§ (1) A local authority shall have power to acquire any house which is let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one family in order to secure in respect of the house—
- (a) proper standards of management, and
- (b) the limiting of the number of persons in occupation.
§ (2) For the purposes of this section a local authority may acquire a house by agreement or may be authorised by the Minister to purchase it compulsorily; and the Seventh Schedule to the principal Act shall apply to a compulsory purchase under this section as if it were a compulsory purchase under Part V of that Act.—[Mr. MacColl.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mr. MacCollI beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
One of the difficulties of the procedure whereby we go into Committee and have a rather staccato leap through the Bill is that it is difficult for hon. Members who were not members of the Committee to understand what the Bill is about. In particular, it is extremely difficult for them to understand what this new Clause is about if they have not followed the make-up of Part II of the Bill.
Part II of the Bill deals with the problems raised by houses which are in multiple occupation; that is to say, houses which are let in lodgings, or which have members of more than one family living in them. The Bill provides broadly for two kinds of operations. The first one is the provision of certain standards of good management which are to apply to the houses to which this Bill refers. The second applies to doing work in the houses in order to make them fit for multiple occupation, and the Bill prescribes certain regulations that have to be observed and provides certain sanctions against people who do not observe them.
The main criticism that has been made about this part of the Bill is the difficulty of enforcing it efficiently, and that is a matter which will be discussed later and which has already had a good deal of discussion in the Committee. Among the suggestions which were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Pulliam (Mr. M. Stewart) in Committee was a proposal that the local authority should have 336 the power to acquire the houses and take them into ownership, or, with the approval of the Minister, acquire them compulsorily. We had a discussion on the point that we ought to be sure that this was going to be workable, and that we were tackling the problem which everybody agrees exists in these very overcrowded houses.
One sometimes finds scores of people living in the house, and sometimes almost scores of people living in single rooms. In regard to how the local authority was to tackle the problem, we suggested that there ought to be a final instrument, where the local authority was satisfied that it was not going to get proper management or the work properly done by the private owners—either because they had not got the resources or the skill and experience to do it, or because they were vicious people who were inclined to exploit the situation—the authority, whose job it is to try to put these provisions into effect, ought to be able to cut the knot, take over the houses and do the job itself.
The right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary were not unsympathetic to that general approach to the problem, but they pointed out that in the Housing Act, 1957, there were already provisions for dealing with some of the difficulties. They said that those provisions would enable a local authority which wanted to make improvements or undertake repairs in a house to take over ownership of the house. There is thus no devastating principle involved in our argument, but the Parliamentary Secretary was very fair in telling us that that would not apply to securing proper standards of management or limiting the number of persons living in a house. He said that in those matters a local authority could work only by putting pressure on the landlord.
In some of his remarks the hon. Member made fairly clear what his approach to these problems was. He said:
In answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux), the whole of Part II of the Bill is sanctioned by strong new penalties, including imprisonment for second and later offences and catching, by imprisonment, the officers of any offending company. My right bon. Friend feels that local authorities should 337 use these powers and that there is no need to give them, for these specific purposes, compulsory acquisition powers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 13th June, 1961; c. 1034.]That makes it fairly clear that the right hon. Gentleman takes the view that enforcement of these standards by threats of imprisonment is the right way to carry out this operation.I am the last person to be accused of being unduly squeamish about exerting sanctions against bad landlords, and neither I nor any of my hon. Friends would quarrel with that. But we would quarrel with the practicability of carrying on in some cases a sort of protracted warfare in which every stratagem in the game would be known to and taken by the landlords and have to be countered by the local authority, with an enormous amount of time taken in transfers of property ownership from one landlord to another, setting up bogus directors, going into liquidation at the critical moment when some order for costs is about to be enforced, and so on. Those are all the operations to be taken by bad landlords evading their responsibilities.
There are also the cases with which one could be more sympathetic and where the landlord is not vicious but where he has bitten off more than he can chew and has taken over the management of one of these properties. Sometimes he will have inherited it. When he comes to realise all the complications of such an operation and what is involved in enforcement and inspection and so on, he appreciates that that is something with which he is not equipped to deal. He may not have the money to employ an agent to do it, and he may not have the necessary skill or knowledge to do it himself.
