Commons Sitting of 23 July 1963

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRIT (STRATFORD-ON-AVON)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the county constituency of Stratford in the room of John Dennis Profumo, esquire, O.B.E., who, since his election for the said county constituency, hath accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the County of Buckingham.—[Mr, Redmayne.]
Mr. Shinwell: I want to oppose the Motion, Mr. Speaker, and I understand that I am within the Standing Orders in doing so.
Mr. Speaker: To be moved again at half-past three.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Martin Redmayne): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
SALVATION ARMY BILL
Lords Amendments considered and agreed to.
CLYWEDOG RESERVOIR JOINT AUTHORITY BILL [Lords]
Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.
DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]
BATH CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
FELIXSTOWE DOCK AND RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
LOCH TURRET WATER BOARD (HYDRO-ELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT) ORDER CONFIRMATION
Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to the Loch Turret Water Board (Hydro-Electric Development), presented by Mr. Noble (under Section 7 of the Act); and ordered to be considered upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 145.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Telegraph Poles, Longbenton
    Mr. McKayasked the Postmaster- General if he is aware of the concern in the Longbenton Urban District Council area about the erecting of telegraph poles; and if he will consider the laying of underground cables for this purpose on new estates.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Ray Mawby): Yes, Sir. Underground cables are used on new estates when it is economic to do so, but, when the number of subscribers is small, it would be too expensive to provide underground cables all the way to the houses.

    London Exchanges (Off-Peak Periods)
    Mr. W. T. Rodgersasked the Post master-General what is the maximum delay that a subscriber on a London exchange should expect to experience in dialling 100 at an off-peak period; and what instructions are given to operators in dealing with calls in cases when this delay has occurred.
    Mr. Mawby: In normal conditions most calls are answered within 10 seconds, but I am sorry that at off-peak periods when fewer operators are on duty the risk of delays from sudden rushes of traffic is greater than at the busier times of the day. Operators are instructed to be helpful and courteous, and to apologise where delays are known to have occurred.
    Mr. Rodgers: Does the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate that it is very disturbing news that at off-peak periods when we are being encouraged to make

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    telephone calls we are likely to experience long delays? Is he aware that although he promised me earlier this year that there would be a noticeable improvement in my own home telephone service on the Gulliver Exchange, I am regularly still subject to delays of up to five minutes? If this experience is shared by others, does not he think that it causes grave inconvenience and makes nonsense of his slogan which he is now advertising that "An evening call brings you together"?
    Mr. Mawby: I have no information to the effect that there are regularly lapses of up to five minutes. As I said, during peaks there are these difficulties, and, in fact, on the evening showing as against the day showing we find that during the day the particular exchange is a little quicker than the regional average and that in the evening it is a little slower. It is only a matter of seconds. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman must have struck some very bad periods of the day in order to have had this continuing problem. Nevertheless, we are looking at this problem and are doing everything possible to make certain that at whatever time of the day or night there is a call it will be attended to at the earliest possible moment.

    Overhead Lines, Gateshead
    Mr. Randallasked the Postmaster-General in what circumstances applications for the placing of overhead telegraphic lines were forwarded recently by him to the borough of Gateshead.
    Mr. Mawby: The applications were made under the Telegraph Acts for consent to place five poles and wires in the streets of Gateshead in order to provide telephone service.
    Mr. Randall: Is the Assistant Postmaster-General aware that Gateshead Borough and I myself are very appreciative that 300 and more telegraph poles have been removed during the last five years, but why does he not co-operate with the local authority in preserving the amenities of new estates, instead of putting in these ugly, wretched poles, only to remove them at a later date?
    Mr. Mawby: This is a problem which we are faced with every day. Where there is likely to be a large number of
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    subscribers in the area it is obviously best to bury the whole of the cables, but it is important to remember that burying cables can cost as much as 10 times more than putting up poles. In this particular case there seems little likelihood of more than about seven subscribers in the next 20 years. This is a matter which we have to take into account, and much as we should like to help in this matter we feel at the moment that we shall have to carry these lines overhead.

    Blyth
    Mr. Milneasked the Postmaster- General what was the number of new telephones installed in the Blyth constituency during 1960, 1961, 1962, and at the nearest available date in 1963; how many remain on the waiting list; and what is the approximate waiting time for those on the list.
    Mr. Mawby: In 1960, 305; in 1961, 318; in 1962, 319; in the first half of 1963, 173.
    Sixteen orders for telephones are on the waiting list and a further 80 are under inquiry or being met. The composition of the waiting list is constantly changing, and I am sorry that I cannot give a reliable average waiting tune.
    Mr. Milne: I am grateful to the Assistant Postmaster-General for that reply and for the improvement which has been shown in the installation period over the past two or three years. Will he now make it known to my constituents that it is easier to have an installation now than it was two or three years ago, in order that many who were prevented then from making application can now be encouraged to do so?
    Mr. Mawby: I hope that this Question and Answer will be fully ventilated in the proper place in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. It will show his constituents that we are making a great deal of progress, and that the waiting list in the area at the moment represents a lower percentage than the national average.
    Mr. Milne: I thank the hon. Gentleman.

    Reading
    Mr. Peter Emeryasked the Postmaster-General what further action

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    he has taken to meet the increasing demand for telephones in the Reading area.
    The Postmaster-General (Mr. Reginald Bevins): I have increased the money available for the provision of local lines and subscriber circuits in the Reading area by 16 per cent. this year. I should have liked to do still more but competition for labour is so keen in the area that larger sums could not be absorbed. I am doing all I can to recruit more engineering staff, and I hope that next year I shall be able to spend substantially increased amounts on the provision of service in the area.
    Mr. Emery: I thank my right hon. Friend for that very helpful reply. May I ask whether he would translate the percentage of 16 per cent. into money terms? Can he assure me that the plans for these extensions are already approved and that work is starting or is immediately about to start? Can he assure me that there should be some extra telephone receivers in the hands of subscribers during these next six months due to this work?
    Mr. Bevins: At the moment I cannot give my hon. Friend the assurance he asked for towards the end of his supplementary question, but the capital expenditure on local lines and subscribers' circuits will be over £1 million in the current financial year and that represents an increase of 16 per cent. The key to the difficulty in the Reading area is the shortage of trained manpower. I should like to make it clear to my hon. Friend that I have asked my Department to consider as a matter of urgency measures for recruiting more.
    Mr. Emery: I thank my right hon. Friend.

    Engaged Signal
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that when a number is dialled the engaged signal comes through if all the junctions are busy between the two exchanges, and that this gives a false impression to the dialler who thinks that the telephone of the person being called is engaged; and what steps he will take in order to rectify the position.
    Mr. Bevins: I am sorry if the present practice sometimes leads to misunder-
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    standing. But I do not think that the circumstances would justify the cost of providing an additional type of engaged signal to indicate that the intermediate plant was engaged, rather than the called person's line. I try, by the provision of additional plant, to keep to a minimum the number of instances where intermediate plant is engaged.
    Sir B. Janner: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is a very serious matter from the point of view of an individual who rings up his home, gets the engaged signal, thinks there is no one at home and is very worried as a result of it? Is it because the right hon. Gentleman has not sufficient cable available for new junctions, or what is the trouble? Why does he not supply sufficient junctions? Is he aware that on one occasion it took nearly two hours before anyone could get a reply?
    Mr. Bevins: The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to give me details of his complaint in a letter. Frankly, at the moment I do not understand it, because at the Malden exchange, to which I think he was referring, there are 800 junctions, and that means that there would have to be about 800 simultaneous telephone calls for this situation to arise. However, I have instructed my staff to carry out an investigation of the situation at Maiden, and I will communicate with the hon. Gentleman as soon as I can.

    Kiosks (Siting)
    Sir C. Osborneasked the Postmaster-General, in view of the increasing noise caused by heavy traffic on main roads, if he will reconsider his policy of erecting telephone kiosks at the side of main roads, and wherever possible move them to quiet sites; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bevins: I try to site telephone kiosks where they can most conveniently be seen and used. Noisy situations are avoided where possible, but a compromise has sometimes got to be made between noise and accessibility. If my hon. Friend has a particular case in mind I will be glad to look into it.
    Sir C. Osborne: Since I am asked for it, would my right hon. Friend send his experts to look at a kiosk which he has on the Louth-Grimsby main road, a road

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    which is carrying heavier and heavier traffic? It makes it very difficult for elderly people who are hard of hearing. Will my right hon. Friend look into this? This is happening not only in my constituency but in other parts of the country.
    Mr. Bevins: The overriding consideration is the convenience of the public, but I will gladly send one of my people along to look into this case.
    Mr. Manuel: Does the Postmaster-General recognise that, quite apart from the problem of noise from a heavy volume of traffic proceeding along main roads, there is also the danger of parked vehicles on roads which are extensively used? Surely he ought to try to avoid congestion by siting telephone kiosks adjacent to main roads?
    Mr. Bevins: There is something in that point. There are, of course, all sorts of considerations to be taken into account. There is, for example, the consideration of wilful damage to kiosks, which is more prevalent where they are sited off main roads.

    Kiosk, Sidbury
    Mr. Mathewasked the Postmaster-General if he will now reconsider his decision to remove the public telephone kiosk at Harcombe, Sidbury, Devon; and what the distance is from there to the nearest public telephone which it is not his intention to remove in the foreseeable future.
    Mr. Bevins: No, Sir. I am sorry that I cannot justify the retention of this kiosk which is now used for only three or four calls a week. The nearest kiosk, which I am not proposing to remove, is just over a mile away.
    Mr. Mathew: Will not my right hon. Friend reconsider the whole of the Post Office's policy of withdrawing uneconomic telephones from the more isolated rural communities? Will he bear in mind that the telephone is the only link in an emergency with such a community, and that other Departments and authorities are making great efforts to bring services to the countryside—including electricity and water—even where it is uneconomic, in order to stop the drift from the land?
    Mr. Bevins: It is quite untrue that the Post Office is withdrawing large numbers of telephone kiosks from rural areas. In
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    fact, the movement is in the opposite direction. In the case referred to by my my hon. Friend, the kiosk produces a revenue of about £4 a year and costs about £60 to maintain. I think that it is right to remove it in these circumstances, especially as more than 60 per cent. of the houses in the village are on the telephone.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it that it is the general view of the House that there is a very urgent necessity for the Post Office to consider the social needs of rural communities? To say that another telephone is only a mile away from the kiosk does not seem to meet the situation his hon. Friend has mentioned. Will he, therefore, review his policy because this service is urgently necessary in rural areas?
    Mr. Bevins: There is no need for a review of policy. Without fear of contradiction, I say that the Post Office pays far more regard to the social needs of people in scattered areas than any other department in public life.

    Oldham
    Mr. Mappasked the Postmaster-General how many telephone installation applications at the Oldham main exchange were outstanding for more than three months at the latest convenient date; and when he proposes to supply the necessary installations.
    Mr. Mawby: One hundred and fifty-five as at 30th June, 1963. All these applications are for residential telephones, and nearly all will be met by the end of this year.
    Mr. Mapp: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in one case a lady waited for three years for a telephone? Is he further aware that I have put to him a case where, despite strong professional reasons, a residential application must wait, apparently, until November? Will he see that these time-lags are cut down as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Mawby: The hon. Gentleman must remember that one gets to a point where there is a shortage of cables and exchange equipment. Until these major changes have taken place there is virtually a standstill. But a main underground scheme will be completed this month and the

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    cable position will then be good, except for small sections. The exchange will also be extended in October. All this will put us in a much better position to satisfy the requirements of people who have been waiting for longer than we would have wished.

    Advertising
    Mr. Lubbockasked the Postmaster-General what additional income from the telephone services he estimates will arise from the expenditure of £250,000 in the current year on advertising specifically intended to encourage traffic; and what increase in profit this income will show.
    Mr. Bevins: As I said to the hon. Member on 17th July, this publicity campaign is a calculated commercial risk but if, as I hope, it produces extra revenue of about £1½ million, the profit will be £600,000.
    Mr. Lubbock: When the right hon. Gentleman says that it is a calculated commercial risk, does not he think that he should also give us a little more of the background to his reasoning? Is he further aware that these figures are not justified in any way in "Post Office Prospects", which was published quite recently? Will he also say why the marginal rate of profit he has assumed on the extra telephone calls which will result from this expenditure is so very much different from the average rate, which would require another 6¼ million calls? How does he justify this expenditure?
    Mr. Bevins: I will answer the last point first. Quite clearly, if there were to be a large increase in telephoning during off-peak hours the cost of carrying the traffic would be relatively very small. Therefore, the profit would be very large. As to the rest of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, this is a matter of commercial judgment and I am sure my judgment will prove to be correct.

    Wembley
    Wing Commander Bullusasked the Postmaster-General how many applicants in Wembley are still waiting for the telephone service; and what is the longest time for which any have waited.
    Mr. Bevins: I am glad to say that in Wembley no applications for telephones are held up by shortage of lines or equipment; there are 502 orders under enquiry or being me. The oldest application is dated December last year and that is held up awaiting the customer's instructions.
    Wing Commander Bullus: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that encouraging information, may I ask him how long it will take to clear the backlog?
    Mr. Bevins: Only a matter of weeks.

    Waiting List
    Mr. Awdryasked the Postmaster-General what has been the change in the waiting list for telephones since 1951.
    Mr. Bevins: Since 1951 the waiting list for telephones has been reduced from 418,000 to 44,000.
    Mr. Awdry: I thank my right hon. Friend, but is he aware that the Bristol area still has some 16,000 subscribers on party lines? Will he take steps to see that more people are offered exclusive lines?
    Mr. Bevins: It is true that there has been an increase of about 750,000 throughout the country of people who have shared services, but our objective is to let everyone have either shared or separate service. But until we have sufficient lines it is not practical to do away with shared service altogether.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: How near is the right hon. Gentleman this year to the target of connections?
    Mr. Bevins: There is a further question on that point. Broadly speaking, we are on target.

    Subscribers
    Mr. Cleaverasked the Postmaster-General what has been the increase in the number of telephones since 1951; and how many new telephone subscribers have been connected in 1963.
    Mr. Bevins: On 31st March, 1951, there were about 5½ million telephones in this country. There are now 9 million. Nearly 225,000 lines have been connected in the first six months of this year.
    Mr. Cleaver: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that it shows an increase of some 70 per cent, and is very creditable? Can he say how the figures compare with those for other European countries?
    Mr. Bevins: The percentage increase in comparison with some European countries is low, but the 1951 base for European countries was very different from that for this country. We have more telephones than any other country with the single exception of the United States of America.
    Mr. Mason: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that even though he says that only 44,000 are on the waiting list, 3,600 have been waiting for a telephone connection for more than two years and that nearly 1 million people have shared line services, which conceals the waiting list of those who want single services? Is he further aware that he is evading this problem by agreeing to more shared lines and that in 1962 22 per cent. of all new residential connections were on shared lines? This is not much progress.
    Mr. Bevins: I am not evading anything. The telephone service has developed more in the last few years than at any time in our history. The capital moneys sunk into the service in the last four years have risen by as much as 50 per cent.

    South Yorkshire
    Mr. Wainwrightasked the Postmaster-General if he will state the total number on the waiting list for telephones in South Yorkshire in 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1962, respectively.
    Mr. Mawby: At 31st March, 1958, the figure was 2,375. The corresponding figures in the subsequent years have been 1,482; 1,574; 1,690; and 1,039.
    Mr. Wainwright: I admit that there has been an improvement in the last year. Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the numbers rose in the previous three years? What hope have people in South Yorkshire who are sharing lines? What hope is there of speeding up connections for trunk calls between South Yorkshire and London, which now take a long time?
    Mr. Mawby: Every day of the week we are installing new circuits all over the country. We obviously concentrate on areas where the need is greatest. At 31st March this year, the figures for which the hon. Member has asked were down to 977, so we are not making bad progress.

  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    Pay Television
    Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General if he has now completed his review of applications for pay television experiments; which companies have been successful; what areas are to be recognised; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bevins: The preliminary round of discussions with applicants who wish to be operators is now almost completed, and the detailed requirements are under discussion. Until, however, I have firm offers in regard to the location of areas of trials and of the conditions to be laid down I cannot determine finally what companies can be licensed, and the hon. Member will appreciate that mention of some areas and not others may be misleading and cause disappointment later on. I do not think that more than four or five companies at most, and some of these are consortia, can make the necessary facilities and resources available to mount the necessary operation.
    I will, however, make a further statement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Mason: Could the right hon. Gentleman, then, reveal to the House how many companies have so far applied? Is it not possible for him to give us an idea of what areas are under consideration and which are the likeliest areas to be provided with these pay television experiments? Secondly, may I ask him whether it will be possible to make a statement on this matter before the House rises for the Summer Recess? We do not want to go through the usual Summer Recess ritual of a Ministerial statement about a new television experiment without our being able to question him.
    Mr. Bevins: Altogether about 17 companies have evinced an interest in this experiment, but, as I said, probably not

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    more than half a dozen at the most will actually participate. The areas have not been finally selected, but it is quite clear that London will be one of the areas, but we are anxious to get a cross-section of different localities throughout the country, I doubt whether it will be possible to make a further statement before the House gets up, but I will do so as soon as possible.
    Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General if he will stipulate that pay television licensees will only be allowed one channel for the purposes of experiments.
    Mr. Bevins: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply of 7th May.
    Mr. Mason: Could the right hon. Gentleman extend that reply and give the House some assurance regarding the new development and restricting it to one channel? If the experiments are successful, is it his intention to keep pay television solely on one channel? Also, what length of time has he in mind for the experiment to take place?
    Mr. Bevins: The people who operate the pay television service will be obliged to put out both B.B.C. and I.T.A. programmes, and for the time being we have decided that they should use one additional channel for their own service. I think that is right for the present, but if experience indicates that more than one channel might be desirable at a later stage, we would propose to review the situation after perhaps a year or two of its operation. No period has been fixed for the length of the experiment, but the whole thing will be reviewed almost year to year to see how it develops.
    Mr. Lubbock: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering increasing the number of channels available to television, will he take full account of any representations made by radio astronomers in this country and abroad about the limitation on frequencies available to them?
    Mr. Bevins: Certainly, Sir, but I do not think I have received any such representations during my tenure of office.

    Independent Television Authority (Chairman)
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Postmaster-General to what extent the terms of appointment of the Chairman of the
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    Independent Television Authority require the holder of that post to retire from active politics.
    Mr. Bevins: The Chairman was given the normal memorandum of advice on political activities for the guidance of members of public boards, but in any case the question of political activity will not arise because he has told me that he has retired from politics altogether.
    Mr. Chapman: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the precedent set and the problems created in putting a very active party politician in charge of a public medium of expression of opinion? That is the crucial problem. [Interruption.] It is different from the Coal Board. For instance, in times of national crisis there might be demands for a Government statement and Opposition counter-statement on matters of the moment. What real assurance can we have that a very active party politician will be utterly impartial in providing the right to the use of the air?
    Mr. Bevins: I think I did say that Lord Hill has told me that he has retired from politics altogether.
    Mr. Manuel: Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe it?
    Mr. Bevins: Naturally I accept his word. At the same time I take the point made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman). Of course, the supposition which, I think, he has at the back of his mind is that the Chairman of the Authority could influence either I.T.N. news or a programme contractor at a period of high political activity. Well, I really believe that it is quite inconceivable that any Chairman of the Authority would ever attempt to interfere in that sort of way.
    Mr. Webster: Would my right hon. Friend consider putting the same curtailment of activities on the President of the Board of Film Censors?
    Mr. Bevins: I do not think that that quite arises on this Question.
    Mr. Milne: Is the Postmaster-General aware that we have had previous experience of the Chairman of the Authority in a non-political post—when he was acting as secretary to the British Medical Association?

  POST OFFICE

    New Office, Airdrie
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Postmaster- General when he proposes to replace the unsatisfactory post office premises in Airdrie with new offices; where he pro poses to site them; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Mawby: I hope we shall start building a new post office in 1965 on a site in Buchanan Street. This is a smaller site than we should like, but there seems to be no prospect of our getting any other.
    Mr. Dempsey: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am very grateful to him for the letter which I received today? While I recognise the apparent difficulties, which are considerable, in view of the highly unsatisfactory condition of the present post office arrangements in the town of Airdrie will he do his utmost to bring forward the starting date?
    Mr. Mawby: Now that we have decided on the site we shall lose no time in getting the job under way.

    Sub-Office, Wareham
    Mr. Barnettasked the Postmaster- General whether he will grant a licence for a sub-post office to serve the Carey Estate, Wareham.
    Mr. Mawby: I am sorry that we should not be justified in opening a sub-post office on this estate at present; but the matter will be kept under review in the light of the building development which I understand is to take place in the area.
    Mr. Barnett: Has the Assistant Postmaster-General really examined the problem? Does he realise that the estate lies a mile from Wareham, that the General Post Office has very serious parking problems, that a level crossing lies between the estate and the town of Ware ham and that there are more than 300 households on the estate, as well as two factories, and that there seems to me to be a very strong case indeed for the granting of a licence for a sub-post office on the estate?
    Mr. Mawby: As I said, there are all sorts of considerations to be taken into
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    account in opening another office. As I have stated, this matter will be constantly under review in the light of the building development which we understand will take place there. But at the present moment we feel that opening a new office there would not necessarily mean any new business but would mean extra costs for doing the same amount of business.
    Mr. Manuel: What about service to the public?
    Mr. Mawby: This is a great problem that we have to face every day of the week in trying to balance the social need and duty of the G.P.O. with the need to run an efficient service.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: In view of the considerations which my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Barnett) has brought to the notice of the House today, does not the Assistant Postmaster-General think that he ought to have some further inquiry made, because not only should he anticipate more business but surely the sense of service to the people who are now living there should also be paramount?
    Mr. Mawby: I am prepared to discuss with the hon. Gentleman the points that he has raised, but on the information that I have at the moment, it is a borderline case. As I have said, it will remain under constant review, but I shall be happy to discuss with the hon. Gentleman the points he has raised and have another look at the matter.

    Walton St. Mary Sub-office, Clevedon
    Mr. Websterasked the Postmaster-General whether he will reconsider his decision on the resiting of the Walton St. Mary sub-post office, Clevedon.
    Mr. Mawby: We have reconsidered this matter carefully but I regret that we should not be justified in reversing the decision.
    Mr. Webster: Is my hon. Friend aware that the situation of the sub-post office, which necessitates a walk up a very steep hill during winter weather and at other times, is causing hardship for old people collecting their pensions but will also cause danger if we have another winter like the last one? Will he reconsider the matter?
    Mr. Mawby: As I told my hon. Friend, we have reconsidered this matter. It is important to remember that a sub-postmaster runs his business on an agency basis. When the previous sub-postmaster gave notice of termination of his office, we naturally invited applicants, and we believe that the present sub-postmaster and the present facilities will give better service than hitherto. That is the reason why we took this decision.

    Transmission of Money
    Mr. Websterasked the Postmaster-General what proposals he has to improve the transmission of money through post offices.
    Mr. Mawby: We have no particular proposals in view at present.
    Mr. Webster: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, although the Dutch giro system has run at a loss for the first time this year, a system of transmitting money by having savings bank deposits increased would be both safer and cheaper than the existing method?
    Mr. Mawby: I can only refer my hon. Friend to my reply to an Adjournment debate on 4th March in which all the points were put forward. I said at the time that the door was not closed but that there were certain things which had to happen and that we had to be certain that this was going to be a real proposition before we were prepared to bring the scheme into operation.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: As I am very interested in the question of the giro system, may I ask the hon. Member how much wider the door is open now than when I raised the matter on the Adjournment?
    Mr. Mawby: I think it is just about the same.

