Commons Sitting of 29 March 1961

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
NEW WRIT
For Warrington, in the room of the right honourable Edith Summerskill, called up to the House of Peers.—[Mr. J. Taylor.]
STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Gordon Touche): I beg to move, That the Amendments to Standing Orders relating to Private Business hereinafter stated in Schedule (A) be made, and that the new Standing Order relating to Private Business hereinafter stated in Schedule (B) be made.

SCHEDULE (A)—AMENDMENTS TO STANDING ORDERS
Standing Order 1, line 8, after first "county", insert "in relation to England or Wales".
Line 79, at end add—
"References in any Standing Order to registered post, a registered letter or to the registration of such letters shall be construed as including a reference to the recorded delivery service, a letter sent by that service and the acceptance by an officer of the Post Office of letters for recorded delivery, respectively".
Standing Order 4A, line 21, leave out "county boroughs and burghs" and insert "and county boroughs".
Line 32, leave out "county borough or burgh" and insert "or county borough".
Line 35, leave out "county borough or burgh" and insert "or county borough".
Standing Order 5, line 19, leave out "or user".
Line 19, at end ensert "or of rights to use the surface of".
Standing Order 10, line 20, leave out "county boroughs and burghs" and insert "and county boroughs".
Line 29, leave out "county borough or burgh" and insert "or county borough".
Line 33, leave out "county borough or burgh" and insert "or county borough".
Standing Order 19A, line 2, leave out "provision" and insert "provisions".
Standing Order 39, leave out lines 17 to 21 and insert—

"(a) Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Ghana, India, the Federation of Malaya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, South Africa, or any territory administered under the authority of the government of any of those countries; or

(b) the Republic of Ireland; or".

Standing Order 61, line 16, leave out from beginning to third "in" in line 17.
Line 18, leave out from "made" to "and" in line 22.
Line 32, leave out "or Edinburgh".
Line 33, leave out "as the case may be".
Standing Order 62, line 13, leave out "or county borough" and insert "county borough or burgh".
Standing Order 65, line 25, leave out "or county borough" and insert "county borough or burgh".
Standing Order 225, line 1, leave out "twelve" and insert "thirteen".
Appendix A, page 93, line 9, leave out from second "in" to "If" in line 10 and insert "the annexed Schedule is as stated in Part(s) I [& II] thereof".
Line 13, leave out second "of".
Line 18, after "Councils", insert "or"
Line 18, leave out "or principal Sheriff Clerks".
Line 34, leave out "Act" and insert "Bill".
Line 36, leave out "[or Section 90 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act. 1845]".
Line 39, leave out "Act" and insert "Bill".
Line 48, leave out from beginning to end of Line 4 on page 94 and insert—
"Objection to the Bill may be made by depositing a Petition against it. We shall be pleased, on receiving from you a request in writing, to inform you of the latest date on which you may deposit a Petition in either House. For your present information, the latest date for depositing a Petition against the Bill [in the first House is the 6th February, if the first House is the House of Lords, or the 30th January, if the first House is the House of Commons. The latest date for depositing a Petition against the Bill in the second House is the tenth day after that on which the Bill receives its first reading in that House].* If this date is a Sunday, Christmas Day, or a Bank Holiday, or a day on which the House does not sit, the final date for depositing may be postponed".
Footnote, "* If the Bill is a late Bill, substitute for the words in brackets 'in either House is the tenth day after that

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on which the Bill receives its first reading in that House'".
Table of Fees, page 100, leave out lines 3 and 4 and insert—

£

s.

d.

"For each day he shall attend Home

5

13

6

Distance of more than 60 miles from Charing Cross

6

14

6

For the transcript of his notes, per folio of 72 words—

when carbon copies of transcript are supplied

1

9

when no carbon copies of transcript are supplied

2

9

carbon copy, per folio of 72 words

3"

SCHEDULE (B)—NEW STANDING ORDER
Application of S.O. 61 to substituted Bill (House of Lords 195A)
233A. Whenever during the progress through the House of Lords of any Bill originating in that House promoted in lieu of a Provisional Order or part thereof in respect of which a plan and section were required under General Order 27 to be deposited, any alteration has been made in any work to be authorised by the Bill, S.O. 61 shall apply to the Bill subject to such adaptations and modifications as may be prescribed by general or special directions of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
These Amendments provide for an increase in official shorthand writers' fees, but are otherwise merely concerned with redrafting and bringing up to date the Standing Orders.
Question put and agreed to.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRANSPORT

    Road Transport Vehicles (Large Loads)
    Commander Keransasked the Minister of Transport what are the regulations regarding the maximum width of loads on road transport vehicles; and what statutory regulations are in force concerning exceptional loads.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): The maximum width of load normally permissible on motor vehicles is 9 feet 6 inches. Where a load exceeds this width, the police must be notified of its movement in advance, and they have power to control the time and route. Loads which exceed 20 feet in width can move only under an order issued by my right hon. Friend. An order is also necessary before loads over 14 feet wide can use the motorways, and we have circulated proposals which would enable us to control all loads of this width.
    Commander Kerans: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask what liaison takes place with large firms moving these very heavy loads, especially on the M.1 and comparable roads, to limit the excessive dimensions which one sometimes sees?
    Mr. Hay: As I said in my Answer, the police must always be notified of the movement of any load of this kind and, if the load exceeds the dimensions which I mentioned in my Answer, my right hon. Friend's Department has to be approached. I understand that it is an offence to fail to do that.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Would the hon. Gentleman consider insisting that all loads of an exceptional size or weight should be moved by rail wherever possible in the interests of road users and road services?
    Mr. Hay: No, we are much more concerned with the interests of industry as a whole in this matter. Many of these loads are not susceptible to being moved by rail, or even by sea. Many can be moved only by road.
    Commander Keransasked the Minister of Transport whether he will introduce legislation to prevent exceptionally heavy and wide loads using main roads to the coast during weekends, and thus ease traffic congestion.
    Mr. Hay: We already have direct control over very large loads and we keep them off busy roads at summer weekends as far as possible. The police also have wide powers to control the movement of large loads. We are now considering new regulations which would extend our own control over wide loads and increase the powers of the police.
    Commander Kerans: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is ludicrous to have these large and wide loads on the roads at week-ends, especially on Sundays, going down to the coast, when they are so close together that one cannot pass them for miles on end? It makes drivers impatient and increases the possibility of accidents. Is it not thoroughly unnecessary?
    Mr. Hay: This is precisely why we have provided new regulations which, as I said in the Answer, we are considering with the very object of extending the Minister's control over the movement of these vehicles.
    Mr. Manuel: Will the hon. Member consult his right hon. Friend to see whether the time has not arrived when we should have a propaganda campaign emanating from his Department to induce firms to see that as many of these wide loads—I am not talking about extra large loads—as possible are carried by rail, so saving many accidents which cause injuries on our roads?
    Mr. Hay: That sounds very simple, but I am afraid that it is not quite so easy when my right hon. Friend's responsibilities to all types of transport are considered.
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Transport when he expects to introduce his new regulations governing the movement of large loads by lorry.
    Mr. Hay: As a result of the many representations we have received about these proposed new regulations we are now considering certain modifications of the proposals as circulated, in order to reduce the burden they would impose on
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    industry, while maintaining their effectiveness. We intend to introduce the new regulations as soon as possible.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that I have in my hand a photograph of two lorries with the load carried between them weighing 96 tons and being 130 feet long? Throughout its journey it had to be escorted by police. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us who pays the police—the owners of the vehicle, or the local authorities?
    Mr. Hay: Questions about the police force should normally be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I believe that in this present type of case the charges made by the police are paid by the people who move the particular piece of machinery.
    Mr. Gower: Is not the difficulty that it is not possible to convey some of these very large loads by any other means; in other words, they cannot be conveyed by rail because they are too wide?
    Mr. Hay: This is perfectly true. As I said in reply to an earlier Question, some loads cannot physically be moved except by road because, for example, if they have to go through a tunnel and the tunnel is not wide enough we cannot widen the tunnel. That is one example, but a number of other factors come into it.
    Mr. Mellish: Will he take it from this side of the House that there is another aspect? When we talk of lorries and loads we talk also of the men who drive them. The hon. Gentleman speaks of regulations—will he say whether he has had consultations with the unions concerned?
    Mr. Hay: I am fairly certain that the proposals to which I referred in my Answer for alterations in the Regulations will have been circulated to the trade unions as well as to the other organisations affected.

    Safety Harness (Departmental Vehicles)
    Mr. W. Clarkasked the Minister of Transport whether safety belts are fitted to all vehicles in the services or under the control of Departments.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): Some official vehicles are already fitted with safety harness; the question of more general provision is under examination.
    Mr. Clark: While thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him when all these vehicles will be fitted? Cannot the Government give a strong lead in this safety measure and, without delay, have all their vehicles fitted with this safety harness?
    Mr. Marples: I cannot give an exact date. A great deal of experiment is needed not only to ensure that the harnesses are the most suitable type but also that the anchorage is good and whether they will be used in the vehicles. For example, where Post Office vans call on individual post offices it is unlikely that they will be used. Experiments are being carried out in all branches of the Government service.
    Mr. Clark: What percentage of Service vehicles are fitted?
    Mr. Marples: I cannot state without notice, but I have one myself.

    Driving Instructors
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Transport what action he will take to ensure that motor driving schools provide competent instructors.
    Mr. Hay: Provision for setting up a register of approved driving instructors is made in the Road Traffic Bill which was recently introduced in another place.
    Mr. Lipton: While I gratefully record that since I tabled this Question the Road Traffic Bill has been introduced to make this provision, may I ask the hon. Gentleman if he agrees that it is very necessary to deal with mushroom driving schools and incompetent instructors? If there is some delay in getting the Road Traffic Bill through in its present form, would it not perhaps be better to introduce separate legislation to deal with this particular abuse and get it on the Statute Book more quickly than the Road Traffic Bill is likely to get there?
    Mr. Hay: No. I do not think that that is a procedure which will particularly commend itself to the House, especially in view of the congested state of the Parliamentary timetable at the
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    moment. I think that we had better wait until the Bill comes before the House. We shall then look forward with interest to the hon. Gentleman's contributions.

    Motor Cyclists (Crash Helmets)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Transport, what statistical or other information he has about the efficacy of crash helmets in minimising serious accidents to motor-bicycle riders; and if he will introduce legislation to ensure that all crash helmets conform to a requisite standard.
    Mr. Hay: A study by the Road Research Laboratory revealed that the wearing of a crash helmet reduced by 30 to 40 per cent. the chances of injury to that part of the head covered by the helmet. Under the Road Traffic Acts it is already an offence to offer for sale or hire a helmet that does not conform to the standard drawn up by the British Standards Institution.
    Mr. Sorensen: Does the hon. Gentleman intend to bring in regulations to enforce the wearing of these helmets, seeing that they have been so valuable in saving injury and possibly life?
    Mr. Hay: No, we do not think it is necessary to make this compulsory at this stage. We know that well over 60 per cent. of all male riders of motor cycles and as many as 76 per cent. of female riders wear helmets at the moment. This practice has been generally accepted, and I think we can carry on as we are for the time being.
    Mr. Kershaw: Will my hon. Friend look again into this? Is it not a fact that crashes on motor cycles are one of the major causes of death of persons between the ages of 17 and 25? Why are we being so nice about this? Why cannot we get on with it?
    Mr. Hay: It is not a question of being nice about it. The position is that we have made a British Standard. We have made it an offence to offer for sale or hire a helmet which does not comply with the British Standard. The majority of motor cyclists, for their own protection, already wear these helmets. It would be extremely difficult to enforce the wearing of these helmets—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]—by all motor

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    cyclists under all conditions at all times, and for these reasons we do not think it is worth introducing compulsion.
    Mr. Strauss: Does not the hon. Gentleman remember that on this matter there was quite a division of opinion when the issue was before the Committee on the Road Traffic Bill? Some hon. Members, on both sides of the Committee, thought it desirable to make compulsory regulations and others, on both sides, thought not. What is quite obvious is the desirability of stepping up the propaganda in order to try to induce more and more people to wear these helmets. Will the hon. Gentleman ask the road safety organisations who are conducting the summer campaign to emphasise this matter more than anything else during that campaign?
    Mr. Hay: Yes, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the summer campaign. I understand that during one month of the campaign attention will be directed to motor cyclists, and I will certainly see that the point is well stressed.
    Mr. Sorensen: I wish to give notice that owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise the matter at the earliest opportunity on the Adjournment.

    Inland Waterways Authority (Chairman)
    Mr. J. Wellsasked the Minister of Transport when he will make the appointment of the first chairman of the proposed Inland Waterways Authority.
    Mr. Marples: I cannot say at present.
    Mr. Wells: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the urgency of the situation in the inland waterways today? When he does make an announcement will he give an assurance that the new chairman will be somebody either with commercial experience or with substantial waterways experience?
    Mr. Marples: It will be a long time before the appointment is made, because until this House has passed legislation there will not be an Inland Waterways Authority to which a chairman can be appointed. But I am bound to say that I shall take all considerations into
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    account—not only commercial knowledge and knowledge of waterways but the appropriate salary as well.

    Road Safety
    Sir Richard Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport how much is now being spent on road safety organisation.
    Mr. Marples: Expenditure from central government funds in this financial year will be approximately £123,000. In addition, expenditure by local authorities is likely to be approximately £480,000.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this sum is not adequate? Would it not pay the nation in terms of lives saved if this sum were quadrupled?
    Mr. Marples: On the question of road safety, a lot depends on local effort and initiative. Some of the voluntary workers in road safety have done extremely valuable work. It is not necessarily a matter of the money; it is a matter of voluntary service.
    Sir Richard Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport how many local authorities now employ road safety organisers.
    Mr. Marples: Approximately 1,000 road safety committees have been set up by local authorities acting independently or jointly, and about 480 road safety officers are at present employed by them.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that all local authorities ought to have road safety organisers? Is he aware that in the Borough of Poole by this means the accident rate last year went down in comparison with the general trend in the country as a whole?
    Mr. Marples: In some cases the road safety officers act for two local authorities; 480 road safety officers serve about 1,000 road safety committees, and their expertise is invaluable.

    Manchester Ship Canal (Flixton and Irlam Ferry)
    Sir S. Storeyasked the Minister of Transport if he will take steps to implement the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Ferries in Great Britain, which reported in 1948, relating

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    to the Flixton and Irlam ferry over the Manchester Ship Canal.
    Mr. Hay: We have no evidence that there is any need at present for mechanically propelled craft at this ferry, which is operated by the canal company.
    Sir S. Storey: Is my hon. Friend aware that this ferry joins two sections of classified road and that, when the canal was cut, a legal liability was placed upon the canal company to maintain a vehicle ferry? Is he aware that two recent attempts to take a vehicle over the ferry resulted in sixty-five minutes being taken to complete the journey in one case, while the other attempt had to be abandoned after three hours and twenty-five minutes?
    Mr. Hay: That may well be, but my right hon. Friend has no responsibility in this matter. This ferry, as I said, is operated by the canal company, and in practice, I think, the position is that most vehicular traffic now goes by the alternative routes over the bridges at Barton High Level, which is a motorway, and the Barton Swing Bridge.
    Mr. Lee: Is the Minister aware that many hundreds of the constituents of the hon. Member for Stretford (Sir S. Storey) and myself are today in some danger of not being able to travel to their places of employment because the canal company is not fulfilling the Act? Will he or his right hon. Friend agree to see the hon. Member and myself in order to discuss the matter?
    Mr. Hay: Yes, Sir. Of course, both my right hon. Friend and I are always willing to see right hon. and hon. Members on problems of this kind.
    Sir S. Storey: Is my hon. Friend aware that the detour he suggests adds four miles to the journey and that it uses a motorway which is not available for mopeds or cattle and horses, for which there was a legal liability on the canal company to provide transport?
    Mr. Hay: There is, of course, the other route, the Barton Swing Bridge—[HON. MEMBER: "Miles away. Ask the Minister."]—and a little further downstream there is the Warburton Bridge.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that we should be very satisfied if he would consult his right hon. Friend?
    Mr. Hay: I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he will be satisfied if I consult my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Lee: Does the Minister realise that if the hon. Member for Stretford and I turned up at this ferry on horseback, the company would have to take us across, whereas people today trying to get to work in time are in some danger of not being able to do so?
    Mr. Hay: I am sure that the whole House would like to see the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend on horseback.

    Bus Services, London
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Transport what progress he has made in his study of London Transport omnibus services; and what action he has taken to improve conditions and minimise overcrowding
    Mr. Marples: As I promised in my reply of 1st March to the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher), I have continued to watch the situation carefully. There are now nearly 1,400 more men on the buses than at the end of October. The traffic improvement schemes which are being carried out will help buses as well as other vehicles. Also, I have asked the chairman of the London Travel Committee what more can be done to increase staggering of hours, which could bring about a very useful relief at the rush hours for passengers and London Transport alike.
    Mr. Sorensen: I appreciate that there has been some improvement, but is there any kind of permanent or regular liaison between his Department and the London Transport Executive? Does he receive reports regularly, and does he have consultation particularly on matters affecting the Central Line serving my constituency and places farther afield?
    Mr. Marples: Yes, Sir. Reports are received regularly by myself—I read them about every fortnight—from London Transport, and we consult the Executive regularly, too. I am glad to say that in the centre of London the buses have speeded up at certain points recently.
    Mr. Mellish: Is the Minister aware that what he has just said does not accord with the view of the busmen

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    themselves, who recently presented a petition from 180,000 people of London asking for a public inquiry? If he has a good case, why does he worry about a public inquiry?
    Mr. Marples: When the busmen presented their petition, conditions were different. They are very much better now.
    Mr. Fletcher: Does not the Minister realise that conditions for the travelling public today are most unsatisfactory? Does not he think that it would produce good results if there were an independent inquiry into the whole matter of bus services in London?
    Mr. Marples: No, I do not think so. There was an exhaustive inquiry by the Chambers Committee as recently as 1955.

  ROADS

    Level Crossing, Forest Hall (Bridge)
    Mr. McKayasked the Minister of Transport if he is aware that land was purchased before the war at Forest Hall for the construction of a bridge south of the level crossing, that a child's life has been lost through a long hold-up of this level crossing, and that the stoppage of traffic at this spot is now serious; and if he will give an assurance that the Northumberland County Council will be given a grant for building this bridge for the year 1962–63.
    Mr. Hay: As my right hon. Friend explained in his recent letter to the hon. Member, although there is delay at this level crossing, there are, unfortunately, many other bottlenecks where road improvements are needed even more urgently than at Forest Hall. We cannot therefore promise a grant for this scheme in the near future, but we shall keep it in mind for consideration as soon as funds permit.
    Mr. McKay: I am sure the Minister will realise that this is an exceptional decision in so far as this land was bought twenty years ago for the special purpose and there has been twenty years increase of traffic. Businessmen and doctors are held up. We hope that the Minister will give the bridge some form of priority in future. Will he say that he will do so?
    Mr. Hay: Northumberland County Council included this scheme in its proposed forward programme submitted last year. The priority the county council attached to it, however, will not secure a place for it in the first three years of the new classified roads programme we announced last year.

    Staines Bridge
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Transport to what extent and for what reasons, completion of the new Staines bridge has been delayed; and what additional costs have been incurred as a result.
    Mr. Marples: The contract period for construction of the Staines Bridge has been extended by three months because of flooding caused by abnormally bad weather last year. The extension of time does not of itself entitle the contractors to additional payment.
    Mr. Lipton: Does not the Minister recall that one of the main reasons why he did not accept the cheaper tender put in by the Alderton Construction Company was that the accepted tender would save time and that this bridge would be constructed in twenty-one months? Does he not realise that he has made a colossal blunder both in time and in money by rejecting the lowest tender and accepting the second lowest tender, with the deplorable result which we now face?
    Mr. Marples: The weather recently has been the worst that the construction industry can remember this century. Extensions of time in the civil engineering and building industries were very common last year. There is no doubt that in the exposed industries the men cannot work as fast with such rainfall as we had last year.

    Clearways
    Mr. Kitsonasked the Minister of Transport (1) what improvement there has been in the accident figures on roads operating as clearways;
    (2) whether he will now consider designating further stretches of main roads as clearways.
    Mr. Marples: During the first six months of the scheme the number of personal injury accidents on the first set

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    of roads designated as clearways was 133, compared with 145 in the corresponding six months before the scheme came into effect. I hope to designate further stretches of main roads as clearways this summer. The detailed arrangements are at present under consideration.
    Mr. Kitson: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that four people were killed and nine seriously injured in the last eleven months on roads in the North Riding because of stationary vehicles? Cannot we speed up the process for designating clearways?
    Mr. Marples: As I have said, we are reviewing them all. The Yorkshire lengths of the A.1 are being considered for clearways. About 26 miles are being considered at the moment.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the penalties for people who stop on these clearways are adequate?
    Mr. Marples: I think the penalties are adequate but sometimes it is a little difficult to enforce the provisions, especially at holiday times, because of the large number of vehicles on the road and the small number of police available to look after them.

    Coventry Road, Birmingham (Yardley)
    Mr. Cleaverasked the Minister of Transport on what basis compensation is paid to householders where a road improvement scheme involves the construction of a skyway, such as that envisaged over the Coventry Road, Yardley, Birmingham.
    Mr. Hay: The basis of compensation for property required for the actual road works would be the same as in ordinary highway schemes. Whether compensation would be payable in respect of other property would depend on the facts of each case, in the light of existing legislation.
    Mr. Cleaver: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a unique scheme? Is he aware that since it was announced there has been a very serious depreciation in the value of residential property and that to compensate residents on the latter value is most unfair?
    Mr. Hay: I am not altogether aware of the points which my hon. Friend has made. The broad position is that in cases where a compulsory purchase order had been made compensation would be assessed at the time of the notice to treat. How far the amount of compensation will be affected by what I may call the skyway element in this project is a difficult question which we cannot answer until the Birmingham Corporation's proposals have been studied in considerable detail.
    Mr. Strauss: Will the Parliamentary Secretary define what a skyway is?
    Mr. Hay: Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Cleaver) is the best authority to define a skyway, since it is his Question. I understand that it is an elevated roadway which the Birmingham Corporation wishes to build.
    Mr. Cleaverasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the fact that a double carriageway is adequate to meet the traffic needs on the Coventry Road, Birmingham, between "The Swan" and the city boundary, and that the proposed skyway is an uneconomical way of using public money, if he will order a public inquiry into the desirability of this project
    Mr. Hay: My hon. Friend's Question is based on two suppositions which I cannot comment upon until we have had an opportunity of studying the detailed proposals of the Birmingham Corporation who are the highway authority for this road. It is too soon, therefore, to say whether a public inquiry should be held.
    Mr. Cleaver: Is my hon. Friend aware that from estimates which have been made it appears that this project will cost at least £1,800,000 per mile? Is he aware also that very many of the residents consider that it will be a waste of money? Is he further aware that there is already an area by the road in which a double carriagway could be laid down? Will he look further into that possibility?
    Mr. Hay: Of course, we shall have to look very much more closely into this project when we have fuller details. As I said in answer to the previous Question

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    my hon. Friend asked, we are now awaiting the opportunity to have a full discussion with the Birmingham Corporation on this point

    Pedestrian Crossings
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Minister of Transport when he will be able to announce the result of the investigation made by the Road Research Laboratory into the present day use and value of pedestrian crossings.
    Mr. Marples: A report by the Road Research Laboratory shows that the relationship between pedestrian accidents on and within 50 yards of pedestrian crossings and pedestrian accidents in built-up areas generally has hardly altered since 1952. However, the proportion of accidents actually on crossings increased between 1953 and 1959 whilst the proportion within 50 yards of a crossing decreased. I am disturbed by the increase of accidents on crossings and I am looking further into the matter in collaboration with the Road Research Laboratory.
    Mr. Goodhart: Has my right hon. Friend yet been able to ascertain whether he intends either to allow more pedestrian crossings to be laid or less? Can he make any estimate?
    Mr. Marples: No. I think that we should wait until we see what the Road Research Laboratory says. It issued its last Report a considerable time ago and it is now going into this question again.

    High Street, Strood
    Mr. Critchleyasked the Minister of Transport what progress is being made with the improvements to High Street, Strood, which have been delayed owing to the widening of the railway bridge.
    Mr. Hay: I have written to my hon. Friend explaining the position. The extension of the widening through the railway bridge will be put in hand as soon as possible. Negotiations between the authorities concerned are proceeding, and preparatory work is not being held up.
    Mr. Critchley: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware how very eagerly everyone in Rochester and Strood await the end of this road scheme?
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    Will he urge the railway authorities to proceed with all the speed they can and finish their share of this scheme?
    Mr. Hay: Yes. The problem does not really arise in respect of the railways. We are now awaiting formal agreement with the B.T.C.—this is in hand—and an agreement with the Rochester Council to act as the agent authority, because normally the agent would be the Kent County Council.

    Lorry Drivers (Working Hours)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Transport how many enforcement officers are engaged in checking that firms are not causing their drivers to work for illegal and excessive hours.
    Mr. Marples: The number of officers engaged on enforcement work of this kind varies to some extent from week to week. During the week ended 18th March, 1961, the number was 165.
    Mr. Allaun: Is not this entirely inadequate, since commercial vehicles have increased from 900,000 to 1,400,000 in ten years? If the Minister were there at the time, he could see drivers who have been working for eighteen hours nodding at the wheel or falling asleep Over their teacups in transport caf⃩s. Instead of checking the log books, which can be "cooked", would it not be better for enforcement officers to take the numbers of vehicles at key points on main roads?
    Mr. Marples: The answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that enforcement officers already do that. As to the first part of the supplementary question, although traffic has increased the number of enforcement officers has increased at an even greater rate. In March, 1959, there were 103. In March, 1960, there were 147. In March, 1961, there are 165, which is a 50 per cent. increase in two years.
    Mrs. Slater: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that something very much more drastic is needed to safeguard the people who have to work these excessive hours? Does he not also agree that in spite of the enforcement officers, the fines which are imposed are absolutely

    1323
    negligible and encourage the owners of lorries to go on with this illegal practice?
    Mr. Marples: Fines are not a question for me, and therefore I will not comment on them. We have increased the staff to a considerable extent and it is certainly making a greater impact on this sort of case than it was two years ago.
    Mr. Mellish: Does not this evidence of a further increase on the numbers of prosecutions that the right hon. Gentleman gave last week show that the situation is becoming alarming? What are the Minister's long-term plans for coping with it?
    Mr. Marples: At a recent meeting, representations were made, which I promised to consider.
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Transport what was the outcome of his talks with the lorry drivers' union representatives on the excessive hours worked by some haulage firms.
    Mr. Marples: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) on 22nd March.
    Mr. Allaun: Does not the Minister think that the cut sought by the men from eleven hours to ten hours a day is a modest one? Is he aware that ten hours is the maximum period on the Continent and in the United States, and does he not agree that it is quite long enough for a man, for safety's sake, to be in charge of a heavy lorry?
    Mr. Marples: When I saw the trade union representatives they made certain points. I promised further investigation of two or three of those points, after which I promised to give the matter serious consideration.

    Ilkley By-Pass
    Sir M. Stoddart-Scottasked the Minister of Transport if he will state the number of cricket fields, football grounds, hockey pitches, tennis courts, golf courses, swimming pools and other sports facilities which are to be destroyed or curtailed in the Ilkley Urban District Council area by the trunk road which it is planned to make through Wharfedale.
    Mr. Hay: Because the line of the Ilkley by-pass established by statutory
    1324
    order would seriously affect recreational facilities in Ilkley, we are arranging for a survey to be made to see if a practicable alternative can be found.

    Motorways (Tolls)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Transport when he expects to make a statement on the Report of the study he ordered into the question of tolls on motorways.
    Mr. Marples: Soon after the Easter Recess.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate how many people are appalled that, in a modern age, there is a proposal to introduce tolls on motorways? Will he tell us, so that we may enjoy our holidays, how he can contemplate such a thing in this modern age? What is the reason for it?
    Mr. Marples: No proposals have been made, but a study has taken place. The result of that study and the announcement of the Government will be made soon after the Easter Recess.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: When considering this question, will my right hon. Friend regard tolls as a method of supplementing total road expenditure, so helping to relieve congestion on existing roads?
    Mr. Marples: There are many aspects of this toll problem, some of which tend to favour tolls, and others tend to be against them, but I hope that when the Government announce their decision it will be welcome to the House.
    Mr. Strauss: Would it be useful to the right hon. Gentleman to know that if the final decision is in favour of tolls being imposed he will have very strong opposition from this side of the House?
    Mr. Marples: I am grateful for that warning.

    Imber Training Area
    Sir R. Grimstonasked the Minister of Transport if he is yet in a position to announce a date for a public inquiry in connection with the objections to the proposed order for the closing of the highways within the Imber training area.
    Mr. Marples: I am hopeful that a satisfactory settlement of a number of the objections to this proposed order will be reached shortly. I will then refer it together with any outstanding objections to the War Works Commission, and it will be for the Commission to fix the date of any inquiry it decides to hold before reporting to me.
    Sir R. Grimston: Is my right hon. Friend aware that although there is no disposition in any responsible quarter to interfere with the proper needs of defence training, there is very great anxiety that rights of way that have existed for centuries may be permanently closed even if at some future date the defence services might give up the training area? Will he bear that in mind and understand that there is a great deal of anxiety on the subject?
    Mr. Marples: I am aware that there is a great deal of anxiety on the subject, but I think that it is usual to hear at a public inquiry any objections that are not withdrawn, after which a report is made to me.

    Wallsend-Tynemouth Road
    Mr. McKayasked the Minister of Transport whether he has yet made a decision on the width required for the double carriageway between Newcastle, Wallsend and Tynemouth, to enable the county council to proceed with some of the work required.
    Mr. Hay: The Joint Coast Road Committee have been told that dual 36 ft. carriageways may be provided.

    Flyovers and Underpasses (Construction Time)
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport how long the actual construction of the Chiswick flyover, the Hanger Lane underpass, and the Ace of Spades underpass on the Kingston by-pass took, respectively; and how long he anticipates the Hammersmith flyover will have taken to construct when it is completed.
    Mr. Marples: The Chiswick flyover took two years ten months to complete, the tunnels of Hanger Lane underpass were completed in two years four months, and the Hook Road underpass was completed in one year nine months. I expect that
    1326
    the Hammersmith flyover will be completed one year ten months after the start of the work.
    Mr. Russell: Are not these times much longer than the times taken to build underpasses and so on in many other countries, particularly in places like Brussels and Paris? Cannot something be done to speed things up?
    Mr. Marples: It is really not possible to compare these jobs with each other or with jobs abroad. Civil engineering contracts always depend upon the nature of the soil and the nature of the work, and it is not an easy comparison to make.

    Traffic Junctions (Pedestrians)
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport what plans he has for increasing the number of signs giving guidance to pedestrians at traffic junctions in Central London.
    Mr. Marples: Proposals for "Cross Now" signals at a number of junctions are being considered. Experiments involving control and guidance of pedestrians also are being worked out, but it is too soon to announce details.

  RAILWAYS

    Motive Power
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Transport what study he has made of the experience in the United States of America of diesel and diesel-electric motive power on railways with a view to deciding the motive power policy to adopt in this country.
    Mr. Marples: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave him on 17th March.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is the Minister aware that that Answer was not satisfactory? Does he agree that in America a committee composed of expert engineering motive power men has conducted a thorough investigation into the matter and decided that electrification is the best mechanical motive power? If that is correct, should not the Minister be considering the same power?
    Mr. Marples: These technical matters are primarily for the British Transport

    1327
    Commission rather than for the Ministry. There are varying views on the best method of traction on the railways. In some cases electrification is good, especially where there is very dense traffic, but if the traffic is light the capital expenditure involved in electrification might very well not be worth while.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Transport if he will have an investigation made into the motive power which will be the most economical for British Railways.
    Mr. Marples: No, Sir.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is it correct that in the United States, Western Germany and France they have already conducted an investigation of the kind suggested? In view of that, should not Britain now be having another look at the matter in order that we may run our railways in the most economic manner?
    Mr. Marples: The British Transport Commission has taken notice of all the experiments which have been carried out abroad.

  SHIPPING

    Lifejackets
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the increasing efficiency of the inflatable type of lifejacket and the increasing use of this type by the Services, he will now permit the use of such apparatus by crews and passengers in ships of the merchant navy.
    Mr. Marples: The specification for lifejackets to be carried in merchant ships laid down in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1948, excludes the inflatable type. The revised Convention adopted at last year's conference in London, but not yet in force, includes an alternative specification for an inflatable type for the crews of ships, other than passenger ships and tankers. I am prepared to consider any design which will meet the specification.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, as a sailing man, if I were a passenger in a liner and thought, as in fact I think, that the ordinary standard reversible lifejacket, if I were unconscious, would permit my head to
    1328
    flop in the water and might also be filled with kapok, which would mean that with oil on the water it might sink within an hour or two, I should think that we ought to adopt the up-to-date specification as laid down internationally? Has not the time come to revise these rather out-of-date provisions?
    Mr. Marples: I want to make it clear that this new specification to which my hon. Friend refers is not laid down internationally. At the moment the kapok or similar substance must be enclosed in a P.V.C. envelope, which is impervious to oil. This international standard is not necessarily laid down only for the merchant navy and for people who know how to use this equipment, but also for passengers who are not used to putting on life-belts.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this regulation about the covering of kapok with P.V.C. was issued by the Ministry of Transport two years ago? Secondly, will he tell me how many countries took part in this Convention and whether they all agreed?
    Mr. Marples: I think that about 30 or 40 countries took part, and they nearly all agreed. It will come into force when it has been ratified by the Governments of 15 countries. It was quite a big Convention. The P.V.C. envelope has proved quite satisfactory for kapok or similar substances.
    Mr. Dodds: In view of the enterprise which the right hon. Gentleman has shown while Minister in seeing things for himself, may I ask whether he is sufficiently interested to see a demonstration which would clearly indicate how those lifejackets which are approved by the Ministry of Transport are antiquated compared with those of the inflatable type now available? Will he look for himself?
    Mr. Marples: I am prepared to consider any design which will meet the specification.

    Shipbuilding (Foreign Orders)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport if he will take steps to give financial assistance to those shipowners who place their orders with British shipbuilders.
    Mr. Marples: No, Sir. I see no reason why the British shipbuilding industry should not be competitive with foreign firms for this type of business.
    Mr. Rankin: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that since this Parliament commenced we have had nothing but words about what is to be done to help the British shipbuilding industry? Does not he agree that it is now time for some action? My Question suggests action which can be taken. Will he bear in mind that the tonnage at the moment on hand from foreign buyers represents about four months' work for the industry, while British shipowners are building all over the world? Would it not help the industry if he could do, as he can, something to help shipowners so that we can stimulate the shipbuilding industry?
    Mr. Marples: If British shipowners were forced to buy a ship here in Britain at a higher price than foreign ship owners paid for their ships, eventually shipping in this country would cease to exist
    Mr. Rankin: That is nonsense.