Whichever it is, to take first the case of the vicious landlord, an enormous amount of fun can be had by ingenious landlords and by ingenious local authority committees in having this battle and in working out moves to counter each other. It is tremendous fun. I am sure that many hon. Members have taken part in the game on the side of local authorities, but it comes to one with sudden blinding intuition that this is not so much fun for the wretched tenants.
338 It is all very well to look on this as a war between the landlord and local authority, but the person who suffers is the unhappy tenant who occupies the awful house and, while all this laborious business is going on, suffers from dirt, squalor, neglect and all the things with which the Bill is designed to deal.
With the well-meaning but incompetent landlord, however sorry one may be for him, from the tenant's point of view it can be equally harmful. It therefore seems a sensible approach to the problem to say that just as in the case of unfit property there is power of acquisition; just as in the case of extortionate rents referred to in the right hon. Gentleman's famous circular there is power of acquisition; just as in the case of enforcing repairs there is power of acquisition; surely it is neither good sense nor good logic to carve out of this power this one little island, namely, management, and say that it is something with which the local authority cannot interfere by means of taking over this property, but can interfere only by trying to secure good management by threats, by fines, by prosecutions, by imprisonments, and so on. It may cause a great deal of business in the legal profession; it may be fun for many people, but it is extremely unpleasant for the tenant.
It has this extraordinary anomaly, which I mentioned in Committee upstairs, that the local authority can acquire the property to repair the banisters, and, having done that, it can sit pretty. It does not have to surrender it again. Having repaired the banisters the local authority can keep the ownership, manage the property and carry out the rest of the provisions of the Bill. But, if it does not need to repair the banisters, if all it has to do is to delouse the banisters, or to deal with dirt and filth which has accumulated under the staircase or in the common water closet, or keep up reasonable standards of cleanliness and management, it cannot acquire the property.
I suppose that there is a way out of this. I suppose that it is possible for the public health inspector to look hard and long at the tenant and say, "The law will not allow the council to take over this property, but I am going away now and I will come back on Monday. If, 339 unfortunately, on Monday one of the banister railings is missing, then 'Bob's your uncle', the Council can acquire the property and carry out the operation." This seems to be stupid. It is reducing this vitally important principle to a farce when it is necessary to go to those lengths to carry out the work.
I suggest that the sensible thing to do is to put power into the Bill to tidy up the situation; to provide that the local authority shall have power to acquire the house to secure in respect of it proper standards of management and the limiting of the number of persons in occupation. The right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Gentleman may well say that that goes very far because it deals not only with houses which are already in a bad state of management, but with houses which a local authority thinks may come into a bad state of repair. I admit that and say that I think it is necessary. I can see no reason why, if a local authority knows that the notorious Mr. X is about to acquire some property, it should not nip in first and acquire the property from under his nose in order to safeguard the tenants. I should be happy to see that happen. In an area which was known to be very overcrowded, with a great many neighbourhood tensions, there might be a house that was put up for auction. I do not see any reason why a local authority, in its wisdom, should not be able to acquire the property in that auction, at the market price, in order to be sure that it will be properly maintained and will not get into the hands of spivs, speculators and gangsters, who are such a menace in these cases.
10.30 p.m.
We suggest that the local authority should be able to acquire by agreement, and have the same power of compulsory acquisition as they have in other cases, with the approval of the Minister. There will be adequate protection; the compensation would be the same as applies in the case of compulsory purchase under Part V of the Act, which contains the main power dealing with acquiring houses for housing purposes. This is a critical test of the sincerity of the Government. If they want to prevent much hardship to tenants, both in respect of threats of physical violence and of eviction if they complain, it is essential that the local authority should have power to step in 340 and cut out the private landlord and take over the property, in order to secure that what we all want to see done will be done.
I very much hope that, having already told us that he accepts the principle of the Clause as it extends to repairs, the Minister will agree that that power should be further extended to cover those cases where there is a need to acquire property in order to maintain proper standards of management and to prevent overcrowding.
§ Sir K. JosephOut of the anthology of sayings of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) I can pick all the things I have to say in order to reply to his arguments. He has used all the ones that I shall rely on. He has agreed that, as was said in Committee, local authorities already have power to acquire, either by agreement or compulsion, any property which they want to improve or alter. I do not want to associate myself with the whole of the hon. Member's argument about banisters; they are very important things, and if they are defective they may make a house extremely dangerous. But it is not for me; it is for the courts to decide what entitles a local authority to use these powers—and they are very broad powers—for the purposes of altering, repairing or improving.
