§ (1) Any owner or occupier of agricultural land who claims that by reason of the development of any land there is a new discharge of water on to agricultural land owned or occupied by him, whether directly or indirectly (including discharge into a watercourse which results in the flooding or waterlogging of agricultural land), may apply to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for an order under this section.
§ (2) On any such application, the Tribunal may, if it thinks fit, by order require the person who in the opinion of the Tribunal is responsible for the new discharge to do all or any of the following things, and within such time or times and in such manner, as may be specified in the order namely:—
- (a) to cease or moderate the new discharge;
- (b) to carry out remedial or preventive works;
- (c) to pay compensation for any loss or damage incurred by the applicant by reason of the new discharge during the two years preceding the application (including any reduction in the value of his interest in the land);
§ (3) In this section:—
- (a) "Development" means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining, drainage or other operations in, on or over land (whether by the Crown or a Government department or a public or local authority
510 or by any other person) and includes the construction, widening, surfacing or improvement of any road; - (b) "new discharge" means any discharge which in the opinion of the Agricultural Land Tribunal commenced or increased on or after such date (being a date not later than the thirty-first day of December nineteen hundred and sixty-one) as the Minister shall by order appoint.
§ (4) Section forty-three of this Act shall apply for the purposes of this section as it applies for the purposes of Part III of this Act.
§ (5) This section shall apply without prejudice to any other remedy which may be open to an owner or occupier of agricultural land.
§ (6) Nothing in this section shall prejudice or affect the provisions of any enactment requiring the consent of a river board to the discharge of water into a watercourse or the exercise by a river board of any statutory power, authority or jurisdiction vested in or exercisable by it.—[Mr. J. Wells.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. J. WellsI beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The first object of those of us who have put forward the new Clause is to try to protect the rural community from the urban run-off and the run-off from roadways and the like. Many farmers are suffering from run-off from Air Force and civil runways and new development of various kinds. It is felt that to give the farmers concerned a fair deal, the developers and those who change the nature of land adjacent to farm land should pay a fair and reasonable share of compensation to the farming community.
511 I fully realise that the whole concept of town and country planning is at the bottom of this matter, but there is a feeling in the country districts that many planning authorities are far too urban-minded and that they do not live up to the realities of rural life. It is, therefore, desirable that there should be a safeguard for the farming community. That is what we seek to provide in the new Clause.
It may be said that remedies are already open to the rural community and that Section 7 of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, gives some safeguard to the rural community. This is not strictly true, because, until the new Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Bill becomes law, the river boards will have taken no cognisance of farm ditches and the concept of river boards taking an interest in farm ditches is quite new.
It may be said that the Public Health Act, 1936, deals adequately with this matter, but this is not strictly so, because local authorities have in the past dealt entirely with drainage as it affects public health and not as it benefits the farming community from the strictly agricultural viewpoint. A third let-out for the farmer might be said to lie in common law, but ordinary courts of law do not have the necessary expert knowledge of rural matters. It is, therefore, our suggestion that the Agricultural Land Tribunal should come into the picture as we propose.
There are many extremely good voluntary understandings between highway authorities and the various river authorities, and, indeed, between highway authorities and the adjacent farmers and landowners. We are seeing a vast expansion of the highway programme. There are new and wider roads everywhere and many satisfactory voluntary arrangements are being made. I suggest, however, that highway authorities in some parts of the country should be under a definite statutory obligation to look after the interests of the rural communities on to whose land they are dig-charging water. It is, therefore, with the object of protecting the rural community from the discharge of other urban water, whether from roads, buildings, Air Force runways or any other cause, that we introduce the new Clause.
§ Sir D. GloverI support the new Clause, because one of the great troubles of our drainage legislation is that there are far too many instances of powers which are permissive. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) has talked about the rural areas and the spilling of water from buildings and the like, which happens all over the country. Wherever new housing estates are going up, there is increasingly a heavier weight of water arriving in the lower areas at a far quicker rate than ever happened in the past. Some of the cost of the drainage should, therefore, devolve upon the authorities in the areas from which the water arrives.
