Commons Sitting of 22 July 1963

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Uneconomic Agricultural Holdings
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will seek to introduce a scheme to give financial inducements for the amalgamation of uneconomic holdings.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames):The Agriculture Act, 1957 already provides for grants towards the costs of creating economic units out of uneconomic parcels of land. But I have the problem under review.
    Mr. Digby:Will my right hon. Friend appreciate that this is one of the great problems of the future in farming? Although I know that the process is taking place gradually, is there not a lot to be said for accelerating it? May that not be best in the interests of all concerned?
    Mr. Soames: This problem is experienced not only in this country but in all developed countries. My hon. Friend may or may not know that in the last ten years, from 1952 to 1962, there has been a reduction of no less than 12 per cent. in the number of holdings, and there has been an increase of about the same amount in holdings of over 300 acres.

    Blue Tongue Disease
    Sir A. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking on the recommendation of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth, the text of which has
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    been sent to him, that the veterinary authorities in Britain should co-operate fully in promoting research into the blue tongue disease of cattle and sheep, even though it is unknown in Britain, and seek to devise in consultation with the veterinary authorities in Australia tests and quarantine safeguards which will again allow pedigree stock to be shipped freely from this country to Australia.
    Mr. Soames:The recommendation of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth was brought to the notice of the Agricultural Research Council which has agreed to ask the Director of the Animal Virus Diseases Research Institute at Pirbright to initiate research on blue tongue disease when resources permit. My veterinary advisers have frequent discussions with the Australians on this problem and they are drawing their attention to the recommendation and inviting their co-operation on it.
    Sir A. Hurd:Is my right hon. Friend aware that the action he has taken will give great satisfaction to stockbreeders in this country and also to many in Australia, who are anxiously awaiting the day when they will again be allowed to import pure-bred stock from this country, because they are feeling the need of a fresh infusion of blood?
    Mr. Soames: I am glad to hear my hon. Friend's assertion that that is so, and also to know the part that he himself played in the recommendations made by the Royal Agricultural Society.

    Grain
    Mr. Hoosonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to intervene in the grain market this year in order to stabilise prices and minimise the subsidy bill; and whether he will introduce immediately a minimum import price for barley and wheat.
    Mr. Soames: Since the necessary consultations with the Governments of our overseas suppliers, parallel to those which we are having with the farmers' and trade organisations here at home, were plainly going to need some time, there was never any question of putting our proposed new import arrangements into operation for this harvest. In the

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    meantime we shall maintain close contact with our principal overseas suppliers, seeking their co-operation with us in maintaining a stable market.
    Mr. Hooson: In view of the estimated yield in the barley crop of at least 6 million tons this year, does not the right hon. Gentleman think it is necessary to intervene, or is he going to wait till next year before putting, so to speak, a bottom into the market?
    Mr. Soames: When I made my statement to the House on 22nd May I said that we needed to go through a process of consultation. We are endeavouring to reach agreement with our overseas suppliers in order to bring this about. As I say, this will not be possible in time for this harvest. We hope to have it completed in time for the next harvest—that is the programme we have in mind—and in the meantime we are resting on the arrangements that we already have.
    Mr. Prior:Will my right hon. Friend do all he can to publicise the working party agreed prices so that farmers may make a big effort to get the working party price and not undercut their own market by selling at a lower price, thus adding to the subsidy bill in the coming year?
    Mr. Soames: I am glad my hon. Friend has mentioned this. In fact, I put out a Press statement and made a speech on those lines early last week.

    Milk
    Mr Websterasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce a new grade of quality milk.
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the proposed introduction of a new milk grade.
    Mr. Soames:It is the function of the Milk Marketing Board, as the marketing authority, to put forward proposals for a new grade of milk, after consulting the dairymen in Joint Committee. We have been having discussions with the Milk Marketing Board about their proposals, but I do not believe that the House would accept from me an Order permitting the sale of a new grade of milk to consumers
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    at a price higher than normal, unless it was to be significantly and recognisably different from ordinary milk, and its higher quality could readily be checked.
    Mr. Webster:Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a highly complex problem involving the relative merits of a fixed-quality top grade, or a floating-quality top grade, and that in some cases some distributors do not wish to distribute this, but that it is vital to proceed with this system, and we hope that it will be successful?
    Mr. Soames: It is a question of whether we can first of all devise arrangements to satisfy the conditions which I, and I believe my hon. Friend, regard as necessary.
    Mr. Peart:Discussions have been going on now for nearly two years. When will the Minister make up his mind? Is not he aware that the Milk Marketing Board is not hostile to a new quality grade and neither are the producers? What is the delay?
    Mr. Soames:As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, this has been talked about for a long time now, but it was not until February of this year that specific proposals were put forward by the Milk Marketing Board, and the Board was advised of our comments during the first week of April. Discussions are continuing.
    Sir A. V. Harvey:As the dairy industry is now functioning without a subsidy, why does my right hon. Friend have to come into it at all? Cannot he leave it to those concerned to work out their own future?
    Mr. Soames:If my hon. Friend means by that that he thinks that we should stop controlling the price of milk, I must remind him that, since the Milk Marketing Board is the only seller of milk in this country, it is a protection to the consumer which we should not lightly abandon.
    Mr. Peart:The Minister said that negotiations are going on. Can he tell the House when these negotiations are likely to be completed so that he may make a really positive announcement?
    Mr. Soames: It is not a matter of negotiations. I do not think that I used that word.
    Mr. Peart: Discussions.
    Mr. Soames:I said that the Milk Marketing Board put forward specific proposals in February and we told the Board in April of the difficulties which we saw in those proposals. We are still in discussion about whether they can be altered in order to meet the need. I could not give an estimate of when the discussions may be concluded.
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will consider means whereby the income of the small milk producer can be increased to a level commensurate with the capital and labour employed.
    Mr. Soames:The Government increased the guaranteed price for milk by ½d. a gallon at the Price Review, and the standard quantity on which it is paid was also raised, reflecting increased liquid consumption. The chairman of the Milk Marketing Board is reported to have said that the pool price to producers is likely to be at least 1d. a gallon more this year than last. Over the year, this would give a substantial increase in the return to producers, and indicates that the balance between production and consumption is now improving.
    Mr. Browne: This, of course, is because so many small farmers have been driven out of milk. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, over the past several years, the pool price per gallon of milk has gone down and that, in spite of the farmers' increased efficiency, costs have risen faster than their efficiency? Does he really think that the very small increase which was given this year in the Price Review is adequate to ensure that these small farmers remain in business?
    Mr. Soames:As my hon. Friend knows, the reason why the pool price has been reduced has nothing to do with the guaranteed price but arises from the amount of milk which was being produced over and above that which was required for the liquid market. It is this which has been getting out of balance and has led to the reduction of the pool price to the producer. It was for this reason, not wanting to start the vicious spiral again, that we put on just the ½d. at the Review. In fact, things are going very much as we foresaw at the time, with the happy result that, as I have said, the Milk
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    Marketing Board will be able to give an increase of at least 1d. on the pool price this year, an outcome which is, perhaps, more satisfactory than my hon. Friend might have thought at the time.
    Sir H. Studholmeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the movement of retail milk prices, in relation to the cost of living, over the last three years.
    Mr. Soames:Since 1960 the average price of milk has risen slightly less than the cost of living generally. Comparing the first six months of this year with the first half of 1960, the rise is 8½ per cent. for milk and 10 per cent. for the cost of living.
    Sir H. Studholme: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is correct or not, as I have heard stated, that we are getting a better price for our milk in this country than any other European country, except Sweden?
    Mr. Soames:It is difficult to assess this because of the service which is given as well as the actual providing of the milk—the service of delivery on a door-to-door basis which we enjoy in this country which very few other countries have. Certainly the price of milk in this country is as high as any in Europe.
    Hon. Members: No.

    Swine Fever
    Mr. Priorasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the cost of the swine fever compensation scheme to date; how many pigs have been slaughtered; and how the number of outbreaks compares with previous years.
    Mr. Bullardasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the sum paid in compensation to pig owners for animals slaughtered in connection with outbreaks of swine fever from the inception of the scheme to date; and in how many cases compensation has been paid twice for successive outbreaks.
    Mr. Soames: From 11th March, when the slaughter policy for swine fever was introduced, to 15th July, approximately 164,000 pigs had been slaughtered. Compensation is estimated at £1·8 million to date in

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    the current financial year, plus £325,000 paid in 1962–63. The number of herds slaughtered in this period was 802, including 169 in which disease had been confirmed before 11th March. The 633 outbreaks confirmed since 11th March compares with 635 outbreaks in 1962 and an average of 498 for the past five years. There have been 16 cases in which disease has been confirmed a second time on the same premises.
    Mr. Bullard:These are very large figures indeed both of the number of herds and of the amounts paid. Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the scheme will result in the elimination of swine fever if pursued far enough, and has he got the rules right about restocking? It seems that some of the restocking in premises which have been infected is rather quick. Do not the alarming number of second cases where compensation has been paid seem to indicate that something is a little wrong? Further, is not my right hon. Friend providing an insurance which the scheme was not intended to provide? Some owners of herds keep very large numbers together in one place. Does it not appear, very often, that there is a risk in the holding of such large numbers which normally would be carried by the private owner but which my right hon. Friend is tending to carry under this scheme?
    Mr. Soames: We were expecting a large incidence of the disease because it was rife at the time when we introduced the policy. In fact, the weekly incidence has come down from between 50 to 60 in the opening stages of the scheme and it is now running at about 20 to 30. This is a considerable improvement. We always expected that it would be high, as it always is when we start a slaughter policy.
    My hon. Friend, asks whether I am satisfied that the scheme will succeed. I think that there is an excellent chance that it will, and it is something well worth trying. As regards the disease coming again in 16 herds, I do not think that this is a very high proportion out of 635. Restocking is not permitted until 14 days after the completion of disinfection. In fact, experimental work has shown that, even without disinfection, the swine fever virus does not survive for more than about 10 days. I have questioned this and I am assured by my veterinary
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    experts that there is no question of a recrudescence of the same disease taking place in any of these herds.

    Fowl Plague
    Mr. Bullardasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many outbreaks of fowl plague have occurred in the present year; and whether he will give information about the source of infection concerned in recent cases of the disease.
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what types of bird have been affected by the recent outbreak of fowl plague in Norfolk; how many of each type have been slaughtered; what sums have been paid in compensation for each type; and how many firms or persons have received compensation.
    Mr. Hiltonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps have been taken by his Department to trace the origin of the two recent outbreaks of fowl plague in Norfolk; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hiltonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much compensation was paid in each of the two recent outbreaks of fowl plague in Norfolk.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): Two outbreaks of fowl plague have been confirmed this year. Only turkeys were affected, and 31,820 were slaughtered. In addition, 44,631 eggs were destroyed, and 300 fowls and 23 other birds considered to be at risk were slaughtered. Eleven owners were involved altogether. Compensation is estimated at £160,000, but the Ministry's valuations have been disputed in some cases and may be referred to arbitration. Our veterinary staff have carried out a great many investigations into the outbreaks, including the inspection of all stock in the neighbourhood; the inspection of stock belonging to the owners' employees; the inspection of stock held elsewhere by the same owner, and investigations at his slaughtering plant; the tracing of visitors to the owner's premises; inquiries at veterinary laboratories which investigated disease on the premises before fowl plague was confirmed; the

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    investigation of deaths of rooks in the area; and the blood sampling of wild birds at two bird sanctuaries.
    Despite these investigations, it has been impossible to establish the origin of the first outbreak. The second outbreak was connected with the first through the movement of persons and equipment between the two premises before the first outbreak was confirmed.
    Mr. Hayman:Will the Department go very seriously into the incidence of these outbreaks of fowl plague occurring, apparently, on the same farm at which fowl pest occurred previously and, moreover, occurring there after compensation for fowl pest was stopped? Will the hon. Gentleman realise that there is considerable uneasiness throughout the farming world about the high cost of these outbreaks?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I hoped that the House would realise how seriously we view these outbreaks having regard to the action taken and investigations pursued by the Ministry. Researches have gone on and are continuing. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking every precaution to find the means by which the outbreak occurred and to prevent any recurrence.
    Mr. Bullard:Is there a definite and absolute distinction in the clinical and other symptoms between this disease and fowl pest? I mean an absolute distinction, not one that is a matter of judgment on the part of the expert. Further, is my hon. Friend quite sure that this disease must stay on the list of diseases for which there is slaughter after attacks, in view of the enormous amount of trouble caused among poultry keepers by the fowl pest scheme which we had earlier and which we have now abandoned?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:The two viruses, the virus of the Newcastle disease of fowl pest and that of the per-acute form of fowl plague, are completely separate. The vaccine for fowl pest is not effective at all against fowl plague. The present arrangement must continue because this is an extremely acute form of disease with a very high mortality rate, and I think that the only method of controlling it is that practised at present, namely, slaughter.

    Apples and Pears
    Mr. Priorasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consultations he is having with the National Farmers' Union with regard to the introduction of minimum grades for apples and pears, following the decision by Home Grown Fruits to introduce minimum grades from the commencement of the season.
    Mr. Soames: I am at present considering suggestions put forward by the National Farmers' Union for a minimum grade scheme for apples and pears.

    Farm Incomes
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the percentage change in the net farm income of the United Kingdom between 1957 and 1962, using 1957 as the base year, as adjusted for normal weather conditions; and if he will give the figure when adjusted to take account in the change in purchasing power between the two dates.
    Mr. Soames:These figures are not available for calendar years, but figures for the crop years covering 1957 and 1962 show an increase of 13 per cent., or about 2 per cent. after adjustment for the change in purchasing power.
    Mr. Browne:This figure is low. Bearing that in mind, is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the farmer whose capital is at considerable risk compared with many other businesses is getting a fair return on his capital and management employed?
    Mr. Soames:This is a problem which, as my hon. Friend knows, is not confined to this country. The relationship between farm income and the income of the rest of the economy, in a rising standard of living, with people devoting a higher proportion of their earnings to goods other than food, is bound to make difficult the achievement of what we would all like to see, not only here but in all industrial countries. However, the relationship between farm income in this country and that of the rest of the economy compared with the same relationship in other countries has fared well under our system of support.
    Mr. Prior: Is not it rather dangerous to take specific years such as 1957? Could my right hon. Friend say what would happen if he took 1956 or 1958?
    Mr. Soames:The figure would be much better from the point of view of farm income if the year 1958 were taken. One can take specific years and make what one will of them.

    Foodstuffs (Preservatives and Pesticides)
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the effects on health of the Preservatives in Food Regulations, 1962; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Yes, Sir. The Regulations lay down what preservatives may be used in what foods, and up to what amounts. We are satisfied that this is the right way to control the use of preservatives and that the uses which are permitted present no hazard to health.
    Mrs. Butler: Since the Minister has had to introduce special regulations to deal with the hazards to health of antibiotics in milk, can he say what study is being made of the effects on health of antibiotics used in ice to preserve fish, particularly in view of the claim of the industry that most of the residue of antibiotics in fish is destroyed in cooking?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:I note what the hon. Lady says, but all regulations on food additives are reviewed periodically by the Food Standards Committee. If any doubt were cast on them by the Committee, I would take immediate action on what it suggested.
    Mr. Darling:Is the Parliamentary Secretary satisfied that the Food Standards Committee is able to work quickly enough and on a big enough scale in these matters? Is it not time that the working of the Food Standards Committee itself, which has been very satisfactory indeed, should be reviewed to see whether it can work more speedily?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: One always wants these committees to work as quickly as they can, but this Committee is working reasonably rapidly. The sub-committee is examining special items. On the whole, I think these committees are working with reasonable efficiency.
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to receive the report of the panel under the chairmanship of Dr. Barnell inquiring into residues of pesticides in foodstuffs.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:This is a panel of the Scientific Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances and it hopes to submit its initial findings to the sub-committee in the autumn.
    Mrs. Butler:Why was no mention made of this survey when the Parliamentary Secretary replied to my Questions on 1st April and 6th May on this subject? In view of the fact that the survey paid particular attention to residues of chlorinated hydrocarbons, including D.D.T., in foodstuffs and their effect on health, does the hon. Gentleman propose to issue any warning to gardeners and farmers to treat with caution the Ministry's advice and approval of these chemicals until the report of the panel is received?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:I think we should wait until the panel has reported and have seen its recommendations. In fact, I referred to this when I spoke in the Adjournment debate on this subject.

    National Apprenticeship Scheme
    Mr. Prenticeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to encourage more recruits to agriculture to undertake training in the National Apprenticeship Scheme.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The Agricultural Apprenticeship Scheme in England and Wales is the industry's own scheme, but it has the Government's full active support. All Ministry officers, particularly those whose duties bring them into contact with farmers, are instructed to take every opportunity to spreading knowledge of this scheme among suitable farmers and farm workers. In addition, secretarial and other help, such as the selection of candidates and farmers, is given to the committees who are responsible under the central Apprenticeship Council for the operation and furtherance of the scheme in the counties. Since the revision of the scheme in 1961, the industry has

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    been showing an increasing appreciation of its value.
    Mr. Prentice:Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, although this increasing appreciation is to be welcomed, it is still unsatisfactory that only about 3 per cent. of recruits to agriculture go through this scheme whereas in industry generally about 40 per cent. of the recruits undergo some form of apprenticeship or organised training? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the way in which it is being applied is very uneven throughout the country? For example, in Bedfordshire 25 per cent. of the recruits are going into it and in other counties none at all. Could the hon. Gentleman's officials pay particular attention to those counties which have not made a start this year?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I agree that this is slow in starting, but there are special difficulties in agriculture. The National Farmers' Union and the National Union of Agricultural Workers are paying particular attention to and showing a keen interest in this new scheme, and the Government's proposals in the White Paper on Industrial Training have particular relevance to this. However, in some areas where there are many small farms, it is difficult to get going, to find suitable farmers and to release farm workers to participate in these schemes.
    Mr. Hilton:Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that in Norfolk and other agricultural counties of importance very few youngsters are in the National Apprenticeship Scheme? In these areas there is little other employment for youngsters. The reason that young people are not prepared to tie themselves to the agricultural industry is that they can see no future in it. Since the hon. Gentleman reminds us that this scheme has the Government's support—and I agree that it is a good scheme; I wish that more youngsters would participate in it—may I ask what practical steps the Government propose to take to make agriculture more attractive in order to get youngsters into it?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As I have indicated, I am as anxious as the hon. Gentleman to see more apprentices coming into the scheme. It is up to the industry itself to help and to enthuse young people going into it to take this course. I think
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    that the Government's proposals in the White Paper will help in this respect.

    Abattoir, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
    Mr. Popplewellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he hopes to approve the plans for the new public abattoir for Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and if he will expedite his decision.
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the reasons for the delay in the provision of a new public abattoir for Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: A great deal of preparatory work and consultation is necessary before a project of this kind can be put in hand, and I understand that town planning considerations have added to the council's difficulties. The council will have received by now my right hon. Friend's approval in principle of its sketch plans for loan sanction purposes. I know that it shares our view about the urgency of the situation.
    Mr. Popplewell:There is real urgency about this scheme. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that, owing to no land being available within the City of Newcastle, slum property has had to be condemned, people rehoused and the slums pulled down before sites and proposals could be submitted to him? Now that the hon. Gentleman has received the proposals, could he ensure that no avoidable delay takes place in his Department before approval is given to the scheme which is so urgently required within the City?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I will certainly give that assurance. We will do everything we can to help. As I say, we have already given loan sanction to the outline scheme. I am informed that the council hopes to have a contract for work to start in 1964. The council is well seized of the urgency of this scheme.
    Mr. Montgomery: Is my hon. Friend aware of the great public concern in Newcastle about this matter? I think that he will confirm that this scheme has been mooted since 1958 and that, in fact, exploratory talks took place between the Minister and the corporation in June, 1960, which is over three years ago. May

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    we know why this delay has taken place? Is it the fault of the Ministry or the fault of the city council?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:It is certainly not our fault. We have done everything we can to hurry this on. However, when one talks in terms of such an enormous scheme as this, obviously one must be certain—and, indeed, the council must be certain—that one is meeting the needs of the area and not wasting money. I assure my hon. Friend that the council and I fully realise the urgency of the scheme and are doing everything we can to expedite its completion.

    Meat Inspectors
    Mr. Bossomasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps the Government are taking to ensure that there is an adequate supply of qualified meat inspectors, in view of the fact that he is arranging for a 100 per cent. meat inspection.
    Mr. Soames:Local authorities are responsible for providing the inspectors for meat inspection. But the special provisions covering the first two years of the new arrangements, to which I referred in my reply on 15th July, will allow meat to be taken away if it has not been inspected after six hours. Local authorities will have to notify us each time this, is likely to happen, and we shall then be able to offer the services of one of our veterinary officers, wherever possible. We shall also in this way get to know of any problems, so that we can co-operate in solving them.
    Mr. Bossom: To help overworked meat inspectors of small local authorities, can my right hon. Friend look into the possibility of limiting the hours of slaughtering to set times?
    Mr. Soames:We have already considered that. This suggestion was mooted during our discussions with both local authorities and the trade and we reached the conclusion that to do that would interfere too much with the traditional trade.
    Mr. C. Royle:Can the Minister give an assurance that his new regulations will produce 100 per cent. inspection?
    Mr. Soames:That is the aim, which, I know, is shared by the trade as much
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    as by us. I am convinced that unless we have regulations of this sort, we shall never reach a figure of 100 per cent. I believe that we have got to have this two years' delay, but I expect to see considerable improvement on the figure of 90 per cent. shortly after the regulations come into effect. It is our hope that at the end of the two years we shall have 100 per cent. inspection.

    Meat Prices
    Mr. C. Royleasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he proposes to take in respect of home and imported supplies, as a result of the increase in wholesale meat prices in recent weeks.
    Mr. Soames:The only meat to show any significant rise in price in recent weeks has been beef. Wholesale beef prices have now recovered from the exceptionally low levels reached in April, but are still only about the same level as at this time last year. I see no need for any steps to be taken at present, but I can assure the hon. Member that I am keeping the market situation under constant review.
    Mr. Royle: Is it not logical that if restrictions on imports are imposed when prices go down the restrictions should be lifted when prices move the other way? Does not all this show that the deficiency payments scheme is not much good? When will the Verdon Smith Committee report?
    Mr. Soames: I disagree profoundly with what the hon. Member has said about the deficiency payments schemes. What we have done is to ensure that meat is at the same sort of reasonable price as it was during 1962, which was lower than anywhere else in Europe and below the guaranteed price to our farmers. But for the arrangements which we made with the Argentine earlier in the year, I believe that we would have faced—which, I am now hopeful, we need not have to face—a considerable Supplementary Estimate, as happened two years ago, which, I am sure, the hon. Member would not welcome any more than we would.
    Mr. Royle: When will the Verdon Smith Committee report?
    Mr. Soames: I hope in the autumn.

    Papain
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what evidence he has that papa in has a harmful effect on meat.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:None, Sir. Papain has been used for many years both in food and in medicine and there is nothing to suggest that it is harmful.

    Tenderised Meat
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make regulations to ensure that meat, artificially tenderised by pre-slaughter injections, is specifically labelled as such in the shops.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:My right hon. Friend has asked the Food Standards Committee, which is now engaged on a general review of the labelling of food, to consider whether any such special labelling should be made compulsory.
    Mr. Farr: In thanking by hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to bear in mind that a housewife who wants to buy prime steak should be provided with the proper article and not an artificially doctored substitute which is sold as such?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am informed that the use of the item in question does not change the appearance of the meat. It only makes it more tender. We are referring the whole question to the Committee to see whether special labelling should be used for this process.
    Mrs. Slater: Does the hon. Gentleman really mean what he says, that it does not matter as long as it looks the same? Is not the whole purpose that the house wife should know how and with what substance the meat has been treated? If she is paying 5s. 6d. or 6s. per lb., should she not get the genuine article?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As I have said, the firm concerned is anxious that this item should be labelled, and I have referred the matter to the Committee to see whether labelling should be made compulsory. The application of this item does not change the appearance or flavour of the meat; it only makes it more tender. There is no question of inferior meat being sold as Aberdeen Angus because of this process.
    Mr. Darling: If the Minister is so certain of the consequences of this process, why has it been referred to the Food Standards Committee? How often does that Committee meet to deal with problems of this kind, and how many references have been made to it?
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins:I have said that I am certain that the process does not affect the flavour or the look of the meat. The reason why it has been referred to the Committee is to consider whether labelling should be made compulsory. I have said that the firm which is marketing the process wishes this to be done in any event.

    Foot-and-Mouth Disease
    Sir A. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have occurred in Great Britain since July, 1962.
    Mr. Soames:None, Sir. The last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Wales was in June, 1962; in England in March, 1962, and in Scotland in February, 1961.
    Sir A. Hurd:To what causes does my right hon. Friend attribute this very satisfactory clean bill of health for twelve months? In the past, we have had reason to believe that infection has come from the Continent of Europe and from the Argentine. Has my right hon. Friend any evidence that Continental countries are tightening up their arrangements and clearing themselves of foot-and-mouth disease and that the Argentine is observing more closely the rules which we require to be applied as health safeguards to meat which is sent to this country?
    Mr. Soames:There are three major factors in the improvement. The first is our own slaughter policy, to which we have held throughout. The second is improved control of foot-and-mouth disease in the Argentine, the banning of pig meat and offal from South America and the close control which is exercised by those countries over meat exported to this country. In addition, all neighbouring European countries now also have a slaughter policy and this, supported by the vaccination which they also carry out, has greatly reduced the incidence of disease on the Continent and, therefore, the danger of its being transmitted here.
    Mr. Peart: Although the position is satisfactory, may I ask the Minister not to be complacent, despite the supplementary question by his hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd)? We must still maintain vigilance.
    Mr. Soames: Of course, we are vigilant and the slaughter policy continues. I hope that I am not tempting Providence if I say that this is the first time since 1918 that Great Britain has been free from the disease for more than twelve months.

    Plant Breeders' Rights (Convention)
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he proposes to implement the Convention on Plant Breeders' Rights.
    Mr. Soames: Before ratifying their signature of the Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, Her Majesty's Government must, of course, be in a position to apply its provisions to a minimum number of plant species, and this cannot be done until a system of plant breeders' rights has been established in this country. As the House will be aware, legislation for this purpose is in preparation.
    Mr. Peart: Can the Minister give any indication when this legislation will come? Will it be in the autumn, or when?
    Mr. Soames:I do not think that the hon. Member would like me to speculate at the end of one Session what the legislation is likely to be in the next Session.
    Mr. Farr: May I remind my right horn. Friend that it is about three years since the Engholm Committee originally reported? Was his attention drawn to a report in the Press last weekend of an annual meeting of a plant breeding firm, at which the managing director said that it was impossible to continue with research on new varieties until such time as we had policies on the lines envisaged?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, I am well aware of both those facts. I am also aware that this House has dealt with a good deal of legislation in the past few years, much of which has come from my Department.

    Potatoes
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why representatives of the Cornish potato growers were not consulted before the extension of the closing dates for French new potatoes from 15th to 30th June was granted.
    Mr. Soames:I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) on 4th July.
    Mr. Hayman: I have read the reply to which the Minister has referred, but I have in my hand a letter from a leading Cornish farmer, who is respected by everybody in the farming world in Cornwall, who states that
    "The extension of the French date was done without the…growers' representatives being consulted."
    Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the early potato crop in Cornwall, particularly in my constituency, was planted long before this decision was reached and that following a winter which was so cold that the broccoli crop was almost irretrievably lost, considerable losses have been caused to small farmers? Will the Minister ensure that in future the growers' representatives are consulted before such a disastrous decision is taken?
    Mr. Soames: If the hon. Gentleman has read the Answer to which I referred—as he says hehas—he will have seen that this is purely a matter of plant health. Potatoes can be kept out only if there is a risk of plant health disease being brought in. The protection which early-potato growers enjoy in this country is in the month of June and they are protected by a tariff to the tune of £9 and some shillings a ton. Over and above this there is plant health protection. This year, according to the advice I received from experts, there was no plant health risk in bringing in potatoes from France, but there was a plant health risk in bringing them from Italy, or a large area of Italy. But there was no risk in those coming from France and I had no alternative under the regulations.
    Mr. Wilkins: This technical explanation is all very well, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that small farmers lost £400 in a fortnight in respect of these

    1043
    import licences and that it was a pretty serious business for a farmer with 100 acres?
    Mr. Soames: The principal cause was not the imports, which did not amount to a great quantity from France during the latter half of June, but it was the concertina-ing of the crops. This crop is normally cleared some weeks ago, but only 80 per cent. of it has been cleared, and this is what caused low prices, not imports, but even if that had not been so I had no alternative but to allow these potatoes in provided there was no plant health risk.

  NORTH-EAST

    North Eastern Association of the Arts
    Mr. Willeyasked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what decision he has made regarding special support for the North Eastern Association of the Arts.
    Mr. Boydenasked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what special contribution he is making to the North-Eastern Association for the Arts; and when it will be made.
    The Parliamentary Secretary for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): The Association's request for extra funds is one of the many matters being studied by the Government in the light of my noble Friend's report.
    Mr. Willey: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say whether this is seriously considered? Does he realise that the Arts Council could do far more to help in the provinces and that this Association should receive every help from the Arts Council, for it is doing excellent work in the North-East, and this is an important matter?
    Mr. Freeth:This matter is being seriously considered. It is for the Arts Council, of course, to apportion its funds, but I think it worth while drawing the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that the Council already spends £50,000 a year in the North-East.
    Mr. Boyden: Would the hon. Gentleman give consideration to matching local
    1044
    authority grants with an equal grant from the Government? Is he aware of the excellent response there has been from all local authorities in the North-East and that this would be a very good way of encouraging them still further?
    Mr. Freeth: I will certainly bear in mind the point the hon. Member has raised.
    Mr. Bourne-Arton:Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that I am awaiting with interest and hope the reply to representations I have made in this matter? Can he say what the total support which the Arts Council gives in the region is and not only to our Association?
    Mr. Freeth:With regard to the Association, the Arts Council is at present donating about £10,000. That is to the Association. In addition, as I have said, it already spends about £50,000 a year in the North-East. I am told that a month or two ago the Council agreed in principle to take on an additional commitment, to the tune of about £5,000 a year for three years, as a share in the Flora Robson Playhouse in Newcastle.

    New Projects
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what new projects are proposed by the Government in the North-East for absorbing unemployed men and women in the next 12 months, and the following two years, respectively.
    Mr. Denzil Freeth: A list of measures announced by the Government to increase employment in the North-East was circulated in the Official Report on 13th May. Since then my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has authorised additional road work costing £1·5 million in the area, the capital programme for Durham and Newcastle University colleges have been rephased to enable an additional £135,000 to be spent in 1963 and an offer has been made to Kings College, Newcastle, for the creation of a Department of Agricultural Marketing. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the £30 million which Her Majesty's Government are prepared to lend British shipowners for construction in this country, and of the

    1045
    announcement of the construction in the North-East, with Export Credits Guarantee Department support, of two more cargo vessels for Ghana, which was made on 12th June.
    Mr. Shinwell: Do we understand that after all the investigations and activities and labour of the Lord President of the Council this is all that is being done in the North-East? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the £30 million for the shipbuilding industry has not begun and may not start for a considerable time? Will he stop dodging about in generalisations and tell us what is being done and what is in prospect for the next three years?
    Mr. Freeth:I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to Hansard of 13th May, and if he will add to it the projects which I have just described, he will see that this is a quite substantial programme which will provide jobs over the next few years.
    Mr. Shinwell:Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that in spite of what has happened there are still 1,750 miners registered as unemployed and with no prospect of being absorbed into employment, and that there are a very large number of unemployed outside the mining industry and that there are prospects of further redundancies? Is this all that is being done by the Government? If so, why do not the Government come clean and say they are incapable of solving this problem?
    Mr. Freeth:Because it would not be true. The measures which have been announced are, of course, in the main short-term measures. The Government will be making a further announcement when they have considered theReport which my noble Friend has made to his colleagues.
    Mr. Popplewell:Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the so-called short-term measures are having no effect at all, and that we are still losing our industrial working population at the rate of some 12,000 a year from the North-East? When will the Government give us a tangible scheme to deal with the short-term position, and when are we going to get the report on the Lord President of the Council's visit to the North-East?
    Mr. Freeth: Naturally the short-term projects, such as I have announced, are
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    providing jobs for a large number of people. For the long-term prospects, dealing in particular with those in the mining and shipbuilding industries, the hon. Gentleman must await further Government announcements.
    Sir K. Thompson:Can my hon. Friend say whether specific requests have been made by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) for help?
    Mr. Shinwell: Dozens.
    Mr. Freeth: I should have to look into that.
    Mr. Popplewell: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall take the first opportunity of raising this on the Adjournment.

  MINISTRY OF AVIATION

    B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. (Directions)
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Aviation how many general directions have been given to British European Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation, respectively, under the Air Corporations Act, 1949, and on what subjects.
    The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery):No general directions have been given under Section 5 of the Air Corporations Act, 1949. Under the corresponding powers in the Civil Aviation Act, 1946, one direction was given to British European Airways; that was in 1947, concerning the transfer of certain European routes from B.O.A.C. to B.E.A. The circumstances in which this direction was given are set out in the Reports of British European Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation for the year 1947–48.
    Mr. Digby: While not deprecating the value of the informal talks, is it not desirable that a few more directions should have been given over a period of14 years or more to make quite plain, in the national interest, what the views of the Government are?
    Mr. Amery: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has any particular points in mind. It would be difficult to answer a general question of this character.

    Skyvan Freighter
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Minister of Aviation if he has now received the advice of the Transport Air craft Requirements Committee as to the development of the Skyvan light freighter; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. Neil Marten):I understand that the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee will be considering the company's latest proposals for this project at its next meeting. This is being held at the end of this month.
    Mr. Stratton Mills:While I welcome that announcement, may I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind the considerable urgency of coming to a decision on the future of this excellent aircraft?
    Mr. Marten: Yes, Sir; I fully appreciate the need for an early decision, particularly in relation to the Short's design team. But I am certain, having myself seen the aircraft, that it will stand on its own merits.

    Laminar Flow
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Minister of Aviation what amount of research into laminar flow has been expended during the past 10 years; and what existing contracts have been placed.
    Mr. J. Amery: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) on 24th June. As my hon. Friend knows, there is an existing contract for the development and construction of the laminarised swept wing now being flight tested on a Lancaster aircraft. A further contract is now to be placed for the project study based on the conversion of a DH.125 to laminar flow.
    Sir A. V. Harvey:What my right hon. Friend says may be all right, but is he aware that in the last ten years British engineers have been leading the world in this development and that the Americans are now beginning to catch us up? If he is going to place a new contract, will he speed it up and let us get something moving so that we regain our leading place in the world?
    Mr. Amery: I agree with my hon. Friend that this was a field in which
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    we were pioneers. I have done my best to get things moving. I am glad to say that we are getting the new project study based on the DH.125 into action right away.

    B.O.A.C. (Competitive Efficiency)
    Mr. Croninasked the Minister of Aviation what further steps he intends to take to increase the competitive efficiency of the British Overseas Airways Corporation.
    Mr. Amery: I am considering in the light of the Corbett Report what action the Government should take to further B,O.A.C.'s own efforts in this direction.
    Mr. Cronin:Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that B.O.A.C. made a further large loss during the last financial year and that the Corbett Report has been in the Minister's hands for several weeks? Should we not have had a statement already and also an opportunity to debate this serious subject before the House rises?
    Mr. Amery: I do not think so. I have had the Report in my hands only about a month. I was, as the hon. Gentleman knows, in the Soviet Union until late in June, and it was on my desk only a few days before I came back. I have been studying it, but, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, although the Ministry of Aviation has to take the lead in matters of this kind, we have to discuss them with other Government Departments. I am not in a position to make a statement, let alone give the House information on which to base a debate.
    Mr. Lee: Unless we know the contents of the Report, how can we judge whether the measures which the Minister will take are sufficient to deal with the problems revealed by the Report? Does he not agree that until such time as the House and the country know the content of the Report, any action which he or B.O.A.C. may take cannot be judged effectively against the size of the problem?
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir. I think that the House will need a good deal of information and advice from the Government before it debates it, but not necessarily in the form of the Corbett Report itself.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: As no secrets are involved in this nationalised industry, would it not be better for the House and the country to know the worst? It cannot be much worse than it is today. The sooner the House knows about the matter and debates it, the better.
    Mr. Amery: I think that the best thing would be for me, in due course, to lay the information before the House in the form of a White Paper, which would serve as the basis for a debate.

    Non-scheduled Flying Operations (Safety)
    Mr. Croninasked the Minister of Aviation if he is aware that British non-scheduled flying operations have recently been shown to be at least 20 times less safe than British scheduled flying operations over the last five years; and what is his policy on improving the safety standards of British non-scheduled flying operations.
    Mr. Marten: It is true that over the last five years there have been more accidents in British non-scheduled flying operations than in scheduled operations—and this is also true for the United States. The total number of accidents, however, is so small that any statistical comparison can be misleading.
    The safety standards laid down by the Ministry are the same for all public transport operators. The measures being taken to improve safety were described in the White Paper on Aviation Safety (Command 1695) published last year.
    Mr. Cronin: Was not this estimate made after a survey by the very responsible aviation journal, Flight, and is it not the case that the Ministry has increased British non-scheduled operations by 50 per cent. since 1960, and, even worse, foreign non-scheduled operations from these islands by 300 per cent., without any really substantial attempts to improve safety?
    Mr. Marten:The House must be very careful indeed about paying too much attention to figures like these. It is not clear on what basis the figures in the article were worked out, but they probably relate to the number of fatalities. On this basis, as the hon. Gentleman who read the article in Flight must know, and as was pointed out in the article,
    1050
    the figures can be distorted by one accident with a very large number of fatalities, such as the one to Caledonian Airways at Douala, where 101 were killed, compared with the B.E.A. accident at Munich, where twenty-five were killed.
    Mr. Cronin: Is it possible that the hon. Gentleman has not read the article? The article makes it clear that various factors have been introduced to make corrections for the very factors to which he is referring?
    Mr. Marten: The article still makes it very clear that the figures are based on a very small number of fatalities and should not be taken too much to heart.
    Mr. Fletcher:Does not the recent disaster to Mr. Cleife, which we all very much regret, in trying to fly from the Scilly Islands to Plymouth when B.E.A. was grounded by fog, indicate that there were inadequate Ministerial precautions in regard to non-scheduled flights compared with scheduled flights?
    Mr. Marten:I think that the Ministerial precautions are there. Following the Civil Aviation Licensing Act, 1960, all public air transport operators are required to hold air operators' certificate certifying—
    Sir A. V. Harvey:On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the accident to which reference has been made took place only on Saturday and the pilot is critically ill, ought not this matter to be considered sub judice until the inquiry has been held?
    Mr Speaker: I do not know whether the matter is sub judice. Whether it is thought fit to answer the question or not is not a matter for me.

    London Airport (Airport Authority)
    Mr. C. Johnsonsked the Minister of Aviation what progress is being made in the preparation of legislation creating a separate airport authority for London Airport.
    Mr. Amery:Most of the preparatory work has been done. Further progress depends on when Parliamentary time can be found.
    Mr. Johnson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the increasing anxiety among many interested parties for the

    1051
    early implementation of the report in relation to London Airport? Can he give an assurance that the necessary legislation will be introduced in the early part of next Session?
    Mr. Amery:The Parliamentary timetable, as the hon. Gentleman knows, does not depend on me; it is a collective decision of the Government. However, I appreciate the importance which he attaches to the Measure, and I hope that when time is found for it, the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend will both manage to be present.

    LAW OF PROPERTY ACT (FLATS)
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Attorney-General if he is aware that the Law of Property Act in England and Wales, in so far as it relates to the holding of flat properties, is not as satisfactory as that of Scotland; and whether he will seek to amend the law to enable owners of flats in England and Wales to be in as satisfactory a position as those in Scotland.
    The Attorney-General (Sir John Hobson):The main advantage of the Scottish law appears to be that it enables certain positive obligations, such as the duty to keep a roof or supporting wall in repair, to be mutually enforceable between the owners of freehold flats. My noble Friend, the Lord Chancellor has recently appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Wilberforce to consider whether, and to what extent, it is desirable to amend the English law relating to the enforcement and assign ability of positive covenants affecting land, and I think we should await the recommendations of this committee.
    Mr. Shepherd:Will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that one of the practical effects of the law is that no building society can give an advance on a freehold flat in this country, and that this is, clearly, undesirable?
    The Attorney-General:Certainly, Sir. That is the practical coinsequence of the difference between the two systems of law. That is why my noble Friend has appointed a committee to consider whether English law could not be made the same as Scottish law in this respect.