Local authorities have power to acquire a house by agreement or compulsion, for any of those purposes. They already have powers, under existing law, to acquire a house where they wish to provide housing accommodation. That would meet the hon. Member's example of the case of the house which is empty and is put up for auction.
§ Mr. MacCollI did not say the house was empty.
§ Sir K. JosephIt would meet the case of the house which had any vacant space. What the law does not allow a local authority to do at the moment is to buy a house in order to prevent or put an end to overcrowding or bad management. The hon. Member has candidly admitted that the new Clause would give a local authority power not only to buy or compulsorily acquire a house that is being badly managed or overcrowded, but a house that might one day be overcrowded or badly managed—which is a very different thing.
341 The hon. Member went on to explain that, even if there is a house which is complete in all the works a house should have so that the local authority does not have any excuse to go in and alter, enlarge, repair or improve it, the local authority has, under this Bill, extremely strong powers to force that landlord or owner or lessee to behave—that is to say, to put an end to overcrowding or bad management.
The hon. Gentleman then spoke of the "evil landlord", or the lazy or unskilled landlord playing what he called a "long game" with that local authority to the grave detriment, I agree, of the tenants. But we have to assume, in this set of circumstances, that the vicious, or lazy, or absentee or unskilled landlord has been so virtuous and so skilful and so attentive to his duties that the house is complete in every sort of amenity that the local authority can expect. Only in that combination of circumstances would the local authority lack the power to buy or acquire compulsorily.
As I said in Standing Committee, I think that most hon. Members will agree that we are dealing here with the 999th case out of every thousand. In every other case of this sort, the local authority will already have sufficient powers. But for the case which is the exception, whether 1 per cent. of the cases or a higher percentage, the Committee should bear in mind the very strong sanctions and penalties which this Bill imposes for the first time.
It is unfair of the hon. Member to say, "Why not complete the picture and give the local authority these powers?" As I have explained, the new Clause would give powers that are far too wide for this purpose. It would entitle the local authority to buy perfectly well managed and not overcrowded property. It is not limited to the supposition that the authority would go in and take possession of a badly managed or overcrowded house. It goes very wide. It would weaken the powers and penalties in the Bill if it were held in such low regard that the Minister were asked to make them relatively unnecessary all at once, without even trying them out, and giving the local authorities power to acquire compulsorily or by agreement the 342 very houses for which sanctions are designed.
My right hon. Friend is most anxious that these cases shall be properly dealt with by the local authorities. I remind the Committee that the local authorities have power in every case already where there is any deficiency of works. They have power to acquire property in order to provide housing accommodation, and for the very rare case where the house is already fully complete in its amenities but there is current or prospective bad management or overcrowding, they also have fully adequate powers under the Bill, and these should be properly tried. I hope that the Committee will not accept this new Clause.
§ Mr. ParkinI had the feeling that we should not reach the end of these proceedings without one of the Ministers saying that it was for the courts to decide. It is not for the courts to decide. It is for the Minister to decide whether he is to endorse a proposal for compulsory acquisition of a house. That is why we on this side of the Committee have grave doubts. We are not just having a dig at the present Minister, because any Minister could be advised that the proposal of the local authority did not fall within the powers it had at its disposal.
I have had some unhappy experiences of interpretation of the law. My first experience came when I had been Member for Paddington, North for only a few weeks and was seeking information about the problem of fag-ends of leases in this sort of house in Paddington. I wrote to the then Minister of Housing and Local Government—the present Prime Minister—and received a reply—it was autographed and I treasure it—assuring me that the provisions of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, which was then passing through Parliament, would give local authorities ample powers to acquire and manage these houses. We know now that this was just not the case.
When I was referring to the misuse of houses for an entirely different purpose, the present Minister gave an answer to a Question that it was not in his power to grant a compulsory purchase order to a local authority on the grounds that the house was being misused—in that case being misused for the purpose of prostitution—and that it would be necessary 343 for the authority to demonstrate that it needed the house to satisfy the housing needs of its own rehousing programme, and therefore the local authority must put up a comprehensive plan.