    Ports and Harbours (Capital Works)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport what authorisation he has given for new capital constructions in ports and harbours in order to speed up the discharge of ships' cargoes.
    Mr. Marples: In general my authority is not required for programmes of capital works except in ports for which the British Transport Commission are responsible. The approved investment programmes of the Commission included expenditure at ports of £5 million in 1961, £9 million in 1960, £6 million in 1959 and £5·6 million in 1958.
    Mr. Rankin: I fully recognise the good work which the Ministry is doing in regard to docks. Does he realise that there are many docks where modernisation is quite inadequate, with the result that the turn-round of shipping is slowed down, with an addition to costs? The size of these docks is preventing the building of larger ships to deal with larger cargoes. Can he not use his influence as Minister to encourage the local authorities concerned to engage in a new programme of bringing docks up to date to meet modern requirements?
    Mr. Marples: Capital construction in ports is generally undertaken by virtue of powers granted by Parliament in private legislation. Most docks, such as those under the control of the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board and the Port of London Authority, are self-contained units and do not have to apply to me for capital expenditure.

    New Cunarder
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morganasked the Minister of Transport why he will not take into account the degree of unemployment in an area when authorising the placing with a particular shipyard of the contract for the new Cunarder.
    Mr. Marples: Government assistance has been limited to the minimum required to enable the Cunard Steam-Ship Company to order a ship which will be competitive in this highly subsidised trade. The ship will have to pay her way and I would not be justified in asking the company to accept any other than the best tender.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Has my right hon. Friend any ideas for giving a shot in the arm to other areas which are unsuccessful in obtaining this tender?
    Mr. Marples: That is another Question altogether.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Will my right hon. Friend think about adopting this suggestion? Will he think particularly of those areas which face high unemployment in shipbuilding and have no alternative engineering employment for men unemployed?
    Mr. Marples: If there is nothing between the best tenders, which is unlikely to happen in practice, preference is given to a firm in a development district listed under the Local Employment Act, 1960, or to a firm in Northern Ireland. All the areas which have been invited to tender are in such districts, except Swan Hunter and Vickers.
    Mr. Short: Will the Minister bear in mind that there is considerable insecurity, short-time working, and so on, in shipbuilding and ship-repairing on the Tyne? Will he confirm that the contract will be placed on purely commercial consideration?
    Mr. Marples: That is what I have said.
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Minister of Transport what area per passenger has been provided for in the specification sent out in connection with tenders for the new Cunarder.
    Mr. Marples: This is a matter for the Cunard Steam-ship Company, but I am informed that it has provided for an average of about 80 square feet of cabin space per passenger.
    Mr. Harrison: Is this not an excessively luxurious area for the British taxpayer to subsidise?
    Mr. Marples: I do not think so. The Cunard Company had many factors to take into account, and if it had made the area very much smaller it would not have attracted the type of passenger who would pay the fare it wishes him to pay.
    Mr. Shinwell: What accommodation will be provided for the crew? Has the right hon. Gentleman ever inspected some of the crew space in any of these large liners?
    Mr. Marples: If the right hon. Gentleman will put a Question down, I will tell him exactly what the space is. I have inspected the crew quarters on both the "Queen Mary" and the "Queen Elizabeth".

    Flag Discrimination
    Mr. McMasterasked the Minister of Transport what measures Her Majesty's Government are taking to discourage and reduce the amount of flag discrimination proposed and adopted by other maritime countries with whom the United Kingdom trades; and what has been the result of the talks held in Washington on this subject.
    Mr. Marples: Her Majesty's Government takes every opportunity by means of diplomatic protest, in the negotiation of commercial treaties and in appropriate international discussions to discourage and reduce discrimination. I am now considering with the General Council of British Shipping whether it would be in our long-term interest to take further measures. So far as the Washington talks are concerned, I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen,
    1332
    North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 1st March.
    Mr. McMaster: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he agrees that such practices distort the pattern of world shipping to the detriment of British shipping interests, and, in particular, cause loss to the industry's invisible exports?
    Mr. Marples: I agree that discrimination can seriously harm this country, but if we are to take retaliatory measures we need to be absolutely certain that we correctly assess what the long-term results will be.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Would not the Minister agree that it is fantastic that the N.A.T.O. Powers, which are supposed to be joined to defend each other militarily, should, by their practices, be destroying each other economically? Ought not strong representations about this matter be made at N.A.T.O. conferences?
    Mr. Marples: I do not think that a N.A.T.O. conference is the place to make these representations, but I do not disagree that strong representations should be made.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: My right hon. Friend has referred to possible further measures. Can he indicate on what lines he is thinking?
    Mr. Marples: The General Council of Shipping asked me to take general powers in the House of Commons for retaliatory measures, and then it could take specific steps against different countries. I asked the Council for examples both of the specific measures and the general powers it had in mind, and I am awaiting those.

    Laid-up Tonnage
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Transport what is the total amount of idle tonnage of British ocean-going vessels at the latest available date.
    Mr. Marples: On 1st March, 61 ships of 1,600 gross tons and over registered in the United Kingdom, totalling 457,000 gross tons, were laid up for lack of employment. This amounts to less than 3 per cent. of the United Kingdom fleet.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is not that serious, and is there any evidence of an improvement?
    Mr. Marples: It is true that 3 per cent. is small, but even so it is serious. Nevertheless, there has been a reduction. In the autumn of 1959 it was 6 per cent.; now it is 3 per cent.

    Nuclear Propulsion
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Transport whether he will make a further statement regarding a nuclear-powered merchant ship.
    Mr. Marples: I will make a statement as soon as I can.
    Mr. Willey: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a better assurance than that? Is he aware that there is a good deal of apprehension that we are rapidly losing ground in this branch of research, and a good deal of speculation as to what proposals we are making about European co-operation in these matters? We should have an early statement from the Minister to the House.
    Mr. Marples: In my view, it is absolutely vital that we should make the correct decision rather than a hurried decision. This is a complex problem, and it is no good over-simplifying it.
    Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that there will not be any unnecessary questions of prestige venturing into this matter? What we really want is a commercial venture. Can he give an assurance that the Atomic Energy Authority is sufficiently charged with the importance of the matter?
    Mr. Marples: I am quite certain that the Atomic Energy Authority, the shipowners, the shipbuilders and Lloyds Register, representatives of all of whom are on the committee, have those considerations in mind, but I think that it would be folly if this country, with its limited resources, were to dissipate them on something that is not likely to be economic in the near future.
    Mr. Rankin: When we do have this ship will the right hon. Gentleman bring it to Holy Loch and see that the other one is taken away?
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that decisions have been taken in this matter? It is no good talking about the folly of making the wrong decision. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the Government have taken previous decisions which are wrong?
    Mr. Marples: No, the Question is about this particular decision. Other decisions have been made, but this one has not been made and that is why the hon. Gentleman put his Question on the Order Paper.

    Shipbuilding Advisory Committee (Sub-Committee Report)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Transport whether he will now make a statement on the interim report of the Sub-Committee of the Shipbuilding Advisory Committee.
    Mr. Marples: The report will be published as soon as possible.
    Mr. Willey: While appreciating the difficulties about this report, which is a report of the Sub-Committee of the main Committee, nevertheless, as this report is bound to call for some Government action, and the position of shipbuilding is deteriorating, may I ask the Minister to use his best offices to see that the report is published at any rate during the Easter Recess?
    Mr. Marples: The printing has been put in hand already and publication is expected to be in about three weeks' time.

    Imports
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Transport what steps he is taking to encourage imports into the United Kingdom in British ships, in view of the fact that more than half of such imports are now carried in foreign ships.
    Mr. Marples: I do not consider that intervention by Her Majesty's Government in commercial transactions would be in the best interests of British shipping, nor have the General Council of British Shipping recommended action on these lines.
    Mr. Digby: Is it not doubly undesirable that our ever-increasing imports should be carried in foreign ships? Will not my right hon. Friend consult with

    1335
    his right bon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade so that he can bear this in mind when concluding trade agreements?
    Mr. Marples: I will bring up the topic when I discuss the matter with the Council of British Shipping, but I am bound to say that it is not one of their recommendations.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government's policy relating to shipping and merchandise carried in shipping is detrimental to the shipping industry, and will he rectify it?
    Mr. Marples: All the nationalist countries which are emerging, such as India, want their own fleets and insist on carrying in them. It would be very difficult if we were to discriminate, say, against Indian shipping.
    Mr. P. Williams: When my right hon. Friend refers to conversations with the Chamber of Shipping, could he say where responsibility for this matter now lies? Is it with the Chamber of Shipping or with himself? If it is with himself, can he say when he will come to a conclusion on the matter?
    Mr. Marples: We can only come to a conclusion when we have agreed.

    Docks and Harbours (Committee of Inquiry)
    Mr. G. Wilsonasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the widespread concern in industry at the delays in the movement of cargoes through British ports; and what action he proposes to take to improve the position.
    Mr. Marples: Yes, Sir. I have decided to set up a small Committee with the following terms of reference:
    "To consider to what extent the major docks and harbours of Great Britain are adequate to meet present and future national needs; whether the methods of working can be improved; and to make recommendations".
    I am glad to say that Lord Rochdale has agreed to act as chairman. My invitation to Lord Rochdale was made with the full agreement of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Lord Rochdale has assured him that this new assignment, which is of
    1336
    course of great interest and concern to the Board of Trade, should not interfere with his work as chairman of the Cotton Board. The Government recognises that the Board has before it at the present time some very important matters concerning the future of the industry and its relations with Commonwealth countries.
    Mr. Wilson: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he can give any indication of how soon he expects to have a report on this matter in view of its urgency?
    Mr. Marples: I do not know how soon. The report will be a matter for the Committee, but I hope to complete the membership of the Committee in a matter of weeks and they will start work almost immediately.
    Mr. Mellish: Will the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific about the terms of reference? Is it a Committee that will look entirely at the installation side of the docks and harbours, or will it be an all-embracing committee which will look at the whole problem? May we be quite clear where we stand?
    Mr. Marples: The terms of reference are extremely wide. The Committee can look at almost anything from management to the labour side, at equipment and finance. It will be an all-embracing inquiry into the efficiency of the ports, and, especially in view of our desire to increase exports, it is most desirable that a committee of this sort should sit and inquire.
    Mr. Mellish: Will the Minister give an assurance that at least one of those on the Committee will be a trade union member?
    Mr. Marples: I intend to have a dispassionate committee without a representative of the employers and without a representative of the unions, but which can take evidence, and the question of the setting up of this Committee has been cleared both with the unions and with the ports concerned.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend also see that there is an efficiency expert on the Committee to see whether the number of fork-lift trucks in these ports is sufficient for modern up-to-date ports?
    Mr. Marples: When my hon. Friend sees the composition of the Committee he will be satisfied in that respect.

    North Atlantic Shipping Conference
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morganasked the Minister of Transport when were the last official formal investigations into the workings of the North Atlantic Shipping Conference; and by whom they were made.
    Mr. Marples: There has been no formal inquiry specifically into the workings of the North Atlantic Conferences. A Royal Commission on Shipping Rings investigated conferences in general between 1906 and 1909. The Imperial Shipping Committee covered much the same ground in an investigation of the deferred rebate system in 1923. It investigated also the carriage of particular commodities across the North Atlantic in 1924 and 1926.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Will my right hon. Friend agree that time has marched on since those last investigations? Further, is it not a fact that at that time there was no question of United Kingdom Government subsidies? Would it not be a good idea if the Monopolies Commission, which did not then exist, had a look at the matter?
    Mr. Marples: We have had very few complaints. We had seven during the last year about increases in freight rates in relation to particular commodities. Furthermore, shipping today faces intense competition from the air which it did not face at the time when these inquiries took place.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Expenditure
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Defence how the total of defence expenditure proposed for 1961ߝ62, as shown in the Estimates, compares in real terms with the 1952ߝ53 Estimates.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): Net expenditure on defence in 1961ߝ62 is estimated at £1,655·6 million. If the consumer price index is taken as the basis for comparison, this would be equivalent to about £1,390 million at
    1338
    1952 prices. A calculation more closely related to the main components of defence expenditure, and therefore more accurate for purposes of comparison, would give a figure for 1952 of £1,170 million. The amount provided in Estimates for 1952ߝ53 was £1,377·21 million.
    Mr. Digby: Is it not a fact that, despite increases in the national income and in Government expenditure, defence expenditure has remained moderately stationary, and is there not a case for an increase in the total of defence expenditure now, particularly having regard to the recent increase of £700 million in America about which we read in the newspapers today?
    Mr. Watkinson: This is always a difficult matter of balance. I think for the moment that we have struck the right balance between having sufficient defence funds to produce a well-balanced defence programme while not placing too great a burden on the economy as a whole. I note what my hon. Friend has said about increases in America, but I think for the moment that we have the best balance between strain on our economy as a whole and having enough money to give a balanced defence programme.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Why are all these arithmetical gymnastics about real terms never used when we discuss wages?
    Hon. Members: They are.

    Polaris Submarine Base
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence what new arangements he has made with the American Defence Minister for the security of the American ships at Holy Loch.
    Mr. Watkinson: No new arrangements are necessary.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since the "Proteus" has been in Holy Loch a frogman has swum under the ship and inscribed his initials on the bottom of the ship? Is he aware that the submarine has been boarded by men from the mainland going out in canoes? Because of the accessibility of the ship to the side of Holy Loch, is he satisfied that there is no danger of sabotage? If sabotage occurred, it would have very disastrous effects on the safety of the local population.
    Mr. Watkinson: I think that there is no risk of the nature which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. These incidents clearly were known to the crews of the "Proteus" and of the submarine concerned. I think that the hon. Gentleman's last observation might well be described as a storm in a coffee cup.
    Mr. Paget: Surely this is a very serious matter. We have a lot of perhaps rather unbalanced people who take a somewhat hysterical view of matters. To go back to the suffragettes, we are in no position to protect people who do that kind of crazy thing. Is this not a real danger which we pointed out in the recent debate?
    Mr. Watkinson: What I understand is this. It is the wish of the American Navy to treat these people—I leave their degree of imbalance to the hon. and learned Gentleman—as courteously and calmly as it can. That is not meant to be read in any sense as implying that it cannot protect these ships from sabotage.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for the first week after the Recess?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The proposed business for the first week after the Recess and the following week will be as follows:
TUESDAY, 11TH APRIL, AND WEDNESDAY, 12TH APRIL—Report and Third Reading of the Criminal Justice Bill.
THURSDAY, 13TH APRIL—Consideration of the Report from the Privileges Committee concerning the Petition of Mr. Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn.
FRIDAY, 14TH APRIL—Consideration of private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 17TH APRIL—As already announced, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget.
The general debate on the Budget Resolutions and the Economic Situation will be continued on Tuesday and Wednesday and brought to a conclusion on Thursday of that week.
1340
FRIDAY, 21ST APRIL—Consideration of Private Members' Bills.
Mr. Gaitskell: Concerning the business for Thursday, 13th April, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government propose to table a Motion? If so, can he give us any idea of the terms of the Motion and say whether, in the event of a Division taking place, he will agree to a free vote?
Mr. Butler: I think that it is more likely that the Government will table a Motion, and that will mean that it has Government support. The nature of the Motion is not yet decided, but I will endeavour to give the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends as much notice as I can of its nature.
Mr. Gaitskell: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that, as far as the Government are concerned, the Whips will be definitely on for this debate?
Mr. Butler: That is the present intention.
Mr. Tiley: Would it not be possible to deal with Thursday's business in half a day and then discuss exports for the rest of the day?Mr. Tiley: Would it not be possible to deal with Thursday's business in half a day and then discuss exports for the rest of the day?
Mr. Butler: It would be a good idea if we could get through the other business.
Mr. Gaitskell: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect the Lord Chancellor to announce his findings on the Buxton case concerning the Minister of Housing and Local Government, which was referred to the Lord Chancellor by the Council on Tribunals?
Mr. Butler: I cannot give a definite date for that, but, as it has been raised by the Leader of the Opposition, I will immediately consult my noble Friend.
Mr. C. Osborne: My right hon. Friend said that on Monday, 17th April, we shall discuss the Budget and the general economic situation. Can he say when the Economic Survey will be ready? We cannot discuss the economic situation unless we have the details of it?
Mr. Butler: The Economic Survey will be published in good time for my hon. Friend and others to consider it.
Mr. Hector Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he will at last

1341
find time for a debate on the Mackintosh Report on the Law of Succession in Scotland, which has been in the Government archives for ten years and not touched?
Mr. Butler: I must examine the Government archives before I reply to that question.
Mr. Nabarro: May I ask my right hon. Friend a question about the business for the Thursday after we reassemble concerning the Report of the Committee of Privileges on the case of Mr. Wedgwood Benn? My right hon. Friend said that there would be a Government Motion. Does that imply that I shall be disciplined? Has not my right hon. Friend observed that a number of my hon. Friends and myself are supporters of a Measure entitled the Peerage Renunciation Bill? In those circumstances, would it not be appropriate that a free vote should be given?
Mr. Butler: I think that there is a formula by which it is possible to have a Government Motion and by which hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend, can freely express their opinions. I think that that is probably the best arrangement on this occasion.Mr. Butler: I think that there is a formula by which it is possible to have a Government Motion and by which hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend, can freely express their opinions. I think that that is probably the best arrangement on this occasion.
Mr. M. Foot: Is not a matter concerning the Privileges of the House of Commons pre-eminently one in which the Whips should not be on? I readily declare my lack of interest in the matter, but cannot the Leader of the House confirm that it is the normal practice that the Whips should be taken off when we are debating the Privileges of the House? Does not he think that it is disgraceful that he should depart from the general practice in this case?
Mr. Butler: No, I do not think that it is disgraceful at all. It is normal for the Government to have a view. It is equally normal for hon. Members who have views on certain matters to express their opinions. I hope that the debate will be conducted without any attempt to victimise any hon. Member who wishes to express his opinion.
Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his line of action on this matter of great constitutional importance is typical of the Government issuing a three-line Whip in defence of feudalism?
Mr. Butler: I have not yet consulted my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary on the nature of the Whip that he proposes, but, if the hon. Gentleman wishes to be brought into the secrets of the Government, I very much doubt whether it will be a three-line Whip. I do not think that this is a question of feudalism at all. We want to be sure that in the modern age we take the right decision.
Mr. Paget: Can the Leader of the House give any example of the Government putting the Whips on in a House of Commons matter dealing with the rights of an individual Member? Can he say, for instance, whether the Whips were put on in the Bradlaugh controversy, in which party opinion ran very high? Even then they were not put on.
Mr. Butler: I have examined the Bradlaugh situation and the situation in the previous cases of O'Connell and others. None of them was exactly on all fours with this case. The important thing is that we should take each case as it arises. It is very probable that the Government will put down a Motion. I cannot go further than that today. It is perfectly reasonable for anyone who wishes to express an opinion to express it.
Mr. Gaitskell: Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up the matter a little further by saying whether the Government Motion will relate solely to the Report to the Committee of Privileges, or whether it will also deal with any consequential problems and questions which arise out of this matter?
Mr. Butler: On present viewing, it is more likely that the Government's Motion will deal with the Report of the Committee of Privileges. We are trying to table the Motion before the House rises, partly because we wish to suit the convenience of hon. Members opposite so that they can see what they have to deal with. It may not be possible to do that, but I am attempting to do it so as to give hon. Members time for consideration. The alternative is to table a Motion on our return, which would give hon. Members only a short time to consider it. If the right hon. Gentleman will not press me any further, I will attempt to see what can be done.
Mr. Wade: Are we to understand from the reply which the Leader of the House gave to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that hon. Members opposite, including the hon. Member for Kidderminster, will be entitled freely to express their opinions, but not entitled freely to vote?
Mr. Butler: We must not be silly about this. If my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) wishes to register a vote, he will register a vote, and he will do so with absolute understanding on the part of those who feel that he is convinced on this matter. It is impossible to adopt any other situation.
Mr. Shinwell: Is there not a simple solution to this dilemma? Why should not the Government promise to introduce legislation to abolish the House of Lords altogether?
Mr. Butler: If the right hon. Gentleman feels that way, he had better put down a Motion.
Mr. C. Pannell: The Leader of the House having surprisingly announced this matter of the Whips, may the House know at this stage whether, in the event of Mr. Benn wishing to proceed to the Bar, the right hon. Gentleman will put the Whips on for that?
Mr. Butler: That is a matter which needs further consideration between both sides of the House. In response to your Rulings, Mr. Speaker, this matter would have to be regulated by a Motion. It depends who put the Motion down what the nature of the Motion is. As Leader of the House, I should very much like to be informed.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: On a point of order. Without in any way wishing to involve the Chair in deciding the merits of the issues raised in the Report of the Committee of Privileges, would you be able to give a Ruling to the House, Mr. Speaker, as to the correct style of this gentleman? Is he to be known as Mr. Wedgwood Benn, or is he, until the House decides otherwise, Lord Stansgate?
Mr. Speaker: As I explained to the House the other day, all that I can do until the House otherwise decides is to proceed on the prima facie position. The prima facie position is that he bears the
1344
name of our Petitioner attached to the Report of the Committee of Privileges, namely, Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can the Leader of the House give a firm and definite assurance that in the event of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and five other hon. Members opposite going into the Lobby against the Whips, they will not be expelled from the Conservative Party?
Mr. Butler: The hon. Member has five Members on the brain. It may well be that the figures differ on this occasion. All I can say is that our methods of conducting our party differ considerably from the methods of the party opposite. They are a great deal more sensible and lead to a greater degree of unity than will ever be achieved by the party opposite.
Mr. G. Brown: When the Leader of the House made that statement, had he in mind Mr. Nigel Nicolson, Brigadier Medlicott, Anthony Nutting and the others on his side who have been disciplined in the past?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Whatever other hon. Members have in mind, I have it in mind that this is a moment dedicated to business questions.
Mr. Lipton: Can the Leader of the House say whether the Government propose to provide facilities to enable the Ministers of the Crown Bill to reach the Statute Book? The right hon. Gentleman will remember that permission to introduce this Bill was granted by the House yesterday, by an over-whelming majority.
Mr. Butler: I cannot make any further statement on that subject today.

SECURITY PROCEDURES (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now make a statement.
The Government have decided to appoint a Committee of Inquiry, which will report to the Prime Minister, to survey the field which has come into

1345
question as a result of the recent conviction of certain individuals on a charge of conspiracy at the Central Criminal Court.
The terms of reference will be as follows:
To examine the circumstances connected with the recent spy trial at the Central Criminal Court and, in particular, those in which two individuals came to be employed, and were retained in employment, in naval establishments, with a view to determining what breaches of security arrangements, if any, took place; and to report whether there was any neglect of duty by persons directly or indirectly responsible for their employment and conduct;
To examine the circumstances in which three persons, convicted at the same time, secured admission to the United Kingdom;
To draw attention to any failure in existing security procedures which may come to their notice in the course of their inquiry.
I am glad to be able to inform the House that Sir Charles Romer, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, has accepted the chairmanship. The other two members will be Sir Harold Emmerson, formerly Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour, and a retired naval officer, Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Thistleton-Smith.
The appointment of this Committee fulfils the undertaking given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 23rd March to find out, by means of a broad-based inquiry, "what went wrong in this case."
Mr. G. Brown: So far as one can see from the statement, the terms of reference appear to go much wider than was originally indicated, when it was thought that there would be an inquiry into the narrower naval issue. In that sense, perhaps I may be allowed to say that we on this side welcome the wide terms of reference and the obviously broad base from which the Committee will operate.
Having said that, may I ask the Leader of the House a question concerning the terms of reference? There seems to be no opportunity within these terms for the Committee to consider the question of external co-operation between allied security services, which seems to have been one of the things that broke down on the recent occasion. Can that aspect be considered, or is it being taken care of in some other way?
Secondly, having said what I have done about the terms of reference, I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the strength of the Committee hardly seems
1346
in keeping with the terms of reference that the Committee has been set. I make no reflection whatever on the three gentlemen named, with one of whom I had the pleasure of serving in a Ministerial capacity and for whom I have a high regard.
Would it not be an improvement, however, if the Committee were strengthened by the addition of, say, one other person who, whatever his present position, had at some stage in his career personal knowledge of the operation of security procedures and technical developments in that field? There must be many barristers or scientists who, at an earlier stage, served in the security services, and who are not now in them, but would bring to the Committee the sort of experience that, on the face of it, appears to be lacking from a retired judge, a retired civil servant and a retired vice-admiral. Will the Home Secretary consider this?
My only other point concerns the question of evidence. A good deal has been written, some of it in the popular newspapers—the Daily Mail has been mentioned many times in this connection—and some of it, no doubt, has been highly coloured. It looks, however, as though a good deal of probing has been done. Will the Committee be free to receive evidence from people outside any of the official channels who may have done a good deal of investigation into the matter?
Mr. Butler: The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question about evidence is, "Yes, Sir". The wider terms of reference were deliberately drawn, partly due to the statements made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 23rd March and partly due to the undertakings which I gave a little later, in the early hours of the morning, when I used the expression "a broad-based inquiry". I have been able to exchange opinions with the Prime Minister and he was kind enough to support what I have said. We have, therefore, accordingly widened the terms of reference which will be much more satisfactory.
I should not like to give a snap answer on the detailed point raised by the right hon. Gentleman concerning the connection with external forces and allied systems of security. The right hon. Gentleman will, however, notice that the

1347
opening words of the terms of reference of the Committee refer to
"the circumstances connected with the recent trial …"
and that the concluding words are:
"To draw attention to any failure in existing security procedures".
Therefore, in so far as there is any connection with the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, which is a perfectly reasonable one, I would presume that it is covered. I would rather not give any further answer on that at this moment.
On the point about the strength of the inquiry and the membership, I do not think anybody would doubt the suitability of a recent Judge of Appeal, Sir Charles Romer. I think that the House will find that this must strengthen the inquiry for carrying out what the Prime Minister said:
"I am sure that the right course is to find out what went wrong by the special inquiry and then, with all those who understand it, see whether we need some different system…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1961; Vol. 637. c. 589.]
This is the special inquiry, to which the Prime Minister referred, to find out what went wrong, and in our opinion, after very seriously considering this, we think that the membership is most suitable. Of course, it will be able to inquire from experts and be able to take expert evidence of the types we have suggested which we think are the strongest for the purpose.
Mr. Brown: Who will provide the secretary for this Committee?
Mr. Butler: That is an entirely domestic matter, but he will be provided by the Cabinet Office.
Mr. Wade: Whilst welcoming the setting up of this inquiry, may I refer to a point which I mentioned yesterday? In view of the seriousness and importance of the duties of all the grades of our security service, will it be within the terms of reference of this Committee of Inquiry to consider whether their pay measures up to those duties, and whether it attracts the necessary personnel in order to try to prevent these errors from occurring?
Mr. Butler: The essential point of this inquiry is to find out what went wrong.
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The future has been rather reserved till we get the report of this inquiry. If it were found, for example, that such a situation arose, presumably, under the latter part of the terms of reference.
"any failure in existing security procedures",
attention might be drawn to these matters, but the remedying of them would have to be related to future action.
Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the appointment of this Committee with these terms of reference will give general satisfaction, particularly bearing in mind the eminence of the distinguished gentleman who is to be chairman? Can the House take it, however, that the appointment of this Committee does not in any way diminish the responsibility of the Prime Minister for what has happened and for himself, when the Committee's report is received, making a report to the House on what he proposes to do?
It will be within the right hon. Gentleman's recollection that I raised this matter on Thursday and asked the Government to make a statement concerning Admiral Thistleton-Smith, because in Thursday's Daily Mail it was reported that the Government intended to appoint him to the Committee of Inquiry. The House really ought to know how this kind of information, particularly on this subject, can be leaked days in advance—obviously, either from a Minister or from a civil servant—because these tiny breaches of security start, in the first instance, in a friendly way; and then they get a reward; and then, later, they lay themselves open to the gravest kind of abuse. Clearly, there must have been a major breach of Government security on that point.
Mr. Butler: I would certainly pledge my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to give a report to the House on the conclusion of this inquiry and not to burke in any way the results which may appear from the inquiry or any future action which may be necessary.
We regret the leak about the admiral just as does the hon. Member. It was leaked, in fact, that he was to be chairman of the Committee of Inquiry. That is not correct. He is a member, under Sir Charles Romer. The fact that there was a leak of any sort is deeply to be regretted. These are matters which are,

1349
of course, the subject of permanent investigation by the Government.
Mr. Wigg: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that when Mr. Lonsdale was arrested there was a major leak from a quarter which may have had the most important repercussions? It got out that he had been arrested—evidence was given during the trial—there was a leak and many birds may have flown because of that leak. This ought not to be left just like that.
Mr. Butler: That is one of the reasons we are having a broad-based inquiry.
Mr. Fletcher: Bearing in mind that the recent case of espionage was begun as the result of the fortuitous suspicions of a police constable at Portland, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the terms of reference are wide enough to enable the Committee to inquire not only about the way in which people get into positions of security, but whether, they having got into those positions, the efficiency of the counter-espionage service is adequate to deal with the problems which then arise?
Mr. Butler: Provided that we adhere to what I have said in my statement, and to what is said in the terms of reference about existing security procedures and reserve any alterations of them to the future, I would say that the answer is in the affirmative.
Mr. Paget: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us who is to be responsible for the security of this inquiry, because if this inquiry is to be worth anything it has got to deal with the most secret information? Is not this an additional reason for including in the inquiry, as my right hon. Friend has suggested, at least one expert in security?
Mr. Butler: We have considered all these points, and I think that the fact that the inquiry itself has to be secure is one which has not escaped us. There is the Latin tag which asks who is to guard the guards. It is obvious that it should be so, but I think that if the House looks at the membership of the inquiry it will find that the members
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have been deliberately chosen because of their experience of important duties and to ensure that there will be security.
Mr. Gaitskell: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind, in connection with the point raised by my right hon. Friend on the appointment of the secretary, that that might go some way to meat the suggestion made on this side? Can he confirm that the admiral in question had nothing whatever to do with the establishment at Portland?
Mr. Butler: I can certainly give that assurance. This has been most carefully gone into. The fact that he is retired and distant from this is, I think, a very valuable assurance of his capability in this post.
I will certainly look myself into the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  Wales (Rural Areas)
  Mr. S. O. Davies: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 14th April, I shall call attention to the need for establishing a special economy in the Welsh rural areas and for greater efforts on the part of the Government to attract new industries for the valleys of South Wales, and move a Resolution.
  Under-developed Countries
  Mr. C. Osborne: I beg to give notice, that on Friday. 14th April—if I get the chance—I shall call attention to the urgent problem of the under-developed areas of the world and the need for increased United Nations aid to such areas, and move a Resolution.
  Shipbuilding Industry
  Mrs. McLaughlin: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 14th April, I shall draw attention to the present situation in the shipbuilding industry, and move a Resolution.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL
  [ALLOTTED DAY]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  3.59 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I should like to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the two new Clauses on the Notice Paper in my name, entitled, "Extension of power to remit charges for dentures":
  Subsection (1) of section four of the Act of 1952 (power to remit charges for dentures supplied by teaching hospitals) shall have effect with the omission of the words "after consultation with the university associated with any hospital providing facilities for clinical dental teaching" and with the substitution of the words "any hospital" for the words "that hospital".
  and "Reduced charges for dental treatment":
  Subsection (2) of section two of the Act of 1952 (Charges for dental treatment) shall have effect with the substitution for the second "or" of the words "less one pound or the sum of".
  I understand that they have been ruled out of order. This unfortunate situation has arisen directly as a result of the operation of the Guillotine.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that hon. Members who are not taking part in the present discussion will be good enough to make a little less noise.
  Mr. Robinson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I was saying that the difficulty we are in over these new Clauses arises directly out of the operation of the Guillotine. I am not, of course, challenging your decision about the Clauses being out of order. I understand that that is because we are no longer bound by the Money Resolution, but by the terms of the Bill as amended in Standing Committee. But it follows that those two Clauses would have been in order during the Committee stage of the Bill and are now out of order on Report.
  In Committee, of course, the new Clauses came at the end of the Notice Paper and it was because of the operation of the Guillotine that we did not
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  get that far and did not, therefore, have an opportunity of discussing them. I know that it could be argued that there were ways round this difficulty. We could perhaps have dropped other Amendments to take the new Clauses. We did drop a number of Amendments and we took only those which seemed to us the most important yet we did not reach the new Clauses. In addition, I must plead ignorance. I thought that new Clauses which came first on the Notice Paper on Report could then be discussed without difficulty.
  It could also be said that we should move to recommit the Bill to a Committee of the whole House to allow the Clauses to be discussed, but that is a theoretical rather than a practical solution since not only would it take time, and we are once again operating under a very strict Guillotine, but the Government would no doubt oppose such recommittal and we would be left in exactly the same position as we were in before.
  I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is an infringement of the rights of the Opposition and of the minority. Because of the operation of the Guillotine we have not been able, and shall not be able, to discuss any new Clauses. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, whether you have any advice to give the House of how the minority can be protected in similar circumstances on a future occasion.
  Mr. Speaker: I understand the hon. Member's protest. The difficulty about asking me to rule on it is that the very last part of his inquiry relates to a hypothetical future position about which I should decline to rule. Once the House decides that an Allocation of Time Order should be made, as the House did, the consequences which may necessarily follow will be that certain new Clauses will not be reached during the Committee stage, but that flows from the decision of the House in imposing the Allocation of Time Order.
  I am sure that the hon. Member and the House will appreciate my position, because the hon. Member has been stating that the difficulties which stand in his way arise from rules which govern me and the House at the moment. The result is that I can do nothing to help the hon. Member. The fact is that the two new Clauses are at this stage out of order.
  Clause 1.—(INCREASE OF, AND EXEMPTIONS FROM, CHARGES FOR DENTAL AND OPTICAL APPLIANCES.)
  Mr. Thomas Fraser: I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, to leave out subsection (1).
  The House will be aware that the subsection which the Amendment seeks to remove relates to the increased charges for dentures. I trust that the Minister of Health will have appreciated that hon. Members, and, in particular, hon. Members on the Opposition benches, have been severely restricted in the Amendments that they would wish to move on this little Bill. My hon. Friends, of course, would have preferred not to have a Bill at all to amend, but we have been severely curtailed in our opportunities by the operation of the timetable, as has been made clear in the point which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has just made.
  We on these benches are against all charges in the National Health Service. It follows, therefore, that we will be against any increase in existing charges and it is for that reason that we feel able and, indeed, obliged at this time to move an Amendment, which, I should think, will find vigorous support, for the deletion of subsection (1) of Clause 1. It was not my privilege to be a member of the Standing Committee, but I have done my best to keep myself informed by reading the whole of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee.
  On the charges for dentures, I observed that the Minister made some play with the fact that there is still a shortage of dentists. If it is the shortage of dentists that has caused the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends to bring forward this provision, I fail to see how this subsection will solve the problem in any way. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill that is calculated to increase the supply of dentists. One would have thought that if the concern was with the shortage of dentists an effort might have been made to increase the supply. No such effort has been made, but by means of this subsection certain increased charges for dentures are to be imposed. The object would appear to be to reduce the demand upon dentists to provide dentures. This follows fairly logically and,
  1354
  therefore, these increased charges are to be a deterrent on some of our fellow-citizens against their seeking the services of dentists for the provision of dentures and it may be to have the necessary extractions made in the first place.
  Who among our fellow-citizens will be deterred? Surely they will be those who are least able to pay the charges. I do not imagine for a moment that any hon. Member would be deterred by these increased charges from making use of the dental service. We shall be able to obtain our new dentures if we need them and we shall be able to meet these additional charges. But some members of our community will not go to the dentist. The purpose of the subsection is to discourage people who would otherwise go. Obviously, therefore, they will be the less well-to-do.
  It will be said no doubt that the poorest people in the community are those on National Assistance and that they will have the charges met by the Assistance Board. I need not call attention again to what the Minister said several years ago about the reluctance of people to go to the Board and particularly about those who are just above the National Assistance level and those who qualify for assistance but, for reasons best known to themselves, have not chosen to go to the Board. These are the people who will be deterred.
  I fear that many people who are on low wages will be deterred, and many of those will be paying the increased contributions imposed in another Bill. Many women on low wages will be paying the additional 8d. a week and many men the additional 10d. a week. They will be discouraged from making use of the Health Service to get extractions made in the first place and afterwards to obtain the dentures they need.
  Do we in the House really wish to discourage these people? Do we not recognise that to have these people's badly diseased teeth removed is desirable in the interest of their health and that, equally, it is desirable that afterwards they should have dentures fitted to replace those teeth? If we do, why do we put this obstacle in the way of their obtaining these services?
  Members on both sides of the House will recognise that the health of these