    LAW OF LIBEL
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Attorney-General if he is satisfied with the workings of the present law relating to libel; and whether he will consider the setting up of an inquiry into its reform.
    The Attorney-General:The law of libel was comprehensively reviewed by the Porter Committee in 1948 and effect was given to the Committee's recommendations by the Defamation Act, 1952. I do not think there is any need for a further inquiry at the present time, but I shall be glad to consider any suggestions for reform which my hon. Friend may care to send me.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Apropos the Attorney-General's observation that there is no need for such an inquiry at the present time, does he not realise that many recent events make an amendment of the law of libel urgently necessary and that an inquiry is, therefore, urgent and should be prosecuted at once?
    The Attorney-General: With respect, I should have thought that the facts were all fairly well known. It is a difficult question of balance in the law—to hold a balance between the right of the Press to give publicity to a matter and the very proper view, I think, that every citizen has a right to protection against unjust and untrue attacks which may be utterly ruinous to him if they get very wide publicity. While I appreciate the difficulty of holding this balance between those two public necessities, I should have thought that the facts were sufficiently well known at present and that an inquiry into them was not of itself necessary. As I have said to my hon. Friend, I am quite willing to consider any suggestions which may be made.

  PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Old-Age Pensioners, Aberdeen (Letter)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he has studied the letter, dated 20th June, from Rosemount Old Age Pensioners, Aberdeen, protesting against the present level of pensions; and what reply he has sent.
    The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Niall Macpherson): Yes, Sir, and I have written to the hon. and learned Member about it.
    Mr. Hughes:Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that his letter of reply is a confession of failure because it misses the point made by the Rosemount old age pensioners, to whom it purports to reply, and leaves untouched the present invidious policy which presses painfully on some old pensioners but not on others? Will not the right hon. Gentleman substitute a system which will be fair and just to all, as the Rosemount pensioners require?
    Mr. Macpherson:I will willingly read the letters again, but I think the main point the hon. and learned Member was making really related to the question of a special allowance for fuel, which, of course, is an intermittent one. It goes on in the winter and off in the summer. I think that was the point of the letter and that it has been completely met.

    SOUTH AFRICA (SUPPLY OF ARMS)
    Mrs. Castle(by Private Notice) asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will instruct the United Kingdom delegate to the Security Council to support the request by 32 African States for the imposition of an arms embargo against South Africa.
    The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Edward Heath): The meeting of the Security Council concerned has been called at the request of 32 African States to consider the situation existing in the Portuguese territories and in the Republic of South Africa. In the memorandum accompanying their letter on South Africa to the President of the Council, they referred to a comprehensive resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6th November, 1962, which called, among other things, for the rupture of diplomatic relations with South Africa and a total trade embargo. The debate is, therefore, likely to range over a wide field.
    As far as arms are concerned, Her Majesty's Government's policy was described in detail in the House by my right hon. Friend the present Minister of State during the debate on the Address on 31st October last year.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's policy to date on the export of arms to South Africa has been entirely unsatisfactory? Is he not further aware that the United Nations Sub-Committee on apartheid has, in its second report to the Security Council, reiterated its call for a total embargo on the export of arms and ammunition to South Africa?
    Is it not a fact that the United States Government are about to announce their acceptance of this recommendation? Would it not be intolerable if this country were to fall behind? Can we have an assurance that the United Kingdom delegate will be instructed to support this at least of the recommendations of the Sub-Committee?
    Mr. Heath: I am aware of the recommendation of which the hon. Lady speaks, but perhaps we had better await an announcement of United States policy before we form a judgment about it. Our policy is always to scrutinise all these applications for arms, from the political as well as the economic point of view, and the fact that they may be used for internal repression is a most important factor which is taken into consideration.
    At the same time, we recognise the requirement of countries for arms for external defence and, in particular, of South Africa for the defence of the sea routes around the Cape. As for instructions to our permanent delegate to the United Nations, the Security Council debate has not yet begun. We must wait and see what resolutions are put forward. I would not like to anticipate any instructions we may give in the circumstances.
    Mr. H. Wilson
    Secondly, in relation to the voting in the United Nations on this question,

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    will the right hon. Gentleman for once ensure that the Government, instead of being ranged with a smaller group of oppressive Powers, including South Africa and Portugal, vote on the side of the vast majority of people who want to see peace and civilised conduct?
    Mr. Heath: If the right hon. Gentleman refers to the debate on 31st October, 1962, he will see that my hon. Friend the Minister of State—then Under-Secretary of State—said:
    "We scrutinise all requests from the political as welt as the strategic and economic aspects before they are authorised…and the possibility that a particular supply of arms may be used for measures of internal repression is taken into account."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1962; Vol. 666, c. 286.]
    That was a statement of Government policy, and I have restated it today. There has been no question of trimming in response to pressure from the right hon. Gentleman. There has been no change in our policy. It remains as stated in October.
    As for action in the Security Council, what is important is that we should hear the representations which are to be made by representatives of the 32 States and form our judgment of the right policy to follow. It is not necessary that one should always follow the majority. I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman himself would recognise that.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not significant that there should be these attacks at the United Nations and in Trafalgar Square not only on South Africa's racial policy, but also on the entirely opposite Portuguese policy of total racial integration and intermarriage? Does this not suggest that what, in fact, is under attack are the sea routes round the Cape and the strategic interests of the Western Alliance?
    Mr. Heath: I have mentioned the factors to be taken into consideration about South Africa. I was not discussing the question of the Portuguese territories, although I understand that they may be discussed first in the Security Council debate.
    Mr. Lee:Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that the last Government statement on this issue was made on the day of the Whitsun Adjournment by the Minister of State, Board of Trade,
    1056
    who made no reference at all to scrutiny of the type the Lord Privy Seal has mentioned? Would the right hon. Gentleman at least state now that arms capable of internal use will be banned by this country?
    Mr. Heath: I have made a very clear statement and have already quoted what was said by my hon. Friend on 31st October last. I have repeated it today, for it represents Government policy.
    Mr. H. Wilson:The right hon. Gentleman has not made a clear statement. The word that the right hon. Gentleman has used is "scrutiny". What happens after scrutiny? Is he aware that time and again, during the past year, the President of the Board of Trade, who does not seem to have heard of this statement in October, has refused to interfere with shipments of arms which may be used for internal purposes in South Africa? Will the Lord Privy Seal now answer specifically, not as to whether there is scrutiny of the shipments, but whether there is a ban on all shipments for this purpose?
    Mr. Heath: The situation is as I have described it. This factor is taken into account with all other factors in the scrutiny of every arms application which is made. The right hon. Gentleman knows the difficulty of making public information about individual arms items. That applies not only to South Africa, but to every other country at well. It is a general policy which has been followed by this and by every other Administration.
    Mr. Holt: In reference to the Lord Privy Seal's original statement, whom does he think is threatening South Africa from the sea, or, for that matter, with a land invasion?
    Mr. Heath:We have certain agreements with South Africa about the sea routes, which were made some years ago. We adhere to those agreements and these arms are required for the defence of the sea routes.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: In scrutinising these arms, will my right hon. Friend be careful not to allow any exports to take place which might be used against the people of the Yemen through the dropping of canister bombs?
    Mr. Heath: That goes much wider than the question about South Africa.
    Mrs. Castle: If this scrutiny takes place how can the right hon. Gentleman justify the export to South Africa of which the South African Minister of Defence has boasted, of helicopters, tear gas, Saracen armoured cars, tanks, to say nothing of military strike aircraft—all of which can be, and are, used for internal repression?
    Mr. Heath:Several countries have been supplied with arms of this type, which are primarily for external defence. Aircraft are also required for the defence of the sea routes. Tear gas is used in many civil disturbances in many countries where there is no question of apartheid.
    Mr. Lee:Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a possibility of the United Nations taking action about South-West Africa and that Her Majesty's Government are continuing to allow the export of arms to South Africa which may well be used against the decisions of the United Nations itself before very long?
    Mr. Heath: In these circumstances, we had better await the debate and see what are the issues put before the Security Council by the 32 countries. It is right that we should hear the representations which they have to make. The whole question of South-West Africa is also to come before the United Nations in the comparatively near future and that is another factor in the situation.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
  Read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.
  Committee Tomorrow.

  CONSEQUENCES OF RENT ACT 1957 AND PROPERTY PROFITEERING
  3.41 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to move.
  That this House deplores the intolerable extortion, evictions and property profiteering which have resulted from the Rent Act 1957, and demands that Her Majesty's Government take immediate and drastic action to restore security for threatened tenants.
  Try as they may to play this matter down, Ministers know that the people of this country have been gravely shocked by what they have read in the national Press and by what they saw in "Panorama" last Monday about the methods of slum landlords in London. I think that it is a commentary on our times and undoubtedly on the myopic complacency of Ministers that it needed a chance reference to Rachman in recent judicial proceedings to bring this record of extortion and fraud into the light.
  Sometimes one turns over a stone in a garden or field and sees the slimy creatures which live under its protection. This is what has happened in these past weeks. But the photophobic animal world has nothing to compare with the revolting creatures of London's underworld, living there, shunning the light, growing fat by battening on human misery.
  Our purpose today must be to draw the lessons from the facts which are available to us and which have been available to Her Majesty's Government for a very long time. We have to ask how far these conditions result from actions of the House or of the Government, or, for that matter, failure by the Government and by the House to act when action was needed.
  Before I do this, I want to say just this: I trust that no words of mine, or of any other hon. Member, will be twisted by persons of evil intent, particularly the Fascist

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  scum which infests parts of London, and used for the purposes of anti-Semitic or any other racial hatred. I trust that we are not to have in this debate, or in the wider debate outside, any attempt to set black against white. Rather let us follow the honourable example of the courageous men and women who form the tenants' protection society in Paddington and who have as a badge a coloured hand grasping a white. Black and white tenants have equally been terrorised and exploited by evil men seeking monetary gain.
  Black hooligans have been used against peaceable law-abiding white citizens. Equally, thugs with white skins have been used to procure the eviction of peaceful and law-abiding coloured families. Of course, we know that there are black landlords who exploit their fellow countrymen and white landlords who do the same. We condemn them not as black or white, but as bad landlords. Our job, regardless of prejudice or colour, is to curb their evil powers and to bring them to account.
  As I have said, the debate stems from the Rachman disclosures, but the lessons which have to be drawn are not confined to Rachman or to London. The Rachman story is a lurid version of a story which goes on in more sombre, sepia tones in other slum empires and other cities as well as London. Although many of us will be using the word "Rachman" today, we shall be using it more as a convenient form of shorthand, because Rachman was only part of a much wider conspiracy. Indeed, there is growing evidence that he may not have been the controlling figure and that he was one of the "front men" of a much bigger organisation. Whatever his rô1e in the organisation was, there is no doubt the conspiracy is continuing and is still using the same methods.
  Summarising the evidence which has appeared in the public Press, and a great deal of other evidence available to my hon. Friends and myself the disease of Rachmanism, if one likes to call it that, can be described in this way. It is to buy controlled properties at low prices and to use every means, legal or illegal, blackmail, or physical violence, to bring about evictions which, under the Rent Act, 1957, have the effect
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  of decontrolling the property so that it can then either be sold to business associates or independent property speculators, or can be let at high rents to people in acute housing need, or still higher rents to prostitutes, because the Rachman property empire was a vice empire, too.
  Then, to evade the palsied hand of official control, the loopholes in the Companies Act are used to create a proliferation of interlocking companies so that any action which may be taken—sanitary notices, certificates of disrepair, or the cumbersome machinery of compulsory acquisition—can be frustrated by a total inability to identify the beneficial owner of the property.
  The machinery that has been used, based on the operation or co-operation of a small number of lawyers and accountants willing at a price or for a share in the gain to pervert their professional ability, was well described in a newspaper yesterday. I could equally well quote from a whole series of cuttings from practically the entire Press, but I will quote from just one Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Times, which is generally regarded as Conservative.
  I make no apology for a somewhat lengthy quotation, because if Ministers had been doing their job—and I think that at the Rachman headquarters, if we could ever find them, there must surely be honoured places for portraits of a Macmillan, a Sandys, a Brooke, a Hill and a Joseph—we would long ago have had a ruthless and searching inquiry and a full report available to us.
  As we do not have that White Paper, I am compelled to read at some length this detailed account from the Sunday Times. It says:
  "As with most property concerns"—
  I want those words to be noted—
  "Rachman operated through an interlocking chain of limited companies, usually with his own nominees as directors. The real control of the companies, however, remained securely with Rachman, because each nominee would be required to provide him with an undated letter of resignation and a 'blank transfer' for the return of any assets vested in the company. (Should one of the parent companies require the return of any property, it was simply a matter of putting a dale on the transfer, which would then become binding.)
  As Rachman's empire grew, these nominee companies proliferated In a typical set-up, Company A might have the freehold,

  1061
  Company B the head lease, and there might be subsidiary companies whose sole assets were an under-lease on one house or even of just one self-contained floor. There is little expense involved in setting up these companies—the usual 'retail' price for each is £25, but regular buyers like Rachman could buy companies 'wholesale' at about £19 a time.
  All this is fairly standard business procedure in the speculative property world. It was a system that grew up mainly for minimising tax liability, and for greater operating flexibility. But for Rachman it also had two fringe benefits. The raising of finance was sometimes easier, because the scale of borrowing from each company was within the discretionary powers of bank managers and building societies. And it had the effect of concealing ownership—of putting Rachman at a further remove from the sources of his income."
  I think that it might be convenient, at this stage, to ask the Chief Whip whether we are to have the benefit of one or two of the responsible Ministers here this afternoon. Tax avoidance is a very important part of this, and we could do with the presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since what we are to debate this afternoon is the whole situation which the Prime Minister glories to have created, I think that we should have the Prime Minister here, too.
  Hon. Members: Where is he?
  Mr. Wilson: The quotation continued:
  "It was this that for years foiled attempts by local councils and rent tribunals to get at the facts behind rackets in property and clubs.…If a public health notice or certificate of disrepair is to be served, the council's first problem is to find someone to serve it on. They have two possible clues as to the owner: the person who pays the rates, and the name appearing on the tenant's rent book.…This is unlikely to get them beyond the name of the agent."
  There is then a long account of the way in which they "fiddle" the agency business.
  "The council has power to serve the notice on the agent, but the agent may have no power or money to act until he receives instructions from his client; and he will no doubt refuse to give his client's name. 'It would be quite unethical to reveal such confidences,' the agent says blandly. Prevarication of this type can go on for several weeks.
  Meanwhile, the issue may have been further confused and delayed—though not ultimately avoided—by the immediate owners, Company C being wound up, their underlease reverting to Company B or being assigned to Company D."
  Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux (Nottingham, Central)Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux (Nottingham, Central) rose—
  Mr. Wilson: I will give way later, because I recognise that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is one of those—there are a number of Members on both sides of the House—who have been fighting this racket for many years, but I want to complete the quotation because it is essential to know the method by which this system has been worked. I can understand the embarrassment which this is causing some hon. Members opposite although I do not refer to the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux).
  I will continue the quotation:
  "Meanwhile, the issue may have been further confused and delayed—though not ultimately avoided—by the immediate owners, Company C, being wound up, their underlease reverting to Company B or being assigned to Company D. 'Look guv,' says the owner of Company D, 'I've only just bought the joint. Give me time.' 'One way or another,' said a colleague of Rachman, 'we reckoned we could keep a defective drain going for four or five months without the legal penalties becoming uneconomic' And by that time they would probably have achieved their original ends—of persuading statutory tenants to leave, or simply playing for time in financial difficulties."
  They could keep a defective drain going for four or five months, and a British family with the same inalienable right to a home as any other member of the community, and with full statutory rights guaranteeing security of tenure, could be driven from that home by the intolerable stench of that drain so that Rachman or those behind him could become millionaires. Is this what hon. Members opposite mean when they say, "Life's better under the Conservatives"—because if would be a pity to let Labour ruin it by the introduction of legislation which for once protected the rights of tenants and not the profits of landlords and of legislation which closed the loopholes in the Companies Act?
  Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux:I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and also for what he said. I simply want to ask him whether he was aware, as the Sunday Times apparently was not aware, that as a result of the Landlord and Tenant Act, which came into force last November, the name of the owner of the house has to appear on the rent book?
  Mr. Wilson: I am certainly aware of that, and I recognise the fight which has been put up by the hon. and gallant

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  Member and by my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), who has been fighting the Brady case, I think, since 1952. But I shall have a number of quotations in respect of hon. Members who have had an honourable record in this matter.
  Mr. R. J. Mellish: Since that Act was passed landlords have had to give their names, but when one comes to investigate them one finds that the addresses are accommodation addresses and that there are no such people.
  Mr. Wilson: I shall come to the operation of this system later.
  What did all this mean to the tenants? My hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) has given the House details over the years of the way in which tenants have been treated in his constituency. He has given these details in the House with about as much impact on the complacency of the Treasury Bench as if he had been describing housing conditions in Nero's Rome.
  I can select today only one or two cases from a formidable dossier which hasbeen handed to me—a dossier which will be available to any tribunal of inquiry which the Government will set up which is clothed with adequate powers to uncover the truth and to protect innocent witnesses. Nor, of course, can I say that the dossier to which I am referring is complete, because there are many tenants and many ex-tenants in this country who today are living in fear—in fear for their lives—about coming out with the truth. Let me give one or two examples.
  Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr): Oh.
  Mr. Mellish: The hon. and gallant Member should go back to bullfighting.
  Mr. Wilson:There were two old ladies, sisters, entitled to a peaceful and dignified tenure of their home in which they had lived for many years, but who were forced under duress by one of these landlords to pay two months' rent in advance. When they were pressed for more rent the next month, having already paid it, they were told that the property had been sold—it had been transferred from one subsidiary company to another—and that the new owners had no responsibility for the earlier payment. The payment had been made in cash, with no receipt and no rent book.
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  When the old ladies hesitated to pay, they were brutally beaten up, and now they live in permanent terror. They will not give evidence on this question. They are afraid, because they fear that knock on the door which Ministers sometimes reserve for their perorations about Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia; and that fear of a knock on the door exists within three miles of this House. That is what happened to these two sisters. What was the message on the Conservative posters which were plastered over Paddington in the last L.C.C election? Was it "Conservatives Care"? I ask for what and for whom do Conservatives care when this is allowed to go on?
  Another woman, aged 64, living with a brother aged 63, was driven out of her home and is now living in North London, and she tells how her rent was not collected, although repeatedly offered, so that she could be evicted. And Rachman's hirelings drove her out. The next case is a man of 52. He happens to be called Mr. Joseph. He has the same rights under our laws as any of his kinsmen. He has gone into hiding this month because he has been terrorised by thugs. His furniture was smashed up as recently as 5th July, after he had refused to move out of his flat.
  The previous Tuesday four men arrived with an Alsatian dog and ordered him to leave. A police constable was brought, who rightly told these thugs that they could not evict him without an order of the court. But three days later he came home from work to find that his furniture had been smashed and piled in the corridor outside the flat, and the floorboards ripped up, and he realised the price of refusing to go. He has no redress. He does not know the name of his landlord.
  Mr. B. T. Parkin: I do.
  Mr. Wilson:I am sure that my hon. Friend does, but how could the tenant know? I am sure that if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, my hon. Friend will have a number of disclosures to make.
  How could Mr. Joseph know the name of his landlord? The property in which he lives has changed hands fifteen times since he moved in eighteen months ago.
  On 10th July, after the last housing debate, in which the Minister intervened with his utterly silly suggestion that there

  1065
  were adequate powers to deal with Rachman and his ilk, Mr. Joseph gave an interview to a local newspaper, and as a result of this he was followed by strong arm men and he had to go into hiding. This is in Britain in 1963. What was it that the Prime Minister said in 1959, before the last election?
  Hon. Members: Where is he?
  Mr. Wilson: This is what he said:
  "All the evidence shows that the Rent Act is working out more or less as we believed it would."
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] My hon. Friends must realise that he has no time for dealing with the state of the nation these days. He has other things to deal with. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Then bring him here. Why is he not here?
  Hon. Members: Where is he?
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Isle of Thanet) rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us have a debate, and not a big fight.
  Mr. Wilson: It was the Prime Minister I was asking for, not the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies).
  The Home Secretary, when Minister of Housing and Local Government had this to say at a Conservative conference in 1958:
  "Whenever people show signs of believing other Socialist scares about the general grant or this or that, I will remind you to remind them how it turned out over the Rent Act. The honourable people in the Labour Party must have it on their conscience that they caused thousands of tenants so much needless anxiety, fear and misery by false propaganda."
  I will give the House only one more reference to what has being going on. I quote now a former member of the staff of this slum empire. He said:
  "I was a member of the Heavy Glove Gang"—
  An Hon. Member: Who is he?
  Mr. Wilson: That is a very silly question. If we were to give the man's name his life would be in danger. But we can bring him forward to give evidence if the Minister will set up a proper inquiry which will protect witnesses in respect of evidence given.
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  Meanwhile, I will give the evidence to the House, and I expect it to be taken seriously. This man said:
  "We were the men employed to clear unwanted tenants out of houses in the Rachman empire.
  The gang is still working for Rachman's successors. The method of working hasn't changed.
  We got paid up to £250 to clear a house of unwanted tenants. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes hard.
  Tenants who knew what is good for them usually got oat without giving trouble as soon as the Heavy Glove men appeared.
  Those who don't get roughed up and chucked into the street, with all their belongings."
  He goes on with a long account of their methods:
  "At one house in Roseford Terrace, Shepherd's Bush, a girl called Norma Mayers was giving trouble. She was from Barbados and shared room with another coloured girl.
  The House was owned by"—
  he gave the name of the man responsible for it, but I do not suppose that the House wants me to give names:
  "A few of the boys called on her but she locked them out so they smashed down the door. When they found Norma's sick baby in the house they decided not to throw her out. Instead, they cut off her gas, water and electricity. When Norma called the police, the gang took off. A coloured man, who had nothing to do with the job, was arrested."
  He then goes on to say:
  "But this girl Norma wasn't scared. She took"—
  such-and-such a person—
  "to court and got £50 damages. The court case, however, didn't stop the organisation using the Heavy Glove men. They are still working as hard as ever."
  Another man in that organisation said:
  "This organisation is real big. They can get anything done. They have big money behind them. I'm hiding from them now. If they catch me they'll string me up."
  These are some of the questions that really need to be inquired into. It reminds one of what Lord Hailsham has said in
  "Toryism and Tomorrow":
  "Our Conservative ideal is to see that…all get true social justice. My hope, and I believe our aim, is to make each group within society feel that, subject only to the interest of the whole, they are the wanted, the admired and beloved members of a Christian nation. There are no vermin in our conception of a Conservative Briton. All are needed. All must be cared for. None must be denied the

  1067
  opportunity or the just rewards of the style of life they aim at for themselves or their children…"
  "All must be cared for";"…the style of life they aim at for themselves for their children." Was that meant to include Norma Mayers and her sick baby? Hypocrisy such as that in the mouths of Conservative Ministers makes any decent person want to throw up.
  I could go on with case after case. In some cases, peaceful persuasion—the peaceful persuasion of a padlock on the door, gas, electricity and water all cut off, the humiliation of tearing the lavatory door off its hinges and taking it away, leaving the place open, windows smashed, or the roof made to let in rain. In other cases, physical violence—Alsatian dogs, beatings up, terrorism that I think that most hon. Members genuinely find it almost impossible to credit in a so-called Christian civilised society.
  This is the property-owning democracy the people have been cozened into voting for at election after election. We shall be told of course, that it has nothing to do with the Rent Act. One Conservative Sunday newspaper yesterday argued that it was due to control, not to decontrol. If the Minister argues that, we must ask whether he plans any further measures of decontrol. But, of course, these things do stem from the Rent Act. They stem from the creeping decontrol provisions by which any property vacated by the sitting tenant becomes free of rent control, a provision that gives a built-in incentive to unscrupulous landlords, to get tenants out.
  Of course, Rachman's was an extreme case, but this evil is still going on in the Rachman or ex-Rachman empire. But there are others who use similar methods to be found in overcrowded districts in London and other big cities: rent collections with no receipts, no rent book, and evictions varying from the more or less peremptory but legal letter from a lawyer to "strong-arm" methods.
  In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for example, the pace of evictions has quickened so much in the past few months that the city council there has set up an emergency evictions committee. I was in the North-East at the weekend, and Saturday's edition of the Newcastle evening paper said:
  1068
  "Some landlords have called in violent strong-arm men to try to terrorise old people out of their homes."
  The newspaper quoted the city's director of housing, as saying:
  "These are not fairy tales. We have case histories to substantiate every one of them."
  He proceeded to give examples of kinds very familiar to those who know the Rachman techniques. That is in Newcastle, and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that hon. Members who catch your eye can give other cases from other parts of the country.
  Before I come to the measures referred to in our Motion that need to be taken, I must refer to certain other issues of public policy. The first is the unscrupulous use of the Companies Act both for tax avoidance—and here we are entitled to call it tax evasion, because it is illegal avoidance of tax evasion—and also even to frustrate the serving of statutory notices.
  There is nothing new in this use of the Companies Act. In the piece I quoted from the Sunday Times it said that this was the common pattern throughout the property speculators' world and, of course, we raised this, question of the proliferation of companies under the Companies Act in the last Parliament. During the last election the Jasper case, the Lintang case, broke—right in the middle of the election—causing the ruling party a period of acute embarrassment. Everything we then said about the Jasper case has been justified—the manoeuvring of the Companies Act to get quick, tax-free capital gains by buying and selling blocks of residential property was justified by the findings of Mr. Neville Faulks' Companies Act inquiry.
  We took the straightforward, commonsense view that if some people can make a killing of £1 million by an overnight sale of property someone has to pay that £1 million—it does not come from nowhere. It is paid for, of course, by the tenants. Look at the whole record of Dolphin Square; and there have been others. It is going on all the time, sometimes with the cognisance of the big insurance companies.
  At the weekend there was an advertisement for a placing with a company whereby a young man, who was clever enough to get into the property market,

  1069
  is to be a quarter-millionaire as a result of getting large loans from an insurance company—and he is getting it from the rents paid by the tenants.
  During the election, when the Jasper case broke, we were promised prompt and effective action, even by the Prime Minister himself—he is always more vigorous at election times. We were promised a companies Act inquiry and effective action to follow. To show that he meant business the right hon. Gentleman appointed as President of the Board of Trade, responsible for this, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer who, in this job, has been a dead loss. We had to wait three years for the Report, and the kindest thing we can say of it is that it failed to live up to its own analysis.
  In the first paragraph of the Jenkins Report figures were produced to show that the number of new company registrations had doubled from 1955 to 1960–61. The Jenkins Committee went on to accept that the case was proved that most of these were being formed for purposes of tax avoidance or other reasons which have nothing to do with the trade and industry of this country. I think that most commentators have found the proposals they made for amendments to the Companies Act miserably inadequate for the purpose. But, even so, having made the proposals, the Government have failed to propose the legislation. In fact, whoever one blames, be it the Jenkins Committee or the Government—and the responsibility rests with the Government—the promises made at the last election have not been carried out.
  Again, I must refer to another common feature between the two cases because the House was warned by the Lintang case. I am referring to the use of unscrupulous building societies controlled by, or linked with, the property racketeer. We all attach too much importance to the good name which the vast majority of building societies have fairly earned to feel happy about some of these cases of a very small minority. I think that it is clear that further legislation is needed, because some of the cases which have been recently reported suggest that the 1960 Act, which was inspired by the Lintang affair, may not have closed all the loopholes.
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  I think that concern must be expressed about the loans made for property speculation both by banks and insurance companies. A case was mentioned on the Floor of the House last week, again within the Rachman sphere, where both the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and a well-known insurance society were taken in by the story about Rachman striking oil in the remote wilds of North Staffordshire. If they are as simple-minded as that, they will fall for the gold brick story next. What I think is more likely is that the Staffordshire valuation was the bait to secure funds for a further extension of Rachman's slum and vice empire in London.
  There is another question here. Is it not Government policy to stop insurance company funds and bank loans being used for property speculation? This was announced by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1961 crisis. On 25th July, at column 227 of Hansard, he said that the banks were being asked to be particularly severe on borrowing applications, for speculative purposes, property development or other speculative services. He went on to say that the Governor of the Bank of England was making a similar request to the British Insurance Association that the insurance companies should observe a similar policy in their lending. Is this still Government policy, or has it beenrescinded? If it has been rescinded, have we been told publicly about it, or is the Government's policy in this case, in our view a wise if belated decision, being frustrated?
  I think, too, that we must express concern about the behaviour of some members of the legal profession in this business. I suggest that the Law Society must investigate some of these things that have been going on. If it does not, I think that the House will have to do it.
  Finally, before I come to the action that we propose to the House, we cannot ignore the clear and insolent record of tax evasion. We are told that Rachman amassed a fortune of several millions without ever having paid a penny Income Tax from the day he arrived in this country to the day he died. The possibility of being able to get away with this is exactly what we have argued year after year from this Box in debates on

  1071
  the Budget and Finance Bills. I remember at the last election, when we talked about tax avoidance, the Prime Minister, with great authority, said that if we tackled tax avoidance we could not save more than £250,000 a year. We could have saved ten times as much on the Rachman profits alone.
  What of Rachman's estate at the time of his death? The affidavit says that it was £8,000. We have said often enough that death duties are a voluntary tax, but we have never thought that Income Tax was as voluntary as all that. What has the Revenue been up to in all this business? It is always vigorous enough in pursuing an export manager to include in his assessable income the values of meals or laundry services that he has saved from abroad on export business. The teacher with £1,000 a year and two young children, has no means of evading his payment of £52 a year, or £1 a week, in taxation because it is in Schedule E. The research scientist who earns £1,750 a year has to pay £5 a week under Schedule E, yet these racketeers use services provided by the Board of Trade under the Companies Act and manage to evade every penny of tax they owe.
  I doubt whether the full investigation facilities of the Inland Revenue can get at the facts. For one thing, it has no access to Land Registry files. It has no hope of ever tracing the beneficient ownership of these slippery property companies—in any case rents are mostly paid in cash, without records. We shall never know the extent of the illegal salting away of these profits in Switzerland or other countries, despite exchange control, and this is one reason why we fed that a full-dress inquiry, covering all aspects of this case, is necessary.
  While I am on this, I must ask the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make a full and frank statement on the curiously passive rôle of the police in this shabby record of gangsterism. Were they always unable to find evidence sufficient to secure a conviction? Will the Minister say what instructions have been given locally, and what instructions have been given by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, on this question? Are they clear and unequivocal? I ask this because I think that we have reached the stage
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  where these issues cannot be regarded as a private quarrel between two private citizens, or between landlord and tenant. We have to recognise that they are a standing threat to the Queen's peace. With all the free money that was involved—I hope that this is true, but we have to ask—can we be sure that there has been no corruption of individual officers? We shall need to be reassured about this whole question.
  Finally, I turn to the drastic action for which we have called in our Motion. The Minister, I see, is to move an Amendment which reaches an all-time low in complacency and irrelevance. Of course we agree with the Government that the answer to overcrowding is to build more new houses, but what does the Minister propose in order to get houses built in adequate numbers at rents which the Paddington and Notting Hill tenants can afford? Where is the land coming from? And at what price? The House debated land prices a fortnight ago. The Minister defends his free market in land. If he does, he has no hope of rehousing these evicted or overcrowded tenants or the 4,000 homeless in London whose plight stems largely from Rent Act evictions.
  Under the present Government, as is well known, the number of local authority houses built has fallen to little over half the number which Aneurin Bevan achieved in 1948, three years after the war. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that there is any hope in the idea of a free market for houses? The Sunday Express has been given an instruction from its noble proprietor to support the present Prime Minister at all costs, so I acquit it of any Socialist tendencies. A week ago last Sunday it carried a front page lead about the rocketing prices of owner-occupied houses in the London area—a 30 per cent. increase in three years. This is the Rent Act at work, solving all our problems!
  But this is not what the Government are to tell us in their Amendment. We are to be told that because of this beneficent 1961 Act local authorities now possess all the powers they need to deal with the property racket. It is true that some vigorous Labour-controlled local authorities have taken action—Birmingham by a process of municipalisation of whole areas, and Newcastle's evictions committee, to which I have referred,

  1073
  is threatening compulsory acquisition wherever it can, and has dealt with some bad cases.
  Is the failure in Paddington simply the total inability of a paralytic Conservative-controlled council to deal with the situation? I see the Minister of Housing and Local Government nodding. Now the right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Perhaps I might suggest that he move it in a diagonal direction, because it has taken virtually no action. The Minister must know—and this, I think, is the reason for his gyrations—that the power that he has given is totally inadequate.
  The Standing Joint Committee of Metropolitan Boroughs has made it clear that it regards the Act as worse than useless in dealing with the worst landlords. In one respect, the Act weakened the power of boroughs by repealing their former powers to prosecute for failure to comply with an order to execute the works needed to make a multi-occupied house suitable for occupation, and substituting default powers instead of the powers of prosecution. But how many councils will take the risk of doing the work at great cost to the ratepayers, when they do not know whether they will ever trace the landlords in order to recover the money?
  The Clerk of the Fulham Borough Council, who is also the Clark of the Works Sub-Committee of the London Boroughs Standing Committee, said:
  "At present, we are allowed only to sue the man receiving the rents. He might be a man of straw and a council will find itself footing substantial bills out of the ratepayers' pocket. It is this fear that is making London authorities wary in their use of their Housing Act powers."
  The switching round of properties from one Rachman subsidiary to another, or one property company subsidiary to another, makes a complete monkey of the Act and of the Minister who stands there and pathetically professes his faith in it, because the 1961 Act, as a means of dealing with the Rachman-type empire in London and other big cities, is as ineffective as a peashooter against a pack of wolves.
  The same is true of compulsory acquisition. The Bermondsey Borough Council used it with identifiable landlords whose ideas of rent are a bit over rapacious, but, again, there is the prob-
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  lem of finding the owner. This is anextract from Hansard, I7th June, 1952:
  "Lieut.-Colonel Lipton asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government"—
  that is, the present Prime Minister—
  "what steps he will take to ensure that the correct name? and addresses of property owners are recorded with local rating authorities."
  The right hon. Gentleman replied:
  "I do not think that any steps are called for on my part."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1962; Vol. 502, c. 977.]
  Now I will tell the Minister of Housing and Local Government what we consider to be essential. He could have taken very short, sharp action on this. I think that full justice would have been met in this case if he had taken over the whole of the properties in this empire, and I think that it would have been quite fair if the compensation paid for it had been based on tax returns made by these companies. After all, we always believe in fair compensation; and that would be fair.
  What I suggest to him is that he should introduce a Bill now—and we will grant every facilities to get it through before the Recess, even after ten o'clock at night—to give powers to take over all the rented property in these zones of dubious ownership, wherever extortion and exploitation is the order of the day and wherever statutory notices are ignored. The failure of the existing legislation—I put this quite seriously to the right hon. Gentleman—is that it is directed against an individual—and an individual who can defy it by concealing his identity or transferring his property. The powers should be directed not at the individual, but at the property.
  Just as an Admiralty marshal can nail a writ of attachment to the mast of a ship, after which it is illegal to move it—and then the legal argument can begin—so the acquisition notice should be nailed on the door of the house. From that moment the house is the property of the local authority and it alone can collect the rent. Once this is done, any legitimate landlord—there may be some and still are some in these areas—can come forward and make his claim by due legal process.
  But the racketeer will be faced with a rather difficult choice, either of identifying himself and discharging his responsibilities in connection with a statutory

  1075
  disrepair, or sanitary, or overcrowding notice, or of remaining in his hide-out, in which case he sacrifices his rent income. So let the Government introduce this legislation forthwith, and we will join with them in making it law. And let them see that the powers are put into immediate effect after the Royal Assent.
  Then again, I think that there is a strong case, although this is not so immediately urgent, for legislation in the near future requiring full registration of all rented property with full details of the beneficial ownership and the rents charged, the sanction for failing to register being requisitioned by the local authority. This would prevent the degeneration of other properties into the hands of racketeers, and the information given would be of inestimable value to the Inland Revenue. Legislation on the Companies Act and on capital gains are the duty of other Ministers, but none the less urgent for that.
  The Rent Act. I repeat where we stand. We shall repeal the 1957 Act and replace it by a Bill which restores full security of tenure to the tenant, which establishes rent tribunals to fix rents when they are appealed to by either the tenant or the landlord, on the basis not of arbitrary local decisions, still less on strong arm methods, but on decisions of this House on what constitutes a reasonable rent in relation to the rateable value, and, of course, to the conditions and amenities of the house.
  On the question of bringing up the conditions of old houses to adequate standards, we published our proposals very recently, and I think that the Minister has seen them and even commented on them.
  The issue that we are debating today goes far beyond the sleazy slum empires of London and other cities. One major reason for the overcrowding which evil men can exploit is the sheer breakdown of Government planning, because the overcrowding in London, which is the main cause, has gone on and developed pari passu with vast and costly office-building programmes for speculative purposes. These have not only added to the congestion in Central London and acted as a magnet for still more employees coming into London requiring housing, but they have also pre-empted urgently
  1076
  needed building resources, including the scarcest of all resources—land—from the housing programme.
  Equally, the effects of the Rent Act cannot be measured and cannot be dismissed in terms of gangsterism. It will not be enough to say, "These are evil men. How we deplore them." Respectable property companies which are operating within the law—the law which hon. Members opposite made—have brought untold hardship to hundreds of thousands. This is not a problem of the slums and the twilight zones. I have received hundreds of letters during the last three or four days since it was announced that this debate was to take place. Hon. Members might be surprised; or perhaps they might not be surprised. Many have come from the Finchleys, the Hampsteads and the Richmonds, and much further afield.
  I will quote only one:
  "Twenty-three years in one flat. Pre-rent Act rent £72 a year, including rates. Now rising at the end of this year to £375, plus rates of £60, plus water rate. In other words, a rise from £72 to £440, more than six fold increase."
  We have all seen the figures of the properties and dividends of the big property companies, but where, in the London area, are people dispossessed from their homes by inability to pay these high rents to go; and why should they go? What this debate shows is that private landlordism has failed. This is why we say: repeal the Rent Act and replace it with a Measure fairer to the tenant. Strengthen the measures needed to enable houses to be built for sale to owner-occupiers, and this means firm action on interest rates and still firmer action on land prices.
  Finally, let it be recognised that for the great number of people living in overcrowded conditions and slums the answer must be rented houses, but houses worthy of our people in this age—not the conditions I have been talking of—houses built to let at rents which ordinary families can afford. That is why this problem will never be solved on the basis of speculative gains and private profit. Slums and overcrowding can only be solved by a housing policy which, in its inspiration, its administration and its humanity reflects the spirit of social purpose.
  4.30 p.m.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "while deploring any disreputable practices engaged in by some unscrupulous landlords, rejects the suggestion that these have resulted from the Rent Act 1957, and recognises that the effective remedy lies in the Government's policy to achieve a larger programme of new building and the modernisation of many more homes".
  Perhaps I should start by answering the Leader of the Opposition's question about the location of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend is at the moment meeting the Prime Minister of the Congo, Mr. Adoula. My right hon. Friend is carrying out his duty, as he always does, of meeting visiting Heads of State and visiting Prime Ministers. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is fulfilling a long-standing and important engagement connected with his Department, and will be here as soon as he can—probably at about eight o'clock.
  Reports of intimidation that have been appearing in the Press have shocked the whole country, but the House will expect from me a fuller story of cause and effect, and scope, than the retailing of current newspaper contents that we have just listened to from the right hon. Gentleman. We have had a speech—the contents of which we could all have gathered from the Press—without, as I understand, a single effort to verify anything, without a single word about the background which makes this problem so intractable and so awful, and with a few perfunctory words at the end related to the so-called, alleged Socialist solution.
  I shall now try to explain—[Interruption.] If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned—as I am sure they are—that we should have a productive debate, I hope that I shall be allowed to deploy the facts, bad as well as good. I have a lot to say.
  The essence of the offence which Rachman committed is, in one word, "sweating". He appears to have been a racketeer, battening from before the Rent Act, on the London housing shortage. He was not hindered because, at the time that he was in full activity,
  1078
  the law was not effective to prevent gross mismanagement and abuse of property ownership in housing, and because, moreover, the law did not bite on the owner who protected himself, as Rachman did, by a smokescreen of complicated company transactions. That is why he was not hindered.
  Rachman was not punished because no people who knew of any crimes that he committed or condoned came forward to give sufficient evidence. The conduct which is alleged against him is loathsome, but I believe that the House would wish to knew what is known about both the past and the present scale of intimidation of this sort. [Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will allow me to make my speech. The right hon. Gentleman took 50 minutes, and I shall take less if I am allowed to develop my arguments.
  In 1959, when it is said that the so-called Rachman empire was at its height—I see that the newspapers are saying that there were involved about 80 houses, but I cannot verify that exact figure—a number of allegations of intimidation in connection with the collection of rents of property said to be owned by him came to the notice of the police. These were rigorously pursued, but although the persons reported to have been victimised were closely questioned few were prepared to say that they had been intimidated. Evidence of about 10 incidents were submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but in each case he considered that the evidence was not strong enough to support a prosecution.
  During the course of the long investigation into properties controlled by the Rachman organisation several cases of brothel keeping came to light, and a number of successful prosecutions were taken. But in no case was there any evidence beyond supposition, that Rachman was knowingly conniving at intimidation or brothel keeping, on account of the extent to which he personally was removed from day-to-day transactions, hiding, as he was, behind agents and companies. The police are still watching the situation in respect of those and similar properties. [Interruption.] I apologise to the House for reading four pages, but I want to get the exact police and local authority report before the House before going on to things that

  1079
  I can speak of from my own experience. The police are still watching the situation in respect of these and similar properties, but no recent complaints of intimidation have been received.
  My Department has been in touch with Birmingham, Nottingham, Paddington, Kensington, Islington, Stepney, Lewisham, Camberwell, Hampstead, Lambeth and Willesden. But except in the case of Kensington and Lambeth all authorities say that they have no evidence of rackets on the scale alleged in respect of Rachman, but that there are a good many individual landlords who are exploiting their properties by overcrowding and charging very high rents.
  One authority said that it has had complaints of persecution from controlled tenants, but the others have no evidence of intimidation, although they suspect that it is happening here and there. Two authorities suspect that there are two individuals in each borough who may be working some kind of racket. At present, this is only suspicion. We have advised that what is known to the councils should be passed on to Scotland Yard, and the councils concerned are alert and will be on the lookout for any sign of this sort of behaviour.
  I should add, to complete this part of the report, that the Paddington Rent Tribunal reports that it has had no complaints of intimidation recently. On the other hand, Kensington says that it has had about three dozen complaints in the last year, and that all were reported to the police. The individual cases of intimidation which have featured in the newspapers, and which the right hon. Gentleman has retailed to us, seem to me best reported to the police. If the people concerned feel willing to talk about them to newspaper reporters and politicians, then they can talk to the police. One of the dangers of repeating Press and other reports without examination is that the full story is not always uncovered.
  The cause of Rachman's ability to conduct the sort of racket that he obviously was conducting was not the Rent Act. To do him justice, the right hon. Gentleman did not make any strong argument that it was. He referred to Rachman's activities before the Rent Act was passed, and the whole House will know that Rachman operated
  1080
  mainly by way of letting off rooms in a way that took them quite outside rent control. Despite rent control he managed to obtain houses which he converted into this kind of letting. Rent control was, is and would be no protection against racketeers using intimidation, deceit and trickery.
  Mr. Marcus Lipton: It makes it more difficult.
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not even think that it makes it more difficult; is simply increases the temptation to carry it out.
  The police are a protection when the victim can bring himself to give evidence. But in the absence of evidence only vigilant local authorities, using the strong new powers made available to them last year, can end this abuse, until we end the shortage of houses which has made it possible.
  Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite would do well to remember that there was plenty of sweating and exploitation of property under full rent control, and there are plenty of cases of which I have records—I will not weary the House with them—of this sort of behaviour long before the party opposite went out of office. Lettings, neither self-contained nor furnished, escaped all control and sub-tenants were crammed into controlled dwellings. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has pursued his vendetta against the Rent Act, perhaps I should once again explain what the Rent Act did.
  The House will remember that by 1957 rents were, broadly, still at 1939 levels, whereas since then earnings had trebled and, as a result, the economic incentive—on the one hand, for people to house themselves if they could, and, on the other, for the owners to maintain their property—was absolutely blunted. Though there was shortage and decay, there was absolutely no sense in making both worse and that was whatfull rent control was doing. Whatever their needs, whatever their income, whether they needed to be in London or not, people were, naturally, clinging to their bargain accommodation. In those days no new family or household had any chance of renting a home or a flat of their own. Every time a flat or a house became vacant the owner immediately sold it to escape rent control—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] I am coming to that.