I particularly support the new Clause because within the next ten years the new town of Skelmersdale will probably be built just over the border of my constituency. It will have a population of 80,000 people. Nearly all the water from it will drain either into my constituency and into the area of the Crossens Internal Drainage Board or into the constituency of the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon) and into the area of the Croston Internal Drainage Board. The small agricultural and rural communities in the areas of those boards will be faced with the increasing cost of getting rid of the water, which will arise solely as a result of the building of the new town of Skelmersdale.
I know that the new town corporation has the permissive power to pay something towards the cost that is incurred, but it is asking a great deal of the generosity of people to do it from the kindness of their hearts when there is no compulsion upon them to do it. That is why I welcome the new Clause, because it would specify an authority to determine how much should be paid.
I do not say that the new Clause is worded in a manner that is acceptable to the Government, but it is its object that we wish to achieve. I hope that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will realise that the Clause has a great deal of substance. There is considerable ill-feeling all over the country. In my constituency, without the new town of Skelmersdale, there is the town of Ormskirk, a town of 20,000 people where housing estates and vast numbers of houses are built year by year. Because it is situated on a tiny knoll, 513 the water still runs into the area of the Crossen Internal Drainage Board, but nobody in Ormskirk pays a penny and nobody has power to ask Ormskirk to do so. The new town corporation of Skelmersdale has the permissive power. Ormskirk does not have even the permissive power, because it is not affected by an internal drainage board. Thus there is injustice between the point from which the water comes and the people who have to pay the cost.
I hope that, even at this late stage of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will consider whether a Clause on these lines could not be introduced in another place to bring into this sphere of our legislation justice which does not at present exist.
§ 8.0 p.m.
§ Mr. Julian Snow (Lichfield and Tamworth)I do not always find it agreeable to try to help a Government supporter's Clause, but in this instance there is much to be said for the case which has been put. In my part of the country, we suffer from two potential sources of drainage responsibility, which is a product of our particular situation which needs attention in the light of what has just been said. I refer to the immense amount of building in the form of additions to old towns in my part of Staffordshire, which are the receiving areas for the big overspill decanting process that is taking place.
Furthermore, looking a little way ahead, through my part of the country we shall see the prolongation of the motorways. To the extent that they are conductors of storm water—I cannot think of any better phrase—there is substance in what has been said. In cases where responsibility might be the subject of argument, we would be well advised to produce machinery for proper conciliation at this stage rather than leave it until later, when there might be difficulties in assessing responsibility.
§ Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire)I should like to add a few words in support of the Clause, and particularly in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) has said. Storm water not only results in the flooding of agricultural land, but causes considerable difficulty to internal drainage boards. I should like to add 514 one more example to those which have been quoted. It is from Letchworth, where there is a large new town just outside the area of the Ivel Drainage Board.
As a result of new building, storm water has caused flooding for a considerable period. Discussions have taken place between Letchworth Council and the drainage board, as a result of which the council has agreed to build a balancing reservoir, as it is called, which will be a fairly sizeable structure and is evidence of the strength of the argument. In spite of that, however, there is still considerable capital work to be done on the ditches in the area of the Ivel Drainage Board as a result of storm water flooding in from the new development at Letchworth.
The problem has to be taken seriously. I am well aware, from a letter which my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has been kind enough to send me, that there are difficulties about introducing legislation. Nevertheless, I ask my hon. Friend to consider the case in which storm water from a new development area may cause flooding and, unlike the amicable example which I have quoted, of the Letchworth Council and the Ivel Drainage Board, there may be disagreement between a drainage board and a town council concerning a contribution by the town council towards capital works which must be carried out as a result of new discharge of water from newly developed areas.
I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can represent, at least, to local authorities that they should be willing to meet the internal drainage boards so far as possible even though this is not enforceable by Statute.
§ Mr. JegerI am glad to give my support to the new Clause, which, I hope, the Minister will accept. We began this afternoon with general agreement on a new Clause proposed by a back bencher on the Government side which was received by the Minister with approval and was passed with the approval of hon. Members. I hope that the present new Clause will receive the same treatment.
In support of the Clause, I should like to quote the essence of an appeal that was made to me by the Goole branch of the National Farmers' Union as long ago 515 as September, 1956. The fact that it was put forward to me in 1956 does not detract from its relevance today. It is merely the behaviour of the Government over the last nine or ten years that has prevented the matter being considered until now and has held the appeal in abeyance since 1956.