    Mail Deliveries, Sale
    Mr. Boardmanasked the Postmaster-General what action he is taking to eliminate delay in delivery of mail from the Sale, Cheshire, area.
    Mr. Mawby: I am sorry that vacancies for a few postmen in Sale are causing delay in the delivery of mail there. There is full employment in this area and we are not finding it easy to get the recruits we need.
    Mr. Boardman: I am equally sure that that is not an adequate answer. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am concerned with mail going from the Sale area? Is he satisfied with the transit arrangements of mail from Sale? Is he satisfied that there is proper co-ordination between British Railways and the Post Office in this connection?
    Mr. Mawby: We are in touch with British Railways to try to solve some of the difficulties in parcels traffic. This is part of a general discussion we are holding. But until now I had no evidence that outgoing mail services are unsatisfactory. However, I should like to discuss this with the hon. Gentleman to find out whether we can get to the bottom of this problem.
    Mr. Boardman: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been many complaints, over a long period, from this part of Cheshire? On a number of occasions the hon. Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) has raised this matter. How long are these inquiries to take?
    Mr. Grant-Ferris: Does my hon. Friend realise that the place in question is not really in the constituency of the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Boardman) but in that of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade? I should like to ask the hon. Member for Leigh if he has consulted my right hon. Friend as a matter of common courtesy?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. As I understand the process, this appears to be an attempt by the hon. Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) to ask another hon. Member a question. It is not in order.

    Saturday Deliveries
    Wing Commander Bullusasked the Postmaster-General if he will restore the second postal delivery on Saturdays.
    Mr. Mawby: No, Sir.
    Wing Commander Bullus: Will my hon. Friend say why not? Is he aware that it is increasingly difficult to ensure that a letter posted in the north of England or in Sale or Leigh at any time on Friday arrives in the Greater London area before Monday? What is he doing about this? Will he review this deteriorating part of the service?
    Mr. Mawby: I do not think that to make another delivery on Saturday would solve this problem. We are seeking to put right delays that occur and we are discussing the matter with British Railways. We believe that the cost involved in a second delivery on Saturday would not be justified. We must also take fully into account the interests of our staff who, after all, are just as important as any other staff anywhere else. We believe that we have reached about the right compromise of giving a good service while meeting the interests of our staff at weekends.
    Wing Commander Bullus: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Parcel Post Service, East Anglia
    Mr. Bullardasked the Postmaster-General how the experimental reorganisation of the parcel post service in East Anglia is working.
    Mr. Mawby: The reorganised services have so far worked very well indeed; and we have every reason to expect that they will continue to do so. Our customers, too, seem to be satisfied; for example, one large firm has told us that it intends to send considerable numbers of parcels by post which until now it has sent by other means.
    Mr. Bullard: I am very glad to hear that this experiment is working well. Will my hon. Friend see to it that as much of this traffic as possible continues to go on the railways, provided that the railways can make suitable adjustments to meet Post Office needs? Alternatively, if a great deal of this traffic has to be carried on the roads of East Anglia, will my hon. Friend weigh in with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to see that our East Anglian roads are improved a little so as to be able to carry it?
    Mr. Mawby: The whole point of the experiment is to try to make certain that we can use the railways to the best advantage, but also to make certain that customers sending parcels have them delivered in the fastest possible time. With this co-ordination of rail and road we can learn by this experiment and put it
    1256
    into operation over a wider area at some future time.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will my hon. Friend appreciate that there is some suspicion that the result of the Beeching Plan combined with this scheme by the Post Office is designed to enable the Post Office to hog the lot of the parcel traffic, which formerly went by rail or other public transport? Will my hon. Friend give an assurance that he will see that where branch lines are closed down there is a proper co-ordination between the Post Office and the Ministry of Transport to ensure proper vehicles to carry parcels by road?
    Mr. Mawby: Yes, We have no intention of taking traffic away from anyone else. We are interested in giving as good a service in the transport of parcels and other mail as we can. We will naturally leave it to the customer to decide which service he prefers. We have no intention of running anybody else off the road.
    Sir J. Maitland: How will the services be affected in East Lincolnshire when there are not any railways at all?
    Mr. Mawby: We should have to adapt ourselves to those conditions.
    Mr. Mapp: Apart from the service aspect of this matter, is the hon. Gentleman able to tell the House the costings of the road service per package or parcel as against the costings for the railway service? Will not this be a vital factor in his ultimate consideration?
    Mr. Mawby: I could not tell the hon. Member off the cuff what the differences are, but this will obviously always be a vital factor to the person posting the parcel.

  NORTH-EAST
  Mr. Milneasked the Prime Minister what arrangements are now being made to inform Members of Parliament of the decisions taken arising from the report on the North-East by the Lord President of the Council, in the event of such decisions not being announced before the Summer Recess.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I would ask the hon. Member to wait for the proposals which will be announced next week.
  Mr. Milne: Is the Prime Minister aware that we are extremely grateful that the report from the Lord President of the Council is about to appear and that we shall scrutinise its contents with interest?

  MOSCOW (DISCUSSIONS)
  Mr. Stone houseasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the progress of the test ban talks in Moscow.
  The Prime Minister: I still think it is better for me not to add to the communiqués issued from Moscow.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that if success is achieved in Moscow it will be greeted with a profound sense of relief in all parts of the world? But is he further aware that this will be but a Pyrrhic victory if the non-nuclear Powers who aspire to be nuclear Powers prefer to ignore the agreement? What new diplomatic initiative does he intend to take with France and China to ensure their future co-operation?
  The Prime Minister: The first thing is to get the agreement.
  Lord Balniel: Will my right hon. Friend realise that if his initiative in seeking a nuclear test ban treaty reaches fruition, there will be world-wide recognition that it is his lead which has been consistent in this matter and worldwide recognition that his achievement will be all the greater because his hands have been so hindered by the nuclear disarmament policies of hon. Members opposite?
  The Prime Minister: If, as I hope—I am hoping anxiously and waiting anxiously—we soon find that these negotiations reach a satisfactory conclusion, it will be a great step forward and one for which we have striven for a long time.

  UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
  Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether he intends to lead the British delegation to the September meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
  The Prime Minister: I think it is too soon to take a decision on this point. I would naturally go to the General Assembly meeting if at the time it seemed likely to be useful.
  Mr. Henderson: Would the Prime Minister bear in mind that the September meeting of the General Assembly would provide him with an opportunity for meeting President Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev and other national leaders without the publicity and formality of a summit conference? Would he therefore indicate that he would be willing to go to that meeting if Mr. Khrushchev indicated his readiness to go?
  The Prime Minister: Of course I would be wiling to do anything which would be helpful. I still think that much depends on the events of the next few days. If those go well, we can see the best way to develop the next steps.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will be the Prime Minister when this meeting takes place?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Member has spent seven years trying to stop me and he has not succeeded yet.

  CIVIL AVIATION (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)
  Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Prime Minister which Minister will now be responsible for civil aviation.
  Mr. Rankinasked the Prime Minister if he now proposes to appoint a Minister of Civil Aviation.
  The Prime Minister: It has been announced in the White Paper on Defence Reorganisation that the Ministry of Aviation is to remain an independent Department, although with closer links with the Ministry of Defence. The Government have also carefully considered in the light of the study of the matter which Sir Frank Lee made at my request whether responsibility for the civil aspects of aviation should remain with that Department. One possibility would be to transfer responsibility to the Ministry of Transport; but it is undesirable to increase the existing very heavy load on that Department. Some

  1259
  advantages might be derived from the creation of a separate Department to deal with transport overseas, whether by sea or by air; but these are outweighed by those of retaining the existing single responsibility for transport by land and sea while the reorganisation of the British ports system and the problems of the shipbuilding industries need special attention. The Government have therefore concluded that responsibility for civil aviation should for the present remain with the Ministry of Aviation.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the aircraft industry today is looked on generally as a leader industry achieving great results in exports, as we have heard recently, and will continue to do so in the immediate years ahead? Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that some of us feel that if the Minister of Aviation moves into the Ministry of Defence building these aspects of the economics of exports could, to some extent, come under the Ministry of Defence, which could be dangerous? Will my right hon. Friend look at this, and, if anything, upgrade the Minister of Aviation to Cabinet rank, equal in rank to the Minister of Defence?
  The Prime Minister: It is these considerations which have led us to decide not to divide the Ministry or to transfer it to the new Ministry of Defence. As my hon. Friend knows so well, it is undesirable to divorce military and civil business, whether in production, or, still more, in research and development, and this applies not only to aircraft but to the very complex electronic equipment now needed for the control of air traffic.
  Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend say whether the latter passage of his last answer means that the Minister of Aviation is now completely, totally, and wholly responsible for overseeing the interests of the automative industry which is of paramount and growing importance to the survival of this nation? If this is so, does not this reinforce the need for this Minister to be in the Cabinet?
  The Prime Minister: These are two separate things. The position of a Minister in the Cabinet at any given time is a matter for consideration. What we are trying to do—and it will be debated next week I think—is to decide how to operate the new defence system and what
  1260
  exactly should be the position of the Minister of Aviation in it. I think that at any rate for the next period it is going to be a big job to bring the whole of our defence into a single system, and what we have decided is the right solution.

  SECURITY
  The following Question stood upon the Order Paper.
  Mr. ARTHUR LEWIS: To ask the Prime Minister, whether he will give an assurance that subject to the maintenance of State security, he will continue to answer questions which deal with alleged neglect upon the part of Ministers and/or their civil servants, or those in the employ of the State, so far as these questions affect his department.
  Mr. Speaker: Mr. Lewis. Dame Irene Ward.
  Mr. P. Williams: On a point of order. What is the position of the House when a Question of this nature and importance is put down, and then, the hon. Member having put it down, he creeps away with attendant publicity to a foreign country. The Question then may be given a Written Answer and hon. Members may not put supplementary questions.
  Mr. Speaker: The position of the House is that I called the hon. Member who put his name to the Question, received no reply, and called the next Question. Dame Irene Ward.

  WIDOWED MOTHERS (EARNINGS RULE)
  Dame Irene Wardasked the Prime Minister if he will agree to meet the hon. Member for Tynemouth to discuss the problems of widowed mothers and the earnings rule, and the extension of the widowed mothers' allowance to children awaiting entry to universities.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Dame Irene Ward: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that very gracious reply, may I ask him to assure me that the meeting will take place quite shortly? Having regard to our old relationship when my right hon. Friend was a back bencher, will he bear in mind that I

  1261
  shall want action, as he used to want action in the days when he used to pummel his own Front Bench?
  The Prime Minister: I am looking forward to the meeting with the hon. Lady, but she must not frighten me too much before it takes place.
  Mr. Wade: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that this case of the widowed mothers and the earnings rule is one of a number of anomalies in the welfare services which should be looked into? There is a great time-lag between these anomalies arising and anything being done about them. Would not it be possible to have regular machinery whereby these matters are reported to the House, say annually, so that attention can be given to them?
  Dame Irene Ward: Stand on my side, Harold.
  The Prime Minister: I think that the machinery which the hon. Lady suggests is a very good one.
  Mr. Longden: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that one of the meanest of the anomalies is the differentiation between Service widows who were bereaved before and after 3rd November, 1958?
  The Prime Minister: I am ready to consider these matters as a result of these questions and I hope that we may be able to find some solution.
  Dame Irene Ward: I thank my right hon. Friend.

  FUEL AND POWER TARGETS
  Mr. Warbeyasked the Prime Minister what steps he has taken to co ordinate the action of Ministers concerned in order to ensure the publication, without delay, of official fuel and power targets, allocated between the appropriate industries, for each of the next 10 years and for the decade as a whole.
  The Prime Minister: The co-ordination of the action of Ministers is secured through the normal process of administration. As regards the latter part of the Question, it would not be in the
  1262
  national interest for the Government to predetermine the precise level of production for each fuel industry.
  Mr. Warbey: First, may I thank the Prime Minister for confirming that he does not carry these figures in his head, because they do not exist even on paper. Secondly, I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would tell us how it is possible for the two main variable elements in this equation—namely, the nuclear power programme for which no target is fixed beyond 1968 and the oil industry which is under the control of private enterprise, which is not precisely concerned with the public good—can be co-ordinated with the national plan unless a national plan is worked out?
  The Prime Minister: I think that our object must be to secure supplies of energy which are sufficient to sustain economic growth, on terms that will assist that growth, A degree of competition between various fuels can be very healthy, and indeed has had very good results both in design and production.
  Sir C. Osborne: Will my right hon. Friend remember that when a fuel committee of this kind was arranged by a Socialist Government in 1951 every forecast that it made was proved wrong, and that these highfalutin forecasting Government bodies nearly always are wrong and product; bad results?
  The Prime Minister: I shall bear all these things in mind, but I do not think that this was the only forecast made between 1945 and 1951 that was wrong.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Prime Minister aware that the approved programme for electricity generation made by the present Ministry of Power only two years ago has had to be thrown out by the N.I.C. on the ground that the Ministry's official target for electricity production bears no relation to the Government's newly accepted 4 per cent. target of expansion?
  The Prime Minister: Our purpose must be to produce sufficient supplies. To lay down, as I am asked to do, a precise figure for each without regard to changing conditions, techniques and competition between them would be a mistake.

  UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL FUND
  Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about the recent conversations between members of Her Majesty's Government and Mr. Paul Hoffman, head of the United Nations Special Fund; and what increased contributions Her Majesty's Government intend to make to the Special Fund for the forthcoming financial year.
  The Prime Minister: Mr. Hoffman was in London last week for a one-day visit, but he did not see members of Her Majesty's Government on that occasion. He discussed some technical questions with officials.
  A decision about the United Kingdom contribution to the Special Fund for next year will not be taken until October, when it will be announced, subject to Parliamentary approval, at the United Nations Pledging Conference.
  Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the Prime Minister recall that Her Majesty's Government's delegate voted for this most important plan, the success of which is of major interest to the Commonwealth, and that our contribution hitherto has borne no relation to the requirements of the plan for which we voted?
  The Prime Minister: We made a good contribution which was up to the standard of other countries. I saw Mr. Hoffman, not on this occasion, but when he came here some weeks ago, and discussed the whole matter with him. We shall take all this into account when we make our decision in October.
  Mr. Prentice: But does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when we voted for this expansion in the autumn of 1960, it was for an expansion of 50 per cent. in 1961 and further expansion in the following years? In fact the expansion has
  1264
  fallen far short of that. There was hardly any expansion in 1961, and only 25 per cent. last year. At the coming Pledging Conference will the Government pledge a much larger contribution and urge all the other countries to do the same?
  The Prime Minister: I think that our record of contributions to all these various agencies and efforts compares very favourably with that of many of the great countries of the world.
  Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the Prime Minister recognise that we have a much greater interest in the success of this plan than most other nations? Will he remember what my hon. Friend has just said, that there has not been the expansion in our contribution to which we pledged ourselves three years ago?
  The Prime Minister: I think that we have carried out fully what we have been asked to do. They might like still more, but I understand that the nature of the work is to provide assistance for pre-investment projects, and it is really to devise methods before the question of aid and development arises. I think that this work is on the whole going on satisfactorily.
  Mr. Pavitt: Will the Prime Minister use his influence to alter the system of annual pledging in October and ratification the following year, which stultifies the whole working not only of the Special Fund but of technical assistance through the United Nations and the special agencies, to one with a much longer term whereby assistance might be given more effectively?
  The Prune Minister: I think that it is asking me to do a great deal if I am to alter the procedure of the United Nations. We shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman says to see whether we can make some useful suggestions for a different procedure.

  SUMMARY JURISDICTION
  3.30 p.m.
  Mrs. Judith Hart: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that any person of the age of eighteen years or under who is sentenced by a court of summary jurisdiction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds shall be entitled to seven days within which to pay such fine.
  My proposed Bill is a modest one and carries out what I believe to be an essential reform. It would be supported by hon. Members of all three parties who are, individually, members of the National Council for Civil Liberties. It relates to the treatment by a court of summary jurisdiction of persons found guilty of minor offences and sentenced to the payment of a fine, and, in default of that payment, to a short period of imprisonment.
  I firmly believe that it would be very wrong to separate in any way the treatment of those who have come in recent years to be called political prisoners from those of other categories, and I would not wish to do so. Nevertheless, a number of cases have been brought to my attention and to the attention of other hon. Members as a result of recent political demonstrations, both at the time of the Cuba crisis, last autumn, and two weeks ago, in London.
  I want to quote one example of the kind of thing that has been brought to my attention. Two weeks ago. at Marlborough Street Court, 10 persons, two of whom were under the age of 19—and this is the age group to which the Bill refers—were fined, for offences carried out during the demonstrations in London, amounts of £2 plus costs amounting to between 40s. and three guineas, plus various sureties, on binding over, in the sum of £20, and so on. None of them was given time to pay his fine. Therefore, unless he had the money in his pocket at the time, he was committed to prison in default of payment of his fine. These people were committed to prison for periods ranging from one month to two months in default of the payment of the fine.
  If it were the case that, when this kind of sentence is imposed by a court upon a young offender, he has permission and is given the
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  opportunity to make contact, from the court, with friends or with his family, who may then be asked to pay the fine, and if that had been the case here the situation would have been different, but not one of these young persons was given permission to make a telephone call from the court. None of them could inform his family or friends that he was being taken to prison because he did not have £5 or £6 on him at the time. Since most of these were young people it was not surprising that they were not carrying £5 or £6 at the; time of their arrest.
  One example was that of a 17-year-old grammar school girl. She is in the sixth form of a grammar school in the London area. Her parents were on holiday, and she had no friends in court when her case came before the magistrate. As a result, although she asked for permission to make a telephone call from the court, it was refused, and she was taken to Holloway because she did not have the money to pay her fine. Again, when she reached Holloway, she asked for permission to make a telephone call, but was told, quite correctly, that the regulations did not allow for any other than one letter to be sent on the day after admission. This means that two days must elapse between being taken through the admission procedure at Holloway to the point at which a prisoner's family may receive a letter informing them of what has occurred.
  This girl went through the whole admission procedure. Hon. Members may know, from some reports that have recently been written about prison procedures, that the general conclusion of those who are sent to prison for the first time is that it is those first 24 hours—the admission procedure period—which provide the shock and degradation to those who have never expected to find themselves in such a place.
  The girl in question, and others who were above the age of 19—to whom the Bill does not refer—were subjected to the usual medical examination. Their clothes were taken from them and they had four or five hours sitting around in the prison, in dressing gowns, waiting for the further formalities to be gone through. They had an issue of prison clothing. They had all to go through the rather degrading procedure which is quite normal for those admitted to any

  1267
  prison. One young girl who happened to be an Anglo-Catholic was not allowed to retain her rosary, being told, "You are only an Anglo-Catholic. There is no need for you to have a rosary". This sort of humiliation is an inevitable result of the admission procedure.
  This girl got out of Holloway by half past nine that evening, but she was able to do so only because the W.V.S., whose representatives are frequently in attendance at Holloway, were informed of her predicament and were able to get in touch with friends, who came along and paid her fine.
  Some difficulties of this kind where young people are committed to prison in default of a payment of a fine arise because the court does not accept cheques in payment of fines. I have an example of this quoted in a letter from somebody who was arrested in the Cuba crisis demonstrations last autumn. She says:
  "We were fined £2 each and we each had to pay five guineas costs. My sister had one cheque with her which she was going to sign for the total cost of £14 10s. The police sergeant refused to accept one cheque for both of us, saying that I had to pay my fine separately. Fortunately, a very kind and sympathetic policeman offered to help us by donning a civilian coat and calling at the bank to change my sister's cheque. He returned with the money and we were able to pay separately in cash. Neither my sister nor I have been fined previously. There was no question of us being given time to pay."
  This was a ludicrous situation, where these two young girls had to rely on a particularly kind policeman.
  I took up with the Home Secretary the whole question of the acceptance of the payment of a fine by cheque. I had some correspondence with one of the Joint Under-Secretarys and, oddly enough, on the very day on which I gave notice that I would seek leave to bring in this Bill—in fact, one hour after I had done so—I had a letter from the Joint Undersecretary telling me that under Section 69 of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, a court is required to allow an offender who cannot pay a fine forthwith at least seven days to pay unless some special circumstance justifies immediate committal.
  Looking at that Section of that Act one sees what those special circumstances are supposed to be. It says:
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  "A magistrates court on adjudging a person to pay a sum by conviction shall, subject to the provisions of the next following subsection, allow him at least seven days to pay the sum or the first instalment of the sum"
  and the qualifying conditions are, if he does not seem to have sufficient means to pay the sum forthwith, or if he does not ask for time to pay, or if he fails to satisfy the court that he has a fixed abode, or
  "there is some other special circumstance appearing to the court to justify immediate committal."
  I imagine that the intention of the law here is quite clearly that people should be given time to pay, unless there are particular circumstances, and that those clearly are intended to apply only to the minority of offenders convicted and asked to pay fines. But what seems to be the position of offenders of the kind to whom I am referring? The 1961 Report of the Prison Commission shows that receptions under sentence of imprisonment in default of the payment of a fine, where no time to pay was granted by the courts—including all ages—totalled 3,408, compared with the figure of those who were given time to pay of 4,403.
  So, in fact, 56 per cent. were given time to pay and 44 per cent. were not, presumably because they did not have a fixed abode, or did not look as if they could pay, or because there were special circumstances which made it necessary for the court to commit them to prison without giving time to pay a fine. That figure of 44 per cent. does not seem to me to be a correct interpretation of the intention of the law under the Magistrates' Courts Act.
  If we look a little further and take the figures for those under the age of 21, we find that in 1961 those given no time to pay were 158 males and 69 females. Those given time to pay were 269 males and 27 females. It is difficult to correlate this information with the figures in the Report for those who were actually received into prison for various types of offences.
  One cannot correlate these according to people under 21 from the statistics given in 1961. But of those committed for various offences who were there in default of payment of a fine, taking the whole adult population of the prison, one finds that

  1269
  only a small minority were there because they had committed offences under the heading of "other offences". In other words, we are here dealing primarily not with people guilty of violence or theft or serious crimes, but with a general category of other offences. Of 201 women committed to prison because they were not allowed time to pay a fine, 79 were under 25, and of126 sentenced to not more than one month 131 had had no previous institutional sentence.
  I am certain that it is correct to allow the courts the maximum amount of flexibility in the way in which they deal with offences. But one wonders whether there is developing in the courts a tendency to use the no-time-to-pay system as a means of giving offenders a taste of prison which the magistrates feel might be a good thing for them. If that is the case, the law needs to be amended in order that it cannot happen. There are many other ways in which the courts of summary jurisdiction can give offenders a brief taste of prison without using a mechanism which is not in accord with the intention of the 1952 Act.
  A court has the power to collect a fine and if seven days are allowed in which to pay, and payment is not made, the court has adequate procedures at its disposal to make sure that the money is collected.
  If the House gives me permission to bring in my short and simple Bill my proposition will refer to those of 18 and under. I have made it that age, because I wish to gain the support of the whole House. There is a strong case for relating it to a far wider age group. But let us begin with these youngsters for whom it cannot be a good tiling that, having committed a minor offence for which the imposition of a fine would be appropriate, they should be put into contact with more serious offenders in prison even though only for a few nights.
  I propose, therefore, that they shall always be given seven days in which to pay a fine and that there should be a modification of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952.
  Question put and agreed to,
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Hart, Miss Vickers, Mr. Lubbock, and Mr. Greenwood.
  SUMMARY JURISDICTION
  Bill to provide that any person of the age of eighteen years or under who is sentenced by a court of summary jurisdiction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds shall be entitled to seven days within which to pay such fine, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday 26th July and to be printed. [Bill 149.]

