Commons Sitting of 17 April 1962

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ASSAY OFFICES BILL [Lords]
    LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
    Read a Second time and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    The Hartlepools
    Commander Kerensasked the President of the Board of Trade what urgent measures he proposes to take to alleviate the continuing rise in unemployment in The Hartlepools, which is now 6·3 per cent.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): My right hon. Friend will continue to use his powers under the Local Employment Act and the Town and Country Planning Act to encourage industrial development in the area. Several firms are known to be considering going to The Hartlepools or expanding there.
    Commander Kerans: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the figure of unemployment in The Hartlepools is now 6½ per cent. and has been rising in the last few months? Let us face the fact that very little appears to have been done. Is my hon. Friend further aware that the number of school leavers still increases, that we have a recession in the steel and shipping industries and that a still greater effort is needed by the Board of Trade to advertise and to do something to increase industrial activity in that area?
    Mr. Macpherson: I am glad to be stimulated by my hon. Friend to con-
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    tinuing well-doing. There are 950 jobs in prospect at present.
    Commander Kerans: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Shotguns and Air Pistols (Import from Japan)
    Commander Keransasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to prevent the import from Japan of shotguns and air pistols.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Sir Keith Joseph): Shotguns and air pistols may be imported without restriction from all sources outside the Eastern area and there are no grounds for preventing imports from Japan.
    Commander Kerans: Do we really need to import weapons from Japan, bearing in mind the very high increase in juvenile delinquency in this country at the moment? Is it really necessary to import these weapons, especially when some of them are not up to the standard of those manufactured in this country at the moment?
    Sir K. Joseph: I do not wish to quibble with my hon. and gallant Friend, but these are not weapons in the sense of needing a firearms certificate, and any question of safety would be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Our mutual trade is benefiting from the progressive liberalisation of trade between Japan and this country.

    North Staffordshire
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what recent action has been taken to introduce more diversified industry in the greater North Staffordshire area; to what extent such plans include use of the former Royal Ordnance factory site at Swynnerton; and if he will make a statement;
    (2) what are the prospects for increasing output and exports from industry in North Staffordshire; what recent applications have been made for

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    the extensions of factories within the City of Stoke-on-Trent; and what action has been taken.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: No special action is needed to bring new industry to North Staffordshire, where unemployment is lower than in many other places.
    The prospects for increasing output and exports, within the limits of the availability of labour are good. There are at present forty-eight projects involving new industrial building in North Staffordshire yet to be completed, and the Board of Trade continues to approve reasonable expansions by firms in the area.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: May I point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that the two Questions contain different issues and ought to have been settled differently? However, we will not quibble about that. Is the Minister aware that the city council has for many years placed at the disposal of industry large industrial estates that should be used, and if there are any proposed extensions for any factories in the area, will the Parliamentary Secretary give an undertaking that these industrial estates will be used?
    Mr. Macpherson: Of course, Stoke-on-Trent is not by any means alone in setting aside an area for industrial development. We shall look at each application strictly on its merits.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: What I am asking is whether, if there is a proposed extension to any industrial establishment in the city, the hon. Gentleman will give an undertaking that that extension will take place within the city or on one of these industrial estates?
    Mr. Macpherson: As far as extensions in the last year are concerned, the record is very considerable. Since 1st January, 1961, out of 24 applications for extensions 21 were approved. But I certainly could not give an undertaking that we would give approval in every case. That would be contrary to our responsibility under the Local Employment Act.

    Sulphate of Ammonia
    Sir C. Osborneasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that Imperial Chemical Industries is selling sulphate of ammonia to British compounders at £18 2s. 6d. per ton, and
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    charging farmers £20 a ton, but selling it abroad in big quantities at £12 a ton, and, in view of the fact that it is offered from abroad at £12 per ton, if he will rescind the import tariff of £4 a ton which has existed for over twenty years and the anti-dumping duty of £3 a ton introduced on 3rd March, 1962; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend is aware that producers of sulphate of ammonia in several countries make export sales below the price on their home markets. Such sales help to maintain production at an economically high level and make a contribution to overhead costs. It does not necessarily follow that producers could afford to make their domestic sales at the same price.
    Sir C. Osborne: That Answer will not do. The farmers get a subsidy of £8¾ a ton on their fertilisers, but I.C.I. charges them £8 a ton more for what they buy, so that £8 of the £8¾ go to I.C.I. and not to the farmers. The farmers ask why they should be blamed for the subsidy when it is I.C.I. which is being feather-bedded. Why will not my hon. Friend take off these duties?
    Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend must realise that the economic way to manufacture many materials is to run the plant at full capacity and, if home demand does not absorb the supply, to sell the surplus abroad. Cheaper sales abroad contribute to fixed costs and overheads and thus make a lower price possible at home. The price charged by I.C.I. at home is, according to the Report of the Monopolies Commission, not unduly high, and, since that Report, the price has been twice reduced. The farmer is, therefore, getting his supplies at only the economic price and is helped to buy them by the subsidy. I cannot agree to do what my hon. Friend asks.
    Sir C. Osborne: If I.C.I. is efficient, why does it want this double protection of £4 a ton and £3 a ton to protect it from international competition? If we as a party believe in competition, why should not it apply to I.C.I.?
    Sir K. Joseph: Most of our competitors also protect this supply. We have the evidence of the Monopolies Commission on the price charged by I.C.I., and,

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    since its Report, the price has been twice reduced.
    Mr. Darling: Can the hon. Gentleman give us a guarantee that the costs of production in I.C.I.'s figures bear some relation to the home price? Can he categorically state that LCI. is not exploiting the subsidy, as the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) suggested, in order to get money out of the Government?
    Sir K. Joseph: It would normally be difficult to give such a categorical assurance, but, in this case, in view of what is said in the Monopolies Commission's Report published in 1960 and two price reductions since then, I can give that categorical assurance.
    Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Since we rightly have anti-dumping legislation, is it not a matter for Government policy to ensure that we do the same thing ourselves and discourage dumping by our own firms?
    Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend surely is failing to take into account the fact that it is a benefit to consumers if goods are delivered cheaply to them if there are no home producers to defend. Many of the countries to which I.C.I. is exporting at a price below its home price do not have a sulphate of ammonia industry of their own.
    Mr. Jay: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether there is anything which LCI. could do of which the Government might disapprove?
    Sir C. Osborne: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of my hon. Friend's replies, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Imported Cotton Fabrics
    Mr. Fisherasked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent it is Government policy to allow imports of cotton fabrics from abroad to supply 60 per cent. of home requirements.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: About 35 per cent. of home consumption of cotton cloth is at present met by imports. It is not the Government's policy to prescribe what proportion of home requirements should be met from imports.
    Mr. Fisher: Can my hon. Friend say whether it is true that the United States percentage of foreign imports on sale there is, I understand, 5 or 6 per cent., as reported in the Press, and, in Europe, about 10 per cent.? Some reports even indicate that ours is about 60 per cent. as opposed to 35 per cent. If that is so, is such a wide discrepancy fair to the cotton industry in this country? If this trend continues, will there be a textile industry left in Britain in a few years' time?
    Mr. Macpherson: First. I think that the higher assessment ignores the amount of Lancashire cloth exported and the amount of grey cloth imported for processing and re-exporting. Secondly, I cannot answer for the United States Government, but I would confirm that their level of imports is very much lower than ours. However, they have no Commonwealth responsibilities comparable with ours
    Mr. Hale: Is not the hon. Gentleman's Question indicative of the oft-repeated fact that the industry is left in a state of complete uncertainty about Government policy? No one seems to be able to obtain any information about Government policy on cotton fabric importation. Will the hon. Gentleman look into the matter again and make a statement as soon as possible?
    Mr. Macpherson: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer which I gave last week to a supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) when I tried to make the present position as clear as I could.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the Cotton Board's figures about the importation of cotton goods and their increase? Is he aware that in 1953 we imported 36 million sq. yds. for retention in the home market. that by 1959 this figure was 371 million sq. yds. and that in 1961 it was 524 million sq. yds.? When the Government consider their responsibilities to the Commonwealth, will they remember that Lancashire is also part of the Commonwealth?
    Mr. Macpherson: We shall certainly remember that Lancashire is part of the

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    Commonwealth, and that is why I gave the hon. Gentleman the assurance which I give him last week.
    Mr. Fisherasked the President of the Board of Trade whether cotton fabric made abroad can, under his Regulations, be legitimately described as "Made in England" in United Kingdom shops.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: Imported cotton piece goods are subject to a Marking Order under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926. The Order prescribes that such goods must be marked with an Indication of origin at the time of importation and sale. Marking Orders do not, however, extend to goods which have undergone in the United Kingdom any process resulting in a substantial change in the goods. It is for the courts to decide whether such a change has taken place.
    Mr. Fisher: I am only a layman in these matters, but surely these goods are made either in England or abroad. Why should processes such as printing and dyeing be the decisive factor? Why should a machine assembled here from parts made abroad be ineligible for a "Made in England" tag whereas fabrics sewn on that machine can be described as "Made in England" although produced in Japan?
    Mr. Macpherson: These are questions of general definition. I have stated the position as laid down in the Merchandise Marks Act. I shall certainly consider what my hon. Friend said.

    Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire (Advance Factories)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now give details of his plans for the erection of advance factories in, and in the vicinity of, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend has no such plans at present.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that these areas have been shamefully neglected by the Government and that the history of his Department is littered with broken promises to look after them? In view of its failure to keep those promises, does not the
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    hon. Gentleman think that the President of the Board of Trade should give way to a Scottish President of a purely Scottish Board of Trade, with a Scottish staff with knowlege of the needs and potentialities of these districts so that something may be done for them?
    Mr. Macpherson: On the first part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary question, his constituency is fortunate in that its unemployment rate is not nearly as high as that of several other constituencies. When we consider further advance factories, I must tell the hon. and learned Member that I think it doubtful whether his constituency would be the first to qualify. I do not think that the second part of his supplementary question is a matter for me.

    Coal Industry
    Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the steel industry's desire to import United States coal, he will consider giving protection to the British coal industry, comparable to that given to the steel industry.
    Sir K. Joseph: The coal industry is at present protected by restrictions on imports.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does that mean that the steel industry will under no circumstances be allowed to bring American coal into this country even though it may produce a case, however shaky, that that coal would be cheaper? In years gone by, when the National Coal Board had to import American coal under its statutory obligations, it cost it about £70 million in losses, which were, in effect, a subsidy for the steel industry, among others, by the Board. Will the hon. Gentleman bear that in mind when any further application is made by the steel industry?
    Sir K. Joseph: Those matters are for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power, who has told the House that he is reviewing the whole position of the coal industry.

    Glenrothes
    Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the imminent closure of the

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    Rothes pit, he will now designate Glenrothes as a development district in accordance with the provisions of the Local Employment Act.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend is now considering this.
    Mr. Hamilton: How soon will the hon. Gentleman come to a decision? Is he aware that many miners in that part of the country are deeply anxious not only about the future prospects in their own industry, but also about getting alternative employment? Will he speed up a decision on this matter?
    Mr. Macpherson: We shall certainly speed it up as much as possible.

    Japan
    Mr. Snowasked the President of the Board of Trade the major outstanding matters which are holding up the conclusion of the current negotiations for the United Kingdom and Japan trade treaty; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: As my right hon. Friend informed the hon. Member on 27th March, he is not yet in a position to make a statement about these negotiations.

    Northern Region
    Mr. Pentlandasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will appoint an economic survey to study the potential economic and industrial strength of the Northern Region, and to recommend the short-term and long-term measures, respectively, which are needed to reduce unemployment and ensure continuing industrial growth.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: No, Sir.
    Mr. Pentland: Why not? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that great concern is being expressed in the Northern Region about the long-standing high rate of unemployment, the lack of employment opportunities for juveniles and the lack of any realistic industrial plan for the future? Surely, the Government can find a more suitable answer than the hon. Gentleman has given. Will he look further at my Question and accept what I am recommending in order to help the Government to face their responsibilities to this neglected part of the country?
    Mr. Macpherson: One reason is that in the past two years, two reports have been made by the North East Industrial and Development Association and I understand that another report is now to be launched by the North Eastern Development Council on roughly the same lines as the Toothill Report.

    Scrap Iron (Export Licences)
    Mr. Haleasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to renew the export licence system for scrap iron from the date of present expiry.
    Sir K. Joseph: A new open general licence comes into operation on the 26th April which will permit the export, with certain exceptions, of iron and steel scrap between 26th April and 25th July, 1962.
    Mr. Hale: Is it correct, as I am informed by my constituents, that since the licensing system came in, the price of this scrap has gone up by 20 per cent. to the grave detriment of local manufacturers, and that the increased exports have been offset completely by increased imports of manufactured products made from the iron? Is not this on the whole, therefore, a somewhat unfortunate procedure?
    Sir K. Joseph: I cannot answer all the hon. Member's questions, which really cover another subject, but I hope that he is not confusing the price of cast iron scrap, which has risen, which is in short supply and which is excluded from this licence to export.
    Mr. Cleaver: Is my hon. Friend aware that if this scrap is exported in the form of finished manufactured articles, it has a high convertibility ratio? Does he not consider it rather stupid to export this vital material very cheaply?
    Sir K. Joseph: The fact is that ferrous scrap is in surplus and the best market for it at present is abroad. It is cast iron scrap that is in short supply and we are not allowing it to be exported.
    Mr. Ridley: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that we can distinguish between cast iron scrap and steel scrap? My information is that cast iron scrap is going out of the country and forcing up the price at home.
    Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend is quite right in saying that it is difficult to distinguish. That is why, after consultation with the trade, scrap that contains up to 15 per cent. of cast iron is being allowed to be exported, so that individual exporters will not suffer penalties if they cannot distinguish small amounts of cast iron in general iron and steel scrap.

    Coatbridge and Airdrie
    Mr. Dempseyasked the President of the Board of Trade the total amount of grants given to industrialists willing to provide jobs in Coatbridge and Airdrie up to the latest convenient date.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: Up to the end of March, 1962, assistance amounting to £350,000 has been offered and accepted
    Mr. Dempsey: Is the Minister aware that I have deliberately asked to what extent grants have been given, quite apart from loans? Does he not realise that in this part of Lanarkshire, the unemployment figures are rising considerably and that one of the most effective manners in which to tackle this problem is to give industrialists who are willing to develop employment prospects in the area better financial inducements? I believe that grants are a much more effective financial inducement than loans. Will the Minister have another look at the matter?
    Mr. Macpherson: In the main, assistance is given by way of loan. It is only in special circumstances that grants are given.

    Crafts Centre, Hay Hill (Grant)
    Dr. Strossasked the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has for the further support of the Crafts Centre, Hay Hill: and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Ridleyasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement about the future of the Crafts Centre.
    Mr. Longdenasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will continue an annual grant to the Crafts Centre of Great Britain; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir L. Plummerasked the President of the Board of Trade his plans for improving the facilities offered by the Crafts Centre. Hay Hill.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: The grant has been paid to the Crafts Centre since 1948 to encourage the contribution of individual craftsmanship to the improvement of industrial design. My right hon. Friend has decided that the time has come to discontinue it. Accordingly the grant of £5,000 to the Crafts Centre will come to an end when the present lease of its premises at Hay Hill runs out at the end of the year. The grant of £750 to the Scottish Crafts Centre will be discontinued at the same time.
    Dr. Stross: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary feel embarrassed at having to give an Answer of that type? Is it possible that the Board of Trade believes that £5,000 a year is such a large sum that we can sacrifice a shop window for the best craftsmen in the country who show the best textiles, the best jewellery, the best pottery and the best furniture? What on earth will happen to us if industry has nowhere to go to improve its own designs generally? This is shameful.
    Mr. Macpherson: The Board of Trade has to consider the purpose for which we give the grant, which is to aid industrial design. We are certain that this is not the best way of giving the grant.
    Mr. Ridley: Does not my hon. Friend consider that the Crafts Centre should be linked with the Design Centre, having welcomed the fact that it has done good work in the past twelve years? What plans has he to bring about this marriage, which seems to me to be of the utmost importance?
    Mr. Macpherson: This has been considered, but, unfortunately, there is a shortage of accommodation at the Design Centre and considerable capital expenditure would be required. We have reason to doubt that this would be the way in which the Design Centre would itself spend the money if it were made available.
    Mr. Longden: Cannot my hon. Friend reconsider the matter inasmuch as he might decide to reduce the grant by

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    stages and not all in one fell swoop, so that the Centre could have time to make other arrangements? It would be preferable, of course, if it could make private arrangements.
    Mr. Macpherson: We have linked this matter with the ending of the present lease at Hay Hill. If, however, the Crafts Centre made such representations. we should consider them.
    Mr. Snow: Does the Minister realise that his statement this afternoon will be regarded as one more evidence of the Philistine attitude of the Government in matters of this sort? Is he aware that, whatever he may have said, the fact is that many industries receive their inspiration from the individual effort of individual craftsmen and that this decision of his is thoroughly unsatisfactory and not in the best interests of the country's industry?
    Mr. Macpherson: I am well aware that industries receive their inspiration from individual craftsmen. The situation has, however, changed entirely since we started to give this grant. Many more individual craftsmen are available to give instruction in the arts colleges, schools, and so on, and many more firms have their own individual craftsmen or designers with a craft background.
    Mr. Jay: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this is a decision of the Board of Trade or of the Treasury? As he says that he does not consider this the best way of achieving these objectives, can he tell us what he thinks is the best way?
    Mr. Macpherson: This is a decision of the Board of Trade, and, of course, the Treasury has been consulted.
    Mr. Jay: Will the Parliamentary Secretary answer the second part of my supplementary question: as he has decided that this is not the best way of achieving this aim, will he tell us what he thinks is the best way?
    Mr. Macpherson: The best way, as I have already indicated in reply to the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow), is the best use of craftsmen being made through instruction in arts colleges, and so on, and by individual designers with firms.
    Mr. Snow: In view of that reply from the Minister, I beg to give notice that I will try to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

    School Leavers, North-East Region
    Mr. Greyasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that for every 100 children leaving school there are now 571 jobs available in the London and South-East Region, and more than 1,000 jobs in the Midland region: whereas in the North-East region there are only 81 jobs available per 100 school leavers; and what steps are now being taken to provide more jobs in the North-East Region.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: Without accepting the hon. Member's figures, my right hon. Friend certainly agrees that there is a need in the North-East for more jobs for school leavers, and he will continue to do all he can to encourage further industrial development in areas of high and persistent unemployment there.
    Mr. Grey: That reply would sound all right if it meant anything, but I do not think that it does. Is the Minister aware of the disadvantage suffered by the North-East as compared with the Midlands and the Southern Regions concerning employment for youth? Does he not agree that it is a bit cock-eyed that regions like that can have a great advantage over other regions? Will he not do more about it?
    Mr. Macpherson: I do not think that it would be possible ever to give equal advantages to all regions. We very much realise the disadvantage under which this and other areas of high unemployment are placed, and we do our best to operate the Local Employment Act to help them.

    Anti-Dumping Duties
    Sir B. Jannerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will provide a list of the applications for antidumping duties which have been dealt with during the past two years, indicating which have been approved and which have been rejected; and whether, in the case of rejected applications, he will summarise the reasons why they were so rejected.
    Sir K. Joseph: Eighteen applications for anti-dumping duties have been dealt with since April, 1960. With permission, I will circulate a list in the OFFICIAL REPORT containing the information requested by the hon. Member.
    Sir B. Janner: Is the Minister aware that there is a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with regard to the rejected applications? Will the reply that he gives indicate clearly the grounds on which they were rejected?
    Sir K. Joseph: The grounds were announced at the time. Of the eighteen

    APPLICATION UNDER THE CUSTOMS DUTIES (DUMPING AND SUBSIDIES) ACT, 1957, DEALT WITH SINCE APRIL, 1960, TO DATE

    Commodity

    Result

    Ammonium Sulphate (Federal Republic of Germany and Belgium).

    Voluntary action taken

    …

    …

    April, 1960

    Sodium chlorate

    Duty imposed

    …

    …

    June, 1960

    Beaver lambskins

    Voluntary action taken

    …

    …

    June, 1960

    Ethanediol

    Rejected; no material injury

    …

    …

    August, 1960

    Rice Starch

    Voluntary action taken

    …

    …

    September, 1960

    Vinyl Acetate Monomer

    Withdrawn by the applicants

    …

    …

    December, 1960

    Oyster Shell Grit

    Withdrawn by the applicants

    …

    …

    December, 1960

    Eggs

    Rejected; no material injury

    …

    …

    April, 1961

    Barley

    Voluntary action taken

    …

    …

    July, 1961

    Corduroy

    Voluntary action taken

    …

    …

    July, 1961

    Dodecyl Benzene

    Rejected; no dumping

    …

    …

    August, 1961

    Nylon stockings

    Rejected; no dumping

    …

    …

    November, 1961

    Butter

    Voluntary action taken*

    …

    …

    November, 1961

    Dried Milk

    Rejected; no material injury

    …

    …

    December, 1961

    Middle Bacon

    Rejected; no material injury

    …

    …

    March, 1962

    Ammonium Sulphate (East Germany)

    Duty imposed

    …

    …

    March, 1962

    Bacon

    Rejected; no material injury

    …

    …

    March, 1962

    Cucumbers

    Rejected; no dumping

    …

    …

    April, 1962

    * An anti-dumping duty was imposed on 29th November, 1961, on butter imported from one supplier country, the Republic of Ireland, and withdrawn on 28th February, 1962.

    West Norfolk
    Mr. Bullardasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will facilitate the establishment of more industry in West Norfolk in view of the number of men likely to be seeking fresh employment as a result of the proposed partial closing down of the United States Air Force base at Sculthorpe.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend is prepared to grant industrial development certificates for suitable projects in the area.
    Mr. Bullard: Will my hon. Friend please bear in mind that it may be more desirable to have developments in nearby towns than on the actual site of
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    applications that have been made, eight have been rejected. That will put the matter in proportion.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the Minister aware that if he applied the antidumping duties sooner, particularly in the case of textiles, industry might be in better shape?
    Sir K. Joseph: I cannot accept that. We act as quickly as we possibly can. It always helps an industry if it will give us, where possible, advance notice of its thought of applying for a duty.
    Following is the list:
    the base and that people who are at present employed at the base could travel, for example, into King's Lynn, where much better facilities exist for the establishment of new industries than in the immediate neighbourhood of the base? Will he, therefore, consider the granting of industrial development certificates to industry in King's Lynn on the basis of the unemployment which is likely to be created by the closing down of Sculthorpe?
    Mr. Macpherson: It would be reasonable to consider the closeness of the work to the individuals who will be displaced. My information is that a large proportion of them come from places closer to Sculthorpe than King's Lynn.
    Mr. Hilton: I am pleased to hear that the Government are prepared to consider taking industry to that area, but will the hon. Gentleman realise that this is now a matter of some urgency? May I plead with him to take immediate action and not to wait until this large number of people become unemployed? The Government have recently become converted to the idea of planning and this is their opportunity to test it out. I hope that they will take immediate action.

    Peterlee
    Mr. Shinwellasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) why an industrial firm whose original intention was to promote development of its undertaking and employ several thousand men in the new town of Peterlee decided to switch to another part of County Durham; to what extent his Department was consulted; and what advice it gave to the firm;
    (2) what measures he has taken to encourage industrial firms to use the facilities of the new town of Peterlee for industrial development.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: The Board of Trade brings the facilities offered in all development districts in County Durham, including those in Peterlee, to the attention of firms which are considering settling in the County. I cannot say why a particular firm decides to go to one area rather than another.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of what has happened concerning this industry having switched over to another part of County Durham? While I have no desire to prevent industry from going to any other part of County Durham where there is excessive unemployment, may I ask whether there is any reason why the hopes of the citizens of Peterlee should have been frustrated by this switch? Does the Board of Trade know what has happened and has any advice been taken on the matter? Are we not to be considered at all?
    Mr. Macpherson: The Board of Trade normally shows more than one site to a company or an applicant for a site, and it is up to the company itself to decide between them.
    Mr. Shinwell: This area has been persistently neglected. Has the Board of Trade made up its mind that it will do nothing for the area? If so, why does not the hon. Gentleman tell us and not deceive us in this matter?
    Mr. Macpherson: There is no question of deceiving the right hon. Gentleman in this matter. The firm was taken to see the site in Peterlee and it was perfectly open to the firm to choose that site rather than the other.

    North British Locomotive Company, Glasgow
    Mr. Hannanasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the forthcoming complete closure of the North British Locomotive Company, Glasgow, and the consequent addition of 1,200 men to Scotland's existing unemployment; and what immediate steps he will take to provide employment in this area.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend is aware that if the proposal to wind up the North British Locomotive Company is accepted by the shareholders it will result in the discharge of a large number of workers. He will continue to steer industry to Clydeside, as to other areas of high unemployment. Assistance under the Local Employment Act is available for new industries or expansions of existing industries which will give rise to extra employment for the inhabitants of Glasgow.
    Mr. Hannan: Does the Parliamentary Secretary never get bored with reading out these complacent Answers? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Is he not aware that this world-famous locomotive works has closed down and that 5,000 men are now unemployed? What exceptional steps will he take to try to provide employment in this heavily populated industrial area where several other works have closed down in recent times? Does it not call for exceptional action, and what is he prepared to do about it?
    Mr. Macpherson: I do not accept that it calls for exceptional action. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Local Employment Act was designed to meet the needs of changing circumstances. We shall

    225
    continue to do our best, and if unemployment continues to increase in a place we shall do our best to steer more industry to that place. With regard to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, if hon. Members from different parts of the country ask the same type of Question, they are bound to get much the same Answer.
    Mr. Hirst: Is not my hon. Friend aware that much of the difficulty in this industry has been caused by the policy of the nationalised railways building their own stock, thereby denying the industry a basis for export? That is one of the major difficulties.
    Mr. Macpherson: That would be a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Cannot the Parliamentary Secretary just contradict what his hon. Friend has said?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. If the question was directed to the wrong Minister, it is no good directing the contradiction to the wrong Minister.

    Shale Oil Industry
    Mr. J. Hillasked the President of the Board of Trade in view of the decision of Scottish Oils Limited to close the shale mines in the Lothians and the fact that the building of the new town at Livingston is intended to attract more overspill workers from Glasgow than the total manpower to be employed in the British Motor Corporation factory at Bathgate what steps he is taking to provide new industries as a source of alternative employment for those workers at present employed in the shale oil industry.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: Having in mind the expected rate of recruitment for the 6,000 to 7,000 jobs now in prospect in the Bathgate area on the one hand and the expected rate of growth of Livingston on the other, there is good reason to hope that most of the men now working in the shale oil industry will succeed in finding employment with the firms developing in the area.
    Mr. Hill: The Minister has been telling us over the last two years about industries going to the Lothians. So far we have not had any. Is the Minister
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    aware that the adjacent colliery, employing 460 men, which is now being closed, supplied the shale oil industry with coal and that the 460 men displaced from this pit have been told that there will be no work unless they go to England? Surely it is time to get something done. In that area we get overspill from Glasgow. We are importing people from Glasgow and exporting people to England. Is it not time that something was done about it?
    Mr. Macpherson: One has to consider the actual employment in Bathgate amounting to 1,100 plus the unemployment likely to arise from the closure of the shale oil industry side by side with the 6,000 or 7,000 other jobs likely to arise in this area
    Mr. T. Fraser: Will the right hon. Gentleman realise that over 1,000 men—I repeat, men—are to become unemployed in the next few weeks in the shale oil industry, and that in consequence of this closure another 460 men will lose their jobs in mining in the same area, so that 1,500 men will lose their jobs in the next few weeks as a result of Government decisions? Can the Parliamentary Secretary still say that alternative employment will be available in this area? It is no good his saying that jobs are in prospect. When will they be available?
    Mr. Macpherson: The purpose of the Local Employment Act is to envisage high and persistent unemployment. I cannot say that there will be persistent unemployment in this area in view of the prospects.

    New Factories, Bishop Auckland
    Mr. Boydenasked the President of the Board of Trade how many new factories have been established on the west side of Bishop Auckland and within ten miles of the Market Place since the passing of the Local Employment Act; and how many more jobs have thereby been created.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: One, and one extension. Industrial development certificates have been issued for three other industrial buildings. The estimates by the firms concerned of the jobs to be created are confidential.
    Mr. Boyden: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that this is quite shocking? Unemployment in this area is 2,300, more than when the Local Employment Act was passed. Is he aware that a number of industrialists who come to the area want a building to go into? Why does he not build them an advance factory in this western part of Durham?
    Mr. Macpherson: If industrialists who go there want a building to go into, we shall provide it as quickly as possible.

    Scotland
    Mr. Willisasked the President of the Board of Trade what estimates he has made of the number of new jobs that will need to be (provided in Scotland during the next five years in order to reduce the rate of unemployment in Scotland to United Kingdom levels and stem the flow of labour to other parts of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: If everything else remained unaltered, the provision of sufficient jobs to take about 40,000 off the register of those now unemployed would bring the rate in Scotland down to the rate for Great Britain as a whole. It is not possible to forecast what changes will take place over the next five years.
    Mr. Willis: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that it is time the Government really got down to the problem of trying to assess the needs of Scotland in order that they may be able to measure their achievements against that assessment? They would then realise how far short of the needs of Scotland the achievement of the present Government really is.
    Mr. Macpherson: We are attempting to assess the needs all the time, from day to day. Against the 40,000 jobs which the hon. Gentleman asked about, there are 36,000 jobs in prospect, which is some way towards equalizing. if other things remain equal.
    Mr. Jay: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary realise that the public does not want to see everything remaining unaltered and that by his Answer to this Question and to that concerning North British Locomotives and others he
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    shows an attitude which is hopelessly complacent and inadequate to meet the Scottish problem?
    Mr. Macpherson: It is not a question of my wanting to see nothing unaltered. It is nothing of the kind. It is a question of the form of the Question I was asked and I have attempted to answer the Question as it was asked, saying that we cannot foresee the next five years in detail but we are adding very considerably to the jobs in prospect and moving in the direction that the bon. Gentleman wants.
    Mr. Willisasked the President of the Board of Trade what new proposals he now has for bringing new industries to Scotland.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: Since the Local Employment Act came into force in April, 1960, the Board of Trade has undertaken an expenditure of £43·9 million to provide over 30,000 jobs in Scotland. My right hon. Friend will continue to use these powers and has no further measures in view at present.
    Mr. Willis: Yes, but is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that unemployment is still double the United Kingdom rate, and that migration is continuing at the very high level of 30,000, about which he said nothing in answering the last Question? Does he not really think that Tory policies over the last eleven years have proved inadequate to meet the needs of Scotland? Is it not really time that the Government started to apply their mind to some new proposals?
    Mr. Macpherson: No, I would not accept for a moment that our policies are not working, but we are considering the Toothill proposals.
    Mr. Manuel: Does not the Minister realise that the answer he has given in telling us about the jobs which have been created or are in the pipeline is quite insufficient? Is he not cognisant of the large number of jobs which are steadily fading out in Scotland? Will he not provide a booklet assessing what is coming about by the further colliery closures and the contraction of the railways in Scotland, in order to get enough evidence to see just what extra number of jobs will be needed before we

    229
    go further with this great decline in employment prospects in Scotland?
    Mr. Macpherson: Of course we consider colliery closures as we are made aware of them and take them into account in considering what shall be put in the development district list, but I cannot accept that the provision of 36,000 jobs in such a short period of time is in any way a failure.
    Mr. Rankinasked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent the powers under the Local Employment Act are being invoked to deal with the existing industrial unemployment in Scotland.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: To the full extent that my night hon. Friend considers they can appropriately be invoked.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the hon. Gentleman really alive—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—to the serious nature of the unemployment crisis in Scotland? Is he not aware that the machinery of D.A.T.A.C. is quite inappropriate for dealing with the present problem? Would he not consider taking political action now, for example do the case of the remaining part of the North British Locomotive Works at Queen's Park, employing 1,500 men who are at the moment faced with a complete stoppage of work? Would the hon. Gentleman not consider an emergency grant to enable this part of the industry to carry on?
    Mr. Macpherson: This works has received very substantial assistance from D.A.T.A.C. in the past, and representatives of the City of Glasgow are coming to consult my right hon. Friend and the Secretary of State for Scotland this afternoon on this business.
    Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. Is it in order for a Minister to suggest that, however serious the circumstances may be, representatives of the City of Glasgow should displace the responsible Members of Parliament who are in constant touch with the Minister?
    Mr. Speaker: I had hoped that the House had understood the extreme undesirability of hon. Members rising to points of order which it is difficult to believe they themselves consider to be so.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Further to that point of order. Is it conceivable, Mr. Speaker, that you might protect the rights of Members of this House to seek an answer from Ministers? The Parliamentary Secretary replied to my hon. Friend saying that he would not answer his Question because a deputation from Glasgow City Corporation would be having discussions with two Ministers. Surely Ministers are accountable to the House of Commons?
    Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman would assist me by recalling his own knowledge of the practice and powers of the Chair. The Chair has no power whatever to require a Minister to answer, or to answer in any form or in any circumstances. It is because of that fact that I could not detect any semblance of a point of order in what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) said.

    Animal Feedingstuffs Industry
    Mr. Darlingasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will refer the animal feedingstuffs industry to the Monopolies Commission for examination.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend will bear the hon. Member's suggestion in mind when he is considering new references to the Monopolies Commission.
    Mr. Darling: As the Parliamentary Secretary has information about one of the firms in the industry which was thought to be independent and which has recently been revealed as a subsidiary of Unilever, could he find out from the Monopolies Commission whether Unilever has got any further holdings in firms which appear to be independent? If this were the case it would give Unilever a very large control of the whole industry.
    Mr. Macpherson: The hon. Gentleman is in fact suggesting a reference—of a kind, at any rate—to the Monopolies Commission. All I can say at the moment is that this is kept under review and that the Commission has three matters to consider at the present time.

    Company Balance Sheets (Assets)
    Mr. Liptonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will introduce legislation requiring limited

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    companies to include in their balance sheets independent and up-to-date valuations of all their assets.
    Mr. N. Macpherson: The Jenkins Company Law Committee has heard evidence on this subject and my right hon. Friend would prefer to await its report, which should be available shortly, before considering any question of legislation.
    Mr. Lipton: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that this undesirable practice of covering up assets deceives investors, freezes expansion, and provides rich pickings for take-over "spivs"? When is the Board of Trade going to adopt Lord Hailsham's principle of getting rid of the obsolete, the inefficient and fuddy-duddy in our economy?
    Mr. Macpherson: The hon. Gentleman will, of course, be aware of the important requirement in Section 149 of the Act itself that balance sheets shall give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company, and that is what the accountant is there to certify.

  NUCLEAR TESTS, CHRISTMAS ISLAND
  Mr. Fernyhoughasked the Prime Minister why shipping and aircraft have been warned by Her Majesty's Government and the United States Atomic Energy Commission jointly to keep clear of an area 800 miles by 600 miles in the Pacific from Sunday, 15th April; and for how long they must keep clear.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
  The warning notices to mariners and airmen were issued as a normal precaution which has been observed for all previous test series. President Kennedy indicated on 2nd March that if the test series took place it would last about two or three months.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain, since if these tests take place there will be some danger to shipping and aircraft in that area, why the Prime Minister said in a reply on 5th April that there would be no need to transfer anybody residing on Christmas Island? Does it mean that they
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  will already have been transferred before the tests take place? Furthermore, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that in this respect all the nuclear and atomic Powers are beginning to create great precedents? How far is any nation or are any two nations entitled to treat the oceans of the world as though they were private lakes? May not other nations decide one day that they will make a test on the North Sea or the Channel? What would our reply be?
  Mr. Butler: I cannot answer the last part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, but in relation to the first part, the Prime Minister did say on 5th April that he was satisfied that
  "safety arrangements for the proposed nuclear tests are such that it will be unnecessary to transfer the residents of Christmas Island elsewhere."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th April, 1962: Vol. 657, c. 632.]
  Mr. Mellish: Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to convey to the Prime Minister that most of us—I hope most of us—in this House certainly desire that Geneva shall come and go before any decisions about testing are made, and that such orders are not conducive to the success of negotiations at Geneva? Will he impress on him that it is not just one part of the House which is interested in peace but that all of us are?
  Mr. Butler: I think that it was clear to anybody who heard the Prime Minister's statement on 10th April that everybody in this House was desirous of seeing some agreement before it was necessary to proceed with the tests. Unfortunately, we have not reached such an agreement. All I can say at present is that the issue of warning notices does not in itself imply that a final decision to conduct tests has been taken.
  Mr. H. Wilson: In view of the initiative taken by the eight countries at the conference yesterday, an important initiative, would the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it will be the policy of the Government to see that every effort is made to secure an agreement, perhaps starting from the initiative, with such changes as may be necessary, before the final decision is taken about tests?
  Mr. Butler: I think that this really comes up on a later Question, but I

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  should like to reassure the right hon. Gentleman meanwhile that we attach the greatest important to reaching an agreement banning nuclear tests, and we shall certainly study these latest proposals carefully to see if they offer a basis for making proposals.
  Mr. Dribergasked the Prime Minister what progress is being made with the eviction of the inhabitants of Christmas Island, and the preparations for the proposed tests; and on what date, approximately, these tests are expected to begin.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister informed the hon. Member in reply to a Question on 5th April, it will be unnecessary to transfer the residents of Christmas Island elsewhere. Preparations for the tests are proceeding on the lines indicated in the communique issued after my right hon. Friend's meeting with President Kennedy in Bermuda last December and in his statement in the House on 5th March. President Kennedy indicated in his statement on 2nd March that preparations would be completed by the latter part of April.
  Mr. Driberg: Could the right hon. Gentleman at least clear up the obvious contradiction between that Answer given on 5th April and the warning notices to shipping? Why is it necessary to clear an area of 800 miles by 600 miles of shipping and aircraft if there is no danger whatever and it is not necessary to remove human beings? Or are ships more susceptible to fall-out? Or what?
  Mr. Butler: No. Strict safety precautions will be taken in relation to what may be described as the static population. I would add that, of course, there will be American and British personnel on Christmas Island at the time of the tests, and the two Governments have naturally satisfied themselves as to their safety.
  Mr. Gaitskell: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the inhabitants of Christmas Island—I believe there are very few of them—have been given an opportunity to move from the area if they so desire?
  Mr. Butler: No, but there has been contact with them through the Committee of Plantation Workers, which had expressed anxiety over the situation.
  Mr. Gaitskell: May we be told what the content of the expression of opinion by this Committee was, and what reply was given?
  Mr. Butler: No. I cannot go further than that today, except to say the Committee has been informed that safety precautions will be taken.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of a statement made by the Prime Minister of Australia that fallout from these tests is more likely to affect the Northern than the Southern hemisphere? As an old Leader of the House, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that we should have an opportunity, on an affirmative Resolution by the Government, of voting either for or against these tests?
  Mr. Butler: I think that that falls naturally to my successor as Leader of the House.
  Mr. Gaitskell: Could the right hon. Gentleman enlighten us a little more about the position of the inhabitants on Christmas Island? Is not Christmas Island a Colony of ours and are not we responsible for the safety and welfare of the inhabitants? Could not we therefore be informed of exactly what was said to them and what was said in reply?
  Mr. Butler: No, Sir, I can only give the information which I have given to the House—that there was contact with the Committee of Plantation Workers. I have no report to give as to the discussion.
  Mr. Gaitskell: In that case, could the right hon. Gentleman see that a report is given to the House as soon as possible? This is a matter with which we are concerned and for which we are responsible. Few people are involved but at least the opportunity could have been given to them to get out if they want to.
  Mr. Butler: I have no evidence that they desire to go away.

  PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT KENNEDY (DISCUSSIONS)
  Sir C. Osborneasked the Prime Minister if he will make representations to President Kennedy, in support of the British Ambassador's speech in Chicago, to the effect that since 1945 America has sold nearly twice as much as she has bought from Britain, and that last year the average Briton bought twenty-four dollars' worth of American goods whereas the average American bought only four dollars' worth of British goods; what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to promote trade in America; and if he will make a statement.
  Mr. McMasterasked the Prime Minister if, during his forthcoming talks with President Kennedy, he will discuss with him the damage caused to good relations between Britain and the United States by the continuation of America's present shipping policies and particularly that of flag discrimination and trade reservation.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  Although my right hon. Friend's discussions with President Kennedy will be confidential, these matters will naturally be in his mind.
  Sir C. Osborne: May I ask two supplementary questions? Firstly, was the British Ambassador's protest in Chicago made with the prior knowledge and consent of Her Majesty's Government? Secondly, has there been any official reaction from the American Government to that protest, and what steps are being taken?
  Mr. Butler: I have read the speech of the Ambassador in Chicago. It was not a protest but a statement of the situation of trade between the two countries, which was extremely salutary and well expressed, and I have no more to add to that.
  Mr. McMaster: While thanking the Prime Minister, through my right hon. Friend, for the efforts which he has already made on behalf of British shipping, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that freight rates charged by American ships which are protected in this way are far in excess of
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  world rates and that this American example is being followed by other countries to the detriment of British shipping and the loss of our invisible earnings?
  Mr. Butler: As my right hon. Friend has already expressed in the House, and as has been expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), we regret the present policy of the United States, especially because of the example which it gives to other countries.
  Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister gave no definite assurance to the House at any time that in these discussions and conversations with President Kennedy he would raise this vital question for British shipping of flag discrimination? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the United States Government have now embarked on a method of providing capital aid to Commonwealth countries—and I ask the House to mark "Commonwealth countries"—on condition that goods purchased from the United States must be carried in American tonnage? Is not that discrimination of the most pernicious character?
  Mr. Butler: I am aware of the latest practice. So is my right hon. Friend, and that is why he has authorised me to say that these matters will be in his mind when he speaks to President Kennedy.
  Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that on his earlier visit to President Kennedy the Prime Minister left a document of some importance relating to shipping matters, since when no action appears to have been taken by the American Administration to meet the point of view of this country? Will my right hon. Friend convey to the Prime Minister the extreme depth of feeling of hon. Members on both sides of the House that this is a matter on which we expect action from the American Administration?
  Mr. Butler: I am aware of the depth of feeling on both sides of the House on this matter, and so is the Prime Minister, but I will convey the sentiment to my right hon. Friend afresh.
  Sir C. Osborne: On a point of order. I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter again on the Adjournment.

  NUCLEAR TESTS (DETECTION AND VERIFICATION)
  Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether he will publish a White Paper containing the relevant scientific advice relating to the detection and verification by national means of control of atmospheric and underground tests, respectively, and the extent to which international on-site verification will be necessary.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  No, Sir.
  Mr. Henderson: In view of the conflicting statements that emanate from the Soviet Government, the United States Government and Her Majesty's Government on these matters, may I ask whether it is not highly desirable that we should have the scientific facts before us? Why are the Government so hesitant to tell us the scientific facts on which they base their case in opposition to the claims of the Soviet Government?
  Mr. Butler: A great deal of scientific data has already been published, beginning with the report of the Geneva experts' conference in 1958.
  Mr. Henderson: Is it not a fact that the Soviet Government persist in stating that it is possible to detect and verify all tests, whether in the atmosphere or underground, and that the British and American Governments say that that is not the case? Would it not be advantageous to public opinion if the public knew in popular form the scientific reasons why Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government differ from the views of the Soviet Government?
  Mr. Butler: I will certainly convey that to my right hon. Friend, but as at present informed we do not think that a White Paper is necessary.
  Mr. Gaitskell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say for what reason information is being withheld from us? Does he not agree that it is very useful for us to know the latest scientific opinion on this matter? We appreciate that it may have changed since the last report was
  238
  published. Is not that a reason for bringing us up to date?
  Mr. Butler: What is clear is that the Soviet Union have rejected the principle of verification. Considerable publicity has been given to the arguments on both sides, but if importance is attached to having further information I will have a further look at that point.
  Mr. John Hall: Is it not a fact that, following this difference of scientific opinion, the Western allies asked for scientific advice and information from Russia and none has been forthcoming?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is now complete identity of view? Is he aware that the question raised was whether the British and American scientists advising the two Governments were in complete agreement about the degree of verification necessary? Will the Government once again take the initiative in proposing discussions between scientists from the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States to see how far they can reach agreement on this question of how far instruments based outside countries can detect explosions within those countries?
  Mr. Butler: That question raises a scientific question and I should require notice of it.
  Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reports not so far published include reports by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey on the monitoring of the last American underground tests, which apparently contain matters of extreme interest and significance to the present conference at Geneva? Would the right hon. Gentleman consult the United States Administration about the possibility of making those reports available?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. I will certainly investigate that.
  Later—
  Mr. Hector Hughes: May I briefly raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, which I hope you will regard as a genuine point of order? You may have

  239
  noticed that several Questions were answered today by the Home Secretary saying that he would convey the matter to the Prime Minister. Some of these matters—such as flag discrimination—were of the utmost importance to the nation, and I ask for your guidance as to whether it is in order for any Minister to evade real Answers to Questions by saying that he will convey the matter to the Prime Minister, who is away on an occasion when such very important Questions are on the Order Paper.
  I ask for your guidance with a view to seeing that proper Answers are given to Questions of this sort when they are on the Order Paper.
  Mr. Speaker: No such process as a point of guidance by way of a point of order is known to me. No such proposition exists, and I might also have said that I was unable to detect any point of order whatsoever in what the hon. and learned Member has said.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  Government Departments (Co-ordination)
  Dame Irene Ward: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 7th May, I shall call attention to the need for co-ordination between Government Departments in the work they are supposed to do, and move a Resolution.
  United Nations Charter
  Mr. Tilney: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 7th May, I shall call attention to the need to reform the Charter of the United Nations, its powers and its associated bodies, and move a Resolution.
  House Purchase
  Mr. H. Hynd: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 7th May, I shall call attention to the difficulties which confront those buying, or wishing to buy, their own houses, and move a Resolution.

TRANSPORT BILL (BUSINESS COMMITTEE)
Report [16th April] of the Business Committee to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]
Considered accordingly.

That—

(a) The Proceedings on Consideration of the Transport Bill shall be divided into the parts specified in the second column of the Table set out below;

(b) the two days which under the Order [7th March] are given to the Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading, and portions of those days, shall be allotted in the manner shown in that Table, and

(c) subject to the provisions of the Order [7th March], each part of the Proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of that Table.

