CONSUMER PROTECTION BILL

HC Deb 27 January 1961 vol 633 cc465-550

Order for Second Reading read.

11.6 a.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards (Bilston)

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

I must apologise for the late publication of the Bill. The fault is entirely mine. In my enthusiasm at my success in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills I drafted a massive Bill and aimed at far too many targets. My Parliamentary colleagues and the experts in the Home Office rescued me from my dilemma. As a consequence, the Bill is much more limited than the very large Measure I had first envisaged.

The Bill had its genesis in the Molony Report on Consumer Protection. Briefly, the scope of the Bill is confined to the protection of the consumer against the risk of death or personal injury arising from the use of consumer goods. It is completely in line with the recommendations contained in the Interim Report of the Committee on Consumer Protection.

The Bill gives power to the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing safety requirements and instructions for any prescribed class of goods. It repeals the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, 1952, and the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960, but It definitely retains the regulations already made under those Acts. That is a brief summary of the Bill's contents. If there is time I hope to deal briefly with each Clause.

Many decades ago Adam Smith wrote that the sole purpose of production should be the satisfaction of the consumer. His actual words were these: Consumptions the sole end and purpose of all production and the interest of the pro- ducer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. That maxim is as true today as it was when written many years ago. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached that ideal state of society. Indeed, the society in which we live is essentially a producers' society. Our economy, for good or evil, is dominated by the producer. The producers—both the manufacturers and the trade unionists—have used their organisation and power over our economy to introduce all kinds of safeguards to protect their interest. Nobody objects to the safeguards that they have been fortunate to apply to our society.

The tendency in our economy is for the greater concentration of power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. The British economy is more highly monopolised than any economy in the Western world. The retail side of our economy is also highly organised by trade association's which blanket the economy. What is required to create a realistic balance is more protection at the consumer's side of the counter.

Over the years, and particularly in recent years, consumer organisations have developed until it would be fair to say that we are moving into an era where the consuming public are demanding inordinately more protection. Although many things are required to be done by this House to protect the consuming public, I think that we would all agree that the first necessity is the protection of life and health. That is the purpose of the Bill. It fills the vacuum in our society created by the lack of serious protection for the consumer in the 'home.

For a few moments, may we look at the nature of the problem which I hope will be dealt with in the Bill? Yesterday, the Registrar-General submitted his Statistical Review, which analyses the fatal accidents that occurred in 1959. As the Review was published only yesterday, perhaps I may make a rough summary of the analysis in this report. Part I, Medical Tables, of the Registrar-General's Review—

Mr. Dudley Williams (Exeter)

the hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that his Bill referred to the protection of consumers for goods in the home. I have no doubt that he is right, but I cannot see at what point that is mentioned in the Bill. Would the hon. Member draw my attention to it?

Mr. Edwards

The whole Bill is to protect consumers in the home from faulty equipment. It would take some time to read the Bill in close detail, but it is based on the Interim Report of the Molony Committee, which deals exclusively with hazards in the home. I think that the hon. Member must have the wrong Bill in his hand.

I was beginning to analyse the fatal accidents that occurred in this country in 1959. The analysis shows a dreadful picture of neglect on the part of this House. There was a dreadful toll of accidental deaths, particularly among old people and children. In the last year for which figures are available, 7,010 persons—1,342 males and 2,948 females—died as a result of accidents in homes or residential institutions, 70 per cent. being 65 years of age or over.

The Report does not dwell on the hundreds of thousands of tragic accidents that did not result in death. I should imagine that for every fatal accident in the home there must have been at least a hundred accidents that caused pain and suffering to the persons concerned. It is true that a large percentage of these accidents resulted from falls, and 822 were falls on stairs. There should be a lesson for us here, particularly as it relates to elderly persons and indicates clearly the need for bungalows and flats. That is not related to the Bill.

Fatal accidents caused by domestic gas amounted to 861, which were 29 more than the number of deaths that resulted from gas leakages, etc., in 1958. Of these, 180 were males and 460 were females 65 years of age or over. That such fatal accidents should occur, particularly when they occur to so many old people who should be able to enjoy the evening of their lives in relative security, is a disgrace to our civilisation. Deaths from accidents caused by fire and explosion of combustible materials numbered 624; 213 males and 411 females. Here again, 60 per cent. of those who died from that cause were 65 years or over.

We begin to see the nature of the problem when we look at a few comparable figures. For example, during the same year there were 1,061 fatal accidents at work; 1,029 males and 32 females. That means that the number of fatal accidents to women in the home and in institutions from fire alone was more than ten times greater than the number of fatal accidents to women at work—and there are 7 million women employed in industry and commerce. The number of women who died in the home as a result of accidents caused by domestic gas leakages is also more than ten times greater than the number of women who died in industry. This surely indicates the urgent need there is for the passing of a Bill of this type.

In 1959, the number of fatal motor-vehicle and traffic accidents amounted to the appalling figure of 5,952; 4,345 males, and 1,607 females. It is true that that is an increase of 11 per cent. on the figures for 1958, but when we consider the tremendous propaganda in this House, in the Press, and on the wireless and television all aimed at reducing the number of road accidents, and compare it with the absence of similar education and propaganda and campaigning in relation to accidents in the home we at once see the necessity for increasing our general educational activities to reduce that toll as well. The figure of 5,952 fatalities on the roads may he compared with the 7,010 fatal accidents occurring in our homes and residential institutions.

I have already referred to the number of fatal accidents at work. It is not necessary for me to underline the tremendous activities that go on in the House in this respect; the many hours and weeks and months spent in Committee on Factory Bills in a constant endeavour to reduce the industrial accident rate. That is a majestic job that both sides of the House undertake willingly and well, but the comparative figures I have quoted clearly show the necessity for such a Bill as this.

The Interim Report of the Molony Committee gave very close attention to this subject It reported on the dangers that are constantly arising in the home from imported electrical appliances in which the coloured wires do not correspond to the normal codes adopted in this country. Housewives and young Children innocently handling these electrical appliances, over which they have no control whatever, are subject to dangerous accidents. The same Committee also went closely into the dangers arising from cheap imported equipment for Christmas trees—defective wires and faulty connections have caused many fires and accidents in the home.

In 1956, oil-burning appliances caused 1,200 fires. In 1958, the number of such fires resulting from that cause alone had increased to the appalling figure of 4,464. Only last week, five people in the Greater London area lost their lives as a result of oil-burner accidents. There are now 3 million drip-feed oil burners in use, and there are 12 million oil burners altogether—a constant danger to the lives and health of our citizens.

Another very grave danger, which I hope will also be dealt with by hon. Members who have had experience of it in their own constituencies, arises from the sale of "Do-it-yourself" electric blankets. Electric fires, too, are a constant danger, as are pressure cookers, inflammable nightdresses and the like. The Consumer Advisory Council reported in Shopper's Guide that a pressure cooker exploded when it was overheated, and that some nightdresses that were tested flared up from the hem to the neck in a mere five seconds. Every year, 329 people die from clothing burns alone, and at present there is no legislation on this matter. The Bill seeks to provide the means whereby such dangerous domestic items will be outlawed by cregulation.

I said in my opening remarks that the Bill was born out of the Interim Report of the Molony Committee on Consumer Protection, so perhaps I may be permitted to make a few comments on the work of this vitally important Committee. Its first Report, to which I have already referred, was a limited one, dealing only with hazards in the home—a very important contribution indeed to the welfare of British consumers. All the progressive organisations in this country that specialise in consumer welfare—the great consumer organisations, the Trades Union Congress, the Federation of British Industries and the Cooperative Union—made their contributions to this Committee and made a series of recommendations which I hope this House will consider from time to time. Indeed, I hope that the House will discuss Bills similar to the one that we are considering today, so that we shall not have to wait years before action is taken on the recommendations of this Committee.

It is interesting to note that the Trades Union Congress, the executive centre of our great trade union movement, has submitted evidence to this Committee and continues to take an increasing interest in the welfare of consumers. For far too long have our great trade unions interested themselves only in the problems of the industrial worker, the producer, and although I am myself the general secretary of a trade union, I deplore this negative and rather self-centred attitude. A new phase of trade union development has come and millions of trade unionists now recognise that, apart from being trade unionists, they are also consumers. In many countries, particularly in Scandinavia, the most important role in consumer protection is that taken by the trade unions, and I hope that our trade union movement will adopt similar policies.

There are many other hon. Members who wish to speak in this debate, so I must resist the temptation to make too long a speech. May I, however, quote two vital paragraphs from the Report of the Molony Committee as it relates to the Bill. A vital recommendation is contained in paragraph 43, which states: Our main recommendation is therefore that in order to safeguard the consumer against what appears to be an undue risk of personal injury there should be early legislation empowering a designated Minister to prohibit by means of Regulations the sale, letting on hire or under a hire-purchase agreement, or the offering or exposure of having in possession for sale or for letting on hire or under a hire-purchase agreement, of any goods of a class specified in the Regulation which do not comply with requirements therein specified. Such requirements might relate to composition, design, construction, performance, or other relevant characteristics, and/or to the affixing in a prescribed manner of warning or operating instructions in defined or general terms. This seems to me to be the key paragraph in the Interim Report, and the Bill takes in the basic principles of this paragraph.

The Report also recommends that regulations and safety precautions should be the responsibility of one Minister. The Bill, however, does not apply that suggestion, on the ground that the Home Office and Acts already in existence enable the transfer of responsibility to any Minister who might be able to do this job most effectively.

I should like to quote another paragraph from the Report to save the time of the House, because if I do not quote it, it will be necessary to deal with each Clause of the Bill, and I do not wish to do that because of the time factor. I wish to quote paragraph 44: The legislation should contain suitable provision for exemption of goods which are bona fide destined for export, or for re-export, or are merely in transit, or which are the subject of hiring or hire-purchase arrangements already in force; and for due notice to the trade before each Regulation came into force. There should be substantial penalties for offences against Regulations made under the Act, to be increased for second and subsequent offences; and while we do not recommend the provision of any special defences, we would favour the incorporation of ' by-passing' provisions as in Section 113 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. These two recommendations in that paragraph are written into the Bill. It provides a fine of £100 for a first offence, a fine of £250 or three months' imprisonment, or both, for a second offence, and a fine of £20 for obstructing inspection. These penalties are already written into the Weights and Measures Acts, and I presume, therefore, that they are not matters of controversy.

I hope that it is not necessary for me now to go into the details of the Bill Clause by Clause. Although I believe that it is customary to do so, perhaps I may be excused that task because I have already taken longer than I had intended. Clause 1, apparently, has raised in the minds of some very experienced people certain doubts about the Bill in the matter of consultation before the Home Office issues regulations. Our society functions only because of consultation. Consultation takes place at all levels in our society, in industry on the subject of production and on the subject of wages, working conditions and hours of work, and it seems to me self-evident that no arbitrary regulations would be issued by the Home Office without proper consultation with the manufacturers or other representatives concerned.

I do not think that it is necessary to deal with the Schedule. It is based on discussions which took place between representatives of the Government and local authorities following the passing of the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960. I assume that it is not a controversial matter.

Clause 6 calls for short comment, because it repeals two existing Acts, the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, 1952, and the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960, but, I repeat, it maintains the regulations which were part of the latter Act. At this juncture, I should say that the hon. Member for Kidderminster—

Mr. Dudley Williams

Not I.

Mr. Edwards

I was just looking in the hon. Gentleman's direction. I was not trying to provoke him in any way. On the contrary, we are interested in another Bill Which is to come after this, and we shall be full of sweet reasonableness. We do not want to provoke anyone to speak unnecessarily.

I was referring to the fact that Clause 6 repeals the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). The hon. Gentleman who, in a very fine public-spirited fashion, brought in that very important Act has written to me regretting his inability to be present today, but expressing his complete support for my Bill, although it repeals his Act.

The new American Administration propose to establish a Minister for Consumer Welfare. They are pledged to do that as a result of their victory at the last election. In America, there will be a Minister with a whole Department to look after the interests of the consumer. In Sweden, there is a Minister of Welfare and Protection, with a whole Department. In Norway, there is a similar Minister, with a whole Department, who circulates free of charge to every household in Norway a bulletin dealing with defective equipment and consumer problems generally. It is time that this country, with its great industrial production, had a similar Minister for Consumer Welfare, with a Department behind him.

The Bill does not raise that majestic ultimate aim. It is a modest Bill aimed at the protection of the consuming public in the homes and residential institutions of Britain.

Dr. Alan Glyn (Clapham)

Will the hon. Gentleman make clear a point which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams)? As I read the Bill, it could apply to almost anything which is sold, because the word "home" is not written into it. Is it correct that anything sold could come under the Bill?

Mr. Edwards

Yes, it is true that any appliance, any consumer goods, that creates hazards is covered by the Bill, but we are a sensible House and a sensible country and we know what the purpose of the Bill is. It is to deal with consumer goods which are dangerous to limb and life. It has not been practical to define in the Bill what are consumer goods, but, here again, that is a matter on which we have in the past used, and can in the future use, our common sense.

In the light of the fine principles on which the Bill has been conceived, and of its urgent importance, I commend it to the House and ask hon. Members to give it a Second Reading.

11.48 a.m.

Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin (Belfast, West)

I am very pleased to be present this morning to have an opportunity to welcome the Bill and to say how much I hope that it will help consumers without unnecessarily hampering any manufacturer or worthy person who is already doing satisfactory work in providing safe and reliable goods for the public.

The Bill will cover many matters of great importance to consumers generally. We witnessed last year an occasion when it was most urgent—almost too late—to bring in a safety standard for oil burners. The hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards), who moved the Second Reading so ably and so well, has dealt with many points, including this one, but I believe that it should be re-e mphasised.

We are, through the Bill, endeavouring to provide for prevention rather than cure. This is the important factor. Prevention is often much harder than cure. If we could take prevention measures we should have far fewer accidents generally, but, unfortunately, we are always involved first in curing and then in protecting people afterwards.

We have seen that the Fireguards Act, 1952, is not necessarily a prevention Measure. I believe that it became law much too late. If it had become law immediately after the war, when there was a great surge and change in outlook in this country and when, after 1951, there was a great up-build in housing, and if there had been an appropriate regulation, the Minister concerned might have found it possible to insist that no open fireplace should be put into any house without suitable fixing points for a fireguard. He could have also insisted that no tenant should be given a house unless a fireguard was provided. Thereby, we should have had much more prevention than is possible under the Act as it stands.

The hon. Member for Bilston has said a great deal about safety in the home. The Bill goes far wider than that. It covers much more than merely home appliances. It is, however, the home appliance with which I think we are most directly concerned. There is danger in the home not only for unsafe appliances. We must, therefore, keep a fair balance in our discussions today. A very large number of home accidents are, unfortunately, due to individual carelessness and casualness. Here there is wide scope for education and exhortation and for asking for more information generally to make the public safety-conscious in order to build a positive rather than a negative idea in people's minds and also to make them more responsible individually.

Apart from all this, we have a great responsibility to consumers generally. Home is often far too dangerous a place. While it is the under-fives and over 65s. who suffer most from accidents at home, we must remember that they spend most time in the home and are least likely to find out for themselves if something is dangerous until it is much too late.

Leaving aside all the accidents which occur through falls and other types of personal carelessness, I come to the general picture of what we must do if the Bill becomes law. This is a Bill which will enable the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make regulations and to fix safety standards. I believe very firmly that here we have an interesting line of demarcation. Safety standards should be compulsory and quality standards should be voluntary. There is a certain amount of misunderstanding in the country about the word "standards." It seems to be bandied about and used in so many ways that I feel that we have much education and publicity to carry out about it.

The hon. Member for Bilston mentioned the Molony Report and drew attention to most of the relevant paragraphs which I had already noted. Paragraph 10 of the Report states: …hence, with a serious and hitherto unsuspected hazard is brought to light, remedial action should clearly be prompt, effective and universal in its application. That is why I believe that the Bill will do such a worth-while job. It gives the Minister the necessary power and he can move as quickly as possible whenever there is the possibility of danger.