The question to which the Goole branch of the N.F.U. referred is dealt with by the new Clause. The branch pointed to the fact that 7,000 or 8,000 acres of good farm land in an area known as Goole Fields are regularly subjected to flooding, the flood water coming from peat moorland. On peat moorland, apparently, no rates are levied and nobody accepts responsibility. Under the new Clause, however, a definite responsibility would be placed upon the owners of the peat moorland who would be developing it and, consequently, responsible for any flood water flowing from the peat moors on to the agricultural land.
I note that the new Clause says that "development"
means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining, drainage or other operationsand that, of course, would include the collection of peat from the peat moors. In this letter of 5th September, 1956, I am advised that hundreds of acres of corn and potatoes are flooded regularly owing to the vast amount of water which comes off the moors through every drainage area and for which no drainage rates can be levied at present. I therefore commend this new Clause to the Minister in the hope that he will accept it and so help to preserve the 7,000 or 8,000 acres of good agricultural land, producing corn and potatoes particularly, in Goole Fields.There is another reference in this letter to industrial water being pumped into the drainage system and leaving sediment which blocks up the system. That is not covered, I think, directly by the new Clause. It is a by-product of industrial or town water which not merely floods an area but leaves sediment behind. It is a burden on the internal drainage board to clear the sediment to allow the free passage of water.
Mr. VaneMy hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells), who moved this new Clause, and other 516 hon. Gentlemen who have spoken since have pointed to some of the difficulties and complications which arise in land drainage. I am not sure whether the peat to which the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) has just referred will not find itself eligible for some small drainage charge when this Bill becomes law, but he did give as an illustration a rather unusual case. The more usual cases about which representations are made are those which were described by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone.
This problem is not confined to particular parts of the country. It is found in a number of places to a greater or lesser extent, and I think that we ought to bear in mind at the outset that it is not just a problem affecting agricultural land, which, I think, is the land with which the Clause is concerned. It is a drainage problem generally. It is of concern to people in agriculture who from time to time make the sort of representations which the hon. Gentleman has just told us about; but it really is a much wider problem than one affecting agricultural land only.
I think we ought to accept, too, that it is a problem which is inherent in a great deal of development and that it is really one which belongs more to planning than, strictly, to land drainage, with which we are dealing here today. It is a much broader problem than one just of water affecting agricultural land.
The new Clause would give the owner or occupier of agricultural land or of other land affected, as I read it, the right to recover damages, as it were, without proof of negligence, after application to the Agricultural Land Tribunal. I am not a lawyer, but I am told that that is a radical change in the law and would be a difficult one to make in the narrow context of a Land Drainage Bill, and is the sort of change which by our conventions is usually first considered by the Law Reform Committee. It is really a wider subject than, perhaps, we thought at first reading.
I do not want to be over-critical because I admit that there is a problem here, but we are not only speaking generally but also considering a specific proposal which, it is suggested, should be embodied in this Bill. It puts an 517 obligation on the Agricultural Land Tribunal to deal with applications under this new Clause. I hope that hon. Members will agree with me that the Tribunal would find it a very heavy burden indeed to shoulder the task which my hon. Friend proposes here without any criteria to guide it. This is a big inroad into our common law, and I do not think that the suggestion is really the right procedure.
When we consider the present situation I do not think that we should be so disheartened. The Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, already helps to meet this problem. I am not suggesting that any of the existing Statutes meet it in toto, but none the less they make a contribution. Private development is covered by Section 37 of the Public Health Act, which provides that before local authorities approve building plans they must be satisfied that adequate provisions are made for drainage.
Here I may draw attention to the fact that one of the prime purposes of the Bill is to increase funds to river boards so that they will be able to take over greater lengths of main river—intermediate watercourses, as we call them—and also they will for the first time be concerned with farm ditches. I think that my hon. Friend in referring to an Act of Parliament really meant this Bill. So after this Bill becomes law we shall find that river boards will be in a much stronger position than they were before, not only with more funds but with the duty of dealing with watercourses, which, in the main, we are considering.