  NEW WRIT (STRATFORD)
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the county constituency of Stratford in the room of John Dennis. Profumo, esquire, O.B.E., who, since his election for the said county constituency, hath accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the County of Buckingham.—[Mr. Redmayne.]
  3.47 p.m.
  Mr. E. Shinwell: In the absence of satisfactory and sound reasons for this Motion, I shall oppose it; and unless substantial reasons are advanced before the end of the debate the Patronage Secretary may be under the necessity of recalling a large body of Conservative Members of Parliament from Buckingham Palace, where they are now attending a garden party.
  If we are to be accorded a satisfactory reason, or reasons, for the Government decision to indulge in what can only be regarded as unseemly haste, then the one man to reply to this debate should be the Prime Minister. I regret the absence of the right hon. Gentleman. But no doubt perhaps the Patronage Secretary or the Leader of the House—just the man for the job—will be the representative, wearing the appropriate hat, of the Conservative Central Office—
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): A hard hat.
  Mr. Shinwell: As the occasion is Stratford-ort-Avon, perhaps I may be

  1271
  permitted to indulge in a Shakespearean quotation:
  "A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very good friends".
  If that quotation is not precisely relevant, may I venture another quotation which is relevant at the present time to the situation at the Conservative Central Office:
  "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts. And men have lost their reason"
  Is not that a perfectly adequate description? For after all, what is the reason for this remarkable and unseemly haste?
  The gentleman who is to be the Conservative candidate at Stratford-on-Avon was once an hon. Member of this Assembly, a man of integrity, I have no doubt, a man of intellectual quality, that I concede. But he decided to resign and went to Australia to undertake the task of editing an important newspaper. Then he returned. Immediately he returned he was snapped up by the Conservative Central Office and pitch-forked into the South Dorset by-election. There appears to be no hope, not even the remotest hope, of the Conservative Party regaining the seat of Dorset, South. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Barnett) has proved his worth already. It is necessary to find a seat for Mr. Angus Maude; I can mention his name without transgressing Standing Orders. He may not have fully recovered from his escapade in Dorset, South. Why rush him into this venture? Let us ascertain the reasons for this decision. I have no doubt that the Leader of the House is fully armed with precedents—[Hon. Members: "Oh."] Let us assume that he has; if so, I dismiss them at once.
  This is a unique occasion. The Conservative Central Office is in a panic; there is no doubt about that. Many seats have been lost, many more are to be lost. There is a spot of trouble on the Conservative back benches and in spite of every effort to conceal it, or smother it, it reappears now and again not merely in the form of a shadow, but endowed with substance.
  So hon. Members opposite have to rush this by-election and get it over quickly. What for? To raise the
  1272
  deteriorating morale of the Conservative Party. That is all it is. Why indulge in this particular task? In order to prevent the Labour Party from organising its resources in time for the election? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I expected that. I do not know whether to describe the interruption as jeers or cat-calls.
  Never mind about the Labour Party; it can look after itself, but what about the Liberal Party? This is a democracy. Even in recent by-elections we had a vast number of ex-Service men, or those who hoped to be ex-Service men, who sought to be nominated to various constituencies. No one ventured to frown upon their decision, although at the end of the day they found that there were physical and perhaps financial and other difficulties in their path. Everyone has a right to come into this House and must be accorded an opportunity in time and not rushed into an election in this panic-stricken fashion.
  Mr. Arthur Holt: May I clear up any misunderstanding? Mr. Profumo did not resign until June, but the Liberal Party has had a candidate in this constituency since May.
  Mr. Shinwell: There is nothing like eager expectancy, whether the by-election is to take place in August, next year or whenever the General Election comes. Perhaps the Leader of the House might furnish a little information on that subject. We are all very anxious to know, myself in particular. I have a majority of only 28,000. [Laughter.] If some hon. Members are hard up for votes, I can sell them a few.
  I venture to give a reason for this decision. I have had very little time, I admit, to consider it. I learned only this morning that the Patronage Secretary was to present the decision of the Government about the Stratford-on-Avon vacancy to the House today. Nevertheless, I have had a little time to cogitate. I have come to the conclusion that the reason the Government have decided to rush this by-election is that Lord Denning is to submit his report during the Recess, and heaven knows what will be in that report. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If any hon. Member imagines that I am casting aspersions

  1273
  on any hon. Member, or anyone outside he is mistaken, not even on Mr. Profumo. I have a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Profumo. I have some compassion. If there had been a little more Christian charity—I can say that with feeling and understanding—perhaps there would not have been so much harshness indulged in about that gentleman. I leave it there.
  No, I am not casting aspersions at anyone. I am pointing out that Lord Denning's report, having regard to the vast number of witnesses who have to be examined and statements which are current—whether they are true or not I am unable to say—and references to security, which is a matter which concerns every hon. Member on either side of the House, are matters which might come before the country at a time when Parliament is unable to debate them.
  So this by-election has to be rushed because there may be something in the Denning report which may make some impact on the electors at that election. It has been suggested since I came here this afternoon that there is a substantial reason why this election should be rushed—because the electors in Stratford-on-Avon have no representative in Parliament. The answer to that is that if there is an election in August, and a Conservative is returned, or a Labour man, or a Liberal is returned, as the case may be—all in the lap of the gods and of the electors of Stratford—the electors will not be represented until the person returned has taken the oath. He cannot act on behalf of his constituents until then. So that argument can disappear.
  I have no desire to hold up the proceedings. My Scottish hon. Friends are anxious to discuss legal matters concerning Scotland. I have no desire to prevent any hon. Member, particularly on this side of the House, in view of the possibility of a Division, disappearing to Buckingham Palace, to the garden party. They have our consent, but I submit that we are entitled, on this occasion, having regard to all the circumtances, to demand from the Leader of the House, in the absence of the Prime Minister, satisfactory, sound and substantial reasons and arguments why, at this time, the Government should indulge in unseemly haste in rushing this by-election.
  3.59 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: Whether or not judgment may have "fled to brutish beasts", it is clear from his speech that "Manny" has not lost his reason. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) tested our patience by quoting. I thought that he was going to refer to Tennyson's "Come Into The Garden Maud", the garden, of course, being virtually the garden of Eden, or rather now, Avon.
  In my humble suggestion, this Motion is unprecedented, certainly since the Representation of the People Act of 1949, and it is open to the gravest possible exception. It originated rather in sin, because although Parliament does not ask for the notice to be given on the Order Paper upon the moving of a Writ, it is equally clear that notice arrived in Fleet Street of this intention at least two days before any hon. Member heard about it—and, presumably, via Newfoundland, where a keener interest has been taken in the fortunes of the Conservative Party and its leader than in Oldham.
  The objection to this procedure is grave and serious. In the circumstances in which the Writ is moved it is an indefensible procedure. I appreciate and apprehend that there is a perfectly fair point in saying that Mr. Speaker's power to move the Writ in Recess does not apply in the case of a Steward of the Manor of Northstead, as in this case, and that, therefore, the Writ must be moved in the House. But the House is due to sit until 2nd August. Were it moved even then it would avoid the most manifest and serious objections which are apparent.
  The 1949 Act imposes on the returning officer and the Clerk in Chancery certain time limitations, which are imperative. It is a misdemeanour on the part of a returning officer or Clerk in Chancery not to comply with the rather rigid timetable laid down. I apprehend, though I cannot offhand recall, its precise details. However, the Government have overlooked so many things recently that one might be forgiven wondering about the present procedure, remembering that August Bank Holiday Monday is on 5th August; at any rate, it is well into August.
  The result is that if this Writ is issued today—and, presumably, to the Clerk in

  1275
  Chancery tomorrow; and he has power to inform the returning officer by telegraphic process if he thinks fit—we shall be faced with a situation in which a by-election of some significance and importance will be held by a returning officer who must take on all the extra work involved in the preparation for the election, arranging officers, and so on, all in Bank Holiday week.
  I realise that hon. Members may tell me that August Bank Holiday is dies non and will not count and that if a day of public mourning is proclaimed during that time that, too, will not count. Nevertheless, we still have a serious proposition: that even if one takes the most liberal interpretation of the timetable, this by-election is likely to take place in the week after August Bank Holiday week. This time seems to have been shrewdly calculated—or, at least, that has been hinted in the Press—for a large number of workers may be taking their annual holiday a long way from Stratford and will not be able to get in their cars and drive back to vote during their holiday.
  If this has not occurred to the Leader of the House or the Patronage Secretary I suggest that they could easily deal with it by saying, "We will postpone the issue for a few days". But if it has occurred to them it seems that this is a negation of every desire which is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House in general; that there shall be a fair determination of the result and that there shall be offered a fair opportunity for all the candidates to make themselves heard and to hold meetings—and I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that not the best day for doing this is August Bank Holiday Monday—and to allow the great majority of the electors to exercise that right which is accorded to them only once every five years.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington made references which would please the cynicism of Shaw. I can think of a succession of quotations from Shaw and it is worth recalling that his three first unpleasant plays, as he called them, have been playing at the Palace of Westminster for the last few weeks. We have had "Mrs. Warren's Profession", "The Philanderer" and yesterday we had "Widowers' Houses". For the record,
  1276
  it seems that we are to move on to "The Devil's Disciple"
  I hope that the electors—those who are there and able to vote and who are not away on holiday—will, if this Writ is carried, hesitate a little about that. Meantime, I ask the Government Chief Whip to hesitate a little and to wonder whether he will win any more sympathy for the Government and for the party which used to support them, if he insists upon holding a by-election of this kind in these circumstances and at this time of the year when, clearly, it could conveniently be postponed, at any rate for a short time, and so give a fair opportunity for the electors to return home and record their votes.
  4.5 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: I would like to begin by making it clear that the Liberal Party is ready to challenge the Government in Stratford-on-Avon any time they choose. At the same time, there is a good deal of substance in what the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) said about workers being away for their holidays at the time the by-election may be held.
  Everyone knows—including the Leader of the House—that the motor car firms always take their annual holidays at that time. For this reason there seems to be something fishy about the choice of this date. I say that without prejudice to what I said at the start of my remarks; that we are ready to challenge the Tories whenever they are ready.
  I recall that at the time of the by-election which brought me to this place the Writ had been so long delayed that my constituents had to get up a petition asking for it to be issued. My predecessor, Judge Sumner, resigned in September and although ample opportunity existed for a Motion for a Writ to be issued to be placed on the Order Paper, that was not done until late in February the following year. The by-election did not take place until 14th March, so that six months elapsed between the resignation of my predecessor and the date of the by-election.
  I draw the attention of hon. Members to two important points. First, the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said that he was not concerned with precedents. I have had them looked up

  1277
  and I find that only one case has occurred since the war of a by-election being held in August. That was for one of the Ulster constituencies, where the hon. Member concerned kept going to prison. That continued to happen until it was impossible to delay the holding of a by-election any longer and it was in fact, held during the inconvenient month of August. In that case there was no difficulty of so many of the constituents taking their holidays in that one month, the situation which faces Stratford-on-Avon.
  The second important point is that Mr. Profumo resigned on 5th June, but Lord Hill of Luton was made a peer on 8th June, only three days later. We are entitled to know why this Writ is so urgent that it must be issued today when nothing has been said about the issuing of a Writ for Luton. The Writ for the Luton by-election should, logically, be issued three days after this one; but I have no reason to believe that the Government have any intention of bringing the Luton Writ forward between now and the Summer Recess.
  These matters must be cleared up before we assent to the Motion before the House. However. I repeat that the Liberal Party is ready to challenge the Government in Stratford-on-Avon at any time they may choose.
  4.9 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: I wish to support the protests made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). I do so on what I regard as even more elevated constitutional grounds than those which he cited. There are extremely important constitutional problems involved in the case which has arisen and, indeed, in the whole manner in which Governments and Oppositions propose the date on which Writs should be issued. There is no more delicate matter for the House to consider than its relations with the elections that may take place in the country.
  At the end of the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth century the House of Commons used to spend perhaps six months or twelve months after a General Election discussing whether the people who got here had any right to be here. The House used to receive a whole series of petitions. Indeed, it was the main business for a
  1278
  year or more after a General Election to discuss the process of election itself.
  As a result of these persistent disputes, the House came to realise that it was most undignified and most injurious to the reputation of Parliament that Parliament itself should be discussing who were the people who had a right to sit in the House of Commons. This same issue was raised more famously in the Wilkes case, when eventually the House of Commons resigned or abandoned its powers to interfere with the processes of election itself. Therefore, it is an anomaly in one sense that the only real power which the House now has to interfere with the dates of elections is that which is left to the Chief Patronage Secretary and the Opposition Chief Whip to propose the date when writs should be issued for elections.
  I suggest to the House seriously that this is bound to give rise to invidious disputes at various times when proposals are made for elections. Always there will be the suspicion, even if it is not justified, that one side or the other is using this remaining power to have an election at a time which is most beneficial to itself. It is no good the Leader of the House looking shocked, as if this idea had never occurred to him. I see that the Chief Patronage Secretary is smiling for the first time for the past three months. He has seen something funny at last. The idea that the Chief Patronage Secretary should not consider primarily the interests of his own party has brought a laugh even to his stony face.
  It is the fact that each party uses these occasions to pick the date to suit it best. I seriously suggest that this is not in the best interests of the House. It would be much better if both sides would agree that, following the application of a Member for the Chiltern Hundreds, or the death of a Member, there should be a fixed period within which such a Motion should be moved. Then no suspicion could arise against either side as to the date on which it moved for a Writ. This would be a much better way of doing it. Then the Chief Patronage Secretary would not be open to the charges which all of us are making against him today and which he knows to be so peculiarly apposite.
  This is illustrated by this case, because, as has been said already, it is the most

  1279
  shocking example which we have had for many years of the use by a Government of the remaining power which they have to interfere with the process of election in their own interests. It is obvious that the reason why the Government—this is obvious to everybody; it is what has been printed in the Press before we were ever informed about the matter—are making this selection of a date is that they want to have the lowest possible poll in this election. This is a scandalous way for the Government to use their power. It will cast suspicion on the way in which this power is used in the future.
  It is a very rare thing for a protest to be made against the issue of a Writ I suggest to the Government that, in view of this protest, the best thing for them to do is not to ram it through with their majority, but to take account of what has been said and say that they will reconsider the matter and will bring forward another date. If they accompany that with a general proposal that they are willing to discuss with the Opposition the general procedure under which this whole process could be carried out in a more seemly fashion, we shall have gained something from the piece of trickery which the Government are attempting to put across us.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington began his speech with a series of Shakespearean quotations. When I look along the Treasury Bench, all other Shakespearean quotations are driven from my mind except for the simple one:
  "There's small choice in rotten apples."
  I can understand the Government's desire to try to alter this image, but at least they should not do it in such a shameful and devious way as they are attempting to employ today.
  4.16 p.m.
  Sir Jocelyn Lucas: I should like to give a precedent.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Shakespeare.
  Sir J. Lucas: Not Shakespeare.
  In July, 1939, towards the end of a Parliament, a by-election arose in Portsmouth. Directly I was adopted it was rushed forward—nobody protested—so that we could get it over before Goodwood, and we did.
  4.17 p.m.
  Mr. Guy Barnett: The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Sir J. Lucas) has quoted one precedent. I am entitled to quote another, which occurred last year. The seat which I now hold fell vacant at roughly the same time of the year as Stratford-on-Avon fell vacant, yet it was decided that the electors of Dorset, South should remain unrepresented until 22nd October of that year.
  I wish to ask the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House why the electors of Dorset, South were kept waiting for so long in 1962 when, at the same time of the year, the electors of Stratford-on-Avon are being treated so specially well.
  The House is entitled to consider seriously the interests of the electors of Luton who remain disfranchised for all this period. The Government should give a satisfactory answer to the questions why the by-elections last year were allowed to wait for five months and why the electors of Luton are being kept waiting, whereas the electors of Stratford-on-Avon are receiving this very special treatment.
  4.18 p.m.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: I want to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). We owe him a debt of gratitude for raising this matter today. I agree very much with the proposal advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot). A definite procedure should be agreed between the two sides. The practice of selecting the most advantageous date for the interests of party should be abolished as soon as possible. I hope that the Chief Patronage Secretary will seriously consider making representations to the Opposition Front Bench on this matter.
  I want to devote the major portion of my argument to the case of workers who may be on holiday. Undoubtedly, a fair number of workpeople will be on holiday in the relevant week. This is monstrous. Those of us who have been deeply embroiled in political struggle through the years know that the active people in any party are the workers. They are the people who make up the rank and file of the Labour Party or the Liberal Party or the Tory Party. I put the Tory Party

  1281
  last. It is not necessarily in order of merit that I place the parties in this order.
  We have here a real chance to show the country that on both sides of the House we believe in democracy and in the ordinary workpeople. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I know that there are mutterings by hon. Members opposite. Many hon. Members opposite do not believe in democracy. This was illustrated clearly by the remarks made by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Sir J. Lucas) when he told a funny story to make his contribution to the debate.
  But some of us do not regard this as a time when we should tell funny stories. We think that this is serious and that great regard ought to be paid to the fact that many workpeople will be on holiday during that period and that many of them will be unable to get back for the election. They do not all have cars, and they cannot afford to pay a double fare to return home the day of the election. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite talk as if workers had plenty of money and they were all in the £20a-week class. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] Stop muttering, you, and if you have anything to say, get up and say it.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I was not muttering. But this habit is growing, and it interferes with our debate; it is essential that observations should be addressed to the Chair.
  Mr. Manuel: I apologise for using the word "you", Mr. Speaker. I certainly did not mean you. You know that I did not mean you, and you know who I did mean. I humbly apologise, but I ask you, when the House is dealing with a subject which some of us consider to be serious, to control the ignoramuses on the other side of the House who have been making those remarks.
  I want to propose—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] The hon. and gallant Member for Davenport is a bladder of ignorance.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport: On a point of order, coupled with a point of behaviour. Should the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) refer to me as the hon. Member for Davenport when I
  1282
  am the proud and happy representative of the division of Knutsford?
  Mr. Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) would not have misnamed the constituency save in error, but if we are all to correct our errors all the time we shall not get on.
  Mr. Manuel: I am sorry, but if the cap fits….
  I want to finish by pointing out that there may be a few Service men who want to be ex-Service men and who want to play some part in politics. They may want to be candidates. They ought to be given the opportunity to qualify to stand as candidate it they so wish. I hope that the Leader of the House will take some note of these points and give this matter the serious consideration which I, at any rate, think that it deserves.
  4.23 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): May I reply, starting with the general and moving to the particular? The general point raised by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) and other hon. Members is as to how the House should discharge its duty in these matters. The position as I understand it is that any hon. Member can, if he so desires, at any time after a seat becomes vacant move a Writ. But for a long time it has been the convention of the House that that Writ should be moved by the representative of the party which was successful at the previous election in that seat.
  I do not know exactly how long this has been going on, but I know that in 1905 there was an exchange of letters between the two parties of the day, the Liberal and Conservative parties, confirming this, and saying—this is still carried out—that they would give 24 hours' notice to the parties in the House of their intention to move the Writ. It has been going on for a very long time.
  The House will see at once that if this were altered—that is to say, if it were put to a vote of the House—the people who would lose would be the minority party, because inevitably the Government could then pick the date for every by-election. For example, if an hon. Member of the opposition party died suddenly, and if, in that seat, the Government had a candidate, perhaps adopted only a few

  1283
  days before, and if the Government could move the Writ at once, that would put the opposition party concerned, or the minority parties, as the House will agree, in a very difficult position.
  This tradition, therefore, which like most of our traditions and conventions has grown up in this way, has a great deal of sense behind it. It may be that somebody can think of a better way—and I do not rule out the suggestion that there should be talks about it—but, on the whole, I think that it has worked satisfactorily over the years, and that we should be very chary of changing it, because, as Leader of the House, I am sure that this rule, with the Government having the majority in the House, is a protection to the party which forms the Opposition. We should, therefore, think very carefully indeed before we adopted any other method.
  The second question asked is whether there is any distinction between this seat and the other seats which are vacant, or, if hon. Members like to take the point, the seat of South Dorset a year or two ago. The answer is, "Yes, there is". The seats which are vacant at the moment, three of which were Conservative-held at the last election and one of which was Labour-held, are Belfast, South, Luton, Stratford-on-Avon and West Dundee. Two of those have become vacant because of death, one because of being appointed to a peerage and the other, that which we are considering at the moment, because of the technical arrangements for taking an office of profit under the Crown.
  I think that I am right in saying that the Writ in respect of a peerage, which applies to Luton, and which also applied to Dorset, South a year ago, and the Writs which have arisen as a result of the sad death of two of our former colleagues, one on each side of the House, can be moved when the House is not sitting, but that which we are considering cannot be so moved. There is, therefore, the strongest reason why this is different. One could move it next week if particular importance were attached to that. I will come to the point about holidays in a moment.
  To move it next week would still take in the period of August Bank holiday, and I cannot see any particular relevance
  1284
  in that point. The point which I make, and which the House will acknowledge, is that there is a distinction between Stratford-on-Avon and the other Writs which could be moved if either the Patronage Secretary or the Opposition Chief Whip chose to do so.
  The next point is that of precedents, which the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) dismissed so abruptly. There are precedents for a number of matters in these cases. Of the last two occasions when there had been objections moved to the Writ, one was Orpington in 1962, and the other was a by-election in 1957, The objection made in 1957 was that the Conservative Party was moving the Writ too swiftly. In 1962, the objection was that it was moving the Writ too slowly. In 1963, the objection is that we are moving the Writ too swiftly. Therefore, the point made by the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) is, with respect, perfectly valid; the action in this case is not as swift as all that, because this seat has now been vacant for seven weeks.
  I think that I carry the House on the general point of the convention we have had for many years which is, on the whole a protection, not for Governments, but for any minority party in the House.
  A number of hon. Members have said that to have an election in August, is for some reason, almost ex hypothesi unfair. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) said that he had found a precedent since the war, and he is quite right, in Mid-Ulster, but in 1946 the Writ for Glasgow, Bridgeton was moved in August and the poll took place in August—and that was a seat that had been held by the Labour Government—[An Hon. Member: "July."] I shall come to that, because there I think that the argument is with me.
  Stratford-on-Avon has no connection here with holidays, but Luton is an industrial town and has an annual holiday. I can understand the holiday argument, but that is not what we are considering here. Stratford-on-Avon is a tourist centre. As hon. Members very well must know, in July and August people do not go on holiday from Stratford-on-Avon; on the contrary, they take their holidays at other times of the year—
  Mr. Manuel: Not all of them.
  Mr. Macleod: Yes, I suggest they do, just as is done in many seaside resorts as well.
  I therefore make two points. First, someone might devise a timed method, but I do not believe that that would work, as there might well be complications in the selection of a candidate—for either side of the House. It might well be that the unions concerned or the local parties concerned might want rather longer, or be ready to go ahead rather earlier. I am content, subject to any better method being devised, to leave this to the Chief Whip of the party, however small that party may be, that held the seat at the previous election. I cannot believe that the House would be wise to go back on that arrangement.
  Secondly, there are precedents for this action as, indeed, there are precedents for most dates for the moving of Writs. Thirdly, I am sure that if one studies the special case of Stratford-on-Avon, the argument put forward in relation to holidays tells rather for the issue of the Writ at this time than against it.
  I believe, therefore, that the House would be wise to support the Motion.
  Mr. James Griffiths: Before the Leader of the House sits down, may I ask him a question? I shall not argue with him, although I a man old politician. I served on one of the Speaker's conferences in 1945. We used to have the register made up twice a year, but that was stopped for reasons of sheer economy. Is it not time to consider, in order to ensure that if we have a by-election or a General Election during the half-way period the register is up to date, restoring the earlier procedure by which the register was made up twice a year?
  Mr. Macleod: We can certainly look at that point. That was part of the objection, I remember it well, taken to the moving of the Writ in 1957. That, however, is rather a matter for discussion, if discussion be necessary. I do not think that it affects the principle, to which I advise the House to adhere, that the moving of the Writ should remain with the party that held the seat.
  4.35 p.m.
  Mr. E. Fernyhough: I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has been fair with us on one point We understand that all the hotel proprietors and boarding-
  1286
  house keepers in Stratford-on-Avon, from whom the Conservative Party in that constituency draws most of its support, will be able to vote in August, and will probably be taking their holidays, as most of those in that category of business do, in October or November, on the Continent. That is very often done.
  What the right hon. Gentleman has not told the House is that there are hundreds of commuters between Coventry and Birmingham and Stratford-on-Avon—engineers, electricians—who work in the Midlands and who will probably be on holiday in this very week. It is they who will be denied the right to vote, because a postal vote cannot be obtained if the ground is merely one of holidays.
  I put this point to the Leader of the House. Outside this House there is already a deep cynicism about Parliament, and that cynicism will grow if practices like this continue. The tree of democracy is not so deeply rooted that we can afford to have it poisoned with more cynicism, which is bound to happen if the man in the street and the factory feel that those who hold power are using it to prevent them from taking an active part in the decision that the country will make as a result of this by-election.
  4.37 p.m.
  Mr. Macleod: With the leave of the House, if it is needed, may I say that I am, of course, aware of that point but, with the holiday system as it is at the moment, that argument applies with very considerable force to by-elections in June and July—for which there are dozens of precedents on both sides—and to elections in many other months as well. I will say this to the hon. Gentleman and, across the Floor, to the Opposition Front Bench: I would dearly like to see legislation enabling people to vote when they are away on holiday, and if I could be assured of the Opposition's support I would be ready to bring in a Bill to that end.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the county constituency of Stratford in the room of John Dennis Profumo, esquire, O.B.E., who, since his election for the said county constituency. hath accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke. Desborough and Burnham in the County of Buckingham.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CRIMINAL JUSTICE (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]
  Order for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), read.
  4.40 p.m.
  Mr. Speaker: I wish to draw the attention of the House to a printing error on page 24 of the Bill. Clause 50 is there described as Clause 49. As this is a comparatively minor mistake and the Clauses are correctly numbered in the table of Clauses at the front of the Bill, I have not thought it necessary to have the Bill reprinted.
  Bill recommitted to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendments to Schedule 4, page 34, line 30, and page 35, line 19, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. William Ross, and in respect of the Amendment to Schedule 4, page 34, line 44, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Bruce Millan.—[Mr. Ross.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee.
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