  1081
  On the evidence now available, if hon. Members will read it, 80 per cent. of houses and flats now vacated are kept available for letting, whereas before the Rent Act they were all sold. The fact is that it was right and proper and brave to pass the Rent Act. There are people looking for tenancies now. But there were people looking for tenancies before the passing of the Rent Act. There is decay now. There was very much more decay before the Rent Act was passed. Most of the vacancies that were caused by the Rent Act were not caused by eviction, but because of the voluntary movement of people to house themselves.
  As a result of the Rent Act, scores of thousands of people, who would never have been able to rent a house of their own, have been able to do so. Of these scores of thousands of people some have been evicted so that a house could be reoccupied by its owner, or redeveloped. The fact is that those people who have been evicted under the Rent Act have been evicted from tenancies which, but for the Rent Act, they and scores of thousands of others would never have had. There is all the difference in the world between renting property at a rent reflecting current earnings and the standard of the premises and the sharing out of responsibility for repair and maintenance—of which the Government and I absolutely approve—andexploiting, or sweating. It is difficult to stop the latter without reintroducing the distortion, the immobility and decay which goes with full rent control.
  The danger of the exploitation of some rented property by some landlords was recognised several years ago, and local authorities were invited to make compulsory purchase orders where exorbitant rent threatened the tenants with homelessness. This power in the hands of local authorities has enabled many of them to negotiate with landlords for the reduction of rents without having to make a compulsory purchase order at all. Of the 84 orders made, 25 have been rejected because the local authorities did not show either that the rent was exorbitant or threatening homelessness; 16 are still outstanding; 27 have been withdrawn because the local authority was successful in negotiating a lower rent; 16 have been confirmed.
  It is true that rents are higher since the Rent Act. But for those who cannot
  1082
  afford the rents of a free market the proper recourse is to local authority housing. There is now a huge stock of local authority dwellings, 4 million, of which 300,000 are in London, and there are those who feel—
  Mr. Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman said that there is recourse to local authority housing in London. There are 56,000 people on the "A" priority list and the vast majority of them have been told that their cases cannot be dealt with for at least the next three years.
  Sir K. Joseph: What I was going to say was that there are those who feel that somehow this huge stock of local authority housing—4 million in the country generally and over 500,000 in London—could somehow be more effectively used to help the most needy for whom it was built.
  Mr. G. W. Reynolds Mr. G. W. Reynolds (Islington, North) rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray):Order. I am sure that the House will have a better debate if the Minister is allowed to make his speech.
  Sir K. Joseph: The Rent Act did not cause the phenomenon of Rachman. What did cause it was shortages. The housing position is immeasurably better than when we came to power. But in the big cities the gap is still severe.
  Let me give the House the figures about London where the problem is at its most intense. In the ten years from 1951 to 1961, by planned and by voluntary overspill, the population in Greater London fell by over 250,000 people. This in itself should have greatly improved the spaciousness and quality of the housing available. But not only did the population fall in those ten years by over 250,000, but in the same period 300,000 extra houses were built in Greater London. So, as a result, most of London is very much better housed now than ten or twelve years ago.
  I hope that the House will follow the argument. It is important to get it clear. Within this smaller population one particular component was growing during

  1083
  that decade. There was immigration from all over the world, especially from the Commonwealth, and it grew during that 10-year period—when the population had fallen by over 250,000—by a figure of 120,000 people. These people—we all know it—were not able to spread themselves over the whole of Greater London. They tended, through no fault of their own, to congregate in areas already crowded.
  I may tell the House that the Government very seriously considered—they thought long and hard during that time about it—the possibility of allowing only those immigrants to enter who had some sort of housing certificate to show that they had a place to which to go. I believe it right for me to say that by their conduct the Government have, for honourable reasons, allowed this concentrated demand in some parts of the big cities of the country to be increased and aggravated by their understandable hesitation about Commonwealth immigration.
  Commonwealth immigration posed a serious dilemma for the Government. On the one hand, there was the great tradition of free Commonwealth entry and all the ties of duty and friendship, particularly to poorer countries, together with the need for labour—often skilled and always willing—and, on the other, the constant reminder that extra people, however worthy, must sharpen the pressure on housing.
  The Government paused honourably and then took a cautious step to moderate the right of entry. The Oppposition, for reasons which were honourable and understandable, opposed the necessary legislation at every stage.
  This was the background against which Rachman throve. It is quite right to ask what the Government did. My right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary, in one of his visits to multi-occupied property, was so shocked and appalled by the squalor he saw there that he came back to the Department determined on immediate legislation.
  At that time the main emphasis was on somehow year by year mitigating the shortage, but so greatly was my right hon. Friend horrified by what he saw that he decided to include in the 1961
  1084
  Bill a provision to deal in a more effective way with the squalid evils of multi-occupation. The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) had explained to my right hon. Friend and me that, however much we increased and sharpened the powers, they would be quite ineffective unless they somehow bit through the smokescreen of legal complexity which operators knew how to weave around themselves.
  So the 1961 Act, which came into force with its regulations in May last year—15 months ago—had four main features. It empowered local authorities to make management orders for houses that were not conducted decently. It empowered local authorities to make works orders to see that more sanitary and other facilities were put into houses to come nearer to matching the number of occupants. It empowered local authorities to make an overcrowding order imposing a maximum number of residents to any one of these houses, but in such a way that the owner was not obliged to evict anyone. He was simply forbidden to fill vacancies which occurred until the number fell below a certain amount. The fourth feature was that the fines and prison penalties were made to bite—if the owner could not be identified—on the manager, or even the rent collector, if necessary.
  My right hon. Friend was not sure, even then, that he hadgot enough powers in the hands of local authorities. Local authorities were at that time specifically warned that two years after the Act came into force, in 1964, they would be invited to report to the Government what further powers, if any, they thought necessary to give them a full armoury against this evil.
  I know there are worries in the minds of local authorities concerned. I know that many of them are, above all, frightened of the large rehousing obligations ahead of the waiting list which might be caused if owners took it into their heads, instead of submitting to orders, to evict large numbers of tenants. I am, however, glad to say—the right hon. Member for Huyton mentioned this—that the powers are being used effectively by a large number of local authorities.
  I was in Birmingham a few months ago, and I was most impressed by the

  1085
  vigour with which that local authority is tackling its very large multi-occupation problem. It has already made 400 management orders. I gather from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux), who has been so strong an advocate of these or even stronger powers, that Nottingham has already found the powers useful. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, later in the debate.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: Is the Minister aware that Birmingham City Council feels that its powers to regulate multi-occupied property are limited by inadequate rights of entry, which are much less than under the Public Health Act? Will he consider amending the law to deal with this part of the problem?
  Sir K. Joseph: Certainly I shall come to that.
  In London, two of the authorities most troubled by this problem have had different experiences. Kensington is using the power vigorously and reports that if a Rachman appeared there the council thinks it could bring him to heel. Paddington, however, has real difficulty and thinks that new and stronger powers might be needed. I am seeing Paddington in a few days' time.
  The Government's position is that, instead of waiting for 1964 to review the 1961 Act powers, we are embarking straight away—I have already issued the invitations—on consultations with the local authorities principally concerned to see what further powers, if any, they want. Among these powers we shall no doubt be considering powers which I believe the hon. Member for Paddington, North may be advocating in this debate. I do not want to prejudge any consideration given to these powers by the House.
  I gather that what the hon. Member has in mind is that for really sweated and exploited property the right thing might be to provide for a more summary form of compulsory purchase order where the property would vest very quickly in the local authority. Certainly we can consider this. The problem will be to define sufficiently by Statute the sort of property for which
  1086
  such treatment would be just. The local authorities, also, may object because they would have to be willing to carry out their housing responsibilities to a very much lower standard than they would like. They might be frightened that the standards would be so shocking to their members that there would be a growing pressure to place some of the people ahead of the list.
  However, we shall consider anything that the hon. Member and the local authorities wish. One thing I can tell the House, which I hope will ease the mind of the hon. Member, is that if a compulsory purchase order were made for such a property the price certainly would not reflect the exorbitant rents or the exorbitant number of people packed into such a property.
  Then there is the suggestion for registration of multi-occupied property, which might be a valuable weapon. This was felt particularly by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central. Here again the Government will certainly consider allowing this power locally. There is a power already for it to be introduced next year, but I shall have to consult local authorities because there is a difficulty of definition. Of the tens of thousands of multi-occupied houses, the vast majority are decently conducted, orderly establishments, providing rooms for nurses, students, teachers and typists. It would wrong to force these premises to be registered unless that were the only way to increase the power against racketeers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It can certainly be considered.
  The position then is that urgent consultations are going on with the local authorities and the Government will introduce any necessary legislation at the earliest possible opportunity. But the main solution must be, of course, more houses and, as the right hon. Member said, better distribution of employment. Over most of the United Kingdom the Government's housing programme has outpaced the growth in population sufficiently to keep us still one of the most spaciously housed people in Europe—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—this is true, and statistics show it—but in a few cities and towns the shortage is still very severe.
  I say to the right hon. Member that the shortage cannot be conjured or controlled away. The only answer to it is more houses and better distribution of

  1087
  the working population. The limitation to more houses is not finance; we are reviewing the subsidies at the moment. The limitation is not even land; we shall get all the housing land inside the cities and possibly other sorts of land too. The imperative necessity is to increase the output of the building industry and to achieve somehow more decentralisation from our big cities.
  We have a difficult task to obtain a better distribution of employment from the big cities, without imperilling the prosperity which is so vital to the country. Of course London and Birmingham are magnets, and will remain magnets whether or not there is a more or a less slice of office building. We have tried with office building to steer a middle course. Perhaps we should have acted more quickly—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."]—but it was not so obvious then as it is now.
  It was the Government, and my right hon. Friend now the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who in 1956 had to require the L.C.C. to reduce the amount of acreage available for offices in London. Over the years we shall, of course, reduce the relative magnetism of London and the Midlands by increasing the magnetism of the areas which are now less prosperous, but this will not happen overnight. Meanwhile we cannot build a wall round London.
  Our policy is more houses, better decentralisation of employment, and sharpening the law if necessary against the abuse of shortage. But there is no magic wand, and what worries a Minister of Housing is the condition of the people in the rented property in the time intervening before we can abolish the shortage in big cities. This must occur until our solution or that of any party can finally be effective.
  This is the worry which I and my right hon. Friends before me have had seriously in mind, and from the start I was concerned about the effect of the shortage that reaches forward from the present generation to future generations by degrading the lives of families and the children who come to them. Because of this worry about the scale of the pressure upon the tenants of rented property I tried last autumn to see whether there was any conclusive evidence about the amount
  1088
  of pressure that was being brought to bear. I had inquiries made of town clerks and of citizens advice bureaux, and by January I had a report from them on an informal basis. As I suppose was inevitable, it was inconclusive.
  As a result, when the Government produced a White Paper on London: Employment, Housing and Land, paragraphs 48 and 49 of that document spoke of carrying out a survey of existing housing so that the Government might know the scale of any pressures which were being brought to bear upon the tenants and might ensure that rented property both public and private, in this still remaining period of shortage, was used to the best possible advantage of those needing housing.
  I had hoped that this committee would be set up a month ago, in June. I hope that the House will consider that it was worth waiting the extra few weeks, because I am now in a position to announce that Sir Milner Holland, Q.C., has undertaken to chair this committee. I think that the House will agree that that is a guaranee that the survey which will be made will be impartial and thorough. The membership and the exact terms of reference will be announced as soon as possible. I do not think that we have lost any time, because over the last months my Department has been doing a lot of preparatory work which I hope Sir Milner Holland and his committee will find will help them forward. Although the committee will limit its activities to London housing, both public and private, any lessons which we may learn from London may prove to be valuable elsewhere. Let me set this vitally important but extremely limited problem of racketeering in its place.
  Mr. John Hynd Mr. John Hynd (Sheffield, Attercliffe) rose—
  Sir T. Moore: The hon. Gentleman has only just come in.
  Mr. Hynd:I know, but I heard the statement. I understand that the report will be limited to London. Why is that, in view of the fact that conditions in Sheffield and many other big cities are equally as bad?
  Sir K. Joseph: I will certainly consider what the hon. Member says, but this report by its terms of reference must be

  1089
  limited to London. I have not had the impression that the problems anywhere else in the country are as intense as they are in London.
  I was about to say that the evil of racketeering is bred by shortage and that the shortage, because of the area and size of the big cities, cannot be solved overnight. We have a larger housing programme and within it a larger local authority housing programme. All land that is practicable will be obtained for housing, and there is and there will continue to be a rising tempo of decentralisation, but while the shortage exists there is the danger of exploitation. The local authorities have strong powers. They have compulsory powers—they can make management orders, works orders, overcrowding orders for housing in multi-occupation—and we are consulting urgently to see whether further powers are needed.
  I have been speaking of the problem we face, of its highly localised nature, of its intractable causes, and of what we have done and may have to do. But, if I may turn from an analysis of the problem to a matter of politics, I think it right to say that the justifiable anxiety about all these things should not obscure for a moment the extreme weakness of the Opposition's position. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is absolutely entitled to probe and criticise, but when he adopts, as he did just now, a highly moral tone I am bound to remind him and the House that there were parasites in the Socialist paradise, too. [Interruption.] Mr. Brady was one of them.
  The right hon. Gentleman does not often open housing debates. We have had two in the last three months, if he had been interested. The right hon. Gentleman expresses horror now, but he knew these allegations before. He had heard his hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North as I have done. The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), a diligent, capable and very conscientious representative of the Opposition, has only once in the last four years, in one line of one speech, made reference to this sort of evil of intimidation. I will say why the Leader of the Opposition has only just intervened. The Opposition did not intervene before because they
  1090
  knew that Government action in introducing the 1961 Act was designed to strengthen the hands of the local authorities, and was being used. They raise the subject now not because of worry about housing but because of the Rachmanlink with the Ward case. The high-minded Leader of the Opposition leapt at the opportunity of a general smear based on an admitted evil of which he should have known for several years. [Interruption.] If hon. Members opposite will not hear me I shall stayhere until they do. Am I being asked whether I knew? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] I am sorry but I did not hear the question. Yes, the hon. Member for Paddington, North told me of this in 1960, just before the 1961 Bill was introduced.
  Mr. Parkin: If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, I undertake that I will show the Minister documents which came into my hands yesterday afternoon from the shopping bag of an old lady who was frightened to go back home. These documents could have been available to the Home Secretary from the tenants' association at the time, but he again, again, and again refused to meet those deputations.
  Sir K. Joseph: We shall listen to the hon. Member—
  Mr. Rees-Davies: Before my right hon. Friend replies to that matter, may I ask whether he has not yet been informed that this association to which reference is made is one known to be Communist-inspired? Has the information also not yet been put in front of him, and is he not aware that the leaders of this and the other associations with it are all persons convicted of serious criminal offences?
  Sir K. Joseph: No, no. There is a real evil here somewhere.
  So the Labour Party's chosen solution to all these problems of housing is neither humane nor relevant. A promise to repeal the Rent Act is designed to catch votes and not to produce houses. To cancel the Rent Act and to restore rent control to the 16 per cent. of housing stock which has been freed would make things worse, not better. Such a policy would increase decay, increase shortage, decrease self-help, hold in London people

  1091
  who do not need to be there, build not a single extra house, remove any hope for new families of a home of their own to rent and encourage racketeering.
  The only main answer is more houses. I will tell the House the Labour Party's policy on that, too. Hon. Members opposite have not yet once told us during these last few years how many houses they would or we should build. Speech after speech by the hon. Member for Fulham contained no overall target at all. Only after we announced that our next step would be at least 350,000 houses a year did hon. Members opposite, more or less, adopt that figure also.
  Mr. M. Stewart (Fulham)Mr. M. Stewart (Fulham) rose—
  Sir K. Joseph:The hon. Gentleman—to save him getting up—said that there should be a programme of 200,000 local authority houses, but he never gave an overall programme—not in this House. I defy him to show that he did.
  Mr. Stewart:The Minister is mistaken about that. In housing debates, when the present Lord Hill of Luton was Minister, I set out reasons why I believed the present rate of building overall to be inadequate and described what I thought should be the very minimum figure allowed. I have done that more than once. In fact, I arrivedat a figure very similar to the 350,000 which the Government announced about a year later. But I stressed that that could not be regarded as a figure adequate to our needs. Now the Minister has stated that never once in the House have I mentioned a target. That is totally untrue, and the right hon. Gentleman ought to withdraw it.
  Sir K. Joseph: I want to save time. I do withdraw it. The hon. Gentleman did not repeat it during my tenure of office. I apologise to him.
  Both sides are agreed that if 300,000 is the next step we all want to go higher. The right hon. Gentleman who opened the debate is a great one for criticising others, but when it comes to bold and necessary reform he is against it. The Rent Act—repeal it. The London Government Bill—repeal it. If we had joined Europe he would repeal that, too. The right hon. Gentleman's speech this afternoon was as irrelevant to the real problems as his party's programme
  1092
  is to the needs of housing. On housing the party opposite has a bad record in the past and a wrong policy for the future.
  5.15 p.m.
  Mr. John Silkin: Any hon. Member who rises to address this House for the first time must inevitably be a prey to feelings of both awe and of diffidence. How much more must this be so for one who has the temerity to intervene in a debate as momentous as the present one. Nevertheless, I am comforted by the knowledge that the House is traditionally generous to its newcomers, and today I like to think that some of that generosity may stem from the recognition of a name that a few years back was tolerably known in this House.
  I have the honour to represent a borough which, for many years, could be termed the typical Rent Act borough of London, the Borough of Deptford. My distinguished predecessor, Sir Leslie Plummer, whose loss I know has been very great, spent much of his time endeavouring to help those of his constituents in Deptford who were victims of bad housing conditions and of the effects of the Rent Act, 1957. I make no apology whatever for being Nor'-Nor'-West controversial in this debate. Having listened for 90 minutes or so I find it almost entirely impossible to make a non-contentious speech.
  If one goes back to the days when the Rent Bill was being introduced into the House one finds that certain very definite reasons were given for its introduction, and one of the things that has astonished me today is that these reasons have not been repeated. Let me at least endeavour to bring them again to the House, echoes, as it were, from the past. First, these were the words of the present Minister of Health on Second Reading of the Rent Bill on 21st November, 1956: He said:
  "Then there is the factor of the constant erosion of the stock of houses available far renting by the fact that whenever a rented house falls vacant upon the departure of a tenant, in far mare cases than not the landlord puts it up for sale, however long he has to wait to effect a sale."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st November, 1956; Vol. 560, c. 1762.]
  In other words, by introducing the Rent Bill there will be more houses, he said, for letting, fewer for sale. This has not

  1093
  been the experience of the Borough of Deptford, and I venture to say it is not the experience anywhere. On the contrary, it would seem that the number of houses—and I am using the word "houses" deliberately, though the same applies to flats—for letting has declined all over the country, that is to say, from among those houses released from control under the 1957 Act.
  What has happened to those houses? In the first place, even where they remain let they are now let, we all know, in many cases at exorbitant rents. I said that I was speaking for the people of Deptford, and the House must appreciate that a £2 a week rise in a rent in Hampstead may not be of such enormous moment. In Deptford, it may very often be a crucial rise, because Deptford is a working-class constituency and the effect of the 1957 Rent Act was to render the working class much less able to cope with the enormous difficulties of the present situation. I have in my pocket ready for today's debate a letter which informs me that in a certain house in Deptford for one room the rent charged is £3 a week. The writer hastens to say:
  "Please deal with the matter without angering my landlord."
  In this case, and I think in many others, when we talk of intimidation we do not necessarily mean the Rachman strong-arm tactics. Intimidation can mean the fear of eviction. All over Deptford, and, I have no doubt, all over London and similar areas where there are large centres of population, this is the real intimidation that exists today.
  It is easy to say that where rents are exorbitant the local authority should acquire these houses compulsorily. I speak as a lawyer, and I know from personal and professional experience how difficult it is to get this procedure under way. Let me quote one simple example in Deptford. When a house with vacant possession which, before the passing of the Rent Act, might have been bought for £1,800, is finally offered for £10,000 the resulting difficulties in which the local authority is placed become fantastic.
  This is not an isolated example. There are two small cleared sites in a rather unsalubrious part of Deptford—for, believe me, there are very few palaces in
  1094
  that borough—totalling less than ¼ acre. These were recently sold for over £5,000—small cleared housing sites. How can one expect any local authority to be able to cope with a problem like that?
  The Home Secretary said on the Report stage of the Rent Act:
  "What I say is that all the evidence available goes to show that there has been no outburst whatever of speculation, either in expectation of the Bill or after its terms were published."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1957; Vol. 567, c. 1071.]
  The right hon. Gentleman should really have paid a visit to Deptford. He would have seen for himself. The fact is that there is speculation, there is extortion and profiteering.
  While I am on the subject of profiteering, there is one form of profit that I know hon. Members on both sides of the House deplore as much as I. The Minister touched upon it, and so did my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Deptford is a borough in which there has been considerable immigration from the Commonwealth. I think the total of immigrants is now 7½ per cent. of the population—a very large proportion indeed. There are those who have made the more disreputable form of political capital out of the strife between race and race and colour and colour. This is something that I know all hon. Members will deplore. But I am only trying to say that the capital that is made out of the Rent Act is not to be measured entirely in terms of money. It is measured in other terms as well.
  What has happened is that ignorance, gullibility, and the fact that many strangers to a new land tend to cling together for safety have all been capitalised, because houses have fallen into decontrol and they can be offered to these people. The political capital has followed the economic capital. It seems to me that if the Rent Act, 1957 had not been passed, all the powers that the Minister has taken and that he proposes to take would have been quite unnecessary. They are palliatives in a difficult situation. I give the right hon. Gentleman full marks for doing his best, but the truth of the matter is that it is really beyond him. So long as we have this Rent Act with its creeping decontrol, so long will the present situation not only remain but become worse.

  1095
  Two things are necessary to solve the problem—time and the will. Time we still have, but it is slipping past. Whether we have the will depends on the outcome of this debate today.
  5.26 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Allan: I have not before had the pleasure of following a maiden speaker, and I could hardly have wished for a happier occasion on which to do so than today. I do not find it easy to refer to the non-controversial nature of the speech of the hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin). Nevertheless, I have no difficulty in praising its vigour and its clarity of thought, and also in drawing attention to the hon. Gentleman's humanity, which conies well from someone who succeeded the late Member for Deptford. I think that when we learned of the hon. Member's election we all suspected that the son of so distinguished a father would make his mark here, and now we know.
  Another man of great humanity and feeling is my colleague the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). He and I have represented different parts of our borough for a good many years and are personal friends. I know and share with him the bitter hatred which he has for the type of persecution of the weak and defenceless which he has lately tried to show up. I think he would recognise, too, that all people who value human dignity share that hatred, whatever their political party.
  However, I must add that I think, either by design or perhaps because of the almost appaling appetite for the sordid and the scandalous which the British public seem to have at the moment, these admittedly horrible cases have been built up into a vast blown-up picture which bears little resemblance to the original—as little reality as I am sure the remarks and innuendoes which are now being investigated will prove to have when the investigation is completed. Also this kind of widespread calumny involves innocent people.
  I hold no brief for, and would not attempt for a moment to defend, Rachman or any of his kind. But his activities must be put in their proper perspective, if only to be fair to public employees who have been castigated, or
  1096
  rather to the council which was castigated by the right hon. Gentleman and to others who have an interest in the borough of Paddington.
  At no time did Rachman have very much property in Paddington. The highest number I have seen of houses which he controlled there was about 20, the lowest eight. But he did operate in Paddington considerably before the Rent Act ever came into force. I first came across him in the autumn of 1953. He had bought a property, with statutory tenants, which he wanted to sell with vacant possession to a developer—the old story about which we have heard a good deal in the last two weeks. In fact, he had alternative accommodation to offer to the tenants and all except two went. Those two, quite rightly, decided that they would not, for when their turn came Rachman's supply of decent property had run out. They decided to stay. Then strong-arm methods were used against them. The gas was cut off, the water was cut off, the electricity was cut off, and so on.
  The tenants came to me. I went to the police and to the council, and both co-operated at once, giving full protection to the tenants. The council served notices for the reintroduction of the services. I then called on one of the rather despised legal firms which have been mentioned in the Press recently and gave an account of what was going on. Within a week, those two tenants had been offered satisfactory accommodation and had left.
  Mr. E. Fernyhough: What happened to the people who entered the house illegally and cut off the gas, the electricity and the water? Were they prosecuted? Did the hon. Gentleman follow that up?
  Mr. Allan: They were, in fact, prosecuted on that occasion.
  On about three other occasions between 1954 and 1957 I had dealings with tenants of Rachman. All three were women living alone in unfurnished accommodation in houses which Rachman wanted to get hold of so that he could relet the accommodation furnished. These women decided to fight and they came to me. Again, I had full co-operation from the police in all three cases and from the council in the only case

  1097
  in which its co-operation was relevant. In the end, the police made two arrests in connection with prostitution, covering two cases, and, in the other, an arrest in connection with assault. As a result of what was done, these women won their fight. The houses were eventually sold by Rachman to somebody quite different, not passed to another of his companies. The new landlord offered one woman £150 to go. She accepted and went to live with her sister in the country. Another of the women eventually got council accommodation, and I lost touch with the third. These incidents all occurred before the Rent Act came in, and I had the full co-operation of the local council and of the police in dealing with them.
  Eventually, when the Rent Act was passed, the area in which the Rachman rackets could be operated was limited to places where there was property of £40 rateable value or less. The Rachman rackets were transferred to the St. Stephen's Gardens district of which we have heard so much lately. I have made my investigations, as has the hon. Member for Paddington, North. In many cases, I think, we have seen the same man. I do not believe that strong-arm methods were used by Rachman in more than three cases in St. Stephen's Gardens, and one of these was the notorious case of 34 St. Stephen's Gardens where there was the tarpaulin episode. I do not believe that there could have been a large number there because, from information which I have and which, I believe, the hon. Member for Paddington, North has, Rachman did not own more than six houses in St. Stephen's Gardens.
  I think that I should give some detail about the tarpaulin episode, because people may have got the impression from what has been said and written that everyone just sat back helpless while tenants were exposed to the elements because a heartless and wicked landlord had removed the roof. In fact, when it happened I was alerted, the council was alerted and the tenants' association was on the spot. The council immediately inspected the roof, and it found that 24 slates had been maliciously damaged. The council had a tarpaulin put on the roof and, within two days, had served a notice on the
  1098
  owners, which notice was complied with relatively quickly.
  Mr. Parkin: Can the hon. Gentleman name the owners?
  Mr. Allan: Yes, they were Rachman. I have forgotten the name at the moment—Pierpoint Investments, I think—but it was undoubtedly a Rachman company. That was in the autumn of 1960. I do not believe that Rachman operated in Paddington after that. As I understand it, what his widow is reported today in the papers to have said, namely that he more or less ceased his operations in Paddington by the autumn of 1960, is right.
  I shall not deal with the allegations of thuggery now said to be going on. I had a great deal of information given to me over the weekend, and we have heard what my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said today. I hope very much that there will be a thorough police investigation of all the alleged thuggeries. I think that it might throw a rather different light on what has been going on and may change the impression which many people now have.
  I do not imagine that I am a paragon as a Member of Parliament. I am no better than most and, I like to think, no worse. I am in my constituency every day simply because I happen to live there. I have my political "surgeries", as we all do, once or twice a week. I believe that I know pretty well what is going on. People come to me, and, as I have said, a fair amount of notice has been given to the various efforts I have made on behalf of constituents.
  With the good name of Paddington at heart, I am interested in trying to put the amount of racketeering which is going on in Paddington into proper perspective. I have gone into some rather exhaustive detail in order to show that, in all the cases in which I have had personal dealings with Rachman or his tenants, I have had full and effective co-operation from both the police and the local authority. I have no doubt whatever that Rachman has never gone unnoticed or, indeed, unhindered because of any lack of drive on the part of the police or the local authority, let alone because of any connivance in his activity on their part.
  Mr. Simon Mahon: I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. He says that the police gave him every support. Earlier, he said, that the slates on the roof of a house were pulled off. What were the police doing? Were they asleep at the time?
  Mr. Allan: Not at all. It was done at night. It is quite easily done. If the police had been there, I should have been very pleased but somewhat surprised. It is not the job of the police to guard all the roofs in Paddington.
  The same co-operation which I have had from the police and the local authority in those cases has been forthcoming in what has been happening in regard to vice and clubs. Again, there has been a good deal of publicity about what has been happening in Paddington in this connection. I was in close touch with the Ministers of the Home Office, as was the Hon. Member for Paddington, North, during the early stages of the framing of both the Street Offences Bill and the Licensing Bill. We knew that we could not even attempt by the Street Offences Act to stop what is, after all, the oldest profession. All we sought to do was to stop its flagrant operation in areas where it had become quite impossible to bring up young families in a reasonable atmosphere. Prostitution, of course, goes on, but I should like to record the continuous and not unsuccessful battle which the local police and the council have been fighting in this direction, too. Because I was personally involved in them, I know of at least twenty obnoxious clubs which have been closed as a result of police and council action.
  The second issue of today' sdebate is the question of exorbitant rent. I do not want to go into this matter in such detail as my right hon. Friend, but inevitably it arises from pressure of population on London with resulting overcrowding. In a borough like Paddington the pressure of population is continuous and irresistible. To replace control, as is suggested by hon. Members opposite, merely freezes a bad position. It does not create any more housing and merely gives black market opportunities for racketeers like Rachman to exploit.
  People say, as the Leader of the Opposition said, "Give the council more
  1100
  power and more control. Make it enforce its rights in the provision of amenities." If we do that, what do we do with the displaced persons? I know what my right hon. Friend says. He says that we are merely telling people owning over crowded accommodation to wait till tenants leave and then not replace them. In these circumstances people will never move. Accommodation will be kept overcrowded because it is profitable to do that. Again, if the council is forced to create amenities, it means taking a room for a bathroom and displacing people. What is to be done with those people?
  In any borough—this most certainly applies to Paddington—the areas of greatest overcrowding and lack of amenity are those very areas which are inhabited by the most recent arrivals. People from the Commonwealth, the West Indies, Ireland and the provinces come into that sort of catchment area of Paddington and they are there perhaps only for months. Is the council, in acquiring these properties, to give priority to these temporary, transient people on its housing list at the expense of those who have waited months and, as we well know, years for decent accommodation? We in Paddington have a change of population in this densely crowded area of about 40 per cent. every year. This is something which we must recognise. We cannot give priority in permanent housing to transient people.
  In my view, the only way to have effective development and to overcome this overcrowding problem is by building at higher density levels. This is a particular hobby horse of mine, and I am very glad to ride it again this afternoon. My right hon. Friend says that the provision of houses is the first priority. That is so. But it is not possible to provide new houses in the centre of London, certainly not in Paddington. One can provide new accommodation and relieve overcrowding only by building at higher density levels.
  The Leader of the Opposition talked about the failure toplan. There were great dreams that post-war London would be emptier than it is. But London is a magnet. It will draw people, and we cannot stop it drawing people. If London stops attracting people to it, it means it

  1101
  is decaying. So long as London offers great opportunities for work, culture and pleasure, then people will come to it, and we cannot stop them. The only way to cater for these people—
  Mr. G. H. R. Rogers: How long is this process of allowing London to develop to go on—ten years, twenty years, fifty years?
  Mr. Allan: What part of London?
  Mr. Rogers:London. How long is the conurbation to be allowed to develop because it is a magnet for other people?
  Mr. Allan: We cannot stop it. It is like a tide which we cannot stop. But we can harness it by creating accommodation at higher density levels.
  I have investigated this problem in some detail. In 1953 I was chairman of a group of building contractors and civil engineers which devised a scheme in great detail. We produced a book, to which I wrote the foreword, called The High Paddington Scheme, which was to house 8,000 people on an 18-acre site over Paddington goods yard in multipurpose buildings with high density. I am sure that the hon. Member remembers the scheme. It was turned down by the L.C.C. on density grounds. Eight thousand people were not housed. St. Stephen's is overcrowded twice as much as it was then. The Paddington waiting list has become longer only because of this sacred cow of density which a Labour-controlled L.C.C. insists on worshipping.
  The same happened in Paddington over a smaller scheme which the borough had called Paddington Heights. It wanted to build at a density of 320 people to the acre. Again, the L.C.C. turned it down and insisted on building at a density of 170 people to the acre. In this case, I am ashamed to say, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government supported the L.C.C. This is another occasion when 450 people were not given houses, for which plans were all ready, on a three-acre site simply because of the decision of the L.C.C. to adhere to an outdated density figure. Last year the Paddington Council offered to rebuild a half acre site in the most overcrowded area in Paddington provided it was allowed to redevelop it at
  1102
  the rate of 300 people to the acre. The area already had a density of 350, but the L.C.C. turned down even a permitted density of 300. Therefore, again a great opportunity was lost by sticking to this absurd belief in a mystical density figure. I feel as hot under the collar about this insistence on a meaningless formula by a Labour-controlled council as any hon. Member opposite does about so-called Tory landlords.
  If my right hon. Friend wants to solve the overcrowding problem and thereby to get rents; down, he must ensure building at a realistic density figure.
  Mr. Albert Evans: I am sure that the hon. Member appreciates that the density which is permissible under the Act cannot be altered at the will of the local authority. Any proposed change in the density allowed is a matter for consultation between the local authority and the Minister.
  Mr. Allan:Yes, of course, but the Ministry will certainly accept any suggestions made to the local authority. The L.C.C. has not once tried to raise the density. The hon. Member cannot give me an example of that.
  The last constructive suggestion that I wish to make to my right hon. Friend is this. Some effort might be made to allow statutory tenants to acquire their own property. My right hon. Friend believes, with me, that one reason for exploitation is the existence of a specialised class of tenant ready for the racketeer to exploit. A man who knows a fair amount about property made the suggestion to me over the weekend as a practical proposition that statutory tenants should be given the right to purchase their property at a fixed number of years purchase, perhaps on a mortgage arranged through a building society or insurance company but guaranteed by the Government. I tried this out on one or two other people with knowledge of the property world, and they agreed that this was a feasible proposition.
  I have said that I hold no brief for and would not seek to defend anything that Rachman or any of his ilk have done—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I made that clear at the beginning of my speech. By putting things in the perspective in which I have attempted to put them, I