When it comes to the question of contributions under this permissive power—and I admit that the power is permissive—we find that new towns and other local authorities have in the main contributed adequately and generously to this problem. We are more concerned, perhaps, with smaller cases, but there is no reason to suppose that in major development there has been any mean or unco-operative attitude, and I believe that consultation and co-operation between the authorities concerned has been good. I have also got the same piece of paper as the hon. Member opposite, and I have read it. It is from the National Farmers' 518 Union. I see that the hon. Member for Goole wants to quote it.
§ Mr. Norman Cole (Bedfordshire, South)Would my hon. Friend consider sending some kind of circular letter addressed to the appropriate local authorities pointing out that, although there is no statutory obligation, at least some kind of moral obligation exists?
Mr. VaneI was coming to that. I had not much more to say, but I was coming to that.
The Minister of Housing and Local Government is very conscious of this problem. We hope that after the passage of this Bill it will be definitely lessened; that in many cases it will be met. There should not be great difficulty in the matter of highways because under the Highways Act, 1959, highway authorities are empowered to undertake work for the drainage of highways and provides that owners and occupiers of adjacent land shall not suffer damage. That Act has hardly had time yet for its full effect to work out. There should be an improvement in this field. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government is conscious of the problem and it has reminded planning authorities, I believe many times, about it, and it would be our intention to ask that Ministry to do so again, because this is a step where we want circulars not put in the waste-paper basket but pinned up on the board, because it is a problem.
8.15 p.m.
On the other hand, I think that we should accept that this is a problem where probably we can do more good administratively than we can by trying to legislate. We have a number of different Acts of Parliament bearing on the problem which is basically and over-ridingly a planning issue. We are now dealing with a new Bill on the subject and we hope that it will help. We hope that after the passage of the Bill we can do what my hon. Friend suggested and see that further circulars are sent out and that consultation at all levels is encouraged. I have no doubt that we shall thus see a considerable improvement.
The document from which the hon. Gentleman was going to quote to me says at the end that it would be hoped to see legislation. None the less, it also 519 says that we do not merely want exhortative circulars from Whitehall to local housing and highway authorities although, naturally, any such purely administrative action would be welcome. I think that administrative action, if it is properly planned and properly carried out, would have more effect than, perhaps, hon. Members give it credit for.
Therefore, I hope that, hon. Members will see that various steps have been taken and are being taken to meet the problem, which is basically a planning problem, and that the Clause deals with only one facet of it and does not really set up the machinery necessary. In all these circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that he can withdraw his new Clause.
§ Mr. PeartThe Joint Parliamentary Secretary has given the reply which I thought he would give. He has obviously had discussions with the National Farmers' Union and no doubt its points of view, expressed in the document which has been circularised to all hon. Members, have been considered.
I would agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is partly a planning problem, but the Bill, although it seeks to improve existing legislation and brings about certain improvements, does not go quite far enough. That is why the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) and others would support what is virtually the National Farmers' Union's case for seeking to improve the legislation. They feel that what has been proposed already does not go far enough. In other words, they are repeating the argument we put forward in Committee and also on Second Reading, that we need an even more major Measure to deal with the problems of flooding.
I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger), who illustrated his own case, would agree with me that we accept what was stated in the Heneage Report and what was said by the technical panel, which has not been mentioned in our debates.
Here we come to the question of protection against floods and conservation. It is a very urgent problem. It has to be tackled. The question of water runoff has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings), 520 who described the problem in his constituency and the problem of Letchworth Council and the local land drainage board. I accept that this must be considered from the wider planning point of view, but I cannot see this Government doing it. That is the dilemma in which hon. Members are.
The recent Report by the Advisory Council dealing with the conservation of natural resources indicates that there is a need for a much more comprehensive appraisal of a wider problem which affects land drainage and, indeed, all the matters which have been dealt with here today. I would accept that here we get involved, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, in planning. However, I believe that hon. Members who have spoken from the point of view of their constituency experiences have presented a very formidable case.
I am sorry that I did not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Maid-stone, who moved the Amendment, but I know the case in the sense that I have read the brief presented by the National Farmers' Union. I have heard the speech of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), who also quoted experience in his own constituency, and we have had stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) the problem of overspill and the decanting of water, and the serious problems which that creates and how we must create machinery to deal with them.