There have been arguments in Paddington about whether certain people should be rehoused from houses demolished for slum clearance, and the arguments were based on the suggestion that this operation did not form part of a comprehensive plan. We have good grounds to be worried about this. During the Committee stage discussions the Parliamentary Secretary gave all these assurances about existing powers. He quoted the 1957 consolidating Act. The appropriate Sections of that Act relate to the provision of houses, and the provision of accommodation. The object of those powers was to enable the local authorities to provide housing accommodation for those on their waiting lists.
This is an entirely different proposition. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary will know that I had an unfortunate experience in this regard through a housing association where, with the best intentions in the world, and with the best will of the people concerned, the officials of the local authority advised the appropriate committee that it had no power to make an advance to the housing association to acquire certain houses of this character because the result would not be the creation of fresh dwelling accommodation.
The powers given to a housing association are the echo, the exact repeat, of the powers given to the local authorities. So these powers in the 1957 Act which the Minister quotes have already been quoted against the acquisition. Because—surely the Minister must recognise this—he has said that this is the first Measure that we have had dealing with this matter, and that he wishes to go down in history as the Minister who introduced this major housing reform, he cannot say that it has been referred to in previous Acts, because it has not. The objective is not to create more housing accommodation. In fact, the result of most of PartII of this Bill would be, at the very best—the very best that we could hope for—to maintain the present housing accommodation. Therefore, for the removal of any doubt, the Minister ought 344 to be prepared to insert in the Clause that all the powers of the 1957 Act for the acquisition of houses should be available to the local authorities.
The nub of the difference between us remains as always. What is the Minister trying to do by this Bill? Is he trying to get rid of future shysters and speculators and bad landlords because they bring disrepute on the political system which he upholds? Or is he saying to the local authorities that these houses, which have been misused almost from the day that they were built, now because of a change in the social needs of the city need to be rescued, improved and maintained for approximately the same type of tenant who has been occupying them for the last fifty years?
10.45 p.m.
That is the proposition, that these are the sort of dwellings available for lower-paid workers which will be used by them for another generation or so, however good the rebuilding programme is, because of the consistent demand for accommodation. This stock of houses ought not to be eroded either at one end by crooked landlords or at the other end by what amounts to a virtual change of user of another type of flat. If we are to charge local authorities with the stewardship of this type of housing, which must form part of the balance of housing accommodation in these overcrowded areas, we must give them full power and the ultimate sanction that they can go to the Minister to ask for compulsory purchase powers on the ground that the housing accommodation is being eroded in one way or another. If we look at the Bill in that constructive way we find that it is inadequate to say that there are other ways of doing this.
The replies have varied a little—indeed, in the last two sittings of the Standing Committee they varied a little between morning and afternoon. I do not think the Minister has any firm view on this. I think he is half convinced and may still feel that at a later stage he can provide that these powers can be used for this purpose.
§ Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux (Nottingham, Central)The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) put forward a new Clause similar to this in Standing Committee and withdrew it 345 after I had made what I hoped was a very spirited speech in its favour. I was therefore very surprised to find a Clause in almost exactly the same words put forward tonight. Nevertheless, here it is again, and I should like to say a few words in support of it.
The reason why I feel that there is a considerable amount of value in this new Clause is one of the reasons why my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was against it. It is because it allows the acquisition, compulsorily if necessary, by a local authority of houses let in multiple occupation but not in fact at the time mismanaged, or indeed overcrowded, I believe that to be a very useful provision for a local authority. These type of houses are owned, at any rate in Nottingham, very largely by a comparatively small number of people. We know exactly what they are going to do with any new house they manage to acquire, that is to say, any house of a type that can be let off in multiple occupation. They are going to turn it into the same multi-occupation slum as those they have already treated in that way.