One of the things about which we are particularly worried concerns marking and labelling. Cautionary marking is something which is disregarded far too often. Again, prevention is much better than cure. Here there is a wide field for discussion and interpretation and for building up a climate of opinion which demands as full information as possible so that a certain item may be used properly and stored carefully, and so that on every item which might be dangerous there is direct information as to why it is dangerous and direct instructions to remove it from careless and child-like hands.

We in this country have been very slow in this matter. For far too long we have left this type of work to voluntary organisations, such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, home safety committees and other people, who have done their utmost to try to make the public conscious of the dangers. Today we can turn a new page in the history of information to the public generally. Once people realise that we in Parliament are endeavouring to safeguard them by law, they tend to become much more aware of wider issues than even the one we are discussing.

We must keep this as wide as possible on the cautionary label, because there are many protections. There are already many Acts which can do a certain amount, but there are still far too many gaps in what can be done, particularly concerning household goods—things like bleach and disinfectant and things in general use. They are labelled "poison," but usually the label is nothing like as effective as it ought to be. If a product is merely labelled "dangerous" or "poisonous" it prevents many people buying it instead of making them conscious that it should be treated with the respect which it deserves and used only in the way recommended.

How will we implement the safety standards and regulations which the Minister may introduce? What organisations and authorities will ensure that the correct safety standard is continuously available and respected by those manufacturers whose goods will become subject to it? When something becomes enforceable, naturally it is very much easier to keep a strict eye on things, but it will be difficult if local authorities have to do more than merely the sampling in these matters. In some areas local authorities will find it much easier than others. Some will be on the spot and close to the chosen testing laboratories and officers, but others will have to have a centre which is not too far away to which they can send the goods which are to be tested. There will be considerable rethinking about the availability of this sort of service without it costing the country too great a sum of money and so, in the end, doing the consumer a disservice in one way as well as doing him a service in another. I am sure that in this matter we will have to feel our way and to learn by experience.

Who will carry out the testing? Who will be the person to say whether an item measures up to the standard which the Minister has made an official standard by regulation? Who will be the person, authority or body with the necessary knowledge and facilities available, and everything else? This is something which will perhaps grow more rapidly than we realise. Although it is not too difficult now to test oil heaters, which are a classic example, what will happen when there is a greater demand possibly for the testing of a number of wide-ranging goods to be done fairly rapidly?

The Consumer Advisory Council has given information about dangerous items in its Shopper's Guide. We know that sometimes testing takes a great deal of time. This may mean that the pipeline will be clogged if there is a wide range of goods to be tested over a very short period. The British Standards Institution has done a very good job in this matter and deserves credit for it, but there will have to be a considerable widening of its scope if it is to be the official body to lay down all safety standards as a result of testing, research, and so on.

This may mean the Government granting a larger sum of money for consumer purposes than is now the case. I understand that £10,000 a year is earmarked for the consumer work of the B.S.I. and, in days when we are thinking so much of safety, that is a comparatively small sum of money. More should be spent on developing safety angles and making it possible for greater testing to be undertaken and for more information to be given to the public and for safety matters to be given greater publicity. It is a small sum of money to spend in return for the saving of life, unhappy accidents and in many cases the suffering or intolerable misery and injury which so often result from burning accidents.

Much has been said in the House on several occasions about burning accidents, but I hope that hon. Members will bear with me if I reiterate some of those, because electric, gas, open fires and oil heaters and other heating appliances are intrinsically dangerous unless they are used according to the directions and unless they are basically sound and safe to begin with.

Here again, there is a wide range of differences. We have had safety fireguard standards for gas and electric fires since 1952, but we have not yet been able to protect the careless person from himself and there are still people who bought fires before 1952 and who have not bothered to fit guards to them. Those people have not yet been reached with education and publicity.

But the bulk of our citizens are responsible, and yet many of them have no way of finding out whether an item is safe, or whether it is safe for the purpose for which they want it, which can sometimes be important. It may be safe for light duty but not for heavy duty, and so on. There is very little informative labelling on this and very little guide to be found, even in the shops.

I have with me a long article which was written in The Spectator by Leslie Adrian in December, 1960. It tells of her visiting numerous large stores throughout the London area in an endeavour to obtain a fireguard made to the British Standard specificationsB.S.2788. If in the London area, close to the centre of things, the major stores are not interested, or do not have the guards, or do not care, where are we going? What is the public to expect?

Too often fireguards are offered for sale with no guarantee that they will do the job. Are they too light? Will they stay in position? Are they something which a child cannot knock over? If a child falls against them, will they collapse because the material of which they are made is too poor? There is very little information for the anxious and earnest shopper.

Burning accidents happen as often through faulty appliances as through unguarded fires. Electric toasters, electric irons, washing machines and many different household electric gadgets are now available, but how many are properly marked and as well planned for safety as they are for design and colour? One becomes very cross that the reputable manufacturer is having a raw deal when there is no way in which a shopper can find out whether a cheaper or possibly dearer item is preferable. In many cases, the people in the store are not sufficiently knowledgeable and may not even care.

There are several seals attached to many household appliances which give a false sense of security. This is where danger lies, because a safety seal can look very grand and appear to give the customer some guarantee that he is buying something which is safe, but on examination it is often found that there is nothing to say how the appliance has been tested, what the standard is, or how safe it is in any way. The customer is often deluded. This is one subject in which the Home Secretary will be able to intervene by setting safety standards for any item, and he would be able to make certain that that safety standard was the only one which could be permitted and to which every item of that kind would have to conform.

In that way, much of the difficulty and much of the unnecessary danger to the public can be cut out. We must not just say that this is something casual, or information which the earnest shopper can find out. A real danger exists. A number of appliances are imported from other countries and they are a source of worry. Safety standards are enforceable for oil heaters, but there are no regulations so that the do-it-yourself man fitting an electrical appliance can tell which is the earth, which the positive and which the negative terminal. All too often we have heard of people being blown across a floor because they have stuck the earth wire into the positive terminal. That happens because the colourings of the wires of foreign products are different from our own. I understand that international discussions are taking place on this matter and if standard colours result, we will have gone a long way to solving this problem. However, if that should not come about through those discussions, it will be possible under the Bill for safety standards to be laid down for electrical appliances, including details of how wires should be coloured.

It may seem easy for those of us who sit here and who do not come across practicalities as often as we might if we were lesser mortals, to dismiss these matters, but everybody at some time has to do some kind of job at home, and if the tools are not right or the information is not right, danger can arise. Some of the instructions on some appliances are so complicated that one is left feeling that the answer is a lemon, and the language is often not even grammatical.

I have mentioned dangerous substances in domestic use and I want also to mention inflammable materials. Standards for these materials are already laud down. They took a long time to achieve. They meant many year's of discussions of the different points of view of the manufacturers and retailers and others concerned with the sale of the fabrics. The standard is not yet enforceable and, although there are materials on the market which are safe because they have been treated to make them flame resistant, the extra cost is apparently a big snag in their sale.

In passing, it is fair to say that most people would prefer to add the price of a couple of packets of cigarettes or a couple of pints of beer to the cost of a child's nightdress if they really understood how dangerous many of these materials are which their children wear and which can easily come into contact with an unguarded or badly guarded fire. Here is a matter in which it may be necessary to make regulations and here is a way in which the Bill can be of great help.

It is time for us to consider things for the future. As I said earlier, prevention is better than cure, because, until we have prevention, we will have far too many badly burned children spending the rest of their lives maimed or unable to lead a full and complete life because they have been burned, either because of dangerous or explosive materials, which their parents did not realise were dangerous, or through faulty appliances. Those are accidents which could easily be prevented if we had been as safety conscious in the past as I hope we will be in the future.

The hon. Member for Bilston spoke of the problem of pressure cookers. They are an example of the new types of appliances which are coming into common use and where there are untold dangers which the manufacturer himself may not fully appreciate.

Honestly, I think that most manufacturers genuinely try to test their appliances for what they consider to be average hazard, but many manufacturers are a little out of touch with ordinary, day-to-day experience and do not quite understand the difference between what they regard as average hazard as they see it in the laboratory or factory and the average hazard as we ordinary housewives know it, and they often leave out of account that element of human failure and just do not take that extra little bit of care to ensure that an appliance is as foolproof as possible. Instead, they make it just foolproof enough to get by, and particularly things like pressure cookers with which one can have very serious accidents.

Again I mention electric fires. I have a comment from Shopper's Guide which reported on electric fires in one issue. It found one make of electric fire which was on sale unsafe in seven different aspects—not just one, but seven. Surely reputable manufacturers of electric fires would be just as badly hit by an accident with one of these dangerous fires from another firm. We all know what happens about the publicity when there is an accident. The heading is, "Accident with electric fire." The make of fire is not specified. It was exactly the same with the oil heaters. The good ones suffered for the had ones. We come back to prevention of accidents, as we could if we could have tougher safety standards for some of these things.

Retailers, too, have a responsibility, which we cannot hope to control quite so easily by this Bill. After they heard about the seven dangerous aspects of that electric fire a firm of ironmongers withdrew that fire from sale, but a few months later the fire turned up again in other shops, including a famous department store.

To declare a thing dangerous will not necessarily get it put right. To get it removed from the public we have to try to see that it does not disappear only temporarily to come back in a slightly different guise or in another area. Retailers can take such articles from one area, and they can be sold in another. This is something which this new Bill may help to stop through the possibility of safety standards and regulations.

We have had recently the question of safety belts in cars. We are beginning to be safety-conscious about cars much more than we were, and about time, too. Here we have a peculiar situation, that we have a safety car belt and then we have some sort of safety seal to say it is safe, but some of these belts were found to be completely unsafe when tested by B.S.I., and we know that the B.S.I. standard is the highest, and we hope that it will be possible by means of good safety standards to avoid false security with things such as these.

I come to the point about local authorities.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker (Swindon)

Before the hon. Lady leaves the subject of the safety belts, I do not know whether she intends to refer, perhaps, to the extraordinary situation which arose as a result of one organisation calling itself the British Safety Council issuing a so-called safety seal for a belt which was found by the British Standards Institution to be totally inadequate. I do not know whether that is a case she intended to include in her remarks.

Mrs. McLaughlin

The hon. Gentleman has underlined the very point which I was making, and I am very grateful to him for it.

Now I want to come to the question of the local authorities. It will not be enough to leave it to them, because I think that some local authorities are more active on this than others and some will not be quite so active. Therefore, possibly goods which an active local authority will drive out will turn up in some other area where the local authority is not so active and does not watch things so carefully, and then we shall have a repetition of the situation which arose with the electric fires.

One thing we might possibly do would be to set up some sort of standing committee which would have representatives from many bodies such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Fire Protection Association, possibly even the Pharmaceutical Society. I do not know whether that would be to take the matter too wide, but there are many things, such as bleaches and disinfectants, which are of interest to chemists as well as to ordinary retail grocers. The Home Secretary could set up such an advisory council and ask bodies such as the Consumer Advisory Council to join in. I believe that some sort of committee could he set up, a steering committee, which could do a great deal in watching for difficulties and dangers which might arise, rather than, as happened over the oil heaters, suggesting remedies for a danger which had already arisen because the standards for oil heaters set up when a type of oil heater first became popular were almost useless for other later types. There must be continual and greater revision in many cases with the present quick changes in designs and fashions, particularly among home appliances. They are going to require far more careful watching. It would take staff and it would take money and intelligent people to run it, and here the Government will have a very big responsibility.

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

Would my hon. Friend agree that it would be most advisable that manufacturers should be represented on the council she is talking about, because, for instance, they could do a great deal to help in carrying out all this work as economically as possible?

Mrs. McLaughlin

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course such a committee would not be of real value unless there were upon it people representing all the interests concerned.

The committee should meet fairly regularly and have a staff and direct terms of reference to keep the committee, so to speak, on the hop, and it should be a general committee.

Today, as I said earlier, we are perhaps turning a new page in the history of safety and protection for the public. This new Bill will no doubt receive many criticisms from several angles and it may be necessary to amend it in some respects in Committee. On the other hand, unless we are courageous and take a step like this, we can wait far too long and so be forced only to remedy accidents instead of foreseeing and preventing them. We come back to the necessity for prevention of accidents. That, we believe, is of great importance to all of us, and I hope that this Bill, which I welcome, will have a speedy passage.

12.17 p.m.

Mr. Donald Wade (Huddersfield, West)

I should like to say a few words in commendation of the Bill. I must express my regret at the delay on the part of the Government in implementing the recommendations in the Interim Report of the Molony Committee, thus making it necessary for a private Member to introduce a Bill on this subject.

I think that the material words in the Bill are to be found in Clause 1: to prevent or reduce risk of death or personal injury. I am sure that hon. Members will wish to do anything which is reasonable to prevent or reduce this risk of death or personal injury.

I think, as the Molony Committee points out, there is a case for some general legislation rather than for separate Bills dealing with particular articles which are sold to the public. There are disadvantages in waiting till there is public anxiety over some article such as oil burners, and for Bills to deal with particular dangers. I think that there is a case for some general legislation as opposed to those separate Bills, and that, I think, is another reason for commending a Bill of this nature.

I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) that there is an important distinction between safety and quality. As I understand it, this Bill does not set out to provide for the consumer a guarantee of quality or an assurance that whatever the consumer buys will necessarily be satisfactory in all respects to meet all his or her requirements, but it is an attempt to deal with danger to life and this question of safety. As for quality, we must and I hope that we shall go on relying upon the manufacturer and the retailer. The Molony Committee referred to the high standards generally among manufacturers.

Also, I think that the customer must continue to rely on his or her own judgment. But there are dangers which are not always apparent, and, as I see it, the Bill attempts to provide protection against defects which may well be hidden at the time of purchase and risks which are not necessarily ascertainable when the housewife buys an article for the home. There have been many tragic accidents in the home. I understand that there were 400 deaths resulting from clothing catching fire last year, and there have also been a good many other very sad accidents resulting from unsafe appliances. It is right that we should attempt to limit this risk. Therefore, I commend in general terms Clause 1 (1, a).

I also think that Clause 1 (1, b) introduces an important factor, namely, provisions for prescribing a warning or instruction as to use. I will not repeat what the hon. Lady said on this subject. Taking the long view, I hope that the consumer will become increasingly selective and careful in the choice of goods, especially goods of the kind that we are discussing this morning. I hope that the result of the Bill, if it reaches the Statute Book, will be not more and more regulations—I always start with a bias against regulations—hut more and more care on the part of manufacturers and consumers.

In helping the consumer to exercise a critical choice, valuable services are provided today by organisations such as Which and bodies such as the Consumer Advisory Council of the British Standards Institution. I notice that the Consumer Advisory Council commends the Bill. The Council has already done some useful work in this field, and I will quote briefly from a statement issued by it on 25th January: The Consumer Advisory Council, from experience in testing goods for Shopper's Guide, has found a real need for banning unsafe appliances,…Shopper's Guide has reported on a number of products which could have caused accidents or fires—among them `do-it-yourself ' electric blankets, electric fires, pressure cookers, inflammable nightdresses and oil stoves. In the case of 'do-it-yourself ' electric blankets, insulation was found to be very poor—and the whole idea of leaving assembly in amateur hands could be highly dangerous. The statement refers to the pressure cooker: A pressure cooker was found which exploded when over-heated—a quite likely domestic lapse. Finally, there is a point about children's nightdresses: Some children's nightdresses flared from hem to neck in a mere five seconds. I think that, as the Consumer Advisory Council points out, there is some need for protection of the consumer. Reference has been made to electrical appliances. I 'think it is only fair to say that I am informed that the percentage of accidents in the home caused by electrical appliances is comparatively small; but that does not alter the fact that we should try to limit the risk of these accidents occurring.

If I make a few critical observations about the Bill, I hope they will not be regarded as destructive criticisms. In Clause 1 (5) we have a provision for making regulations which shall be exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. I should prefer an affirmative Resolution. As a matter of principle, I would rather give the House the opportunity of passing an affirmative Resolution before these regulations become law. I do not think that that would lessen the value of the Bill.