TABLE

Allotted day

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

First day

Recommittal and Report of Bill

…

p.m. 6·0

New Clauses, Clauses 1 to 28

…

9·0

Clauses 29 to 54

…

—

Second day

Clauses 29 to 54, so far as not already disposed of

…

4·30

Remaining Proceedings on Consideration

…

7·0

Third Reading

…

10·30

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  TRANSPORT BILL
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
  Order for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), read.
  Motion made, Question proposed,
  That the Bill be recommitted to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendments to Clause 53, page 53, lines 11, 13, 16 and 17; the new Clause (Abstraction of water by Inland Waterways Authority); and the Amendments to Schedule 7, page 119, line 35, page 120, lines 9, 19, 27, 35, 43, 49, page 121, lines 12, 14, 45, 46, 49, and page 122, line 2, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Ernest Marples.—[Mr. Marples.]
  Question amended, by adding, at the end:
  "and in respect of the Amendments to Clause 3, page 4, lines 18 and 19, and Clause 43. page 44, line 23, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. G. R. Strauss".—[Mr. Strauss.]
  and, as amended, agreed to.
  Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 41 (Business Committee), and agreed to.
  Following is the Business Committee:
  Bill immediately considered in Committee.
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

  TRANSPORT BILL

    Clause 3.—(DUTY AND POWERS OF RAILWAYS BOARD.)
    3.35 p.m.
    Mr. G. R. Strauss: I beg to move, in page 4, in line 18, after "provide", to insert "such".
    The Chairman: I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we also discussed the following Amendment, in the name of the right hon. Gentleman, in page 4, line 19, after "Britain", to insert:
    "as will meet the reasonable needs of agriculture, industry and the public."
    Mr. Strauss: That would be agreeable, Sir William.
    These two Amendments are exceedingly important. Indeed, they point to

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    the difference between the attitude of this side of the Committee towards the railways and their functions and the attitude of the Government. In other words, in considering these Amendments, the Committee must decide whether in future the railways are to be a service, or are to be considered as a commercial concern, the sole consideration of which is the balance sheet.
    The Committee should bear in mind the changes that have taken place in the directions which Parliament has given to the publicly-owned transport system since that system came under public ownership. In 1947, when the Labour Government nationalised the main elements of our transport system, they clearly stated in their Act that the British Transport Commission was to ensure that the service in Great Britain was adequate and that it should be economical, efficient, and so on.
    The key words are that they should provide an efficient, adequate, economic and properly integrated system of public transport. Of course, we had in mind that it was the duty of a publicly-owned transport system to give a proper service to the public. When the Conservative Party came to power it put a new definition in the 1953 Act. A new directive was given to the Transport Commission. The word "adequate" was taken out and the Commission was told, under the provisions of the 1953 Act. that it was to provide a railway service for Britain. Nothing was said about adequacy.
    In the Bill there is now a further stop back. During the Standing Committee proceedings the Parliamentary Secretary emphasised that no longer is the Railways Board to be asked to provide railway services for Britain, but railway services in Britain. The Government tell us that there is a considerable difference in that change of words. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that under present conditions the new Board would have new and different duties. All that the Board has to do in the future is to provide railway services in Britain. Nothing is said in the Bill about whether the services are to be large or small, adequate or inadequate. The Board would be fulfilling its function if it ran only one train each day.
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    There is no direction that the railway services are to meet the needs of industry, agriculture and the public. We think that is a serious deficiency which is not unintentional but purposeful, and that is why we have put down the Amendment. The Government have a new attitude of mind towards the railway system. If Parliament desires, as we believe it does, that the railways shall fulfil some public service, and we feel it essential that public service should be an element of its activities, then words to that effect must be put into the Bill.
    We do not suggest that it should be the duty of the Railways Board to comply with every demand made upon it. We do not think, for example, that a branch line, carrying hardly any passengers and costing large sums to keep open, should be allowed to continue in operation. We suggest that in future the railways should be run in such a way
    "as will meet the reasonable needs of agriculture, industry and the public."
    It seems difficult to understand why that injunction is resisted by the Government. They prefer to leave the matter open to the Board to run such services in Britain as it thinks desirable.
    This raises the whole question of the extent to which the Board shall be free to carry out the policy, about which we have heard a great deal recently, of cutting down existing services wholesale and closing lines in very many areas of the country, particularly in the north of Scotland and in the west of England. The Board will be able to do that if the Bill goes on to the Statute Book without the Amendments which we propose. The excuse will be that Parliament by changing the Board's functions, endorsed a policy that the Board should no longer be considered to be running a service, but only such trains as it deemed remunerative.
    The Government have given instructions that the main, if not the only purpose, of the Board in future is to cut existing losses on the railways irrespective of the consequences. The railways are to be considered in isolation and so far as possible the revenue from the railways must meet the expenses. No account is taken of the damage which may follow; the effect on people who need to use services

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    which will be cut, or the effect upon industry if railway services have to be cut. Everything uneconomical is to be cut out. No longer is there to be any element of service.
    3.45 p.m.
    Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have complained—perhaps hon. Members opposite have complained more than hon. Members on this side—about the grave effect which this policy has already had upon a great number of people whose convenience has been affected by railways services having been cut. The hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has said a great deal on the subject and I am sure that she will have a great deal more to say about the serious situation which threatens hundreds if not thousands of her constituents. Unless Parliament takes strong action, complaints such as those which have been made by the hon. Member for Tynemouth will be multiplied a hundredfold during the coming years and will come from all parts of the country.
    We think that the Government should consider the economic waste, as well as the hardship which will be inflicted on hundreds of thousands indeed millions of people, by the decision to cut out those parts of the railway service which do not pay. Almost automatically a far greater amount of public money will have to be spent in other directions. For example, more roads will have to be built to help to clear the congestion caused to those who in the future will have to travel by motor car, motor bicycle or motor scooter. An appalling congestion on the roads would be one of the economic factors which would follow the wholesale closing of railway lines.
    Hon. Members on this side are not asking for anything which is improper, or that the present conditions relating to the railways should be maintained. What we say is that it should be the duty of the Railways Board to bear in mind that Parliament desires it to meet
    "the reasonable needs of agriculture, industry and the public"
    and not to carry out its task with the sole consideration of cutting losses whenever and wherever possible. We can afford a better railway service than that.
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    If the Board is to be concerned only with commercial considerations, what is the point of the railways being publicly owned? The whole purpose of a publicly owned transport system is to serve the public. Losses which result should be made up by the profits from those parts of the service where a profit can be made. If the worst comes to the worst the losses must fall on the Exchequer. In this country we must accept that, as in nearly every other country, railways are being run at a loss and will continue to make losses for reasons we all know.
    The problem is to what extent the losses shall be borne by rail users and to what extent by the taxpayer. The losses must be shared in some way. No one believes that the £150 million losses on the railways can be paid wholly by the travellers. If fares were increased to meet those losses, people would not travel by rail at all; nor would goods be conveyed by rail. If we were to close all the railway lines which do not pay, the service would be cut by half, or more. There would be only a skeleton service.
    The Minister of Transport would be able to say that the losses had been cut down, but the tremendous damage which would result to the country as a whole, to industry and to the convenience of the public is a factor which cannot be estimated in money. The taxpayer will have to shoulder a burden resulting from railway losses, for the social burden that would follow the wholesale cutting down of the railway services would be wholly intolerable.
    It is ridiculous for the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to argue, as they have done on many occasions, that the test of whether to run a certain service is whether people are prepared to pay for it. That is bunkum. I accept that it is a test to be considered, but it is not the sole test. The arguments used by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have suggested that it is the sole test, but we cannot accept that for a moment.
    We have therefore tabled these Amendments which suggest that the Railways Board should have among the considerations before it—a major consideration has already been put before

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    it by the Minister, that of cutting losses wherever it can—the rendering of public service. Surely it is right for us to suggest the words contained in my second Amendment.
    If any hon. Member votes against our Amendments and afterwards complains that his constituents have suffered as a result of services being cut, he will have no leg to stand on, because the immediate answer to him will be, "Why did you not see to it, when Parliament was dealing with this very important problem, that an element of public service was included as one of the duties of the Board?" That is what we are trying to do now. I hope that those who vote against the Amendments—I hope that many will support it—will never there-after complain if services in their constituencies are cut, for it will be hypocritical of them to make such complaints.
    Time is short, and my hon. Friends and I—we hope that hon. Members on the other side of the Committee will do the same—propose to speak very briefly on the Amendments before us today. I have perhaps spoken at some length on the present Amendments, and that is because we regard it as of prime importance. They are probably the most important Amendments on the Notice Paper today. They decide what the future purpose of the railways will be and to what extent they will serve the public. We believe that service to the public should be a general direction from Parliament that the Board should take into account—we put it no higher than that—in deciding the future shape and size of the railways.
    Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) and his hon. Friends are in the same dilemma with this Amendment as they were in 1947 with their original Transport Act. One cannot provide transport as a service directly from the centre unless one takes control of the whole of it. It is not a bit of good giving a direction to the Railways Board to provide a service adequate to the needs of agriculture, industry and the public unless it has control of a much wider area than is at present proposed.
    The 1947 Act failed because the British Transport Commission was given control of only a minority of the services
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    available. It was put in charge of the railways, a small portion of the bus services and a minority of the road services, and an integrated service could not be produced out of that. Still less could the Railways Board provide for the needs of agriculture, industry and the public under the present set-up. If one wants to have full control, the only alternative is to set up a Communist State—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—in which the Government have full control of all forms of transport and nobody has any private transport—except the commissar with his private car—and no one has a private lorry service.
    If one is not to do that, one can give the Railways Board the greatest freedom, as we have done, and let it run its services and allow the test to be that it shall run those services for which the people are prepared to pay, with the addition that in certain cases, referred to in later Clauses, if there is hardship somewhere a service may be run within the overall figures notwithstanding the fact that it does not pay.
    I do not think that the Amendment would carry the matter any further. As I have said, the right hon. Gentleman and his hon Friends are in the same dilemma as in 1947, only worse.
    Mr. Archie Manuel: I do not intend to follow the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) into the realms of the powers of either a Fascist or a Communist State, but I would reply to him that I do not consider—I do not think that any fair-minded person would—that the principles brought into being by the 1947 Act failed for the reason he gave. Much greater failures arose from the 1953 Act. If the hon. Gentleman will weigh those Acts in the balance, I am sure that he will see that the second one killed all possibilities of railways operating in this country as they ought to do in order to meet the needs of the people.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), who moved his Amendment in a very capable fashion, illustrated the fears of my hon. Friends and myself about the powers in Clause 3 with regard to the Railways Board. That Clause deals with the powers and duties of the Board, and it is clear that if we were to let the Clause go without

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    putting on the record our feelings about the dangers inherent in it we should not be doing our duty as Members of Parliament who are looking to Britain as a whole and her transport needs as a whole.
    We feel that there will be fairly large areas of Britain left without transport. The Minister sometimes tells us that if we do not have railways, we can use private road transport. That answer has become completely stale and does not suffice in modern times. If we are to have further contraction of the railways—for which the Minister is evidently hoping in order to secure the economic base for our railways system that he wants—there will be fairly large areas of Britain which, owing mainly to their sparse population and because they are uneconomic for the railways, will be denuded of any form of transport.
    Where it is not economic to run trains for passengers or freight, in very many instances the same argument can be applied to road traffic. Already, branch line railway services are being withdrawn from areas where bus companies have already withdrawn their services. Consequently, in such areas there will be no transport at all except that provided privately by individuals. Not everybody has a car, or a motor cycle, or a scooter, and, therefore, we are confronted with this problem from which the Minister cannot run away. He must decide whether he will write off these areas about which I am talking, the largest portion of Scotland and fairly extensive areas in Wales, in which he and Dr. Beeching consider that there should be a complete contraction of the railways.
    4.0 p.m.
    There will be a social obligation on the Minister to decide whether there is to be this contraction in these areas, and we are desirous of getting the second Amendment adopted by the Committee so that we will have a level to enable us to say that the railway system that it is proposed to operate will not meet the needs of agriculture, industry, or the public. I hope that there is enough realism in the Committee to understand that it will be in our interests, and in the best interests of our constituents, to accept the Amendments, because, if they were not accepted, it will be impossible
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    for us to raise questions about a whole area being denuded of transport. It would be a bad thing for the future of the country if we were not able to raise such questions.
    I want to know how some hon. Gentlemen opposite, who, on occasions, have been quite voluble in their complaints to the Minister about the closure of branch lines and the working of the railways generally, will account for their speeches, their questions, and their consciences, and live up to their constituency obligations, if they do not accept these Amendments.
    I hope that the Minister will be a little realistice in his approach to the second Amendment. According to a report in the Scotsman, he met a Scottish journalist and replied to leading questions put to him about the position in Scotland. I thought that the Minister was sometimes a bit perky and cheeky. I am sure that his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will tell him how best to approach Scotsmen.
    It appeared to me that the sum total of the probing by the journalist boiled down to the Minister saying, "We can have either railways or roads. If I am taking off the railways, you will have to use the roads. Whether they are there in a sufficient number or not is not my concern. Similarly, whether they meet the needs of the area after I withdraw the railways is not my concern". In other words, the right hon. Gentleman was passing the ball to the Secretary of State for Scotland, but he must understand that if railways are taken off—and on the economic argument I agree that he could contract railways almost to nothing in Scotland; he could close all the Highland main lines—the roads in those areas will not be able to deal with the traffic; they will not be able to deal with the tourist trade; they will not be able to carry the coal necessary for central heating in the hotels and industries in those areas. The Minister will be a party to the further depopulation of the Northern counties, which would be unacceptable to everybody in Scotland.
    I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will consider carefully the strength of my argument and agree that this Amendment contains something of value to himself as well as to

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    those who would be able to use this provision to raise questions resulting from the contraction of the railways in Scotland.
    Mr. John Peyton: I do not intend to follow at length the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), least of all on the duties of a Member to his constituents, save for this observation, that it would be no bad thing if we were to urge on our constituents from time to time the need to have some regard for the national economy. To impose on it constantly the strain of an old-fashioned service is not the best way in which we can observe our obligations to our constituents, or, for that matter, to our country.
    I would not have spoken had it not been for the rather loose way in which the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) moved the Amendment. He spoke of the desirability, from one point of view or another, of keeping this service going, and he then used words which suggested that it would be just too bad if certain burdens had to fall on the Exchequer. I wonder how many times we have listened to such a conditional sentence, and I wonder in how many contexts we have heard it. I wonder, too, when we shall stop hearing it. Perhaps it would be unreasonable to hope that we will not hear it too much.
    So long as we allow our policies to be seriously affected and influenced by such considerations, just so long will this country remain old-fashioned and out of date. It seems to me that the plea to which we have listened from the right hon. Gentleman is that we should remain wedded until death us do part to an old-fashioned system of railway transport.
    Mr. R. J. Mellish: My right hon. Friend never said that.
    Mr. Peyton: I am putting what could be called a liberal construction on the meaning behind the right hon. Gentleman's words.
    Mr. Mellish: But where are they?
    Mr. Peyton: I am doing my best for them.
    I do not want to detain the Committee for long, but it seems of urgent importance that we should get away from
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    the shackles of the past and lose as little time as possible in producing a modern, efficient, and streamlined railway system. Having said that, I would be disposed to accept that when such a system is in being it may well be necessary for us—and it may be awkward for some of us on this side of the Committee—to consider measures which are desirable in the national interest to bring traffic off the roads and on to the railway system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not mind swallowing some party dogma, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite will have a taste of it, too. I should be most grateful.
    The point surely is that we are reaching a stage where it would be wrong and foolish in the extreme to go on very expensively backing two horses in the same race. At some time or other, we have to make up our minds what sort of transport system we want. Having produced the railway system that we want, which could pay its way, we should make sure that it has the opportunity, given efficiency on its part and the provision of good services, to carry the traffic upon which its whole prosperity would depend.
    This subject of transport has for far too long been bedevilled by wishful thinking and party dogma, not only by hon. Members opposite, but on this side of the Committee as well. We have had a lot from the hon. Member for Ber-mondsey (Mr. Mellish) on this subject. I conclude by saying that we should try to get away from this ghastly gospel with which the right hon Member for Vaux-hall always approaches this subject—that because a thing is desirable we must always have it, no matter what the cost.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I must restrain myself and not be tempted to follow the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) in his essay into the shackles of the past. It is rather paradoxical that hon. Members who, in many ways, have been the chief defenders of tradition should now be rising to speak about the shackles of the past, when the context happens to suit them. There have been other occasions on which the hon. Gentleman has approached public questions with perhaps a more progressive mind.
    Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman has absolutely failed to perceive the burden of my attack. What we on this side of the Committee find so strange and surprising is that he and his hon. Friends should be so intolerably conservative, with a very small "c".
    Mr. Price: In the very short time that I wish to detain the Committee, I do not want to be led too far astray by polemical arguments of that kind. I think that probably we could have a very good time on it one evening when the House is quiet.
    What I rose to do was to reinforce what my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said so pointedly in opening this debate. It is that, right at the root of the Transport Act, 1947, which brought the railway system under national control, was the conception of public service. That is something implicit in the Act, as it was explicit, and we are quite entitled, without any apology today, to draw attention to the gross omission from the Bill, which has already been noted, by which the public service has ceased to be a factor in the mind of the Government.
    May I illustrate what may appear to be self-evident and obvious? If this criterion of whether or not a particular section of the railway system is producing a profit in terms of commercial enterprise were applied to other sections of our national and international activities, where should we be? My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has referred to the closure of railway lines in Scotland, part of which country he represents in this House. For example, if we apply the criterion of profitability to all the railway system north of the Highland line, which I think would be roughly north of the Firths of Clyde and Forth, the whole lot would have to close down.
    There could be no defence for a railway system at all in the mountainous areas of Scotland. There could be no defence for a railway system in Wales, but when the Transport Commission took over the responsibility for the Cambrian Line under the Transport Act, 1947, it was well-known that that system, even long before nationalisation and right back into the days of the old private enterprise, was a completely bankrupt concern.
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    When the hon. Member for Yeovil, in his good-natured and pleasant manner, tries to do a bit of peddling of heresy in this committee, let him remember that if the sort of conception which he was trying to put forward this afternoon were applied, for example, to the Post Office, we would not only have no railways in Scotland, but have no postal deliveries, either. I want to ask him this question. Is he prepared to Sit quiescent in this situation and see section after section of the railway system close down? There will come a time when the delivery of mails will become a major question, particularly in bad weather.
    4.15 p.m.
    At this stage of the Bill, when we have had months in Committee discussing all these matters in great detail, we have little hope of impressing our ideas on the present Administration. It is true that if Dr. Beeching had his way, and I believe that he is on record as having said this—in terms of economics of the railway system, which are admittedly in a very bad state at the moment, and none of us runs away from that terrible responsibility—it may be his intention to close down at least 50 per cent. of the track miles now left with the Transport Commission. That would be a grave matter for this country, not only in peace time, but if we were ever again faced with a great national emergency, the greatest asset that we had in conducting our fight on the last occasion would be taken from us.
    I know that the Minister has given evidence of his good intentions, and has said that the Government want to relieve the railway system of this great burden of £150 million accumulated debt. We welcome that, but if, in the process of making the railways viable, in terms of book-keeping and figures in ledgers, we finish up with a state of affairs in which there is actually no permanent system of railways, we shall not only get more congestion and more murder and terror on the roads than we have already, but we shall also fail in our task of transporting the products of our industries and thereby become more handicapped in our fight to restore economic well-being.

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    This may be regarded as polemics, but we on this side of the committee unrepentantly declare to the people of Britain that if they want a railway system, they must make some contribution towards it. No country in the world, with some rare exceptions, is running railways and making profits. In France and Italy, they are facing very grave losses on their railway systems. It is well known that this is political dynamite. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about Holland?"] In Holland, which is a relatively much smaller country, they have other handicaps, not entirely associated with the railways; the loss of their colonial empire, for example.
    Mr. Raymond Gower Mr. Raymond Gower (Barry) rose—
    Mr. Price: I cannot give way; I do not want to be too long, and I do not want to labour this point too much.
    It is true that this is the sort of political dynamite which prevents continental politicians—or opposite numbers in France and Italy, in particular—from carrying out the kind of surgical operation which has been undertaken by Dr. Beeching.
    When hon. Members opposite charge us with being conservative in wishing to hold on what we have, I would remind them that our railways form the most wonderful network of communications in the world, bearing in mind the size of our island. It is fascinating to travel all over our railway system. I have travelled over most of it, including the remote branch lines, out of sheer curiosity.
    In 1954, the right hon. Gentleman who is now Minister of Pensions and National Insurance introduced a railway reorganisation scheme to which the Government undertook to devote about £1,200 million, over a period of fifteen years. Part of the debt now standing on the books of the Commission is in respect of that reconstruction of a railway system that had gone to complete ruin and desolation under generations of neglect, during previous Administrations.
    With that rather controversial statement I shall sit down. If my history is at fault I stand corrected. I am willing to be caned by anybody in the Commit-
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    tee. But I think that I am right. Therefore, from the point of view of the welfare of the railway system—one of the major aspects of the economic lifeblood of the nation—hon. Members on both sides should support the Amendment, so as to write into the Bill a conception of public service which is appropriate to a vital nationalised industry.
    Mr. Thomas Steele: The main arguments for the Amendment have been adequately put by my right hon. and hon. Friends, but two further points should be made. I want to emphasise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said about the importance of the Amendment. What we have now to decide is whether the Bill will place any obligations upon the Railways Board, or whether the Board will think only of making the railways pay without having any regard to the nation's needs or, in the terms of the Amendment,
    "the reasonable needs of agriculture, industry and the public."
    In the past, Acts of Parliament have always laid some obligations upon such boards, and we must consider whether that process should be continued by the Bill. I believe that it is essential that something of this kind should be done.
    The speech of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) fell into two parts. One dealt with party dogma, with which he accused the whole Committee of being concerned, but his other point was a real one, with which I agree generally. I have some regard for the hon. Member's opinions. I had the pleasure of sitting with him during the long sessions of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries when we examined British Railways. Irrespective of what my hon. Friends may say, I am sure that the hon. Member wants to see an efficient railway service which is also able to pay its way.
    Nevertheless, I must tell him that his form of words—what he referred to as a liberal construction of what my right hon. Friend said—amounted really to a liberal misconstruction of what my right hon. Friend said. The hon. Member was guilty—as most Conservative Members are—of making a speech on a public platform which misleads the public about our nationalised industries.

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    When people like the hon. Member sit on Committees such as the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries and hear the facts for themselves they come to the conclusion—as the hon. Member did today—that what we require is a planned transport system, in which each part will fall into place in order to provide for our reasonable transport needs.
    That is what we have not got, and that is what all my inquiries in the Select Committee failed to bring out from the Ministry officials who came before us.
    Mr. G. Wilson: The hon. Member has referred to my speech. I said that we cannot have a planned economy unless we are prepared, by force, to direct all forms of transport.
    Mr. Steele: I shall come to the hon. Member's speech in due course, if he will contain himself. If he will read the evidence given before the Select Committee he will find that nobody at the Ministry of Transport has the job of sitting down and trying a little crystal gazing, to see what the probable form of our transport system will be in ten years' time. That is what we should be doing, so that we can plan each section of our transport system to meet public needs.
    The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) gave us the kind of speech that he has given us in every transport debate. It is a record that is beginning to wear thin. The 1947 Act was passed a long time ago, and the hon. Member seems to forget that the 1953 Act, brought in by a Conservative Government, was supposed to cure all the evils of the 1947 Act. Of course, it did not do so; in fact, it made matters worse. During the debate on the 1953 Measure I made a speech on this point, in which I said that we would soon have to have another Bill because the 1953 Measure could not possibly do the things which the Conservative Party claimed it would do. The Conservative Party gave some medicine to the patient in 1953, and, that medicine having failed, it is now to double the dose. That is what the Bill does.
    The Amendment brings out the difference between the Government's approach to the problem and the recommendation made by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. The
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    Government have the responsibility to ensure that adequate services are provided, and where the new Railways Board is unable to provide an adequate service because it will be uneconomic, provision should be made for the Minister to ask the House to provide money for that service, as the Select Committee suggested.
    This suggestion is already in operation. There would be no services to the Western Isles and to Orkney and Shetland unless this responsibility had been accepted by the Government. MacBrayne's steamers and buses are subsidised by the Government, because the service they provide must be maintained to meet a social need. There is no difference between those services and the services which will be required in many other parts of Scotland.
    4.30 p.m.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) said, where the railways are now running services which are not economic, it is not economic for bus companies to run services. In many cases, when the railways have closed branch lines they have subsidised bus companies to run the services, because it has been found cheaper to pay a subsidy to a bus company than to continue a railway service in its present form.
    We are not clinging to out-of-date ideas about transport. The habits of the public have changed. If people want to stay in at night and watch television, they do not use the buses to travel to the pictures. Perhaps they have a private car. But where there are new electrified services, as in my constituency, the trains are being used. In my constituency people leave their private cars at home and travel to Glasgow by electric train. So there could be a reversal of the present trend. We have to study the habits of the public, but in any case what we want is an adequate service, by road, rail, or some other means, and in many of the areas concerned, in Scotland for example, unless they are subsidised by the Government, there will not be any services.
    That is why I think that, like the 1953 Act, the Bill will not be satisfactory. I am convinced that in the end the Government will have to return to

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    the recommendation of the Select Committee and that in six months the Minister will find that the decision is on his plate. Dr. Beeching will not make a decision. He will make his reappraisal of rail services, but he will not take the responsibility for closing down the many lines which, according to the Bill, is what he will have to do. He will put the decision on the Minister's plate and the right hon. Gentleman will have to decide. In those cases where it is necessary to continue the services for social reasons, I think that the Minister will have to accept the Select Committee's advice and ask for money for those specific purposes.
    Mr. Gower: The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), although they denied it, betrayed their nostalgia for the sort of railway system which used to exist and largely still does. With a good deal of feeling, the hon. Member for Westhoughton said what a wonderful system it was—in his own words, the best in the world, the most involved and elaborate in the world, and all within these small islands.
    Mr. Manuel: That is not what we are talking about.
    Mr. Gower: It is what the hon. Member for Westhoughton was talking about.
    The nub of the problem is that the Transport Commission inherited and until recently possessed that sort of elaborate railway system which was apposite to our needs when the railways had a complete monopoly of inland transport. Hon. Members opposite have suggested that the Government are departing from the idea of social need and are substituting merely financial considerations. But that is not the case. In judging the public needs, the Commission has something better and far more accurate than mere financial considerations. In other words, it can look to the degree to which the public uses the services. That is a very accurate barometer and is far more accurate than the Commission's overall financial position.
    The hon. Member for Westhoughton said that if the public wanted a railway
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    system, it had to be prepared to pay for it. We have the railway system and if the public wishes to keep it, it must use it.
    Mr. Manuel: The hon. Member is talking complete nonsense. No hon. Member of the Opposition at any time during the long Standing Committee proceedings on the Bill nor any knowledgeable person connected with transport, including the trade unions, has ever suggested that when trains are running empty or without goods to convey the services should be continued. What we say is that where because of the sparsity of population the services are uneconomic but are being used to the extent that the population can use them, they should be continued because of the social implications of their withdrawal. Would the hon. Member apply his argument to his constituency and withdraw the uneconomic services in Wales?
    Mr. Gower: I have said that I do not consider only the question whether the services are paying. What is more important is whether they are being used. For example, if there is a service serving an area in which a fair proportion of the population is using the service, I have little doubt that it will be continued. At present, we have a situation in which this elaborate system of railways, largely representing the sort of system which we possessed many years ago, includes many lines which, unfortunately, for various reasons the public is not using, either for personal travel or for sending goods. I am not discussing particular areas, but the broad question as it affects the entire country.
    As the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West said, there may be special social reasons, as in the case of the Outer Islands, for making special arrangements, but I am discussing the general system. The system already exists and we do not have to create it. In some cases we may have to improve it, but it does not have to be built. It is not like a system of roads which has to be built. All we have to do to keep it is to use it.
    The hon. Member for Westhoughton said that if the system were depleted still further, in some areas it might not be possible to deliver the mails. That shows how his thinking is circumvented by present conditions. We can all envisage a

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    time, at not too distant a date, when helicopters will be used for delivering mail. That time is not so remote, for this is a world of rapid change—very rapid change. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West said that it should be easy to produce a plan to meet all our rail transport needs.
    Mr. Steele: I did not say that. What I said was that there was nobody in the Ministry of Transport whose job it was to consider what transport would be like in the future with a view to planning to meet the need, that there was not even anybody looking into the crystal ball to get some idea of the future shape of transport.
    Mr. Gower: In no field is there anything more difficult than estimating the future of public demands and requirements for transport.
    Mr. Mellish: How does this square with the fact that last week the hon. Member himself promoted a Private, Member's Bill to enable local authorities to take passengers by road? He said, during his argument, that many branch lines would close. That was the whole purpose of his Bill. He has been talking about the future, but did he not promote his Bill in a measure of panic because many branch lines will be closed irrespective of whether there is a social need for them?
    Mr. Gower: I do not think that what I did last week was at all inconsistent.
    I have already said that I regard the special arrangements made by Messrs. MacBraynes as an exception to this rule. If there is a particular need in rural areas which is not met by existing rail or bus services, I should not think it strange to devise a remedy to meet that need, but I should not suggest that we should keep the old-fashioned system running for those areas. In many cases the old-fashioned system is not suitable for those areas. The stations are in the wrong places, villages have grown in different directions, and so on. The whole point is that the wording suggested by the Amendment put forward by the Opposition is a harking back—
    Mr. Mellish: Does the hon. Member mean the wording:
    "as will meet the reasonable needs of … the public".?
    Mr. Gower:—to the idea of integration, the sort of idea which motivated hon. Members opposite when they wanted to monopolise transport under the ceiling of the 1947 Act. They cannot appreciate the fact that the consumer has made his choice. The public has made its choice. We have not to devise a remedy to tell the public what to do, but a remedy which will meet the public need. What the Opposition have in mind would not make the position of the Transport Commission more easy; in the long run, it would make it more difficult.
    Mr. Stan Awbery: The hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) has dealt with the historical position of the railways. I was in this House when the Bill which nationalised the railways was passed. Looking back to that time I am satisfied that when the railways were taken over they were a lot of scrap iron, for which we paid extortionate sums of money. I am not blaming the railway companies for that. We had had five years of war and there had been a run-down of the railways which accounted for the fact that they were in that position at that time.
    The Amendment says that they should
    "meet the reasonable needs of … the public".
    It does not refer to excessive needs, or even the demands of the public. Am I to understand that the Government are not prepared to meet the reasonable needs of those who send us to this House? I believe they are so prepared but the Government want to introduce another measure. Apart from the needs of the people, they consider the question of whether the railways are making a profit. The measure used by the Government is profits, but the measure used by hon. Members on this side of the Committee is the needs of the people. We measure all our social services, not particularly by the profits they make, but by the services they give to the people.
    4.45 p.m.
    Could we produce a balance sheet of the expenditure and income of our hospitals? Of course, we could get at the expenditure, which may be millions of pounds, but the income is to be found in the health and life of the people. We have to measure one against the other. Private enterprise has, of course, always stood for profits. We believe in public

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    enterprise which looks after the needs of the people. We want the railways to be run not so much for a profit as to meet the needs of the public. Personally, I do not care whether they make a profit or not.
    We do not make a profit on defence. We spend £1,600 million a year on defence, but the Government never ask what profits we are making; they say that we have to spend that amount to defend ourselves. The same applies to other Services. Our Health Service is not run for a profit, but because it is a service for the community which the community needs. In all these services we must provide for the reasonable needs of the people whether it be in railways, hospitals, the Health Service, or any other service.
    Mr. G. Wilson: Would the hon. Member have helicopters and private cars and everything else supplied in that way?
    Mr. Awbery: This should apply to everything that gives a service to the nation.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): Food?
    Mr. Awbery: Everything that the nation uses in its services, and which is run by the nation, should be measured not by the amount of profit made, but by the service given to the public.
    Mr. Mellish: We give a subsidy of £300 million a year to the farmers, so we are paying for our food.
    Mr. Awbery: I have heard Dr. Beeching himself say that he will close a line which is not providing a profit. If the Government say that that line must be maintained, the Government must pay for the losses sustained on that section of the railway.
    I have a complaint from my constituents. I have written to the Minister about it. I apologise for not informing him that I intended to raise it in this Committee. I have written to Dr. Beeching and I have written to the manager at Paddington. I have written to the consultative committee on the question. It is that one side of the station at Stapleton Road, Bristol, has been closed to the public. It had been open ever since the
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    railway started. A tavern was built outside to meet the needs of the people. [Laughter.] I am looking after the needs of my constituents. If hon. Members opposite wish to laugh at that they may do so.
    Mr. John Wells: Can the hon. Member tell us how many people use that station?
    Mr. Awbery: I am informed that £1,000 a year will be saved by the closing of one side of the station. Whether that is correct or not I do not know, but I am satisfied that inconvenience and trouble will be caused to hundreds of people every day. They will have to travel 400 or 500 yards to get to the other side of the station. The little tavern will practically be closed, because the custom comes mainly from the railways.
    The needs of my constituents in Bristol are not being considered at all. All that the Government are measuring is the amount of money which will be saved by closing this side of the station. Indeed, the position is even worse than that. There is a step leading to the main road from the station. That will be closed, and the road in which the tavern stands will be a cul-de-sac. Instead of having hundreds of customers it will probably have ten. I am satisfied that the Transport Commission is doing the wrong thing by closing this side of the station.
    I apologise for raising the matter here, but I ask the Minister to take it up with the Commission and see whether anything can be done to meet the needs of the people instead of merely trying to make a profit.
    Mr. Marples: I promise the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) that I will look carefully at his letter and go into the question very carefully, because I, and not Dr. Beeching, have to decide whether that station shall be closed. I will see how it meets the needs of the people. I take it that he is not asking me to subsidise the tavern, which also meets the needs of the people.
    Mr. Awbery: I did not ask the Minister to subsidise the tavern. I asked him not to take away from the tavern the

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    customers who are already there on the pretence that he will save £1,000 a year, albeit to the inconvenience of hundreds of people every day.
    Mr. Marples: All I am saying is that various people have their own assessment of what is reasonable. Many people think that the tavern supplies them with reasonable needs far more than does a railway journey. But if the hon. Gentleman wants me to subsidise the tavern, and asks me in his letter to do so, I will promise only to consider the matter—but I do not think that he will ask that.
    If, as the hon. Member claims, extortionate sums of money were paid for the railways, for scrap iron, as he called it, then the Labour Party is guilty of paying extortionate sums of the taxpayers' money for property which was not worth it.
    Mr. Mellish: Confiscation?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) is on the wrong point. What should be paid is not under the cost, or over the cost, but the actual cost.
    The hon. Member for Bristol, Central said that it was extortionate, which means that it was over the cost and that the taxpayer was paying more than it was worth. The hon. Member for Bermondsey suggested confiscation, which means, in effect, paying less than it is worth. The sum paid should be reasonable. The hon. Member's argument means that the Labour Party paid more than it was worth.
    Mr. Awbery: We found the railways in a deplorable condition. I called the system scrap iron because I am convinced that much of it was. Then, under difficult circumstances, we had to rehabilitate the railways and build them up to what they are today by the investment of capital.
    Mr. Marples: The sum should be not extortionate and not insufficient, but a fair price. If the Labour Party cannot assess a fair price it would not be very good in business.
    The hon. Member said that the railway should meet the reasonable needs of the people and not the excessive
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    needs—and that is a fair point. The Select Committee said that
    "this confusion in judging between what is economically right and what is socially desirable has played an important part in leading to the situation in which the Commission now find themselves."
    In other words the Commission has been trying to balance two irreconcilable things—what is socially desirable and what is economically right—and it has fallen between two stools.
    Mr. Ernest Popplewell Mr. Ernest Popplewell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West) rose—
    Mr. Marples: I do not wish to be discourteous, but there is a Guillotine on, and Recommittal must be finished by 6 p.m.
    It would be for the convenience of the Committee if I summarised the arguments made for the Amendment and the Government's argument against it and then answered points made by hon. Members. After that the debate can be continued, and no doubt the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) will be able to catch your eye, Sir William.
    The purpose of the Amendment is to lay a duty on the Railways Board to provide such railway services in Britain
    "as will meet the reasonable needs of agriculture, industry and the public."
    We discussed this exhaustively in Standing Committee. I find that 45 columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT are devoted to it. The right hon. Gentleman has produced in a much shorter form some of the arguments then put forward. The two main points which the Opposition made upstairs, and which they have made again today, are, first, that the Railways Board is not placed under a comparable duty with that on the British Transport Commission under the Transport Act, 1947, to provide adequate railway services; and, secondly, that considerations of public service should not. and I repeat not, be completely subordinated to financial considerations. That point has been elaborated at some length.
    The Parliamentary Secretary, in Standing Committee, answered those points under six clear headings. The first is that the Government's policy frankly now recognises that the railways can no longer be regarded as a milch cow,

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    torn between considerations of public service and profitability. It is no good saying, as was said in the 1947 Act, that they should pay, taking one year with another, and then saying that they should have social considerations in mind. Hon. Members may have which they like but they cannot have both.
    Mr. Awbery: We had both.
    Mr. Marples: The present difficulties partly arise from the fact that the 1947 Act placed two irreconcilable duties on the Transport Commission.
    Secondly, in the present declining traffic situation of the railways, it is illogical and meaningless to place any obligation on the Railways Board towards any particular class of user. The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) and an hon. Member for a Scottish constituency mentioned the Post Office.
    Mr. Manuel: No Scottish Member has mentioned the Post Office in this debate.
    Mr. Marples: There is a difference between the railways and the Post Office which is crystal clear and ought to be made crystal clear to the Committee. The Post Office is a monopoly and the railways are not a monopoly. I have the figures here for the freight carried by road and rail and the comparisons between 1952 and 1961. In 1952, road vehicles carried 18·3 thousand million ton-miles and in 1961 they carried 28 thousand million ton-miles. In 1952, the railways carried 22 thousand million ton-miles, which was more than that carried by the road, and in 1961 they carried 17 thousand million ton-miles. In other words, rail is now carrying less traffic than the roads.
    Mr. Popplewell: Tragic.
    Mr. Marples: It may be tragic, but it is a fact.
    If that is so, it is no good saying that the system which carries the least traffic should have an obligation imposed on it. I could understand the argument if it were a monopoly as is the Post Office. I recollect that when I was Postmaster-General some of the islands off the north-west coast of Scotland were very expensive to service: it was expensive
    268
    to send a letter there. I know of one island in respect of which a man on it received only two communications a week, one being the local paper and the other being the football pools. We paid him 30s. a week to row his own boat across and to collect these two packages.
    Mr. William Ross: What about it?
    Mr. Marples: It was quite right and proper to do so, because it was a monopoly, but the railways are not a monopoly. If the man wanted to travel there he could walk or go by car or go by rail or go by air, for example. There is an immense difference between the two circumstances.
    Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose—
    Mr. Marples: I would rather not give way to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Ross: This is important.
    Mr. Marples: What I am about to say is even more important.
    Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose—
    5.0 p.m.
    The Chairman: Order. Only one hon. or right hon. Gentleman can be on his feet at once.
    Mr. Marples: The third point—
    Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose—
    Mr. Marples: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can make his speech afterwards.
    The third point is that to impose such an obligation would, I think, conflict with the financial duty of the Board, and would, in the interim period, impose an obligation on the taxpayer. I would say to the hon. Member for Westhoughton—who is, unfortunately, not now in his place—that it is not a question of profits. We are here talking about a loss of £151 million a year, which is equivalent to 8d. in the standard rate of Income Tax. Nobody can say that the Government have been sordid and mean in what they have done. It was a most enormous loss.
    The fourth point is that the Select Committee said that the best test of public need of a service is what the public are prepared to pay for it. It is just no good hon. Members thinking

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    that they are in a position to assess what a customer needs. The person who is in that position is the customer, and he will pay for what he wants—as, indeed, customers do in all walks of life. The Select Committee pointed that out, and I agree with it. Incidentally, two hon. Members opposite—at least two—were on the Select Committee, and gave valuable assistance to it.
    The fifth point is that the particular needs of agriculture, commerce and industry may, and, in my view, almost certainly will, be reflected by those Board members with knowledge and experience of such activities. For those reasons, the Government cannot accept this Amendment.
    The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) summarised the aims of the Amendment very fairly. There is no doubt at all that there is a difference of principle between the two sides of the Committee. The extreme case of the party opposite was given by the hon. member for Romford (Mr. Ledger), who suggested that all railway services should be free, and their cost paid for out of the Exchequer. I think that that view is regarded as extreme by most hon. Members opposite, but it really epitomises the Opposition's approach to this problem. We on this side think that if the customers want the service they will pay for it. They can have any rail way, or any branch line, they like as long as they are prepared to pay for the service they get, and do not expect the general taxpayer to pay for the particular travel—
    Mr. Manuel Mr. Manuel rose—
    Mr. Marples: No. It is not discourtesy or anything else that prevents my giving way, but the fact that T know that we have only a limited amount of time and that a number of hon. Members wish to speak. I think that it is in the interests of all hon. Members that we should make our speeches in an orderly manner and without interruption. If I keep on being interrupted we shall be too late, and we shall be blamed afterwards for it, which I do not like. I hate to be blamed for anything.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that what was wanted in 1947 was an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system, but my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson)
    270
    shot him down in flames, because the Labour Government funked it in 1947. Under pressure, they allowed C licences, rightly or wrongly, and one can only have an integrated system provided that one has a dominated and dictated system; provided that one controls all forms of transport. We shall never have an integrated system here unless we control all road transport—A, B, and C licences—the railways, the air services and the like. As my hon. Friend said, the party opposite funked that in 1947.
    The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) mentioned an article in the Scotsman this morning. I apologise for not having yet read it, but I will look at it very carefully. I have no doubt that it will be full of the most powerful arguments if it was an interview with me that actually took place.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) made a brave and candid speech. It is time that we faced up to our responsibilities. We spend eleven months of the year saying that we should have extra expenditure, and three or four days telling the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to spend so much money. That was what my hon. Friend said, and it is about time we thought what effect all this has on the taxpayer and on the national economy.
    The hon. Member for Westhoughton asked what sort of transport plan we were to have, and I will tell him this in his absence—he can read my remarks tomorrow. At the end of this year we hope to have completed traffic studies that will tell us those traffics that it is profitable for the railways to take and those traffics that it is not profitable for them to take. Where it is profitable for the railways to take a traffic, and they are suitable, technically, to take it, the services will be expanded; where it is not profitable and suitable they will be reduced. The main point is to run the service as efficiently as we can in the interests of the nation—
    Mr. Charles Mapp: The Minister has made the important statement that at the end of the year we are to have the results of traffic studies based on traffic costings only. It has been hitherto understood that those costings would have a relationship to track costings and to all associated matters. Do I understand now

    271
    that these costings are to be exclusively confined to loading traffics, and so on?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman worked for the railways for a very long time. I really think that the studies that have been undertaken represent probably the biggest costing study of its kind ever undertaken, and I think that we had better see what comes out of it, rather than try to forecast the result.
    One thing that is crystal clear is that with the changing pattern of transport it is no good thinking that the railways can compete with road transport in the carriage of certain goods. In the case of other goods, they certainly can, and should, and they should concentrate on the goods that they can carry best both for themselves and for the customers. That is how we see it.
    If a case is wanted, I can instance the fishermen of Mallaig, in Scotland, who send fish to Central Scotland by road. On the other hand, we find that oil goes by rail. If the fishermen of Mallaig wish to send their fish by rail they can do so, because there is a rail service, but they opt for road transport. They do not do so because they are stupid or silly, but because it suits their purpose—
    Mr. Manuel: Has the Minister travelled over that road?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman's point is that it is a bad road and that the fishermen should not use it, but they do choose the road, even though it is bad. I would not wish to dictate to them, as right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite would, and tell them that they must send their fish by rail. We on this side say that if the fishermen of Mallaig want to send their fish by road they should be allowed to do so. The party opposite would say, "You must send it by rail whether you like it or not"—
    Mr. Steele: The right hon. Gentleman has made a very important statement. Once these traffic studies have been made those concerned may then decide what traffics are best for either road or rail, but the key to it is how it will be determined that a traffic shall go in one way or the other.
    Mr. Marples: We shall look at the results very carefully. We cannot really
    272
    decide until we have the results of the traffic studies. Anybody who thinks he can reach a conclusion before he has the evidence belongs to that side of the Committee. and not to this.
    The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele), who made a very reasonable speech, as always, said something which I should like to answer now. He said that nobody was looking into what our traffic needs will be in ten years' time—I think that that was the period—or later. That is not quite right; we are looking into that. We have a special department, which I set up a considerable time ago, to do exactly that. I am certain that it can be done. and I hope soon to give some details in answer to a Parliamentary Question. Nevertheless, that is a valid point, because we do want to know what people's needs will be. We want to know whether they will wish to go from London to Edinburgh by air or by train.
    So air, road, rail and the rest of it are being studied, but I did not want to make a song and dance about it because questions would appear on the Order Paper regarding the completion of these studies. However, as I say, I recognise that it is a valid point.
    Mr. Manuel Mr. Manuel rose—
    Mr. Marples: No. Time is pressing and we have many other matters, including coastal shipping, to consider. It is rearing six o'clock and there is the Guillotine. I do not mind giving way normally but, in this instance, I must press on. In any case, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire made his speech and I listened to it most carefully.
    Mr. Manuel: The right hon. Gentleman has been giving way.
    Mr. Marples: I agree. I think that I heard an hon. Member say "too much", and, accepting that admonition, I will not give way any more.
    Another argument advanced by hon. Members opposite is that of the remote village which might not be supplied in bad weather. I received a deputation yesterday and its members pointed out that a certain village did not receive supplies of food, and so on, in 1947—fifteen years ago. That village has

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    received its supplies during the past fifteen years and the only case is that on that one occasion fifteen years ago the supplies were not received.
    Surely, to cover this sort of eventuality, there are now other ways of supply. For instance, helicopters were not nearly as good fifteen years ago as they are now. I maintain that it is better to use R.A.F. helicopters, which are quite capable of dropping food and other supplies, once in fifteen years than to keep a railway track going for fifteen years to cover that one eventuality.
    The Select Committee said:
    "For the Commission to continue to provide some services that are bound to be run at a loss is to continue to drive the railway accounts into deficit. This makes it impossible for them to carry out their duty of balancing their revenue account, taking one year with another."
    Hon. Members must decide what we want the railways to do. One thing we know for certain; they cannot do both. I agree in principle with the Select Committee that if anything is needed on social grounds it shall be a political decision and not a decision of the management of the railways and that Parliament itself will provide the moneys for those services. However, it must be a specific matter, and £151 million a year is too big a burden on the taxpayer.
    I am absolutely opposed to the views of the Opposition on this matter. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will reject the Amendment decisively.
    5.15 p.m.
    Mr. Ross: Had the Minister given way I could have made my point quite briefly. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman set a bad example when he spoke of the gentleman in the Western Isles in relation to the postal services. Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that that is one part of Britain where transport is provided by the nation simply because if the nation did not provide it there would be no transport?
    The right hon. Gentleman is now telling us that sitting down somewhere in the offices of the railway boards are people working out what should happen according to a formula about which nobody knows anything. They are, according to the right hon. Gentleman,
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    working out a costing system and will decide, from a railways' point of view, which traffics can be discarded and which can be expanded. From a railways' point of view that is probably a perfect state of affairs, but will anyone consider the other traffics? This matter does not appear to have entered the question.
    Dr. Beeching says, "Let us discard £53 million worth of traffics. What the result will be is not Dr. Beeching's or the Minister's concern, or the worry of anyone connected with the new railways set-up.
    Mr. Marples Mr. Marples rose—
    Mr. Ross: The Bill does not explain just whose concern it is.
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman could not have read the Bill because it is clear that the T.U.C.C., when it is proposed to close a passenger line, will consider what hardship will be imposed on passengers. Therefore, this matter must be considered and it is also included in the Committee's reports.
    Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman cannot deceive me or anyone else. When Dr. Beeching talks about the various kinds of traffic he is not talking about passenger traffic. He is referring to the closing down of these facilities for passenger purposes and of keeping them open for freight. The right hon. Gentleman should be aware that my hon. Friends and I have met Dr. Beeching once or twice.
    This is all the fault of the Government. As was pointed out, one must have a unified ownership if the job is to be done properly and the great tragedy results from what took place in 1953, when a move towards this end was destroyed. Things are a great deal different and we have a great deal less now as a result of that 1953 action, which left us with the burden of the common carrier.
    We have a great national transport asset and the main question is: shall we use it properly? The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) was right when he said that hard decisions will have to be made concerning which traffics can be taken by road and which by rail. Despite this, it is proposed to discard £53 million worth of railways and no one seems to

    275
    be concerned about what will be discarded and where the breakdown will take place. It is one thing for the fishermen of Mallaig, for they have a choice between rail and road. But what if a road does not exist? What happens then? Naturally, the railways will not be concerned. It appears that, if the traffic is not economic, they will go. This points the danger to what can happen in the future.
    We have had this sort of problem in Scotland before—in the Western Isles and, more recently, in Orkney and Shetland. The Liberal Party may be prepared to accept this state of affairs for its Leader, and to support the Bill, but it is on matters such as this that the Minister has completely failed to wake up to the facts. The right hon. Gentleman must realise that in his former job as Postmaster-General he subsidised uneconomic services such as rural telephone kiosks. People could send letters and use telephones. When in that office, the right hon. Gentleman ensured that those services would be continued.
    The question of a monopoly does not enter into the matter under discussion. We are considering the topic in relation to railway services in difficult rural areas. If this is to be judged from a profitability point of view it will mean that a considerable part of the services provided by the railways will be abolished in these difficult areas and. as a result, the people living in them will suffer.

    Division No. 160.]

    AYES

    [15.21 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

    Albu, Austen

    Darling, George

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Ginsburg, David

    Awbery, Stan

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Deer, George

    Grey, Charles

    Beaney, Alan

    Delargy, Hugh

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Bence, Cyril

    Dempsey, James

    Gunter, Ray

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Diamond, John

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Benson, Sir George

    Dodds, Norman

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Blackburn, F.

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Hannan, William

    Blyton, William

    Driberg, Tom

    Harper, Joseph

    Boardman, H.

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Hayman, F. H.

    Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)

    Edelman, Maurice

    Healey, Denis

    Bowles, Frank

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Noes (Caerphilly)

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    Boyden, James

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Evans, Albert

    Hilton, A. V.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Holman, Percy

    Butler Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Finch, Harold

    Houghton, Douglas

    Callaghan, James

    Fitch, Alan

    Hoy, James H.