  1103
  have tried to defend the reputation of Paddington and the zeal of its public servants, who, I think, have done a very good job.
  5.50 p.m.
  Mr. B. T. Parkin: If there is one thing for which the hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. R. Allan) is noted and recognised all over the House, it is the quality of his collar. Anyone knows by looking at it from here that he never got hot under it in his life. Of course, it is a very good tactic on his part to make that kind of playing-it-down speech. I would have forgiven him for it if I had not been so provoked by the Minister's speech.
  The hon. Member's remarks about higher density no doubt link up with the Minister's remarks about the old threat that more use would be made of council dwellings. I suppose that that means doubling up and a means test. As for his remarks about a transit area, if one pauses and thinks, that throws some light on the way the Minister can dupe himself, if not us, with his remarkable statistics.
  Does the Minister tell us that 80 per cent. of properties as they become decontrolled are subsequently let for rent? That is the figure that is given to him.
  Sir K. Joseph: It comes from Professor Donnison's published report, which, admittedly, is two or three years out of date. It was two or three years after the Rent Act was passed.
  Mr. Parkin: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not have to read Professor Anybody's report. The terrible thing about the two previous speakers from the benches opposite is that, having listened to them, when I come to reply to them I think that I must be talking to them through plate glass. I have no doubt that the professor was right, but what did it signify?
  Let me explain to the right hon. Gentleman. He may have heard about people taking up loans to buy property. Does he know what happens if somebody buys a house with the aid of a bank loan and then leases it? The bank wants its money back. The condition of buying with a bank loan is that the property is kept as valuable as it was, and by leasing
  1104
  it one lowers the value of what is bought. The right hon. Gentleman should look at that one. This is one of the disincentives to leasing over a long period. The bank manager reproaches the borrower and says, "You should not have done that. The security is not what it was. You should keep it unencumbered".
  Therefore, the property is let for short periods. As a result, there is an enormous turnover of tenants, and professors who take pure statistics come to the conclusion that this tremendous number of people are living in rented dwellings as a result of the Rent Act, and nothing is said about the economic rent which is charged.
  The hon. Member for Paddington, South said that the campaign against vice in Paddington was not unsuccessful. That is all right for the constituency, because for the most part that is not where the patrons come. We know that Paddington Council has always waged a relentless war against vice in the borough, and whenever prostitution raises its ugly head the names of the streets are changed. This is a matter of history. South Paddington, however, is the biggest brothel in Europe. I know of only oneRachman property in my constituency. That was No. 1 Wymering Gardens, which was a Church Commission lease and that is where Serge Paprinski nominally lived, but if one got the keys from Audrey, it was £50 a night with a girl. South Paddington is notorious.
  How can the hon. Member expect to persuade this House and the public that one cannot pick up around the West End—I will not give the number; but does not he know the house in Orme Court where half the cast of a recent play are available and one does not need much introduction? I did not know his constituency as well in the old days as I do now after certain recent visits. Does he not know where the girls from the Miramar went? Does he not know who owned the place? I do. Why does he not ask apoliceman? The view which has been given of the hon. Member's constituency simply is not accurate.
  When I come back to the point where both of the speakers from the benches opposite were making the case that they knew about it and that they were deprived of information on which they

  1105
  could act, this is where my most restrained and carefully-prepared speech breaks down. Out of all the mountains of information which I have had, I have had to select a few examples. I had it planned because I wanted only to give cases which were clues to the ownership and working, as I and others have been, in search of the missing link to see whether we would get it right for today.
  Yesterday afternoon, I had three journalists in my house discussing a statement that had been made in response to something which I had provoked the day before. So the information had been coming in. I have certain admissions. I know who was the owner of the house where the assault took place. It is Raymond Nash, because he told me so before witnesses. He claimed to own the house. Of course, he says that he has contracted to sell, but what house in these circumstances is not contracted to sell? They are always contracted to sell. That is how this kind of business is done. The house has always been contracted to be sold to someone else. But as he said it in front of journalists and since he said it in my flat, I do not think I am under the umbrella of privilege. Was any action taken? Will any action be taken?
  Sykes admitted in my house that he had given instructions for the sale of those houses. We know which houses they were. Those are the ones which were filmed on "Panorama", where this outrage has taken place. Will there be a prosecution or not, or is this a quarrel between two private citizens? Can we still maintain that this is not a public issue of public concern, or are we to say once more that they never had a complaint?
  While I was having that conference, there came to my door, unexpectedly, half a dozen people from Paddington-Kensington and another man from Barons Court with another kind of evidence and case. They said, "We have brought you something that might help for tomorrow." I said, "Oh, my dears, I have so much I cannot sort it out. I do not think I can let you in. Leave me alone." Then, I thought that the journalists might have a go and that they might see the documents. So they came in and they all had a cup of tea.
  1106
  Out of the pile of documents, when I saw the first one I said, "That is mine. This is what I have been looking for for months"—Alexander March & Co., Estate and Property Management, 91–93, Westbourne Grove, London, W.2, the same address as on Peter Rachman Ltd., 91–93, Westbourne Grove, London, W.2. Do not the police know? Does not the Minister know who Alexander March is? They are the middle names, obviously, of Julian Peter Alexander March Phillips De Lisle.
  When somebody asked me—amusingly enough, it was an Express man—"When did you first get on to Sykes?" I said, "When you told me about it, on 11th April, 1961, in William Hickey." A fellow rang me up and said, "Have you seen William Hickey? That is him." I said, "What do you mean, 'That is him'?" He said, "Him that is in the Paddington Rent Tribunal every week"—and it was. That is Mr. De Lisle, says the society gossip writer, friend of Captain Anthony Sykes, friend and fellow officer of the Duke of Kent in the Royal Scots Greys.
  Mr. Rees-Davies:Is the hon. Member willing to repeat that allegation outside? Does he want to tear everyone's reputation to smithereens without opportunity of denial and as an abuse of the privilege of this House?
  Mr. Park in:I would not think that the hon. Member had need to advertise himself in this House to get plenty of briefs from that sort of character.
  Mr. Victor Goodhew: On a point of order. We are in danger, I think, of people's reputations being bandied about in this House. Is there nothing that can be done to ensure that if these sorts of things are said in this House under privilege there is recourse for these people outside?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: Further to that point of order.
  Mr. Parkin: I am not giving way.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker:The House will appreciate that I was asked a point of order and another hon. Member rose further to that point of order—[An HON. MEMBER: "It is not one."]—I thought it better to hear whether in my judgment it is a point of order or not. Then I will deal with it. If the hon. Member has a

  1107
  point of order will he please put it now? Mr. Rees-Davies.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: Further to that point of order. If in fact—[Interruption.]I was trying to go on when I heard those offensive epithets across the Floor of the House. The point of order I am making is this. The hon. Gentleman made an allegation that I was acting for Mr. De Lisle. It is without foundation. Is it in order—[Interruption.]—it would be ill of the right hon. Gentleman to say anything before one has an opportunity to be heard. Is it in order for an hon. Gentleman to make disgraceful allegations against hon. Members of this House as well as people outside without giving them an opportunity to deal with them?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker:There are two points which arise. What is said about persons outside this House is privileged within this House. It is a matter of taste as to what is said. Hon. Members are well aware that such persons cannot answer for themselves. What is said about hon. Members in this House is clearly governed by the rules of order. To make an allegation against an hon. Member is not in order. As I heard the debate going on I would not have thought that a direct allegation was made. I would not have thought that, but surely we can conduct our debate in an orderly fashion. Mr. Parkin.
  Mr. Parkin: I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I, of course, would like to conduct my speech in an orderly fashion.
  It did seem to me, since the right hon. Gentleman was developing this case and making those remarks about not knowing and nobody complaining, that here was a dramatic example in the shopping bag of that old lady, who was frightened to have her photograph taken, frightened to go back home unaccompanied, frightened to have the documents returned to her at the house because her letters were interfered with, and wished them to be returned to a relative who would return them to her. The documents which I am given would have given all the information that I am now being accused of disclosing under the umbrella of privilege.
  They belong to a tenants' association which has been refused again and again
  1108
  by the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor who have not been sufficiently interested. That is the fact of the matter. Tenants' associations have pleaded to put their case and put these facts. I am not going to use up the time of the House tonight in going through many of the mountains of cases I have got, but I can assure all those people that it will not be long before their cases are investigated. It cannot be long in any case before the General Election and no Government could survive the scandals of these revelations.
  Sir K. Joseph: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that I had refused to see or to hear this tenants' association? I did not quite understand that. He said me and my predecessor, I think.
  Mr. Parkin: I expect I did. I expect I meant the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor.
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not mean to quarrel with the hon. Gentleman. I just do not know whether he said that about me or not. Because if he did, I do not think it is true.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Parkin: Anything for peace and quiet. I withdraw.
  Here is a case which I was hoping to use as an example because it was away from Paddington and away from vice, and it was a fresh name. There was a sale by auction on 6th April, 1953, in Battersea. Sinclair & Partners, of Farnham Common. There were four blocks of flats in Prince of Wales Mansions. They did not pay very much for them—three blocks of flats: 31–40; about £2,000 for a block, with 28 years' lease to go; 61–70, £2,400 for 10 flats, 28 years' lease to go; and one round the corner. What was significant was that the address was 21 Mackenzie Street, Slough.
  What happened after that was that as the flats became vacant they were sublet to Mr. Rachman, who sublet them to other characters who conducted the sort of operations he would wish them to do in order to induce the rest of the tenants to leave.
  A tenants' association was formed and I am assured that they made attempt

  1109
  after attempt to get a hearing at the Ministry, and they claimed they were refused. That is my information. I get a good deal of it—from people who seem to me to be honourable, reliable, frustrated people. If it proves untrue I will, of course, withdraw. But I doubt it.
  The interesting thing about this is that when they had done this and got vacant possession and put the flats up again for sale by auction and got a higher price, about £6,000 the block, for the remainder of the lease, Magdalen College, Oxford, freeholders of one of the blocks, with no powers whatsoever, no rights whatsoever, came down and by strength of will frightened the living daylight out of the scoundrels who bought it and made them give it back without compensation. That is the remarkable story. But it came off. They were not going to have that in their property.
  For the sake of cutting down my speech I shall throw away another case. That was where Colonel Sinclair comes into the picture and it was outside Paddington at the time.
  What I was going to say about the bundle of documents I got yesterday was about the ownership of a certain house in Paddington. It was the same address, the same letters, from Kramer, giving notice to quit. It is established with these documents I got yesterday that Kramer acted as solicitor, that it was on the instructions "of our client, A. P. Sykes, Esq." and that the Estate Management Company was De Lisle working from Rachman's office. It was not until afterwards that I saw this further little scrap of paper, which was a worn-out circular. I picked it up. I have seen a lot of that sort of thing before. It was a duplicated circular offering to pay money if the lady would get out. I was not much interested at first, till I saw the name on the back of it was 21 Mackenzie Street, Slough.
  That is why last night in response to the Kramer-Rachman statement I said there might be one or two gaps to fill in and I would like to know the name of the man who sold large blocks of property to Rachman between 1956 and 1959, because in1956 Colonel Sinclair was the owner of that particular house. There is clear evidence. We know what he did at Prince of Wales Terrace, Battersea. We know what he did in Padding-
  1110
  ton. At first, he sent the letters offering to buy it. Then he found that there was a better organisation. Then he put the ferrets in. That is how it was done. The properties were changed over to someone else with an undertaking to resell them back again, and when the process was over the price was inflated.
  There is one thing about which I can agree with the right hon. Gentleman, that the Rachman activities did not stem solely from the Rent Act. As I never met Rachman, or, apart from this one house, had no properties of his in my constituency, I am very happy to agree on that point. During the course of this debate, I shall certainly not let many people, who are laughing their heads off because their own misdeeds have been overlooked, get away with it.
  A great deal of research work has been done during the last few weeks into the Rachman companies and all the rest of the story. It is a very remarkable thing when one considers how much good has been done by the echoes of that entirely harmless pistol shot. Never was a pistol shot fired by a jealous lover with better results. If anybody should get a medal for political and public services, it is "Johnny" Edgecombe.
  One of the reasons why this work has been done so well is that in every newspaper group in this country there are journalists who have had this information for years, keeping it in their personal files. They had their stories spiked and scotched by the lawyers who are always threatening what they will do if one mentions any existing company or living person. Time and again it has been impossible to publish, time and again deputations have been refused, and time and again investigations have been refused. Newspapers have been gagged. I pay tribute to those journalists who have preserved that information and are only too glad to use it now. I only hope that the free-lances, who are the most frustrated of all, because if they do not get their stories sold they do not get any pay, are getting something out of it at the present time.
  As a matter of fact—I hope that he is a happy character—there is one night club photographer who is walking about London unaware that he has the right to draw enormous royalties in respect of his picture of Rachman, which has

  1111
  been copied and taken by practically every newspaper in the country.
  I am now going back to my own experiences as the Member for Paddington, North—a long way. I remember a party celebrating either my selection or my election, when a lot of clever people were deciding on my political career. They were rather aggressive chaps, and they have all gone high in their different professions and activities. But there was one quiet little chap, a councillor who, at a moment when he and I could hear one another, said, "There is one subject in Paddington that you might well study. It is the problem of fag-ends of leases. I have found in my ward in the borough that very curious things are going on."
  He had to explain it all to me. He told me about the great developments in Paddington, including the building of the station, and the fact that 99-year leases were imprudently granted, and they were beginning to fall in because no man of substance could afford to keep a lease because he might have to pay for the delapidations, and as a result the leases were being sold either to men of straw or to perpetually insolvent companies.
  I took this very seriously. I had been the Member of Parliament for Paddington only about six weeks when I wrote to the then Minister of Housing and Local Government. I set out the problem and said:
  "In order to face the problem squarely, it is necessary to assemble all the relevant facts and influences. These seem to fall under three headings:

  (1) The size of the problem and how fast it is increasing.

  (2) (a) The extent to which colonial citizens are either encouraged or permitted to come here.

  (b) The extent to which any check can be afterwards kept on their means of living.

  (3) (a) The extent to which ends of leases or freeholds of dilapidated properties can be freely disposed of without regard to social consequences.

  (b) The extent to which the 'welfare' aspects of housing management as developed under housing authorities could be extended to cover the unrecognised needs of immigrants living here."

  I got a reply. Someone has "pinched" it for the autographs, and I have only a carbon copy of it:
  "The question of the disposal of ends of leases of property comes within the general law of landlord and tenant and is a matter
  1112
  for the Lord Chancellor's Office. The Housing Repairs and Rents Bill, now before Parliament, contains proposals which would enable local authorities to acquire unfit houses and to exercise their management powers over these as well as over all other houses they own."
  There is a long piece about local authorities permitting sub-letting.
  Then there is a reference to a report reprinted in 1947, which sounds so encouraging. It says that good management is
  "…in effect in a form of social service and aims at teaching a new and inexperienced public to be 'housing minded'. A copy of this report was sent to local authorities, and it may be obtained from H.M. Stationery Office, price 9d. net."
  This was under the signature of Harold Macmillan. That was my estimate of the problem and is nearly ten years ago.
  In view of what happened after my study of the ends of leases I certainly will not let some of the old-established estate agents who have been working the "fiddle" of the perpetually insolvent company get away with it while we ascribe most of the evils of landlordism to the fiddle of Rachman. The practice was this, as I found it out. One learns the hard way. There was a rather dramatic circumstance. An Irishman brought to my notice the fact that his friend next door had been thrown out of the basement flat for which he had been paying five guineas a week. The rent tribunal had reduced it to £3 10s. He had been evicted at the end of his security of tenure. The property had been re-let to a Jamaican, quite illegally, at six guineas a week. It was a flat in which an old lady had died. As she had no relatives, all they had to do was to take the body off the bed, and there they had a fully furnished flat.
  Mr. George Thomas: In 1963!
  Mr. Parkin: This was a good many years ago now.
  I made a search to find out what the company was. The company was, of course, a £100 company, with two £1 shares allocated to two characters in Martin East's office. Martin East is an expert in these matters. He was the landlord of my hon. Friend's friend—Christie, of Rillington Place, the place with all the bodies in year after year; Timothy Evans's place. Obviously, he

  1113
  took a very careful interest in the maintenance of his property and what was going on.
  The Jamaican did not want to let us in. He said, "Please do not come. I have been thrown out so many times. Leave me alone, I am happy. It is a lovely dwelling." They said there were two tenants in the top floor. We knew that there were six. By the time they admitted there were six, there were 12. Two lovely "boys" were kitchen porters at Lyons at night and ate all their meals there, and they paid £1 to somebody else for a room during the day and sent the rest of their money home to mother.
  This was going to be Parkin's great triumph. It was going to be a great occasion when I named the place and the house. Television wanted to take a shot of it, and interviewed the coloured tenants. The television people were told the rents, and they photographed the toilet, and it appeared on the television screen. At last, I thought, we have got something which will stir things up. It certainly did.
  Martin East gave all the tenants notice and said that it was done on the instructions of the head leaseholder, and the name of the head leaseholder appeared on the Order Paper of the House of Commons, and he rang up the Church Commissioners to offer to surrender the lease. Forty people were made homeless because the Church Commissioners, through the agency of Colonel Hanbury-Bateman, chucked the lot out, and they got a bonus of a lease which was surrendered. No doubt they rehabilitated this property very nicely and let it at a nice rent, which is no consolation to those tenants. There was George Plant, next door, who had pneumonia after working so hard on the case. He died a few days later. His widow said that he would have been pleased to know that he got a wreath from his Member of Parliament.
  That was the result of my first interference—a dead man and 40 homeless people. You cannot win. But that is the established way of running this racket. The Martin Easts of this system, who have been in existence for years and who will not be touched by the Bill of the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), have established a principle—that bad property is
  1114
  a better investment than good property because if it is owned by an insolvent company all one has to do is charge the company, as a management fee, the exact amount of rents collected.
  That system is perfectly well known. Nothing is spent on repairs. As a result, when people add percentages and numbers of years, remembering that gross rent is also net rent, they establish a value through the principle that neglecting property is more profitable than repairing it. This was going on long ago. I have tried to provoke all these revelations in the last few weeks so that we could trace all these stages.
  How did I first hear of the practice? It was when constituents came to me and said, "We have nothing against coloured people. When they came into the house we wanted to welcome and help them. But they have these funny habits and make a lot of noise." These people could hardly believe what was happening to them. So there was another stage: the strong-arm man or the noisy, planted tenant. Of course, all the blame was put on them.
  Then there was the stage when all the blame was laid—as I gather it is being laid today—on this particular, unhappy, dead foreign Jew. But that is not right, either, because associated with him were a large number of people, some of whom I have named to the outrage of the authorities of this House and of some hon. Members. But I have done so in order to take the investigation a little further. I have said nothing that these people have not since confirmed in public outside the House in conversation with me in front of reporters. I will not labour that, because the evidence is there for whoever wants to follow it up.
  I spent a long time at the beginning of my speech to show that such evidence could have been available years ago, had these documents been examined. It would have been possible to piece together the incriminating evidence. I am glad now that all these stages of public interest have been gone through and that today we are, so to speak, in the boardroom looking into the future. Yet I wonder whether we ever left the boardroom to begin with, because an interesting situation has arisen.

  1115
  These little clues I have been getting seem to strengthen the view—and the Kramer-Rachman statement last night gave us the picture—that Rachman properties were being sold through Has all at inflated values through "phoney" building societies. Kramer has been solicitor of many companies, and of everyone connected with the Rachman story. He was solicitor to Colonel Sinclair at the time that Sinclair and Partners, of Farnham Common, was formed. That is the company which owned the house I mentioned which later went into Rachman's hands.
  In 1960, Sinclair formed, with Kramer as secretary, Nominees of George and Marjorie Sinclair, Limited, one of the subsidiaries of which was Kelvin Parade Development Limited, the directors of which were George Sinclair and Abraham Kramer. Kramer was Rachman's solicitor and is now Mrs. Rachman's solicitor and probably the executor of the intestate estate. At various times he appears to have lent money on Rachman's properties.
  The other clue is that Sinclair's company, the Long fort Mortgage Investment Company, Limited, of 21, McKenzie Street, Slough, had a second mortgage on Audrey O'Donnell, Limited, which indicates second control there. It would appear that there was a link before—and still existing since—which overrode Rachman and his operations and was interested much more in the long-term buying of bad properties, clearing them by using a gang to put in ferrets, and then selling them again.
  I am sorry to weary the House, but I have set all this out so that the Minister will know that there is material enough for the investigation which we are demanding and which it is surely time we should have. I said that there was something missing lastnight. I regret that there was not a second statement by Kramer saying that he would ask the Law Society for permission to release all the files of the Rachman affair.
  Someone got the Secretary of the Law Society out of bed—at least, I imagine that was what happened, for the answer seems to have been brusque—and he said that this was nothing to do with lawyers, but with the executors of the
  1116
  estate. So the ball is back at Kramer's end. He is able to release these papers and I hope that the Minister will see that he does, preferably tonight.
  One further matter which surely needs more investigation is the strange mortgage of the Eagle Star Insurance Company. This is a question of the public's money. We know how this sort of thing is done. It was done on the basis described by my right hon. Friend—of companies A, B and C passing from one valuation to another until one reaches a valuation enough to enable it to get a full 100 per cent. loan from the public's money.
  The secretary of the Eagle Star Insurance Company must have had his suspicions, but perhaps he was told not to reveal them. There are powers under the law—indeed, it is incumbent upon them—whereby valuers of insurance companies take precautions. If there is any suspicion, there should be an inquiry, and if we have to get the secretary to the Bar of this House he should be invited to reveal the names of each and every valuer engaged in the transaction.
  So much for the investigations that still need to be made. I hope soon to finish this part of the story, because now I want to move on and reveal the most important name of all—that of the very significant figure, indeed, the key figure, in the problem. It is a woman, and she has a secret. It is a secret which involves possible pain, threat and suffering to a number of innocent people. I want to talk about her.
  This woman lives in my constituency, in Fernhead Road. I will not give the number at the moment. I have been trying to get attention focused on her. I have tried with both the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. I asked them, "Why not get up to date and see Miss Carter? I will get her to re-enact the interview she had with me." They have replied that they do not want to do it because that would make it party politics. I asked them, nevertheless, to get a record of it, because they would eventually need it when someone paid attention to Miss Carter, for this is the nub of the problem that we have to face.
  Miss Carter is the owner of two houses. Her net income from both houses for the quarter was nil. It is true that she paid six months' rates in three months and

  1117
  paid her agent £9 10s., but at the end of the quarter she owed him £2 2s. 4d. I would have liked that interview to have been put on the tape along with a picture of this lady when she came to see me. I asked her, "What do you think I can do for you, Miss Carter?" She said, "I want you to get me a pensioner's flat". She could have got a pensioner's flat because in one of the houses there was an uncontrolled tenancy and the house had a lease which was due to fall in.
  If she had lived in that house, she could have had a pensioner's flat from the L.C.C. for life. But she said that that would have meant a court order and, "We do not do that sort of thing in Lancashire". She is about 4 ft. high and is 73. She could have been safe, but she would not do it. Plenty of others would have done it for money, but she would not throw out a family in an uncontrolled tenancy when the lease fell due. Now she is worried. I have to reveal her secret, although she does not like my doing so; it affects many people.
  She dropped her voice and leaned her head towards me and said, "I begin to feel that I cannot manage the stairs as well as I could". She is seriously thinking of selling the house, hoping to get enough money to buy another, but feeling that she will not. When the time comes that she cannot manage the stairs, there will be fear in the hearts of the other tenants who have been living there for a long time. It is not poverty or the lack of amenities. These are clean, hardworking people who make the best of what there is, the people who wash their front doorstep every day. Their fear is of strangers coming in with strange habits, and all the other things that they have heard about.
  For once, I have an audience. I have made 17 major speeches since 1953. Will someone please now pay attention to the case of Miss Carter, because her case represents the problem of the future? Nearly every other problem in housing is tied up with it. The problem of Miss Carter is how to get her transferred to another property without damaging that in which she is now living by allowing it to become the property of speculators. The problem is how to acquire that house, either through the local council or through a housing association. No single individual can do this because
  1118
  room to decant is needed to transfer people while conversion and reconditioning are being undertaken.
  Linked with that is the problem of how old people are to be treated. There are 100,000 old ladies of pensionable age living alone in London. That means that one in 10 of dwellings of this kind in London is occupied by such a person. Many of these dwellings are grossly under-occupied in terms of square feet, but if these old ladies leave, they lose their present security. It is not a modest increase in rent which they fear, but the horror of insecurity. Since the First World War this country has accepted the principle that no one should make vast profits out of housing shortages, and this has established the right of security. Quite apart from rent, it is the problem of the security of tenure which we have to face.
  If people have been listening to this story, they can go on listening a bit longer. If their consciences are smitten by what has gone on, they must demand the inquiry which we are demanding. We are here to counter the Government's argument that this is one limited tragic episode associated with one man. We know that these things have been going on—
  Sir K. Joseph:The Government do not say that this is one single tragic episode, related to one man. I rather carefully read out the position in other places. We were trying to get it into its scale.
  Mr. Park in: I will not recapitulate my argument, but my experience of Paddington is that we had these troubles before Rachmam arrived.
  Miss Carter represents a widespread habit in this country associated with the buying of the house next door as part of the pattern of working-class savings—the feeling that one will be all right in one's old age. Not only will one not be all right, but the house will not be. That is because most houses of this kind are dilapidated and they have become dilapidated because their single owners have been unable to carry out repairs, although large corporations could.
  At the end of the day, we shall have failed in our duty in exposing these scandals if we have not roused the country to personal determination to do something about it. Everybody can do something about it. Everybody can tackle

  1119
  this problem of the group breaking up. The loyalties of a community are destroyed through these stresses and strains in such a way that there is this ghastly loneliness in the tenement houses around London. There are ways of co-operating with and pressing local authorities and making them act. Magdalen College, Oxford, can chase thugs off the premises, but frightened old ladies cannot. There is still terror. Tonight there will be a vote and there will be a row. If the result of both is not on the one hand an investigation of all the matters which I have indicated—and it must come, for the Government cannot escape—and on the other hand a widespread determination to push ahead with a two-pronged assault on this intractable problem, we will have failed.
  Why do we not get help from other countries? I have had letters from Italy saying that journalists there wrote articles about this sort of thing two or three years ago. Can the Italians not take the same interest in our housing that they take in our scandals? Have we sought advice from Sweden and Norway and elsewhere about the techniques of housing?
  This is my moment and I intend to ram it home. How many times have I said this in Standing Committees? All the byelaws must be revised and must then be enforced. Byelaws such as those dealing with fire prevention must be enforced and we must devise penalties which will fall upon the bad landlord and not on the good. While a council must enforce the regulations when a house is brought to its notice, the problems we have been discussing are rarely brought to the notice of a local council. There is one simple reason for this. It is an extraordinary echo of the old notion of property. A local authority is not allowed to demand the name of an owner from the Land Registry, but the owner of the next-door property can get it. The public is not entitled to that knowledge, but property owners can exchange it among themselves. That situation must be changed, as all these gaps in the law must be dealt with.
  But none of it will be successful unless we tackle the other problem of how the community is to acquire for itself the increased value which it has put upon the land, not upon what is developed on
  1120
  the land, but the increased value of the land itself. There is a clue to the answer to this problem in the fact that the law has never admitted private ownership of land. It has admitted only a series of fiddles by which the so-called owner is free to do all sorts of things on it, but the land itself is held from the Crown. Let us restore that Royal prerogative so people can be free to carry on with what they have been doing with the land, on a freehold, until they change its use.
  This is the struggle between the two parties. This is the real issue. All sorts of silly arguments are bandied about at the time of a General Election, but if there is not a dedicated determination to tackle this gross error and injustice in the present system of land owning, a system which has provoked and encouraged these disgraceful distorted values which have produced these scandalous, unheard-of situations in which a man, as a joke, can suggest taking the roof off a house, just as he might suggest, in Army terms, "Burn down their huts", a system in which there have been evictions on this scale and the movement of population of the kind that we have witnessed in recent years, the problem will never be solved. This has gone on without many people knowing or caring, because the facts were not brought to their notice by the Government when they could have been.
  My final accusation against the Government is that they have failed constantly to listen to what has been said to them, and that now they will have to listen to what the whole country will say to them.
  6.41 p.m.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: This debate raises three separate issues. The first issue is housing, and we appreciated earlier that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition did not wish us to discuss that today. Had he done so, he would have called on a much more able man to put forward a reasoned speech, and I refer to the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart). It is, of course, clear to those who have had the opportunity of listening to housing debates that the Leader of the Opposition is not qualified to speak on that subject, nor did he deal with the facts of the situation.

  1121
  The second main issue is the important one of law enforcement to deal with the point at issue, whether one calls it racketeering or anything else. There is a third issue to which I shall refer later but which is of greater importance than the other two, and I beg hon. Gentlemen opposite to pay attention to it. I shall say nothing in this House that I am not prepared to repeat outside. I believe that this House is being used by certain people to get dupes to spread not only Communist but other matters. I am going to prove this, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will listen to me. I shall give chapter and verse for everything I say, and, furthermore, I shall name the people who have given me the information that I shall put before the House.
  I have given careful thought to this whole matter, because a few days ago I realised that this was merely a follow-up to what have been called the Johnny Edgcombe, Aloysius, and other people's earlier visits. I was unable to speak on the occasion of the earlier debate in the House because I was connected professionally with the case. On this occasion I am not professionally connected with Mr. de Lisle, who is here with me.
  Mr. William Warbey: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to a stranger by name?
  Mr. Speaker: It is usual to refer to strangers by name.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: The third issue with which I want to deal is that a deliberate public mischief has been created by scandal-mongering, the purpose of which is to try to defame not only the Government but certain men who hitherto have borne perfectly good characters, and to abuse the privileges of the House by making statements here which are without foundation and which are not based on any reasonable knowledge of the facts. This is what I shall try to establish, and I shall give the evidence as I proceed.
  The Leader of the Opposition was clearly obtaining his general information from someone, and it will be evident to hon. Gentlemen opposite that he was obtaining it from the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin), on
  1122
  whom he was placing reliance. I shall deal with the sources of information on which the hon. Member for Paddington was relying, because in the course of 16 to 20 hours work over the last two days I have made it my business to see most of those sources and to take statements from the people concerned.
  With regard to the housing issue, it is a preposterous absurdity to suggest that the existence of the Rent Act can possibly have any direct effect on this question of law enforcement or on the staging of this debate. If anyone looks back over a short period, he will see that the reason for this debate is that the hon. Member for Paddington, North, was fed with certain information which he blew through the corridors and spoke about in this Chamber. The hon. Gentleman made allegations against Captain Anthony Sykes, and the Leader of the Opposition—and I am not attacking the right hon. Gentleman—with that information in his possession, and assuming it to be correct, decided to have this debate. I am making the serious suggestion that this House is being used by journalists and others to bring out these matters, and that certain Communists whom I shall name are responsible for having set the wheels in motion and used as their dupe the hon. Member for Paddington, North.
  Dealing with the Rent Act, I was one of those who rebelled against my party, so the Labour Party cannot accuse me of having been a Right-wing Tory in that regard. Nevertheless, rightly or wrongly, we know that it is not possible to continue having false rents of14s. or 21s. a week without causing the sort of trouble which came to light at the time of Rachman's death, and therefore, whether we get rid of the Rent Act or not, whether we apply a limit on rents, or whether we leave it to the market, the sooner the present state of affairs is ended the better, but it hardly lies in the mouth of the Labour Party to come forward at this stage and say that it would end rent control, though it would apply some measure of control on the upper limits of rent.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition pointed out that for three years nobody raised the question of strong-arm tactics; that nobody raised the question of unlawful behaviour; and

  1123
  these questions of evictions which have now been raised—
  Mr. Laurence Pavitt Mr. Laurence Pavitt (Willesden, West) rose—
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I shall not give way. The Leader of the Opposition refused to give way to me on a very serious point of information, and I do not intend to give way. Anyway, I do not want to take long and I have a lot to say.
  It is clear that this question of security is irrelevant to today's debate. The reason that the debate was put on was first to deal with the question of law enforcement on Rachman; but, of course, the main issue was to try to get another stick to beat the Government with, another scandal which would be timed on the same day as the other—[Interruption.]—I shall establish the truth of these things.
  The right hon. Gentleman talked about the evil men involved. He named no one. The hon. Member for Paddington, North, named a number of men but gave no evidence to support his statements. As to racketeering, I think that I ought to deal with the facts of at least one man who has borne a very high character and whom I saw today for the first time in my life. I knew nothing of him before he came to see me. He did not come in any professional capacity. He has his own lawyer, and he has not in fact taken any action, but he has authorised me to put before the House the full picture of his position. His name is Julian De Lisle. He tells me that he is in fact issuing a writ for libel in respect of statements made about him in the Sunday Mirror yesterday. Let me make it plain to the hon. Gentleman that I neither act for him nor intend to act for him in any way. There have been no proceedings issued, and he is perfectly entitled to take what action he likes in due course. He would prefer to have the opportunity of saying something.
  It was said of this man that he was a close associate of Rachman and, indeed, various defamatory statements were made. The facts are these: he inherited a substantial sum of money from a cousin called Abel Edward Smith, but he never used the name of Smith. He in fact sold that estate in the early part of last year.
  Mr. Mellish: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member has just
  1124
  indicated that he is speaking for a certain gentleman who, I understand, is to bring a libel action on account of something printed in a newspaper. Is it in order now for that article to be read and this matter to be debated, because, as I understand previous Rulings, these matters become sub judice once they become matters for the court to decide?
  Mr. Speaker: If no writ has been issued, there is no question of the matter being sub judice.
  Mr. Rees-Davies:I was not reading from an article. I was in fact giving a set of facts which Mr. De Lisle has authorised me to give. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman had been present he would have known that the hon. Member for Paddington, North and other hon. Members have already attacked this man.
  Mr. Parking: I hope that the hon. Member will not confuse in his speech any answer which he may have to make to any article which appeared in any newspaper, which, I submit, is hardly the concern of this House, with anything that I may have said in describing the group of young men who for a time were associated in this speculative buying and selling of property in Paddington, of which I have said that Mr. Julian De Lisle was one. I know that he withdrew from it and sold out in March, 1962. I do not think that the hon. Member will find that I have said anything discreditable about Julian De Lisle which I could not have said outside the House. I do not need any privilege of this House for any of the remarks that I have made. The documents that I have shown were shown in public and assented to by Captain Sykes and Mr. Raymond Nash yesterday in my house.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman if he is now wishing to withdraw the imputations and allegations—[Interruption.] I am trying to clear in this House the names of one or two men with perfectly good reputations, and if hon. Gentlemen at some time might be in an equivalent difficulty they might like to know that in this House there are some of us who regard reputation and honour above everything.
  If the hon. Gentleman now wishes to withdraw what he said on the 8th of

  1125
  this month when he charged Mr. Sykes with being the owner of property purchased from Mr. Rachman, which, I suggest, he now knows to be completely untrue, and if he wishes to withdraw his allegations against Mr. Sykes or Mr. De Lisle, I shall willingly give way to give him the opportunity too make a public statement to that effect. He has indicated that he does not wish to do so, and also, as I understand it, that he would be willing to repeat those matters outside this House. I have no doubt that these gentlemen will be glad of the opportunity for them to be dealt with in another more appropriate place. That is not a matter for us, but it is a matter for them to have that opportunity.
  What I was going to say—and I want to continue quickly—was about the position of Mr. De Lisle. The House I am quite sure realises, or hon. Members do in their hearts, that it is equally disgraceful to tear to smithereens the reputation of men who have borne the highest reputation in this country and who served their country well, without their having any opportunity of replying and meeting these allegations.
  The position of Mr. De Lisle is this. It can all be checked against documents and records. If an hon. Member wishes to check these facts, he is at liberty to see him. One cannot say fairer than that. In fact, Mr. De Lisle acquired all of the properties with which this matter has been concerned from a man called Halsall, who was chairman of the EagleBuilding Society. Mr. De Lisle was never a nominee, or agent or had any connection with Rachman. He in fact obtained an interest in certain properties and certain of those properties still remain in his ownership. Those which remain in his ownership are: Nos. 6, 7, 13,14, 31 and 45, Powis Square, 25, Chepstow Road and 262, Westbourne Park Road. I saw all those properties today with him. I went to see them, entirely personally and in order to inform the House of these matters.
  I went there because I thought that there had been suggestions that these were all slums. That is quite untrue. If hon. Gentlemen want to do so, I am certain that they can see any of those which they want to see. They will find that all of those in Powis Square have been very much improved. The internal
  1126
  decoration of many of them is very good. They will need a coat of paint outside, but they are all what I would call above-average working-class property, and are really quite good. In almost every case, baths, bathrooms and electricity have been put in. While I say would that they will probably be better in another twelve months when they have had a coat of paint, no real complaint can be made of those properties.
  No. 25, Chepstow Road is a perfectly sound property which hon. Members can see. There is only one of these which is really appalling and that is 262, Westbourne Park Road, Kensington. I shall explain why in a moment. It so happens that apart from those properties which he still owns, he also had an interest in four properties in St. Stephen's Gardens. The first of those properties remains extremely bad. He could never obtain possession of those properties, as a result of circumstances which I shall explain. As a result they were repossessed by a mortgagee—a well-known company. Under this mortgage they are now being redeveloped, possession of the premises having been obtained.
  When this, young man decided to go in for the development of property he wanted to be able to repossess certain of it to redevelop it as flats. In some cases this has been done. In what is called the Rachman background there are certain phases. The first phase was one of very bad property, and it existed some years ago. Then various people moved in; there was a change of population, and they moved out. The property was sold in 1960. I have here the contracts which were made at that time, together with complete schedules of the rents that go with the contracts.
  In 1960, the properties were sold by Mr. Halsall. On 27th February, 1960, he marketed about 200 properties. Seventy of those had formerly been owned by Rachman. They were bought by a variety of people. One person who bought some of the properties, in association with two other people, was Mr. De Lisle. There were a number of properties in Chepstow Road, including No. 25; a number of properties in St. Stephen's Gardens, and the ones in Powis Square. Other young men also bought property. Unfortunately they are not "rich Charlies", but it so happens that

  1127
  Mr. De Lisle is a rich man. The others were not even rich at the time. They bought these properties with the intention of carrying out decent redevelopment.
  Mr. Has all was chairman of the Eagle Building Society. He marketed the 200 properties, and the contracts were entered into. Those properties then left Rachman, Rachman having sold out. If any hon. Member goes to that area now he will see that most of these properties are extremely good. This morning I went to see powis Square, and I noticed that many of the properties had had their full Georgian façades restored with white paint over the last 12 months. I was amazed at the difference there was from the situation three years ago. Before we deal with the background of this debate it is important to get the facts into the right perspective. The point is that the problem that we are discussing is rapidly being eradicated by the men who have taken over what was at one time the property of Rachman. I have satisfied myself, at least in one or two cases, that the men who have taken them over are doing their best to redevelop them.
  I will now state how the whole House has been duped. I want to express strong criticism of the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Paddington, North, who should have known, and did know, much of the background with which I shall now deal. In the main the rents of these properties vary from £3 10s. a week to £6 a week, according to whether there are two or five rooms. A schedule of rents is available if any hon. Member wishes to see it. How did it come about that these cases arose? How does it come about that one has some shocking property? Shocking property does not make money.
  Let me state some of the facts that I have been told by Mr. De Lisle about his properties. No. 262, Westbourne Park Road has three tenants. The one in the basement is named Mr. Pinto Fox; the one on the ground floor is a Mr. Lewis, and the one occupying the first and second floor is a Mr. Miles. These three gentlemen have not paid their rent for upwards of a year. The man in the basement owes £180 and the men in the other two flats also owe very large sums of money. There has been no method of getting rid of these tenants. Why?
  1128
  I here is an association not far from that house, which is run by a man called Farr. It is called the St. Stephen's Gardens Association. Mr. Farr is a self-confessed Communist and political agitator. Mr. Pinto Fox, the tenant of the basement of No. 262 Westbourne Park Road, is a member of a society called the Rasitafarians, who follow the line of the Black Lion of Judah, and it is their spiritual belief that they are Ethiopians. [An HON. MEMBER: "Tell us the one about the three bears."] Wait a minute. Hon. Members ought to be a little less ribald about it. Let me tell hon. Members what it is.
  Rastafarians take an oath in support of the blacks and in detestation of white people. The Rastafarian Society is a religious cult which has the opposite of the Capricorn Society outlook. Its outlook is that the black people are better than the white. The society meets in committee from time to time and its members are not only dedicated Communists; they favour the protection of the blacks. If hon. Members want to know more I will send them to somebody who will give them the details.
  These people arequite different from the ordinary run of the decent coloured population in the area. They cause the terror in the area. They are the people who are seeking to get protection money. The evidence is that wherever these people have intervened they have succeeded not only in getting the premises themselves, for a period of 12 months and upwards, but in protecting any other tenants from eviction. The sort of thing they do is to barricade the doors and put up barbed wire, if need be. If a repair is done to the roof they take it off and send for the police. I am not suggesting that there are not problems of this kind both ways, but the important fact is that the information which the right hon. Gentleman has, and which caused him to initiate this debate, came from the hon. Member for Paddington, North, who knows quite well that these were Communist gentlemen and agitators. It is no good saying that the hon. Member did not know. If he did not know that, why did not the Leader of the Opposition have some sense of responsibility and make inquiries? It took me two or three days to obtain this information. I do not believe that I am so