These people are simply not fit to be allowed to take over any more houses and exploit the tenants in the way they have already done and to ruin any more houses. A very good comparison to consider is the case of a person found guilty of ill-treating a dog. Probably the dog would be taken away from him and that person not be allowed Ito keep a dog again. The type of landlord aimed at in Part II of the Bill who has been convicted of an offence—that is to say, has had an order served on him—should not be allowed to take over another house. I very much wish that I had tabled a new Clause to the effect that anyone convicted under Clause 13 (1) or under Section 90 of the principal Act should not be allowed to let any further accommodation he had taken over after he had had such an order served on him. I think I was deterred from doing that because I felt that if I put down any more new Clauses during the Committee stage I would not be particularly popular. Nevertheless, if that cannot be done I believe the next best thing is that houses taken over by people of that sort, whose record is known, can be compulsorily acquired by the local autho- 346 rity at the first possible moment, before the house gets into the state which we know it will if the landlord is given half a chance.
This racket has reached such a state in Nottingham that really good-class houses are being taken over for it—houses that we simply cannot afford to become slums. Failing the power to prevent these people actually buying any more houses and letting them, if we were to give local authorities the power of early compulsory purchase in the case of landlords who are known to be of that type—and the local authorities would not seek permission from the Minister to take such power except in the case of landlords of that sort—I believe that would go a long way towards preventing the further formation of these multi-occupation slums. I therefore think that this Clause would be really useful.
§ Mr. M. StewartI feel that I must reply to the appeal made by the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux). It is quite true that my hon. Friends and I put down in Committee a Clause very similar to this. But the hon. and gallant Gentleman's recollection is a little at fault. I did not withdraw it immediately after his very spirited speech in favour of it. I withdrew it almost immediately after what I presume must have been an exceptionally persuasive speech by the Parliamentary Secretary, and it was a speech that must have persuaded not only my hon. Friends but the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself, because he will remember that he raised no objection to the Clause being withdrawn.
Why were we all deceived on this side of the Committee, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman? The answer can be found if we look at the difference between the Clause debated in Committee and the Clause which is now proposed. The Clause which we discussed in Committee gave the local authority power to acquire the house either for the purposes set out in this new Clause or for the purpose of repairing defects. We were told with great weight and authority by the Parliamentary Secretary in Committee that local authorities already have the power to acquire a house in order to remedy defects. He assured us that they had that power under, first of 347 all, Section 96 (b) of the relevant Act, and then we pointed out that that had not anything to do with it. He then shifted to Section 92 (d), and that was not entirely convincing either for the reasons pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). We were then shunted back to Section 92 (b), and I am not at all happy about that.
We were repeatedly assured that that part of our Clause was totally unnecessary. We therefore, on reflection, decided that the Clause having been battered down for that reason, we would remove that apparent fault in it and get an exact decision on the matter: can or ought a local authority to be able to take over a house in which one cannot point to a specific physical defect but which the authority ought to be able to take over in order to preserve or secure proper standards of management or prevent it from being overcrowded? First, can local authorities do that today? I think it is now admitted that they cannot. The Parliamentary Secretary argued that one could hardly find a house that suffered or might suffer from bad management or overcrowding in which there would not also be physical defects. Has he considered the possibility that there may be no physical defects in it because the tenants have been patiently doing the repairs themselves for a considerable time? That could very well occur, and it might be highly desirable in the public interest that the house should be taken out of the hands of its neglectful landlord and brought into public ownership, so that then the tenants could have a fair deal. It is clear that local authorities have not the power which the new Clause would give them.
According to the Parliamentary Secretary's argument, it is only in one case in a thousand that the Clause would operate. In that case, for goodness' sake, what is the objection to it?
§ Sir K. JosephBecause the Clause is drawn at the moment to cover houses which are well managed and not overcrowded.
§ Mr. StewartBut a local authority could acquire them only in order to secure proper standards of management or to prevent overcrowding. Surely, the 348 Parliamentary Secretary will not argue that if, under the Clause, a local authority attempted to acquire a house in regard to which it could not be said that there was any reasonable prospect of its being overcrowded or ill managed, the courts would uphold that action for a moment or that the Minister would? If an authority tried to acquire a house like that by compulsory purchase, the Minister would turn it down, and, even if the Minister consented, an attempt to use its powers in a way so obviously outside the terms of the Statute could be challenged in the courts.
As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, this could apply only in a very limited number of cases where there are not actual physical defects in the house but where there is good reason to believe that the house is or is just about to be grossly mismanaged or overcrowded. I accept entirely what my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) said. If it is known that a house is coming into the hands of some person or group of persons chronically addicted to this racket of mismanaging property, the local authority ought to be able to step in and take it over.