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Chapman, Donald

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Cliffe, Michael

    Forman, J. C.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Once a branch line is closed—and this is the relevant point made by the hon. Member for Yeovil and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele)—one must consider what will be the position in ten years' time. The Minister talks about a "consumers' choice". Surely he knows what he has had to do in London about consumers' choice regarding car parking. He has a pink zone and people cannot come anywhere near it.
    Mr. Marples Mr. Marples indicated dissent.
    Mr. Ross: They must pass through it and not stop. The right hon. Gentleman has spent a good deal of time telling people how the system works.
    Mr. Marples: It does work.
    Mr. Ross: What will be the position of road traffic in ten years' time? Might we not have to take the sort of unpalatable decision about which the hon. Member for Yeovil spoke? I feel very strongly on this point. We have a national asset and it may be that to meet an immediate and shortsighted need we shall destroy part of it. We should consider these matters much more seriously from a social and industrial point of view.
    Question put. That "such" be there inserted:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 193, Noes 259.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Neal, Harold

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Oram, A. E.

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Oswald, Thomas

    Steele, Thomas

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Owen, Will

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Jeger, George

    Padley, W. E.

    Stones, William

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Paget, R. T.

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

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Pannen, Charles (Leeds, W.)

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

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Swingler, Stephen

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Paton, John

    Taverne, D.

    Kelley, Richard

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Peart, Frederick

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Thornton, Ernest

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Tomney, Frank

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Lipton, Marcus

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Warbey, William

    Loughlin, Charles

    Proctor, W. T.

    Watkins, Tudor

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Weitzman, David

    McInnes, James

    Randall, Harry

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Rankin, John

    Whitlock, William

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Redhead, E. C.

    Wigg, George

    McLeavy, Frank

    Reid, William

    Wilkins, W. A.

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Willey, Frederick

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

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

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Manuel, Archie

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Mapp, Charles

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Willie, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

    Mason, Roy

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Ross, William

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Mendelson, J. J,

    Short, Edward

    Woof, Robert

    Millan, Bruce

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Milne, Edward

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Zilliacus, K.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Monslow, Walter

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Moody, A. S.

    Small, William

    Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and

    Moyle, Arthur

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Mr. Lawson.

    Mulley, Frederick

    Snow, Jullan

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Clarke, Brig Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Allason, James

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Goodhew, Victor

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Cole, Norman

    Gower, Raymond

    Barber, Anthony

    Collard, Richard

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Barlow, Sir John

    Cooper, A. E.

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    Barter, John

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Green, Alan

    Batsford, Brian

    Cordle, John

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Corfield, F. V.

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Costain, A. P.

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Bell, Ronald

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Cunningham, Knox

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Curran, Charles

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Bidgood, John C.

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Biffen, John

    Dance, James

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Biggs-Davison, John

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Harvle Anderson, Miss

    Bingham, R. M.

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Hay, John

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Bishop, F. P.

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Doughty, Charles

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Bossom, Clive

    Drayson, G. B.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Duncan, Sir James

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Box, Donald

    Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

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

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J.

    Eden, John

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Braine, Bernard

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

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Brewis, John

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Holland, Philip

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Holt, Arthur

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Brooman-White, R.

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Farr, John

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Fell, Anthony

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Buck, Antony

    Finlay, Graeme

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Bullard, Denys

    Fisher, Nigel

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

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

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Freeth, Denzil

    James, David

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Gammans, Lady

    Jennings, J. C.

    Chataway, Christopher

    Gardner, Edward

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    278

    279

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Kimball, Marcus

    Morrison, John

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Kirk, Peter

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Kitson, Timothy

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Noble, Michael

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Tapsell, Peter

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Temple, John M.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Page, John (Harrow, West)

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Peyton, John

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

    Pitman, Sir James

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Longbottom, Charles

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Longden, Gilbert

    Pott, Percivall

    Turner, Colin

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Lubbock, Eric

    Prior, J. M. L.

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Pym, Francis

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    McAdden, Stephen

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    MacArthur, Ian

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Wade, Donald

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Walder, David

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Rees, Hugh

    Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

    Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)

    Renton, David

    Wall, Patrick

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Webster, David

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Robertson, Sir D. (C'thn's & S'th'ld)

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Maddan, Martin

    Roots, William

    Whitelaw, William

    Maginnis, John E.

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Maitland, Sir John

    Russell, Ronald

    Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    St. Clair, M.

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Seymour, Leslie

    Wise, A. R.

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Sharples, Richard

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Shaw, M.

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Mawby, Ray

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

    Woollam, John

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Smithers, Peter

    Worsley, Marcus

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

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Mills, Stratton

    Speir, Rupert

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Mr. Peel and Mr. McLaren.

    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 43.—(CHARGES AND FACILITIES: GENERAL PROVISIONS.)
    5.30 p.m.
    Mr. Mapp: I beg to move, in page 44, line 23, to leave out from first "passenger" to "or" in line 24.
    In moving this Amendment I wish immediately to pinpoint the matter at issue. It is not a wide point in which politics is involved. With reference to the words which we are seeking to omit from the Clause, the simple fact emerges that in the course of an ordinary day's journey the railwayman travelling on a free pass is travelling by virtue of accrued rights which he has in the service and which were underwritten, as it were, by the Guillebaud settlement. I say that in order that we should not get into an argument about the rights of these passes. But the fact is that while in law the average passenger has his or her rights in respect of an accident, the railway servant travelling in the condi-
    280
    tions which I have described has no such rights.
    This matter was very sharply pinpointed some years ago in connection with the railway disaster at Harrow when a number of railway staff working at headquarters at Euston lost their lives, as, unfortunately, did a number of other people. The relatives of these men found that they had no legal redress. As a result of representations made by the respective unions catering for those people, a letter was written by the British Transport Commission to the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association saying what it was prepared to undertake. The letter stated:
    "The Commission has recently had under consideration the question of liability to be accepted by them in respect of members of the staff and their dependants travelling on British Railways on free passes or free tickets. As a result it has been decided that the conditions of issue of such passes and tickets will be the same as that of privilege tickets, i.e. the Commission will accept the same liability for members of the staff and their dependants travelling on British Railways free tickets and passes as it does for members of the public."

    281
    By omitting the words as proposed in the Amendment we are seeking to write into the Bill precisely the same legal and statutory rights in respect of railway-men travelling in these conditions as apply in other fields. I ought perhaps to add that this point was very closely dealt with in Committee and that appeals were made to the Parliamentary Secretary to omit these words. The hon. Gentleman made reference to the fact that he had incorporated in the Clause the words used in the passenger charges scheme of 1950. But the passenger charges scheme will disappear when the Bill becomes an Act and no passenger charges scheme will then be applicable. Therefore, there is no reason to retain these words.
    I have said, in effect, what the industrial practice is, and it is a good practice. I should perhaps say that in Committee the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) sought to argue, though without much conviction, that in his opinion industrial bargaining and industrial arrangements were more satisfactory in the long run than would be the writing into the Bill of the common and elementary rights involving the normal statutory protection in the circumstances which I have described.
    I propose to bring my remarks to a close very shortly because we are working against the Guillotine. I think it would be fair to summarise the position by saying that in Committee the Parliamentary Secretary had been speaking to an awkward brief. I must say that he carried his bat well, but in the last twenty minutes or so of the discussion the Minister himself came in. The right hon. Gentleman was alerted to the nature of the discussion and of the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), who felt as we had felt that this was a point which the Minister could concede without any difficulty at all. My right hon. Friend spotlighted the fact that half a million railwaymen feel very alarmed about this matter and wish to have written into the Bill a statutory right which industrially they achieved in 1954 or 1955.
    The Minister having come into the Committee Room and having been alerted about the depth of feeling on the
    282
    matter, and having rejected the Amendment, said:
    "I will, however, consider the arguments further, because I can see that hon. Gentlemen opposite feel strongly about this. I assure the Committee that I will look at these arguments carefully, and if further arguments are put to me by way of letter or in any other way, I will consider those also before Report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E; 20th March, 1962; c. 1388.]
    We on our side of the Committee felt that that was at least a step forward. I think it would be fair to remind the Minister that I know that within two or three days the three railway unions, in one form or another, sent very firm communications to the right hon. Gentleman confirming what I have been saying to the Committee. I feel that at this stage the least which the Committee can do is to accept the general practice and to write into the Bill words giving the railwayman when travelling the same rights that ordinary passengers are given.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): As the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) has said, we dealt at some length with this issue in Committee upstairs. As he has also said, my right hon. Friend the Minister gave an undertaking on 20th March that he would look at the matter again. As the hon. Gentleman has further told the Committee, we have received correspondence from the trade unions who have urged that we should adopt the proposal put forward by the Opposition on that occasion.
    It is important that we should understand what the proposal really is. The effect of the Amendment now moved, which is identical with that moved in Committee upstairs, would be to prevent the Board from limiting its liability in respect of the death of any passenger who travelled on the railways on a free pass or who suffered bodily injury while so travelling. That is the effect of the Amendment, and that is what the argument is about.
    I wish to tell the Committee that we have been carefully into this matter again, but that I am afraid we have come to the conclusion that we were right in resisting the Amendment at the earlier stage and that we must advise the Committee to do the same this afternoon. There are, as I said when dealing

    283
    with the Amendment upstairs, a number of domestic complications which would arise if we were to accept this Amendment, and I should like to deal with two of them.
    As the hon. Gentleman has explained to the Committee, the origin of the words which now appear in Clause 43 is the passenger charges scheme established by the British Transport Commission as long ago as 1950. Since that charges scheme will disappear under the reorganisation, it is necessary to reproduce its essential provisions in the Clause. The provisions which we reproduce exclude the case of railway men travelling on free passes. As I told the Committee upstairs, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, since 1955, and despite the position under the charges scheme, the British Transport Commission has, as an act of grace, accepted this liability.
    Accordingly, the Commission feels—I think that it is only right that we should agree—that there is no compelling reason why the statutory situation should be altered and something being done by the Commission at present as an act of grace should be given permanent form in the Bill. That is the first of the domestic complications.
    Mr. Charles Loughlin: What is the act of grace?
    Mr. Hay: I explained—I hope that the hon. Gentleman was listening—that since 1955, the British Transport Commission, as an act of grace, although it is not legally obliged to do so, has been honouring all claims of this kind.
    Mr. Loughlin: I wanted an explanation of the expression "act of grace". Is the action of the British Transport Commission a result of negotiations with the trade unions? Is that what the hon. Gentleman means by an act of grace?
    Mr. Hay: Yes; all this, I understand, was negotiated between the unions and the B.T.C.
    Mr. Loughlin: Then it is not an act of grace.
    Mr. Hay: The second domestic complication is that, if the Amendment were accepted, we should be dealing only with people travelling on the railways on free passes. There would undoubtedly be repercussions among employees of the
    284
    the other boards. I will take one example. Some employees of the other boards might have the right to travel free on buses provided by, for example, the London Board. There would be an extraordinary situation. In law, following the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, so far as road vehicles are concerned, all third party liabilities, including liabilities to passengers, have to be covered by insurance. There are, however, two exceptions. The first is liabilities to employees, and these are usually covered by employer's liability insurance. The second exception is liabilities to passengers who are not paying fares or not travelling at the request of employers.
    Thus, on the buses, employees who travel on a free pass are not insured by their employers, and the employers are under no legal obligation by Act of Parliament to insure their employees. Nevertheless, if we were to accept the Amendment, in respect of rail travel there would be a statutory liability to insure. To illustrate what would then be the situation, I will take this example. A motor man working for London Transport takes his children on Sunday, his day off, to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons. He decides to go back home to Harrow making use of his free pass. If he takes a No. 13 bus from Trafalgar Square to Baker Street, he is not covered by insurance so long as he is travelling on the bus. If at Baker Street he boards a tube train to go to Harrow, he is covered, if the Amendment is accepted. There will be the anomaly that, so long as he travels on the bus, he will not be covered legally, whereas, so long as he travels by train, he will be covered legally.
    We cannot accept the Amendment because of those two domestic complications which I have explained.
    Sir Douglas Glover: Why cannot he get on the tube at Trafalgar Square?
    Mr. Hay: No doubt he would, if he wanted to be covered completely. Nevertheless, he might want to see some of the sights of London from the top deck of a bus. I do not know.
    We have looked at this matter extremely carefully, and we have come to the conclusion that it would not be

    285
    right to put in an Act of Parliament what is the already existing practice of the Commission, which I feel sure the Railways Board would wish to continue in future. I think that we should be well advised to leave the situation as it is. The practical aspect requires that railwaymen and other employees of the boards should have a reasonable chance of being covered. In practice they will be. I do not propose to ask the Committee to write into the Bill a legal obligation on the boards so to provide.
    5.45 p.m.
    Mr. Ernest Popplewell: I cannot imagine that that is the last word of the hon. Gentleman or his Minister on this subject. It may be the final word in this Committee, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity in another place to look at the matter again.
    The hon. Gentleman's argument was one of the most "phoney" we have yet heard. He made a great point of travelling on free passes. When railwaymen put in an application for increased wages, it is always put as a set-off against their application that they have the perquisite of free travel. This is, and always has been, taken into consideration by the arbitrators on any wages claim. It is nonsense for the Minister to say that railway employees do not pay for their free pass travel. In effect, they are paying for it weekly out of their wages. Surely, the Minister will not be so hidebound as to say that ex gratia payments are now being made and that is an end of it. The British Transport Commission has accepted an obligation towards anyone travelling on a free pass because its employees pay for their passes in their wage rates. There is no question of it being something to which they are not entitled.
    The hon. Gentleman said that, if we accepted the Amendment, the liability accepted by the Commission would lose its ex gratia character and the effect would be to remove the limit on what might be the new Railways Board's liability. Surely, if the men are paying for their travel weekly out of their wages, they are entitled to the usual common law damages which any citizen could have by an exercise of his rights.
    286
    It is said that domestic complications would arise if this facility were granted because of the effect on the employees of other boards. The hon. Gentleman instanced the buses. Travelling on the buses of the London Transport Executive, we see notices advertising vacancies for employees and in those advertisements there is always a statement about free travel facilities. These facilities are always taken into account. It is misleading to advertise the free travel facilities if no compensation is payable in the event of injury. If we accept the Minister's argument, it amounts almost to a confidence trick.
    The hon. Gentleman knows that there is very deep feeling among the employees and their trade unions about this matter. They feel that this is a slight upon them, justified on the basis of their free travel facilities which, nevertheless, are not really a perquisite at all. Free travel facilities have always been used by the railways as part of their argument in dealing with railway men's wages. We feel keenly about it. We want the Minister to undertake to reconsider the matter before the Bill goes further. The men are deeply disturbed about it. The Government cannot have it both ways. They must not talk with two voices. I urge the hon. Gentleman to say now that he will look at the matter again before the Bill goes to another place.
    Mr. Steele: The Parliamentary Secretary has again told us why we should not have this provision in the Bill, but he gave us an added reason this afternoon, which we did not hear in Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary said today that, irrespective of the fact that there is no legal obligation upon the new Railways Board, should anyone travelling on a free pass suffer death or injury from an accident the Board would accept liability. This is absolutely clear. Therefore, should the Prime Minister, an ex-director of the old Great Western Railway, be involved in a railway accident whilst travelling from Euston to Carstairs and the as a result, his widow would receive compensation, although he was travelling on a free pass. This is all clear, but, although it is accepted that this would be the position, it is argued that the Bill must not state that this obligation would be accepted.

    287
    The Parliamentary Secretary said that if we do this for railwaymen we must do it for employees of bus companies. Why not? My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) put a very pertinent point to the Parliamentary Secretary. He rightly said that this is not an act of grace. This is an agreement which has been negotiated between the trade unions and the British Transport Commission. It is now up to the trade unions concerned to negotiate another agreement with the bus companies. The Parliamentary Secretary's statement is an invitation for them to do so.
    However, there is a difference between the two employments, because a railwayman is limited in the number of free passes which he can enjoy. He receives only a small number in one year. A person working for the bus organisation in London has a pass enabling him to travel on the buses at any time. The other person who gets a free pass on the railway is the man whose function it is to go from station to station for relief work. It is part of his work to travel as a passenger. He is in the same category as the man driving the train. He has to be on the train.
    The Parliamentary Secretary, with his good legal brain, is satisfied with this argument, but in justice is does not satisfy the House of Commons. If the British Transport Commission at present recognises the obligation, there is no reason why it cannot be stated in the Bill. This has nothing to do with bus companies. The bus companies and their employees do not have this system, but people working on the railways do. Therefore, why should it not be stated in the Bill? In any case, whether it is in the Bill or not, it is up to the employees of the bus companies to ensure that their trade unions now negotiate the same agreement as the railways have with their employees.

    Division No. 161.]

    AYES

    [5.56 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Bell, Ronald

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Allason, James

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Box, Donald

    Arbuthnot, John

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Bidgood, John C.

    Braine, Bernard

    Barber, Anthony

    Biffen, John

    Brewis, John

    Barlow, Sir John

    Bingham, R. M.

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Barter, John

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Batsford, Brian

    Bishop, F. P.

    Brooman-White, R.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Bossom, Clive

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Mr. David Weitzman: My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) has just referred to the good legal brain of the Parliamentary Secretary. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a lawyer, but I ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to bear with me while I look at the Clause again and try to understand what the Parliamentary Secretary's answer means because, although I am a lawyer, I cannot understand it.
    The Amendment seeks to delete the words
    "other than a passenger travelling on a free pass".
    I understand that. If that phrase were deleted, subsection (7) would read:
    "The Boards shall not carry passengers by rail on terms or conditions which—
    (a) purport, whether directly on indirectly, to exclude or limit their liability in respect of the death of, or bodily injury to, any passenger … "
    We are dealing with the boards' liability. If the Amendment were accepted, its effect would be that the boards would be liable in respect of the death of, or bodily injury to, any passenger, whether he was fare paying or not. My hon. Friends and I are arguing that nothing should be done, directly or indirectly, to exclude or limit liability. This is plain common sense, untrammelled by any reference to bus No. 13 or "enjoying the sights of London". That has nothing whatever to do with it.
    I had always thought that the Minister was very fair in such matters. I ask him to look at the plain meaning of this subsection. It means nothing like the Parliamentary Secretary suggested. I suggest that the Amendment should be accepted.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 260, Noes 195.

    Buck, Antony

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Bullard, Denys

    Hiley, Joseph

    Peyton, John

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

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

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Pitman, Sir James

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

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

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Pott, Percivall

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Chataway, Christopher

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Holland, Philip

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Pym, Francis

    Clarke, Brig, Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Cole, Norman

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Collard, Richard

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Rees, Hugh

    Cooke, Robert

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Cooper, A. E.

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Renton, David

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    James, David

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Cordle, John

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Corfield, F. V.

    Jennings, J. C.

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Costain, A. P.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Robertson, Sir D. (C'thn's & S'th'ld)

    Coulson, Michael

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Roots, William

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S,

    Russell, Ronald

    Cunningham, Knox

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    St. Clair, M.

    Curran, Charles

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Kimball, Marcus

    Seymour, Leslie

    Dance, James

    Kirk, Peter

    Sharples, Richard

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kitson, Timothy

    Shaw, M.

    Deedes, W. F.

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntfd & Chiswick)

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Smithers, Peter

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Doughty, Charles

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Speir, Rupert

    Drayson, G. B.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    du Cann, Edward

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Duncan, Sir James

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Stodart, J. A.

    Eden, John

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

    Storey, Sir Samuel

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

    Longbottom, Charles

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Longden, Gilbert

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Tapsell, Peter

    Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Farr, John

    McAdden, Stephen

    Temple, John M.

    Fell, Anthony

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    Finlay, Graeme

    McLaren, Martin

    Thomas Peter (Conway)

    Fisher, Nigel

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Foster, John

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

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Freeth, Denzil

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Turner, Colin

    Gammans, Lady

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Gardner, Edward

    Maddan, Martin

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Maginnis, John E.

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Maitland, Sir John

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Walder, David

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

    Goodhew, Victor

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Wall, Patrick

    Gower, Raymond

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Mawby, Ray

    Webster, David

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Green, Alan

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

    Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Mills, Stratton

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Wise, A. R.

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Morrison, John

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Noble, Michael

    Woollam, John

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vero (Macclesf'd)

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Worsley, Marcus

    Harvle Anderson, Miss

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Hay, John

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Mr. Whitelaw and Mr. Peel.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Benson, Sir George

    Albu, Austen

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Blackburn, F.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Beaney, Alan

    Blyton, William

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Bence, Cyril

    Boardman, H.

    Awbery, Stan

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    290

    291

    Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)

    Hoy, James H.

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Bowles, Frank

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Prentice R. E.

    Boyden, James

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Price, J. T, (Westhoughton)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Proctor, W. T.

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Hunter, A. E.

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Randall, Harry

    Callaghan, James

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Rankin, John

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Reid, William

    Chapman, Donald

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Cliffe, Michael

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Jeger, George

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Darling, George

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

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

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Ross, William

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Kelley, Richard

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Deer, George

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Short, Edward

    Delargy, Hugh

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Dempsey, James

    King, Dr. Horace

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Diamond, John

    Lawson, George

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Dodds, Norman

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Small, William

    Driberg, Tom

    Lipton, Marcus

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Loughlin, Charles

    Snow, Julian

    Ede, Rt. Hon. c.

    Lubbock, Eric

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Edelman, Maurice

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    MacColl, James

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    McInnes, James

    Steele, Thomas

    Evans, Albert

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Stones, William

    Finch, Harold

    McLeavy, Frank

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

    Fitch, Alan

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Swingler, Stephen

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Taverne, D,

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

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

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Forman, J. C.

    Manuel, Archie

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Mapp, Charles

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

    Mason, Roy

    Thornton, Ernest

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Mellish, R. J.

    Tomney, Frank

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Wade, Donald

    Ginsburg, David

    Millan, Bruce

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Milne, Edward

    Warbey, William

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Watkins, Tudor

    Grey, Charles

    Monslow, Walter

    Weitzman, David

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Moody, A. S.

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Moyle, Arthur

    Whitlock, William

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Neal, Harold

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Gunter, Ray

    Oliver, G. H.

    Willey, Frederick

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Oram, A. E.

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Williams, LI. (Anertillery)

    Hannan, William

    Owen, Will

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Harper, Joseph

    Padley, W. E.

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

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Healey, Denis

    Parker, John

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A,

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    Paton, John

    Woof, Robert

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hilton, A. V.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Zilliacus, K.

    Holman, Percy

    Peart, Frederick

    Holt, Arthur

    Pentland, Norman

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Houghton, Douglas

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Mr. Redhead and Or. Broughton.

    It being after Six o'clock, The CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to Orders, to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the Business to be concluded at that hour, including the Questions on Amendments to Clause 53, a New Clause and Amendments to Schedule 7, moved by a member of the Government, of which notice had been given.
    Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 53.—(COASTAL SHIPPING.)
    Amendments made: In page 53, line 11. after "to", insert "(a)".
    In line 13, after "shipping", insert: "or
    (b) the charges made by the Railways Board for the carriage by rail to any harbour of goods which are to be carried by coastal shipping".
    In line 16, at end insert:
    "with regard to any such charges as are mentioned in paragraph (a) of the foregoing subsection".
    In line 17, after "him", insert "(a)".
    In line 17, leave out from "are" to end of line 23 and insert:
    "inadequate having regard to the full cost of affording the service or services in respect of which they are made, and
    (b) that a grant out of money provided by Parliament has been or is likely to be made under this Act to the Railways Board to meet a deficit on revenue account for the year in which those charges are made.
    (3) The Minister shall not give a direction under this section with regard to any such charges as are mentioned in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section unless it appears to him that the charges in question are excessive having regard to the full cost of affording the service or services in respect of which they are made".—[Mr. Marples.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    New Clause.—(ABSTRACTION OF WATER BY INLAND WATERWAYS AUTHORITY.)
    (1) Subject to this section the Inland Water ways Authority shall not without the consent of the Minister sell water from an inland waterway—

    (a) unless the water is abstracted at a point at which water was being abstracted before the passing of this Act, and

    (b) unless the quantity of water sold in the period of twelve months beginning with the vesting date, and in each subsequent period of twelve months, does not exceed the quantity abstracted at that point in the period of twelve months ending with the passing of this Act, and

    (c) unless the land or premises on which the water is used is the same as that on which the water was used before the passing of this Act.

    (2) If on the vesting date the Inland Waterways Authority become subject to an obligation to sell water such that the quantity they are obliged to sell is limited, whether by reference to the average rate of abstraction, or the quantity abstracted in any period, or otherwise, then, so long as the terms of the obligation are not varied, subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to the sale of water in discharge of the obligation.
    (3) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to the sale of water under section thirty-five of the River Lee Water Act, 1855 (under which a limited quantity of water may be sold for industrial purposes).
    (4) The Inland Waterways Authority shall serve on the persons specified in this section notice of any application made by them for the consent of the Minister, giving sufficient particulars of their proposals and of the terms of the consent applied for, and stating that the person on whom the notice is served should submit any objections to the Minister within twenty-eight days of service of the notice and should within that time send a copy of any such objection to the Authority.
    (5) Except in Scotland, the persons on whom the notice is to be served shall be—

    (a) the council of the borough or urban or rural district in which the point of abstraction is situated,

    (b) the River Board in whose area the point of abstraction is situated, and

    (c) the statutory water undertakers within whose limits of supply the point of abstraction is situated, and any other statutory water undertakers on whom the Minister, after consultation with the Minister of Housing and Local Government, directs the notice to be served.

    (6) In Scotland the persons on whom the notice is to be served shall be—

    (a) the council of the county or burgh in which the point of abstraction is situated,

    (b) the river purification authority in whose area the point of abstraction is situated and any other river purification authority on whom the Minister after consultation with the Secretary of State directs the notice to be served,

    (c) any salmon fishery district board on whom the Minister after consultation with the Secretary of State directs the notice to be served, and

    (d) the local water authority within whose limits of supply the point of abstraction is situated and any other local water authority on whom the Minister after consultation with the Secretary of State directs the notice to be served.

    (7) The Inland Waterways Authority shall give the Minister such information as he may require to determine whether any directions should be given under the two last foregoing subsections.
    (8) The Minister shall not entertain the application unless he is satisfied that all the required notices have been duly given; and the Minister shall take into consideration any objections duly made by the persons on whom they have been served.
    (9) The Minister in considering the application and the terms in which any consent ought to be given shall have regard—

    (a) to the importance of the uses to which the abstracted water will be put and to the present and future needs of statutory water undertakers, industry and agriculture, and

    (b) to the effect which the proposals may have on fisheries, land drainage or public health, or on the inland waterway directly affected or any other inland waterway or stream, and

    (c) to the extent to which the abstracted water will be returned,

    and shall, before giving his consent as respects any inland waterway in Scotland, consult the Secretary of State.
    (10) The Minister may give his consent either in the terms requested in the application, or in any other terms, but shall not afford terms more favourable than those requested unless he is satisfied that all the authorities concerned have had an opportunity of considering those terms and making objections.
    (11) The terms of any consent given by the Minister shall be transmitted by the Inland Waterways Authority to each of the persons on whom they are required in pursuance of this section to serve notice of their application for consent.
    (12) The Commission shall before the vesting date compile for the use of the Inland Waterways Authority a record of all cases in which, in the period of twelve months ending with the passing of this Act, they were abstracting water from inland waterways for use on any land or premises, and shall include in the record particulars of the land or premises on which the water was used, of the points of abstraction, of the total quantities abstracted in the said period, and of any contract under which they were obliged to sell the water.
    The Inland Waterways Authority shall give reasonable facilities for the inspection of the record by representatives of the authorities described in subsections (5) and (6) of this section, and shall, at the request of any such authority, give them any information as to the contents of the record.
    (13) In this section—
    "local water authority" has the meaning given by section five of the Water (Scotland) Act, 1946;
    "river purification authority" has the same meaning as in Part III of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act, 1961;
    "salmon fishery district board" means the district board for a fishery district for the purposes of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1862, and the Commissioners appointed under the Tweed Fisheries Act, 1857;
    "statutory water undertakers" has the meaning given by subsection (1) of section fifty-nine of the Water Act, 1945;
    "stream" includes any river or watercourse whether natural or artificial.
    (14) This section shall apply to the Conservators of the River Thames and the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board as if they were River Boards and their areas were the Thames catchment area and the Lee catchment area respectively.
    (15) References in this section to the sale by the Inland Waterways Authority of water from an inland waterway include references to any arrangements whereby the Authority for valuable consideration abstract, or authorise the abstraction of, the water of an inland waterway for use by some other person, whether or not the water is returned after use.
    (16) The granting of consent under this section shall not be taken as authorising the Inland Waterways Authority to do anything which they would not have power to do apart from the provisions of this section.—[Mr. Marples.]
    Brought up, read the First and Second time and added to the Bill.

    Seventh Schedule.—(TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS.)
    Amendments made: In page 119, line 35, after second "of" insert:
    "the Commission or of".
    In page 120, line 9, leave out "a Board" and insert:
    "by a Board or the Holding Company".
    In line 19, at end insert:
    "with any necessary modifications.
    (3) An order under the said section seventy-one may amend or revoke an order under this paragraph".
    In line 27, leave out "or to the Holding Company".
    In line 35, leave out "provisions of" and insert "re-organisation effected by".
    In line 43, leave out "provisions of" and insert "re-organisation effected by".
    In line 49, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 121 and insert:
    (b) for modifying contributory pension schemes so as to afford to persons who become employees of any such body after the vesting date opportunities for participation similar to those afforded to persons who are in comparable service with the body and who entered the employment of the body on or before the vesting date.
    In page 121, line 12, at end insert:
    "and the Holding Company".
    In line 14, leave out from "applies" to end of line 29 and insert:
    "in accordance with the arrangements under which the Commission were making those payments.
    (3) A scheme under this paragraph—

    (a) may require the Boards and the Holding Company to give to the persons by whom payments will be receivable in accordance with the scheme information as to the effect of the scheme, and

    (b) may provide for any of those bodies contributing to the expenses incurred by any other of them, and

    (c) may contain such other supplemental, incidental and consequential provisions as appear to the Commission expedient.

    (4) The Commission shall submit any such scheme to the Minister and, if the Minister is satisfied that responsibility for the payments is distributed among the said bodies in an appropriate manner and that the scheme contains sufficient particulars to enable them to discharge their duties under the scheme, he may approve the scheme.
    (5) Notice that the scheme has been so approved shall be published by the Commission in the London and Edinburgh Gazettes.
    (6) The payments which the Boards and the Holding Company are respectively to make in accordance with a scheme approved under this paragraph shall be recoverable by proceedings in any court of competent jurisdiction.
    (7) An order under section seventy-one of this Act may vary the provisions of a scheme under this paragraph.
    16.—(1) If it appears to the Minister that any pensions for persons employed before, but retiring after, the vesting date, or any other pensions payable after the vesting date (other than by way of continuing periodical payments which the Commission have been making in the period before the vesting date) would be receivable, although not as of right, under arrangements made by or with the Commission before the vesting date and that they ought to be receivable as of right, he may by order direct the Commission by a scheme under the last foregoing paragraph to distribute among the Boards and the Holding Company responsibility for making payments under the arrangements specified in the order.
    (2) An order under this paragraph shall be made by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament".
    In line 45, at end insert:
    (2) If at any time after the vesting date the Minister is satisfied, or it is determined under the next following sub-paragraph, that regulations under the said section ninety-eight have failed to secure the result mentioned in subsection (3) of that section (that is to say that certain persons having pension rights are not placed in any worse position by reason of provisions of the regulations), the Minister shall as soon as possible exercise the power conferred on him by section seventy-one of this Act to make the necessary amendments.
    In line 46, after "If", insert:
    (a) any dispute arises between the Minister and any persons as to whether the said result has been secured by any regulations under the said section ninety-eight, or
    (b)
    In line 49, after "the" insert "dispute or".
    In page 122, line 2, leave out "that decision" and insert:
    "any determination under paragraph (b) of this sub-paragraph".—[Mr. Marples.]
    Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
    Mr. Ross: What was all that about?
    Mr. Mellish: Tory democracy at work. This is an absolute farce.
    Then The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report the Bill, as amended, to the House, pursuant to Order [7th March.]
    Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.

    New Clause.—(APPLICATION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACTS.)
    (1) It is hereby declared that for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Acts anything done by any of the Boards—

    (a) in the exercise of the powers conferred by section eleven of this Act; or

    298

    (b) in the exercise of the powers conferred by section twelve of this Act so far as that section relates to pipe-lines which are not required for the purposes of the business of the Board other than the operation of pipelines,

    does not constitute the carrying on by the Board of their statutory undertaking and, in particular, that land which is used, or in which an interest is held, by a Board exclusively for the purpose of exercising those powers does not constitute operational land.
    (2) Without prejudice to the foregoing subsection and subject to the next following subsection, any development of operational land by a Board in the exercise of the said powers shall not for the purposes of the said Acts constitute development of operational land.
    (3) The last foregoing subsection shall not apply to development if—

    (a) the development comprises development by the Board for the purpose of carrying on their statutory undertaking or is development for a purpose which includes that purpose; and

    (b) the development is such that so much of it as is exclusively referable to the exercise by the Board of the said powers cannot fairly be treated for the purposes of the said Acts as separate development.

    (4) Any question under the last foregoing subsection whether part of any development can fairly be treated as separate development shall be determined by the local planning authority to whom application is made for permission for the development in question, or, where an application for permission for the development in question is referred to the Minister, by the Minister and the Minister of Transport; and where part of any development is so treated this section and the said Acts shall apply to the parts of the development in all respects as if they were separate development.
    (5) If an applicant is aggrieved by a determination of a local planning authority under the last foregoing subsection, he may appeal to the Minister, and any such appeal shall be determined by the Minister and the Minister of Transport.
    The provisions of the said Acts and of any development order as to the time and manner for appealing to the Minister against planning decisions of local planning authorities shall apply, subject to any necessary modifications, to an appeal under this subsection.
    (6) The provisions of the said Acts as to the validity, and proceedings for challenging the validity, of decisions of the Minister on applications for planning permission referred to him under those Acts or on appeals to him under those Acts against planning decisions of local planning authorities shall apply to any determination of the Minister and the Minister of Transport under this section as if a reference to this section were included in those provisions.
    (7) Before the vesting date, references in this section to section eleven of this Act and (in relation to that section) to any of the Boards shall be construed as references to section seventy-four of this Act and to the Commission.
    (8) In this section "the Minister" and "the Town and Country Planning Acts" mean respectively the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Town and Country Planning Acts, 1947 to 1959, or, in relation to Scotland, the Secretary of State and the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Acts, 1947 to 1959; and, subject to this section, any other expression in this section which is used in those Acts has the same meaning as in those Acts.—[Mr. Hay.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. Hay: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    Our town and country planning legislation recognises the fact that statutory undertakings have responsibilities to the public in general. In recognition of that fact, the legislation contains special protections for the interests of statutory undertakings. These protections, however, do not differentiate between the activities of a statutory undertaking acting in discharge of its public responsibilities and the activities of the same undertaking acting, when it has the power so to do, in a purely commercial fashion. The purpose of the new Clause is to ensure that the special protections given to statutory undertakers apply only to development by the boards for the purposes of their business.
    Clauses 11 and 12 empower the boards to undertake commercial property development and pipeline development respectively. Clause 74 empowers the Commission until vesting date to undertake commercial property development. That is the counterpart of Clause 11. In exercising their powers under these provisions, the boards and the Commission until vesting date will be acting as much in a commercial capacity as any private company operating in the same field would do. It is, we think, neither necessary nor desirable that these activities should enjoy the same protection as the operational activities of the boards.
    Under town and country planning legislation, where a statutory undertaker wishes to develop operational land and the local planning authority refuses consent to the development, the undertaking may appeal against the refusal. Any such appeal is determined not by the Minister of Housing and Local Government alone but jointly by that Minister and the appropriate Minister for the statutory undertaking concerned. That is provided for by Section 35 and
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    the Fifth Schedule of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. If the appeal is then refused, or if it is granted subject to conditions, the undertaking can appeal to Parliament by means of a special Parliamentary procedure. If that last appeal to Parliament is un-vailing, the undertaking can then claim compensation. The compensation is assessed on the basis laid down by the Fourth Schedule of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, which provides a special formula for the assessment of compensation.
    That, broadly, provides for compensation to be based on the expense and the decrease in receipts which the undertaking sustains because the planning consent has been withheld. The essential point, however, is that this formula for assessing compensation is in these circumstances much more favourable to the undertaking than the compensation formula which is normally applied to private people or private bodies. These protections refer not to operational development but to the development of operational land, which is a rather different kettle of fish. They might, unless the Bill otherwise provides, apply where a statutory undertaking was developing operational land for non-operational purposes.
    Let me give an example. If the Railways Board planned, in reconstructing a station, to provide over it offices for letting, that would be development of operational land for non-operational purposes. It would be clearly wrong that a planning authority which wished to refuse consent to a commercial development by a statutory undertaking should be obliged, if it were to take that step, to pay compensation at a rate which was originally designed to compensate the undertaking for interference with its operational activities. We have, therefore, introduced the Clause to ensure that that possibility does not arise. If it did, it might well inhibit planning authorities when they deal with commercial development proposals which the boards may put forward.
    The Clause excludes from the scope of the special protection developments undertaken by the boards for commercial purposes—that is, developments carried out under the powers conferred

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    by Clauses 11, 12 and 74. The construction of pipe-lines required for operational reasons is expressly excepted from the effects of the Clause in case they are held to be constructed under Clause 12. This provision merely removes any possible doubt as the powers conferred by Clause 12 are not needed for the construction of what I will call domestic pipe-lines—that is, pipe-lines within the land owned by a board and for its own operational purposes.
    The new Clause also provides for the splitting of what may be called mixed developments into the operational part or parts which will continue to enjoy the special protections of the town and country planning legislation and the non-operational part or parts which will not. I apologise for the fact that this is a somewhat complicated Clause and I regret that my explanation has been correspondingly complicated. Nevertheless I have done the best I can and I hope that the House will agree to add the Clause to the Bill.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause.—(CARRIERS' LICENCES FOR VEHICLES OPERATED BY SUBSIDIARIES OF THE BOARDS AND OTHER BODIES.)
    (1) For the purposes of the definition of "holding company" in subsection (4) of section one hundred and eighty of the Road Traffic Act, 1960 (which relates to carriers' licences for the vehicles of a subsidiary), the Boards and the Holding Company shall each be deemed to be a company and the said section one hundred and eighty shall have effect accordingly.
    (2) If on the vesting date a subsidiary of the Commission becomes a subsidiary of the Holding Company, any carriers' licence under Part IV of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, held by the Commission for a vehicle owned by the subsidiary shall thereafter have effect as if granted to the Holding Company; and for the purposes of section one hundred and eighty of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, the Holding Company shall be deemed to have made the application for the licence and to have signified to the licensing authority their desire that the section should have effect as respects the subsidiary.
    (3) If as a result of a transaction effected by the Holding Company not more than twelve months after the vesting date, and at a time when the Holding Company hold carriers' licences under Part IV of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, for vehicles owned by a subsidiary, the subsidiary becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company (hereinafter referred to as "the
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    company") which is itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Holding Company, any such licence for a vehicle then owned by the subsidiary shall thereafter have effect as if granted to the company; and for the purposes of section one hundred and eighty of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, the company shall be deemed to have made the application for the licence and to have signified to the licensing authority their desire that the section should have effect as respects the subsidiary.—[Mr. Hay.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. Hay: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    Subsection (6) of Clause 31 provides, among other things, for the road haulage companies of the British Road Services which are set out in List A of Part IV of the Fourth Schedule—'that is to say, the first five companies shown at the foot of page 105 of the Bill—to be transferred to the new Transport Holding Company at vesting date. We have found, however, that because the carriers' licences relating to the road goods vehicles owned by these companies are registered in the name of the Commission and not in the names of the respective companies by which they are owned, these licences—as the Bill is drafted—would not be transferred to the Holding Company. They would be transferred to the Railways Board as a result of subsection (2) of Clause 31, which in its concluding words provides that
    "any property, rights and liabilities not falling to be transferred under any other provision in this Act"
    shall be transferred to the Railways Board.
    This is clearly wrong. It would mean that unless we made special provision, the vehicles belonging to the British Road Services road haulage companies would be transferred with those companies to the Holding Company, while their carriers' licences would go to the Railways Board. Carriers' licences are not capable of being transferred by ordinary commercial processes, not do they pass automatically with the ownership of the vehicles to which they relate.
    To put this right, if the Bill were not amended, the Railways Board would have to apply to the licensing authority to effect the transfer of these licences to the Transport Holding Company. This would involve a good deal of work and

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    expense. The new Clause is therefore designed to deal with it.
    Subsection (1) simply repeats what is contained in the Second Schedule at lines 9 to 15 on page 101. Now that we have a new Clause dealing with these matters, it is more convenient to cover this provision in the new Clause than to deal with it in the Second Schedule. A later Government Amendment in page 101 provides for its deletion from the Second Schedule.
    The provision deems the statutory boards and the Holding Company each to be a holding company within the meaning of Section 180 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. The effect of this is to enable the Transport Holding Company and the statutory boards, if they hold carriers' licences for road goods vehicles, to be able to switch vehicles and drivers from one part of their undertaking to another or from one subsidiary company to another to meet operational requirements.
    Subsection (2) of the new Clause provides expressly that the carriers' licences attaching to the road goods vehicles owned by the subsidiary road haulage companies transferred at vesting date from the Commission to the Holding Company shall automatically be transferred with the vehicles. This overcomes the major difficulty which I have already explained.
    Subsection (3) provides for another eventuality which I must explain. As I said in Committee, it may be that the new Transport Holding Company will not wish to operate the five B.R.S. haulage companies as separate companies reporting direct to the Holding Company board. The Transport Holding Company might well wish to establish as soon as possible after vesting date a new subsidiary road haulage holding company under which the five B.R.S. companies could be grouped and in which the shares of those companies would be vested
    I must point out that certain other Amendments in Clause 75, page 81, lines 37. 39 and 44, and page 82, line 12, deal with the possibility of such a B.R.S. holding company being formed before vesting date by the Commission. For the purposes of the new Clause, however, I
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    am dealing with the possibility of such a separate holding company being formed by the Transport Holding Company after vesting date.
    In order, in this case, to save the Transport Holding Company from the trouble and expense at the outset of having to make separate application to the licensing authority for the transfer of the B.R.S. vehicle carriers' licences, subsection (3) provides that these licences are automatically to pass to the subsidiary road haulage holding company, provided that it is set up within twelve months from vesting date and is wholly owned by the Transport Holding Company. This seems only fair if, by the operation of the Bill, the Transport Holding Company were to be saddled with a road haulage undertaking different from what it wished to have at the outset.
    I think that briefly explains the new Clause and the circumstances under which we have come to do this. I shall be prepared to answer, as best I can, any questions that hon. Members may think fit, but I hope that the explanation that I have given may satisfy any doubts that they may have.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

    Clause 3.—(DUTY AND POWERS OF RAILWAYS BOARD.)
    Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 5, to leave out lines 1 to 5 and to insert:
    (e) to store within Great Britain goods which have been or are to be carried by the Railways Board, and, so far as any premises provided for the purposes of that or any other part of their business are not required for those purposes, to use them to provide facilities for the storage of other goods.
    Mr. Speaker: I think that it would be for the general convenience if we were to discuss this Amendment with the following Amendments. to Clause 9, in page 9, line 24, to leave out from "store" to the end of line 27. and in line 30. at the end to insert:
    "and, so far as any premises provided for the purposes of that or any other part of their business are not required for those purposes, to use them to provide facilities for the storage of other goods";
    and to Clause 10, in page 10, to leave out lines 32 to 39 and to insert:
    (f) to store goods which have been or are to be carried on any of the inland waterways

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    owned or managed by the Authority, or which have been or are to be loaded or unloaded in or carried through any of the harbours owned or managed by them, and, so far as any premises provided for the purposes of that or any other part of their business are not required for those purposes, to use them to provide facilities for the storage of other goods.
    Mr. Hay: The purpose of these Amendments is to empower the Railways Board, the Docks Board, and the Inland Waterways Authority to store goods, first, for the purpose of their business, and, secondly, for other purposes, but only in premises surplus to their operational needs and in premises which they have provided for the purpose of their business.
    The first Amendment covers the Railways Board, the second and third Amendments cover the Docks Board, and the last Amendment the Inland Waterways Authority. The effect of the Amendments is to widen the powers of the three boards concerned so as to enable them to store goods for the purposes that I have described. We had in Standing Committee a useful discussion about this and I undertook, in answer to a request from the Opposition and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) to look into this matter again.
    These Amendments substantially widen the field for the storage of goods by the boards. We have been prepared to agree to this believing that to use excess or surplus storage capacity in this way would not take the boards far outside their "set task", which, hon. Members will remember, was a phrase which I had almost continuously to use in Committee. I think that we have reached the right compromise on this and I hope that it will be a compromise acceptable to the House.
    Mr. Steele: For this little mercy we are very grateful. We had a long and arduous battle in Committee and we did not get very much at all. We took up many columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT in dealing with this point. Had the hon. Gentleman given more attention to what we were saying in Committee rather than having looked at this and all our Amendments from the point of view of finding arguments to ensure that our Amendments would not be accepted, I think that we would have saved a lot
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    of time. We are very grateful indeed that the Minister has seen the light, and we accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 8.—(LONDON BOARD'S ROAD SERVICES OUTSIDE LONDON.)
    Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 9, line 10, at the end to insert:
    For the purposes of this subsection any power to carry passengers in accordance with a working agreement which was made in pursuance of section eighteen of the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, and to which the Commission became a party by virtue of Part II of the Transport Act, 1947, shall be left out of account.
    Subsection 5 of this Clause gives the Minister a duty to certify in a Statutory Instrument the routes on which London Transport had power to carry passengers on 2nd November, 1961. During the discussion in Standing Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) proposed an Amendment intended to remove from the list of scheduled routes such routes as were operated by virtue of a terminable agreement or arrangement. His point was that the Bill should not make permanent voluntary agreements between London Transport and another operator which contained a provision for termination or variation.
    I explained that it was not the intention that the Minister's certificate should include such routes, but I undertook to look again at the whole matter to ensure that the drafting correctly carried out our intentions. The object of the Amendment is to make this intention clear and to put the matter beyond all doubt. Its practical effect will be to exclude from the list of routes three services which London Transport operates by virtue of a working agreement made shortly after 1933. The routes are, first, between Wendover and Aylesbury, about 5 miles long; the second is I mile long in Dunstable from The Square to the Sphinx Works; and the third, is part of Service 326 from Micklefield Estate to Sands, near High Wycombe and this is 1½ miles long.
    I hope that this is not too big a sledgehammer to crack three very small nuts, but I think it wise to put the matter beyond all doubt.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In page 9, line 24, leave out from "store" to end of line 27.
    In page 9, line 30, at end insert:
    "and, so far as any premises provided for the purposes of that or any other part of their business are not required for those purposes, to use them to provide facilities for the storage of other goods".
    In page 10, leave out lines 32 to 39 and insert:
    (f) to store goods which have been or are to be carried on any of the inland waterways owned or managed by the Authority, or which have been or are to be loaded or unloaded in or carried through any of the harbours owned or managed by them, and, so far as any premises provided for the purposes of that or any other part of their business are not required for those purposes, to use them to provide facilities for the storage of other goods.—[Mr. Hay.]