  1129
  exceptional that hon. Members opposite could not have obtained the information a great deal more quickly.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Is the hon. Gentleman attempting to repudiate all the information that has been published, for example, by the Sunday Times about the Rachman empire?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: No. I was going to say with regard to the Sunday Times that I think there is a great deal of validity in the attempt to deal with Rachman. But I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, with his intellect, will be the first to appreciate and note that I have not been dealing with what I call "phase one", which is Rachman. I have been trying to reply to "phase two", which is what happened after Rachman disposed of the properties he owned. We know that, in the main, he disposed of all the residential property by the end of 1959—some years ago. What we are concerned with is not the resurrection or the creation of a public mischief and scandal relating to the past, but the problems of the future.
  I am saying that while there may be cases of bad landlords and bad tenants—undoubtedly there are—and while there may be cases of profiteering—undoubtedly there are—if hon. Gentlemen look for themselves, they will see that there is a considerable improvement in the Paddington district and in those houses compared with the situation which obtained three years ago. If hon. Gentlemen want evidence I am quite prepared to deal with it—
  Mr. Michael Cliffe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? Is it correct and proper for an hon. Member to take up the time of this House making charges and counter-charges against personalities while other hon. Members have a number of problems relating to the Motion before the House with which they wish to deal? I think it is not in the best interests of this House or of the country, nor does it relate to the problems which we ought to be discussing, that such personalities should be brought into the debate when there are problems which other hon. Members wish to discuss.
  Mr. Speaker: That does not raise a point of order for me. In common with my predecessors, I welcome and applaud short speeches, because other hon. Members then have a chance to take part in the debate.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: As I was saying, this debate was brought about entirely on the whole basis of hearsay. The hon. Member for Paddington, North has been to the Press in detail and to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in detail and consequently there has been created a debate in this House of Commons built on a mass of statements and innuendoes, the great majority of which have no foundation and which, anyway, were fed to the hon. Member for Paddington, North by known Communists and convicts—
  Mr. Parkin rose—
  Mr. Rees-Davies:I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I wanted to say that not only are these known Communists—
  Mr. Parkin Mr. Parkin rose—
  Hon. Members: Give way.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I cannot give way again. I am very sorry.
  The matter does not end there. There were two other men, de Freitas and Don Ezerco, as well as the men, Farr and Pinto Fox. I understand that all of them have been convicted of serious offences. One of them, I think it was Farr, was convicted of stealing lead from a church. The information available to me is that this is the bunch of men who are feeding information to the hon. Gentleman and upon which he relies—
  Mr. Ellis Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have hesitated to put this point to you because I have been trying to satisfy myself whether it is a point of order—[Laughter.]—Hon. Members who know their Shakespeare will know that he who laughs last laughs best. I am now satisfied that it is a point of order. Time after time the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) has made serious reflections upon the personal character of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and on my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). I ask therefore

  1131
  whether these reflections can be withdrawn because I understand that Standing Orders prevent reflections being made upon hon. Members.
  Mr. Speaker: I have heard no such reflection or I should have stopped it. I hope that we may get on with the business. There is not much time left.
  Mr. Parkin rose—
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I will not give way again.
  I will pass from that matter and deal with why it was that rents which were owing—and are still owing and have been owing for over a year—could not be obtained from 262, Westbourne Park Road. The reason was that the collector was intimidated by these men and had to go back to the solicitor. Far from coming from the landlord, in this case the intimidation came—it is still coming—from the tenants. I am not saying that this is the only case.
  Here we have an organisation deliberately trying to poison the minds of certain hon. Gentleman in order to create a scandal which I suppose will be known as the scandal of the Rachman affair. Hon. Members will have observed the way in which it is done. The same journalists are on this case as were on the Ward case—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—in order to try to pad out the information on the other—[HON. MEMBERS: "Name them?"]—the same gentlemen, of course they are. If hon. Members read the News of the World they will see that Peter Earle was operating in this case and operated in the Ward case, and Mr. Maxwell of the Daily Mirror operated in this case and in the Ward case—and so on. The reason is that they pursued this case as a follow-up, or follow-on—
  Mr. H. Wilson Mr. H. Wilson rose—
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I will not give way.
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Mr. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am being addressed on a point of order.
  Mr. Wilson: I have just been informed that the hon. Gentleman has made an allegation against me which is
  1132
  give way to me earlier. The information quite untrue and I wish to give him a chance to withdraw it.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: The right hon. Gentleman did not have the courtesy to which he gave to the Housethen was quite untrue. I will now give him the information which was given, and, in turn, ask him to withdraw his wrongful information. This is the information which the right hon. Gentleman gave in his speech. I will certainly give way to him when I have given it. He said that on 5th July of this year a Mr. Joseph was evicted from his flat. It was in fact, 67, Chepstowe Place, and the right hon. Gentleman will confirm that. He said that Mr. Joseph was thrown out in circumstances in which he, the right hon. Gentleman, showed the very greatest sympathy. He in fact said at that time—he went on to deal with the Rent Act. The reference to Mr. Joseph by the right hon. Gentleman was made on documents and information put before his hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North who obviously did not inform—but ought to have informed—the right hon. Gentleman that in actual fact on 11th July Mr. Joseph of 67, Chepstowe Road was a trespasser and had been given £50 in order to leave the premises.
  Mr. H. Wilson: If the hon. Gentleman will look at Hansard, he will find that he has totally misreported what I said in the case of Mr. Joseph. I did not say that he was evicted on 5th July, or anything like it. The hon. Gentleman seems to have a lot of information on this subject from certain sources. He said that I got my information from my hon. Friend who got it from crooks and Communists. I have not received information on this subject from my hon. Friend. I will stand by the sources which gave me this information and I certainly do not accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) got his information from crooks and Communists. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my information was from reputable sources. I have offered to place it at the disposal of the Government if they will have a proper inquiry.
  Mr. Rees-Davies Mr. Rees-Davies rose—
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: Hon. Members do less than justice. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has just returned to the Chamber. What I said—and I repeat it—was that the information was, of course, clearly available to him from the hon. Member for Paddington, North.
  Mr. Parkin Mr. Parkin rose—
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: Do not lie.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: You wait a minute. On a point of order, may I ask for withdrawal of the statement "Do not lie"?
  Mr. Speaker:We should do a little better if the hon. Member tried to address his observations to the Chair. It is no good telling me to wait a minute. I am waiting to get on.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to reply to the Leader of the Opposition, if I may.
  Mr. Parkin Mr. Parkin rose—
  Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) does not give way, the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) must not persist.
  Mr. Rees-Davies:I want to bring my speech to a close as soon as I can. It is clear that the information of the hon. Member for Paddington, North must have been available to the Leader of the Opposition. It had been raised in this House on two occasions, and on 8th July. If he tells me he did not have that information, of course I accept it, but if he did not have it, I suggest that it was most negligent of him not to get it.
  Mr. Parkin Mr. Parkin rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: May I be permitted to conclude?
  It seems quite clear that this debate was not raised in order to have a serious discussion on the future of rent restriction. If it were it would not have arisen in the manner in which it did. It was designed to take place on the same day as the Ward trial, produced on evidence fed to hon. Members so that they could use the privilege of the occasion in order to enable newspapers to carry sensational stories
  1134
  which they could not otherwise do, and that the information came from grossly tainted criminal and subversive sources. Coming from those sources—
  Mr. Parkin: On a point of order. The hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), I gather, has been consistently attacking me on the ground that I have got all my information from grossly tainted criminal sources and from Communists. Am I entitled to persist in requesting the courtesy of the hon. Member to give way for a moment?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. The rule of the House is that unless the hon. Member who is speaking gives way, another hon. Member cannot persist in trying to interrupt him.
  Mr. M. Foot: Further to that point of order. If the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) used the language attributed to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) it is not merely a question of courtesy and giving way, but that such language should be withdrawn.
  Mr. Speaker: No. I have been listening very carefully. The general effect of it is not that knowingly he puts forward that which he knows to be false, but that he was—and I do not use die word myself—duped as to the material.
  Mr. J. Hynd: On a point of order. We understand from the Order Paper that we are supposed to be debating a problem which both sides of the House accept as existing and which covers not only Paddington and London, but many other parts of the country. For the last two hours we have been listening to a dialogue of assertion and counter-assertion which, so far as I can see, has had nothing to do with the substance of the debate. Can we come back to the purpose of the debate?
  Mr. Speaker: I express sympathy with the hon. Member. I have to have regard to the relevancy, but, since the original Motion contained reference to property profiteering, I have not been able to exclude it on the ground of irrelevancy.
  Mr. Stephen Swingler: Are we to understand that it is in order for an hon. Member

  1135
  to say of another hon. Member that he draws his material from tainted and criminal sources? Is it in order for an hon. Member persistently to attack other hon. Members, including the Leader of the Opposition, and to attribute things to them and then to refuse to give way?
  Mr. Speaker: It is quite in order to refuse to give way. With regard to the accusation, and order, it has been as I have already said. All the time I have been here that has been the line adopted.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd), who wants to get on with the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not withdraw?"] Please give me a chance to say what I want to say, without these catcalls which go on all the time. They do not do any good. I made no allegation against the integrity of hon. Members. I said that they were stupid and duped, and so they were. You go and have a look at the inmates of 262 Westbourne Park Road tonight.
  Mr. Speaker: I have no intention of doing any such thing. [Laughter.] That is an illustration of the importance of our rule that observations must be addressed to the Chair.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for restoring genuine order with such a nice touch of wit.
  If any journalist or hon. Member takes the trouble to go and see the sources of information from which the hon. Member drew his information—
  Mr. M. Foot: Sunday Times readers?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: The Leader of the Opposition never disclosed the source or gave details. He was referring to the same streets and area, the same material, as the hon. Member for Paddington, North referred to. When we see that in this House this was built up from earlier statements made by the hon. Member on 8th July, it is obvious that this was to be a scandal-mongering debate which had nothing whatever to do with housing. It would be an endeavour once more to try to get an occasion for the Press and other people to beat the Government. I
  1136
  hope that we shall put paid to this sooner or later, because the methods of trying to inspire Members of Parliament—I believe that that is the technical Rachmanite word—to make of these privileged occasions an opportunity to create scandal are a serious matter. They are a smear and something which is wrong in this House. We should be as jealous of its reputation as we should be of others.
  7.28 p.m.
  Mr. G. H. R. Rogers: We have listened to a rather long, and in some ways rather extraordinary, speech. It seemed designed to leave the impression that the charges against the landlords are false and that this whole business is the fault of the tenants. Whether that was the impression the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) intended to convey I do not know, but he did nothing to establish the kind of case that we are advocating this afternoon. He said that our purpose in raising this debate was to defame the Government. That is not a very honourable way of looking at the efforts of his colleagues to raise matters of injustice in this House. As to defaming the Government, it seems that they are making a good job of that themselves.
  I have been rather amused, with some sense of irony, at the charges recently made that the Labour Party has not sought to raise this matter until the Rachman scandal came to light. This is ironical because, at least in Kensington, we have had this problem for many years and have been fighting it continuously, as the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) knows very well.
  When the race riots, as they were called, occurred in my constituency I said on television and in the Press that housing was the cause. I said that a new type of landlord had come into London who was exacerbating the situation and whose activities caused the friction which led to what were called the race riots. I saw the Home Secretary about it and I saw the present Minister of Housing when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The columns of the local newspapers in Kensington have been full of our activities against Rachman. I was surprised that the Minister

  1137
  said today that he had had a letter from Kensington Council saying that if it had a Rachman there it would know how to deal with him.
  Sir K. Joseph: Not a letter.
  Mr. Rogers: It seems extraordinary to me that this should have been communicated to the Minister, because Rachman began his operations in Kensington. His first house was in Ladbroke Gove.
  Sir K. Joseph:The council was saying that if there were a Rachman now in the borough the council, having new powers under the 1961 Act, thought that it could bring him to heel.
  Mr. Rogers: It seemed extraordinary to me, as the Minister put it, that he should have been so much out of touch with the situation in the last few years. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) represented the tenants at a tribunal in 1959, where he instanced the kind of physical violence and intimidation carried out by landlords to evict tenants.
  I know that the House must be very bored by statistics, but out of deference to the fact that Kensington has hardly received a mention in the debate I must say that we have been continuously occupied with these problems over the last five years even though we have not had much publicity. It has been said that this matter had to wait until my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) engendered the rumour about Rachman being alive and then the Press became interested. The Press was not interested in housing. We have not had much publicity over the past five years, because the Press has not reported speeches in the House on serious matters.
  "Panorama" came to my constituency to make a feature which appeared on television last week. Local people tried to interest the "Panorama" staff in the real housing problem, but the interviewers were not in the slightest bit interested. They wanted to know only the sensational aspects of the Rachmans and other racketeers in the area. We in Kensington have been carrying on our work for a long time with a great deal of success. I think that we managed to drive Rachman out by the use of able
  1138
  lawyers who managed to make his life so unpleasant that he disposed of a great bulk of his property owned by the Eagle Building Society, to which hon. Members have referred.
  The local newspaper, the Kensington News, put cur situation very clearly when it said:
  "Until a few weeks ago no one outside West London…had heard of Peter Rachman. Many of those who did here dismissed the whole business as a sensational bogey-tale. Now the whole world has heard the story and the question everyone has asked is why were such things allowed to happen? How did he manage to get away with it for so long? What was done by the authorities to put an end to his dominion? And last, but most important of all, what is happening now?"
  I gather from the Minister that very little will happen now, that we can do nothing to stop the intimidation, the violence and the evictions and that we can do nothing to stop the racket until we solve the general housing problem of London. Does this mean that people will have to pay these rents for five to ten years until the housing problem is solved and that unless they are caught by the police or exposed by courageous tenants the racketeers can carry on until then? I was disappointed by the negative quality of the Minister's speech, despite the fact that I believe that as far as legislation goes he is anxious to do as much as he can.
  I must give one or two extreme facts to illustrate the problem as we still have it in Kensington. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said that Rachman is only a symbol of the kind of landlordism we have been experiencing recently. The process is being carried on by small men who have imitated the behaviour of the Rachmanites and the other big property speculators. One house in Bassett Road, North Kensington, recently came to the notice of the council. There were 100 people living in this house which is normally occupied by four families. They got wind of the fact that the council was after them and by swift action the number was reduced to 69. Is nothing to be done about this? Controls are contrary to the Government's ideology and, therefore, we are to have no interference except by the slow and cumbersome machinery dealing with overcrowding. The landlord is not to be touched.
  Sir K. Joseph:I have great respect for the hon. Member, but I hope that he will face up to the problem. In the face of overcrowding in this limited pressure point, where are these people to go? That is the problem until we have more houses.
  Mr. J. Hynd: Twelve years of Toryism.
  Mr. Rogers:This matter should not be left to the speculative landlords to solve. It is up to us here and to the public authorities to solve the problem. Do not let us pretend that the landlord who crowded this house with 100 people was doing it from philanthropic motives.
  Sir K. Joseph:The controls which the hon. Member wants would not solve the problem either. There would still be the need to find somewhere for these people to go.
  Mr. Frederick Lee: It is right that the 100 should stay?
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend points out that the logic is that it is right for the 100 to stay.
  The borough council made a survey of a very bad road. It was found that the landlord of 39, St. Ervans Road, a house which was formerly let for a total of £2 10s. a week, was drawing £21 a week. This is very slummy property. Another landlord was drawing £10 9s. 3d. for 17 people in a house which had only one internal lavatory for their use. The landlord of 63, Tavistock Road, was drawing £17 4s. a week for a house which previously was let for a pound or two. There were 17 persons in the house and only one internal lavatory for their use. As I have tried to point out, we can concentrate as much as we like on the Rachmans, but there is also a variety of small people who are exploiting the present need.
  I think that we on this side of the House look at things rather differently. There is more fire in the belly on this side of the House on behalf of the tenants than there is opposite. Speeches from hon. Members opposite generally show more sympathy for the landlord. Why cannot the Minister consult the Home Secretary and get something done about rooting out these people? Why cannot the Metropolitan Police form an organisation similar to the Fraud Squad which could deal with this property and get
  1140
  on the track of these people? The areas involved are not extensive and a group of competent men could do something to uncover these people.
  I want to quote one further case which came to my notice recently, of a house which has had nine landlords in less than two years. I could quote some names. One is a member of the peerage. Another is a well-known playboy who is associated with a woman of recent notoriety. This property has gone through a series of names of people who have all pretended that they were the landlords of this house in Colville Road. In fact, I think that they have all bean connected with Rachman.
  The tenant occupied the ground floor and the basement. He was approached by one of these gentlemen who said, "You have got rather more room than you want Will you move upstairs?" The tenant was not anxious to do this until he had an agreement in writing. He went away on holiday. We have in Kensington a lot of old basements which flood when there is a downpour. In some basements the sewage comes up into the flats. The Kensington Borough Council closed these basements many years ago, but reopened them again after they had had the minimum of repairs to make them habitable, and for these basements in which the sewage comes tenants pay as much as £7 a week. I know of one man whose income is £15 a week and he is paying £7 10s. a week for one of these flats.
  When the tenant of whom I was speaking came back from his holiday he found his basement flat under 3 ft. of water. His wife said, "We can move upstairs. These men are gentlemen and we can rely upon their word without an agreement." So they moved up to the top flat and the tenant spent a great deal of money on decorations and repairs. This "gentlemen's agreement" has now resolved itself into a notice to quit, because the tenant, by leaving the basement flat in which he was a protected tenant, cancelled his tenancy and moved to a decontrolled flat upstairs where he has since received a notice to quit.
  It is no good saying that this must wait until we have solved the housing problem. That is a most negative way of looking at the problem. Are people to suffer continually till the Government do

  1141
  something about it? I wish that we could have some dynamism from the Government, a little passion and desire to put injustice right and let these people go to prison if a case can be proved against them. Otherwise, it looks as if we shall have to wait until the people give their verdict on the Government.
  When the Minister says that the Rent Act is not responsible for this situation, he must raise laughter in hell. He certainly raises laughter amongst the Conservatives in my constituency. I wonder whether the Government realise how many Conservative votes in London they have lost through the Rent Act. People talk about old ladies and widows owning railway shares, and we talk about old ladies in connection with this housing situation. In my constituency people who have been Tory supporters all their adult lives have turned against the Government because of their experiences which they believe result from the Rent Act. They may be suffering from a complete delusion, but, certainly, that is what they believe.
  It is no use the Government saying that the consequences of the Rent Act have not been serious for the great mass of people in overcrowded areas in London. Therefore, I trust that after this debate is over, instead of being content merely to reform the Landlord and Tenant Act and wait for the long-term dispersal of industry in order to review the pressure of housing on London, they will do something to help these people during the next few weeks.
  7.44 p.m.
  Lieut-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux: I fear that the speech I shall make tonight will be crashingly dull after the sensational details that we have heard bandied about across the House between the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies).
  I certainly cannot emulate the hon. Member for Paddington, North in his emotional appeal and the sensational details that he has given us. I can also promise the House that I shall not emulate him in the length of my speech. The hon. Gentleman told us that he feels deeply on these subjects and that this was his moment. I would be inclined rather to say that perhaps it was his finest hour.
  1142
  Apart from the Front Bench leaders in this debate I think that I am the first Member who has been called who does not represent a London constituency—apart, of course, from my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet; and his speech was hardly delivered from a constituency angle. I should, therefore, like to take this opportunity of emphasising the fact that the problem which we are discussing, or are supposed to have been discussing, this afternoon, is one which very much affects certain other parts of the country as well as London.
  To start with, I should like to refer to one matter which has been mentioned only once briefly in this debate, namely, by the Minister. It was in connection with Commonwealth immigration. I hope that nobody here will accuse me of any sort of colour prejudice when I say that Commonwealth immigration into this country has greatly exacerbated the problem, not just for the people who were originally in this country but for the Commonwealth immigrants as well. The hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. G. H. R. Rogers) suggested that the housing situation was the main cause of the race riots which took place in his own constituency, and there is no doubt that it was the main cause of the riots in my constituency. That is one of the reasons why Nottingham and other cities, such as Birmingham and probably Bradford, are equally affected as London over this housing problem.
  It should be emphasised that the Government have done a great deal to solve this problem simply by passing the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. That will definitely improve the situation, or certainly prevent it from getting worse than it is. The Leader of the Opposition said at the close of his speech that if hon. Members opposite get back into power at the next General Election they will repeal the Rent Act. I have not heard the right hon. Gentleman say—it may have passed my notice—that hon. Members opposite with also repeal the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. But judging from their reaction to it during its stormy passage through the House, I have no doubt that they will feel compelled to do so. I await an announcement to that effect in due course. But I ask them to think, not once but many times, bearing in mind the present housing problem, whether they

  1143
  would be advised to do it, for the sake not only of the people originally in this country but of our visitors from overseas.
  We have heard a tremendous amount about Mr. Rachman today. I do not know why everybody is getting so excited about Mr. Rachman these days. I suppose that it is largely because of the Profumo-Keeler affair. I certainly agree with one hon. Member opposite who said that in that case we certainly owe a great deal to the performers in that business for having at least dragged the present rackets out into the daylight and into the headlines.
  There are many of us who have been talking about these housing rackets for a long time before we heard of the Profumo affair. This problem is not confined to London. We have our problems in Nottingham. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet may think it not very polite of me to say so, but, nevertheless, I will tell the House that we have a man in Nottingham named Whiteman to whom Rachman could teach very little in the way of exploitation and cruelty. Because I have felt impelled on one or two occasions to say censorious things about Indian landlords in Nottingham, I hasten to say that the man Whiteman is very definitely a white man.
  I visited two of Whiteman's houses last Saturday evening. They were damp, dirty, broken-down places—hon. Members will know the sort of thing—two up and two down, the back door hanging on its hinges, the floor broken up, bricks broken, outside lavatories broken, windows broken and boarded up. There was no question there of a landlord not being able, because of a controlled rent, to do a certain amount of repairs. One tenant is paying £3 and another is paying £4.
  This brings me to the first positive point I want to make. The public health authorities have been called to these houses not once but on more than one occasion. I understand that they have been doing their best to bring pressure on the landlord to do something. To date, they have failed. As I understand it—the Leader of the Opposition referred to this earlier today—the powers of the public health authorities in such cases are at present limited, if they wish to step in and do repairs themselves, to suing
  1144
  afterwards the person who receives the rent. Of course, the probable result is that that person is found to be a quite inconsiderable individual with no resources at all, the final outcome being that the council will have to pay a very large bill out of the pockets of the ratepayers.
  I am convinced that the only successful way of dealing with this particular problem is for the repairs to be made a charge on the property. The council must be empowered to take the property over, receiving all the rents until the bills for the repairs have been settled. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider taking very early legislative action to this effect.
  My next proposal also requires legislation, but of a comparatively minor kind. It is legislation in connection with Part II of the Housing Act, 1961. I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend refer to this earlier today and say that he was thinking of making some modifications. When the Bill was passing through Committee, one or two of us tried to persuade the Minister to bring in some measure of registration of all houses in multiple occupation. I myself introduced three or four new Clauses on these lines. I felt impelled to do so because I know that in Nottingham a great deal of the racket in multi-occupation slums is run by comparatively few men.
  My belief is that if only we could find out about all the houses which these particular men own and then concentrate on one or two of the worst cases—I mean the worst landlords, not the houses—we should, perhaps, be able to run these people out of business, and this would be a salutary example to the rest. The other reason why I think it important is that, if we had such a register, it would be available to the Inland Revenue authorities. As someone has already said today, there is the most appalling tax evasion going on on the part of these people.
  My suggestion did not find favour with the Committee, but, when the Bill was going through another place, the Government introduced a form of registration. I am sorry to say that it is not of the slightest use to us at present, and I do not think that it will be very much use in the future. It is no use to us at present

  1145
  because it is not in force. For some reason which I could never understand, it was not to come into force until three years after the Bill became law, that is, not until November next year. I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend say—I hope I understood him aright—that he would definitely consider the possibility of bringing it into force earlier. It would be an excellent thing if he did.
  The reason why I say that I do not think that it will be very beneficial, even when it is brought into force, is that the penalties it prescribes for offending landlords are quite derisory. The maximum penalty for an offending landlord who fails to register his houses or who gives false information is £10.What deterrent will this be to some of these sharks in Nottingham who are pulling in £200 or £300 a week out of this loathsome trade? I most earnestly urge my right hon. Friend to consider, when he is thinking of bringing in some new form of legislation, an alteration of the maximum penalty to a fine of £100 and/or three months' imprisonment for a second offence. Such a penalty would be in line with other provisions in the Act, and it would, I believe, prove a real deterrent.
  In spite of these criticisms, I am convinced that Part II of the Housing Act is an absolutely first-class piece of legislation. It can do an immense amount of good to stop this evil if only people will use it. The weapon has been put into their hands by the Government, but it is not for the Government to use it. I congratulate my right hon. Friend in bringing in that legislation. Although he did not, in fact, bring it in himself, he was one of the chief architects since he was, at the time, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Also, I congratulate most sincerely my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I have bitterly disagreed with him on several occasions, in regard to the Rent Act and other matters, but I believe that it was his absolutely firm insistence that something must be done about this evil which resulted in Part II of the Housing Act being brought in, against, so I understand, very strong advice from all the experts who said that such a thing would be quite impracticable or impossible.
  1146
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has the reputation with some people of being an obstinate person. He is certainly a man with a very grim determination. It is very difficult to alter his view when once it is formed. All I can say is that, in this case, I am only too delighted that no experts or anyone else caused him to alter it.
  Part II of the Housing Act is not a perfect or a complete weapon to deal with this evil of multi-occupation slums. Of course it is not. Nevertheless, it can be a very useful weapon if properly used and if the local authorities have the determination to use it.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition spoke of several councils which had had considerable success in their use of Part II of the Act. I understood him to say that they were Labour-controlled councils, so I add to the list ho gave the Nottingham City Corporation which, until a most unfortunate accident a month or two ago, due to the result of mistaken ideas on the part of the citizens of Nottingham, was Conservative-controlled. I think that the same can be said for several other councils of the same kind.
  I fully agree with the Government Amendment to the effect that the best and final remedy can only be a much larger building programme and more modernisation, but I feel that other more immediate measures can be taken as well, such as the two modest ones which I have suggested. I hope that those and any others which my right hon. Friend can think of will be taken because, unless we not only do our utmost but are seen to be doing our utmost to cope with this evil of the multi-occupation slums and some of the other matters that we have been discussing tonight, it will be very difficult for us logically to resist the policy of municipalisation of rented houses.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: The hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) need not have apologised for not introducing sensationalism into his speech, for I feel that he made one of the most constructive and least partisan contributions to the debate that we have had so far.

  1147
  I came into the Chamber this evening determined that I could support neither the Opposition Motion nor the Government Amendment.
  Mr. Mellish: A typical Liberal.
  Mr. Hooson: I will explain to the hon. Member why I could not do so. Nothing that I have heard in the debate has made me change my mind.
  Mr. Mellish: The hon. and learned Member has not heard me yet.
  Mr. Hooson: When the Leader of the Opposition made his eloquent and damning—
  Mr. Mellish: And brilliant.
  Mr. Hooson: —indictment of the Rachman empire and of what is revealed by the information which we have on it, and when he described the unscrupulous landlord battening, I think he said, on the poverty and ignorance of people and making money out of it, every right thinking person, I think, agreed with him. However, it is one thing to describe and condemn an evil, but quite another to pinpoint the cause and suggest a remedy.
  What is implicit in the Labour Opposition Motion is that all the trouble flows from the Rent Act, 1957. To suggest that is absolute nonsense. As I understand the Motion, it suggests that if a system of pre-1959 controls were re-introduced we would do away with racketeering. This is simply not right. Racketeers very often like and love the system of controls and regulations, because they are the people who can manipulate it. Anyone in the legal profession in the pre-1957 days who was concerned with property cases will know how much racketeering there was then in furnished property, key money, and so on. The Rachman case is simply one of the worst examples. We have had a glimpse of what can happen when there are far too many people chasing too few dwellings. This is the basic cause of the trouble.
  It is clear to me that the suggestion that simply by bringing back controls we will do away with the evil is an attempt to delude people into thinking that this is a simple problem which can be simply solved. It is not. It seems to me that the Motion cannot be supported on this
  1148
  ground. If it simply demanded that the Government should take immediate and drastic action to cure or curb this evil, I could have supported it—but not if it tries to make the maximum political capital out of the situation by linking it with the 1957 Act.
  I should like to say why I am unable to support the Government's Amendment.[Interruption.] It is time that the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) learned that there are more than two sides to the problem. The picture is not all black and white, as the hon. Member tries to paint it. It seems to me that implicit in the Amendment is the basic argument that this situation has arisen because too many people are trying to get dwellings and there are not enough dwellings for them and therefore the conditions which make racketeering easy are present. This is true as a long-term diagnosis, but it seems to me that the Government suggest that nothing need to be done about it except that very modest changes are necessary but nothing more.
  We are here concerned with the exploitation of ignorance and poverty with unscrupulous landlords waxing fat on it. There must be thousands of people who have lived in absolute misery because of this. To suggest that we can leave it to the effluxion of time and that, when the Government catch up with their housing target some time in the distant future and there are sufficient dwellings for everybody, this problem will not occur and we need do nothing drastic in the meantime, is not good enough.
  Mr. Mellish: Will the hon. and learned Member tell us what he would do?
  Mr. Hooson: Certainly. If the hon. Member bides his time, I will tell him what can be done.
  The long-term remedy is to provide the houses which are needed. But in London, Birmingham and other large cities—and, after all, as was pointed out in several newspaper articles which I read yesterday, this is to a large extent a local and specialised problem; the 1957 Act has generally worked quite well in some parts of the country—
  Mr. G. Thomas: Where? Not in Cardiff.
  Mr. Mellish: Nor in London, Birmingham or Coventry.
  Mr. Hooson: I have not the hon. Member's specialised knowledge of all these cities.
  Mr. Mellish: That is very obvious.
  Mr. Hooson: As I say, the 1957 Act has worked fairly well in general. What has been lacking is ameliorating legislation to deal with the special problems which have arisen. A racketeer will find a way to exploit any difficult situation. We must be very careful about the kind of control which we introduce, otherwise we may do more harm than good and create more difficulties than we solve.
  What I suggest can be done is this. Under Part V of the 1957 Act, power is vested in local authorities to take over by compulsory purchase property for which extortionate rents are charged. Very few people know of this power. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Very few tenants know about this power. Similarly, in the early days of legal aid very few people knew about it. It had to be publicised by the Law Society before people knew of its existence.
  One thing which the Government can do is to encourage local authorities to put up notices in post offices, and so on, pointing out the power of local authorities to take over property by compulsory purchase so that tenants can apply to the local authority and inform it about their own conditions.
  Mr. Mellish: Straight away the Liberal Party is wrong. If the matter were as simple as that we should not be having this row this evening. If all a tenant had to do was to go to the local authority and say, "My rent is high; it is extortionate. Therefore, you should take my property over", we should not be discussing this matter. It is not possible to get a compulsory purchase order as easily as that. There is a whole procedure to go through and many local authorities are deterred even from applying.
  Mr. Hooson: Perhaps the hon. Member will be patient and listen. First, I say that people should know of this power, and, secondly, that the Government should make it far easier for local authorities to act in exercising it. Many of them have not the necessary financial
  1150
  resources. Many of the cases reported to the Government have not been confirmed. We want more information about why the Government are not encouraging local authorities to use this power more.
  Mrs. Joyce Butler: The power about which the hon. and learned Member is speaking is quite illusory. Does he know that the Minister has said that, in addition to the question of exorbitant rents, he must be satisfied that the quality of the accommodation is not good, that he has to be satisfied about the state of repair of the premises and about the amenities and also about the rent for similar accommodation in the area? He is not prepared to accept the local authority's view that the rent is exorbitant unless all these conditions are satisfied.
  Mr. Hooson: I know of some of the views of the Minister in the 1962 report. Perhaps the hon. Lady will allow me to develop my argument. I am suggesting that this is; one of the steps which can be taken immediately without legislation.
  The second step which could be taken—and I am looking for a practical remedy—is this. We need effective legislation, without going back to all the restrictions and rent control that we had before 1957, which will give tenants much greater security than they have at present. I suggest that a system of rent tribunals could be set up again which would enable a tenant who considered himself or herself to be charged an extortionate rent to apply to a rent tribunal to fix a new and reasonable rent. The rent could be fixed by the rent tribunal by relation to the rateable value of the house.
  It is not sufficient to give that power merely by itself. If a tenant so applies and the tribunal changes the rent, the tenant should have security of tenure, attaching not to the premises or to the tenancy, but simply to the tenant or his wife. There could be a power of appeal for both sides from the tribunal to the county court or the registrar of the county court, a provision which has not been provided hitherto.
  Sir Barnett Janner: If a rent tribunal fixes the rent of premises, how will it be permanently

  1151
  fixed to the premises unless there is control of the premises from the point of view of security of tenure?
  Mr. Hooson:I suggest that the rent tribunal could fix the rent for the particular tenancy, for the tenant or his wife.
  Sir B. Janner: That is sheer nonsense.
  Mr. Hooson: Thereafter, both the landlord and the tenant could have the right of appeal. The award could be reviewed from time to time.
  The third thing which I suggest is that the right of appeal to a rent tribunal could be applied to those whose premises had been decontrolled by a pre-1957 tenant giving up a tenancy which was controlled or a tenancy which had become decontrolled by the raising of the rateable value of the house. This is a simple and direct remedy.
  Mr. Mellish: Simple?
  Mr. Hooson: It is simple and direct, for this reason. One is not trying to control all rents or premises. What one would be doing would be giving the rent tribunal the right, when an extortionate rent had been charged, to fix a proper, reasonable rent for the tenant and/or his wife. That is all. That is the power that is needed.
  Mr. Charles Curran: Will the hon. and learned Member be so kind as to tell us how he suggests that the words "reasonable", "proper", "fair", and so on, should be defined? What kind of yardstick does he suggest should be used?
  Mr. Hooson: Certainly, I will explain. Recently, the rateable value of houses has been re-assessed. This is a recent yardstick, by reference to which a reasonable, proper rent could be arranged.
  Mr. G. Thomas: Now we know.
  Mr. Hooson: One other matter with which I should like to deal is the type of exploitation of which we have heard in the Rachman empire. A far more drastic remedy may be necessary here. If the police investigate cases properly, I cannot see why they would not discover that much of the strong-armed eviction offends the existing criminal law. If a magistrate were satisfied that a tenant had been illegally evicted, either through
  1152
  force or the threat of force or by means of fraud, and if he made a declaration to that effect, I do not see why the local authority should not be able to requisition the premises immediately, once a magistrate had made a declaration on evidence which he had heard to that effect.
  Mr. Mellish: That is a control which we had, but we lost it.
  Mr. Hooson: This need only be applied in serious cases such as those we have heard of in the Rachman empire. There could still be an appeal, but the onus would be upon the owner of the property or a leaseholder to satisfy a court that he had had nothing to do with the illegal eviction. This would enable a speedy remedy to be obtained, which would be of great benefit in areas such as Paddington.
  It is not sufficient, however, for the Government to say that the present situation will be cured by the effluxion of time. Drastic remedies are needed now. The suggestion which we are putting forward is not the same as going back to the pre-1957 controls, and so on, as suggested by the Labour Party. We are putting forward a very simple, direct remedy which would meet the greatest hardships which are encountered nowadays by tenants, especially in the crowded areas of London and the large cities.
  In the ultimate, however, there is no remedy but that which has already been mentioned of building far more dwellings, providing far more houses and doing away with the housing shortage, because whilst we have a shortage, whatever controls are applied, evil people will always try to exploit them. It does not matter how many additional controls are introduced. Unless they are fairly simple and direct, there will be racketeers who will get round them the whole time—[Interruption.]—as was the case in the days of the Labour Government, as well as during the time of the present Conservative Government.
  In today's debate, we have had much partisan argument about this. An attempt has been made to derive party advantage from these revelations. What we want, however, is a fairly simple remedy that will meet the hardships of the people who suffer.
  8.16 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Jenkins: I am in nearly the same position as the hon.