I think that we have made out a strong case for action, as did the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. We have been given the practical example of development. Although there are good relations between the council and the drainage board, and although the council concerned, which is developing, has agreed to build a balancing reservoir, there will still be a need for much more capital work to be done, and the problem will, no doubt, still be there. Inevitably, this problem will have to be faced in many areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Goole pinpointed the problem with his example. He quoted a letter from his own branch of the National Farmers' Union from as far back as 1956. As he said, it still holds today. He was then 521 urging the Government to act on the Heneage Report—and even before 1956. Indeed, his branch of the N.F.U., realising that he was active in this matter, briefed him in the sense of supplying information.
The example was given of the 7,000–8,000 acres in what I think my hon. Friend called Goole Fields, where flooding comes from a peat moorland and where there is no liability and no responsibility on the part of anybody and no rates are paid, and, in the end, it is the farming community which suffers. My hon. Friend assures me that the situation is still the same. There in that part of Yorkshire we have the problem of flooding from peat moorland, a problem which was considered by the Technical Panel of the Heneage Committee.
Thus, we have a real problem here, and we have to ask ourselves what action we should take. It is true that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has said that we are in the realm of planning. However, the National Farmers' Union, which is concerned about this, has presented a careful brief. Obviously, the Parliamentary Secretary has read it, because he replied to it. I will not weary the House with details of the brief, but, having read it carefully, I think that it makes a case.
Today, the Government have put up their usual arguments, including the argument that Section 7 of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, enables the problem to be considered, but that substantial development by local authorities in unlikely to cause serious difficulties, and that this Measure will provide safeguards. Again, we had the argument mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary—it was stressed by the National Farmers' Union as an argument which the Government would use—that we have Section 37 of the Public Health Act, 1936, and that this will enable local authorities to satisfy themselves that satisfactory provision will be made for the drainage of new buildings.
We also had the other argument that under common law it is open to anyone suffering injury through increased runoff from any development to bring in an action for damages. How can the 522 farmers in Goole bring a case for damages to peat land? It would be extremely difficult. The small farmers affected are not people who wish to go in for litigation. Their incomes have been decreased enough already through Government policies over the last ten years, and they would not like to seek to remedy a wrong under common law.
There may well be a good case for accepting the new Clause. It has strong farmer support, and it has been strongly supported today. I have sympathy with it. Generally, whether rightly or wrongly, when there is an issue in which one of the parties is a body connected with agriculture I must admit that I support the farming community. If there can be a bias, I have always tended that way. Hon. Members who have put forward the Clause, and others who have supported it, have, I think, made their case. I do not know whether they will press it, but there is sympathy for it on this side of the House.
Mr. J. WellsIn view of the explanation given by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, that this is substantially a matter of planning, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion, but in doing so I would ask him whether, in future, if we put Questions to the Minister of Housing and Local Government about the run-off of flood water we shall be told that it is really a matter for agriculture and nothing to do with planning.
§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray)Is it the wish of the House that the Motion and Clause be withdrawn?
§ Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
§ The House proceeded to a Division—
§ Mr. Snow (seated and covered)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that when you collected the voices not a single hon. Member opposite called "No". I wonder on what grounds the Division has been called.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerI heard an hon. Member on the Government Front Bench call "No", and I accepted that as "No".