  1355
  people is very important to the health of the community as a whole. It may well be that some rather superior people regard lower-paid workers as just cogs in the industrial machine and not as being of great importance, but in industry those workers are very important. Those cogs in the machine are essential to the proper working of the machine.
  I have seen reports of speeches made recently by the Minister of Labour, in which he has compared the loss of employment and production through ill-health with the loss through industrial disputes, and he has begged his Conservative friends who are always talking about loss of production through disputes to keep things in proportion and to put the figures of such losses alongside those caused by ill-health.
  The provision we are seeking to delete will not lead to any improvement in the health of the working people, but, rather, to a worsening. We in this House like to think that our democracy is a good one, and that we have Government by consent. No doubt the Minister of Health was satisfied, when he introduced the Bill, that he had the support of the electors. I do not think that he can now claim that they support him in imposing these new charges. All the health charges taken together have had such an effect that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government enjoy the support of only a minority of the electors—substantially less than half.
  We have had five by-elections in the past two weeks, by which time the effect of these charges had been brought home to the electorate. The Conservative Party polled 112,033 votes in those constituencies in the General Election, and the anti-Tory vote was 103,976. The Conservatives thus had 51·8 per cent. of the votes. In the recent by-elections, the Tory vote slumped to 69,613, while the anti-Tory vote went up to 110,275. Thus, the General Election majority in these five constituencies of 51·8 per cent. slumped to a minority of 38·7 per cent. in the by-elections.
  The right hon. Gentleman has the satisfaction of knowing that if he resists our Amendment he is resisting the will of more than 60 per cent. of the electors. Those five constituencies are not untypical. I do not know what the smirk on his face is meant to convey.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): Will the hon. Member give the Labour Party's figures separately?
  Mr. Fraser: I have all the figures here for all candidates in all five by-elections. Only one candidate increased his party's General Election majority, and that was the Labour candidate at Birmingham, Small Heath. I thought that the Government would recognise that the people do not wish these new charges to be imposed.
  We on this side of the House, being against all these charges but having failed to get the right hon. Gentleman to take this objectionable little Bill away, are now concerned, by this Amendment, to try to delete the most objectionable provision of the Bill. I do not believe for a moment that this subsection would have the support of the electors. It is, therefore, in the belief that I speak not only for my right hon. and hon. Friends but for a majority of the people, that I have moved the Amendment.
  4.15 p.m.
  Dr. Barnett Stross: We did our best during the Committee stage of the Bill to offer arguments to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary whereby he could have met us in our objections to these additional charges. We were not successful.
  I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) said that the Bill is adding to the charges on the National Health Service in order to deter people from procuring dentures when they need them. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will deny that. He may say that he does not expect this to deter anyone, in view of the rise in the standard of wages and incomes in the nation as a whole in the past few years since the original charges were imposed. He will remember that we put the matter to him in our arguments as fairly as possible.
  We said that when, in 1951, these charges on teeth were imposed, there were certain criteria in the mind of the then Minister of Health. The question of deterrence and abuse he put aside, because no one believes that people wish to have their teeth pulled out for fun and to wear dentures if they are not

  1357
  necessary. But this was an easy way to get money, and a method of collecting it that would not be expensive, as the overhead charges would not be high. I have always admitted that this, if we have to have charges, is a reasonable argument.
  My argument today is that times have changed, and that if there was any excuse in 1951 for imposing limited charges there is no excuse now. The very fact that the nation is more affluent is surely an argument that we can afford to remit all Health Service charges altogether.
  We have heard interesting figures, some of which we produced and others which were produced by the right hon. Gentleman. He told us that in 1959 the gross cost of dentures was £13¾ million and the net cost, therefore, was roughly £7½ million, but that for treatment it was apparent that the cost to citizens of putting their hands into their pockets was a much smaller percentage than the 50 per cent. they must find in obtaining dentures. The gross cost of treatment, he said, was £38,700,000, and the net cost £35,300,000.
  It is a specious and, on the surface, an excellent argument to say that we are making the charges in such a way that people will be moved, or impelled, or driven to care for their teeth and to conserve them, because it will be cheaper for them to have conservation treatment rather than wait and have to wear dentures. The difficulty in this argument and why I find it specious is that men and women, particularly young people, do not think about these matters, nor do they know what they should do to conserve their teeth and gums. The Minister knows that we are still a long way from taking preventive action on a national scale. We therefore fall back on the argument that if the nation is wealthier than it was in those earlier days when the charges were first imposed—and they were imposed at a time of great national crisis, the time of the Korean War—this is now the time when the charges should be removed.
  Let the Minister consider the figures which he gave us. In 1950, the cost of the dental service was about £48 million. That fell in 1953 to below £30 million and in 1959 the figure was £52½ milion. I know that the first figure includes the higher remuneration which dentists were
  1358
  then getting and that the fall to below £30 million in some respects represents the effect of cuts in that remuneration. However, the latest figure of £52½ million for 1959 does not have the value in terms of goods and services of half what the same amount would have brought ten years ago.
  That suggests that, in reality, we are not spending anything like as much on the general dental service as we did in the first years of the service. There is ample evidence to show that not nearly so many people require dentists now as was the case in the early years. The figures are that 3·3 million dentures were supplied in 1950, 1·2 million in 1953 and 1·6 million in 1959. We know that there was a great backlog to be made up in the early years and that a tremendous number of people then required treatment for dental diseases. Many people were then dentureless because they could not afford them and did without them. That was a national scandal as well as being to the disadvantage of those people.
  I am delighted that the number of treatments is now increasing and, according to the evidence, is going still higher. When one considers the evidence dispassionately, it seems that we can well afford to turn our backs on these extra charges. It would be out of order to plead for the removal of all the charges, but I maintain that there is no need for this extra charge of 5s. In Committee, we put forward an Amendment suggesting an increase of 6d. instead of 5s. and there is no need to repeat the arguments which we then made which were rebutted and refused by the Minister. However, I hope that even at this late stage the right hon. Gentleman will accept that there is no need for this further charge and that he will give further consideration to it.
  Mr. Powell: The Amendment deals with one of two classes of adjustment of charges which the Bill will bring about, and thus brings us to the major arguments for the Bill which have been canvassed since the beginning of its course through the House. I repeat that the ground on which I recommend these adjustments to the House is that the yield of the increases proposed in these charges can be much better applied within the National Health Service by bringing them back to the proportion of

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  the cost of the appliance which they bore when they were first introduced in 1951, rather than by keeping them at their present level.
  The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) said that times had changed, but the fact that we are more affluent than we were ten years ago does not necessarily mean—and I say that it carries the opposite implication—that the most urgent application of the £1 million or so involved is to keep the charges at their present level. The argument for applying that money elsewhere in the Service is strengthened by the change which has taken place.
  Nevertheless, it is true to say, as the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) said, that the shortage of dentists is relevant to our consideration. For as long as the total supply of dental work does not equal the total demanded, we have to consider how the available dental work is shared among the different classes exerting the demand upon it, and we have to determine the influence of the present and future patterns of charges in the distribution of the dental effort as among the different classes of work.
  The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central reminded the House that since 1951 there has been a welcome shift from general dentistry to conservation work and that of the total of dental work we are securing about half is devoted to the priority classes. As long as there is a net shortage of dental effort, it cannot be denied that anything which reduces the differential between the free treatment for the priority classes, the treatment fee for conservation work and the charge for dentures is bound to react to some degree unfavourably upon that distribution and upon that trend which I know we all wish to maintain and encourage.
  To that extent, the undoubted fact that we have not yet got the full dental manpower we require is relevant and supports the arguments which I have made from the beginning—that we ought so to revise these charges that they again bear their initial ratio to the cost of the appliances in question.
  Finally, the hon. Member drew attention to the variation in the money cost of the General Dental Service. I have
  1360
  no reason to dispute his figures; but he will agree that it is in terms of volume of work done that we should measure the progress of the general dental service. Not only does the variation in fees over the period vitiate the money comparison, but there is also the fact that with improvements in techniques the same amount of dental manpower is able to do a substantially increasing amount of dental work.
  Looking back at those ten years, we see a steady increase in the volume of dental work done. We see a trend towards a better distribution of that work, in particular in favour of the priority classes. In the light of all those facts, the adjustments of these charges to their initial ratio seem thoroughly justified, and the yield which will accrue to the gross revenue of the National Health Service can be much better laid out in other ways.
  4.30 p.m.
  Mr. James Dempsey: I am very surprised to hear the Minister say that the mere fact that there is a shortage of dental officers is ample reason why these charges should be increased.
  According to the Bill, we are proposing to increase charges for one denture by 5s., and, where more than one denture is supplied, by 15s. It seems to me that the Minister is arguing, on the one hand, that owing to the shortage of dentists—and he hangs his hat on the Guillebaud Report on this issue—the charges should be increased, and on the other, that over the past few years there have been increases in the number of treatments, the number of dentures supplied, and the number of people attending dental surgeries.
  That there have been increases obviously means that there are more dental officers and dental staff available. The Minister argues that the reason for the increases is the shortage of staff. He concedes that more dental work is being done than ever before, but that it can only be accomplished by increasing the dental staff. That appears to me to be contradictory. If we have been able to accomplish this increase in service to the nation during the past few years because the staff has been increased, there is no legitimate argument for increasing dental charges because of the lack of

  1361
  staff. I am at a loss to follow the Minister's reasoning.
  The figures show—and this appears to be generally consistent in other services—that as soon as charges are increased the number of people taking a service automatically drops. That is what is happening in the case of dentures. Similarly, every time the price of school meals is increased, there is a decided drop in the number taking school meals, and it takes years to restore the equilibrium. The Minister should explain to the House why he thinks that a level will be reached in the supply of dentures which will enable us to reduce the charges.
  All the right hon. Gentleman's arguments are based on the question of supply and demand. He cited my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), who referred to the dental figures quoted in the Guillebaud Report. But those figures date from between 1949 and 1954. A great deal of water has run under the bridges since 1954. From that period to date, there has been an increase in the number of dental clinics and dental officers.
  The Minister cannot dispute that. If we have increased the numbers of dental staff, and if there has been an increase in the numbers attending dental surgeries, it is not reasonable to say that we have to increase the charges because of the shortage of dental officers. If we had been able, over the past five, six or seven years, to contain the demand on the basis of the present charges, there is no validity in suggesting that the charges should be increased.
  The Minister should be honest about this matter. It is part of the Government's policy. They intend to redistribute income in many ways. One of the ways is to ensure that consumers, whether they can afford it or not, have to pay extra charges. It would appear that the Minister is misleading the House when he seeks to convey that the main consideration is shortage of dental staff. The fundamental consideration is the economic policy of the Minister, of his Department and of his Government. I honestly believe that the introduction of charges of this nature is a very mean attitude to adopt towards people who may be in pain. I have often said that it takes sufficient courage to go to the
  1362
  dentist without having to pay for treatment. It is obvious that people will only be driven to a dental surgery when they are in excruciating pain.
  I ask the Minister to realise that this is not merely 15s. when a person requires more than one denture; it means a £5 contribution. That is the price stated in the Bill. In the light of experience the professional associations and the British Dental Association, which is not an association which one could identify with the British proletariat, but which can be identified with other political interests which are widely represented on the Government benches, have condemned charges of all sorts because of their deterrent effect on persons in need of dental care and treatment, extractions and replacements.
  It is our duty to remove that deterrent to the best of our ability. The only effective way is to get the Government to accept the Amendment. We have been asking the Minister for several weeks to accept our Amendments, but he does not seem to be receptive to our appeals. There is no doubt that if he is not receptive the general public are, because they have been protesting since the Bill received its First Reading. The general reaction is that the dental charges proposed are exorbitant.
  One should remember that not long ago dentures and treatment were available for 8½d. a week, but from 1st April this year the contribution will be 2s. 8½d. a week. The Minister has insisted throughout the Committee stage that these charges must stand, but we on this side frankly believe that they are unnecessary, unjust and put an unfair burden on millions of wage earners and pensioners. A disproportionate amount of the income of these citizens will have to be used for these purposes. We have tabled the Amendment to indicate not only our opposition to the Government's proposals, but our detestation of the mean and callous disregard which they have for human values.
  Mrs. E. M. Braddock: I hoped that the Minister would have said something about the difficulties of women in the home in relation to this matter. We have been told that people are better off now; but, although everybody else in the home may

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  be looked after, although everybody else may make it his or her business to obtain the services required, the mother of the family, who needs the services most of all, has to look into her purse, and she often discovers that she has not sufficient money to pay for the services she requires. Since the introduction of the Bill I have had the opportunity of talking to many women who are very concerned about this matter. I have also spoken to many persons in the medical profession, who have told me that if our women—especially those who are not insured—fail to have their teeth attended to when they should there is a greatly increased possibility of their being admitted to hospital suffering from stomach complaints.
  These higher charges will impose an added burden on the mother and the woman in the home. I should like to know whether the Minister has any figures referring to the number of treatments given to women who are not working and therefore not paying insurance, but who are part of a household. Have we any figures to indicate the scope of this matter? I should be interested to hear them if they are available. I should like to be able to compare them with other figures relating to persons in all age groups, whether single or married, who have had attention, and follow up and see whether I can get some more figures from the hospital service or general practitioners, relating to the number of women who attend for some kind of stomach complaint and in respect of whom the general practitioner or the hospital doctor finds that the complaint may well have arisen because of their not having had proper dental treatment.
  Many women have told me, "It was difficult enough before to obtain treatment, but where in the name of goodness are we to find £5 if we need dentures?" They will be the ones to suffer. The Ministry should investigate this point very carefully. Older people are able to obtain supplementation from the National Assistance Board to help pay the charges, but the women for whom I am speaking, in the middle age groups, have no opportunity for being treated unless they can find the money. If the Minister has any relevant figures I hope
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  that he will let us have them. Mothers in the home, who have to look after a family, cannot afford to be away from it for any length of time, or be ill for any length of time, because of the difficulties this would cause in their families.
  4.45 p.m.
  I do not suppose that the Minister can be persuaded to accept the Amendment, but he should bear all these factors in mind. It may be necessary to amend these provisions later on in order to ensure that the thousands of women who are in the position I have indicated are not prevented from obtaining proper dental treatment.
  I have always been opposed to charges on the National Health Service. I opposed my own party when it suggested them. I believe that I was the only person in this House who opposed the charges when my party first suggested them. I said that I would not go on to any platform in support of charges; in fact, I said that I would take every opportunity to oppose them. I repeat my opposition now, with added emphasis because the charges have risen and more people find themselves in difficulty.
  This is a very bad step. We should not make people pay for dentures when the very thing we have been trying to do is to get them to have early dental treatment so that they can avoid having to have their teeth removed.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: I support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock). I should be very much obliged if the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland could supply the relevant figures for Scotland in general and Ayrshire in particular. The hon. Gentleman happens to be a constituent of mine, and I should very much like to hear him speak from the Dispatch Box and try to convince the young Unionists of Ayrshire that these charges are justified. Those people are a very progressive section of the community, and are at present expressing alarm about the proposal to reduce the expenditure on a certain hospital. I should like the Minister to tell us how he justifies this mean, miserable imposition, which we seek to modify by the Amendment.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange, I opposed these

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  charges in 1951. I recently reread the report of the proceedings of the Committee at that time, and I found that I made a very interesting speech. When we look back and read, in HANSARD, what we said perhaps ten years ago, we sometimes find that we said something which we now wish we had not said, but I find that I made a very relevant speech, which could be repeated almost word for word now. I opposed the Labour Government at the time. In speeches here and in the country I warned the Labour Government that if they proceeded with the proposal to charge for dentures and spectacles the time might come when a Tory Government would go through the door which the Labour Government had opened.
  Not only that. Three of my hon. Friends and I went into the Lobby to vote against the Clause. They were Mr. McGovern, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael), and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel). I do not regret having voted against the Government on that occasion, because I believed that it was a retrograde and reactionary Bill and a retrograde and reactionary proposal.
  Now, ten years later, in following the example of the Labour Government, the Tory Government have done something equally reactionary and retrograde.
  Dr. Stross: My hon. Friend will no doubt remember that the Labour Government put a term on the charges—that they should cease after two budgetary years.
  Mr. Hughes: I am aware that that was the orthodox explanation, but I believe that any attempt to make any inroads into the Health Service is a technical and political mistake and a great human blunder.
  The real excuse made at the time was that this charge would be necessary for only three years. It was said that the Labour Government were having difficulty in finding money for the rearmament programme. We were told that we were at war with Korea, that the rearmament programme would last only three years, and that at the end of it, the Labour Government, having successfully won the war in Korea, would proceed
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  to abolish the charges which they had imposed. Unfortunately, after three years, a Tory Government were in power, and now we have the Government continuing the bad work unfortunately started by the Labour Government in 1951.
  I do not want to recall past history for the sake of recalling it, because it is said that the lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it. The right hon. Gentleman has evidently learnt nothing from history. As my hon. Friend said, the charge on dentures has been opposed at every stage of the Bill, and I repeat that when the Labour Government get back to power. as I believe they will, these charges will go. We have abundant evidence to show that the Labour Government will abolish this tax on false teeth.
  What a mean miserable thing it is. I should like the Minister whom I am supposed to represent to come to the Dispatch Box and explain his attitude. How will he be able to walk through the streets of Mauchline and say to the toothless old woman, "I am the person who put the tax on your false teeth"? If he does not come to the Dispatch Box and explain what he means, it will be because he is ashamed to do so. Will he tell the old lady in the streets of Mauchline: "It will be all right. You can go to the Public Assistance Committee in Cumnock and, after a declaration of income, you will be able to have 10s. refunded because we are really anxious for you to have false teeth"?
  I should also like him to explain how, after the proposal yesterday that the salary of the Secretary of State for Scotland should be increased to £10,000 a year, he can justify this mean miserable economy. I await with interest his advance to the Dispatch Box to hear what he will tell the old woman who needs false teeth and what he will tell the young Unionists who are anxious about dentures being supplied to old people. I hope that he will give us some explanation of his attitude and tell us why he opposes the Amendment.
  Mr. Raymond Gower: Even accepting the case made by several hon. Members opposite that these charges are objectionable and that they should not be imposed, if I were asked which was

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  the least objectionable charge of all I would say that the charge we are now discussing could be so described.
  Mr. Dempsey: They are all objectionable.
  Mrs. Harriet Slater: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman thinks that there are some which are more objectionable?
  Mr. Gower: The average person in his or her lifetime is not always buying dentures. It is true that a friend of mine has more than one set. One set is called "smilers" and the other "eaters", but he is an exception. The average person does not have to undertake this expenditure very frequently.
  I thought that the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) suggested that we were now considering the imposition of a very large sum, but surely in the case of a single denture it is an extra charge of only 5s.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: That is a lot to poor people.
  Mr. Gower: It is a charge of 5s., we hope once in a long time. For more than one denture the maximum charge is the difference between £4 5s. and £5. People who have false teeth need to replace them infrequently. The maximum charge under the Bill will be an extra 5s. for a single denture, and 15s. for more than one.
  Mr. Dempsey: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the total charge for one denture will be £2 5s., and £5 for more than one? Does he not regard that as a considerable imposition?
  Mr. Gower: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but even if the Amendment were accepted the person in question would still be paying 5s. less for a single denture and a maximum of 15s. less for more than one denture.
  Dr. Stross: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. Does he agree that in the course of the dental adventures which people undertake, ending with a complete set of false teeth, the process starts with one or two false teeth, then another couple of teeth, and that this process goes on for a long time? If one starts at, say, 35 or 40, before one
  1368
  dies one will have had anything up to 10 or 12 different appliances, on all of which one must pay the extra charge.
  Mr. Gower: The hon. Gentleman is quoting the extreme case, but even in that case in the course of a lifetime the extra charge would be only £3.
  Mrs. Slater: That is £3 on top of the other charges.
  Mr. Gower: We are not arguing whether there should be a charge, but whether there should be this increase, and that is the point I wish to emphasise.
  Mr. K. Robinson: Is the burden of the hon. Gentleman's argument that, because the initial charge is a substantial one, there can be no argument against increasing it?
  Mr. Gower: That is not my argument. I was referring to the arguments advanced by hon. Members opposite that the Bill was imposing the whole weight of these charges. What we are arguing about is the comparatively small increase which is not normally an item of expenditure in the average person's budget. That is why I said at the beginning of my speech—this is a reply to the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater)—that this might be deemed by many impartial judges to be less objectionable than many other charges of this kind.
  5.0 p.m.
  A person who has a denture today gets an extremely good bargain. Fortunately, I have not so far found it necessary to obtain a denture for myself, but I have seen those of relatives and friends. I know that in some cases they cost a large sum of money and even if this charge is increased, I submit that the average person obtains an extremely good bargain.
  I do not wish to labour the point too much, but there is another aspect of the matter. I do not want to appear dogmatic about this, but it might be submitted that in some cases—not in all, I accept some of the points made by the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock)—in some marginal cases it is possible that the imposition of these charges would make people a bit more careful of their dentures than they might otherwise be. I know that if I had to pay a charge for dentures I should take care of them——
  Mrs. Alice Cullen: Will the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by persons taking care of their dentures? Who would not take care of their dentures?
  Mr. Gower: Whether it be a pair of spectacles or dentures, it is possible that, if they are obtained free, people may be careless about them——
  Mr. James H. Hoy: Oh.
  Mr. Gower: The hon. Gentleman may groan, but if a charge is made, however modest, the probability is that people will take more care of these things.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that if he were put to greater expense for his dentures he would swallow them?
  Mr. Gower: The hon. Gentleman may be facetious about this, and I appreciate the joke. But if he cannot understand the point I am making, I have overestimated his reasoning power.
  Giving myself as an example, I think that if one has to meet some form of expenditure one is more likely, in normal circumstances, to take care of the thing for which the charge is made. That is my point, and in making it I hope that I have not taken up too much of the time of the House.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: The pitiful level to which the Government supporters have fallen in defence of this Bill is shown when we are treated to the sort of nonsense to which we have been listening, about the way people take care of their teeth. I have not heard so much nonsense in all my life. When I was in the Navy—and if one is in the Services one gets these things for nothing—I saw thousands of men who got their false teeth free, but I never saw any of them kicking their teeth about the mess deck or being careless with them in other ways. I have never heard so much rubbish in my life. In the first part of his speech about the smallness of the charge the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) repeated remarks which he has made about six times already in respect of other charges. It is the same as the argument about the girl's baby—it is just a small one. We have had that argument on every occasion.
  1370
  The trouble is that all these small amounts add up. If one child in a family is to get one thing, and another wants something else, and the father has to pay more on his health contribution, it all amounts up to a considerable sum. Hon. Members opposite do not seem to be aware of that. They do not appreciate that all these sums add up and make a considerable inroad into the funds at the disposal of the ordinary person. That, however, is not really the question at issue. The fundamental question is whether these services, which promote good health among the people and enable them to contribute to the community in a proper way, should be free of charge. Hon. Members on this side of the House differ from hon. Members opposite in their attitude to that question.
  I wish to reinforce the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland should say something about this Bill. I have been examining the Committee stage discussions and I think it a shameful disgrace that hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies should be dragged along and have everything explained to them by an English Minister who knows little about Scotland and Scottish affairs; and that the Minister responsible for these services in respect of Scotland should sit mum. It is not good enough. We shall try to get some explanation from the hon. Gentleman about the way in which this Bill relates to Scotland.
  What have been the reactions of the people of Scotland to this increase? What representations has the hon. Gentleman received that this charge should be levied? Are we to be told that we can have a new hospital in Edinburgh or Glasgow only if people who want new false teeth pay for them? I am not concerned with England. Hon. Members who represent English constituencies can look after that——
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: And Wales.
  Mr. A. E. Cooper: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) has asked an interesting question. According to the OFFICIAL REPORT of 2nd May, 1951, the late Hector McNeil replied on precisely the same

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  point to the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock). He said that the Health Service had to be reorganised in this way since, if more hospital beds were to be provided, charges would have to be made for the provision of other services.
  Mr. Willis: Unfortunately, I was enjoying a compulsory "retirement" at the time when that speech was made. But I am not much concerned about what happened in 1951, 1941 or 1931. I have always argued that because something happened on one occasion—in this case ten years ago, or it may be that something happened twenty years ago—it is no argument for allowing it to happen again. Every time we examine this matter we should approach it from the point of view of what we ought to do now, not what happened twenty years ago. If we followed that sort of argument and went back far enough, we should now be nude and painting ourselves with woad. That argument is so fantastic, and is accepted so solemnly, particularly by hon. Members opposite, that it grieves me to see the ease with which it is put across.
  Mr. Cooper: The hon. Gentleman really should not rack himself with so much synthetic indignation. I also have here the Division record in 1951, and I notice that nearly every hon. Member opposite voted in favour of the charges then.
  Mr. Willis: The same argument applies. I was not being indignant. I was feeling sorry that hon. Members opposite should fall for the argument that because something happened ten years ago we ought not to do anything different today. The degree to which a Tory Government and Tory supporters think that everything the Labour Party did is good is almost pathetic. They think that everything the Labour Party did was so excellent that we must not do anything else. Although I am one of the most loyal members of the Labour Party, I would hardly claim that for a Labour Government or for the things they did. That is a most pathetic argument to come from any Government—that because it was done ten years ago it must be right. Is that the touchstone of all that is best and good in the country? It is a great tribute to the Labour Government, but it is not merited.
  Mr. Gower: Surely, it is not a matter of what the Labour Government did, but the fact that the Labour Party seems to take a different view about these charges when in Opposition than when it is the Government?
  Mr. Willis: I do not want to prolong these arguments about what happened in 1951. I think that they are phoney and that it is rather pathetic that people should have to depend on them today to bolster up a very weak case indeed for what, after all, is a very mean Bill. In effect, the person who, because of ill health or for other reasons, requires false teeth, is told, "You need false teeth and because you need them you must contribute towards the hospital service". That is what the Bill provides. I can see neither rhyme nor reason in that.
  Why should we select the man with toothache to be the contributor towards the building of hospitals in England or Scotland? All that we have suggested, and I should have thought that there was a certain amount of justice in it—indeed, the right hon. Gentleman himself was almost agreeing with us previously—is why not ask people to pay in accordance with their ability to pay. What is wrong with that? Is there something terrible in asking people to pay for the social services and hospitals in accordance with their ability to pay?
  Mr. Richard Marsh: Let us have an answer.
  Mr. Willis: We have never had an answer.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): I would point out to the hon. Member that we are discussing the Amendment.
  Mr. Willis: I want these charges eliminated. If they were eliminated, then the additional money would have to be found in the way that I am suggesting. Therefore, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I would suggest with very great respect that it is in order for me to say that. All I am asking is why is our proposal to delete this subsection and to let people pay in accordance with their ability to pay a bad suggestion? Is there something un-Christian or something evil, or something not good about the suggestion? Does it not fit in with the right hon. Gentleman's

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  economic ideas? I do not think that it does, because he has the queerest economic ideas. What is wrong with the proposition?
  I should have thought that what we propose was the just method of paying for these things and that we should not just select someone who happens to be unfortunate and tell him that he must pay. We might just as well pick out a person with a pimple on his left ear and say that he has to pay. It is just as reasonable. There is as much logic in saying that a man with a pimple on his left ear should pay for the hospitals as there is in saying that a man who has to have a tooth out should pay for it.
  I do not expect that the Government will have second thoughts, but I hope that they will realise how ridiculous is the proposition which they are putting before the House. I certainly hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will play a part becoming to a Scottish Minister in these debates, and that he will not just sit there like a messenger boy letting the English Minister do all the dirty work. That is not good enough. I want to see Scottish Ministers playing their proper part in these debates and not acting as menial scribblers behind the Box.
  5.15 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary could probably answer the questions that I have asked and give us the figures for which my hon. Friend asked. He could no doubt tell us to what extent this will affect Scotland, how much it would cost Scotland if the Amendment were accepted and how much Scotland would lose if it were accepted. The real test is how many hospitals would not be built if it were accepted. How much, for instance, would the work in Edinburgh be held up? We have a lot of work going on in Edinburgh. There is the Royal Infirmary to be rebuilt. To what extent would that be held up if the Amendment were accepted?
  I think that before we leave the Amendment we ought to be told something about these things, and I sincerely hope that the hon. Gentleman will treat his office in a serious manner. It is an important office and I want it treated as an important office. As I say, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will play his proper part in these debates.
  Mrs. Slater: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) has left the Chamber, because at the beginning of his speech he said that this was perhaps the least objectionable part of the National Health Service Bills. I wanted to point out to him that he apparently thought that there were some objectionable parts to these Measures although he voted in favour of every one of them and for every part of them. The fact is always thrown back at us that in 1951 the Labour Government introduced the charges. Many of us feel very strongly indeed that they ought never to have been introduced. As the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) said, their introduction opened the door for continued increases in the charges to be made by the Tories.
  It has been pointed out, and this is something which needs to be very strongly pointed out, that initially the charges were put on for a limited period. Since then that part of the Act has never been dealt with, and instead we are now faced with the situation where the charges continue to rise. The fact is that in an age when the Tories are constantly telling us that we are better off, that we are living in much better circumstances and that we are better off because the Tories care, we ought to be taking the charges off. We certainly ought not to be putting extra charges on.
  By putting on extra charges we are not really facing up to the question of whether it is true that people are better off, and neither are we facing up to the claim which we on these benches make that in spite of many people being better off there are many thousands whose standard of life has risen very little, if at all.
  Mrs. Cullen: I wonder if the Minister is aware that dentists, knowing what is going to happen, especially in working-class districts, will allow working-class men and women to pay for their dentures by hire purchase?
  Mrs. Slater: I agree that that is a shocking state of affairs.
  The point I was making was that many thousands of people are still living on the border, and in some cases below the border, of a decent standard. It is these people who will find these extra

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  charges most objectionable and most difficult to pay. This is another instance of where at this stage in our history we have the priorities wrong. Instead of considering how best we can care for the people's health, we are putting on extra charges, thus making it very much more difficult for some to attain the standard of health which they ought to have.
  Whenever we point this out, the Tories always say, "Well, there is the National Assistance Board to which these people can go." It is either National Assistance or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) suggests, hire purchase. The woman in the house, in particular, has to worry about whether or not she can afford these extra charges.
  In the original National Health Service Bill we saved the woman in the house from the worry and misery she had always to bear about her health. The extra charges will take many ordinary mothers back to those circumstances. They will have to reckon up their pennies before deciding whether they can afford to pay the cost of dentures. This again is a case of the priorities being wrong. It is a disgraceful situation that, faced with the arguments of hon. Members opposite, many hundreds of our people are put into this appalling situation in 1961.
  Mr. K. Robinson: It does not seem that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is to respond to the appeal made by my hon. Friends. When I sit down, of course, he will have an opportunity of speaking if he wishes. As no doubt there are other hon. Members who might wish to take part in the debate, I must remind them of the Guillotine and the fact that we have further important Amendments which we wish to discuss. The Report stage must come to an end at 7.30.
  Perhaps it was too much to expect at this stage of the Bill that the Minister would be able to adduce new arguments in support of these increased charges. He rested on the arguments which we have heard several times before. The
  first was that it is necessary to keep price levels in line with what they were when the charges were originally imposed in 1951. We have to keep price levels in line with charges which were imposed—whether that was a good or bad thing—at a time of grave economic difficulty and considerable national peril, charges which would have come to an end automatically after three years had there not been a change of Government.
  We have had the second argument, that somehow this increase of charges would keep in balance the relationship between conservation treatment and the provision of dentures. The Minister has told us again and again that we must do nothing which would have the effect of discouraging conservation treatment. That is a very hollow argument indeed. If the Minister wants to do anything to encourage conservation treatment he has a very simple method at hand. He could cut or eliminate the charges for dental treatment. It is ludicrous to suggest that the appropriate way of keeping the balance is to increase the charges for dentures. In fact, of course, it makes no difference whatever to the relationship between conservation and dentures.
  Finally, the Minister says that, at any rate, we must keep these charges while the supply of dentists is not equal to the demands made upon them for dental treatment. That is after ten years of Conservative Government. We still have not got anything like the number of dentists we need to provide a proper dental service for our people. We are still not getting the dental students in the numbers required. A communication I have had from the dental profession shows that dentists believe that one very considerable contributory cause of the present situation is the way in which the Government have treated the profession. We are wholly opposed, not only to this subsection, but to every aspect of the Bill, and I hope my hon. Friends will now divide on this Question.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill:—
  The House divided: Ayes 266, Noes 196.

  Division No. 126.]

  AYES

  [5.24 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Arbuthnot, John

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Aitken, W. T.

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Bell, Ronald

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Allason, James

  Barlow, Sir John

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian (Preston, N.)