  Schedule 4.—(AMENDMENT OF LEGAL AID (SCOTLAND) ACT 1949.)
  Mr. Bruce Millan: I beg to move, in page 34, line 30, at the end to insert:
  Provided that where the offence with which the accused is charged is an offence for which imprisonment without the option of a fine is a competent penalty, a legal aid certificate will be granted by the court unless in the opinion of the court there are special circumstances which make it inappropriate to grant such a certificate and in such a case the court shall state the reason for its opinion and the reason shall be entered in the record of the proceedings.
  The Chairman: I think that it would also be convenient to discuss the second Amendment, in line 30, and the third Amendment in page 35, line 19, with the Committee voting if required on the first and the third Amendments. These further Amendments are: In page 34, line 30, at end insert:
  Provided that where the offence with which the accused is charged is an offence for which imprisonment without the option of a fine is a competent penalty and a legal aid certificate is not granted by the court, the court shall
  1288
  state the reason for its opinion that it is not in the interests of justice that a legal aid certificate should be granted and the reason shall be entered in the record of the proceedings.
  and, in page 35, line 19, at end insert:
  (b) in any case the court mentioned in paragraphs (a) or (b) of the last foregoing subsection has not made legal aid available to an accused person in pursuance of this section, and the offence with which that person is charged is an offence for which imprisonment without the option of a fine is a competent penalty, it shall be competent for him to make application to the High Court of Justiciary for the granting of a legal aid certificate.
  Mr. Millan: It would be convenient, as you say, Sir William, to discuss these Amendments together. They are connected with the granting of legal aid in criminal cases in circumstances where the accused person is charged with an offence for which imprisonment without option of a fine is a competent penalty. Perhaps before I explain the terms of the Amendment I might be permitted to say something about the background to them.
  In a way, it was a pity that when we were discussing this question on similar Amendments in Committee upstairs we did not have the time to say something more about the legal aid background in Scotland. We have had in Scotland a system of legal aid in criminal cases which is long-established and which has provided a comprehensive system of aid at sheriff's courts and courts above those. This system has been carried out on a voluntary basis by solicitors and advocates in Scotland. The question whether or not the Government should take responsibility for this system of legal aid or afford an alternative system of aid was discussed in the Report by the Guthrie Committee on Legal Aid in Criminal Proceedings, published in May, 1960, as Command 1015.
  The Report produces the reasons why it was thought not desirable in the Committee's view, if the Government were to introduce a statutory system of legal aid, that there should be repeated the provisions of a system which has worked voluntarily under the Poor Rolls system. The appropriate paragraphs in tie Guthrie Report include, firstly, paragraph 113 where it was suggested that it was unduly comprehensive to institute a system of legal

  1289
  aid to all accused persons at all stages in all courts of first instance. This was for the reason given in paragraph 91.
  4.45 p.m.
  The reasons given in that paragraph for not introducing the most comprehensive system of legal aid are not reasons which strictly speaking have anything to do with justice as such. They have to do with the practical difficulty of the expense that would be involved in a completely comprehensive system and all the strains which would be placed on the legal profession, the resources of the court, and so on. But even the Guthrie Committee, taking account of these circumstances and accepting that a completely comprehensive system of legal aid in criminal cases would not be desirable—and I certainly accept that for the burgh or J.P. courts though not necessarily for the sheriff's courts—yet made the recommendation in paragraph 120 that where a person appeared before a sheriff's court in summary proceedings, legal aid should be granted in all circumstances where that person was charged with an offence for which imprisonment without the option of a fine would be a competent penalty.
  It seems to me that this is the kind of distinction which ought to be drawn in any statutory system of legal aid. There are, of course, arguments as to where exactly one should draw the line between giving legal aid as it were as a right and giving it in certain conditions, perhaps as appears in Schedule 4 at present, at the discretion of the court. Certainly, a line must be drawn at some point, but it seemed to me, and it seems to me now, and to my hon. Friends, on reconsidering the matter, that the line ought to have been drawn at the point where the Guthrie Committee drew it.
  The Guthrie Committee said that where imprisonment without the option of a fine was a competent penalty then, provided that the conditions about financial eligibility were met, the accused person should have legal aid as of right. But the Government have whittled down this provision even further, and I repeat that the Guthrie Committee recommendation was something less than is actually being applied in many sheriff's courts in Scotland at present under the voluntary Poor Rolls system. What the Government have
  1290
  done is to say that except in certain circumstances, which are laid out in the substitutes section (2) on page 35 of the Bill, in the case of summary proceedings it shall be at the discretion of the court whether or not legal aid should be granted in any particular case.
  The discretion of the court is set in the broadest terms, because all that the court has to do is to decide whether it considers that
  "…in all the circumstances of the case it is in the interests of justice that legal aid should be available to the accused".
  That is a quotation from paragraph (b) as it now stands. I cannot imagine anything more widely drawn than these two phrases, "in all the circumstances" and "in the interests of justice". This gives an unlimited discretion to a court to decide whether an accused person appearing before it should be given legal aid.
  In my view, there is something inherently objectionable in this provision. There will grow up, in practice, a series of local anomalies as between one sheriff court and another because one sheriff-substitute will have ideas entirely different from those of another about the kind of cases in which it is in the interests of justice that legal aid should be available. If we are to provide statutory legal aid, and if we are to put certain responsibilities on the court for deciding in which cases that legal aid shall be given, we ought to lay down guiding lines for the sheriffs-substitute who will be involved as to the kind of considerations and circumstances which we wish them to take into account. Otherwise, the matter will be left completely open and there will be the danger that different standards will be applied in different parts of the country.
  In Standing Committee, I moved an Amendment which would have provided that, in any case where an accused was charged with an offence for which imprisonment without the option of a fine was a competent penalty, it should be mandatory, again provided that the financial circumstances of the accused were right, to give legal aid. The noble Lady the Under-Secretary of State rejected that Amendment. The series of Amendments with which we are now dealing do not go as far as that. I shall now explain their effect.
  The first Amendment would make it mandatory for the court to grant legal aid where the offence was of the kind I have described unless, in the opinion of the court, there were special circumstances which made it inappropriate for a certificate to be granted, and in such a case the court would be obliged to state its reasons for the opinion that there were such special circumstances. In other words, in a case of this kind there would be a presumption that legal aid would be granted unless there were special circumstances making it unreasonable so to do.
  The Amendment provides further that, if there were these special circumstances, the court would be obliged to state what they were, and also it would be obliged to have them entered in the record of proceedings. This latter provision is inserted for a very simple reason. Similar provisions in entirely different connections have been inserted at other points in the Bill. In this instance, it is inserted because, if a court has to make a decision which must be stated on the record, the decision will be arrived at in an extremely careful manner and the court will have to satisfy itself that it has not just vague reasons for turning down an application but quite precise reasons.
  It is, therefore, a safeguard for an accused person. I do not for a moment suggest that the courts, in their consideration of applications for legal aid, will not give serious thought to them, but there is a sanction in having to state one's reasons for turning down an application, and, having regard to the importance of the kind of cases with which we are here dealing, it is, I suggest, a most valuable sanction to apply.
  The second Amendment in page 34, line 30 does not go quite as far as the first. It does not say that it will normally be mandatory to grant legal aid unless there are special circumstances, but again it says that, when a court does not grant legal aid in cases in which imprisonment without the option of a fine is a competent penalty, the court shall be required to state its reasons and have them entered on the record of proceedings. Again, this is a safeguard. It is not quite so useful a safeguard as the one provided by the first Amendment, but it is still a safeguard for the accused person.
  The third Amendment which we are discussing, in page 35, line 19, to insert a new paragraph (b), attacks the problem from a rather different standpoint. Whereas the first two Amendments are alternatives, the third could either stand by itself or be coupled with one or other of the first two. It gives to an accused person the right to appeal to the High Court of Justiciary from a decision of the summary court that legal aid shall not be granted. This is important for two reasons. First, it will give the accused person a right to appeal in circumstances in which it can be proved or averred that it is in the interests of justice that legal aid should be granted. In a sense, this is the main right of appeal.
  It is important, also, because, so one hopes, it will introduce, perhaps not at the summary court level itself but at a higher level, the element of uniformity which will be completely lacking if the Schedule is allowed to remain unamended. It will place the summary courts under an obligation to remember that, since there will be the possibility of appeal to a higher court, there is need for them to establish some sort of uniformity of procedure and approach to the kind of circumstances and considerations which should be taken into account in dealing with applications for legal aid.
  Even though the noble Lady was not able to accept the rather stronger Amendment moved in the Standing Committee, I hope very much that, for all the reasons I have given, she will be able to accept at least one of the Amendments which we now put to the Committee.
  5.0 p.m.
  The noble Lady rejected the Amendment in Committee upstairs principally on the ground of practicality. Reading the Committee proceedings again, I find it extremely difficult to understand what she meant by that. Presumably she meant that if the circumstances in which legal aid became mandatory from the statutory point of view were widened beyond what is laid down in the Fourth Schedule the courts would be swamped with legal applications, there would be many more pleas of not guilty, the courts' time would be taken up by having to deal at length with more cases than they deal with now and there would be far more appeals, and so on.
  These are, of course, all important administrative considerations, but if our courts are not able to cope with the demands of justice as they should the remedy lies in improving the facilities in the courts, in ensuring that they are adequately staffed and that there is an adequate number of sheriffs-substitute, and so on. The remedy does not lie in whittling down the system of voluntary legal aid which has operated in Scotland for a considerable time. I find it offensive that we should introduce into our statutory system legal aid provisions which are considerably less favourable to accused persons than those which at present operate on a voluntary basis.
  It is true that without legal aid of any kind in criminal cases there would be one law for the rich and one law for the poor. People who were able to afford legal representation obviously would have it, whereas people who were not able to afford it would not. We have accepted that that would be completely intolerable. Once we accept that, we accept the principle of legal aid in criminal cases and, having accepted it, it is absolutely essential that we put the principle into practice in the most liberal way consonant with the administrative and other circumstances and with reasonable provision for ensuring that every accused person has a fair trial and that his defence is properly put forward. My view is that that will not happen under the Schedule as it is drafted.
  I hope very much that, for the reasons which I have given, the noble Lady will accept one or other of the Amendments.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: I support the Amendments, which are very similar to those moved in Committee upstairs and which were rejected by the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) has covered the case for the Amendments very well and I merely wish to emphasise some of the points which he has made.
  The Government are departing from the recommendations of the Guthrie Committee, but that does not weigh a great deal with me. Committees make reports, not necessarily for us to accept their recommendations, but in order that we may have the necessary information and their opinions on which we can base
  1294
  our own judgment. It is, nevertheless, important to notice that in this respect the Government are departing from the recommendations of the Guthrie Committee which devoted much of its Report to putting the various arguments.
  I now come to the matters which seem to me important. The first undoubtedly is that the Government's attitude means that we are taking a retrograde step in Scotland. We are denying legal aid to people who formerly obtained it under the old poor law system.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lady Tweedsmuir)The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lady Tweedsmuir) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Willis: The hon. Lady shakes her head, but this is what it means. The Bill restricts the legal aid provisions and that is something about which the Government should think very carefully. The intention of the Labour Government in the 1949 Act was not that the existing provisions should be restricted but that they should be extended and should cover a wider range of people in Scotland.
  The second bad thing about the Bill—and it has caused a great deal of comment in Scotland—is that we shall be operating a system of legal aid in criminal cases which will be determined not by Parliament but by the sheriffs. We shall not decide the cases in which legal aid shall be granted. This decision will be made by the sheriffs, who do not want this responsibility—at least, the sheriffs to whom I have spoken do not want it. Surely the noble Lady recognises that it will be most unsatisfactory if the practice in Fife differs from that in Renfrew, if the practice in Dumbarton differs from that in Edinburgh or if the practice in Ayrshire differs from that in Glasgow. This is what will happen under the Bill, and it seems to me a most undesirable state of affairs. The proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Craigton would remedy that situaton.
  What are the circumstances that a sheriff has to take into consideration when he decides whether people appearing before him under the summary procedure should be given legal aid? I have a rough idea of some of them from the words in the Bill, which are very general. A person will not have legal aid unless
  "the court considers that in all the circumstances of the case it is in the interests of justice that legal aid should be available to the accused…"

  1295
  Is the sheriff the right person to make this decision? After all, a sheriff is a trained lawyer. He is not a trained National Assistance official. The officials of the National Assistance Board have expert knowledge and a very wide experience of dealing with these matters, and, while I do not suggest that we should introduce the National Assistance procedure here, I say that the type of experience required to make this sort of decision is different from the experience which a sheriff may possess.
  Sheriffs have said to me, "We are not the people to make these decisions. This is not our job. It is something new to us". I do not know whether the decision will be made by the clerks of the court, but this is what sheriffs have said to me. In these circumstances, it seems to me that it would be better if the hon. Lady accepted these Amendments.
  When we discussed this matter in Committee upstairs, the reasons put forward by the hon. Lady as to why she could not accept the Amendment were rather unsatisfactory. I am treating her in my usual generous and courteous manner. The main reason boiled down to the question of practicality. I remind the hon. Lady of what she said in Committee. First, she simply said that it was on grounds of practicality and left it at that. We prodded her and obtained a further explanation of what she meant by saying that it was difficult in practice. The hon. Lady then said:
  "The practical point is that in a busy sheriff court where, in Glasgow, for instance, numbers of accused may be in custody, there would be delay in the disposal of cases if the court had to consider both the accused's means and the desirability of his receiving legal aid."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Scottish Standing Committee, 25th June, 1963; c. 663.]
  The hon. Lady does not have much faith in her own Government, because she assumes that these conditions in Glasgow will continue. Surely, the hon. Lady is not such a pessimist as to think that the wonderful Government of which she is a member is unable to produce better conditions in the sheriff courts in Glasgow. I understand that the Government have set up a Committee to go into the whole business of sheriff courts and sheriff court procedure—the whole set-up, which, incidentally, is a "racket".
  1296
  It would be out of order to discuss this "racket", but it is one which calls for a lot of criticism.
  If the Government are inquiring into the whole practice of the sheriff courts, surely, as a result, we can hope to see an improvement of the provisions in Glasgow. Everyone will agree that it is extremely undesirable that people should be kept in custody waiting for their cases to be dealt with. Surely, it is not beyond the wit of the Government to devise a procedure to appoint additional people, sheriffs substitute or whatever they may be, if necessary, to prevent this situation. Is not that the way to deal with it? It is not a difficult matter.
  If, as appeared from the hon. Lady's speech in Committee, the only practical difficulty—it was the only one she mentioned—is that people might be kept in custody rather longer than they otherwise would be awaiting disposal of their cases, I suggest that in most of the sheriff courts this does not apply, because they are not busy enough, and that it is only in one or two sheriff courts that it applies, Glasgow being the notable case. In the case of Glasgow, everyone knows what the answer should be and everyone could solve this question. If we had another Government, we could solve the problem within a couple of weeks.
  The hon. Lady's excuse is pathetic, because it shows such little confidence in her colleagues and in the ability of the Scottish Office to solve an elementary problem that a high-school child could solve. We have five or six Ministers at the Scottish Office—I have lost count of them—with a great array of talent, both masculine and feminine, yet we are unable to produce a solution to this little problem. This is not worthy of any Government who are anxious to maintain the continued support of the people of Scotland. In view of all this, I ask the hon. Lady to consider our proposals.
  5.15 p.m.
  My feeling is that the fault is not that of the Scottish Office but rather of the Treasury, which is not prepared to accept this financial responsibility. It might cost a few thousand £s more. That was why, in Committee, the hon. Lady gave the argument of practical reasons and not of principle. I always thought that the principles were rather more important

  1297
  than the practical difficulties if those difficulties were capable of solution. Now, we have the strange doctrine that principles, apparently, do not matter provided that some squalid little practical difficulty can be produced.
  If we are to treat the people of Scotland as they ought to be treated in this respect, if we are to make the Bill effective and give equality of treatment to those appearing before the courts, which is a sound principle, we should accept the Amendment. I hope the hon. Lady will be forthcoming and will say that because of the brilliant expositions to which she has listened, both in Committee and today, she has been persuaded of the correct-ness of the course that we propose and will gracefully tell us that she is accepting our Amendments. Then, the Committee can proceed amicably.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) moved the Amendment with his usual persuasiveness. I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) that it was a brilliant exposition, which he himself ably supported. The hon. Member for Craigton will be disappointed but, perhaps, not entirely unaware that I am unable to accept any of the three Amendments.
  The hon. Member for Craigton did right to give us the background of the whole legal aid system in Scotland and I was glad that he accepted that one must draw the line somewhere. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East did less than justice to the system which we are proposing by saying that it was a retrograde step. Although it is true that at the moment we are talking of that part of the Schedule which concerns summary cases, nevertheless the hon. Member will, in justice, agree that under the present system there is no legal aid in summary appeals and that although representation is available, in theory, in cited cases in the sheriff summary court, that seldom happens in practice. In addition, apart from that, there is no representation in the J.P. juvenile court.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Craigton about the able way in which he has drafted the Amendments. Although he said that they did not go nearly as far as the more vigorous Amendment which he moved in Committee, nevertheless they
  1298
  have the same intention, and he was honest enough to say so.
  The first of the three Amendments would alter the whole emphasis of the relevant paragraph of the Schedule, at least as far as it concerns offences punishable by imprisonment. The court would need to consider, not whether a legal aid certificate should be granted in the interests of justice, but whether there were special circumstances in which a certificate should not be granted. In the nature of things, the granting of a certificate would become the rule and not the exception, and that is what the hon. Member wished to achieve. For the reasons which I gave in Committee upstairs, however, the decision should be left to the discretion of the court, and I must advise hon. Members not to accept the Amendment.
  The second Amendment has the same object as the first, namely, to ensure that in a certain category of summary proceedings, the grant of a legal aid certificate by the court would be the rule and the refusal of a certificate would be the exception. The hon. Gentleman has selected a category of proceedings and has used in respect of them words which clearly imply that in those proceedings a legal aid certificate is normally to be given and is to be withheld only as a very exceptional measure.
  If we turn to the third Amendment, the one to line 19, page 35, this Amendment would provide an appeal against a finding by a summary court or by a sheriff before whom an accused has appeared on indictment, that the accused, who must be an accused person charged with an offence punishable with imprisonment, is able, without undue hardship to himself or to his dependants, to meet the expenses of his case without calling on the Legal Aid Fund. Even the Guthrie Committee, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, did not mention the possibility of an appeal from a decision by the court that an accused person is able to pay for his own defence. I cannot, therefore, refer to a recommendation on this subject. I feel sure, however, that if the Guthrie Committee had considered the possibility of an appeal of this kind it would have dismissed it for this reason, because if hon. Members will reread the chapter of the Report that deals with financial eligibility for legal aid they will find that Lord

  1299
  Guthrie and his colleagues kept very prominently in mind the need to devise a system which would get the whole question of financial eligibility decided as quickly as possible. In paragraph 154 they said:
  "The great advantage of determination of financial eligibility by the court is speed"
  and they claim that the procedure which they devised, namely, a
  "(declaration by the accused person, hearing and determination by the court) could all be carried out without delay."
  The hon. Gentleman will remember, of course, that I quoted this in Committee.
  In the following paragraph there is again the suggestion of speed and urgency in the Committee's final recommendation that financial eligibility for legal aid in criminal proceedings should be determined by the court on the basis of a written declaration of resources by the accused person and a summary hearing, and I must emphasise the term "summary", at which the prosecutor is present and entitled to be heard. Therefore, if the Amendment were accepted the advantages of speed and finality would be lost without, I think, any significant improvement in the merits of the scheme at present put forward to the House.
  Both hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon rather questioned what I said in putting forward our own system, and I may say that it is the one and only point on which we dissent from the Guthrie Report. Both hon. Members questioned the words I used when I said it was for "practical reasons". The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East seemed to think that I had not given enough thought as to why it was practical. I suggest that if he turns to page 47 of the Report and reads paragraph 162 he will read the following:
  "Arrested persons must be brought before the court as soon as possible and the stage at which they plead guilty or not guilty to the charge may be reached only a few hours after their arrest. (They have a right to ask for an adjournment but they may not do so.) It would clearly not be practicable to have financial eligibility determined before that stage is reached."
  Therefore, it is for that reason that we have said that where a man is in custody and is being prosecuted summarily he shall have legal aid as of right, and although this is the one major recom-
  1300
  mendation of Guthrie to which the hon. Gentleman attaches much importance I am afraid I cannot accept his Amendment.
  Mr. William Ross: We started off with a very disappointing decision by the Government. I had hoped for a better decision, because we see the name of the Secretary of State for Scotland appended to some of our Amendments and we hear rumours that the Government may even be prepared to accept some others, of which, so far, no written indication has been given. I hope that the importance of what we are doing is not going to be lost on the Committee because here we are making a last ditch stand. We can only do this on Recommittal. I say that because there is a Motion on the Order Paper relating to this tonight.
  The part of the Bill that we are dealing with now was the part dealt with last in Committee, and I think the hon. Lady will be the first to admit that it probably did not get all the time that it merited because of the pressure of other work that has to be dealt with by the Scottish Committee. So a Recommittal stage is absolutely essential. I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not use her time between Committee, Report and Recommittal to have another look at the matter.
  I admit that the hon. Lady's arguments, in so far as they were arguments at all, were not quite so controversial as the ones she used on the last occasion, but I do not think that they are satisfying. What are we doing? Whether we like it or not or whether the hon. Lady likes it or not, we have on the Statute Book at the moment legislation which could give to Scotland full comprehensive cover in relation to legal aid in criminal cases. It came before the House in 1949 and was accepted by the House in 1949. The only thing that has never been done in relation to it is the application of a date as to when it would start.
  With the continued pressure on the Government to do something about it and with the breakdown of the existing system of legal aid that we have had in Scotland in respect of poor persons for nearly 400 years, the Government were forced to act, and so we had established a Committee to look into the question of the extension