Secondly—this may not be so apparent from a reading of the Bill—there is just a danger that in introducing these regulations on the subject of safety one may quite unintentionally give the manufacturer of some patented process a monopoly. This can occur in the application of safety in factories under the Factories Acts. I am not making any allegation against Her Majesty's factory inspectors; in fact, I think that they endeavour to avoid that happening, but if the regulations are so drawn that one safety device is the only one that is regarded as satisfactory. that may have the effect of giving one manufacturer a monopoly. I believe that one can avoid that by giving manufacturers ample warning that the regulations are about to be introduced so that they can ensure that there are proper provisions for safety in respect of all the goods to which the regulations will refer.

Thirdly, one must give some thought to the problems of the retailer. In the proviso in Clause 3 (2) there appear the words: if he proves that he had reasonable cause to believe that all such requirements were satisfied. Those are words dealing with grounds for defence. That provision throws the burden of proof on the defendant. In the case of a manufacturer, that may be reasonable, for he should know whether the requirements are satisfied, but a retailer dealing with a great many different articles may assume that the manufacturer has done what is required to satisfy the regulations and he may in perfectly good faith sell the goods to his customers, but he may be in some difficulty in proving that he had reasonable cause to believe that all the requirements were satisfied. I mention that because I feel that the point ought to be considered in Committee. I do not think that any hon. Member would wish to be unfair and make the task of the retailer unduly difficult.

Lastly, I do not see anything in the Bill about a right of appeal. It may be that the normal procedure for appeal will apply, but perhaps we may be advised what the right of appeal would be in the case of an offence under Clause 3.

Generally, I think that the Bill contains some necessary provisions for helping to prevent fatal and other accidents. I hope the Government will give it their support or introduce a Bill of their own. It has become quite clear from the recommendations in the Interim Report of the Molony Committee that something is needed to meet the existing dangers, and I hope that the Government will assist the House in bringing that about.

12.30 p.m.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

I welcome the spirit of the very interesting and helpful way in which the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards), has introduced the Bill, and I congratulate him on his good fortune in getting a place in the Ballot to introduce so important a matter. The Molony Committee's Report has been under wide discussion in retailing and other circles since it came out, and as the Bill is based on that Interim Report I want to look at it in some detail at the beginning.

There is a certain danger that this debate may give the impression in other countries that we in this House are not quite happy about the standards of British manufactures. That could do our export trade untold harm. The point raised in the Molony Committee stressing the generally good quality of British manufactures should be underlined here today.

There is a particularly surprising paragraph in the Report, which the hon. Member for Bilston referred to but rather skated over. This is paragraph 44, dealing with exemptions from standards, and it says: The legislation should contain suitable provision for exemption of goods which are bona fide destined for export … That is an extraordinarily cynical remark to come from a Committee of this distinction.

Surely we in this country want to send overseas only the very best goods. I appreciate the proviso the Committee makes about re-exports, or goods being merely in transit. Naturally, we would not want to enforce British regulations on goods brought in for re-export. But to suggest that we should send out second-rate stuff is completely contrary to the spirit of our manufacturing conditions.

Mr. George Darling (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I agree that the phrasing is very unfortunate and likely to give a wrong impression. But I understand—though I may be wrong—that the standards overseas may be quite different from ours and, therefore, we should not lay down for export our British standards, but should try to get them associated with standards overseas. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that the wording used by the Molony Committee is unfortunate

Mr. Wells

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I fully appreciate the difference in standards between one country and another and the importance, for instance, of Canadian standards, in particular, to our manufacturing industry. But we are all agreed that the wording is unfortunate.

Paragraphs 14 and 16 of the Molony Report deal with import dangers, including imported Christmas tree lights. It will be extremely difficult to enforce any action arising out of the dangerous materials such as the Christmas tree lights. These relatively cheap goods come in and are snapped up in a quick selling season. I do not see how any realistic action could be taken.

I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend said earlier about consultations with manufacturers in other countries about the standardisation of wiring and plugs. This brings me immediately to the final paragraph of the Report dealing with electrical matters—paragraph 18. It states that the Committee considered, but has not yet reported on, the problem of standardisation of plugs and sockets.

I am sure that many hon. Members will have experienced much frustration in moving from a 5 and 15-amp house to a 13-amp house. Furthermore, if they have moved into a 13-amp house, and have attempted to put in double adaptors, they will have been caught out again by the non-standardisation of plugs even of the 13-amp pattern.

Obviously, the 13-amp type is a step forward in standardisation, but there is not a sufficiently standard standard—if such a phrase may be used—because 13-amp plugs are nearly all fused within the plug itelf. I am a very amateur electrician, being just the sort of electrical fool who should look after himself—though I do not seek the protection of this House in any way, for I do my best to be careful. But if one takes off the front of a 13-amp plug to put in a new fuse, one finds that there are, to my knowledge, at least three separate types, and in some wiring operations it is necessary to get in behind the fuse. To ham-handed amateurs like myself it is not an attractive system. I ask the electrical designers to think again and to try to get a better standard in these 13-amp fuses.

A point is made in paragraph 15 of the Molony Report about the difficulty in such matters as electric blankets in getting a really safe one for which the customer is prepared to pay. Here there is the difficult matter of securing a balance between safety and quality, which two hon. Members have already mentioned. It is quite essential that a balance should be struck. Obviously, we want our British standards to be something above rock bottom. We want them to be absolutely safe, and a little more. We would like to be part way towards quality, but there is a great difficulty involved in the quality of electric blankets.

We have all seen, on electric blankets of reputable manufacturers, a label saying that they should go back for an overhaul to the manufacturers every year. That is very good in the first year, but if the printing on these labels is of certain colours, and the people who sleep in the bed wriggle about more than average, there is the inevitable tendency that the printing on the label will become obscure. People will then forget to send the blanket back for overhaul.

Another point about overhaul is that most of us who run motor cars, and who have not the time or the experience to attend to the maintenance ourselves, send them in to be serviced by what we hope is a reputable garage and get a whacking great bill for doing things which we do not understand. It happens all too often. There are many people in the country today complaining of the standards of service they get from the garage industry.

The point I am endeavouring to make, in drawing this analogy of the servicing of a car when one does not know what one is getting for one's money, is a simple one. One sends an electric blanket to the manufacturer at considerable expense. It comes back with an invoice and one has to take it in good faith that one has had the service stated on the invoice. It makes some people wonder whether they are getting value for money in these electrical so-called overhauls, when they do not know what is happening.

I have been referring to the service of the motor industry and hon. Members, on both sides, have mentioned safety belts, to which I should like to refer briefly. We are all glad to see that more and more police forces are introducing these belts. I wonder whether the Minister, when he intervenes in the debate, will say whether any general directions or advice are given to police forces and to fire and other public services under his general guidance about the introduction of safety belts in cars and what types of belt are recommended, or whether all that sort of thing is left to the discretion of the local authority.

Mr. Dudley Williams

Am I right in thinking that my hon. Friend considers that the Bill would cover the question of safety belts in cars? Would that be within its scope?

Mr. Wells

I understood the hon. Member for Bilston to say that it covers all consumer goods, although there is no definition of them. The aim is to protect consumers widely and, obviously, not to bring in unnecessary restrictions which would be covered by the ordinary Factory Acts, and so on. The Bill is to deal with such matters as that. Whether the police forces are regarded as consumers, I am not sure,

I was interested in what the hon. Member for Bilston said about the attitude of the trade unions to this matter. We are glad to hear that they are taking an active part in promoting safety. I feel, however, that the sphere of action of the trade unions is in the factories, where they work. There is far too great a tendency today for this or that body, merely because it is a body corporate, to send resolutions all round the world about things that really are not its business. I appreciate what the unions are doing on the factory floor, which is very worth while, but I do not think that interference by bodies corporate in matters which really are not their concern and the passing of resolutions on all matters is a proper sphere of action.

I should like to pay tribute to the great work of.the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It is doing a wonderful job, but there is a certain difficulty from the fact that it is being called into more and more different spheres. The ordinary layman imagines that the Society's first function is something to do with motor cars, and as one learns more of its activities one is astonished to hear how widespread and useful they have been

I was interested in the figures given at the beginning of his speech by the hon. Member for Bilston. I understood him to say that in 1959 861 people had died from gas, whereas only 624 had died from fire and similar accidents. That is, possibly, a slight argument against the Bill, because it does nothing about gas. Gas is a matter in which no amount of legislation will protect the young, the old and the foolish. In the last Session, we all saw a demonstration upstairs of safety devices for the kitchen, for the old and the infirm, but if there are over 200 more deaths concerned with folly or unfortunate circumstances as a result of gas than from fire, I am not sure that the figures quoted by the hon. Member quite supported his case.

Mr. Costain

We are, perhaps, getting a little confused. The accidents from fire are not always fatal and the numbers are appalling. Do not let us mislead the public that there is no risk from fire. Some of the results are abominable.

Mr. Wells

I thank my hon. Friend.

The hon. Member for Bilston said that free literature is given away in Norway to every household. In my experience, free literature finds its way quickly into the wastepaper basket. [Interruption.] Not in Norway, perhaps, but we cannot all be Norwegians. Literature which is paid for, such as Which? or Shopper's Guide, which I am grateful to have coming in free to my household, is read with great interest. Generally, however, people tend to throw away things that they are given free. I suggest that if we are to have a Government service of giving literature, there should be at least a nominal charge for it. Then people would value it more highly.

A specific sphere in which I have certain special knowledge, and in which there are a number of accidents every year, is that of the small boat. I am speaking not of deep sea yachting, but of people who go "messing about in boats." In my constituency, there is the River Medway and great crowds come down from London every year. We are near to the Kent coast and there are many fatal and near-fatal accidents.

It is worth considering the steps that are being taken by the Ship and Boat Builders National Federation to improve the standards of construction. This is a very good lead that is being given by a manufacturers' trade association to its members, and to other manufacturers in the industry who may not actually be members of the association, in improving the standards of construction and, at the same time, in educating the public. Those, surely, are the two voluntary steps which we want to see implemented as widely as possible: education of the public and improvement of standards by the manufacturers themselves.

I sincerely hope that no Order which is made under the Bill, if it becomes law, will affect the boat building community, because I believe that those people are trying seriously to improve their standards of safety. This debate today will have drawn the attention of manufacturers of dangerous goods all over the country to the need for voluntary action.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) referred to the risk of a standard of safety causing monopoly circumstances. We all appreciated the point made by the hon. Member and I am glad that he sought to pay a proper tribute to the very fair work of the factory inspectors. That is only right and proper. There is, however, one respect in which safety is thought to be paramount which is worth mentioning and that is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in which safety must be above all else.

It is possible that I am wrong, hut, as I understand, for many years the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has specified one well proven and tested article for each function in its boats and no other manufacturer's product was allowed to come in to compete until it was proved to be superior to the existing type. I understand that that applies to all the equipment in the Institution's boats. It is an absolute monopoly. but it is a monopoly of the best. That, surely, is what we would welcome in matters where safety is paramount, that only the best should be used.

I am a little worried about paragraphs 37 and 38 of the Molony Report, which dealt with toxic and corrosive substances. I do not want to deal with the domestic side of this subject, but I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that if any Orders should be made under the Bill the interests of the farming community will be safeguarded. This is very important, because farmers have to handle many dangerous substances. They are extremely careful and they do their best, but, inevitably, little bits of this get put into bottles originally intended for that.

The farmer, his family, his shepherd, and his workpeople who deal with these substances are fully aware of the risk. They know that a bottle which bears the label "orange squash" contains sheep-drip and they are not unreasonably careless. I hope, therefore, that the serious interests of the farming community will be in no way jeopardised by the Bill when it becomes an Act. I am sure that the hon. Member for Bilston has no desire to make any difficulties for the farmer.

Farmers are not only concerned with toxic substances, but they are also concerned with many peculiar electrical wirings and arrangements. We all welcome the hostile remarks which have been made on both sides of the House today about do-it-yourself electric blankets, but, inevitably, on a farm there is a good deal of do-it-yourself electrical wiring and installations of various kinds. I hope that these home-made and do-it-yourself types of equipment on the farm will not be jeopardised by the Bill.

I welcome the Bill in principle and I thank the hon. Member for Bilston for drawing our attention to such vital matters affecting every one of us and our constituents. I hope, also, that there will be time left today for the House to reach a Second Reading debate on the very important Home Safety Bill which is to be moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain).

12.53 p.m.

Mrs. Harriet Slater (Stoke-on-Trent, North)

The Bill seeks to prevent accidents. We should be extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) for his choice of subject and for giving his time to preparing the Bill, because it does something to implement the Interim Report of the Molony Committee. It seeks to prevent some of the terrible accidents that now happen almost every day.

The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) seemed to think that the Trades Union Congress had no right to be interested in this kind of thing. I would point out that the T.U.C. is interested not only in what happens to its members when they are at work but also in what may happen to them when they are away from work, because as a result of accidents at home, they might not be able to carry out their jobs. It is quite right that an organisation such as a trade union should have the widest interest in these matters and should seek to prevent all kinds of accidents, whether at work or at home.

Mr. J. Wells

I appreciate the point made by the hon. Lady, but I was trying to suggest that there are too many bodies today, possibly including trade unions, who have a passion for passing resolutions about matters which do not directly concern them.

Mrs. Slater

I should have thought that we could not have too many bodies interested in the problem of consumer protection, and sufficiently interested to pass resolutions and send them to the right quarters and then see that some kind of action is taken on them.

We must all realise that the ordinary consumer today is confronted with a state of affairs which is quite different from that which confronted consumers a generation ago. All kinds of new materials are being put on the market and all kinds of new hazards face the consumer who buys them. There is also intense competition in the sale of these goods and a tremendous amount of advertising in an endeavour to make people buy goods which are not in as fit a condition to be marketed as they might be.

These factors make it important that the ordinary consumer should have some protection before the commodity is put on the market and reaches the dangerous state of, for example, the drip-feed oil burners. It was not until serious accidents occurred that we began to sit up and take notice of the dangers in the drip-feed burners which caused so many oases of terrible injuries and death.

I agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Maidstone about the different types of electrical plugs on the market. I am a mere woman but occasionally I have to fit a plug or some electrical appliance in the house. When one goes to buy these things one is offered various types and it is difficult to exercise discretion and to discover which is the right type of appliance to buy. I am interested in a local authority committee which is concerned with the care of children. We had a case where a child was burned by contact with an electrical socket. When we came to try to find a safe socket and plug we experienced great difficulty. We were told to put the appliance out of the reach of children, but we all know that children have an unhappy knack of climbing and it is difficult to put a socket or a plug in a place where children cannot get at it. Even when we eventually obtained a so-called "safety" plug a child suffered a serious burn when he touched it.

A great deal of research is required into the question of how far these plugs and sockets can be made safe. Reference has also been made to the colouring of electrical wires. The Molony Committee made a point of mentioning that the fact that imported wire bore colours which were different from those of wires manufactured in this country presented a particularly serious problem. Electric blankets have become tremendously popular and there is a great variety of them on the market. There is also a great variety of prices and not everybody is convinced that if one pays more for an article one buys the better commodity. It is absolutely essential that there should be some regulations governing the safety qualities of electric blankets. A British Standard should be established for all these blankets and instructions for their use should be placed clearly before the consumer. That is important, not only because they might cause accidents doing harm to people but because of the loss of money by damage to bed-clothes, which can be serious.

The hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) re-referred to children's nightdresses. We should emphasise the importance of that matter. I think this is a subject which would call for regulations. I hope that when they are made they will ensure that material put on the market for making children's nightdresses is only that which reaches a prescribed standard. It would be criminal to allow manufacturers to put on the market material of this kind, having the advantage of the confidence inspired by a trade name, and then to find that accidents happened because the material did not reach required standards. Particular attention should be paid to the prescribed standard for any materials marketed as being suitable for children's nightdresses to see that it could not be the cause of terrible burning accidents.

Another article which calls for some kind of protection is a child's toy. Here again, electricity comes into the question. One had only to buy children's toys at Christmas-time to find that many of them are electrical, ranging from dolls which are made to move by electricity and electric toy motor cars. It is important that toys put on the market should be safe. This applies not only to electrical toys but to plastic toys, which a child can easily break. Then a rough edge is left on the toy from which the child can get a nasty cut on the wrist or mouth. There is also the danger of unfinished edges on metal toys.