  Batsford, Brian

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Bidgood, John C.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Noble, Michael

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Bingham, R. M.

  Hastings, Stephen

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Lionel

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Bishop, F. P.

  Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  Box, Donald

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Hendry, Forbes

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hiley Joseph

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Brewis, John

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Partridge, E.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Brooman-White, R.

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Percival, Ian

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Peyton, John

  Bryan, Paul

  Hobson, John

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Buck, Antony

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Bullard, Denys

  Holland, Philip

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Hollingworth, John

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Burden, F. A.

  Hopkins, Alan

  Pott, Percivall

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Hornby, R. P.

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Pym, Francis

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Ramsden, James

  Cole, Norman

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Cooper, A. E.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Renton, David

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Jackson, John

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  James, David

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Cordle, John

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Roots, William

  Corfield, F. V.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Costain, A. P.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Russell, Ronald

  Coulson, J. M.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Sharples, Richard

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Shaw, M.

  Critchley, Julian

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Crowder, F. P.

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

  Cunningham, Knox

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Smyth, Brig, Sir John (Norwood)

  Curran, Charles

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Kitson, Timothy

  Speir, Rupert

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Lancaster, Col. C. C.

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Dance, James

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Stodart, J. A.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Leavey, J. A.

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Doughty, Charles

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Talbot, John E.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Duncan, Sir James

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Duthie, Sir William

  Lindsay, Martin

  Teeling, William

  Eden, John

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Temple, John M.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Elliott, R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Emery, Peter

  Longden, Gilbert

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Fell, Anthony

  McAdden, Stephen

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Finlay, Graeme

  MacArthur, Ian

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Fisher, Nigel

  McLaren, Martin

  Turner, Colin

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Foster, John

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Gammans, Lady

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Walder, David

  Gardner, Edward

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Walker, Peter

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Maddan, Martin

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Maitland, Sir John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Godber, J. B.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn, Sir R.

  Watts, James

  Goodhart, Philip

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Webster, David

  Goodhew, Victor

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Gough, Frederick

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Whitelaw, William

  Gower, Raymond

  Marshall, Douglas

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Green, Alan

  Moulding, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Mawby, Ray

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Gurden, Harold

  Mills, Stratton

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Woollam, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Morgan, William

  Worsley, Marcus

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Morrison, John

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Mr. Gibson-Watt and

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesfd)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Mr. Peel.

  1378

  1379

  NOES

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Peart, Frederick

  Awbery, Stan

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Pentland, Norman

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Holman, Percy

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Beaney, Alan

  Holt, Arthur

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Prentice, R. E.

  Benson, Sir George

  Howell, Charles A.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Blackburn, F.

  Hoy, James H.

  Probert, Arthur

  Blyton, William

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Boardman, H.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Randall, Harry

  Bowles, Frank

  Hunter, A. E.

  Rankin, John

  Boyden, James

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Reid, William

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Jeger, George

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Ross, William

  Chapman, Donald

  Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Chetwynd, George

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Collick, Percy

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Kelley, Richard

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Small, William

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Smith, Ellis, (Stoke, S.)

  Darling, George

  King, Dr. Horace

  Snow, Julian

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Steele, Thomas

  Deer, George

  Lipton, Marcus

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Loughlin, Charles

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Dempsey, James

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Diamond, John

  McCann, John

  Swain, Thomas

  Dodds, Norman

  MacColl, James

  Swingler, Stephen

  Donnelly, Desmond

  McInnes, James

  Sylvester, George

  Driberg, Tom

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  McLeavy, Frank

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Edelman, Maurice

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Timmons, John

  Evans, Albert

  Manuel, A. C.

  Tomney, Frank

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mapp, Charles

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Finch, Harold

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Wade, Donald

  Fitch, Alan

  Marsh, Richard

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mason, Roy

  Warbey, William

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Watkins, Tudor

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Weitzman, David

  Forman, J. C.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Milne, Edward J.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Whitlock, William

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Monslow, Walter

  Wilkins, W. A.

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Moody, A. S.

  Willey, Frederick

  Ginsburg, David

  Morris, John

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Moyle, Arthur

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Mulley, Frederick

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Grey, Charles

  Oliver, G. H.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Oram, A. E.

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Gunter, Ray

  Oswald, Thomas

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Owen, Will

  Woof, Robert

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Paget, R. T.

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Zilliacus, K.

  Hannan, William

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. Lawson and

  Mr. Rogers.

  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The next Amendment is in page 1, line 6, to leave out "five" and to insert "two". It would be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the Amendment in line 11, to leave out "five pounds" and to insert "four pounds nine shillings".
  Mr. K. Robinson: In view of the fact that we are operating under a Guillotine and have less than two hours left for the
  1380
  whole of the Report stage, I propose to move neither the Amendment in line 6 nor the Amendment in line 11.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, to leave out subsection (2).
  This relates to charges for spectacles. During the debates on the Bill the Government have often called in aid the

  1381
  Guillebaud Committee, but on this point the Guillebaud Committee made its position very clear. It said:
  "It seems to us that the level of the charge for spectacles is such as to constitute a barrier to a proportion of the people who need to make use of the Service; and we recommend that, when the resources become available, a fairly high priority (second only to an adjustment of the dental treatment charge) be given to a substantial reduction in the amount of the charge for spectacles."
  There is no suggestion of an increase and no comfort for the Government in the Guillebaud's Committee's recommendation. There is not one word about an increase. The only recommendation which the Committee makes is that there should be a substantial reduction on present charges. It is hardly necessary to say that we on these benches agree with that recommendation. Obviously, if the old rate constituted
  "a barrier to a proportion of the people who need to make use of the service",
  there will be a very much larger barrier under the new rates.
  We have had unexpected support for our view from The Times in the two articles contributed recently by a correspondent, who wrote:
  "Not only are the dimensions of the extra revenue … far from assured but the Minister's assertion that there will be no hardship is, to put it mildly, unconvincing."
  That is substantial if not enthusiastic corroboration from an unexpected quarter.
  During the earlier discussions some very strange arguments were advanced in support of these charges. One hon. Member who is not at the moment in his place, one of the few hon. Members opposite who broke the conspiracy of silence upstairs, the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis), produced some remarkable calculations, which I mention because this probably represents the view of other hon. Members opposite who were not so vocal and who, indeed, were not vocal at all, having taken the Trappist vow. The hon. Member said that the need for spectacles would arise for an individual only once, or at most twice, in a lifetime and that therefore the average person would have to pay about £8 in a forty-year working life. He said that the payment of £8 for his spectacles would thus represent about 4s. a year.
  1382
  Very generously he said that even if this were doubled, it would not amount to much. If the hon. Member, the Minister and the Government believe that, they will believe anything.
  Do hon. Members opposite really believe that it is only once in a lifetime? Does their experience of life confirm them in that belief? Their practical experience should lead them to believe that tests for those who have even the slightest defect of sight have to take place every two or three years. That assumes reasonably normal sight. There may be a slight change necessitating adjustments, which means new lenses. A means test cannot be applied to these needs. Some people have more serious defects—astigmatism and such defects—and have to wear glasses from a very early age, from their twenties right through their lives. Adjustments will be needed constantly, which means new spectacles. Some people need two pairs of spectacles, one for long sight and one for short sight. These needs are sometimes met conveniently by bifocals. That involves an extra 10s. per lens.
  We have many times been faced with the argument that it is only a small increase. We have heard the argument on other occasions, because we are discussing a part of only one Measure in a series of Measures. We are told that this is only a very small contribution. We start with the 2s. prescription charge. The Tories argue that that is not much. Then there is the 10d. increase in the health contribution. Then there is the 5s. increased charge for dentures, which we have already had this afternoon. Then there is the charge for spectacles. We are told that these are very small items indeed and that they do not add up to very much. One of my hon. Friends made the telling comment on the last Amendment that these "small sums" add up to a burden on what are virtual necessities.
  We are now discussing the Bill as amended in Standing Committee. In fact, only five words were accepted as an Amendment. Getting an Amendment out of the Minister of Health is like getting blood from a stone. We got only one measly, miserable little drafting Amendment in all the discussions we had in Standing Committee.
  I appeal to the Minister, even at this last hour, to accept the Amendment. I

  1383
  know that it would be against the grain for him to do so, because he believes that these charges are fair in themselves. He has said so. He does not believe in a free Health Service. He is sea-green incorruptible. He is the Robespierre of the Right. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will remember what happened to him. I am reminded of the words of the Tory cartoonist who said that the Guillotine has fallen into the right hands at last. However, I still move the Amendment, in the belief that the age of miracles is not past.
  Dr. Stross: I am not sure that it is reasonable to compare the Minister of Health with Robespierre. For all we know, he would prefer to be likened historically to Marat, who had an interesting time in his bath.
  When we discussed subsection (2) in Committee the Parliamentary Secretary fended off our attacks upon what we felt was so wrong with the subsection. We argued that by increasing the cost of each lens for bifocals by 10s. a new tax was being created. The hon. Lady said that that was not right; a mistake had been made in the past; an anomaly existed because people had been getting their bifocal lenses too cheaply; they are expensive, and the Government are now bringing them into line with the situation for ordinary lenses ordinary glasses. That is what the hon. Lady said, and if anyone wishes to read it he will find it at column 183 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of Standing Committee A.
  5.45 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary gave us some further information on this point. She said that the cost of bifocal glasses, including the frame and spectacle case, is about 75s. today, whereas the cost of similar National Health Insurance glasses, I presume with a case, is about 40s. The hon. Lady argued that a person getting bifocal lenses gets two pairs of glasses in one, because 75s. is less than twice 40s., which is 80s. She went on, using an unguarded phrase, to say that it was unfair to those who had to buy two pairs that other people should at a similar price get the equivalent of two pairs in one.
  In reply to one of my hon. Friends who asked her how many people had
  1384
  written to her and complained she said, "None". That was at least utterly and absolutely honest, but she should never have brought forward the pretext in the way she did. No one in this country would dream of complaining in the way she envisaged. No one would say, "Because we need only ordinary glasses with ordinary lenses, merely for reading or merely for distance, we complain that other people at a similar price can obtain bifocals, the lenses of which are more expensive than those in our spectacles".
  I accuse the hon. Lady of having missed the whole point of our arguments. We pointed out that this was not only a new tax. Whatever excuse is used, it is a new and grievous imposition. We contended that the Government will lose money by doing this. If they drive people to wearing two pairs of spectacles rather than a single pair of bifocals, there will be more breakages and more spectacles will be lost. I mentioned at the time, as the hon. Lady will remember, that people like myself wear spectacles all day long. We cannot, and do not, take them off except when we go to bed. People with two pairs of spectacles change them over. One pair is on while the other pair is in their pocket or someone is sitting on it. Sometimes they sit on the other pair themselves. Sometimes they lose it. Therefore, from the point of view of replacement we were right in saying that it is an economy to encourage people to wear bifocals if they want them. A disincentive of a financial nature should not be used. We know from the Guillebaud Report that in 1953–54 users of this part of the Service found 38 per cent. of the cost. That means that a substantial amount is still found by the State. This adds real point to my argument.
  Subsection (2) refers to children's glasses, which are exempt from charges if the subsection is read superficially. I must, however, warn hon. Members that that is only if the children wear frames made of metal—the cheapest possible frame; the type a child does not want to wear. It is bad enough in any case to have to wear spectacles and to go to school wearing them for the first time, especially for little girls.
  If they wear those frames, and if the lenses are fragile and breakable—not unbreakable—then and then only are the

  1385
  spectacles provided free. If a parent says "You shall have spectacles like mine—they are National Health Service ones," the lenses are free but the parent must pay for the frame. If people go outside the Service they do not get any allowance for the lenses at all, but pay the full economic price asked of them by the optician. It is particularly wrong that unbreakable lenses should not be supplied and that children should not be provided with spectactles that will not humiliate them when they go to school.
  Subsection (2) is an extremely bad part of a very bad Bill—a very bad Bill. In order to keep our tempers in the Standing Committee, we sometimes made light-hearted arguments about Romeo and Juliet, Griselda and so on. We argued that it would have been very difficult for Juliet to have been Shakespeare's heroine had she had to wear spectacles at 14 years of age—and she was only 14 years of age—of the type that the Minister says should be free.
  I was asked by an hon. Member what evidence there was that she wore spectacles at all, and it was my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) who pointed out that, love being painted blind, Juliet must have worn them. In that way we kept our tempers and did not allow the Committee to fall into disrepute, but the House must understand that we feel deeply about this and hope, if it is not too late, that sanity will return.
  Commander Harry Pursey: I oppose these charges. It is not only a matter of increased charges on spectacles but of increased contributions, increased prescription charges, increased charges for dentures——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are dealing with this Amendment.
  Commander Pursey: I was only cataloguing, very much in passing, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, all the Government's omissions. This is a definite attack by the Tory Government on the living standards of the lower income groups, and the Minister need not try to argue that the standard of living of the average wage earner is such that he can afford to pay these increases. Not all of these people earn £14 a week. The wage of a farm labourer, and of other lower paid workers, is under £8 a week.
  1386
  When we had the previous charges, hundreds of thousands of people in the lower income group were not getting their eyes tested at proper intervals and were not getting spectacles when they should, and there is no question at all that their numbers will now be greatly increased. In each of the twelve years since the National Health Service was introduced over a quarter of a million people requiring glasses have failed to get them.
  Neither the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary nor the Minister can write that off, as they tried to do in our previous debate on spectacles, by saying that millions of people have been tested and millions have been provided with spectacles. What about the quarter of a million people requiring spectacles every year who have not availed themselves of the Service because of the cost, but who go to Woolworths and, without any proper test, pay 6s. 9d. for a pair of spectacles? Now that the prices are to be pushed up, what are those people likely to do in future?
  Further, what about the older people who are not old-age pensioners with supplementary pensions but who are still using large magnifying glasses? They have never had proper spectacles. They were probably foolish enough not to get them when they were free, or the spectacles they got have long since passed into disuse. They now have to use these large magnifying glasses that are not calibrated to the eyes. Anyone with any sense knows that one should not use a magnifying glass as these people do, because the condition of the two eyes may be different.
  Again, I challenge the Minister's argument about bifocal glasses by telling him that bifocals can be manufactured at much less than the price at which they have been previously sold. The Minister is simply in the grip of the opticians. An unqualified optician in Uxbridge manufactured these glasses for years at half the usual price. It is no good anyone saying that that man was a crook and was not producing proper glasses—he was supplying them to the United States Air Force, and they are not lunatics. The savings the Minister requires on spectacles could have been obtained by reduced cost of production and reduced fees and charges to the opticians, who are in one of the biggest

  1387
  rackets there is in the National Health Service.
  If it is argued that bifocals are the equivalent of two pairs of glasses, the answer is that they can be manufactured more cheaply. A pair of bifocals does not cost as much as two pairs of glasses and two pairs of frames. The Minister is talking arrant nonsense. Moreover, some people require three pairs of glasses and are entitled to get them under the Scheme if they can prove their need of them to the ophthalmic surgeon.
  One cannot laugh off these increased charges in terms of pennies or shillings. Instead of being a guinea trade, the opticians' should be only a shilling trade. Their prices should be reduced, but, as it is, for the patients it is a question of guineas, guineas, guineas. It cannot be questioned that the Guillebaud Committee recommended substantial reductions in the cost of lenses and of frames. As testing is still free, the rest must be represented largely by the opticians' profits.
  What about the double prescriptions and the other rackets worked by the opticians? I will repeat an example that I have already given. A man broke his glasses and had to get another pair quickly because he could not see to go to work. The optician told him, "I can get you a pair in twenty-four hours, but not under the Scheme." He was a liar, because what can be done outside the Scheme can be done inside it. The optician produced a pair of glasses privately. If such a job is done privately, the testing, the lenses and the frames should be charged privately. In other words, that should have been a job completely outside the Scheme. If it had been, it would have been an even worse racket; as things turned out, it was bad enough.
  The point is that when the optician produced the private spectacles at four guineas—instead of 30 bob under the Scheme—he also produced a National Health Service prescription form. He said, "I think you had better sign this form." The man asked why, and he replied "You may want another pair." The man said "I do not want another pair. I have already paid four guineas for these spectacles." "Never mind", said the optician "you had better sign
  1388
  it." So the man, taking the line of least resistance, signed it.
  6.0 p.m.
  The optician was charging twice for the examination. I defy anyone to tell me that I am talking nonsense. The optician gave the man ordinary spectacles but on the prescription form he wrote "bifocals". The man should either have had ordinary spectacles or bifocals, but by charging for bifocals the optician is able to get an extra fee if the prescription form is ever cashed. There are thousands of these prescription forms on which the Minister is paying opticians' fees. It is no good saying that the matter can be explained by the fact that the test has been bona fide, that it has shown that glasses are not required and that therefore there is no need to provide the spectacles.
  That is the sort of case into which the Minister should inquire and find out where the money is being misappropriated, and so cut down the opticians' receipts rather than increase the charges on the lower income groups. The opticians try as much as possible to get people out of the National Health Service Scheme. They say, "There is a nice pair of glasses with non-Service frames." They are probably non-Service lenses as well. The result is that people not only pay through the nose for their spectacles but they lose the opportunity of getting the reduced rates for repairs.
  Then there is the question of children's spectacles. Last year the Parliamentary Secretary promised, not only on children's glasses but on a wide range of glasses, that there would be a revision of the arrangements. I asked for a new set of frames to be produced. I understand that the only revision has been that some of the old ones have been thrown out. What about producing some new frames suitable both for children and for adults at a price of 30s. instead of people being rooked to the extent of four guineas and five guineas by the opticians?
  There are thousands of people whose eyes require to be tested at least every two years. There are some for whom it is essential that they should be tested every twelve months. The Ministry has agreed that that can be done under the Scheme because there has never been any regulation stating that tests should

  1389
  be carried out only at two yearly intervals. Take the case of a family of four—father, mother and two children—requiring spectacles. What is the total cost, in view of the increased charges? The lower income group are providing the money which could far more easily have been saved on armaments.
  I shall now conclude to enable other hon. Members on this side of the House to speak before the Guillotine falls, but I want to make this point quite clear. There has never been any reason why the extra money required, in relation to spectacles and the other items, could not have been obtained by means of bona fide savings in other directions where there has been a waste of money. Consequently, I hope that we shall oppose this and the other charges by going into the Division Lobby and voting against them.
  Mrs. Cullen: I should like to speak on the subject of glasses for children. The Parliamentary Secretary said that steel frames were provided on expert advice. I wonder whether she has ever been to an ophthalmic clinic attended by mothers with their children. I have had this experience. I have seen a child who has been taken to have her eyes tested pulling at the tails of her mother's coat. The optician said, "What is the matter? Is she afraid?" The mother replied, "No, she is not afraid, but she is pleading that she shall not be given steel frames". The mother was embarrassed because she did not have the money to enable her to buy any other type of frame.
  Many children are miserable at school if they have to wear steel frames. There are some children whom steel frames suit, but others look rather stupid with them. The Minister should do something about this. If a child wants steel frames, by all means let him have them, but it should be possible to provide the other type for children who want them.
  I know of one case in which a mother had to pay an extra 8s. This was a sacrifice for her because her husband was unemployed, but, rather than break her child's heart by accepting steel frames, she was determined to find the 8s. by hook or by crook to make the child happy. The Minister is a father, and I am sure he would not like his child to be miserable at school through wear-
  1390
  ing steel frames. I ask him to have second thoughts about this charge.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: This is, unfortunately, the first opportunity that I have had of protesting to the Minister against these charges.
  I feel that, sitting as I do, near the benches occupied by hon. Members of the Liberal Party, I should state a very old Liberal principle, that fair taxation places the heaviest burden on the broadest backs—on the backs of those who are best able to carry it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is really the person who will benefit from most of this legislation which has been forced upon us, is extracting from the pockets of the sick and the poor £65 million, and I am not sure whether the public yet appreciate the sleight of hand business that is being carried on. However, they will know in due course, as they will know quite shortly how much they will have to pay for the latest pensions increases.
  It may not be well known that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was once a prospective Liberal candidate for Macclesfield. That is a long time ago, when he and I were practising law at Liverpool. He was for many years a Liberal. He came from a Wirral Liberal family, and I think that it is a shame that he should have forgotten that elementary and just liberal principle of placing these burdens on the backs of those who are best able to bear them.
  We can never get a blush of shame from the cold face of the Minister of Health. I have noticed the Parliamentary Secretary raising her handkerchief to her face, so it may be that she is blushing. But there is no blush on the face of the Minister of Health. He knows full well what he is doing and why he is doing it. Two or three years ago, he tried to shift the burdens on to the poor, and at that time the Prime Minister allowed him to go. But back he came. No series of Measures has ever had the Press that this series of Measures introduced by the Minister——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hope that the hon. and learned Member will confine himself to the Amendment.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: This is one of the taxes that are being put upon the poorest people——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are discussing simply one Amendment, not the others.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I am discussing that Amendment. When all the taxes put upon the poor people are condemned in the Press, surely the greater includes the less.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are discussing only one Amendment.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I entirely agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Surely, however, I am entitled to say that these Measures have been criticised by the Guardian, The Times——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. and learned Member is not entitled to say that. We are discussing only this particular Amendment.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: This is one of the iniquitous charges which is being placed upon poor people. This is an opportunity of protesting about it, and that is what we are endeavouring to do.
  I do not know whether the Minister of Health has any contact with really poor families, or whether he has read the pamphlets produced recently by the Fabian Society, in which example after example is given of people who are really in poverty. It is true that there are people in affluence, but we still have a submerged tenth. It is on their behalf that we are protesting. They are the people who find it difficult to provide £1 out of their pockets to go to the dentists. These are the people who are in dire need of dental treatment.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are not discussing dental treatment.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I am pointing out that these sums of £1 have to be produced, and so have the 5s. and the 10s. The right hon. Gentleman must be well aware that there are many families to whom the production of such a sum is a real burden and charge upon the family budget.
  To say that one needs a pair of glasses only twice in the course of a lifetime is ridiculous. I do not have really bad sight, but I must have visited an ophthalmic surgeon at least fifteen times. I have not been for three or four years, but I should have been.
  Mr. John McCann: My hon. and learned Friend cannot afford it.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: Not on the salary of a Member of Parliament. Fortunately, some of us are not in that position, but many people cannot afford it.
  There are hon. Members on these benches who will benefit by these measures. I have no doubt that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), for example, will benefit from the Budget. This money for spectacles is being provided so that Surtax can be reduced. We on this side are not here for that purpose. Many of us are here because we were born in poverty. We know poverty, we know where the shoe pinches, and that these charges will be another pinch to a foot which is already bruised.
  It is for these reasons that we appeal to the Minister, if he has any heart, to give us something. If he cannot give us much, let him give us this petty little thing for which we are now asking. Surely he will realise that many people have to forgo getting spectacles and forgo prescriptions. When they are in difficulty, they will go to Woolworth's and to other places which they should not visit. It is a constant difficulty for them suffering, as they do, from defective eyesight.
  I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman wears spectacles. Perhaps he is fortunate and does not need them. If he can stand at the Box and say that he needs to go to an ophthalmic surgeon only twice in the course of his lifetime, I shall be surprised. Those who can afford to pay for these services take them when they are necessary. Those who cannot, have to do without them, even when they need them most.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Willis: I must congratulate the Government side on having managed to gather together the enormous attendance of three Government back benchers for this important debate. I hope that on this Amendment we will be treated with a little more courtesy than on the last one, when we asked a number of questions, to which we did not get answers.
  I have one or two questions to ask the Government on this Amendment. I

  1393
  am sorry that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is not present, because I wanted to address a few remarks to him. I want to know from the Government what the acceptance of our Amendment for Scotland would cost. We are entited to have information about this. We should know what it would cost the Government for the whole of the United Kingdom if our Amendment was accepted. This information would enable us to judge the position. What is the extent of this burden that is being placed upon the people? Is it large, small, or what? I had hoped that we might have that information in respect of Scotland.
  We have had no word yet from the Joint Under-Secretary. Now that he is absent, he has deprived me of half the things I wanted to say to him. I must protest against this treatment. One of the sponsors of the Bill is the Secretary of State for Scotland, who holds a most important office. During consideration of these Amendments, he has been treated in a manner fit only for an office boy.
  Mr. J. T. Price: Sorting out the white fish.
  Mr. Willis: His is an office of great status, much higher than that of the Minister of Health. Why the Secretary of State should be treated in this matter like an office boy, to come in when the Minister of Health says that he can come in, I do not know. That is most discourteous to the Scottish Members.
  Dr. Stross: Surely my hon. Friend has had it whispered to him that the Secretary of State may have had a dental mishap. He cannot articulate and cannot afford to go to the dentist.
  Mr. Willis: I was told that he had either lost his glasses, or that his teeth were not fitting, and that he could not afford the new charges. I do not know whether that is true.
  This is another mean subsection of a Bill to add 2s. 6d. to the authorised charge of 10s. per lens for glasses and to add 10s. in the case of bifocal or multifocal lenses. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) pointed out in his breezy manner, the result will be that a large number of people who are not well off, living on
  1394
  small incomes, delay facing the charges and meanwhile go to Woolworth's or elsewhere to buy a pair of glasses. Surely that cannot be a good thing for the Government to encourage.
  In an age of affluence, why should the Government drive people to do without such things as glasses? What a tribute to the Government! What a testimony of the affluence in which we live that poor people must go to Woolworth's to buy the glasses which they need! It is a shocking and disgusting state of affairs. That Ministers should come to the Dispatch Box and try to justify this imposition is almost beyond belief. To take themselves seriously in the process of justifying it is even worse. I think that they really believe half the things which they tell us from the Dispatch Box.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) made out the case for children in what I thought was a rather touching speech. She spoke of a child in the Gorbals whose mother had gone to her and said that she could not afford to buy glasses for her child and therefore her child went to school with steel-framed glasses looking rather ugly and feeling uncomfortable and rather ashamed.
  Mrs. Cullen: She did not go to school with steel-framed glasses. Her mother paid for other glasses at great sacrifice to herself.
  Mr. Willis: But there are children who do wear steel-framed glasses and suffer from a sense of inferiority, believing that they are not as good as other children. My hon. Friend has vast experience of how ordinary folk in Glasgow live. The right hon. Gentleman must realise that his proposals will affect thousands of families. The problems in my constituency are not as great as those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals, but many people have come to me since it was proposed to make these extra charges, including that for spectacles. They have said that it was a very bad thing and that they did not know how they would meet it. These were level-headed, sober-minded people, the backbone of Britain, who have built up its wealth and have come to its aid in times of struggle and strife.
  In view of the small amount that he will gain from his proposals, the right

  1395
  hon. Gentleman should think about the matter again, and not increase these charges. Surely it would be better to leave things as they are and to let us pay what we are paying at present. We cannot move to abolish the charges altogether, which is what we on this side would like to do, but at least we can try to prevent them from being increased. If I were the right hon. Gentleman, I would feel rather ashamed of myself, but obviously he does not. He justifies his proposals in his intellectual manner. As I have said on a previous occasion, his trouble is that he has too much intellect and not enough humanity. If he had a little more humanity and considered the matter from the point of view of the people who will suffer as a result of his proposals, he would accept our Amendment.
  I wanted to say something about the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I understand that he will appear in a sort of solo effort by kind permission of the Minister of Health when we come to the Third Reading. I think that this is a shocking way to treat Scottish Ministers. The fact that they allow themselves to be treated in this way shows what a spineless set of Scottish Ministers we have. This is the way the great and historic Scottish Office is treated by the Government. We shall expect to hear from the Joint Under-Secretary of State before we finish these proceedings.
  Mr. A. Woodburn: When the. Health Service was introduced, one of the astonishing things which we discovered was the number of people, especially old people, who had not had teeth in their head for years and had never had spectacles with which to see. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) said, many of them were saved by Woolworth's at 6d. a time.
  Commander Pursey: No—6s. 9d.
  Mr. Woodburn: It used to be 6d. As a result of the Health Service charges, the cost has increased even in Woolworth's. This has become a very expensive racket.
  The supply of free spectacles was originated by my predecessor, Tom Johnston.
  1396
  He was a director of a Glasgow friendly society which gave a large number of benefits to its members. One of them was free spectacles. For years, people had free spectacles from that society. It is true that they were not very elegant, but they were free. The society obtained them by contract at a very cheap rate. It did not cost the society very much. When we were introducing the National Health Service, Tom Johnston thought that the nation could do for the people what a friendly society had been doing for years for its members in Glasgow. One of his great passions was to give the people free spectacles.
  Dr. Stross: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend knows that the Minister of Transport came into the Chamber, not because he wanted to listen to us, but because he had forgotten his spectacles. This adds point to the argument concerning saving costs to the Minister of Health.
  Mr. Woodburn: If the right hon. Gentleman had free spectacles, he might have seen them lying on the chair before he went out.
  Of all the charges, the one against which I feel most passionately is the stupid prescription charge which prevents people getting treatment. I realise that spectacles and teeth are in a different category because they are not things that people want regularly. They want them only once in a while and it is probably possible for them to make this sacrifice. As with all other charges, fairly well-to-do people will not suffer in any way.
  I confirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) said, namely, that those who will suffer most in this matter are the children. Children go to school with steel-rimmed spectacles, but they keep them in their pockets. By not wearing them, they injure their eyes. Their mothers do not know that they are doing this, because in most cases children are little snobs. They hate to be different from their colleagues. They do not like to wear Health Service spectacles if their colleagues are wearing fancy-rimmed spectacles.
  The same thing applies to school milk. When the fact that children were getting school milk had to be registered the children did not take it because they

  1397
  did not want to be pointed out as being different from their colleagues. The greatest injury emanating from these charges will be done to the children. Whatever else the Minister may do, I hope that he will ensure that children have spectacles with rims which do not give the impression of poverty, or which are distinct from other spectacles. He should ensure that they have a choice in the matter. Children are probably far more conscious about what they wear than adults. Old-age pensioners do not care tu'pence about what they wear as long as they can see.
  Mr. Dempsey: Why not?
  Mr. Woodburn: Even Members of Parliament are not concerned about whether they look respectable.
  Mr. Dempsey: What about the Parliamentary Secretary?
  Mr. Woodburn: The hon. Lady is different.
  When people get older, they do not bother about these things nearly as much as children, who are sensitive, especially girls. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that girls are very touchy about their appearance. What I fear is that if children are handicapped by these charges, or by the new regulations in any way, they will not use the spectacles they are given, their mothers will not know about it, and their eyesight will be damaged. People will go without, sometimes, to the detriment of their eyesight.
  Of course, when spectacles are first prescribed, all sorts of warnings are given by the optician that the patient must come back and be examined again in six months, not just once or twice in his lifetime. One of the difficulties affecting us years ago was not that patients were misusing the Service, but that they were told to come back for further examinations at intervals of six months because there would be another fee for the person who was doing the examination. I had to call attention to the fact that certain unscrupulous practitioners were requiring patients to come back for further examinations and new spectacles every six months because there was a profit in it for them.
  1398
  This is one of the handicaps inherent in having a scheme like this, which makes a profit for the people who prescribe spectacles. It should be done as a public service by practitioners who are paid a salary so that unscrupulous persons may not manufacture jobs in order to earn profits for themselves. It should be done by specialists dealing with the matter as a public duty. No one should be in a position to prescribe spectacles in great numbers simply because the more he prescribes the more he gets.
  If an economy were made at that end of the Service there would be no need for economy by penalising the people who need the prescriptions, the spectacles and the dentures. Throughout his new charges, the Minister has started at the wrong end. The patient is not responsible for prescribing. The responsibility is on the doctor or the oculist. The patient is not the one to be circumscribed and punished. The patient should not be deprived of benefits under the Health Service. The Minister should control the Service in such a way that the work is done for proper purposes, not so as to enable someone to make a profit for himself merely by multiplying prescriptions. In that way, the Minister could make his economies and probably improve the Service as a whole.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Powell: What the subsection which it is proposed to delete effects is the adjustment of the existing charge for lenses so that the charge bears approximately the same ratio to current costs as it did at its inception ten years ago. Broadly speaking, the cost of lenses, case and dispensing fee has risen by about 25 per cent. in the last ten years, and, accordingly, this subsection is intended to increase the charge per lens by 25 per cent.
  In reply to the inquiry by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), of the total gross yield of the addition of £1·9 million for Great Britain, £200,000 is estimated to be attributable to Scotland.
  During the last ten years, we have had experience of the movement of sight testing and of the dispensing of spectacles with the existing charge for lenses and, as the Committee noted when it studied the matter, during those ten years the annual number of sight tests

  1399
  has been steadily increasing and so also, in almost exactly the same ratio, has the number of spectacles dispensed under the National Health Service. So it would not appear that the existence of a charge has interfered with a steady increase in the access to and the use which is being made of the Service by the public, nor, in view of the fact that any kind of remuneration or benefit which one cares to take has in those ten years increased by far more than that proportion, need it be apprehended that that thoroughly desirable trend will not continue.
  The Clause makes a further alteration in that, for the first time, it separates bifocal lenses from other lenses for the purpose of charge. I am advised that, nowadays, about 30 per cent. of those who wear spectacles require a double correction and that of that 30 per cent. approximately half meet the need by having two pairs of spectacles and half by having a bifocal pair. The House will know that under the National Health Service one cannot have both a bifocal pair and two separate pairs for the same double correction. Therefore, we have here a genuine alternative.
  I think we should all agree that in the decision by the optician whether to advise bifocals or two pairs and the decision by the patient which to accept there should not be any undue financial factor entering into the matter. We would wish to hold the scales as nearly as possible evenly. That is the result of the change which the subsection brings about. There is still some financial advantage in the bifocal pair in that the charge for a pair of bifocals will be £2 as against £2 10s. for the two separate pairs of spectacles, but, broadly speaking, the revision eliminates, or largely eliminates, the present big financial difference between the acceptance of two pairs of spectacles as against a bifocal pair.
  Dr. Stross: If that be so, and if the argument be logical that it is merely holding the balance by imposing this new tax on those who wear bifocals, what is the justification for charging for multifocal lenses only the same amount as the Minister does for bifocal lenses? They are much more expensive.
  Mr. Powell: The answer is that while there is a substantial use of an item it is right that we should separate its cost and treat it on its own. Multifocals, although, as the hon. Members says, they are more expensive than bifocals, have a great variety and the number of them is extremely small in comparison with bifocals, let alone the total number of lenses. On the other hand, when dealing with bifocals we are dealing with a type of spectacle which is worn in considerable and, indeed, increasing numbers, and it would have been wrong for the financial balance to be so severely weighted as it was hitherto.
  I think hon. Members missed the point when my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said that the present situation was unfair to people who had to wear two pairs of glasses. That is a valid point. It is a clinical decision so to speak, a decision which depends upon people's circumstances, whether it is better for them to go in for bifocals or for two separate pairs of spectacles. My hon. Friend was quite right in saying that it is unfair that a person who has good reason to prefer or to need two separate pairs should be so severely penalised financially as at present.
  I find it, therefore, not at all surprising that the profession concerned, in commenting on the proposals in the Bill, has approved the proposal to treat bifocals separately and has pointed out that this was something that the profession itself has for some time past been recommending.
  Several references have been made in the debate to the position of children. It seemed to me that some of them might have been based on a misapprehension. Of course, nothing which the subsection does increases in any way any charge which relates to children. What the Clause does is very much to improve the position of a parent such as the hon. Lady the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) mentioned. At the present moment where such a parent decides to choose for her child a pair of frames other than the steel frames, one of the N.H.S. range, for example, she not only has to meet the cost of the frames but has to meet the cost of the lenses.
  What this Bill does—and I should have thought that it would have been generally welcomed—is to ensure that

