the smaller and medium-sized firms, as the hon. Member said.
  Of the larger firms, those who have training facilities very often provide excellent training which could not be better. It is true that there are some small firms with equally good training facilities, but unfortunately, it is also true that there are many smaller firms who feel unable to do any training. It is in these firms that help is needed. There are exceptions, and despite what was said by the hon. Member for Edmonton I would include 'building as an exception. The smaller firms in building do a considerable amount of training. But the smaller firms in Britain are the biggest employers of skilled labour in the aggregate, and it is clear that great attention must be paid to the smaller and medium-sized firms.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the value of group apprenticeship schemes and joint training centres and I agree with what he said. I pay tribute to the associations that he mentioned and to others for their activities in enlarging these connections with the smaller firms. The practical difficulty is in the first year when training costs most and produces least. There is no doubt that things like pre-apprenticeship courses in technical colleges and first-year apprenticeships in the G.T.C.s would be of great value to these firms.
  I am sure that the Committee will welcome the circular sent to all local education authorities yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. In it he suggests ways in which the education service can co-operate with industry in providing increased opportunities for young people to train for skilled employment. It will be remembered that one of the three suggestions he makes is that technical colleges, in collaboration with both sides of local industry, should develop full-time courses of education and training covering the theoretical and practical work normally carried out in the first year of apprenticeship. This is something which we should all be delighted to see enlarged.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the G.T.C. apprenticeship scheme, which he called a little scheme. We do not suggest that it is anything more. The Committee will recollect that it was said
  1584
  that this scheme is directed at the smaller firms. It is not intended to solve any problem numerically, but to offer a good example and to assist them in following the pattern of training. As I see it, it is also a good example of the way in which the Government can give a lead to industry to co-operate, as opposed to coercion or compulsion. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it obviously will not make a great numerical contribution, but it could do a great deal of good.
  The Committee might be interested if I said something about this first-year training in G.T.C.s. Efforts to get employers to nominate recruits for eight engineering classes are at present in progress. There has been good local publicity for the scheme. A leaflet has been distributed to employers within the range of the G.T.Cs at which classes are to 'be started and they are encouraged to visit the G.T.C.s to discuss the scheme and to see the arrangements for it. Visits to firms thought to offer a potential field for the scheme are being made by youth employment officers.
  It is perhaps too early to judge the full effect of this publicity, but we certainly hope that employers will respond well and make full use of the excellent facilities which we hope to provide. Discussions on the application of the scheme to building occupations have taken place with the National Joint Council of the Building Industry, which welcomed the scheme in principle, but thought that, in practice, firms would find it difficult to release apprentices for a whole year for centre training. The Department is exploring, with the industry, the possibility of finding a basis on which initial training of apprentices in G.T.C.s is likely to prove more attractive to the industry.
  We have also put proposals for setting up classes in radio and television servicing and motor car repair to the joint bodies concerned. I hope that everyone will assist in getting a good response from industry. I think that this first-year training in our G.T.C.s could be a great help. I know that at the moment it is not intended to be more than a pilot scheme, and, therefore, it does not make a great numerical contribution. But if there is a good response, we shall be only too happy to consider its extention.

  1585
  At the Letchworth Staff College for Industrial Supervisors—this is some indication of our work in this matter—there has been an increased demand from industry for training places at the college and this demand has been sufficient recently to justify a small expansion. We have now a programme for 17 courses this year offering 454 places to member firms of the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education, and the British Iron and Steel Federation, compared with 318 places in 1959; 253 in 1958; and 182 in 1957. Courses are fully booked until the end of September and a number of places are already reserved for courses at the end of the year.
  While there is no certainty that all the supervisors are employed on apprentice training, priority is given to nominated apprentice instructors and indications are that nearly all, about 95 per cent., have such responsibilities. Inquiries from firms suggest that it is an apprentice training need which is creating this increase in demand.
  The hon. Gentleman made an interesting suggestion that Government responsibility for apprenticeships should be a continuing educational process and should be transferred to the Ministry of Education. I do not think that it would be seemly for me to criticise it in any way.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: It is a very good idea.
  Mr. Thomas: I do not feel that I am in a position to comment on this, but perhaps I may say one or two things.
  The present position is that apprenticeship is considered primarily as a matter for settlement and regulation between the two sides of industry and Government responsibility for it rests primarily with the Ministry of Labour as a manpower and industrial relations question. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is to be expected—indeed, I hope that it will be so—that education will have a growing part to play in the sphere of industrial training.
  This growth of the educational side of industrial training is already particularly marked above the craft level. I cannot see that this means that industrial training can be regarded in the near future or, indeed, in the foreseeable
  1586
  future as lying wholly, or even mainly, within the educational system.
  Mr. Frederick Lee: Will the hon. Gentleman promise faithfully to save the apprentices of the future from the present Minister of Education?
  Mr. Thomas: I am not in a position to promise anything in this debate.
  Particularly at the craft and lower levels an important and integral element of industrial training consists of practical experience and an acquaintance with the tempo and conditions of industrial life which are best acquired—indeed, they can only be acquired—in industrial employment. I think it right to say that apprenticeship cannot be regarded merely as a matter of imparting instruction and acquiring experience. The conditions under which apprenticeship training is given; the relationship between apprentice wages and the full rates; the numbers trained; the scope of training and the types of work to which it should give access are bound, at craft and lower levels to be a matter of joint concern to unions and employers. In a very real sense it is an industrial relations matter.
  It is important, also, that industrial training should not be divorced from general employment considerations. To treat it merely as part of the education system would carry the risk of its being regarded as an end in itself—an entirely proper objective for general education—and not as a means to employment.
  I regret that I have probably spoken far too long in this debate, but I am grateful to the House for having listened to me. I think that it can be said that we are all agreed about the vital need to provide more—and, in many cases, better—training facilities. Not only is there a social need, but an economic need. The stability and quality of our society is involved. The Government, particularly in the field of education and technical training, will certainly play their part. I hope that this debate will re-emphasise the call to industry that the opportunities presented by the bulge must not be missed.
  4.51 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I am sure all will agree that this is one of the most important debates

  1587
  which has taken place in this House for a very long time. This is an important and vital question. It would be desirable to have an annual report on the state of the educational training, technical, scientific and industrial craft training, in British industry. The subject is of such importance that it is worthy of that.
  Some figures were given by the Parliamentary Secretary showing that there had been a check in the downward trend of entry of apprentices into industry. That is all very well, but I had the privilege—and it was a privilege—throughout my working life to have considerable experience of witnessing, and often working in, many apprenticeship schemes south of Scotland and all over the United Kingdom. When I see these figures of an upward trend of entry of apprentices to industry they do not give me any great pleasure.
  A few years ago I was invited by two directors of a company, whose name I shall not mention, to give an opinion on an apprenticeship scheme they had recently inaugurated. They knew of my interest and experience in apprenticeship schemes in the past. They had a small company employing 3,000 or 4,000 men and women. I went through the scheme, read the literature, and talked to the one teacher they had. Then I went back to the board room and they asked me what I thought about the scheme. I said, "It is a very poor scheme. Not one of these boys is getting what I should call an apprenticeship training".
  Fifty boys were merely being trained to produce that company's products. They were being trained to go out as service mechanics for the company's products. When they moved to another field and requisitions came for a new component to replace an old one, they would merely suggest replacing it with the one they had been trained to manufacture.
  That is not an apprenticeship scheme, that is not training a boy to be a tradesman craftsman, mechanical, electrical or otherwise. It is strait-jacketed and too narrow. I could name a dozen apprenticeships schemes which I know very well indeed. One company has spent millions in the last fifteen years in building up a wonderful apprenticeship scheme. A group I know is the most successful
  1588
  organisation in the world in the manufacture of its particular product. No one in the United States, in Russia or anywhere else can touch it.
  It attributes its success in large measure to the fact that, through its comprehensive apprenticeship scheme, it has produced the finest technicians and experts in the world. In 1917 it had a waiting list of 300 who wanted to get into its apprenticeship scheme. They came from all over England and there was a premium attached to the scheme. That trading concern had a sound training for apprenticeship. I have a dozen copies of the scheme's progress throughout the years. It was one of the finest engineering organisations in the country.
  What is the position today? In Scotland it is heartbreaking. There are fifty boys leaving school at 15 years of age and there are half a dozen companies which want apprentices. One company wants five and other wants ten. The company with the best scheme in the area wants only ten apprentices. They get a fair training and the last few have to go to an institution where they are apprenticed; yes, but that is not really apprenticeship. It is not worth the paper it is written on. Hundreds of boys get into these so-called apprenticeship schemes and in the third year they are out on production. They have learned no more about engineering than they knew on the day they started. I have seen this all over the country.
  Thousands of boys enter apprenticeship schemes in factories when they are 16 and never get the oportunity of rising about the pure craft level of a fitter or turner. They should be in good schemes of day release with adequate incentives. I am certain we lose thousands of good technicians, first-class men, because so many of our children are compelled to enter apprenticeship in industrial units which are not fit to accept them. The Crowther Report said that they are taken by industries which consider them useful—of course they are useful, to those industries.
  There is far more at stake than this. Hon. Members opposite quite rightly talk about the difficulty of redeploying labour. We know there are a lot of problems outside apprenticeship training which frustrate the redeployment of labour. I can remember how when war broke out in 1939 fellows came to the

  1589
  workshops saying they had been apprenticed, but when they came into the tool rooms of munition factories to do some of the production engineering work which was called for it was revealed that they had had no training at all. Their range of experience was strictly limited.
  Many industrial concerns, through group schemes, have overcome some of the difficulties which have arisen from poor apprenticeship schemes in some of our factories. This particularly applies to certain parts of the country. If a boy is apprenticed in the South and the Midlands, then even before he has finished his time he knows that he can read the advertisements for highly specialised technicians in the newspapers with some hope of being able to apply for those jobs. He can always consult his superviser about his future prospects. Supervisers and good shop stewards of the Amalgamated Engineering Union listen to these boys. We have experienced it. A boy may say, "I should like to go into metallurgy or to be a laboratory technician". Or he may wish to go into the drawing office or into design. If the boy shows responsibility and ambition, the good supervisers will do all they can to see that he has that opportunity.
  As I know from experience, hundreds of boys move from the best apprenticeship schemes in the Midlands into a position in which they can confidently apply for many of the technical jobs advertised in the Observer every Sunday. How many apprentices on the Clyde or in the Welsh steelworks have the opportunity within their industries to consult the superviser or the shop steward or management? How many of them would ever be given an opportunity to widen their knowledge within their apprenticeships to enable them to move from one unit of production into others where perhaps more skill is needed? Very few indeed.
  The Ministry of Labour has been responsible for apprenticeships. We have been told that our proposals are revolutionary. Hon. Members should bear in mind that my hon. Friends the Members for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), Newton (Mr. Lee), Burnley (Mr. D. Jones), Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) and myself have all been through good apprenticeship schemes. We were trained to be revolutionary. We were
  1590
  trained to scrap as quickly as possible a mechanism which was out of date and to replace it with one more appropriate to the economics of the system in which we worked. We are always revolutionary, because that was our training. We build a production unit, and as soon as we have finished it, we are busy thinking how we can improve it.
  Mr. Dan Jones: And we very often succeed.
  Mr. Bence: We always succeed. We never fail. The engineer has made not two blades of grass grow where one grew before; he has made thousands grow. He has given us washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. Unfortunately, the building contractor cannot give the people the houses they want. If he could, we could certainly give the people everything else they want. We can give them motor cars and furniture but not houses, because the provision of houses is the job of another industry.
  The time has come when the Ministry of Education must replace the Ministry of Labour in dealing with these schemes. I say that with all respect to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is responsible for education in Scotland and who is present on the Government Front Bench. No doubt when this debate was mooted it was realised that the educationists ought to have something to say about it. No doubt the Joint Under-Secretary of State will tell us why he feels that they should have something to say about it.
  In some areas a boy of 15 can leave school and enter an industrial apprenticeship scheme with the knowledge that he can get a degree. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton knows that. Boys can get to university through apprenticeship schemes and be assured that at the age of 21 or 22 they will have a full grasp and a wide knowledge of engineering techniques and processes.
  But that does not apply to all apprentices. In some of these schemes, they can be the best boys in the world, but unless they can find an alternative institution where they can be trained, their careers are doomed. They do not have day relief. The curriculum and whole method of training is bad and the facilities are not available to them. I admit

  1591
  that many of the small firms could not afford to provide them, but is that any reason why they should be recognised as institutions in which a boy can be apprenticed? What would happen if someone started a school in Surrey, for example, simply with the desire to make money as easily as possible out of simple people, and awarded the children there a degree? There was a case in which somebody tried to do it, but the education authorities caught up with him.
  It is equally wrong for a firm without the proper facilities for training to take young boys into so-called apprenticeship schemes and subsequently to give them a piece of paper certifying that they have served a five-year apprenticeship. The first year they are making tea. In the next year they are, perhaps, learning a bit of fitting. In the year after that they are in the shop helping another fitter, and in the fourth year perhaps they are doing a bit of fitting on their own.
  Mr. Charles Pannell: For the first three months they are probably tea-boys.
  Mr. Bence: That is what I said. I hope that I am a true Britisher. We drink more tea than any other people in the world, and it is a good thing to be able to brew a cup of tea, but I am bound to say that an awful lot of time is wasted in doing it. All that is not fair to the boy.
  Mr. D. Jones: Or the country.
  Mr. Bence: I am more concerned at the moment with the boys themselves and with their parents, who are under the illusion that their boys are being trained as apprentices by an all-embracing training when often that is not the case and in fact they are being trained merely for a specific, specialised function in a specialised product, which is very bad indeed. I have seen this over the years, going back to 1919. I have seen men who have had so-called apprenticeship training entering an engineering plant and saying, "We have never done this before. This is not the kind of thing we made." The reverse has been the cause of the success of light engineering in the Midlands. I was trained to produce, or at any rate to tool, anything in metal.
  Mr. C. Pannell: I do not want my hon. Friend to think that only engineering apprentices are in the difficulty of being specialised. I have met graduates in history who, when I have asked them one elementary question on the Industrial Revolution, have replied, "That is not my period, old man. I would not know anything about that."
  Mr. Bence: That is true. Apprentices trained in light engineering in the advanced areas of London and the Midlands are never channelled so narrowly into a rut as dons, tutors and lecturers at universities are apt to channel some of their students, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton will agree. We never made that mistake in the large engineering establishments, but finances do not allow the little firms to give the wide training which can be provided by the larger institutions.
  In justice to boys and their parents, the Ministry of Education should demand a standard to which boys should be trained before being turned out as so-called mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, fitters or turners. There should be an accepted standard. When a firm asserts the right to train boys and girls in trades, from which professional technicians can be very largely drawn, the Ministry of Education should take a hand in seeing that the firm is approved and provides a minimum training. It should ensure that a proper standard of training is carried out.
  A boy who leaves a grammar school at 17 or 18 to go to a university to become an economist or an historian studies in accordance with curriculum supervised by the Ministry of Education. In the same way, a boy who leaves a secondary modern school to continue his education and training for his future life in industry should be satisfied that the institution to which he goes for his training can provide the proper standard and quality of training.
  A young man going to a university can be confident that the education to be provided will be of high quality. To whichever university college he goes, he is certain that he will have the same qualities of learning and education as the young man who goes to another college or university 100 miles away. When boys leave school at 15 to go for apprenticeship training, it is a vastly different

  1593
  story. It is hit and miss and, unless they go to the large companies, much of it is a complete miss.
  I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to apply himself to this problem. He should not consider merely the numbers entering apprenticeship training, whether they are rising or falling. It is the quality which matters in this age. From every 100 apprentices entering apprenticeship schemes we must find at least ten first class technicians. We must establish a movement from apprenticeship schemes to the universities. The sandwich schemes must be expanded. In Germany in the last century this was never divorced from education. In Russia today apprenticeship is a continuation of education. There is not much of which I approve in the Soviet Union, but wherever a boy in the Soviet Union is apprenticed, whether it is in Siberia or Armenia, he is certain that he will receive the same standard of training, and have the same access to learning and knowledge, as any other boy going to any institution in the Soviet Union.
  I hope that the Ministry will do as I suggest, because in Wales and Scotland hundreds of boys now serving apprenticeships will gain from those apprenticeships very little knowledge and insight to fit them to cope with the increasing number of specialised techniques and trades operating in modern industry.
  I was in an industrial plant not long ago. I left industry only ten years ago. I saw amazing processes. There have been revolutionary changes in the motor industry. The only boys who get sufficient training or have even an idea of those techniques are those trained by the motor manufacturers who have an interchange system.
  We want training both in Wales and Scotland. We want our youths in Scotland to have the same training as those afforded in the best institutions in the Midlands. If we do not provide such training, it will become increasingly more difficult to spread the light engineering industry in Scotland. The figures for the last eight years show that apprenticeship in Scotland has been declining.
  The Parliamentary Secretary said that we must not go too fast or must not do too much in case we disturb industry or cause some disturbance.
  Mr. P. Thomas: I did not say that we must not go too fast. I said that we must not make radical changes from the tradition.
  Mr. Bence: Is not that the same? This is where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Much needs disturbing in British industry. Dynamite should be put under much of it. There is not much wrong with radical treatment to get rid of something sick or ill. There is nothing like a little brimstone and treacle. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not be afraid of disturbing things. If they do not get disturbed now and again they begin to gather moss. If they are rolled too fast, they do not do anything. There is moss growing in some of our industrial institutions.
  This morning I saw a technician from one of the largest light engineering manufacturers in the world. He is visiting this country. I have known him for a long time. He is a technician of the highest order. He said that Great Britain has cause for alarm because in Italy, France and Germany—throughout the Common Market—there is an intensive drive to create new capital and train more and more engineers and technicians.
  A conscious effort is being made by Common Market countries. No one should believe that we are second either to Germany or France. In many cases they are second to us, but the effort is there. If we are to remain first in the field, as we are in many ways, we shall have to set a pace in this country of disturbing industry. We shall have to push on with the radical adoption of new methods of training of our boys and girls in British industry.
  5.20 p.m.
  Mr. John Page: It is with the greatest trepidation that I speak in this Chamber for the first time, and I hope that hon. Members will be good enough to forgive the many errors of form and substance that I may well corn-m i t. I am greatly encouraged, however, because I am confident that hon. Members on both sides will welcome what I wish to say about my predecessor, Sir Albert Braithwaite. I did not know Sir Albert personally, but I have learned a lot about him during the past two or three months. Every hon. Member has told me what a kind person Sir Albert was and has spoken of his sincerity.