  1153
  and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr, Hooson), inasmuch as when I look at today's Motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and of his hon. and right hon. Friends and then look at the Amendment, I am not certain whether either of them is exactly right.
  The Motion states that
  "this House deplores the intolerable extortion, evictions and property profiteering which have resulted from the Rent Act, 1957."
  That would appear to mean that all the extortions, evictions and property profiteering have emerged from the 1957 Act, a statement with which I could not agree.
  The Government Amendment uses the words:
  "while deploring any disreputable practices engaged in by some unscrupulous landlords, rejects the suggestion that these have resulted from the Rent Act, 1957".
  I do not regard that as quite right, because, with great respect to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, whom I see present and who, with his great skill, piloted the Rent Act through this House, a number of unscrupulous landlords have used the 1957 Act to permit them to indulge in disreputable practices.
  Having said that, however, I go on to say that the Rent Act has been beneficial in many ways. It is fair to say that it has enabled landlords to preserve hundreds of thousands of houses from decay. Many streets throughout our big cities look pleasant and agreeable because of their paint, and many hundreds of thousands are all the better inside, to the great advantage of the tenant, because the landlord has had more money to spend on them.
  A consequence of the Act is that it has brought new accommodation into occupation in a particular way. Before the Act, an owner-occupier who had two or three rooms to let did not let them because he would have to go to the local authority and get the local authority to agree what the rent should be. Since the Act came in it has meant that the owner-occupier has spent money on the part of the house he does not use and let it for a reasonable rent, or, it may be, for a large rent, but, at any rate, an agreed rent. This has happened many hundreds of times in my own division since the Rent Act. I suggest, therefore that the Act is not responsible for all the
  1154
  "extortion, evictions and property profiteering".
  However, I should like to point out some of the bad results of the Act. This applies in the first instance to houses which are rated in London at under £40 a year and in the rest of the country at under £30 a year. One of the difficulties and one of the serious troubles which have arisen is that under the Act when a part of a house becomes vacant it automatically becomes decontrolled. I think that it was the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) who coined the phrase "creeping decontrol". So there is a house half-empty. Somebody buys the freehold and moves in.
  I will not bring the colour question into this debate except to say—because it should be said and it is true; and it is my experience in my division—that somebody will buy the freehold and move in, and, because he is prepared to buy, because the house is half empty, the landlord then, very frequently, intimidates and puts pressure on the existing tenants to get out. That is happening throughout the country and that is a consequence of the Rent Act. The landlord can charge what he likes if he does not occupy it himself, and he probably wants to get them out and sell the place with vacant possession, for a large price. Existing tenants—let us put it at 200 at least in my own division—have been subject to this sort of treatment. Sometimes it is true to say a reign of terror exists.
  I should like to underline a point made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. G. H. R. Rogers), because it is a serious effect of the Rent Act. Unscrupulous landlords offer unsuspecting tenants better accommodation for reasonable rent. I remember that there were some cases in the East End—I for get just where, I think in Bermondsey—
  Mr. Mellish: That is not the East End. It is South-East.
  Mr. Jenkins: I am much obliged.
  There was a case where the landlord in a block of flats would offer a person accommodation either upstairs or downstairs that was decontrolled because it was empty, and immediately the person left the flat which was controlled it became decontrolled. The consequence is

  1155
  that the person who goes into a decontrolled flat is subjected for all time to any demand of rent made upon him, and the flat which has been left is decontrolled and the landlord can get anything he likes to ask for it.
  Then there is the question of the powers of a tenant to go to the local authority to get a certificate of disrepair. Owing to the very grave shortage of homes and land in Greater London, which I know a great deal about, and in all the built-up areas of this country, tenants are frightened to apply for certificates of disrepair. They are frightened to go to the local authority because they think that the landlord will do something.
  I know that local authorities are short of sanitary inspectors and health visitors, but I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would consider, because I think that this would be helpful, that the local authorities should be compelled to take the initiative in these cases, and go round and have an examination to see whether houses ought to be repaired. Otherwise, we shall find that where certificates of disrepair are not applied for there will be a continuous increase in the slums in the areas concerned.
  Mr. Albert Evans: In the Central London areas, where this problem is rife, there is a great shortage of public health officers to enforce the things that the hon. Member wishes the local authorities to enforce.
  Mr. Jenkins: I appreciate that, and thought that I half said it.
  Housing should be looked upon as a military operation. It should be carried out like that.
  Mr. Herbert Butler: Would the hon. Member shoot the bad landlords?
  Mr. Jenkins: When the war started we had air-raid precautions and the officers of local authorities were turned on to all kinds of jobs. I do not see any reason why local government officers should not be turned on to this job. We must get some vigorous action, because the provision of homes is one of the most important jobs any local authority has to do.
  I refer now to the Landlord and Tenant (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1958. It
  1156
  was my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary who brought that Measure forward. It saved several scores of thousands from being evicted, but since 1961 the situation has substantially deteriorated.
  Mr. Mellish: Well said.
  Mr. Jenkins: Prior to the Act an estimate was made by the Financial Times that 80,000 families of the middle-class type were likely to be evicted. In my submission, the situation has deteriorated. Why has this happened? I think that one reason is because of the takeover bidders for property. I can remember, because I was—I think that I still am—President of the Tenants' Protection Council, which is now coming back into operation once more, having been in cold storage for a couple of years, that in Chelsea, Kensington, in my own division, throughout London, and outside the County of London, too, takeover bidders have come along and bought up blocks of flats. In one case I know of, in Chelsea about two years ago, a block changed hands three times, each time at a large profit.
  As was said by the Leader of the Opposition today, if £1 million profit was made on Dolphin Square somebody has to find the money eventually. It comes out of the pockets of the tenants. Every time the takeover bids take place—and there are dozens of them every month, and, I assume, probably more than that—up go the rents and, therefore, people who have been in the flats for many years are being gradually squeezed out.
  The new landlords usually serve them with notice to quit. In many cases they have demanded up to eight times the gross value. I recall a case in Kensington only about a year and a half ago, or perhaps less. In a little backwater there were 16 flats. The new landlord, having bought the block of flats from the old family landlord, put the rent up to eight times the gross value.
  As soon as the local council heard of it—as the Leader of the Opposition referred to the "good Labour councils", I would point out that the Royal Borough of Kensington has a Conservative council, overwhelmingly so—it immediately went into action and threatened to put a compulsory purchase order on the block of flats, with the result that, by negotia-

  1157
  tion, agreements were made for three and five years at four times the gross value. A live and alert local authority, operating under the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, has been able to do that sort of thing. On the other hand, unless one or two of the tenants had communicated with their local representatives about what was happening, the council would never have known and the whole thing would have been over and finished with.
  There is another way in which difficulties have arisen, consequent upon, I think, the Rent Act. Large institutions, such as insurance companies and the Church Commissioners, are getting rid of blocks of flats, the reason being that they do not want the responsibility, presumably, of putting up the rents. They get rid of blocks of flats and sell them to city property companies which have no compassion for the existing tenants. I remember Mr. Stanley Baldwin, when making in the House one of the finest speeches that he ever made, saying that his firm did not mind the old men just walking about in the steelyards—they still got their money. It was a family affair. There was compassion in that firm at that time.
  Landlords, generally speaking, are a very decent lot—at any rate, the vast majority of them are—but when city corporations and city property companies buy properties over, they do not really know what has happened in the past. They do not know, for instance, that the block of flats was probably 75 per cent. empty during the war and that that old lady and her husband were there and stayed and paid their rent. All that goes.
  I do not want to sentimentalise on this, but I am telling the House what is in the hearts of the people—and these institutions have no compassion. These exorbitantrents can be obtained for semi-luxury or half-luxury flats. Some of the rents are fantastically high—four or five times what they used to be. Honestly, I do not know how some of the tenants, having had the rent already put up since 1957, have continued to pay.
  Who are the people who pay these large rents? They are very often the staff of foreign embassies. Foreign embassy staffs are extremely swollen, and they are getting larger and larger every year. Consequently, one finds that they
  1158
  are able to pay these exorbitant rents. There are also the companies which take over leases for the benefit of their executives, and I believe that even at this moment this is a tax-free emolument. Consequently, in a state of scarcity and shortage in the London area in particular, this is boosting the rents of middle-class flats.
  Some landlords who wish to escape publicity in the courts have another dodge which they are now up to. This concerns houses of a rateable value of more than £40 a year. These landlords—they include important bodies—are now giving the tenants six months' notice to quit and, at the same time, offering them the freehold at a fantastic price which the tenants obviously cannot afford to pay. Therefore, when they are taken to court they have the argument that they have been rather good landlords because they have offered the tenants the opportunity of buying the properties—at a high price.
  Another racket is the large capital gains which are being made by selling long leases of flats. Sometimes these are eighty-year leases at a price of £5,000 to £6,000, with a £40 a year ground rent and all the rates, plus an unknown payment for the upkeep of the whole building. This is a racket which is going on all over London and elsewhere. I am not sure whether I would disapprove of a system of this kind if it were a new building, because then one knows exactly how long one is going to be there, and so on, and one can more or less make up one's mind what the unknown quantity for upkeep is. Nevertheless, this is another way in which landlords of old houses which are turned into flats can get around the Rent Act.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: I hope that my Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins), will allow me to intervene on the question of new buildings. I hoped that he would not say one word to suggest to the Minister that the building of very expensive houses limits the provision or family units. Opposite my house there is a site of new houses for sale at £21,000 apiece while, as the hon. Member knows, I am refused permission to sublet my property even at an invisible or non-existent rent on the ground that these other properties are being built at a price of £21,000apiece and the sort of

  1159
  people that I should have in my house as sub-tenants would depreciate down the social value of the area. On the whole, this is not a contribution to the provision of housing accommodation in any neighbourhood.
  Mr. Jenkins: I have almost finished, but, if the House will allow me, I would just like to say that I have collaborated with the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), who is also a constituent of mine, over two or three years in an attempt to obtain for him permission to convert his larger house into four flats, but permission has not been granted by the Dulwich College Estates governors, for what reason I do not know. I cannot think that any tenants that the hon. Member for Oldham, West, would have in his property would not mix with or be even better than the people who bought the £21,000 property.
  Finally, I do not think that it is any use the Government saying that the Rent Act has not brought substantial hardship. It has. Most of the trouble is due to shortage of housing accommodation, which the Government intend to remedy. But, in my submission, an interim measure must be adopted to deal with the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and other hon. Members, to deal with the spivs and sharks of the property world, and to prevent the growing hardship which is being silently suffered by vast numbers of middle-class families, who, being inarticulate and unorganised, are compelled to succumb to the extortion and are, in many cases, living on the breadline today.
  8.39 p.m.
  Mr. R. J. Mellish: I agree with most of what was said by the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins). His views of the Rent Act coincide with the views of this side of the House. He is one of the few Conservatives who have taken a consistent attitude towards this, and I say to his Front Bench that he knows a lot about this subject, for he lives in an area—Dulwich—which is probably as badly affected as any other by the Rent Act.
  I do not understand the Minister's arguments about the so-called advant-
  1160
  ages of the Rent Act. If it is so good, why do the Government not continue the process? Why do they not decontrol a lot more housing? If it has made available so many more properties and is solving so much of the housing problem, then why not extend it further?
  Why do the Government not go to country at the next General Election and say that they believe that the Act was a dynamic success and that they propose to extend it? I will give the answer. The Government know that they dare not do any such thing because such a slogan would be a mockery, especially of the victims of the Act.
  It was claimed for the Act that it would provide more accommodation because people who could afford higher rent could move into higher rent accommodation and those who could pay only a lower rent would be able to move into lower rent accommodation. The present Home Secretary said that when he was Minister of Housing and Local Government. He said that it would bring about some kind of equality. The very opposite is happening. I beg the present Minister to understand that.
  Before the Rent Act, people were able to move about in my constituency. They were living in privately-owned flats. Those who had been occupying two-roomed flats could move into three or four-roomed flats while those in larger flats could move into smaller. But now, because of so much decontrol, such movement is impossible because those moving out would have to pay such higher rents. That is what is happening in London. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is happening all over the country."]
  In my constituency, there is a privately owned block of flats called Hamilton Square. It is a respectable block and, at least in the past—I do not know about the present—the landlords were good. About one-third of the flats are controlled and the remainder decontrolled. It is hard to realise how inhuman are the rents which are being asked for the decontrolled flats. It is grave injustice. Rents of 35s., £2 and £210s. are being demanded for basement flats which should be condemned.
  We have referred to the colour problem. I have not much of a colour problem in my constituency but when I went

  1161
  to work in Deptford during the recent by-election I discovered that the problem there is appalling. Almost one in three houses are occupied by coloured people. One sees five gas stoves in one house. The houses are packed from floor to ceiling with these poor wretches. One may ask, "Why do not the public health inspectors turn them out for overcrowding? "The answer is that these unfortunate people have nowhere else to go. The inspectors are quite powerless.
  I do not deny the argument that we must have more flats and houses, but private enterprise in London has not even tried to make a challenge. If it were not for the local authorities I do not know what the position would be. I have a perfect example in my constituency of what this adds up to.
  An old couple have lived for 40 years in a flat, where they brought up their children who have now gone away. Then the people downstairs moved and the property was bought by a spiv who sold the flat downstairs to coloureds, seven of whom have moved in.
  On Friday the old couple came to see me. It is almost impossible to explain to these people that there is nothing one can do. They are terrified of living with these seven coloured people downstairs whose outlook and habits are so different and who make so much noise. They will probably get out, although I do not know where they can go—and when they do move the house will become decontrolled and so we have another Rachman kind of story. But whatever the system of society we live in we always have spivs. We had them between 1945 and 1951.
  I have another case, that of a man called Brady—if that is his name—who took hundreds of thousands of pounds off the Government on false war damage claims. I will tell the House how he did it. First, he bought a lot of properties very cheaply—£400 or £500 a house, which were due for war damage benefits. He went along to the borough council and there got authority to do the repairs. He sent this authority to the War Damage Commission which agreed to it and asked him to put forward builder's estimates, when the appropriate amount would be paid. He did. It was not appreciated that the building firm was his as well and
  1162
  that it provided him with false receipts. He took the Government of the day for thousands of pounds. An attempt was made to arrest him, but he went to Ireland and set himself up in a company there. I gather that he cannot be extradited.
  What happened to the property? This was not just one house, but hundreds of houses. People in those houses did not pay rent for several years and then, suddenly, a company called Various Tenancies—the Minister knows about this because I have written to him to ask him to look into it—came along asking for £200 in back rent and serving notices to quit. This is all perfectly legal and this firm has taken over the Brady empire. Dilapidation notices, and so on, have been served, but not enforced because of absent landlords. All this process did not start with Rachman. The Government have been in power for 12 years and they must take responsibility for whatever is happening in housing. They take the credit, and they must take the blame. So the miserable story goes on.
  Sir Barnett Janner: Will my hon. Friend carry this just one stage further and explain to the House that, knowing what Brady had done and how it was done, the Government removed security of tenure, so enabling people as expert as Brady in defrauding to do what they did?
  Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend is a lawyer; he had better ask the question himself. All I know is that some of these people, like Brady, are very smart. I do not understand how people can be so wicked. Of course they know the law. They know it backwards, much better than I can ever hope to know it.
  I know of seven families who have been paying no rent but who have been paying rates and taxes. Dilapidation notices have been served on them, as well as claims for hundreds of £s in back rent. My own local authority may be at fault, but I want it to make a compulsory purchase order for every Brady property in Bermondsey, and I want the Minister' to give his O.K. at once, with none of this messing about which we have had with previous compulsory purchase orders and none of the legal jargon and legal procedure which has delayed us again and again and by which, when

  1163
  the landlord is unknown, a C.P.O. notice is stuck on the door and that is that.
  The hon. Member for Dulwich mentioned the landlord and tenant legislation which the Government brought in as an emergency Measure, terrified of the wholesale evictions facing them. The Home Secretary knows that he brought in that legislation as a result of the pressure from this side of the House and forced landlords to give three-year leases. Those leases are now running out and we are now reaching the point where we ought to be frightened of the sort of people of whom we were frightened in 1958.
  There is the perfect example in my constituency. The previous landlord signed a lease under this landlord and tenant legislation for some decontrolled property. The tenants were paying extra rent, but they were quite happy about that. Suddenly, a Mr. "Singh"—a good old bright Bermondsey name—[HON. MEMBERS: "Singh."]—S-i-n-g-h—I call it "Singe", but that is nothing to what many people call it—buys the property and then writes to the tenants giving them notice to quit from 31st August saying, "You have no leases with me; your leases are finished; they finished from such-and-such a date with the previous owner".
  The tenants do not owe a penny rent and, much against my judgment, they are prepared to consider paying more. They are screaming out for security of tenure. There are elderly people and they are asking, "What happens to us? Where are we to go?" The Home Secretary gave them the answer in his Rent Act—to an old people's home. After they have been in their house for 40 years, they can now go to an old people's home. Under the 1957 Rent Act, the landlord is entitled to do that to them.
  The Government say that this Act has done a fine job of work. If one asks for a compulsory purchase order, a tremendous amount of work is involved. There has to be a public inquiry to enable people to object to it. We have tried to negotiate with Mr. Singh's solicitors, because he is asking fantastic rents. He is asking £3,000 to £4,000 for houses that are not worth £500, This enormous rise in price is due to current market values and all that we are trying to do
  1164
  is to get security of tenure for these people.
  Many people have tried again and again to expose what is happening to tenants who are being evicted by unscrupulous landlords. Tonight's debate will no doubt hit the headlines because someone called Rachman has been associating with someone called Keeler, whoever she might be. Someof us have been fighting this rent racket for years. We have said time and again that the Rent Act is wrong and is not solving the housing problem. It is causing great harm and hardship to people who do not deserve it in places like my constituency, and we shall continue to fight it with every means in our power.
  8.51 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Curran: Having risen to speak as this late hour, I propose to discard my impromptus and let somebody else make my speech for me. I have received a letter from a lady who lives in north London. She does not want her name and full address disclosed. She is an old-age pensioner of 71 and lives in a house which she bought thirty-seven years ago intending to make provision for her old age. She is a spinster, and she says in her letter:
  "I should like to be able to stand on the Floor of the House of Commons today and relate the consequences that I am suffering from the Rent Act restrictions that are still imposed on me. I am a pensioner householder with controlled tenants and I want you to know my case. All that I am getting from the ground floor flat" of three large rooms, kitchen, boxroom, bathroom, lavatory, indoor cellar and a large garden is a rent of 37s. 8d. a week which includes rates and repairs. I am getting only 44s. a week pension."
  She says that she is being forced to provide this accommodation because it is controlled, and she goes on to speak of her experiences with this house. She says that the council told her that some repairs were necessary so she had them carried out, at a cost of £60, which is one year's rent. She then goes on to say that the tenants next door, where the accommodation is decontrolled, are paying £4 10s. a week for a smaller flat than the one that she is required to let at 37s. 8d. a week, and she considers that this state of affairs will continue for the rest of her life.
  Mr. Denis Howell: What is the rateable value?
  Mr. Curran: She does not say that. Does it make any difference? Does not the hon. Gentleman think that a lady of 71, living on a pension of 44s. a week, is entitled to a certain amount of fair play? She is living in a house which she bought to make provision for her old age. As the house is still controlled she is unable to make a living out of it.
  Mr. Arthur Skeffington: If the circumstances are as the hon. Gentleman has described, the lady can go to the county court and put her case there. If the case is as described by the hon. Gentleman, almost certainly the county court judge will give her possession. No doubt the hon. Gentleman can advise her about that.
  Mr. Richard Marsh: The hon. Gentleman ought to be able to tell her that.
  Mr. Curran: We have listened to a number of speeches about rents and the injustices done by landlords. I do not dispute that there are disreputable landlords, but when we are passing Acts which affect millions of men and women—and not all landlords are criminal scoundrels—we ought to remember that we are making decisions which affect people like this old lady.
  Sir B. Janner: Would the hon. Member say how much the lady paid for the house? Was it bought as a controlled house, and, if so, did not she know at the time that she could not raise the rent?
  Mr. Curran: She is 71. She explains that she is not much good at writing letters. I cannot see why the troubles of an old woman of 71 should be a matter for mockery, nor can I see why someone who is living in these conditions should not have at least as much sympathy and consideration as we give to the tenants of bad landlords.
  I shall sit down so as to give the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) time to wind up the debate for the Opposition. I hope that he will tell us whether, in urging the repeal of the Rent Act, he is prepared to say that he wants to go back to the state of affairs in which large numbers of people who own houses are to be forced by law to let them at pre-war prices. Does he think that it is fair that people who happen to deal in living space should be compelled to
  1166
  sell that living space at pre-war prices, when we do not apply that kind of restriction to any other group of citizens? We do not ask butchers or bakers to sell food at pre-war prices. Why should we force people who own houses to sell living space at pre-war prices?
  The obvious effect of rent control is that we are compelling people with living space to sell, to sell it at a price fixed many years ago. I believe that that is unjust. It is something which we do not apply to any other group of citizens. There is no other group in the country whom we require not only to sell their products at a pre-war price, but to stand the loss out of their own pockets.
  I quite agree that if we allow the market price to prevail there are citizens who will not be able to afford the market price. I recognise, also, that it is the duty of the State to come to the help of those citizens who cannot afford it. I am not asserting that the State should wash its hands of the matter and let the market mechanism operate without reference to human suffering. I am arguing that the State should come to the help of people who cannot afford the market mechanism. The present system of rent control is a system where the subsidy in this one case is extracted not from taxes, but from the pockets of the citizens who happen to own houses. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that this is not fair, and I invite him to say, when he tells us why he is in favour of repealing the Rent Act, whether he regards this state of affairs as being defensible in any terms at all.
  8.59 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: The Motion that we axe discussing deals with extortion, evictions and profiteering, and the so-called Rachman episodes have highlighted this extortion and profiteering. I say quite frankly that I am glad that it has been highlighted in that fashion, and that the Press has given it the publicity that it has. I am glad because, for a long time—almost ever since the Rent Act was passed—there has been a great deal of persecution of tenants, of a less lurid and compelling form, but causing quite as much misery in a quiet way all over the country.
  That is something, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) pointed out—and I say this to

  1167
  the Minister, in view of some of the things he said—to which my hon. Friends and I had repeatedly referred, without evoking any response from the Government or from any other quarter in particular. When at last something happens which makes everyone aware of the situation, by writing it up in lurid colours, I say that we are fully entitled to seize the opportunity to draw attention again, with a chance of being heard, to abuses which we have repeatedly brought before this House.
  The Minister seemed to suggest that there was something improper in doing it at this juncture, when Rachman's name is in the Press, because of his association with Ward, and because of certain unfortunate memories that that might conjure up for the Government. If we were to fight shy of every subject that has disreputable associations for the Government there would be nothing left to talk about at all.
  But I shall not tell any lurid stories. I want to show that these are, after all, only the illustrative examples. I propose to quote one example only, and I choose it because it illustrates so many of the things that are wrong. The case is the one which was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, concerning the house at 67, Chester Road. One of the interesting things about that house is that it seems almost impossible to say who, at any moment, owns it. It travels from person to person and company to company. At various times there has been a dangerous structure notice on it and a sanitary notice, but it has not been possible to get anything done because it has not been possible to nail down at any moment who owns it.
  There were decontrolled tenants in it. It was important for the person who was the owner at one stage—and who may be the owner today—to get them out, for the simple reason that once they were out the premises could be let, or the whole house sold with vacant possession, at a handsome profit. At first, the tenants would not go. Their furniture was broken up. They were interviewed by the local newspaper and by the B.B.C. After it was known that they had received visits from those quarters an attempt was made by the B.B.C. to get in touch with one
  1168
  of the occupants again. Here I wish to quote from a copy of a note—I have seen the original—which the tenants wrote, to be left for the B.B.C. man when he called.
  The note says, "I am at"—and he gives his present address. He had gone; the technique succeeded. I do not propose to quote his present address—
  "Kelly's boys were after me this afternoon. After the Kilburn Times and B.B.C. people left they start to keep an eye on us. Please tell the B.B.C. people I am at this address."
  By a grim and ironic coincidence the note is signed "K. Joseph". That example illustrates, first, that the Rent Act was the mainspring of the landlord's action. We cannot get away from that. The Rent Act provides that when a controlled tenant moves out the tenancy becomes decontrolled. That was what made it profitable for the landlords and their thugs to act in the way they did.
  Secondly, it illustrates a pattern of irresponsible ownership of property-property constantly moving from person to person and company to company, so that its proper responsibilities can never be laid upon ownership. It illustrates the difficulty of proper action by the local authority because of this shifting ownership and the weaknesses, for this purpose, of the 1961 Act, to which I shall refer again a little later.
  It illustrates also the ugly story of violence. We are all glad to see the Home Secretary here for part of the debate. I am bound to say that I could have wished that the right hon. Gentleman was to reply for the Government because, although this is a matter for which the whole Government are responsible, the right hon. Gentleman carries a good deal of personal responsibility. It was he who triumphantly pushed the Rent Act through the House and assured the country that he was watching its operation carefully. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is still watching it. It was the Home Secretary who piloted the 1961 Act through its various stages and who steadily resisted suggestion after suggestion which now his successor gradually, one by one, is going to have to adopt. The right hon. Gentleman is now Home Secretary and, whatever the difficulties of the police may be, the responsibility for maintaining peace in the Metropolis lies on the shoulders of the Home Secretary.

  1169
  I shall say no more about the violence because, wicked and scandalous as it is, in a sense it is incidental to the whole problem. I have known plenty of cases where no violence or even a threat of violence was needed to get people out. They have been terrified and bewildered by solicitors' letters. That was enough. We must notice that the evils done by the Rent Act, as the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) pointed out, are not only those of the lurid cases. They are happening all the time. I have here a letter from a constituent who fought in the Korean War. His tenancy has never been controlled. It would have been but for the Rent Act. But, owing to the date when he moved into the premises, it has never been controlled. He has been allowed to stay there for a time. Now he is being told to go for no better, or no other, reason than that his wife is to have a second child. That is the sort of thing which is happening all the time, and that it is the sort of thing which is indefeasible.
  We are told that the purpose of the Rent Act is, as it were, to allow the free play of the market. We have been told that hon. Members on this side of the House plead constantly the case of people who are turned out of premises and do not think of those who are allowed to move in. Let us look at how it is working. Admitted that when people are evicted under the Rent Act, the premises can be let. By no means all premises are let. The sale of property still occurs frequently. The premises can be let to somebody else. But at what rent? The evil of the Rent Act is that it hits hardest at the weakest. Granted that once the controlled tenant is out accommodation may be on the market. But the tenant who cannot pay very much; the tenant with children; the tenant who, for any reason of health, may be an embarrassment to the landlord, is the one who has the least chance of getting the accommodation.
  In so far as the Rent Act has made more rented accommodation available, on the whole it has made it easier for those for whom the position was already comparatively easy, and it has made it harder for those for whom it was already difficult to obtain accommodation. The Minister is always telling us that we have the Donnison Report which shows us that not so much accommodation is being
  1170
  sold when it becomes vacant. When the Rent Act was first passed we were told that much more rented accommodation would come on the market. The highest claim made now is that rented accommodation is not going off the market quite so fast.
  The Government repeatedly quote the Donnison Report. It was only today that the Minister admitted that this Report was compiled in 1960 from information collected in 1958. Why do the Government still stand on the Donnison Report? They have devoted a good deal of energy to collecting their own more recent information which they have not yet published. I think that will disclose that, although there is this accommodation to rent, most of it is at a rent which provides no answer at all to the problem posed by people who are being evicted, and whose stories we have heard during this debate.
  Next I say about the Rent Act that its weakness was shown as soon as 1958 when the Government had to modify it to do things which we told them when they passed the Act it would be necessary to do. There was one think in the 1958 Act which was really useful and which, if the Act were still in force, could be of great value today. There was a provision that anyone who was liable to lose his home as a result of the Rent Act could in no circumstances be turned out except after proceedings in court and by a court order. Since we want this debate to be one which suggests action as well as one which makes criticisms, I offer this to the Government. Take that principle in the 1958 Act now, make it permanent and universally applicable, and make the fact that it is applicable universally known.
  Let it be known to everyone in the country that it is completely illegal to turn anyone out of his house without a court order. I wonder if the Minister has ever seen a gas board trying to deal with the situation of a householder who will not pay for his gas. It has to get an order most carefully. It has to bring along a policeman when it executes the order, and to get a witness to see what it is doing. It has to establish in the eyes of everyone that it has been before a court and that what it is doing is perfectly legal. That ought to be the position always before anyone can be turned out of his house and for some people it

  1171
  would be legal today if the Home Secretary had consented to our plea to make the 1958 Act permanent. But to that suggestion he returned the usual "No" which he has returned to every suggestion to alleviate any people's lot.
  I fully accept that anything we do about rent legislation does not of itself provide more accommodation and that the root of the matter—as the Amendment tells us, as if we had not known and already argued in great detail—is simply that there are no enough houses. There is a shortage, but a shortage of what? For the people suffering from the Rent Act, what kind of dwellings have to be provided? In the overwhelming majority of cases they are council houses, the class of dwellings which this Government, until the last 12 months, have steadily cut down the supply of year after year.
  Another thing by which we have to remedy the shortage in London is a proper policy for the distribution of industry and employment over the whole country. I do not deny the importance of these things at all. If I do not develop them now, that is only because other debates have given us an opportunity to do so. My righthon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition dealt with these points. I repeat them now only because of the extraordinary remark made by the Minister when he said that my right hon. Friend did not deal at all with the background of this problem. I can only suppose that the Minister was asleep during a large part of my right hon. Friend's speech.
  While we are speaking of freeing London from overcrowding, let us remember one real contribution which was made to that task in the days of the Labour Government, the creation of the 14 new towns. It was a great delight to all of us to hear today the maiden speech from the son of a former Member of this House whose great achievement those new towns primarily were. We all admired and respected the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin). Although I do not wish to drag a maiden speech too much into the path of controversy, I wish that the Minister and some of the other advocates of the merits of the Rent Act would try that medicine on the people of Deptford and certain other constituencies. We
  1172
  know what Deptford thought of that line of argument.
  The Amendment suggests that the House, although not willing to do anything about the Rent Act, would at least deplore the disreputable practices engaged in by some unscrupulous landlords. It is, I am afraid, a common Conservative error when discussing social evils to imagine that they can be interpreted in the light of particular individual villians.
  We have to look a bit further below the surface than that. Rachman was a villainous man. Nobody disputes that, but he got the money to acquire the property by loans on mortgage from highly respectable people. In order to console the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Ress-Davies), if he is here, I would say that I shall not repeat now or say anything about anybody which they have not already said about themselves in the newspapers.
  Last Sunday we had several highly respectable people whose names one associates with famous regiments, with famous clubs, with famous schools, saying, "It is true that I lent money to Rachman on mortgage but I had no idea of the methods he employed or the way he ran his property." One thing that always puzzles me is how it is that it comes about that people who are fortunate in possessing wealth and education and the capacity and the facilities to find things out and know their way about the world, people who are shrewd and sophisticated enough to know how to invest their money properly, can be still so ignorant, innocent and naive about something which they could have learned by walking down the street.
  It is more than 60 years since Bernard Shaw wrote "Widower's Houses". In that play there is a dialogue between a respectable English gentleman and a slum landlord. The respectable gentleman reproaches the slum landlord with his methods and his extortion. The slum landlord asks, "From what source do you get your income?" to which the gentleman replies, "Not from houses. I get mine from interest." "Yes", replies the slum landlord, "interest on mortgage on my property, and before I can see a penny of what you say I screw and bully out of my tenants I have to pay 7 per cent. to

  1173
  you. What my rent collector does for me, I have to do for you. You the mortgage holder are the principal. I, and the rent collector, are the intermediaries."
  I bring out this point because this means that although some particular man is a bit of a pioneer in certain methods in discovering what the Rent Acts make it profitable to do, this is something which can rapidly take root and become quite at home and a native plant in the most respectable society. This is not to be interpreted in terms of particular villains. This is to be interpreted in terms of the law and of the system which allows irresponsible ownership of property, and we do not imagine that it is restricted to certain districts of London. I believe that it is the view of the police that dangers of violence may now be moving further west towards Shepherds Bush and the West Kensington area.
  I have reports not of violence but of pressure on tenants and extortions and threats of eviction from Poplar and from Southwark and in the provinces from Malt by where the Government sold an estate which was once the property of the Royal Ordnance. The tenants are not protected because they have been Crown tenants and now they are faced with extortion and eviction. We have not had a very encouraging story either from the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) whose speech I am sorry to have missed. Do not let us imagine that this is an evil restricted to a particular locality.
  We shall be told that it is all very sad but it can be remedied by perhaps strengthening the 1961 Act. I must tell the Minister and the Home Secretary, who piloted the Act through Parliament, that this Measure as it stands is a terribly weak piece of legislation. The Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee has told the Minister so. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition mentioned, the town clerk of my constituency, acting in another capacity, has told him so. Islington and Kensington have expressed their alarm about it. The worry all the time is that if a local authority spends money trying to make these houses decent it will never find anybody from whom it can reclaim the money.
  1174
  I understand that the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central said that the same anxiety faces the local authority in his constituency. I think this particular abuse may be a little more common in London because the devices of shifting companies and shifting responsibilities are perhaps a little more known and practised in the capital than elsewhere, but it does not take long for knowledge of that kind to spread.
  It is worth looking at what happened in Standing Committee D in 1961 on that Bill. On 11th May my hon. Friends and I put forward an Amendment to secure that local authorities should make a register of all properties in multiple occupation. "No", said the Minister, and then later on he has to admit, "We will let them do so perhaps two or three years later". The Minister today has to say that he will bring that proposal forward. If the Government had accepted our Amendment on 11th May they would have saved themselves the trouble.
  On 16th May we proposed an Amendment—and here I should like to give credit to my hon. Friends the Members for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), for Islington South-West (Mr. A. Evans) and others—so that when a local authority makes an order it can more speedily be carried out. The Minister said "No." On 6th June we tried several Amendments so that if people committed an offence under this Act there was power to get not only at the directors but at the shareholders of the company involved. "Most undesirable", we were told, and we were voted down.
  We moved an Amendment to require that the duties of landlords and the rights of tenants should be made clearly known to the tenants of houses in multiple occupation by the rent book or some other document. We were voted down on that. Then there was a most important Amendment whereby, where work is done by a local authority and it spends money on that work, that should be a cost to be registered in the register of local land charges so that the authority can nail the cost on to the property without having to trace the owner. On 13th June we brought forward a new Clause saying that where, owing to shifting ownership, men of straw and the rest of it, it proved impossible to enforce the Act, the local authority should have power, as my right

  1175
  hon. Friend suggested today, forthwith to acquire the property. The answer we received was "No."
  Every one of those proposals, which have today received approval from both sides of the House, and even the Minister coming toward them, could have been put into the Act. But all the time we were dealing with the same Minister who was so positive that the Rent Act would not cause hardship, who was so positive that it was unnecessary to make the 1958 Act permanent. All the time the Government knew best, and now we see the result.
  The situation is not the result of a single man's villainy. It results from sins of commission, in the passing of the Rent Act, and sins of omission, in the 1961 Act for which the Government are responsible. The results stem from the doctrine that property must always be protected and that people come second. In effect, in this we see Conservative freedom working.
  What action is needed to deal with that situation? First, we should deal with the particular conflation of villainies that have made up the Rachman scandal, because as my right hon. Friend pointed out, we have here not only the housing problem, but the question either of breaches in the company law, or the company law itself not being satisfactory, intimidation and evasion of taxes. I repeat, therefore, the suggestion which my right hon. Friend made, that it would be desirable to have an inquiry, with proper powers, to sort this out. We possess certain information, some of which, I again assure the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet, comes from highly respectable sources, and, if we were certain of the protection of witnesses, we should be prepared to put it before such a tribunal.
  Next, there is the longer-term question of what action should be taken to deal with the housing shortage. The Minister saw fit to say that I had not mentioned a target for houses. I agree; it was just forgetfulness. But the mere saying that we will build so many houses does no one any particular good. One has to consider the line of policy to be pursued if one is to get the houses built. The Minister will not suggest that we have been backward in this connection. If he looks at his own most recent White Paper, he will be surprised by the number of paragraphs in it
  1176
  which are timid shadows of things we have suggested to him in the previous two or three years; in particular, the proposals for preventing houses falling into disrepair.
  I was glad to take part in the debate a fortnight ago. I should be glad at any time to debate what action is needed to provide houses and overcome the shortage. I do not think that the Minister or anyone else in the House will accuse me of not being aware of the importance of these matters. Meanwhile, however, there are certain special actions which we must take, and it is in this context that we must consider rent control.
  I have shown that the Rent Act provides the motive for a great deal of most merciless action, whether it is legal or illegal, violent or peaceable, and that it results in the persecution of a great many unhappy people. We say, therefore, that the Rent Act should be repealed and that it should be replaced by legislation which would give tenants security of tenure at a fair rent. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) would not have needed to ask his rhetorical question if he had listened to what we have so often said should be done about the Rent Act.
  I accept at once that to require landlords to receive pre-war rents would be wholly unreasonable. But tenants must be given security of tenure. I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson). If he reads his speech, he will find, whether he likes it or not, that he was proposing a form of rent control. If it was not that, it meant nothing. It was a sort of compromise between what we want and what now is. But, alas, the Conservative borough council of Chelsea has already put something forward on those lines to the Minister and he has turned it down. I am sorry to say that the Liberal Party comes in second to Chelsea in this connection.
  I hope that we shall have from the Chief Secretary tonight an answer to a question I put a fortnight ago and which was not answered then. In the unlikely event of this Government winning the next election, is it their intention to use their powers under the Rent Act to decontrol further houses? Let us have a plain answer to that. Apparently, further decontrol would please the hon. Member for Uxbridge.

  1177
  Finally, what should be done to make property owning a responsible business? Power should be given to the local authority to prosecute if work is not done, not merely to do the work at its own expense. There should be power to bring houses quickly into the authority's possession when the public interest so requires. There should be prohibition of eviction except by court order; and, if I may throw out an idea of my own, why not apply to the ownership of houses the idea that we apply to the right to drive a motor car, that if one does it in an anti-social manner one should be disqualified from doing it? I do not see why a landlord who has used his position infamously in an anti-social manner should not be declared, for a certain period, incapable of owning, directly or indirectly, that kind of property.
  The Government and hon. Members opposite will say that this would be very difficult to administer. May I suggest that hon. Members opposite and the Government, who are so ingenious in chasing ways of trying to ensure that no council tenant shall pay a penny less rent than he can afford, might apply their ingenuity to solving this problem.
  The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet, in a speech just before he voted for the Rent Act, said this:
  "…the County of London…is a speculators' paradise…it would be unfortunate if the commercial men were enabled to muscle in on the extreme shortage of accommodation in the West End, Chalsea, Battersea and other parts of London…."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st November, 1956; Vol. 560, c. 1855–6.]
  When I read this shoddy story of the shifting of responsibility for the ownership in property from one person and one company to another, it was not of Paradise that I thought but the passage in Dante's Inferno in which he describes that part of hell where lie the thief, the fraudulent and the extortioner. It was one part of their nature and penalty that whenever one looked at them they kept changing into somebody else.
  We do not have as part of the common furniture of our minds and speech today that terrible imagery of which Dante was master. But surely we know, or at our peril forget, that the individual who pursues and the law that permits those barren and perverted activities which enrich those who pursue
  1178
  them without adding a jot to the real wealth of the community, and without regard for one's duty to one's neighbour, twist human society from its proper shape into that horrible parody which Dante described—the society without faith, without law, without happiness.
  9.33 p.m.
  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster-General (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): My first duty must be to join the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) in extending congratulations to the hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) on his first-class maiden speech. It was a particular pleasure to some of us to hear the hon. Member both because of the happy circumstance that his distinguished father was able to hear it and because many of us in the House recall his father as a parliamentary colleague for whom we all felt the greatest admiration. It was said that he was the only Member on either side of the House who understood the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. I can pay the hon. Member no higher tribute than to say that his speech was fully in the tradition of his father's speeches.
  It has been our experience—it has certainly been mine—to have to pay tribute, and always sincerely but never more so than tonight, to one or two hon. Members opposite on their really brilliant maiden speeches. I must, however, warn them of the unhappy fact that their quality does not seem to go with them when they descend to the Front Bench opposite. It rather recalls G. K. Chesterton's comment, which the hon. Member for Fulham may remember, on education:
  "There must be something rottenly wrong with education. Everybody has wonderful children, but all the grown-ups are such duds."
  That brings me to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. I found myself for once in the rather embarrassing position of being in complete agreement with an hon. Member who spoke from the Liberal benches, because the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) very fairly made the point that the right hon. Gentleman's speech, whatever its qualities, was not directed to supporting the argument contained in the Motion.

  1179
  The right hon. Gentleman described at great length and with considerable gusto a number of "rackets", a number of the disagreeable, wrong, wicked, unpleasant things done by one individual and by his associates and others of the same kidney. What the right hon. Gentleman did not do was to establish, or even to attempt to establish, a connection between those things and the remedy which he proposes: that is, the repeal of the Rent Act, 1957.
  Indeed, when the Leader of the Opposition has the experience of reading his speech tomorrow in Hansard—[HON. MEMBERS: "The right hon. Gentleman should read it."]—he will see how he completely failed to establish that link. Several of the cases that he quoted of people who had suffered from the depredations of this man were, as he went out of his way to describe them, statutory or controlled tenants. Therefore, it would seem that the argument that one should make other people whose tenancies were decontrolled by the 1957 Act controlled tenants, and that one would thereby give them protection against the depredations of men of this sort, plainly falls to the ground.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Has not the right hon. Gentleman yet understood the process of creeping decontrol and the incentive on the crooked landlords to get statutory tenants out—"de-statting", I think it is called in the profession—so that they can then get the property decontrolled? Secondly, has he not yet understood the link between these problems which we have all been describing and our concrete proposal for taking power to requisition these properties?
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I understood the right hon. Gentleman's argument very well, but I want to take it a little further. His argument, apparently, is that these practices will not be followed if the result of getting one lot of tenants out is to get in a further lot of controlled or protected tenants. On the face of it, that seems a fairly improbable view. [Interruption.]
  Does the Leader of the Opposition really think that people who are not prepared to stop at beating up individuals, invading their homes and breaking up their furniture will be deterred by the fact
  1180
  that if they put in another tenant they could not legally charge above a certain rent? [Interruption.] And yet, if the right hon. Gentleman does not think that, then it is quite plain that what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, the repeal of the 1957 Rent Act, would not help in the slightest degree to protect these people, and that, of course, is the difference between the two sides of the House on this matter.
  We on this side of the House are at least as concerned as the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to stop practices, abuses, and, indeed, crimes, of this sort, but what we do not follow the right hon. Gentleman in doing is his suggestion that we shall deal with this problem—and this is what the Motion which he has moved suggests, and suggests as the only way to deal with it—by repealing the Act of 1957 and restoring full rent control.
  We simply do not believe that that would offer any help. Indeed, our view is that it would hinder, because anything which diminishes the supply of houses, and of houses to rent, in particular, makes the problem the more difficult. The House knows perfectly well, for we have seen it in many other directions—we have seen it in the black markets in food, in clothing, and so on—that the real basis for these abuses is scarcity, and nothing else. If, therefore, in an attempt to deal with those abuses the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends propound remedies which diminish the provision of additional houses to rent, then, so far from it being merely the case that the right hon. Gentleman provides no remedy, the truth of the matter would be that it would make the position worse, and that is why we oppose the Motion.
  It makes, as I have said, three propositions, that there exist—these are the words—
  "intolerable extortion, evictions and property profiteering"
  Well, we need not quarrel about that. We can dispute the degree and the amount of the abuse, and I think that a good many of the speeches made from the other side of the House tended to exaggerate it, as is easy, but its degree in the particular case of the late Mr. Rachman and others nobody will waste his time in disputing.