    Clause 11.—(DEVELOPMENT OF LAND.)
    Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 11, line 40, to leave out from the beginning to the end of line 7 on page 12.
    It might be for the general convenience of the House if at the same time, we discuss the following Amendments, to Clause 14, in page 15, line 28, leave out from "and" to "nothing" in line 29; to Clause 74, in page 81, line 19, to leave out from "that" to "it" in line 21; in line 23, to leave out "that Act" and to insert "the Transport Act, 1947"; and in page 81, leave out lines 26 to 32.
    The purpose of these Amendments is to delete two things from the Bill. The first is the declarations which are made in Clauses 11 and 74 that anything that is done in the exercise of the powers conferred on the boards and on the Commission respectively by the provision of these Clauses shall not be invalid on the ground that it is incompatible with their statutory duties.
    The second thing which the Amendments do is to delete from the Bill the special protection which is given in Clause 11 (6) and in Clause 74 for Royal palaces and parks. These two things may appear, and indeed are, quite unrelated, but in the case of Clause 11 they are dealt with by the first of the two Amendments. The effect of each of the Amendments I have mentioned is as follows.
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    6.30 p.m.
    The first Amendment deletes Clause 11 (5) and (6) which relate to incompatibility and the protection of Royal palaces respectively as regards development. The second Amendment, in page 15, line 28, is purely consequential and drafting. The third Amendment, in page 81, line 19, corresponds to the first part of the first Amendment and deletes that part of Clause 74 (5) which relates to the incompatibility of development by the Commission.
    The next Amendment, in page 81, line 23, is a purely consequential drafting Amendment depending upon the last Amendment I have mentioned. The final Amendment, in page 81, leave oat lines 26 to 32, corresponds to the last part of the first Amendment and deletes Clause 74 (6) which relates to protection for Royal palaces and parks against development by the Commission.
    Perhaps I may, as briefly as I can, deal separately with these two matters. As for the doctrine of incompatibility, the background to the proposed deletion of the declarations in Clauses 11 and 74 that developments by the boards and the Commission shall not be invalid on the ground of incompatibility with their statutory duties is that I undertook in Standing Committee on 27th February to consider representations made in the discussion principally by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. David James) and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) against these provisions. The main burden of the points which they made was that it would enable inland waterways to be disposed of without ensuring that the buyer would be under an obligation to carry out statutory duties laid on the owner of the undertaking—as regards, for example, matters of navigation, drainage and flood prevention. In my reply I pointed out that the issues involved were somewhat technical. I acknowledged that there was some little doubt about them, and I went on to say that I would seek to amend the Bill at a later stage if it should be apparent that this should be done.
    I must tell the House that Clause 11 (5) and Clause 74 were never intended to cover the sort of possibility which my hon. Friends had in mind, but, on consideration, we have appreciated that it

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    may be so interpreted. Therefore, we propose to remove that subsection altogether from that Clause and make the corresponding Amendments. We still have under consideration whether the powers of development and disposal by the boards of land which they clearly no longer need for their statutory purposes, for which it may possibly have been acquired originally by a former railway or canal undertaking, will be capable of being effectively exercised without some further Amendment of Clauses 11, 14 and 74. It is possible that in another place we may be obliged to table further Amendments to put the matter absolutely beyond doubt.
    As for the second matter, namely, the protection for Royal palaces and parks, the purpose, as I have already explained, is to delete these particular protections given expressly by the Bill. The protective provisions which we put in the Bill in fact repeat the effect of protective provisions which exist in local railway enactments. We felt that it would be the right and proper thing to do to repeat them in this Bill. However, during discussion in Standing Committee it appeared that the need which we envisaged for these provisions was not quite so strong and apparent as we thought. Certainly some hon. Members opposite, particularly the hon. Members for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell), and Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) attached some importance to the point that these restrictions on development do not apply to private developers. In reply I pointed out that Article 9 (1, e) of the Town and Country Planning (General Development) Order, 1950, already provided special control over development. This concerned, for instance, Windsor Castle and such Royal palaces and parks not provided for in the Bill. Hon. Members will recollect that the local planning authority has to consult the Minister of Works before it grants planning permission for development within two miles of Windsor Park or Windsor Great Park or Home Park or for development within half a mile of any other Royal palace or park if the development might affect the amenities of the palace or park concerned. We felt on further consideration that the provisions of the General Development Order really gave sufficient
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    and adequate protection and that there was no real need for us, as we had originally thought might have been the case, to import into this Bill equivalent provisions which were given by the old railway legislation.
    These are the two things we seek to do by this series of Amendments, and I hope the House will agree to them.
    Mr. Norman Cole: May I ask one question about this? As I understood the first part of my hon. Friend's remarks—not the part dealing with the Royal palaces but the other portion—he said provisions had been put into the Bill in order to allow people acquiring ex-railway land or property to carry out development not necessarily compatible with the statutory powers of the existing railway authority. I think that is the purport of what he said. May I ask if that also applies to land and property within the possession of the Commission or the boards?
    Mr. Hay: I think, with respect to my hon. Friend, that he has not fully understood—and I do not blame him—what is a pretty complicated matter. If one looks at Clause 11 (5) one sees that it is in these terms:
    "Anything done in the exercise of the powers conferred on a Board by this section shall not be invalid on the ground that it is incompatible with the duties imposed on that Board by this Act or by any other enactment which applies to them by virtue of this Act."
    The whole Clause is concerned with the development of land, and I think my hon. Friend will see, if he looks at it, that the effect of that may be said to be that the boards might in fact develop their land ignoring any duty which is imposed on them by this Bill or by any other enactment such as a Private Act which is applied to them by virtue of this Bill. This is a type of provision which, I must tell my hon. Friend, is very frequently used in certain Statutes.
    For reasons which I explained a moment ago, we came to the conclusion that perhaps we went too far in this connection. Accordingly we are asking the House to delete it. As I also explained, there is an equivalent subsection in Clause 74 which relates to the similar power of development of land which we are conferring on the Commission till vesting day.

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    Therefore, to answer the question which my hon. Friend put, what we are doing is entirely to remove from the Bill this provision relating to incompatibility both in respect of the boards in the future after vesting day and the Commission till then.
    Mr. Ross: Surely by doing so the Government must be frustrating the boards in the exercise of their powers? Surely this provision was put in for some reason in the first place? It is now being taken out because the Government have found difficulties. The hon. Gentleman instanced inland waterways. It is not good enough to tell us they thought they ought to put it in the first place and then to tell us that this sort of thing is usually done in such Measures as this so as to cover such circumstances as where there is going to be disposal of assets. Obviously, in some way or another this is going to restrict the freedom of the board, whatever freedom it has. There is no doubt about that. I think the hon. Member should satisfy us about that restriction.
    Mr. Hay: I welcome the opportunity of explaining the matter rather more fully in view of the interest which the hon. Member has shown in it. I am afraid that I must use a few English legal terms but no doubt the hon. Member will understand what I mean.
    Mr. Ross: As long as the hon. Gentleman understands.
    Mr. Hay: I thank the hon. Member very much.
    The original intention behind subsection (5), which I have read out, and the corresponding provision in Clause 74 was to deal only with a technical point arising in the case of development on a rather narrow front, namely, that the carrying out of development on land not required for the purposes of the businesses of the boards with consequential leasing and granting of rights in the property as developed might in some cases give rise to a point which from time to time has come before the courts.
    The point is that undertakers holding land for statutory purposes are not entitled to grant easements or other rights if such a grant is incompatible with the purposes laid upon them by statute, because it might prevent them
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    from carrying out such purposes. The subsection was never intended to go as far as to enable a board to dispose of land in a case where such a disposal would have the effect of overriding the duty of using the land for a particular purpose. I instanced the canal case. It was because subsection (5) might be open to that interpretation that we came to the conclusion that it was best not to try to retain it, because we did not wish to go as far as that. I hope that the explanation satisfies the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross).
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 13.—(THE BOARDS' POWERS OF MANUFACTURE AND PRODUCTION.)
    Mr. Popplewell: I beg to move, in page 12, line 37, at the end to insert
    "or if the exercise of that power appears to the Board to be likely to improve the financial position of the Board and to be consonant with the other activities of the Board".
    Mr. Speaker: It is probably convenient for the House to discuss with this the Amendment in page 12, line 41, to leave out from "anything" to the end of the line and to insert "otherwise than as aforesaid".
    Mr. Popplewell: I think that it would be very convenient to discuss both Amendments together. An important principle is involved. We discussed it at length in Standing Committee and I make no apology for returning to it now.
    We were told only yesterday that discussions were taking place with the railway trade unions about the future of railway workshops. The Minister's new appointee, Dr. Beeching, is making the right hon. Gentleman eat his own words on the subject of centralisation and decentralisation. and the ideology of the Tory Party is being thrown to the winds There must be centralisation of railway workshops if they are to work efficiently. The Tories now accept this as a fait accompli and we are seeking to increase the efficiency of the workshops.
    Evidence was given before the Select Committee by the then Chairman of the British Transport Commission. Sir Brian Robertson, and many of his technical advisers, who spoke about the general efficiency of railway workshops and their ability to compete on fair terms against work produced by workshops outside the

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    industry. Members of that Committee heard a brief resumé from Sir Brian Robertson of the reasons why it was necessary to establish the workshops in the first place. I suggest that what he described as the then deciding factor in establishing the workshops still holds good. We now say that in this new policy of centralisation and specialisation the Minister should accept the words of the Amendment. The whole purpose is to try to help the Minister.
    6.45 p.m.
    Tory policy has been such that the Transport Commission is running up huge yearly deficits, whereas under the provisions of the original Act the Commission could pay all the interest charges and show a profit. The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) and the Minister and many others often point to the weaknesses in that Act, but this is a canard. This is a red herring which they drag across the trail. We know that the Act enabled the Commission to pay its way and show a profit. It is only the fumbling that has taken place since the Government took over in 1951 that has prevented the Commission from adjusting its charges to meet increasing costs, which have now accumulated to £850 million which the taxpayer is having to pay.
    By means of the Amendment we are now telling the Minister that here is an opportunity for him to recognise the error of his ways and to allow the Railways Board to compete on fair terms with outside competitors in anything which the Board, in the exercise of its powers, might consider likely to improve its financial situation. This is a fair offer. We are not asking for subsidies, or anything of that description. We are not asking for the additional £450 million which the taxpayer will have to pay to the Railways Board in the next five years, as is envisaged in the Bill.
    We are not asking that any of that subsidy should be used in the costing system to enable the workshops to be more self-supporting. We are seeking power to allow the railway workshops, by their own efficiency and skill and by automation and accountancy, to be able to produce any goods which the Board feels they are capable of producing and
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    which will improve their financial position.
    We say further that when, with this review and severe curtailment, a large amount of redundancy will be caused in the areas which will not come within the purview of the centralised and specialised railway workshops which are to be established, some thought should be given to the men concerned. At East-leigh, for example, 850 out of about 1,200 employed on railway work have received notice that within a reasonably short period of time their services will not be required. This will have a serious effect on a town which depends upon the output of the railway workshops for its well being.
    This story can be repeated in many other towns. General uncertainty prevails in the railway workshops. There are to be severe reductions in the workshops at Swindon and at Horwich. The nation has been compelled to pay large amounts in subsidies to our transport because of the Government's policy, and the Minister has a responsibility to reduce that expenditure. Here is an opportunity to give the railways the opportunity to compete fairly in work which the workshops are quite capable of taking on. That is not an outrageous suggestion.
    The right hon. Gentleman rejected similar Amendments during the Committee stage. In the interests of the nation, we hope that he will see the error of his ways, accept our Amendment and so improve this shocking Bill. If he did so, it would be one slight redeeming feature, one slight gleam of light, in the Bill.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I rise, firstly, to say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am extremely sorry that after having made some comments earlier I was compelled to leave the Chamber for some time in order to keep another appointment in the building. It was no calculated discourtesy to him that I was not in my place when he replied. I know that he will accept that from me as an accurate account of what took place.
    I have good reason to support this Amendment. The railway workshops are an integral part of the British transport system, but they have been, in many ways, prejudiced by the Government's

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    policy. Dr. Beeching said in my presence, and I think it is on record, that when he began to investigate the very complex affairs of the British Transport Commission he found out quite early that the workshops were carrying what he called "surplus capacity" In other words, he discovered this fact by looking at this matter purely as an administrator, a man asked to advise on organisation and methods. He looked on the railways as an entity and considered what was surplus to their needs.
    That is a very serious comment on the situation. Does this approach find support in Government circles? I am always prepared to face the facts. I do not run away from those which are awkward. But since 1954, when reorganisation was announced by the then Minister of Transport, the work in these shops has proceeded at various tempos, according to the economic conditions of the country—a "stop and start" business which applied, of course, not only to the railways themselves but also to other economic activity because of the lack of vision, will and essential principle in the Government.
    As reorganisation developed and worn-out equipment began to be replaced, the decision was taken—and I agree with it—that steam traction should be abandoned. It was decided that these lovely locomotives, built by both railway workshops and by private enterprise at places like the old Vulcan Foundry in Newton-Le-Willows—machines which were admired by boys who wanted to drive them when they grew up—should be swept away.
    I accepted that decision, but what was involved? There was a major shift of work from the railway workshops to private enterprise, which had tooled-up workshops to make the new models. I hesitate to use a bastard word, which I always try to avoid, but under dieselisaition—that ugly word—there was the transfer from steam to oil traction by the use of deisel electric locomotives. Many railway workshops were built 100 years ago and have not the equipment to manufacture these great machines. Indeed, the first diesel locomotive on British railways, used experimentally, was imported from Germany and has been taken as a prototype for succeed-
    316
    ing engines. Since then, big orders for diesels have been given to private enterprise firms, and this has meant finding something else to replace the basic work of the railway workshops, which was the building and maintaining of steam locomotives.
    All this is fact, and we cannot do very much about it at the moment. But, on the reconstruction of our railways with the use of this vast amount of Government sponsored new capital, greater attention should have been paid to equipping and re-tooling the railway workshops in order to make them more capable of doing the work which they had done formerly in steam days. This is one of the tragedies of the situation.
    I should like to see the facts and figures in order to reach my own judgment, but if there is surplus capacity in the railway workshops then it should be made available to do contract work for outside firms. I cite the example which I know best—the very large and historic workshop situated in my constituency in Lancashire. The Horwich railway workshops have for generations maintained and equipped our railways. Indeed, the old Lancashire and Yorkshire railway was built and equipped from there. Now, notices of redundancy have been served—though I hope that redundancy may be avoided—because there are supposed to be surplus capacity and too many workers.
    But this establishment is capable of doing all sorts of work over a wide range of engineering products. This Bill, however, will prevent it from doing something which every prudent manufacturer in private industry considers should be done in his business. Every efficient engineering company is not only concerned with servicing its own auxiliary and associated companies but has a contracts department for getting outside work. Why should not the railway workshops be given the same facilities? Why should not the public purse at least be cushioned to some extent by the use of this surplus capital equipment for which the nation, through the British Transport Commission, has paid?
    7.0 p.m.
    Let me remind the Minister—I apologise to him if he knows it already—that if, during the period of the Second World War, the railway workshops at

    317
    Horwich had not been equipped to do work other than that connected with locomotives, this country would have suffered greatly, because some of the magnificent tanks used on the plains of Flanders were manufactured in those workshops. During the war period we did not hesitate to use the capacity of these workshops to the full. We did not, as it were, erect an "iron curtain" between work for the railways and other kinds of work. The right hon. Gentleman will find that the railway workshops at Horwich have a magnificent record for having produced the sinews of war in the form of tanks and other military equipment.
    During the Committee stage proceedings on this Bill this point was urged upon the Minister in a number of different ways. He knows that there is here a question of principle which divides hon. Members on this side of the Committee from hon. Members opposite. I am normally a tolerant man, but I am tired of hearing political cynics saying that there is no difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. On such issues as this the cleavage is apparent. I appreciate the point of view of hon. Members opposite who may, because of business interests be identified in an ideological sense with private industry as distinct from the nationalised and publicly-owned industry. But it is nonsense in economic terms to prevent the resources of the nation from being used to the fullest extent.
    I apologise for having spoken longer than I intended. But I must recall that during the Committee stage proceedings there was a time when hon. Members opposite put Amendments on the Notice Paper which were designed to put shackles on the Transport Commission and prevent it from doing any work except that which could be identified with railway equipment. We should be sufficiently broad-minded to appreciate that having taken the responsibility for this great industry, which is vital to the economic life of our country, the nation should make the best use of its capacity and not allow artificial restrictions to be imposed upon it by the Minister of Transport. I hope that this Amendment wild be supported and that we shall have a more convincing reply from the
    318
    Minister than those which were given to us during the Committee stage proceedings.
    Mr. Cole: Everyone is concerned about the redundancy which may well follow from the closing of railway workshops. But I have been studying this Amendment which, if adopted, would give all the Boards the power to make any article which it was thought would be to their financial betterment. We may confine our consideration to railway workshops—the rest of the possibilities are too artificial to contemplate. The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) argued that ralilway workshops should be tooled up to be able to deal with diesel engines. That would be an enormous undertaking. I wish to ask whether there is any limit to the number of articles which might be supplied by the various boards.
    Mr. Mellish: So that he may know what he is talking about, I suggest that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) should look at subsection (4) of the Clause. He may find the answers to some of his questions.
    Mr. Cole: Obviously, if his intervention meant anything the hon. Member was referring to the fact that the boards will have to submit their proposals to the Ministry regarding construction and manufacture. But if the Committee accept this Amendment, that will not alter the benefit which would accrue to the boards.
    The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) maintained that no subsidy or subvention was being asked for. If it happened that the workshops were tooled up to deal with the repair of diesel engines and a loss was sustained, would that loss be met in any other way than by the provision, as it were, of an annual subsidy?
    The hon. Member for Westhoughton was honest enough to admit that there is an ideological difference between hon. Members on each side of the Committee. I do not believe, even if they were tooled up to do the job, that the railway workshops could compete with private industry where money has already been spent to provide equipment to do this work. If private firms lose money on their enterprises only the shareholders suffer. But if the railway workshops lose money

    319
    it is the people of the country who will suffer, and I am not prepared to encourage that risk to be taken by voting for this Amendment.
    Mr. Manuel: I am surprised that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) should not appreciate the intention of the Amendment which seems to me to be quite clear. It states:
    "or if the exercise of that power appears to the Board to be likely to improve the financial position of the Board … "
    That means that any undertaking which would be likely to improve the financial position of the board. Apparently such an assurance is not sufficient for the hon. Gentleman. The possible need to retool the railway workshops in order to enable certain work to be done represents only one aspect of the matter. At the present time there are a great many components which could be produced and which could be exported. Steam locomotives are still used in many parts of the Commonwealth and in our Colonies and there would be a possible market for the articles which might be produced in the railway workshops. But if, as the hon. Member thinks, the railway workshops could not compete with private enterprise, why is he bothered?
    Mr. Cole: I carefully did not say that the railway workshops could not compete with private enterprise. I said that the capital had already been spent by private enterprise firms. so why spend it again?
    Mr. Manuel: My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) devoted his argument to the railway workshops. Many of us who care for the railways are deeply concerned about the possibility of unemployment and redundancy if the workshops are not enabled to continue production.
    Do the Government want the boards to have every opportunity to compete and to make profits? Do they want to help the Railways Board, or any other board, to better its position, or are they so concerned with creating protection round the private sector of the economy that they will not give the boards the opportunity to better their financial position if that might mean eating into the pre-
    320
    serves of some other people because they could do it better or cheaper and, by exercising managerial capacity, could get a little of the market?
    If the Minister were wise he would consider that he might prevent a great social upheaval and the drifting of large sections of population to other parts of the country. In other spheres of activity the Government claim that they are trying to avoid that and to get greater dispersal, not an added aggregation of population in the centres of southern England and the Midlands. Where there is a community of railway men I should have thought that the Minister would be concerned to see that it should not be broken up.
    There is a social side to this question to which regard should be had by the Minister. We are not asking him to provide any financial palliative to carry on something which would be completely uneconomic. We think these railway workshops ought to be given enough freedom to produce what they could produce, and, possibly, to export to countries which use railway components. I am not thinking only of locomotives but of other things which have to do with tracks and signalling which could go on to the export market with a chance of success. Are we against that?
    Would the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South be against Britain improving her export position because a nationalised industry was doing that? Is he so unpatriotic that he would have Britain's position remain less than it ought to be when the railway workshops could compete successfully in that market?
    The Minister ought to have regard to the case made by my hon. Friends, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West who has such an intimate connection with the work of employees in railway workshops. The Minister ought to have second thoughts on this matter. If he cannot swallow the Amendment whole, possibly it could be better worded. Perhaps we have not chosen appropriate words which he could accept, but, thinking of the issues which have been raised in this debate, could he not reconsider this matter with a view at a later stage of

    321
    the Bill to doing something to soften the blow which seems to be coming to these great centres of railway industry which have helped the country so much in the past?
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. Marples: We have had an interesting debate on this Amendment which, as I see it, seeks to enable the boards to exercise powers which are at present given them in Clause 13 (1) in such a way as to allow them to manufacture for other persons without restriction where that would appear to a board to be likely to improve its financial position and be consistent with its other activities.
    This proposal has been advanced by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. West (Mr. Popplewell) and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). who accused us of having an ideological prejudice against such an extension of powers. I believe the hon. Member said that restrictions were placed on the workshops by the Government because of the ideology which we as Conservatives have, but is that so? At present the workshops have no powers to do this. They were not given the power under the 1947 Act.
    Mr. Popplewell: "Tell me the old, old story".
    Mr. Marples: No, this is not "the old, old story". Under the parent Act the British Transport Commission can manufacture only for its own purposes. That provision has not been imposed on anyone by this Government, but was done by another Government. By that proviso the Commission is expressly prohibited from manufacturing for third parties. The Commission, therefore, is not at present in the position which this Amendment seeks to achieve for the new undertakings set up under the Bill. The Commission cannot manufacture for export, nor is it allowed to balance its order books by manufacturing for others in its workshop facilities.
    Mr. J. T. Price: When reciting chapter and verse from the previous Act and the provisions of this Bill, is the Minister not forgetting that on Second Reading of this Bill he said that the object was to give the Transport Commission more and
    322
    more freedom? Now he is denying the Commission more freedom.
    Mr. Marples: No. the object of the Commission is transport, not necessarily the manufacture of articles. The object is freedom to move people from place A to place B, not manufacture. The position is comparable to that relating to industrial products of the nationalised power boards.
    I feel very hurt by some of the harsh words which have been uttered in this debate by hon. Members opposite. We have allowed the new Railways Board and the other boards to go further than they would be allowed under the provisions of the 1947 Act. I feel it a little hard to be accused of being stingy-minded. The boards are allowed to manufacture for each others' purposes and for the purposes of their subsidiaries and the subsidiaries of the Holding Company. That is provided in Clause 13 (1). The Inland Waterways Authority has power to manufacture specialised inland waterways equipment for use on inland waterways. Certain powers of the Commission taken under private Acts are continued to provide equipment for the Ulster Transport Authority—a very important authority—and to provide certain things for the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
    We have allowed the railway workshops to make items for London Transport and we have allowed for a cross manufacture, as it were, between the boards and Holding Company. Therefore, we have gone further than the party opposite went in the 1947 Act. I felt quite wounded that hon. Members opposite should make their references to me after we have been so generous in this respect. This limited extension of manufacturing activities for other purposes is only within the new transport structure. There is no intention that the boards should maintain or invest in productive capacity additional to their own needs for the purposes of serving other undertakings and the Minister's control would be used accordingly.
    I realise that in the workshops there is genuine anxiety about redundancy. It would be the intention of the Transport Commission and of the new Railways Board that any redundancy should be carried out in consultation with the

    323
    unions to minimise the impact on those who have to change their employment. Whether we like it or not, this House and the country have to face the fact that people have to change their jobs when the products they make are continually changing. If we were not to change jobs we would still be making saddles for horses. When there is redundancy and people have to change their jobs that ought to be done in the most reasonable and intelligent manner possible. I give the assurance to the House that that will be done in this case.
    Mr. Manuel: Is the Minister giving a forthright pledge to the House that in any redundancy involving loss of grade by any workshop employee, or dismissal, he will be brought within the ambit of compensation under Clause 78 and will have compensation awarded accordingly?
    Mr. Marples: With all respect to him, the hon. Member cannot read that into what I said. I said that in principle we should do this in a decent, human fashion in consultation with the unions. I cannot say specifically what will happen in every isolated case.
    Mr. Popplewell: The right hon. Gentleman said that it would be done in a decent, human fashion in consultation with the unions. What does he mean by that? If a person loses his job and has no other job to go to, where is the decency or humanity attached to it? Does the Minister mean that a man's services will not be dispensed with until he has another job in some other industry within reasonable distance, to which he can go, and that the normal type of redundancy will be covered by the normal wastage which takes place within the industry?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Member has made another rather longish speech. The point I make is that the Chairman of the British Transport Commission has already seen the unions about this and is consulting them. He has told them what might happen to the workshops and that he will consult them on the question of redundancy. When I speak of a decent human fashion, I cannot say at this stage what will happen to every man at every workshop, nor is it possible for anyone to say that, not even the hon. Member. There will be con-
    324
    sultation, and it is up to the unions to put their arguments forward as to the way in which men should be treated in different grades. The Commission indicated to the unions that railway workshop capacity must be reduced. About 110,000 men are employed there. The first step is the intention to cease the production of carriages at Swindon and Eastleigh on completion of the present orders. Similarly, locomotive production is to cease at Horwich, as the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) said.
    Precisely the same thing is happening in the private sector. The Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Co. is to stop producing rolling stock, and companies in the Birmingham area are faced with a redundancy problem. It is not just the nationalised sector which is being reduced but the private sector, too, because the demand for this sort of equipment is falling.
    Mr. Popplewell: The redundancy in the private sector in Birmingham, in the C. and W. works, is entirely their own fault because of inaccuracy in tendering.
    Mr. Marples: All I am saying is that the orders which will be available to the nationalised sector and the private sector are being reduced. It applies to both sectors equally. Whatever the reason, it is a fact of life which has to be accepted.
    An argument advanced by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) was that the redundancy problem was such that the workshops should be allowed to keep capacity going by manufacturing as wide a range as possible for as many organisations as will give them orders. The fundamental fallacy of this is that it ignores the basic position of excess capacity in the rolling stock and locomotive manufacturing industry. The manufacture by railway workshops of other parts would merely increase the problem for private manufacturers, while diversification in the railway workshops on the same principle would have similar effects.
    Exports have to be fought for against severe competition. There is no easy business to be picked up from overseas buyers by just asking the workshops to

    325
    tender. The railways would have to set up an export sales organisation, recruiting experienced men in this special work, and I maintain that the railways' job is pretty formidable as it is without adding to the task which they already have. Secondly, British Railways' requirements in many important respects are quite different from those overseas. What they are manufacturing now bears no relevance to what is wanted by firms abroad. Operational conditions overseas are highly specialised and entirely different, depending on the climate and the use to which the railways are put.
    Thirdly, to deal with the argument about exports put forward by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, the export trade in locomotives and rolling stock is largely bound up with the provision of long-term finance. We all know how countries abroad want long-term finance. I have described the position of the railways as a nationalised undertaking with heavy commitments, and I think that it would be unwise to involve them in these complex problems, certainly if they have to give seven to twelve years' credit. The deficit on revenue account of British Railways is about £150 million a year and we are finding about £140 million a year for modernisation. These are huge sums, and it would not be right to ask these people, organisationally, financially or technically, to undertake any more immense tasks.
    I have to resist the Amendment on three grounds. The first is that the extension of the powers proposed goes further than the Labour Party went in 1947. I have already gone a little further than they went, and I have wondered whether I was wise in doing so. I did not think that I should be accused by the Labour Party of being ideological when I had gone further than they went in the 1947 Act.
    The second reason is that the board can already exercise its powers under Clause 13 (1) where the powers are required
    "for the purposes of the business"
    of the board or any other board. It can interchange its manufactured goods.
    Thirdly, any extension of these powers should be resisted on the policy ground that it would take the board well beyond its set task. In my view the set task
    326
    of British Railways is already formidable—one of the most formidable tasks in the country. It would create additional capacity, such as in rolling stock, where there is already an adequate and, indeed, a surplus capacity of manufacture and a need for a reduction in capacity in both the public and the private sectors. If there is a need to reduce both, it seems nonsensical to increase the capacity of one at the expense of the other. I therefore hope that after I have made such a reasonable speech and shown what we have done compared with what was done in the 1947 Act, the right hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Strauss: I will not take the time of the House for more than two or three minutes, but in view of one or two things which the Minister said I must put him right. His attitude is wholly out of date and unwise.
    One of the right hon. Gentleman's arguments was that under the 1947 Act the railway workshops, with various bodies doing repairs and other work, were not given power to do anything beyond what was required for their own business for the railways. The reasons for this were simple and twofold. First, the pressure of private industry at that time was very strong. Private industry had been disorganised by the war and wanted to get back into business. The leaders of private industry said, "We must have all possible chance, unfettered by competition, to retrieve our industrial competitive position". It was a strong argument.
    Secondly, there was every prospect of the railway workshops for many years being occupied with their own activities in putting the railway wagons and engines, which for years had not been replaced, in a decent state. For those two reasons the Minister at the time thought that it would not be unreasonable to restrict the railway workshops from competing for outside orders.
    But does the same situation exist today? The railways are losing large sums of money. We are not suggesting that there should be huge capital investments in the workshops, or that they should go into private industry on a huge scale. The railways are losing money and are putting up fares

    327
    and cutting down staff. Yet in those circumstances the Minister says that even where the railway workshops could do a job, possibly to help a local manufacturer by making a bit of machinery, at a profit, in no circumstances may they use their highly-skilled men or equipment to undertake a profitable job, even when they could do it easily and when it is required for private industry. It would be doing a social service. Even where it would be helping the men and, maybe, keeping workshops in operation, and generally would be beneficial nationally.

    Division No. 162.]

    AYES

    [7.31 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Padley, W. E.

    Albu, Austen

    Hannan, William

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Harper, Joseph

    Parker, John

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Hayman, F. M.

    Paton, John

    Awbery, Stan

    Healey, Dennis

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Peart, Frederick

    Beaney, Alan

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Pentland, Norman

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Hilton, A. V.

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Benson, Sir George

    Holman, Percy

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Blackburn, F.

    Holt, Arthur

    Prentice, R. E.

    Blyton, William

    Houghton, Douglas

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Boardman, H.

    Hoy, James H.

    Proctor, W. T.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Hughies, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics. S. W.)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Randall, Harry

    Bowles, Frank

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Rankin, John

    Boyden, James

    Hunter, A. E.

    Redhead, E. C.

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Reld, William

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Callaghan, James

    Jeger, George

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

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

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Ross, William

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Short, Edward

    Darling, George

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Kelley, Richard

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Small, William

    Deer, George

    Lawson, George

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Delargy, Hugh

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Snow, Julian

    Dempsey, James

    Lipton, Marcus

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Diamond, John

    Loughlin, Charles

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Dodds, Norman

    Lubbock, Eric

    Stonehouse, John

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Stones, William

    Driberg, Tom

    MacColl, James

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

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    McInnes, James

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

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Swingler, Stephen

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Taverne, D.

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    McLeavy, Frank

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Finch, Harold

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

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Fitch, Alan

    Manuel, Archie

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

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mapp, Charles

    Thornton, Ernest

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Mason, Roy

    Tomney, Frank

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Wade, Donald

    Forman, J. C.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Warbey, William

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Millan, Bruce

    Watkins, Tudor

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Weitzman, David

    Ginsburg, David

    Monslow, Walter

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Moody, A. S.

    Whitlock, William

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Moyle, Arthur

    Wigg, George

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Neal, Harold

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Oliver, G. H.

    Willey, Frederick

    Gunter, Ray

    Oram, A. E.

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    I agree with my hon. Friends that this Clause is plainly the result of prejudice against nationalised enterprise of any sort and of a bias in favour of private enterprise. That is why there is this complete bar against this form of competition and potentially profitable activity in the workshops. This is why we have moved the Amendment, and we certainly propose carrying the matter to a Division.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill:—
    The House divided: Ayes 185, Noes 241.

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

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

    Woof, Robert

    Mr. Grey and Mr. Cronin.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Gardner, Edward

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Aitken, W. T.

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Mawby, Ray

    Allason, James

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Arbuthnot, John

    Gilmour, Sir John

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

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Mills, Stratton

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Goodhew, Victor

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Barber, Anthony

    Gough, Frederick

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Barlow, Sir John

    Cower, Raymond

    Morrison, John

    Batsford, Brian

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Green, Alan

    Noble, Michael

    Bell, Ronald

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Gurden, Harold

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Bidgood, John C.

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Biffen, John

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Harvle Anderson, Miss

    Peel, John

    Bingham, R. M.

    Hay, John

    Peyton, John

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Bishop, F. P.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Pitman, Sir James

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Bossom, Clive

    Hiley, Joseph

    Pott, Percivall

    Bourne-Arton A.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Box, Donald

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Braine, Bernard

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

    Pym, Francis

    Brewis, John

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Hobson, Sir John

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Bryan, Paul

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Rees, Hugh

    Buck, Antony

    Holland, Philip

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Bullard, Denys

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Renton, David

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Hopkins, Alan

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Hornby, R. P.

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Chataway, Christopher

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Roots, William

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Russell, Ronald

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Seymour, Leslie

    Cleaver, Leonard

    James, David

    Sharples, Richard

    Cole, Norman

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Shaw, M.

    Collard, Richard

    Jennings, J. C.

    Shepherd, William

    Cooke, Robert

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Cooper, A. E.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

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

    Cordle, John

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Smithers, Peter

    Corfield, F. V.

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Costain, A. P.

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Speir, Rupert

    Coulson, Michael

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Kimball, Marcus

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Cunningham, Knox

    Kirk, Peter

    Stodart, J. A.

    Curran, Charles

    Kitson, Timothy

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Dance, James

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    d'Avigdor-Goldemid, Sir Henry

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Tapsell, Peter

    Deedee, W. F.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Teeling, Sir William

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Temple, John M.

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Doughty, Charles

    Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    du Cann, Edward

    Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Duncan, Sir James

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Eden, John

    McAdden, Stephen

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Turner, Colin

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

    McLaren, Martin

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Errington, Sir Eric

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

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

    Farr, John

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Fell, Anthony

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    Finlay, Graeme

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Walder, David

    Fisher, Nigel

    Maddan, Martin

    Wall, Patrick

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Maginnis, John E.

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Foster, John

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Webster, David

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Freeth, Denzil

    Marshall, Douglas

    Whitelaw, William

    Gammans, Lady

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    330

    331

    Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Mr. Frank Pearson and

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Woollam, John

    Mr. Michael Hamilton.

    Wise, A. R.

    Worsley, Marcus

    Mr. Bruce Millan: I beg to move, in page 13, line 18, to leave out from "modification" to the end of line 21.
    This Amendment raises quite a simple point. In the previous Amendment we were speaking about the general powers of manufacture that are being granted to the boards, and while Clause 13 starts off with some words which, apparently, give the boards substantial powers to manufacture, by the time we read the end of the Clause we find that these powers are very much circumscribed.
    The Minister has already turned down an Amendment designed to extend the boards' powers of manufacture, and it is obvious that the Government are not willing that that should happen. Subsection (4) makes it clear that any powers which the boards are given by subsection (1) may be had only after they have submitted their proposals to the Minister and the Minister has approved them. A study of subsection (4) reveals that the Minister has considerable powers, because the can not only approve or disapprove the boards' proposals, but he can also modify them. Even more surprising are the last three lines of this subsection, which state:
    "… the Minister may, after consultation with a Board, direct that Board to discontinue any of the activities which they are carrying on in accordance with proposals so approved."
    Those words provide—and the Amendment seeks to eliminate them—that even after the proposals have been approved the Minister will be able at any time to call on the boards to discontinue their activities. Surely this must be a contradiction in terms? The Minister already has wide powers, and if he does not like a board's proposals he can turn them down or modify them to suit his wishes.
    In these circumstances it seems totally unnecessary that the Minister should also have these powers of directing a board to discontinue its activities—activities which the right hon. Gentleman has already, with his powers, approved. After all, the Minister spoke in Committee about the necessity of allowing a certain amount of flexibility. On that occasion we were discussing whether or
    332
    not the boards' plans should be made annually, three-yearly or on another basis. It is obvious, however, that while the right hon. Gentleman used the word "flexibility" the is now giving the boards very little flexibility indeed.
    If there is any flexibility at all it is in the hands of the Minister—flexibility which allows him to do what he likes with the boards' plans. If we are to have long-term planning by the boards and if they are to think ahead, not just on an annual basis but over several years, it is surely wrong that these plans can, at any time, be subject to a direction of the Minister that they must be completely overturned. As I say, the Minister already has ample powers. The additional powers contained in these last three lines seem totally unnecessary, and I hope, therefore, that he will accept the Amendment.
    7.45 p.m.
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), as always, put his case reasonably and persuasively as befits anyone with the professional training of a chartered accountant
    The purpose of the Amendment, as the hon. Gentleman made clear, is to delete the express power given to the Minister in subsection (4). Under this subsection the Minister has power to direct a board, after consultation, to discontinue any manufacturing or production activity being carried on in accordance with proposals approved by the Minister under an earlier provision of the Clause.
    Let us consider the background to this, and I urge hon. Gentlemen opposite to carefully consider this. The British Transport Commission, under Section 2 of the 1947 Act, has wide powers of manufacture for the purposes of its own undertaking. However, it could not manufacture for other persons, and for this purpose a rigid quota was written into the Act. The B.T.C.'s powers to manufacture road vehicle equipment and chassis were expressly limited by quotas set out in the Act. Rightly or wrongly, a rigid quota was imposed on the Commission regarding

    333
    numbers. In the Bill I have sought to give the boards more flexible powers to manufacture and I have taken away that quota restriction.
    We had two main factors in mind when deciding that manufacturing powers should be given to the new undertakings. First, the circumstances of the organisation and division of the Commission's overall undertakings between a number of separate boards meant that some departure was necessary from the previous position when, of course, there was only one undertaking. Secondly, in giving the boards power to manufacture for each other and for subsidiaries of the Holding Company, it was necessary to ensure that each board should not go beyond its set task. Therefore, in accordance with the first principle I set out, Clause 13 (1) provides that
    "Each of the Boards shall have power to construct, manufacture, produce, purchase, maintain and repair anything required for the purposes of the business—

    (a) of that Board,

    (b) of any other Board, or

    (c) of a subsidiary of any of the Boards or of a subsidiary of the Holding Company."

    Mr. Ellis Smith: Does that include sub-contracting?
    Mr. Marples: As long as it is for the other boards within the nationalised sector of the transport industry. This is defensible on the grounds of the complex pattern of manufacture which the Commission has built up and which we wish to see preserved. We have now swept away the quantitative control—the statutory quotas in the 1947 Act—which lay it down that only a certain number of this or that may be manufactured. That was a rigid, fixed control. I want to sweep that away, as regards numbers, and let the Minister decide what the position should be in the light of the prevailing circumstances. I have, in fact, replaced a rigid control by a flexible one, and I would have thought that that would be to the advantage of the new boards.
    Mr. Weitzman: What on earth has that got to do with the Amendment? The Minister is referring to a different
    334
    part of the Clause which has nothing to do with the Amendment.
    Mr. Marples: It has a great deal to do with it. The Amendment wants to delete the express power that the Minister has in subsection (4) to direct a
    "… Board to discontinue any of the activities which they are carrying on in accordance with proposals so approved"
    I am saying that I want that power.
    Mr. Millan Mr. Millan rose—
    Mr. Manuel: The Minister is replying to the wrong Amendment.
    Mr. Marples: The Amendment wants to leave out the words from "modification" to the end of line 21. The Opposition want to delete the words:
    "… but the Minister may, after consultation with a Board, direct that Board to discontinue any of the activities which they are carrying on in accordance with proposals so approved."
    Thus the Opposition do not want the Minister to have power to direct boards to discontinue these activities and I am saying that I want the Minister to have this power.
    Mr. Millan: Under this subsection each of the boards must submit proposals from time to time. Surely the next time a board submits its proposals the Minister can inform it that whatever it is must be discontinued? Why does he need this additional power?
    Mr. Marples: I do not want to wait for the boards to come to the Minister. I want the Minister to have power to make them discontinue. That is because we have given the boards freedom from these restrictive quotas which existed in the 1947 Act. If the party opposite wants these words deleted and the quotas put back that would be another matter. As I say, we have swept away this rigid quota and have substituted what I think is a flexible method. If hon. Members of the Labour Party—or hon. Members of the party occupying the second bench below the Gangway, two of whom I now see present—wish this quota reinstated, they should say so. I suggest that the words contained in the Clause give the Minister flexible control and that that is better than something rigid being written into an Act—something which may not be appropriate in five or ten years' time. I should

    335
    have thought that was common sense. Therefore, I am bound to say that I would insist on keeping these words, and that if they were swept away by this Amendment I would insist upon having quantitative control.
    Mr. Weitzman: The Minister has not dealt with that point. Will he direct his attention to the wording of subsection (4)? The Amendment seeks to delete the last three and a half lines. Look at the power which the Minister has got under subsection (4):
    "Each of the Boards shall from time to time submit to the Minister proposals as to the manner in which their powers of construction, manufacture and production under the foregoing provisions of this section are to be exercised, and shall exercise those powers in accordance with those proposals as approved by the Minister with or without modification …"
    This is a wide power under which he can approve and give directions. Why on earth does he want those last three and a half lines?
    Mr. Marples: It is perfectly simple. A board will approach the Minister and make a once-for-all proposal—"We want to manufacture some vehicles". It may be agreed at the time and the board may say that it will approach the Minister again if it wishes to modify the arrangement. If it does not come back to the Minister and the Minister wishes the initiative—
    Mr. Weitzman: It is topsy-turvy.
    Mr. Marples: No, not a bit of it. It is a pity that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not on the Standing Committee which dealt with this Bill.
    Mr. Weitzman: I cannot help it if I was not selected.
    Mr. Marples: The Minister is given power to impose on the boards whatever he thinks is right and proper from a manufacturing point of view. This replaces the previous rigid restrictions on quantity.
    Mr. Frank McLeavy: I think that the Minister has failed to convince most hon. Members on both sides of the House. What I cannot understand is this. The first part of the subsection gives to the Minister all the powers necessary to control and direct, if he so pleases, the powers of the boards
    336
    relating to construction, manufacture and production. Then in the latter part of the subsection we find these words:
    "… but the Minister may, after consultation with a Board, direct that Board to discontinue any of the activities which they are carrying on in accordance with proposals so approved."
    The point that may cause some concern among hon. Members is in what circumstances could we visualise the Minister telling a board to discontinue the production or manufacture of a particular line. First, we have to bear in mind that the Minister has already approved the policy. I cannot believe that the Minister would be competent to make representations to a board as to whether it was wise or proper for the board to continue with the agreement which had been arrived at with the Minister.
    If the latter part of the subsection remains in the Bill, I am concerned lest it may open the gate wide to all kinds of political and other undesirable pressure being brought upon the Minister, whoever he may be, from certain private interests which may feel that they can now extend their line of production to meet some of the requirements of the various boards. The Minister is putting himself in an extremely dangerous position.
    The Minister has these tremendous powers in this Clause, and indeed throughout the Bill, and I cannot see why he wants to do something which may cause the boards to say: "We are submitting to the Minister our scheme for the manufacture of certain items. We may get his approval, but we must be very careful because in a few months' time after we have made all the preparations the Minister may say, 'I have changed my mind; you must discontinue producing this type of article'." Although the Minister talks of giving commercial freedom to these boards he is, particularly in this Clause, cramping the ability of the boards to get on with their job. I should have thought that the Minister would be well satisfied with the extensive powers which he has got in the first part of this subsection.
    To include these words which we are seeking to delete would expose the Minister to Parliamentary lobbying—we all know it exists—which is very undesirable and may well react to the detriment

    337
    not only of the board concerned but also of the type of transport in which it is engaged. I beg the Minister to think again and, even at this late stage, to accept the Amendment which is reasonable having regard to the powers which he already enjoys.
    Mr. Mellish: In view of the Minister's unsatisfactory reply, we shall have to take this matter to a Division.
    We know that there are many hon. Members on the benches opposite who, if they had their way, would shut down all the workshops. They would concentrate on what the Parliamentary Secretary once described as "the railways just running railways, and no more". There are also on the benches opposite hon. Members who would shut down all those lines which are uneconomic, both passenger and freight. It is a policy of madness, but a policy in which the Minister has to compromise because we know that Front Benchers opposite would be under some pressure from their hon. Friends behind them.
    The right hon. Gentleman talks about flexibility in giving the boards power to manufacture certain articles. He does so as if he were bestowing a great favour. Yet he inserts into this subsection words which would deter the boards from engaging in the sort of work

    Division No. 163.]

    AYES

    [8.0 p.m

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Finlay, Graeme

    Aitken, W. T.

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Allason, James

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Arbuthnot, John

    Cole, Norman

    Foster, John

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Collard, Richard

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Barber, Anthony

    Cooke, Robert

    Freeth, Denzil

    Barlow, Sir John

    Cooper, A. E.

    Gammans, Lady

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Corfield, F. V.

    Gardner, Edward

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Costain, A. P.

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Bell, Ronald

    Coulson, Michael

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Goodhew, Victor

    Bidgood, John C.

    Cunningham, Knox

    Gower, Raymond

    Biffen, John

    Curran, Charles

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R

    Bingham, R. M.

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Green, Alan

    Bishop, F. P.

    Dance, James

    Gurden, Harold

    Black, Sir Cyril

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Desdes, W. F.

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Box, Donald

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Hay, John

    Brewis, John

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Doughty, Charles

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    du Cann, Edward

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Bryan, Paul

    Duncan, Sir James

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Buck, Antony

    Eden, John

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

    Bullard, Denys

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscouut

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

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

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Hobson, Sir John

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Chataway, Christopher

    Farr, John

    Holland, Philip

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Fell, Anthony

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    which we think they are capable of performing. If they know that the Minister has power to change his mind about proposals to which he and they may have agreed twelve months previously, that uncertainty must make their business plans very unsettled.
    Whichever way one looks at it, one detects a hatred for nationalised industry. I wish the Tory Party would drop this attitude and would realise that after eleven years it is as much in its interest as it is in the interest of the Labour Party to defend nationalised transport or anything else that is owned by Britain.
    We have moved from the day when even the stupid Liberals thought that anything owned by the State was controlled by the Labour Party. The Tories had that idea at one time, but I thought that they had moved away from it. This is an enterprise owned by the country. Let us give it a chance to show that it can do a first-class job. If it has adequate and efficient workshops, let us not put up stupid barriers to stop it making further progress.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill: —
    The House divided: Ayes 224. Noes 171.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

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

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Mawby, Ray

    Smithers, Peter

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Hughes-Young, Michael

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

    Speir, Rupert

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Mills, Stratton

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Stodart, J. A.

    James, David

    Morrison, John

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Jennings, J. C.

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Noble, Michael

    Tapsell, Peter

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Taylor, Frank, (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Teeling, Sir William

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Temple, John M.

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Kimball, Marcus

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Kirk, Peter

    Peel, John

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Peyton, John

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Turner, Colin

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Pitman, Sir James

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Pott, Percivall

    Walder, David

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Wall, Patrick

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Pym, Francis

    Webster, David

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Longden, Gilbert

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Whitelaw, William

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    McAdden, Stephen

    Rees, Hugh

    Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Renton, David

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    McLaren, Martin

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Wise, A. R.

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Roots, Wlliam

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Woollam, John

    Maddan, Martin

    Russell, Ronald

    Worsley, Marcus

    Maginnis, John E.

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Sharples, Richard

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Shaw, M.

    Mr. Batsford and

    Marshall, Douglas

    Shepherd, William

    Mr. Chichester-Clark.

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Fletcher, Eric

    King, Dr. Horace

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Lawson, George

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Awbery, Stan

    Forman, J. C.

    Lipton, Marcus

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Lubbock, Eric

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Benson, Sir George

    Ginsburg, David

    MacColl, James

    Blackburn, F.

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    McInnes, James

    Blyton, William

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Boardman, H.

    Gunter, Ray

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, w.)

    McLeavy, Frank

    Bowles, Frank

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Boyden, James

    Hannan, William

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

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Harper, Joseph

    Manuel, Archie

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Hayman, F. H.

    Mapp, Charles

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    Mason, Roy

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Hilton, A. V.

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Cronin, John

    Holman, Percy

    Millan, Bruce

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Holt, Arthur

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Darling, George

    Houghton, Douglas

    Monslow, Walter

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Hoy, James H.

    Moody, A. S.

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Moyle, Arthur

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Mulley, Frederick

    Deer, George

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Delargy, Hugh

    Hunter, A. E.

    Oram, A. E.

    Dempsey, James

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Diamond, John

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Padley, W. E.

    Dodds, Norman

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Parker, John

    Driberg, Tom

    Jeger, George

    Paton, John

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Peart, Frederick

    Fernyhough, E.

    Kelley, Richard

    Pentland, Norman

    Finch, Harold

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Fitch, Alan

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Popplewell, Ernest

    340

    341

    Prentice, R. E.

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Watkins, Tudor

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Small, William

    Weitzman, David

    Proctor, W. T.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Weils, Percy (Faversham)

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Snow, Julian

    Whitlock, William

    Randall, Harry

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Rankin, John

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Willey, Frederick

    Redhead, E. C.

    Stonehouse, John

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Reid, William

    Stones, William

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

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

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Taverne, D.

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

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

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Winterbottom, R. E.

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

    Thornton, Ernest

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Ross, William

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Woof, Robert

    Short, Edward

    Tomney, Frank

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Wade, Donald

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Wainwright, Edwin

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Warbey, William

    Mir. Ifor Davies and Mr. Grey.