  1595
  I believe that his judgment, particularly on industrial matters, was greatly respected, and there are probably few hon. Members who could have had so many friends as he had on both sides. Time and time again in the constituency I am told of his generosity, and the help that he was always ready to give; and his generosity was always without publicity, without condescension and without strings. I feel at once very proud and very humble to be following him as Member for Harrow, West.
  The constituency which he served so well is an interesting one in the context of this debate, because we have virtually no industry in it at all. The industrious, self-reliant people who live there either go up to London or into the neighbouring constituencies for their work. The same appiles to the young school leavers in Harrow. They, too, have to look away from home to find the jobs into which they will fit best. I think they are lucky, because very often when there is one industry on the spot it is almost the accepted thing for the school leavers to enter it. In Harrow, the opportunities for school leavers are made very much wider.
  Harrow is what is called a dormitory area, but judging from my correspondence since becoming a Member of Parliament I can assure the Committee that my constituents are not asleep. They are particularly awake to the opportunities they must find for school leavers in their own families and others in the area and are helped by the go-ahead youth employment and education staffs who pioneered the Harrow convention of local headmasters and industrialists. 'In Harrow, we are much more fortunate than are those people of whom the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) spoke. The grammar school sixth formers can often get university places, but the less able and those in the fifth forms and in the secondary modern schools who are able to take the extended course cam often find student or craft apprenticeships if they have a scientific background.
  Nevertheless, there seem to be two groups of school leavers who often find themselves out in the cold. In the first group are the boys who are not academically minded, whose families
  1596
  cannot give them much help, who are late developers and are not able to take the extra course. We in Harrow have a particularly soft spot for late developers, remembering, as we do, the record of our most renowned apprentice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill).
  The danger is that these school leavers without many qualifications may enter industry in its lowest forms and for the rest of their lives feel inferior to their brighter colleagues who have been able to get industrial apprenticeships. It should be the country's ambition that every school leaver who enters industry should get some kind of training in it.
  I understood the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East to suggest that every boy should have a craft apprenticeship or something similar. He expected most boys to get an apprenticeship. I do not think that that is possible, or even desirable, but they must have some kind of basic industrial training. I trust that I understood the hon. Member aright?
  Mr. Bence indicated dissent.
  Mr. Page: Then I am wrong, and I am very sorry. I thought that that was the hon. Member's point.
  As I was saying, these boys must have some kind of training that will make them flexible and adaptable and able to move about within industry with adequate knowledge and ability to engage in the less-skilled jobs in light engineering and similar industries Various experiments have been carried out on these lines, either on a day-release basis or, sometimes, on the basis of a term's release. The younger boys who are not taking up a craft apprenticeship are released by the firm to a technical college for something like twelve weeks running, and are there given a general "top-up" in the kind of skills and information that will be helpful to them in industry generally.
  They are also helped to develop the mathematics and the English that they learned at school. I reserve my opinion, but I think that if all the industrial training were in the hands of the Ministry of Education there is a danger that boys who now feel that at last they have got rid of the school atmosphere and are going into the world on their own to try to make a name for

  1597
  themselves might feel that they were still in the school atmosphere and would lose the initiative they had when they first felt that they were on their own.
  This was particularly mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago by someone who is running one of these courses. He told me that in their English school lessons a number of these boys found that Shelley's odes left them cold and they did not attempt to take any further interest in their English course. When, however, he handed them the petrol pump of a car and told them to dismantle it, reassemble it and then write a description of the method used, they suddenly found some point in being able to express themselves. If the Minister felt that such courses were possible of application. I wonder whether they could be run on a pilot basis in some of the Government Training Centres?
  The other category which gets left in the cold, as the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) mentioned, are the school leavers with a non-scientific bent who have not the academic qualifications to get to a university or into a highly-qualified occupation or profession. These people often want to go into the commercial and administrative side of industry, and I think that managements are often extremely backward in their recognition of the various commercial qualifications that are now available.
  A management very often gives absolutely no encouragement to what one might, perhaps, call young white-collar workers entering the firm, either to improve themselves by taking courses, or by giving them day release. I regret to say that in many cases managements ignore the value of such things as the National Certificate in Business Studies which, by their own efforts, some of these young people may take.
  I believe that the managements in the largest firms are taking this commercial training seriously, but in many medium-sized and smaller firms such interest is quite unknown. In them, only in the production shop will one find the latest equipment and techniques being used. Their offices are very often still in the quill-pen stage. By denying to the office and commercial worker the status that should go with his responsibilities and qualifications, such firms are stretching very greatly the loyalty to the company
  1598
  that the office worker has so long traditionally given.
  Finally, I should like briefly to look at the kind of industrial world that these school leavers will be entering. Since the war, we have seen the beginning of a new industrial revolution, and I think that ordinary people, particularly those like myself, who entered industry after the war, are not satisfied with the way in which it is organised at present. There is a real wish for a new climate in industrial relations, and I believe that that real desire will make itself felt. These people are extremely worried when they read that large numbers of people have been dismissed from a company's service because of redundancy. They are also extremely worried when they read that the unofficial strike of a few men has put thousands of their colleagues out of work.
  I have studied with some care the industrial programmes of the different parties, and I think that although in the strategic field of publicly-owned or privately-owned industry there is a great deal of difference, in the tactical field of industrial relations and what can be done to improve them, there is much agreement.
  Speaking as one who was until so very recently outside the House, looking in, I believe that there is no institution in the world more perfectly constituted than this House to give leadership to industry and those engaged in it. On both sides there are hon. Members of great knowledge, experience and prestige in all the different parts that go to make up our industry as a whole—the shareholders, the directors, the employees, the trade unions, the Government and the consumers. If all hon. Members on both sides of the House would give their blessing to measures that could improve industrial relations and the spirit of co-operation and mutual respect between those engaged in industry, this House could make no greater contribution to full employment, and full enjoyment throughout the lives of our young people, whose future we are discussing today.
  5.33 p.m.
  Mr. William Hannan: I am sure that those Members who have just heard the maiden speech

  1599
  of the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) will join with me most sincerely in extending to him our corporate congratulations on a first-class speech. He said that he hoped, like all of us have done, that he would be forgiven for any imperfection of form or substance. I personally did not hear any.
  The hon. Member's speech was interesting and it was obvious that he knew something about the subject. Coming into the House of Commons as a result of a by-election, and following the former hon. Member for his constituency, his effort was all the more meritorious. I am sure that we all want to congratulate him. Whether on a subject like this, which is not contentious, or on more contentious subjects, we hope to have the pleasure of hearing the hon. Member in future debates.
  The importance of apprenticeships depends upon the overall employment in the country as a whole. I was impressed, although not always in agreement with him, by the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, in which he underlined that fact. It is precisely because of the disparity and inequality of the dispersal of industry throughout the country that in Scotland at least we have this quarrel with the Government.
  I do not want to give the impression introducing a nationalist note. Questions and Answers in the House have already, I hope, shown to the House and to the country the great feeling of distress and anger which prevails in Scotland because, although speeches are made like the one we had this afternoon from the Parliamentary Secretary, the method of assessing the improvement in the employment of young people and the number of apprentices is based far too often on what obtains in the south-east of England and in the Midlands. That is not a true comparison.
  The attitude of the trade unions to apprenticeship will be measured in the future by the success or otherwise of the Government's own policy. I am quite sure that the trade union movement will co-operate and agree to review the circumstances of apprenticeship of five years or four years, whatever the case may be, provided that the Government will show an earnest of their sincerity in maintaining full employment and in
  1600
  not upsetting the economy every two or three years as they have been doing. Indeed, in the last week we had a further instance of it by the increase in the Bank Rate which has created lack of confidence not only among the trade unions, 'but among the employers themselves. If they could see for some years ahead a stable policy of full employment, I am quite sure that they would be willing to co-operate.
  Apart altogether from present-day circumstances, I am one who believes that the changing pattern of society to which the hon. Member for Harrow, West referred—the new techniques and automation—will force the Government of the day, whether Labour or Conservative, to look at this question of consciously planning the future of industry and encouraging young people to take a much greater and more informed place in industry. For that reason, I think that the trade unions will be only too willing, for their part, to review the whole subject of apprenticeships.
  I come now to the comparison between Scotland and the Midlands and South-East of England in the matter of employment. It is quite true, as the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government as a whole have claimed, that employment has improved in Scotland, even among young people. Of course it has. The point I wish to emphasise is that, although the figures have come down between March and April, the present figure for April is twice as high as it was in the corresponding month of 1957. That is a fact. There were 3,200 young people unemployed in Scotland in March, and the number has come down to 2,800, but that 2,800 still represents 25 per cent. of the total of boys unemployed in the whole country. That is the significant feature. In March, 1957, the proportion was only one-ninth. Today, it is a quarter. Again, I emphasise the importance of the employment position as a whole in any consideration of apprenticeship schemes.
  One of the most significant answers which the Ministry of Labour gave in the House on this matter was given by the Parliamentary Secretary on 13th April this year, when he said that 37 per cent. of all men under 20 years of age in Scotland had been unemployed for six months or more, whereas in the Midlands the percentage was only 1·6. Another comparison given on the same

  1601
  day was that there were 37 unfilled vacancies for every 100 boys registered as unemployed in Glasgow, that is to say, there were three boys running after each job, whereas in Birmingham, a city of comparable size, there were actually 28 jabs for every boy.
  These are the matters to which the Minister must pay close attention. Again, although the Parliamentary Secretary said, in introducing the figures, that 80 per cent., or 90 per cent. at one stage, of all boys and girls of 15 years of age had entered a job within one month, in Scotland the period is three months. Moreover—this is a most important point, and I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said in a most able speech—these 15-year-olds are entering jobs which are not always compatible with their ability and aptitude.
  I am informed by the Glasgow Youth Employment Officer that, in 1955–56, 40 per cent. of our school leavers entered apprenticeships. In 1956–57, the percentage was down to 39·5. In 1958–59, it was 31 per cent. There has been a decrease of 10 per cent. in the number of young people entering apprenticeships within the last four years. Of course, the Government may argue that this downward trend is due to several factors. It could be due to the overall unemployment situation in Scotland and—I believe that this is the main reason—the unhealthy state of the order books of employers, or it could be due to the discontinuance of National Service, which means that new entrants are no longer needed to replace the time-served apprentices.
  It could be due to the fact that, with fewer jobs available than hitherto, employers are more selective in choosing the right people, and therefore, there is less wastage. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton made this point, which is a very important one. Employers are not always getting the best men. I think that the hon. Member for Harrow, West referred to this in relation to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). We are not arguing that all boys should become apprentices, but it is true that employers are entitled to have the boys who have the aptitude and ability for the job and those boys ought to have every opportunity for training.
  Mr. Bence: My words should not be interpreted as meaning that all boys should have apprenticeships. My point was that all boys who enter an apprenticeship should have the confidence and security of knowing that their apprenticeships in the institutions in which they are are as good as the apprenticeships of any other boys anywhere else.
  Mr. Hannan: I think that the point has been made. In the Report of the Sub-Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council, of which the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) was chairman, which we know as the Carr Report. it was said, in paragraph 18, that
  "The number of apprentices needs to be increased and the training of all brought up to the standard of the best."
  It is precisely here that some of us have a quarrel with the Government and, if I may say so, with all respect to the Carr Committee, the Report did not go far enough. There is no conscious planning in what the Carr Report suggests.
  I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton believes, that the Government, whether they like it or not, must in the future come down on the side of consciously organising this business, in conjunction with the Department of Education, from the earliest stage. I go even further than some of my hon. Friends and I say that 15 or 16 years of age is, perhaps, really too late. Young people now are growing up earlier and they are adults at 14. This is one of the reasons for the trouble about girls in uniform; they are already young women. There is a new attitude beginning to appear in the minds of our young people.
  There are great differences in the courses open to young people after selection for the secondary modern school in the South and our junior secondary school in Scotland or for the senior schools and grammar schools. In the latter, the course open for the young person is quite clear; he can get his higher certificate and go on to university. We have failed for years to see that the pupil in the junior secondary school has a similarly clear-cut course open to him to achieve some technical training in accordance with his ability. I feel that there should be some test, though not necessarily a strict test, and the boy or girl in the junior secondary school or the

  1603
  secondary modern school should be encouraged to think that he or she is every bit as clever as his counterpart in the other schools.
  There are different ways of being clever in this world. Heaven save us from all the university pundits. We have all enjoyed the description given by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) of the blot on his examination papers. Many of us on these benches, and some on the benches opposite, have managed without such examinations. We have for too long concentrated on providing the best and, indeed, all the facilities for those who can go to university. I am not saying that they are getting too much. I hope that the Government will not think that I am suggesting a cut; we have enough cut already. What I want the Government to do is to pay more attention not only to the training, but to the recruitment of young people for apprenticeships.
  What do the Government propose to do? Despite the pronouncements of the Carr Committee and despite the present shortage of skilled men, there are today fewer lads entering apprenticeships than for some years past. This is not due to less favourable employment opportunities because, even in 1956 and 1957, when industry was more buoyant, the tendency towards a decrease in apprenticeships was evident. There is a problem here which is made more urgent by the changes which automation is bringing, changes of which the trade union movement is only too well aware. I think that, with greater consultation, we ought to be able to tackle the matter in a more forthright manner.
  The present Minister of Power, when in Glasgow at a conference, said that it was proving more difficult to find suitable jobs for young people. He said, however, that it was due to lack of economic activity rather than to an increase in the number of young people from the schools. Do the Government still stand by that statement, which was made only in January, 1959? In Scotland, there is less economic activity than in any other part of the country.
  The Minister of Power went on to advise employers that in determining schemes they should not base their estimates on a recession, but that in any
  1604
  case the bulge in 1962 as compared with 1956 would be 35 per cent. in Scotland as against 50 per cent. for Great Britain. It is no consolation to us to know that there will be only a 35 per cent. as against a 50 per cent. increase in the bulge numbers when economic activity is so stagnant and there is no growth of industry to take up these people.
  The Government and the Carr Committee have referred this matter to the Industrial Training Council. As is known, the youth employment committees are opposed to the suggestion, made by the secretary of the Industrial Training Council in Glasgow, that if young people could not find employment in Scotland, they should go to the Midlands. That was the worst taste or psychology that he could use. It is the same kind of attitude as was prevalent in the inter-war years, when young people left the Welsh valleys to come to London.
  Think of the parents and of the young people who are growing up in their areas. Is it right that these young people of the age of 15 or 16 should leave home because of the attraction of jobs in the Midlands or London? If the Minister has not heard of the protests, I assure him that strong representations were made against that kind of approach.
  The Industrial Training Council was set up more than a year ago. In an article in Education, Dr. Alexander had this to say:
  "… some attempt should be made to build up a reservoir of skilled labour".
  He added that
  "this, of course, is where the Industrial Training Council should be a power-house of ideas and action. In fact, it is not only moving at a snail's pace, but appears to be blissfully unaware that its exhortations are returning as empty echoes. …The £75,000 offered by the Government as a pool into which industries can dip for half the cost of appointing training officers is as yet untouched."
  Will the Minister confirm whether that is still the position? Dr. Alexander continued:
  "Up to the September closing date there have been no takers, and the I.T.C. have now extended it indefinitely."
  That related to an advertisement for a full-time officer, since when an insipid leaflet has been issued.
  Everybody would be glad if the presupposition of the Carr Report and of

  1605
  the Government that the existing slack in the economy would be invigorated were substantiated, but the action of the Government last week in raising the Bank Rate bodes very ill indeed.
  I want, in conclusion, to refer to the position of further education in Scotland as compared with England and Wales. The White Paper on Technical Education in 1956 confirms that of every four young people taking technical education classes, only one in Scotland is granted day release. In shipbuilding and engineering, whereas 90 per cont. are on day-release in England and Wales, in Scotland the figure is only 16 per cent. These are deplorable figures. Relating the releases for boys under the age of 18 to the total number of those under 18 in Scotland and England, for example, the figures for the respective industries are as follows. In chemicals and allied industries, 9 per cent. get day-release in Scotland as against 65 per cent. in England and Wales. These figures are from Answers supplied by the Minister of Education for England and Wales and by the Scottish Office.
  In construction work, whereas in Scotland 22 per cent. have day-release, the figure for England and Wales is 47·6 per cent., or more than double. In textiles, 3 per cent. get day-release in Scotland as against 14·6 per cent. in England and Wales. In agriculture, forestry and fisheries, the figures are 1 per cent. in Scotland and 4·4 per cent. in England and Wales; in the distributive trades, 3 per cent. in Scotland and 8 per cent. in England and Wales. The Scottish employers have a bad and depressing record in this respect, particularly in shipbuilding and engineering, whereas in the great public industries of mining and quarrying 50 per cent. of the boys get day-release.
  The White Paper says that
  "Although the increase in the figures from 600 in 1939 to … 25,000 in 1954–55 represents substantial progress, development has not been as rapid or as far reaching as it ought to have been or as it has been in England, where 355,000 young people were released from their employment in 1954–55."
  Today—again, I agree with what the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland had to say the other day—although there has been an increase, it is nothing in comparison with what we ought to
  1606
  have had. The principal reason is that in Scotland our technical education started with central institutions and is not based on many local colleges.
  The situation concerning day-release in Scotland is extremely bad, despite recent improvements. The Government must think again in new terms of linking up the junctions much better between the primary school and the junior secondary school and from the junior secondary school to the technical and commercial colleges. Some of us on this side believe strongly that what is now needed is the provision of junior technical colleges to provide courses to be linked with the junior secondary schools in Scotland and that a two-year course or something of that nature should be provided for our young people who leave school at the age of 15—possibly, pre-vocational courses—to be linked with the full apprenticeship course in agreement with the trade unions and the employers.
  That is a brief outline. I know the difficulties. The Government will ask whether we want compulsion in this matter. The situation has reached the stage where some of us must speak out to both sides of industry, the trade unions and the employers. I do not want the boys aged 14 or 15 to have only industrial training—heaven forbid—but they must be trained for taking their part in the outside world. When their subjects of arithmetic, science, English and the rest are related to the actual job they do in the workaday world, these subjects will begin to live for them. As they are now treated, it is no wonder that a youngster says, "What is the good of all this to me? What is the good of algebra, science and mathematics to me?" Inside the factory the trade union shop stewards and journeymen can do much to encourage these young men and not to sneer, as too often happens, at the efforts of those at night school or on day-release.
  These are some of the important matters about which many of us feel very strongly. I urge the Government to give serious consideration to the junction between the secondary modern school and the junior technical college from which the best products can go on to the technical colleges and to the higher reaches of technical training.
  6.1 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Carr: First, I should like to add my congratulations to those of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) on his excellent maiden speech. I was particularly glad that he mentioned the question of training for the commercial and administrative functions in industry. This is important, and I am sure that it has been too much neglected, although steps are being taken to try to improve it. I have some knowledge of the excellent scheme of commercial apprenticeship which was launched a few years ago by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, and, although the response to it is as yet disappointing, I hope that that and other schemes will be pushed forward and that a larger number of people will take advantage of it.
  I was also glad that my hon. Friend had something to say about the hopes and aspirations of all those who work in industry and the need to develop cooperation and partnership between the different elements in industry. This matter is relevant to a debate on training because, although many other factors go towards the creation of this spirit in industry, I have always believed that training in itself helps to give those who work in industry a greater sense of purpose and well-being in their work. This is perhaps the foundation of the creation of the spirit of co-operation and good will.
  It is two-and-a-quarter years since the Committee over which I had the honour to preside published its report. I can-not pretend to be satisfied with the progress which has been made since then and it is obvious that other hon. Members on both sides of this Committee are not satisfied. The question which we have to consider is what we are to do about it. How can we try to make further progress? The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said that, in his opinon, the Government must in future play a much larger part. I think that he went so far as to say that the Government ought to take chief responsibility for training for skill. He coupled this general hypothesis with the specific suggestion that responsibility within the Government should be transferred from
  1608
  the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education.
  It has been said that this would be a rather revolutionary change. I think that, if anything, that is an understatement. The revolution would not be only or even principally within the Government. At least as great a revolutionary change would be required in the thinking of management and employers in industry. I suspect that it might involve the biggest revolutionary change in the thinking and attitude of trade unions.
  Mr. C. Pannell: They are the greatest traditionalists of all.
  Mr. Carr: I agree that they are often the greatest conservatives in the land. Their strength stems from that most excellent quality which so many of them possess.
  We ought to guard against radical changes of this kind at present This was very much in the mind of my Committee when it recommended against trying to make revolutionary changes at this time. We must try to get results in the next few years. One thing is quite certain, as the Parliamentary Secretary said. If we try to bring about revolutionary changes in the system in the years 1960 to 1964, all that we are likely to achieve is a failure to build up and get working the new system which we want to create, while the old system will do less than it is doing now.
  While I would not wish to see everything going on as it is and would not disagree with some of the things which I believe were in the mind of the hon. Member for Edmonton in getting the Ministry of Education to play a larger part, particularly in the first year of apprenticeship, I would be unable to support him in the radical solution which he propounded.
  Mr. Albu: To avoid misunderstanding, I should say that I do not suggest that the Ministry of Education should undertake the training itself, although I want to see the Government establish more training centres. What I suggest is that Government responsibility for the problem of industrial training should be transferred from one Department to another.
  Mr. Carr: I realise that, but, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, the point is that as long as the bulk of training