| Division No. 148.] | AYES | [8.25 p.m. |
| Ainsley, William | Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey) | Proctor, W. T. |
| Allen, scholefield (Crewe) | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) | Redhead, E. C. |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas | Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.) |
| Blyto, William | Jeger, George | Ross, William |
| Boardman, H. | Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) | Robertson, J. (Paisley) |
| Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.) | Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) | Short, Edward |
| Broughton, Dr. A. D. D. | Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) |
| Brown, Thomas (Ince) | Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) |
| Castle, Mrs. Barbara | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | Small, William |
| Collick, Percy | Kelley, Richard | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Corbet, Mrs. Freda | Kenyon, Clifford | Snow, Julian |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Crossman, R. H. S. | Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank |
| Cullen, Mrs. Alice | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Logan, David | Stonehouse, John |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Loughlin, Charles | Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.) |
| Delargy, Hugh | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Sylvester, George |
| Dempsey, James | McInnes, James | Symonds, J. B. |
| Diamond, John | McKay, John (Wallsend) | Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield) |
| Driberg, Tom | MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Fletcher, Eric | Mapp, Charles | Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.) |
| Forman, J. C. | Marsh, Richard | Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Mendelson, J. J. | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Galpern, Sir Myer | Milne, Edward J. | Watkins, Tudor |
| George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn) | Mitchison, G. R. | Wells, William (walsall, N.) |
| Grey, Charles | Mort, D. L. | Whitlock, William |
| Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley) | Moyle, Arthur | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Hamilton, William (West Fife) | Oswald, Thomas | Willey, Frederick |
| Hannan, William | Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) | Williams, Ll. (Abertillery) |
| Herbison, Miss Margaret | Parker, John | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Hill, J. (Midlothian) | Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) | Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.) |
| Hilton, A. V. | Peart, Frederick | Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A. |
| Holman, Percy | Pentland, Norman | Woof, Robert |
| Houghton, Douglas | Prentice, R. E. | |
| Hoy, James H. | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Mr. Lawson and Mr. Ifor Davies. |
| NOES | ||
| Agnew, Sir Peter | Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn | Leavey, J. A. |
| Aitken, W. T. | Errington, Sir Eric | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry |
| Allason, James | Finlay, Graeme | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) |
| Ashton, Sir Hubert | Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) | Litchfield, Capt. John |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Gibson-Watt, David | Longden, Gilbert |
| Barlow, Sir John | Glover, Sir Douglas | Loveys, Walter H. |
| Batsford, Brian | Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) | Lucas, Sir Jocelyn |
| Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate) | Gower, Raymond | MacArthur, Ian |
| Bell, Ronald | Grant, Rt. Hon. William | McLaren, Martin |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) | Green, Alan | Maclean, SirFitzroy(Bute&N. Ayrs.) |
| Berkeley, Humphry | Gresham Cooke, R. | McMaster, Stanley R. |
| Bishop, F. P. | Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. | Maddan, Martin |
| Box, Donald | Gurden, Harold | Markham, Major Sir Frank |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) | Marshall, Douglas |
| Braine, Bernard | Harris, Reader (Heston) | Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) |
| Buck, Antony | Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye) | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. |
| Bullard, Denys | Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) | Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. |
| Carr, Compton (Barons Court) | Hastings, Stephen | Mills, Stratton |
| Cary, Sir Robert | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Montgomery, Fergus |
| Channon, H. P. G. | Henderson-Stewart, Sir James | More, Jasper (Ludlow) |
| Chataway, Christopher | Hendry, Forbes | Morgan, William |
| Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) | Hirst, Geoffrey | Noble, Michael |
| Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) | Hobson, John | Nugent, Sir Richard |
| Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Holland, Philip | Oakshott, Sir Hendrle |
| Costain, A. P. | Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John | Page, John (Harrow, West) |
| Coulson, J. M. | Hughes-Young, Michael | Page, Graham (Crosby) |
| Crowder, F. P. | Hulbert, Sir Norman | Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) |
| Cunningham, Knox | Hutchison, Michael Clark | Partridge, E. |
| Curran, Charles | Iremonger, T. L. | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Pilkington, Sir Richard |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Jackson, John | Pitman, I. J. |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) | Pott, Percivall |
| Deedes, W. F. | Jennings, J. C. | Prior, J. M. L. |
| Drayson, G. B. | Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) | Proudfoot, Wilfred |
| du Cann, Edward | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Pym, Francis |
| Duncan, Sir James | Kerans, Cdr. J. S. | Quennell, Miss J. M. |
| Duthie, Sir William | Kerr, Sir Hamilton | Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin |
| Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Kitson, Timothy | Rees, Hugh |
§ The House divided: Ayes 103, Noes 149.
| Renton, David | Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury) | Walker, Peter |
| Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) | Tapsell, Peter | Whitelaw, William |
| Roots, William | Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.) | Williams, Dudley (Exeter) |
| Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard | Teeling, William | Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater) |
| Sharples, Richard | Temple, John M, | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Shaw, M. | Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) | Wise, A. R. |
| Shepherd, William | Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.) | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn | Vane, W. M. F. | Woollam, John |
| Smith, Dudley(Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick) | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John | Worsley, Marcus |
| Smithers, Peter | Vickers, Miss Joan | |
| Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher | Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES |
| Spearman, Sir Alexander | Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone) | Mr. Frank Pearson and |
| Studholme, Sir Henry | Walder, David | Mr. Gordon Campbell. |