  1401
  the lenses are free for a child even though those lenses are fitted into a National Health Service frame. I am referring to children over the age of 10. I think it is generally accepted that it is over the age of about 10 that these considerations begin to apply. Therefore, as far as children are concerned, a very substantial improvement is made by the provisions in this Clause.
  Mrs. Slater: Could not the Minister give the little bit of improvement we seek, and give to the children under 10 this facility, so that they need not have to wear steel frames?
  Mr. Powell: I have taken advice on this matter with my Standing Ophthalmic Advisory Committee to see where it would be right to make the change, and the advice I am given is that it is about the age of 10 that this freedom of choice becomes a significant factor from the point of view of a child and is likely to begin to affect its readiness to wear spectacles; but it has been hitherto, in my view, unfair that a parent who chose to go outside the steel frames not only incurred the additional charge for the frames—and that is common to the arrangements throughout the supplementary ophthalmic service—but was also penalised by having to pay for the lenses. I think it should be put clearly on the record that that anomaly is removed by this Clause and that, therefore, the position of the children is substantially improved by this Clause.
  Mrs. Cullen: Why was this advice given? Was there any particular need for this advice to use the steel frame?
  Mr. Powell: Yes, the advice is that it is only from about the age of 10—clearly one could not be precise because cases vary—that considerations of appearance begin to be a deterrent to a child's wearing spectacles.
  Mr. Woodburn: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us what it would cost if this concession were extended to all children and steel frames were done away with?
  Mr. Powell: Not without notice. But I think that this is a matter in which we ought to see how we get on, and certainly it is a matter in which the Government ought to be guided by the advice of those who are dealing with children from the optical paint of view.
  1402
  Finally, the general question has been raised again of priorities and of the application of the sums which these charges will yield, and, once again, the Guillebaud Committee, which the noble Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) quoted, makes it perfectly clear that all these considerations in regard to these individual charges are subject to the overriding question of priority. Once again we are deciding whether the sum of approximately £2 million which is here involved—just under £2 million—is better applied in the National Health Service by maintaining these charges at their present level instead of bringing them up to the proportion which they originally bore to the cost of the appliances, or is better applied elsewhere in the Service.
  It is to that question, with respect, that the House has to direct its attention, and I believe that against the experience of the last ten years of the growing use of this service and against the whole economic background there can be no doubt that this increase in the yield can be better applied than by keeping the charges at the present value.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. K. Robinson: The case against the spectacle charges and the increases which are imposed by this subsection has been made so effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) and other of my hon. Friends that there is really very little for me to add to it. These are severe charges. It is no good the Minister's saying, on the one hand, that they are not very substantial charges and then, on the other, by a slip of the tongue perhaps, admitting that the difference between the cost of a pair of bifocals and two pairs of ordinary spectacles which represents £1 is not a severe penalty.
  Mr. Powell: That is the entire existing cost plus 25 per cent.
  Mr. Robinson: I am talking about the entire charge, and the entire charge will now be 25s. for an ordinary pair of spectacles. The right hon. Gentleman produced the additional argument that the number of sight tests has gone on steadily increasing and that the provision of spectacles has gone on steadily over the last ten years, and that, some-

  1403
  how, that proves that these charges are no disincentive. It proves nothing of the kind. It is no evidence whatever.
  The very existence of the Health Service is in itself an educative process for people in health education and one would expect that, ten years after the Service was introduced, more people would be looking after their teeth and their eyesight. Anyhow, the fact is that the increase ought to have been in a greater degree than that which we have had, and it is just not true to suggest that these charges cause no hardship.
  I do not want to detain the House, because we have other Amendments to debate, but I should like to read to the House a concrete case about spectacles, of a woman who wrote to her trade union branch. Her letter was given to me by one of my trade union colleagues. She wrote:
  "Sorry I have to write to you like this. I wonder if you could help me as I am broke. My husband has been in bed for four weeks and I had to stay at home from work and now when I am ready to go back to work I have gone down with the 'flu. The reason I write to you is I have got two pairs of glasses on order, one for long distance and
  one for reading and I can't afford to get them as I have got no money. It takes a long time to pull up again after being home from work. My husband has been home sick for three years … Hope you will do your best for me. …"
  I am glad to be able to tell the Minister that the trade union did its best for them and provided the requisite funds to enable that woman to get her spectacles. This was not a woman such as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) mentioned, but a woman who was at work who had glasses on order and, because of her circumstances, could not pay for them and had no chance whatever of paying for them without some help from somebody.
  It is untrue that these charges are small charges and that these charges are not a deterrent. They are. It is because of that that I hope my hon. Friends will divide on the Amendment.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out, to "two", in line 14, stand part of the Bill:—
  The House divided: Ayes 271, Noes 198.

  Division No. 127.

  AYES

  [6.48 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Chataway, Christopher

  Gammans, Lady

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Gardner, Edward

  Allason, James

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian(Preston, N.)

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Arbuthnot, John

  Cole, Norman

  Godber, J. B.

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Cooper, A. E.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Goodhew, Victor

  Barlow, Sir John

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Gough, Frederick

  Barter, John

  Cordle, John

  Gower, Raymond J

  Batsford, Brian

  Corfield, F. V.

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Costain, A. P.

  Green, Alan

  Bell, Ronald

  Coulson, J. M.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Critchley, Julian

  Gurden, Harold

  Berkeley, Humphrey

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cunningham, Knox

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Curran, Charles

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Dance, James

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Box, Donald

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hastings, Stephen

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Non. John

  de Ferrantl, Basil

  Hay, John

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Braine, Bernard

  du Cann, Edward

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Brewis, John

  Duncan, Sir James

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Duthie. Sir William

  Hendry, Forbes

  Brooman-White, R.

  Eden, John

  Hiley, Joseph

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Bryan, Paul

  Elliott, R.W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Buck, Antony

  Emery, Peter

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Bullard, Denys

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Hobson, John

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Burden, F. A.

  Fell, Anthony

  Holland, Philip

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Hollingworth, John

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Hopkins, Alan

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Hornby, R. P.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Marshall, Douglas

  Shepherd, William

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Mawby, Ray

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Hutchison Michael Clark

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Mills, Stratton

  Spelr, Rupert

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye).

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Jackson, John

  Morgan, William

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  James, David

  Morrison, John

  Stodart, J. A.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Jennings, J. C.

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Talbot, John E.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Teeling, William

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  Temple, John M.

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Partridge, E.

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Kitson, Timothy

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Percival, Ian

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Peyton, John

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Leavey, J. A.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Turner, Colin

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Pott, Percivall

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John

  Lindsay, Martin

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Waider, David

  Litchfield, Cant. John

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Walker, Peter

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Profumo, Rt, Hon. John

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Pym, Francis

  Watts, James

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Webster, David

  McAdden, Stephen

  Ramsden, James

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Whitelaw, William

  McLaren, Martin

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Rees, Hugh

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Renton, David

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute&N.Ayrs.)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Robertson, Sir David

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Roots, William

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Madden, Martin

  Russell, Ronald

  Woollam, John

  Maitland, Sir John

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  Worsley, Marcus

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Seymour, Leslie

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Sharpies, Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Shaw, M.

  Mr. Noble and Mr. Peel.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llaneny)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Deer, George

  Gunter, Ray

  Allen, Schofield (Crewe)

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Awbery, Stan

  Delargy, Hugh

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Dempsey, James

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Beaney, Alan

  Diamond, John

  Hannan, William

  Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Dodds, Norman

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Benson, Sir George

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Hayman, F. H.

  Blackburn, F.

  Driberg, Tom

  Healey, Denis

  Blyton, William

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Boardman, H.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)

  Edeman, Maurice

  Holman, Percy

  Boyden, dames

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Holt, Arthur

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Evans, Albert

  Howell, Charles A.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Hoy, James H.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Finch, Harold

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Fitch, Alan

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Chapman, Donald

  Fletcher, Eric

  Hunter, A. E.

  Chetwynd, George

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Collick, Percy

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Forman, J. C.

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Galtskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Jeger, George

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Darling, George

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Ginsburg, David

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Grey, Charles

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  1406

  1407

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Oram, A. E.

  Steele, Thomas

  Kelley, Richard

  Oswald, Thomas

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Owen, Will

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Paget, R. T.

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Swain, Thomas

  Lawson, George

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Sylvester, George

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Peart, Frederick

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Pentland, Norman

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Thornton, Ernest

  Loughlin, Charles

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Timmons, John

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Prentice, R. E.

  Tomney, Frank

  McCann, John

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  MacColl, James

  Probert, Arthur

  Wade, Donald

  McInnes, James

  Proctor, W. T.

  Wainwright, Edwin

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Warbey, William

  McLeavy, Frank

  Randall, Harry

  Watkins, Tudor

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Rankin, John

  Weitzman, David

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Reid, William

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield, E.)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Whitlock, William

  Manuel, A. C.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Mapp, Charles

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Willey, Frederick

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Ross, William

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Marsh, Richard

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Mason, Roy

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Short, Edward

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh. E.)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Silverman, Julian (Aston)

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Milne, Edward J.

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Woof, Robert

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Monslow, Walter

  Small, William

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Moody, A. S.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Zilliacus, K.

  Morris, John

  Snow, Julian

  Moyle, Arthur

  Sorensen, R. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mulley, Frederick

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Mr. Redhead and

  Dr. Broughton

  Clause 2.—(VARIATION OF CHARGES FOR DENTAL AND OPTICAL APPLIANCES, AND DENTAL TREATMENT.)
  Mr. K. Robinson: I beg to move, in page 2, line 27, to leave out Clause 2.
  This is the Clause which gives the Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland powers to vary, by Regulation, the charges that are dealt with under the Bill and, indeed, the charges for dental treatment. We tabled Amendments to substitute for the word "vary" the word "reduce". I gather that these are out of order for the simple reason that they would have precisely the same effect as would have the carrying of the Amendment which I am now moving.
  During the Second Reading debate I was taken to task by the hon. Member far Putney (Sir H. Linstead)—who was here earlier, but is not, unfortunately, present now—for suggesting that the ward "vary" in this Clause was really a euphemism far "increase", and that the Minister used the word "vary" but actually wanted power to increase the charges. The hon. Member said that I was being unfair, and pointed to a provision in the Clause which enables the Minister to direct that a charge shall not be payable. The hon. Member said that
  1408
  this constituted a specific power to abolish a charge.
  7.0 p.m.
  We now find, however, that the power to reduce all the charges is already in the Minister's hands. He is already capable of reducing or abolishing any Health Service charge by Regulation, subject to the negative Resolution procedure. The reason for this Clause is to give him the power to increase charges which he had hitherto only had the power to reduce. We are not inclined to place that power in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman.
  We believe that this kind of tax on the sick and on people who need dental and optical treatment is not the sort of thing that should be imposed by Regulation. The Parliamentary Secretary will no doubt say that, in the one Act imposing charges introduced by the Labour Government, there was Regulation-making power. But that was a power with the affirmative Resolution procedure. We believe that if there comes a time, as we fear there will, when the Government want again to increase the charges, they should at least came to the House and go through the normal procedure of legislation. We are not willing

  1409
  to give power to make Regulations which are merely subject to the negative Resolution procedure.
  Judging by the justifications that have been made by the Minister and his colleagues for these increases, we can only assume that, when another situation arises in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer wishes to reduce the net cost of the Health Service to the Exchequer, the first thing that he will turn to is the charges and say, "We can put another 25 per cent. on them, and this time all we need do is to table a Regulation that is subject to the ordinary Prayer procedure".
  It is for these reasons that we are unwilling to see this power in the Bill. I want to stress again that the only reason that the word "vary" is introduced is to give the Minister power to increase charges, because he has already all the power that he needs, by Regulation, to reduce any charges which he imposes on patients.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) made one point clear, and there is another subsidiary one to which he did not devote time. His main purpose by the Amendment is to try to eliminate the provision enabling the Minister to vary upwards or downwards. As he rightly anticipated, I shall remind him that for other charges under the National Health Service, notably the
  prescription charges, there is power to do that by Regulation, subject to the negative Resolution procedure.
  It seems to me that if the power exists in the case where the amount involved is much greater—the changes made in prescription charges, for instance, are expected to relieve the Exchequer of £12½ million, whereas the charges under the Bill for dentures and spectacles will relieve it of just under £3 million gross—and if that power is right for the greater amount, it is right for the smaller. I suggest that the House accepts the proposals laid down in the Bill giving this power which, as I say, already exists for certain sections of the Health Service.
  The hon. Member made the further point that he and his colleagues were not willing to give power which was merely subject to the negative Resolution procedure. In this case, the power that is being sought would apply to Regulations which would, in themselves, be very simple, because the purpose of any changes, either upwards or downwards, would be to substitute one set of figures for another. For these reasons, I must advise the House not to accept the Amendment.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out, to "for", in line 31, stand part of the Bill:—
  The House divided: Ayes 267, Noes 197.

  Division No. 128.]

  AYES

  [7.6 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Bryan, Paul

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Buck, Antony

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Bullard, Denys

  Dance, James

  Allason, James

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian (Preston, N.)

  Burden, F. A.

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Arbuthnot, John

  Campbell, Cordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  du Cann, Edward

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Duncan, Sir James

  Barlow, Sir John

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Duthie, Sir William

  Barter, John

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Eden, John

  Batsford, Brian

  Chataway, Christopher

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Elliott, R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Bell, Ronald

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Emery, Peter

  Bennett Dr. Reginald (Cos & Fhm)

  Cole, Norman

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Cooper, A. E.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Bidgood, John C.

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Fell, Anthony

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cordle, John

  Fisher, Nigel

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Corfield, F. V.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Bishop, F. P.

  Costain, A. P.

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Coulson, J. M.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Box, Donald

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Gammans, Lady

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Gardner, Edward

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Critchley, Julian

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Brewis, John

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Crowder, F. P.

  Godber, J. B.

  Brooman-White, R.

  Cunningham, Knox

  Goodhart, Philip

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Curran, Charles

  Goodhew, Victor

  Gough, Frederick

  Lindsay, Martin

  Rees, Hugh

  Gower, Raymond

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Renton, David

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Green, Alan

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Robertson, Sir David

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Roots, William

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Gurden, Harold

  McAdden, Stephen

  Russell, Ronald

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  MacArthur, Ian

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  McLaren, Martin

  Seymour, Leslie

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Sharples, Richard

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  MaClay, Rt. Hon. John

  Straw, M.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macciesfd)

  Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute&N.Ayrs.)

  Shepherd, William

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hastings, Stephen

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Smith, Dudley(Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

  Hay, John

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Maddan, Martin

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

  Maitland, Sir John

  Speir, Rupert

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Hendry, Forbes

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Stodart, J. A.

  Hiley, Joseph

  Marshall, Douglas

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Hobson, John

  Mawby, Ray

  Talbot, John E.

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Holland, Philip

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Hollingworth, John

  Mills, Stratton

  Teeling, William

  Hopkins, Alan

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Temple, John M.

  Hornby, R. P.

  Morgan, William

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  Morrison, John

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Noble, Michael

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Hughes-Young, Norman

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Turner, Colin

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Irvine, Bryant Goldman (Rye)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Jackson, John

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  James, David

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Walder, David

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Partridge, E.

  Walker, Peter

  Jennings, J. C.

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Peel, John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Percival, Ian

  Watts, James

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Peyton, John

  Webster, David

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Whitelaw, William

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pott, Percivall

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Kitson, Timothy

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Lambton, Viscount

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Woollam, John

  Leavey, J. A.

  Pym, Francis

  Worsley, Marcus

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Ouennell, Miss J. M.

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Ramsden, James

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rawlinson, Peter

  TELLERS FOR TAR AYES:

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Mir. Chichester-Clark and

  Mr. J. E. B. Hill.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Chetwynd, George

  Edelman, Maurice

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Collick, Percy

  Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Awbery, Stan

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Evans, Albert

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Fernyhough, E.

  Beaney, Alan

  Darling, George

  Finch, Harold

  Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Fitch, Alan

  Benson, Sir George

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Fletcher, Eric

  Blackburn, F.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Blyton, William

  Deer, George

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Boardman, H.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Forman, J. C.

  Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Boyden, James

  Dempsey, James

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Diamond, John

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Dodds, Norman

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Ginsburg, David

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Drlberg, Tom

  Gourlay, Harry

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  Grey, Charles

  Chapman, Donald

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  1412

  1413

  Gunter, Ray

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Manuel, A. C.

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Hannan, William

  Mapp, Charles

  Small, William

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke. S.)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Mason, Roy

  Snow, Julian

  Healey, Denis

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Milne, Edward J.

  Steele, Thomas

  Holman, Percy

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Holt, Arthur

  Monslow, Walter

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Moody, A. S.

  Stross, Dr.Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, c.)

  Howell, Charles A.

  Morris, John

  Swain, Thomas

  Hoy, James H.

  Moyle, Arthur

  Sylvester, George

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Mulley, Frederick

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Oram, A. E.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Owen, Will

  Thornton, Ernest

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Paget, R. T.

  Timmons, John

  Jeger, George

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Tomney, Frank

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)

  Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)

  Wade, Donald

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Peart, Frederick

  Warbey, William

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Pentland, Norman

  Watkins, Tudor

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Weitzman, David

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Poppleweil, Ernest

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Kelley, Richard

  Prentice, R. E.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Whitlock, William

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Probert, Arthur

  Wilkins, W. A.

  King, Dr. Horace

  Proctor, W. T.

  Willey, Frederick

  Lawson, George

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Randall, Harry

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Rankin, John

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Reid, William

  Wlnterbottom, R. E.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Loughlin, Charles

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Woof, Robert

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  McCann, John

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  MacColl, James

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Zilliacus, K.

  McInnes, James

  Ross, William

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  McLeavy, Frank

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Mr. Irving and

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Short, Edward

  Mr. Ifor Davies

  Mr. K. Robinson: I beg to move, in page 2, line 31, after "appliances", to insert:
  "referred to in the Schedule to that Act".
  This Amendment is a variation of an Amendment which we moved in Committee and which sought to limit any variation of the description of appliances on which charges could be levied, under regulations made possible by the Clause, so as not to enlarge the category. The Minister told us in Committee that our fears were unjustified and that the only appliances to which the variation could be applied were those referred to in the Schedule of the 1951 Act.
  However, in response to some misgivings expressed by my hon. Friends, he undertook to look at the matter again to see Whether any further clarification was necessary. We have tabled the Amendment because, while accepting the Minister's contention that this can be a reference only to appliances in the
  1414
  Schedule to the 1951 Act, we thought that it would be desirable to write in these words.
  Mr. Powell: I have given the further consideration to the drafting which I promised in Committee, and my conclusion still is that there can be no doubt that the power here given does not make it possible to apply a charge to any appliances or services for which that charge is not now authorised by Statute.
  The construction is as follows. The words
  "… any such charge"
  in line 32 carry us back to lines 29 and 30 to the words
  "… any charge authorised by section one of the Act of 1951 for any dental or optical appliance …"
  That Section authorises charges
  "in respect of the supply … of such dental or optical appliances as are described in the said schedule."

  1415
  Consequently, the addition of the words which the hon. Member proposes could not possibly add anything to the construction which I have explained. Indeed, since there is no alternative to that construction the very fact that they were specified might create a doubt or difficulty.
  I ask the House to accept that it is clear from the construction of the Bill, construed with the 1951 Act—and I have again confirmed with my advisers—that there can be no question of variation going outside the appliances and services for which charges are authorised by Statute.
  Mr. K. Robinson: I should not have thought that the addition of these words could have had any detrimental effect, and I still think that their addition might have been an advantage. However, the Minister has given a categorical undertaking which I must accept, and in those circumstances I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 5.—(SHORT TITLE, CITATION, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT.)
  Mr. T. Fraser: I beg to move, in page 4, line 9, to leave out "seven days" and to insert "six months".
  As the House will appreciate, subsection (3) provides that the additional charges will come into operation seven days after the passing of the Act, and the effect of the Amendment would be that the increased charges would come into operation not earlier than six months after the passing of the Act.
  I say in passing that it seems disgraceful that not only have we been prevented from moving many most important Amendments, but, owing to the operation of the Guillotine, one of the Scottish Ministers has been so gagged that he has not been able to say a word.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman says that he has not been gagged. It makes it very much worse if we have had a Scottish Minister sitting through these proceedings, which amend a Scottish Act
  1416
  of Parliament, and he has not been in the least disposed to say a word on what is being done to that Act.
  When we have improvements in social benefits—in retirement pensions, unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, or in the lot of those who get some assistance from the National Assistance Board—we always provide for a period of some months after the Act goes on the Statute Book before any such improvement is made. In the case of all those insurance benefits, the improvement has not been made until administrative arrangements can be made to take increased contributions from the workers. Now, when there is to be a new tax put upon certain sections of our people who are suffering disability, and the justification for the new tax is that the money should be used to build hospitals, we do not wait until we get the plans for the adjustment of the hospitals programme. The Minister proposes that the increase shall come into operation at once.
  The Minister has said in justifying some parts of the Bill, in the inadequate discussion that we have been able to have during the Report stage today, that, in view of the increased prosperity we enjoy as compared with ten years ago, there can be no hardship to anyone as a result of the increased charges. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will be well aware that prosperity has not yet come to Scotland. Prosperity for the people there is still "around the corner". Jobs are still in the pipeline, but they have not yet appeared.
  If the Minister accepts the Amendment, it will at least give the Government another six months to take some positive steps to see that in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom where there is considerable unemployment—in the North East and elsewhere where the economy has not expanded in recent years and the people have not enjoyed the level of prosperity mentioned by the Minister—people get their share of the good things of life and are able to pay the increased charges which will fall equally on all areas, including those with considerable unemployment.
  I regret very much that one has to curtail one's remarks on such an important Amendment. I do not think that

  1417
  the Minister need feel that any great concession would be made to the Opposition if he were to accept the Amendment. All that it would mean is that the imposition of the increased charges would be delayed for six months. This would mean that the Treasury would lose about £1½ million. When one compares the way in which the Treasury deal with some people in our society with what we expect to be announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17th April next, I do not think that it is asking too much of the Government at this time to delay the imposition of these charges until we have had a reasonable time to have a look at the changes proposed by the Chancellor.
  Miss Pitt: In moving the Amendment, the effect of which would be to postpone the operation of the Bill, after it becomes an Act, for six months, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred to the charges contained in the Bill as a new tax. They are not a new tax, as has been repeatedly explained. The effect of the Bill is to bring up to date the charges imposed by hon. Members opposite in 1951. That is of great importance in connection with the Amendment, because even if the Amendment were accepted the far greater charges imposed by hon. Members opposite would still be payable forthwith. All that it would do would be to postpone the extra 5s. on dentures and the extra 2s. 6d. on spectacle lenses for six months from the date of the passing of the Bill. For that reason alone, I would advise the House to reject the Amendment.
  But there is another reason, to which hon. Members opposite have given no thought whatever. The Bill proposes to make some concessions. These would also be deferred for six months. The concessions are that dentures will be free to expectant and nursing mothers, and to children up to school-leaving age, and there will be no charge for lenses, in the case of children above the age of 10, when fitted into National Health Service frames. It would be a very great pity, in an endeavour to delay the Bill, to prevent these concessions from applying. I advise the House to reject the Amendment.
  Mr. K. Robinson: Would the hon. Lady explain to the House that the cost
  1418
  of the concessions to which she refers is almost exactly one-tenth of the cost that is placed on the backs of the sick and needy by the increased charges proposed in the Bill?
  Miss Pitt: Yes, but they are concessions, and this is the first time that the word "concession" has come from hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. Willis: The hon. Lady's reply is rather ridiculous. She said that if we postponed the Bill for six months, the contributors would still be paying the initial big charge. The way to stop that would be for the Government to introduce a Bill by which those charges would not have to be paid. If the hon. Lady says that this delay would be a great hardship, the logical thing to do would be to introduce a Bill to wipe out the charges altogether. We on this side would push it through in the manner in which we usually push Government Bills through the House—that is, in a very speedy and efficient manner. I am surprised that at this stage the hon. Lady should advance that as an argument for not delaying the operation of the Bill.
  Her other argument was that we would be postponing certain benefits. We would be quite prepared to consider putting the benefits into operation within seven days but postponing the charges for six months. On that we would be prepared to go all the way with the hon. Lady—to meet all her arguments and be most amenable in assisting her to help the people to bear these new charges. Why is there all this hurry to rush the Bill through so that it comes into operation within seven days? When the old-age pensioners get a rise they have to wait six months.
  There is no equity about it. It is not as though a large sum of money was involved. In the case of Scotland the Joint Under-Secretary has not yet made his debut, but I understand that we are to have the pleasure of his première later tonight, by kind permission of the Ministry of Health.
  It being half-past Seven o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Orders, to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
  Question put, That "seven days" stand part of the Bill:—
  The House divided: Ayes 265, Noes 194.

  Division No. 129.]

  AYES

  [7.30 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Gardner, Edward

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Aitken, W. T.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Allason, James

  Godber, J. B.

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian (Preston, N.)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Maddan, Martin

  Arbuthnot, John

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maitland, Sir John

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Gough, Frederick

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Gower, Raymond

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Barlow, Sir John

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Barter, John

  Green, Alan

  Marshall, Douglas

  Batsford, Brian

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Bell, Ronald

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Mawby, Ray

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Gurden, Harold

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Bidgood, John C.

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Mills, Stratton

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Morgan, William

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Morrison, John

  Bishop, F. P.

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Hay, John

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Box, Donald

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Noble, Michael

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Brewis, John

  Hendry, Forbes

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Hiley, Joseph

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Brooman-White, R.

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Bryan, Paul

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Buck, Antony

  Hobson, John

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Bullard, Denys

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Partridge, E.

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Holland, Philip

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Burden, F. A.

  Hollingsworth, John

  Percival, Ian

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nalrn)

  Hopkins, Alan

  Peyton, John

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Hornby, R. P.

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Pott, Percivall

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Cole, Norman

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Cooper, A. E.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Pym, Francis

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Jackson, John

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Cordle, John

  James, David

  Ramsden, James

  Corfield, F. V.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Costsin, A. P.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Couison, J. M.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Rees, Hugh

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Renton, David

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Critchley, Julian

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Roots, William

  Crosthwaite-Evre, Col. O. E.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Crowder, F. P.

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Russell, Ronald

  Cunningham, Knox

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Curran, Charles

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Seymour, Leslie

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Sharples, Richard

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Kitson, Timothy

  Shaw, M.

  Dance, James

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Shepherd, William

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Lambton, Viscount

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Dighy, Simon Wingfield

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Smith, Dudley(Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

  du Cann, Edward

  Leavey, J. A.

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Duncan, Sir James

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Duthie, Sir William

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Speir, Rupert

  Eden, John

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Elliot, Cant. Walter (Carshalton)

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Elliott, R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Lindsay, Martin

  Stodart, J. A.

  Emery, Peter

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Llovd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Fell, Anthony

  Lovevs, Walter H.

  Talbot, John E.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Fisher, Nigel

  McAdden, Stephen

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  MacArthur, Ian

  Teeling, William

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  McLaren, Martin

  Temple, John M.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Gammans, Lady

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Walker, Peter

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Woollam, John

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Watts, James

  Worsley, Marcus

  Turner, Colin

  Webster, David

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Tufton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Whitelaw, William

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Colonel J. H. Harrison and

  Walder, David

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Mr. Peel.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Holman, Percy

  Prentice, R. E.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Holt, Arthur

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Awbery, Stan

  Houghton, Douglas

  Probert, Arthur

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Howell, Charles A.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Beaney, Alan

  Hoy, James H.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Randall, Harry

  Benson, Sir George

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Rankin, John

  Blackburn, F.

  Hunter, A. E.

  Redhead, E. C.

  Blyton, William

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Reid, William

  Boardman, H.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Boyden, James

  Jeger, George

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Ross, William

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Chapman, Donald

  Kelley, Richard

  Short, Edward

  Chetwynd, George

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Collick, Percy

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  King, Dr. Horace

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Lawson, George

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Small, William

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Darling, George

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Snow, Julian

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Deer, George

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Steele, Thomas

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  McCann, John

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Delargy, Hugh

  MacColl, James

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Diamond, John

  McInnes, James

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Dodds, Norman

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Swain, Thomas

  Donnelly, Desmond

  McLeavey, Frank

  Sylvester, George

  Driberg, Tom

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Manuel, A. C.

  Thornton, Ernest

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Mapp, Charles

  Timmons, John

  Evans, Albert

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Tomney, Frank

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mason, Roy

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Finch, Harold

  Mavhew, Christopher

  Wade, Donald

  Fitch, Alan

  Mellish, R. J.

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Warbey, William

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Milne, Edward J.

  Watkins, Tudor

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Weitzman, David

  Forman, J. C.

  Monslow, Walter

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Moody, A. S.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Morris, John

  Whitlock, William

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Moyle, Arthur

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Ginsburg, David

  Mulley, Frederick

  Willey, Frederick

  Gourlay, Harry

  Oliver, G. H.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Grey, Charles

  Oram, A. E.

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Wililams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Gunter, Ray

  Owen, Will

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Paget, R. T.

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Pennell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Woof, Robert

  Hannan, William

  Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Peart, Frederick

  Zilliacus, K.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Pentland, Norman

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. Irving and Mr. Ifor Davies.

  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. Galbraith: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I shall try to be as brief as possible, because I know that there are many hon. Gentlemen who wish to speak. Before turning to the contents of the Bill, however, I should like, first, if I may, to pay a tribute to the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), who has led for the Opposition. His courtesy and consideration helped to keep our proceedings at a near normal temperature most of the time.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: That is the kiss of death.
  Mr. Galbraith: Coming as I do from the more tempestuous North, I may say that the humour and classical erudition of many of the other speeches was a real revelation. They made we wonder whether some of my fellow countrymen, who always use the claymore rather than the rapier, may not have something to learn from the hon. Gentleman's velvet glove technique.
  Mr. Willis: We get the hon. Gentleman to his feet, anyway.
  Mr. Galbraith: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) who says that he gets me to my feet anyway, is now learning that if he waits long enough he gets a good thing in the end. I will make a bargain with the hon. Gentleman; if he speaks less I will speak more.
  The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), who represents me in this House, was concerned about my relations with the young Unionists in South Ayrshire. I hope that he will take the opportunity tomorrow of circulating my speech to them.
  I am only sorry that in spite of the Opposition's persuasive manner we could find no reason for agreeing to more than one minor drafting Amendment, and that was to Clause 3. Apart from this small change, which I am sure the House would not wish me to take up time in explaining, the Bill is the same as that which was originally presented to the House.
  I therefore think that it might be right at this stage to emphasise again the reasons which led the Government to propose the small increases—and I emphasise the word "small"—in the
  1424
  charges for dentures and glasses for which the Bill now makes provision. The background to the proposals to increase the charges has been a continuing rise in the cost of the Health Service, which has now reached the very high figure of £867 million in the current year, with an estimated increase on that figure in the forthcoming year of 11 per cent, a very considerable increase indeed. In spite of this, the Government are determined to develop and improve the Health Service still further. This will, of course, require even greater expenditure and it is to help meet this burden that the present proposals have been made.
  The interesting thing in this situation is that we on this side of the House are acting in exactly the same way as hon. Gentlemen opposite found they had to act when their ideal notion of the scheme of things clashed with the harsh realities of practical and responsible Government.
  Mr. Dempsey: The hon. Gentleman should not look at me.
  Mr. Galbraith: The hon. Gentleman should not be so self-centred. I was looking at all his right hon. and hon. Friends. That was why they introduced charges for false teeth and glasses in 1951.
  Mr. Tom Driberg: Do not say "all".
  Mr. Galbraith: There may be one or two exceptions, but as a party and as a Government they introduced the charges in 1951. They took the first step, and this Bill, therefore, introduces no new principle. All it does is to adjust the charges and take account of the increased cost.
  When the charges for dentures were first introduced, in 1951, they represented about half the fees payable to dentists for false teeth, that is about 50 per cent. of the cost to the Health Service. By 1960, however, the percentage of the denture bill which was met by the charges had fallen from 50 per cent. to about 43 per cent.——
  Mr. William Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I understood that on the Third Reading of the Bill we were limited to what was in the Bill. I should like to direct your

  1425
  attention to, and ask your advice on, the speech of the hon. Gentleman, who has not yet mentioned what is in the Bill but has given reasons for the rise, which, I should have thought, was relevant to a Second Reading debate, but not to the Third Reading debate.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): The hon. Gentleman's understanding is correct, but I take it that the Minister will very quickly come within the strict confines of a Third Reading speech.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It will not have escaped your notice that the point is of considerable importance, because if, in moving the Third Reading of the Bill, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to attack what the Labour Government did in 1951, presumably, during the rest of the debate, some of us will be entitled to defend them. As the Bill does not deal with 1951, but with 1961, it would seem that that could not be in order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hope that the House will not go very much further than is appropriate during a Third Reading debate.
  Mr. Galbraith: I was trying to give reasons for what was in the Bill. If I have gone beyond the mark, I apologise.
  The revised charges now proposed in the Bill merely restore the position to what hon. Gentlemen opposite thought was fair in 1951, that is, back to 50 per cent. of the relevant denture fees.
  There is no doubt that experience in Scotland as well as in England and Wales, has shown that the denture charge has encouraged a switch away from false teeth to the conservation of natural teeth. Indeed, the experience of the denture charge is a good example of the way in which it is possible to use charges as a means of developing this service and of guiding it along the right lines so that preventive dental treatment increases and people keep more of their own teeth longer. This is a tendency which I think we would all wish to encourage, and the charge will have just that effect.
  Sir Myer Galpern: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that dental practitioners were so mis-
  1426
  guided that they were extracting teeth solely for the purpose of getting the charges which would be payable by patients and by the Health Service rather than conserving teeth, and that this is the only method whereby we can get these dental practitioners to observe the purposes for which they are practising?
  Mr. Galbraith: If the hon. Gentleman will wait a minute he will see what I mean.
  For example, expenditure on false teeth in Scotland is now less than half what it was in 1950. On the other hand, expenditure on other forms of dental treatment is almost double what it was in that year.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has asked me to circulate his speech to the Young Unionists. Is he aware that the Young Unionists in my part of Scotland are dentists? How can I circulate that among dentists?
  Mr. Galbraith: I shall be delighted if the hon. Gentleman will circulate it. I am willing to take the risk that dentists may not appreciate everything that is contained in it—although I think that they will if they read the whole of it.
  As I was saying, it was explained to the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, during the Second Reading debate, that a substantial proportion of this increase is being used to provide preventive treatment for children. This form of development was not possible in 1951 because a major part of the resources of the general dental service, both in money and in dental manpower, was being used to provide false teeth. I hope that that answers the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.
  In the light of past experience, therefore, the Government are confident that the modest—I stress that word again—increases in the denture charges proposed in the Bill will serve to continue to place the emphasis on dental treatment rather than on the provision of false teeth, that is. on prevention rather than cure.
  Turning to glasses——
  Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: As on three or four occasions the Minister has emphasised the modesty of the charges, is that the virtue which he is emphasising in the Bill?