We should be particularly careful to see that metal toys are well finished and that in no case is lead paint used on them, because a small child nearly always puts a toy to its mouth. There might be a slit in the glaze and the lead might come in contact with the mouth. We ought to make sure that no lead is used in the paint used for decorating toys. There is also the use of glass buttons for the eyes of teddy bears. A child can easily detach such a button and swallow it.

It is important that all goods should be sufficiently and clearly labelled. In this respect I make a point about the labelling of drugs. I know that to some extent that will be covered by regulations dealing with poisons. This week in Stoke-on-Trent the coroner had to call particular attention to a box of drugs issued by a chemist. It was not sufficiently labelled and, as a result, a fatal accident occurred. We should take every precaution over this danger, because more and more dangerous drugs are coming on to the market and people do not understand how dangerous they are.

More care needs to be taken about the testing of dangerous drugs before they are put on the market. Advertising is so intense and widespread that many drugs are marketed before they have been adequately tested. The Home Office should look at this matter. Such drugs are made popular for all kinds of things, from slimming to making people sleep better or feel more energetic. Only after accidents have occurred or people have become drug addicts through taking such drugs do we sit up and take notice.

This is an important Bill in so far as it protects consumers from the hazards which may confront them. We should look at it very carefully in Committee to see how far we can set a standard in relation to dangerous commodities before they are marketed. The hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West made the point that an electric fire which, after research, is found to be dangerous may be withdrawn by good retailers, but it can find its place in supermarkets and all kinds of other places and be sold at a lower price. If by previous research or proper labelling and the setting of standards we could prevent such commodities reaching the market, we should not only protect the consumer but also good manufacturers and conscientious retailers, who otherwise are liable to have these articles pushed on them for sale.

While we welcome all the provisions in the Bill, some of us feel that it does not go far enough. Consumer protection is of great importance today in view of the variety of articles, the new technological and scientific research and intense and widespread advertising. In many cases it is attractive advertising but misleading advertising. It is no longer possible for the ordinary housewife or consumer to be so scientifically knowledgeable that he or she can understand every article bought. It will be important, even after this Bill has been put on the Statute Book, for Ministers to see how far—much further—consumer protection can he given. The labelling of fabrics must be considered. Someone suggested that it did not matter about quality, but in these days when we are trying to save every penny we can in the interests of economy it is important that a person who buys a frock, a coat, a blanket or furniture should buy something which will last and do the job for which it is intended. The person should know what is in the article and to what extent it is suitable for the purpose for which it is bought.

I wish also to refer to the many commodities on the market offered for sale by hire purchase. Hire purchase suffers from super-salesmanship, not only in the Press, but on the doorstep. The ordinary person is tempted to buy a commodity by a salesman and often it is not until the agreement has been signed and the article has been used that the purchaser finds it does not measure up to the description which the salesman gave of it. Then, when the purchaser desires to take action or to get some redress, he will find that not only is he up against the firm which hire-purchased the article, but there is also the finance company, with all its. money and resources, behind the company and that has to be reckoned with. After that, the purchaser may be faced with court proceedings which in itself frightens many people and can prove a costly business.

I have in my hand a piece of knitting made from a knitting machine which cost, not £26, but £41. I have never heard the name of it, but the salesman told a householder it was the third best machine in the world. This piece of knitting is a sample which was done by the salesman and he complained about the wool which he said was not very good. The poor, undiscerning soul who bought the machine accepted what he said and hoped that if she bought good quality wool—incidentally, this piece is not a bad quality wool—she would get better results. Unfortunately, because of illness, she could not look at it for three weeks and then when she did try to use it, the same thing happened. Now she has no redress at all. The finance company are not prepared to look at the matter. It says it has no proof that this work was done by the salesman. That is an easy get-out.

Before such commodities are marketed and sold they should have to achieve a standard about which there can be no question at all. Hire purchase is now an accepted part of the daily life of many people. It is something which I do not like—I was reared in the wrong generation—but it is an accepted part of present-day life, and articles which are sold should have to achieve some standard; and there should be some protection for the person who accepts in good faith what is said by a high-pressure salesman.

Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)

In the interests of other people who may be taken in by the sellers, ought not my hon. Friend to name the machine to which she is referring? It seems to me, from what she has said, that this is a shocking example of misrepresentation which ought not to pass unnoticed.

Mrs. Slater

I have here the agreement which was signed and I have written to the President of the Board of Trade, but the right hon. Gentleman is not able to help me at all. Apparently, we "pass the buck" from one Minister to another and back again. I do not know whether I ought to give the name, but it is called the New Busch knitting machine. It is not one of the articles with well-known names which are sold in the big stores.

I feel strongly about the extent to which consumer protection should be taken. We welcome this Bill, which will at least go a long way to prevent accidents in the home and in industry and maybe in the street, because even there one can become involved in accidents. But I hope that the Government will look again at the recommendation in the Molony Committee's Interim Report that at least some Minister should be designated to deal with the question of consumer protection.

This is a matter which is spread over a number of Ministries. In some cases we go to the Home Office and in others to the President of the Board of Trade: it is such a confusing business. Consumer protection has been taken up in other countries, including the Scandinavian countries, and even in the United States, where compulsory labelling is now to become operative. I consider, therefore, that we should at least reconsider the Molony Committee's recommendation that a Minister should become responsible for the problems of consumer protection. I hope that the Bill will receive the support it deserves.

1.16 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton)

The House may feel that the time has arrived when the view of the Government on this Bill should be expressed.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has a traditional responsibility with regard to the safety of the public. Over the years some of that responsibility has been transferred to other Departments in various matters of detail, but the general responsibility remains that of the Home Secretary. In matters of public safety he may be said, in an informal sense, to be the co-ordinating Minister, but he has always retained his direct responsibility with regard to safety in the home and for legislation affecting safety in the home. That has always been the concern of the Home Office, and that is why I am standing at this Dispatch Box today.

The Board of Trade has an interest in this Bill. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade is attending the debate and will be available to deal with points which are essentially matters for the Board of Trade.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) on his success in the Ballot and on the very good use he has made of it in bringing forward this important Measure so early in the Session. It gives an opportunity to afford the Bill the consideration which it deserves and it will have a good chance of reaching the Statute Book. In broad principle, we support and welcome the Bill.

In his interesting introductory speech the hon. Member for Bilston drew attention, and fortified his observations with considerable detail, to the problem of accidents, especially in the home. As I listened I could not help feeling that our lives are suspended by very slender threads. When we go to church on Sundays we pray that we may not run into any kind of danger, but every day of the week we meet dangers of many kinds. Indeed, to carry the matter to an extreme, we have to take note of the fact that one danger is always with us—the danger of gravity. That is the cause of many accidents, but I do not suppose that any hon. Member will attempt to introduce a Private Member's Bill to repeal the law of gravity.

It may be said that there are four things, broadly speaking, which can be done to attempt to overcome the dangers we all wish to prevent. The first is that we can help other people, especially children and old people, to use ordinary care and common sense. Coupled with that, patience and understanding play an important part.

Secondly, much can be done by education, training and propaganda, provided that they are well inspired and properly organised. In this regard the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and local voluntary committees, to whose work I pay tribute, have an important part to play. The Government do what they can to help. The House will recollect the "Guard that Fire" campaign which was inaugurated by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary a couple of years ago and which we hope has had some beneficial results. The Government and Government agencies have a part to play and they do play a part.

Mrs. McLaughlin

Is this a suitable occasion to ask if it is likely that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will decide in future to grant more money to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents towards developing the educational campaign which is so important in preventing accidents in the home?

Mr. Renton

I will bear my hon. Friend's suggestion in mind.

Thirdly, there should be careful design and construction of articles which are potentially dangerous. We live in a highly mechanised age and, in order to carry out the ordinary labours and chores of everyday life, we have to use many machines which are potentially dangerous. Those dangers should be minimised by careful design and constrution. That is Where the valuable work of the British Standards Institution comes in. The vigilance of manufacturers is also important.

I am pleased to record that, generally speaking, manufacturers are vigilant and careful. I am sure that those hon. Members who have had criticisms to make in points of detail would like to pay tribute to the high standards Which British manufacturers have in general succeeded in observing while acting as pioneers for the rest of the world in the highly mechanised age in which we live.

The fourth method of preventing accidents of the kind we all have in mind is by legisation. That is what the hon. Member for Bilston wants us to do. Legislation is not the only agent in this matter. What is the scope for legislation? There clearly is a place for it. In recent years we have had two important legislative contributions to home safety. The first was the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, 1952, under which Regulations have been made requiring the fitting of effective fireguards on all gas, electric and oil fires sold for domestic use. That was a very large contribution. The second was the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960, which did not come into operation until 1st January of this year. Consultations have been proceeding about the making of Regulations under that Act, and we hope that it, will not be very long before Regulations are brought out. The 1960 Act reinforces action already taken by the manufacturers to bring the safety standards of portable drip feed oil heaters to a very high standard of safety.

In the summer of 1959 my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade appointed a Committee, to which a good deal of reference has been made, under Mr. J. T. Molony, Q.C. The Committee had very wide terms of reference. It was able, among other things, to consider what further contribution legislation could make to promote safety in the home. It was asked to make an early Interim Report on consumer protection, and it did so on 24th March, 1960.

We were very grateful for the prompt and valuable response which the Committee gave to the request for early action by the publication of an Interim Report. It did not come out in time for legislation in the last Session, whether by a Private Member's Bill or otherwise. The end of March is a little late in the Session to get down to legislatioin. Anyway, there had to be time to consider the Report.

We now have the Bill. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will generously agree that it is a direct outcome of the Report of the Molony Committee, because the Report has pointed the way to what the hon. Gentleman has proposed and made it possible.

I hope that I am not putting the cart before the horse, but before discussing the details of the Bill I think that it is necessary to consider briefly how much and in what Circumstances the powers under the Bill are likely to be used. In paragraph 8 of its Report the Committee explained that it had in mind domestic articles which are likely to involve undue risk of personal injury, either because in ordinary use they contain or develop a concealed danger, or because they expose persons to danger in the event of … ignorant or inadvertent mishandling… Having acknowledged in paragraph 9 the care generally exercised by manufacturers, the Committee said in paragraph 10: but even though such ignorance or oversight is to be found only on a small scale, its consequences in terms of human suffering can be considerable. And hence when a serious and hitherto unsuspected hazard is brought to light, remedial action should clearly be prompt, effective and universal in its application. It is clear from this that the Committee did not contemplate frequent or widespread use of the powers it proposed. Indeed, it said in paragraph 45: we do not think that the power to make Regulations would need to be exercised with great frequency … What the Committee had in mind was more in the nature of a reserve power, a sanction, to be exercised without the need for special legislation. There would be no need for another Private Member's Bill each time. There would not need to be an Oil Burners (Standards) Act every time. The power would be exercised whenever circumstances arose clearly requiring action in the shape of compulsory safety standards. The Committee mentioned various types of articles which it thought might require consideration in this connection, but in most instances its comments, although somewhat tentative, do not point to widespread action.

In this connection it is interesting to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin). She put forward what sounds a tempting aphorism. She said that safety standards should be compulsory bust that quality standards should be voluntary. It sounds very good on the face of it, but to illustrate the point I will take an extreme and absurd case. Should it be made a compulsory safety standard that powdered glass should not be put in food? No doubt it is against the law to put powdered glass in food, but we do not need specifically to legislate for every conceivable kind of thing which can happen.

If my hon. Friend means that there can be no safety in the manufacture of goods unless there are safety regulations for the manufacture of those goods, I differ from her. If, on the other hand, my hon. Friend means that where there is a clear lack of safety there should be a regulation, then we can agree with each other. She nods her head, and so there is a much greater degree of uniformity on this question of the scope for legislation than I had dared to hope.

To return to the Molony Committee's Report, our experience fully supports the views which I have quoted from the Report and which I have tried to illustrate. We entirely agree that, in general, manufacturers have shown themselves anxious to ensure that their products do not involve undue risks to customers and, where there has been some evidence of risk, the problem has usually been not to persuade manufacturers to take action but to identify the hazard and find the appropriate remedy, and sometimes to help the manufacturers to do so. After all, it is a matter of their enlightenment and self-interest, and once the remedy has been found the manufacturers have been very ready to apply it.

That experience is echoed in the Molony Committee's Report in paragraph 42, which has already been quoted. It is important that we should get the matter in true perspective and that the House should understand that legislation cannot offer a comprehensive panacea for accidents.

Let us see what legislation can do. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater), who is not in her place at present, when she said that she wished that the Bill went further, realised its very wide terms. The Long Title is in astonishingly wide terms, to begin with. An hon. Member says, "Very good for this debate," and that is so. When we look at the scope of the regulations we find that they are also in very wide terms.

The enabling powers are in very wide terms, and we shall be prepared to use those powers on proper occasions. That is when it appears that an identifiable hazard exists for which it is possible to prescribe an effective remedy. That does not mean that the Bill will be followed by extensive or dramatic action in the form of a flood of regulations.

Perhaps I should answer the point which the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) put to me about what the right of appeal was after a prosecution for breach of the regulations. It is the same as the right of appeal after any other prosecution for a statutory offence triable in the first case by summary jurisdiction.

I have already referred to the very wide scope of Clause 1 (1). It refers to "any prescribed class of goods" without limitation. I take the intention to be that the Bill should be used only in respect of what are commonly called "consumer goods," but that is a very wide definition. We can see no way expressly to limit the Bill to such goods, because they would defy definition. If we started to make such a list I do not see why the list should ever end. There is a drafting dilemma there, but we feel that with reasonableness on the part of all concerned it will work. The powers in the Bill can be applied to goods which are already regulated under other legislation, for example foods, drugs or poisons.

We recognise, however, the difficulty of excluding such goods which arises from the fact that some of the other codes of legislation have also given very wide powers, the extent of which sometimes may be uncertain. Then there is the point that those wide powers are never fully exercised. Although there is an apparent danger of overlapping, we do not think it is likely to be a real danger and, in any event, consultation between the Government Departments concerned will avoid any difficulty which apparent overlapping might cause.

Powers are given in the Bill to the Home Secretary and we feel that, in general, he is the appropriate Minister to exercise these powers. The Molony Committee rightly pointed out that in some special cases it may be preferable for another Minister to act, for example my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. He has obviously an interest in this Bill. Paragraph 46 of the Molony Committee's recommendations says that the legislation should provide for the nomination by Order in Council of other Ministers to be responsible in particular cases. The Bill has no provision of that kind.

I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member that it does not appear necessary to have such a provision because, if required, a transfer of functions could be made under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act, 1946.

One of the most difficult problems in all legislation—and I speak now with quite lengthy Home Office experience—

Mr. George Craddock

(Bradford, South): I hope the Minister will forgive me, but I have in mind Caroline Ann Wilkinson, aged 4, of Harrogate, who lost her life because a plastic dart from a plastic gun had no anti-suction device. I feel that the Minister might cover this point by saying, "Other Ministers and the President of the Board of Trade in particular I feel that the question of compensation should arise in a case of this description, and it would appear to me that it would be possible only before the appropriate Departmental head.

Mr. Renton

As far as that is concerned, I understand that after this tragic case the manufacturers voluntarily withdrew all those goods from the market with, I understand, the co-operation of the retailers.

I come now to the very interesting question of what the civil rights will be when there has been a breach of the regulation. As a lawyer I very much welcome the provisions of the Bill with regard to that. I am anxious not to make too long a speech, because I know that many hon. Members want to speak, but if I deal with the numerous interruptions which occur it will be difficult to avoid doing so.

I was dealing with the question of enforcement and I think I must say something about that, because from the Home Office point of view it is very important. In general, local authorities are likely to be the best instruments of enforcement for this sort of law. Their officers, however, may not always have the skill and equipment necessary to find out whether goods comply with highly technical requirements.

The Bill leaves these arrangements—we think rightly—to be settled in each case by regulations, and the effect of Clause 1 (3) is that the regulations will provide whether or not local authorities are to enforce the safety requirements. If they are not to do so, it will, of course, still be possible to prosecute offenders in the ordinary way, and this can be done on the initiative either of the police, of private individuals or bodies who are interested.