    Mr. Marples: I beg to move, in page 13, line 21. at the end to insert:
    (5) Without prejudice to so much of subsection (1) of this section as restricts the Board's powers, a Board shall not have power to manufacture, otherwise than for purposes of research or development, road vehicles, bodies or chassis for road vehicles or major components of road vehicles.
    This subsection shall not come into force as respects the Railways Board until the expiration of the period of three years from the vesting date, so, however, that if it appears to the Minister that that Board can properly terminate the activities restricted by this subsection before then, he may direct that for the period of three years there shall be substituted such shorter period as may be specified in the direction.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): I suggest that it might be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the Amendment in page 13, line 46, at end insert:
    (7) For the purposes of this subsection—
    "body", in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached forms an integral whole with the body-structure includes that framework;
    "chassis" means—

    (a) in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached is distinct from the body-structure, that framework together with the complement of major components required in order to construct a road vehicle on that framework, or

    (b) in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached forms an integral whole with the body-structure, the complement of major components required in order to complete that body-structure, when new, as a road vehicle;

    "major component" means the complete power unit, complete transmission system, complete suspension system, complete steering gear, complete braking system or complete axle of a vehicle;
    "manufacture", in relation to the body of a road vehicle and in relation to the
    chassis of a road vehicle where the framework to which the major components are attached is distinct from the body-structure, includes the assembly of the parts of the body or, as the case may be, of the parts of the chassis for the purpose of constructing a new body or, as the case may be, a new chassis:
    "road vehicle" includes any vehicle designed to be used both as railway rolling stock and on roads.
    Mr. Marples: Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that would be convenient because the Amendment in line 46 is consequential.
    The purpose of these Amendments is to prevent the four statutory boards from manufacturing road vehicles—that means bodies, chassis and major components for road vehicles also—except for purposes of research and development.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. There is a good deal of conversation going on and I cannot hear the Minister.
    Mr. Marples: This restriction will apply from the outset to the London Board, the Docks Board and to the Inland Waterways Authority, which in any case will not inherit any such manufacturing activities. The four new statutory boards are in a different practical position from the B.T.C. as regards the manufacture of commercial road vehicles. On vesting day—1st January, 1948—the Commission took over three companies—Bristol Commercial Vehicles Limited, Eastern Coach Works Limited, and Star Bodies Limited. These companies built road motor bodies and chassis. There was also some small capacity in the railway workshops for road vehicle manufacture, such as chassis and bodies.
    The situation under the Bill is significantly different. The main road motor

    343
    vehicle manufacturing capacity of the Commission—that is, the three companies I have mentioned—does not go to any of the four statutory boards but to the Holding Company. Therefore, the Docks Board, the London Board and the Inland Waterways Authority will inherit no road motor vehicle manufacturing capacity or activity whatsoever. The Railways Board will inherit a very small commercial vehicle body making capacity concentrated almost entirely in two railway workshops—Wolverton and Temple Mills. The output is about 200 bodies and trailers a year. The value is about £77,000. About 70 people are employed. There is no need or justification to give the four statutory boards powers to manufacture commercial road vehicles. It is not their job and, except for a small capacity in the two railway workshops I have mentioned—Wolverton and Temple Mills—they do not engage in this work, nor is it likely that they would wish to do so.
    Under the Amendment we allow three years during which the small road vehicle manufacturing capacity in the railways can be run down. In 1947 they had this restriction on them. They could not sell to outside bodies and they also had a quantitative restriction. As we discussed on the last Amendment, we have now swept away the quantitative restriction and replaced it by Ministerial direction and control. We are perpetuating what was in the 1947 Act, namely, that they cannot manufacture outside the four statutory boards and the Holding Company. They can manufacture for each other but not outside, either in the open market or for export. We do not wish in any circumstances to stop any of the boards manufacturing for development and research. One example is the road railer. The railways should be free to try to develop any prototype they can which will bring business to them, but we do not think that they should engage in manufacturing any items.
    8.15 p.m.
    Mr. Strauss: We want a further explanation of the Amendment. The Minister has not fully disclosed the situation which the Amendment involves. As I understand it, if the Amendment is
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    accepted, the three small companies—Star Bodies Limited, Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd. and the Eastern Coach Works Ltd., will not be able to carry on in the future as they are at the moment.
    Mr. Marples: The right hon. Gentleman has not got the point. At present there is a quota on those three companies. They can manufacture only up to a certain number. That is the first restriction on them under the 1947 Act. In addition, they can manufacture only for their own use. They cannot sell in the private market, nor can they export. They are subject to those two limitations. The Amendment seeks to preserve the second limitation—that is to say, they must sell to other boards within the nationalised transport sector and not in the private market or for export. We have removed the quantitative restriction and replaced it by a Ministerial direction under the previous Amendment.
    Mr. Strauss: The Amendment clearly states that
    "a Board shall not have power to manufacture, otherwise than for purposes of research or development, road vehicles, bodies or chassis for road vehicles …"
    I draw attention to the words "shall not have power". At present there is power to manufacture under a quota system.
    Mr. Marples: Perhaps I did not make myself clear, in which case I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. The Clause deals with the boards—that is, the Railways Board, the London Board, the Inland Waterways Authority and the Docks Board. The three companies to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred do not come under those four boards. Therefore, they are not dealt with in this Clause. They are dealt with in Clause 29, because they go to the Holding Company. The activities of those three companies are regulated by Clause 29, not by Clause 13.
    Mr. Strauss: I understood that the position of these three companies was to be altered. I thought that this was the Amendment which effected that alteration. My authority was The Times, which contained a news item the other day that these three companies, under an Amendment put forward by the Minister of Transport, were to be further restricted beyond the restrictions at

    345
    present imposed upon them. Indeed, The Times said that this was a surrender to Conservative back bench pressure. It seemed to me from this Amendment and from others that the position of these three companies was being changed materially. If we are told that their position will be exactly the same and that they will have the same restricted freedom in the future as they have today, either under this Amendment or under Amendments which the Minister may move to Clause 29, we need not discuss the matter further.
    In Committee the Parliamentary Secretary strongly defended the three companies and said that they should be allowed to maintain their present position. I invite hon. Members to look at column 982. We had a long argument about this. The Parliamentary Secretary was very outspoken. He resisted the pressure of some of his hon. Friends, which appeared to want to curtail the limited freedom which these three companies have. The Parliamentary Secretary made out a very good case. We accepted it. His hon. Friends retreated.
    It seems to us that the Government have had second thoughts and that the position of these three small companies, which do a very good job of work, is to be restricted and altered as a result of the Amendment. If I am wrong about that, I accept the Minister's correction. I do not understand why the Amendment is necessary. Why was it not already covered in the provisions of Clause 13 as it stood when we discussed it in Committee? Is this a drafting Amendment? Does it formalise something which has been understood? Does it correct an error in the Bill as it stood, or does it make an alteration in the powers of manufacture set out in the Bill as it was first printed? May we have the situation clarified? Is the position of the three companies being altered under this Amendment or under Amendments to Clause 29 which will later be moved?
    Mr. Millan: There is considerable confusion about this matter. The Minister has said that the Amendment deals specifically with some railway workshops which have been doing a certain amount of manufacturing of this sort. We strenuously object to the Amendment
    346
    even from that point of view, but there is also the point Which my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) raised about these very important companies which come under the Holding Company.
    The Minister said something which was very surprising, that we have already removed all the restrictions from these three companies which are under the Holding Company. But subsequently he said that the Clause deals not with the Holding Company, but only with the four statutory boards. If the Clause deals only with the four statutory boards—I can see that that may well be so—the Minister must explain how the powers of the three small companies which come under the Holding Company have been extended by the Bill, because there is nothing in Clause 29 which removes, for example, the quotas.
    There was a good deal of discussion in Committee upstairs about the quota system under the 1947 Act. It is not the least surprising that at that time those of us who were members of the Committee felt that we were dealing with these three companies under Clause 13. We are, therefore, rather surprised to be told that Clause 13 does not deal with these three companies at all. If it does not, can the Minister explain in what part of the Bill the quota restrictions have been removed, because there is nothing in Clause 29 about it? It is important that that matter should be cleared up.
    I repeat that we very much object in principle to what the Minister is doing with regard to the railway workshops. If these workshops can have the power of research and development, why cannot they have powers of construction? If the railway workshops, under the Railways Board, can have powers of research and development, cannot the Government at least give the production rights to the three companies under the Holding Company? It would be extremely undesirable if they were placed in the position at the end of the research and development stage of neither being able to manufacture themselves nor given the manufacturing rights of the three companies under the Holding Company. That would be at least some amelioration of the position, although it would not be completely satisfactory because

    347
    we on this side see no reason why the full powers should not rest with the Railways Board, or, for that matter, with any of the other boards.
    Mr. J. M. L. Prior: I am not sure what is happening, but, as I understand, under this Clause the limitations of the quota will be taken off the Eastern Coach Works Ltd. and the other companies and then in Clause 29, on an Amendment which is still to be considered, fresh limitations will be imposed.
    I think that the removal of the quotas is a very good thing. It will mean that the bus manufacturing companies will not be governed in the way that they are governed at the moment to make either just chassis or just bodies but that if, in future, they wish to make what is known as an integrated vehicle they will be able to do so. From that point of view, the removal of the quotas will be welcomed.
    I do not think that I should be in order at this stage in discussing an Amendment to Clause 29, but I should like to hear from my right hon. Friend whether Clause 13, as it stands, deals with these three companies or whether they are completely covered by Clause 29.
    Mr. Marples: I should like to ask leave to speak again.
    Clause 13 applies only to the Railways Board, the Inland Waterways Authority, the London Board and the Docks Board. It does not apply to the Holding Company. The Holding Company comes under Clause 29, and the list of companies whose shares it holds is in Part IV, List A on pages 105 and 106 of the Bill. It will be seen that Star Bodies Ltd., Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd. and Eastern Coach Works Ltd. are dealt with in this list. I tried to explain that what the British Transport Commission holds is divided between Clauses 13 and 29. Any points which affect Star Bodies Ltd. in detail should be raised on Clause 29. I assure the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) that there is nothing in Clause 13 which affects the three companies which I have mentioned. They are dealt with under Clause 29.
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    Clause 13 and the Amendment restrict manufacture. There is no road vehicle manufacturing in inland waterways now and there is none in the docks, and I do not think there are any motor body or chassis manufactured anywhere except in the railway workshops which have a very small manufacturing unit, the details of which I gave. It is proposed that the workshops shall cease that manufacture and they are given three years to run down that manufacture, which is infinitesimal. We think that British Railways should devote themselves in their workshops to making equipment for the railways, not equipment for the roads. That is our principle. That is what we believe. I have not sought to hide it. That is what the Amendment refers to.
    Mr. Arthur Holt: Does not the Minister trust Dr. Beeching? He has given him a large salary and instructions to run the railways on a commercial basis. Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to run a private company with the sort of limitations which he is seeking to impose on the new railway authority? It seems that this is a case of taking a very large hammer to smash a small nut, a nut which may help to improve the railways' finances, although, perhaps, in only a small way.
    Why go to all this trouble to eliminate an activity which might possibly be helpful? I do not suggest, as some hon Members on this side have suggested, that there is a great future in making vehicles or wagons for export. I am sure that that is a very difficult job in any case. The Minister is going to the other extreme and being quite absurd in the extent to which he is trying to limit the activities. If very little activity is being carried on which will be curtailed by the Amendment, does he really need to put this into the Bill to stop it? The Minister is full of powers to himself. Why does he need to write something else into the Bill?
    The party opposite, pretends to be in favour of competition and of bringing healthy commercial ideas to the running of the railways. It seems to me that hon. Members opposite have gone right over to pure doctrinaire dogma. They are not using their common sense as businessmen in this matter. Does the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper) wish to intervene?
    Mr. A. E. Cooper: I hope to speak.
    Mr. Holt: I know that the hon. Member is interested in business matters and has strong views about these things. We will be interested to hear him defend the Government's attitude on this kind of thing. As far as I can see, it is entirely without reason.
    8.30 p.m.
    Mr. Cooper: Far from us on this side not thinking about these matters on a businesslike basis, that is the very thing that we are trying to do. We would all agree that an industry which depends upon efficiency and competitive ability, and which, therefore, must have a large production unit, is the motor car and motor vehicle manufacturing industry. To permit the continuance of these three little companies, which produce, I believe, something like 0·5 per cent. of our heavy vehicles, is ridiculous.
    Mr. E. G. Willis: That has nothing to do with it.
    Mr. Cooper: The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) made that very point.
    Mr. Holt: Does the hon. Member think that Dr. Beeching is incapable of looking at this problem and of deciding on his own whether this work should be cut out or developed without having it written into the Bill? That is my question.
    Mr. Cooper: I do not believe that under existing law Dr. Beeching has power to close down anything without coming to the Minister for prior approval. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] It might have escaped the notice of hon. Members opposite that the 1947 Act laid strict obligations upon the various parts of this nationalised undertaking. There is nothing new in the way of Parliament imposing restrictions on any form of nationalised body.
    One might equally ask the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) whether, when the Labour Party was putting through Parliament all its nationalisation Acts. it did not trust the people whom it put into power. Of course the Labour Party trusted them, but Parliament is quite right, and has
    350
    a duty, to impose limitations upon the chairmen of nationalised boards.
    Mr. Weitzman: Either the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper) was not present earlier or he was not listening to the debate. Every word which he has said had nothing to do with the Amendment. As I understand—I hope that the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary will correct me if I am wrong—the Amendment has nothing to do with the Holding Company.
    Mr. Marples Mr. Marples indicated assent.
    Mr. Weitzman: It merely has to do with that small amount of business that the railways still have in, so to speak, the art of manufacture. I agree that it is absurd to put this restriction into the Bill and that the existing power of the railways in this respect should remain.
    1 rise for one reason. I listened with great interest to the argument put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) concerning the fruits of research. What will happen to the fruits of research by the board in the railways' small way? The Minister said not a word about this. Are we not to have the benefit of his opinion about it?
    Major Sir Frank Markham: I wish only to put two points to my right hon. Friend the Minister. If I understood aright, his statement a few minutes ago was to the effect that the ultimate aim of all this is to put most railway carriage and wagon construction work into the British Railways workshops and most of the road vehicle work into companies listed on page 104 of the Bill. If this is so, does it not mean a great departure from existing practice in that, for example, the current quite moderate programme of road haulage vehicles will be taken away from Wolverton and placed elsewhere?
    I should like an answer, if possible, before we reach a Division on the Amendment.
    Mr. Prior Mr. Prior rose—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak. We are not in Committee.
    Mr. Ross: I want to know why these words are necessary. This is the action of a league of terrified private enterprise

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    experts. Subsection (1) of the Clause defines the power to manufacture, and ends with these words:
    "the Boards shall not have power to construct, manufacture, produce, purchase, maintain or repair anything not required for any of those purposes."
    Subsection (4) states that
    "Each of the Boards shall from time to time submit to the Minister proposals…and shall exercise those powers in accordance with those proposals as approved by the Minister with or without modification; but the Minister may, after consultation with a Board, direct that Board to discontinue any of the activities which they are carrying on in accordance with proposals so approved."
    Now the Minister comes along with this new restriction to be added after those. Without prejudice to these limitations he makes a further specific limitation. Why does he do it? First, it is unnecessary; secondly, what are they frightened of? This is the glorious party which wants competition and wants every idea and everything done. There are the terrors of the Common Market in front of us and we have to be able to gird up our spirits and use all our research, brains and everything else. But some of the boards must do so. That is what it amounts to. I think that the hon. Gentleman was right. He knows quite well that in relation to many other aspects of Government we have research development teams which have developed something worth while, but by this dogma they are not to be allowed to exploit something that they have discovered in the processes of their development.
    This is what is behind it. Hon. Members opposite have a lot to say about nationalisation and nationalised industries, and we hear a lot about the £140 million capital development programme. But they do love nationalised industry as a customer. Where would private enterprise be without that £140 million? They are getting most of it. Hon. Members opposite are profiting out of that, and the Minister knows it. No doubt when he proceeds to another job he may well take an interest in some company that will profit out of this development. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is not an aspersion on the Minister. This is the natural way of life of hon. Members opposite.
    Sir F. Markham: That contains the suggestion that the Minister's present policy is influenced by some further payments that he will be getting, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw it.
    Mr. Ross: If I had meant that the Minister would have been the first to object.
    This is the natural way of life for them. They want the nationalised industries as attractive customers, but to limit the amount of money that they can spend in relation to their own manufactures. They must be able to find a customer even within this country or outwith this country. That is what it mounts up to. So we do not get this once. We get it three times and the Minister confuses the issue by talking about three companies that are not even mentioned in the Clause. No wonder his hon. Friend and everyone else is confused.
    We have to start this business by knowing the Minister. When the Minister is on weak ground he will talk about everything except the Amendment. He has not told us why the third underlining of this power is necessary. Hon. Members are limited on Report stage to making one speech, but the Minister can make more than one because he has to explain his Bill to the House. I hope that he will make an effort to explain just why this is necessary. Or will he not, at this stage, have sufficient courage to say that this is completely unnecessary, that all the back benchers who came to him with stories about the terrors of the Railways Board are quite wrong, and withdraw his own Amendment?
    Mr. Marples: I hate to ask the leave of the House for the third time, but I should like to answer very shortly if I may. The railway workshops employ about 110,000 people. The £140 million which is spent on capital development does not go to private firms—certainly not to any firm with which I was ever associated. A lot of it goes to the workshops to pay the wages of the 110,000. I have always taken the view that the workshops should concentrate on railway manufacture and railway repair work and repair work on the manufacture of railway motor vehicles and chassis.

    353
    That is exactly what the British Transport Commission has done. It has produced £77,000 worth of vehicles a year and employed 70 men only on motor vehicles.
    Sir F. Markham: I challenge those figures. I believe that there is at least that number of men working at the workshops at Wolverton on road motor vehicles.
    Mr. Marples: Not on the railway work, I quite agree, but road vehicles. This is on a puny scale. That is what has actually been happening. I believe that the railway workshops should manufacture for the railways and repair for the railways and I do not think they should indulge in the road work. It will be phased off over three years and the 70 men employed on this at Wolverton will be looked after.
    Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. Only one hon. Member may have the Floor at one time.
    Mr. Popplewell: Can the Minister say whether those 70 men he referred to have shown a loss on their work or a profit?
    Mr. Marples: It is very difficult to find out in workshop costings, but that is exactly what has happened. It is not easy. There was an overall loss of £150 million. [An HON. MEMBER: "Whose fault was that?"] I do not know whose fault it was.
    Mr. Ross: It was the Minister's.
    Mr. Marples: But that is what has happened. It will be phased off over three years so that no hardship will be involved.
    Sir F. Markham: This represents a major change, so far as I know. I have not heard about it. The railways have been making or repairing their own road vehicles for years—almost since the motor car was first introduced. As I understand it, this is a major change which affects my constituency, and unless the Minister of Transport can give us a better explanation than he has up till now I shall have no alternative but to vote against the Amendment.
    Mr. Marples: Wolverton is in my hon. Friend's constituency and I can understand that he would be concerned about any disturbance there, but when he says this is a major change of policy I must point out to him that the value of the output is £77,000 and there are 70 staff employed—
    Mr. Ross: What is the Minister worrying about then?
    Mr. Marples: —out of 500,000 men altogether.
    Mr. Ross: What is the Minister worrying about then?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Member can have which argument he likes, but he cannot have both. One cannot say it is both tiny and a major change.
    Sir F. Markham: I have already said that I believe the Minister—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. We are not in Committee and the hon. Member cannot keep getting up to speak.
    Mr. Manuel: On a point of order. The Minister gave way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) and the hon. Member is not getting up to speak again, so I do not think he contravened the rules of order.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member has got up several times. One cannot behave on Report in the same way as in Committee.
    Mr. Mellish: On a point of order. The hon. Member is challenging the figures. If we are to have an intelligent argument we had better get the figures cleared up. All the hon. Member wants to do is to have this explained. He probably knows more about it than the Minister does.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member may ask a question if the Minister gives way, but he cannot make a speech.
    Sir F. Markham: I do really seek the indulgence of the Chair and of the House. So far as I am concerned, this is a new policy of British Railways. That is the first point I was putting before the House. Next, I challenge the Minister's figures. I say they do not include the full extent of the road vehicle work

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    and the auxiliary work such as containers. The Minister has been giving figures which underestimate the production, and I do ask him to have a very good look at this pretty quickly before we get to any further stage of the Bill.
    Mr. Marples: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that these figures came from the British Transport Commission.] asked the Commission about it. There are 220 vehicles and 70 men, and the value of the output is £77,000. I will check it again. If I am wrong I will come to the House and say so, but I do not think I am. The original intervention of my hon. Friend was because he thought these figures referred to the manufacture of railway vehicles. I think that if he will look at HANSARD carefully in the morning he will see that that was so. I think that is right. I am quite certain, and if the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) is against me, I know that I must be right.
    Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose—
    8.45 p.m.
    Mr. Marples: I was asked what would happen to the three companies in the Holding Company dealt with in Clause 29. I was asked if they could do this work. The answer is "Yes". Any company can interchange manufactures within the nationalised transport section. If a particular vehicle was required the boards under Clause 29, could go to the three companies and they could manufacture for them. I think that I have now answered most of the points. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. I may not have answered them satisfactorily, but I have answered them. This is one of those things on which we must agree to differ. I have explained the purpose of the Amendment quite clearly. The Opposition disagree with that purpose, but at least they know what the Amendment is about.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Willis.

    Division No. 164.]

    AYES

    [8.50 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Aitken, W. T.

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Brewis, John

    Allason, James

    Bidgood, John C.

    Bromley Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Arbuthnot, John

    Biffen, John

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Bingham, R. M.

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Barber, Anthony

    Bishop, F. P.

    Bryan, Paul

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Buck, Antony

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Bullard, Denys

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Box, Donald

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Mr. Ross: Will the Minister answer my question?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have called Mr. Willis.
    Mr. Willis: The question I want to ask is simple. Has not the Minister, under subsection (4), the power which he is now asking for in the Amendment? I should have thought that that subsection was sufficiently all-embracing for him to control any activity of any of the boards without having to put in all this rigmarole to deal with 70 men producing £70,000 of goods. In the first place, I should have thought that when the Bill became an Act. the Minister's approval would have to be obtained to continue this activity. I may be wrong, but that seems to me to be the legal position. The Minister would then be able to say, "We give you three years to try to wind up this activity", if that is what he wants to do.
    Subsection (4) of the Clause provides that
    "Each of the Boards shall from time to time submit to the Minister proposals as to the manner in which their powers of construction, manufacture and production … are to be exercised … "
    I assume, therefore, that to make the slightest change a board would have to approach the Minister. There seems to be no reason why we should have all this rigmarole. I cannot understand why the Minister insists on fighting over this.
    I do not want to waste the time of the House by ranging over the wider aspects of the Amendment, but from the narrow legal interpretation of the Bill I ask again whether the Minister has not the powers he requires under subsection (4) to do all the things that he told us about.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill: —
    The House divided: Ayes 217, Noes 173.

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Hobson, Sir John

    Peel, John

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Peyton, John

    Chataway, Christopher

    Holland, Philip

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Pitman, Sir James

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Hopkins, Alan

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Pott, Percivall

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Cole, Norman

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Pym, Francis

    Collard, Richard

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Cooke, Robert

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Cooper, A. E.

    James, David

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Cordle, John

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Rees, Hugh

    Costain, A. P.

    Jennings, J. C.

    Renton, David

    Coulson, Michael

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Cunningham, Knox

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Roots, William

    Curran, Charles

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Currle, G. B. H.

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Russell, Ronald

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Dance, James

    Kimball, Marcus

    Sharples, Richard

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kirk, Peter

    Shaw, M.

    Deedee, W. F.

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Shepherd, William

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Leather, E. H. C.

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

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Smithers, Peter

    Doughty, Charles

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Speir, Rupert

    du Cann, Edward

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Duncan, Sir James

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Stodart, J. A.

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

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    McAdden, Stephen

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Farr, John

    MacArthur, Ian

    Tapsell, Peter

    Finlay, Graeme

    McLaren, Martin

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Fisher, Nigel

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Teeling, Sir William

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

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

    Temple, John M.

    Foster, John

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Freeth, Denzil

    Maddan, Martin

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Gammans, Lady

    Maginnis, John E.

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Gardner, Edward

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Marshall, Douglas

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Turner, Colin

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Goodhew, Victor

    Mawby, Ray

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Gower, Raymond

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

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

    Walder, David

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    Mills, Stratton

    Wall, Patrick

    Green, Alan

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Gurden, Harold

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Webster, David

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Morrison, John

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maeclesf'd)

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Hay, John

    Noble, Michael

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Wise, A. R.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Woollam, John

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Worsley, Marcus

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

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Mr. Whitelaw and Mr. Batsford

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Callaghan, James

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Albu, Austen

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Evans, Albert

    Awbery, Stan

    Cronin, John

    Fernyhough, E.

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Finch, Harold

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Darling, George

    Fitch, Alan

    Benson, Sir George

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Blackburn, F.

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Blyton, William

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Boardman, H.

    Deer, George

    Forman, J. C.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Delargy, Hugh

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Bowles, Frank

    Dempsey, James

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Boyden, James

    Diamond, John

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Dodds, Norman

    Ginsburg, David

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    358

    359

    Gunter, Ray

    Mallalleu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

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

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Manuel, Archie

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Hannan, William

    Mapp, Charles

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Harper, Joseph

    Mason, Roy

    Small, William

    Hayman, F. H.

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Snow, Julian

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Millan, Bruce

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Hilton, A. V.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Stonehouse, John

    Holman, Percy

    Monslow, Walter

    Stones, William

    Holt, Arthur

    Moody, A. S.

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

    Houghton, Douglas

    Moyle, Arthur

    Taverne, D.

    Hoy, James H.

    Mulley, Frederick

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Oram, A. E.

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermlina)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Padley, W. E.

    Thornton, Ernest

    Hunter, A. E.

    Paget, R. T.

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Tomney, Frank

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Parker, John

    Wade, Donald

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Paton, John

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Warbey, William

    Jeger, George

    Peart, Frederick

    Watkins, Tudor

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Pentland, Norman

    Weitzman, David

    Jones, Elwyn (West Harn, s.)

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Whitlock, William

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Kelley, Richard

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Willey, Frederick

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Proctor, W. T.

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Lawson, George

    Randall, Harry

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

    Rankin, John

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Redhead, E. C.

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

    Lipton, Marcus

    Reid, William

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Lubbock, Eric

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Woof, Robert

    MacColl, James

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    McInnes, James

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

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

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Ross, William

    Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Grey.

    MCLeavy, Frank

    Short, Edward

    Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I beg to move, in page 13, to leave out lines 28 to 31.
    In view of the fact that the Guillotine will fall shortly, I wish to move the Amendment formally.
    Mr. Hay: In view of the shortness of time, the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) has not informed the Committee of the purpose of this Amendment—
    Mr. Mellish: We have not the time.
    Mr. Hay: —and so it is my job to do so and also, I am afraid, to tell the Committee that we cannot advise hon. Members to accept the Amendment.
    The purpose of this Amendment and the following Amendment in the names of hon. Members opposite, to leave out lines 32 to 37, is to allow a board to engage in certain trading activities. The first would be to trade in spare parts or accessories for road vehicles, petrol and oil and, secondly, to repair road vehicles and accessories for persons outside the nationalised transport undertakings. It
    360
    has been argued throughout that the boards should confine their activities to what we have called the set task. Hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee which considered this Bill will remember that I used that phrase frequently. We do not believe that it is any part of the job of these transport undertakings to engage in trading in spare parts, accessories for road vehicles, petrol and so on. Moreover, by the Transport Act, 1947—
    9.0 p.m.
    Mr. Spriggs: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I ask that the vote be now taken?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am waiting to hear the clock strike. I have not heard it yet. As soon as I hear it I shall put the Question.
    Mr. Spriggs: The clock has struck.
    It being Nine o'clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Orders, to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill:—

    Division No. 165.]

    AYES

    [9.1 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Cower, Raymond

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Allason, James

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Arbuthnot, John

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Green, Alan

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Barber, Anthony

    Gurden, Harold

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Batsford, Brian

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Peel, John

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Percival, Ian

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Peyton, John

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Hay, John

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Bevins, Rt, Hon. Reginald

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Bidgood, John C.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Pitman, Sir James

    Biffen, John

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Bingham, R. M.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Pott, Percivall

    Bishop, F. P.

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Powell, Rt. Hon, J. Enoch

    Black, Sir Cyril

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

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Pym, Francis

    Box, Donald

    Hobson, Sir John

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Rawlinson, peter

    Brewis, John

    Holland, Philip

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Bromley, Davenport, Lt. -Col. Sir Walter

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Ress, Hugh

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hopkins, Alan

    Rees-Davies, W. R

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Renton, David

    Bryan, Paul

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Buck, Antony

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Bullard, Denys

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Roots, William

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Cary, Sir Robert

    James, David

    Russell, Ronald

    Chataway, Christopher

    Jennings, J. C.

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Sharples, Richard

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Shaw, M.

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Shepherd, William

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Cole, Norman

    Kerans, Cdr. J, S.

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

    Collard, Richard

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Smithers, Peter

    Cooke, Robert

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Cooper, A. E.

    Kimball, Marcus

    Speir, Rupert

    Cordle, John

    Kirk, Peter

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Corfield, F. V.

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Costain, A. P.

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Stodart, J. A.

    Coulson, Michael

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Cunningham, Knox

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Tapsell, Peter

    Curran, Charles

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Teeling, Sir William

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Temple, John M.

    Dance, James

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    McAdden, Stephen

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Deedes, W. F.

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    de Ferranti, Basil

    McLaren, Martin

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Thornton- Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

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

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Doughty, Charles

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Turner, Colin

    Drayson, G. B.

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    du Cann, Edward

    Maddan, Martin

    Vans, W. M. F.

    Duncan, Sir James

    Maginnis, John E.

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Walder, David

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

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Wall, Patrick

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Marshall, Douglas

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Farcy-Jones, F. W.

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Webster, David

    Farr, John

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Finlay, Graeme

    Mawby, Ray

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

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

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Mills, Stratton

    Wise, A. R.

    Freeth, Denzil

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Gammans, Lady

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Gardner, Edward

    Morrison, John

    Wollam, John

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Worsley, Marcus

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Noble, Michael

    Mr. Chichester-Clark and

    Goodhew, Victor

    Nugent, Rt. Hon, Sir Richard

    and Mr. Whitelaw.

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Awbery, Stan

    Benson, Sir George

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Blackburn, F.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Blyton, William

    The House divided: Ayes 218, 171.

    Boardman, H.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Proctor, W. T.

    Bowles, Frank

    Hunter, A. E.

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Boyden, James

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Randall, Harry

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Rankin, John

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Redhead, E. C.

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Reid, William

    Callaghan, James

    Jeger, George

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Cronin, John

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

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

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Kelley, Richard

    Ross, William

    Darling, George

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Short, Edward

    Davle8, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Lawson, George

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Deer, George

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Delargy, Hugh

    Lipton, Marcus

    Small, William

    Dempsey, James

    Loughlin, Charles

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Diamond, John

    Lubbock, Eric

    Snow, Julian

    Dodds, Norman

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Donnelly, Desmond

    MacColl, James

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Driberg, Tom

    McInnes, James

    Stonehouse, John

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Stones, William

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

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

    Evans, Albert

    McLeavy, Frank

    Taverne, D.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Finch, Harold

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

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Fitch, Alan

    Manuel, Archie

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mapp, Charles

    Thornton, Ernest

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Mason, Roy

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Tomney, Frank

    Forman, J. C.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Wade, Donald

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Millan, Bruce

    Warbey, William

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Watkins, Tudor

    Ginsburg, David

    Monslow, Walter

    Weitzman, David

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Moody, A. S.

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Morris, John

    Whitlock, William

    Gunter, Ray

    Moyle, Arthur

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Mulley, Frederick

    Willey, Frederick

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Oram, A. E.

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Hannan, William

    Oswald, Thomas

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Harper, Joseph

    Padley, W. E.

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Paget, R. T.

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (RwlyRegis)

    Pargiter, G. A.

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

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Parker, John

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Paton, John

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Hilton, A. V.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Holman, Percy

    Peart, Frederick

    Woof, Robert

    Holt, Arthur

    Pentland, Norman

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Hoy, James H.

    Popplewell, Ernest

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Grey.

    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions on Amendments, moved by a member of the Government, of which notice had been given, to that part of the Bill to be concluded at Nine o'clock.
    Further Amendment made: In page 13, line 46, at end insert:
    (7) For the purposes of this subsection—
    "body", in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached forms an integral whole with the body-structure includes that framework;
    "chassis" means—

    (a) in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached is distinct from the body-structure, that framework together with the complement of major components required in order to construct a road vehicle on that framework, or

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    (b) in relation to a vehicle in which the framework to which the major components are attached forms an integral whole with the body-structure, the complement of major components required in order to complete that body-structure when new, as a road vehicle;

    "major component" means the complete power unit, complete transmission system, complete suspension system, complete steering gear, complete braking system or complete axle of a vehicle;
    "manufacture", in relation to the body of a road vehicle and in relation to the chassis of a road vehicle where the framework to which the major components are attached is distinct from the body-structure, includes the assembly of the parts of the body or, as the case may be, of the parts of the chassis for the purpose of constructing a new body or, as the case may be, a new chassis:
    "road vehicle" includes any vehicle designed to be used both as railway rolling Stock and on roads.—[Mr. Marples.]

    Clause 14.—(SUPPLEMENTAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO THE BOARDS' POWERS.)
    Amendment made: In page 15, line 28, leave out from "and" to "nothing" in line 29.—[Mr. Marples.]
    Clause 28.—(POWERS EXERCISABLE SUBJECT TO MINISTER'S CONSENT.)
    Amendment made: In page 25, line 44, after "under", insert "the foregoing provisions of".—[Mr. Marples.]

    Clause 29.—(THE TRANSPORT HOLDING COMPANY.)
    Mr. Mellish: I beg to move, in page 26, line 37. at the end to insert:

    (a) for the purpose of providing within the limits of the powers, objects and resources of the companies whose securities are transferred to the Holding Company under this Act. passenger transport, goods transport and other services adequate for public needs, to co-ordinate the activities of those companies with the services provided by the Boards, and

    (b) for the like purpose, to supervise and assist the performance by those companies of their respective functions;

    and for those objects the Holding Company shall have power.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that it would be convenient to discuss with this Amendment that in page 26, line 42, to leave out from "enterprise" to the end of line 43.
    Mr. Mellish: Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker In this Clause we are concerned with the Transport Holding Company. The Clause, as it now stands, lays down that there shall be a chairman and some twelve other directors, and that they shall be appointed by the Minister. On first reading the Clause, one would think that that was a very important body with a great deal of work to do. On the back of the White Paper of December, 1960, we find a wonderful graph drawn up for us to see at a glance the new structure under the proposed reorganisation.
    The Minister there shows himself as being the head man of the show, followed by the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council. That is followed by a list of all the boards with which we have dealt earlier. Then we have the Holding Company and, associated with it, British Road Services, Tilling (Buses) Group, Scottish Omnibuses Group, hotels, road freight shipping services,
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    Thomas Cook and Son Ltd., and other holdings.
    In theory, and, therefore, one would have thought, in practice, this Holding Company would be a very busy and important body, forming an enormous link with the boards, and so on. But subsection (6) tells us what the Holding Company's objects are. It states:
    "… Subject to subsection (8) of this section. the objects of the Holding Company shall be—

    (a) to hold and manage the securities vested in them by virtue of this Act, and

    (b) to exercise the rights attached to those securities … "

    We think that a great deal of effort to have produced so little, and our object in tabling this Amendment, and the Amendment that we are taking with it, is to give the Holding Company real powers, resources, and so on. We think that it should assist in co-ordinating the activities I have named with the services provided by the boards.
    Here, of course, we revert, as we have done so often in the Bill, to something that means a great deal to us on this side of the House—co-ordination in the transport industry. I am sorry if that word affronts hon. Members opposite, but we on this side just cannot see how our transport system can function unless there is some linking of all the real resources of transport. Here is the real link—the Holding Company, having all the securities, and consisting of these important people with the right of representation on matters of structure, and so on, and under the chairmanship of the Minister.
    We think that the Amendment would afford a great opportunity for the Holding Company to try to carry on where we feel the Bill leaves off; that is, try to get the boards and all those other bodies under the control of the Holding Company to work together for one object alone. There is no party politics in this. We must try to get some sense out of our transport industry today.
    9.15 p.m.
    We have got into such a state over the Guillotine that even hon. Gentlemen opposite have not been able to raise questions concerning coastal shipping—and what a plight that industry is in. It is reasonable to say that the various industries connected with transport are dying on their feet. Coastal shipping is dying in the holds of the ships, for there

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    are now only two ships being repaired or built in our shipyards. This may appear irrelevant, but we have lost over 1 million tons of cargo from the rivers to the roads. How long is this to go on? Unless there is co-ordination the Government will have to introduce another Bill to try to solve this problem.
    Hon. Gentlemen opposite often sneer at us because we claim the right to say what part of transport and traffic should go here from there or elsewhere. We do not, in fact, wish to do many of the things which hon. Gentlemen opposite say we want to do. We want there to be good will within the transport machinery and if the Holding Company is to have a name that makes sense, there must be co-ordination. Unfortunately, because of the wretched Guillotine, I cannot develop this point at great length.
    My remarks, however, may be linked with what my hon. Friends have said in the past, that without a genuinely co-ordinated transport system working for the benefit of the nation and not just for private enterprise there will be no future for transport, whichever party is in power.
    Mr. J. T. Price: The Amendment seeks to extend and enlarge the functions and duties of the Holding Company. In supporting what my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said, I should like to illustrate what will be the practice of the Holding Company compared with the practice now observed by British Railways in its closer association with some of the subsidiary undertakings that are to be transferred to the Holding Company.
    It is easy, in a matter of this complexity, to over-simplify what is taking place, and I do not wish to weary the House by an unduly technical discourse. The Fourth Schedule contains an extensive series of undertakings which are to be more closely knit and co-ordinated for administrative purposes with the railway services. I will not dwell on the significance of British Road Services as an integrated part of the British transport system because that provision is being transferred to the Holding Company for purely book-keeping reasons; to hold, buy and exchange shares in the terms defined in the Bill.
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    On page 106 of the Bill appear the names of some important companies, including Crosville Motor Services Ltd., a large and extensive road and passenger transport undertaking operating in the North-West, North Wales and Cheshire. This company has given ser vice to the public and has embodied in it the knowledge of private and public enterprise. Also listed are the Midland General Omnibus Co. Ltd., the Southern National Omnibus Co. Ltd.—
    Mr. Willis: And the Scottish Omnibuses Group (Holdings) Ltd.
    Mr. Price: Yes. As my hon. Friend says, we must not forget Scotland. There is also the West Yorkshire Road Car Company Ltd. In all these undertakings the railway industry of Britain obtained a large financial interest way back in 1928 under what was called the square deal. When the railways were gravely embarrassed by the newly-emerging road transport, arrangements were made, even under private enterprise, for the railway companies to obtain a reasonable share of the equities subsisting in the road passenger industry.
    I am told by people who ought to know, those who have been operating these arrangements, that ever since nationalisation, when many of these services were for administrative purposes integrated more closely than ever with the railways, there has been joint management between nominees of the directors of the old bus companies and nominees of the railway industry. In many cases, I understand, British railways own 45 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the shares in these companies.
    It is a matter not merely of pride but of good business sense that co-operation should have existed between railway directors and bus company directors. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that they have co-operated most efficiently, and we fear that this cooperation will be shattered by the terms of this Clause. The Clause presumably removes any kind of influence or shared responsibility on the part of the railway industry, and transfers to a Holding Company the whole of the equities and the railways' interest in the bus undertakings and subsidiary companies which are listed on pages 105 and 106 of the Bill. It is a matter of grave concern to

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    many of those who have carried out these functions as directors of bus undertakings. I know that I am entitled to quote the Ribble Bus Company, which operates in the North-West, as far as Scotland. It is a most efficient undertaking in which there has been the closest co-operation between nominees of British Railways and of the bus company.
    To remove the shared responsibility and transfer it to a new amorphous body of unknown character—for we do not know who is going to be appointed to this Holding Company—will be a retrograde step and will diminish the cooperation between these sectors of the transport industry. If the declared intentions of the new management which is to take the place of the British Transport Commission is to prune and reduce in size the railway system by cutting away many of the branch lines and other lines which may be regarded as surplus, there will be greater need than ever to have the closest contact between those who operate road passenger services because they will take the place of the railway services which are closed.
    Here we are, at this late stage of the Bill's passage, with a proposal which in its present form will completely sever the remaining co-operation between directors of the railways and of the bus undertakings. We say that this is not good enough. There ought to be an even closer link than exists already because of the new conditions which will prevail when the size of the railways is further reduced.
    We have moved the Amendment in the hope that, by giving more closely specified and defined duties to the Holding Company—which, as we see it now, is merely to carry out a purely nominal function in holding and managing shares—we shall be able to maintain an administrative link which we regard as essential.
    Without wishing to be ungenerous, uncharitable or unfair to anyone, I feel that I should make a comment about the general implication of Clause 29. The implication is that the Holding Company will have transferred to its absolute power all the shares now vested in the subsidiary companies,
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    being able to buy and sell at will, and some of us, in spite of all the smooth talk we have heard, fear that, possessed of these powers, the Holding Company will be subject to pressure by the takeover bidders to such an extent that many of these undertakings which are now national property may be put at risk and their shares may be sold off. This would be bad for the best interests of the country. Therefore, we wish the Holding Company to be strengthened in the way we propose.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I rise not only to agree with every word spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), but to protest against this monstrous and shapeless instrument of bureaucratic tyranny which only the Tory Party could have thought of establishing by the Bill. It was not even corporate to begin with. If one considers what its powers and objects are now, one finds that it has to do whatever the Minister tells it. If one looks for anything else, one finds that it has to hold and manage the securities vested in it. What else could it do?—drop them like the hot potatoes we shall be discussing later tonight?
    In the next paragraph we read that it is
    "to exercise the rights attached to those securities".
    With the greatest respect to the Government and their draftsmen, those are not objects at all. They are merely powers. The one thing which the Clause does not say is what the Holding Company is intended to do other than what the Minister tells it to do.
    It is to take over most valuable and important pieces of property, instruments in the transport system, which are of great concern to the public and which are of considerable value not only in money terms but in any integrated transport system if the Government have not entirely given up hope of concocting something of the sort.
    This body was not even corporate when it started life. It floated about in mid-air, with a few directors attached to it, with no capital and no objects. It has now been given a sort of corporate existence, but still nothing to do. The Government must not complain if we on

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    this side seek to do for them what they ought to have done for themselves and try to set out some sort of notion of what this body with its important properties and, apparently, its supposedly important place in the Bill is to do.
    That is the object of the Amendment. If the Government refuse it and leave the Holding Company as it is, we can only regard it as an instrument of tyranny designed to enable the Minister to do what he chooses with the transport system, without reference to any Act to guide him and without reference to Parliament in the exercise of these wholly abnormal powers.
    9.30 p.m.
    Mr. Weitzman: My attention is drawn particularly to subsection (3). The Government have created a wonderful body here. The subsection says:
    "The chairman and other directors of the Holding Company shall be appointed from among persons who appear to the Minister to have had wide experience of, and to have shown capacity in"—
    I ask hon. Members to pay special attention to this—
    "transport, industrial, commercial or financial matters, administration, the practice of the law"—
    I am glad that the practice of the law is included—
    "applied science or the organisation of workers, and the Minister in appointing them shall have regard to the desirability of including among them persons who are directors of, or concerned in the management of, the principal subsidiaries of the Holding Company."
    All for what? This wonderful organisation is set up simply to carry out the object defined in subsection 6, which is simply to hold the securities. It is absolutely ridiculous.
    Mr. Hay: Hon. Members opposite who have spoken—we welcome the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) into this activity—have all enjoyed themselves very much, but they have not addressed their minds or their speeches to what their Amendment seeks to do. The hon. and learned Members for Kettering and Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) omitted to tell the House, though they ought to have done, that the objects already given to the Holding Company by subsection (6) are not just to hold the securities but also
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    to manage them. [Laughter.] Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. They cannot protest, as the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) did, that this is a fine collection of companies and securities which are being vested in the Holding Company and at the same time pretend that these people have absolutely nothing to do in managing the securities.
    I do not stop there. I go on to point out to the House that lines 3 to 5 on page 27 contain these words:
    "and generally to carry on any business usually carried on by a holding company…"
    Nothing could be wider than that. We do not finish even there. We go on to say:
    "and to do all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment of those objects."
    Hon. Members: Trivial.
    Mr. Hay: I am not being in the least trivial. Our object is to give the Holding Company the widest possible powers. I resist the Amendment, for the simple reason that it would excessively restrict the powers of the Holding Company. I will tell the House why. To begin with, it would be quite inconsistent with the concept that we have always had of the Holding Company and which we expressed succinctly in the White Paper to impose on it any obligation as to the adequacy of the transport services that it provides. The Amendment would import a restriction to make the principal object of the Holding Company
    "to co-ordinate the activities"
    of its subsidiaries
    "with the services provided by the"
    statutory Boards—
    "and … to supervise and assist the performance by those companies of their respective functions."
    The Amendment also contains these words:
    "for the purpose of providing … passenger transport, goods transport and other services adequate for public needs…"
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Hay: Hon Members may say, "Hear, hear", but this is a restriction, because it would require the Holding Company to concern itself only with those objects, namely the co-ordination

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    of the activities of its subsidiaries with those of the Boards and the supervision and assistance of the subsidiaries in the performance of their functions, for the purpose of providing services adequate for public needs. That is a restriction.
    I have resisted throughout any attempt to write into the Bill restrictions either on the Boards or the Holding Company as to the adequacy of the services which they provide. My right hon. Friend, in dealing with an Amendment earlier this afternoon relating to the Railways Board, pointed out that this country has made clear over the course of the last few years what services it wants on the railways, simply by transferring its patronage from the railways to the roads. Exactly the same situation arises in the field of bus services, road passenger services, which is the main reason for the existence of most of the companies which will go to the Holding Company.
    As we know to our cost, particularly in the rural areas, people are deserting bus services and are using their own form of personal transport—cars, motor cycles, and so on. We therefore resist any attempt to write into the objects of the Holding Company an obligation on it to co-ordinate and supervise the activities of its subsidiaries under the general umbrella of providing an adequate service.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Will the Parliamentary Secretary explain why so many directors of the subsidiary companies which are to be handed over lock, stock and barrel to the holding companies have sent protests to his Department about the changes which are proposed? Does he deny that he has received protests about this from the subsidiary companies?
    Mr. Hay: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we have received quite a lot, and we have debated those protests fully in Committee. If certain Amendments on the Notice Paper are selected, we shall debate them all again. But they do not arise on this Amendment.
    Mr. Willis: As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman's argument is that the definition in the Clause is comprehensive and that the Amendment is restric-
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    tive. The important question is: are the restrictive objects in the Amendment included within the wider definition of the Clause?
    Mr. Hay: That intervention is a little obscure, but I think I see what the hon. Gentleman is driving at. He asks: does the greater include the less? In other words, does the width of the powers in the Bill include the sort of things that we want to do? I think that that is the hon. Gentleman's point. The answer to it is that, technically, I suppose it is because any powers are within the very wide powers we have laid down.
    What we do not agree with—I hope that I have made this abundantly clear—is that there should be imposed on the Holding Company a statutory obligation, whether directly or indirectly. to provide adequate services. We know to our cost, the Commission knows to its cost and our colleagues on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries discovered, that one of the main problems of the Commission has been, as my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, to decide between what is socially justifiable and what is economically right. If we place on the Holding Company the same difficulty under which the Commission has laboured we are only asking for trouble and we should simply reproduce before long exactly the same sort of problems which have emerged in the last few years with the Commission.
    The second reason why I resist the Amendment is this. As hon Members have pointed out, particularly the hon. Member for Westhoughton, the companies in List A in the Fourth Schedule as going to the Holding Company and all of those shares are owned by the Commission, are companies concerned mainly with the provision of road passenger services—bus services. Many of these companies are operating services in competition with bus services provided either by private enterprise firms or by municipal undertakings.
    I cannot for the life of me see why we should impose on the State Holding Company, the State bus companies, an obligation to maintain adequate services while private enterprise and municipal competitors are under no such obligation. The point is that the Holding Company will be operating undertakings