  1609
  for skill at apprenticeship level is done in industry it is part and parcel of industrial relations. I can see that there would be great difficulties and perhaps a great slowing-down if one were to make chiefly responsible any Government Department other than the Ministry of Labour. I would, however, welcome the Ministry of Education playing a more and more active part in helping us in this task.
  I have no doubt that all members of my Committee were well aware that the recommendations which we made would, in themselves, get nothing done because they did not include compulsory power to force industry to adopt them. I do not see how they could have done so, and I still believe that we should have been wrong to try to introduce compulsive power into any of our recommendations. We recognised that we should have to depend on an increasing awareness in industry. The most I think that we hoped for was that our report might help to stimulate and concentrate that awareness and perhaps guide it in the best ways. We hoped that that, coupled with the increasing publicity which the whole subject was bound to receive, would stimulate the necessary action.
  The only recommendation which we felt able to make to give a specific urge, a controlling hand if one likes, to the development of industrial training was that there should be set up what is now known as the Industrial Training Council. It was very gratifying indeed to all of us who worked on that Committee to find this recommendation being accepted and acted on so quickly. As hon. Members know, the Industrial Training Council was in being only three or four months after my committee produced its report. There can be few committees, as hon. Members will well know, which have had the pleasure of seeing one of their principal recommendations acted on in three or four months rather than three or four years. That was a good start.
  Although I have heard, both outside and inside the Committee, a considerable amount of criticism of the work done by the Industrial Training Council, I do not associate myself with it. On the contrary, I should like to congratulate the Council on what it has done. But there is a sting in the tail of my praise. While I think that we can congratulate
  1610
  the Council on what it has done so far, the time is rapidly approaching when we must ask it to embark in new directions and to give an even more energetic and specific lead than it has done hitherto. I emphasise, however, that this is a matter of timing and in some of the suggestions that I shall now make I am not saying that I believe that the Council should have done all these things already. I am saying that the time is rapidly approaching when it should do them.
  I should like to mention some of the actions which I believe should be taken and in which the Industrial Training Council must take first responsibility in giving a lead. First, the most important action that must be taken is to find a local focus and stimulus for increasing training for skill. Since my Committee's report appeared, inevitably I have been asked to speak on this subject in a large number of places throughout the country and I have done so. The more I have done this the more I have become aware of a need for a local focus. I have had the feeling that there are people who are seized of the problem and who want to do something about it, but did not know how.
  Whatever the theory, it is no use saying to some firms, "You belong to a certain industry and your link goes back to London or to some other national centre," and saying to other firms in another industry, "Your link goes back somewhere else." This does not work in practice. This may be all right for big firms but very many, particularly the smaller firms, are not even members of their own employers' associations. Their centre of interest is local and it is most important to create locally points for stimulation and control over this matter.
  Therefore, I would like to see the Industrial Training Council setting up local committees. They need not necessarily be exact counterparts of itself at national level—indeed, I do not think that they should be. The committees ought to cover the same areas as the Youth Employment Service areas, and certainly they ought to include the Youth Employment Service among their representation. Their first task should be to make a factual survey of the problem. One of the things I learned in going about the country and talking about the

  1611
  subject was the extent to which the scale of the problem varied from one area to another.
  We generalise and talk about a 50 per cent. increase in school leavers entering an industry during a certain period. This is the average over the country, but I was startled by the deviations in certain localities. In some areas the problem is more severe than the average figures would indicate and in others it is much less severe.
  We must bring the problem down to a local level. A local inquiry must be conducted, not in the first place on an industry by industry basis. The inquiry should first find the number of children and then try to analyse the potential vacancies for children in the area. Only then should it break down the problem on an industry by industry basis. There may be other ways, but I suggest that having done this and having analysed the problem on a local basis, through the medium of these local committees, the Industrial Training Council should then appoint training officers at least to those areas where the problem shows itself to be particularly great. These local training officers not to an industry, but to an area. Until this is done we shall not have much progress.
  Firms simply do not take much notice of written communications and circulars. They take notice when somebody appears on the doorstep seeking a personal interview with the managing director or, in the case, of large firms, with the personnel manager, with plans to do something about it. When firms are approached on that basis it is surprising how many participate and take action. I almost believe that the more circulars and leaflets are sent out the less action is achieved.
  This leads me to the second point on which I should like to see more action. I do not want to hold up the point I am about to mention as a panacea for our problems, but if we are to have many more apprentices among many small employers one of the methods to be developed is group apprenticeship. This has been mentioned many times and always with approval in the House, but if one examines industry and particularly the engineering industry one finds that there is something sour about this subject. I
  1612
  do not want to point a finger because it might lead to trouble and make matters more difficult, but there is a certain amount of jealously between one association and another and this unfortunately holds up progress.
  The Engineering Industries' Association, a relatively small association if not in numbers then in the character of the firms that belong to it, is not an employers' association but a trade association, and that is one of the difficulties. But this association, with its enthusiasm for group apprenticeships, has created about 18 groups in which between 500 and 600 apprentices are receiving training at the moment. Most of the apprentices receiving training in these group schemes are employed by very small firms. Judging from what I have seen of these schemes at work, they may not be ideal in every respect, but I believe that the firms in these group schemes are training apprentices and training them better than would have been the case had we been without these group schemes.
  If a small body like this Engineering Industries' Association; with certain difficulties on which I will not enlarge, can get groups established, currently training between 500 and 600 people, then if the great Engineering and Allied Employers' Federation adopted the same idea with the same enthusiasm we should get not 500, but 5,000 extra apprentices. It must be done not by just sending out circulars, but by putting a man in the area and giving him the job of making personal approaches to firms which, potentially can do more training and saying to them, "I am the person who has come along to organise this. Will you join in?" If that approach is made, I think we shall be surprised at the many firms that respond.
  Mr. James Boyden: Would the hon. Member not agree that his own Committee made very strong recommendations and suggestions about local committees and group apprenticeships in 1958 and that something has seriously gone wrong, since those suggestions have not been carried out? Would he not agree that the Ministry of Labour is at fault and has not got on with it very rapidly?
  Mr. Carr: I think that the hon. Member has misunderstood. It was made

  1613
  clear that it was not for the Minister to set up these local committees but for industry, and it is industry that is failing, not the Government. Industry must be stimulated to take action. The Committee over which I had the honour to preside was, apart from myself, composed entirely of leading members of trade unions and employers. Some people may say that that was a weakness in the Committee, but I still regard it as a strength.
  There are a number of other matters in which I should like to see the Industrial Training Council taking a more active lead in the near future. There is a growing urgency to identify the skills in which apprenticeship or some formal scheme of training either is available or should be available. I particularly emphasise the latter, because with the technological development, particularly that loosely described as "automation", coming upon us, the types and range of training which people will need will vary. I do not believe that this can be left to an industry-by-industry approach. Some overall body, such as the Industrial Training Council, must take responsibility for identifying both those skills for which formal schemes are already available and those trades for which they should become available in the near future.
  Coupled with this, the Council should take a vigorous lead in persuading industries to look at their syllabus of training. That is another point which was mentioned in my committee's recommendations. I am not saying that in this country we should go quite as far as is done in Germany in dotting the i's and crossing the i's of the syllabus, but it would probably be very helpful if the syllabus for each trade was laid down much more specifically and centrally than it is at the moment.
  Similarly, the Council should take the lead in encouraging each industry to set up a trade test of some kind, a subject which has been mentioned today, and something which I believe would do more than anything else to ensure that the quality of training which people got in different firms gradually reached a uniform standard. We want leadership in this from the Council, and then I believe some of the resistance to trade tests might begin to diminish.
  1614
  There is also the question of the length of training. Another recommendation by my Committee was that each industry should review the length of training appropriate to it. The length must depend on the syllabus. My Committee said that, rather than shortening the period of training, it would, in general, prefer to see the breadth of the syllabus increased because we wanted the training to be as wide as possible. I cannot 'believe, any more than the Committee indicated that it believed, that there is anything magical about five years or that five years is the right time for such a wide variety of different trades. Who is to give a lead about this? Are different industries looking at this? The Council should rapidly begin to prod, and prod vigorously, the various industries into looking into these things. Although I accept that it could not compel, I believe that serious prodding by the Council would produce results.
  This leads me to speculate about the services which the Council will need if it is to do this work. The members of the Council are among the foremost leaders of the employers and the trade unions. That is a cause of great satisfaction. It means that both the organised employers and the trades unions are taking the matter seriously and putting their top men on the Council, but because they are the top men on both sides they are also extremely busy men.
  I do not believe that the actual members of the Council can possibly be expected to give a great deal of time to this particular subject. When one has a Council of that kind, with top men who are limited in time, although great in influence, it is essential that they should be backed up not only by a secretariat which is well led—in its present secretary the Council is most fortunate—but by a secretariat which is adequate in size and power. If all the things about which I have spoken are to be done, there must be a secretariat attached to the Council which is capable of getting through a great deal of work, obtaining information and formulating recommendations to put before the very busy men who constitute the Council.
  I do not believe that with its present secretariat—unless, that is, I have a wrong understanding of its size and powers—the Council will be able to do

  1615
  the sort of work that I have been suggesting. I feel that the secretariat must be considerably strengthened. The Council will still have no executive authority but it will have the working ability to seek information and to go prodding. If it is to make personal approaches to industries for information—that is much better than sending circulars—it must have people with time and authority who can go out talking to people. That may, unfortunately, be time-consuming, but my experience is that it is the only way to persuade people actually to get on with the job.
  Finally, I have two other points right away from the field of the Industrial training Council. I should like to see more steps taken to enable first-year training of apprentices to be done outside industry. I welcome the scheme announced by the Minister of Labour for the Government training centres. It is only a pilot scheme, and my right hon. Friend has not claimed more than that, but it will be a move in the right direction. I should also like to see technical colleges developed to give on a much greater scale first-year training for apprentices. I very much welcome the circular which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Education has sent out in the last few days.
  I believe that both these developments promise well for the future. However, they raise one other point. Are the courses for the Government training centres and first-year training courses in the technical colleges, as they develop, to be pre-apprenticeship courses or part and parcel of apprenticeship? In the sense that they must count as one full year of the apprenticeship period, I am sure that they ought not to be pre-apprenticeship courses. It would be ridiculous to give people training of that kind and then say "You must still go on and do your full five years in industry afterwards." Consequently, in that sense they must be part of apprenticeship and not pre-apprenticeship.
  In another sense I think that the answer probably ought to be very different. I suspect that one of the difficulties that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education will find is that the courses will not be as well subscribed for as they ought to be so long as they are open only to boys and girls who have already been accepted as apprentices by
  1616
  specific employers. The trouble is that one first has to get an employer to accept and enter a boy or girl. Therefore, I feel that in the end these first-year courses will have to be made pre-apprenticeship in the sense that they will have to be open to boys and girls even though they may not already have been indentured by an employer. I think that in that way we shall be able to fill them, and in that way we shall be relieving the burden on industry, because if one goes to industry, even to small employers, with a boy and says, "Here is a boy who has already had a year's good training which counts as one year off his apprenticeship period" we shall find more employers willing to take them on.
  6.29 p.m.
  Mr. Dan Jones: We are faced with a desperate shortage of skilled men in the engineering industry and, in relation to that, a desperate shortage of places for apprentices. That seems to be a remarkable contradiction. Indeed, it would be a very humorous one, were it not so tragic. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour frowning, but, nevertheless, I believe that is a fact. There is a shortage of skilled men. There is similarly a desperate shortage of posts for apprentices, which seems to suggest a very serious contradiction.
  It has been said—I think the Minister believes his own utterances—that a good many of these shortages are due to the fact that small companies cannot possibly afford them. I cannot subscribe to that. It should be recognised that small companies employ skilled men, and as a consequence, they have obviously taken them as the result of the training given to them by other people. That seems to me to suggest that we are encouraging, or, at any rate, tolerating, a form of industrial cuckoos. On the one hand, we recognise that small companies have no training scheme, but we are complacent about the fact that they employ skilled labour. The House ought to be mindful of the fact that all too frequently these people who do not train these apprentices themselves are very often in a position in which they can offer the odd few coppers over the hourly rate to attract people to them, which must, inevitably, make for a good deal of disturbance in industry and add to industrial costs.

  1617
  I should like to come back to my first point, which is, in effect, that we, predominantly a manufacturing nation, can apparently waste so much of our youthful product, which, to me, seems to be a very serious indictment. With regard to group training schemes, which, I think, could make a marked contribution to the solution of the difficulties of the small company, it might be of interest if I quoted for my support as reputable, indeed as reasonable, a national trade union leader, possessed of tremendous moral courage, as the president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Speaking to our conference of apprentices which is held annually, he said:
  "It is, however, a scandal and a massive indictment upon industry that the progress of group apprenticeship schemes is so lamentably slow. Apart from the reluctance of so many smaller employers to participate in such schemes, it is deplorable to contemplate the lack of encouragement given in employers' quarters where much more sense of human and national responsibility should be expected."
  That, I repeat, is from one of the most reputable trade union leaders in this country, and I think that it answers to a major degree the case about the inability of the smaller people to embrace proper apprenticeship schemes.
  The truth is, I think, that the intention is not there, and as a consequence I believe that that indictment could not only be placed upon the smaller employer, but that it transfers itself, in my opinion, to the Government as well. After all, they are tolerant of this situation, and I am not pretending that I am telling the Committee anything that it does not already know, I am merely instancing this fact to show how, in my opinion, at at any rate, this situation is reacting not only upon the apprentices, not only upon the economics of the country, not only upon the young lad who wants to get into an apprenticeship, but is reacting similarly upon the good employer, for he knows perfectly well that he is spending money on training people and that a very large part of what he is spending he is going to lose when they finally complete their training.
  In my opinion, all these facts add up to a situation which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) so very rightly said—I see the Parliamentary Secretary smiling, but I do not regard this as humorous—requires radical treatment and I agree
  1618
  with my hon. Friend. Radical treatment is required to pep these people into doing what is right and proper, not only for apprentices, but for the needs of the country, the development of our economy and the potential of our young people.
  Further, I want to draw the attention of the Committee for a moment to the Reports of the Young Employment Committee for 1956–59, which give figures showing that in this year 358,000 boys and 343,000 girls will be available for industry. I ought to say here that I subscribe to the argument in favour of girls being considered for apprenticeships in industry. There seems to me to be no reason at all why they cannot be. Returning to the figures, those numbers will increase by 1962 to 475,000 boys and 454,000 girls, an overall increase of 228,000 people. I believe that the Ministry of Labour should be telling us now how many of these additional people who will be available for industry will, in turn, be given the opportunity of serving this country either as craftsmen or technicians; in short, how many are to be offered proper apprenticeships in the engineering industry.
  I comfort myself with the observation that no less distinguished a person than the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), when speaking in his constituency—and I should imagine that there could be no greater guide, if either the Government or anyone else is prepared to listen to reason—told the country that he did not know who would win a hot war, but that he did know who was winning the cold war. He referred to the tremendous progress which Russia was making in training her youth. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East said that it does not matter in what part of the Soviet Union anyone is living, because they all get the same training.
  There are many features of the Soviet Union which we do not like, but that is one to which we can point in order to show how much and how lamentably we are lagging behind. My hon. Friend is perfectly correct when he says that it does not matter in what part of that vast country people are living, the training is the same, and they all finish up as very good technicians. They are not as we are, because they are much more

  1619
  self-supporting, but we should recognise the fact that they are much more successful in the tremendous availability of their raw materials, whereas we are so predominantly a manufacturing country.
  I should like to make reference to the wages situation, and I agree that this might offer some kind of key. In relation to wages, these apprentices have a very unhappy history. I know quite a bit about them, because I have negotiated on their behalf, and I know how they feel. Those of us who are following events in the country today must similarly know how they feel, because they registered their feelings very recently in no uncertain way. That registration was quite unofficial, and there are people on the other side of the Committee who are always prepared to indict the trade unions, so that is why I say that this registration was unofficial.
  Nevertheless, let us have a look at the facts. Prior to 1937, these apprentices had no form of trade union representation at all. We in the A.E.U. were the first people ever to sign such an agreement. It was not a very handsome agreement, but, nevertheless, we had established some form of official recognition, to be given to these lads. From 1937 to 1943, this situation remained, and then another agreement was made. This agreement, fortunately, was not followed by unofficial strikes. It was during the war years, and an agreement was reached that at the age of 15, a young lad should be paid 22½ per cent. of the skilled rate, rising in graduated increases to 62½ per cent. of the skilled rate, at 20 years of age. Those facts explain why the lads feel that they are not having a square deal. The percentages have remained the same 17 years after the original agreement. The only difference has been a supplementary increase of 5s. 6d. at 15 years of age and 1 is. at 20 years of age, an agreement negotiated in 1953.
  This year has seen the lads making further unofficial efforts to improve the position. Those of us who have negotiated these agreements and who appreciate their sanctity know that that sort of action cannot be taken, which is why these moves have been unofficial. Nevertheless, it is true that the moves have come from a deep-rooted objection to
  1620
  conditions, and especially to the present level of wages.
  If I make a point of referring to wages, I ask the Committee to believe that wages are a factor of which employers are constantly taking advantage, because for every apprenticeship there are at least two or three applicants. In that unfortunate state of affairs, it is possible to damp down wages to the point where the lads are forced to the sort of situation which I have described.
  Negotiations are now going on and I should hate to say anything which would interfere in any way with what I hope will be an amicable settlement, but I think that it can be said that the offer now is an increase from 22½ per cent. to 27½ per cent. at 15 and then in graduated segments to a maximum of 75 per cent. If that agreement is accepted, however, the supplements will be withdrawn.
  That is not good enough. In terms of cash, it means 3s. 10d. at 15 and Us. 4d. at 20, and the increases will not apply to those apprentices who, by reason of good time-keeping, or any form of merit, or initiative, or piece rates, are already obtaining the equivalent. I am certain, for those reasons, that the shortage of vacancies is helping to bring about this situation, and I am sure that if there were more apprentices their ability to negotiate proper rates would be increased.
  It is significant that the rates paid to an industry which is one of our largest exporting industries should be the lowest in the country. That is a salutary fact. It is a situation which the Government must end. Whether wittingly or otherwise, they are in some way to blame.
  We recently saw an award made as the result of the recommendations of the Guillebaud Committee. If there is one situation which requires another Guillebaud Committee, it is the situation of apprentices in this country.
  6.43 p.m.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Edward Heath): This has been a most interesting and valuable debate and I welcome it, as did my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. This is the first occasion for a year on which we have been able to discuss this most important subject of apprenticeships.

  1621
  We are trying to achieve results in this matter by providing information for everybody in industry, for employers and for trade unions, by using persuasion and influence wherever we can. Through the activities of the Industrial Training Council we are seeking to increase the number of apprenticeships and learner-ships and other forms of training for skill which are being provided, and to improve the standard of that training. As we are using these methods, the more discussion we have on the subject, the better. That is why I welcome the debate so much.
  A number of detailed points have been raised and very useful suggestions have been made from both sides of the Committee, and I assure hon. Members that I shall examine all those suggestions most carefully. I was very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) took part in the debate and I congratulate him on his maiden speech. We were all glad that he should have shown an interest in these affairs and that he should have talked about some aspects of industrial relations. In offering my congratulations to him, I hope that he will maintain his interest in these subjects and that he will constantly take part in our discussions of them.
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary described the position in great detail and I do not wish to go over the ground which he covered. Indeed, as this is only a half-day's debate, I have tried to leave as much time as possible for hon. Members to make contributions. My speech will, therefore, be brief. Nevertheless, I want to comment on some of the points which have been made and briefly to deal with one or two general themes.
  Many hon. Members have spoken about the increased number of young people in employment in the three years 1961, 1962 and 1963 although not, of course, in the present year. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) mentioned a letter which he had received from a youth employment officer. Suggestions are often made about ways of dealing with the employment aspect of the problem, but I emphasise to the Committee that the answer to it must depend fundamentally, like all other employment, on a healthy, competitive and expanding economy.
  1622
  Fundamentally, the objective of the measures of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to maintain the economy expanding at a reasonable rate—not, as the hon. Member said, to cut it back. The objective is to maintain it in a position in which it can expand reasonably. If that is done, then we have every hope of absorbing the young people who will be coming from our schools in those three years.
  Some of our difficulties at the moment spring from the fact that, compared with the number of vacancies, there is a shortage of labour in many parts of the country. If those additional numbers were coming forward now and in this summer, they would be able to fill some of the vacancies which we are wanting to fill and which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) mentioned when giving his comparative figures of industrial areas.
  Of course, there will be differences in different parts of the country, for several reasons. In the first place, there are differences in the bulge. In Plymouth and Mersey-side, for instance, the numbers are considerably greater than they are in some other parts of the country, and we shall see the same phenomenon later in the new towns.
  As we know, the general employment position differs in different parts of the country, in the North-East and Scotland in particular. The numbers will vary with the different types of industry in different parts of the country. They will also vary with the situation in each—with whether it is an area of old or new industry, whether it is expanding or declining. Those factors are very relevant to the figures which the hon. Member for Maryhill gave about the rather steep decline of apprenticeships in parts of Scotland, which are caused by the decline in shipbuilding and ship-repairing in particular.
  So, in the nature of things, we cannot achieve uniformity over the whole country in these industrial matters. There are bound to be variations and differences. I must emphasise that the objective of Government policy in the Local Employment Act so far has been, by inducing industry to go to certain areas, to try to iron out some of those differences. As that Act succeeds, so we shall see the numbers becoming more evenly spread in different parts of the country.