The other leg of the Government's argument is that they have armed local authorities with many other powers to deal with these matters and, therefore, it is not necessary to arm them with this power. The Parliamentary Secretary apparently thought that, if a local authority were given this power of acquisition, it would in all cases rush to it without having thought of using any of the other powers the Bill gives. This is now the second or third time today that the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister has produced an argument resting on the assumption that most local authorities do their work in a lazy or almost half-witted manner. They do not. We know very well that the Bill gives local authorities several powers for dealing with mismanaged houses. A reasonable assumption, from what one knows of local authorities, is that they will set to work to use those powers and that only where they are faced with someone who is particularly ingenious and who can employ the law's delays against them will they want in the end to say, "Very well. We must go back to our final sanction. We shall bring the house into public ownership".
349 During our discussions in Committee, the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) reproached us for not having put down a Clause of this kind, having failed to notice that we had in fact done so. I am sorry to say that the hon. Member did not support us when the debate on the Clause came.
§ Mr. Graham PageThe hon. Member is wrong. I made some very sympathetic noises during the debate on it. In fact, I called my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that I thought he was wrong in thinking that local authorities had this power.
§ 11.0 p.m.
§ Mr. StewartI beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. It was on another Clause that he disappointed us, if I may say so. We shall hope for both sympathetic noises and sympathetic action on this occasion.
What it comes to is that local authorities have not the specific power that the new Clause would give them. The suggestion that it would provide them with extravagant powers to acquire any bit of property they took a fancy to is ruled out both by the words of the Clause itself and by the fact that it could not operate without the consent of the Minister.
The suggestion that the Clause is unnecessary because there are other ways in which they could deal with the matter
§ falls down for two reasons. First, that local authorities will want to start upon the problem by using the other powers given in the Bill. They will not make a mad rush for this, without regard to the other things they can do, but they will find that their power to get a bad landlord to accept their other powers to require compliance with the law will be very much greater if both parties know that in the last resort there is this power of acquisition. That is what we are arguing about in this Bill.
§ I would add one further point. I am still not fully convinced that a local authority can take over a house, even if there are defects in it, if it cannot be shown that by so doing it would provide fresh housing accommodation. It is very difficult to read either Section 96 or Section 92 of the principal Act except in that sense, as my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) pointed out, and if I am right on that, that is an additional reason for passing this new Clause, but even if I am wrong on that, the other contentions I have been advancing I believe stand, and I think it will be with the sympathy of a number of hon. Gentlemen opposite that we ask the Committee to add this new Clause to the Bill.
§ Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 113, Noes 170.
351| Division No. 226.] | AYES | [11.2 p.m. |
| Ainsley, William | Greenwood, Anthony | McCann, John |
| Albu, Austen | Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvll (Colne Valley) | MacColl, James |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Hannan, William | Mapp, Charles |
| Allen, Scholefield (Crewe) | Hayman, F. H. | Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur(RwlyRegis) | Mendelson, J. J. |
| Blyton, William | Herbison, Miss Margaret | Mitchison, G. R. |
| Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.) | Hill, J. (Midlothian) | Morris, John |
| Bowles, Frank | Houghton, Douglas | Neal, Harold |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr) | Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip(Derby, S.) |
| Brown, Alan (Tottenham) | Howell, Denis (Small Heath) | Oram, A. E. |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) | Hoy, James H. | Parker, John |
| Callaghan, James | Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey) | Parkin, B. T. |
| Castle, Mrs. Barbara | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) | Pavitt, Laurence |
| Cliffe, Michael | Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) | Peart, Frederick |
| Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Janner, Sir Barnett | Pentland, Norman |
| Crosland, Anthony | Jeger, George | Popplewell, Ernest |
| Cullen, Mrs. Alice | Johnson, Carol (Lewlsham, S.) | Prentice, R. E. |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) | Probert, Arthur |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Redhead, E. C. |
| Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Robertson, John (Paisley) |
| Deer, George | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.) |
| Delargy, Hugh | Kelley, Richard | Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.) |
| Dodds, Norman | King, Dr. Horace | Ross, William |
| Driberg, Tom | Lawson, George | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Edwards, Walter (Stepney) | Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Skeffington, Arthur |
| Evans, Albert | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) |
| Fletcher, Eric | Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) | Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) |
| Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) | Logan, David | Snow, Julian |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Loughlin, Charles | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank | Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.) | Whitlock, William |
| Steele, Thomas | Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.) | Wigg, George |
| Stewart, Michael (Fulham) | Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.) | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Stonehouse, John | Thornton, Ernest | Willey, Frederick |
| Stones, William | Thorpe, Jeremy | Williams, LI. (Abertillery) |
| Strachey, Rt. Hon. John | Wainwright, Edwin | Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.) |
| Swain, Thomas | Watkins, Tudor | |
| Sylvester, George | Weitzman, David | |
| Symonds, J. B. | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Taylor, John (West Lothian) | White, Mrs. Eirene | Mr. Irving and Mr. Short. |
| NOES | ||
| Aitken, W. T. | Green, Alan | Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) |
| Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.) | Gresham Cooke, R. | Peel, John |
| Aliason, James | Hall, John (Wycombe) | Pervical, Ian |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth |
| Barter, John | Harris, Reader (Heston) | Pitt, Miss Edith |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Pott, Percivall |
| Bidgood, John G. | Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) | Price, David (Eastleigh) |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Hastings, Stephen | Prior, J. M. L. |
| Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho |
| Bishop, F. P. | Henderson, John (Cathcart) | Proudfoot, Wilfred |
| Black, Sir Cyril | Hlley, Joseph | Pym, Francis |
| Bourne-Arton, A. | Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk) | Quennell, Miss J. M. |
| Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan) | Hirst, Geoffrey | Ramsden, James |
| Box, Donald | Hocking, Philip N. | Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John | Holland, Philip | Rees, Hugh |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hornby, R. P. | Ridley, Hon. Nicholas |
| Braine, Bernard | Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia | Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.) |
| Brewis, John | Hughes-Young, Michael | Roots, William |
| Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter | Hutchison, Michael Clark | Ropner, Col, Sir Leonard |
| Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry | Iremonger, T. L. | Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) |
| Browne, Percy (Torrington) | Jackson, John | Sharples, Richard |
| Buck, Antony | Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) | Shaw, M. |
| Bullard, Denys | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Shepherd, William |
| Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) | Johnson Smith, Geoffrey | Smith, Dudtey(Br'ntf'rd & Chlswick) |
| Carr, Compton (Barons Court) | Joseph, Sir Keith | Smithers, Peter |
| Channon, H. P. G. | Kaberry, Sir Donald | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) | Kerr, Sir Hamilton | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm |
| Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.) | Kershaw, Anthony | Storey, Sir Samuel |
| Cleaver, Leonard | Langford-Holt, J. | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Cooper, A. E. | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury) |
| Cooper-Key, Sir Neill | Lilley, F. J. P. | Sumner, Donald (Orpington) |
| Cordle, John | Litchfield, Capt. John | Tapsell, Peter |
| Corfield, F. V. | Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral) | Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.) |
| Curren, Charles | Longbottom, Charles | Temple, John M. |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Longden, Gilbert | Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Loveys, Walter H. | Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmld, Sir Henry | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.) |
| Deedes, W. F. | McLaren, Martin | Turner, Coiln |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia | Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H. |
| Donaldson, Cmdr C. E. M. | McMaster, Stanley R. | Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.) |
| du Cann, Edward | Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries) | Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone) |
| Duncan, Sir James | Maddan, Martin | Walder, David |
| Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Markham, Major Sir Frank | Walker, Peter |
| Emery, Peter | Marten, Neil | Wall, Patrick |
| Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn | Mawby, Ray | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Errington, Sir Eric | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Farr, John | Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. | Whitelaw, William |
| Fisher, Nigel | Mills, Stratton | Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.) |
| Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | More, Jasper (Ludlow) | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) | Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Freeth, Denzil | Nabarro, Gerald | Woodhouse, C. M. |
| Gammans, Lady | Noble, Michael | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Glover, Sir Douglas | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Woollam, John |
| Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham) | Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) | Worsley, Marcus |
| Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) | Page, John (Harrow, West) | |
| Goodhew, Victor | Page, Graham (Crosby) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Gower, Raymond | Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) | Mr. Finlay and |
| Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. | Partridge, E. | Mr. Chichester-Clark, |
§ Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.