  1427
  Are we to understand that the more modest the charges the more he can commend it to the House?
  Mr. Galbraith: I am merely pointing out that the charges are modest. The hon. and learned Gentleman may draw what conclusion he wishes.
  It is the view of the Government that it is perfectly reasonable that the charge of 10s. per lens, introduced in 1951 should, ten years later, be brought more into line with current costs. The introduction of the special charge for bifocal lenses is a reflection of the fact that these lenses serve the purpose of two ordinary pairs of glasses for which, at present, an applicant would have to pay separate charges. In themselves, bifocal glasses are often more convenient and there seems no reason why someone who chooses bifocals should pay only half the charge that a person having two pairs of glasses has to meet.
  There is one feature of the Bill which the Opposition have welcomed, not very loudly perhaps, but still it has been welcomed——
  Dr. Stross: Was the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber when the Minister of Transport came in and gave us evidence of all the arguments we used against this extra charge on bifocals?
  Mr. Galbraith: I do not think that the action of the Minister of Transport necessarily proved what the hon. Gentleman seeks to suggest that it did prove.
  Mr. William Hamilton: If it is a logical argument that one ought to pay double for bifocals, what would be the charge for a monocle?
  Mr. Galbraith: I must confess that I do not know the answer to that question, but I will try to find out and I will write a letter to the hon. Gentleman.
  As I was saying, there are two exemptions provided in the Bill for free service to priority classes which I think the Opposition have welcomed. These exemptions are in Clause 1. They enable expectant and nursing mothers and school children to obtain free dentures, and they also enable children over 10 years of age, so long as they remain at school, to have free lenses in the Health Service frame of their choice,
  1428
  that is, any frame in the complete Health Service range.
  There were many eloquent speeches during the Committee stage on the provisions in Clause 2 of the Bill relating to the future variation of charges for dental and optical appliances and dental treatment, and I should like to restate the purpose of these provisions so as to prevent any misunderstanding. They are intended merely to ensure that changes can be made in future in these charges in the same way as changes can be made in other Health Service charges. The powers sought can be used only to vary the amounts of the charges for dental or optical appliances or for dental treatment, or to alter the categories into which dentures or glasses, other than children's glasses, are divided for the purpose of the charges.
  The powers do not extend—I should like to emphasise this—to introducing new charges for any other services or appliances, or to varying the circumstances in which, or the categories of persons to whom, the charges apply. In other words, legislation will continue to be necessary for any extension of the charges to new appliances and for any variation in the exemptions from charges for dental or optical appliances or for dental treatment for which the Acts of 1951 and 1952 and the present Bill provide. I hope that this explanation may set at rest some of the doubts of hon. Members opposite.
  Throughout the discussions on the Bill, both in the House and in the Standing Committee, the Government have tried to take every opportunity of publicising the arrangements for the charges to be remitted in cases where they may cause financial hardship. Examples have been given by both my right hon. Friends to show the type of case which is eligible for remission. There are two points which I should like to bring out again to make sure that they are fully appreciated. There has, I think, been a mistaken impression in some quarters that remissions are available only to people who are already currently in receipt of regular National Assistance. In fact, remissions are available also to persons who are not currently receiving National Assistance, provided that they are in need according to the standards of the Board, and even if they are in full-time employment.

  1429
  Perhaps I should explain why I have used the words "remit" and "remission" rather than "refund". I have done so because the normal procedure is that where a patient is eligible the Board makes the payment to the dentist or optician direct. I hope that this further explanation will set at rest any doubts and will assure the country that, according to their need, people will get the financial help that is necessary.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: That will not satisfy the Young Unionists.
  Mr. Galbraith: I think that it will. At any rate, if the hon. Gentleman will circulate my speech, it will be interesting to see who is right. Perhaps he will put it to the test in that way——
  Mr. W. Hamilton: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt him again?
  Mr. Galbraith: No.
  In conclusion, I should like to say that in spite of the criticism that has been levelled against us over these charges, the Government are confident that in this Bill we are doing the right thing for the Health Service. We have a fine record of development over the last ten years—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"]—and it is a record of which we are justly proud. But it is one we intend to improve still further, and the Bill will help us to do just that. I therefore ask the House, in this forward-looking spirit, to give the Bill its Third Reading.
  Mr. W. Hamilton: Will the hon. Gentleman clear up one point which troubles me? Suppose a farmer, who is getting subsidies, has a prescription. Does he go to the National Assistance Board and tell the Board precisely how much subsidy he is getting so that the Board can decide whether he is in need of assistance, taking into account his subsidy? I think that we are entitled to an answer. There are farmers who may suffer from ill-health.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. K. Robinson: The House will have listened with interest to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who has broken a very long silence on this Bill. Having listened to him, hon. Members will have understood why he
  1430
  has been keen on maintaining silence hitherto.
  Mr. Anthony Kershaw: It was a very good speech.
  Mr. Robinson: I do not think that any of the arguments the hon. Gentleman put forward in support of the Third Reading of the Bill were any more convincing—indeed, they were far less convincing—than many of the arguments we have heard before.
  We have now come to the last stage of this miserable Bill. I am sure that I am speaking for all my hon. Friends when I say that nothing has happened in any stage of our discussions on the Bill to shake our conviction that this Measure is as unnecessary as it is undesirable. It is unnecessary because we simply cannot accept that at this stage there is any need for cutting the Exchequer contribution to the National Health Service. In previous debates we have quoted figures about these Health Service charges to show that the Service, by the only yardstick one can legitimately use, far from costing more, is not costing as much today as it was costing ten years ago.
  If anyone doubted the figures which my hon. Friends and I selected from official Government publications, there is a slightly different set of figures, producing precisely the same result, to be found in the first of two interesting articles which appeared in The Times a day or two ago. They were referred to during the Report stage by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George). Dr. D. S. Lees, quoting the gross current expenditure on the National Health Service in proportion to the gross national product, produces a figure of 4·19 per cent. for 1950. On exactly the same basis, on the Estimate for 1961 the figure is 4·14 per cent. So, despite the great expansion we have been told about by the Joint Under-Secretary, on these figures—as on any other sets of figures I have been able to discover—the National Health Service is costing a slightly smaler proportion of the gross national product than it was ten years ago.
  Now that the right hon. Gentleman has produced proposals for increased contributions and increased charges, the Exchequer contribution to the National

  1431
  Health Service is not slightly down, but very substantially down, on 1950. If one takes the Exchequer contribution, I think the figures that will be produced are 3·85 per cent. for 1950 and 3·22 per cent. for 1961 based on the Estimates. Surely, at a time when we are told that living standards are constantly rising, we should expect both an absolute and a relative rise in expenditure on the nation's health.
  That is exactly what has been happening, according to these articles, in the United States of America. There the majority of health expenditure is on a private basis. It is a matter of option to a very large extent how much people there spend on health, but in the United States total expenditure on medical care has risen from 4½ per cent. in 1949 to 5½ per cent. in 1959. That is an overall rise of about a quarter in ten years, when our expenditure in relative terms has fallen and when the Exchequer contribution to the Health Service has fallen by something approaching 20 per cent. in the same period.
  We simply cannot see that there is any argument at all for cuts in this Service, still less any argument for placing greater burdens upon the patients and those in need. This article, going on to draw analogies from the American experience, says that in Britain:
  "Over the past 10 years it has declined slightly and, at times in between, sharply. One of the assumptions underlining the Health Service is that, without it, people would not spend enough on medical care. On the contrary, it would seem that public expenditure is less than private expenditure in its place would have been."
  In this fact and these statistics lies the condemnation of the Government that they are in fact arranging that the nation spends less on health than, by all the evidence we have, it would have been spending if it were left to private individuals, as in the United States, to make their health payments themselves. The article winds up by saying that possibly the Government have different motives in this . Dr. Lees says:
  "Health services have little contribution to make to the growth of future output."
  I would cross swords with him there. I think that he has under-estimated, and I am quite sure that the Minister and
  1432
  the Government have grossly underestimated, the positive dividends—even in economic terms—which the National Health Service brings in getting people back to work after they have been ill and keeping people in work who would fall ill if it were not for the Health Service looking after them. On the assumption that this is what the Government think, Dr. Lees says that no doubt there has been a deliberate restriction of the Health Service in order to release resources for more production-stimulating services and he quotes higher education.
  Dr. Lees concludes by saying:
  "But if this is now the raison d'etre of public health services, then as electors, taxpayers, and frustrated consumers, we have a right to be told."
  Before we part with the Bill, we should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman if that is the view of the Government, and to what extent there is a deliberate policy of cutting back expenditure on health for reasons of that kind.
  In earlier debates, the right hon. Gentleman has spoken a great deal about the alleged ceiling which was put on the Service by Sir Stafford Cripps. Of course, there never was a ceiling. Each year expenditure on the Health Service rose. It rose even in the year to which so much reference has been made when charges for teeth and spectacles were imposed for the first time. The published figures we have today suggest that this Government have now put a ceiling on the Health Service. We should like to know whether that is so.
  Net Government expenditure on the Health Service for the coming year is £600 million. Six hundred million pounds is the total expenditure on the Health Service for the year now expiring if one ignores the once-for-all payment of £31 million in respect of the backdated salary increases for doctors. It may be purely a coincidence that these two amounts are almost exactly £600 million, but is looks very much as if a ceiling figure has been put on to the Service. If so, we should like to know for how long this is to be. For how long are we to have a series of additional charges and increased contributions if the gross expenditure of the National Health Service continues to increase as it should?

  1433
  Perhaps I may now sum up this part of our argument. We feel that no case whatever has been made for the raising of £2·6 million under this Bill. We fear that the right hon. Gentleman, like Oliver Twist, is coming back to ask for more, and that it will be all too easy for him to do so. All he needs to do is to table a Regulation and all we as an Opposition will be able to do is to pray against it after 10 o'clock at night. So much for the necessity, or alleged necessity, of this Measure.
  We think that it is undesirable and that is by far the greater burden of our complaint against the Bill, because we think that, far from erecting new barriers, the existing financial barriers between the patient and the treatment he needs should be demolished. When talking about the charges imposed by a Labour Government in totally different circumstances, Ministers might at least acknowledge from time to time that it is clearly and emphatically the Labour Party's policy now to revert to a Health Service which is free to the patient and to the abolition of all health charges. That is our policy, and we have made it abundantly clear.
  The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have made much play of the fact that these are only small increases. As has been said, it is easy to select a particular increase and to say, "This is only half-a-crown. It represents only a packet of "Players". The fact is that the Measures taken together will place an additional burden of £65 million on the public in a year. Under this Bill it is between £2½ million and £3 million. As we have said again and again, and as we should repeat, we believe that this will cause hardship.
  The right hon. Gentleman counters by saying that any hardship which might be accidentally imposed by these Measures can be looked after quite satisfactorily by reason of the arrangements for National Assistance Board refunds, or remissions, to use the word used by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman has been under some embarrassment on this, because many of the arguments which we have used against the principle of imposing charges and then leaving it to the National Assistance Board to alleviate them are arguments which he
  1434
  himself used with much eloquence in 1951.
  I will not weary the House with the quotations from the OFFICIAL REPORT of those debates, but the right hon. Gentleman is having to defend the very argument which he then attacked with some vehemence and at some length. He moved Amendments to that Bill which sought to take the National Assistance Board out of the picture, but now he says that the arrangements which he then condemned are all right because he happens to be the Minister.
  The right hon. Gentleman says that, because of this, there will be no hardship. In an earlier debate he gave us some hypothetical examples of people who would be entitled to a refund of the charges. He quoted figures for a man in full-time employment earning £9 5s. a week—I have forgotten the exact figures—with two children, and with a television set on hire purchase; in spite of, or perhaps because of, these things, this man, he said, would be entitled to refund.
  May I give a concrete example of a real couple who have been refused a refund of health charges? It is a couple of old-age pensioners, each 73 years of age. The total available weekly resources—and I am using the National Assistance Board's own figures—are £6 0s. 4d. per week for two people. The rent which they have to pay and their insurance premiums amount to £1 2s. 10d. a week, which leaves this couple with a net weekly income of £4 17s. 6d.
  They first made an application six months ago for a refund of the charge. At that time they had a bank balance of £40 4s. 7d. They have now made a further application for a refund, and in the interim the bank balance has been reduced to the pathetic sum of £3, such are their difficulties in trying to make ends meet. On both occasions they have been turned down flat by the National Assistance Board. They appealed, and the Board wrote in its submission, "The appellant is not in need of assistance". The husband has written to me to say that he will soon have to get out of his house because he can afford to keep it going no longer. He also wrote:
  "When you are 73 years and need treatment, you have paid insurance since away back in the Lloyd George days, you find yourself at

  1435
  our age having still to pay to get well. What a heartless mob! Hurry up and get back to power before the country is ruined."
  That is a concrete case of two old-age pensioners who, from what the Minister said earlier, one would expect automatically to get a refund, but apparently they are not entitled to it; it is assumed that £4 17s. 6d. a week net is quite sufficient to enable them to live and to pay their Health Service charges.
  Another impression which was given by the Minister, no doubt inadvertently but nevertheless given to many people, was that totally different arrangements exist for refund of charges from those which exist for entitlement to National Assistance benefit. I have here a reply which the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance gave me which makes it clear that precisely the same scales, disregards and allowances are applied in both types of case. The only difference is that a man in full-time employment can be entitled to a refund of a Health Service charge whereas he is not entitled to National Assistance, but, with that distinction, exactly the same scales apply.
  It is, therefore, true to say that in most cases, at any rate, of people who are not in receipt of National Assistance already, if they are entitled to a refund of a Health Service charge then they are probably entitled to National Assistance, too. This is why we have such pathetically small figures of refunds made by the National Assistance Board for the various types of Health Service charge to people who are not in receipt of National Assistance. I want to make it clear that I do not blame the National Assistance Board. We know that the Board's officers act humanely. But they have to act within a framework of inhuman regulations imposed on them by the Government.
  We are opposed to the Bill for all these reasons and also because of the profound ideological differences with relation to the Health Service which divide the two sides of the House. Hon. Members opposite do not believe in a Welfare State as we understand it; they believe in a means test State, and they are busy with the process of converting the Welfare State into a means test State, a State in which nobody receives
  1436
  any benefit as of right if he is capable of paying for it out of his own pocket. That is a concept which we reject utterly.
  I believe that it is out of this concept that this squalid Bill emerged. It is a Bill which extracts £2½ million out of the pockets of those whose teeth or eyesight is deficient. For all those reasons, we shall be happy to vote against the Third Reading.
  8.21 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I should like to join those who have expressed their pleasure in having been on the Committee on the Bill. My hon. Friends and I do not see the Bill in exactly the same light as do hon. Members opposite, but at any rate we have learned a great deal by the proceedings. On several occasions I was busy taking notes of many points made by hon. Members opposite, because from time to time we ranged wide on the Bill.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) said he was against all charges, and the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) has spoken about the severity of these charges and the hardship which is involved in them. Of all the charges which have been increased in these weeks, I think that these are the least onerous in their effect on the community. Despite protestations by hon. Members opposite, the Bill is just a fallow-up of the 1951 Act. As the cost of the Service has doubled, it is reasonable and fair that these charges should be increased.
  The Leader of the Opposition has on one or two occasions said that he did not himself impose the ceiling of £400 million which was fixed by the Labour Government in 1951. That is true. The ceiling was fixed by the late Sir Stafford Cripps. I have looked through the debates which took place then. I was interested to read what the Leader of the Opposition actually said about the ceiling and the charges. He said:
  "We decided that the Health Service estimates must be brought within a total of £400 million, which, for the time being, would have to be a ceiling."
  He said later in his speech:
  "The Government have, therefore, decided to introduce a modest charge in respect of dental work and optical services."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April, 1951; Vol. 486, cc. 851–2.]

  1437
  That was said by the present Leader of the Opposition. In 1951 he called the charges modest. That is why we say that they are still modest charges. In fact, the present Government's charges are even more modest.
  The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) has recently said that a vote is the proper way for a back Bencher to express his views and exercise his rights. In 1951 he opposed the charges. So did the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) and the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock). Although they were against the charges they did not vote against them. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, who now says that the right way to express a view is to vote, did not vote against the charges, although, he expressed a view on that occasion.
  We have had the Guillotine on the Bill. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite have said that we ought not to have introduced the Guillotine and that, by doing so, we have prevented discussion on the Bill. I have looked up the time-table for the 1951 Bill, on which there was no Guillotine. I discovered that it was introduced on 17th April, 1951.
  Mr. Loughlin: On a point of order. May I have your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? Is the question of the Guillotine in order on Third Reading?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is true that hon. Members should stick to what is in the Bill, but, in fact, the question of the Guillotine has been connected with the progress of earlier stages of the Bill and I do not think that a bare reference to it goes too far.
  Mr. Lewis: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The Second Reading of the 1951 Bill was on 24th April. The Committee stage was on 2nd May. The remaining stages were on 7th May. Therefore, it would appear that when the charges were first introduced by the Labour Government the opposers of the Government were not nearly so cross with them as they have been with us. There was no harrying. There was only some sort of apology that the charges had to be made. When the Labour Party has to do anything—whether it is putting charges on or increasing taxes—it says to the country, "This is hurting us more than it is hurting you".
  1438
  When we have to do it, we are told that we are sadists who are slashing the Health Service.
  It has been said many times during the discussions on the Bill that since 1951 wages have doubled and, consequently, these charges are in keeping with that situation. Hon. Members opposite object to the use of the average wage as a yardstick. But the basic wage of the lower paid wage earner—for example, the agricultural worker—has also almost doubled and his earnings have certainly doubled since 1951. If it was right for hon. Members opposite to impose these charges on the lower paid wage earner in 1951 then it is clearly not unreasonable for us to do so now.
  Mrs. Slater: Is the hon. Gentleman making the deduction that an agricultural worker will not suffer from the imposition of these charges because his wage has doubled and it is therefore adequate to pay these extra charges?
  Mr. Lewis: Compared with 1951, that is exactly what I am saying. Has it occurred to hon. Members opposite that one reason why the cost of teeth and spectacles has doubled is that the increased wages of the people who make spectacles and false teeth are included in this increase? Consequently, what is really being imposed upon the average wage earner of the country is part of the wages of his fellow workers.
  Dr. Stross: Does the hon. Gentleman admit that his argument, which I am following carefully, also demonstrates why the cost of the Health Service has increased until it has nearly doubled? It is because it is mainly wages.
  Mr. Lewis: I do not dispute that. I shall come to it in due course. Once it is agreed that the charges were right in the first place, it cannot be argued that it is not fair and reasonable that charges should continue to march forward with the increase in wages. Hon. Members cannot object to a marking time operation, which is all that this is.
  Mr. Loughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House the information on which he bases his estimate that wages in specific instances have doubled? For instance, can he give me the rates of wages applicable to grade 1 dental technicians in 1951 and at present?
  Mr. Lewis: No, I have not got exact figures.
  Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman does not know.
  Mr. Lewis: I was not, in fact, referring to these wages——
  Mr. Loughlin: He referred to the cost of teeth.
  Mr. Lewis: The hon. Gentleman must concede this. Although I do not have the particular details, it is obvious that the wages of dental technicians must have gone up in conformity with other wages, otherwise nobody would be working as a dental technician. He knows that very well.
  These charges are effective only two or three times in a lifetime. I understand that on Report the hon. Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) suggested that I was wrong in propounding this argument in Committee. In Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) spoke of having had about thirty pairs of glasses in his working life. I can only say that if that is the case, it has been a very expensive operation both for him and the National Health Service. As far as his money is concerned, the eyes have it——
  Dr. Stross: That was a little unfair. I was not on the National Health Service when I was ten years of age.
  Mr. Lewis: Hon. Members opposite know that people do not get spectacles and false teeth every year. Those who at any time find themselves in hardship can get these appliances through the National Assistance Board. I was rather surprised to hear the example quoted by the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North. I would not dispute his figures. I can only say that someone who had a much higher income than that recently saw me at one of my interviews and I was able to get him a refund. I therefore think that the hon. Member should advise the people concerned to make another application——
  Mr. K. Robinson: I will only repeat that this case went to appeal, and the National Assistance Board's refusal was then upheld.
  Mr. Lewis: I do not know the details of the income. All I am saying is that,
  1440
  without any appeal whatsoever, I was able to secure for an old-age pensioner, who had a job as well as the pension, a refund of prescription charges.
  Assuming that those in need get this assistance, who is it that cannot afford to pay the charge for spectacles and false teeth? Is it the Surtax payer? Are we to say that they should not pay these charges? I am sure that it would be perfectly reasonable to say that they might pay even more. Is it the well-paid manual worker—the steel worker, for example? During a debate the other day, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones), intervening in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster), said:
  "I should like to tell the hon. Gentleman that in the works in which I am employed the savings of the steel workers are the highest in the North-East of Great Britain. They already have every opportunity they wish to invest in a prosperous State, and are encouraged to do so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1961; Vol. 637, c. 643.]
  Are they unable to pay these charges? Of course they are not——
  Mr. Dempsey: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the West of Scotland there are thousands of steel workers on a three-day week? It is an utter impossibility for them to save such sums of money and, indeed, well-nigh impossible for them to meet these increased charges.
  Mr. Lewis: Well, if they are below a certain income level, they can get a refund. In any case, I am sure that they are on a three-day week for a very temporary period——
  Mr. Dempsey: No, for months at a time.
  Mr. Lewis: I think that in the present state of our industry they can look forward to having full employment fairly soon.
  Mr. Dempsey: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman comes to the west of Scotland and examines the position we have there.
  Mr. Lewis: I agree that there are certain less fortunate places, but the longer we keep this Government in office, expanding the economy and generally trying to help the underdeveloped areas, the sooner we shall get rid of that situation in which certain

  1441
  areas are suffering from rather higher unemployment than others. The fact remains that in 1951, the Leader of the Opposition said categorically that these charges were modest. These charges are modest today. They are in a quite different category from either the prescription charges or the increased contributions.
  When we were in Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central gave a rather amusing lesson on the Classics. It was all Greek to me, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister was able to translate it. He told us that Sophocles found himself at the age of 95 beyond the delights of love. The hon. Member said that while Sophocles knew the delights of love, he was wearing rose-coloured spectacles. I was wondering at the time whether the hon. Member hoped that we might be getting rose-coloured spectacles from the National Health Service.
  That is not really as far fetched as it sounds. Two or three days ago I cut out from the Evening Standard a report by its science correspondent, who said:
  "British scientists have found out how to make the world look a little better through spectacles by rose tinting the surface of the lenses. The new glasses let in more light and cut out almost all reflection inside and out. They can be ordered from any optician and cost about £1 extra."
  I want to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister whether he will look at this——
  Mr. T. Fraser: On a point of order. The hon. Member's reference to the speech in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) would seem to me to have little to do with the Third Reading. My hon. Friend was ruled out of order in Committee in raising the matter. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) has not only dealt with the speech which was out of order in Committee—and, therefore, is bound to be out of order on Third Reading—but is going on to deal with other rose-tinted spectacles, which certainly do not come within the provisions of the Bill.
  Dr. Stross: Further to that point of order. It is not quite true to say that I was ruled out of order. The Chairman of the Committee merely asked me what Sophocles would have thought about the Clause.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is always a danger, in making any quotation, that it may find itself leading whoever is making the speech rather too far from the exact subject of the debate.
  Mr. Lewis: I thought that I was in order, because it seemed to me that if a new type of spectacles is to be available at £1 extra we might know from my right hon. Friend the Minister whether they will be available through the Health Service.
  The trouble is that the Opposition have been looking at the Health Service through rose-coloured spectacles for a long time. Over the last ten years, the cost of the Service has doubled. I am in favour of the Health Service. I want to see it working, and working well. The most serious aspect is that the cost of the Service has doubled in the last ten years with too little new development. We have not had many new hospitals built. There has been inadequate development in geriatrics. We are only just starting the new developments in mental health, the Bill for which has been passed by the House.
  There is a great opportunity to expand the Service in future. The Minister has decided that, by getting more money in increased contributions and charges, he will have more finance available in order to expand the Service. There is no other way in which we can do it. Hon. Members opposite discovered this when they were in office, and they would discover it again if they were in office tomorrow.
  There is one great obligation on any Government. It is one which I had ingrained in me in my youth. I have always believed that Governments should first provide jobs for as many people as possible and that in doing this they should not be afraid to spend money.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that employment does not come within the Third Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. Lewis: I will do so, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am sorry if I have strayed a little. I was making the point that any Government, having done that as a first charge and having created a reasonably affluent society, should then try, as a second priority, to make available in the social sector services for those who

  1443
  need them and for those who happen to be not so well off. I would not mind a free Health Service, without any charges—prescription charges or anything else—for those who really needed it, even if it were a smaller Service and less all-embracing than it is now. There is a great danger of getting ourselves into a position in which, in seeking to help the lame dog over the stile, we so busy ourselves helping those who are not lame that they get over the stile leaving behind those who are lame.
  8.43 p.m.
  Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: I almost feel like apologising to my hon. Friends for speaking. I have been urged to my feet only by two appalling statements made by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis).
  First, he said that, because wages have been doubled—I do not agree that they have been doubled—the Health Service charges should also be doubled. This means that, when people have an increase in wages or any improvement in their standard of living, they must be pushed back to the position which they were in before they had the increase by imposing extra charges on them. In other words, this is the policy of keeping the oppressed permanently oppressed. We are bitterly opposed to this policy. We say that everyone should share in the development and the wealth of the community.
  The second point which the hon. Gentleman made was this. He reiterated the ridiculous argument which is always put from Conservative platforms that what we should do is to concentrate the available resources to alleviate the situation of the poor, and that the way to do that is to take the charges away from taxation, and to increase the contributions which are levied on the rich as well as on the poor. We have had that in all sort of ways. We were accustomed to it on family allowances. When contributions are made by members of the community generally, they can all take advantage of the insurance, or whatever it is, that those contributions afford. The poor have the advantage as well as the rich.
  The Government's policy, on the other hand, is to relieve the rich by concentrating exclusively on a means test to ensure
  1444
  that none but the very poorest who come within the limits of the means test receive any advantage at all. That, equally, we oppose as a policy. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Poor Law mentality."] The Poor Law mentality, as one of my hon. Friends says.
  My hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) referred to the possibility of a ceiling being imposed on the Health Service by the Government, and he cited the two significant figures, the £600 million in one year followed by £600 million in another year. As I understand it, what the Minister has been saying throughout our debates implies that the Government have placed a ceiling upon the Health Service, because his case has been that, in order to enable him to make some improvement in the Health Service at one place, he must exact from the Health Service at another place; in order, for instance, to do something about the hospitals, he must impose the charges provided for in this Bill.
  We want an answer, in the terms for which my hon. Friend pressed, to the question whether a ceiling has now been placed upon the Health Service. I hope that we shall have that answer from the Minister tonight. If his answer is that no ceiling has been placed on the Health Service, how can he say that it is only by means of these charges that he can obtain any money for making any improvement at all in any other part of the Service?
  Throughout the debates on the Bill, there have been references to what happened in 1951, as we all expected.
  Mr. W. A. Wilkins: Only to a part of it.
  Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Only to part, as my hon. Friend says, but, of course, we are not in the least surprised at that. We have been taunted by it all the way through. I say frankly that the imposition of those charges was a mistake, a mistake which I trust will never be repeated by any Labour Government. But, having made my position perfectly clear about that, I emphasise that the imposition of charges as a temporary measure in an extremely difficult economic situation is entirely different from the approach of the Government to the Health Service charges that are being imposed now.

  1445
  What was done in 1951 was done by the Labour Government as a temporary, exceptional Measure in exceptional circumstances. What the Government are doing here is nothing of the kind. They are erecting the charges into a permanent system of exaction which changes the whole nature of the Health Service itself. What this immensely significant Bill does—very significant when taken in conjunction with other matters, though not enormous in its figures—is to introduce an entirely new approach to the welfare services and an entirely new method of handling them. What we have here, in fact, is the fulfilment of the revolt in which the right hon. Gentleman participated three or four years ago.
  The importance of the Bill in principle—it is far more important in principle than in its detail—is twofold. First, it imposes at their moment of greatest need a tax upon those who are least able to bear it and it imposes this tax in relief of general taxation. So that this Measure, as I believe the Minister has frankly recognised, is not really a welfare Measure at all. It is, of course, a taxation Measure. It is nothing but a device for shifting from the richer members of the community on to the poorer members a tax which the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not himself wish to impose, and it is being done under cover of the Welfare State. This is a Treasury Bill and not a Ministry of Health Bill at all.
  The second significant thing about the Bill, and the second great element of principle involved in it, is that it is shifting the principle of the Health Service away from providing for everybody in the community a minimum standard of health and meeting the needs of all members of the community who require that service. It is moving from the conception of health as a welfare service in the interests of and available to the community as a whole to the conception of providing charitable relief for only the most needy in the community and after imposing a means test upon them. It is moving back from the whole principle of the Welfare State to the principle of the Poor Law State.
  It is because these principles are involved in the Bill that we on this side of the House feel so extremely strongly
  1446
  about it and have done everything in our power to oppose the Measure at every single stage. I hope that my hon. Friends will continue to press upon the Government and urge upon and make clear to the people this enormous and significant attack on the Welfare State and on the whole conception of welfare which we on this side of the House brought into the country in the years when we were in power.
  8.52 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Curran: I am very glad to follow in the debate the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas). His speech is exactly the sort of speech that a Tory has to challenge as soon as he hears it. The hon. and learned Member has made an attack on the Minister of Health which, in one way, I wish were true. I wish that what the hon. and learned Member was saying was accurate and that my right hon. Friend was seeking to reconstruct the Health Service radically. In fact, he is doing nothing of the kind. What he is doing is taking the Health Service as created by the Labour Party and making certain amendments in it to bring it up to date. But he is not making any essential difference in the basis of it.
  To present my right hon. Friend, as he has been presented throughout these debates, as plotting the overthrow of the Health Service and the downfall of the Welfare State as a malevolent mixture of Machiavelli and Mephistopheles is just nonsense. My right hon. Friend is doing none of these things. He is taking the Service as it is left and making it square with the economics of 1961. I wish that it were possible for us, and I hope that before we leave office it will be possible, to go further than this. I hope that this will be the last time that any Tory Government produces this kind of Bill.
  I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to the things which have been said by hon. Members opposite about the difficulties of the poor in obtaining access to the Service. I sympathise very warmly with these criticisms. The one factor in these proposals that disturbed me was how far it would be easy for people who are just above National Assistance level to obtain access to the Service. It is a matter on which I and

  1447
  many of my hon. Friends have felt anxiety. I hope that the administrative mechanism which is being provided to enable people who are hard up to get access to the Service will work well. If they do not work well there is at least one Tory Member who will be ready to say so and to criticise them.
  We must face the fact that, while we must do our utmost to look after the poor, the sick, the hard-up and people who cannot take care of themselves, there is not the smallest necessity in the England of the 1960s for running the Welfare State on the basis of distributing universal benefits, without reference to income, both to the poor and to the rich.
  I will forestall an intervention which I am sure is bound to come from the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) by telling the House that I am not advocatting a return to the Poor Law. I decline to descend into anecdotal emotionalism. I am not putting the case in those terms. I am not going to pretend that I was brought up in poverty, because I was not. It would be humbug if I talked as though I had been.
  Nevertheless, I come from men and women who came to this country as fugitives from Irish famine and with personal experience of the Poor Law and the workhouse. I have an inbuilt, inherited and ineradicable hatred for the Poor Law. That hatred is not peculiar to me or to one class or to one party. In our open, mobile society this inherited hatred is found at all social levels, and it is just as prevalent on this side of the House as it is on the other.
  It is also true not only of this country, but of the other side of the Atlantic. If it were relevant, it would be easy to show that this inherited hatred for the Poor Law and the Poor Law approach to poverty was characteristic of many of the men associated with President Roosevelt and the New Deal. Nor do I think that we need to dig very deep into the psychological luggage of President Kennedy to find it there.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is going far beyond the scope of a Third Reading speech.
  Mr. Curran: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I merely wanted to dispose of the assertion that, when I say that we should help people who need help and not the others, I am advocating a return to the Poor Law. It is not beyond our administrative ingenuity to find ways of seeing which people are poor and in need, and help them, without going back to the Poor Law and without introducing a degrading system of domestic inquisition in people's homes before they can get help.
  Mr. T. Fraser: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it possible for you to convey to the hon. Member that there is nothing in the Bill about ways and means of assisting the poor?
  Mr. Curran: Exactly. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) is taking the words from my mouth.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The point of order raised by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) was justified, and I invite the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) to try to keep his remarks within what is being discussed—that is, the Bill before the House.
  Mr. Curran: I will do my best to do that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. These charges are part of the framework of the Health Service which we inherited from the Labour Government. I believe that in the near future we must reconstruct the Welfare State in such a way that it will not be necessary to make this kind of charge in future, and I hope that this is the last time we shall introduce a Bill like this. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come to the Bill."] I have listened very attentively to a great many speeches from Members opposite.
  Mr. John Rankin: They were about the Bill.
  Mr. Curran: I have listened for hours to ritual caterwauling about this matter. Since I have listened to all this oratory, with Labour Member after Labour Member painting his face with rage about the Tory Party, I ask Members opposite to listen for once to a Member from this side of the House.
  Mr. Loughlin: I was enjoying the hon. Member's speech. Indeed, I enjoyed it the last time he made it. We want him

  1449
  to devote his attention to the Clauses in the Bill which ensure that those people who cannot afford to pay the charges should have provision to enable them to get prescriptions without having to pay the charges.
  Mr. Curran: I am saying that I am satisfied with the arrangements which the Minister has made for giving help to the marginal cases, not only the hard-up people who are getting National Assistance, but those who are just above that level. Those arrangements, I believe, will work well. I have carefully examined the arrangements which my right hon. Friend has made, and they seem to be capable of working well. Although I recognise the uneasiness which many people feel, I have satisfied myself that there does not seem to be any ground for that uneasiness. If it should turn out that I am wrong, I shall be very willing to come here and say so.
  Mr. Norman Dodds: But would the hon. Gentleman vote against the Government?
  Mr. Curran: I am not here in bond to anybody. If I believed that the Government were wrong, I would not vote for them.
  Mr. Dodds: Would the hon. Member vote against them?
  Mr. Curran: I would vote against them if I did. If I were to find that the arrangements which have been outlined for giving help to the marginal cases did not work properly, nothing would prevent me from saying so, both in the House and outside.
  I repeat that we have to look further than the Bill. We have to recognise that the Bill spotlights the urgent necessity for getting away from the concept of the Health Service as something which must be made available, without reference to income, to both the well-off and the hard-up. Sitting behind the benches opposite throughout these debates I have seen a long line of ghosts—the rich people who would benefit from the Socialist attack on the charges. If the Socialist Party has its way, and abolishes the charges, it is true that that would help the poor, but that is only half the truth, for it is also true that it would also help many people who are not poor. [Interruption.] The policy
  1450
  hon. Members opposite are advocating——
  Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman recognise that if, instead of charges, the costs were paid out of taxation by everyone according to his means, everyone would obviously be entitled to receive the benefits of the Health Service? Would not that effect precisely what the hon. Member has in mind?
  Mr. Curran: That interruption proves the point I was making. That is exactly the trouble. That illustrates the need for a radical reconstruction of the Service so that in future it will be possible to finance it differently.
  Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Out of taxation?
  Mr. Curran: If the hon. and learned Gentleman likes——
  Mr. Dodds: That is on the record.
  Mr. Curran: Let me finish my sentence. It will be possible to finance it out of taxation if free access to the Service is limited to the people who need help and not distributed to the others. That is exactly the point. Then we can finance it out of taxation——
  Hon. Members: Where is the line drawn?
  Mr. Curran: As it is——
  Mr. Dodds: The hon. Member is making the point, which he has made many times, about those just above the marginal line of assistance. Some of my hon. Friends asked him where he would draw the line. Does he not appreciate that there are many cases where a man has a good wage, his wife has bad health and has to spend 10s. a week on prescriptions, and that over and above that a home help is needed, and that all that expenditure is a terrible drain on a man who would not qualify for free access to the Health Service, as the hon. Members calls it? What would he do about cases of that kind?
  Mr. Curran: Of course there are cases—[Interruption.] Let me answer the question, which is very fair and which exactly illustrates how it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line. The line has to he drawn recognising that there will be hard cases needing special consideration, and the case which the hon.