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  of legal aid to criminal cases. The outcome of that was a reduction of the comprehensive nature of the cover in respect of that legal aid, and what we have in the Bill, and which the hon. Lady has again been defending, is a still further reduction. Therefore, I think that my hon. Friend was right to use the words "retrograde step". Let us remember that once this system is put into operation we lose the benefits which there may be in particular areas under the present system. There is no doubt at all about that.
  When I refer to the arguments which the hon. Lady would have been far better not to have used in Committee, I would remind her of the despairing argument which she used in order to convince us, that we are doing more in Scotland than they are in England. But the Guthrie Committee pointed out that if we take the existing system of help in criminal cases given freely and voluntarily by the legal profession in Scotland, and which it has been given for centuries, 10 per cent of the cases coming before the courts are covered.
  In this benighted land where they have had the advantage of legal aid in criminal cases through a more recent Act of Parliament, the number of cases for which cover is given is 1 per cent. So for goodness sake do not let us suggest that we should base anything that we do in this respect on what England does today. Rather let us base it on what Scotland did 400 years ago. If we did that we should get a far better cover than the Government here propose.
  We are not asking for all that we would like to ask for. As I said, this is a last-ditch stand. In Committee we suggested that in all cases coming before the summary courts—sheriff courts sitting in summary proceedings, the police court, the borough court and the magistrates'court—anyone charged with an offence for which the punishment would be imprisonment without the option of a fine should have the right of a defence.
  5.30 p.m.
  If we deny that right it does not mean no one will have a defence, but it does mean that those who have the defence are those who are able to pay for it. So we get the distinction we have always
  1302
  objected to, and which was met in Scotland so many years ago, on chance for the rich and another for the poor.
  Why do we suggest this should be done in summary courts and in magistrates' courts? We suggest that because of the simple fact that half the criminal cases in Scotland are dealt with in the smaller courts, or the less important courts, the sheriffs' courts and the J.P. courts. There is evidence given by a stipendiary magistrate from Glasgow and quoted in the Guthrie Report that in these courts many people, not having legal advice, plead guilty to offences of which they are not guilty. Thus people achieve a criminal record which may stand them in pretty poor stead—in relation to this Bill later on, but perhaps in their lives also, and simply because of ignorance, simply because of convenience. They certainly would not do that if they had legal aid available at the proper time. So from that point of view I think it desirable that cover should be provided there in these cases.
  We have limited our Amendments to the important thing, and we have given a way out for the courts by saying we will give a certain discretion to the courts to refuse legal aid in "special circumstances". As soon as we say that, the hon. Lady asks, "How is the court to interpret the special circumstances? It means the court will automatically grant legal aid in these cases." If she is going to ask that question I am going to ask her a question.
  She is leaving decisions in relation to this whole body of cases with which we have been dealing, including those of this particular type carrying very serious consequences, to the discretion of the court as it is, but there is no definition or guidance given the court as to the basis of its decision within its discretion. And nothing is to be written about it. It is just to be handed down. The person who has applied for legal aid and is refused it has just got to accept the refusal. It is a complete and absolute discretion which is given to the courts, that is, the magistrates' courts and the sheriffs' courts.
  I think both my hon. Friends have said that the magistrates' courts do not want it. Certainly the sheriff courts do not. But most of our magistrates in

  1303
  Scotland are politicians. The hon. Lady, coming from Aberdeen, knows that. Aberdeen is a city which has got burghal rights. It still has, in spite of the intentions of the Secretary of State in his miserable White Paper about modernising local government in Scotland. Magistrates are chosen from the town council, who are party politicians. We are placing those people in a position to state who shall and who shall not get legal aid.
  Can one wonder that they do not want to wield this power—especially when we give them no guidance as to the basis on which they will adjudicate such decisions?
  Equally, the sheriffs, I am perfectly sure, do not want it. They are under sufficient pressure and criticism in relation to varying standards of justice meted out under their own present discretion. Here they have to begin these cases by deciding whether or not persons will have the benefit of a defence. What does it mean? It means that in Aberdeen, in Ayr, in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, in Lanarkshire, in the different sheriffdoms in Scotland, different attitudes will betaken in relation to the same type of person and the same type of case.
  If the hon. Lady thinks this is going to lead to confidence in the administration of justice, well, I certainly do not. Indeed, if the case is started with the person who is charged already having a feeling of grouse about the court's decision as to whether or not he is to be defended, he will hardly be entirely satisfied that he has had justice if eventually he is found guilty by the court and sentenced by the court. He will hardly feel he has had justice when we start on the basis of injustice.
  All these conflicts, these pressures, are built into this giving of discretion to individuals. I am perfectly sure that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. J. Henderson), who has been a Glasgow magistrate, will appreciate the difficulties into which we are putting individuals. I do not think it is right. I do not think it is fair. We have to remember that of all the cases which come before the lower courts in Scotland only about 3 per cent. are defended cases, but I wonder how many
  1304
  of them would be defended but for the absence of cover under the existing system and if people had the money to pay for it.
  It is for this reason that I feel very strongly about this matter. I do not think the reply we have had from the hon. Lady has in any way met the case put by my hon. Friends. From the point of view of justice and fairness as between individuals, and from the point of view of magistrates and sheriffs themselves having to wield an unwanted discretion, and from the point of view of the person who is being dealt with, I think it would have been far, far better—if not accepting the whole of Guthrie—if the Government had seen their way to accept one or another of these Amendments—one or other of the first two, and certainly the third. I do not think the hon. Lady replied to that one at all. She replied to one which has not been moved yet, about financial eligibility, which, so far as I know, we are not discussing at the moment.
  But that is not the only mistake the Government have made about this. Their real mistake, of course, is that they based their findings about this not on the type of people concerned, and not on justice, but only on convenience, the convenience of the courts, and on the lack of resources, and have gone no way at all to meet part of the case.
  We certainly have not taken the opportunity we had to burnish our reputation in legal aid in Scotland. Do not let us slip down even a slight way towards the miserable English record in this matter. I am sorry indeed that the noble Lady has given us such a disappointing reply. She said she rather thought we would expect that disappointing reply. I am going to surprise her. We did not except a disappointing reply. We thought she was the one Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who could assert herself. There is still time. Before we pass from these Amendments, I sincerely hope she rises to the occasion.
  Mr. Willis: The hon. Lady has rejected the Amendments again, this time with a slight change in emphasis on the reasons for rejection. She quoted at great length from the Guthrie Report to show the need for speed. The argument

  1305
  used against our proposal is that it is wholly a question of speed.
  What would be the effect of our Amendments? As I understand the hon. Lady's argument, it is that a number of persons appearing before the courts would automatically become eligible for legal aid, and that would mean more work. Her argument would be valid if the Government proposed to take no action to cope with that additional work. The only case for accepting her argument is that the Government propose to do nothing about the additional work which would be created in the courts and, therefore, it would take longer to deal with the cases. Surely this cannot be so?
  The Guthrie Committee also drew attention to the fact that additional persons would be required in a number of cases to deal with additional work. I hope the hon. Lady will tell us that the Government accept this. If the Government accept it, what is the position in the sheriff courts and other courts? The position is that those courts which today are not very busy—there is a number of them—will be busier. Some of us think that will not be too bad a thing for some of the courts, for they will be justifying themselves rather more than they are doing today. That aside, in other courts the work will be of a character which will necessitate the appointment of additional persons. Glasgow is the outstanding example.
  The hon. Lady and the Government must face the position that when the Bill comes into operation they will have to appoint additional persons. Even if it means the appointment of yet another person to give effect to our Amendments, surely that is desirable if in the process we shall be doing something which is more just than what is now being done and gives greater equality of treatment to people appearing before the courts? That is our case.
  All I wanted to do was to point out the pathetic weakness of the case presented by the hon. Lady. I am surprised that she accepted it from those who handed it to her. I am surprised that her keen mind did not perceive that it could not carry much weight. One has only to examine it cursorily to see how very weak it is. There is no case for rejecting the Amendments other than the desire of the Government not to have to
  1306
  appoint one or two additional people in one or two of the courts to do the extra work involved. I should have thought it worth while doing this if we wanted to get a good scheme while we were tackling the problem.
  The Chairman: The Question is—
  Mr. Willis: Before we proceed, Sir William, perhaps the hon. Lady could tell us what the Government's intentions are about providing additional staff to cope with the work.
  5.45 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: As the hon. Gentleman said, an inquiry is being conducted into the whole working of the sheriff courts, and it may well be that when that is completed the reallocation of work may have an effect also on higher courts as well as on the sheriff courts. Therefore, until the inquiry is completed I could not possibly tell him what is being done about the extra people who will be required.
  However, I should like to take this opportunity—if we are to move to a decision on these Amendments it is important that I should take the opportunity—to make clear to the House exactly what is the extent of the legal aid which will be provided when the Bill is passed. It is governed by the First Schedule of the 1949 Act. This covers all courts. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) particularly devoted his speech to the problems of the magistrates' and burgh courts.
  Mr. Ross: And the sheriff courts.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: Yes, but I am now talking about —
  Mr. Ross: There are rules of order, and when we are discussing Amendments we try, generally speaking, to stick to the subject of those Amendments.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: It is only to meet what the hon. Gentleman said—he was, clearly, not in order, but he was not observed—that I sought to answer his query. Therefore, as we are both, happily, apparently not observed, I will quickly say that it is intended to bring this system of legal aid in in stages. The Guthrie Committee itself recognised that it could not extend immediately to the burgh and magistrates' courts.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 172, Noes 182.

  Division No. 170.]

  AYES

  [5.46 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Ainsley, William

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Albu, Austen

  Hannan, William

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  Harper, Joseph

  Pentland, Norman

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Barnett, Guy

  Hayman, F. H.

  Prentice, R. E.

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Price, J T. (Westhoughton)

  Bence, Cyril

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Probert, Arthur

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Benson, Sir George

  Holman, Percy

  Randall, Harry

  Blackburn, F.

  Holt, Arthur

  Redhead, E. C.

  Blyton, William

  Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Boardman, H.

  Hoy, James H.

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Rhodes, H.

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

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Bowles, Frank

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Boyden, James

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Rodger, W. T. (Stockton)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Janner, Sir Barnett

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

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Ross, William

  Carmichael, Neil

  Jeger, George

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Short, Edward

  Chapman, Donald

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Silkin, John

  Cliffe, Michael

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Small, William

  Cronin, John

  Kelley, Richard

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Ledger, Ron

  Steele, Thomas

  Dalyell, Tam

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Davies, c. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Stonehouse, John

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Lubbock, Eric

  Stones, William

  Davies, Ifor (Cower)

  McBride, N.

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

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  MacColl, James

  Swingler, Stephen

  Deer, George

  McInnes, James

  Symonds, J. B.

  Dempsey, James

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Taverne, D.

  Donnelly, Desmond

  McLeavy, Frank

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Driberg, Tom

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mahon, Simon

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

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

  Thornton, Ernest

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Manuel, Archie

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Mapp, Charles

  Wade, Donald

  Evans, Albert

  Mason, Roy

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Fernyhougrt, E,

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Warbey, William

  Finch, Harold

  Mendelson J. J.

  Weitzman, David

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Millan, Bruce

  Whitlock, William

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Milne, Edward

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Forman, J. C.

  Monslow, Walter

  Willey, Frederick

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Moody, A. S.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Morris, John

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Moyle, Arthur

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mulley, Frederick

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

  Grey, Charles

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Woof, Robert

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Oram, A. E.

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Owen, Will

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Lawson and Dr. Broughton.

  NOES

  Aitken, Sir William

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Clarke, Brig. Terence(Portsmth, W.)

  Allason, James

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Arbuthnot, John

  Box, Donald

  Cole, Norman

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Braine, Bernard

  Cooke, Robert

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Brewis, John

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.SirWalter

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Barber, Anthony

  Brooman-White, R.

  Cordle, John

  Barlow, Sir John

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Corfield, F. V.

  Barter, John

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Costain, A. P.

  Batsford, Brian

  Butlard, Denys

  Coulson, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Crawley, Aidan

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

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

  Critchley, Julian

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Biffen, John

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

  Curran, Charles

  Bishop, F. P.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Doughty, Charles

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Drayson, G. B.

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Pym, Francis

  Duncan, Sir James

  Kirk, Peter

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Duthie, Sir William

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Ramsden, James

  Eden, Sir John

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Rawlinson, Sir Peter

  Emery, Peter

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Renton, Rt. Hon. David

  Farr, John

  Longden, Gilbert

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Fell, Anthony

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Fisher, Nigel

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  McLaren, Martin

  Russell, Ronald

  Forrest, George

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Speir, Rupert

  Freeth, Denzil

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Gammans, Lady

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

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  George, Sir John (Pollok)

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Macpherson,Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Maginnis, John E.

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Maitland, Sir John

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

  Goodhart, Philip

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Teeling, Sir William

  Gower, Raymond

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Temple, John M.

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Gurden, Harold

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Mawby, Ray

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

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

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Turner, Colin

  Hastings, Stephen

  Morgan, William

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R, H.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Hendry, Forbes

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Walder, David

  Hiley, Joseph

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Walt, Patrick

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Webster, David

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

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Holland, Philip

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Hopkins, Alan

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Hornby, R. P.

  Partridge, E.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

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

  Peel, John

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Percival, Ian

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Mr. Frank Pearson and Mr. MacArthur.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Mr. Willis: I beg to move, in page 34, line 44, to leave out from "satisfied" to end of line 47 and to insert:
  "that his financial circumstances make him eligible for such aid in accordance with criteria to be laid down in regulations prescribed by the Secretary of State.
  Regulations made for the purpose of this subsection shall not come into force unless or until approved by resolution of the House of Commons".
  This Amendment returns to a subject which we raised in Committee and which is closely allied to the matter we have just been discussing. Our purpose is to ensure that legal aid in criminal cases shall be granted on a uniform financial basis. That was the intent of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act, 1949, but the Bill departs from that principle and it is to be left entirely to the sheriffs, judges and magistrates to decide the financial eligibility of any applicant for legal aid.
  The first objection to that is one we made in connection with the previous Amendment—that this is likely to create different criteria of financial eligibility
  1310
  in different districts. Sheriffs, judges and magistrates are not always the best persons to decide financial eligibility. As I pointed out in Committee, some judges have peculiar ideas of what individuals can or cannot afford and how heavy a burden may be to individuals of certain income.
  Secondly, the Bill would create difference of treatment in different areas and different courts. That must surely be wrong. The Minority Report to the Guthrie Report, paragraph 18, said:
  "The basis of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act, 1949, was that of a uniform standard of eligibility (section 2(1)) and, while this may, as I have suggested above, have to be modified to deal with exceptionally costly defences, I disagree with the drastic step of recommending a variation so as to abolish entirely such a standard and to substitute carte blanche for individual sheriffs-substitute, burgh magistrates or justices of the peace to apply whatever criteria they may think fit."
  6.0 p.m.
  For the first time in our discussion of the Bill, I now understand that legal aid in criminal cases is not to be applied in

  1311
  burgh magistrate's courts and courts of justices of the peace, but that the Government intend to extend it to those courts later Even so, carte blanche will be given to sheriffs-substitute to decide financial eligibility. Most sheriffs substitute do not want that job.
  We are not here creating our own legal aid system in criminal cases, but permitting sheriffs substitute to create theirs in their own sheriffdoms. Why should someone in Edinburgh get treatment different from that given to someone in Glasgow, and someone in Glasgow treatment different from that given somewhere else? Apart from being a principle with an excellent parentage, the Labour Government, the principle laid down in the 1949 Act was sound and it is one to which we ought to pay attention when we extend legal aid to criminal cases.
  In the Minority Report of the Guthrie Report, Mr. Ewan Stewart said:
  "Parliament should not, in effect, delegate its powers to members of the judiciary, thus giving each of them, as it were, a free hand to write his own legal aid scheme in respect of financial eligibility."
  We in Parliament should accept the responsibility and lay down the financial criteria which we think should be applied and not leave it to the 59 sheriffs-substitute in Scotland and so have 59 different schemes. We might even have different schemes applying in Glasgow according to which sheriff-substitute happens to be sitting in the court. That is absurd, and I hope that the hon. Lady will accept the Amendment.
  I have not had time to refresh my memory about what was said in Standing Committee—I shall read it as our debates today proceed to see whether there is anything worth returning to—but I have no doubt that the hon. Lady will again argue that we do not want National Assistance officers dealing with these matters. This has nothing to do with National Assistance. The courts can interpret the rules, although I am still not quite sure how that can be done. It has been suggested to me that an officer of the court should be detailed to examine applications for legal aid and to deal with them irrespective of the sheriff substitute. I do not believe that that is what is now intended. I understand that it is intended that the applicant should fill in
  1312
  a form which would go before the court and that the applicant might be questioned about it, that the prosecutor might put in objections and that there would be almost another judicial process to decide whether the applicant was entitled to receive legal aid. It would be much simpler and would help the hon. Lady in her desire for speed, which we all agree to be necessary, if the Government laid down financial criteria and each case was then determined by an official of the court and taken out of the hands of the sheriff-substitute.
  For all those reasons, I hope that the hon. Lady will give us a much more kindly answer than on the last Amendment. She must agree that her arguments on that Amendment could not have been very powerful, for the Government obtained a majority of only ten. Hon. Members opposite appear to think it much more important to be at Buckingham Palace than supporting the hon. Lady's arguments. It is obvious that they were not convinced by her arguments in Standing Committee or they would have been here to attend.
  I would have thought that hon. Members opposite would have been more courteous to the weaker sex—I do not know about weaker—and would have shown rather more chivalry. For hon. Members opposite, the age of chivalry is passed and they do not even come to the support of the hon. Lady. This is a shocking exhibition. I am glad to say that we are here to show our interest and I hope that she will treat us rather more kindly in view of our support and the courteous attention which we give to her speeches. If she accepted the Amendment, she would be able to go to bed tonight a satisfied woman, conscious of the fact that she had done a worthwhile job and had improved the Bill.
  Mr. Thomas Steele: My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) has been very kind to the hon. Lady.
  Mr. Willis: I always am.
  Mr. Steele: He seems to have left his powerful adjectives in the Standing Committee Room. Perhaps he felt that they were not getting him anywhere and so tonight we find him in a very kindly and persuasive mood.
  Mr. Willis: I always am.
  Mr. Steele: I hope and trust that he will have more success with this Amendment.
  I am concerned with the Amendment for another reason which my hon. Friend mentioned during our earlier discussion. When the Bill is passed, how legal aid is administered will no longer He with us, but will depend on the attitude of the sheriff and particularly on the kind of mood he happens to be in that day. How will the Sheriff approach this? The words here will be given their literal meaning and not be interpreted as we think they ought to be. The Schedule says that legal aid shall be available if the accused
  "is unable without undue hardship…to meet the expenses of the case."
  It does not refer merely to "hardship" Had the Bill said
  "where the court is satisfied after consideration of his financial circumstances that he is unable without hardship to himself…to meet the expenses of the case"
  that would have met the point that is worrying me.
  The Amendment lays down certain criteria which will be decided by the Secretary of State and brought before Parliament for our agreement. The Amendment is fair and reasonable because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) pointed out, every sheriff will be his own adviser in this matter, and a variety of situations will arise in different parts of the country. We all know that there are sheriffs and sheriffs. I defend rather than attack some sheriffs, because I know that they will look at these provisions and be as generous as possible, but there are others who I have no doubt will take the opposite view, and we must realise that a sheriff's decision will affect not only an accused person but his dependents.
  The hon. Lady ought to tell us why this arrangement has been made. Who has been consulted? Who made these suggestions? Why is it impossible to find some other way of dealing with this problem? Unless we receive satisfactory answers to these questions, we shall have to divide the Committee again, and I hope that when we do the ten hon. Members who supported the hon. Lady on the last occasion and gave her victory, as it were, will this time decide either to have a cup of tea or to depart for
  1314
  Buckingham Palace and thus ensure that we achieve at least one victory in the course of our proceedings.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I was not a member of the Committee which considered this Bill, but I hope that the hon. Lady will be convinced by the eloquent and sound arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis).
  I am shocked at the prospect of someone who is accused of a criminal offence having to appear before a sheriff or a sheriff's substitute who will decide whether or not to grant his application for legal aid. Whoever conducts the investigation will inquire into the accused person's background. The applicant may well have a good job, and a reasonable income, but if he has a young family to maintain, the sheriff's decision might mean considerable hardship to him.
  A further point to remember is that an accused person may have his application considered by the sheriff who will eventually try him. I consider it bad practice that a man charged with a criminal offence should first be subjected to an investigation into his means to decide whether he should be granted legal aid and then be tried by the sheriff who conducted the investigation.
  6.15 p.m.
  I hope that the hon. Lady will accept the Amendment. It will not make any great change in the principle of the Schedule, but it will ensure that some procedure is established for giving a person legal aid without him having to appear before someone who will eventually try him. It is far better that somebody not connected with the court in which he is to be tried should consider his application for legal aid, and I therefore repeat my hope that the hon. Lady will accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: I support the Amendment because it will undoubtedly improve the Bill. The Schedule as it stands is defective because it deals with the fundamental phrase "financial circumstances". The Bill provides for a multiplicity of definitions of this phrase. There is nothing certain about it for the unfortunate accused person. This phrase will be heard, determined, and denned, according