  1623
  Of course, the inducements to industries to go to these areas are there to be used. It is true to say that in a time like the present, when industry may find it more difficult to secure some of the capital it needs for expansion, the inducements being offered to go to the development districts, the difficult areas, become even more valuable than hitherto. The employment situation for young people is bound to depend greatly on the state of the economy, and we shall do our utmost to make sure that it will absorb the young people coming from school.
  The need for more skilled men is very obvious. Nobody under-estimates this problem in any way, certainly not the Ministry of Labour. We recognise the tremendous challenge which lies in these young people leaving school and wanting training. We have a shortage, in particular, of skilled engineers and of skilled workers in the building trades. This emphasises the great need for these skilled men. I hope, therefore, that this present situation, and the measures I have mentioned, will not be interpreted as meaning that we do not require more skilled men in these industries.
  Some of our difficulties arise in this situation because of this very shortage of skilled men. More unskilled men could be employed if they were available. I hope that employers and unions will not say that the numbers of skilled men should be allowed to decrease. I hope that they will recognise that in the long term their interests and those of the nation lie in allowing the number of skilled men to increase.
  Mr. D. Jones: I do not think that the Minister is being fair to the unions. The number of skilled people can increase now almost ad infinitum by their registration, so it is not fair to give the impression that the unions are in any way holding back an influx of skilled men. That is not the case.
  Mr. Heath: I hope I did not give that impression. I did not intend to, and I do not wish to be unfair to anybody. But mental attitudes do change in industry, depending on the state of the economy. I expressed the hope that these modern views would persist, although, alas, there are some places in industry where they do not.
  1624
  I turn now to the question of responsibility for dealing with these matters. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said he placed the responsibility for this firmly on the shoulders of the Government. He did not elaborate very clearly exactly what he meant by this. He made one or two suggestions. He mentioned, for example, the selection of apprentices going into firms. We would all welcome the best possible means of selection to get the best qualified young people. Was he emphasising the need for firms to look at their own processes of selection, or was he implying that the Government should accept responsibility, and that the Government should set up some organisation which would say who was going to be an apprentice and the firms to which he should go? There is a fundamental difference between those ways. If he suggests that firms Should look at their own procedures, then I agree wholeheartedly and we will do everything to encourage them to do so.
  He also suggested that this responsibility should pass to the Ministry of Education. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) dealt with this very adequately. I do not wish to go into this argument because I do not want to give an impression that there is any departmental dispute about this. The Minister of Education and I are anxious to ensure the best possible results. There is the closest co-operation between the two Departments. Indeed, the circular just issued by the Ministry of Education on this subject bears witness to that, as does the fact that the Youth Employment Service is administered very effectively jointly by us. I can assure the House that we shall continue to have the closest co-operation on these matters.
  We have adopted some of the suggestions made in the debate a year ago. I gladly acknowledge that. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has referred to the training at Letchworth. It was suggested in last year's debate that this should be increased, and it has been increased by 50 per cent. That is the sort of thing that the Government ought to do and will try to do increasingly, because it is the sort of thing which has a multiplier effect. We train people who then train others, and so it spreads. We were grateful for that suggestion for an increase.

  1625
  The idea of an initial apprenticeship training scheme was made last year. That has been adopted by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education in the circular that he will send out. The idea of Government training centres was also discussed and that, too, was adopted in the statement that I made in April.
  The hon. Member for Edmonton criticised us for not starting with a much bigger scheme. We considered this at length and looked at it as clearly as we could, but I believe it is right that we should start in a comparatively small way and build up. A great deal is involved in this, such as equipment, buildings and instructors. I believe it should be developed in that way rather than by starting off with a large scheme, for the reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. We operate the new procedure in a way in which small firms can take part, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned. We have created our customers, and as they come forward we will consider the question of expansion.
  Mr. Albu: How will the selections for these schemes be made—by the schools or by the firms? What is the Government's responsibility?
  Mr. Heath: Under the present arrangements, we take the people who have already been accepted as apprentices by firms. The process of selection, in so far as there has been any, for initial apprenticeships has been gone through by the time they want to go to a centre under the present arrangements. Any selection, if there were a shortage of places available, would be made after selection for apprenticeship.
  Some hon. Members have had a great deal to say about the Industrial Training Council. Some were congratulatory and some critical. I am sure that the I.T.C. will welcome the remarks. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and I will take an early opportunity of talking to the chairman of the Council about what has been said. I welcome in particular the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. I also welcome the suggestion he made that there should be local organisations similar to the I.T.C. In Cardiff such an arrangement has already been set up and I understand that it is working successfully.
  1626
  Last week I saw some representatives from the City of Glasgow and they asked me to consider whether a similar organisation could be created either for Scotland of for Glasgow. We are examining that proposal. Then there is the fundamental question of what powers it is to be given. There we have the support of the Carr Report and both sides of the industry. They come down in favour of persuasion.
  That was also the view taken by the hon. Member for Edmonton in last year's debate, although some of his hon. Friends have differed today. I welcome the points made about the I.T.C. and the suggestions as to how it can improve things. I also agree that now is the time when we can make further progress, because it is in the summer of next year that the large numbers will be coming forward.
  I have very little time left to deal with the other points raised. I know that some hon. Members and some educationists in the country are unhappy because they would like to think that in industrial training the offering of places should be similar to that at universities and other higher institutions of education. They would feel happier if they could see the way ahead much more clearly.
  I understand that, but I do not think that under the present arrangements within industry we shall ever have quite that sort of fixed arrangement. At times both sides of industry naturally find difficulty in committing themselves as far ahead as would enable that to be done. I appreciate the point of view of some hon. Members. I hope that they will not think that because exact preplanning is not possible, we are not doing everything we can to see that When the time comes the places will be there. But it is a very real question whether we should continue to develop in this way, or take over and carry out the operation ourselves. That would be the ultimate outcome if we were to choose any alternative arrangement.
  Two other suggestions were made. One was that each industry should have an apprenticeship council, and that it should be made compulsory. At the moment about 120 industries have apprenticeship organisations. Each one does not necessarily cover the whole of its industry. They were built up or

  1627
  revived after the war by youth employment officers, largely with the help of the training department of the Ministry of Labour. It is possible to encourage those industries which have not already got them to have them, but whether they should be made compulsory by law is a different question.
  There is also the problem of providing appropriate training, again by compulsion. The implication of this is that we should have a complete Government system of inspection and training in industry. So far, this has also been left to industry, through the bodies which industry sets up to examine these matters and the other matters mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. That I would gladly encourage, but to make it compulsory is part of a different approach to the whole question.
  In conclusion, we are acting in the way I have described to persuade and help industry to tackle this problem vigorously and provide the places which are required. I hope that industry will study carefully the views expressed in this House today, and will take them seriously to heart and try to follow them. I am sure that if they do, it will be in the long-term interest of those whose livelihood is in industry as well as in the interests of the nation as a whole.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Gibson-Watt]—put and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  DISABLED PERSONS (TWO-SEATER CARS)
  7.4 p.m.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I beg to move,
  That this House, believing that similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes, should be assured equal treatment, calls upon the Government to provide two-seater cars for paraplegics and other persons now qualifying for tricycles under the National Health Act, 1946.
  Before I proceed with my speech, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like to ask whether it is your intention to call the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): That is the intention of Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I want to deal with some of the background to this subject in some detail. As the House is aware, we have already had an Adjournment debate on this matter, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health made a very unsatisfactory reply. It was unsatisfactory not in the form of delivery, but in the conclusions which it contained. I take it that those conclusions were conveyed to us as being those of the Minister. It is useful that we have the Minister of Health with us this evening, for he can answer for the decisions he has taken.
  We are dealing with about 13,000 men and women who, by their disability, have qualified for the Government-provided, power-propelled tricycle. I do not propose to repeat any of the arguments about the unsatisfactory nature of this provision which were brought forward in the Adjournment debate, but I am pleased to see that the Government themselves regard the present tricycle as being entirely inadequate for wounded ex-Service men. That, in itself, is a recognition which we welcome, and the provision that is being made for them by the Government is welcomed by all of us. But does not it contain a condemnation of the tricycle that is available for non-Service people?
  It seems rather ridiculous that, on the one hand, a person with a disability that has been acquired in the Armed Forces will have a two-seater car—
  Mr. E. G. Willis: Not necessarily.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That a disabled person who qualifies for a tricycle should have a two-seater car—
  Mr. Willis: No.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That is the Government's promise. [Interruption.] We shall see as we proceed. I am talking about those who have qualified, and I understand that the undertaking given by the Government is as I have expressed it. Those who have qualified—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend had better wait. Those who have qualified for power-propelled tricycles are now to be provided with two-seater cars if their disability occurred in the Armed Forces. Whether there are any qualifications about that we shall see later.
  Let us consider the categories of persons involved in the provision of the power-propelled tricycle. I have gone to some trouble to track them down. Let us regard the qualifying conditions as agreed. The first category consists of members of Her Majesty's Forces; the second, members of Civil Defence; the third, members of fire brigades; the fourth, civilian victims of the war; the fifth, the industrially disabled—many of them miners—and the sixth, victims of illness and disease—the poliomyelitis sufferers. Those are the six categories, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have pressed for the provision of something better than the present tricycle for them.
  It is against this background that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues gave an election pledge, which I shall deal with in the light of some of the contentions made by the Parliamentary Secretary in the Adjournment debate. Paragraph 4 of the Conservatives' General Election manifesto, under the heading "Security and Retirement", contains two sentences which I wish to quote, and I am not tearing them out of their context. They are:
  "Those disabled in the service of their country will remain the subject of our special care. Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  That is the end of it. That is not torn out of its context. Here it is, without qualification. I will repeat it:
  1630
  "Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  That comes right in the middle of a block of sentences dealing with the National Health Service.
  Lord Balniel: First, those disabled in the service of their country.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Very well, we will deal with that point, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised it. What is meant by "disabled in the service of their country"? If the hon. Gentleman is right, the provision of the Government should be for those who are disabled in the service of their country. Is it only those in the Armed Forces who were disabled in the service of their country? Surely that is the point.
  The second sentence eliminates any qualification. If it was intended to be qualified why was not the election pledge contained in more precise words? Let me deal with how the right hon. and learned Gentleman regards what the Government are now doing as a redemption of the promise. In answer to one of his hon. and gallant Friends, on 4th April, he said:
  "My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have decided to implement the promise to provide more suitable vehicles by providing small cars for those war pensioners disabled in the service of their country who are eligible for Government power-propelled tricycles."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April. 1960; Vol. 621, c. 11.]
  Apparantly, this is to be done under the Royal Warrant, or so we were informed by the Parliamentary Secretary. It is not to be done under the National Health Service. But all war pensioners do not come under the Royal Warrant.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) will bear that in mind. There are war pensioners who have been taken in by the National Health Service. There are civilian injuries pensions still paid by the Assistance Board. So what we have is not a fulfilment of the promise on the narrowest basis that the right hon. Gentleman places on these words. All we have are the war pensioners disabled in Her Majesty's Forces. That was not the pledge. The pledge was not on the narrow basis of war pensioners. Let me repeat it again:
  "Those disabled in the service of their country will remain the subject of our special care"

  1631
  If that is to be regarded as a qualifying phrase it means that the war pensioners who were not disabled in the Armed Forces are now to be excluded under the terms of the arrangement which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made.
  We have the position that of all the six categories of persons who qualify for power-propelled tricycles, only one category, the smallest, is to be provided with two-seater cars. That was not made plain in the Conservatives' election pledge. It did not say that this would be done only for those in the smallest category. It was said, without qualification, that all those disabled in the service of their country would be the subject of special care.
  Let us consider some of them. I know that this is taking the House back to a time before many hon. Members present were in the House, but the civil injuries scheme provided for equal benefit for all who were injured in the war provided that they sustained what was called war service injuries. The pamphlet, "War Pensions for Civilians" was published. There were official leaflets relating to war pensions for civilians and members of the Civil Defence services. They were disabled in the service of the country, but they are excluded from this improvement. Is that redeeming the promise contained without qualification in the Conservative election manifesto? There were two official pamphlets, issued by the Ministry of Pensions and National Service, laying down the categories of war pensioners injured in the service of their country who, on the interpretation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, should be looked after under the terms of this pledge.
  Let me go a step further. What other classes are excluded? Let us take the disability for granted.
  "In the service of their country."
  Is that to be a qualification? Should not this apply to the Bevin boys, who had no option? Should not it apply to persons who were directed and to those who were called out of the Army and sent back to the mines? The justification for taking them from the Army and sending them to the mines was that they would be of greater service to the country in the mines than in the Army. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman
  1632
  says that they were not disabled in the service of their country. How can he justify that? It really is beyond me.
  What about the men directed from the Army back to the Fire Service in London, during the blitz? Some of them were war pensioners. They received a war service pension. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not propose to do anything for them. What about the police? During the blitzes some policemen were drafted out of the Army and sent back to serve in London, in Coventry and in other places. Some of them were disabled in the service of their country and are war pensioners. I say to the right hon and learned Gentleman that he is playing ducks and drakes with the pledge placed before the people by himself and his colleagues during the election.
  I think that the Tory pledge was very narrow, accepting the interpretation placed on it now. When it was placed before the people during the election it was assumed to mean what was said, that the badly disabled, without qualification, would be looked after in this respect. I take the view that we ought to say that equal treatment shall be available for all those people with equal disablement.
  I do not complain about an order of priority in the provision of the two-seater cars. I can understand the more or less sentimental case for some distinction in the order of getting the cars by those who sustained their injuries in the fighting services and those who acquired their disability by other means, although, for the life of me, I cannot see the Government's justification for distinguishing between the war pensioner who acquired his or her disability in the London blitz and the men and women who acquired their disability in the Armed Forces. They were all part of the fighting Services. This is a ridiculous distinction and the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has great experience in these matters, legally and otherwise, ought not to put that sort of case before the House.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): Is the right hon. Member suggesting that the Civil Defence personnel covered by the personal injuries scheme of 1949 are not war pensioners and are not being given this either? Is that what he is suggesting?
  Mr. Ness Edwards: What I am saying is that the civilians under the civilian injuries scheme who do not come under the Royal Warrant, in so far as we accept the interpretation placed on this concession by the Parliamentary Secretary, do not come under the terms of the announcement the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made. If he is now going to say that war pensioners of any category, whether the pension is paid under the Royal Warrant as his hon. Friend said, or through the Assistance Board, or through the National Health Service, are all to be eligible, he is extending it far beyond the provision that the hon. Lady indicated to the House in answering the Adjournment debate. I hope that he will say that it is not limited in the sense his hon. Friend suggested.
  I come to the paraplegics generally, and, first, to the men in the mining industry. Here is a very serious position. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will nay regard to it. He ought not to hide behind the ambiguity of his election pledge. He ought to do the decent thing. He ought to accept the terms of this Motion. The Amendment really concedes the intention of the Motion. We do not condemn the Government for having done what they have done. What we ask is that they should do more: that they should apply this concession to all who from the point of view of their disablement require it.
  According to the terms of the Amendment, which are very much the terms in which the hon. Lady spoke in the Adjournment debate, we are told that it cannot be done because of cost. Let us see what is being done. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that we are doing a great thing and that it is to cost £200,000. The concession is to be given to only 1,700 yet for £2½ million he could apply it to 13,000. Are we now to be told that because the election pledge will cost £2½ million it is not to be implemented? That is the question the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to answer.
  Yesterday, the House was under the shadow of a very great tragedy. Yesterday, 45 men were brought up from a pit, dead. That shook everybody. I was pleased to see the generous rush of human emotion which spread over this House at the news, but in practically every mining village in South Wales there is a man who has lost half his life. He
  1634
  has a wretched tricycle with which he waits at street corners, afraid to go too far because, if something happened to the tricycle, there would be no one to help him with it. If he goes anywhere he has to go on his own. There is no one to help him out or into the machine. We are entering into a great crisis of manpower in the mining industry. These tricycles can be seen in the streets of the mining villages and are not a great encouragement for recruitment of the young men we want to enter the industry.
  I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to bear this very much in mind. We had a debate earlier today about training. How many of the paraplegics who have been trained depend on the charity of their employers to take them back and forth to work? They ought to be going under their own steam, someone going with them to see that everything is all right.
  I say this to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I have not discussed it with my hon. and right hon. Friends. Take this Amendment off the Order Paper. We will take our Motion off on one condition, that the Minister will undertake to extend this concession, this new provision, to all the rest of those disabled in the same way as he has satisfied the need of the ex-soldier. We want something to be done. We want to encourage the Government into a little bit of extra virtue than they have so far shown. I hope that when the Minister replies he will bear in mind that there are 13,000 people who could be very much convenienced. Their lives could be filled to a much greater extent if they could be given the convenience he has provided for a very narrow category.
  7.29 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles and on the speedy fulfilment of their pledges in regard thereto; records its awareness of their desire further to improve the vehicles provided for disabled National Health Service patients; but recognises that regard must he had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation".

  1635
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) spent some little time when moving his Motion in explaining for his own purposes what he regarded as defined by the terms "war disabled" and "war pensioner". I thought he got quite a long way from the wording of the Motion, which refers to the proposal that persons with a
  "similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes,"
  should be assured of equal treatment.
  I hasten at this stage to assure him that my right hon. and learned Friend will wind up the debate, so he will have a further opportunity of pursuing the matter with my right hon. and learned Friend. In replying to the speech of the right hon. Member, I need to go back into history for a while in order to get the position quite clear about the supply of vehicles for disabled persons.
  When hon. Gentlemen opposite were the Government of the day, they gave cars to war pensioners but not to National Health Service patients. Until 1948 the only powered vehicles issued to war pensioners were tricycles of a somewhat antiquated type and very different from the tricycles issued today. They were open vehicles and, in effect, motorised invalid chairs. I stress that the categories of eligibility were very broadly the same as they are today, or have been until my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement.
  It was in July, 1948, that the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) announced to the House his intention to provide cars. He said:
  "… a limited number of small cars, not exceeding 1,500, will be made available over the next two years for supplying … to certain classes of very seriously disabled war pensioners who may elect to receive a car in place of the motor propelled tricycle to which they are entitled under existing regulations".
  The right hon. Gentleman said also:
  "When the needs of these classes have been satisfied, any balance … within the number stated will be distributed … to other very seriously disabled war pensioners at present supplied with motor propelled tricycles to enable them to obtain or retain employment",—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1948; Vol. 454, c. 1103.]
  The right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped to include also the blind war pensioner.
  1636
  In the event, no cars were issued to the less seriously disabled who required them for employment purposes, because a ceiling figure of 1,500 was insufficient for the rest, and it was in fact raised by stages, again by a Socialist Government, to 1,950 cars.
  In introducing the car scheme, as in many other matters in the treatment and rehabilitation of war pensioners, hon. Gentleman opposite, then the Government of the day, recognised the principle of preference and priority for war pensioners in our social services. I am sorry to see from the Motion that they appear now to have departed from this principle, because the Motion attacks the preference given to war pensioners, whereas it has always been held that the country owes a debt of generosity to those who have been disabled in the service of their country.
  Continuing with the history of the cars, in April, 1952, the ceiling was raised to 2,000 by a Conservative Government. In 1955 it was raised to 2,100. Then there was the statement in the Conservative election manifesto last year, which the right hon. Member for Caerphilly saved me quoting, because he quoted from it. This statement has been misinterpreted by many, as I said in the Adjournment debate. It is quite clear in its wording. Following that promise given at the General Election, a decision was quickly made. On 4th April, 1960, my right hon. and learned Friend announced his intention to provide small oars for those war pensioners disabled in the service of their country who are eligible for Government power-propelled tricycles.
  The implication that this is any kind of new scheme is not correct. What is happening is that we are carrying on and extending an existing scheme introduced by a Socialist Government and beginning to run down because the number of war pensioners is diminishing.
  Mr. Willis: Is it not true that people who are at present entitled to tricycles are not all going to receive them?
  Miss Pitt: They are. We have said that it will be by stages. We shall deal with the most severely disabled first. Perhaps I shall be able to make it a little clearer as I go on. In his statement my right hon. and learned Friend said