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    which, as paragraph 24 of the White Paper states:
    "all operate in the same general field as private enterprise, with which they are often in competition".
    I cannot see that it is right or desirable to impose on the nationalised bus companies operating through the Holding Company obligations which will not be on the shoulders of their private enterprise competitors.
    Mr. J. T. Price: The Government cannot do it.
    Mr. Hay: But that is precisely what the Amendment seeks to do.
    Mr. Price: Surely neither the nationalised transport undertakings mentioned in the Fourth Schedule nor their private enterprise competitors can run road services except under the conditions laid down by the traffic commissioners when the licences are granted. Whether it is a private company or one of those on the list of nationalised companies, it cannot play ducks and drakes with the service and maintain a licence without the authority of the traffic commissioners. The hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well.
    Mr. Hay: Of course I know that perfectly well. I am saying, however, that the Amendment would require the Transport Holding Company so to coordinate the activities of its subsidiaries as to provide passenger transport, goods transport and other services adequate for public needs.
    Let me take an imaginary case. Let us take a remote part of the country where there are no bus services to speak of. If these words are imported into the Bill, it might well be argued that the nearest geographically to the area of the bus companies which will go to the Holding Company should be bound to provide services adequate for public needs and, therefore, should apply to the traffic commissioners for a licence. It might be quite uneconomic to operate such a service or services, but if the words of the Amendment were imported, that company would be obliged to have regard to services which were adequate for the public.
    Mr. Ross: I do not know whether the Minister realises that one of the final
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    names in List B is that of David MacBrayne Ltd. Exactly to meet the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman thought were imaginary and unfair, David MacBrayne has to run bus as well as shipping services, and they are uneconomic. Not only that, but by the MacBrayne Order that went through the House in the early part of this Session an obligation is laid upon the Secretary of State for Scotland to ensure that that happens. Under the Clause, will the Minister of Transport be able to tell the Holding Company or the Secretary of State for Scotland to do something like that?
    Mr. Hay: The answer to the hon. Member's question is "No". As for the other point, the hon. Member should have thought of it earlier and put down an appropriate Amendment. He has shown a belated interest in the Bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member could have applied and, no doubt, would have joined the Committee had he been prepared to give the six months that the rest of us have given.
    The case of David MacBrayne Ltd. is entirely separate and distinct, for the simple reason that it operates in those remote parts of Scotland—
    Mr. Ross: Those that the hon. Gentleman has been speaking about?
    Mr. Hay: No. I was not speaking about remote parts of Scotland. I said "remote areas of the country", not necessarily Scotland—[Interruption.]—because there is already in Scotland this special arrangement for David MacBrayne Ltd. That does not mean, however, that because we have accepted that situation for that part of the country, we are prepared to accept it throughout the rest of the length and breadth of the country. [Interruption.] I have done my best to answer the question. If the hon. Member is not satisfied, he will just have to put up with it.
    There is one further reason why we must resist the Amendment. Hon. Members who have spoken, particularly the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), who moved the Amendment, and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), have pointed out the desirability of including in the Bill provision for co-ordination. They now

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    accept, I think, that we are not prepared to agree to the concept of integration as it has so often been put to us from the benches opposite. They say that we should be prepared to agree at least to some measure of co-ordination. My right hon. Friend and I have said that we are not against co-ordination. What hon. Members opposite have omitted to tell the House in submitting the Amendment is that there already exists in the Bill machinery for co-ordination in giving these services.
    Mr. Popplewell: Where?
    Mr. Hay: If the hon. Member contains himself, I will tell him. It is in those provisions of the Bill relating to the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council.
    Mr. Popplewell: What nonsense.
    9.45 p.m.
    Mr. Hay: Let the hon. Member remember the composition of the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council. First, there is the Minister or his deputy who may take the Chair. Secondly, there are the chairmen of all the boards. The Amendment asks us to place upon the Holding Company an obligation to co-ordinate its services with those of the boards. Thirdly, there will be the chairman of the Holding Company and, in addition, a few independent people.
    As we have said—I said this myself on Second Reading, and I have said it frequently throughout the passage of the Bill—the object of this council—the N.A.T.A.C.—will be to provide the top level machinery whereby services can be co-ordinated. Lower down, on the day-to-day operation level, of course. co-ordination takes place. I said that also in my speech on Second Reading, because in fact it is to the advantage of the various transport undertakings—railways, roads and so on—that their services should interlock and be coordinated. We see no reason to place in the Statute the obligation to co-ordinate in the rigid terms in which the Opposition have so frequently put it forward and in the terms in which this Amendment tries again to do so.
    For these reasons—I have given three of them—we regard this Amendment as
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    restrictive, unworkable and unnecessary, and I ask the House to reject it.
    Mr. Mapp: The contribution of the Parliamentary Secretary has been in effect to justify an aimless Holding Company—completely aimless—and in so far as he referred to lines 3, 4 and 5 on page 27 as being an additional reason for its designs and utilities it might as well make lollipops, as was said in answer to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day.
    I want to be a little more pragmatic about this matter. I have been in transport until fairly recently, and I want to put to the Parliamentary Secretary a question about the job in the provinces where there is this co-ordination or interlocking that he has spoken about. There it has been found advisable to interlock, and I think that there should be interlocking in the future. There has been interlocking in the past because of certain common financial interests. There are reasons financially why it should dovetail. Now those reasons disappear and there will be little or no interchange between the officers at the middle range of the railways and the boards and those in the middle range of the subsidiaries.
    Mr. Hay: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House exactly why that is so? It is a statement that we have heard so often, and it is quite untrue. There is nothing whatever in the Bill or in the reorganisation to stop that sort of thing contining as it does now.
    Mr. Mapp: That possibly is true, but may I put the point back to the Parliamentary Secretary? There is nothing written in the Bill which has the effect of putting an obligation on either the Holding Company or its various parts to continue this happy liaison and relationship that has taken place in the past.
    May I refer to the three or four areas where this relationship of happy and useful co-operation has taken place in the past? There is nothing in the Bill or in any of the articles of the Holding Company, unless we write a purpose in, and at the moment it is without a purpose. There is no obligation, unless a purpose is written in, to cover such problems as this. I think that all hon. Members know that in the Midland area the problem of the railways is one of manpower. Their wage structure relatively

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    does not enable them to command the manpower to meet the obligations that they have. In earlier winters the railways sought and in future winters they will seek to meet their obligations through B.R.S. They will, unless substantial changes are made. This happened in the past. But there is nothing written into the Bill under which B.R.S. or now the Holding Company will be under any obligation at all to do that sort of thing. It is not unusual—indeed, it is quite a usual feature—for railway terminals, freight terminals, to have seasonal volumes of traffic for cartage, delivery or collection. In the past there has been quite a happy relationship between the railway officer locally and the B.R.S. officer locally. The railway officer would arrange with the B.R.S. officer to meet that obligation and so give satisfaction to the customer by either collection or delivery. Unless we write into the articles of the Holding Company that it shall have responsibility, where shall we find any obligation for it to do this or anything other than the holding of shares?
    I refer to the third feature about which, perhaps, I am a little less certain. Where in the Bill do I find an obligation on the Holding Company and its subsidiaries to fill the bill if and when a railway accident takes place and rail services are temporarily interrupted? I can find no real authority in the Bill for that. Unless we write in such a purpose and design and pattern for the Holding Company, and do so at this stage, the Holding Company will be financiers only, holding stocks and shares.
    Mr. G. Wilson: The hon. Member asks where in the Bill he will find provision to enable the railways to keep alternative bus services going if there is a temporary stoppage. I refer him to Clause 4 (1, a, iii) which refers to the power to provide alternative bus services on their own, with the permission of the licensing authority. Next there is paragraph (b) which states that the Railways Board shall have power to run road transport under the Railway Road Transport Acts of 1928, which continue. I think the agreements with the bus operators also continue.
    Mr. Mapp: The hon. Member's observations seem remarkable to me.
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    He is assuming that the Railways Board has the power he has referred to. But did I not refer to the interruption of services? Did I not by implication suggest to the House that there was a disruption, a matter of daily notice, or something of that kind? I know that as a long-term process the railways would be able to do so, with the discouragement of the Minister, but to meet working day-to-day problems they have no means within the Bill. Nor is the Minister giving them any power to do so. Nor is he demanding from the Holding Company any duty. All that he is writing into the Bill is that the Company shall have financial powers.
    I can see one defect in the words of the Amendment. I admit that quite readily. The Amendment contains the word "adequate" which is anathema on that side of the House. If, however, that side of the House can see reasons why there should be some purpose and some aim for the Holding Company, then surely that side of the House would agree that that should be written into the Bill.
    Mr. Millan: The Parliamentary Secretary in his speech on this Amendment really made two main points. The first point he made was that this Amendment was unnecessary because there were already powers under Clause 29 in the widest possible terms for the Holding Company to do whatever it might think it necessary to do, and he referred us to lines 3 to 5 on page 27 under which the Holding Company has power
    "generally to carry on any business usually carried on by a holding company".
    Of course, those words have to be read in conjunction with subsection (4) of that Clause, and under that subsection (4) we find that
    "The Holding Company shall in the conduct of their business act in accordance with such directions as may from time to time be given to them by the Minister."
    This brings me to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) that the real power rests not in the hands of the Holding Company but in the hands of the Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary appears to be shaking his head, but the fact is that the Holding Company will be able to exercise powers under the

    381
    Clause only in accordance with any restrictions laid down by the Minister in directions which he gives to the Company. Frankly, we do not trust the Minister, and that is why we move the Amendment.
    Secondly, the Parliamentary Secretary said that in the co-ordination of transport the Minister was establishing a Nationalised Transport Advisory Council for a specific purpose, but Clause 55 (1) says:
    "There shall be established…a Nationalised Transport Advisory Council for the purpose of advising the Minister on such questions relating to the co-ordination, or any other aspect, of the nationalised transport undertakings as the Minister may refer to the Council."
    These are the important points.
    This Council can discuss only such aspect as the Minister refers to it. In other words, we have exactly the same position as we have under Clause 29, that the initiative rests with the Minister and neither the Holding Company, under Clause 29, nor the Advisory Council, under Clause 55, will be able to do anything unless it is working under powers given to it by the Minister.
    In the matter of co-ordination and providing adequate services and all other important considerations which are matters of public interest, the initiative rests with the Minister. We do not consider that that is good enough, and that is why we have tabled the Amendment. Because we are not willing to trust the Minister, we want the powers of the Holding Company and the powers generally in the Bill to be laid down in the most specific terms that we can find. We believe that only by doing that can we have the transport system which the country requires.
    Mr. Strauss: I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friends in their criticism of the Clause. The House should realise that the Bill divides the Transport Commission into five separate compartments. The Holding Company is one. Each of the others is given specific directions under the Bill as to what its duty is to be. The others are told that their duty is to run a railway system. Incidentally the London Board is told it should be "an adequate" system, but not the boards outside London. Yet this
    382
    Clause lays down no duty at all except that the Holding Company must hold certain securities, and obviously if it holds them it must manage them.
    I must repeat the fact, which has already been mentioned, that so haphazard was the drafting of the Clause when we first had it that it not only had no objective but the Clause did not even say who was to appoint the chairman and directors of the company. As I said in Committee, apparently it was to come into existence by spontaneous combustion. I suggest that it would be wrong to allow this new Holding Company, with its considerable responsibilities, to be established without being fairly clear what its objectives are to be.
    10.0 p.m.
    We are proposing something which is reasonable without being revolutionary. Plainly, it is desirable that there should be co-ordination between the various forms of transport provided by the companies transfered to the Holding Company and the services provided by the boards. Although the Bill does not say what the duty and objectives of the Holding Company should be, the White Paper says so specifically. On page 12 it says:
    "… it will be the duty of the Holding Company to secure the best possible results for the public purse."
    No one objects to any public body trying to secure the best results for the public purse, but there are other public interests apart from the purse. For instance, there are the interests of the service to the public. It is desirable to see that the service is adequate for the needs of the community—although I recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) thinks that the word "adequate" is anathema to Members opposite. For that reason we believe that we cannot leave the matter as it is. We cannot merely say that the sole purpose of the Holding Company is to make as much money as it can out of the public, and that the directives it will receive and the principles on which it will operate will be issued to it from time to time by the Minister. We do not know what those principles will be, but we assume that they will tend towards the same direction. We do not accept that this is sufficient.

    383
    Our contention is that there should be attached to this Clause a general directive, of which this House and the country should surely approve, to provide adequate services within the powers and resources of the various bus companies and of the B.R.S., together with the maximum amount of co-ordination of transport services for the benefit of the public. Such co-ordination is needed—there is no doubt about that—and there

    Division No. 166.]

    AYES

    [10.2 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Albu, Austen

    Hilton, A. v.

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Holman, Percy

    Probert, Arthur

    Allen, Scholefleld (Crewe)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Proctor, W. T.

    Awbery, Stan

    Hoy, James H.

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Randall, Harry

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Rankin, John

    Blackburn, F.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Redhead, E. C.

    Blyton, William

    Hunter, A. E.

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Boardman, H.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Bowles, Frank

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N

    Boyden, James

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Jeger, George

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

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Ross, William

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Short, Edward

    Callaghan, James

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Kelley, Richard

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Cronin, John

    King, Dr. Horace

    Small, William

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Lawson, George

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Darling, George

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Snow, Julian

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Stonehouse, John

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Stones, William

    Deer, George

    MacColl, James

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

    Delargy, Hugh

    McInnes, James

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

    Dempsey, James

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Swingler, Stephen

    Diamond, John

    Mackle, John (Enfield, East)

    Taverne, D.

    Dodds, Norman

    McLeavy, Frank

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Manuel, Archie

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Mapp, Charles

    Thornton, Ernest

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Mason, Roy

    Tomney, Frank

    Evans, Albert

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Warbey, William

    Finch, Harold

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Watkins, Tudor

    Fitch, Alan

    Millan, Bruce

    Weitzman, David

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Whitlock, William

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Morris, John

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Moyle, Arthur

    Willey, Frederick

    Forman, J. C.

    Mulley, Frederick

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Oram, A. E.

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Oswald, Thomas

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

    Owen, Will

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Ginsburg, David

    Padley, W. E.

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

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Paget, R. T.

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Gunter, Ray

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Parker, John

    Woof, Robert

    Hamilton, William (West File)

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hannan, William

    Peart, Frederick

    Harper, Joseph

    Pentland, Norman

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Hayman, F. H.

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Grey.

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Popplewell, Ernest

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Barlow, Sir John

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Aitken, W. T.

    Barter, John

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Allason, James

    Batsford, Brian

    Bidgood, John C.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Biffen, John

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Bingham, R. M.

    Barber, Anthony

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    is general agreement that it should be provided. If that is so, let us write these objectives clearly into the Bill.
    It is in order to do that that we have moved this Amendment. If the Government do not accept it, we ask the House to divide on it.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill: —
    The House divided: Ayes 161, Noes 230.

    Bishop, F. P.

    Harvie Anderson, Miss

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Hay, John

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Bossom, Clive

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Peel, John

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Percival, Ian

    Box, Donald

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Peyton, John

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Brewis, John

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Pitman, Sir James

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

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

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Pott, Percivall

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Hobson, Sir John

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Bryan, Paul

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Buck, Antony

    Holland, Philip

    Pym, Francis

    Bullard, Denys

    Holt, Arthur

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Hopkins, Alan

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Rees, Hugh

    Chataway, Christopher

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Chichester-Clark R.

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Renton, David

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Rippon, Geoffrey

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Roots, William

    Cole, Norman

    James, David

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Collard, Richard

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Russell, Ranald

    Cooper, A. E.

    Jennings, J. C.

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Corfield, F. V.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Sharples, Richard

    Costain, A, P.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Shaw, M.

    Coulson, Michael

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Shepherd, William

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

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

    Curran, Charles

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Smithers, Peter

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Kimball, Marcus

    Speir, Rupert

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Kirk, Peter

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kitson, Timothy

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Deedes, W. F.

    Lancaster, Col. S, G.

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Stodart, J. A.

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Doughty, Charles

    Lindsay, Sir Martin

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Drayson, G. B.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    du Cann, Edward

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Tapsell, Peter

    Duncan, Sir James

    Longden, Gilbert

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Teeling, Sir William

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

    Lubbock, Eric

    Temple, John M.

    Emery, Peter

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Errington, Sir Eric

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    McLaren, Martin

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Farr, John

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Finlay, Graeme

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

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Fisher, Nigel

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Turner, Colin

    Foster, John

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    van Straubenzee, W. R

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Maddan, Martin

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Freetth, Denzil

    Maginnis, John E.

    Wade, Donald

    Gammans, Lady

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Walder, David

    Gardner, Edward

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Wall, Patrick

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Webster, David

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Mawby, Ray

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Goodhew, Victor

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

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Gower, Raymond

    Mills, Stratton

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Wise, A. R.

    Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Green, Alan

    Morrison, John

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Nabarro, Gerald

    woodnutt, Mark

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Noble, Michael

    Woollam, John

    Gurden, Harold

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Worsley, Marcus

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Mr. Whitelaw and

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Obsorne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Mr. Michael Hamilton.

    Mr. Strauss: I beg to move, in page 26, line 39, after "Act", to insert:
    (b) to hold and manage the securities of any company formed under the provisions of the next following subsection.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther -Gray): It would be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the
    386
    Amendment in page 27, line 5, at the end to insert:
    (7) Without prejudice to the provisions of section twelve of this Act, the Holding Company shall have power to form and promote a subsidiary company or subsidiary companies having as their principal object to construct or acquire and operate pipe-lines (within the

    387
    meaning attributed to that expression by subsection (4) of the said section twelve) anywhere in Great Britain.
    Mr. Strauss: This Amendment differs from those we have moved so far in that it introduces a new topic to the Bill. The topic it introduces is pipelines and the possibility that it may prove desirable shortly or in a few years' time for pipe-line constructions and operation in this country to be run by a public authority.
    There is a strong case for saying that pipe-lines—which are an alternative method of transport and are capable of transporting all sorts of things quite apart from oil—being a form of transport, should be co-ordinated with, and not isolated from other forms of transport. Therefore, it seems desirable, while dealing with this Bill, to provide that in the general set-up there should be established—at present, we ask only for the possibility—an element which can construct, maintain and operate pipe-lines.
    The new pipe-line proposals developing in many parts of the world are a competitive form of transport. They will compete with railways and road vehicles. If, as I think everyone will agree, that that is so, there is a strong case for saying that the supervisory authority for the transport of goods by pipe-line should be the same as the supervisory authority for transport on the roads and railways. That is the Ministry of Transport. There may well be a good reason in years to come, when pipe-lines are established, to have a national policy for freights and for general matters affecting the transport of goods through pipe-lines.
    10.15 p.m.
    Recently, we have read that there has been a big development in the United States where powdered fuel is transported considerable distances through pipe-lines. There are pipe-lines 100 miles long which transport pulverised coal in competition with the roads and the rail. The same thing may well happen here, and there are other commodities in respect of which it may happen, too.
    If it is desirable that pipe-lines should form a growing and important part in the transport system of the country, it seems to us that there is a good deal to be said for bringing pipe-lines under full
    388
    public control and operation. We do not say, in our Amendment, that they must necessarily be under such control, but we want to ensure that there is some niche in the transport set-up in which such a publicly-owned transport system could operate, and obviously the right place is as a subsidiary of the Holding Company.
    It would fit in extremely conveniently under the Holding Company, the purpose of which is to operate a variety of transport elements, including buses and lorries, and to serve the public purse. It is co-ordinated to some extent with the Railways Board and other boards set up under the Bill. The arrangements come under the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council, about which we have heard so much from the Minister, which will co-ordinate them, and, in turn, the whole system comes under the Ministry of Transport.
    We therefore say that to safeguard future possibilities, we should provide, for the construction of pipe-lines to be carried out under public auspices. Steps should be taken, while the Bill is before the House, to see that there is a place in which pipe-line construction and operation under the public authority can fit.
    The obvious place is as a subsidiary of the Holding Company. We think that it is not only possible but desirable that pipe-lines should be operated by some public authority. That view has been expressed strongly in another place during recent debates. To enable the construction and operation of pipelines to play a proper part in the transport system of the country, co-ordinated to a reasonable degree with other forms of transport, we have moved the Amendment, which will give the Holding Company power to form a subsidiary to construct, maintain and operate pipelines.
    We commend the Amendment to the House and hope that it will receive support even from the benches opposite from hon. Members who appreciate the desirability of this step, and who recognise that if we do not take the opportunity of changing the Bill now, we may very much regret later that we missed the opportunity. I hope that the Amendment will be given warm support on both sides of the House.
    Mr. Hay: The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) moved the Amendment in a very reasonable frame of mind. I hope that he acquits me of any desire to be churlish if I say that I cannot advise the House to accept it. I will try to be equally reasonable in explaining why I say that.
    The whole purpose of the right hon. Gentleman's initiative was to ensure that there would be some niche in the publicly-owned transport sector from which pipe-line development and operation could be carried out.
    I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that we have already provided, not only for one but for several niches of that kind, because Clause 12 gives capacity powers to the boards to operate pipe-lines. As was made clear when we debated these matters in Committee, we take the view that the Railways Board and the Inland Waterways Authority, in particular, are most suitable bodies for operating pipe-lines, for the simple reason that they have large tracts of land in the form of permanent way along which it may well be suitable for pipe-lines to be built.
    Similarly, we feel that inside the docks there may be opportunities for pipe-line operation by the Docks Board-there, more particularly, for the movement of cargoes from ship to shore Frankly, I do not think that there is much scope for pipe-line development inside London for the London Board to carry on, but one never knows. The point is that in Clause 12 we have given capacity powers to the boards to operate pipe-lines—
    Mr. Strauss: But only along the railway lines or along the canals; not big trunk pipe-lines across the country.
    Mr. Hay: That is perfectly true, although the right hon. Gentleman will remember that when we debated Clause 2 we also considered the question of the power of the boards to operate pipe lines not on their own land for the purposes of their own business, and other matters related—
    Mr. Popplewell Mr. Popplewell rose—
    Mr. Hay: I wanted to try and deal with this topic before 10.30 p.m. but if the hon. Gentleman has an important point to make I will give way.
    Mr. Popplewell: Clause 12 distinctly lays down that a board shall only operate pipe-lines that may be required for its own business purposes. This Amendment widens the scope, and seeks to give a subsidiary company the power to construct pipe-lines, not just for the purposes of its own business, but to go into the pipe-lines business properly.
    Mr. Hay: I am obliged to the hon. Member, but I do not now want to embark on a long discussion of what is in Clause 12. I mentioned it merely to reply to the main point put by the right hon. Gentleman that inside the public sector of transport there should be some place from which pipe-line development may be carried on. As I have said, in Clause 12 we have given capacity powers to the boards to operate pipe-lines.
    On the other hand, the Holding Company will not be possessed of any permanent way of this kind, so we think that it is not really a suitable activity for the Holding Company itself to carry on. After all, if the Holding Company did have the power to operate pipe-lines on its own initiative, it would have to do so on the normal commercial terms. It would not have any advantages vis-à-vis the boards in the operation of pipelines. It would still be charged a rent, and it would still be under the same disabilities as would any other private undertaking in obtaining rights to operate a pipe-line over those territories. Therefore, our general view is that in so far as it is desirable for the public sector of transport that the boards should have power to operate pipe-lines we should stay as we are, conferring those powers on the boards.
    There is another and very compelling reason why we do not want to get the Holding Company mixed up in the pipelines business, and why we should maintain the boards in that rôle. This is as I said when the right hon. Gentleman gave notice in Committee that he might raise this point at this stage of the Bill. As we know, the Railways Board and the Inland Waterways Authority are to start their existence with the virtual certainty for some years to come of substantial deficits.
    Therefore, anything we can do to ensure that their revenues are improved, we should do. Frankly, from the point

    391
    of view of the taxpayer—who ultimately, must find the money if deficits are made—it does not really matter whether the Railways Board and the Inland Waterways Authority make a profit out of their pipe-line development and operation and, therefore, their deficit is by that much reduced—or whether the Holding Company, as the Amendment would have it, carries out the pipe-line development and operation and makes a profit, which again comes back to the Exchequer. It is as broad as it is long.
    I appreciate the way in which the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) moved the Amendment and the reasons behind it, but our view is that since pipe-line development and operation is not a field that should be excluded from the public transport sector, we should, at this stage, make a choice as to where and how it should be done. Our choice is that it should be done through the boards and not the Holding Company, which does not seem to us a body altogether suitable or suited to this type of work. On the other hand, the boards are more suited because they have waterways and tracts of land on which they can themselves construct and operate pipe-lines.
    For these reasons, I ask the House to reject the Amendment, unless the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, in the light of what I have said, is willing to withdraw it.
    Mr. Strauss: It seems to us doubtful whether Clause 12, which gives boards certain powers to construct and operate pipe-lines, in fact gives them full power to do so if it is for business other than their own and on ground they do not possess. I am doubtful about this.
    If the Parliamentary Secretary says that it is the intention of the Government that boards should have full power to operate and construct pipe-lines—even if they are doing so not for their own businesses, or on their own land—and if the Clause does not already contain such powers that he will look at it again and include those powers, I will certainly withdraw the Amendment. But as I read Clause 12 those powers are not given.
    Mr. Hay: With the leave of the House, I would draw the right hon. Gentleman's
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    attention to what is stated in Clause 12 in its new form, because we amended it substantially in Committee. The Clause starts off by saying that the Boards will have the power to
    "… construct and operate pipe-lines …"
    Subsection (1, b) then states:
    ".…to enter into transactions with other persons for the construction or operation by those other persons of pipe-lines on land…belonging to the Boards".
    So there is this general capacity power.
    Subsection (2) also states that
    "the Boards shall not have power to acquire land for the purpose of constructing pipelines …"
    in two cases. They are:

    "(a) where the pipe-line is or is to be mainly on land belonging to the Boards and acquired for other purposes, or

    (b) where the pipe-line is required for the purposes of the business of the Board other than the operation of pipe-lines."

    I mentioned the docks case.
    Meanwhile. subsection (3) states:
    "A Board shall not without the consent of the Minister construct any pipe-line unless the pipe-line is required for the purposes of the business of the Board other than the operation of pipe-lines."
    So what emerges, as I see it, from all these provisions is that the boards have power to construct and operate pipelines as one of the businesses that they can carry on—but not, of course. as their main business. If one were to extend their activities further, to the acquiring of additional land for the extension of pipe-lines, that is regulated by the Clause. They cannot go into the pipe-line business on a grand scale, because we want to keep them to their set task. They cannot, throughout the country, set up pipe-lines everywhere although individual projects could, of course, be authorised by the Minister and the necessary consent power is contained here. That is the best explanation I can give.
    Mr. Strauss: I am not fully satisfied with that answer, but I think that it might be possible to pursue the matter further in another place.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Marples: I beg to move, in page 27, line 5, at the end to insert:
    (7) It shall be the duty of the Holding Company to exercise its control over any wholly-owned subsidiary of the Holding Company so

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    as to secure that the subsidiary does not engage in manufacture or production except the manufacture or production of things for use in their own business or for supply to a Board, or a wholly-owned subsidiary of any of the Boards or of the Holding Company, for use in their business.
    For the purposes of this subsection the expression "wholly-owned subsidiary" means a subsidiary all the securities of which are owned by the body of which it is a subsidiary, or by one or more other wholly-owned subsidiaries of that body, or partly by that body and partly by any wholly-owned subsidiary of that body.
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    It will be difficult to explain this Amendment in the short time that remains till half-past ten, but I suppose I can start by saying—
    It being half-past Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.
    Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), to be further considered Tomorrow.

  POTATO MARKETING SCHEME (AMENDMENTS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the Amendments of the Potato Marketing Scheme, 1955, a draft of which Amendments was laid before this House on 28th March, be approved.—[Mr. Hay.]
  10.31 p.m.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): The first question with which I should like to deal is the reason why these Amendments come before the House. I have seen it suggested in a number of newspapers that the potato producers feel that this Scheme militates against them. To what extent is that suggestion correct? I wish to try to show to the House that the vast majority of potato producers are in favour of the existing Scheme and of the Amendments which the House is considering this evening.
  When the Amendments were published it was possible for the producers, had they so desired, to ensure that a poll on them took place. It required 1,000 producers out of a total of 76,000 to request a poll if there was to be one, but this number was not forthcoming. Only some 200 producers wanted a poll so there was not one. Following the publication of the Scheme, an opportunity was provided for making objections. Some 8,500 objections were received to the Scheme, the overwhelming majority of which were in a stereotyped form laid down under the Act, and I ordered a public inquiry. Only a handful of producers attended the inquiry to object to the Scheme. About fifteen producers, in fact, gave evidence against it. Again I would ask the House to bear in mind that this is against a background of 76,000 producers.
  The commissioner who held the inquiry found in favour of the Scheme. But because this inquiry took place under the Statute from which the Scheme and the Amendments to it stem, it is necessary for the House to consider the Amendments.
  This Scheme is so closely linked with our guarantee arrangements in general for potatoes that before going into the details of the Amendments it might be helpful to the House if I were to say
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  something about the Scheme itself and its objectives.
  It is very difficult to ensure a similar yield from one year to another from potatoes. This is more so in the case of potatoes than with any other crop. I will give the House on example of this. In 1958 722,000 acres of potatoes were planted. They produced just under 5 million tons of potatoes. In 1961 628,000 acres were planted to potatoes. They produced 5,600,000 tons. In other words, 100,000 fewer acres produced 600,000 tons more. It is just not possible to budget for a specific crop of potatoes.
  We cannot have any assurance as to what the weather will produce or what the crop from a given acreage is likely to be, but the figures are roughly these. The crop which we seek to get from our own soil is between 5½ million and 6 million tons, because the consumption of home-grown potatoes—I am not now counting imports of early potatoes—is about 4¼ million tons. Taking into consideration the wastage, the small potatoes, the chat potatoes, the wastage that takes place in clamps, and the potatoes that have to be saved for the following year's seed, in order to get 4¼ million tons on to the market for consumption we need a crop of between 5½ million and 6 million tons.
  The yield varies considerably from year to year. It has varied over the last six years from under 7 tons per acre to almost 9 tons per acre, as it was this year. The average over the six years has been 8 tons per acre. One can seek as an average over a number of years to achieve 5½ million to 6 million tons a year and to do that we should need to hold the acreage at about 700,000.
  The guarantee arrangements are that the Government assure to producers a guaranteed price for that part of the crop which is taken up for human consumption. This is a direct reflection of the 1947 Act, which said that the Government should assure a reasonable return for that part of the food which it was in the national interests that we should produce. Since 1959 the Government have given a guaranteed price on average—not to individual producers—on the part of the potato crop which goes for human consumption. In a year of shortage all the crop goes for human

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  consumption and seed, other than the very small (potatoes, which are not suitable. In years of plenty there is a surplus and a proportion of the crop goes for other than human consumption.
  Since this scheme was introduced in 1959 it so happens that the 1959 and 1960 crops produced surpluses. The question arose how best to assure the guarantee. The surplus in both years was about 500,000 tons. It was found that if the market was allowed to run completely free, with a 500,000-ton surplus the market would go so low that the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price—the deficiency payment which the taxpayers would have had to find—would have been unacceptably high.
  It was evident that the better bargain, from the viewpoint both of the taxpayer and of the producer—and certainly the consumer was losing nothing—was a support buying operation to ensure that sufficient potatoes were taken off the market: in other words, that the Potato Marketing Board should go into the market and assure producers that it would give a certain price for potatoes. This would hold the price reasonably steady. The cost of this to the taxpayer for the 1960 crop was about £8 million, whereas we believe that had we let the market go completely free and not done any support buying it would have been nearer £15 million.
  It became clear, therefore, that if the Potato Marketing Board was successful in holding the acreage at about 700,000, which is the most likely acreage to achieve the desired level of production of 5½ million to 6 million tons, in a year when yields were heavy and there were surpluses, support buying should become a permanent feature of our support arrangements as being better value, from the point of view not only of the producer and of the taxpayer, but, indeed, of the consumer, than letting the market go rip.
  The question was, from where should the money come to do this support buying? It evidently should come both from the Government—because the taxpayer benefited from this system as opposed to letting the market go rip—and also from the producer, because the
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  producer also benefited inasmuch as whereas under the alternative system of letting the market go free he would have very low prices, his price would be made up to the guaranteed price by a deficiency payment for that part of the production that went for human consumption. The remaining surplus acreage, which could be 10 per cent. of the total production, would have fetched very low prices of, say, £2 or £3 per ton as cattle feed.
  It was accordingly resolved, and it was agreed with the Potato Marketing Board and the National Farmers' Unions, that both the Government and the producers should contribute to building up a support fund for that purpose, for at the same time as being successful in holding 700,000 as roughly the acreage to be planted, experience in recent years shows that in three years out of six there has been a surplus yield. This, therefore, will be a regular feature of our system of support. It springs from the fact that the yields of this crop off the same acreage can be so variable.
  Thus arose the question of the source from which the money was to be found. To find it from the Government was simple, but how should it be found from the producers? It was decided and agreed between the farmers' leaders and the Government some time back now that for every £1 put up by the producers, £2 should be put up by the Government.
  It is rare to have an average year. I am beginning to wonder if it will ever happen that we shall get an average year.
  Sir Leslie Plummer: Even an average summer.
  Mr. Soames: If we were to get an average year we should get over 700,000 acres yielding 8 tons an acre, which is about the right number of potatoes. It is, however, likely that we shall get either a surplus or a shortfall. If we get a surplus we support buy. If we get a shortfall then we import potatoes from abroad. That is the point. That is the best way to achieve that combination of interests which the Government aim at as between the producers on the one hand and the consumers on the other.

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  I hope the House will excuse my having entered on this explanation in order that I may be able to come on to the Amendments now and to show what they are designed to do in order to fortify the existing Scheme.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain one figure to which he referred within the last few moments—that is the acreage? He cited the figure of 700,000. Is that the acreage of second early potatoes or the main crop? Because in the last 10 years it has never reached that figure. Indeed, it was 470,000 last year. Is that the acreage figure to which he is referring?
  Mr. Soames: No, I am referring to the total acreage under potatoes of all kinds in the country. I do not know where the hon. Member got the figure of 470,000. I am talking all the time about Great Britain—England, Wales and Scotland—because Northern Ireland is outside this Scheme. The acreage last year was 628,000. It has been as high in 1956 as 796,000, and it has varied between those. Hitherto, up to between 1956 and 1961, it has always been above 700,000, between 700,000 and 796,000. This year it fell well below 700,000. I shall be coming later to the reasons it fell so much below 700,000 this year.
  Mr. John Mackie: We admire the right hon. Gentleman's memory. He is speaking without notes. I wonder, though, if he has inadvertently made a slip. Surely the Potato Marketing Board's figure was 592,000 acres in 1961?
  Mr. Soames: Yes, but that excludes the acreage which is grown by potato growers not registered producers. In other words, there are a number of growers who grow one acre and less of potatoes who are not registered producers. Their figure, added to the Potato Marketing Board's figure, comes to 628,000 acres.
  Now, if I may, I will go through the Amendments to the Scheme. The most important aspects of the Amendments lie in paragraph 84 of the Scheme, and the most important sub-paragraphs of paragraph 84 are sub-paragraphs (1), (2) and (3). They are designed to do two things.
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  Firstly, to increase the ordinary contribution which the Potato Marketing Board levies from its registered producers from £1 per acre to a maximum of £3 per acre. Why should this be? If we were to have an average acreage of 700,000, then £1 per acre would give a return of £700,000. This is not sufficient. Hitherto that figure has provided money for the Board's administrative purposes and for a small amount to put to reserve; but it has been a very small amount. It is not sufficient to meet their side of the contribution to a support-buying programme if and when that is necessary.
  Every £1 should produce an extra £700,000 in round figures, and 30s. of the extra £2 which we are asking for in the Amendment to the Scheme is designed to produce about £1 million, which will be the Potato Marketing Board's, or in other words the producers' contribution to a support-buying fund.
  What sort of sum is likely to be necessary for support-buying? Generally, over a period of years, if we were to hold the acreage at 700,000 we should have a surplus one year and a deficiency the next. Let us assume that we have a surplus every other year and that the surplus is about 500,000 to 600,000 tons over the 5·6 million tons we need. If support-buying cost us a net £10 a ton, this would require about £6 million, of which £4 million would be provided by the Government and £2 million by the producers. If that is to happen every year, £1 million per annum seems to be a reasonable sum of money for the Board to levy off producers to achieve the objective.
  We cannot tell whether this sum of money will be too much or too little. If it is too much, it is provided for in the first two lines of paragraph 84(2) which state:
  "The Board shall not require any registered producer to contribute in respect of any calendar year sums which exceed the aggregate of …"
  This means that the Board cannot levy on producers more than £3 per acre. But if we were to have a run of years of shortfalls and no support-buying necessary and therefore an accumulation of funds, the Marketing Board, at its discretion, could either not levy £3 per acre

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  or levy less than £3 on producers. But it cannot levy more than £3.
  It might, however, be that we had a run of years where a greater sum of money than £1 million a year was required as a contribution from producers; that is, if we had a series of years of surplus one after the other. Paragraph 84(3), therefore, enables the Board to raise the sum above £3, but only after it has put it to a ballot of registered producers and has had a two-thirds majority in favour of so doing—a majority not only in terms of numbers but in terms of producers producing two-thirds of the acreage of potatoes.
  So much for the 30s. extra, bringing the sum up from £1 to £2 10s. There is an extra 10s. which the Board wishes in order to carry out a more intensive programme of research and marketing development, which is extremely necessary.
  Hitherto, the Board has been spending only about £35,000 a year on research. Yet it is a regulatory Board bearing responsibilities towards a section of the industry which has a turnover of £70 million or £80 million a year. The extra 10s. per acre from producers will give the Board another £350,000, which will enable it to extend, to a very considerable extent its research activities. These are the reasons why the Board is seeking, with the Government's support—and in this I believe that we are speaking for the majority of producers—this extra payment.
  Paragraph 84 (2, b) provides for
  "an excess acreage contribution of £25 per acre …'"
  as opposed to the existing acreage contribution of £10 par acre. Why is this? Of course, there is nothing the Board can do to affect the yield of potatoes over the acreage planted. That, I think, we all accept. It can, however, try to ensure by influence, by persuasion and by advice that roughly the acreage that is required is planted. How can it do this?
  It has to make up its mind early. Farmers decide their cropping programmes for the following year in about September. It is thus necessary that the Board shall, as paragraph 84 (5) says,
  "… not later than the 31st August … prescribe whether or not the next ensuing calendar year is to be a quota year."
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  By that date, what information has the Board which is likely to affect the following year's crop, which has to be planted from March onwards and lifted from May onwards until September?
  It can sample the crop which is coming in for the current year. It has a rough idea of what the yield is likely to be in that particular year. That is the only information it has. But it is necessary for the farmers to have an idea from the Board by the end of August as to whether the Board thinks it necessary for producers to increase acreage or decrease it compared with the current year. Thus, the Board puts out a rough guide by the end of August.
  How does the Board do this? It does so by stating that the acreage should be 80 per cent., or 90 per cent., or 100 per cent. of the quota basic acreage of the current year, or whatever the figure may be. That gives producers an idea. The Board does not claim any more than that. It can give the producers only an idea as to whether they should increase or decrease their acreage over the current year.
  What is necessary from the point of view of the Board, if it is to fulfil its obligation of trying to hold the acreage about steady, is that it should be able to impose penalties on those who plant over their quotas. Otherwise, we get excess acreage planted. If, then, we get into a surplus year, the problem of surplus is very much aggravated. For example, 1959 and 1960 were both surplus years. In each year, approximately 20,000 acres above the quota were planted. This was largely in the heavier yielding land, because it was this land which could well afford to pay the then £10 an acre surcharge and take the chance of the current year being a short year, with prices high. Supposing these 20,000 acres to produce, on average, 8 tons to the acre—probably the average was higher—then this totalled an extra 160,000 tons with which the Board had to cope. In years of surplus the 160,000 tons had to be purchased through the support-buying programme; that is, they had to be bought at perhaps £10 or £11 a ton and, at that lower price, the cost was about £1½ million. A proportion of that not inconsiderable amount had to be found from the producers and a proportion from the taxpayers, and this

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  aggravated what might be called the surplus situation.
  It has been shown that £10 an acre was not sufficient of—if I may use the expression—a disincentive to inhibit growers from exceeding their quota, and especially was this the case with the growers on the heavier yielding land. Accordingly, it is recommended that the payment be put up to a maximum of £25 an acre. Now this does not mean that the Board will charge £25 an acre each year. One can envisage years when the Board, foreseeing that the quota would not be taken up, might welcome extra acreages on certain farms and decide not to levy any excess acreage at all. On the other hand, the evidence available to the Board might show that all the quota would be taken up and in that case the Board would not like to see extra acreages planted. The Board might put on an excess acreage payment which is going to mean that each grower has a disincentive to produce extra acreages.
  Hon. Members may ask in what terms we are thinking when we talk of £25 and what, proportionately, is this to the cost of growing the crop. Let us take main crop potatoes. The cost can be of the order of £80 and £100 an acre. The return on the basis of a yield of 8 tons to the acre, with a price of, say, £15 a ton, means a return of about £120 an acre. Now £10 did not, on the heavier yielding lands where the return is greater, prove capable of reducing the excess acreage below 20,000 acres. That was proved in 1959 and 1960, which were both surplus years. This aggravated the problem, and it is hoped that £25 will enable the Board the better to control the acreage which is planted.
  This is the main contribution which the Board can make in the context of what we are discussing tonight to get the acreage about right and then, over a period of years, production should average out to a figure which is not far wrong.
  Mr. George Lawson: There is one thing which puzzles me very much. Why is it that at a time when we understand wild dogs are being used to guard the very scarce supplies
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  of potatoes the Government should bring in a measure designed to restrict the growing of potatoes?
  Hon. Members: Listen.
  Mr. Soames: I ask the hon. Gentleman to listen and to form his view on the sum total of the case and not to try to pre-judge it, or to think that this is a simple question to answer. We are endeavouring to ensure that over a period of years we get the least possible swing between a heavy surplus and a heavy short-fall. We are bound to get some swing.
  Paragraph 84 (4) enables the Board, if it sees fit, to exempt early potato growers from any part of the payment of £3 per acre. The reason is that growers of early potatoes do not benefit in any way from the support buying operations of the Board. Their produce is cleared well before there would be any support-buying operations in any possible or feasible circumstances.
  Mr. John Hall: Will my right hon. Friend give some indication of how this is to work? As I understand it, this would depend on information given by the growers as to the acreage of early potatoes which they had lifted. Would there be any means of checking that?
  Mr. Soames: It is not a question of the amount lifted. It states:
  "Where … the registered producer satisfies the Board by such date and in such manner as the Board may require that on or before the relevant date the potatoes planted thereon had been lifted …"
  In other words, when the Board sets a date before which potatoes are to be lifted it is thinking in terms of early potatoes lifted before a certain date. The Board could rule that on that acreage some part of the amount of £3 per acre need not be paid.
  Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: It might be helpful if the Minister looked at paragraph 98 of the Report of the Inquiry, where Mr. Rennie, the chairman, is quoted as saying that the exemption would apply to potatoes lifted before the Saturday nearest to 15th July each year in respect of which an appropriate return was made.
  Mr. Soames: It is for the Board to decide the date, I was merely giving an

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  indication in relation to sub-paragraph (4) which in broad terms enables the Board to exempt the growers of early potatoes from paying the extra levy. They will not gain, as will the main crop growers, from the support fund which is the chief object for raising this extra money.
  Mr. John Hall: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend again, but I am still not clear. It refers to the main acreage being reduced by the lifting of early potatoes. It is conceivable that part of the total acreage of potatoes would be planted for early potatoes and that part would be lifted. Presumably it would be in respect of that part for which the grower was claiming a reduction of abolition of the levy. How would that be checked by the Board?
  Mr. Soames: It is up to the Board to check. It is for this reason that the amendment appears in paragraph 83 in heavy type:
  "… knowingly or recklessly makes any false statement in complying therewith or in furnishing to the Board any information relating to potatoes which may be required by the Board for the purposes of paragraph 84 …"
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) is asking how the Board would check whether or not the potatoes were lifted by a certain date. I am saying that if the producer renders a false return he is liable to the penalty as laid down in paragraph 83.
  I now come to paragraph 69 (3), to which the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments called the attention of the House on the ground that it appears
  "to make unexpected use of the powers",
  conferred by the Statute under which they are made. Paragraph 69 is designed to enable the Board to exempt categories of producers from the Scheme either partially or wholly. To give an example, the Western Isles are exempted from the provisions of the Scheme by the Potato Marketing Board because it is known that the maximum production of that area cannot be such as to interfere with the Scheme. It is largely for consumption in the islands and the export in terms of quantity is not significant from the Board's point of view.
  There are other parts of the country to which the Board might wish to extend this provision. It does not wish to impose its Scheme unless that be necessary.
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  There are other parts of the country which have traditionally grown a quantity of potatoes not material to the Board, but which perhaps would be capable of increasing production. It is reasonable that, if the Board has power to exempt, it should also have power to attach some stipulations to that exemption such as asking producers within an area to give it information required, for example, as to the acreage planted.
  The purpose of sub-paragraph (3) is to enable the Board to increase its exemptions while at the same time being satisfied that in doing so it is not putting the Scheme in jeopardy. As to whether, to use the words of the Select Committee, this appears
  "to make unexpected use of the powers"
  I point out that those powers exist already for the Egg Marketing Board. Also in paragraphs 75 and 76 of the Potato Marketing Board, the Board already has similar power to call for such information. This is not all that unusual. I understand the point made by the Select Committee in drawing this to the attention of the House, but I believe this a reasonable sort of power for a regulatory Board. It must be remembered that the Potato Marketing Board is only a regulatory board and is not like the Milk Marketing Board, which actually trades in its own product. This power exists already for the Egg Marketing Board and, in a different context, in the Potato Marketing Board Scheme. I hope the House will think it reasonable that this power should be added.
  I hope the House will agree that there is nothing which the Government or the Board can do which will ensure that we get exactly the right tonnage of potatoes each year. We can do our best to ensure that roughly the right acreage is planted each year. We impose excess quota payments on over-planting, but we cannot and do not wish to force farmers to grow potatoes or to impose penalties for under-planting. The Board, by encouragement and disincentive, can have an effect—we hope a considerable effect—in endeavouring to get the acreage about right.
  We shall have our years of surplus and our years of shortage according to the yield. That is quite inevitable. I think that this is the best arrangement that we can make for such a volatile

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  crop as potatoes with such wide differences in yield. There is no perfect system for a crop which gives such very wide variations in yield.
  In times of shortage, what should we do? We should import from abroad. I want to say a word or two about this year. I have seen it claimed that the Board reduced the acreage last year and that it is the Board's fault that there is a shortage in the yield this year. In fact, in the previous year 742,000 acres were planted. This was too much. The Board advised producers to grow about 10 per cent. less last year than in the previous year. But the weather and the condition of the land was such that in the event only 628,000 acres were planted—not because of any action by the Board, but merely because it was not physically possible to get potatoes in a bigger acreage last year.
  We had the late winter and the floods of the spring, which we all remember; I well recall the Questions which I answered at the time. The land was waterlogged, there was no frost, the land was not broken up and only 628,000 acres of potatoes were planted. This was not because the Board sought an acreage of 700,000, but because it was not physically possible to get more potatoes in the ground. This is something to which the potato growers are accustomed every so often. But 628,000 acres were planted and it then seemed certain that we should have to import potatoes. But nature was kind in the growing year and we had the highest yield of potatoes for years, nearly 9 tons an acre. From 628,000 acres we got 5·6 million tons of potatoes. This is just about the figure likely to go round. If ever there were a year when it looked as if, by sheer luck and with a much lower acreage than the Board had sought, but with an exceptional growing year and a very high yield, the nail would be hit on the head and we should get the right quantity of potatoes, this was it.
  In all my talks with Mr. Rennie from October—November onwards he told me that it was touch and go whether there would be a slight shortfall or a slight surplus. He said, "We shall not be able to tell you until we get well on into
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  the year." Throughout the year up to March prices were reasonably normal from the point of view of the producer and the point of view of the consumer. It was not until the February census was taken that it was certain that imports would be necessary and that there would be a Shortfall of perhaps 300,000 tons. This is against a background of a yield of 5·6 million tons and is a measure of the degree of the shortfall. We asked the Board to speed the February census so that a decision could be taken.
  We knew then that it was touch and go whether or not potatoes would have to be imported. The Board considered the results of the February census on 13th March and told me that there would be a shortfall. We made a statement that imports were to be allowed, and the licences were given on, I think, 15th March. In other words, it was immediately decided that imports should be permitted.
  We have now run into the extra trouble that this year potatoes are short on the Continent as well, so that we shall be short of them, too. There is no gainsaying that. It may be that more imports will be forthcoming when the price reaches a certain level, but at the moment it looks as though we shall be short of potatoes between now and the time when the early crop comes in in quantity.
  But the fact that there is a shortage of potatoes in Europe this year, when we wish to import, does not mean that this is not the best scheme for controlling production of this very volatile and difficult crop—
  Mr. Julian Snow: Is the Minister satisfied that there was no untoward delay between the receipt of the definition of the February review and the time when that definition was brought to his attention on 13th March?
  Mr. Soames: The review goes on in February; the whole country has to be covered, and the figures have to be collated and assessed. We asked the Board to speed things up. Normally, the result of the Board's review is not available until about the end of March, but the Board speeded up the process so as to be able to report early in March. As