We feel that in many cases the duty might suitably fall on the weights and measures inspectors but, in other cases, other officers employed by the local authorities could be chosen when it was considered appropriate for the local authority to have the power. By paragraph 3 of the Schedule, it is possible for the Minister to prescribe the tests for compliance with safety requirements, and to lay down whether those tests are to be carried out by local authorities or by approved laboratories. The House will recall that there is the same arrangement under the Oil Burners (Standards) Act.

I turn now to the point about the breach of statutory duty, which is contained in Clause 3 (1). It is a novel and important provision, and we accept it. No doubt, in including it, the hon. Member had in mind the remarks of Lord du Parcq in the House of Lords in the celebrated case of Cutler v. Wandsworth Stadium. The question was whether there was a civil action for a breach of Regulations imposed by a particular Statute, and Lord du Parcq said: To a person unversed in the science or art of legislation it may well seem strange that Parliament has not by now made it a rule to state explicitly what its intention is in a matter which is of no little importance, instead of leaving it to the court to discover by careful examination and analysis of what is expressly said what that intention may be supposed properly to be. By putting in this provision we shall be saving the courts the embarrassment, uncertainty and difficulty of discovering our intentions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) asked for an assurance on two matters. The first related to safety belts. This is not a road safety Bill, so there could not be put into it anything to the effect that regulations should be made compelling people to wear safety belts, which is what my hon. Friend had in mind. He also sought an assurance about the use of toxic and corrosive substances, and asked that in this respect the interests of the farming community should be watched.

That enables me to make a very important general point. While regulations are being drafted under the Bill—if it eventually passes through Parliament and receives the Royal Assent—we shall be at pains to consult the various manufacturers and other interested bodies who may be affected by those regulations, and we shall, of course, always be interested to hear any views which the National Farmers' Union may have to bring before us.

I have to repeat that the Government accept the Bill and that, if the House sees fit to enact it, we shall be prepared to make wise use of it when the need arises. We do not expect that that need will arise very often—and I am sure that the House hopes that it will not arise very often—but, when it does arise, we shall make wise use of this Measure. I should just add that at the appropriate time the Government will be ready to move the Financial Resolution that Clause 4 makes necessary.

1.45 p.m.

Mr. George Craddock (Bradford, South)

I believe that by introducing this Bill my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) has made history, and that the Measure will be warmly received on both sides of the House and by everybody outside. Many hon. Members have been deeply concerned in recent years at the number of accidents in homes, and to say that the need has arisen for the introduction of legislation such as this is to state the obvious. Accidents from oil stoves, electric fires and gas installations are reported in the Press almost daily.

We have had previous discussions on the subject in this Chamber. Hon. Members will perhaps recall that I have put Questions, and that I spoke on the matter in an Adjournment debate a year ago. Therefore, there are perhaps few people who feel more pleasure not only at the possibility but—now that we have had a frank statement from the Minister that the Government accept my hon. Friend's Bill—at the probability of its successful passage than I. Today's proceedings will mark a stepping-stone in the direction of protecting consumers over a very wide range.

It is not my intention to deal specifically with the fire aspect—installations in the home—but rather to draw the attention of the House to wearing apparel, particularly that for young children and old people, and to point to the very obvious dangers inherent there. In 1958, the British Safety Council carried out a survey throughout the United Kingdom. Contact was made with hospitals, general practitioners and all those associated with healing those injured by accidents in the home.

During that year it was discovered that more than 1,000 people died from burns received in the home. In all, 1 million people were burned. Some received burns so serious as to require many months of hospital treatment, but in the vast majority of cases the burns were only slight. Although many of those 1 million people sustained only slight injury, there is always the risk that what, in the event, proved to be a slight burn might have been a serious burn, were the victim a youngster or an old person, had nobody been present to give help.

It is for that reason that I have been particularly interested in the production of flame-resistant fabrics. I have with me today a nightdress that would fit a girl of 7 or 8 years of age, and if hon. Members later wish to test its flame-resistant qualities they are at liberty to put a match, a cigarette lighter, or even a gas jet to it. They will find that it will not burn.

I shall be glad if any Members, perhaps the Minister himself, will take advantage of this opportunity to test the flame-resistant properties of Proban. I should declare that I have absolutely no financial or business interest in the firm that I have mentioned. My only interest is humanitarian. I believe that a first-class job has been done in discovering a flame-resistant material which, as has been stated in the Press and in the House, whilst it is more expensive than ordinary inflammable material, is not so very much different in price as has been suggested. The garment that I have in the House at the moment, and which is flame-resistant treated, is 2s. 5d. more than an untreated garment. That is to say, the untreated material is 10s. 6d. and the treated material is 12s. 11d.

I hope that hon. Members do not think that I am standing in this market place to sell goods. I am saying this because it would appear to me that contact with a gas or an electric fire, or an oil stove or ordinary fire, begins within 11 inches of the hem. Therefore, with the spread of a garment made of non-treated fabrics of the winceyette type or cotton, the body is completely enveloped in flames in a matter of four, five, six or seven seconds. Consequently, it is quite impossible to do anything about it unless there is someone present at the time when the accident occurs.

Although the Minister has said that the Government do not intend to introduce a shower of regulations, I hope that they will do something in this respect, because I have had it in mind for a considerable time to demand legislation to make it compulsory on the part of producers of children's nightwear to use only flame-resistant materials. I am sure that any parent would consider that a difference in price of about 2s. 6d.—less than the price of a packet of cigarettes—to save a child's life, or to prevent serious injury, would be worth spending.

While I am on the question of price, I would point out that this difference applies only on the short market, and that when stockists stock non-inflammable material in quantity—and, naturally, more wild be produced—the sales will go up and, consequently, the price will come down. Therefore, the difference between the prices of the two types of garment will be narrowed even more.

Many young and old people not only suffer from serious burns, but suffer psychiatrically and have to have psychiatric treatment, in many cases for almost a lifetime. There is not only damage to the body; there also is damage to the mind. Therefore, the time has come when it is absolutely necessary to have the legislation proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston and I hope that the House will register its unanimous approval of this Bill this afternoon.

1.55 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart (Beckenham)

As a Member who once introduced a Bill that encountered some difficulty, and some might even call its obstruction, in Standing Committee upstairs, I was somewhat depressed when I looked at the length and, to some extent, the form of this Bill. It seems to me that it will lend itself to considerable amendment in Committee. Indeed, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) has mentioned a number of what seemed to me to be sensible Amendments. Nevertheless, I hope that this Measure will not be a long time in Committee, that there will be no obstruction to it and that it will soon become law.

I welcome this effort to implement the Interim Report of the Molony Committee. It seems to me, both from a Parliamentary and a consumer point of view, that the present procedure, which requires separate and special legislation for dealing with such matters as fireguards and oil burners, while defective crash helmets can be dealt with in separate regulations under the Road Traffic Acts, does not make much sense. I entirely support what the Molony Committee said in paragraph 42 of its Report: It is our view that statutory power to deal with such situations should exist in advance of the demonstrable need, so as to permit prompt and firm action as soon as the need is manifest. I think that we should have a few uneasy thoughts before we send this Bill on its way. We are giving Ministers an almost blank cheque in dealing with a situation which has been described by the Molony Committee in these words in paragraph 9 of its Report: We have found no evidence to suggest the marketing on any widespread scale of consumer goods from which recognised hazards have not been eliminated as far as is reasonably practicable. On the contrary, it is apparent that manufacturers in general have a high sense of responsibility and safety-consciousness in seeking out and eliminating potential dangers; and we think that the few exceptions to this rule can generally be attributed more to ignorance or oversight than to any cynical or culpably negligent disregard of safety considerations. The Minister will have to use discretion and balance when he comes to consider what regulations are necessary under the Bill. After all, a great many of the products that are on sale are intrinsically dangerous in themselves.

There are such articles as knives, canoes, motor cycles, motor cars, matches—one can go on indefinitely.

Mr. John Rankin (Glasgow, Govan)

Safety matches.

Mr. Goodhart

Yes, safety matches. Considerable danger can be caused by them.

It is impossible to eliminate all danger from these articles. No doubt, it would be possible to pass regulations which would require the manufacture of an absolutely safe knife, but I have grave doubts whether such a knife would cut anything.

There are matters in which the balance is much more finely drawn. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. George Craddock) has just given us a very interesting discourse on the flammability of children's nightwear. Here again, one has a difficult balance to strike between reasonable safety and reasonable cost, which will require much thought on the part of the Minister.

It seems to me that the balance is more evenly drawn in regard to electric blankets. I happen to be a member of the Council of the Consumers' Association, which publishes Which?. I confess that I was greatly depressed to find that the electric blanket which we have owned in my home for a couple of years got just about the lowest rating of any from that magazine when it dealt with that particular type of heating device.

In striking the right balance, a very great deal will depend upon the sort of advice which the Home Secretary receives. I was sorry that the Under-Secretary did not say a few words about the organisations that the Government have in mind. Clearly, they have something in view—presumably, it will be a committee; it almost always is—to advise the Minister on this subject. At the moment, I know of no section of the Home Office or, indeed, of anyone in the Home Office able to claim any particular expertise in this matter. The quality of the advice to be obtained will be of paramount importance.

I am inclined to think that the Molony Committee was a little rash in suggesting that this matter should be given to the Home Office at all. I do not know what the Molony Committee will ultimately recommend, but I imagine that the odds are that it will suggest that the Board of Trade should take an infinitely greater interest in the whole subject of consumer protection than it has done in the past. Consumer safety is an integral part of consumer protection, and I incline to the view that one weakens its structure by wrenching this particular section away and putting it in the hands of a different Minister.

After all, the arguments which the Committee advanced in this respect could equally well be advanced in support of the suggestion that road safety should be taken away altogether from the Ministry of Transport and transferred to the Home Office. Road safety is an integral part of the affairs of the Ministry dealing with roads, just as rail safety, too, cannot be divorced from the Ministry of Transport, which concerns itself with the railways. I very much doubt that this Ministerial change will prove entirely satisfactory.

There is another argument against having the matter of consumer safety handed over to the Home Office as opposed to the Board of Trade. International trade impinges upon a great many aspects of safety. In paragraph 14 of its Report, the Molony Committee refers to the sale of appliances equipped with connecting cables the wires of which are not coloured in accordance with the accepted British code. I think that the two cases which the Committee cites in its important section dealing with electricity both arise out of imports from abroad. I learned yesterday that an international agreement has been reached about this and, as I understand, the British code is now to be generally accepted on the Continent, which should, I think, eliminate a great hazard in this respect.

There is a danger inherent in the fact that we in this country should be taking an increasing interest in consumer protection and compulsory safety standards at the same time as many other countries, particularly America and the countries of Europe, are doing the same. It would be quite disastrous if each sitting in isolation established slightly different standards which interfered with the free transfer of goods. A few years ago, it would have been a comparatively simple and inexpensive operation to arrange for this country, France. America and the rest of Europe all to have a television system with the same lineage definition. Now, not many year:, later, if one were to try to bring about the same happy state of affairs, the operation would be enormously expensive.

Therefore, at the beginning of progress in consumer safety standards, it is immensely important that there should be international co-operation of the closest kind. I am happy to learn that there is a very close co-operation in this respect between the Six and the Seven in Europe. The Board of Trade is more likely to take an international view of the problem than the Home Office is, and it seems to me, therefore, that that is another powerful argument for transferring the whole problem back to the Board of Trade.

I come now to enforcement. I quite agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State and the Molony Committee that the police powers should be in the hands of the local authority. But which local authority? There is at present fresh weights and measures legislation winding its way through Parliament. As understand, there is at this stage a considerable difference between the weights and measures local authority organisation envisaged in that Measure and the supervisory local authority organisation set forth in the Bill before us today.

It seems to me that the whole subject is complicated enough already, without having different tiers of local government dealing with different aspects of the whole consumer protection problem. I hope that, at later stages of both Bills, we shall be able to work things together so that the weights and measures organisation can deal with this particular matter, too.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bilston on having used his place in the Ballot to introduce this most constructive Measure.

2.10 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Oram (East Ham, South)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) was kind enough to discuss with me and others the scope of the Bill which he has introduced. I confirm what he said, namely, that he started off in a much more ambitious, frame of mind and was hoping to introduce a much bigger Bill to fill the enormous gap which exists on the Statute Book concerning the consumer.

The debate has shown that when the Bill becomes an Act there will still remain to be enacted enormous measures for consumer protection which are not yet dealt with. I agree with what the Joint Under-Secretary of State said, namely, that the powers granted by the Bill are in themselves wide. I am not in the least suggesting that the Bill is unimportant. What I do suggest is that it is only the beginning of the road, a road upon which we should have embarked long ago.

There is a great and urgent need for the Government to become consumer-protection-conscious to a degree which they are far from being at present. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) made a valid point when he said that it should not be necessary for a private Member, fortunate in the Ballot, to introduce a Bill such as this. The Government ought to have taken this action. They should have announced it in the Queen's Speech at the beginning of the Session, rather than leave it to the luck of an hon. Member who happened to be interested in this subject.

The Minister quoted two important Acts which are already on the Statute Book. I agree that they are important. He referred to the Fireguards Act, 1952, and the Oil Burners Act (Standards), 1960. Both of them were the result of the Private Members' Ballot, just like this Bill. The Government should have faced their own responsibility in this matter long ago. They should have taken effective action concerning not only safety in the home, but the many other spheres of consumer protection to which hon. Members have referred.

The Government cannot say that public opinion is not ready for important steps to be taken. In recent years we have welcomed a considerable upsurge of public interest in consumer protection. Reference has been made to the Consumers' Association. The mere fact that that has become such a successful organisation so rapidly shows that there is a widespread and keen interest that the consumer should be protected in this new affluent society in which he lives.

So far, it has been left almost entirely to voluntary bodies to carry out their excellent work. I refer to bodies such as the Consumers' Association, the Consumer Advisory Council of the British Standards Institution, and the Retail Trading Standards Association. They have led the way when the Government should have led the way. The Government should have taken action instead of my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston.

Nor can the Government say that they have not had enough stimulation, prodding and prompting from the House. For very many years Members of the House associated with the Co-operative movement, and former Members such as Miss Elaine Burton and Mrs. Jean Mann, and hon. Members opposite, have constantly suggested to the Government that they ought to take this or that step to protect the consumer. But they dillied and dallied and refused to move.

There is, for example, the pathetic story concerning the weights and measures legislation, to which the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) referred. He said that it is winding its way through Parliament. It is a bulky Measure and it will necessarily be slow in its movement through Parliament. It has now arrived in Parliament, but it has taken ten years. The Hodgson Report was published ten years ago. There have been countless Questions in the House asking when the Government proposed to introduce weights and measures legislation. It has now been done, but ten years have been wasted.

I hope that the full report of the Molony Committee will not suffer the fate of the Report of the Hodgson Committee. I hope that if the Molony Committee brings forward further recommendations the Government will be much quicker in implementing them. There is no doubt from the important body of evidence presented to the Molony Committee that it will almost certainly make further important consumer protection recommendations.

Nor can the Government say that there is not a tremendous and urgent need for a great deal more activity. In these days we are passing through a consumer revolution. It is not merely in colonial administration and scientific progress that this is a revolutionary age.

It is also a revolutionary age from the consumers' point of view. This is the age of plastics and man-made fibres. In shopping, it is the age of the self-service shop and pre-packaged goods. As we have heard this afternoon, there are electric gadgets without number in the home.

Television advertising has a tremendously powerful influence in society today. There has been a huge increase in expenditure on advertising of other kinds and a tremendous monopoly growth, of which we have seen further evidence in the newspaper world only this week. Also, there has been a huge development in hire-purchase finance. All these things mean that the consumer is facing an entirely different world in the 'sixties from the one which he faced only a decade ago.

In the face of all this, the consumer, unless he takes his place in the organised consumers' Co-operative movement, stands largely unprotected, unorganised and alone. That is why I say that the Government's attitude in these revolutionary times is entirely inadequate and that the problems of today have been grossly neglected. Several suggestions have been made this afternoon as to why they have been neglected. I suggest that, in part, the reason is that everybody's business turns out to be no one's business. We have already had evidence during the debate that several Ministries are involved in this matter.