  1315
  to the whim, or, to be more respectful, the judgment of a particular court.
  It used to be said of certain phases of English law, perhaps jocularly, but certainly truly, that equity was as variable as the length of the Lord Chancellor's foot. The "financial circumstances" referred to in this Schedule will be as variable as the length of the particular judge's foot, and I submit that this will be am injustice to an accused person. The law should not only be just, but should be certain, and under this Bill it will not be so.
  The Schedule as it stands is an unpardonable reactionary reversion to the law which, as I have just said, was described as being as variable as the length of the Lord Chancellor's foot. The Amendment will ensure that the phrase in question is defined definitely once and for all in regulations to be made by the Secretary of State for Scotland and approved by Parliament.
  So far, no logical defence of this reactionary provision has been put up, but adequate reasons have been put forward for the Amendment which we are discussing, which I hope will commend themselves to the Government. There is nothing to be said for this unpardonable variability of definition of financial circumstances. What are the circumstances? What is the court to take into account? There is not a word in Section 2 of the 1949 Act which indicates what considerations are relevant for the courts to take into account. Not only will the courts be in a difficulty; each court will have its own standards and its own way of approaching this rather inscrutable phrase "financial circumstances".
  The Amendment, on the other hand, will give a certainty of meaning to the phrase, and will import justice where there is at present injustice. I hope that the arguments of my colleagues and I will so commend themselves to the Government that they will accept the Amendment.
  Mr. James McInnes: This part of Schedule 4 will obviously create many difficulties throughout Scottish courts. Its provisions constitute a serious departure from the 1949 Act. Hon. Members on this side of the
  1316
  Committee take the view that the sheriff should not have the power to determine the financial eligibility of anyone appearing before him. In Committee we indicated that Mr. Stewart, in his reservations, made it quite clear that Parliament should not, in effect, delegate power to members of the judiciary, thus giving each of them a free hand to create his own legal scheme in respect of the definition of financial eligibility.
  The Amendment to Section 2 of the 1949 Act, contained in Schedule 4, includes the words "without undue hardship". How are they to be defined? What constitutes undue hardship? The hon. Lady must appreciate that this provision is grossly unfair. In effect, it will mean that in some areas of Scotland people will qualify while in others people in precisely similar circumstances will not. The hon. Lady ought to keep in mind the provisions of the 1949 Act and, rather than depart from them, eliminate this provision altogether.
  Mr. James Dempsey: Anyone who is not a member of this Committee would not require to know the background of the discussion to realise that this provision is a very unsatisfactory one. It is composed in the most negative fashion. Let us consider the phrase which it contains:
  "Where the court is satisfied after consideration of his financial circumstances…"
  No information is provided as to how those financial circumstances shall be calculated. What is permissible income, and what is disregarded income? There is no clue as to the way in which this passage in this part of the Schedule will operate. It is wrong to ask the Committee to adopt a provision which is so vaguely worded that none of us can have a fair assessment of the implications of its operation.
  I would have thought that if we are to have regard to financial circumstances we are entitled to know what elements of income will be taken into account, what allowances will be set against those elements of income, and what aspect of income and remuneration will be disregarded. There is no indication of how comprehensively such a scheme of administration may operate. This is a quite apparent weakness, and the noble Lady ought to consider the matter again. Whether we like it or not, we are handing more power to the Executive. By

  1317
  delegating our Parliamentary rights we are handing more and more power and authority to the justiciary, which is not responsible to the electors, citizens or taxpayers.
  This is a departure from the democratic processes which govern this House and the country generally, and in those circumstances I cannot understand why even hon. Members opposite can approve of the wording of this part of the Schedule. I would have thought that if they acted according to their consciences they would have been in duty bound to oppose it. Most of them have business interests, or are interested in commercial enterprise. They would be averse to running their affairs, or engaging in transactions while operating under such a vague formula as is contained in this provision.
  I cannot see why the noble Lady cannot accept the Amendment. It provides that the Secretary of State shall prescribe certain scales for the purpose of adjudication. This is nothing new to the Secretary of State. He is never done with providing scales. He has a staff which indulges in this work from week to week, having the mental gymnastics necessary for prescribing such scales. At the moment they are trying to prescribe scales providing that council tenants shall pay a certain rental, because the result of their mental gymnastics leads them to believe that certain wage levels apply in certain localities throughout Scotland.
  We are saying that some scale should be laid down to ensure universality of operation in Scotland for Legal Aid purposes. That is not unreasonable. In Edinburgh today, the Department will hand an applicant a scale relating to educational students personal awards. It seems to be no trouble. It seems to be easy for them. It is almost entertaining. In those circumstances I cannot see why the Amendment should not be accepted so that scales can be provided to ensure equity of treatment in different parts of the country conserving free legal aid.
  We abolished the old welfare committees of local authorities in order to avoid the very diversification that the Bill is creating. We did that because they were working out unfavourably in some areas and favourably in others. That was the reason given for the introduction of the 1948 Act, which abolished those
  1318
  committees and concentrated on prescribing uniform scales for the Ministry of National Insurance. It was with a view to achieving universality in application that this legislation was introduced. This evening we have a Bill which applies the very opposite of what we have been hearing week after week and month after month for the past few years.
  How can the noble Lady justify this vacillation and contradiction of the administration of the Government she represents? It is clear and valid that if we leave it to the sheriffs we shall have a variety of legal aid schemes operating. And look at some of the judgments of our sherffs. Some of the most unexpected decisions are arrived at. They almost threaten our confidence in the law-making system of the country. Some of these decisions are almost incredible and result from the operation of the mind on a set of given facts. If that be the sort of panacea we are to have, we shall get a diversified scheme operating from court house to court house and no one will be able to explain to his constituents what are their entitlements. That is a grave danger. If the hon. Lady wishes to be efficient in the conduct of this Bill and to go down in history as a law-maker, she will accept the Amendment which is full of jolly good sense.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: I support the Amendment. Surely the hon. Lady would agree that it indicates the right intention. Surely she does not wish to treat people in difficulty who come before the court—some being more innocent than others—in a way which will place them in a position where, because of what I consider a very bad mistake in Schedule 4, they will be affected by the open manner in which legal aid is to be decided upon by the court. A definite injustice could react on innocent, people. We have no assurance that a sheriff in one court will not take a different line regarding the standard to be operated from that existing in another court. We consider that people are innocent until they are proved guilty. But, in a desire to get legal assistance and present their case in the best way, people may find that there exists a dividing line in this matter. They may find themselves above that line in one court and below it in another, and

  1319
  this will interfere with the process of justice.
  The noble Lady must tell us what is meant by:
  "…Subject to this Part of this Act, legal aid in connection with criminal proceedings shall be available to an accused person where the court is satisfied…"
  That is a very loose statement. What is meant by
  "…where the court is satisfied"?
  Is a court to sit to decide this? How do the Government, for whom today the noble Lady is responsible, justify what I consider an iniquitous provision? The noble Lady must explain that phrase
  "…where the court is satisfied after consideration of his financial circumstances…"
  Does that mean the court? Does it mean the sheriff? Or does it mean the sheriff's clerk? What on earth is preventing the noble Lady from saying that there should be a scale laid down which could be operated fairly and generously in all the sheriff courts?
  I want the noble Lady to be true to herself. I want her to allow her own generous impulses to dictate the answer. We know the noble Lady. With my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) I had the pleasure and privilege of serving on a Standing Committee in which the hon. Lady skilfully piloted through its Committee stage a Bill which eventually became an Act designed to protect birds. The noble Lady went to great lengths to protect the little ducks and all sorts of birds. I had never heard of some of them, although a compliment was paid to me because I did know of some of the lesser known Scottish birds. But I distinguish them not so much by how they speak—for all birds have a language—but by their plumage, the garments with which they adorn themselves.
  The point here is that the noble Lady showed concern—we agreed with her—about the protection of birds. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East went out of his way to provide an argument in favour of the protection of some little-known duck that hitherto had not been protected and for that the noble Lady thanked him profusely—as she did me on a similar occasion. That showed her generosity of nature and her impulse
  1320
  for protection. It revealed an urge to preserve what was good and beautiful in ornithology.
  The noble Lady's ornithological outlook was very good. I want her human outlook to be just as good. Here we are dealing with human beings. I am all for the protection of birds, but I wish to make certain that the hon. Lady will be herself in regard to this provision and that the instinct which decided her speeches during the Committee stage of the Bill to which I have referred will prompt her to throw aside her briefs—her gay plumage, if the noble Lady likes. If she does that, and if she tells us that she agrees with the sentiments expressed in the Amendment, she will be coming down on our side and agreeing that the Amendment is a good one which should be supported. She will be agreeing that there should be a standard laid down which will be generous in its operation and allow justice to be carried to innocent people who find themselves arguing their affairs in our sheriffs courts.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I quite agree with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) that the Committee on the Protection of Birds Bill was a most intriguing and hilarious one. I well remember his services on that Committee.
  To return to this Bill, I think he and all hon. Members have sought very hard to persuade me to accept this Amendment. Although it was moved very clearly, as is usual, by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) I am afraid I cannot accept it. Because I cannot accept it, I hope to be able to persuade all hon. Members who have spoken in this debate that perhaps there is some merit in the scheme which we have put forward in the Bill and which is a recommendation of the Guthrie Committee.
  Several hon. Members have said they are afraid that to leave the arrangements to a decision by sheriffs in different parts of the country would mean that there would not be a uniform decision, and people would be treated differently in different courts. I remind hon. Members of paragraph 153 of the Guthrie Committee's Report, which said:
  "Since in each determination the individual case concerned would be a relevant factor, it is impossible to prescribe a uniform standard of eligibility."

  1321
  It is true that the Report goes on to say that the Committee thought that there would be an absence of a uniform standard, but it did not think that was an important objection, and added:
  "It will fall to a court of law in each case to decide what is reasonable."
  Mr. Willis: If the noble Lady reads further, she will see that the Guthrie Committee also said:
  "While the absence of such a standard could result in accused persons in different areas receiving different treatment."
  It doubted whether this was an important objection, but we think it is an important objection.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: That is exactly why I quoted that paragraph. I was going on to argue the case for our suggested scheme rather than that of the Amendment, which seeks to have regulations by the Secretary of State subject to approval by the House of Commons.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes), in particular, asked why we departed from the 1949 Act. The Guthrie Committee examined the 1949 Act and how it had worked out in the assessment of financial eligibility so far as it concerns civil legal aid. That Committee decided that for criminal legal aid it could not agree that this was a good method. As hon. Members know, the Committee noted that while, for civil legal aid, resources are assessed by the National Assistance Board, the Board needed at least a fortnight to make up its assessment accurately. In certain cases where people did not give the right information, the Board needed as much as a month. If it gave a very rough-and-ready assessment, it could sometimes do so within a week, but the Guthrie Committee thought that even that was not right for criminal proceedings.
  Therefore that Committee went on to examine a recommendation made by the Law Society of Scotland, that the determination of financial eligibility for legal aid in criminal proceedings should, as in England, be made summarily by the criminal court. It pointed out that on the basis of a summary hearing it would not be possible to establish with a fair degree of accuracy how much the applicant could afford to contribute towards his legal expenses and therefore
  1322
  recommended that no contribution should be payable by the accused. The final part of the Committee's argument was that if contributions were to be ruled out, the court in effect would be deciding whether an accused should have free legal aid or no legal aid at all. It therefore seemed to the Committee that in taking this decision the court must have regard not only to the accused's resources, but also to the likely expenses of the case, something which it thought quite unsuitable for a body such as the National Assistance Board to decide.
  6.45 p.m.
  The Guthrie Committee thought there could be no fixed level of income or capital above which legal aid would not be available and below which it would be available. For example, if legal aid were free it surely would be ridiculous to have a uniform income limit of, say, £500 which would be applied whatever the likely cost of the defence. A man with £450 disposable income might be able to pay for a defence in a minor case, whereas a man with a disposable income of £1,000 might be crippled by the cost of defending himself on a serious charge. Therefore, the court is required to consider the financial circumstances of the accused and also the seriousness of the case.
  Mr. Millan: The argument is whether there should be legal aid with a contribution or no legal aid at all, but my hon. Friends and I argued in Standing Committee that there should be differences in the contributions provided. That was turned down by the Government.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: Exactly, but hon. Members in this debate have asked what was the origin of the scheme we are proposing. That is why I am going into some detail about it now. The Amendment follows the Guthrie Committee's Report in dispensing with a detailed assessment of resources by the National Assistance Board, but substitutes an assessment by the court, which necessarily would be fairly detailed. In not proposing a detailed assessment, I dare say the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East, and his supporters had in mind that the court should be given fairly simple guidance for its consideration of the financial circumstances of the accused, but in practice

  1323
  it simply would not be possible to give the court guidance which would be at all easy or simple, as I think the Amendment seeks to do.
  Once the Secretary of State had embarked on the task of laying down the criteria required by the Amendment it would be necessary, to make clear that justice was being done as between one applicant and another, to go into considerable detail in describing what items of income and capital were to be considered, what were to be disregarded, what allowances were to be made for the applicant's inescapable commitments.
  The hon. Member suggested that this would be nothing to a Department which has to devise various bursary scales and so on. While I am sure the Department will be glad to have his confidence, I suggest that it would be a great deal more difficult to do so in this instance. If one looks at the assessment of resources regulations in force in connection with civil legal aid, I should have thought that would be quite enough to dispel any idea that such regulations could be made at all simply or without going into great detail.
  The Amendment would require the court to undertake in the course of criminal proceedings a detailed assessment of resources which on the civil side is undertaken by skilled officers of the National Assistance Board, but which I suggest would be a task quite unsuitable for the courts. Therefore, I am afraid that I will have to ask the Committee not to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Ross: We had hoped that by this time and after the vote which has been taken, the hon. Lady would have hesitated before she tried to persuade the Committee that it was impossible to accept this Amendment. If she reads the Amendment and the existing Schedule she will see these words as it stands at the moment, with all the restrictions there are in relation to categories and courts as to who shall get legal aid. There is this over-riding restriction:
  "Subject to this Part of this Act, legal aid in connection with criminal proceedings shall be available to an accused person where the court is satisfied after consideration of his financial circumstances that he is unable without undue hardship to himself or his dependants to meet the expenses of the case."
  1324
  We object to that, because it is leaving absolutely free discretion, without any guidance from Parliament, to the sheriffs or the magistrates to determine the financial eligibility of a person, not for legal aid but for free legal aid. Let us appreciate that there is either free legal aid or no legal aid. The hon. Lady built up a case by preceding her argument with the words, "If legal aid is free". She was quite wrong in suggesting that we are prepared to accept that as the proper standard. But because of the way in which the legislation seeks to amend the previous Act, I am sure that hon. Members who have not been in the Standing Committee have no idea what it means.
  In relation to legal aid in civil cases, contributions and sharing of costs arise, but here we must remember that we have a principle built in for the sake of simplicity; it is either free legal aid or no legal aid. In those circumstances, because the Government are terrified of the cost, we have restriction and limitation which will lead to hardship. But hardship in itself does not matter; the Bill states that it is "undue hardship", whatever that may mean. Who will determine it? Not Parliament. The sheriff will do it. Who will question the sheriff? Nobody. Discretion is given to the sheriff in relation to financial eligibility as related not to hardship but to undue hardship. It is unfair to suggest that this is an advance on the present circumstances.
  We suggest that the Clause should read:
  "Subject to this Part of the Act, legal aid in connection with criminal proceedings shall be available to an accused person where the court is satisfied that his financial circumstances make him eligible for such aid in accordance with criteria to be laid down in regulations prescribed by the Secretary of State. Regulations made for the purpose of this subsection shall not come into force unless or until approved by resolution of the House of Commons".
  The Secretary of State will have drawn them up and we shall have approved them.
  Does the hon. Lady appreciate that there would still have to be a judgment in relation to financial eligibility? But as it stands, the standard against which these financial resources are to be measured is a standard depending on the mood and circumstances of individual sheriffs and magistrates up and down Scotland. Does she think that it would

  1325
  be less speedy if we laid down criteria against which judgment should be made? The difficulty about timing is not in relation to the standard against which we judge but against the estimate of what the resources are. These remain the same both with the Government's proposals and with our proposals. The Government have no scheme. Whatever else it may be, it is not a scheme, as the hon. Lady knows. The only guidance is in the words which I read. That is not a scheme. It is handing the decision over to someone else and saying, "You carry on. We give you no guidance or judgment. It is up to you."
  There is no reason why we should not be able to do what is suggested in the Amendment and give this guidance to sheriffs and magistrates. Where both the hon. Lady and the Guthrie Committee went wrong is that they sought simplicity where there cannot be simplicity, and in going after simplicity they are not giving justice and fairness.
  I said in Committee that this was the most unsatisfactory part of the Guthrie Committee's discussions. That Committee tried to have it every way. We pointed out to the Guthrie Committee that we could get an assessment of a person's resources, that it could be done in a rough and ready way within a week and in a far better way within a fortnight, and that in most cases to which it will be applied the person will be held for trial much longer than a fortnight. There is time. When this was drawn to the Committee's attention, it said, "Time does not matter". The basis of the hon. Lady's argument is that time does matter.
  When we pointed out to the Committee that this will lead to a varying discretion being exercised and different standards of judgment in different parts of Scotland, we were told, "It does not matter". This astounded me, and I gave vent to my feelings about it in Committee. The simple fact that a decision is made by a court of law on something which is not a matter of law does not necessarily satisfy me as a politician that it is reasonable or right. It might satisfy the lawyers who sat on the Guthrie Committee but I do not think that the House is prepared to accept paragraph 153, which reads:
  "While the absence of such a standard could result in accused persons in different areas
  1326
  receiving different treatment, we doubt whether this is an important objection."
  We are dealing with justice and fair play between one individual and another. There is enough injustice in what the Government are doing without swallowing this, too. It will fall to a court of law in each case to decide what is reasonable, and the implication is that whatever the court decides is bound to be right.
  That may be true in relation to matters of law, although we believe that it is not always true, but they are not deciding a matter of law here. They are deciding a person's financial eligibility in relation to legal aid. It is a social decision. I am sure that sheriffs do not want to have to take it.
  I wish that the Government would think again. I do not know whether the Garden Party is over and whether the presence of the Patronage Secretary means that the forces have arrived, but I remind hon. Members that in the last Division the Government had the second lowest majority in this Parliament—10. The lowest majority was also on Scottish affairs. But if those hon. Members who came into the Lobby and just managed to save the Government had heard the argument, then the Government would not have had a majority of 10; they would have been beaten. They can still be beaten this time, and if the hon. Lady has no more to say, I hope that my hon. Friends will support us in the Lobby.
  Mr. Willis: We have discussed the hon. Lady's arguments previously, and I say once again that I am exceedingly disappointed that she will not accept our Amendment. Had she really applied her mind to this: matter as she could have done, she would have been on our side. I can only repeat what an eminent Scottish lawyer said to me yesterday, referring to our Amendments: "That the Government have failed to listen to your representations on legal aid in criminal cases seems to be really lamentable". I agree, and I shall, of course, vote for the Amendment.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule: —
  The Committee divided: Ayes 195, Noes 159.

  Division No. 171.]

  AYES

  [7.0 p.m.

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Gammans, Lady

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Atkins, Humphrey

  George, Sir John (Pollok)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Morgan, William

  Barlow, Sir John

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Barter, John

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Batsford, Brian

  Goodhart, Philip

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Bell, Ronald

  Gower, Raymond

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Gurden, Harold

  Partridge, E.

  Bidgood, John C.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Biffen, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Peel, John

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Percival, Ian

  Bishop, F. P.

  Harvey, John (Watthamstow, E.)

  Peyton, John

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Hastings, Stephen

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Hay, John

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Box, Donald

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Braine, Bernard

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Brooman-White, R.

  Hendry, Forbes

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Bryan, Paul

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Pym, Francis

  Bullard, Denys

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

  Quenneil, Miss J. M.

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Ramsden, James

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Holland, Philip

  Rippon, Rt. Hon. Geoffrey

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Hopkins, Alan

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hornby, R. P.

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

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Roots, William

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Russell, Ronald

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Cole, Norman

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Cooke, Robert

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Jennings, J. C.

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Cordle, John

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Corfield, F. V.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Costain, A. P.

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Coulson, Michael

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

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

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Teeling, Sir William

  Crawley, Aldan

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Temple, John M.

  Critchley, Julian

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Kirk, Peter

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Curran, Charles

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Lambton, Viscount

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Turner, Colin

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Doughty, Charles

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Dray son, G. B.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Duncan, Sir James

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Walder, David

  Duthie, Sir William

  MacArthur, Ian

  Walker, Peter

  Eden, John

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Wall, Patrick

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Emery, Peter

  Maclean,SirFitzroy(Bute&N.Ayrs)

  Webster, David

  Errington, Sir Erie

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

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Farr, John

  Macpherson.Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Fell, Anthony

  Maddan, Martin

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Maginnis, John E.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Marten, Neil

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Forrest, George

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Button)

  Mawby, Ray

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Freeth, Denzil

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

  Mr. McLaren and Mr. Hugh Rees.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

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

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Ainsley, William

  Bowles, Frank

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Dalyell, Tam

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Barnett, Guy

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George- (Belper)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Bence, Cyril

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Davies, S. D. (Merthyr)

  Benson, Sir George

  Chapman, Donald

  Deer, George

  Blackburn, F.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Delargy, Hugh

  Blyton, William

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Dempsey, James

  Boardman, H.

  Cronin, John

  Diamond, John

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Crosland, Anthony

  Donnelly, Desmond

  1328

  1329

  Driberg, Tom

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Redhead, E. C.

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

  Jones, T. W, (Merioneth)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Kelley, Richard

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Evans, Albert

  Ledger, Bon

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lee, Miss Jennis (Cannock)

  Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

  Finch, Harold

  Lubbock, Eric

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

  Forman, J. C.

  McBride, N.

  Ross, William

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  McCann, John

  Short, Edward

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  McInnes, James

  Silkin, John

  George, Lady MeganLloyd(Crmrthn)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Gourlay, Harry

  McLeavy, Frank

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Small, William

  Grey, Charles

  Mahon, Simon

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

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

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Manuel, Archie

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Mapp, Charles

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Mason, Roy

  Steele, Thomas

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Stones, William

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Millan, Bruce

  Swingler, Stephen

  Hannan, William

  Monslow, Walter

  Symonds, J, B.

  Harper, Joseph

  Moody, A. S.

  Taverne, D.

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Morris, John

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Moyle, Arthur

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Heafey, Denis

  Mulley, Frederick

  Wade, Donald

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Oliver, G. K.

  Warbey, William

  Hilton, A. V.

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Weitzman, David

  Holman, Percy

  Oram, A. E.

  Whitlock, William

  Holt, Arthur

  Owen, Will

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Hoy, James H.

  Parker, John

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

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

  Hunter, A. E.

  Pentland, Norman

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Woof, Robert

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Probert, Arthur

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Randall, Harry

  Mr. Lawson and

  Mr. Sydney Irving.

  Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported, without Amendment; as amended (in Standing Committee) considered.