  1637
  that it would necessarily be some months before cars were available and we would deal with the most severely disabled first. In fact, we hope to begin issuing cars next month. They will be Mini-Minors, in case hon. Members wish to know what type of car will be available.
  So far from playing ducks and drakes with the pledge, as the right hon. Gentleman announced, I think that we have honoured the pledge which we gave at the General Election and have indeed followed the principle of maintaining preferential treatment for war pensioners.
  The Opposition Motion calls for cars for all disabled persons who qualify for tricycles. I said in the Adjournment debate on 17th May that I was not without sympathy for this plea. The tricycle is not designed to carry a passenger, and I understand the desire of those who have tricycles both for companionship and, on occasions, help.
  In the Adjournment debate the right hon. Gentleman said that the cost should not be insuperable. In capital at least an additional £2½ million would be required and, when the supply was complete, there would be an additional maintenance cost of about £1 million a year.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: Is the figure of £2½ million upon the basis of replacing them all at once or as and when they have to be replaced? All my information is that, unless one Ministry insists upon adding Purchase Tax and claiming it from another, cars can be made available at a prime cost which is almost the same as the cost of tricycles.
  Miss Pitt: The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) anticipates my speech. I was about to go on to say that the basis of the cost I have just given is replacing over a period.
  Mr. Paget: The hon. Lady has not answered my question. Does the figure of £2½ million take in Purchase Tax? The problem I have had with various Ministers when I have tried to negotiate on this is that they say that to have cars is more expensive than to have tricycles because of Purchase Tax. That seems to be an odd point of view for one Government Department to take against another. I think the hon. Lady will find that most of the £2½ million is Purchase Tax.
  Miss Pitt: I am not sure, but I think that it does not include Purchase Tax. If I am incorrect, I will ask my right hon. and learned Friend to amend that statement when he winds up.
  It would be a major development to provide cars for all National Health Service patients. It would be a continuing and growing commitment for the future, because the number of patients in the National Health Service, unlike the number of war pensioners, will rise, not fall, and we would always have the problem of replacing the cars when they became old.
  The figures which I gave to the House in the Adjournment debate and have repeated tonight are broad estimates. They take no account of future returns on sales of the old cars if they were saleable. They are also based on the assumption that a scheme introduced now would be spread over eight years to give full value to existing tricycles.
  The capital cost would be much greater if the period were shortened and usable tricycles had to be scrapped. We have also assumed in giving these figures that over the years the annual rate of increase would be the same as at present. We have assumed that eligible applicants would increase by about 550 a year. It might well be greater.
  There are about 5,000 disabled persons eligible for tricycles who have not got them because they are unable to control them for one reason or another, and these people would get cars with nominated drivers if such a scheme were introduced. Again, we think that this may well be a considerable under-estimate.
  Therefore, however sympathetic one feels, the suggestion made by hon. Members opposite must be considered in the context of costs against all the other claims. The tricycles have been improved over the years, and the vehicles are very good for their purpose—as, again, I explained in the Adjournment debate. I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's word "wretched". They are considerably improved and do a good job. From all the contacts I have with those who drive in them, I find that they are happy to use them, although, of course, there is the point that they would like companionship.
  I do not rule out further improvements in the design of the tricycle, but we

  1639
  have made no commitment about introducing larger vehicles for the disabled generally. I must remind the House of the words appearing at the end of the Amendment:
  "… regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims …"
  on our resources.
  For that reason, I have to say that the Motion standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends is not acceptable.
  7.42 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Brown: It is always difficult not to be misunderstood when debating a subject like this, particularly by those who have only a superficial knowledge of what is in the minds of those who have put down this Motion. Disabled ex-Service men, and those getting the advantages of the amenities under the Royal Warrant, may misunderstand, so I should like to tell them and others just what we have in mind.
  Our desire, and I think that it is a righteous desire, is to broaden the principles and application of the Royal Warrant to give to those who have been crippled in industry the same treatment as, or treatment similar to, that given to those injured in the two world wars. I knew that the Ministry would approach the question strictly on the cost basis, but I hope that that idea does not figure very largely in the Minister's mind, because the cost of our proposal is not so great that it cannot be met by a gradual process. We do not ask for this to be done at once, but that a start should be made as quickly as possible, and the aims pursued as fast as our economic resources will permit.
  As long as we have wars we shall have sick, 'broken, bruised and crippled men. That cannot be avoided. As long as we have industry, we shall have sick, broken, bruised and crippled men. No legislation can prevent accidents. They will happen. Only a few days ago we heard of the terrible disaster in Wales. We are given to understand that all precautions were taken there to prevent an accident of that type—but it happened, and killed 45 men and boys.
  We cannot avoid accidents by legislation, but we can minimise them and their
  1640
  effects. Once they have happened, we have to provide for and protect the unfortunate victims. Our job here today, as it has been in the past, is to do all that we can to make the lives of these unfortunate people as comfortable and as pleasant as we can, with all the facilities that are now at our disposal. This is the age of science, of affluence, of qualified men. We have men, we have money, and we have machines in the form of two-seater cars for the unfortunate cripples of war and industry.
  I hope that the Minister will not think that we are unduly criticising him. Far be it from me to criticise a Minister or a Department from whom I am asking something—I am too old a negotiator for that. We are not criticising the Minister. We are asking him to broaden and quicken the distribution of two-seater cars. Our intention is to extend the provision of these vehicles to the unfortunate victims of industrial accidents, namely, paraplegic cases.
  Accidents happen in all industries, but one cannot help but think of the scenes in our mining villages. During the last day or two I have been thinking very seriously about a number of cases in the little village in which I was born, and in which I still live—all paraplegic cases, crippled in industry. I think of Peter Armstrong, 6 ft. in height, of Peter Winstanley, and of William Cunliffe. They all lived in the same roadway as myself.
  All were crippled in industry. One has gone to his reward, another gets about the village roadway in a hand-propelled wheel chair, and the third cannot get into a propelled wheel chair. Cases like that strike the heart of one who lives in a mining village. I make no apology at all for singling out the mining industry, because there are more paraplegics in it than in any other industry and one's mind travels naturally to those who have been injured in the pits.
  I should like to read an extract from a letter to show to the House and to the country what these men undergo when they are struck down by accidents to the spine and become paraplegics. I have permission to use this letter, and I shall use it with the full force of the argument used by the man who has

  1641
  written it. He lives at 223, High Street, Alsagers Bank, Stoke-on-Trent, and he writes:
  "Regarding my disabilities and accident, I met with my accident on 22nd April, 1938–22 years and two months ago last Friday. My spine was fractured seriously, and in consequence, during the whole of that period I have had the loss of control of all bowel movements and have been under the necessity of wearing a surgical appliance for the urine, and when I have been dressed one can visualise what such conditions have entailed, not only for myself but all the unpleasant and disagreeable tasks over that long period for my dear wife, slaving at the washtub. But I have been richly blessed, for I have had a heroine for a wife whose loving and devoted nursing care and attention at all hours of the day and night have contributed so much towards prolonging my life."
  Furthermore, and this is the point I want to emphasise, he says:
  "In July, 1954, I had an operation for the removal of a cataract on the right eye which, I am pleased to say has been of great benefit to me, for I have … lost the vision of my left eye. In 1955 I was further certified to be suffering from silicosis."
  There it is—paraplegic case, loss of an eye, and now certified to be suffering from silicosis:
  "It may interest you, Mr. Brown, to know that I have been an in-patient in one of our local hospitals for treatment … on 25 different occasions between 13th February, 1954 and 9th April, 1960."
  I want the Minister to note the following—I shall not enlarge on it, but I want him to note it:
  "… since prescription charges were introduced, I have paid a sum of over £16, and a sum of £7 2s. for prescriptions as an old-age pensioner since 27th February, 1959—"
  and he adds these words:
  "the greater the adversities the greater the burdens."
  That is a paraplegic case, and one which, in my judgment, would be well served by the provision of a two-seater car, with, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, a nominated driver. Here is a man who has never left his home except to travel to and from the hospital, a man who is suffering from a disease which, as the Minister will know, requires all the fresh air that can possibly be given to him. Yet, because he is not provided with a means of transport, he has to stay indoors, or sit in a chair just inside the house or in the small garden. That is just one case. One could go on for the next hour or more telling the House of the hardships of paraplegics who have no means of transport.
  1642
  The present position is that the Ministry of Health supplies single-seater motor tricycles to civilian disabled whose disability involves total or considerable loss of use of both legs, and who are otherwise capable of handling a suitable machine. The Ministry supplies a storage shed, and meets the cost of repairs, including replacement of tyres. Seven gallons of petrol are supplied free every six months. No road tax is payable and the Ministry arrange for third party insurance cover. That is what the Ministry is doing now.
  War pensioners—and, again, I preface my remarks by saying that I hope that I shall not be misunderstood—who are 100 per cent. disabled are issued, under the same Royal Warrant, with cars. Road tax and third-party insurance are met by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and an annual grant of approximately £70 is made towards running and repair costs. That comes from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. The cars, which are adapted for hand control, may be driven by the disabled person or by a nominated driver.
  I now come to the point which we mentioned in the Motion. In the coal mining industry there are 500 to 600 men who have suffered paralysis of the lower trunk and both legs due to industrial accident, in the service of their country. A large number of these are young men and the great proportion are married men with children. Whereas the war disabled are provided with cars, the men disabled in industrial service to the nation are provided with single-seater tricycles. That provision does not reflect any credit on the nation.
  The coal industry's social welfare organisation has done a great deal for the welfare of disabled mineworkers in the provision of better housing accommodation and holidays. Incidentally, I would say that houses for paraplegics are not the same as houses for ordinary civilians. Everything is different. I have visited bungalows which we have built in Lancashire for these men. We have recently built three bungalows for paraplegics at Blackpool. Everything—windows, doors and toilets—is different in form from those in ordinary houses. We are doing a great service for paraplegia men so far as our money will allow. In cases of breakdown a paralysed man is unable

  1643
  to go for assistance. He has to move about the village and towns in a tricycle. Normal family relationships are already impaired in many ways and any enforced separation when paraplegia patients go out in their tricycles is an added burden.
  Therefore, we contend that what we ought to do as a country—I am not speaking from a political point of view—is to make provision for these men. It can be done, it should be done, and it should be done as quickly as possible. I hope that the Minister and the Department will not advance the argument that the nation cannot afford it. The nation can afford it if it has the will and determination to do it. Let us see that it is done and that we provide comforts, amenities and pleasantries for those unfortunate men who have been overtaken by adversity.
  7.59 p.m.
  Lord Balniel: Every hon. Member will share the feeling which the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) expressed in his speech and will share the feeling which moved hon. and right hon. Members opposite to put down this Motion. I do not suppose there is anyone in the country who, having the blessing of good health, would not do everything in his power to enhance the happiness of these unfortunate people and provide for their well-being, or who would not do anything he could to make it possible for those who have not many blessings to share a wider life with their wives, families and friends and do something to bring them within the ordinary community in its everyday activities. Those are feelings shared, I am sure, by everyone in the country.
  I hope that it will be possible before long for my right hon. and learned Friend to accept what is outlined in the Motion. I believe that that was the tenor of the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary in speaking to her Amendment. I gather that it is the intention of the Government to accept as soon as practicable the terms of the Motion.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Do I understand from the Front Bench that the noble Lord's statement is in accord with their will?
  Lord Balniel: The right hon. Gentleman has interrupted my speech. I speak for myself, of course, and my right hon. and learned Friend will speak for the Government. We have had a clear exposition of the Government's view from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I, of course, speak entirely on my own account.
  I hope that we may set as an objective to strive towards the widening of the present allocation of the two-seater vehicles. I say that, associating myself with the hon. Member for Ince in his very special interest in the mining industry in his part of the country.
  It will be accepted by hon. Members on both sides that, when we have to allocate the rather limited resources of the State, it is understandable that we should give priority to those who have served and suffered in the service of the country. This is a priority which is generally accepted. On the other hand, it is very difficult to differentiate in logic between a person who is a paraplegic, a person who has suffered industrial injury, or a person who has been injured in a road accident or something of that kind, and a person who has suffered during war.
  It is very easy for us to put on the Order Paper these rather warm-hearted Motions calling for an improvement in one section of the National Health Service. This is particularly easy—I say this in no party sense—for those who have sure knowledge that they will not be called on for several years to implement the terms of them. It is very easy for people to put on the Order Paper a Motion such as the one now before us in the sure knowledge that they are not the ones called on to determine the priorities. The determination of priorities is very difficult. It is rather difficult to justify to the country the provision of transport for persons who are in good health and give that a priority above cancer research, hospital building or the many other very important matters coming within the Health Service.
  I have this question to put to my right hon. and learned Friend. I understand that the provision and allocation of tricycles under the National Health

  1645
  Service Act is made under Section 3 (1, b), which provides that the Minister has power to provide
  "medical, nursing and other services required at or for the purposes of hospitals".
  Has my right hon. and learned Friend power under the existing law to provide these two-seater vehicles to paraplegics who are receiving their benefits under the National Health Service and not under Royal Warrant? I may be wrong in my interpretation, but I am by no means certain that legislation is not needed if we are to implement the purport of the Motion now before us. Of course, I am not averse to such legislation if it be necessary.
  I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on the very liberal way he is interpreting the Act as it is now. His is a far more liberal and generous interpretation than hon. and right hon. Members opposite were able to adopt. They will recall very well that their interpretation resulted in only 4,800 persons being allocated tricycles, whereas my right hon. and learned Friend has stretched his interpretation of the law and over 11,000 persons now have tricycles.
  It is notable that there is absolutely no mention in the Motion of the cost. My hon. Friend mentioned that the cost, according to present calculations, would be £2,500,000 spread over eight years, with an additional yearly cost of £1 million.
  Mr. Paget: As the Minister and his predecessor know, I have negotiated with several Ministers on this. If the Department used the Isetta car which I myself drive, the price at which each vehicle, without Purchase Tax, could be made available would be about £220. I believe that what is being paid for the tricycles today is over £300.
  Lord Balniel: I am perfectly happy to accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. I understand that my hon. Friend has already given an undertaking to look into the matter of cost and no doubt at the end of the debate we shall hear an answer on that point.
  I very much hope that, after the two years necessary for allocating these two-person vehicles to war pensioners, my right hon. and learned Friend will have it within his power to extend and
  1646
  broaden the existing provisions so as to bring within their scope all persons who are in need of two-person vehicles.
  8.8. p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I have been very concerned with this problem for many years. I entirely agree with the proposition that a man who received his injury in war should have an automatic priority, if priorities are necessary at a time when we have never "had it so good" and if priorities for these basic needs are necessary in a community as rich and productive as ours.
  I will take one case I have in mind. This is a man I know who was born in a room in Northampton. He was thirty-two years in that room. He heard people bringing his food up the stairs, and he wondered what stairs were like. Suddenly, a tricycle was provided. I certainly will not call these tricycles "wretched" by any means. They have been a miracle and a wonder to many; they have opened the whole world to people who were cut off from it. Suddenly, with the provision of a tricycle, the whole world was opened for that man. What joy he experienced! Never have we provided money which has brought more happiness than the money which has been spent on these tricycles has brought.
  Hon. Members will know of the clubs which exist and of the expeditions which the members have. There is a special place for them at the Cobblers' football ground, at Northampton. British Railways make provision for them so that these men can be brought into the guards' vans and travel on the trains. There is one man who has attended every away match of the Cobblers during the last fifteen years, a man for whom life had previously meant no more than a single bed. These people who were once useless and a burden suddenly become useful members of society because of these tricycles.
  The man to whom I have referred has a job with British Timken Ltd. That is a firm with which I often disagree and I have on occasion had controversies with its somewhat Americanised and extremely Tory manager, Mr. Pascoe. But I always remember something which this man once said to me. He said, "People are really kind to us to start with, but we become a nuisance. But

  1647
  this firm never tires of being kind". That was a wonderful tribute and I am happy to repeat it.
  Now let me return to my point. It may come as a surprise to some of my hon. Friends, but I am profoundly a Socialist and because I am a Socialist I believe that the first thing for which one should look is need. It is only when needs become equalised that we can ration or distribute by money. For instance, if there are not enough radios to go round, the blind should have the first supply and no one should be allowed to have a radio until all blind people have been supplied.
  What I am now about to suggest will be very much more controversial. Old people whose lives are constricted by age and by the old-age pension, who cannot get about very much and do not read because they have not been in the habit or knowledge of reading, and whose eyes, perhaps, are not used to it, should have priority within our pension system for television sets because they have a much greater need for them. The difference which a television set makes to an old person's life is amazing.
  That is what I mean by priorities of need. People in our society who have lost their legs and thereby the power to move have a priority of need for the mechanical means of movement. We should not be talking about priorities within a group. We should be talking about priorities within the nation. There are cars for those who can walk and take public service vehicles and anything else. Therefore, there ought to be cars for those who need them and whose need is so great. That is where priority in our society should lie.
  I now turn to the rather absurd question of cost. In a society as rich, prosperous and full as ours, it is ludricous to say that we would impoverish ourselves by providing these vehicles for those who are in great need of them. It has been said that the cost would be about £2½ million. Even if I believed that it would be about£2½ million—and I do not—I should like to know whether that figure includes Purchase Tax. This point has been raised in correspondence with the Minister. Am I right in thinking that the £2½ million includes Purchase Tax?
  Miss Pitt: It excludes Purchase Tax.
  Mr. Paget: That is an advance on the previous negotiations.
  Previously, the Ministry has said that it could not carry out this proposal because of Purchase Tax. There are other cars, such as the Isetta and the Heinkel, available. They are on a mass production level. I believe that their price is cheaper than the price which the Ministry is paying for tricycles. That was certainly so a year or two ago. Am I right in saying that the cost of the tricycle today is about £350?
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I would rather give the figures when I speak.
  Mr. Paget: If the Minister would say whether I am right I would be grateful. I understand that that is about the figure.
  Without Purchase Tax it would be possible to provide cars like the Heinkel and Isetta for about £220. No doubt for this special purpose and for many of the clients some special adjustments or adaptations would have to be made. This would put the price up a bit, but I do not believe that, even including the cost of maintenance and perhaps of petrol, there would be very much difference, between the two types of vehicle.
  The difficulty has been the sort of Poor Law attitude which has been adopted. It has been felt, "We can supply these people with an invalid tricycle, because that is a medical appliance, but we cannot supply people with luxuries for nothing at the national expense." That has been the attitude of mind and it has been brought on by an interpretation of the National Health Service Act, with which, as a lawyer, I do not agree, namely, that once the vehicle becomes a two-seater it could not be provided. I do not believe that that is a right interpretation of the Act. If it is, I can promise the Minister that the House would pass through all its stages in a day the necessary amending legislation.
  These tricycles have been wonderful things. They have brought immense and amazing happiness. But we are a much richer community now. We are not talking about priorities as in the days of rationing after the war. We can choose our priorities on a wider basis for those who need them. Let us do it now.
  8.17 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Fraser: There was a good deal in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) with which I was not in agreement, as will become apparent in the course of my short speech. I speak as a fairly severely disabled war pensioner and also as a motorist who covers necessarily a very great mileage in the course of the year because my constituency is a long way away. I can, therefore, perhaps claim to speak with a certain amount of practical knowledge of the questions which arise in this debate.
  I am not so severely disabled as to qualify for one of these machines, but I am sufficiently disabled to have been among people who live in a different way from those who are not disabled at all and who are for that reason separated by a gulf from the disabled. I have spent several periods in Roehampton. I am a part of that splendid and humorous, if rather grim and macabre, fellowship to which Roehampton is a reality. I know what goes on in the minds of people who are more severely disabled than I am.
  The first point that strikes me about this debate is a point of serious principle and a point upon which it has seemed to me that hon. and right hon. Members opposite were hedging a little in the course of what they have so far had to say. It seemed to me that the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), who moved the Motion, implied that the Opposition was not really challenging the principle that ex-Service men should have a definite preference in matters of this kind. The Opposition Motion, however, which is powerfully signed—which would seem to imply that in the event of the Opposition coming into power, this would be its policy—states that
  "similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes, should be assured equal treatment".
  There is nothing there about maintaining any form of priority or preference for the ex-Service man.
  This is no light matter. The priority of the ex-Service man's call upon his country is very deep-seated. It is something which any Government should hesitate long before thinking of abandoning. I believe that if hon. and right hon.
  1650
  Members opposite were in power, they would not abandon it.
  It is true—and the right hon. Member for Caerphilly made a great deal of this—that many civilian disabilities are incurred in circumstances as a result of which they have a moral right to be treated on the basis that they are incurred in the country's service. I have in mind many of the mining injuries, which were so movingly referred to by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), many of the industrial accidents, and so on. Furthermore, a great number of serious disabilities are incurred not in the country's service, but in circumstances meriting the deepest sympathy from everybody—for example, many congenital conditions which people have from birth. It is, however, the fact that the Service man directly and definitely gives up his own, and, in great measure, his family's, freedom in the service of his country during the time he is serving with the Colours.
  It is a principle of real importance that there should be no tendency, springing from good will towards the whole population and not, I recognise, from any ill will towards the Service man, to go back to a condition of things that will be familiar to people who read Kipling and who are familiar with the situation of the Services in the nineteenth century and before, a condition when the Service man felt that he was far more welcome to his country in war than he was in peace. It is of real importance that nothing should be done to impair the principle, which has been accepted for one or two generations at least by Governments of both parties, that there should be a real preference for the Service man in this matter.
  Mr. Paget: Is not the priority today between the man who cannot walk and the man who can, and not within groups of those who cannot walk? Why do we need priorities there? Why cannot they all have priority?
  Mr. Fraser: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member, because that brings out the point on which we are directly opposed. I am arguing precisely that it is right to maintain a preference and a priority for the Service man under the conditions which obtain. I do not believe that if the party opposite were in power, it would infringe that preference.