  1181
  What I do press the right hon. Gentleman on is this, the second proposition, that these are the results of the Rent Act. That, with great respect, neither he nor his hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, in a very well argued speech, succeeded in establishing. What they did do was to bring out for the umpteenth time their dislike of the Rent Act. On that, we have differed from them in the past and we shall, no doubt, continue to differ from them. That is a matter of argument between the parties, but what this debate is about is the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman that it is the Rent Act which has produced these things.
  It is our contention that the basis of the problem is a lack still, despite the very great advances which have been made, in the provision of housing, the lack, particularly in certain areas of pressure, of an adequate amount of accommodation. Our remedy for that problem is, first—I shall say a word or two about this in a minute—to maintain and expand the very high rate of building which has taken place in recent years—and of house building—and also the measures, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, to help and to mitigate and ease the position for those affected during the interim period till the supply of housing is fully adequate.
  Right hon. Gentlemen opposite really must face the fact that if one seeks to hold down rents well below their economic value while other commodities are sold at market price, while houses are repaired at contemporary prices for labour and materials; if one seeks to select one thing—rented accommodation—and keep it at an artificially low level—
  Mrs. Harriet Slater: No one is suggesting that.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:—then one is doing the utmost one can to diminish the supply of that accommodation. That means that the biggest single factor in the shortage of rented accommodation undoubtedly was rent restriction, though I would give the threat of municipalisation a good second place.
  The second point is that it is significant that rent, rates, etc., now take a smaller proportion of total consumer expenditure than they did before the war. In 1938, the figure was 11·2 per cent.
  1182
  of consumer expenditure on rent, rates, etc.; last year it was 8·I per cent. The doctrine that one cannot hold down artificially the charges made for the rent of accommodation has all along been accepted in the local authority sphere, with one very curious result. It is the traditional duty, and the right duty, above all, of local authorities to provide accommodation for the poorest section of our society.
  That is undoubtedly now the people on National Assistance. But there is a curious fact deriving from rent control of private accommodation in the past and complete freedom of local authority accommodation. If one looks at the National Assistance Board's Annual Report for 1962 one will find that the average paid by recipients of National Assistance who are local authority tenants is actually higher by about 1s. 10d. than the average rent paid by the tenants of private landlords.
  What right hon. Gentlemen opposite must face in that if one makes accommodation artificially cheap, one also makes it artificially scarce.
  Mr. Mellish: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:No. I have given way with pleasure to the hon. Gentleman many times, as he knows, but tonight the hon. Member for Fulham, I am sure inadvertently, took between three and four minutes of my time, and I have a good deal to say.
  Mr. Mellish: May I put just one question to the right hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I want to say something to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition about another observation in his speech. He made a remark that, in his view, the photographs of some of my right hon. Friends who have been Minister of Housing and Local Government—he named them one by one—would, undoubtedly be displayed in a place of honour in churchman headquarters. I do not know whether that was intended to be jocular. I think that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will feel that that was no more fair or graceful than if one of us had said that photographs of his right hon. Friends and himself were displayed in the office of Mr. Sydney Stanley.

  1183
  The real basis of profiteering in any commodity is shortage and I want, therefore, to say a word or two about what we are doing to remedy the shortage of hoping. The right hon. Gentleman was quite wrong when he said that in 1948 the late Aneurin Bevan built more local authority houses than at any subsequent time. That is not the fact. But what is significant is the way that the total of houses built has risen.
  Indeed, if one looks at the housing record of right hon. Members, one is surprised at their courageous conscience in raising this matter. I accept, of course, that immediately after the war there were serious difficulties, but by 1948 they were doing reasonably well. In that year they built 227,000 houses, but—and this is the interesting point—after that the figure fell to 197,000 in 1949 and down to 194,000 by 1951.
  The House will remember that there was at that time some controversy about the possible size of the housing programme. When my right hon. Friends suggested that 300,000 houses were possible, what did right hon. Members opposite say? Mr. Bevan said that if we set the builders free we would not get 100,000 houses a year, but would have housing riots. Lord Attlee, in a broadcast said that the figure was not possible.
  The House will remember what happened. There was a change of Government and my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister became Minister of Housing and Local Government. He at once got the figure up to 239,000 in the first year and we have achieved better than 300,000 ever since.
  Mr. A. C. Manuel: Sub-standard.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In the event, there are 1,100,000 people who have been rehoused as a result of Conservative housing policy over and above the level right hon. and hon. Members opposite said was possible.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition still gets a bit mixed up about it. He wrote a Fabian tract called Post-war Economic Policy in Britain in 1957, in which he said:
  "The Tory achievement of building well over 300,000 houses per annum was electorally popular and socially desirable, but it placed
  1184
  a great strain on our economic resources. They were the years when Britain should have been developing her basic industries."
  The right hon. Gentleman then had rather less enthusiasm for the housing of the people than he has shown tonight.
  The fact remains that we are moving forward with an expanded housing programme. In his White Paper of last month, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government indicated that we were moving to a target of 350,000 houses a year. The House knows that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works is doing a great deal to modernise and apply industrial methods of construction to the building industry so as to enable us to sustain a pace and speed of an even greater expansion in housing. That is the real way to deal with the housing problem.
  The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) made a number of observations about individual cases. One of them at least appears likely to be the subject of proceedings in the courts. I can only say to the hon. Member that if he feels, or any of his colleagues feel, that any of these cases discloses evidence of breaches of the law of any sort, whether it be the ordinary criminal law in respect of intimidation, or breaches of the rent legislation, or whatever it may be, not only are the ordinary sources of enforcement of the law open to them, but if, as hon. Members, they wish to see and to put material before whichever of my right hon. Friends is departmentally concerned, my right hon. Friends will be extremely happy to see them. Whatever else divides us, we are united in the House by wishing to see that the law of the land is properly enforced and that innocent people are not intimidated or bullied out of their rights.
  One hon. Member asked about the Income Tax position of the late Mr. Rachman and of those associated with him. The House knows very well that neither Ministers nor anybody else outside the Inland Revenue are aware of, or could possibly make statements about, the Income Tax or Estate Duty position of any individual. That is a basic principle of our administration which I am sure is right. The House knows that the Inland Revenue is anxious to fol-

  1185
  low up any case in which there is any doubt, and I am perfectly certain that the House can leave that aspect of the matter in its competent and skilled hands.
  Now I come back to the Motion. The Motion is a nonsense because it proposes to treat a real problem by methods which will not work. Its real purpose, as we all know, is political—to pin on a major act of Government policy responsibility for a rogue and his doings. It can best be described in the language
  of the race course as being by malice out of political calculation, as coming from a bad stable with a trainer well qualified to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, and whose riders have bumped where they have not bored. Let us, in our Amendment, disqualify it.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 232, Noes 329.

  Division No. 168.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Ainstey, William

  Forman, J. C.

  McInnes, James

  Albu, Austen

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  George, LadyMeganLloyd(Cmrthn)

  McLeavy, Frank

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Ginsburg, David

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Baird, John

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mahon, Simon

  Barnett, Guy

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

  Greenwood, Anthony

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

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Grey, Charles

  Manual, Archie

  Bence, Cyril

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mapp, Charles

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Marsh, Richard

  Benson, Sir George

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Mason, Roy

  Blackburn, F.

  Gunter, Ray

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Blyton, William

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Boardman, H.

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Hannan, William

  Millan, Bruce

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

  Harper, Joseph

  Milne, Edward

  Bowles, Frank

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Boyden, James

  Hayman, F. H.

  Monslow, Walter

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Healey, Denis

  Moody, A. S.

  Bradley, Tom

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur(Rwly Regis)

  Morris, John

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Moyle, Arthur

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Mulley, Frederick

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Note-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Holman, Percy

  Oliver, G. H.

  Callaghan, James

  Houghton, Douglas

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Carmichael, Neil

  Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

  Oram, A. E.

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Chapman, Donald

  Hoy, James H.

  Owen, Will

  Cliffe, Michael

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Parker, John

  Cronin, John

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Crosland, Anthony

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Paton, John

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Peart, Frederick

  Darling, George

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Pentland, Norman

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Jeger, George

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

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

  Probert, Arthur

  Deer, George

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Delargy, Hugh

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Pursey, Cmdr, Harry

  Dempsey, James

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Randall, Harry

  Diamond, John

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Dodds, Norman

  Kelley, Richard

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Reid, William

  Driberg, Tom

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Rhodes, H.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Lawson, George

  Roberts, Arthur (Normanton)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Ledger, Ron

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Robinson, Kcnneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Evans, Albert

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Ross, William

  Finch, Harold

  Lipton, Marcus

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Fitch, Alan

  Loughlin, Charles

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Fletcher, Eric

  McBride, N.

  Silkin, John

  Foley, Maurice

  McCann, John

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  MacColl, James

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Taverne, D.

  Wigg, George

  Small, William

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Willey, Frederick

  Snow, Julian

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

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

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Thornton, Ernest

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

  Steele, Thomas

  Tomney, Frank

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Stonehouse, John

  Warbey, William

  Woof, Robert

  Stones, William

  Watkins, Tudor

  Wyatt, Woodrow

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

  Weitzman, David

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

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

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Zllliacus, K.

  Swingler, Stephen

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Symonds, J. B.

  Whitlock, William

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Short and Mr. Rogers.

  NOES

  Aitken, Sir William

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Cunningham, Knox

  Hiley, Joseph

  Allason, James

  Curran, Charles

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Currie, G. B. H.

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

  Arbuthnot, John

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Dance, James

  Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Atkins, Humphrey

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Holland, Philip

  Balniel, Lord

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Hollingworth, John

  Barber, Anthony

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

  Barlow, Sir John

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Hopkins, Alan

  Barter, John

  Doughty, Charles

  Hornby, R. P.

  Batsford, Brian

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

  du Cann, Edward

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

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Eden, Sir John

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Emery, Peter

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Bidgood, John C.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Biffen, John

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Farr, John

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Fell, Anthony

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Fisher, Nigel

  Johnston Smith, Geoffrey

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Forrest, George

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Box, Donald

  Foster, John

  Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford&Stone)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Braine, Bernard

  Freeth, Denzil

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Brewis, John

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Gammans, Lady

  Kimball, Marcus

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Gardner, Edward

  Kirk, Peter

  Brooman-White, R.

  George, Sir John (Pollok)

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Lambton, Viscount

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Bryan, Paul

  Gllmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Buck, Antony

  Clover, Sir Douglas

  Leather, Sir Edwin

  Bullard, Denys

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  Leavey, J. A.

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Godber, Rt. Hon. J. B.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

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

  Goodhart, Philip

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Lindsay, Sir Martin

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Gough, Frederick

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

  Gower, Raymond

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Gary, Sir Robert

  Grant-Ferris, R.

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

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Green, Alan

  Longbottom, Charles

  Chataway, Christopher

  Gresham Cook, R.

  Longden, Gilbert

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Grosvenor, Lord Robert

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Gurden, Harold

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Cole, Norman

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  MacArthur, Ian

  Cooke, Robert

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  McLaren, Martin

  Cooper, A. E.

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (MacClesf'd)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute&N.Ayrs)

  Corfield, F. V.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

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

  Costain, A. P.

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Coulson, Michael

  Hastings, Stephen

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Hay, John

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Macpherson, Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)

  Crawley, Aldan

  Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

  Maddan, Martin

  Critchley, Julian

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Maginnis, John E.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Cot. Sir Oliver

  Hendry, Forbes

  Maitland, Sir John

  1188

  1189

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Prior, J. M. L.

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

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)

  Marshall, Sir Douglas

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Teeling, Sir William

  Marten, Neil

  Pym, Francis

  Temple, John M.

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Ramsden, James

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Rawlinson, Sir Peter

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Mawby, Ray

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

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

  Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thanet)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Mills, Stratton

  Renton, Rt. Hon. David

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)

  Rippon, Rt. Hon. Geoffrey

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Cordon

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Turner, Colin

  Morgan, William

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool. S.)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Morrison, John

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Roots, William

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Ropner, Col, Sir Leonard

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Russell, Ronald

  Walder, David

  Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael

  St. Clair, M.

  Walker, Peter

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Wall, Patrick

  Orr, Gapt. L. P. S.

  Seymour, Leslie

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Charles

  Sharples, Richard

  Watkinson, Ht. Hon. Harold

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Shaw, M.

  Webster, David

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Shepherd, William

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Sheet, T. H. H.

  Whitelaw, William

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Smithers, Peter

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Panned, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Smyth, Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Partridge, E.

  Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Peel, John

  Speir, Rupert

  Wise, A. R.

  Percival, Ian

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Peyton, John

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Stodart, J. A.

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Woollam, John

  Pitman, Sir James

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Worsley, Marcus

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Pott, Percivall

  Talbot, John E.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Tapsell, Peter

  Mr. Chichester-Clark and

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Mr. Finlay.

  Question put, That the proposed words be there added:—
  The House divided: Ayes 327, Noes 237.

  Division No. 169.]

  AYES

  [10.14 p.m.

  Aitken, Sir William

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Brooman-White, R.

  Crowder, F. P.

  Allason, James

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Cunningham, Knox

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Curran, Charles

  Arbuthnot, John

  Bryan, Paul

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Buck, Antony

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bullard, Denys

  Dance, James

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Balniel, Lord

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Barber, Anthony

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

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Barlow, Sir John

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Barter, John

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Batsford, Brian

  Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

  Doughty, Charles

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Drayson, G. B.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Channon, H. P. G.

  du Cann, Edward

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Chataway, Christopher

  Eden, Sir John

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Bidgood, John C.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Biffen, John

  Clarke, Brig. Terence(Portsmth, W.)

  Emery, Peter

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Ernmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cole, Norman

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Cooke, Robert

  Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Cooper, A. E.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Farr, John

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Fell, Anthony

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Corfield, F. V.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Box, Donald

  Costain, A. P.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon, John

  Coulson, Michael

  Forrest, George

  Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Foster, John

  Braine, Bernard

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Staffortf&stone)

  Brewis, John

  Crawley, Aldan

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Bromley-Davenport. Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Crltchley, Julian

  Freeth, Denzil

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Gammans, Lady

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

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Gardner, Edward

  Longbottom, Charles

  Rippon, Rt. Hon. Geoffrey

  George, Sir John (Pollok)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Roots, William

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  MacArthur, Ian

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  McLaren, Martin

  Russell, Ronald

  Godber. Rt. Hon. J. B.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  St. Clair, M.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  Goodhew, Victor

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

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Gough, Frederick

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

  Seymour, Leslie

  Gower, Raymond

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Sharples, Richard

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)

  Shaw, M.

  Green, Alan

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Shepherd, William

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Macpherson, Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Grosvenor, Lord Robert

  Maddan, Martin

  Smithers, Peter

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maginnis, John E.

  Smyth, Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Maltland, Sir John

  Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Speir, Rupert

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Marshall, Sir Douglas

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Marten, Neil

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Stodart, J. A.

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Hastings, Stephen

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Hay, John

  Mawby, Ray

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Talbot, John E.

  Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

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

  Tapsell, Peter

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Mills, Stratton

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Hendry, Forbes

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Montgomery, Fergus

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

  Hiley, Joseph

  Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)

  Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Teeling, Sir William

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

  Morgan, William

  Temple, John M.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Morrison, John

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Holland, Philip

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Hollingworth, John

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

  Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Hopkins, Alan

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Hornby, R. P.

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

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

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Charles

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Turner, Colin

  Hughes, Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Partridge, E.

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Walder, David

  Jennings, J. C.

  Peel, John

  Walker, Peter

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Percival, Ian

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Peyton, John

  Wall, Patrick

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Webster, David

  Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith

  Pitman, Sir James

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Whitelaw, William

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Pott, Percivall

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Kimball, Marcus

  Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Kirk, Peter

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Wise, A. R.

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Lambton, Viscount

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Pym, Francis

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Leather, Sir Edwin

  Ramsden, James

  Woollam, John

  Leavey, J. A.

  Rawlinson, Sir Peter

  Worsley, Marcus

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thanet)

  Mr. Chichester-Clark and

  Lindsay, Sir Martin

  Renton, Rt. Hon. David

  Mr. Finlay.

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

  Ainsley, William

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Albu, Austen

  Baird, John

  Bence, Cyril

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Barnett, Guy

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  1192

  1193

  Benson, Sir George

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Paton, John

  Blackburn, F.

  Hilton, A. V.

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Blyton, William

  Holman, Percy

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Boardman, H.

  Holt, Arthur

  Peart, Frederick

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Hooson, H. E.

  Pentland, Norman

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

  Houghton, Douglas

  Poppiewell, Ernest

  Bowles, Frank

  Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Boyden, James

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Hoy, James H.

  Probert, Arthur

  Bradfey, Tom

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Brockway, A, Fenner

  Hunter, A. E.

  Randall, Harry

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Reid, William

  Callaghan, James

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Carmichael, Nell

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Rhodes, H.

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Chapman, Donald

  Jeger, George

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Cliffe, Michael

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

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

  Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

  Cronin, John

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Ross, William

  Crosland, Anthony

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Silkin, John

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kelley, Richard

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Darling George

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Small, William

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lawson, George

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Ledger, Ron

  Snow, Julian

  Deer, George

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Dempsey, James

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Diamond, John

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Steele, Thomas

  Dodds, Norman

  Lipton, Marcus

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Loughlin, Charles

  Stonehouse, John

  Driberg, Tom

  Lubbock, Eric

  Stones, William

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  McBride, Neil

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

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  McCann, John

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

  Edelman, Maurice

  MacColl, James

  Swingler, Stephen

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Symonds, J. B.

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  McInnes, James

  Taverne, D.

  Evans, Albert

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Finch, Harold

  McLeavy, Frank

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Fitch, Alan

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mahon, Simon

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

  Foley, Maurice

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

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

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Manuel, Archie

  Tornney, Frank

  Forman, J. C.

  Mapp, Charles

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Marsh, Richard

  Warbey, William

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mason, Roy

  Watkins, Tudor

  George, Lady MeganLloyd (Crmrthn)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Weitzman, David

  Ginsburg, David

  Mellish, R. J.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Courlay, Harry

  Millan, Bruce

  Whitlock, William

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Milne, Edward

  Wigg, George

  Grey, Charles

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Monslow, Walter

  Willey, Frederick

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Moody, A. S.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Morris, John

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Moyle, Arthur

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Gunter, Ray

  Mulley, Frederick

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

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Hannan, William

  Oliver, G. H.

  Woof, Robert

  Harper, Joseph

  O'MaHey, B. K.

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Oram, A. E.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Oswald, Thomas

  Zilliacus, K.

  Healey, Denis

  Owen, Will

  Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)

  Pannelt, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Mr. Short and Mr. Rogers.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Parker, John

  Parkin, B. T.

  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House, while deploring any disreputable practices engaged in by some
  unscrupulous landlords, rejects the suggestion that these have resulted from the Rent Act 1957, and recognises that the effective remedy lies in the Government's policy to achieve a larger programme of new building and the modernisation of many more homes.

  DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (ESTATE DUTY)
  10.25 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Estate Duty) (France) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 4th July.
  The Order seeks approval for a Double Taxation Convention with France relating to Estate Duty. Section 54 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1945, provides for agreements with other countries for relief from double death duties to be given statutory effect by Order in Council. Under Section 56(2) of the same Act any such Order must be laid before Parliament in draft before being submitted to Her Majesty.
  The Convention with France was signed in Paris on 21st June, 1963. It is the first agreement to be made since the passing of last year's Finance Act which provided wider powers for the making of agreements for relief from double death duties. Before last year's legislation, comprehensive agreements could be made only with countries that charged a duty which was similar to our Estate Duty. Where another country charged some form of death duty different in character from our duty the agreement had to be of a more limited kind confined to the adoption of a code of rules.
  This was the position in relation to France. Our Estate Duty is a mutation duty payable on the passing of the property on death without regard to distribution among the beneficiaries. The French succession duty is of a different character. It is an inheritance tax levied on property received by the beneficiaries on a death at rates varying according to their relationship to the deceased.
  Section 29(2) of the Finance Act, 1962, abolished this distinction and enables us to make comprehensive agreements with any country that has a death duty whatever form it takes. This agreement with France is such an agreement. It is obviously to the mutual
  1196
  advantage of France and the United Kingdom, and I commend it to the House.
  10.27 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: The Explanatory Note at the end of this Order explains that it provides a code of rules for determining the category of property which may pass on the death of a person who dies domiciled in either country. That appears to be the main object. There have been a number of agreements with other countries having that main purpose, in order to avoid double Estate Duty.
  There is, however, one remarkable innovation in the Order which calls for some explanation. Article 4 of the Schedule, which itself reproduces the Convention, gives the rules for determining the situs of property. The very first sentence of these rules, which appears for the first time, constitutes a remarkable innovation in the use of the English language and apparently in the intentions of the Government. For the first time—it has never been necessary with other countries—the following remarkable observation is made:
  "land shall be deemed to be situated at the place where it is located…'
  You are, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, what you are, but I suppose you are deemed to be what you are not. It therefore appears in the view of two Governments that land is not situated at the place where it is located but it is deemed to be situated at the place where it is located. I wonder what is the purpose, and indeed the effect, of this remarkable sentence. I find it a little difficult to conceive of land being situated any where but at the place where it is located. Indeed, the sentence seems to me to mean exactly the same thing if one turns the words round and says that "land shall be deemed to be located at the place where it is situated." I cannot see the difference between the two forms of words.
  I wonder what is the use of putting nonsense of this kind into an agreement of this sort. It has never happened before. There have been proper rules about the location of immovable property and immovable rights. They require something of this sort because there always is a question whether a

  1197
  right should be attached to the land or whether it is something personal which goes with the domicile of the person concerned. But no Government, however harassed, however uncertain of the very ground on which they are treading, have yet been driven to say that
  "land shall be deemed to be situated at the place where it is located."
  What has been happening? Has President de Gaulle been laying some kind of fiscal banana which has caused the Government to slip up and come down with a bump and say that land is deemed to be situated where it is located? What is the point of putting nonsense of the kind, meaningless stuff, into Conventions or Orders? Perhaps we could have an explanation.
  10.32 p.m.
  Mr. Barber: It is perfectly true, as the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) says, that paragraph (a) of Article IV could be expressed to read that "land shall be deemed to be located where it is situated." But if we were to employ words in that order we should then be out of line with the remaining paragraphs of Article IV which are all concerned to describe where various rights, types of property, debts, securities and so on are situated. Therefore, I should have thought we were simply being reasonable and logical.
  As for the reason for declaring that
  "land shall be deemed to be situated at the place where it is located."
  I am afraid that without notice I should find it very difficult to be dogmatic about a matter of this kind, but I would suggest to the hon. and learned Gentleman that it is conceivable, as we are here dealing with French law as well as with English law, that in French law land is in certain circumstances deemed to be situated in a place other than that in which it is located. If that were the case, obviously it would be necessary to make this particular provision.
  Mr. Mitchison: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us what is the meaning of the words "deemed to be"? It appears clear that in the view of the Treasury, land is not situated where it is located. It has to be "deemed" to be situated where it is located. Where is it?
  1198
  Before the hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask him another? It is very ingenious of him to refer to French law, but I have been trying hard to get the French text of this document. It is a Convention in two languages each of which has equal force, and I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentleman that so far as my researches went, the Treasury had not even got a copy of the French text, so we do not know where this application of French logic would lead us in these peculiar circumstances.
  Mr. Barber: I can only tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that if on any future occasion he would like a copy of the vernacular of the other country and will get in touch with me, I will do my best to obtain a copy for him.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Hear Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Estate Duty) (France) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on 4th July.
  To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (LEVY)
  10.35 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): I beg to move,
  That the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 2nd July, be approved.
  I suggest, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that it might be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the Cinematograph Films (Distribution of Levy) Regulations, 1963.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): If that is the wish of the House, yes.
  Mr. Price: These Regulations embody a number of further changes in the statutory scheme whereby cinema exhibitors pay a levy on admission charges for the benefit of producers of British films. All the changes embodied in the Regulations have been recommended to us by the Cinematograph Films Council. I hope, therefore, that they will recommend themselves to the House.

  1199
  The main changes are in the Distribution Regulations, where there are two major changes and 13 minor ones. The first of the major changes is that news-reels are to get an increased rate of payments. The second is that films which are jointly produced by British and foreign makers in accordance with inter-Governmental co-production agreements are to become eligible for levy benefits.
  First, newsreels. The change in regard to newsreels is being made in order to reduce the disadvantage which they at present suffer relatively to other short films. At present, newsreels' entitlement to levy is calculated in direct relationship to their commercial earnings, whereas the entitlement of other short films is calculated on those earnings multiplied by two and a half. The old-style black and white newsreels were badly hit by the competition of news broadcast on television and three of the five newsreels were discontinued. More recently, helped by the revenue from the levy which the Cinematograph Films Act, 1960, secured to newsreels, the surviving companies have found that cinema audiences still enjoy newsreels if they are on suitable subjects enhanced by the use of colour. It helps the other films shown if the newsreel is part of a general programme offered to an audience.
  In view of this, plus the further considerations that improved newsreels are more costly to produce and that the newsreels do a useful job in presenting Britain factually overseas, it seems to us, as it does to the Cinematograph Films Council, right to reduce the disparity between the rate of levy payments on newsreels and those on other short films. The Regulations before the House, therefore, provide for the calculation of newsreels' benefitsfrom the levy on the basis of double their commercial earnings. In making this proposal for the double rate, my right hon. Friend is accepting the advice of the Cinematograph Films Council that the full two-and-a-half times rate applicable to other shortfilms would be inappropriate, largely because of the more favourable series bookings on which newsreels are supplied to exhibitors.
  I turn now to the second major change in the Distribution Regulations, the proposed admission of co-production films
  1200
  to levy. Section 19 of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1960, already provides for Orders in Council enabling co-production films to be treated as British for quota purposes. The first moves towards co-production agreements with France, Italy and Germany have recently been made. The Regulations now before the House include the changes necessary to enable us to offer the benefits of levy in our efforts in the forthcoming negotiations to secure the maximum benefits for British film makers.
  There are altogether 13 other smaller changes in the Distribution Regulations. Nine of these are either themselves designed to accelerate the process of distributing payments to producers or derive logically from such changes. I think that, at this time of night, the House will not want me to go through them in detail, though I am quite ready to do so if it wishes.
  The change made by the amendment to the Collection Regulations is, by contrast, a very simple one. All it consists of is bringing the collection of levy from exhibitors from the present weekly basis on to a four-weekly one. The weekly basis of calculating exhibitors' liability to pay levy, including the weekly exemption which was raised to £300 last November, will remain.
  Four-weekly collection has been proposed by exhibitors' interests. It is a further minor measure of relief for exhibitors, many of whom have been finding it difficult to continue in business in the face of declining cinema admissions.
  As I said at the beginning of my remarks, all these changes have been recommended by the Cinematograph Films Council. I hope, therefore, that they will meet with the approval of the House.
  10.40 p.m.
  Mrs. Eirene White: As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, these Regulations are mostly for administrative convenience. In dealing with the Regulations concerning the collection of levy, the hon. Gentleman might have given the House an idea of what the financial advantages or disadvantages might be. I understand that collection on a 28-day basis would save a certain amount of money, but, equally,

  1201
  the Agency would lose a certain amount by having to dispose of the money rather sooner than would otherwise be the case. I am also told that the producers will, perhaps, have to be kept waiting a little longer for their money, but that on balance they think that the interests of the exhibitors will be better served and that after a little reluctance, they have agreed to the proposal. We should, however, be given the figures.
  On the Regulations concerning the distribution of levy, it is only right that the House should be aware that there has been a good deal of discussion whether the newsreels should be entitled to the additional benefits which we are bestowing upon them by the Regulations. One of the strongest arguments that was made for newsreels was not that they were of so much advantage in this country, but that they were of value because they displayed the British way of life to people abroad. We can have differing opinions about how far they are successful in displaying those aspects of the British way of life that we would like to be widely circulated.
  Others have felt that if that was the main purpose of supporting the news-reels, the Government might contribute something through the Central Office of Information or otherwise and that it was not necessarily right that the producers of other films should have to pay for the newsreels. However, when all these matters had been discussed, the Cinematograph Films Council finally decided to support the proposal which is embodied in the Regulations.
  I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary can say a word or two more about the Regulations in so far as they deal with co-production. At the moment, there are no films to which this could apply. Can the hon. Gentleman give us any idea of when he thinks that this extremely slow-moving procedure of obtaining co-production agreements might be finalised with any country? The negotiations with Italy are, perhaps, a little further advanced than with any other country. It seems to me that the negotiations with France have been going on almost interminably, and before we pass Regulations for something which is not in existence we should at least have an idea when this part of the Regulations might be expected to become effective.
  1202
  With those few comments, it seems to me that there is no reason to contest any of the Regulations. They are for the general convenience.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 3) Regulations 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 2nd July, be approved.
  Cinematograph Films (Distribution of Levy) Regulations 1963, [draft laid before the House on 2nd July], approved.—[Mr. D. Price]

  COMMONWEALTH PREFERENCE AREA (WEST CAMEROON)
  10.43 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Alan Green): I beg to move,
  That the Commonwealth Preference Area (Removal of West Cameroon) Order 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 3rd July, be approved.
  This Order, if approved, will have the effect of removing West Cameroon from the Commonwealth preference area as from 1st October, 1963. As the House may recall, the voters in the United Nations Trusteeship Territories of the Northern and Southern Cameroons, which have been administered by the United Kingdom Government since the First World War, were invited to decide by plebiscite early in 1961 whether they wished to become part of Nigeria or part of the Republic of Cameroon.
  The Northern Cameroons opted to join Nigeria, while the Southern Cameroons opted to join the Republic of Cameroon and the change took effect from 1st Otcober, 1961. The Republic subsequently became a federal republic composed of two federated states and these were called East and West Cameroon. East Cameroon was the former French Cameroons, and the West Cameroon was the former Southern Cameroons.
  If the Government had taken no action before she ceased to be a United Nations trusteeship territory West Cameroon would automatically have lost her status as part of the Commonwealth preference area, just as the former British Somali-land lost it on joining the Somali Republic. The Government decided at the time, in mid-1961, that West Cameroon should not be deprived immediately of

  1203
  her preferential status but should instead be given a year's grace, and this was extended to two years as a result of an Order in Council made last year.
  My right hon. Friend announced the decision to give the extension in answer to a Parliamentary Question in June of last year when he said that the Government's present intention—perhaps I had better quote—
  "…is that the inclusion of West Cameroon in the area shall be maintained until 30th September, 1963, but not beyond that date."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June, 1962; Vol. 661, c. 421.]
  The question would, he said, be reviewed again not later than the following April.
  Having now reviewed the question, the Government have decided to stick to their intended course of action, and the reason is, I trust, a simple one. All West Cameroon's exports consist of tropical produce of one kind or another. As no such produce is grown in Britain there can be only two possible reasons for imposing import duties on it, either to raise revenue or to give a preference to suppliers in the Commonwealth preference area, or both.
  Imports of tea, coffee and cocoa were in fact subject to revenue duties for over 250 years, but these were abandoned in fact if not in form when the rates of duty on imports from the Commonwealth preference area were reduced to nil, and those on imports from foreign countries reduced to levels which retained only the preference margins in the old duties. This was done in the case of tea some years ago, and of cocoa and coffee in the 1962 Budget. As Members may recall, the Import Duties (General) No. 4 Order, 1963, which was approved by the House less than two weeks ago, had the formal effect of taking the remaining duties out of the revenue and putting them into the normal protective field. All duties on tropical produce, therefore, exist at present solely to give a preference to countries which form part of the Commonwealth preference area as defined in Section 2 of the Import Duties Act, 1958.
  West Cameroon's exports to Britain in order of importance are bananas, tropical hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, rubber, palm oil and kernels, and tea. These are all duty free when imported from preference area countries, but dutiable,
  1204
  with the exception of rubber, when imported from other countries. The duties on tropical hardwoods and tea are, however, likely to be suspended as from the beginning of next year simultaneously with a corresponding suspension of the common external tariff on these products. We expect to be able to announce the terms of this arrangement in the early autumn. It will of course be in accordance with the G.A.T.T. action programme of assistance for developing countries.
  Of the other products imported from West Cameroon, bananas are by far the most important. If this Order is approved they will become dutiable from 1st October this year at £7 10s. a ton, or, to express the duty in terms which will be more familiar to the housewife, at three farthings a lb. Those concerned with the production and trade in West Cameroon bananas have expressed grave anxiety about the possible effect of the imposition of this duty on the prospects for West Cameroon growers of selling their production at economic prices, and this aspect has been most carefully considered.
  Because of our severe restrictions on imports of bananas from the dollar area—and those bananas are the cheapest in the world—the price in Britain is normally well above the corresponding price in many other major consuming countries such as West Germany and the U.S.A. West Cameroon suppliers will still have this advantage. Their bananas will still be able to come to Britain without any quantitative limit, but they will of course have to compete in our market with bananas from Jamaica and the Windward Islands, our major suppliers, which will continue to be admitted duty free.
  The question in a nutshell is really this. On the one hand we have West Cameroon, a territory which is by its own choice outside the Commonwealth and is now part of an independent country with no Commonwealth links, the Federal Cameroon Republic. The Republic is associated with the European Economic Community, and because of this relationship enjoys tariff preferences for her produce in the markets of the Six.
  On the other side, we have Jamaica and the Windward Islands, both con-

  1205
  cerned to increase their export earnings and worried about the tendency, especially in the winter months, for the British market to be over-supplied with bananas. These countries have made it clear that they are strongly opposed to sharing their preferential advantages in our market with West Cameroon given that the territory is the only area of the world which enjoys preference both in Britain and in the E.E.C.
  Her Majesty's Government have decided that the right thing to do is to remove West Cameroon from the Commonwealth preference area. The territory will already have had two years' grace. My right hon. Friend made it quite clear last year that the Government's intention was to keep her in the area until the end of September this year but not longer. The present situation of giving preference to part only of a foreign country is obviously anomalous. Jamaica and the Windward Islands have a strong case for arguing that West Cameroon should not continue to have the advantage of preferential entry for her bananas to our market. It is in these circumstances that I move that the Order be approved.
  10.51 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Pannell: I accept the Order with some regret. I have already given my views on it during the debate on 19th June on the Commonwealth Development Bill, and I do not intend to repeat them now.
  I fully understand the contending claims of the West Indies, particularly in regard to bananas, and that West Cameroon, as no longer a part of the Commonwealth, has no prescriptive right to Commonwealth preference; but there are precedents for the continuation of Commonwealth preference even when a country leaves the Commonwealth, to cite only Burma and the Republic of Ireland, and not to mention the Republic of South Africa.
  I regret the Order particularly because it cuts off sharply the preference that this area has enjoyed for the past two years. I urged on 19th June that the preference should not be cut off abruptly but should be tapered off over three years, and that had support from all sides of the House. I regret that my hon. Friend has not found it possible to adopt that course.
  1206
  There are considerable British interests in West Cameroon, particularly the Cameroon Development Corporation, which is managed by the Colonial Development Corporation and has received from the Colonial Development Corporation a loan of £1 million. The Camdev produces some 30,000 tons of bananas a year, and last year it made a loss of £316,000. My hon. Friend dismisses as insignificant the duty preference of £7 10s. a ton as being only ¾. per lb. But it should be borne in mind that if that preference had not existed last year the loss of the Cameroon Development Corporation would have been not £316,000 but more than half a million pounds. It seems fairly clear to me that, as it has a capital which is comprised solely of a loan of £1 million from the Colonial Development Corporation, unless something quite extraordinary happens in the banana market, the Camdev, which is an important element in the economy of West Cameroon, will founder and sink. There are, of course, other interests. There are the shipping interests, which are largely British. Six ships are regularly on the run carrying these bananas from West Cameroon to the United Kingdom.
  An alternative market does not exist. Although West Cameroon is now officially part of Cameroon, which is attached to the E.E.C, the banana requirements of E.E.C. are amply met by the French-speaking part ofthe Cameroon Republic, and there is no possibility of any of the bananas produced in West Cameroon going to the E.E.C. Perhaps it is because the price is entirely non-competitive. I very much hope that my fears will not be realised. I did urge that the duty should be tapered off, because British banana interests out there have been trying strongly to produce a new strain of banana which would eventually offset loss of preference. Now it appears that that will not happen. I should be grateful to my hon. Friend if he could allay anxiety on the prospect of the West Cameroon banana enterprises, in which British interests are so greatly involved.
  10.55 p.m.
  Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: It all sounds so plausible when it comes from so reasonable a man as the Minister of State. According to him it was a question of West Cameroon having opted out

  1207
  of the Commonwealth of its own free will, but that the country would be all right because it was associated with the E.E.C. I hope that this reasonable Minister will be reasonable enough to recognise that the whole of his argument from an economic point of view has been blown sky high by his hon. Friend. How can the West Cameroon banana people suddenly get new markets in Europe? It just will not happen. If he is the reasonable man I think he is he will admit that a mistake is being made.
  What about South Africa? When she left the Commonwealth what did our tired old Imperialists do then? They leaned over backwards to do everything they could to give her what help they could.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): They are younger than you.
  Mr. Mallalieu: They may be younger in age than I but I have been here twice as long as other hon. Members opposite who are present. I have seen hon. Members opposite who have talked so much about the Empire, throw it away. Throw it away perhaps they must, but what they have failed to do is to recognise that they are stamping with their miserable little footsteps on something that could have been quite big in West Cameroon.
  Big things are happening in Africa generally and in West Africa in particular. Here surely there is a confrontation of the Francophile element with the Anglophile element. That is the drama that is taking place. And what are the Government doing? They are trying to give silly little kicks in the pants to a territory which opted out of the Commonwealth. That is what it looks like even if it is not so. This is a move by tired old men—old at least in spirit if not in years.
  Great efforts are being made to integrate the people of West Cameroon with the French-speaking part and complete fairness is being shown them by their French-speaking compatriots. Immense efforts are being made to see they get a fair deal. The radio is evidence of it, while even the judges still wear their red robes and wigs and will, as far as one can see, continue to do so because of this desire.
  1208
  But now comes this ham-fisted Government saying that because these people are now out of the Commonwealth the preference must be withdrawn. It is red tape. If the preference has to be withdrawn—and perhaps that is Inevitable—can it not be done another way? Could we not have heard something about that from the Minister, who is usually so reasonable? The right hon. Gentleman merely said that the preference was to be cut off and, in effect, that he could not care less.
  This is a tragedy and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will think again before they take this step which may have sad repercussions in other parts of Africa. This is not the only part of Africa where the French and British systems confront each other. We want there to be the maximum harmony between them to aid them in their efforts, for instance, to encourage the speaking of French in English-speaking parts and vice versa. We are taking a step in the opposite direction. The Government are so muddle headed that they do not even know what they are doing.
  11.0 p.m.
  Mr. G. M. Thomson: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) says that he is surprised that such proposals should come from so reasonable a Minister as the Minister of State, Board of Trade. If he were one of the Dundee Members, he might not be so sure about the reasonableness of the Minister of State, who has recently been in my constituency proposing certain things as doubtful as this. I share the anxieties expressed by my hon. and learned Friend and by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell). We differ on a number of things across the Floor of the House, but the hon. Member for Kirkdale and I share similar views about our responsibilities towards West Cameroon.
  The Government's proposal is very illogical. On 19th June, when the hon. Member spoke at some length on this subject, we had no indication from the Colonial Office Ministers that any sudden termination of these preferences was to take place. The Colonial Office spokesman was most unforthcoming, but he did not say that the Government had made up their mind.