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  I say, the results were considered and reported on by the Board on 13th March—
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Has the Minister any idea of the demand for increased acreage quota for the last few months of 1961, and how much of it was turned down by the Board?
  Mr. Soames: No—in that particular period, I could not say. In the last few months of 1961? After the potatoes had been planted in 1961?
  Mr. Thorpe: Application was made in 1960. The figures supplied to me by the Ministry show that at least half of the increased application was turned down.
  Mr. Soames: That may well have been so, because the Board has always to aim at getting 700,000 acres planted. It has to have some control over the amount of basic acreage that the farmers have. It has to think of protecting those who traditionally produce potatoes. How could the Board have told, in the late months of 1960, that there would be a shortfall in either acreage or potatoes in 1962? The Board has to take the rough with the smooth, and try to get the average about right.
  As I was saying, the fact that potatoes are this year short on the Continent as well does not condemn this scheme. We believe it to be the best scheme by which we can regulate the marketing of potatoes through the Potato Marketing Board.
  I should just like to read to the House what was said by the Commissioner who was asked to look into the matter as a result of the objections to these Amendments. In page 29 of his Report, he says:
  "Moreover, I consider that the proposals of the Board are a practical and efficient means of attaining the object of the 1947 Act in relation to the potato-growing industry; that they are fair to both producers and consumers, and that the cost is reasonable, and within the capacity of the industry."
  I would also call the attention of the House to the fact that the consumers' panel set up under the Marketing Acts considered this Scheme in great detail, and was of the opinion that it was the right scheme from the consumers' point of view as well. We try to average it out, but since we are bound to get years of surplus and years of shortage, it is inevitable that the Potato Marketing Board is bound to come in for some
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  "uneducated stick," behind which there is not a great deal of thought, knowledge or consideration of the problems involved.
  In the two years during which I have had something to do with the Board I believe that it has run this scheme with great efficiency. Last year, for example, the taxpayer was saved a good deal of money by a support-buying programme which was excellently run. As I say, it is inevitable that the Board will be the Aunt Sally of the handful of producers who are against marketing boards altogether. It is also inevitable that those who set themselves up as the champions of the consumers' interest will from time to time say that the Board is making a mess of things. In fact, the Board does a good job, and we are lucky to have a man with the ability of Mr. Rennie as its chairman. The Board needs these extra powers to fortify the Scheme which, we are convinced, is the best one we can think of. However, I certainly hope that improvements will be made as time goes on.
  I hope that advice will be given regarding the acreage that should be planted and that we can get a census of farm stocks more quickly. This is the right scheme and the right foundation and I hope that the Amendments will fortify it. I commend them to the House.
  Mr. Mackie: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not intend to mislead the House, but would he qualify certain figures he quoted? He said that there was a 30,000 acre excess in 1959–60. Since we are discussing the Potato Marketing Board, the figures isued by the Board show that its total basic acreage in 1958 and 1959 was 753,000 and 759,000, respectively. Adding the Minister's figure of 30,000 to the acreage not registered, that gives an acreage of 700,000 and 701,000 for 1958 and 1959. Were his figures related to individual farmers who exceeded the acreage?
  Mr. Soames: The figures related to individual farmers exceeding the acreage. Of course, some did not plant up to their full quota. That was inevitable, but the Board is seeking to achieve an overall acreage of 700,000 and it must be in a position to impose penalties on those who go above their quota.
  11.29 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Peart: The Minister made a careful speech in defence of the Scheme. I trust he did not think me discourteous when my attention was distracted. It was only because I had just heard the results of the by-election in which we have got a majority of 8,000 and in which the Conservatives have been beaten even by the Liberals. However, I will not dwell on that point.
  Mr. Soames: It would not have been a minority vote, would it?
  Mr. Peart: A slight minority. I think the right hon. Gentleman should at least be generous in defeat. I pay the right hon. Gentleman the compliment of having an excellent memory, but I wish he had stuck to his brief. Had he done so his speech would have been 20 minutes shorter. I make the complaint because he so often used to complain about my hon. Friends and myself speaking for so long in Committee on the Sea Fish Bill. Without wishing to appear offensive, I suggest that he could have condensed his speech, because on broad principles there is no difference of opinion about the need for a marketing board.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to try to convince us of the real need for a marketing board and the importance of a support policy for agriculture. I can only remind him that it was a very distinguished right hon. Gentleman on his own side of the House who, when he was Prime Minister, said that the party opposite would return to the laws of supply and demand, to a free market. Therefore, it is refreshing to hear a Conservative Minister of Agriculture rejecting that nonsense and that theory and arguing for support marketing and orderly marketing.
  I do not know where the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), who represents the Liberal Party, stands; no doubt, he will make a speech. I myself support the principle of a marketing board, but that does not mean that we on these benches should not criticise. I was surprised that the Minister should use the expression "uneducated stick." I thought it was rather a strange expression.
  Mr. Soames: Uninformed stick.
  Mr. Peart: I thought the right hon. Gentleman said "uneducated stick." I know he meant "uninformed stick," but he should have read from his brief instead of relying on his memory. Does he include in that the reasonable criticisms which have appeared in the Observer, the Financial Times and in responsible farming papers? Whilst I defend the principle of a marketing board, I have never argued that it should be sacrosanct and that hon. Members or, indeed, farmers through their organisations should not criticise the operations of the Board. If we are to have this sort of attitude from the Minister that a Board must be sacrosanct, and that there should be no criticism, then there is a danger that we create a bureaucracy.
  I am not saying that the Potato Marketing Board is a bureaucracy. I have a great respect for the chairman who has been mentioned. But that is not to say that we should not criticise its operations. Surely, the Minister is not going to say, even tonight when we are analysing the present position, that we should not make our criticisms.
  I shall not go into the details of the Scheme, as the Minister has done. They are available and I am sure that all hon. Members have read them. It would be wrong and foolish to get involved in the legal minutiae of the Scheme itself. I believe that we should examine the broad principles, and I should like to make some criticisms of Government policy. The Potato Marketing Board has a certain responsibility and autonomy, but in the end it is virtually the agency of Government policy.
  I want to deal with the Board. The Minister may dismiss opinion in the country, but there is concern. The producers are worried, despite the small number of people who participated in the poll and the public inquiry. One only has to read the farming Press and to meet farmers to discover that fact. One only has to read the daily Press to learn that there is concern about the potato. The Minister rightly said that this is a volatile crop. We know from our history that it has played a major part in our political life. We cannot dismiss its importance today. I have

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  here Press cuttings showing the concern of people because there is a potato shortage.
  I agree with the Minister's statement that it is right that money should be provided for support buying and also that the Board should build up a fund for research and development. I here is no quarrel about that. Hon. Members on this side agree with orderly marketing, but, whether the Minister likes it or not, there is a potato crisis. There is a crisis in the sense that producers may be facing difficulties and, above all, consumers may have to pay a higher price. I detected throughout the Minister's speech very little concern for the position of the housewife and the consumer. Throughout his speech there was the emphasis on the scheme for the producer. He quoted the consumers' report on the operation of the Scheme, but he will agree that the report was issued a long time ago. We are dealing with what is happening now. There is a crisis. Farmers have reduced the number of acres devoted to this crop by 100,000. There has been a drop of nearly 15 per cent. Potatoes are becoming scarce in the shops. Prices are rising.
  The Minister gave his reasons. I agree that prices for the 1959 and 1960 crops, which were low, might be a contributory factor. There is also the fact that farmers were suspicious of the new support system introduced in 1959. Press opinion, which is not favourable to the Opposition, takes the view that farmers were suspicious of the new deficiency payment system introduced in 1959. Farmers were afraid that the price system would work to their disadvantage. They thought that they would suffer because the system of a guaranteed price paid to the producer was replaced by a deficiency payment system. The Government pay the Board, and the Board takes appropriate action when it thinks fit. There was, and still is, suspicion in the minds of producers. After all, we had a recent example of the breakdown of the deficiency payment system in another field when we had a debate on the increased Estimates. There is a suspicion amongst producers that the present guarantee system will work against them.
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  I am prepared to admit that there is another factor, but it was not mentioned by the Minister. Potato growing is a very labour intensive crop. Many hon. Members opposite are connected with farming. They know that the average cost per acre to grow is about £100. The farmer is rightly often afraid to take a gamble. I can well understand him not taking up his quota and, in certain circumstances, now criticising not only the Board but also the Government. We must take these factors into consideration. I accept that the weather plays an important part. It is estimated that losses in clamps due to the frosts of last January were between 2 per cent and 5 per cent.
  I expect that the Minister who replies will answer this question directly. Could this shortage have been foreseen? It is all very well to talk about the weather and the other factors which I have mentioned, but the Minister is responsible. He has officials to advise him. He is in touch with the Board.
  The farmers were warned in August. I have with me a report from the Farmer & Stock-Breeder of 1st August. The heading is
  "Potato acreage the lowest since 1939."
  Another heading is
  "Large imports may be needed this year."
  It goes on to say that the
  "Total acreage of potatoes planted this year has probably been the lowest since 1939. The Potato Board last week said that a reduction had been estimated of about 100,000 acres in plantings by registered producers this year compared with last. The present acreage was said to be 593,000 acres, leaving 150,000 acres of available quota which had not been used by growers."
  We knew in August last year that there was likely to be a potato crisis.
  Let us examine the figures given by the Potato Marketing Board. Its Press release of 31st January, 1962, shows that the available stocks, 1½-in. riddle, in tons at 31st December were—[An HON. MEMBER: "Which year?"]—in 1957, 1,654,000. I am quoting the five years to prove my point. The tonnage available for human consumption was 1,990,000. On 31st December, 1958, available stocks were 1,514,000 tons and imports of ware potatoes 253,000 tons, making a total available for human consumption of 1,767,000. In 1959, available stocks were 2,448,000 tons, and

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  available for Human consumption, 1,639,000 tons. In 1960, available stocks were 2,622,000 tons, there were no imports and 1,918,000 tons were available for human consumption. The 31st December, 1961, figure was only 1,720,000 tons, which is less than the 1958 figure, yet the Board's figures show that the rate of consumption had increased. The 1958 rate of consumption was 195 lb. per head, similar to the 1957 figure, yet by 1961 the rate of consumption had increased to 197 lb. per head.
  Surely the Board, from its own figures, must have known that inevitably there would be a potato crisis during the current period. Apart from the weather and the difficulties mentioned by the Minister, it was inevitable, in view of all the reasons I have given and of farmers being suspicious, that the acreage quota was not being taken up.
  Why did not the Government act earlier? Why did they not see that the Board relaxed its quota system? I appreciate the need of the quota system, but if there was danger of a crisis, as was obvious from the figures, surely it would have been better to risk the possibility of a slight surplus than the present crisis, which will react against the housewife. It is all very well for the Minister to say that import licences have been granted, but why was not action taken earlier? Why was not the Board encouraged to approach the Board of Trade earlier? It is the view of many hon. Members, on both sides, that the quota system could have been relaxed. Indeed, even the chairman of the Board now is asking, I see from the Farmer & Stock-Breeder, that farmers now should plant more potatoes.
  Sir James Duncan: Would the hon. Member explain what a quota system means in that context?
  Mr. Peart: A quota system, as the hon. Member knows, and as the Minister has explained, is quite usual to use as a means of avoiding surplus at certain periods so that prices do not go awry. I am saying that, in view of the fact of the possibility last year of a serious shortage, I would have thought there could have been a relaxation of quotas. I accept the fact that quotas are there,
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  and I accept the fact that some farmers have certainly not taken up the quota, but I believe that if there had been some measure of relaxation this crisis would perhaps not have arisen in the way it has.
  I accept that the fines of farmers have been exaggerated. I know that the Board fines farmers only for falsification of accounts, and we must not be led astray by Press campaigns in this respect. The levy payments are of a rather different nature. Nevertheless, there is a feeling in the farming world that there is a tight, rigid discipline of which, in a period of crisis like this, there could be some measure of relaxation. I would have hoped that even under the sections of the Scheme discussed by the Minister there could have been indications how the powers could be used to minimise their effects on individual producers. I would have hoped that the Scheme itself would have enabled some measure of relaxation.
  However, there is concern. After all, every hon. Member has had letters. We cannot dismiss other people who are affected. The fish friers, for instance. It is easy to smile about fish and chips, but it is a major industry. Every hon. Member here has had a circular from the National Federation of Fish Friers about the potato crisis, the circular dated 2nd April, 1962. I am not going to read it out. I have another one supplied to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, East (Mr. McLeavy) from the Bradford and District Fish Friers' Association complaining that there is a crisis of shortage which may cause many honourable business men who supply a basic meal and a basic commodity to go out of business or at least be placed in serious difficulties. It is not just a matter for the farmer, or indeed for the housewife. It is also an important matter for those who are concerned with the trade itself. There is, too, a report now that even in our schools potatoes are to be rationed. I read today in the morning papers that arrangements are being made in Manchester by the Education Committee for rationing potatoes.
  Well I remember that hon. Members opposite are sometimes rather indifferent about this, and how they used to chide

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  my right hon. Friends on this side of the House about potato rationing. They chided us about shortages. Let me read what advice a Tory Minister gave to the housewives on a previous occasion when there was a potato shortage under a Tory Government. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, addressing the Women's Council of the Scottish Unionist Association in Edinburgh once—I admit it was during a previous potato crisis when she said this—said:
  "Instead of grumbling about potato prices women should be thinking in terms of root vegetables and rice."
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): Hear, hear.
  Mr. Peart: It is all very well for the hon. Lady to say "Hear, hear". It may well be that she is an advocate of the Common Market and she wants us to eat spaghetti, but I want the potato to be preserved in our diet.
  Mr. George Jeger: Would my hon. Friend recall the fate of the lady who advised the masses to eat cake?
  Mr. Peart: That advice has been given, but the Minister should take this matter seriously. He is Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Food. He should be concerned about what is happening from the point of view of the consumer. It is all very well to expound a Scheme which will give a measure of stability to the vast majority of producers. The right hon. Gentleman is Minister of Food and he must be responsible for the supply of food at reasonable prices in the shops.
  My hon. Friends will demonstrate that the price of this basic foodstuff, which is so important to our national diet, is increasing in the shops. There is danger of a serious shortage and that many people will be unable to buy sufficient quantities. This is reality. It is not an exaggeration. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health gave what I thought was foolish advice on a previous occasion. I hope that this time she will exercise discretion.
  I want to know what the Minister is doing about this situation. Has he had representations from the trade? What action is he taking? What is the position about imports? I have had a telegram
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  from the United States handed to me which reads:
  "Reports have reached America that a critical potato shortage exists in Great Britain. After inquiry I find American potatoes at this time are not permitted entry into England."
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Peart: Yes, but we once had potatoes from America. There may be good reasons for this. I ask the Minister what is the position about imports. I am informed that we could obtain imports from Southern Ireland. Are there supplies there? What are the Government doing about it? It is all very well for hon. Members to shout about American farm produce. There may be good reasons for excluding it.
  Mr. Antony Buck: Does the hon. Member not know?
  Mr. Peart: I should like to know from the Minister and not from the hon. Member. I should like to know whether arrangements have been made for adequate imports into this country. I understand that the Minister is to permit imports, but we have a right to know whether the imports will fill the gap.
  Mr. Buck Mr. Buck rose—
  Mr. Peart: No, I will not give way. Time is going and other hon. Members want to speak.
  Whilst we on this side of the House accept the Scheme, we believe in orderly marketing. We do not believe in the operation of the law of supply and demand. We accept that there must be orderly marketing, but we reserve the right of hon. Members to criticise if certain conditions operate against the consumer or the producer. I accept the principle of having marketing boards, but to make them sacrosanct as the Minister has done today could lead in the end to a bureaucratic organisation that could harm orderly marketing and the interests of producers and consumers. If we are to err in agricultural policy, I would rather we erred on the side of surplus. I know there are difficulties, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, in judging whether the Government should go in with a support policy at the right time and either have a surplus or rely on imports. But I would rather take the risk on the side of surplus.

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  The Government still think too much in terms of restriction in agriculture. We have had this argument before, but it is fundamental. I am glad to see that the N.F.U. has accepted the case that we should think in terms of using our surpluses through some sort of international arrangement. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers met in New Delhi in 1959, and the F.A.O. met last year. Following those meetings, we are pledged to take part in the creation of an international fund and organisation which will use surpluses produced by countries like ours to help those countries which need food.
  Out of this debate, I would like to see not merely an argument as to whether we should pursue a policy of restriction for potatoes but the message that we should encourage more production, seeing to it that international arrangements are made for the disposal of surpluses where food is badly needed. I am sorry that the Government have not yet caught up with farming opinion on this issue. I am informed that they are not even represented on the F.A.O. inter-Governmental Committee. I hope that that will be remedied.
  We on this side of the House accept, in principle, the marketing scheme, but we believe that there could, perhaps, be a measure of relaxation. The Board could have acted quicker. The Minister himself should have appreciated earlier that there was going to be a potato shortage. But as the shortage is here, he must see that the housewives in particular are protected.
  11.57 p.m.
  Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I hope the House will forgive me if I tend to make my remarks seem of a constituency character. The House already knows that the Fenland is one of the most productive areas for potatoes and that we come very high on the league table of potato production. I think that we are third, with Lindsey and Holland, in Lincolnshire, at the top, by a small margin.
  There are 36,000 acres grown in my constituency, but I hope it will not be thought that I am interested only in producers. Although there is a very large acreage in my
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  constituency, there are only 11,257 regular workers employed in agriculture out of an electorate of 61,000. Therefore, I am very conscious that we have to approach this problem not only from the point of view of the producer but also from that of the consumer. If it is of interest to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), the last packet of fish and chips I ate was bought in Wisbech, in my constituency—and very good it was, too.
  We have to make a clear distinction which the hon. Gentleman totally failed to make. He showed that he does not realise the importance of making it when he said that the Board did not act soon enough. Let us be clear about the Board's duties. Those duties are not to arrange the importation of potatoes when there are not enough home-grown. That is the Government's job. The Board is not to be blamed if imports are not bought in time. It is true the Government were criticised some years ago, when Lord Amory was Minister, for not consulting the Board before they decided to allow imports to come in. Certainly I think that any Government would be most unwise not to consult the Board. But let us be clear about the Board's responsibilities. Imports are the responsibility of the Government, not the Board.
  Mr. Peart: I agree that it is the Minister's responsibility, and I criticised him.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: But the fact remains that the hon. Member has just said that the Board did not act soon enough. The hon. Gentleman said that the Board should have done something about the shortage by way of imports; but that is not the job of the Board.
  Sir L. Plummer: I think it will be agreed that it is the job of the Board to decide on any alteration to the riddle. Did the Board, in fact, give instructions for the riddle to be altered so as to increase the supply of ware potatoes on the market?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I will come to the matter of the riddle in a moment. I realise that there was a division of opinion in the Board itself about what was the risk of a shortage, and my right hon. Friend, in what was, if I may say so, a brilliant speech, made clear that

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  Mr. Rennie had said all along that it would be touch-and-go. There was obviously a division of opinion, and I happen to know that some members of the Board were certain that this shortage would arise. However, as in any team, the majority voice had to be taken and the Board had a calculated risk to take. In any advice which it gave to the Minister there was obviously a calculated risk, and my right hon. Friend accepted the responsibility for that too.
  Surely anybody who knows anything about this matter can see the enormous difficulty of forecasting. To illustrate that, let me give a few constituency figures. To quote my right hon. Friend's estimate that it costs, on average, £100 to grow one acre of potatoes, so far as my constituency is concerned it would cost £3,600,000 to cultivate 36,000 acres. The average yield there is 8·6 tons an acre, so that there is a total yield of 309,000 tons. If all that tonnage were to receive the guaranteed price of 265s. a ton, the return would be £4,102,200, which would represent a profit, to all intents and purposes, of £502,200. But, suppose a quarter of the crop—and here I come to the question of the riddle—has to be riddled off as unsuitable for human use, there is a loss of £524,350.
  That, I think, shows the narrowness of the margin on which growers work and how terribly important it is to have a ton an acre above or below the average yield over the years and what an extraordinary amount of harm can be done if the result is on the wrong side, especially for the small growers. After all, they are not all big growers in my area. There are 4,200 holdings in the Isle of Ely, and of those, nearly 4,000 are of fewer than a 100 acres. There are a great many small men, and it hurts them very much if the yield is below average. What about the rest of my constituents? What about the consumers? I would say that there is nothing more damaging in the long term—and sometimes in the short term as well—than to have a lack of confidence among growers of this staple item of our diet.
  It is very important that we have stability, and, by and large over the years, the Board have done a remarkably good job in bringing about that stability. But when we changed over from the individual to the collective guarantee, about which the hon. Member
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  for Workington spoke, there were many growers who were worried. I do not dispute that for a moment. Let us consider, however, what it would mean if we went back to the old individual guarantee. There was a year when we grew 8 million tons of potatoes under the old system. When we moved over to this new system of a collective guarantee for the industry the figure declared as being necessary for human consumption per year was 3,800,000. The Minister has upped that figure to 4¼ million. I think that is good if it means that the publicity provided by the Potato Marketing Board and others has led to an increased consumption. Certainly there has been a great deal of improvement in the presentation and marketing of potatoes by pre-packaging and so on, although there is a limit to that.
  By and large, we can say that if we went back to the old system of an individual guarantee and did not impose a limit on the acreage of each grower, we should run the risk of having an open-ended cheque which the Treasury would have to pay at the end of the year and the amount of the cheque would be vast. Today, when there is a greater variety in the diet, I do not believe that the taxpayers would relish having to pay such a sum; nor would it be to the benefit of the producers, the growers or the consumers.
  I think it right that we should attempt to reach an equation between what is required for human consumption and what we have to produce. I believe that what the Board is proposing is sensible. I hope that the hon. Member for Workington was right in his supposition that most hon. Members had read the Report. It is certainly worth reading if anyone wishes to make sense about potato marketing. Evidence was produced at the inquiry to show that £25 an acre was not enough to deter men from growing more than their quota. Other witnesses said that it was a prohibitively punishing figure. Perhaps that is the nearest that we can get to a fair figure, and Mr. Rennie and the Board think that it is.
  Whatever figure is decided on, it is important that the industry should build up a cushion by means of which the Board and the industry can ensure that there is some comfort in the years of surpluses. If we are not careful we shall have the

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  Board running out of funds and having to come to the Government, and in turn the Government would have to come to Parliament to ask for another Order and there would be a big bill. It would be much better if the industry were able to do things for itself. I believe that a proportion of two-thirds from the Government and one-third from the industry is a good bargain from the point of view of the producer and the consumer. There is no doubt that had the Government not decided to adopt the same proportions in 1959–60, the amount that we should have had to pay for deficiency payments would have been far greater. The Minister mentioned a figure of £15 million compared with the actual figure of £4 million, and that is probably about right, although I have heard mention of a figure higher than £15 million. We shall never get the figure exact, but that is probably as near as we shall ever get to it.
  There is much in the Report to which I should like to refer, but I shall not do so at this late hour. Long-term stability for the industry is vital and I am glad to see that there is a reference in the Scheme to a period of five years. That should give some stability to the industry. I am not blaming my right hon. Friend, but I think that sooner or later we must face something to which I referred in a debate on this subject on 29th June, 1959. I apologise for quoting myself. I said.
  "… as the Board develops and becomes established … the Government may well find that it would be far better to make the Board responsible for imports too."
  "The crux of Order-working is sound importation policy combined with a readiness on the part of the Government to step in to ensure that the Board is not broken by lack of funds in a surplus year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th June, 1959; Vol. 608, c. 186–7.]
  I know perfectly well that hon. Members do not like the idea of the Board having a say on imports. There is a feeling that consumers would not have their interests looked after.
  Mr. Lawson: The hon. Member is telling us that he knows very well that hon. Members—looking at this side of the House—do not want the Board to have any say on imports. Will he tell us which hon. Members he has in mind?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am sorry, but it happens that I am standing in this position facing the other side of the House, which is customary. I do not usually talk out of the back of my head. If I may say so, I am addressing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the House as well. I know very well why hon. Members on both sides of the House—if that helps at all—do not like the idea of a body such as the Potato Marketing Board having powers over imports. I know that there is a belief that consumers will suffer if that happens, but it is too often forgotten that members of the Board also happen to be consumers. Therefore, it is in their interest to see that the consumers as a body of people get properly looked after.
  This is where we cannot have the best of both worlds. If we say, as we have said so far, that the Board should not have powers over imports, we must not blame the Board if we find that the imports have not come in, or that too many have come in. That is a matter for the Government, and the Government are reserving rights over it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We are all agreed on that. Are the Government blameworthy at this moment—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."]—for not having allowed imports in sooner? I have examined this with the utmost care. I do not think that it does the growing industry the slightest good for prices to reach the height they have—£35 a ton. I accept that straight away, but, on the advice available to them, I am not sure that the Government ought to be blamed as heavily as they have been by uninformed opinion outside.
  Of course, the Government have not been exactly accurate in assessing what the need would be, but if I have done anything tonight I hope that I have shown that in my constituency it is impossible to forecast exactly what will be the yield and exactly what the demand will be. It may be a sad thing, but the fact remains that one of the factors in the present situation is that the Board itself under-estimated the success of its own publicity in encouraging people to eat more potatoes. We are working something out with the new set-up of the Board. I think the hon. Member for Workington overlooked the fact that

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  we axe amending the powers of the Board by this Order. We are not saying that the Board as conceived two years ago is sacrosanct, but we are trying to improve it. It is right that we should do that, and probably we shall have to try to improve it again later.
  I want to make one or two requests to the Minister. I have a feeling that he may be under pressure shortly to delay the operation of the higher tariff on new potatoes coming into the country, which is due to come into operation on 15th May. On 15th May the duty should go up from £1 to £9 6s. 8d. a ton. That tariff is designed to protect the English grower of early potatoes. I hope that the Minister will not surrender to any pressure, because of the present situation, which tries to make him delay the imposition of that tariff. If he does, he will undermine the industry's confidence more quickly than by any other method which he could choose. I hope that he will stick to the date.
  Secondly, I hope that he will seek to persuade Governments to allow those who have entered into commitments to supply potatoes to this country to honour their commitments. The Dutch Government have decided to put a quota of 15,000 tons on exports from Holland. That is resulting in a considerable breach of contract on those who had undertaken to send potatoes to this country. As this is the result of Government action in Holland, our Government are entitled to try to persuade the Dutch Government to allow Dutchmen to honour their undertakings.
  Mr. Snow: The hon. Member talks about a breach of contract. Does he know whether there is a break clause to permit this action?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: There may be, but I am not aware of it. If there is, let the Minister say so.
  Mr. Snow: But the hon. Gentleman talked about a breach of contract.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: If there is a break clause I am not aware of it. If I had thought that there was such a clause, I should not have made those remarks.
  The same thing is happening to some extent in Cyprus, and the Egyptians are already asking for £6 a ton more for
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  potatoes which have been ordered and against which they have a credit. I can think of no greater encouragement to Egyptians or anyone else to put up the price of their potatoes than some of the idiotic charges which have been made against the Board and the Government by ill-informed opinion in this country and in the newspapers. We ought not to brandish about the world the fact that we are short of potatoes. It is stupid to do so if we want to get potatoes at a fair price. But the damage has been done.
  There is one other piece of damage which I hope the Minister will not allow to be done. I hope that he will not allow the importation of any potatoes from North America along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for Workington. If he does, he will introduce here one of the most dreaded of all potato diseases—ring rot. We do not want it in this country. If we have it, we shall be a great deal more short of potatoes than we are today. So far we have managed to suppress it. The hon. Member may have it in his party, but I hope that he will not bring it into the Fens.
  If we are given assurances on these matters it will greatly relieve the industry. I apologise for having delayed the House for so long, but my hon. Friends on my right have been particularly helpful tonight.
  12.18 a.m.
  Mr. Desmond Donnelly: I hope that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) will not consider me discourteous if I do not debate with him tonight. I warmly congratulate him on his appearance below the Gangway. I remember him speaking from above the Gangway, and although I do not entirely agree with all that he said tonight, for which I hope he will forgive me, I agree with him on some other great affairs of State which have led him to move to below the Gangway, and at least I join with him on his view on who should not be guiding our affairs of state.
  The Minister first justified the extra acreage payment, which has been raised from £1 to £3. His justification was that the Board needed larger funds to meet any deficiency payment contingency. Secondly, he sought to justify

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  the increase, in the penalty section, of the powers which the Board possesses from £10 to £25 an acre. I was less able to follow him in this case because of some arithmetical news which reached us from the north of England, and I apologise for my discourtesy if I was not following him at that moment.
  Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the situation that has developed this year. He said that the Board had cut the acreage allocation by some 10 per cent. on the previous year, and that some unspecified circumstances—perhaps the weather, the Lord, or, perhaps, the intervention of a Liberal candidate—had led to a further reduction. I do not know what the other unspecified circumstances were, except the weather, which he did mention.
  In brief outline, that is what the Minister had to say, but this House cannot consider his case outside the context of the present potato shortage. We cannot consider the demand for increased powers for the Potato Marketing Board without consideration of the present acute potato shortage. What is the situation as it has developed? On the admission of the Chairman of the Board himself, we are faced with an acute shortage. He said a few days ago that we had about three weeks' supply in hand, while there are seven or eight weeks to go before we get the new supplies of the early potatoes. In other words, there is a gap of four or five weeks, and a week has gone by.
  The right hon. Gentleman—although he did not refer to it in detail, it was implicit in his remarks—made it clear that a certain number of people had over-planted last year, and that without that over-planting the present shortage would be even more acute. For the privilege of over-planting—and, indeed, for saving us from even more acute shortage now—those people have had to pay about £200,000 to the Board. It is in those circumstances that the Government are asking for increased powers for the Board—at a time when the country is having to pay very large sums for its potatoes. Before we are out of the wood we shall have had to pay between £25 million and £30 million more for our potato supplies than we needed to have done had we had
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  adequate arrangements in the last year. And if the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) would like to have further details, I shall be happy to go into the arithmetic—
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Against this enormous subsidy, there are no potatoes.
  Mr. Donnelly: Exactly. I am delighted to find the noble Lord in entire agreement with me for once. There is not only this enormous subsidy, as he calls it, I but this enormous fine on some who have overplanted.
  This £25 million or £30 million which the nation is now having to pay as a result of the excess prices resulting from the shortage falls, broadly, on the community as a whole, but on which sections does that burden fall particularly? We all know that potatoes are a staple diet of the children, so the first to suffer are the parents of young children. The second group of people who are made to suffer are those who rely on potatoes to make up the carbohydrates they need in their diet—the heavy manual workers. That is, broadly, the working class. Thirdly, there are the old people, who also rely on potatoes which in the past have been a cheap food by which they could make up their diet.
  As a result of the Government's policy, this particular burden has fallen upon the very sections of the community that are least able to bear it. The indictment of the Government tonight follows on the Minister's own admission that last year was a record year for potato yield, and that it has taken the organising genius of the Tory Party to create a shortage, and a burden of about £30 million on those least able to bear it—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear right hon Gentlemen opposite cheering. It has nothing to do with the weather. It is Governmental incompetence. It is not only Governmental incompetence. Who else is responsible? Well, for a start, we could indict the Potato Marketing Board, but it is no part of my case, or of the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) who, in an excellent speech, make it clear that we hold the Minister responsible.

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  The Board, it is true, has figured as something of the villain, and the unfortunate Mr. Rennie has appeared in the papers recently as a kind of poor man's Selwyn Lloyd. I would be the last to say more; sufficient condemnation for the poor Chairman of the Potato Marketing Board who evokes the sympathy of my hon. Friends. I come, instead, to the Minister who was, undoubtedly, directly responsible for the cut in the acreage allocation last year. He was indeed responsible since, on his own admission tonight, he was warned by Mr. Rennie. He then failed to take the necessary steps for the importation of potatoes. Thus, the Minister is responsible to this House for the true state of the muddle today.
  The other person involved, of course, is the real Selwyn Lloyd. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] Of course I am in order. I speak, of course, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the back of the whole of the Governmental policy is the hand of the Treasury seeking to keep down the deficiency payments. This is all part of the Government's general policy. And where does it end? It ends with a further (burden on the working classes, for they are the people who are suffering the most.
  The answer is planning. We need real planning and not muddle. In the light of present circumstances, what should be done? The first step towards real planning is to have greater flexibility in the allocation of acreage.
  A constituent of mine, Mr. Charles Llewellin of Little Haven—one of our large Pembrokeshire early potato growers—has just been fined, which is my way of describing what happened, £1,300 for growing too many potatoes. That is the sort of planning the Minister supports.
  Mr. Anthony Fell: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Potato Marketing Board is comprised of people who are trying to do their job as best they can? The fact is that the whole of the hon. Gentleman's speech so far as been a glaring indictment of planning.
  Mr. Donnelly: There is no real point in my attempting to follow that intervention.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. W. M. F. Vane): Regarding the hon. Gentleman's constituent who, he says, was fined £1,300, would he make it clear whether this was an ordinary excess acreage payment or a fine, which is more appropriate to cheating, and give the years involved and say whether they were surplus or deficit years?
  Mr. Donnelly: Certainly. Mr. Llewellin registered with the Board for the production of potatoes in 1956. He was allocated a basic acreage of 12 acres, although he wished to go in for intensive potato growing. In 1957 79 acres were planted, but there was no excess acreage contribution because 1957 was not a quota year. In 1958 he applied to the Board for an increase in his basic acreage and was granted 70 acres. That year he grew 114 acres, but that year there was also no quota. In 1959 he again applied, and his basic acreage was increased to 90, at which figure it remained for 1960 and 1961.
  But in these three years Mr. Llewellin incurred acreage contributions, as the hon. Gentleman would call them, although I would prefer to call it, in plain English, a fine. He incurred these excess acreage contributions—a nice Civil Service piece of jargon—for having planted 143, 130 and 118 acres, respectively. The true indictment of the Board is that this year Mr. Llewellin applied for an increase in his basic acreage and has ben granted 146 acres. Nothing has changed except the Board's attitude. Neither the land nor the circumstances have been changed. If Mr. Llewellin's application is proper now, it was right two years ago. The least that the Government and the Potato Marketing Board could do, if they had a sense of self-respect, would be to cancel that fine here and now. More of my constituents have suffered. In the past year they have suffered to the tune of £5,000 and the whole country has suffered to the tune of £200,000. They ought to have their money back.
  Returning to the need for greater flexibility, which is the first answer to this problem, I should have thought that it would be essential for the Potato Marketing Board to be much more flexible in dealing with such applications as

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  this. If people such as my constituent make applications and they are finally granted, surely this is a clear admission that the Board was wrong in the first place, and it ought to have the magnanimity to accept the fact and to repay the fine.
  Dealing with the £3 contribution instead of the £1 contribution, I accept the need for a Potato Marketing Board, and of course I accept the need for adequate arrangements for control.
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Why?
  Mr. Donnelly: Because I happen to be a Socialist. I believe in planning—but good planning. Here I come to the way in which the good planning can be implemented. At the moment anybody who is granted an acreage allocation is not compelled to take it up. Therefore, the Board has no clear idea of what is likely to be taken up. In the present circumstances, as the Minister said, the acreage was not taken up, to the confusion and embarrassment of the Board. I should have thought that the simpler arrangement would be for a person to pay his contribution at the time he is granted an allocation. If he is granted 100 acres he should pay £300. That is the best way of ensuring that the farmer plants up to the acreage that he has been granted. Of course, there are margins within which the farmer will find it difficult to operate. If the seed is small, he may find himself planting slightly more. There must be some margin for flexibility in this arrangement.
  But it would be far better to have a clear idea of what is happening from the point of view of the Board. There should also be some arrangement whereby these acreage allocations can be transferable if they are not taken up, as in the case of the Hop Marketing Board. [Interruption.] I appreciate that the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South feels strongly about these matters, but he must be careful to see that he is not abolished from this House in view of the news that we have heard tonight.
  With regard to the £25 an acre penalty, or fine, I warn the Government that this is going to be a severe inhibition in circumstances such as those which have prevailed in the past year. Nobody will
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  risk an excess payment. Everybody will put in for slightly more than they are going to plant because they will want that safety margin. If this kind of penalty had existed a year ago, the situation would have been far worse now than it is. Nothing that the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely have said gives any hope for believing that the present situation will be any (better this time next year. Indeed, it could easily be worse. This is the real indictment of the Government, and at the root is a fallacy in the Government's thinking about our agricultural production.
  Sooner or later we must face the fact that this country is going to produce a surplus in its agricultural production. Sooner or later we must realise that we may be exporters of food. Sooner or later we must address ourselves to the mechanics of the export of food and the practicalities of the conservation of food. In these subjects the Government are a long way behind in their thinking. Nothing the right hon. Gentleman said today was other than a condemnation of the Government for incompetence. I regard the Government's decision to come forward with this Order at the moment as an insult to the public and an impertinence to the House.
  12.35 a.m.
  Mr. Denys Bullard: In listening to this debate on potatoes I feel a sense of warmth, or promotion, or almost elevation, because I have been connected with this humble vegetable all my life. I never thought that I should sit in the House of Commons late at night and listen to a very learned dissertation on how to regulate the production and supply of potatoes. I was very amused by what hon. Members opposite said about about the possibility of planning the production and supply. It is one thing to be certain about what has been planted, but one is often greatly surprised at what comes out of the land. When the crop is put into the clamp and left until this time of the year, one can also have some great surprises at what comes out compared with what went in. There are snags all along the line.
  Whilst I was listening to the dissertation on planning I thought of my father, who was in the potato trade all his life.

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  He has been dead for several years now. As we riddled the potatoes out of the heap the men and myself had little bets about how many would be left in the untouched portion of the heap. There were various estimates as to how it would turn out. My father would never participate in any of this gambling. He merely said that all that he knew was that there would not be too many.
  I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is quite sure on the question of exempting early potatoes from this payment. I regard the potato crop as indivisible. Earlies and lates are all potatoes to me. I find it difficult to think that one can separate earlies and lates. If a large acreage of earlies is grown and they stay around the country towards the end of the season, they have a great effect on the late potato crop and its marketing. The same can apply at the other end of the season. I hope that the Board will not draw a distinction when levying this payment between those lifted early and those lifted late.
  The Board has chosen a rather unfortunate time to bring these Amendments forward. However, the present shortage is in no way the result of the Board's operation. Last year was an extremely difficult year for getting the crop in. Quite apart from the physical difficulties, I can inform the House from practical experience that many growers after the wet season of the previous year and the difficulty of getting the potatoes out of the ground had had quite enough of the crop. They did not hurry to put in a very large acreage last year, because they had such a struggle with the previous year's crop. That has had a big effect on the present situation.
  I should like to declare an interest, because as a grower and seller of potatoes I am glad to say that I still have a few left. Although I think that the price is high to the consumer, considering the element of speculation involved in keeping the crop round to this time I do not know that 4½d. per lb. wholesale is an enormous price for the small proportion which growers have left. They should not be accused of undue speculation concerning the present prices.
  In the question of planning and regulating the crop, we have a decision to take as to whether we want to go in
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  for absolute freedom to grow what any grower likes or whether to try to have some kind of regulation and orderly marketing. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said that the law of supply and demand no longer operated. I assure him that it does. It operates forcibly, and I do not know that that is very undesirable. Once we begin to depart, however, from the free operation of the law of supply and demand, we have to have acreage control and riddle control and we are bound to have discipline and penalties such as the Board has found it necessary to impose.
  I prefer a degree of organisation rather than the old pure speculation. I am sure that with the cost of growing the crop as it is today, it would be quite impossible to carry on the potato industry without the element of control over acreage and over riddles and the support buying which the Board is trying to operate.
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Why?
  Mr. Bullard: My noble Friend asks "Why?" I have sold potatoes for £3 a ton, and they have gone at the same sort of time for up to £7 or £8 a ton, which we thought was a big price. Our costs of production then, with the costs of labour and other things as they were in those days, were very small. Today, however, with costs running at over £100 an acre, it is too risky a job to be left entirely as a speculation. Farmers should not be called upon to indulge in pure speculation in growing a crop of the importance which the potato assumes.
  The Scheme should be regarded as a price insurance scheme. That is the object of this exercise, I understand from my right hon. Friend the Minister. The growers are being asked to pay an increased regular contribution so that, with Government assistance, the Board may be able to build up a fund with which to buy surpluses and to go in for support buying. That seems to me to be an eminently reasonable idea. Therefore, I hope that we shall give the Minister support in the Scheme tonight.
  One further thing that I would say concerns future supplies. I have heard it said that because seed potatoes are scarce and dear, on that account the acreage of potatoes planted in the coming year will be less. In other words,

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  there may be a risk of shortage not only now, but in the coming year, as a result of seed supplies being scarce and dear. I do not believe that it operates in that way.
  My experience of the potato growing business, going back several years, is quite to the contrary. When seed is scarce and dear, growers will plant all they can. They will get hold of it somehow. They will plant once-grown seed in the south of England when they cannot obtain Scotch. They will plant their acreage because when seed is dear there seem to be a kind of incentive which gives the job a worthwhile look. It works in quite the opposite direction from what one might expect.
  As to the immediate future of supplies, I am not so sure that the position is quite as black as made out. Money has a wonderful power for finding supplies somewhere, and I shall not be at all surprised, now that potatoes have got to the price they have, if supplies arrive from places where they were not expected to come from at all. I do not mean altogether abroad. It will be surprising where they can be dug up here. Already very big quantities are being landed in my own constituency town of King's Lynn and at Great Yarmouth. [Interruption.] Certainly, potatoes are being landed at Great Yarmouth. I commend my hon. Friend to read the local Press, where he will see good accounts of that. I do not think that the immediate supply position is quite as desperate as perhaps some people are led to believe.
  I certainly hope that, in the interests of the future of the industry, this price insurance scheme will get the approval of the House tonight.
  12.46 a.m.
  Mr. John Mackie: Like the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard), I, too, am a potato grower, and I know the difficulties there are in planing a crop. I thought he was unduly derisive about the Marketing Board's efforts, and the Minister's efforts, for that matter, in working out a crop of round about the size to satisfy the consumers. The hon. Member spoke about his still putting potatoes in a clamp—an old-fashioned method of storing. I think his methods of handling potatoes are a bit out of date.
  Mr. Bullard: Quite apart from the clamp—and I am not so sure about its being old-fashioned—potatoes can be mighty comfortable in some nice straw under a bit of earth. I think that even with his modern stores the hon. Member may be disappointed at what he may find at the back end.
  Mr. Mackie: Obviously I hit the hon. Member on the raw by what I said. But his ideas of profits are quite modern; 4½d. a lb. is exactly £42 a ton. We heard the Minister say costs are £100 an acre. I feel sure that the hon. Member, good farmer as he is, can earn £327 an acre, which, less cost, means a profit for him of £257 an acre.
  Sir J. Duncan: How much is brock?
  Mr. Mackie: I do not know. I am just taking it that the potatoes in the clamp covered with a nice bit of straw—I am sorry I cannot imitate the hon. Member's Norfolk accent—will keep very well and can be put on the market at the figure which has been mentioned.
  However, I do not want to be led astray by interruptions. The argument tonight is really on what the Marketing Board is doing. The Board is carrying out the Act under which it was formed. That is the only thing it can do. It does its job. The only real criticism I think we can make of the Board is on the question of why it did not reduce the size of the riddle earlier. When the Chairman said he had warned the Minister that he thought there would be a shortfall this year, he still kept the riddle at a high figure. But for that potatoes of perfectly reasonable quality could have been on the market earlier.
  There is no doubt about it that to clear a surplus of potatoes is a much more difficult job than clearing a surplus of eggs or milk. Very seldom does the surplus price of eggs or milk drop much below half the normal price, but with potatoes it is different, and taking the figure of even the guaranteed prices of £13 5s. a torn the surplus price can go down to 30s. to £2 a ton, giving the Board a fantastically difficult job, of course.
  There is no doubt that the problem is how to get this fairly regular acreage of 700,000. It is a perfectly sound thing to try and plan. I make no apology for

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  using the word, though it causes great derision on the other side of the House. It is sound for the Board to try to plan to get 700,000 acres, year in and year out, and potatoes carry forward considerably further than other farm produce. What we have to ask ourselves—and I go back to the Board's figures—is why this year we had 104,000 acres less than the quota which the Board was prepared to allow. Why did farmers plant that number of acres less? This is the reason for the shortfall.
  The Minister and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) and others have said that it was because of the weather. It may be that the weather was responsible for a few thousand acres less, but certainly not for 104,000 acres or anything like that figure. I have grown potatoes for a long time now. It is quite a reflection on farmers' planning to blame the weather. There can be frost as late as March and seed potatoes would not be sold on the assumption that we should not have any frost because there was a wet back-end. It is wrong to suggest that farmers did not plant the expected quantity of potatoes because of the wet back-end.
  There is no doubt that the shortage of acreage this year was caused by lack of confidence in the guarantee system. I have spoken to farmers in many parts of the country. I know of one young farmer in Aberdeenshire who has gone out of potato growing this year because over the last 5 years he kept careful figures and found that potatoes did not pay. Potatoes are not grown only in places where there is a short haul to the markets. They are grown throughout the country and in places where the cost of carriage is very high. Ware potatoes have been selling up to the middle of March in Scotland, and for several years I have not obtained anywhere near the guaranteed price. Many farmers have had the same experience.
  A great deal of land in this country is unsuitable for growing potatoes, and we cannot expect all the potatoes to be concentrated in the best growing areas. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely spoke about disease. We all know about the ravages of eel-worm. If we put ourselves into the position where the subsidy attracts potato growing only to
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  certain areas we shall run into an eel-worm problem which will produce an even far worse shortage than exists at present.
  The question is how we are to secure this steady acreage throughout the country and a better system of guaranteed prices. The present guaranteed prices obviously do not secure a steady acreage. I doubt whether the price which the housewife pays has fallen below 3d. a lb., which is £28 2s. 6d. a ton. During the period when the price was 3d. a lb. the growers were accepting £9 to £10 a ton. I have discussed this matter not only with shopkeepers and greengrocers but with housewives. I have found that they have never grumbled at 4d., which is £37 10s. retail and which will give the producer £14 to £18 a ton dependent on the quality and kind of potato and the time of year. Now they are paying 8d. and 9d. a lb., and that is not for foreign imported earlies but for King Edward's and whites, making about £85 a ton retail.
  The Potato Marketing Board must be given powers to market all its potatoes at fixed prices according to grade and time of year. I have discussed this matter with members of the Board. They feel that there are difficulties because of the different qualities and areas of production. I am not suggesting that this is an easy problem to solve, but I believe that the only way is to give decent guarantees both to the farmer and to the housewife, assuring her that prices will not rise to these fantastic figures nor will fall below perhaps 4d. a lb.—I am sure housewives would not grudge that. We must give the Board the power of levying to get rid of surpluses, because, with the figure of 700,000 acres, we shall have periodic surpluses.
  The Government should think of these things. We all admired the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely for suggesting that the Board should have power to control import, but, if official expressions were anything to go by, he was not receiving much support from his Front Bench. If the Board has power to market all potatoes to wholesalers, there is no doubt that these

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  terrible fluctuations in prices will disappear. The Government should give power to the Board and not be guilty of gambling with this staple food, as they are doing now. We see the acreage at 700,000 one year and less than 600,000 the next.
  It is a pity that these Amendments are not worded differently. It is not the Board which is to blame, but the Government. If the Amendments had been worded differently, I think we should have voted against them.
  12.57 a.m.
  Mr. J. A. Stodart: I am doubtful if a really good case exists for the Board to increase the penalty, fine or levy from £10 per acre to £25. In the last two years there has been a tendency for the acreage to fall, and there has also been a tendency for potatoes to be marketed pre-packed. Two years ago, I believe, about one quarter of the total of the ware crop was pre-packed. Already it is up to one third. Obviously, the housewife is going to demand a higher and higher standard and the number of pre-packs will increase.
  That obviously means that there will be a problem in getting rid of rejects which do not, perhaps, look nice, although they may not be particularly badly damaged. The net outturn from each acre will be much less than it has been for marketing for wares. It seems logical, therefore, that there should be a need for more acres in order to supply the higher quality demanded by the market. That could be offset by more careful harvesting and riddling, checking the damage done at the moment. But I do not believe that even the most careful handling will be able to offset the drop in the net outturn caused by the demand for higher standards.
  I speak solely of the production stage in saying that I object to this very drastic levy because it tends to interfere with the smooth system of crop rotation and husbandry. It is almost impossible for one's acreage to coincide exactly with one's quota. I have a quota of 60 acres and my potato product varies through the normal rotation of crops art between 55 and 67 acres. I should be very much torn at the thought of paying £25 on
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  7 acres which would seem to be necessary in the interests of good husbandry. I might wear—if one may put it that way—7 acres at £10 an acre, but I shall now have to plant some other crop in order to fill up the corner of a field. This surely makes for untidy farming. I notice that section 14 of the Scheme does allow for an increased allotment on grounds, among others, of good husbandry, but the need to have a little latitude for an extra two or three acres has never been accepted as a ground of good husbandry in order to relieve one of the penalty levy.
  There have been references tonight to a fall in acreages. The Minister gave his reason as the weather; the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) said that potatoes did not pay. I think that there is another reason. Every year, in November, at least for the last three years, there has been a debate in this House initiated by hon. Members opposite on the subject of schoolchildren harvesting potatoes in Scotland. Great pressure has been put on us by hon. Members opposite to have that source of labour withdrawn, and we on this side have said more than once what happens if it is withdrawn before an efficient mechanical harvester is introduced. I tell the House tonight that I believe it to be a fact that in some of the well-known potato-growing areas of Scotland growers have gone out of potatoes not because of the possibility of bad weather nor because they do not pay, but because they know that having planted what is an expensive crop they may not get the labour to lift it. The season may be bad, and the crop not profitable, but to other reasons which have been given I would include the Opposition's insistence on forcing this particular issue.
  1.3 a.m.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) has just said on the subject of the increase from £10 to £25 as the excess acreage contribution. In fact, I was so much in agreement with him that I thought he was making the sort of speech he made when he was the Liberal Party's agricultural adviser. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is good sense."] Of course it would be good sense if it were Liberal policy.