  1651
  The gravamen of the Opposition case relates to National Health Service patients. It seems to me that even within the category of National Health Service patients, it is neither wrong nor harmful to have a considerable degree of discrimination in the way in which cases, all of which are seriously disabled, are treated. I cannot see any real parallel between, for example, a disability incurred while gallantly taking part in a rescue in a mining disaster and a disability incurred while driving recklessly or escaping from the police in a stolen car. There seems to me to be scope for great discrimination in the way which we treat disabilities which in themselves may be equal in nature.
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Does the hon. Member believe that he is giving fair examples by contrasting the extreme cases of a criminal act and a mining rescue? Surely, those are not fair examples.
  Mr. Fraser: I deliberately chose an extreme case on either side. I maintain—hon. Members opposite need not agree with me on this—that that is an important principle and that on moral and rational grounds there is good cause to discriminate in the treatment of disability cases. This is where I am arguing against the Opposition's case.
  Mr. Mendelson: My point is that there should be no discrimination. What I complain about is comparing the extreme examples of a criminal act and a rescue. These are not fair examples.
  Mr. Fraser: Admittedly, one could take two cases which are nearer together. The principle which I am maintaining, however, should be clear to the House, whether or not the House agrees with it.
  The opposition Motion proposes the provision of two-seater cars. I am not clear why two-seaters were chosen—surely, the Mini-Minor is not a twoseater—but the two-seater cars are generally the answer. I speak as a disabled person with a good deal of practical knowledge of the invalid vehicles which are issued. On more than one occasion, constituents have brought them to me to inspect. I have been underneath them and poked about inside them. I am a practical motorist and know
  1652
  something about them. I am sure that in only a proportion of cases among National Health Service patients, as, indeed, among war-service cases, is the two-seater car or the Mini-Minor the best answer.
  It is unfortunate that these specialised invalid vehicles which are now in issue in their modern marks are called tricycles. There is something pejorative about the word "tricycle". "Tricycle" is in some sense a term of opprobrium suggesting a simple or even ramshackle vehicle. That is definitely not correct. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary claimed, it is not true of the modern issue of this vehicle.
  There are things about it which are important. It is very often easy to get into, in a way in which, for example, the bubble car would not be and even the Mini-Minor would not be. In many types of physical disability it is easier to control a vehicle of this kind. A most important point is that it is distinctive on the roads. Other motorists know what it is. It is normal for motorists to treat with particular care and respect on the road an invalid car. It is furthermore less dangerous sometimes if it is driven with less than 100 per cent. skill than would be a car such as the Mini-Minor, which is a car which has passed me on the road at well over 60 m.p.h. Running and maintenance, too, are often more economical than is the case with a full two-seater car.
  I am sure for these reasons that it is true that some of the severely disabled, be they war pensioners or National Health Service patients, will always prefer the type of vehicle that the present invalid tricycle is. But, having said all that, I would be the first to admit that the therapeutic value of a car which is a real car, a normal car like other people's, can be very great in many cases. It is not only the point which a number of hon. Members have referred to, the extra capacity of the car to carry a wife or a friend or someone to look after the driver. It is even more the feeling of normal life which goes with that.
  On this, I would say to the House that even that feeling of normality, that wish to be completely normal, is not universal among the severely disabled. There is

  1653
  a form of dignity attached to very severe disability which becomes part of the personality itself, and there are those—I can thank of actual examples in my own experience, some of them perhaps the most memorable people I have met—who are, in this curious and perplexing way, suited by being severely disabled. It becomes part of their personality. They are prepared to go their own way, and among those we should find a number who would have no wish to change from the tricycle to which they are accustomed.
  Even in my very short experience of the House, I have found myself on more than one occasion going to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health and asking him for things for my constituents, and I have certainly never found him anything but a most ready and sympathetic friend, I say in the same spirit that I believe it is absolutely right to maintain the priorities that we have maintained and absolutely essential to have regard for cost. The state of affairs would never arise, including the time when right hon. Members opposite are in power, when one could disregard the cost of a thing like this. But I hope that the Government will move in the direction of extending an option of having these cars on a particularly selective basis among National Health Service patients.
  I should like to stress that it should be a selective basis and not in any sense a universal right of issue. Let us be clear about what we are doing if we offer cars to the severely disabled, and this applies to the war pensioners just as it does to National Health Service patients. I speak with real feeling on this, because I know the difference between what is an appliance and what is not. My leg is an appliance which the State gives me. My car is not an appliance. An ordinary car, however modified for somebody who is not 100 per cent. fit to drive, is not of the nature of an appliance, though I think it is true that the special invalid car is of that nature.
  If, therefore, we extend the issue of ordinary cars, however they may be modified, we are not issuing therapeutic appliances although they may have a therapeutic effect. We are engaging in a welfare distribution. We are giving a precious possession to that person. Cer
  1654
  tainly that may be a right thing to do, but that is the nature of the act we are doing. I hope that we shall proceed, as time goes on and resources allow, in that direction, but I hope that we shall proceed with a full regard to all the circumstances, including discrimination in the way in which the injury was incurred, the type of injury, the source of injury, the means of the disabled, and all other circumstances. Given all that, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will find himself in a position to proceed in that way.
  8.35 p.m.
  Dr. Horace King (Southampton, lichen): I speak on behalf of the Invalid Tricycle Association, with which, like the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers), I am closely associated.
  First, I want to correct an impression which may have been given, quite inadvertently, by the Parliamentary Secretary when she last replied to my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) in an Adjournment debate on 17th May. In that debate the hon. Lady referred to some remarks that I had made in the House on 14th December last expressing the Association's tremendous appreciation of the benefits conferred by the Minister on its members.
  That was, however, only part of what I had said in that debate. On 14th December some of us were pressing the Minister to speed up the inquiry into whether invalid tricycles could be replaced by something better. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth) had raised the subject, and the Parliamentary Secretary had told him that the promise made about cars related only to war pensioners. I then intervened and said:
  "Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that, while the Invalid Tricycles Association appreciates tremendously the benefits the Minister has conferred upon its members, not only the happiness but also the health and the safety of the crippled, to whom mechanical transport is the only means of conveyance, are involved in this inquiry? Will the most earnest consideration be given to the great mass of those cripples? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1959; Vol. 615, c. 1031.]
  Those like myself who are actively associated with the Invalid Tricycle Association and the Association itself

  1655
  have always held this view. We appreciate what the Minister has done. At the same time, we are asking for much more to be done. There is no doubt that the invalid tricycle has been a boon to the paraplegic and the amputee. Many a cripple who never left his home from one year's end to another has had the joy of getting out into the sunshine, into the country and into human fellowship since we provided him with a mechanical means of conveyance.
  It is a joy and inspiration to attend meetings or social gatherings run by the Association. Inside the hall there will be various kinds of invalid tricycles which have brought some who can stumble into the hall or be helped into the hall. Inside the hall itself there will the invalid tricycles still containing the people who have had to be put into them when they got out of bed and can never get out of them until they get back home. They are happy gatherings. Many of these people would have no social existence at all but for the invention of the invalid tricycle and its provision for them by the Minister and his predecessors. I can think of some of my own friends in the Association who, literally, had never left their homes for many years until we first provided them with this wonderful new invention.
  I was glad to hear my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) refer to the marvellous Association rallies. Some of these cripples travel hundreds of miles in these mechanical conveyances to rallies which have to be seen to be believed. For some of them the tricycle is a means of getting to work to earn a living. I think of one Southampton man, paralysed down one side, who was told that he would be bedridden all his life. With indomitable courage, he got from his bed and conquered his paralysis sufficiently to be able to struggle to a day's work whenever he could persuade someone with a car to carry him to work. I remember when I persuaded the present Minister of Health to supply him with an invalid tricycle what a revolution of happiness it made in that man's life. The man was a cripple whose courage surpassed almost anything I have ever seen.
  We certainly appreciate all that the Minister has done. Hon. Members
  1656
  appreciate the very friendly contacts which we have with the Ministry of Health. Some of us were afraid when the Government transferred this group of problems from the Ministry of Pensions to the Ministry of Health that we were going to lose some of the warm humanity which has always marked the Ministry of Pensions. I am glad to say that our experience is that the same efficiency and the same kindly humanity pervades the Minister's own Department.
  Having said that, I must add that when a cripple goes out in his invalid tricycle he goes out alone. If there is trouble with his tricycle, if there is trouble in starting it, or even if he has trouble in getting in and out of it, if he has to get out because of an accident, if he has the slightest difficulty, he has to face that difficulty alone. In a small car, there would always be someone able to help him. He needs companionship on the road. These people in the invalid tricycles who travel 100 or 200 miles across England to a rally literally travel alone. The driver cannot take his wife with him, and a crippled wife cannot take her husband with her. They cannot take a child or a friend in an invalid tricycle.
  Now that the technicians have broken through, now that the invalid tricycle, which has steadily improved during the post-war years out of all recognition, is beginning to give place to the small car, I hope the Minister is going to let civilian cripples share in this new boon which science has brought to us. I think it was right to give the first priority, if priority had to be given, to the claims of the crippled ex-Service men. Disabled ex-Service men hold a special place in the hearts of all of us and the all-party Committee which supports the claims of B.L.E.S.M.A. welcome the Minister's decision to provide Minicars for the acutely disabled ex-Service men, and I know what joy that brought to the annual conference of B.L.E.S.M.A.
  But amputation is amputation and paraplegia is paraplegia, whether the victim is a man or a woman, a civilian or a soldier. The handicaps are the same, the hardships are the same, and all these disabled citizens, military, ex-military or civilian, are citizens needing all the help the State can give. They need help to earn their own living, they need help to be able to get about outside their homes,

  1657
  to enjoy friendship, and particularly they need companionship to enable them to live as full a life as their disability will permit and modern invention can provide.
  I know that in an earlier debate the Parliamentary Secretary argued that legislation was needed to bring this about. Some of my hon. and right hon. Friends on both sides of the Committee—because this is a non-party debate on a non-party matter—have advised me that no legislative change is necessary but that it can be done within the compass of the present legislation. Whether it needs a change of the law or merely an administrative change, I hope that the Minister will assure us at the end of the debate that he will do something about it.
  The annual conference of the Invalid Tricycle Association shortly to be held has given pride of place on the conference agenda to a resolution which I think answers the speech to which we have just listened from the disabled ex-Service man who addressed the House about priorities. I quote from the resolution:
  "This Annual General Meeting of the invalid Tricycle Association welcomes the decision of the Minister of Health to replace the three-wheeled invalid vehicles at present on issue to the seriously disabled ex-Serviceman with a small motor-car more suited to modern conditions, and requests the Minister to make a similar arrangement for the National Health Service patients."
  I know the joy that the Minister's first decision brought to this year's annual conference of B.L.E.S.M.A. If as a result of this debate today something similar could be announced at the annual conference of the Invalid Tricycle Association, the Minister would be again adding joy and real happiness to a very worthy and very courageous group of British citizens.
  8.45 p.m.
  Miss Joan Vickers: I am very glad to have the opportunity of joining in the debate. Like the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), I had the opportunity to raise the matter on an Adjournment debate, although mine was rather earlier, on 16th November, 1959. I am very pleased, too, that the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) suggested—and he is always very wise in these things—
  1658
  that this should be a gradual progress, and I am certain that it is the intention of the Ministry that it should be.
  I take exception to what was said about these "wretched tricycles". I lend my house for the meetings of the Invalid Tricycle Association in Devon-port. The members are extremely happy people and at these meetings they arrange their tours. Incidentally, they often go abroad and do not simply tour in this country.
  Very good arrangements are made in my area for invalids whose tricycles break down. Passing motorists will always stop, but we have a list of garages which can be telephoned and which will always send out a breakdown van.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Does not the hon. Lady realise that in isolated Welsh villages and mining valleys the problem is entirely different from that in the large towns?
  Miss Vickers: I cannot imagine any place so isolated that there is not someone passing during the day. I gather that Wales is not quite so deserted that there will not be someone coming, at least a lorry driver, on his journey from place to place.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That is not the point. In the large towns it is possible to get these people together in groups, but in the isolated villages, where there is only one such invalid, it is impossible to have the sort of association which there is in Northampton, for instance, or in other parts of the country.
  Miss Vickers: I agree that there are special difficulties. I can drive a car, but I have no knowledge of the insides, and if I am driving alone and have a breakdown, I am equally stranded, although, I admit, I could walk if necessary.
  The invalid tricycles have given tremendous service. One of the important things we have to remember is that we must suit the vehicle to the individual, because, however generous the Ministry might be, there will always be those who could not manage a car and who would be infinitely happier and safer in a smaller type of vehicle.
  Only last Friday, I had 34 completely disabled people to tea in the House of Commons. This is the fourth year that

  1659
  the group has come. I arranged for them to be pushed round by Red Cross people so that they could see the House. I mention that because other hon. Members have drawn on their experience in mining districts.
  In my constituency, there is a disabled people's home which, I am very glad to say, my right hon. and learned Friend has visited. There are eight flats for disabled people who can look after themselves, there is a recreational hall, and there are 22 flats for people who cannot look after themselves. Because of that home I have been able to make some study of their problems, and I know the difference between those who would be able to manage a Mini-Minor motor car and those who definitely need the other type of vehicle. Whatever happens, I hope that the present vehicle will not be superseded and that we shall always have the invalid tricycles, whether with petrol engines or electrically driven, because their loss would be a great loss to many people. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will keep them on the market.
  To help the progress and delivery of these cars, it might be found that some people would be prepared to pay for them. I have just had a case of a man who is employed in a railway inquiry office and who, although he does not get a tremendous wage, is able to buy his own car. I should like to see a scheme of loans run by the Ministry so that such people who were in work and who could pay back over a period of months or years could buy their own cars or, if they had a car, could have the gadgets which, I understand, cost about £70 and are renewable about every five years.
  I should like to see an extension of such a scheme, particularly of loans given to persons so that they can buy their own cars. The loan could be made on reasonable terms and the Minister might be able to make it without any form of interest. Such a scheme would cut down the waiting list considerably.
  I want to make a plea, as I did in my Adjournment debate on 16th November, for less strict differences in the categories of the persons who can obtain cars. Would it not be possible to sell the propelled car—the invalid tricycle—to these people if they could afford it?
  1660
  These vehicles are not on the market and a number of people I know—some of them single and earning £10 or more a week—would be willing to buy a car but do not come into the category of being allowed one because they can walk. They find it difficult to walk and when they get horn from work after their struggle they are tired and cannot make an effort to go out again. If they could have one of these small vehicles it would minimise their difficulties considerably.
  I gather that there are priorities first for the person who has two amputations, one just above the knee. It is very difficult if one has two legs cut off below the knee, for that is a less high category. I believe that that is too difficult a distinction. There is also the question of total loss of use of both legs and limited walking ability. It is difficult to judge the limited walking ability of an individual. Some of them can walk just sufficiently to enable them to get to work but have to give up work sooner than normally because the daily journey gets more tiring, especially, as they may put on weight because they cannot take much exercise.
  I also make a plea for the housewife. Hers should be a job which should qualify for this. I know of a woman with five children who has both legs off. She should go shopping but is unable to do so, and her husband has to do it. Before we consider giving out these two-seater vehicles we should make available a larger range of the other vehicles. It is essential to decide whether we are going to specialise in a few or help a greater number of people. I come down on the side of helping the greater number in their disability.
  I believe that practically nobody is too badly disabled to take part in the life of the community somewhere, and therefore I think that we can give this benefit over a greater number of people. I understand that in 1951 there was a total of 6,238 cars issued—of the invalid tricycle type—and in 1959 there were more than 13,000. That has been a tremendous step in those few years and of great benefit to many people.
  The annual cost of upkeep is considerable—about £1½ million. One has to take that into consideration. I hope that the Minister will consider those who can be self-supporting within the community and can really take their part in it, as

  1661
  in the case, quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), of the man who could not get downstairs for 32 years.
  I hope that when the two-seater cars are provided more than three hours' tuition will be given. I understand that that is the period which is laid down—and in the Adjournment debate I drew the attention of my hon. Friend to the fact that some people receive only about half an hour's tuition. If these larger cars are supplied I hope that their drivers will have to pass a test similar to that laid down for persons who are not disabled. Disabled people will find it quite different driving the new cars, and I know that disabled people driving ordinary cars fitted with special gadgets have to pass quite a severe test. It will be quite a responsibility for many of these people to drive a car if they take with them their wives and children.
  The only other question is that referred to by the Piercy Committee in paragraph 311, namely, the need for closer co-operation between various Government Departments and a clearer definition of the responsibilities of the various Departments. I am thinking mainly of the difficulties which will arise in connection with the two-seater car. One hon. Member said that a garage is provided for the tricycle, and I presume that one will have to be provided for the car. This will take up quite a lot of room. There is considerable delay even in providing an individual with his tricycle because of the difficulty of providing a garage.
  The two things are done by different Departments. Whoever decides to deliver the vehicle should ascertain that a garage is available before the vehicle is delivered or is put on the list for delivery. A person may be told that a car is waiting for him but that he cannot have it because there is no garage.
  Mr. Paget: Is the hon. Lady aware that I have not had a garage for years? Cars do not have to live in garages.
  Miss Vickers: The hon. and learned Member is responsible for his own car, but these are Ministry cars, and the Regulations provide that garages must be provided. If the hon. and learned Member is not satisfied with his car, I presume that he can change it as and when he requires, but these invalid cars
  1662
  have to remain the property of the Ministry. It may be that A is told that his car is ready for him but there is no garage, while B who may have a garage will not be able to receive a car because he is not next on the list. I hope that this point will be cleared up, because it has caused considerable difficulty.
  Although I sympathise with the need of ex-Service men, and agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) that the Invalid Tricycle Association and B.L.E.S.M.A. have welcomed the suggestion that ex-Service men shall have priority, I hope that we shall nevertheless take account of the civilian disabled and make the restrictions upon their obtaining these vehicles a little less stringent.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: I wish to speak in this debate not so much because there are a large number of miners in my constituency—those hon. Members who represent mining constituencies will be able to speak for the miners—but because there is also in my constituency a settlement for disabled men, the Thistle Foundation, which has been visited by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary and by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. The settlement houses about 100 disabled men with their families and it is probably one of the finest in Britain. The disabled men there can live with their families and at the same time, obtain the necessary treatment. There are also workshops in which they can work.
  I visit this foundation frequently and I have to deal with a large number of Parliamentary cases involving residents there. I always feel rather humble in the face of the tremendous courage displayed by these men. I have a great admiration also for the way in which wives assist them. They have to put up with a great amount of inconvenience and sometimes with the irritability of their husbands, and the need to perform unpleasant jobs, and all the rest of it. That is why I am glad that at last the Minister has recognised the unfairness to a disabled man caused by the fact that he may not have been able to take out his wife or his family for perhaps twenty or thirty years, or even longer.
  When dealing with the various cases arising from the Thistle Foundation, I