  1209
  It is illogical because during that debate on the Commonwealth Development Bill we discussed the operations of what is now to be called the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has played a notable part in the life of West Cameroon. What is more striking is that the Government are proposing that the C.D.C. should continue to operate in the West Cameroon and probably increase its already substantial investment there. The Corporation's new report shows that during fast year the Cameroon Development Corporation drew from this country a further £450,000 of its £1 million loan commitment, and goes on to say that an approach has been made from the Cameroon Government for further finance, which, it has been agreed, should be made available from this country on certain conditions.
  I find myself a little puzzled that West Cameroon should be excluded from Commonwealth preference at the same time as being included in the Commonwealth in terms of capital aid and technical assistance, especially when the British taxpayer is being asked to provide money to make an investment in bananas from which the Government are then to remove preference. When that is compared with what was done for South Africa, it makes one think.
  What happened with South Africa was particularly shocking because of the High Commission Territories for which we have special responsibility. Swaziland depended very much on sugar and, in order to make concessions to the Republic of South Africa, outside the Commonwealth, Commonwealth preference on that sugar was seriously cut.
  I think that my hon. and learned Friend is right when he says that there is an inconsistency in the way that this has been carried out. I can only say that, from a brief visit to West Cameroon about a year ago, I was immensely impressed by the amount of work being done by the Cameroon Development Corporation. It seemed in many ways to be the finest thing that we were leaving behind. I was also much impressed by the fact that in this little African country there was this attempt to integrate a French-speaking former colony with an English-speaking former colony. When I returned to this country I de-
  1210
  scribed the English-speaking side of West Cameroon as very much an English-speaking Wales in that South African nation, because it is very much the smaller part of that nation. I came back to this House and pleaded with the Government to do their best to make sure that the English traditions were supported there. People there wanted to maintain their link with us, and cutting the preference on one of their main exports seems a poor way of maintaining this link.
  When I try to discover the reason for this, I can only find it in the view that the Government seem to be taking of France's responsibility for the Cameroon Republic. I am not a noted apologist for the French on these matters, and it seems that they could do a good deal more than they are doing at the moment. If the hon. Member for Kirkdale is right, the French are putting on a quota which means that it is only the French-speaking side of the Cameroon Republic which is likely to benefit from the export of bananas to the European Economic Community. Surely this is a matter about which we ought to negotiate with the French to try to get some sort of agreement?
  I am left with the suspicion that we are deserting people whom we have tried to help in other ways and who look to us for help in many directions, simply because we have been snubbed by the French in our efforts to get into the European Economic Community. It seems rather hard that the people of West Cameroon, who have been linked to us in so many ways for so many years should be made the victims of a dispute between us and France and which is unrelated to their welfare. The Minister is grimacing. Let him make a better case for this Order than he has made so far.
  11.8 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Houghton: It is evident that this draft Order has not been very well received. I have listened with great interest to the speeches that have been made so far. I think that there must have been some misunderstanding when I was deputed to this task this evening. Apparently it was thought that this was; a simple matter of taxation. It appears to have far deeper significance.

  1211
  I sincerely hope that none of the suspicions expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) were in the Government's mind when they reached their decision on this admittedly difficult matter. Probably part of the trouble is due to the fact that we appear to have no satisfactory and orderly way of dealing with a former Colonial Territory which leaves the Commonwealth. Consider for a moment what it has been necessary to do in this case. Had nothing been done, this territory, on leaving the Commonwealth on 1st October, 1961, would have been deprived of any of the benefits of the Commonwealth preference area. To avoid what clearly would have been conditions of considerable hardship to this territory, a Clause was put in the Finance Bill of 1961 naming West Cameroon as a member of the preference area until 30th September, 1962.
  Then Her Majesty's Government thought that it would be desirable to extend beyond the 30th September, 1962, the benefits of the Commonwealth preference area. To do that they had to take advantage of Section 2(4) of the Import Duties Act, 1958, to bring West Cameroon into the preference area again. Out by the Finance Act; in again by the Import Duties Act. Now the Government want to get them out again, so they invoke another part of Section 2 of the 1958 Act to withdraw the benefits of the preference area. That seems to suggest that when a territory leaves the Commonwealth there is considerable difficulty in finding ways and means of easing its way out in a matter of this kind.
  On these benches we have been very jealous of the benefits of membership of the Commonwealth, and have criticised the extension of those benefits to territories leaving the Commonwealth. That is quite natural, and there is no malice in it. If we attach importance to membership of the Commonwealth, and if importance is to be attached to that membership, the benefits of being in must be extended with care and discrimination to any who go out.
  My hon. Friends will remember how critical we were when it was proposed to give the benefit of quite generous transitional arrangements to the Republic
  1212
  of South Africa. Hon. Members on this side of the House then took the view that if they were going out they could not have the benefits of remaining in, more than very temporarily. We must draw a very sharp distinction in our respective attitudes towards the Republic of South Africa and the territory of West Cameroon. To one we were unfriendly; to the other—West Cameroon—we had the utmost good will for its future prosperity.
  Nevertheless, there is this problem of what we are to do with territories which choose to go out of the Commonwealth. In London at present discussions are going on regarding the future of Malta. There may be opinions in Malta about whether an independent Malta should remain in the Commonwealth. There again, this sort of problem might arise in the future. It may be desirable for the Government to consider whether some more orderly and satisfactory arrangement—a more flexible arrangement—should be introduced to deal with situations of this kind.
  Mr. E. L. Mallalieu:Does not my hon. Friend think it desirable that different sets of arrangements should be arrived at respectively when a country which is prosperous leaves the Commonwealth and a country which is an underdeveloped country leaves it?
  Mr. Houghton:Yes. That was implied in what I said just now—that if we had arrangements which were more flexible, and permitted of more discrimination, it would be much better.
  So far, this sort of situation has had to be dealt with ad hoc, either by specific legislation or, in this case, by being moved temporarily into the Finance Act, then given an extension of the benefits under another Act, and finally being thrown out under the same Act. It does not seem to be a very satisfactory way of dealing with the matter. The information I have is that this draft Order is the very first in which this means of depriving any country of the benefits of Commonwealth preference has been adopted.
  If we face this situation quite fairly we must agree that the benefits of the Commonwealth preference area cannot continue to be given indefinitely to a territory which has left the Common-

  1213
  wealth. There can be no dispute about that. That would be quite contrary to the whole concept of the Commonwealth and would clearly give rise to the strongest objection of many members of the Commonwealth that we were giving benefits of Commonwealth to a country which had deliberately chosen to leave it. We agree that benefits cannot be retained indefinitely by a country which chooses to leave.
  The next question is, how long do we continue them and under what conditions are they to be withdrawn? The hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell), to whose opinions on these matters the House always listens with care, suggested a tapering arrangement. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether any tapering arrangement is possible under the machinery and means at his disposal. This may give point to my suggestion that there is no flexibility about these arrangements. It is all or nothing, it seems, under this Order. Although the extension has been given and welcomed by the territory concerned in order to ease the ultimate decision, the fact is that when it is taken the deprivation will be complete. That, clearly, is the difficulty for a territory of this kind.
  The matter is further complicated in this case of a territory which has been given associated territory status by the European Economic Community. That is more nominal than real from the point of view of benefit to the territory. Finally, the question may be asked, are there any alternative means of easing the difficulties of this territory? Will there be any means of retrieving this step if the damage to its economy is so serious that we feel obliged to do something about it?
  I hope that none of the fears that have been expressed will be realised. If a British taste for Cameroon bananas could be cultivated, the problem could be solved, but so long as people just ask for bananas and get bananas, the Cameroon banana will probably be no more distinguishable than any other, although it may have a peculiar flavour and quality of which I am not aware.
  I am sure that the Minister would wish to give the House what reassurances he can. He has told us that the gravest anxiety has been expressed by
  1214
  West Cameroon. He has also told us that a further continuance of the preference would be objected to by other members of the Commonwealth who are substantially banana producers. That is the dilemma the Government are in.
  One can understand that some territories are anxious that no benefit should be retained by those who go out of the Commonwealth, because if they go out, then there will be consequential benefits for those who remain in. We cannot overlook that. That is a very difficult question and, frankly, I am glad that it has not fallen to me to take the decision. One can only weigh it up with all the information the Minister must have at his disposal as to the pros and cons and the strength of the fears expressed in West Cameroon. Various suggestions occur to one, of lifting duties on this kind of import altogether, but that again would be an indirect way of giving a benefit to a non-Commonwealth territory.
  I am still in the throes of the dilemma. I am concerned that no serious damage should be done to the economy of the Cameroons, I am as anxious as anyone to retain the good will of the Commonwealth. I can only hope that, weighing the factors as best they can, the Government are coming to a wise decision. The hon. Gentleman knows that anxieties are expressed from knowledgeable quarters of the House.
  Mr. Green: I think that, with leave, I should reply to the points made. One of course regrets very much any change in trading arrangements necessitated by a political decision taken by another country but this is the situation. I thank the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) for the honesty with which he took the dilemma and attempted to face it. I was hoping that I should be able to say the same about some of hishon. Friends.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) put the situation quite straightforwardly. I know his mind and I agree with him that it is a matter for regret that we cannot do more. We have delayed action for two years, and unnecessarily from our point of view. Perhaps I had better not repeat what I said earlier, but it is a fact that if the Government had taken no action before this territory ceased to be a United

  1215
  Nations trusteeship territory, West Cameroon would automatically have lost its status as part of the Commonwealth preference area. We delayed this for two years deliberately.
  The suggestion that this is done as a snub to France is wholly unworthy of both the intelligence and the power of listening of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson). If he had listened to the timetable I gave he would have realised that we extended the period of grace to this territory long before the Common Market negotiations broke down in Brussels and it is simply not possible to connect these two events in time in the way he sought to do. I hope that he will not do that again, because it simply makes a little more trouble somewhere instead of helping to ease things.
  Finally, it is exceedingly difficult to accord to one part of a unified republic treatment one does not accord to the other. What we are doing to help both these territories and others in Africa is to get duty-free entry for at least some of their products agreed by the E.E.C. and ourselves which will widen the market for some of these products for all these West African territories. This applies particularly to tea and hardwood. I hope that this will be achieved this year. This is the best factual answer I can give to show that our interests extend widely over these under-developed countries and we seek to help their trade in tropical produce wherever we can.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Commonwealth Preference Area (Removal of West Cameroon) Order 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 3rd July, be approved.

  PROTECTION OF DEPOSITORS
  11.24 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Alan Green): I beg to move,
  That the Protection of Depositors (Accounts) Regulations 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 11th July, be approved.
  The Protection of Depositors Act was passed on 10th July and will come into force on 10th October. The House will recall that an important provision of that Act is that companies which advertise for deposits from the public shall prepare
  1216
  special accounts which will be delivered to the Registrar of Companies and the Board of Trade, supplied to depositors on their first making deposits, and made available to existing and prospective depositors. These accounts are required on or after the appointed day, which is 10th January, 1964.
  The Act lays down a number of requirements about these accounts. It states that they shall comprise a balance sheet and a profit and loss account, that they shall be of two kinds—audited accounts which will normally cover a period of twelve months, and interim accounts which need not be audited and which will normally cover a period of six months, that they shall normally be delivered within three months of the balance sheet date, and that if they are audited the auditors must be qualified under the Companies Act to audit the accounts of public and non-exempt private companies.
  Section 13 of the Protection of Depositors Act gives the Board of Trade power to make regulations as to the information to be contained in or annexed to these accounts. It also states the general form that the regulations shall take. It says that they shall apply, with such exceptions, additions or other modifications as may be prescribed by the regulations, all or any of the provisions of the Companies Act with respect to the accounts required by that Act to be laid before a company in general meeting. That is, the regulations are required to be based upon the accounting provisions of the Companies Act. They may, of course, require more information to be given than is required by the Companies Act.
  The regulations are also required, by Section 13(3) of the Act, to provide that a statement shall be annexed to the accounts containing information about the business carried on by the company during the period to which the accounts relate.
  A draft of the regulations which, if Parliament approves, the Board of Trade intends to make, was laid before the House on 11th July. It will, I think, make the regulations easier to follow if I first remind the House that the accounting provisions of the Companies Act, which are contained in some ten Sections

  1217
  and in the Eighth Schedule, provide not only for the accounts a company prepares about its own affairs but also for the group accounts which, if it has subsidiaries, it prepares about the affairs of itself and its subsidiaries.
  I now turn to the draft regulations. Regulation 1 applies with exceptions and modifications the accounting provisions of the Companies Act to accounts required by the Protection of Depositors Act from a company about its own affairs. The provisions which are applied, together with the exceptions and modifications, are set out in Part 1 of Schedule 1. The modifications and exceptions raise no point of principle. They merely take account of the essential differences between the accounts required by the two Acts. For example, where the Companies Act refers to the financial year of a company the regulations refer to the period to which the accounts relate.
  Where the Companies Act requires for purposes of comparison figures relating to the previous financial year to be given, the regulations, which apply both to audited accounts covering twelve months and to interim accounts covering six months, permit the comparative figures in interim accounts to be either those from the last annual accounts or those from the previous interim accounts.
  Regulation 4 requires a company, if it has subsidiaries, to prepare group accounts; and it applies in relation to those accounts, with exceptions and modifications, those of the Companies Act provisions concerned with group accounts. The modifications here are rather more significant than those in Regulation 1 and some appear in the Regulation itself as distinct from in the Schedule. For example, except when directors consider that the accounts of a subsidiary are of no real significance to depositors, the Board of Trade's permission is required if a subsidiary is to be omitted from group accounts.
  The corresponding provision in the Companies Act permits omission without reference to the Board of Trade if the directors believe that inclusion would be impracticable or would be misleading. Those provisions of the Companies Act which are applied but are not set out in detail in the regula-
  1218
  tion itself are to be found in Part 2 of Schedule 1.
  Regulation 2 requires the accounts to give information additional to that required by the Companies Act. The additional information required is set out in Part 1 of Schedule 2. This, I would suggest, is the most important part of these regulations. It requires a company to give information about the amount of money deposited with it, the dates when deposits become repayable, and the amount of money paid out as interest to depositors.
  As most deposit-taking companies finance instalment credit agreements and so have assets in the form of amounts owed to them under such agreements, they are required to state the amount receivable at the balance sheet date under the agreements they have entered into or have had assigned to them. In order that the amount so shown should give as accurate an indication as possible of the position of the company, it is required to be stated after provision has been made for bad or doubtful debts; and for the same reason the company must show what part of it, if any, is revenue which, at the balance sheet date, had not yet been earned.
  I said that a company might have agreements; assigned to it. It may also, under what are commonly referred to as block discounting arrangements, assign agreements; it has entered into or has previously had assigned to it. If it has assigned agreements, it may have acquired liabilities in respect of them, and if that should be the case paragraph 5 of the Schedule requires the company to state the amount of these liabilities and the fact that they arise from an assignment of agreements.
  A depositor may be expected to be interested in the amount and the nature of the new instalment credit business his company has entered into in a recent period. Information of this kind is required by paragraph 4 of Part 1 of Schedule 2. He may also wish to know whether, from his point of view, a significant debt is owed to the company by a small number of persons, and, if it is, whether any of those persons are associated with the company. This point is dealt with in paragraph 7 of Part 1 of Schedule 2. Disclosure is required of the total of debts owed by persons each

  1219
  of whose debt exceeds 10 per cent. of the total amount owed to the company and also exceeds 10 per cent. of the total deposits made with the company. If one of the persons is an associated company, further information is required.
  Regulation 3 applies only to companies a substantial part of whose activities consists of dealing in property. Such a company is required to give the information set out in Part 2 of Schedule 2. It is required to give information about its assets in the form of property and of loans secured on property, and about its income derived from property. It is also required to say whether the value it attributed to its property is based on cost or on valuation, and, if based on valuation, whether the valuation was made by an independent valuer.
  Regulation 5 provides for certain statements from directors. The first two of these statements, about the main activities of the company during the period covered by the accounts, are the statements to which I have already referred as required by Section 13(3) of the Act. These statements are relevant to Section 12 of the Act which places on a company obligations towards its depositors if, after describing one activity in its advertisements for deposits, it thereafter carries on some other activity. The third statement, about the value at which the current assets shown in the balance sheet could be realisedin the ordinary course of business, is a stricter version of a similar provision in the Companies Act.
  The Companies Act requires a statement if the directors are of the opinion that any of the current assets are not realisable at the value shown. The regulation requires either a statement that the directors are of the opinion that the current assets are realisable at the value shown or a note explaining why they are unable to make such a statement.
  Finally, I come to Regulation 6 and Schedule 3, which are concerned with the auditing of accounts. I need say little about most of the matters on which the auditors are required to report as they are the same as the matters set out in the Companies Act, apart from the minor modifications made necessary by the differences between the two Acts.
  1220
  But I should briefly mention paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 as it implements an undertaking which the Economic Secretary gave in Committee.
  In general, the profit and loss account in the first accounts which a company delivers under this Act will start from the date of a balance sheet, called in the Act a "relevant balance sheet", prepared in accordance with the provisions not of this Act but of the Companies Act. If, at the time of preparation of that balance sheet, the company was an exempt private company, its auditors may not have had the qualifications required of a person who audits accounts for the Protection of Depositors Act. When that is the case, this provision requires the auditor of the accounts to be delivered under this Act to satisfy himself as to his opening figures.
  I apologise for the detail. I trust that it has not been too lengthy, and I commend the regulations to the House.
  11.35 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: These regulations are of importance to the working of the Act. Objection was taken on Second Reading and in Committee to the reluctance of the Board of Trade to do anything but collect information to itself. Although we were told by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury that having collected the information, the trained minds of the Board of Trade would find it quite easy to evaluate it, their only remedy if they found the evaluation unsatisfactory was to get the company wound up.
  In those circumstances, on this side of the House on Second Reading, particularly by the carefully considered speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond), who has great experience in these matters, and again in Committee, we stressed the difficult position of the depositor, who is the person who is supposed to be protected under the Act, because the accounts would not get to him and he would never get the benefit of the evaluation by the trained minds of the Board of Trade, since there is nothing in the Act which requires the Department to do anything about the accounts when it has got them.
  In the light of that, the Government's defence when it was suggested to them that something more should be done was

  1221
  to say that they would not put anything more into the Act, and they refused Amendments to improve directly the position of the depositor. They refused even to take other action, which was suggested to them, but they said that they would, at least, see that the accounts delivered to them were adequate.
  I am not here to repeat our broad objections. All I am considering is whether, in the light of that attitude, what the Government have now done is sufficient. I say to the Minister of State that both my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester and I, and, no doubt, other hon. Members have looked at what he said in Committee and what appears in the Regulations and we think that he has carried out exactly what he said he would do, except, possibly, on one point, and that is one concerning which I appreciate the Minister of State's difficulties.
  The hon. Gentleman was asked in Committee whether, when particulars of the business were provided by the directors—this is the matter which now appears in Regulation 5(a)—the directors would give a little more than a general indication of what the company was doing. The Act will apply, so we were told, and such, too, was our own information, almost entirely to two classes of companies. One is hire-purchase companies and the other is the type of company called "certain property companies". One can get what is intended by this in Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Regulations.
  The "certain property companies" include companies which might well be of the kind which we have been discussing in a much more heated atmosphere earlier today. These are land development companies and bodies of that sort. They are not defined anywhere, but their character is clearly indicated by the terms of the Regulations. They may be some very odd bodies indeed, and bodies which require a great deal of supervision if the depositor is to have even the limited protection that is given him by the Act.
  I shall not try to repeat, particularly at this hour of the night, a great deal that was said in debate today, but I feel certain that the Minister responsible and the Economic Secretary both realise that
  1222
  the type of activity which is being dealt with here is obviously one that is open to a certain abuse.
  Indeed, if one goes to the origin of the Act and, therefore, of these regulations as a whole, one sees it arose out of some scandalous cases, or at any rate one scandalous case, three or four years ago, and there is no doubt that the thing has to be very tightly drawn. When we have Regulations of this sort we take the discretion, as I see it, very largely out of the hands of the Board of Trade. If somebody complies with the Regulations, then I cannot quite see what the Board of Trade can do to require any more from him, and if one looks through these Regulations as a whole one sees there a very great deal left to the directors.
  I appreciate the point that the directors' opinion is the test in relation to group accounts, but they have not got the same object, and the opinion is not required for quite the same purpose, as in the Companies Act, as it is required here. Here again, there are various other references, in substituted paragraphs, to the directors' opinion. One of them is about a third of the way down column 2 on page 6 of the Regulations, and there is another one at the bottom of page 6, and there are a number of others. I quite appreciate that in all these respects they are following the broad lines of the Companies Act, but if that is the position, and the directors' opinion is to be the guiding matter in this case, one wonders whether the Government may have gone a little too far in leaving it to the directors.
  This is particularly the case in one very important paragraph. There is to be annexed to any accounts a statement, a note, signed on behalf of the board—and this is the very first thing—
  "of the main activities of the company and its subsidiaries if any".
  This point arose in Standing Committee, and towards the end of the proceedings the Government were asked whether this was going to be a general statement or not, and the answer they gave was that it was not going to be a general statement: we were to be given at any rate some detail. In these Regulations as they stand there is no qualification at all, and a director, as I see it, or a board of

  1223
  directors, would comply with this provision if they simply said something like, "We are a development company".
  The sort of instance I suggested in Committee is the case of a depositor being asked to put up money for land development perhaps in his own town. That, of course, is land development, but the directors might intend to develop somewhere quite different, and yet the depositor has no means of judging, and the risks of land development in one place and in another might be substantially different, and the wishes of the depositor might be different. Therefore, if he is to be properly protected, I would have expected something more than this very general statement of what, after all, is perhaps the most important point in the whole Regulations—that is, to say what the activities of the company really are to be.
  Having said that to the Minister I must say, in fairness, one more thing to him. I quite appreciate that the—let us call it a promise; I think that it was a promise—statement made in Committee was perhaps a rather difficult one to carry out. I quite appreciate the difficulties in saying any more, but I must say I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman could have got a little bit further than appears here, and that he would have reserved something or another by way of an approval or disapproval by the Board of Trade, which would have given him an opportunity of saying, "This statement is far too general. There ought to be more than that in it". I would have thought he would have considered the possibility of supplementing these Regulations, as I think he could do, or replacing them at an early date by something which, if only in the light of experience, would show a little more of what the activities of the company were.
  I have said what I intended to say, and it seems to me to be a point of real substance. It was mentioned very many times in the Committee, and I hope that we shall have an answer on it. I hope even more that the Board of Trade will be prepared to say that if, in the light of experience, it finds that these statements are insufficient, and that they tend to be particularly insufficient in the case of companies whose accounts are open
  1224
  to a certain amount of criticism on other grounds, then it will get them supplemented.
  I see the hon. Gentleman looking at the Regulations. There are, of course, other statements in it, but I do not think they cover this point, and I have looked at them very carefully. They go round it. What is really required is a statement of the main activities of the company in some detail. I gave just now the instance of locality and the type of property, because it is land development companies about which I am thinking. It is not a question of freehold or leasehold. It is the kind of bricks and mortar that are to be developed or the kind of land that is going to be developed. That is the point, and it is not properly covered in the regulation.
  It is late at night, and I do not think that it is a point upon which one would divide anyhow, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider it not merely in the present but in the future and just let us know quite shortly what the views of the Board of Trade are and what the reason is for this very wide form of regulation on that point.
  11.47 p.m.
  Mr. Green: If I may briefly reply to that, I took the hon. and learned Gentleman's point in Committee, as I think he realises. He has been extremely fair in what he has said about it. Clearly, there are difficulties of definition and about knowing just how far one can go. We ask in the fifth Regulation for a statement of the main activities of the company and subsidiaries, if any, and a statement of any change, since the commencement of the period in which the accounts were laid, in the main activities of the company. This is as far as we thought we could properly go at this stage.
  None the less, I promise that what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said will be borne in mind. I believe that on Third Reading I used the phrase, which I hope was not inappropriate, that, this being a new area of legislation, experience in the application of the legislation was required. This is certainly a point on which we will use experience. It is a very appropriate thought to put across the Floor of the House to me. At this moment in time perhaps I should content myself by saying that I take the hon. and learned Gentleman's point, and if I or my successors can improve on this, they will seek to do it.
  Mr. Mitchison: If I may remind the hon. Gentleman before he sits down, he will find it most clearly put in the Committee proceedings. I said:
  "May I ask the Economic Secretary to confirm that when he refers to a general description "—
  that was, of the business—
  "it will not, in the light of our discussions, be too general in relation to the company's business?"
  The reply was:
  "I absolutely take that point. The description must not be too general."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Standing Committee A, 19th February, 1963; c. 488.]
  Well, it is quite general. I quite sincerely appreciate the difficulty of making it any more particular, but there was an undertaking that it must not be too general, and I hope that the matter will be considered if experience shows it to be necessary.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Protection of Depositors (Accounts) Regulations, 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 11th July, be approved.

  STATISTICS OF TRADE
  11.50 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Statistics of Trade Act, 1947 (Amendment of Schedule) Order, 1963, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 3rd July.
  The object is to extend somewhat further the range of statistics collected under the Statistics of Trade Act, 1947. Broadly, this brings in under the Act figures relating particularly to movements of the capital market. This follows the recommendation of the Radcliffe Report, which devoted a whole chapter to statistics. The Government undertook to look at this. We have been able on a voluntary basis to cover many of the statistics which are necessary to widen our range of statistical coverage and which Radcliffe suggested we should do.
  But there comes a point when it is proper to have a statutory basis and, in addition, we have taken the opportunity to include information about the movement of prices. This may surprise the House. It was, by an oversight, left out
  1226
  of the Schedule of the 1947 Act. We have published for years indices of prices but that has been done on a voluntary basis, and we have taken this opportunity to give the statutory sanction with which to fortify the work of the voluntary system.
  11.51 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I rise only to say that on this side of the House we always welcome any more light thrown on financial matters and hope against hope that it will not disclose too many terrible things.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Statistics of Trade Act, 1947 (Amendment of Schedule) Order, 1963, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 3rd July.
  To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

  HOSPITAL, BASILDON
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
  11.52 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Gardner: Basildon is one of the most successful of the new towns. A true measure of its success is the fact that most people who live there seem to like it. They like its friendliness, vitality and sense of belonging to a new and thriving community. Visitors, particularly from the Continent and America, are impressed by the superb planning of its roads, houses, shopping centre and factories, which make it one of the most prosperous places in the area.
  But they are equally surprised to find that Basildon is still waiting for a hospital and that on the present estimates will have to wait for one for the next eight years. During this time the population of Basildon Urban District Council, now about 100,000, is expected to increase at the rate of 6,000 a year and reach about 148,000 in eight years' time. The population of Basildon new town is expected to rise from its present 60,000 to 80,000 at the end of those eight years. This is, I believe, the largest increase of population in any district in the country. This increase of population alone is an

  1227
  overwhelming argument for a hospital for Basildon new town. The argument hardly needs pressing, for the case for the hospital has already been won and the Government accept it.
  The real issue, therefore, is not whether Basildon needs a new hospital—it needs one and needs one badly—but whether the present estimated delay in planning and building this hospital, now reckoned at about eight years, is tolerable or necessary. All the figures and all present experience show that the delay is not tolerable and I hope to persuade my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that it is not necessary.
  In October, 1960, I was fortunate enough to persuade my hon. Friend's predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame Edith Pitt), to visit Basildon and see for herself how badly we needed a hospital. What she saw apparently convinced her that the need was urgent, and within a short time we had the announcement by the Government that our case for a hospital for Basildon had succeeded. In 1961, the North-Eastern Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board announced that a hospital of 345 beds would be started in 1964 and completed by 1968. This was at least reasonable and, although it did not satisfy everybody, it was an acceptable solution.
  In 1962, the Government announced their £500 million Hospital Plan, which included 90 new and 134 remodelled hospitals to be started by 1970–71. This is a plan which is wholly laudable and for which the Government deserve high praise. Unhappily for Basildon, this plan has had and is having the unhappy effect of delaying the new hospital by at least two years over the original delay.
  The reason for this was explained by the Minister of Health himself, when he visited Basildon last year. It is that the new town needs a hospital far larger than that planned in 1961. Instead of 345 beds, we are to get 853 beds. Instead of a comparatively small hospital, we are to get what will be a full-scale general district hospital, the most modern of its kind in the country, built with the wealth of experienced gained over the last few years.
  But, according to the Hospital Plan, the building of the hospital will not start
  1228
  until the period 1966–67 to 1970–71. In practice, on this basis Basildon is unlikely to get its hospital working before 1971. Already the hospital facilities serving Basildon are reaching full capacity and any doctor in this area would tell my hon. Friend of complaints, going far beyond inconvenience or annoyance, of the difficulties of getting suitable and timely hospital treatment. Most patients from Basildon have to go to St. Andrew's Hospital, in Billericay. The result is that despite the devoted labours of the staff of that hospital, its services are grossly overloaded. I am told that out-patients have to wait for up to five weeks for medical treatment, and that anyone wanting a bed for surgical treatment may have to wait up to fourteen months.
  Basildon new town has one of the highest birth rates in the country. The maternity services, I am assured time and again by letter after letter, are among the worst. The Cranbrook Committee on Maternity Services, in 1959, recommended the provision of a national average of 70 per cent. of confinements to take place in hospital, but in Basildon even a mother having her first child is fortunate if she can get a maternity bed in a hospital. Indeed, only one in three mothers is able to have her first child delivered in hospital.
  The shortage of maternity beds is so acute and the waiting list so full that the longest practical notice of nine months is not always sufficient. To be certain of a bed a mother-to-be in Basildon new town would seem to need to take the advice of a fortune teller more than a doctor, and added to the shortage of beds there is a very serious shortage of midwives.
  Apart from the vast industrial site already working in Basildon new town, fresh factories are expected to grow up, built by companies like Fords, Standard Telephones and Yardleys, which will bring about 9,000 more workers to the new town and, like those already there, they will want reliable and immediate hospital services if only to deal with casualty and accident cases.
  As long ago as 1960 the need for a hospital in Basildon new town was accepted by the regional hospital board. Indeed, the population figures alone were decisive. The board appreciated that the

  1229
  population of the catchment area it serves would reach a total of 233,000 in 1964–65, and Basildon Urban District Council wisely pointed out that on these figures—and one has to bear in mind that they will be reached next year—the area would need all the existing hospitals and the new hospital which is still to be built at Basildon if disruption of the hospital services in this area were to be avoided.
  This means that we need, and should have, a hospital in Basildon built, staffed, and working next year if we are to be guided strictly by population figures, but on the present plan a new hospital cannot be expected there until 1970–71. This will not do. It is an intolerable situation caused, as I see it, primarily by delays in planning, delays which I submit must be eliminated.
  As the Hospital Plan is careful to point out, it takes several years to plan and carry out any major hospital development. There is no lack of enthusiasm among the staff of the regional board. The architects and planners are already at work on this hospital and they have accomplished a good deal of ground work. I am told that the preliminary plans and estimates will be ready by September, and that the board hopes it will have ministerial approval by November. But after November of this year—until January 1967—more than three years will be taken up on detailed planning. After that, another three years will be taken up on the actual building of the hospital. So now we have at least seven and possibly eight years to wait. It is too long.
  I see that the experts have agreed—and most people sympathise with the view—that there are great difficulties in building a hospital of this kind, with the ambitious future it will have, in under three years, but surely we can do something about the time taken up on planning this hospital. Do we need to plan it right down to the last doorknob, nut and screw, in detail, so that every one of those minute details has to be considered by the Ministry? Cannot we now adopt some other method which would accelerate what must be, in the ordinary course of the Civil Service, a very slow process? Cannot we do something about adopting hospital plans which are already in use?
  I have been told by the Minister-indeed, on one occasion a deputation of
  1230
  representatives from Basildon new town came with me to see him—that there were difficulties. The difficulties were appreciated—they were certainly explained very fully—in adopting the plans we used for that splendid hospital in Harlow new town. But cannot we go beyond Harlow new town, or beyond this country? Let us look to the Continent and the new hospitals there, or to America, and see what we can find in their plans to adopt, in order to save time and to bring this hospital, which is needed so urgently, into a reality far sooner than it is going to be built under the present plan.
  I would be most grateful, and I am sure many people in Basildon new town would be most grateful, if my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would give the House an assurance that the only thing holding up the building of this hospital is the planning and architectural work that must be done upon it, that the Government have all the funds available and are willing to provide all the funds necessary to build it, and that there is nothing by way of finance that is creating a barrier to its building.
  I plead with my hon. Friend to see that everything is done—everything that is within the power of the Ministry, including, if necessary, an increase in the planning and architectural staff—to speed up the detailed planning and to bring the plans to a stage where the building of this hospital can be started. The present state of affairs is not only disturbing; it is quite intolerable. I plead with my hon. Friend and the Government to see that there is a speedy conclusion to the present state of affairs, and the application of an effective remedy.
  12.9 a.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernard Braine): I fully understand the anxieties of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) and I know how faithfully he has represented the interests of his constituents in this matter.
  My right hon. Friend announced the scheme for building a new hospital at Basildon in his statement in the House in January, 1961. This announcement was made at the earliest moment when we knew that capital could be allocated

  1231
  for the development, and therefore, planning was still in its earliest stages. It appeared to us at that time that the right thing to do was to regard St. Andrew's Hospital, Billericay, and the new hospital at Basildon as complementary and that, therefore, a hospital of 345 beds would be needed at Basildon.
  Shortly after the announcement, my right hon. Friend met a deputation in March, 1961, and explained to them that the new hospital was not likely to start before 1964–65. In view of what he said, the people of Basildon may have had some justification for expecting that the building of their new hospital would start at least in early 1965. I can understand their deep disappointment when it was announced in the Hospital Plan presented to Parliament in January last year that instead the hospital would start in the period 1966–67 to 1970–71. I accept that the reasons for the change in the likely starting date might well have been explained at that time and I am sorry that this was not done. I understand, however, that they have since been explained. I understand, too, that the reasons for the change were perfectly sound and, as I hope to show, in the long term they are in every way to the advantage of the people of Basildon.
  I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend will appreciate that the release, upsurge and flowering of ideas, which accompanied the development of the Hospital Plan caused all concerned with hospital planning, those at the Ministry of Health and in the regional boards to think much more boldly about the hospitals of the future than they had done in the past. We put on one sidethe "just about good enough"schemes and looked at the hospital pattern as a whole. What principally emerged was the concept of the large, comprehensive district general hospital in which could be brought together the wide range of facilities and expensive equipment needed for the most modern diagnosis and treatment.
  This was the atmosphere in which the planning of the new hospital for Basildon developed after the announcement of the scheme. Moreover, when the North-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Boardand the Minister got down to the detailed planning we also had more reli-
  1232
  able information about the population growth of Basildon and it became very clear that the idea of a new hospital complementary to St. Andrew's at Billericay was not the rightone. Basildon needed a comprehensive district general hospital large enough to serve the area of which Basildon would be the natural centre.
  We and the regional board therefore came to the conclusion that what Basildon needed was a hospital not of 345 beds but nearer 900 beds. This obviously presented a very difficult planning problem from the smaller hospital originally envisaged. In the light of the definitive studies of the hospital needs for Basildon and our conclusions about the range of facilities required, a revised but wholly realistic time-table was forced on us which will allow building to start early in the second quinquennium of the Hospital Plan. This is the earliest that is practicable. I realise how frustrating it is for Basildon folk and formy hon. and learned Friend to see the empty site reserved for the hospital and no present sign of building activity, but I can assure them that the hospital is well under way. In hospital building at least 50 per cent. of the time needed is used up away from the site in the planning rooms and drawing offices. Meticulous work at the planning stage is the key to proper hospital provision.
  We are always hearing about new medical techniques which are saving life and making medical treatment safer and more effective. I am sure that the people of the new town of Basildon who more than most are living with the most modern industrial techniques do not need reminding that these medical advances call for the most complex physical equipment. A modern hospital is perhaps the most complicated building structure that can be devised, combining a range of technical services which few factories could rival in diversity, domestic provision as carefully planned as in the largest and most modern hotel and the laboratory and teaching facilities of a technical college. Planners, designers, architects and engineers have to produce a structure which is efficient, flexible and, perhaps most important of all, one which is human in scale and atmosphere.
  Clearly, this calls for a different scale of planning from say an office block with simple units inside the framework.

  1233
  In a hospital the inter-relation of wards, operating theatres, diagnostic departments, and so on, each of which is complicated enough, is an intricate planning exercise. Of course, a great deal is being done to shorten the planning time by disseminating information on good and tried procedures by means of building and equipment notes, but the fact remains that every hospital has to be tailor-made to fit the needs of the particular community which it will serve. I am sure that the people of Basildon would not wish it to be otherwise. As for borrowing ideas from others, let me say that there is no country in the world that has embarked on such a large and comprehensive programme of hospital building as we have.
  My hon. and learned Friend has suggested that the plans of a hospital already built could be adapted to meet the needs of Basildon more quickly. For the reasons I have touched on, I do not think that this is the right solution, but the end can be achieved by other means. My Department is producing a mass of guidance material on the design of hospitals, aimed at bringing to the attention of all boards the best of current practice. This work is being extended and accelerated all the time.
  Simultaneously, a large number of study groups has been set up to examine the scope for variety reduction in the building of hospitals and to rationalise building procedures and techniques. These groups are manned from the regional hospital boards, from private professional firms and from the Ministry. Their efforts are directed at producing recommendations of national application. They are working on such subjects as the production of standard ranges of cupboard units, sanitary fittings, ceilings, doors, floor finishes, structural components such as beams and wall units, partitions, engineering components, light fittings, and a thousand and one other things, all geared to the national system of dimensions recently announced by the Ministry of Public Building and Works.
  They are also working on the codification of methods of assembling the briefing required by architects engineers and quantity surveyors and of recording this material so that clear instructions are given to the actual designs, and time-
  1234
  consuming practices and uncertainty are reduced.
  As an example of what can be achieved, early this year the Ministry provided for all regional hospital boards and teaching hospitals sketch plans for a complete 104-bed maternity unitdesigned by the Birmingham board. This design reflects the features approved by the Ministry for this type of building. Its use, adapted to the needs of particular sites, could result in a saving of months of design time and make a contribution to the problem of accelerating the provision of maternity beds which faces the country at present. We hope to extend this policy of recommending acceptable designs to all departments of a hospital.
  For practical reasons the hospital at Basildon will be built in three phases. The first phase will provide a viable hospital with 168 general beds, 44 maternity beds, 30 pædiatric beds, and 56 geriatric beds, as well as provision for babies needing special care, and an infectious diseases unit. The next phase which should overlap or even coincide with the first phase will provide a psychiatric unit of 260 beds. This will be an exciting new departure from the old concept of a mental hospital. There will be a short stay unit of 60 beds and a rehabilitation unit for 200 mentally ill patients who need a longer stay before they return home. The final phase will extend the hospital by an additional 272 beds and an extension of the diagnostic facilities provide in the first phase.
  In short, the work on the new hospital, which is at present hidden from view in the planning offices, is forging ahead as fast as the architects and engineers can physically manage. I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that nothing in the way of financial considerations is holding it up. As soon as we have the right plans for the hospital they will begin to take physical shape. As to when the right plans will emerge, and whether, as my hon. and learned Friend suggests, an increase in the planning staff would hasten their appearance, I assure him that the regional hospital board is firmly of the view that its present planning team is of the right size and that increasing its numbers would not have increased its rate of progress.
  All the technical planning work is being done in the board's own offices, where

  1235
  planning can progress with the greatest ease of consultation and with the greatest degree of control over the work and where the board can adjust the scale of the planning efforts according to requirements. The board expects to complete planning in time to permit building to be started in March, 1967.
  We and the North-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board have always recognised the need of the people of Basildon for hospital services whilst they are waiting for their new hospital, and for this reason the hospital board has been pressing on with the development at St. Andrew's, Billericay. My hon. and learned Friend himself opened the new out-patients' department in October, 1960. Two new nurses' homes have recently been opened by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex, a new boiler house has just been finished, and the building of a new pathological laboratory is due to start shortly.
  These facilities, which are perhaps misleadingly called ancillary facilities, are, of course, very necessary for the proper running of the hospital and have a direct impact on its efficiency and quality of service. But, at the same time, the board is doing what it can to increase the number of available beds. A ward which has been out of use for some time was reopened early this year, and wards in another block have been upgraded.
  My hon. and learned Friend drew my attention to the acute difficulties being experienced by the maternity services. It is true that heavy demands are being made on the existing services. Work ona new maternity department at Orsett Hospital should start within the next few months and this department should give
  1236
  relief on completion two years later. I am glad to say that the Essex County Council is planning a substantial expansion of its domiciliary midwifery service—high standards of housing in this area make a high rate of home confinements more acceptable—and I am sure that the county council will have regard to the growing needs of the Basildon area.
  I can understand the desire of people in Basildon to get their hospital as speedily as possible, and I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that we and board do not accept that the planning of a new hospital allows us to shrug off our responsibility for seeing that the current needs of the people of Basildon for hospital services are met. As I have indicated, there have been improvements and there will be more.
  I hope that what I have said will reassure my hon. and learned Friend that we and the hospital board are doing all we can to see that the necessary hospital buildings, both in Basildon and, in the meantime, at Billericay, are available as soon as possible. But, as was shown in the guidance which my right hon. Friend sent to hospitals earlier this year about reducing waitinglists, new buildings are not necessarily the only answer; there are ways and means of making better use of existing facilities. Indeed, I know that the staff of the hospitals near Basildon are fully aware of this and are devotedly applying themselves to the task of giving the people of Basildon a full hospital service until they get their own hospital.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Twelve o'clock