  1451
  Member has cited is one of them. That shows the impossibility of arbitrarily deciding that anybody with an income of £X a week should not have free access to the Health Service. But it is surely not impossible to devise administrative methods of ensuring that people who need help and who can show that they need it will get it without difficulty, without, at the same time, supplying free of cost social services to Surtax payers, or to capital gains artists.
  I wonder that on the other side of the House there should be so much enthusiasm for the principle of supplying social services free of cost to the people who pay Surtax, to the people who make money on capital gains, to the people who live on expense accounts, to the people who draw top hat pensions. In our increasingly prosperous society there are more and more people who, by any method of assessment, do not need to be given free access to the Health Service. So long as we go on distributing these benefits without reference to need, we are putting the poor at the end of the queue. We are using to help the rich money which should go to help the poor.
  Mr. Dodds: It is the rich who are getting the farm subsidies.
  Mr. Thomas Swain: The hon. Member says that we have an increasingly prosperous society. Does he consider that we have an ever increasingly prosperous society when we have 7 million workers earning less than £10 a week? How does he reconcile the two statements?
  Mr. Curran: The two statements are not in conflict. It is true that in our society a great many people are well off, but it is also true that there are many who are not. Supposing what the hon. Members says is true——
  Mr. Swain: It is true.
  Mr. Curran: —it means that 20 per cent. of our population are hard up and we should help them generously. But why should we dispense to the other 80 per cent., who are not hard up, money which ought to go to the 20 per cent. who are? That is what the Labour Party will not face up to. Instead, it goes on with the old claptrap about the Poor Law.
  Mrs. Slater: This is just too bad. Does the hon. Member ever read Tory publications? Does he not realise that this is exactly the philosophy that the Tory Party is putting forward—that the time has come when we must apply the means test? If he does not believe that to be true, let him read the Bow Group pamphlet, page 69.
  Mr. Curran: It is not necessary, in order to concentrate help on the people who need it, to introduce a household means test. It is right to help the people who need it, but to say that we cannot distinguish between the well off and the hard up without the Poor Law is a complete non sequitur. We can do it by referance to Income Tax codings. We can say that people whose incomes are below a certain figure shall have automatic access to the social services, with no questions asked.
  Mr. Ross rose——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The debate is tending to range too widely. I hope that the hon. Member will bring his speech back to the Third Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. Curran: I ask the House to agree that the debates on the National Health Service to which we have listened for so many days and nights demonstrate conclusively the necessity for a new approach to the problem of helping people who are hard up, whether they require help from the Health Service or any other social service. We cannot go on distributing benefits universally. I should not think that it would be administratively difficult to provide that those people who need help shall receive it generously, without any question of domestic inquisition. I believe, further, that while we must do this, what we must also do in the long run is to get rid of poverty altogether.
  The ultimate purpose of Tory policy must be the abolition of poverty. So long as there are poor, however, we must concentrate upon helping them. But that is only a stop-gap; it is not a terminus. It is only a step along the path towards getting rid of poverty. That is the moral we must draw from the debate. At the moment, in our present state of society, we must have universal social security, but I want to see an England in which poverty has been abolished, in which everybody is well

  1453
  off, and universal social security is replaced by universal personal security. Until we have reached that stage we must take care of the hard-up, and I believe that the Bill does this inside the framework of the Health Service. I do not accept it with enthusiasm, but we inherited the Welfare State structure from the Socialists and we must do the best we can with it.
  I hope that before the next General Election, however, we shall be able to go much further towards getting rid of poverty and be able to concentrate all the help we can on the steadily diminishing minority who cannot take care of themselves.
  9.13 p.m.
  Dr. Stross: The Minister of Health now knows where to go for advice. He has heard it at great length tonight, as we all have. But if he ever goes there for advice he will not be the type of man I think he is. What did the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) tell us tonight, in the great spate of words he uttered? He said only two things. First, that in this small Bill there were only minor adjustments, bringing up to date the Health Service as the Minister had found it. He forgot to tell us that when the Tory Party took over the Health Service in 1951, only 8½ per cent. was being contributed directly by the public, whereas today the public contributes 20 per cent. This is the minor adjustment that is being made—the small effort required to bring the Health Service up to date—a mere bagatelle, a mere nothing.
  I shall refer to one other thing which the hon. Member said and then leave him alone, for I have better things to speak about. The hon. Gentleman made it clear in his advice to the Minister and to the House that what we need now is not the Health Service which we are discussing but two health services, one for the rich, for which they will pay when they need it, and the other a miserable health service open only to the poor, and that we should support only the latter. The hon. Gentleman made that clear at least twenty times.
  Mr. Curran: If I gave that impression, I misled the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps I might put it more plainly. Might I be allowed to clear that obscurity by a simple analogy? There are buses avail-
  1454
  able outside the House. Some people can use them without paying fares. Why should not we run a Health Service on the same lines as public transport—make it available to all, and to those who cannot pay make it free?
  Dr. Stross: The House heard the hon. Gentleman's speech and will judge what he said. I thought he suggested that we on this side of the House pandered to the rich and to the Surtax payer, and that we had some strange idea that we must support a free Health Service so that the rich could use it. That was sheer nonsense, and we do not want to hear it again.
  I would rather deal with the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who I thought opened in a most subtle and clever fashion by very properly paying a compliment to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) who has led us in these debates and during the Committee stage. If I disagreed with anything that followed, I certainly agreed with that part of the Minister's speech.
  The Minister then said that he had enjoyed the Committee stage, and he attempted to cause a rift on this side of the House between English, Welsh and Scottish comrades by using the technique of divide and rule. He suggested that the claymore was used in a somewhat ruffian-like fashion by Scottish hon. Members, and that they ought to take note of the way the rapier was used and the way in which English hon. Members had handled matters during the Committee stage.
  That was a charming compliment, but what did the hon. Gentleman go on to say? He said nothing convincing. He emphasised—and this is a typical Tory argument—that the Service is costing a great deal now, £867 million, and that the cost is still rising. Why did he not give us the facts so that they could be understood by people outside the House? When people outside the House are considering sums of money, whether it be the salary of a Member of Parliament at £1,000 a year, as it used to be—a vast fortune—or £1,300 a year—another vast fortune—or the £24,000 a year which Dr. Beeching is to receive, they look at the figure involved rather than what is left and what the money will buy.

  1455
  What is the cost of the Health Service? The Minister has given the figures. We know what they are, and however one computes them the truth is that in the first full year of the Health Service, in terms of a percentage of our national income, it cost more than it has done every year until this year. It was 3·8 per cent. in the first full year. That figure has been reached again only this year. In the intervening years it represented a lower proportion of the national income. The Minister said that next year the cost will represent 4 per cent. of the national income.
  Everybody knows that in every modern Western European country—and in the United States of America—where there is a highly industrialised population the cost of the health service in terms of the national income is between 4 and 4½ per cent. The percentage in Britain is lower than that in any other country. Therefore, there is plenty of room for improvement. The hon. Member for Uxbridge—I hope sincerely—said that he thought there was need for improvement and for the expenditure of more money. There were times during his speech when I thought he was trying to say that, and if so I agree with him.
  There is such a need for a number of reasons. One is that no one knows exactly how much we save by having a Health Service which is freely available. Before the war we used to estimate that there were about 800,000 people sick—that was before the war, with a smaller population than we have now—and that if we could cut this figure down and have, say, only 600,000 sick at any one time, there would be a great saving. I am not speaking of pain or suffering but from the point of view of the economy of the country.
  There is another way of looking at it. Before the war we used to try to estimate the cost of illness in terms of cash. We thought of it as a little over £300 million a year. That was the cost of ill health in terms of wages lost and what the country paid out, and so on. Now the figure would be about £1,000 million a year. That is an easy figure to remember. Anything that we can do by way of a universal, freely available Health Service, without charge at the time of use, whether to a Surtax payer, a prince
  1456
  of the blood or the poorest person in the country, is well worth while, not only on moral but on practical grounds. I apologise if I speak with some heat, but I was disturbed at hearing some of the things which were said by the hon. Member for Uxbridge.
  The Minister knows that we feel passionately about this matter and we accept that the right hon. Gentleman feels sincerely about his own point of view. We are locked in an ideological struggle. We cannot both be right; that is not possible. The right hon. Gentleman realises that things like deaf aids should be provided free because the cost of administering them by using a means test might be as great or greater—apart from the immorality of that course of conduct—as a charge for the appliances. This was always the view of the late Aneurin Bevan and I think he justified it and proved it to the hilt.
  I am sorry that the present Minister of Health was not a Member of this House in 1946, and did not take part in the Committee stage discussions on this subject at that time, because I know that he would have enjoyed doing so very much. It was a great privilege to listen to Aneurin Bevan arguing and to appreciate his attitude in these matters. I thought about this question for years and I tried to think about it even before 1946, during and before the war. In the early days before the war when I was in practice, I had practical experience of what the medical service was like. Then I had a liberty which doctors have not now; I could refuse to charge patients. I could give them medicine and appliances free. Indeed, many of us did.
  In order to be able to live, I made the rich pay for it—that is a proper social principle—and, of course, they paid for it and they did not mind. They asked me to give more of my time to them than I could give to the individual poor, but I gave my services to the poor for nothing if they could not pay. Doctors are prevented from doing that now, because the Minister imposes a charge. The imposition of a charge is wicked.
  Reference has been made to 1951 and the time of the Korean war, when we imposed charges, but they were regulated in such a way that they could be varied downwards but never upwards. When

  1457
  hon. Members make their speeches I cannot see why they should not tell the whole truth. I try to and my hon. Friends try to. We do not deny that we did wrong in 1951, but we have a perfect right to say that if what we did was evil, why do hon. Members opposite always praise that evil? If what we did was good in the rest of the Service in 1946, why was it decried by hon. Members opposite? Why did they vote and speak against it? They hated the Service. I believe that they still hate it.
  9.26 p.m.
  Mr. Kershaw: I heard with some degree of relief the remarks of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) when he said that both sides of the House are intent upon improving the Service. Both hold their own opinions sincerely on how that can be done. I think that sometimes in these debates we on this side have been rather led to think that the Socialists, through their determined, wild extravagance, indulged in for ideological reasons, wish to wreck the Health Service, while hon. Members opposite believe that the hard-faced, grim Tories also desire to wreck the Service.
  I think the hon. Member was led into an error in suggesting that, in fact, ideology itself separates us at present. I wonder how true that is. I know it is not particularly a recommendation to this side of the House for any policy to say that it is a policy formerly followed by the Socialist Government. I have never quite swallowed that. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), I rather hope that in future, at any rate, some further thinking about these things will become necessary, and indeed desirable.
  But certainly the argument that it has been done before is, if I may say so, a certain argument against the show of enthusiasm which the Opposition have maintained tonight and in other debates during the passage of this Bill. They get very hot now, and would have it that there was not a single hon. Member opposite, including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central, who did not at the time hate those charges in 1951 and drag himself with leaden feet through the Division Lobby. It is rather like Germany where one cannot find a Nazi now.
  1458
  I think the truth, as the Minister said in one of our debates is that in 1951 the Socialist Party "breached the principle" by imposing, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition the "modest charges" which they then imposed. The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) said that the circumstances were entirely different and that the charges were imposed only for a short time. Perhaps that was a Parliamentary device at the time in order to get unwilling hon. Members to vote for them.
  Mr. Walter Monslow rose——
  Mr. Kershaw: If I may finish this point, I shall then gladly give way to the hon. Member.
  The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East said that the financial circumstances were so very different that it was hardly fair to compare them with the circumstances of today. That came near to saying that the financial policies and economic incompetence of the Socialist Government landed them in a position in which they were quite unable to take any other action than that which they took.
  Mr. Monslow: The hon. Member must recognise that a number of us voted against the 1951 charges. In fairness to hon. Members on this side of the House, I should tell him that we also made it perfectly clear that, had we been returned in a subsequent election, we would have returned to a free Health Service.
  Mr. Kershaw: As I say, these are handy speeches to be able to make just before an election. The fact is that the charges were introduced. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central said that the Korean war was the reason for these charges. [HON. MEMBERS: "Was it not?"] I hear that echoed on the benches opposite. Nothing of the sort. The Korean war broke out three months after steps had been taken to increase the charges.
  Mr. T. Fraser: Surely the hon. Member is aware that these charges were introduced in the Budget of 1951 and that the Korean war started in July, 1950.
  Mr. Kershaw: It is clear that when the powers were taken Korea had nothing to do with it. One has only to look up the records.
  Mr. George Brown: The hon. Member has just accused us of inventing this argument about the Korean war. My hon. Friend has put to him the point that the Korean war started more than six months before the charges were imposed. Does he accept that? If he does, does it not destroy the point which he has tried to make?
  Mr. Kershaw: The right hon. Gentleman knows that that may be when the charges were imposed but the powers had been taken in legislation before then.
  Mr. K. Robinson: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong about that. The charges were introduced in a National Health Service Bill which arose out of the Budget of 1951. There were no powers to impose charges in respect of spectacles and dentures before that.
  Mr. Kershaw rose——
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Kershaw: I will withdraw, because I have not the facts in my mind, but I am certain that when I look them up in the Library I shall see the legislative reason. The charges were imposed, and however good or bad it may have been, it is clear that the ideological differences between the two sides of the House cannot be erected at this late date.
  It has been repeatedly said by hon. Members opposite that these charges will undermine the Health Service. The figures which my right hon. Friend gave in introducing the Bill are relevant and have not been repeated often enough. The Service which we are said to be undermining shows an increase in activity in every possible department. There has been an increase in the number of doctors, of dentists and of nurses, an increase in the number of buildings and in the number of patients who are treated. How can it possibly be said that a service which enjoys those advantages is being undermined by the Government which is administering it?
  The buildings which are necessary and which we all agree will become more
  1460
  necessary in the future are extremely expensive, but we must have them. These new buildings are the most expensive this country has ever had in the Health Service. We know that the new treatments for mental health will cost a great deal of money. The House is aware no doubt that 10 per cent. of the population of this country suffer from some mental breakdown at some time or another. One in twenty of the population of this country have at some time or another to go into a mental institution. Looking at the benches opposite, I would point out that three or four of the hon. Members opposite either have been, will be or at the moment should be in a mental institution, according to the average.
  Mr. W. Hamilton: Who let you out?
  Mr. T. Fraser: What about the hon. Member's side of the House?
  Mr. Kershaw: Surely it will be conceded that it is reasonable that this very large financial burden required for these buildings is such that we should lay the foundations not only in material but also in the financial sense. The Opposition say that if they are given the opportunity they will have a Health Service with no charges and presumably no contributions, although I am not sure about that.
  Mr. G. Brown: Why not?
  Mr. Kershaw: It is difficult to know what the Opposition's policy is. They have a policy now, but the closer we come to an election, perhaps the more likely it is that more sober counsels will prevail and they will realise that if the Health Service is to be financed entirely by the taxpayer it will be adding, for example, £270 million to the Bill this year, which is about 2s. 6d. on the Income Tax.
  Mr. T. Fraser: No, it is not.
  Mr. Kershaw: It is something very close to that. We shall see the usual gyrations of the Opposition. They will say that they will spend much more money on this, that and the other, but before the election they will also say that they do not propose to raise any taxes. This will be one of the hoops through which they usually go.
  Assuming that this meant a steep rise in Income Tax, it does not necessarily

  1461
  mean that in the eyes of the Opposition it is a drawback. I know that, but no doubt they will also consider the problem of inflation and the limit to which taxation can be allowed to rise. This is only one item to be added to taxation, as well as others which they have promised. They will consider how far they will be able to achieve their purposes by allowing inflation or starting an inflationary frame of mind in this country.
  The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) told us of one of the very sad cases which he always manages to have for these debates.
  Mr. G. Brown: There are many of them.
  Mr. Kershaw: They are very sad, but he always has a new one. Mathematically speaking, I can understand how the decision was arrived at in that case, but it must have left nobody very happy about the situation.
  What I object to about the hon. Gentleman's solution to the problem is that in order to relieve the poverty of that married couple who had 97s. 6d. a week he wishes to raise the pension of everybody else who does not need it. This would lead to the same difficulty which my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge mentioned. If everybody is relieved in order to get the couple about whom the hon. Gentleman talked on to a reasonable standard of living, the consequence would again be an inflationary one. That is the difficulty. Before long the couple, although they would have a higher mathematical income, would be in the same state of life as they are in today.
  The hon. Member crowned his argument on this point by saying that it was "the inhuman regulations" of this Government which condemned this couple to the position they are in. I wonder what adjectives the hon. Gentleman used in the days of his own Government to describe what they did to people in similar circumstances. It is rather difficult to imagine what adjectives he might have fallen back on when the retirement pension was 26s. a week and 30s. for some. That is where the Party opposite left it. What about their inhuman Regulations?
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: When the Labour Government increased retirement pensions from 10s. to 26s. a week, the
  1462
  late Lord Waverley, formerly Sir John Anderson, said in this House that it was too much and too hasty. Those were his words. He condemned us at the Dispatch Box for doing it.
  Mr. Kershaw: I am not responsible for what went on in those days. [Interruption.] I gather it is said that my party was responsible. My party has also been responsible for ensuring that pensioners have had a rise in real value of 20 per cent. above the condition in which they were left by the Labour Government. No one doubts that hon. Members of the party opposite have good hearts. They lack good heads. Their financial policy puts it out of their power to raise pensions to the degree they want.
  A certain amount of play has been made about the amount of public outcry and opposition which the Measure has caused. I have not come across any very sustained public opinion about it. I have received a number of letters from Socialist organisations in my constituency which have protested about it. I have asked them—I daresay I shall receive replies—whether they protested in exactly the same terms when the same sort of thing was done in 1951. I am certain that the answer, if I receive one, will be that they never thought to write to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  No one can have any particular enthusiasm for imposing charges which may fall upon those who are not well able to afford them. However, if this is the price which we have to pay for an extension and an expansion of the Health Service, for the extension of the buildings which we know are so necessary and for securing the future progress of the Health Service, this is a price which the House should pay, and that is progress which the House should purchase.
  Mr. Ross: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, will he say something about the Bill before the House?
  9.40 p.m.
  Mr. Dempsey: This is a very bad Bill, full of iniquity. It suggests that one method of raising about £2½ million should be a tax on dental sufferers and myopics, and it stigmatises our school children by asking them to wear metal-framed spectacles. That is the purport

  1463
  of the Bill, and those are the items on which the charges are being increased.
  After listening to the lamentable attempt by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to defend this Measure, one is impelled to comment on it. The hon. Gentleman did not seem to be so much delivering a speech as delivering a civil servant's monologue. There was no question of his making a statement from the Scottish point of view, or from his own, on this very important topic.
  The way in which he read his address reminded me of the delegate who, after listening to a speaker at a conference, rushed to the rostrum and said, "I object to that speech for three reasons: first of all, it was read; secondly, it was read very badly; thirdly, it was not worth reading at all." It is to that kind of speech that we have been treated this evening.
  The hon. Gentleman sought to defend, above all things, an improper, unfair and disproportionate tax on those suffering from an ailment of one kind or another, whether it be toothache or defective eyesight; and the arguments he used in justification of the increased charge for bifocal lenses were also unsound. I can assure the Government that no one wears spectacles, bifocal or any other type, for the pleasure of wearing them. Most of those who wear spectacles are unable to manage without them. The party opposite should remember that the cause of most of these troubles in inherited. Many of these people contracted ailments such as this from infant illness, and many now have defective eyesight as a result of malnutrition during the hungry 'thirties. Ministers should bear those factors in mind before they decide to impose these charges on millions of people who cannot very easily afford to pay for them.
  To say that these charges are vitally necessary in order to raise the money so much needed to continue our hospital building programme is nonsense. To suggest that, for that purpose, we should tax people who suffer from defective eyesight, is ludicrous. It might as well be said that we should also tax the deaf. The Government's approach to this problem is not sensible, logical or sound, and we did our very utmost to impress that
  1464
  on the Minister and on the Under-Secretary of State in Committee.
  What really surprised me was that the hon. Gentleman, in an interjection, referred to the fact that Scotland was being treated as a region—not as a country at all. It has no nationhood attached to it but is simply a region, like a corner of England and Wales. That statement was most regrettable. We understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland is the Minister of Health in Scotland, yet in Committee the Scottish Office stated that Scotland is merely a region. I am sure that the Unionists of Ayrshire will not enjoy that aspect of the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary. I should be delighted if my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emirys Hughes) would circularise that with the Joint Under-Secretary of State's speeches. Then, we would see how the Conservative Party treats such a nefarious reference to a country with such a proud nationhood as Scotland.
  I was hoping to refer to the cumbersome procedure in the Bill dealing with replacements. I am sorry that time does not permit me to do so. I should, however, like the Minister and the Joint Under-Secretary to consider this cumbersome procedure. According to the words of the Bill,
  "no charge shall be made under this section in respect of the replacement of dentures or lenses where the replacement is required in consequence of loss or damage".
  That Section from the 1951 Act is followed by a reference in the 1954 Act, in which the procedure is laid down for adjudicating on applications for replacements. I notice that the applicant may appear and give oral evidence why he has lost his teeth, or why a lens has jumped out from his glasses or some other incident has occurred. It seems fatuous for a person to attend a meeting of a committee, probably losing a day's work in doing so, to convince its members that he legitimately lost a lens from his spectacles. That is the sort of thing which is happening as a result of this cumbersome procedure in adjudicating upon questions of whether dentures have been kicked out or have fallen out. The Minister should examine this provision and modify it. He should make the procedure as simple as possible for persons who find themselves in such circumstances.

  1465
  I recall, for example, the wording about whether the replacement is necessitated by lack of care on the part of the applicant. Some very strange decisions are arrived at in this respect. A miner coming home from work late runs for his bus, misses it, falls and breaks his teeth. He claims that there was no negligence on his part, but, apparently, it was decided by some pearls of wisdom that he was careless in running for the bus, and he had therefore to pay for his dentures.
  Then, there was the lady who, leaving a shop with her basket of messages, ran into a pedal cycle, got a fright and, as a result, fell and broke one of her lenses. Some people might take the view that that was a legitimate accident. Others have taken another view and said that she should have more road safety sense, that she was careless and that the accident was due to her negligence, with the result that in addition to a tumble and shock for two or three days, she has had to meet the cost of the lens.
  One need only quote the case of the small child——
  Mr. Speaker: I have tried not to interrupt owing to the Allocation of Time Order, but I have great difficulty in understanding how I can allow the hon. Member to say this on Third Reading.
  Mr. T. Fraser: The reference is Clause 3 (2), Mr. Speaker. I assure you that my hon. Friend is one of the few hon. Members who have been in order during this Third Reading debate.
  Mr. Speaker: If that is so, then I am sorry. I have great difficulty in understanding what a lady hitting a bicycle has to do with the Third Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. Dempsey: I was referring to subsection (2) to which I tabled an Amendment and which refers to replacements of spectacles, dentures, etc., but I will leave that matter if the Minister says that he will consider the procedure.
  I want to say something about the attitude of the Minister towards those in need. In Committee we had a great harangue about how the National Assistance Board can assist persons in need. I have gone to the trouble of finding out how the Board will assist persons
  1466
  who are ineligible to receive National Assistance. The Board has issued a leaflet which deals with persons who are eligible and ineligible to receive National Assistance. Paragraph 7 of it states:
  "Other persons who cannot reasonably meet the charge from savings and whose available income, after paying rent and rates (or owner-occupier outgoings), is not very much above the standard in paragraph above will probably"—
  it is not definite; the word is "probably"—
  "be able to get a grant for part or all of the charge, depending on the charge and on the resources available."
  There is no assurance there that they will receive a refund. It merely states that they will probably do so.
  I went to the trouble of writing to my own area officer for amplification of this leaflet. This is what he said to me in a letter dated 20th March:
  "Broadly, assistance with these charges can be given to any person over the age of 16 years (including persons in full time work) who, after paying the full charge for himself, wife or children, will be left without enough to meet his needs as assessed by the Board. In deciding whether assistance can be given the usual disregards on capital and certain forms of income are applied and in the case of earnings the first 30s. plus half the next 20s. are disregarded."
  Let us consider some of the people who are regarded as being in full-time employment and who are likely to apply for a refund of the dental or ophthalmic charge. In the case of a husband and wife whose National Assistance allowance is 90s. with a rent allowance of 15s., if the husband is working his first 30s. is disregarded and half of the next 20s. is disregarded. The husband and wife are allowed to earn £7 5s. Beyond that they are required to pay the charge for the ophthalmic or dental appliance. A single person with a National Assistance rent allowance of 10s. is allowed to earn £5 10s. In what part of the country do the Ministers think that a single man who is working full-time is likely to be earning less than £5 10s. a week? Generally speaking, it means that any person who is gainfully employed in full-time employment will not be eligible for these refunds.
  It is morally wrong for the Minister to try to mislead the House on an issue of this nature. He attempted to do so

  1467
  in Committee. I hope that he will challenge my figures and contradict them if they are wrong. If he does not contradict them, he will be bound to apologise to hon. Members of the Committee for misleading them into believing that people in full-time employment, as a result of the application of the complicated system of disregards and calculations in the National Assistance Board, will be likely to receive relief if they are asked to meet any of these charges. I do not believe that they will.
  I have from the start opposed the Bill. It is interesting to note that even sections of the Press with a Conservative bias oppose the increased charges. It is interesting to note also that professional bodies condemn the Government. Indeed, most responsible organisations condemn the Government for introducing charges of this kind. Even the comedians in our music halls now are using the Minister as a butt to entertain the public. In a little sketch, as we call it in the North, or comic strip, as it is called down here, we see three of the Ministers, under different names, of course to prevent embarrassment, in which one of them receives dental treatment. He goes to the Assistance Board for his refund, and as he arrives at the Board's office, he is asked to raise his right hand and say either, "I have" or "I have not". He is then asked these questions?
  "Are you married, widowed, separated or divorced? Have you views of work or registering at the bureau? Have you any private income or money at the Co-op; And is your Granny's jumper red, white or blue?"
  That is what the National Health Service has been reduced to under the Tories. Our comics in our music halls North of the Border are using the Bill as a butt for fun. The Government have still time to retrieve themselves, to try to save their face. They have still time to show some respect if not for themselves then for the people who foolishly sent them here.
  This is an iniquitous Bill. I said in Committee that, as a result of the axing of the Service, the Minister would go down in history as the "Hatchet man". The Health Service is one of the most important services upon which humanity depends, and it has been axed severely. What worries me is that this may be
  1468
  the thin end of the wedge. No doubt, there will be further inroads into the Health Service unless there is sufficient agitation on the part of the Labour movement and the general public to reverse the Government's policies.
  It is surprising how often Reports are referred to and certain parts are selected and used by the Government while the rest is shelved. I paid close attention to the Guillebaud Report, but, after I heard the Minister, I was convinced that, from his point of view, it was like the proverbial curate's egg, good in parts, because he rejected many salient features of the Report which showed quite plainly that charges are a deterrent to people anxious to use the dental or ophthalmic services.
  The Bill is disgraceful in many respects. I sincerely believe that if the Minister and his party had promised the electors a Bill of this nature before the election, there might well have been a different result.
  The Tories intended to introduce a Bill of this nature but they deliberately concealed it from the electorate, and then took advantage of their majority to impose it on the country. The Bill shows that there is a difference between Tory promises on the one hand and Tory performance on the other. I hope that when we enter the Division Lobby we shall inaugurate a crusade which will not only reverse the iniquities of the Bill but also reverse the Government at the next election.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. T. Fraser: I should like to apologise to my hon. Friends, so many of whom would still like to contribute to the debate. I should have preferred to listen to them rather than cause them to listen to me. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland broke his silence on the Bill by moving the Third Reading. I thought that it was a disgraceful speech. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) has said, it was a speech well prepared in the office. The hon. Gentleman read every word of it and he did not read it very well, and, as my hon. Friend also said, it was hardly worth reading.
  The hon. Gentleman made some assertions in the course of his speech

  1469
  which he seemed to regard as declarations of great profundity. He said that he was hoping that he would have convinced hon. Members on this side of the House that there was justification for the Bill, but there was nothing that he said in his speech that had not been said time and time again during proceedings on the Bill, and, I should have thought, had been said much better. He made the same old case again that one has become accustomed to hear about the way in which, according to him, the amount of conservation treatment in the dentists' surgeries has increased and the demand for dentures has gone down, and he compared the "pick-up" of dentures and spectacles today with what it was in the early years of the Health Service.
  Surely the hon. Gentleman knows, or at least if he does not know, it is high time that he found out and convinced himself, that in 1948, when the Health Service was introduced, there were millions of people who had a great need for dentures and spectacles, but that until these things became freely available under the Health Service they had perforce to do without them. This is so obviously true, and must be known to any thinking person, that it is disgraceful that a Minister can make a speech and completely ignore the fact.
  It is not the imposition of charges alone, therefore, that has caused the rundown in demand. I admit that the charges will cause a diminution in demand. That is why they are wrong, but even if there had been no charges the number of our fellow-citizens who would be claiming false teeth today would be substantially less than the number immediately after the introduction of the Health Service. It may well be that the greater attention that has been given to dental health over the years, together with the improvement in the standard of living today compared with what it was in the inter-war years and the time before the First World War, has led to the decrease in demand.
  Many of the people who were in need of dentures in 1948 were people whose teeth had been decayed due to negligence and, in some cases, due to very serious malnutrition many years before. Therefore, one would expect that today, in more enlightened times than we had to endure under a Tory Government before
  1470
  the last war, the dental health of our people would be rather better. One would expect there to be an increase in the conservative work done in the dentists' surgeries, unless there is a time devoted purely to extraction and the fitting of false teeth.
  The reason for the run-down in the demand for false teeth is that we had the backlog which had to be satisfied in 1948, but that can hardly be applied to spectacles. The Minister cannot give the same evidence of conservative treatment to the eyes that he can of conservative treatment to teeth. But there has been a run-down in the demand for spectacles. Millions of people could not afford spectacles until they became freely available through the Health Service, and the Minister knows well that there are still hundreds of thousands who are discouraged from obtaining false teeth or spectacles because of existing charges, and who will be even more discouraged by the increased charges imposed by the Bill.
  The Minister has said time and again that the new total charges will be of the same ratio to total cost as were the charges imposed ten years ago. The Parliamentary Secretary made the same point today. She said it with charm and sweetness that were calculated to convince us that, because the ratio would be the same, that was the end of the argument.
  Do not the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary realise that we on this side of the House do not want any charges at all on the Health Service? The Labour Government introduced charges in 1951, but the Act giving effect to them provided for a limit of three years, and that Regulations could be introduced at any time before then to reduce the charges, but never to increase them. Thus, comparison between these proposals and what was done when the Korean War had been raging for nine months and when this country was in serious difficulties is not valid.
  I admit that we made a mistake in introducing charges in 1951. We were wrong, but at least we had the defence that we were involved in war and did not know how far it would spread. The country was getting into balance of payments difficulties because world prices were rising, and we were increasing taxation. Those were the circumstances in