  1663
  have been struck by the number of varying circumstances producing differing treatment of what would appear to be almost the same type of disability. It has been said in the debate that a man who has served his country should be given priority, but I find that even among men who have served their country, and who are suffering from the same disability, the treatment is quite different.
  Everyone is aware of the notorious difficulty of dealing with cases of disseminated sclerosis. I know of cases of men who get high pensions under the Royal Warrant and others who get nothing. A man who might have been delivering a message from his headquarters may qualify and a man who might have been going on leave might not qualify. They may be both in the Service and perhaps have been driving through the Royal Dockyards, but one qualifies and the other does not. There is an enormous difference between those who qualify and those who do not, but who are both Service men, and the person who qualifies under the National Insurance Acts. There are other people who qualify under the Industrial Injuries legislation and I am puzzled about all this.
  The families of these men have exactly the same problems to face yet there are enormous differences in the amounts which they receive. Many of the people living in the Foundation realise this and it often causes niggling criticism. One family thinks, "Fancy, Mrs. So-and-So, next door, has this, that and the other, and her husband has exactly the same disability as mine". That is not a good thing socially.
  The Amendment to the Motion "congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles …" but I understand that all the war disabled pensioners who have power-propelled tricycles will not get cars. I forwarded a case to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary only last week. War disabled pensioners who qualify by having power-propelled tricycles provided by the Government were under the impression that they would get cars, but apparently a Ministry circular has been sent to them telling a number of them that although they have a power-propelled tricycle to enable them to get to work,
  1664
  they will not qualify for a car. I see that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is standing near Mr. Speaker's Chair. He should come into the Chamber to listen, because I am referring to a case which I sent to him.
  I think that we ought to be told where the line should be drawn, and who exactly among the disabled ex-Service men at present possessing power propelled tricycles are to have them replaced. There is a general impression abroad that everyone who has a power-propelled tricycle is to have it replaced. That cannot be so if a circular has now gone out telling a number of men that they are not to have their machines replaced. The Government ought to be more frank about this. They should tell these men what the position is, because it is a tremendous disappointment to them if they think they will get a replacement and then find they are not eligible.
  A man I know quite well wrote to me last week. I have been trying to get him a car. He has had a power-propelled tricycle for some time. He wrote very bitterly, saying that he never bothered because he thought he would be given a car. He said he had not enjoyed going out in the company of his wife for forty years. I cannot remember the exact wording of the letter, because I sent it on to the Ministry. There must be many other cases like that, because this scheme has only just begun. We ought to be told what the Government are doing and who are to get these cars.
  Many seriously disabled persons are disqualified because of the way in which their category is interpreted. I have been told that if a person could walk the distance from where I am standing to the Clerks at the Table he could not get a car, but, if a person could walk only from where I am standing to the Dispatch Box he could get a car. This distinction seems unreal.
  What my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) said in opening the debate was quite fair. The Government are to replace power-propelled tricycles for ex-Service disabled men and my right hon. Friend asked that when that had been done—and it will take two years—the Government should say, "We think it a fair proposition to do the same for civilians, whether they have been injured in the mines or in

  1665
  any other way." Surely that is not unreasonable. In spite of the speech made by one hon. Member about priority being given to ex-Service men, I am quite confident that ex-Service men themselves would like to see this done. They do not like to feel that they are a privileged community and to see others living alongside them unable to enjoy something which they can enjoy.
  Much has been said about the question of cost. We are told that this would cost £2½ million, but, spent over a long time that would be only a few hundred thousands a year.
  Mr. William Ross: Shades of George Buchanan.
  Mr. Willis: Yes, shades of George Buchanan.
  Are we at this time to say that we are unable to do this very small thing? I do not want to make a political point by talking about Blue Streak and the £100 million that involved, but there must be many millions of pounds wasted by any Government every year in following up various lines of research and development and such ancillary matters. This is not too small an amount to expect any Government to be able to spend. Putting it very brutally, the Government can afford £100 million on Blue Streak for the purpose of destroying men's limbs, but cannot afford £2½ million to help get the men about after we have tried to destroy them.
  These men have served their country. It does not matter whether they are civilians. I say that having been a serving man who has had fifteen years' service in the Navy and in the Army. I am quite sure that the Service man does not want this. Whether a man has injured himself in a pit or fallen down the stairs, thus breaking his back or injuring himself in some other way, the problem for his wife and family and himself is exactly the same as if he had fallen or become injured in some other way. These men, no matter how they came by their injuries, have the same financial problems, the same difficulties with their children, the same difficulties in getting about, and the same human and social problems.
  We are not asking that Service men should not get their cars until the industrially disabled men get theirs. Our point
  1666
  is—I feel that most of the House is with us—that, having made the provision, it is not too much to ask that disabled miners, civilians and others should also get them if they fall within the categories.
  9.12 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: There is perhaps a touch of irony in the debate at this time, because if my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport had been sitting in the place of my right hon. and learned Friend we would have been taking him to task and asking him to take action to prevent motorists from becoming invalids. We are now discussing how we can enable invalids to become motorists. Sometimes when one considers the situation on the roads one wonders whether there is great advantage in having a motor car in these days.
  I am sure that we all agree that, when dealing with people who are unable to get about, it is right and proper that if the State is providing general welfare it should do something to help these people. It is right that we should deal with the ex-Service men first and give them priority. Many hon. Members are ex-Service men. Hon Members on both sides will agree that many ex-Service men have no one else to help them. They came out of the Services, and that was the only background they had. They had not worked for a firm. They had not even belonged to a particular community because they were away for so long. They depend entirely and absolutely upon the State. Therefore, if there is to be a priority, it is right and proper that it should be given to ex-Service men. After that it is also a good thing that we should do what we can for the civilian who is in any way incapacitated.
  It would be helpful to the House if my right hon. and learned Friend can say what the future holds, without promising anything immediately. Perhaps he will say whether it is possible to deal with hard cases. Perhaps cases might be dealt with in due course where persons are living in country areas and have to go farther than others who are living in towns whose present vehicles are adequate.
  I should also like to reinforce the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for

  1667
  Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers), who asked the Minister to consider making some of these vehicles available for sale. There are people who would buy them, and could make good use of them; who could afford to buy them, and would be independent enough to want to do so. If my right hon. and learned Friend could say something about that, it would be very helpful.
  In this debate there seems to be a general feeling that many of the people who have the tricycles want a motor car. I am not sure that all of them necessarily want to have the two-seater. One sees these people occasionally at football matches with their tricycles, and they seem to enjoy going about on their own in these vehicles. That is not to say that there are not others who would like to have two-seaters, but I sometimes wonder whether, nowadays, we are going a little too far in expecting that the State must always immediately fill in this sort of gap, and make changes that increase the charge on the public purse.
  I wonder whether we should not ask the country to do this now, today, as a public service quite outside the National Health Service. We live in an affluent society, and the number of motor cars is increasing year after year. The Government are providing these tricycle vehicles, but the Opposition's Motion suggests that they should go further and provide motor cars. The Government do not feel at this moment that they can concede that. Does it have to be left that way?
  Is it not possible for those who now have one-seater vehicles to be assisted in the acquisition of two-seater vehicles by local organisations and local people coming to their aid? Would it not be possible for Rotary clubs, or even for private individuals to think about this—as I believe many do now for old people—as an individual service that they are prepared to give? In many cases these people have sons and daughters who could do just that. Others have not, and I think that we in this House have a right to say, "Here is a service that can be given quite outside the Health Service, something that individuals can do to help those who have the minimum requirement—the one-seater vehicle."
  1668
  We happen to be a bit better off. We are not incapacitated. We are working, and earning good money. We are prepared to give up a day or so a month to assist these people. This kind of Christian charity is something that is quite non-political. When one gets a request in a Motion like this, one sometimes feels that all the emphasis is laid on Government action, and nothing is left for the individual. It may be possible for the Government to deal with this problem stage by stage but, quite apart from what the Government can do, the country itself will, I am sure, recognise that it has a responsibility in the matter.
  9.20 p.m.
  Mr. J. Hill: I regret some of the speeches that have been made, because in them there has been a tendency to place the ex-Service man against the man broken in industry. I would remind the House that many of the men broken in the pits would have been in the Services had they been allowed to join. They were not allowed to join, because at that time they were considered more essential in getting the coal in order to conduct the war. That is why I regret the comparison—and I take second place to no one in my admiration for and sympathy with these men who were broken in the war.
  What are we asking? We are asking that the man who has the motor-propelled tricycle should be provided with a two-seater car. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) asked whether there were not charitably-minded persons prepared to help, but the people about whom we are concerned are asking not for charity but for what we think is a right from the Government of the country—
  Mr. K. Lewis: But, surely good neighbourliness cannot in any circumstances be described as charity. It is just good neighbourliness.
  Mr. Hill: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about good neighbourliness, but I am not prepared to agree that the good neighbour should have to spend his money on what, in my opinion, is a Government responsibility.
  It is less than a year since I left the coal pits. There I had the unhappy experience on various occasions of

  1669
  helping to carry out men with the lower part of the body destroyed for all time. Their courage had to be seen to be believed. As a trade union official, it was my custom to follow up the cases to the hospital, and to visit them there.
  We have the Edenhall Hospital in my constituency, where these cases are now dealt with, and I visit that hospital periodically. It is perfectly true to say that although these men are very happy with the tricycles, they would be much happier had they two-seater cars so that their wives could accompany them on many a run that they have to take by themselves.
  I do not think that we are asking anything unreasonable when we ask for a two-seater car for that type of case. Even Billy Butlin is as generous as the Government 'because in Scotland he gives these cases of paraplegic miners a free holiday at holiday camps. That is something in line with what the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford has suggested. Not only does he give the men a holiday, but he gives their wives and families a holiday, too. If a firm like that can give this help, what is to prevent the Government from supplying two-seater oars?
  I understand that recently my organisation, the Scottish Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, sent a resolution along these lines to the Ministry asking that these cars should be provided. I do not want to repeat what has already been said, but I hope that the Government will think again and will consider giving these people something which, although it will not restore the power in their legs, will at least give them the pleasure of having their wives accompanying them at all possible times.
  9.25 p.m.
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: I wish to address myself briefly to two points made by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary. I think that we must all accept that finance comes into this matter. That is common ground and, throughout the debate, it has been recognised. I submit to the Minister, however, that we are not here dealing with the problem of establishing priorities only within a narrow compass, but are obliged, as a House of Commons to look at social priorities beyond the immediate problem we are discussing.
  1670
  There is really no contradiction here at all.
  I have had many conversations with colleagues, ex-Service men like myself, miners and people in industry whom I represent when we have discussed this whole matter. Our joint conclusion—this is the real case the Minister has to answer—can be put in the form of question. Is it not shocking that, in the second half of the twentieth century, we cannot so arrange our social priorities that we have our ex-Service men, those who have given service to the nation in the coalfields and suffered injury, and those who have been seriously injured in the steel industry and in other industries, all included within the comparatively small group of people who can be given this aid today?
  I appeal to the Minister to address himself to that case. Administratively, of course, no one is asking for everything to be done overnight. It is a gradual process. There is no difficulty at all in the Government announcing tonight that this gradual process will include those categories of people mentioned in our Motion.
  Secondly, as the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) said, we have a duty to widen the circle of people who can be helped in this way. Everyone will accept that. But, of course, we understand that, in widening the circle, we must always keep in mind categories where the incidence of injury is higher than in others. That is the meaning of the reference to industrial injuries in the Motion, and that is why I, together with others, have mentioned miners in particular. We are not impractical enough to suggest to the Minister that he must have no regard for the incidence of injury in various categories. Therefore, while accepting fully the principle enunciated by the hon. Lady, I say that, in interpreting and applying it, categories must be considered.
  My last point goes a little beyond the immediate substance of the debate. This debate has been comparatively free from political disagreement, and I want to keep it that way. There have been many occasions on which the general problem of social advance has been discussed between the two sides, but I have always taken the view that there are several problems on which, with the practical

  1671
  approach of hon. Members and the various associations whose interests have been represented in the debate and of those who give advice to the Minister, common ground can be reached.
  It is perfectly possible, because the chances are there with the available practical means of doing what is required, to reach an agreement which can do justice to the categories of people concerned and which can be carried and justified in the country by those who have particular interest and knowledge in the matter. I appeal to the Minister to treat the problem in that spirit when he replies.
  9.30 p.m.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: During this debate we have heard a great deal about priorities from the Minister and from every hon. Member opposite who has spoken. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) dealt with this point. It seems to me that the Government are basing their case on priorities.
  The Parliamentary Secretary recalled that it was a Labour Minister who first set these priorities. She said that the Socialists gave preference and priority to war pensioners. We do not deny that. We are not ashamed of it. That was 1948, four years after a dreadful war. But this is 1960, twelve years later. Our Motion does not ask that anything should be taken from the war pensioner. We are delighted that he gets what he is getting today. It merely asks that what is enjoyed, if one can call it "enjoyed", by the war pensioner should be enjoyed by others who are disabled, not for the same causes, but in the same way.
  The first page of the Tory Party's manifesto—and I have quoted this often in the last few months—asks
  "Do you want to go ahead on the lines which have brought prosperity at home?"—
  not the lines that perhaps at some time in future will bring prosperity. So that only a few months ago the Government were telling the people that we were a prosperous nation.
  The sole reason given for the Amendment is that we cannot meet what is
  1672
  being asked for in the Motion because of cost. The Amendment states:
  "but recognises that regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation."
  What a different picture this is from that painted in the manifesto. Judging from the Amendment and from the Minister's speech, one would think that our country was living in miserable poverty, not prosperity.
  I now turn to the part of the manifesto which was brought to the notice of the Government by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards). I am certain that many disabled people who have tricycles on reading that manifesto took it that it applied to them. It refers to
  "Those disabled in the service of their country"—
  "service" with a small "s". If the Government had been honest and if what they said was what they meant, they would have said "in Her Majesty's Services", but they did not. They merely said:
  "Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  The paraplegics in my constituency—and in my constituency they are mainly miners who have been disabled in the mines, but there are those who have been disabled in the steel works and every type of heavy industry—had a right to expect on reading that manifesto that it applied to them.
  Both the Amendment and the Parliamentary Secretary's speech are mean, miserable and complacent. All the back benchers who have spoken from the Government side have said that we cannot afford this concession. The hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) said that we all wanted to help these people. He went on to say, however, that when we have to allocate limited resources of the State we have to choose our priorities. I will deal with that later.
  I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. I. Fraser), according to whom, apparently, even if we were not able to afford this concession, we should set up an artificial barrier to maintain priority for the ex-Service man. That is very

  1673
  foolish. In my constituency, there are disabled miners side by side with disabled ex-Service men. I know men of both categories, and I know that the disabled ex-Service man would want his comrade who had been disabled industrially to have everything that he has himself.
  Mr. I. Fraser: The hon. Lady will remember that I said there were a number of categories of disabled National Health Service patients who on moral and rational grounds had a perfectly equal claim with the ex-Service man to sympathetic treatment in this way. I was maintaining, however, that in that class there should continue to be priorities and preferences. I claimed the first for the ex-Service man, and I suggested that among the National Health Service patients there should be priority according to the way in which the disability was incurred and the need of those affected.
  Miss Herbison: I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I do not believe that he is out of sympathy, but I think that when he reads the whole of his speech he will understand why it gave me the impression that, whether or not priorities were necessary, he still feels that there should be priority for the ex-Service man.
  What kind of priorities are we talking about? What is the scope of this problem? The cost to meet what we ask in the Amendment is £2½ million, not in one year but spread over eight years, with £1 million for maintenance. Let us consider what is happening under the fiscal policy of the Government, who cannot afford £2½ million spread over eight years. By the initial allowance for motor cars, the Chancellor loses £50 million annually, as against £2½ million over eight years—£50 million to people who are much better off than those about whom we are talking. Indeed, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who boasted that he has never paid anything under Schedule A, will be given the initial allowance for his car.
  Reputable sources have estimated that the Government lose £100 million a year through tax evasion. To these two items of £50 million and £100 million a year my hon. Friends could add others. Against these, however, the Government
  1674
  quibble about an additional £2½ million spread over eight years.
  By the Amendment and the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, the Government have shown that they are trying to set one group of citizens against another. I was glad to hear the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who made it clear that we should not be discussing priorities between these two classes of people.
  The priorities today are the priorities in the nation as a whole, and if that were accepted by the Government they would have no hesitation in accepting our Motion. We ask that all who need a car in the special categories, the industrially disabled and the paraplegics, should have the same benefits as the war pensioners. We are delighted that the war 'pensioners have these benefits. We know how great the benefits are, and it is because we know it that we want them for other people who are similarly disabled.
  Much has been said about companionship, and letters have been quoted. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) with his intimate knowledge of this matter from the institution in his own constituency, gave examples. There are paraplegics whom I know well in my own constituency. It is not only companionship that they need on their outings. These men have to have their wives perform the most intimate personal services for them.
  The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) said that perhaps other people would take them out in a car. That is a good thing, but many will not go out in anybody else's car. They want their wives with them not only for companionship, although that is important, but because of these personal attentions which they must have from them. I know that from friends of my own who are in that position. My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), in the letter which he quoted, also showed this very clearly. It has been said that the tricycle has opened new vistas for many of these people. It has and we are glad of that, but these vistas are still limited. Many of these men cannot go very far because they need somebody with them, and there is strong reason for that.

  1675
  It seems to me that the Government often appeal to what I would call the lowest in our people, the sort of "I'm all right Jack" philosophy, but I would say to the Minister, who seems to think that a joke, that the British people in the main are decent, generous people and that if we were to put this matter to them this evening they would say to the Government, "Find that £2½ million over these years." There would be no vestige of hesitation. The Government talk a great deal about prosperity and in the next breath tell us that they cannot find £2½ million for these humane purposes over eight years.
  We on this side of the House believe in priorities, and we regard what we ask for this evening as an important priority. It has always seemed to us that in a civilised, Christian country the strong and able amongst us ought to take care of the sick, the weak and the disabled. That is all we ask for in the Motion. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the debate. I am sure that if they had not felt that they had to back the Government, his hon. Friends would have been much stronger in their speeches. Let the Government be as generous as I am sure the British people would want them to be. Let them give us what we ask for in the Motion and withdraw their Amendment.
  9.44 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): We have had a very interesting debate with some very constructive and moving speeches. We had particularly good speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. I. Fraser), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) and my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) and, among hon. Members opposite, the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). On the whole, they have been speeches reasonably free from party or political controversy. The right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) will not, I am sure, expect me to put him in quite that category.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I hope not.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman is by temperament combative, and it is a very attractive quality. I know that he will not mind if, from time to time, I pick up his points; I am sure that he will certainly not take it amiss. However, I do not want, on the whole, to make that sort of speech, at any rate not more than I can help, because I do not feel that this is the appropriate occasion.
  We are concerned here with a subject of great importance and much human interest. We are concerned with disabilities which are tragic however they are sustained—disabilities borne, as we all know, bravely and cheerfully by those who have sustained them, and these people are, of course, entitled, and indeed receive, the constructive and compassionate interest of hon. Members on all sides of the House.
  This subject throws into particularly sharp relief two complementary, if not conflicting, considerations which I have encountered very much in three years of dealing with health and welfare matters. In the first place, in all these health and welfare matters we are, of course, dealing with people who, in the words of Bishop Gunning's prayer, are afflicted or distressed in mind, body or estate. For that reason, we have a special duty and natural impulse to do our best for them. But our natural impulse is inevitably conditioned by our means.
  The hon. Member for Ince said he hoped that cost was not in my mind. I wish that it was not. I think that anybody who has been Minister of Health would wish that it was not in his mind. But, unfortunately, it has to be in my mind, because the cost of the National Health Service is high. The Exchequer share of the Service is a quarter of the whole of our Income Tax yield, and perhaps an even more striking thing, it alone is more than five times the total Budget that Mr. Gladstone introduced for the country only 100 years ago.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: So what?
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I should have thought that it was fairly obvious. It was obvious to one or two of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends, even if it is not as yet to him. It is obvious that there will be times when our will is not matched by our means, and there