I was very much in sympathy with what the hon. Member for Beckenham said about the Board of Trade having a primary interest. I thought that this was so in 1955 when, I thought, a false step was made by the Government. The Ministry of Food was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture instead of either being boosted up into a Ministry of Consumer Welfare or, if that was not acceptable, transferred to the Board of Trade.

We welcome the fact that a Home Office Minister and a Board of Trade Minister have been with us during this debate, but we might equally have welcomed a representative of the Ministry of Health. We might equally have welcomed a representative of the Ministry of Education, for the need for consumer education in all spheres is of tremendous importance. We might have had a representative of the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Power, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, because local authorities are so obviously necessary in the machinery of all these things.

That means that all these Ministries are involved in the question of consumer protection, but that they all have it as a minor, insignificant part of their function. The time is overdue when there should be a Ministry itself concerned with consumer protection as its main purpose in life, or, at least, a separate section of a Ministry should have that as its main purpose.

I hope that from today the Government will take a much more forward-looking and a much more vigorous attitude towards this whole question. They should have appointed the Molony Committee, not last year, but years ago. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston had it in mind to introduce a Consumer Protection Bill, he should have had, not simply the interim Report as the basis of his Bill, but, perhaps, a dozen reports of technical advice upon which legislation could have been based.

Better still, as I said before, it should not have been necessary for my hon. Friend to do that at all, because action should have been taken by the Government long ago. Even when the Government help in these matters, as they helped, for example, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) in bringing in his Bill to deal with oil burners, it is only after a series of tragic accidents have produced a tragic scandal that the Government have been prepared to act.

I am sure that the Bill will be welcomed throughout the country, as it has been welcomed on both sides of the House. I am particularly glad that since my hon. Friend was choosing a narrow section of this field, he chose, in particular, the human problem of accidents which occur in the home. No section of the community will welcome this legislation more than the men who are called upon to fight the fires which result from the defective apparatus which has been referred to today.

When I first came to the House, and was faced with the remote possibility of being fortunate in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills and having to choose a subject, the officer who was then the chief fire officer in East Ham, which I represent, implored me, if I should be so fortunate, to introduce a Bill along:he lines of the one which my hon. Friend has introduced today. That was live or six years ago. He related his and his men's tragic experiences, very often day after day, in dealing with the tragic results of fires occurring in the home. Therefore, I congratulate my hon. Friend on his choice of Bill. I warmly support it and I wish him great luck in its remaining stages.

2.25 p.m.

Dr. Man Glyn (Clapham)

I hope that the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) will forgive if I do not follow up all the points he made, although I should like to refer to one or two of them later. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) for giving way at the beginning of the debate and informing the House that the Bill had a very wide coverage. That to some extent is a disadvantage. One is always reluctant to give a Minister a blank cheque. On the other hand, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) suggested, it might well be that under this umbrella power, we could group together the various Ministerial duties and put them together under one Ministry. In that respect, possibly the Board of Trade might be the best Ministry to deal with matters concerning consumer protection, and, indeed, all the ramifications and extensions that the Bill will cover.

In bringing the Bill to the House, the hon. Member for Bilston has done a great service. Apart from anything else, it will draw the country's attention to this wide problem. I hope that one of the results also will be that our schools will take this matter much more seriously and teach children to observe far more than they do now the necessary measures for their own protection.

We must be careful that we do not go too far in this. After all, there are many instances where an accident is due to the carelessness of the person concerned. To take, for example, the elementary instance of a portable gas fire, such an appliance is perfectly safe if used properly. On the other hand, if a portable gas stove is used in a nursery where children are playing, it is obviously highly dangerous. Responsibility must be given to some extent to the parents and to the owners of these pieces of machinery to see that they are used in the manner which is intended.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) suggested that our discussion might tend to throw some sort of slur upon our manufacturers vis-à-vis the export trade. I do not think there is any likelihood that foreign people who read reports of this debate will assume that we have defects in our manufactured goods. We have, however, to compete with countries abroad whose standards may be somewhat lower.

To take an elementary item such as electric wiring, I am fairly certain that standards in France, for example, are much lower. I know, for instance, that the French still allow wiring in domestic houses with the old wooden capping and casing. No insurance company in this country would underwrite a house that was wired in that manner. On the other hand, if we are exporting to a country which uses lower standards of that nature, we must to some extent be guided by the standard of the country to which we are exporting, otherwise we shall price ourselves out of that market. In that respect, France is a good example. To my mind, all its electrical equipment is of a lower standard. If one looks at the wiring of an electric fire which is sold to the consumer, one finds that it would by no means pass the high standards which we lay down in this country.

Most hon. Members will, I believe, share my views that the administration and laying down of standards will be done by the British Standards Institution. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham asked who will carry out the provisions of the Bill. When it goes upstairs to Committee, we shall have to be somewhat more specific about the particular local authority upon whom each individual responsibility will fall.

One thing which is absent from the Bill is the question of by-passing responsibility. Under Section 113 of the Food and Drugs Act, provision was made whereby the buck could be passed. For example, if a trader can show that he was genuinely trading and that the fault was that of the manufacturer, he can join the manufacturer in the action and it is the manufacturer who pays the penalty. I have no doubt that this kind of thing can be remedied when the Bill goes upstairs.

The question of standards for imported goods is a very much more difficult problem, because once goads have passed into this country they become diversified and it is extremely difficult to control them. It might well be that eventually we should have to demand some sort of standard on imports, which would administratively prove very much cheaper than actually examining the goods and testing them when they have already been distributed, possibly to half a million traders throughout the country. There may well be a case for examination of imported goods in this respect long before they are ever delivered to the actual vendors.

Mention was made of medical goods and drugs. Here again, I think that the existing legislation does protect to a very great extent, but one of the difficulties—I speak from experience on this matter—is that it is often not until a drug has actually gone on to the market that one realises its effect. I remember when I was up at Cambridge, which was at about the time that the drug Benzedrine was introduced to the market. Somebody sitting for his tripos took a large number of tablets, with the result that on his examination paper was found his name written 500 times.

Mr. Goodhart

Did he pass?

Dr. Glyn

I am sure the examiners passed him because they had only a very little to read through, and my own experience of examiners is that the less they have to read the more willing they are to pass you.

However, it was not until the actual effect of that drug had been felt on the market that legislation was introduced to put it on the poisons list.

I was very glad that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State gave us the assurance about the right of appeal.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker

The very important point about drugs is a matter on which the Ministry of Health is receiving representations at the present time.

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that there is much to be said for restricting all new products for sale on prescription only for a trial period till their full effects on the patients are known, and for not allowing the sale of many drugs till they have completed a trial period?

Dr. Glyn

I am afraid I cannot go all the way with the hon. Member in this case. It would mean that every single time one had a new combination of, say, A.P.C. or some very elementary product which is really not a poison at all, we should have to have prescription—for six months, as I understand the hon. Gentleman—before it could be sold over the counter. There is an enormous number of ordinary household drugs used by mothers in the home which really do not require a trial period. However, I go with the hon. Member as far as to say that if they have anything in them which is of a questionable nature I think it is really up to the Minister to act through the Drugs Act rather than through this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone mentioned the question of the farm. I cannot go the whole way with him, because I think that electrical installations on a farm should be of a reasonable standard because really the danger on a farm is far worse because of wet ground and so On, so that there is a possibility of immediate death from the electricity. I think my hon. Friend overstressed that point.

I think that this Bill is the beginning, possibly, of something very much more important. We are here laying down standards for the protection of consumers in this country. I would hope that in the not very distant future we shall get not standards for this country only but standards throughout the world. That is What I am sure we are all aiming at eventually. That would get over the business of having to examine goods coming from abroad. Thus we could have common standards. I hope that eventually the Government will get together with America and the countries in Western Europe to see if we can have some elementary standards in common which would have to be adhered to by manufacturers. I hope that they will not be too long in coming to such deliberations, because that would make the marketing of goods very much easier.

At the expense of repetition, I would point out again that that would get over the problem of the manufacturer who is selling his goods in England at higher standards than those at which he exports them. Thus he has already got two standards. If the standards were international and universal, then all manufacturers would be on an equal footing. I hope that the Government will, when the time and place occur, look into this possibility of the universality of standards.

I welcome this Bill. My hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State has said that it will probably have Government support. I hope that the public will be even more watchful of the dangers of fire and accidents in the home, and that parents will have their responsibility crystallised, because, although we can pass legislation for safety, it is the parent who, for instance, lets his child eat the glass out of the doll's eye.

Mrs. Slater

Oh.

Dr. Glyn

I must say, even if I disagree with the hon. Member, that accidents are often due to lack of supervision in the home by the parents, and I hope that in future parents will make sure that their children are both educated in the elements of safety and also properly supervised.

2.36 p.m.

Mr. George Darling (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me if I intervene for a few minutes to offer what I trust will be some useful comments on the Bill and on the debate that we have had up to now.

One of the most important facts which have come out in the debate so far is the support that is being given by hon. Members opposite to some of the ideas that we were putting forward about ten years ago—to bring together Government Departments to deal with this kind of thing, for improvements in informative labelling, in the laying down of standards, and so on. It seems that our efforts to convert hon. Members opposite are having some success, and we hope that in time they will have their effect upon the Government, too.

The hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) hoped that the Bill would not be taken too far. In view of the reply which we had from the Under-Secretary of State, I do not think that there is much risk of this Government taking the Bill too far. The risk is that they are not going to act on it far enough, that they are not going to deal with it fast enough. That is a point I shall come to in a moment.

Dr. Alan Glyn

I am sorry if I gave that impression. What I really meant was that one is always reluctant to give some undefined powers in a Bill, and not to specify the powers one is conferring.

Mr. Darling

If we were to define exactly what we want this Government to do, I can assure the hon. Member that the Government would not support the Bill which they are now supporting. This is a Bill which gives permissive powers. The extent to which they work on it we shall have to watch.

I do not know whether many hon. Members are aware of it or not, but the British Standards Institution's specifications do, in many cases, have international authority and are recognised abroad, and that is, of course, a precedent which could be built upon, provided that we had the right kind of organisation to deal with consumer goods, also. That is really the point which I want to come to in a few moments, but first, I should like to join hon. Members opposite and my hon. Friends in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) on using his luck in the Ballot to bring forward this very useful Measure.

My hon. Friend has told us that he would have preferred to have brought a Bill of much wider scope, but although the Bill is not as comprehensive as he would have wished, it is a most important advance in consumer protection, and it is desirable that we get it on the Statute Book without delay. The scope of the Bill is, I think, very much wider than is generally appreciated outside this House, judging from the comments which have appeared in the Press and elsewhere. It gives the Government power to improve safety standards and safety regulations if the need for them is established. The only limitation is that proof of need has to be made for this sort of protection.

We have been given many examples of the dangerous appliances and domestic goods which can now be bought on the market and taken into the home and which may cause fires, explosions, and so on. The list has by no means been exhausted, and one could give further examples of dangerous appliances. One of the most important aspects of the Bill is that it deals not only with appliances which are already available for consumers to buy, but appliances which may be made in the future, possibly of new materials, which prove to be dangerous. There is no restriction at all on the regulations which may be introduced to deal with all kinds of goods that may come on the market in future.

Another important aspect is that the Bill is so drafted that it will enable us to put pressure on the Government at any time to introduce regulations where we think that regulations are needed, when we come across evidence of dangerous or potentially dangerous goods on the market. It is, in fact, the sort of comprehensive Bill which some of us asked for when the Molony Committee's Interim Report appeared, and particularly when the Measure to deal with oil burners was introduced by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro).

It was quite clear, then, that this wider Bill was needed, and it should, in our view, have been quickly drafted and put on the Statute Book. The Under-Secretary has said that there was no time last Session to introduce this wider Bill. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) has said, it could have been introduced by the Government and included in the Queen's Speech for this Session.

When we are considering how the present Bill is to be operated, we must take note of the fact that the Government have been very dilatory in this matter up to now. Even though the Government are making amends by backing the Bill, their belated action certainly does not absolve them from the charge that they pay far too little attention to the interests of the consuming public. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South has said, the reason for this general lack of interest is that legislation, regulations and administration in respect of consumers is now spread over far too many Government Departments. In every Ministry which shares the responsibility in this field, I think that it is true to say that the interests of consumers are very much minority interests.

We know very well that the Under-Secretary and his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, are interested in the Bill—they have displayed their interest today—but we are also well aware that they have other pressing claims upon their attention within their Departments. The Home Office, in particular, has a spate of legislation on its plate, and there is more legislation soon to come. I do not know what will come out of the Royal Commission on the Police, but the Home Office seems always to be having Royal Commissions on matters that result in its getting very much engaged in legislation, the administration of legislation, law reform, and so on.

I agree with all those hon. Members on both sides of the House who say that consumer protection should be taken away from the Home Office because it is so closely associated with manufacture and trade and interests which are more appropriate to the Board of Trade. This is no reflection upon either the interests or the capacity of the present occupants of office at the Home Department, but it is a fact that all this work is now far more appropriate to the Board of Trade than it is to the Home Office; and that is one of the proposals that we shall eventually make.

We cannot, I think, do it in this Bill. In any case, we all want this Bill, and it would be wrong for widespread Amendments to be tabled, although the Title and content of the Bill leave it open to a great deal of amendment. I hope that not many Amendments will be tabled to the Bill. If protective measures of some kind are found to be needed, we can consider these in Committee, but I think that, as drafted, the Bill will work very satisfactorily indeed.

As many hon. Members have said, the Bill still leaves out of account many things that need to be done in the way of consumer protection. I do not think that we can fully appreciate the purpose of the Bill unless it is placed in the framework of the wider legislation which we are convinced will be needed, because the Bill is only one part of the attack upon the dangers and frauds that arise in respect of the purchase of certain kinds of articles, in low standards, false advertising, misleading information and shady practices of all kinds. The wider attack has to be made.

The reason for that is that consumers have now got higher standards of living than previously. This is a continuing process which has gone on for some time —though it seems to have been standing still for the last eight years. Notwithstanding that, whoever may be taking the credit for it, it is true to say that standards are now higher. In addition, there are new kinds of materials—new fabrics and new plastics—and new types of goods available, and, therefore, the opportunities for fraudulent practices are very great.

However, it is true to say—we must keep on pressing this—that one of the reasons why w6 want to protect the consumer from shady practices is that most of the manufacturers and traders in the country are perfectly good, honest, responsible people who do a good job of work, and we also want to protect them from their shady competitors. That is an important point in our propaganda and in what we desire to do. We must keep on driving home that what we want to do is to protect not only the consumers, but the reputable manufacturers and traders.

In this field we shall have some legislation in addition to this Bill. We have at last a Weights and Measures Bill. The point that I want to make, in mentioning that a good deal of legislation will be coming along, is that unless arrangements are made now for the proper administration of this legislation the whole business will be confused and unbalanced. Divided responsibilities are never good, and if there are divided responsibilities the administration of the legislation that we put on the Statute Book will not be as good or as effective as it ought to be.

We must look, for instance, at some of the provisions in the Weights and Measures Bill when deciding what we are going to do in this Bill. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) and other hon. Members pointed to the importance of making sure that the local authorities which will have the power to carry out many of the terms of the Weights and Measures Bill will be the same local authorities that will be testing articles under this Bill. I think that this Bill is so drafted that that can happen, though I am not sure that I am correct about that.

The Schedule to the Bill states: In this Schedule ' local authority ' as respects England and Wales means either (a) the council of a county or county borough, or (b) the council of a county borough, county district or metropolitan borough, or the Common Council of the City of London… The definition can probably be phrased in the same way as the definition that will appear in the Weights and Measures Bill. There will be confusion if we do not 'have the same kind of local authorities operating this, with all of them having the same kind of staff. Staffing will not be difficult for them, and they can use the same laboratories for testing, and generally carry out the administration in a smooth manner.

I hope, therefore, that as we proceed with this wider legislation, we will take note of the fact that we need not only, as has been said, a Ministry that will bring these various functions together, but will also make it clear how we want to administer this legislation, and that the machinery from the Government down to the local authorities must be a common administrative machine for all the legislation appropriate to it.