  New Clause.—(DEFERRED SENTENCE.)
  For the removal of doubt if is hereby declared that it is competent for any Scottish court to defer sentence after conviction for a period and on such conditions as the court may determine.—[Mr. Ross.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  It was during the discussions of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders on the use of short sentences of imprisonment by the courts that this matter cropped up. The purpose and concern of the Council was that far too many people were being sent to prison in Scotland where it was felt that there were more adequate and effective ways of dealing with them from the point of view of the protection of the public and the reformation of the people themselves.
  1330
  It was felt that if we could keep people out of prison the chances were that their development into hardened prisoners and persons of criminal tendencies would decline. It was discovered that there was resort in Scotland to a way of dealing with people who had been charged and found guilty which was quite unique to Scotland. Certain Scottish courts have regarded persons as suitable for deferred sentence without making an order. The period may be as much as a year and at the end of that period the court decides in the light of the offender's conduct during that time whether to admonish the offender, whether to discharge him, and even to discharge him absolutely.
  This has been found to be invaluable. It was in Standing Committee that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) drew attention to the desirability of using this procedure as much as possible. It was discovered that although this practice has gone on in Scottish courts there is doubt whether or not it is a competent way of dealing with a convicted person. A recommendation made in paragraph 49 of the Council's Report on the

  1331
  Use of Short Sentences of Imprisonment by the Courts says:
  "We recommend that, if there are no compelling considerations to the contrary, a provision should be enacted removing any doubt about the power of the court to defer sentence for a discretionary period."
  The Government took no notice of that.
  There may be good reasons why, but obviously the Council's attention has been drawn to it and there is a question of doubt. We should have that cleared up and it is desirable that we should draw the attention of the courts to the existence of this practice, to which no exception has been taken and to which I hope the Government will say no exception could be taken. I hope they will also say that there should be greater resort to it
  It was for this reason that we tabled the new Clause. I hope that the Government will see their way to accept it or, failing acceptance, will give us very cogent reasons why it is not necessary to accept it. The last thing we want is for the Government to say something which will inhibit Scottish courts doing something they have hitherto done to the advantage of people coming before them, and a practice which has been recognised by the Scottish Council for the Treatment of Offenders and one which it is desirable should be copied by others.
  7.15 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has rightly said this practice of a deferred sentence is in use fairly generally throughout Scotland. I understand that in the main it is applied to juvenile and adolescent offenders. There is some dispute, as the hon. Member rightly said, about the legality of the deferred sentence because it has never been tested on appeal in Scotland. Therefore, when the hon. Member tabled the new Clause I read it with considerable care. It seemed to me that the new Clause was intended for the removal of doubt, and, that being so, the hon. Member perhaps will be glad to hear that I shall be very glad to accept it.
  I think that I ought to add a few words about S.A.C.T.O. because it was that Council which considered this matter and
  1332
  the hon. Member referred to paragraph 49 of its Report in which it said:
  "…we are disposed to think that the deferred sentence may occasionally be a suitable alternative to an immediate short sentence of imprisonment…We recommend that, if there are no compelling considerations to the contrary, a provision should be enacted removing any doubt…"
  I should like to describe the practice to those hon. Members who do not know of it. An offender may be convicted of a comparatively minor offence, such as theft, and may appear to the court to have repented of the theft. The court may feel that his prosecution and conviction has resulted in his having learned a lesson by the mere fact of his appearing before the court and that no punishment is necessary in the interest of justice. The court may defer sentence to six months or nine months hence. It then takes into account, as well as it can be aware of it, the offender's behavior during the intervening period and may decide that no punishment is necessary in the end. As the Clause removes doubt on the practice existing in Scotland, I repeat that I am glad to accept it.
  Mrs. Alice Cullen: I am very pleased that the noble Lady has accepted the new Clause. If she had not done so I would have had a great deal to say about it. As a magistrate I have used the deferred sentence procedure on many occasions and thus saved a child from going to prison or an approved school and kept him at home where he ought to be, thereby providing a lesson for the parents as well as the child.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

  New Clause.—(CATEGORIES OF CHILDREN NOT TO BE SENT TO AN APPROVED SCHOOL.)
  Sentence to an approved school shall not be considered as suitable treatment for—

  (a) children who are certified as mental defectives,

  (b) children who are found to be in need of care and protection,

  (c) children whose only offence is truancy.

  —[Mr. J. Bennett.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. James Bennett: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

  1333
  I hope that I may be as fortunate as my hon. Friends the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) in at least having the first part of the new Clause accepted. The first part contains the very fundamentals of elementary justice. It should be entirely unnecessary to move that mental defectives should not be sent to an approved school.
  I know that I shall be told that not many such children are sent to an approved school and that these schools were never designed to take any such children. But so long as the law remains as it is at present, mentally defective children can still be sent to an approved school.
  I have in mind an instance which came to my attention of a child certified as a mental defective who should have been placed in an appropriate institution but who, because there was no accommodation available within the institution, was returned to the approved school from which it had come. The function of an approved school is to provide education and training. It is obvious to everyone that approved schools as such have their own built-in problems. They deal with very difficult children, children who have been sent there for various crimes, and to add to their difficulties by sending mentally defective children for education and training which the schools simply cannot provide is not only unfair to the child but extremely unfair to the schools. This is a practice which we should be well advised to stop, and acceptance of the first paragraph of my new Clause will be the first step towards doing so.
  All of us who have dealings with approved schools appreciate the strains under which they have to operate. The very fact that I am pressing this new Clause upon the Government is an indication of how strongly I feel that approved schools are being asked to undertake too much. I am sure that the House will accept the premise I am advancing. In no circumstances should children certified as mentally defective be sent to approved schools.
  It may be said that there is a lack of suitable accommodation. Although this may be a reason, it is certainly not a justification. We are concerned with justice. What I ask for here is a first
  1334
  step towards putting right a wrong which still exists, and, if the noble Lady says that she cannot accept my proposal, I shall be very interested to hear what possible arguments she can put against it.
  Next, children in need of care and protection. This is a very specious expression, "children in need of care and protection". For the life of me, I cannot visualise such children receiving at approved school the care and protection which the court orders. I am fortified in this view by what I read in the S.A.C.T.O. Report on Custodial Sentences for Young Offenders, 1960, to which so much attention was paid in Standing Committee. Many are the recommendations contained in it dealing with custodial sentences for young offenders, and these have been accepted in principle by the House. Is it too much to ask that we should accept and act upon what is said on page 13 of that Report? Although the Committee had no remit to discuss the care and protection of young persons, it had this to say:
  "Nor do we deal with young persons in need of cart: or protection ordered to be sent to an approved school (which incidentally, we deplore)…".
  Although it was going outside its terms of reference, this very responsible body, charged with a special task, saw fit to say that, in its opinion, children in need of care and protection should not be sent to approved schools.
  The youngsters sent to approved school because they have committed crimes of one sort and another are not angels by any means. Many of them are there because they have kicked over the traces quite a bit. Is it not absurd, with that type of child in the school, to send there also children and young persons who are—I ask the House to mark the words well—in need of care and protection? I simply cannot understand the logic of such a sentence being ordered for youngsters in this category.
  The third category are children whose only offence is truancy. It should be remembered in this connection that many children who are sent to approved schools because of truancy are sent there also because they are in need of care and protection. Although I may not have such a strong objection to truants as such being sent to approved school, I am appalled to find that those sent

  1335
  to approved school for truancy have an average length of stay of 17 months. This is a staggering slice out of a young life for an offence such as truancy.
  Can we possibly be satisfied that a young person guilty of truancy and sent to approved school will receive there only the education and training which it is supposed to receive? Children guilty of truancy will mix with children whose offences are far more serious. Are we naïve enough to think that a long period in an approved school will not leave a scar of some kind on a young person's mind? Are we naïve enough to imagine that bad habits which young people may take into an approved school will not become worse the longer they stay there?
  I became quite incensed fairly recently when, within my own area, I discovered that there was a girl of 14½ who had been sent to an approved school because of truancy. I gather that, as the law now stands, that is quite in order. But I discovered, also, that her record of truancy went back for three years before that. It makes me wonder whether we are concerned more with retribution than with rehabilitation. If any action were needed in such a case, it should have been taken at an early stage of the youngster's development, not when it is on the verge of leaving school. I was told in this particular case that the girl was also keeping bad company. Let there be no mistake that a girl of just under 15 going to an approved school will meet much worse company there than the company she keeps outside.
  What I am now saying could be construed as criticism of approved schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a real appreciation of all the difficulties under which the managers and staff of approved schools have to work. I am urging the new Clause on the Government with a view to reducing the burden which they are continually being asked to undertake in the provision of proper education and care for the recalcitrant children in their charge. It is quite unfair that we should burden them more with cases which, in the first instance, should never be sent to an approved school.
  Has the Under-Secretary of State considered the experiment going on in Eng-
  1336
  land, the introduction of classifying schools? Many young persons, before they are sent anywhere, spend some time at a classifying school in order that it may be decided how best to treat them. We must adopt an entirely new attitude towards the children and young persons we send to approved school if we are really concerned with rehabilitation. I recently read, strangely enough, in the Report of the Education Department, Education in Scotland in 1962, something which quite appalled me. On page 92 it is said that
  "two per cent, of the girls and 33 per cent of the boys"—
  that is, of those attending approved school—
  "had been recommitted to approved schools or sentenced to detention centres, Borstal or prison".
  This is far too high a proportion to find their way back to approved school or other institutions. So long as such a percentage as 33 per cent. of the boys remains, it is high time that we had a re-examination of our methods of treatment and, particularly, our methods of after-care.
  I could say a lot more on this subject, but I think that I have made my main case. The noble Lady knows that I have a very great interest in approved schools as such. I realise that my comments could be construed as criticism of approved schools, but again I say that that is not the case. The approved schools have a tremendously important job to do within our society. Let us make it easier for them to do the job which they were set up to do and let them stop meddling with other ancillary work which they are not able to carry out.
  7.30 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I am very sorry to have to tell the hon. Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. J. Bennett) that I cannot accept his new Clause for a reason which I hope will commend itself to him.
  It is exactly the kind of problem with which the new Clause deals that is being considered by Lord Kilbrandon's Committee, which we hope will report by the end of this year. I therefore suggest that it would not be wise to put a Clause of this nature in the Bill since the terms of

  1337
  reference of the Kilbrandon Committee are
  "to consider the provisions of the law of Scotland relating to the treatment of juvenile delinquents and juveniles in need of care or protection or beyond parental control and, in particular, the constitution, powers and procedure of the courts dealing with such juveniles…"
  It might be helpful if I said what happened to the three categories of children mentioned in the new Clause who, the hon. Member hopes, will not be considered suitable to go to approved schools. The hon. Member, who is very experienced in the workings of approved schools, will recognise that the approved schools think of themselves, not as places of penal treatment, but as centres where proper training and instruction can be given which is lacking in the homes of the children concerned. The records in regard to children committed as being in need of care or protection or as being truants show that, in general, those committed under these procedures are just as much in need of the kind of training which they get in approved schools, which is both social and educational, as are children sent there on other grounds.
  The hon. Member mentioned a particular case in his constituency. I suspect that he probably knows that the child in question has been considered fit to be released on licence. She had a very bad record of truancy indeed, but we hope that things will now improve.
  With regard to children suffering from mental handicaps, the approved schools have considerable experience in training pupils who have to overcome handicaps of low intelligence and educational backwardness, and in a number of these schools there are staff specially qualified in the teaching of mentally handicapped children and in all the schools any child in that category, receives particular attention.
  Mr. J. Bennett: There is a difference in the proposal that I have put forward. It mentions not handicapped children but children certified as mental defectives within the meaning of the Act, children sent to approved schools purely because there was no suitable accommodation in the proper institutions.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I was proposing to mention that the reference in the new Clause to children who are certified as mental defectives is not quite correct
  1338
  because such certification was abolished by the Mental Health (Scotland) Act, 1960. Under that Act, however, it is already open to a court, if it is satisfied that a child brought before it is suffering from serious mental disorder, to make a hospital or guardianship order and there is a duty on the prosecutor, or, in a care or protection case, the person bringing the child before the court, to lay before the court such evidence as may be available on the mental condition of the child. Apart from that provision, and particularly in view of the forthcoming report of the Kilbrandon Committee, I do not think that it would be wise to accept the new Clause.
  Mr. Willis: I did not intend to take part in this debate, but the excuse or at least the reason, given by the Undersecretary of State for rejecting the new Clause seems to me unacceptable. Apart from telling us the present position, she said that we could not do anything because the Kilbrandon Committee is inquiring into this matter. If it is desirable to do what is suggested in the new Clause, surely we should not wait for the Kilbrandon Committee to report. If this new Clause were put in the Bill, we think that we should have done a good thing. The hon. Lady has not said that it would not be a good thing to put it in the Bill. When we get the Kilbrandon report, and after the Government has considered what action should be taken on it, we can take the steps which we think are necessary in the light of that report.
  Why should we not do something good because the Kilbrandon Committee is to report about it next year on which we might act the year after? I do not follow the logic of this. I cannot see that it would interfere with the work of the Kilbrandon Committee. It will carry on and make its report. The noble lady's reason for rejecting the new Clause is quite unacceptable to me. If she had given some other reason why it was not thought desirable to do what my hon. Friend suggests, we might have been able to accept it, but as it is I do not think we can accept the reason given by her.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: I wish, first, to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. J. Bennett) on the

  1339
  admirable way in which he proposed the new Clause. One realised throughout his speech not only that he has great knowledge of approved schools and of the need of care and protection for some of our children but also how deeply he felt about these matters. I hoped that not only his experience and knowledge but the very depths of his feeling would have got over to the Under-Secretary of State and that she would have been willing to accept at least part if not the whole of the new Clause.
  I know that we are in a difficulty at this late stage in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said that the hon. Lady had not given good reason for not accepting the new Clause and that she did not say it was a bad thing. I am not sure of that. I rose to speak because Lord Kilbrandon's Committee is sitting and it seemed to me that some of the statements made by the hon. Lady might prejudice the findings of that Committee. Let me take one in particular. She said that those who worked in approved schools did not regard them as places of penal treatment. One must take that statement as meaning that since they were not regarded by the staff as places of penal treatment there was not very much wrong in mental defectives and children who are only truants and who have done nothing else wrong mixing with children who are in approved schools because a court has found them guilty of some misdemeanour.
  I accept that those who work in approved schools do their very best to rehabilitate, socially and educationally, the young people in their care. In spite of that, because of my knowledge of approved schools, it seems to me that they are no place for the three categories of children which are causing my hon. Friend so much worry. To take paragraph (c) of the new Clause first, I think of children whose only offence is truancy. Children may be truants for a number of reasons. I give these examples from my experience as a teacher.
  There is the child who, far from being wicked, finds school terribly uninteresting. I had one boy who always told me that he would be a biologist and he
  1340
  simply loved to get away from school, not to do anything wicked but to go on to the marshes and watch the wild life there. When I took my children out on a Saturday morning, it was a delight to have that boy with us because he could give so much to the other children. That type of child is a truant because he finds so much of greater interest outside school than he will ever find inside school. It would be very wrong to send that kind of dreamer—it happens occasionally—to an approved school.
  If we consider the other truants, very often it is because of the home influences that a child continually plays truant from school. To send to an approved school that kind of child, whose only fault is truancy, is completely wrong in the civilised country in which we live.
  There are all kinds of children who are, rightly, in an approved school, and in an approved school segregation is impossible. Indeed, segregation might have many repercussions. If a child who is a continual truant or who needs care and protection—again, perhaps because the home is at fault—goes to an approved school among children who are there, possibly, for criminal offences, I have the gravest fear that such a child will become contaminated at an early age. Therefore, instead of taking sensible steps to give care and protection outside an approved school or to try to stop the truancy, as things are we are running the grave danger of turning those whose only fault is truancy into the potential criminals of the future. That is a very serious matter.
  I hoped that before we discussed the new Clause the noble Lady would have given these matters great consideration. In her position as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland she must be learning a great deal about our educational system and about our approved schools in Scotland. She must realise, as we on this side realise, that there is much good in my hon. Friend's new Clause.
  Once again I ask the noble Lady whether she will not give further consideration to this matter and speak again to show that she and the Government deprecate the sending to an approved school of any child in these three categories, so that Lord Kilbrandon's Committee will realise that on the part not

  1341
  only of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton and of those who have put down the new Clause but on both sides of the House there is an earnest desire to find a solution other than an approved school for these three categories of young people.
  7.45 p.m.
  Mr. Ross: I was hoping that we would get a response from the hon. Lady to the eloquent pleas of my hon. Friends. The hon. Lady did not answer merely by saying that a Committee was sitting and that the Government did not want to do this or that. I do not think that Lord Kilbrandon's feelings would be hurt if the Government for once made up their mind about something. I do not know whether we are to have the benefit of a speech from the point triple Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I refer to the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Brooman-White).
  Mr. Willis: Where is he?
  Mr. Ross: He is here; my hon. Friend need not worry. I was going to refer to something of which the hon. Gentleman had charge and which, I hope, he treated with a little less levity than he seems to treat this matter.
  One of our difficulties during discussion of the Bill, and particularly the question of approved schools, was that we had in another part of the building another Committee dealing with children and young persons, in which, belatedly, the Government applied an important Clause to Scotland, with the result that we did not entirely know within either Committee the Government's intentions about the treatment of families or the children of families who required the attention of the local authority. We are in the wonderful position that the situation is dealt with partly in the present Bill and partly in the Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords] and now we are told that we cannot add anything to either of them because Lord Kilbrandon and his Committee are discussing the question of juvenile delinquents and the treatment of this, that and the next thing. If the House of Commons is convinced that a matter has been proved and that it is right that we should do something, we do it. The sovereignty of Parliament
  1342
  is something that we should entirely and constantly bear in mind.
  The three propositions which we are discussing are fairly simple. The first is whether we should send children who are mental defectives to an approved school. It is I, and not my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. J. Bennett), who must apologise for the weakness in the drafting of my hon. Friend's new Clause. He left it to me and it has turned out to be a weak vessel. I completely forgot about the technical change which we made in the Mental Health Act and, of course, no such definition is applied. It is a question of mental disorder to a particular extent and degree. The Scottish Office, however, was in no doubt of our intention.
  If a child is suffering from mental disorder, the place for him is not an approved school. It is not good for the child and it is not fair to him. Irrespective of all the help that, we are told, is available at an approved school, it does not have the specialised help that can be given at a place which is specially fitted for the treatment of mental disorder.
  Secondly, there is the need of care and protection, not because of anything inherently wrong with the child but because he has failed to get the care and protection from those who should give it—the parents. It may be that the child has no parents and that he has been looked after by an elderly relative who simply cannot cope with the problems of bringing up growing children. It is not fair to these children or their families that they should be sent to an approved school.
  These are the questions which the hon. Lady should have answered, and there was the third, the question about truancy. I know how my hon. Friend feels about this. The hon. Lady should appreciate that the three parts of this Clause were once three separate Clauses. I prevailed upon my hon. Friend to have one and to have a single debate. Probably he was unwise in accepting my advice about this, though I have a feeling that thehon. Lady would have said "No" three times instead of once. However, I felt that the one Clause would make for a tolerably good debate about this matter. I do not think the hon. Lady has answered it at all.

  1343
  If truancy is the only offence of the child he should not be sent to an approved school. Just remember how long one can remain in an approved school. All the approved schools are not the models which the hon. Lady would have us believe them to be. One thing I wish is that we could spend as much money on our approved schools as in England they spend on theirs, and I wish that our Scottish approved schools were as good as English approved schools. There is still in some of them too much of the taint of the old institution, and we have got to get away from that.
  My hon. Friend quoted figures of the number of people in approved schools who had gone back again or had been sentenced to detention centres and so on. They are shocking figures. They do not give us any satisfaction, but to what extent are the approved schools themselves hampered by the presence there of people who just should not be there? Their presence is bound to limit the ability of those in charge to deal with those who were originally intended to be dealt with there. It is because of the shortcomings of the Government in the provision of places for those with mental disorder that they have to be sent to approved schools; and as for those who need care and protection, because the local authorities are not prepared to do what I think is probably their job here in the provision of the second home, those children who need care and protection also go to approved schools. I do not think it is fair to the children and I do not think it is fair to the approved schools.
  Some of these approved schools and some of the very dedicated people running them are doing a wonderful job, and while we may hold up our hands in horror at the rate of 30 per cent. of failures there is still a 70 per cent. success rate—although I do not think the figure is quite as good as that taking it all round. But even at that, I think we have got to give our approved schools a chance of succeeding with the type of children for which they were intended, and they will have the better chance if they are used for them and not used for others because of the failures to make for them proper provision in other ways.
  I thought that the hon. Lady could have given us a much more sympathetic
  1344
  answer than she did, and might have expressed the hopes of the Government, with all the various Bills before them at the present time, and might have said that the Government were actively concerned with these problems and were concerned to ensure that proper provision is made and proper treatment given for the various types of children who are here in this new Clause listed and categorised. I do not know whether she wishes to say something more. It is one of the troubles of Report stage that one can have only one real go at a matter. I hoped that before she did have her say she would have thought much more sympathetically about it, and I hoped she would have given us a much more satisfactory answer than she has done.
  Mr. Ede: I apologise to my Scottish colleagues for intruding—
  Mr. Willis: We are delighted.
  Mr. Ede: —in a debate initiated by them about the affairs of Scotland, but I am pleased to find at least two other Members of my own calling who do not think that truancy is a crime—and certainly not a crime on the part of the truant.
  Mr. Ross: I thought my right hon. Friend would say on the part of Members of Parliament.
  Mr. Ede: I always feel far better with an audience of about this size because I realise the truth of Milton's description of the audience Satan had when he said
  "fit audience find, though few".
  As a teacher I would have regarded a truant as a reflection on me rather than as a reflection on himself. In these days there is ample opportunity, although there is still much to be desired, to make a school a place in which the interest of the individual child can have full opportunity for recognition by the teacher. I think the boy to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) referred, who was guilty of his own nature study at a time which the school thought ought to be devoted to arithmetic, is a child to be commended. Certainly the child who can show others, out on a school ramble, things he has discovered for himself, a child to whom nature reveals itself as he goes along, is

  1345
  not one who is likely to profit from the strict residential atmosphere of an approved school. That kind of education is intended for the upper classes. I do not myself think that it is suitable to give that type of education to a boy with some appreciation of what free wandering really means.
  I hope that, as time goes on, we shall get a greater recognition of the duty of the school to the child who sometimes finds a formal lesson not merely uninteresting but irritating. If a child does truant, as a rule in these days I think the fault is more likely to be found in the school than in the child. I should feel much happier if I knew that truancy ended because schools had become more interesting.
  I never truanted, but I had a great admiration for the truants. They knew what was coming to them when they turned up and they never made any complaint. They needed no instruction about getting ready for the reward which was to come to them. They accepted it in a good spirit, and made up their minds that next time they would have more fun, even if they did have to pay more for it.
  Mr. William Small: I, too, wish the hon. Lady would re-examine in her own mind the content of this new Clause and understand that children arrive at this situation in which they have to be dealt with in this manner, have to be dealt with by being sentenced to an approved school, because they have come before the courts, and they go before the courts for very many and different offences.
  My hon. Friend gave an illustration about truancy. A headmaster reports the case of an absent child to the attendance officer of a committee, a subcommittee of the education committee. The case comes before the committee, who see the parents—and sometimes fail to convince the parents that the child has not been to school as regularly as he ought. But the headmaster himself, and his influence, ought to be enough to ensure that such a case does not arise and does not require to be sent to court.
  8.0 p.m.
  One of the problems is that the juvenile court has no intimate knowledge of the offender and has to deal with the crime purely as truancy. Just how criminal is
  1346
  truancy in the mind of the court? The court has no other means of dealing with the child than sending it to an approved school unless—this is where I think the probation service is so important—it is not satisfied that it should make a decision in terms of sentencing the child when it is of school age. I have never heard of a sentence of three or four months. It is usually for one to three years. That is a very cruel situation.
  If I might be honest and domestic about it, this generally comes at the age of puberty. There are very many psychological aspects apart from the matter of dealing with the minor crime of truancy and taking the children out of the area of influence of people they have known all their lives and putting them into the hands of functionaries who have the duty to carry out what the court has decided—that they be removed from the community to an institution as retribution for something they have done. When one takes into account all the psychological argument that goes on in the child's mind as to whether or not it is being fairly dealt with, I think it is regrettable that the hon. Lady should not support an element of what is contained in the new Clause.
  Question put and negatived.

  New Clause.—(CLASSIFICATION FOR APPROVED SCHOOL.)
  On committing a child or young person to an approved school, the mental age as well as the chronological age shall be taken into consideration in determining the category of approved school.—[Mr. J. Bennett.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. J. Bennett: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  I confess that I rise to my feet bitterly disappointed. I am not the least bit hopeful in moving the Clause that I shall have any better reception than I had previously. This Clause bristles with difficulties.
  Before I develop the reasons why I think the Clause should be included in the Bill, I think we ought to understand a little of the set-up of approved schools. There are twenty-two in Scotland, subdivided into eight junior, seven senior and seven intermediate. The children who go to them, whether they be junior, senior, or intermediate, go strictly according to their chronological age.