  1677
  will inevitably be times when our purse does not allow us to go as far as our hearts would take us.
  I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton when he said that we shall never get a time when we can disregard costs in this matter. I think that that was not dissented from in the short but interesting speech of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). I see that the right hon. Member for Caerphilly seeks to intervene, but I rather hope that I may be allowed to proceed without interruption, not that I would shrink from it, as the right hon. Gentleman knows.
  So we start from that basic position. Indeed, so far from its being a paradox, I would say that it is a platitude, and none the worse for that because most human wisdom is by now enshrined in platitudes. However, it is the sort of platitude that we all realise quickly enough in our private affairs, though in our public affairs we are less likely to take account of it, at any rate all those who are not charged with the immediate responsibility for finding the means.
  It is this inescapable point, unwelcome though it may be, which our Amendment is designed to bring out. If the right hon. Gentleman's Motion had contented itself with saying that, although we provide a good service, we should seek to improve it and provide a still better one as and when circumstances and resources allow, he could have initiated a useful debate, and I do not suppose that he would have found a single dissenting voice.
  Of course, that is not what the right hon. Gentleman has done. He has largely disregarded the economic aspect. Indeed, he, though not all his hon. Friends, rather based his case on a repetition of his attack on the vehicle. I am glad to think that I do not really need to answer that, because there has been a general concensus of opinion in the House that these are good vehicles. That does not mean that the Mini-Minor car is not a better vehicle, but these are good vehicles and very different vehicles from the early motorised wheeled chairs with which this system started.
  The hon. and learned Member for Northampton and the hon. Member for Itchen referred to the Invalid Tricycle Association rallies. I attended the last annual one at Whitsun and saw what
  1678
  they can do, appreciated the distances they had come, and so on. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have been there, for then he would not have made the speech he made on 17th May decrying these vehicles, because they are good vehicles. Indeed, we are leading the world in the provision of vehicles for the disabled. These are not my words. They are the words of the chairman of the Invalid Tricycle Association, who wants cars. Certainly, he does, but he is candid enough to say that we are leading at the present time.
  When we have debates on economic affairs in the House, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) very often talks about league tables. We have not heard anything about an international league table in this debate, because we are top of the league. We have not heard any comparisons, we have not had suggested in a single speech the name of any other country which is doing more than we are in this matter.
  Having said that, I freely concede that it is a disadvantage that these vehicles—I agree with my hon. Friend who said that we should not call them tricycles—do not carry a passenger. So it is natural that we should cherish the wish to move towards the provision of cars which do so, but we did not feel that, together with all the other advances in the social services that we are making, and having regard to the economic questions to which I have referred, we could do this for all, and so the question was could and should we do it for any.
  We thought that one category stood out—the category which we had singled out in our election manifesto.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: You did not single it out.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: Certainly; it is dealt with in one short paragraph of two sentences which have to be read together. The first sentence makes it quite clear that the reference here is to war pensioners
  "disabled in the service of their country"—
  a well-understood phrase. It does not imply any lack of appreciation of those who are injured in peace-time; of course, it does not, because peace has its casualties no less than war, but the phrase is well understood. We were following a traditional preference and priority started,

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  as is admitted, by the Labour Government and given effect to, not only in the matter of vehicles but in various other matters like priority of admission to certain hospitals, and so on.
  These war pensioners are a clearly defined category for whom this traditional preference already existed. I am sorry that there has been some misunderstanding about Civil Defence. They come in—the policemen, firemen, etc. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Police War Reserve and the National Fire Service, and they come in. We have written to some of the Civil Defence people already in regard to their vehicles. We felt that this category could be dealt with now, and we have dealt with it, but I do not think it is so easy to divide up any other categories. My hon. Friend suggested a selective basis, and so did the hon. Gentleman, but I think that when we pass from the war pensioners to the National Health Service patients any splitting-up of the categories will lead to great difficulties. They are all very deserving categories, but we cannot give one priority against another within the context of the Health Service.
  Mr. Mendelson rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry, but I have only five minutes, and I cannot give way.
  We cannot divide up National Health Service patients, because we would find great difficulty in balancing the claims of one deserving category against another and with them it is rather, as in the case of Wordsworth's clouds, we move together if we move at all. In effect, we have our two categories—the war pensioners, with whom we have dealt, and the National Health Service pensioners, who are about eight times as numerous and who make a much bigger cost problem. We have worked out the cost figures as fairly as we can and I believe that, so far as estimates can be, they are the right figures.
  As the hon. and learned Member for Northampton knows, I cannot give detailed figures because they are the subject of Government contract and in the ordinary way one cannot do that, but I can tell him that the cost is based on the Mini-Minor, does not include a Purchase Tax element, is much more than
  1680
  the petrol tricycle to which he referred and on which he put too high a price, and that it does include, among other things, the annual increment of new patients which is not the case with the war-pensioner category.
  Mr. Paget rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry. I cannot give way. I have only three minutes left in which to say what I want to say.
  Mr. Paget rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry, but I cannot give way.
  We have been left in some difficulty about the attitude of the Opposition in this matter, because we do not know whether they think it wrong now that there should be the traditional priority, or whether they think that if we could not do it for all, for economic reasons, we should not have done it for the war pensioners, as we did.
  Miss Herbison rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: The hon. Lady objects, but we are in some difficulty about knowing what the Labour Party's policy is in this respect, because its election manifesto made no reference to the subject, so we are left in some difficulty about the views of hon. Members opposite.
  Miss Herbison: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman would give way, there would be no difficulty.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: We believe that our Amendment presents the facts of the situation accurately and in proper perspective. I submit that the House can be confident that we will pursue the well-being of these deserving people in all categories conscientiously, constructively and compassionately. I believe that the progress which we have made in the vast and varied field of the health and welfare services shows that that confidence is well founded and I ask the House now to endorse that view.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House proceeded to a Division; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.
  Proposed words there added.
  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles and on the speedy fulfilment of their pledge in regard thereto; records its awareness of their desire further to improve the vehicles provided for disabled National Health Service patients; but recognises that regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation.

  RAILWAYS (GRAVESEND-ALLHALLOWS LINE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bryan.]
  10.3 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Kirk: I am very glad to have this opportunity to raise a question of great importance to my constituency—the proposal of the British Transport Commission to close the branch line between Gravesend and Allhallows-on-Sea. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for coming here to listen to this debate, for I realise that he is in a slightly difficult position on occasions such as this, because there is a very definite procedure which has to be gone through before such a line is closed, and at the moment we are at a fairly early stage.
  The Transport Users' Consultative Committee met yesterday to consider the proposal of the Commission, and we have heard today that it does not propose to support the Commission in its application. But this, of course, does not close the matter. It is open to British Railways to take other steps if it thinks it has to go through other channels to achieve its object. It is, therefore, advisable to place on record now certain points about this railway line.
  Nobody could regard this as a main artery of traffic; indeed, it is a cul-de-sac. But it has a curious history, and an interest in the area through which it runs, and it is of vital importance to a large part of my constituency. The line was originally built for the personal convenience of Queen Victoria, who used it to board the Royal Yacht at a small pier rather grandiloquently named Fort Vic
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  toria where, in a hopeful spirit, the railway company also built a hotel. As there was nothing there but a large section of marsh, they were unable to entice large numbers of tourists to watch the Queen being carried to her yacht by four marines.
  After the death of her late Majesty nothing much happened for about thirty years, until in 1932 it occurred to the Southern Railway Company that it might be possible to develop a neighbouring beach at Allhallows as a rival to South end. It therefore constructed a spur of the line for about one and a half miles to Allhallows for passenger traffic, in the hope that it would develop. But development did not take place, although in the last ten years there has been development of another kind in the area, with the construction on the Isle of Grain, on the site of the old pier, of a very large oil refinery.
  The rolling stock of the line might be thought by those who did not know to date from the time of the great Queen, but I am informed that it is some ten years younger than that. It was built in 1913 and is still in operation. It consists of two coaches, pushed one way and pulled the other way by a small tank engine. Nobody could regard it as either modern or efficient, but it has served the needs of my constituency for about fifty years and now there is a sentimental attachment for it. It is known as the Gravesend Flyer, and on a good day, with a following wind, can attain a speed of 30 m.p.h. It might be thought that there was a case for the retention of the railway line as an ancient monument and an argument that if the Ministry of Works took it over it might make a profit. But it serves a vital purpose as a connecting link.
  The area which it serves is a long narrow funnel of land between the mouths of the River Thames and the River Medway. Most of it is marshland, but there is a tongue of solid ground in between, and quite a lot of the surrounding marshland has been drained. Along the high ground there are a number of small and very ancient villages. At each end of the peninsula there are large industrial establishments. At the eastern end there is the oil refinery on the Isle of Grain, employing 2,000 people, and this is likely to increase its employment possibility, and

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  there is a village of Grain with about 900 people, who have nothing to do other than work in the refinery, because there are no facilities for recreation.
  At the western end there is a large cement works by the village of Cliffe and a factory manufacturing a substance known as Uralite and Cellactite, known as the British Cellactite and Uralite Company, engaged in plastic work. It depends largely on the railway, as this factory is situated on the marshes at the end of a road which is liable to subsidence, along which buses do not travel. It is one-and-a-quarter miles from the nearest village. But the railway runs straight past the factory and there is a station there for the convenience of the factory, for its staff both entering and leaving.
  There will be two main arguments connected with the closure of a line such as this. The first is economic. Nobody doubts that at the moment this line is making a considerable loss. We all know that it is necessary in the interests of the country as a whole that losses on the railways should be eliminated or scaled down as far as possible, and this might appear to be the sort of line in connection with which action should be taken. But it is the argument of my constituents and myself that the present loss is largely unnecessary. It is caused by the fact that the trains that are run are run at inconvenient times, in many cases failing to connect with the main line trains from Gravesend to London.
  The aged stock must take a great deal to maintain, but I am told that for some strange reason it has to go overnight to Tonbridge, which is 40 miles from the line, and has to be run up and back again every morning, no doubt at great expense. By maintaining a diesel shuttle service it would be possible to reduce, if not largely to eliminate, the loss.
  It is claimed that the present service is completely inadequate. For example, when the mainline schedule of trains from Gravesend to London was altered there was no alteration in the trains from Grain to Gravesend, and passengers were unable to take advantage of what had previously been a fairly convenient form of travelling from Allhallows and Grain to London. In the same way the Grain refinery has complained on many occasions to British Railways that no trains
  1684
  run into Grain at any time which is convenient to the refinery, either to bring staff to and from the refinery or to convey visitors to see the refinery; and there are a large number of visitors who wish to see it. So it may be claimed that a lot of the loss is the fault of the British Transport Commission.
  We believe that a diesel service could be provided, but British Railways maintain that this would be a diesel pocket entirely surrounded by electrified lines. But that will happen in any case, because the Commission propose to close the line for passenger service but maintain a freight service running a diesel locomotive. That being so, I find it difficult to understand why it is impossible to do the same for a passenger service.
  The number of passengers has been going up steadily over the last few years. During the Whitsun weekend over 3,000 people alighted and departed from Allhallows station. The number of passengers using the station has increased by 5,000 between 1958 and 1959 and all the other stations notify an increase in passenger traffic. A large number of houses are being built in the various villages along the line, and it would appear that future prospects would be good if British Railways would maintain a reasonable service of small diesel rail cars.
  The Commission proposes that when the line has been closed it will subsidise a neighbouring bus company which runs buses into Gravesend. It is calculated that the subsidy will be about £5,000 a year. The local authorities estimate that the loss on a diesel rail car could not possibly be more than £1,000 and probably would be in the neighbourhood of £500, bearing in mind that in any case track maintenance would have to continue in view of the fact that a freight service is to be run. In that event it would appear to be a good deal cheaper for British Railways to keep the service going with diesel rail cars rather than to close it down and subsidise an alternative bus service.
  I make this my final point in order to give my hon. Friend plenty of time to reply. Such an alternative service is in fact impossible to maintain on anything like an equivalent road. The nature of the land is such, and the condition of the roads is such, that in any case any bus

  1685
  service running from Gravesend to Allhallows would take nearly three times as long as the train service. The train service takes 45 minutes and a bus service will take over one hour and 40 minutes, and it would appear therefore that no equivalent service within the meaning of the word could be put on.
  There is only one decent road on the whole peninsula, from the outskirts of Rochester to Grain, and this road carefully avoids all the villages through 'which the buses would have to go to pick up and set down passengers. It would appear that the buses would have to travel along by-roads designed for only one car at a time and where there are very few passing places, sharp bends and so on. The result would be inconvenience to my constituents who wish to get out of their villages to do their shopping—because in most of them there are few shopping facilities—and those who wish to travel to and fro to work and public communications would be very limited.
  I have tried, briefly and moderately, to put forward the case as I see it against the closure of this line. I cannot expect my hon. Friend to answer, because the Minister is not yet seized of the matter. What I hope to achieve tonight is to persuade the Minister to bear in mind some of these factors if the case comes before him. Although we realise that some uneconomic lines will have to be closed, there may be cases—and this may be one—where there are circumstances which would make the situation worse were the line closed. I hope very much, therefore, especially in view of the decision made yesterday by the Transport Users' Consultative Committee not to support British Railways in this matter, that the Commission will think again and keep the line open and provide an efficient and decent service.
  10.15 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): Sometimes I am tempted to indulge in an orgy of self-pity when I find that work is getting a bit too much for me. On occasions like that I must admit I take consolation from the fact that some of the aspects of the work I have to do have their brighter side. One of those is that from time to time
  1686
  I have to stand at this Box to deal with Adjournment debates about the closure of branch lines.
  What I find a pleasant feature of these debates is that each train which it is proposed shall be withdrawn from service has a delightful name. A few weeks ago I had to stand here and deal with an Adjournment debate raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) about a train called "The Tutbury Jinnie" and now my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) has raised the case of another train called "The Gravesend Flyer". I do not think you, Mr. Speaker, nor I, nor anyone who listened to my hon. Friend could fail but be entertained and impressed by his knowledge of the history of this line.
  May I come right down to today's date by telling the House what is the present position about this application by the British Transport Commission to withdraw certain passenger and freight services from this line from Gravesend to the East? The Commission believes that this proposal should be brought into force because it will save a great deal of money, a point to which I shall return later in my remarks, and, as is the normal practice in these cases, it submitted the issue of withdrawal to the Transport Users' Consultative Committee for the South-Eastern area.
  As my hon. Friend said, the committee met yesterday to consider the case. There were, I am told, 24 objectors who claimed the right to be heard, including a number of local authorities. After the hearing, I am advised, the committee decided against the Commission. According to the information I have, the committee stated that it was not satisfied that the economic justification for the proposals made outweighed the hardship that would be caused to those at present using the line. It therefore recommended that the proposal of the Transport Commission should not be approved.
  May I say a word about the legal position? As my hon. Friend appreciated in what he told the House, my right hon. Friend and I are in a difficult position at this stage of the game. Section 6 of the Transport Act, 1947, requires that when an area transport users' consultative committee considers a proposal and comes to a conclusion, it

  1687
  should send its minutes of the meeting to the Central Transport Users' Consultative Committee. That central committee, as I think the House knows, has the power either to endorse the decision come to by the area committee, or to reverse it. There have been cases in the past in which the central committee has in fact reversed, or substantially modified, the recommendation made by an area committee.
  As recently as 1958, in the case of a proposal by the Commission to close a branch line between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead, in the West Country, the area committee found that the proposal was one which should not be proceeded with in the way it came before the committee. The central committee, on the other hand, when it reviewed the case by considering the minutes of the area committee, decided that with different modifications the original proposal of the Commission should be put into effect.
  I mention this to explain the situation of my right hon. Friend. If the area committee's minutes are reviewed by the central committee and the central committee comes to a different decision from that reached by the area committee, under the Act it is entitled to make a recommendation to the Minister of Transport and, under Section 6 (8) of the Act, my right hon. Friend is empowered to issue a direction to the Commission. Therefore, the proposal which is the subject of this short debate tonight must be considered, at least by me, to be still in the consultative machinery which Parliament has laid down. For that reason, I hope that the House will appreciate that it is not proper that I should comment in any detail one way or another on this proposal.
  There are, however, one or two observations which I should like to make. These observations are not intended to be prejudicial in any way for or against, but to be purely factual. As the House knows, it is the Government's policy to give general support to the Commission in divesting itself of those of its activities which have become hopelessly uneconomic. When we use the expression "hopelessly uneconomic", we mean activities which are not only unprofitable at the moment, but which appear to have no foreseeable chance of ever becoming
  1688
  economic or profitable in the future. That means that in a number of cases branch lines which are quite unremunerative now, and will be in the future, will have to go.
  I should like to refer here to the most recent statement of policy on the part of the Government on this matter, namely, the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 10th March last. He said:
  "… the industry"—
  that is, the railway industry—
  "must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be remodelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape.
  "… the public must accept the need for changes in the size and pattern of the industry. This will involve certain sacrifices of convenience, for example in the reduction of uneconomic services."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th March, 1960; Vol. 618, c. 643.]
  That is our standpoint on this matter. It is only necessary to add that, although in each case of a branch line closure the economy is usually comparatively small, the savings which might be made by the Commission could well be substantial over a period of time. All the small savings it makes add up. The cumulative effect is very considerable.
  In this case, the Commission estimated in its proposal to the area committee that, if the committee agreed to the withdrawal of the service, the Commission would save £25,000 a year. This may not seem much. It no doubt seems a very small sum to my hon. Friend's constituents, but multiplied many times over sums of this order amount to a very considerable total.
  We have always to bear in mind the background to these cases, namely, the substantial deficit which the Commission has accumulated over the years. The House knows that the Transport Commission's Report for 1959 was published only this morning. It shows a net deficit of £73·8 million over all its activities, and a total deficit on the British Railways side of its activities alone of £83·9 million.
  In the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing the Budget, he told the House that this year we estimate that the Commission's deficit will be £90 million. Provisions were made to bring

  1689
  above the line for the first time the finance which we will have to provide for the Commission to meet this bill. This is the amount the taxpayer will have to find. That estimate was produced before we knew what would be the total cost of implementing the wage increases which the Guillebaud Committee forecast in its Report. No one, however prejudiced he may be, can find room for easy optimism in figures of this magnitude. That is the background to all these small branch line cases.
  I come now to the two principal points raised by my hon. Friend about the Allhallows line. The first was whether it would be possible by the use of diesel traction, and perhaps better timing of the services, to obviate much of the present loss. I must at once tell the House that this is a matter of management for which, again, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is not responsible. It was certainly a point in the case put by the Commission to the transport users' consultative committee, and a matter with which that committee dealt. In its statement of case the Commission said something like this, "Even if the train movement costs and the wages of the train staff were eliminated, we calculate that the passenger revenue, which is about £12,900 a year, would still be insufficient to meet the remaining expenditure of running the line".
  The Commission said that if it got rid of the present steam train and put on a diesel car instead, and provided a service at hourly intervals, it would cost about £25,700 a year. If it merely substituted a diesel train for the present steam train, running to the same timetable, it would cost about £20,100 a year, and if it reduced the frequency of the service to intervals of 90 minutes, the cost would be £16,500 a year. As the House will see, each of these figures is above the present passenger revenue of £12,900, and I doubt whether the number of passenger journeys one could expect by an improved service like this would really total the amount of the expenditure. That, however, is perhaps a comment on the merits of the case, which I promised not to make.
  My hon. Friend's other point was of somewhat greater importance. I understood his argument to be that there may well be cases—and this, he suggested.
  1690
  was one—where it is virtually impossible to provide equivalent alternative transport facilities if the rail service is withdrawn. He said that the bus services which, in the majority of cases, constitute the equivalent transport facility might be incapable, because of all manner of physical circumstances, of adequately meeting the need that exists.
  I would go so far as to agree with him that in this particular area it may well be difficult to augment the services and provide a full equivalent transport facility by some method other than the train. As my hon. Friend said, the geography of this district is difficult. The road pattern—I admit that this comes on the other side of my Ministry's activities—is not an easy one.
  I understand that the soil is marshy, liable in some places to flooding, and that roads have had to be built on the really firm tracts of land. The consequence is that some corners and sections of the roads are not particularly easy for buses to negotiate. Presumably, however, the conditions are not so bad that it is impossible for bus services to be run, because the Maidstone and District Motor Services Ltd.—the firm mentioned by my hon. Friend—was apparently prepared to provide additional bus services if it was given a subsidy by the Commission, which the Commission said it was willing to give.
  Whether or not there were sufficient and adequate alternative transport facilities available to passengers who at present go by train was presumably a matter that was weighed by the transport users' consultative committee when it discussed the case yesterday and that point will no doubt be considered again by the central committee as and when the matter gets to it.
  I want to stress one point, because I believe it to be important, not only in the context of this case but in that of so many of these cases. It is the fact that throughout the country, and particularly in the countryside, the use of private transport, as opposed to public transport, is growing. It is, indeed, one of the main reasons for the railways losing traffic, and one of the main causes leading to these closures of branch lines. That is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister meant when he said

  1691
  that the industry must be remodelled, in effect, to this new pattern of transport and its use by the nation as a whole.
  I believe that we still have a great deal of work to do before we correctly gauge the extent of the changes that have been going on, but for our part we will do what we can to come up with the right answers when the moment is appropriate. But I do not believe that we can decide these matters simply by guess. We have to recognise that people are making use of transport facilities that they themselves want. In some cases it will be rail; in some cases it will be bus services; in others, people will use the Moped, or the scooter, or even the motor
  1692
  car. This is a factor that we have to live with in transport in this country today.
  We at the Ministry will not seek to direct people as to the form of transport they should use. We believe that we will best succeed in doing the job that the nation has set us to do by ensuring that the people themselves choose the form of transport that they want, and that we must remodel the public transport system of this country to conform with their desires.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.