In the further legislation that will be needed to give full effect to this, there is no great need for new measures. In informative labelling, in the laying down of quality standards where appropriate, in dealing with false advertising, in getting hold of shady manufacturers and traders who try to pass off shoddy stuff as being first-class—in all of that, I am convinced, a few strong Amendments to the Merchandise Marks Acts would do the trick, provided that there were a body in existence which could give advice to what we hope will be a department of the Board of Trade.

This Consumer Advisory Council could find out what was going on in the country and bring information on shady practices to the attention of the Board of Trade. The Department could then, in consultation with the advisory body, decide what action ought to be taken to stop such practices. Thus we do not need a great deal of new legislation. We need some amending legislation. We should know the whole picture so that we can set up the administrative machine to deal with it. We do not want more officials than now. We already have weights and measures and public health inspectors. Indeed, we could save staff if we brought all these activities into one department. We waste staff by spreading them too far.

We want legislation, but, above all, we want to make sure that there is an appropriate advisory body to help the Board of Trade—and I hope that it is only to be the Board of Trade—in these matters. At the moment, we have not such an advisory body on the scale that we should like. The present Consumer Advisory Council is a semi-public body, and perhaps we could build up a new advisory body to the Board of Trade from that.

The important thing, however, is to decide where the administrative machine is to be. We suggest that it should be a special department of the Board of Trade. When that is done, it can work through the local authorities, which have been selected to do much of this work, and a great deal more staff will not be needed. With these views, I hope that we shall consider that this important and useful measure is not something complete in itself, but is only one step forward to the wider legislation on consumer matters that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are asking for.

2.54 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Williams (Exeter)

If I strike a discordant note I hope that it will not be thought that I am not rallying to the compliments paid by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) to the success of the Government's policies since the Conservative Party returned to office in 1951, when he referred to the high standards of living our people enjoy. But at the beginning of each Session it is the practice of some of my hon. Friends and myself, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach)—whose other activities have caused his absence today—to examine the Private Members' Bills put forward by those hon. Members lucky in the Ballot to see which of them should be allowed to get to the Statute Book and which should have their passage made more difficult.

I confess that when I saw the list of Private Members' Bills at the beginning of this Session a feeling of depression crept over me. I felt that so many of them were valuable, like the Mock Auctions Bill of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds)—it is really his Bill, though introduced by one of my hon. Friends—that the activities of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham and myself would be greatly restricted on Fridays.

When this Bill was announced I felt that it was one which we should find not simple to oppose. I am glad to be able to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that that opinion has been changed. This is not the sort of Bill which should pass this House. In fact. I am not sure that, at 4 o'clock, if the Closure is moved, I shall not feel it incumbent upon me to obstruct it. This is a Bill which should not be allowed to go on the Statute Book, and I propose to take up a Effie time of the House to explain the reasons for that opinion.

Let me refer, first, to an hon. Member opposite, who has just left the Chamber, and who can, I think, be called the "Shadow Patronage Secretary"—the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade). No doubt he hopes to achieve that position when the Liberal Party takes the place of the Socialist Party as Her Majesty's Official Opposition. He may he somewhat older by then; he may have moved to another place, or he may not be with us at all on this planet. But no doubt he may be looked upon as a possible "Shadow Patronage Secretary".

Some of the hon. Member's remarks were strange in the extreme. He criticised the Government for having the Molony Report and then doing nothing about it. But, as the House knows, the Molony Interim Report was published in April, 1960, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) introduced his Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960, almost directly after that Report was published. He received considerable assistance from the Government in ensuring that his Bill became an Act. Thus, I do not think that the criticisms made by the hon. Member the "Shadow Shadow Patronage Secretary" are really valid.

We should not overlook the fact that the Molony Report is an Interim Report. Interim reports are sometimes greatly different from final reports when further evidence has been considered. However, in the course of my studies of this Interim Report, I have found one or two matters which are relevant to our discussion.

First, these words appear in paragraph 7 of the Interim Report: We must first, therefore, make clear the definition of ' consuming public' to which we are working. We regard the consumer as one who purchases (or hire-purchases) goods for private use or consumption. I wish to relate that to the Title of the Bill. I raised this matter with the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) and I asked whether there was any reference in the Bill to indicate that the goods being considered for control by regulations issued by the Home Secretary were those which were used in a home. I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) went outside objects which could be used in the home and referred to sailing boats, motor cars and all sorts of other things. It is clear that by no stretch of the imagination could the Bill be said to be confined to those articles used in the home. It refers to the whole range of consumer consumption.

I draw attention to the definition of "consumer" in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. It is simple: He who or that which consumes.

Mr. Rankin

That is an interim dictionary.

Mr. Williams

The hon. Member can make his own speech later. That is the best authority that I can get from the House of Commons Library.

That means that, if it is passed into law in its present form, the Bill will cover practically every activity in the country, because almost every person and every thing is a consumer. The "Queen Mary" is a consumer; she consumes oil and so she comes within the scope of the Bill. Aeroplanes are consumers. Nowadays, they mainly consume paraffin, or whatever the name for it is. I am told that the name is "burning oil", or something like that, but it is still paraffin. The scope of the Bill is thus so wide that it covers the activities of practically every individual and every article in the country.

Clause 9 of the Molony Report refers to "General Observations Concerning the Safety of Consumer Goods" and says: Before we comment upon a number of special cases, it is right that we should emphasise one general conclusion. We have found no evidence to suggest the marketing on any widespread scale of consumer goods from which recognised hazards have not been eliminated as far as is reasonably practicable. That means that we are to have this tremendous piece of legislation on the Statute Book for only a few isolated cases. The House should be very careful before taking such a step, especially when the legislation is introduced by a private Member.

In paragraph 12, the Molony Report refers to a detailed analysis of fatal accidents in homes where electrical appliances and fittings have been involved. I think that the Committee had a substantial argument in that case. I am extremely clumsy where electrical matters are concerned and, rather than that the House should be deprived of my services at an early date, I always employ a skilled electrician if any electrical work has to be done in my house, but I think that there is a case for legislation on this matter. However, it should be special legislation and not a blanket Bill such as this, which gives far too much power to any Government, from whatever party they spring. It might well be a Private Member's Bill and, if it is reasonably framed, my hon. Friends and I will help to get it on the Statute Book.

Paragraph 15 of the Report refers to the use of electric blankets. This is an extraordinary paragraph. It says: It is clearly unwise to allow an electric blanket to become sharply creased, or to sleep with it switched on; and we doubt the wisdom of lying on, rather than under, an electric blanket…. I have not got one of these luxurious articles, but from inquiries I find that most people seem to lie on them. I have never heard of anyone who sleeps under them.

Mr. John Hall (Wycombe)

I assure my hon. Friend, having used one of these blankets for many years, that they are nearly always used on top and that it is very rarely that people lie on them.

Mr. Williams

I accept that most people lie under them and not on them; therefore, I withdraw that point. But why does the Report mention the question of people lying on these blankets if it is the common practice for the blanket to be on top?

Mr. John Hall

Perhaps it was thought that my hon. Friend might buy one and lie on it.

Mr. Williams

My hon. Friend is being too flippant in these matters. He should take these things more seriously.

The Molony Report goes on to refer to electrical appliances, about which we have had legislation in the last Session of Parliament. The Report also refers, in paragraph 29, to the 'tragic accidents that take place due to children and elderly people getting their clothes on fire. I accept without question the remarks made by one or two hon. Members that these flimsy nightdresses are inclined to go up in flames in four or five seconds, but it is very difficult to legislate or for the Home Secretary to promulgate orders to prevent this.

People will wear these articles and I should have thought that practically any child's nightdress was dangerous if the child is allowed to get too near the fire. Most people are aware of this and they do their best to keep children away from the fire, or to put adequate guards round it. Legislation on this point is a heavy-handed method. The real thing to do is to have a proper publicity campaign to emphasise to people that if they allow children or women in flimsy nightgowns to get close to a fire they are liable to get burned and possibly lose their lives.

The Molony Report is an Interim Report and I would have thought that any legislation of this nature should await the Committee's final report. If this subject is so important it might well be a matter for Government legislation. I do not think that it is a subject that we can discuss here easily on a Friday when, at the beginning of the debate, I noticed that only 32 hon. Members were present.

I have already made my criticism of the fact that the Bill is too wide. Clause 1, which usually contains the main point of any of these Private Members' Bills, makes it perfectly clear that practically any class of goods can be covered by the regulations made by the Secretary of State. The Clause says: The Secretary of State may by regulations impose as respects any prescribed class of goods— (a) any such requirements, whether as to the composition or contents, design, construction, finish or packing of, or otherwise relating to… It is a comprehensive Clause and it places tremendous power in the Home Secretary's hands. I, for one, would resist that. There may well be cases where the Home Secretary should have limited powers to deal with a particular danger in the home or a danger to consumers generally, but there is no case for such tremendous powers as this. They are far too comprehensive and he should not be allowed to have them. That is the reason why I oppose this particular piece of legislation.

Clause 2, subsection (3, b) says: where he reasonably believes that the goods or component part will not be used in Great Britain; ". This subject has been raised earlier in the debate, but I do not apologise for referring to it again. I know the explanation is that other countries to whom we export these goods may have different standards from our own and different regulations which would enable these goods to be sold there.

I do not think that this is good enough. It is tantamount to saying that we in this country are to have one standard for ourselves, but that there is to be another standard for overseas customers on whose confidence we depend if we are to maintain the standard of life for this country. It is tantamount to saying that they are to have inferior goods delivered to them compared with those which we in these islands enjoy.

I should think it very much against the interests of this country to allow goods of that nature to be exported at all. I know that it is referred to in the Interim Report. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Holman) suggested that it is not in that Report.

Mr. Percy Holman (Bethnal Green)

The hon. Member was saying that we should not export inferior goods abroad. Surely as the world becomes more civilised those people will have their standards—whether higher or lower—and we should export goods in accordance with the standards of those countries to which we export.

Mr. Dudley Williams

That reinforces the point I was trying to make. In fact, the Bill would allow us to export those goods.

Mr. Holman

Importing countries demand that standard,

Mr. Dudley Williams

The subsection says: where he reasonably believes that the goods or component part will not be used in Great Britain;". I agree that if the importing country said, "We are not going to have these inferior goods" it would stop, but, provided that we can get away with it, under this Bill we are to be prepared to export inferior goods. That is wrong. I do not think that it would add to the reputation of our manufacturers or to the good standards of this country. It would do great damage to the overseas market.

Mr. John Hall

If this Clause were not included, would it not put us at a considerable disadvantage in the overseas market? It might make it necessary to add to the manufacturers' costs on certain articles. In competing with countries with a different standard of safety, we might find ourselves at a disadvantage. Is not that the reason for this Clause being in the Bill?

Mr. Dudley Williams

That may be. All I say is that it is too important a subject for private Members' legislation. We should wait for the final report of the Molony Committee before deciding that this sort of Clause should go into the Bill.

I do not think that this Clause is the sort of legislation which should be put across on a Friday. I do not say that unkindly to the hon. Member for Bilston, who is perfectly justified in introducing the Bill, but this should not be the subject of legislation introduced by a private Memiber. It is so important that it should have very serious consideration. It may well be that there is something in what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) says, but the matter should be carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government and dealt with in a Government Bill.

The next point—and I hesitate, because I know how sensitive hon. and right hon. Members opposite are on this matter—is Clause 4. That Clause says: There shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament any increase attributable to this Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland. That is another thing of which I do not approve. This is a method of putting a burden on local government for which I think central Government should take the responsibility. I understand that the Government are to have a Money Resolution, but I intensely dislike Private Members' Bills which require Money Resolutions. I think it takes away from the central Government a power to control expenditure and for that reason, among others, I do not wish to support the Bill.

I do not wish to take up too much time. I know there are other hon. Members who wish to intervene in this debate, but there is one other point to which I particularly want to refer. The Bill does not include the by-passing provisions of Section 113 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. This was recommended by the Molony Report in paragraph 44. Were those provisions included it would enable somebody not responsible for the manufacture of the goods to say, "I am not the responsible party. It is the manufacturer who should be prosecuted."

This matter particularly affects my constituency, which lives to a great extent on distributive trades. What is to happen under the Bill? It means that an unfortunate shopkeeper or distributive businessman may be prosecuted, for selling, say, an inferior electric fire or water heater, or something like that, when, in fact, it is not his responsibility that it is inferior. He may have bought it in good faith from a manufacturer who himself may well be a reputable manufacturer, but it is really the responsibility of the manufacturer to see that such articles are properly manufactured. To put the onus on the shopkeeper is wrong. Provided that the shopkeeper can give reasonable proof that he is not responsible and bought in good faith, I do not believe that a prosecution should succeed. An amendment to the Bill is necessary in that respect.

I do not like the Bill. I do not think this a proper subject for private Member's legislation. Although I confess that I find myself in the minority, I hope that there will be sufficient hon. Members who are of the same opinion to decide, on a Division, not to give the Bill a Second Reading.

3.19 p.m.

Mr.. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) disappoints the House. He is in a minority of one in opposing the Bill.I beg him not to force a Division but to reserve his points, some of which are very interesting, for the Committee stage discussion. He said himself—and it was an interesting admission—that in relation to electrical equipment he thought there was a strong case for legislation.

The hon. Member also complimented his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on the Oil Burners (Standards) Act, 1960. If he accepts that there is need for legislation regarding some items of domestic equipment, will not he appreciate that the reservations he expresses about the wider terms of the Bill may be dealt with during the Committee stage and that there is absolutely no necessity for him to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill today?

The reason my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) has brought in this Bill in the form in which it is presented today is that the Government have been so dilatory in implementing the various reports which they have been considering over a long period.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston said in his excellent introductory speech, the Bill is a limited Bill. There are many other aspects of consumer protection which he would have liked to have introduced into the Bill. Bearing all that in mind, I ask the hon. Member for Exeter, knowing how public-spirited he is, to allow the Bill to have a Second Reading. I am sure that he will have a most interesting and energetic time in Committee. That will be his opportunity to write in any improvements which he would like to see.

My view is that the. Bill does not go far enough. Although it is not possible to introduce into the Bill wider measures of consumer protection, I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) said. There must be further legislation to deal with the frauds, malpractices and other swindles which are perpetrated on the shopping public today. I have in mind the fraud of switch selling. We drew attention to this in a debate held some time ago which was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker). As a result of the publicity given in that debate to switch-selling swindles, a certain number of firms discontinued the practice and a number of newspapers, to their credit, refused to accept advertisements for the type of goods which appeared to be connected with the switch-selling technique.

But the frauds go on. About £1 million a year continues to be spent on advertising reconditioned and secondhand machines, the whole object of which is to switch the housewife or consumer into buying a new machine or another machine at a greatly inflated price. The housewife needs to be protected from this type of swindle.

I am glad that most newspapers have co-operated and are now refusing to accept such advertisements. There are one or two exceptions. In particular, the TV Times has been the subject of a number of Questions in the House. I hope that when its present advertising contracts expire this otherwise excellent little journal will discontinue the practice of accepting switch-selling advertisements.

The other day I was sorry to see that a newspaper which, generally speaking, has a public-spirited approach to all these questions contained an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner. I refer to the Daily Mirror of Tuesday, 10th January. The vacuum cleaner, called the "Consort", described as The latest lightweight vacuum cleaner ", will almost certainly be used in order to hoodwink members of the public sending in the coupon into buying a more expensive machine.

It is very similar to an advertisement which appeared in the Daily Sketch two years ago, also for a "Consort" vacuum cleaner. Various promises are made in the advertisement. It is fairly obvious that the firms inserting the advertisements do not intend to honour them.

All this has been investigated by an excellent organisation called the Retail Trading Standards Association. The Association goes to great pains to investigate these activities. Its researches indicate that this fraud is continuing on a large scale by such firms as Electromode Limited, of 47, Peter Street, Manchester, 2.

Mr. Dudley Williams

I do not know anything about this matter, and I should be obliged if the hon. Member would tell me if the vacuum cleaner advertised is obtainable if the person insists, or whether it is non-existent.