  1471
  which charges were first imposed for a temporary period in 1951. It was wrong to impose them, even so.
  The Minister is often praised for his sincerity in this matter. How can he say that the justification for these charges is that they bear the same ratio to the total cost of the appliances as did the 1951 charges, and pretend that the Labour Government, in imposing those charges, meant them as a permanency? He knows that they were never intended to be a permanent feature of the Service.
  Th Minister has said, and it has been said on his behalf by others, that the money saved by these increases can be better spent in other sections of the Health Service, in other words, on hospital building. He may be convinced that it will be spent on hospital building, but no hon. Member on this side is so convinced. When we ask about hospital building we are always told that the building resources and the technical resources are not available.
  In any case, if this is a tax for the purpose of building hospitals, why is it imposed only on the people who need dentures and on those who need spectacles? Why is it not imposed on the millions of people who do not need dentures or spectacles, but who frequently need hospital services just the same? Why do those needing dentures and spectacles have to pay a bigger share of the cost of hospitals than others? Will the Minister tell us why there is to be that discrimination in the imposition of a tax on people who have the misfortune to need dentures or spectacles?
  Incidentally, during an earlier discussion the Minister justified the increased charge for bifocal lenses—I think that I have taken down his words fairly accurately—by saying that those who needed two pairs of spectacles instead of a pair of bifocal glasses should not be so severely penalised financially. Persons who decided to have two pairs of spectacles had to pay substantially more than those who could make do with a pair of bifocals and the Minister thought that the former should not be so severely penalised.
  The way to have corrected that would have been to have removed the severe penalty, but instead he also severely penalised the person who got a pair of
  1472
  bifocals. That is not a very logical process. We want the severe penalties removed altogether and not increased. It would have been easy for the Minister to have put the two on exactly the same basis and made the provision of these appliances free to all patients, as was the case when the Health Service was introduced in 1948.
  Those hon. Members opposite who have related their remarks to the Bill have said in the course of these discussions that these increases were the least objectionable of all the charges. It was very nice of them to say so. It is clear that they regard these increases as objectionable. If they are the least objectionable, they are objectionable. All the other charges are, therefore, more objectionable, but hon. Members opposite voted for all of them and tonight will vote for these increases. I cannot understand hon. Members opposite.
  Will the Minister consider the position of some of those who are most likely to be discouraged by the increases in the charges, those who are already strongly discouraged by the present charges? Leaving aside some of the other categories which have been mentioned, I return to that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), who spoke of the married woman, the mother who was not at work and who was not an insured person, the woman who was usually a middle-aged mother and who had brought up a large family and whose husband earned a small wage.
  Hon. Members on both sides who have "surgeries" know perfectly well from their experience that the person who is most likely to come to their "surgeries", toothless and without dentures, and who needs dentures, is the midle-aged mother. Her husband may be earning £9 or £10 a week, but be unable to find the £4 5s., now to be £5, needed to get her dentures. In many cases she will not be able to find the money out of her housekeeping to pay for them. There may be many other demands on her all too inadequate resources. Since she always puts herself at the end of the queue she will not be able to find £5 for dentures.
  It is the same type of person who is most likely to be without spectacles. She may not be able to ask the National

  1473
  Assistance Board to remit the cost of spectacles. If her husband has £9 or £10 a week she would not qualify, but if she cannot get the money required for the spectacles which she needs she goes without them. The Minister must know that himself.
  A lot has been said in these discussions about arranging for the Assistance Board to help the needy. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) made a long speech about it. He said that he would wait and see how these new arrangements would work out. There are no new arrangements at all. We are working under the arrangements that we have had for many years. They are not dealt with in the Bill. From that point of view, it may be out of order to discuss that, but I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. Member for Uxbridge did not discuss anything else.
  The case cited by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) is one known to all of us who pay attention to the complaints brought to us by our constituents and who believe that they should be getting some assistance from the Assistance Board for the charges imposed upon them, although they are not in receipt of National Assistance week by week. No hon. Member opposite would not justify the figures given by my hon. Friend in relation to the two people 73 years of age with a net spendable income fo £4 17s. 6d.
  No hon. Member opposite would have said that such a person should pay for his prescriptions or false teeth and spectacles. Hon. Members would say that they should get them gratis, or have the charges remitted, but under the so-called new arrangements these charges will not be remitted. Hon. Members opposite should clearly know that that is so, and if they knew they were deceiving themselves and were guilty of humbug.
  I must make way for the Minster.
  Hon. Members: Why?
  Mr. Fraser: I know that he has only 10 minutes in which to reply. I did not seek to curtail the debate. There is no one on this side who wanted to curtail discussion on the Bill. It was the Minister and his right hon. Friends who imposed the timetable. They decided that
  1474
  the Guillotine could fall at 10.30 tonight to terminate the discussion on the Bill.
  If the Minister has chopped his own head off and given himself less time than he desires he must not blame the Opposition. We have had to listen to a lot of nonsense from hon. Members opposite during this Third Reading debate. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) discussed the origin of these charges. He said it was three months before the Korean War started. He then submitted that he may have got things slightly wrong.
  Mr. Kershaw: No.
  Mr. Fraser: Hon. Members opposite must know by now that these charges were first introduced in the course of a Budget speech made in the spring of 1951. Provision was made for those charges in the Bill passed thereafter, in the summer of 1951, whereas the Korean War started in the summer of 1950. The Korean War started nine months before there was any intimation of charges being made under the Health Service. Those charges, when incorporated in the Bill that became the Act of 1951, were specifically limited to a period of three years.
  It is agreed that it was right to impose the charges at that time, and it is obviously wrong, and obviously humbug on the part of hon. Members opposite, to try to justify the present increases by relating them to what was done in 1951. In that year the Act was passed by a Labour Government which went into a General Election a few months later. [HON. MEMBERS: "And they lost."] Yes. We will not catch the Tories out that way. A few months after they got in in the General Election of 1951 we found that we had a Bill imposing additional charges on the Health Service. They did not tell us before the election that they would do that. They did it after the election.
  In 1955, they denied that they would introduce any kind of Rent Act, but within a few months of the election we had the Rent Act. In the last election there was no word of any increase in the charges on the Health Service, but we have had legislation doubling the prescription charges. All these actions are carried out immediately after an election or, as the Government expect,

  1475
  a good time before the next election. The electors may have forgotten what the Government have done, or may have other things on their minds, immediately before the next election takes place.
  This is a disgraceful little Bill. It increases charges where no increases are needed. The purpose of the Bill is to discourage people from going to dentists for dentures, or to opticians for spectacles. It disregards the fact that people would go for one or the other only if they were needed for the improvement or maintenance of their health. The Bill will succeed in discouraging many people from taking full advantage of the Health Service. It will be the poorest people—the people for whom the hon. Member for Uxbridge shed his crocodile tears this evening—who will suffer, and I hope that an increasing number of people outside the House will realise just what the Government are doing to the Welfare State which our people want and love so much.
  10.24 p.m.
  Mr. Powell: In the last ten years, during which the charges which the Bill increases have been in force, they have added to the money available for the National Health Service about £16 million or £17 million a year. They have resulted, in the General Dental Service, in the concentration of no less than half the total effort upon the priority classes and, for the rest, in a greatly increased concentration of dental work upon conservation. They have done this in circumstances in which no hardship has resulted to those concerned; in which no less than 20 per cent. of the total amount remitted through the National Assistance Board has been remitted to people who were not in regular receipt of National Assistance.
  These charges have been to the benefit of those whom we desire to benefit most—the priority classes—and they have strengthened the finance of the National Health Service. Hon. Members opposite prate about priorities. One sometimes wonders whether they know what that word means. My hon. Friend this afternoon pointed out the value of the exemptions which the Bill makes, and it was made a matter of scorn that the cost of those exemptions was only £250,000 or £300,000. What hon. Gentlemen cannot
  1476
  appreciate is that those exemptions are deliberately concentrated on the priority classes, so we are carrying on the good effect which these charges have had within the National Health Service in the last ten years.
  This is what my predecessor said almost exactly ten years ago:
  "… the decision to ask for authority to impose charges is not a tax on the Health Service; it is a readjustment within it"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 239.]
  It has been a readjustment in favour of precisely those to whom we most wish to bring the assistance of the National Health Service.
  We are, of course, conducting this debate upon a comparatively narrow financial basis. The sum involved is only about £3 million a year. Nevertheless, and this has been recognised on both sides of the House, there is an important principle involved although we are debating a narrow application. The principle is precisely that principle of priorities which the Guillebaud Committee in its study of these charges emphasised over and over again. It is a question of whether the yield of these charges can be better used by retaining them at their present level than by application elsewhere in the National Health Service.
  The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) referred to the rate of expansion of the Health Service. Although we are dealing with a sum of only £3 million, I think that it is pertinent to remind the House of the rate at which the gross expenditure upon this Service has been increasing. I will give the figures for the last four financial years. In 1958–59 it was £711 million; in 1959–60 it was £753 million. In the year now coming to an end it will be £807 million, and next year on the original estimate it will be £886 million, and that figure will represent a higher proportion of the national income than has ever been applied in this country to health services.
  I am coming now to the net figure because it is this figure—it is the Exchequer contribution—which controls the extent to which we are able to expand the Service. The net figures expanded by 6½ per cent. the year before last; last year by 8½ per cent.; and next year they will still. even after all these

  1477
  charges, be up by a further 3 per cent. Hon. Members on both sides of the House realise that given that there is a limit—and inevitably there must be a limit—to the net cost of the Service the extent to which we can go forward in the expansion of it depends on the sources of finance which we can obtain from elsewhere, and I challenge any hon. Member to say that it is more important, more in the interests of the National Health Service, more in the interests of
  the nation, that this sum of £3 million, or the sum of £65 million which emerges from all these changes, should be devoted to maintaining the status quo rather than to carrying forward the expansion of this Service.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 287, Noes 210.

  Division No. 130.

  AYES

  [10.30 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Deedes, W. F.

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Aitken, W. T.

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Allason, James

  Doughty, Charles

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Arbuthnot, John

  du Cann, Edward

  Jackson, John

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Duncan, Sir James

  James, David

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Duthie, Sir William

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Barber, Anthony

  Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

  Jennings, J. C.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Eden, John

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Barter, John

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Batsford, Brian

  Elliott, R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Emery, Peter

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Bell, Ronald

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Fisher, Nigel

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Bidgood, John C.

  Foster, John

  Kimball, Marcus

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Kitson, Timothy

  Bingham, R. M.

  Freeth, Denzil

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Lambton, Viscount

  Bishop, F. P.

  Gammans, Lady

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Gardner, Edward

  Langford-Holt, J.

  Box, Donald

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Leavey, J. A.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Braine, Bernard

  Godber, J. B.

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Brewis, John

  Goodhart, Philip

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Goodhew, Victor

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Brooman-White, R.

  Gough, Frederick

  Lindsay, Martin

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Gower, Raymond

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Bryan, Paul

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Bullard, Denys

  Green, Alan

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Burden, F. A.

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Buck, Antony

  Gurden, Harold

  McAdden, Stephen

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nalrn)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  MacArthur, Ian

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  McLaren, Martin

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

  Chataway, Christopher

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  MaoLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hay, John

  Maopherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Cole, Norman

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Maddan, Martin

  Cooper, A. E.

  Henderson, John (Cathoart)

  Maitland, Sir John

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Hendry, Forbes

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Hiley, Joseph

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Curdle, John

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Corfield, F. V.

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Marples, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Costaln, A. P.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Marshall, Douglas

  Coulson, J. M.

  Hobson, John

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Holland, Philip

  Mawby, Ray

  Critchley, Julian

  Hollingworth, John

  Maxwell-Hyslon. R, J.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Hopkins, Alan

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hornby, R. P.

  Mills, Stratton

  Cunningham, Knox

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Curran, Charles

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Morgan, William

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Morrison, John

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Dance, James

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Heave, Airey

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hulbert, Slr Norman

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Noble, Michael

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Roots, William

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Turner, Colin

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Russell, Ronald

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Sharples, Richard

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Shaw, M.

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Peel, John

  Shepherd, William

  Welder, David

  Percival, Ian

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  Walker, Peter

  Peyton, John

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Watts, James

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Speir, Rupert

  Webster, David

  Pout, Percivall

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Stewart, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Whitelaw, William

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Stodart, J. A.

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Talbot, John E.

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Pym, Francis

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Ramsden, James

  Teeling, William

  Woollam, John

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Temple, John M.

  Worsley, Marcus

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Rees, Hugh

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Renton, David

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Mr. Edward Wakefield and

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Colonel J. H. Harrison.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Fernyhough, E.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Finch, Harold

  King, Dr. Horace

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Fitch, Alan

  Lawson, George

  Awbery, Stan

  Fletcher, Eric

  Ledger, Ron

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Beaney, Alan

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Bence, Cyril (DunbartonShire, E.)

  Forman, J. C.

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Benson, Sir George

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Blackburn, F.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Blyton, William

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Lipton, Marcus

  Boardman, H.

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

  Ginsburg, David

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Bowles, Frank

  Gourley, Harry

  McCann, John

  Boyden, James

  Greenwood, Anthony

  MacColl, James

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Grey, Charles

  McInnes, James

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Gunter, Ray

  McLeavy, Frank

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Chapman, Donald

  Hannan, William

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Chetwynd, George

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Manuel, A. C.

  Cliffe, Michael

  Hayman, F. H.

  Mapp, Charles

  Collick, Percy

  Healey, Denis

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Marsh, Richard

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hewitson, Cant. M.

  Mason, Roy

  Crosland, Anthony

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Holman, Percy

  Mellish, R. J.

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Holt, Arthur

  Mendelson, J.J

  Darling, George

  Houghton, Douglas

  Milne, Edward J.

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Howell, Charles A.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Hoy, James H.

  Monslow, Walter

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Hughes, Sledwyn (Anglesey)

  Moody, A. S.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Morris, John

  Deer, George

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Moyle, Arthur

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hunter, A. E.

  Malley, Frederick

  Delargy, Hugh

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Dempsey, James

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Oram, A. E.

  Diamond, John

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Oswald, Thomas

  Dodds, Norman

  Jeger, George

  Owen, Will

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Paget, R. T.

  Driberg, Tom

  Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Edelman, Maudice

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Parkin, B. T. (Paddington, N.)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Pearl, Frederick

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Kelley, Richard

  Pentland, Norman

  Evans, Albert

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  1480

  1481

  Poppiewell, Ernest

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Warbey, William

  Prentice, R. E.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Watkins, Tudor

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Weitzman, David

  Probert, Arthur

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Steele, Thomas

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Pursey, Cdr. Harry

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Randall, Harry

  Stonehouse, John

  Whitlock, William

  Rankin, John

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Redhead, E. C.

  Stross, DrBarnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Reid, William

  Swain, Thomas

  Willey, Frederick

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Swingler, Stephen

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Sylvester, George

  Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

  Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Ross, William

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Timmons, John

  Woof, Robert

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Tomney, Frank

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Wade, Donald

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Small, William

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Mr. Short and Mr. Irving.

  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  HOUSING [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to make further arrangements for the giving of financial assistance for the provision of housing accommodation, it is expedient to authorise payments out of the Consolidated Fund and out of money provided by Parliament, payments into the Exchequer, and the borrowing of money under the following heads.

  A.—

  (1) The payment out of money provided by Parliament of annual exchequer subsidies, or equivalent payments, in respect of every dwelling approved by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and provided by—

  (a) a local authority, or

  (b) a development corporation or the Commission for the New Towns, or

  (c) a housing association in pursuance of arrangements made with a local authority or the Minister.

  (2) The payment out of money provided by Parliament of annual exchequer subsidies, or equivalent payments, in respect of the site of any approved dwelling, where the cost of the site as developed exceeds four thousand pounds.

  B. The issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as may be required for the purpose of making advances not exceeding twenty-five million pounds to housing associations, providing housing accommodation for letting; and the borrowing in any manner authorised under the National Loans Act, 1939, and payment into the Exchequer of any money needed for providing or repaying such sums and the repayment into the Exchequer, with interest, of any such sums and their re-issue out of the Consolidated Fund.

  C. The payment out of money provided by Parliament of sums becoming so payable in consequence of amending existing enactments as follows.
  1482

  (1) The Town Development Act, 1952:

  (a) the raising of the maximum annual contribution payable by the Minister in respect of a dwelling provided in the course of town development;

  (b) the designation of development carried out wholly or partly in a county borough as town development and as development within section two of the Act of 1952.

  (2) The Housing Act. 1957:

  (a) the extension of the Minister's power to contribute to the expenses of a central association for housing associations;

  (b) the extension of section one hundred and seventy-five of the Act of 1957 regarding the Minister's default powers.

  (3) The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1958:

  (a) the extension of the definition of a hostel in respect of which contributions are payable by the Minister;

  (b) the extension of the Minister's power to make contributions for hostels so as to include hostels provided by housing associations under arrangements made with the Minister;

  (c) the relaxation of the requirements as to which a local authority must be satisfied before approving an application for an improvement grant;

  (d) the extension of the power to apply certain enactments to the Isles of Scilly so as to include power to apply the provisions of the said Act of the present Session.

  (4) The House Purchase and Housing Act, 1959:

  (a) the relaxation of the requirements as to which a local authority must be satisfied before approving an application for a standard grant;

  (b) the re-definition of standard amenities.

  (5) The New Towns Act, 1959:
  The raising of the limit on the annual grant for a dwelling provided by the Commission for the New Towns payable in addition to annual exchequer subsidies.

  1483

  D. The payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of this Session in—

  (a) the sums required by the Minister for making payments to local authorities under Part I of the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, and

  (b) the sums payable by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation
  1484
  Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland.

  E. The payment into the Exchequer of any sum received by the Minister by virtue of the said Act of this Session.

  Resolution agreed to.

  NATIONAL PARKS (AFFORESTATION)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]
  10.41 p.m.
  Mr. Edward du Cann: I am very glad tonight to have the opportunity of raising the question of afforestation in the National Parks areas, which to those who are concerned with amenity is a matter of national concern. It is a matter of special concern to the West Country where there are two National Parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and of particular interest to my constituency which includes 75 per cent. of Exmoor.
  I have one major point to make, which I shall make at the end of my speech, but, to lead up to it, I should like to describe the background of the matter. In the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, the use of any land for the purposes of agriculture and forestry is not deemed to involve development of the land. Proposals for afforestation, therefore, do not require planning permission. In the National Parks, of which there are ten in the United Kingdom, and especially in the National Parks of Dartmoor and Exmoor, the question of development of forestry has become a burning local issue.
  The Minister of the day, in moving the Second Reading of the 1947 Bill, said that agriculture and forestry would always be the paramount form of activity and that he thought it right that that, and that alone, should be emphasised. There can be no quarrel with that statement. I firmly and absolutely support it. Indeed, I have every admiration for all those who resist encroachments upon the main purposes of the National Park areas, but, since those words were spoken in this House, the situation has changed. In those days the only people locally interested in forestry were the members of the Forestry Commission, which, clearly, is subject to control by the Government, and local landowners, who have always done such magnificent work in their localities. Today, there are proposals for large-scale afforestation by syndicates and other organisations.
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  This has come as a shock to the people who live in these areas. They can see the whole character of their localities changing at the option of strangers. Yet only recently the question has become whether the control is satisfactory and they have been powerless to affect the situation.
  I say, in parentheses, that I have every sympathy for a landowner who wishes to resist additional forms of control. Goodness knows, we suffer today, even under a Conservative Government, from too many forms of control. None the less, I think that this is perhaps a situation where some form of control is necessary. The National Parks Commission thought so, also. It has spoken very strongly on this matter. To quote its eleventh Report, for the year ended 30th September, 1960, which was recently laid before this House:
  "With the park planning authorities concerned, we had already given much time and thought to the problem posed by such large-scale private afforestation schemes, and we were much encouraged by the spontaneous and widespread concern for the National Parks. As the law now stands, the planting of trees is outside planning control, and it seemed to us, so far as the afforestation of previously unplanted land was concerned, the only satisfactory safeguard was some form of control."
  They made representations to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and represented that it was a matter of real urgency that a form of control should be introduced.
  "We would not seek to maintain"—
  it says,
  "that the designation of a National Park implies prohibition of afforestation in the area"—
  nor would I say so—
  "nor that afforestation of necessity adversely affects the beauty of a landscape. But we do say that it is wrong in principle that it should be possible to change substantially the character of a landscape in a National Park, without affording those to whom the statutory responsibility of preserving the landscape has been entrusted any opportunity of considering the proposals."
  Those are certainly my views.
  "Indeed, we do not see how it is possible to reconcile the absence of control with the duty laid upon the planning authority and upon ourselves by Parliament to secure the fulfilment of the objectives of preserving and enhancing the natural beauty of National Parks and promoting their enjoyment by the public."
  These are very strong words and they reflect the very real concern in many of these areas and particularly, I would say,

  1487
  in and around my own constituency. I speak with experience in these matters. I have attended meetings of Exmoor bodies like the Exmoor Society and I have been astonished at the depth and intensity of feeling expressed by them.
  I fully recognise that development of industry, new industry the forestry industry, in my constituency, and possibly in other parts of the West Country, would bring certain benefits. I admire the spirit of enterprise of those who are concerned in this matter, but there are also demerits. I do not know, quite frankly, whether there is a sufficient demand for the timber which these forests are to produce. Indeed, I wonder, particularly in view of Britain's association with the European Free Trade Area, whether this is, in fact, a commercial proposition at all. However, it is not a matter for us to decide tonight. Let us accept, on the one hand, that there are benefits, and that, on the other—and this is the view of local people—there are also demerits in the development of large-scale afforestation in these areas.
  In a memorandum put out by the Standing Committee on National Parks of the Councils for the Preservation of Rural England and Wales, which contains many matters with which I agree and some with which I disagree, I say frankly to the House, these points are made, and I think that they sum up the case very clearly:
  "The blanketing out of open combes and hillsides by plantations of conifers, the construction of hard roads and bridges in furtherance of forestry operations, would completely change the character of the area."
  Most true.
  "The fenced-in plantations of conifers, with the destruction of the natural flora"—
  Again, this must be true.
  "and taken for forestry is land lost to agriculture".
  That, again, is true, and it seems ironical that this should be so in days when the Government with the support of Members on both sides of this House and representing hill areas are endeavouring to develop agriculture in those areas and spending a great deal of money on it. I know this to be so from my own experience:
  "Even the highest land on Exmoor provides summer grazing, and the Moor supports huge flocks of sheep, which provide plentiful meat and wool of a quality widely renowned."
  1488
  It goes on to talk of wild life, the ponies and deer which are a part of the area. There can be no question at all that were afforestation carried on on a very great scale all these traditional things would be affected and affected seriously.
  I feel that the truth of this matter is not black and white. I have never felt that. It is very largely grey. There are advantages and disadvantages and one has to balance them, but I feel that there are substantial misunderstandings in this matter. I do not believe that those who are in favour of this large-scale afforestation have presented their case adequately from the public relations point of view to the people living locally, and I think that it is not unreasonable that people living locally should resent on the whole the incursion by strangers into their area.
  If the House accepts it is right that there should be some form of control, that the local people should have a right to control development in their area, the question is: what sort of control should there be? I suggest that it should be control only by people living locally, with the normal right of appeal to the Minister and should apply only to hitherto unplanted land in the National Parks.
  I had proposed to bring in a Bill a short time ago to give effect to just such ideas. This plea for control should not be regarded as the thin end of the wedge for bringing agriculture fully under planning control. I should be very strongly opposed to that. This is a planning problem, and it is unique.
  The National Parks Commission and those of us who have been interested in the question have made representations to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on this matter over a period. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who has always listened to me with great courtesy, patience and understanding. In a Written Answer on 27th July, 1960, which appears in column 115 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, my hon. Friend said that discussions were taking place with the various interests concerned in the matter. At the end of January it reached.
  In answer to a Parliamentary Question was announced that agreement had been tabled by me we were given on 14th

  1489
  February a full description of the agreement, which I should like to go into. Paragraph 3 says:
  "In order to try to avoid conflict between the needs of forestry and the preservation and enhancement of natural beauty, the parties to this agreement"—
  they are the Timber Growers' Organisation, the Country Landowners' Association, the Forestry Commission and the National Parks Commission—
  "believe that the closest co-operation should be maintained between those concerned with afforestation and those responsible for accomplishing the purposes for which National Parks have been established."
  What could be better than that? It is an admirable statement of purpose.
  It is intended to have a survey to designate those areas upon which trees could be planted. It would also cover those areas which are perhaps not so likely to have trees planted upon them, and those areas which it is now quite unlikely will have trees planted upon them. It is a very sensible plan to get all the interests concerned together to discuss the matter.
  Paragraph 8 of the agreement says:
  "Pending the completion of the surveys, which must, of necessity, take a considerable time"—
  that is one of the troubles—
  "the Timber Growers' Organisation and the Country Landowners' Association will advise their members to consult the Park Planning Authorities about their afforestation proposals. Arrangements for such consultation will be made locally in each Park."
  So far, so good.
  Paragraph 7 contains this assurance:
  "In case of disagreement at any stage, the good offices of the Government Departments concerned will be available".
  The memorandum goes on to make clear, if it should be necessary, that these arrangements will not apply outside the National Parks, nor do I believe that it is necessary that they should.
  I can sum up my feeling on the question of the voluntary agreement as follows. As a matter of principle, I am strongly in favour of voluntary agreements as opposed to legislation. I believe that we suffer too much from legislation in the House and in the country as a whole. I have always believed that a voluntary agreement is infinitely better than legislation. I am most anxious to see the agreement working successfully.
  1490
  There are people who condemn the agreement. I believe it is quite wrong to do so until it has had an opportunity to work and been given a fair trial. I am anxious to see it improved, if possible, because failure will be at the cost of the National Parks and not at the cost of forestry. There is a tendency in some quarters to suggest that anyone who criticises the voluntary agreement is either trying to sabotage it, or is attacking the good faith of the parties. These are certainly not my aims or intentions, and I am sure the Minister and the House will accept my assurance on the point.
  I want to point out the following things tonight. The agreement provides only for consultation. There are no sanctions for ensuring agreement. This inevitably places planning authorities in the National Parks in a weak position when it comes to negotiation. Also, the agreement is limited in its scope. It applies only to members of the Country Landowners' Association, the Timber Growers' Organisation and the Forestry Commission, as I pointed out, and it has no effect at all upon non-members of those organisations, of whom, I believe, there are several who are actively interested; certainly, there are some who are active in my part of the world. Nor does it apply to those members, as I understand, who may choose, without breach of faith, not to take part in the scheme. I believe that those are serious demerits in the agreement, and I hope that the situation can be improved.
  The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) referred recently to a particular case which has arisen. The hon. Member has always taken a keen interest in the subject, and I congratulate him on his efforts. The local National Park Committee is firmly opposed to afforestation on a part of High House Moor, on Dartmoor, yet it is understood that the local developer intends to proceed with his plans nevertheless. That is most unsatisfactory. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will devote his attention to that matter and see whether, under paragraph 7 of the agreement, he can use his good offices to have matters put right.
  It is extremely important, if the agreement is to be a success, that we in the House of Commons—the Minister, in

  1491
  particular, and all of us who are interested in the subject—should express clearly and firmly our determination now to make it work. Otherwise, it will become a dead letter and irreparable harm will be done. The zoning proposals might be dangerous in the sense that, in the case of areas zoned, presumably, as suitable for afforestation, there will be no control, so it seems from the agreement, on the choice of species or on the landscaping of any planting schemes which may be undertaken. This, again, is something to which attention should be directed. If it is possible to improve the agreement in that respect, we should do so.
  I have made it clear, I hope, that I am a supporter of the agreement. I have made it clear, I hope, that I am most anxious to see it work. For myself—and I believe that I speak in this for many other hon. Members—I shall do all I can to see that it does work. I feel, however, that this point should be made. If the agreement does not work, what then? I hope that we shall tonight have an assurance from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary either that he would introduce legislation on the subject along the lines I have indicated or, alternatively, that he would support any attempt made by a private Member of the House, whether myself or anybody else, to do so. I very much hope that such legislation would not be opposed by the Government.
  I believe that the beauty of our country is a great heritage. In the National Parks and in other parts of the country, too, that great heritage is being preserved. I am most anxious to see it preserved. Hence my reason for raising the matter tonight, and my anxiety to make certain that we in the House of Commons do not permit a situation to arise which would have the effect, even in the slightest degree, of cutting across or impairing the tremendously valuable work which the National Parks Commission is doing to preserve that heritage for the future.
  10.58 p.m.
  Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: Everyone, I am sure, will wish properly to consider local opinion, particularly on the question of the landscape. I think that there is an important
  1492
  principle here which we must put in proportion. First, it should be remembered that, of all the countries of Europe, this country has the lowest forest area. Although our area is rising slightly, it is even smaller than that of the Low Countries. In its latest Report, the Forestry Commission says that it is at present short of its required reserve of land. In my view, therefore, we should hesitate before imposing or considering imposing a fresh control upon the use of land. Those closely connected with the land know that there are already a great many controls of one kind and another.
  Furthermore, the forestry industry, although very like agriculture in some ways, is very unlike in others. The crop takes so much longer to harvest, and does not get any fixed price at all. Marketing is proving a difficult problem, although 90 per cent. of all the timber requirements of this country are imported. Surely that is a matter of importance at a time when we are in difficulties with foreign exchange.
  Mr. F. H. Hayman: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that this debate is about National Parks, and that whatever may apply to the rest of the country, the National Parks should be preserved as parks in their natural aspects?
  Mr. Digby: I agree that they should be preserved. I cannot agree that trees are necessarily ugly or undesirable, and I would remind the hon. Gentleman that there was a time when there were far more trees in the country than at present. They were removed originally by the hand of man, and it does not follow that they should never be replaced. I would agree that there are some places, such as Exmoor and Dartmoor, where it is desirable to keep a lot of the existing features, but it is possible to exaggerate this point.
  I hope very much that it will be possible to stick to voluntary agreements in this matter. It is not in the interests of the National Parks, the national economy, or forestry to fix some new form of control on woodlands.
  11.1 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): The House has become used to balanced, cogent and

  1493
  sensible speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), and he has not disappointed us tonight.
  I hope that what he said, and what my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Digby) has said, together with what I am about to say, will be read widely, because there is no doubt that the strongest feelings are aroused by the subject of trees.
  I sometimes get the impression that one cannot really do the right thing when it comes to trees. If someone proposes to fell them, that is wrong, and if someone proposes to plant them, that is wrong, too. I was once tempted to go in for afforestation and I read right through a most impressive and interesting text book by Mr. Hiley, called, I think, "Woodland Management". But the whole thing seemed a bit more complex than I had anticipated, and I did not pursue my researches into activity.
  The amenity objections to commercial afforestation in National Parks are caused by two distinct sets of operations. The first is large-scale afforestation of open moorland, and that is what my hon. Friends have been discussing. The other is the substitution of coniferous for deciduous trees in existing woodlands. The conflict between the interests of amenity and commercial afforestation is by no means inevitable, even in National Parks.
  We all know that National Parks are wide areas of beautiful and relatively wild country, and the main object must be to preserve the characteristic beauty of their landscape. But another object is to improve the access and facilities for people to enjoy themselves in the open air, and we must remember, also, that these places are not museums. People live in them, and have to work in them. Afforestation, like farming, is part of the natural scene, and essential to the life of the parks and their people.
  Section 84 of the National Parks Act, 1949, requires the National Parks Commission and local planning authorities to have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry in exercising their functions under that Act. It is also true that agriculture and forestry are not "development", and so do not require planning permission.
  1494
  Tree preservation orders are a useful means of control over existing woodlands in the interests of amenity. But these orders do not stop decay, and they are not intended to be used to sterilise woodlands. Their object is to ensure good management of woods by controlled felling and natural regeneration or replanting in such a way as to reconcile the claims of amenity with the practice of good forestry, and so maintain the beauty of the countryside.
  Just over two years ago the forestry syndicates in the south-west first caused concern by buying existing woodlands in Dartmoor and Exmoor to put them on a commercial basis. This led to an outcry, possibly because it was feared that conifers would replace deciduous trees. Many of these woods, typical oak woods, had been neglected, and nothing short of early and drastic treatment can now save many from complete decay. It is understandable that timber growers wish to replant largely with softwoods for commercial reasons, but in fairness it should be pointed out that they have also undertaken the planting of hardwoods for amenity reasons, often at the price of less immediate benefit to themselves. Though they have not been obliged to make these concessions for the sake of the landscape, they have felt able to do so.
  Experience has shown that early consultation between timber growers and planning authorities can result in a solution reasonably acceptable to both sides. But, obviously, some concessions must be made. Whether one believes that trees improve the landscape or not, I am glad that my hon. Friend stressed that what we are dealing with here is basically that afforestation changes the landscape. Large-scale development of new forests in open moorland, or even small scale operations in some parts, may and do upset many people. But judicious planting need not conflict with amenities and may well enhance the beauty of the countryside.
  The problem has been under consideration by my right hon. Friend's Department, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Forestry Commission and the National Parks Commission, and there is now the voluntary agreement to which my hon. Friend referred. It was reached last month between the Timber Growers'

  1495
  Organisation, the Country Landowners' Association, the National Parks Commission and the Forestry Commission. The terms of the agreement, and the letter sent by the Secretary of the National Parks Commission recommending planning authorities to operate the scheme, were published in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 14th February last. The timber growers were asked to consult the planning authorities about plans for tree planting in national parks, and planning authorities were asked to survey the parks, dividing them into three categories.
  These were, first, where there is a strong presumption that afforestation will be acceptable; secondly, where although there is a presumption against afforestation, proposals might be acceptable; and, thirdly, where there is a strong presumption against afforestation. Even in areas where there is presumption in favour, consultation will still take place about the exact location of the planting and the details of the planting.
  My right hon. Friend is anxious that this voluntary scheme should be given a fair chance. The Devon County Council recently withdrew from its Private Bill, now before Parliament, a Clause seeking to control in the county afforestation operations in National Parks. After the Country Landowners' Association and the Timber Growers' Organisation had written to their local bodies, arrangements for local consultations are in process of being set up.
  My hon. Friend referred to a few landowners in those parts who are not members of that organisation, but we have no reason to fear that they will not, as individuals, comply with such agreements. Hon. Members will have received a copy of the memorandum to which my hon. Friend referred rather sceptically. Sir Herbert Griffin, Hon. Secretary of the Standing Committee which produced the memorandum, wrote a few weeks ago saying it was the hope of the Committee, despite scepticism, that the agreement would succeed. The purpose of the memorandum is to make a strong plea for statutory control over afforestation in National Parks, but the
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  parties to the agreement do not share the despondency of the Standing Committee. Discussions have been held through the Timber Growers' Organisation, and these will go on.
  My hon. Friend spoke of sanctions. I am not clear as to how a voluntary agreement would be improved by sanctions. If sanctions were provided it would cease to be voluntary. He asked about trees on High House Moor. Discussions are still proceeding between the proposed developers and the authorities.
  The spirit of co-operation that has already been shown by the production of the voluntary agreement, and by the way in which it has been received and implemented in the National Parks, gives cause for confidence that the scheme can be made to work. It should not be impossible, with common sense, to reconcile the claims of good forestry, the National Parks and the rights of landowners.
  What if the scheme fails? If that happens a new situation will have been created, and will have to be faced. Most people take the view that judicious planting of trees need not conflict with the duties under Section 5 of the National Parks Act, which is to preserve and enhance the beauty of the parks and promote their enjoyment by the public. Trees can be useful as well as beautiful. My right hon. Friend wants to give the scheme a fair trial and I hope that hon. Members will also want to see this done. Progress will be kept under careful review by the National Parks Commission and by my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. du Cann: Will my hon. Friend agree with me that it is important to make it clear that it is the wish of the House and of the Minister and himself that everybody, whether members of these organisations or not, should take part in this voluntary consultation at all times?
  Sir K. Joseph: That is the strong wish of my right hon. Friend.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past Eleven o'clock.