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  I hope that nothing which I say tonight will put up the price of Egyptian potatoes, as was feared by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) but I must hit very hard at the statement we have heard from him to the effect that the power to regulate imports should be given to what is a producer marketing board. He added that the members of the Board were also consumers, but the distinction is that they do not make a living out of being the latter but by being the former; and I would rather feel that the balance as between producer and consumer was held by the Government than that it should be handed over to a producer marketing board. But I apprehend that that idea will not get much support from the Minister.
  Perhaps I should disclose that I was professionally concerned, as counsel, in the original inquiry into the Potato Marketing Scheme. But the objections then related wholly to elections, which are outside the scope of these Amendments. I am a wholehearted supporter of organised marketing. I think that experience has shown that farmers, particularly small farmers, are ruthlessly exploited if there are not adequate arrangements for collective marketing. None the less, I have considerable misgivings about the intention to increase the excess acreage contribution from £10 to £25. I hope that the Minister will correct what I thought was a somewhat unfortunate impression, that anyone who opposes any detail with regard to a marketing scheme is ipso facto hostile to marketing. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not intend to give that impression. But, speaking for myself, and perhaps for the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), I may say that it was the impression left with hon. Members on this side of the House.
  In the Report for the year ending 30th June, 1961, the Board made clear that it wants to increase the excess acreage contribution—I think this is a euphemism for fining a man for producing more than he is allowed to produce. But I appreciate that the Board wishes to discourage excess planting and to make adequate provision for a market support fund. In granting this power we are in-
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  creasing the powers of the Board, particularly those of the Basic Acreage Committee, and therefore I think that we should consider very carefully before making provision for a greater penalty of a quasi-judicial nature to be imposed by a consumer marketing board. I have been astounded by the fact that, with "he exception of the noble lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) who was sedentarily volatile, that point has not been dealt with by any hon. Member. The power to inflict a fine, or, if hon. Members prefer the more delicate phrase, an "excess acreage contribution" produced well over £200,000 last year. We now intend to increase this power substantially.
  By this quota system and the power to fine the Board can control the volume of potatoes for marketing and, therefore, it can control the price; it could decide how much the farmer is to be allowed to grow and what price the housewife will have to pay. Therefore, before we grant this power we are entitled to ask two questions. First, how has this power been exercised in the past and what effect will these Amendments have in the future? We know that today there is a grave shortage of potatoes. Every hon. Member who has spoken has mentioned that. We know also that there has been a considerable reduction in the acreage under cultivation. I hope to give some figures—which the Minister candidly said that he could not give, but which are the most up-to-date figures—giving some indication of the policy pursued by the Board.
  I believe that the shortage of potatoes is a cause for complaint by many farmers, including small farmers, who applied for an acreage quota and were turned down, and by housewives who find that the price is increasing. As a matter of principle I do not like this penal provision, but I do not think that a workable alternative has yet been evolved. We should be careful, however, before giving powers which may result in a restriction in food production and a restriction on the number of new entrants into the business.
  In the last six months of 1961, from July to December, farmers applied—the application was made in 1960 for 1961

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  —for an increased acreage quota of some 24,906 acres—nearly 25,000 acres. There were 13,500 acres granted. Therefore, almost half the applications—11,500 acres—made in 1960 for increased acreage in 1961 were refused by the Board at a time when, as we had it from the Minister's statement, the Board knew there was a very grave risk indeed of a shortage. If is no good blaming that shortage on weather conditions, or saying that it has all been got up by the Press, which is a somewhat usual excuse we have heard for many things recently. Here was a situation in which the Board, right up to December, 1961, on the last figures available, turned down very nearly 50 per cent. of the applications in respect of extra acreage quotas.
  What I should like the Government to answer is what considerations led the Board to turn down the 11,500 acres application? What was the policy behind that refusal? Unless we know what that policy was, the Government have no right to ask us to increase the fine for those in breach of a policy of which they are unable to tell us the outline and directions followed. We are entitled to know why, faced with this shortage, there was this massive refusal on the part of the Board. If the Government cannot tell us what those policies are, I for one do not intend to vote to give increased fining power.
  The trouble today is that the real power in the Board lies inevitably with the large growers. In this, perhaps for a different reason, I agree with the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie). We have the weighted voting system, which is not strictly relevant to this debate, but the real power lies with the producers of East Anglia, in Lincolnshire and on the East Coast. The trouble today is that we are producing too many potatoes from the uneconomic areas and not producing enough in areas which could get a premium for their potatoes. In Lincolnshire there are over 102,000 acres "under cultivation whereas, taking the part of the world of which I have some knowledge, in Dorset there are 1,200 acres, in Devon 5,000 acres and in Cornwall 7,000 acres. Yet in those areas where there is a low acreage there is a high local demand.
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  In Exeter market today it is possible to get a premium of £2 to £3 per ton ex-farm for locally produced potatoes, but, by reason of the application of the quota system which restricts the production on many of those farms, the local demand cannot be satisfied by local supply.
  Mr. J. M. L. Prior: Going back a little to the question of the quota and the demand of producers for an extra 25,000 acres, as I understand that demand was made for growing potatoes in the season 1961. The application to grow those potatoes was put in before the end of the year ending 1960. I think that at that time it was fair to say that the Board did not know how many potatoes were likely to be planted in the spring of 1961. The weather had not been bad sufficiently long for the Board to take a view on that. From that point of view, I think the Board was justified in turning down half the additional acreage offered.
  On the second point made by the hon. Member, about the need for increased acreage in the west of England and his part of the country, surely—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. I hope that the hon. Member will not make a speech during the middle of another hon. Member's speech.
  Mr. Prior: I am sorry. I was trying to answer the question. Surely in the second case the quotas are arranged on what was the previous acreage in the area, and acreages are brought up to date every three years. Presumably they have not asked for increased acreages.
  Mr. Thorpe: I am grateful to the hon. Member. An application has to be made in the autumn prior to planting in the spring The Minister's suggestion was that the Board had not deliberately decreased the acreage, that there had been no restrictionist policy by the Board and that the shortage was accounted for by the weather and other factors outside the Board's control. But in 1960, if one reads the reports in many farming organs, the Board should have known that there would be a likely shortage. This was something which the Board did not take into account. Not merely did the Board take no action

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  to deal with the situation, but it turned down very nearly 50 per cent. of the applications which were made in respect of the July-December 1961 period for increased acreage. Therefore, the Board was following a restrictionist policy and, therefore, the Minister was wrong to say that the Board was not doing so.
  My complaint is that it is difficult under the scheme for the small farmer, the new entrant, to start up, because for 1961 it was based on 1955, 1956 and 1957 averages. That is the whole artificiality of the scheme. The farm is imbued with capital value because it has a quota attached to it, whether the whole quota is taken up or not. But if a small farmer, say in the West Country, wants to grow potatoes, and he may want to do it only once in three years, it is almost impossible for him to get a quota. This is true; to him which hath shall be given.
  Mr. Prior Mr. Prior indicated dissent.
  Mr. Thorpe: I assure the hon. Member that is true. I sat for day after day at the Church House inquiry, and this fact was confirmed—though it was later justified—by witness after witness. If a farmer has an acreage on his farm he is all right. If he has a farm with no quota attached to it, he is in great difficulty, because it is extremely difficult to become a new entrant into the scheme. One must go to a farm with a high acreage and cash in on it. It is then easy to get an increase in the quota.
  Mr. Stodart: That has been far from my experience. I went into a new farm and I got a quota without any difficulty.
  Mr. Thorpe: I am not certain about which part of the country the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I do not know where he farms. In the West Country—and I make no apology for mentioning the West Country, although what I say is also true of the south of England and various other areas—the small farmer is getting the rough end of the stick. We are unable in Devon to satisfy the high local demand, which is prepared to pay a premium ex-farm of £2 to £3 a ton, because quota restrictions prevent us from producing without a fine of £10 an acre, and we still have to import all
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  the way from Lincolnshire and pay haulage costs of £2 to £3 a ton. I suggest that the penalty of £25 will further inhibit production in these areas which have not been blessed with a tradition of potato growing and that it will continue to siphon off £2 or £3 a ton which should be going to the farming community but which instead will be paid to the road haulier.
  Has the Parliamentary Secretary had made a geographical breakdown of the 500,000 tons which were bought at a loss of £5½ million in 1960, and the 645,000 tons which were bought at a loss of £8·4 million in 1961? My information is that if he did that he would find that, by and large, the losses were incurred in areas which have high quotas. He would find that the areas that have actually increased their acreage are those that are making the heaviest call on the market support fund, and that, per contra, it is those areas with a low quota and a local demand that they cannot satisfy that are making virtually no call at all on that fund. What I say, therefore, is that we are very often encouraging production in areas where the price becomes depressed, as in Lincolnshire, owing to high haulage costs, and that we are reducing it in areas near the centres of demand.
  It would also be interesting to know where the 21,000 applications from 1958 to 1961 came from geographically. Obviously, if the price is depressed the Exchequer contribution is thereby increased, but if the grower can get a premium the likelihood of his drawing on the fund disappears. I suggest that the Board is so designing its production policy that it is encouraging growing in areas where the price is artificially depressed and, therefore, make a call on the fund, and that is failing to encourage growing in places where growers can get a premium.
  I do not believe that our agricultural problem is to keep the large farmers prosperous. They have been doing very nicely, indeed, as it is; not as well, perhaps, as the manufacturers, the producers and the suppliers in the industry, but we shall no doubt be able to deal with those people in the debate on the Annual Price Review. The only problem that concerns an hon. Member representing an agricultural

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  constituency is how the small farmer is to make a reasonable livelihood. The potato is one of his main crops, and it is of vital importance to the small farmer.
  In Devon, we have small grassland farms which will be very hard hit indeed by the £3½ million cut in milk—very nearly 85 per cent. of their income comes from milk—so it will be even more important that they should be able to turn to potatoes. Many of these people do not want to grow potatoes every year; they want an occasional crop. They may not wish to have an acreage of arable, but will, now and again, have to renew their worn-out grassland. Unless, however, they are producing every year they have not a hope in heaven of getting a quota—and, of course, if they are growing in the face of the £25 an acre fine it will now make it completely out of the question for them to grow any potatoes.
  Potatoes are one of the crops on which the small farmer depends. The implements are cheap—a potato spinner and a ridger—perhaps a total of £20 for second-hand equipment. Compare that with the price of growing barley and wheat. For that, there is need of a combine harvester and much other capital equipment. The small farmer will not have his own combine harvester. He will have to bring in a contractor, and that will remove any profit he might otherwise have had from such crops.
  This present proposal will make it virtually impossible for the small farmer to compete—certainly in the face of that £25 fine. I should like to know whether the Board is genuinely interested in helping the small farmer and not just in seeing that the large quotas continue to go to the large farmers in Lincolnshire and other parts of the East Coast who, on sheer competition with local producers, would be put out of business in the West Country. But they are all right now because they have a monopoly position.
  I believe that the Minister should persuade the Board to see that every farmer is entitled, as of right, to grow up to 15 acres of potatoes and that, thereafter, the £25 per acre fine—if it must exist—should be applied only in respect of an excess over 15 acres. Since the small farmer is very hard hit, particularly by the Price Review, the
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  county allocations should be looked into by the Ministry.
  We are entitled to know what the Minister proposes to do about the present shortage and how the Amendment will increase production. His first step, as I say, should be to tell the Board to allow small farmers, as of right, to plant up to 15 acres without any question of a quota or a fine.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Has the hon. Gentleman made any calculation about the tonnage that would be produced by such a system, or is he prepared to let it rip and go well above human consumption? If so, what about the taxpayer?
  Mr. Thorpe: I am prepared to see production remain at the agreed figure.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: How?
  Mr. Thorpe: The Minister has reckoned on a gross acreage which, he hopes, will remain constant throughout the years. There may be a case for asking a small farmer to register if they wish to avail themselves of this right to plant up to 15 acres, for the Board would be entitled to this information. After that registration and after the small farmer has claimed his right to grow that acreage, the Board could make its calculation regarding quotas for the rest of the industry. That would clearly establish that the small farmer was entitled to grow his fixed acreage and that the rest of the producers would be fitted in accordingly.
  This was suggested at the inquiry and it met with a strangely sympathetic response. Meanwhile, the present system is to push uneconomic production into certain areas which are over producing and the result is that areas which could and should be allowed to compete are being denied by the quota system the right to do so.
  1.28 a.m.
  Sir James Duncan: If my mathematics are correct, the 15-acre suggestion made by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) would result in a total basic acreage of about 1,100,000. I do not think, therefore, that I need say more about it.
  Mr. Thorpe: Then perhaps I might? I take it that the hon. Gentleman is

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  basing that calculation on every farmer in the country automatically wishing to plant 15 acres of potatoes. If that be the basis of his calculation I am sure that, on reflection, he will see that it is a somewhat unreasonable one.
  Sir J. Duncan: I based my calculation on my right hon. Friend's figure of 76,000 farmers who are now registered producers. Concerning the West Country, I do not think the hon. Member for Devon, North has studied the full implications of Section 69 of the Scheme which we are amending. There is a reasonable chance for areas such as he described—where there is little or no export trade but a demand for local trade—that the amended Scheme will specifically exempt them from its provisions. It may be, if the conditions in Cornwall or other places are such as he described, that they will be exempted from the Scheme. The hon. Gentleman may know that the Western Isles, and parts of Argyllshire and Western Ross are exempt already. The intention of paragraph 69 (3) is to extend these exemptions to Chat sort of problem to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
  The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) wanted a full-blown marketing board with powers to trade. Nobody else should trade except the Board. That is not in the Scheme. We are discussing an Amendment of the Scheme, and to amend it to such an extent is a little beyond the intention of the Government at present, and is possibly even beyond the rules of order. I think the Board would have sufficient powers without a full trading scheme.
  The hon. Gentleman has spoken as a potato grower, and I shall do likewise. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that neither he nor I have mastered the potato yet. We know how to plant it; we know more or less what amount of fertiliser to put around the potato. Then we trust to luck, acts of God and the weather. But when we dig it out and store it, whether it be in a clamp—to use an English word—or in a pit, or a store, and then dress it or re-dress it, we then begin to realise that we do not know all that there is to know about the potato. I find it
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  extremely difficult to dig it out of the ground at all.
  That is one of the reasons why I support paragraph 84 which is now being amended. The Board has been starved of money, with the £1 an acre levy. I have been delighted to pay it, of course, and, as a producer, I do not like having to pay more. But one is forced to the conclusion that the Board is right in asking us to pay more. The fact that there has been so little opposition to this proposal, in spite of the public inquiry or perhaps because of it, shows that the farmers, who are the growers, are prepared to pay this extra money without protesting.
  Up to now the £1 has been used by the Board for its own administrative expenses, for doing a certain amount of research, although very little, and for attempting to build up a reserve fund for surplus years, rather unsuccessfully. It is only when in surplus years the Government have come to its aid that it has been able to maintain some sort of support price. Now we have this new arrangement for a levy of £3. The first £1 will go to the administrative expenses of the Board, with a little over. The second 30s. will go to build up a support fund. In spite of the acreage which we planted last year and which looks like being planted this year, we still have to look forward to the period when there will be a surplus. On the basis of past history, there will be surpluses in three years out of six. Therefore, we need a support fund. If we can build this up on a two-to-one basis, the Government paying two to the producer's one, it will be to the advantage of the industry in creating stability.
  The Minister did not say much about the extra 10s., but I want to say a few words about it, because the potato is the least mechanised crop grown on our farms. It is the worst marketed. We have not yet got a machine to dig them out of the ground. We have a machine to put them in, but we have not a machine to dig them out. We are getting near it, but we have not yet got one. The Board should do much more to produce the perfect machine. Even a 90 per cent. efficient machine would do.

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  Having got the potato out of the ground, how is it to be stored? We are all experimenting. The hon. Member for Enfield, East thinks that he is a good chap because he does not store them in pits, but is he right to store them in sheds? We do not yet know. All we know is that we sometimes get some shocks when we take them out of pits, clamps or sheds. Diseases appear.
  Mr. Mackie: If potatoes are put into a clamp and covered with straw and earth, they are left to chance. If they are put into a properly ventilated shed, the temperature can be controlled and everything is fine. That is the modern way. All our competitors—Holland, America and everywhere else—do this. The hon. Member is talking nonsense.
  Sir J. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman should see some of the potatoes that come out of some of these wonderful stores he is talking about. They are not always 100 per cent.
  Now, packing. The potato is an article of low value compared with its weight. There are all sorts of problems. Many people are thinking about them. The Board should spend more money on developing ideas and producing the type of pack the housewife wants. A great deal is being done. Washing plants are being set up all over the place by private enterprise. The Board is thinking of setting up a washing plant.
  In years of surplus there is the problem of utilising at reasonably commercial rates the surplus, particularly that part of the surplus which is not readily marketable. I wish we could avoid the necessity for the Board selling the Board's potatoes—which they are in many cases—at £2 or £3 a ton for stock feeding. That is not an economical part of the Board's operations. I hope that the extra 10s. will be of great assistance to the Board, to the industry, and to the country as a whole.
  The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) seemed to draw a distinction between the Board and the producer, as if they were in some way at loggerheads. The Board is the producers' Board. There is a meeting every year. Directors have to be elected. The Board is the tool of the producers. There should be no conflict between the one and the other, because the Board is com-
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  posed of the elected representatives of the producers. [Interruption.] Except for people like Jack Merricks, who does not matter. I hope that the impression will not be created by the hon. Member that there is a conflict between the Board and the producers.
  The hon. Member for Enfield, East spoke about the Board not using the riddle in time. I am not prepared to say whether that was right or not. The use of the riddle is very limited. If the large riddle is used, the maximum saving in a surplus year is about half a million tons. Even with a 2-inch riddle, it is not more. At the beginning of last season they started with a 1⅞-inch riddle and soon got down to a 1½-inch one. So that there is not all that room for manoeuvre in dealing with the riddle. At most, it is half a million tons. The hon. Member exaggerates, therefore, when he suggests that the Board was wrong tactically even to take that move when it did. The two Amendments to which I have alluded, unlike many other hon. Members, will improve the administration of the Scheme and I give them my blessing.
  1.40 a.m.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: I do not want to make a speech at this time of the morning, but I wish to address a question to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who, I understand, will reply. We are dealing with Amendments to the Scheme at a time when we have an acute shortage of potatoes and people are having to pay excessive prices for them. In reading the report of the inquiry, it seemed to me that the Amendments arose primarily out of two surplus years when support buying had to take place.
  The two Amendments themselves are disincentives. Is the Minister quite satisfied that to introduce these two disincentives at this stage, arising out of two surplus years, will not mean a repetition of the present shortages and putting the consumer, as distinct from the producer, in the position of having to pay excessive prices for potatoes through famine two years out of every four?
  1.42 a.m.
  Mr. George Darling: I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has taken note of the

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  pertinent question of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin). It is one of the key points in the whole debate, which has been interesting and useful. It brings home to us how important potatoes are, not only in our economy but in our social life, too. We all eat potatoes, even those of us who ought to cut them out to help keep down our weight.
  When we are faced with a shortage, we are entitled to know the reason. In the context of this debate, we want to know whether the new powers for which the Marketing Board is asking in the Amendments to the Scheme will result in better marketing and in avoiding excessive shortages and surpluses. It is incredible to think of the prospect of potato rationing, as has been suggested in the debate, seventeen years after the end of the war. The hour is late and I shall not detain the House. I deplore the fact that we have to discuss an important matter like this at such an unreasonable and inconvenient hour; but that is the way that the business is arranged.
  My first point is intended to make sure that the House understands where we on this side stand in regard to organised agricultural marketing. The purpose of the Scheme that the Board is seeking to amend is to organise in an orderly manner the production and marketing of potatoes, and we, of course, support that aim. As has been said, if there are violent fluctuations in supplies and price, they do nobody any good, neither the farmer nor the consumer.
  The Potato Marketing Scheme has not produced steady supplies at steady, reasonable prices. The Board can argue, with some justification, that without the Board and the Scheme, with the weather that we have had recently, the shortage might have been much worse. Nevertheless, we are short of potatoes. The price has gone up in some places to over £40 a ton, three times the guaranteed price. It is still going up. Housewives are being told to switch from potatoes to rice, and fish friers are having to give their customers fewer chips a packet and to charge more for the chips, and are certainly losing money, I should think, as a result. This is what we complain about.
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  It is possible to blame the weather for the present shortage, but even the potatoes are a very chancy crop, and the weather has certainly made a difference to the yield per acre, I think it would be altogether wrong to put the whole of the blame on the weather. After all, the Board and the Ministry of Agriculture are charged under the agricultural legislation and, in particular, under the Potato Marketing Scheme with the task of providing, if they possibly can, regular supplies of potatoes in good seasons and in poor seasons, and, therefore, we want to know what has gone wrong and why we have this shortage after we have given all the powers to the Minister and to the Board to organise from home production or from abroad the supplies of potatoes which we need.
  It seems to me, as has been said—and this is the point I want to make—that the clue to our present troubles and complaints does not lie in the total acreage which the Board has laid down in its quota schemes. If the total permitted acreage had been planted I think even this season we could have grown enough potatoes to carry us through. The key to the situation lies in the 100,000 to 150,000 acres—whichever calculation we take, whether we stick to the Board's figures and leave out the people outside the Board's scheme—which were not planted potatoes last year. This is, as I say, the key to the problem. We have now reached this situation, where the Board is being forced into the paradoxical position of increasing the surcharge on additional acres which may be planted with potatoes by some farmers, while hundreds of farmers throughout the country are refusing to plant up to their quotas.
  I do not think it is altogether bad weather which has restricted that planting. I think there are two additional reasons. It seems to me that some farmers are clearly holding on to their basic quotas with no intention of planting potatoes because the quota is a valuable asset both when they sell their farms or exchange tenancies. I am not sure even with the Amendments, the additional powers which the Board is asking for, the Board will have power to cancel quotas not taken up over a reasonable period of time. I think that there is bound to be criticism of the

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  Board's levying the increased surcharge on farmers who want to grow more potatoes while nothing is done about those farmers who have no intention of using up their quotas.
  The second reason is. I think, the guaranteed price. I do not know whether the N.F.U. accepted £13 5s. a ton in the Price Review or whether this price was something which the farmers reluctantly had to take, but if £13 5s. is not a fair price—I do not pretend to know the answer to that one—then it must have deterred many farmers from planting potatoes because they would not take the risk of carrying the loss. We have to remember in all this that potatoes are the costliest of our crops. Certainly they have the highest labour costs involved in planting and harvesting. We have seen that farmers have now got to make on average about £100 an acre to cover their costs and to break even and to get a little net income.
  However, the Price Review is not the responsibility of the Board. It is the Government's responsibility, and the Government must take blame not only for the lack of inducement to the farmers to use their full permitted acreage but also for not responding earlier to the request made by merchants and others to import potatoes in increasing quantities.
  There is a case for more flexibility in arranging the quotas, as the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) has said, though I do not agree with all his proposals for getting that flexibility. If we have more flexibility we will certainly run the risk of having heavier crops and having to contend with surpluses. We ought to run those risks. We must deal with the problem of surpluses, and if we do not go in for trading at fixed prices, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) suggested, we must have the system of support buying. I think, for that reason, that the Board should have the maximum contribution per acre from its producer members raised to £3.
  The Board must have the money for support buying and for increasing research into harvesting and marketing. As the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) so rightly said, if we can find a mechanical harvester which
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  will not damage the crop and which will reduce labour costs it will be a godsend. We want more research into marketing, better quality grading, better marking of bags with an indication of origin and so on. We must also help the Board to stop farmers from growing potatoes on unsuitable land, and we must think of transport, retail and distribution costs.
  If there were time we should be discussing the siting of wholesale markets and the part played by transport costs in our present system, but the hour is late. We can legitimately criticise the Board for not realising soon enough that too many acres were not planted with potatoes this year and that the crop was too small. But the real culprit is the Government. They have let the farmers down in the Price Review in the matter of potato prices, and they have not acted soon enough on imports. But we hope that the increased powers in the Amendments to the Scheme and the debate, in focusing criticisms, observations and proposals, will enable the Board to do better in future and give us adequate supplies at reasonable prices not only for the benefit of farmers but for the benefit of housewives and of consumers generally.
  1.53 a.m.
  Mr. Soames: The debate has covered considerable ground. Its general tenor has been that on the whole the House agrees with these Amendments, though it has certain reservations about some aspects of them. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said that the Board had brought the acreage down by 100,000. This was not what the Board was seeking to do. It was seeking an acreage of about 700,000 to 720,000. Other factors intervened, as a result of which an insufficient acreage was planted this year. The hon. Member asked whether the present shortage could have been foreseen earlier. From all the information which we had available to us and the Board had available to it. it was not until the February census—
  Mr. Loughlin: On a point of order. Is it permissible for the Minister to speak twice in debate without the permission of the House?
  Mr. Speaker: In this instance the right hon. Gentleman requires leave because

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  he did not move his own Motion. If he had moved it he would not have required leave, but I have little doubt that the House will give him leave.
  Mr. Soames: I am sorry that I did not move my Motion. I wish I had. If the House will give me leave, I shall be grateful.
  The hon. Member for Workington also referred to a farming paper which last year said that large imports would be necessary. I believe that that paper was saying that the acreage was extremely small and that in all probability we should have to consider imports. But we all knew that the acreage was small. It remained to see what the yield was. It was a near thing that we would not have to import. Any assessment last year could only have been based on acreage without taking account of yield.
  The hon. Gentleman also referred to imports from the United States. We shall not import from there, because there are diseases of potatoes in the New World which we have not got here. Much as we deplore the shortage here in the remaining weeks before the earlies start coming forward, we could not agree to imports of diseased potatoes, thus putting our own crops at risk.
  Mr. Peart: I hope I did not give the impression that I supported the importation of American diseased potatoes. I merely quoted a telegram which had been mentioned in the Press. My object was to extract from the right hon. Gentleman what the policy of the Government is on imports generally. If the right hon. Gentleman will read my speech, he will see that I asked about imports in a general way.
  Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman quoted a telegram from the United States and I was answering him. I was also asked about imports from the Irish Republic. We would be glad to import potatoes from there. If they are available, there is no reason why they should not come, but I understand that they are not plentiful there either.
  My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) asked whether the existing arrangements for duties on imported potatoes, rising sharply in May from £1 a ton to just under £10 a ton, would continue this
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  year. I understand that representations have been made today or yesterday on this to the Government. They are now under consideration and my hon. Friend will not, therefore, expect me to answer now, but I can assure him that I have well taken his point. My hon. Friend also referred to contracts with Holland. No complaints have been made by the trade of any contracts having been broken. This is in spite of the fact that only today the Joint Imports Trade Committee saw officials of my Department to discuss imports in general. This point was not made by members of the Committee. If they make representations, we will listen.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The complaint was passed to me by a very wall-known merchant in London. I will pass the information on to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Soames: The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) quoted the case of a constituent who is being asked to pay what he is due to pay for having grown excess acreage over back years. I understood that the hon. Gentleman, although the was supporting the Board and the policy of planning fox the growing of potatoes, was seeking to show that his constituent should not be called upon to pay this money. But this was an excess acreage levy on a very considerable excess. It covers the years 1959 and 1960, which were both years of surplus, although whether or not there is a surplus does not affect the principle. They were, however, surplus years in which this farmer, as was his right, grew a bigger acreage of potatoes than his quota. Having done so, however, he must conform to the rule of the scheme, which is that if one grows above one's quota an excess payment must be paid. Of course, in fact this would be an early potato grower, coming as he does from Pembrokeshire. So this year's crop of potatoes will have gone long ago. But two of the years, as I have already said, were surplus years, and the Board is claiming its due.
  Mr. Donnelly: My point is that my constituent put in for an acreage allocation. This was refused for each of the years but has now been granted. Nothing has changed except the attitude of the Board. The facts remain exactly the same. If it is right for him to be

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  allowed to grow it now, it was right for him to have been allowed to grow it for this year which is a year of shortage. Any potato contribution to the overall production of the land has some effect on the number of potatoes available, even if it is early potatoes.
  Mr. Soames: I should not have thought that a farmer, taking over a farm of 240 acres with virtually no quota and who, over a comparatively short period has had his quota increased from twelve to 146 acres, has much for which to condemn the Board.
  My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) wondered if it was right to exempt the early crop and mentioned section 84 (4) of the Scheme. This is not saying that the early crop will be exempted but gives power to the Board to exempt some part of the payment for the early crop. The Board has the power to do this and, in view of the different advantages which the early crop grower has compared with the main crop producer so far as the support fund is concerned, it is therefore sensible for the Board to take this power.
  The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) asked why the acreage had fallen so much in this last year. He felt that there must be something other than the weather; but there is no doubt that the weather made it difficult for a number of farmers to get the potatoes in. At the same time we must remember that it followed two years of surplus during which the average return to producers was around £11 to £12. They were both surplus years, and the facts would have been a great deal worse had there not been the support fund. That is one of the main reasons for the amendments we are making. It is to strengthen the arrangements for the support fund. The hon. Gentleman also said that the Potato Marketing Board should itself market potatoes, but that is right outside the Scheme before us and which we are amending.
  The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) wondered if £25 was too great an increase from £10; and this thought was reflected also by other hon. Members who have spoken. The hon.
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  Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) wondered if it was not going to be too great a disincentive. If the Board is to bring about the sort of potato growing acreage which we need in an average year it must be able to impose a disincentive, as it were, on the growing of potatoes. In 1956, 790,000 acres of potatoes were grown and the yield was very high. There were over a million tons of potatoes surplus. If the acreage had been as high this year we should have been faced with a serious situation. The imposition of an excess acreage contribution of £10 has been proved to be not sufficient, and in the two years 1959 and 1960 20,000 extra acres were grown.
  It is not intended that the Board shall impose a figure of £25 an acre. In fact a figure has to be decided for next year. I do not know what the figure will be, but it will not be £25. If it appears that there will be heavy plantings the Board will have this figure of £25 in reserve, and we believe that that amount is necessary in order to put a disincentive on the growing of an excessive amount of potatoes.
  The hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) gave the figure of applications which were turned down in the last six months of 1961. That is the period when the 1960 and early 1961 crop is disposed of. In 1959–60 we had a considerable surplus. There is no shortage of basic acreage, which is well over 800,000 acres. We need only 700,000 acres. I do not think that the suggestion of the hon. Member that every farmer with a potato growing potential, so to speak, should have a minimum of fifteen acres would make much of a noise like a dividend. There are 76,000 farmers who are registered producers and a good many more who grow a small acreage and are not registered. It could well be that on the hon. Member's calculations we should get well above the required figure of 700,000 acres if there was no control over the plantings of fifteen acres per farm. That would preclude potatoes from being grown on land which is particularly suitable for growing potatoes, like the Fen district and Lincolnshire.
  Mr. Thorpe: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the point raised by

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  the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) about the position of the farmer who gets a quota and does not take it up?
  Mr. Soames: I will come to that.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) spoke about research and said there was much to be done. The Board is aware of this. It has had little money to spend on research, £35,000 a year, which is not enough. A great deal of the £350,000 which will be raised by the extra 10s. will go on research. The Board plans to set up a research station in Lincolnshire where research will be carried out into the harvesting and marketing of potatoes.
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough said that the arrangements had not produced steady prices or a steady yield of potatoes. This cannot be done. What we can do is to get as near as possible to the average over a period of years. Prices have been a lot steadier in two years of surplus and one year of shortage and in this year of shortage prices have been remarkably low until very recently. Taking the beginning of the potato year until the month of March, prices have been satisfactorily low from the consumers' point of view. All this shows how well the Board has set about its business.
  The hon. Member also said that we must not blame the weather. It is not a question of blaming the weather, but in my speech I was pointing out the big variations in the yield we have had over the last six years. This is the one crop of all crops in which there are such wide variations of yield. The hon. Member, and the hon. Member for Devon, North spoke about farmers not using their quotas so that their quotas, as it were, were wasted. The quota acreages are reviewed by the Board every three or four years, taking into consideration the acreage which has been actually grown by the farmers over previous years. If they have not taken up the quotas to the extent they could, the quotas are very considerably reduced when the new ones are fixed. There is no definite time-table, but the reviews are every three or four years.
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) said that perhaps the present shortage has been exaggerated and might not be as serious as some assume. We have all had correspondence on this matter. What is the view of the Government about the next five or six weeks, will the shortage be reduced, or will it be serious?
  Mr. Soames: It is terribly hard to forecast. I cannot tell how many potatoes there should be coming from the Continent of Europe and how much the trade may be able to obtain. I do not see the point of trying to forecast a figure which I know would not be accurate unless I were very lucky. There is no doubt that we are short of potatoes in this country. We have had a late spring and the early potatoes may be late in coming on to the market. A lot depends on supplies of potatoes from Cyprus and the amount of main crop from the Continent of Europe for which the trade is seeking. I am not trying to hide anything from the hon. Member, but it would not be wise to forecast the quantities of potatoes which will be available to consumers in the next six or eight weeks. I could not make an accurate prognosis.
  There is no doubt that the feeling of the House is that these amendments should be approved and I hope that this will now be done.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Amendments of the Potato Marketing Scheme, 1955, a draft of which Amendments was laid before this House on 28th March, be approved.

  POTATO MARKETING SCHEME (AMENDMENTS)

    PROCEDURE
    Select Committee appointed to consider any matters which may be referred to them by the House relating to the procedure in the public business of the House:

    Committee to consist of Twelve Members:

    Power to send for persons, papers, and records:

    Five to be the Quorum.—[Mr. Macleod.]

  SLUM CLEARANCE ORDER, CARDIFF
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
  2.15 a.m.
  Mr. George Thomas: I wish to raise a matter of prime importance to the City of Cardiff and one which I believe may prove to be of considerable concern to people in other parts of the land. The problem is so urgent that I cannot apologise for taking the time of the House at this hour.
  In the Riverside Ward of the Cardiff, West constituency a slum clearance area was defined on 5th March, 1962, and 115 houses have been made the subject of compulsory purchase and slum clearance orders. I understand that five of these houses have been condemned as unfit for human habitation. One of them, in Ann Street, was purchased two years ago by a man seeking to get a home for his sick and elderly mother and for his brother. He was then told that it was not in a planning area scheduled for redevelopment. In North Morgan Street—a small street which I visited at the week-end—there is an ex-Service man who three years ago was granted a mortgage of £600 to last for fifteen years. His house has already been condemned.
  According to the Press in South Wales, the South Wales Echo, in particular, the Chief Public Health Inspector in Cardiff has said that 29 of the 115 houses are fit for human habitation and that 86 of the houses which he inspected were unfit for habitation. The clearance area includes 22 owner-occupied and unfit houses, five of these on council mortgages and three of them on private mortgages. There are three fit houses in the clearance area on which the council have granted mortgages which are still outstanding, and all of these loans were granted, I believe, between May, 1955, and September, 1959. The South Wales Echo stated on Tuesday, 3rd April, that at the time the loans were made there were no proposals for slum clearance affecting them before the City Council.
  I acknowledge at once that there is a great deal of slum property in this area. Indeed, earlier in the year, in the life of
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  this Parliament, I referred to slum property in the area. By a slip of the tongue I then referred to Wells Street, which certainly ought not to have been included in the speech which I made, but in Wellington Street and adjoining streets there is property which is not fit for human occupation. I visited a house on Saturday where a terrible stench is coming from the sewerage system. I am accustomed to visiting houses in Grange-town and Canton where the houses are so damp that they are dangerous to the lives of the people concerned.
  In our great city, as in other great cities, there is a lot of private property which is not fit for human habitation but in Which people are compelled to carry on their existence. But those houses are not condemned, nor will they be unless there is a slum clearance order or unless a redevelopment area is scheduled. There is no demolition order for the people living in that other private property.
  The basis of compensation for houses included in development areas is confusing in the extreme to those concerned. First of all, there is only site value for unfit houses—nothing for the bricks and mortar. There is site value, plus a payment of up to nine times the rateable value or the amount of money spent on maintenance during the preceding five years in excess of 1½ times the rateable value, whichever is the greater, for well-maintained houses. The full market value is paid for fit houses. There is full compulsory purchase value, less site value, for houses purchased between 1st September, 1939, and 13th December, 1955, which are acquired by the local authority before 1965. I cannot understand why the amount of compensation should depend on the date that the house is bought or the date on which the local authority buys it. It is unjust to decide the compensation on the date of purchase.
  There are other serious issues that I wish to raise, and to Which I have drawn the attention of the House in a Motion on the Order Paper which has been supported by a great many of my hon. Friends. Five of the people whose houses have now been declared unfit for human occupation were three years ago granted mortgages by the Cardiff City Council. The same Council has now moved in to declare those properties unfit for human

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  habitation, which means that the residents who have the responsibility of paying the mortgage for the remainder of the period of 10 or 15 years respectively will have no compensation for the bricks and mortar of their homes and will merely get site value, probably amounting to £25. At the very least, this indicates a strange incompetence in the local government affairs of Cardiff.
  I love Cardiff too dearly to want to say harsh things about it, but I am certainly not unaware that my duty is to say harsh words about the administration of local government when it is causing such hardship and injustice to thrifty people whose only offence is that they are struggling to buy their own homes.
  I understand that the policy of the Cardiff City Council in granting mortgages is to call in the valuation officer. In this instance, four valuation officers were employed. No doubt, they were professionally qualified people, and on their advice the corporation gave the mortgages for 10 and 15 years respectively. But it is also the policy of the authority, when granting a mortgage, always to grant it for 10 years less than the expected life of the building. That means that the authority must have been guided by its valuation officers to believe that the life of these houses would be 20 and 25 years respectively.
  I am creditably informed that the public health inspector is not called in when the local authority is considering the giving of a mortgage, but that the authority is concerned only with the verdict of the valuation officers. If that is so, as I believe, it is a very gross example of a lack of liaison between local government departments.
  Some people say that it is wrong to object to the granting of mortgages on the basis of the valuation officer alone because it might prevent the corporation from giving mortgages on these old properties. I believe that it would be far better not to give a mortgage on a property which any health inspector could have said he would be likely to condemn in three to five years. I saw a house on Saturday which is far in excess of advantage to some other properties that have not been condemned in the City of Cardiff.
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  I wonder what redress is open to my constituents who have been put in a position of owing a debt for a property which will be non-existent? These are people who had the right to believe that they were dealing with an honourable negotiator. When any solicitor in Cardiofl has a client seeking to buy a house he must go to the local authority and say, "Is this in a slum clearance area?" Apparently the authority, on the other hand, does not have to go to its health inspector and say, "Is this house to be condemned as unfit for occupation?"
  Before he grants permission for the slum clearance order to be operated in this ward, will the Minister hold a public inquiry at which the facts concerning the granting of these mortgages can be brought to light? Can he hold out any hope to those whose houses are stated to be well maintained or in a fit condition that they will have a more adequate basis of compensation than now seems possible under the terms of the 1957 Act? I realise that that was an improvement on what went before, but with the cost of property rocketing it is unreasonable to destroy a well maintained house without giving the owner-occupier an opportunity of sufficient reward so that he can buy a house in another part of the city.
  Will the Minister give an indication of the policy of Her Majesty's Government concerning those who have obtained their mortgages not from private societies but from local authorities, for I believe that there is something immoral and deeply wrong about a local authority granting mortgages for a period of years and then, three years later, itself condemning the house on which it granted the mortgage but expecting the payments to be continued? It offends our sense of fair play, and although the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs told me in a Written Reply today that the question of compensation is not one for him but for other people, the local authorities concerned or the Lands Tribunal, I hope that we shall have from the Treasury spokesman tonight a warning to local authorities throughout the land that this sort of treatment of people buying old property will not be tolerated.

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  It is unjust. It may be the result of an accident. But these folk, unless there is intervention, will have to carry a burden for ten years which will be a burden that rankles in the breast of everyone in Cardiff.
  2.34 a.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): I quite understand why the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) has raised this matter tonight. It is a highly controversial local issue and both he and his constituents can be sure that my right hon. Friend has been alerted to the strength of feeling that has been aroused. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West has seen to that, aided by the Western Mail and the South Wales Echo, to which he has referred.
  My difficulty tonight—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate the position—is that it is not possible for me to comment in any detail on the particular case with which he is concerned. As I understand the position, Cardiff City Council has been preparing a slum clearance scheme for the area in question—particularly the Wellington Street-Cambridge Road area—for some time. It was, however, only last Monday, 9th April, that the council formally declared a clearance area and resolved to proceed by way of compulsory purchase order. At the moment, therefore, there is nothing before my right hon. Friend and the order has not yet been submitted for confirmation. Until the order is confirmed by my right hon. Friend it is of no effect.
  I think that what the hon. Gentleman wanted was an assurance that before the order was confirmed there would be a public inquiry. I think that I can, in the circumstances of this particular case, and in the light of the feeling which we know has already been aroused, give an assurance that there is no question of my right hon. Friend confirming this order without a public inquiry.
  Mr. G. Thomas: I am very much obliged.
  Mr. Rippon: Thus every opportunity will be given to those who feel strongly
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  about the proposal to put their views to the inspector at the inquiry. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend will take fully into account all the representations which may be made to him before any decision is taken.
  At this stage I clearly cannot comment on all the issues involved because my right hon. Friend in dealing with the order must act in a quasi-judicial capacity. There are all sorts of matters which have to be considered when such an order is inquired into. Quite apart from its general merits, it may be argued that even if it is confirmed, certain properties should be excluded altogether, and of those (that are included there may be disputes as to the reason for their inclusion, which is a matter which may well affect the amount of compensation ultimately payable in relation to each particular property. I know what the hon. Gentleman said about many people being confused about the basis of compensation. Therefore, I may say a word about that aspect of the matter.
  When a council has declared a clearance area under Section 42 of the Housing Act, 1957, there are three types of property which may be included in the compulsory purchase order—first, houses unfit for human habitation; secondly, properties within the clearance area which are so congested—in the words of the Act, "badly arranged"—as to be prejudicial and dangerous to health; and thirdly, properties which are encircled by or adjoining the clearance area which need to be demolished in order to allow the satisfactory redevelopment of the cleared area as a whole.
  The basis of compensation in the last two categories that I mentioned—the badly arranged properties and the properties outside the clearance area which need to be included for satisfactory redevelopment, those which are often called grey land—is the market value of the property taking into account assumptions about planning permission provided for in the Lands Compensation Act, 1961. It is only in the case of those houses which are ultimately declared to be included in the order because they are classified as unfit, often known as the pink land, that the owners are compensated under Section 59 of the 1957 Act, on the basis broadly of current market cleared site value plus what they may

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  get by way of well maintained allowance if that is appropriate under Section 60 of the 1957 Act.
  There are also the special provisions of the Slum Clearance (Compensation) Act, 1956, now incorporated in Part II of the Second Schedule to the 1957 Act, which were passed to avoid the severe hardship to persons who purchased in the period of extensive shortage between 1st September, 1939 and 13th December, 1955, and who could not then foresee the slum clearance drive which has now been initiated. There are other provisions dealing with business premises, which I shall not go into tonight.
  Whatever the basis of the compensation payable in these particular cases—and here the hon. Gentleman was right—determination of the amount is not a matter for my right hon. Friend. In the ordinary course of events, it is for agreement with the acquiring authority. If agreement cannot be reached, either party can refer the matter to the Lands Tribunal, which is the statutory body given the responsibility of determining disputes about compensation.
  I would only add—this may be important in many other cases—that professional fees reasonably incurred in preparing a claim for compensation may be added to any compensation paid, other than a payment for good maintenance. I should like to emphasise this point because, although it is stated in the notices sent to every owner, people do not always realise that they are entitled to some professional help in formulating their claims.
  Now perhaps I should say something about the point made by the hon. Member about the policy of the Government and the position of the law in relation to outstanding mortgages on compulsory acquisition. In determining the compensation payable, there is no provision under the law as it now stands for giving special treatment to persons who are still paying off mortgages. I cannot tonight go into the question of amending legislation, but there are clearly difficulties, which I am sure the hon. Member appreciates, in treating owners who happen to be in the course of paying off mortgages more generously than those who have bought their property outright. Moreover, where there is a mortgage it makes no difference to the owner's pocket
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  whether the mortgagor is a local authority, a building society, a bank or a private individual.
  However, it is obviously a fact that, where the money is borrowed from the local authority which is the acquiring authority, this may cause, to say the least, some embarrassment, but I do not think I could go further than saying that in general—I cannot comment on the particular case, because I do not know the circumstances—one would expect a local authority to be careful about advancing money on property that may be included in a slum clearance scheme. It is very difficult to generalise about these matters. Difficulties may well arise whenever circumstances lead to a change in the order in which areas are selected for slum clearance or to an acceleration in the rate of clearance. I can well envisage circumstances in which a local authority would not know at the time it made a grant how its programme might develop.
  It should also be borne in mind that there may well be circumstances—I do not suggest that this applies in Cardiff—in which people who buy properties which may be included in slum clearance areas in the future do so with their eyes open. In effect, they take a chance. First, the price may be quite low and may be regarded as a better bet than paying rent over a period of years. They may well hope for an occupation of ten or fifteen years, but even if the gamble that the house will not be demolished for such a period does not come off they then place reliance on the responsibility which falls on the local authority to re-house the people affected by the scheme. They may feel in all the circumstances that it is a fair bargain and a fair chance, and they take it knowing full well what they are doing.
  As I have said, I cannot say how, if at all, the considerations which I have dealt with tonight affect the particular case which may come before my right hon. Friend. I can only reiterate that there will be a public inquiry if the order, as one assumes, comes to my right hon. Friend for confirmation. Such an inquiry would afford the proper opportunity to hear and to weigh all the arguments of the kind that the hon. Member has dealt with.
  Mr. G. Thomas: Can the Minister say whether there is any hope at all for

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  people whose mortgages are still outstanding, since, I understand, the auditor could come upon the local authority if it overlooked the money that was due?
  Mr. Rippon: There is no provision in the existing law for additional compensation to be paid to people who have a mortgage outstanding. They can be in no better position than those who have paid off their mortgages. There might be circumstances in which a local authority might write off a debt on the
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  ground that it is not recoverable. In ordinary circumstances, however, where it clearly could be recoverable, where it might be thought that the local authority had a duty to recover public money which had been lent, the authority might be in difficulty with the auditor. Again, however, I should not like to pronounce upon a specific case.
  Mr. G. Thomas: I thank the Minister.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Three o'clock a.m.