Mr. Stonehouse

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I will describe exactly what occurs when a customer sends in a coupon. The salesman duly arrives and demonstrates a machine that is in such bad condition that nobody in their senses would spend a penny on it. The salesman says that a new machine is available for the customer at a slightly higher price and, of course, the deposit is only so much, which the salesman has already ascertained is in the possession of the unsuspecting customer. The customer then realises that he is landed with a machine much more expensive than the one he intended to buy and then finds, because the salesman has disappeared, and he has signed the hire-purchase form, that he cannot get out of the contract. The machine has been delivered at that stage of the transaction and he is landed with it.

I quote the example of Mr. Alfred Underdown, who lives in Barking. He sent in a coupon for a sewing machine which was advertised by the Ideal Sewing Machine Company. He expected to buy this machine for about 2s. 6d. a week, or £12. When the machine was shown to him it was quite obvious that it had been manufactured fifty years earlier and was in a hopeless condition. He therefore agreed to buy another machine which cost £38 18s. However, he was a fortunate man in that he sought advice after he realised that he had been tricked. His case was taken up by the Retail Trades Standards Association and as a result of a case in the Kingston County Court the company paid Mr. Underdown £25 damages.

Mr. Underdown is, unfortunately, the exception that proves the rule. There are hundreds of thousands of consumers up and down the country—including many of my constituents—who have been swindled by this sort of trick. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade—who I know is taking a genuine interest in this problem —will see if action can be taken to prevent these swindles.

We have material available to us which indicates that some of the firms named over two years ago in this House are still active in this field of consumer swindling. There was a firm called Vactric which went bankrupt because its subsidiary Nortic, which was using this technique in order to sell the new Vactric machines, was prevented from advertising in national newspapers, partly as a result of the excellent B.B.C. "Panorama" programme. Now, however, some of the former directors of Vactric are directors of other firms, in particular the firm I quoted, namely, Electronode of Manchester.

I turn now to hire-purchase agreements. Is it possible for measures to be taken—perhaps under the Hawkers' Act—to prevent salesmen operating at all hours of the weekend, and at night as well, and persuading customers to sign hire-purchase contracts, which immediately become binding, in their homes? May I suggest that for a hire-purchase contract signed in a household there should be a time-lag of forty-eight hours before it becomes binding on the customer, so that he will have an opportunity to consider the slick sales talk to which he has been subjected and, perhaps, to go back to the shop or to the headquarters of the firm with which he was dealing? By that means he could escape from a binding contract which, in many cases, loads the customer with an excessive expenditure which he did not anticipate.

I hope that it will be possible for hon. Members to agree this afternoon to the Second Reading of this Bill. It is an excellent step forward towards the consumer protection which I am sure all Members of this House want to see achieved.

3.30 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

I welcome this Bill Land, in particular, I should like to thank the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) for what he said about home safety. I have introduced a Bill dealing with home safety which I hope will get its Second Reading later today, but if I had tried to introduce a home safety Bill I doubt whether I could have done it as elegantly as the hon. Member has done. In fact, both his Bill and mine have a good deal in common, as both have as their main objective the safety of the individual in the home.

I have attended this debate throughout, except for about three minutes, and have noticed—because I was looking for it—that, although a number of speakers have referred to fatal accidents in the home, none has given any statistics about the non-fatal accidents. There is a very good reason for that. Such statistics are not available. I have been to an immense amount of trouble to try to find out the total national incidence of accidents in the home. I have been to every available source. I have read the reports that have been put out, including a very excellent one by the Aberdeen Corporation, through the Nuffield Trust, and I have read reports produced by the Grimsby Corporation.

More people are killed in the home than are killed on the roads. Yet we have statistics of road fatalities—how they happened, the hour at which they happened, the type of vehicle involved, and so on. On the other hand, except for these special reports that I have mentioned, we do not have any overall picture of non-fatal accidents in the home, though it is fairly reasonable to conclude that if there are a thousand more home fatal accidents than there are road fatal accidents, the non-fatal ones are very much more numerous.

In my search, I have asked the cooperation of many bodies, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. I have contacted hospitals. The Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone is at present keeping records for me, and its records for the last six months show that 245 accident victims were admitted. The records of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents show that there are 2 million out-patients in our hospitals today, and 70,000 in-patients.

I am not blaming anyone for the fact that the statistics I want are not generally available, because a lot of this information would have to be provided by general practitioners and it would be unfair to ask them to fill in yet another set of forms. Nevertheless, I think that every possible occasion should be used to bring these extraordinary, dreadful and terrible figures to the attention of the public. My investigations have taken me into hospitals, and some of the burn cases involving young children are really most pathetic.

The sufferings of those children have been caused by the thoughtlessness of parents, and the parents have been thoughtless only because they did not realise the risk. The human animal is a curious being. It always thinks that these things will happen to everyone but itself—it must be something to do with our views on immortality, I suppose. For those various reasons, I welcome this Bill.

Having said that about the terrifying numbers of these accidents, I have to add that I am not sure that it is necessarily right to seek completely to legislate on the subject. One of our British characteristics is that the pendulum swings first one way and then the other. We have to be careful when bringing forward legislation of this sort that we do not do so in order to stop any sort of enterprise. The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) has referred to switch selling. That is a dreadful thing and a lot of people have been swindled, but it seems to me to be a matter which would be dealt with more suitably by means of an Act relating to fraud rather than by means of an Act concerned with consumer protection and safety.

What worries me is that unless industry is brought in to discuss the problem we are apt to get committees formed, and committees always go the whole hog if they can. They always want the fullest degree of safety. I wonder what would have happened if. when an aeroplane was designed, a committee was brought in and insisted on the aeroplane being designed in accordance with the same safety regulations as apply to buildings. Of one thing I am certain, and that is that the aeroplane would never have flown. When introducing legislation of this sort we must be certain that the object for which a particular machine is designed is kept well in mind.

It is illegal to place a timber joist within nine inches of a flue, but in this extraordinary nation of ours it is not illegal to put a child aged 2 with an inflammable dress in front of a fire. We need a great deal more appreciation of the dangers involved. I should like to see on every article that is sold clear instructions on how it should be used. Several examples have been given of bedwarmers. People accept the fact that a motor car will wear out. They do not accept the fact that household appliances also wear out. Every household appliance should be properly stamped with the date when it will become obsolete. The degree of protection really depends on the length of life that an article will have. Buildings are extremely safe because they are built to last for generations.

To quote a more practical example, electric tools for use in the garden have become popular of late. They are very useful, but if a standards committee were to design a formula they would come to the conclusion that the right cable to be used would be a steel-banded cable to guard against the danger of the cable being cut. But a steel-banded cable would be quite impossible to use. Therefore, the present cables in use should have stamped on them a notice stating the period of their life.

I hope that when the Bill goes through, as I expect it will, some consideration will be given to the question of safety containers. I have had a number of letters about the dangers of children taking poison. Most of them have not referred to the sort of substances which we normally regard as poisons. They have referred to ordinary household articles as small as aspirins, which, in the hands of young children, can be extremely dangerous.

I have a letter from Dr. Oman Craig and he has given some figures: 18 children have died from ferrous-sulphate, 15 have died from common aspirin, and so on. All these accidents occurred because things were in containers which children could open. There are now produced various types of containers which are known as "Kiddiproof" which cannot be opened by young children. I hope that we shall discuss standards for safe containers.

There must be a reasonable appreciation of what is required. I hope that, when the Bill reaches Committee and the Schedules are considered, users and manufacturers will be closely consulted. There has been talk today about different standards for export and for use at home. There has been some careless talk, I suggest, to the effect that a different standard might in some way be inferior. My company works in all parts of the world, and we see the differences. How crazy it would be, for instance, to lay down a standard in this country which included protection against freezing and then insist upon the same standard being applied to goods sent to places where people have never seen frost. The world is a very big place, and we cannot set standards for the whole of it.

What is important is that there should be a standard for the whole of this country. I see a danger here in giving jurisdiction to the local authorities. I am very much in favour of local authorities having maximum jurisdiction. Let us give it to them by all means, but let us at the same time have a model standard by which they can assess the value of their procedures. They have not the methods of testing. Could they not co-operate, I suggest, with manufacturers, consumers, retailers and the trade unions, too, which will have something to contribute?

Let us not imagine that we can legislate completely for a fool. Even in the time of the Romans, as we all learned at school, there was the well known saying, "Let the buyer beware for he ought not to be ignorant of the nature of the property which he is buying from another.". Our job is to ensure that people are not ignorant. Let us give them the maximum amount of propaganda about those things which are really dangerous and let us proclaim from the housetops our standards of safety. In that way, we shall do a great service.

I emphasise that we are here talking about 2 million people a year involved in accidents in the home. If the Bill can save just 1 per cent., that would be the population of one of our towns. For that reason, with the reservations I have mentioned, I welcome the Bill.

3.43 p.m.

Mr. Norman Dodds (Erith and Crayford)

I add my compliments to my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) for introducing this Bill. It is quite clear that the Bill is, of necessity, tightly drawn, despite the references which have been made to the wider powers that it would give to the Government.

Many things have been said, but I think that it would be churlish if I did not say that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) has made my day, despite the hours I have been waiting. He said—it was splendid news for me, knowing the way that he attacks Private Members' Bills—that when the Mock Auction Bill is introduced to the House, in a fortnight, it will have his blessing.

A great deal has been said about accidents in the home. The Bill deals with consumer protection, and there is no need, after the excellent arguments which have been advanced by hon. Members on both sides, to repeat what has been said, or go through the provisions of it. Nevertheless, I felt that the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) was a little too complacent about drugs from the point of view of consumer protection.

Since the war, chemists have run ramnant concerning the nation's food, not for the sake of bringing about purer and more nutritious food, but largely for private profit. I could not help thinking the other day of the wise words of one of our greatest nutritionists, Dr. using chemicals in such a way that there is in this nation a tired feeling which before the war was often to a doctor a symntom of some very serious disease, but is now so universal that it ceases to be any good to doctors, because, in effect, we are being slowly but surely pickled in chemicals. Here, there is great scope for consumer protection.

I want to refer to something which, I predict, will, in the not too distant future, have an impact on this House. When my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) referred to a higher standard of living, both sides of the House seemed to awake, particularly the Government side, as if all people today enjoyed such a high standard of living that they have not anything to worry about. In recent weeks hundreds of thousands of people have lost overtime pay and have been on short time. Now they are at the mercy of a racket which is growing rapidly. I wish to refer to it because it is a matter of urgency.

I understand from the President of the Board of Trade that the Committee on Consumer Protection, which was appointed to advise him of what changes in the law and what other measures are desirable for the further protection of the public, has announced its intention of considering, among other things, whether it is desirable or practicable for there to be a further control of the terms of hire-purchase and credit-sale contracts. It is in this matter that there is need for rapid action.

I refer to the agreements concerning the hire purchase of second-hand cars. In recent years, because of public transport difficulties, many workers have bought second-hand cars and have used them largely for going to and from work. Many of them entered into agreements never believing that there would be the present collapse in the motor car trade. They signed very lengthy agreements and, consequently, they are faced with a situation which I believe the House should deal with very quickly. There is a protection for those buying secondhand cars up to £300 under the 1938 and 1954 Acts, but for those buying cars costing over £300, which most of them are, there is no protection.

I wish to refer to the racket which is going on. If a person signs an agreement, that is binding on him, and if, for some reason, he does not continue with the agreement and the car is repossessed then, first, he forfeits the sum of money which he put down as a deposit, secondly, any payments which he may have made and, thirdly, up to two-thirds of the hire-purchase price to cover depreciation. There is also a requirement—and this is the point of the racket —that the car should be in the condition in which it was deemed to be when the agreement was made—less fair wear and tear.

I should like to quote two examples. The first concerns the hire of a car the cash price of which was £320. When the hire-purchase charges and other incidentals were added, the total was £396. The person concerned put down a deposit of £70. He lost his deposit, which was in order, and then was required to pay another £104 to make up the two-thirds. Months later, for the first time, he received a bill for repairs to a car which he believed to have been in better condition when he parted with it, because of what he did to it, than when he acquired it.

Let me give an example. A car was repossessed at the end of September. The finance company sent one of its people to look at the car on 5th October, so that the company would know what amount to claim from the person under the agreement. The car was sold on 10th November, however, and not until 15th December, five weeks later, did the person get a bill for £90 purely for repairs, when the car had long since disappeared from the scene and no check of any kind could be made.

Some might say that such a person could go to a court of law. Is it not a fact that a person who, probably for the first time, has bought a car is up to the neck in debt? He may be working only two, three or four days a week and is utterly scared to go to law to try to assert his rights against the finance company.

Therefore, before these repossessing transactions are completed, people who sign agreements should be made aware of their implications. People might find it much better to keep their cars, find the money to pay off on them and to sell them themselves. Ultimately, this car with a hire-purchase price of £395 was supposed to have been sold by the finance company for £45, yet the company sent in a bill for £90 arrears.

My second example—these cases come in almost daily to hon. Members—concerns a man who, in March, 1959, bought a car for £340. It is marvellous how the price is just above the £300 limit rather than below it. The car was returned four months later, in July, 1959. A deposit of £70 had been paid, plus four monthly payments of £10, making a total of £110. The person who entered into the agreement had the big ends replaced, the crankshaft re-metalled, clutch plates renewed and new linking for the gears and believed it to be a better car at the end of the four months than when he first got it. He used it for only 800 miles. He gave up the car because his income had altered, and he returned it.

On 30th December, 1960, eighteen months later, that man received a cyclostyled letter stating that he owed a balance of £161 18s. 9d. and that unless he paid, legal proceedings would be instituted. He is worried to death. When I took up the matter with the finance company, to ask what other communications had been sent during the eighteen months, I was told that there was no record because only these printed forms were used. To me, it seems wrong that months after a car has been disposed of, when it is too late to get it back, people should be saddled with this expense when, because of a misfortune at a time when, as they are told, they have "never had it so good", they are working only two, three or four days a week, and be told that if they wish, they can go to court to obtain their rights. It is time that the Government did something and did it quickly. Let them hurry along the Molony Committee on this. There is no doubt that this is a racket, and a big one.

I would only say, in fairness, that the finance companies are also getting "twisted" by other people, because not everybody is fair. But because some individuals are trying to "twist" the finance companies, it is not right that honest and decent people should have to put up with this.

I have not time to develop this case, but I am putting in a memorandum which will state the case of the finance companies. What I am asking is that the Government will quickly do something in connection with individuals who, in recent months, have been falling by the wayside because of the way the motor car market has declined. I hope that an Order may be made under the Bill as a matter of urgency and importance. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to raise this matter today.

3.55 p.m.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker

I salvage from my notes one brief point out of several that I had hoped to make during the debate. It is to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who, apparently, is not to address us on this Bill, to the position of a very dubious institution the activities of which are being drawn to his attention by a body to which a number of my hon. Friends and hon. Members on the other side of the House are associated, the Advertising Inquiry Committee. I refer to the British Safety Council, which was mentioned by at least one hon. Member in making remarks about safety belts for motor cars.

The Board of Trade will shortly be receiving representations asking it to take action against the British Safety Council and its directors, including Mr. James Tye and a Mr. Leonard Hodge, who, in the opinion of the Advertising Inquiry Committee and several other bodies, have been trading on the gullibility of the public and have been issuing. apparently for their own profit, so-called safety seals for articles which have never been effectively tested.

This matter was first drawn to public attention by Shopper's Guide, the organ of the Consumer Advisory Council of the British Standards Institution, which has been mentioned a number of times in this debate. Shopper's Guide, No. 17, explains that the Consumer Advisory Council tested a harnessing belt which had been approved by the British Safety. Council and found it entirely unsafe. Other organisations closely concerned with this subject have expressed similar reservations. The Motor Agents' Association, which had been quoted by the British Safety Council as having sent a representative to an inaugural meeting of their so-called safety testing service, and having approved of the activities of the British Safety Council, sent a circular to all its members not very long ago saying that this statement was entirely untrue.

Mr. R. Edwards rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).