  1347
  I am interested to hear that the Kilbrandon report will be out at the end of the year, but I am disturbed to think that we should be discussing such important matters as these without the advice of that Report. However, I understand that the British Medical Association has made certain recommendations to the Kilbrandon Committee, one being that there should be a panel of doctors who would examine the mental and physical background of young persons at present termed delinquents. While I appreciate that committal of young people according to their age group is very convenient, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the mental age of the child should be taken into consideration.
  On the last Clause the hon. Lady stated that the approved schools were geared to deal with mentally retarded children and children who are emotionally upset. Of course they are, up to a point. But I have in my hand reports of mentally retarded and emotionally upset pupils in approved schools who have been completely disruptive elements within the schools to which they have been committed. One report is of a boy who has been in five approved schools. The headmaster of each approved school appealed for the boy to be taken away because he was a disruptive dement. Although these are dedicated people, they come across problem children who completely upset the balance of the school, and they are forced to plead with officialdom to take them elsewhere, but when that happens we may resolve the problem in one school only to recreate it in another.
  I hope—I do not expect the Clause to be accepted—that the hon. Lady will appreciate that a tremendous amount of study is necessary before children are committed to any approved school. There are reports to show that one may have a child young in years but old in experience and big in build, but because of his age he is sent to a junior approved school, and there because of his outlook he becomes a bully. We have the reverse in the case of a boy who is fifteen years of age but has the mental age of a child of eight and becomes the butt of his fellow inmates in the approved school. This means that approved schools are prevented from doing the work they ought to do.
  1348
  I do not think the hon. Lady will disagree with me when I say that the mental age of a child should be considered along with its chronological age. It is generally recognised that that must be the case. I said at the beginning that the Clause bristles with difficulties. I am being perfectly honest. I know that that is so. I also know that the hon. Lady will point out many of the difficulties to me. But that does not mean that there is no merit in the Clause.
  I do not for a moment think it is right and proper that a child or young person should be sent to a particular approved school just because he falls within the particular age category. I could read out reports which I have here from psychiatrists. I do not intend to do so, first, because they make very grim reading, and secondly, because I might be accused of trying to score points. If I quoted them, it would be not for the purpose of scoring points but to illustrate the tremendous difficulties existing within approved schools now. However, it would serve no useful purpose to quote them. I refer to them merely to show the hon. Lady that it is not a case of talking for talking's sake.
  The fact is that, having an interest in the approved schools set-up and having a tremendous interest in the results which they seek to achieve, I am appalled to find that in far too many instances they are being asked to cope with difficulties with which they would never set up to cope. That is why I move the Clause. I know it will be rejected, but I hope that something may come out of it so that when we discuss the Kilbrandon Report we may find ourselves in a position to make provision for young people who are emotionally upset and mentally retarded.
  It is remarkable that many of the young people referred to in these documents are classified as being mentally deficient and not suitable subjects for approved school training. The position is that because there is a lack of alternative treatment, these young persons are forced to remain in approved schools. The result is that we are not being just, reasonable or sensible. Surely the time has come to recognise that this is a very serious problem which cannot simply be brushed aside saying, "We know there

  1349
  is a problem, but it is incapable of solution." We have gone to the length of providing detention centres and remand homes. The provision of suitable accommodation for the young people I have mentioned is only a further step towards the situation where we can treat youngsters as they ought to be treated.
  The hon. Lady is right in saying that approved schools are not really penal institutions. Of course they are not. But they are punishments. Young people are sent to them because they have infringed the law. But in them we have young people who are mentally retarded. Yet, if they were adults, the courts would recognise their diminished responsibility and treat them accordingly. It may be that we should consider applying the criterion of diminished responsibility to young people. It will always be a reproach on us that mentally retarded children are sent to approved schools.
  I am sure that the hon. Lady will appreciate what I am trying to say. There are times when I wish for the eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and for the lucidity of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). But I have to depend on sincerity of purpose in putting my case, although I have met with little success so far. I hope that we shall have not a complete rejection of this Clause but some assurance that, contained within it, there is an element of justice and a great deal of good common sense and that possibly, when we discuss the Kilbrandon report, we may be in a position to do something that we should have done many years ago.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that because I do not accept the Clause there is no great merit in the thought that lies behind it. I hope also that he will not think that he has not put forward his case with great skill, for he has indeed done so. I know that he feels very deeply about this—I know also that he recognises that the Clause bristles with difficulties. Indeed, it seems that perhaps he brought the subject before us for discussion so that, at any rate, we should have an opportunity for thought on these matters which we can return to when the Kilbrandon Committee reports.
  1350
  The Kilbrandon Committee is examining this question. The educational, psychological and, indeed, mental difficulties of these children are something which cause a very great deal of concern throughout the country and on which there are very conflicting views. I do not want to accept this Clause not only because the Kilbrandon Committee is considering the matter but because, as I hope to show, in some respects it may be unnecessary, since mental and chronological ages are taken into account. Perhaps I might be allowed to say something about the allocation procedure.
  Under the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, the responsibility for specifying the approved school to which a child is to be sent rests with the court which makes the committal order, after consideration of any representations made by the education authority concerned.
  Any such representations are normally made through the officer who prepares and lays before the court the statutory social background report. In practice, the court usually commits to the school proposed by the reporting officer and, by agreement, the Scottish Education Department acts us a central agent for the education authorities in this matter.
  Where it seems likely that a child may be committed, the authority or the reporting officer seeks the tentative reservation of a place and, so far as possible, the Department makes a provisional allocation. In this way the court has at its disposal the combined advice of the education authority and of the Department, given after the child's background and the facilities provided at particular approved schools have been taken into account.
  Apart from religion, there are, of course, under the present law no statutory requirements laying down the considerations at which the court must look in deciding to which school the youngster should go. Clearly, however, the schools must be sub-divided into categories by the three main divisions—sex, religion and chronological age, the latter corresponding generally with physical maturity. The courts must obviously have regard to these things, as must the Department in suggesting an allocation.

  1351
  On merits, I would accept that mental age is a factor which must be taken into consideration. But it is only one such factor and this Clause would single it out for special mention. If, as a result of a statutory requirement of the sort proposed by this Clause, very special emphasis on mental age were laid in determining which school a child should be sent to, there would be certain educational and social difficulties.
  8.15 p.m.
  It would mean, for example, that older, duller and physically more mature boys might have to be sent to schools where they would associate with much younger, smaller and less mature boys, to the detriment of both. In the same way, brighter, younger boys would be sent to schools with older pupils and might similarly be at risk.
  I assure hon. Members, however, that, where exceptional circumstances do exist, every effort is made to take account of them in making an allocation. For example, cases have occurred where a boy of 13 or 14 who is mentally, emotionally and physically mature has been placed in a senior school rather than a junior or intermediate one. There is also the safeguard that the Secretary of State has the power to order pupils to be transferred from one approved school to another if it is found that a mistake was made in the first place in the choice of school. I hope that this gives some assurance to the hon. Member, and I too hope that we shall return to what is a very big discussion when we get the Kilbrandon Report.
  Question put and negatived.

  Clause 1.—(RESTRICTIONS ON DETENTION.)
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): The next Amendment is that in page 2, line 9.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I was hoping that this Amendment would be moved by another hon. Member, but I am quite willing to move it myself. Therefore, I beg to move, in page 2, line 9. to leave out from "jurisdiction" to "imposes" in line 10.
  I do not think there is any point in speaking at length on this Amendment.
  1352
  In Committee, I explained the reasons for the Government's doubts as to whether it was necessary to apply the requirements of Clause 1(3) to summary courts with legally qualified judges since, with their legal training, they would be aware of and would apply the requirements of Clause 1(1). We took the view that it was unnecessary, but not harmful.
  I took account of the strength of feeling undoubtedly shown in Committee that this additional safeguard against unnecessary use of sentences of detention should apply to all summary courts, and I undertook to convey this feeling to my right hon. Friend. As a result, this Amendment appears on the Notice Paper.
  Mr. Ross: If the Secretary of State will meddle with legislation and put his name to an Amendment then he must pay the penalty of his name being at the top of the list of right hon. and hon. Members sponsoring the Amendment, as is the case here. It would have been far better if the hon. Lady could have served us an element of surprise by being generous enough to accept an Amendment in these terms moved from this side of the House.
  I want merely on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes), who has asked me to apologise for the fact that he cannot be here at this moment—he has been here until the last few minutes—to thank the Government for their acceptance of the essence of the Amendment which he put forward in Committee. It did not originate there. I mentioned earlier that when he was sitting on this side of the House, Walter Elliot put forward this idea to the Labour Government in 1949, and the Labour Government turned it down.
  I have always felt that if we are to lay an obligation upon persons to state their reasons for ignoring Parliament's advice about the treatment of offenders and, despite all the alternatives put before them, to insist on sending such offenders to detention, in other words, to prison, all of them should have to state their reasons. But there is no reason why we should single out magistrates and tell them that if they send a person to detention, they must give a reason, while at the same time we say to a stipendiary

  1353
  magistrate or a sheriff that if he does so, he need not give his reasons. The fallibility and reliability, on balance, is about equal in both cases.
  We think that the obligation is worth while for it makes sure that such people will hesitate before passing over the alternative sentences, and we should lay it upon them all. I do not believe that sheriffs will be terribly worried about what we are asking them to do. It has been suggested that they might write a sort of offhand note. I sincerely hope that that will not be the case. I sincerely hope that the Scottish Office and the Lord Advocate—we have stopped deploring his absence or congratulating ourselves upon it—will take note of the reasons given by sheriffs as well as others for insisting on sending a young person to detention despite the alternatives which we have offered. "Detention" is the wrong word, and it is really a custodial sentence, because "detention" now has a specialised connotation. I hope that this will not be done merely as a matter of form and that attention will be paid to Parliament's desires and the conviction of public opinion that young people should be treated in such a way as to prevent their intimacy with prison life as far as possible, because of the effect that that will have and the likelihood, as has been proved in many cases, that such familiarity will breed contempt for the law and that the element of deterrence will disappear with familiarity.
  I am very glad that the hon. Lady has seen fit to accept the Amendment. I hope that it will prove beneficial and will have the effect originally desired in 1949.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause 2.—(YOUNG OFFENDERS INSTITUTIONS.)
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 2, line 31, after "provide", to insert:
  "outwith and apart from adult prisons".
  The Clause lays it down that the Secretary of State shall provide such young offenders' institutions as appear to him to be necessary. This is the new alternative form of custodial sentence for young people of the required age.
  I was shocked, as were many others, when we discovered the Government's
  1354
  intentions about meeting their obligation in this respect. The first new young offenders institution was to be the old prison at Dumfries. The second was to be at Edinburgh in a hall which was part of the prison, but which was somehow to be segregated from the rest of the prison. Then we learned that girls were to go to Greenock, again to part of Greenock Prison.
  The S.A.C.T.O. Report on Custodial Sentences for Young Offenders—other than sentences of detention in a centre or borstal—was very firm on this issue and that makes the Amendment all the more necessary. Paragraph 65 of that Report says:
  "Fundamental to our recommendations is an institution to which all young persons on whom a custodial sentence is imposed, other than detention in a centre or a borstal sentence"—
  that is what we are calling young offenders institutions—
  "could be sent direct from the courts. In existing Scottish prisons as we have seen them it is simply not possible to keep a group of young offenders apart from adult prisoners and at the same time provide the conditions, for work, education and recreation, in which youths should be detained. It may indeed be possible to provide conditions in which there is no physical contact between the group of young offenders and adult prisoners, but if the latter are within sight or hearing of the youths there is not effective segregation. We regard it as very important that no young offender, including a young offender who has defaulted on the payment of a fine, should ever be detained inside a prison for adults."
  That was the view of S.A.C.T.O. and also of the Standing Committee, which welcomed the young offenders institutions but which was horrified when it learned what was to happen. I remember the hon. Lady the Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) appealing to the noble Lady and saying that Greenock was an adult prison with a borstal which was now to be a young offenders institution and suggesting that the authorities should go outside the prison gates and use the governor's house as a young offenders institution.
  If anything has been brought out in our consideration of the Bill it has been the Government's failure to implement what were regarded as advances in penal treatment as long ago as the legislation of1949. It is no good saying that we must have remand homes if we do not get remand homes. It is no good saying let

  1355
  us have detention centres if we have none. Now we are to get makeshift young offenders institutions. How long will it be before we get rid of these makeshift arrangements and have institutions which are related to the job to be done and which S.A.C.T.O. says are essential?
  It is important to start off on the right foot, and the Amendment is therefore of particular importance. When S.A.C.T.O. said that it did not want young offenders to mix with adult prisoners, it meant it. When, after a careful examination of the problem, it said that there could not be effective segregation within one building, it meant it, and it said this not only in respect of young men but in respect of girls too. The Council said that the borstal should not be situated in Greenock, but here we are to have an adult prison, a borstal, and a young offenders institution in one place. What an achievement. This is centralisation made perfect!
  I suppose we shall be asked to accept this provision in the Bill on the basis that it is administratively convenient and will save staff. I hope that we shall not be told that only a few people are concerned, because, if only a few people are concerned it should be possible to make alternative arrangements such as were suggested by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Lady the Member for Renfrew, East. I hope that the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State has looked at this Amendment and appreciates what prompted it. It was tabled because of her disclosures, and if she wants to ease our concern she should accept the Amendment.
  8.30 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I appreciated the reason behind the Amendment very clearly, because I had sought to give the Committee as much information as I could about the arrangements that we are trying to make for young offenders institutions. From the debates that we have had on buildings in other contexts the hon. Gentleman knows that it is impossible suddenly to switch from one building arrangement to another, and if we want to get these young offenders institutions under way we shall have to make use of Dumfries in particular.
  I wish to speak about both Dumfries and Saughton. I agree with the hon.
  1356
  Gentleman that the accommodation we are providing for young offenders should be kept separate from the ordinary establishments for adult offenders and we hope to achieve this in our plan for the young offenders institution at Dumfries and also at Saughton. To provide the new accommodation as quickly as possible we are going to convert some of the existing buildings rather than build new ones. The main young offenders institution is to be in what is now Dumfries Borstal Institution, and we are also proposing to provide accommodation in a separate hall at Edinburgh Prison.
  At both places young offenders will be separate from any older ones. At Dumfries there will be a few cells that are close to, but completely separate from, the young offenders institution for adult untried offenders to be dealt with by local courts. They will not have any contact at all with the young offenders in the main part of the building. Similarly, at Saughton the hall for young offenders will be administered separately from the main prison and young offenders will have no contact with ordinary prisoners. There will be separate workshops and recreation facilities for young offenders, and they will have their meals in their own quarters.
  All the office and administrative work of the institution will be carried out in premises that are attached to it. I therefore think that in practice the object of the Amendment will be achieved, but I am afraid that I cannot advise the House to accept it, because, although the accommodation for young offenders at Saughton will be "apart from" the adult prison, I do not think that one could say that it is "out with" the prison, and for this reason I am afraid that I cannot accept the Amendment.
  As regards the arrangements for women young offenders—a point which I think was brought to my attention in earlier debates by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson)—it is true that there will be only a few of them. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said that because there were a few of them it might be possible to deal with them in some other way, but for the moment they will be at Greenock, where they will be separated from the prisoners. Therefore, although part of the Amendment is

  1357
  acceptable, I am afraid that "out with" is not.
  Mr. Ross: Does that mean that the hon. Lady does not accept all that was said by S.A.C.T.O. in respect of the provision of separate accommodation, and does she not accept what the Council referred to as the danger in the inability to get segregation within one building?
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I accept the desirability of what S.A.C.T.O. recommended. I sought to show just now that there will be segregation from adult prisons. A much greater and more difficult question is segregation, within these institutions, of different types of offender.
  Mr. Willis: That is a shocking answer. I appreciate that the hon. Lady has made the best of a bad job, but this is a bad job. Here we are starting something new on entirely the wrong foot. We are putting these young offenders into institutions, which we are told should be separate from prisons—and all our discussions have indicated that everyone wants this—and the Government say "We are incapable of providing this separate accommodation".
  Is it not a shocking confession of ineptitude and incompetence on the part of a Government to tell us that they cannot put up a building for girls and two buildings for boys, but that we have to use part of Saughton Prison? I fear that having once got them there they will stay there, and that we shall be fobbed off for years to come with the answer, "We have not yet found time," or, "It has not been convenient," or, "We have not the necessary labour," or something of that sort. With about 90,000 unemployed men and, goodness knows, plenty of material—we can easily make all the bricks we want in Scotland—everybody in Scotland will wonder why this cannot be done. We have all this unused labour and material, but we cannot supply the things we need.
  Is not there something wrong with a Government who have to admit this? I am deeply shocked that the hon. Lady should have to make the deplorable and rather pathetic confession that we must put the girls in part of Greenock Prison and the boys in Saughton and Dumfries. That is not a new start. That is not applying something new to our treatment of young offenders. We are getting off on the wrong foot altogether. I
  1358
  would rather see this provision delayed for a year in order that we could have established separate institutions.
  We shall spend as much time, energy and money on making alterations to this accommodation as, in the long run, would be required to provide new quarters. I hope that my hon. Friends will press the Amendment to a Division to show how strongly we feel about it.
  Mr. Dempsey: I cannot allow the noble Lady's statement to go unchallenged. She has shown the most callous attitude that I have ever seen adopted towards the problem of dealing with youthful offenders. If she had had any practical experience of dealing with this problem she might have adopted a more generous and understanding attitude.
  It is almost impossible to have complete segregation within our prisons. I have seen young offenders marching in prison yards, doing their drill, going off to work and coming back side by side with habitual criminals and even the worst type of murderer. The reason has been the shortage of accommodation. This is no new problem. It has always been the problem in Scotland. There has been a consistent refusal by the Government to build when they were asked to build, and a bungling in their handling of the financial arrangements for prisons, time after time. Appeal after appeal was made to get on with the erection of new buildings so as to get these young people out of the adult prisons and to provide them with complete segregation, taking them away from the horrible atmosphere of adult prisons and giving them a chance to reform. We have appealed time after time, and we have received the same cold and callous answer as that which we have just heard from the Undersecretary at the Dispatch Box.
  One can realise what will happen when young offenders are in such a prison. I say to the Under-Secretary that it is impossible to maintain that there will be no contact between these youthful offenders and adult prisoners. The youthful offenders will learn the tricks of the trade from the habitual criminals and the art of obtaining illicit goods through the windows of their cells, just as is done by the adult prisoners. This cannot be avoided if young people are in the same building, and it can be achieved through the strangest of ways.

  1359
  As a visiting magistrate I have had the unpleasant task of interviewing such prisoners and disciplining them. I am shocked that young girls and youthful offenders should be going to Greenock Prison. Has the noble Lady made a random visit to Greenock and interviewed the type of women who are prisoners there? I have done so on more than one occasion. I used to believe that the immortal bard Robert Burns was right when he upbraided the gentle sex—until I discovered that in Greenock Prison we have some of the hardest-faced individuals and some of the most truculent ladies whom I have ever come across.
  I say it is a scandal that young offenders, young girls, should be taken to that prison, because these people are so unresponsive to authority and discipline that when they are interviewed the complaint which they used to make to me was that they demanded bacon and eggs every morning—
  Miss Harvie Anderson: I do not think it is quite a fair picture which the hon. Member is drawing of the work which is being done at Greenock Prison. I should be the first to agree that there are hardened offenders within the prison. But under the control of one whom I have previously described as a most enlightened governor, extremely good work is being done in reforming the prisoners. It would be a great pity if the wrong impression were conveyed from this House about the work being done by the staff at Greenock Prison.
  Mr. Dempsey: I do not think that anything I have said reflects on the staff. I have been talking about the kind of prisoner with whom young offenders will become associated. Has the hon. Lady ever been a member of a prison visiting committee?
  Miss Harvie Anderson: I was a member of a visiting committee for a number of years.
  Mr. Dempsey: I wonder how often the hon. Lady has visited this prison and interviewed the ladies who are prisoners there. I happen to know the lady in charge, and she is a very charming person. Were I asked to comment, I should say that she is doing an excellent job. But she will be given an impossible task
  1360
  if she is required to accept responsibility for young girl offenders in such an adult prison. So different are her ordinary customers that I doubt whether she will be able to find the time and energy to deal with the most important problem of reforming juvenile offenders.
  There is not the slighest doubt about the fact that in Greenock I met some of the most cunning, adroit and diabolical types that I have ever seen. Their existence would disillusion one and destroy one's faith in human nature if one's opinions were formed only by contact with this small and insignificant minority, whose misbehaviour costs the State and the taxpayer so much money. It is far too risky to talk about bringing young offenders into such an atmosphere.
  8.45 p.m.
  The purpose of a prison sentence is to try to reform these individuals, to try to show them the light and to help them on to the true road to becoming efficient, effective and responsible citizens in our democratic society. That is the purpose of bringing juvenile offenders together, but in doing so we must make sure that they are brought together in a proper atmosphere and that the sentence is not so much punishing as reformative. That point must never be forgotten. We cannot show these young people the proper road they should travel, the highway to a decent type of society, by incorporating them in an adult prison and pretending that it is possible to achieve complete segregation by those means.
  I know from experience that it is not easy. I know the ways and means whereby contact can be established and exchanges can take place. The only antidote to that offensive conduct, to bad example and undesirable leadership, is segregation of these people in their own buildings. We have the labour to do that. If there is any doubt about that hon. Members should consider Lanarkshire. Building operatives there are registering at the employment exchanges. There are men and materials in the west of Scotland. In the City of Glasgow a huge skyscraper is being built for the Inland Revenue Department for the collecting of taxes. Surely sufficient money could be found by the Scottish Home Department to provide buildings to reform and give these young offenders a decent start in society.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill: —
  The House divided: Ayes 146, Noes 191.

  Division No. 172.]

  AYES

  [8.47 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Harper, Joseph

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Ainsley, William

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Pentland, Norman

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)J

  Probert, Arthur

  Baird, John

  Hilton, A. V.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Barnett, Guy

  Holman, Percy

  Randall, Harry

  Bence, Cyril

  Holt, Arthur

  Redhead, E. c.

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hooson, H. E,

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Benson, Sir George

  Hoy, James H.

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Blackburn, F.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Rhodes, H.

  Blyton, William

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Boardman, H.

  Hunter, A. E.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

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

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Ross, William

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Short, Edward

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Jeger, George

  Silkin, John

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Johnson, Carot (Lewisham, S.)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Chapman, Donald

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Small, William

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Kelley, Richard

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lawson, George

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Ledger, Ron

  Steele, Thomas

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Lubbock, Eric

  Stones, William

  Deer, George

  McBride, N.

  Swingler, Stephen

  Dempsey, James

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Symonds, J. B.

  Donnelly, Desmond

  McLeavy, Frank

  Taverne, D.

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

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Mahon, Simon

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

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

  Fernyhough, E.

  Manuel, Archie

  Wade, Donald

  Finch, Harold

  Mapp, Charles

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mason, Roy

  Warbey, William

  Foley, Maurice

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Weitzman, David

  Forman, J. C.

  Millan, Bruce

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Monslow, Walter

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Moody, A. S.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  George,LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)

  Morris, John

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mulley, Frederick

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

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

  Grey, Charles

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

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Woof, Robert

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Oram, A. E.

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Parker, John

  Mr. Charles A. Howell and

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Mr. Whitlock.

  NOES

  Altken, Sir William

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Eden, Sir John

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Eillot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Emery, Peter

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Farr, John

  Barlow, Sir John

  Cole, Norman

  Fell, Anthony

  Barter, John

  Cooke, Robert

  Finlay, Graeme

  Batsford, Brian

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Cordle, John

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Corfield, F. V.

  Gammans, Lady

  Bidgood, John C.

  Coulson, Michael

  Gardner, Edward

  Biffen, John

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Crawley, Aldan

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Critchley, Julian

  Gower, Raymond

  Box, Donald

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Curran, Charles

  Green, Alan

  Bralne, Bernard

  Currle, G. B. H.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Brooman-White, R.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Gurden, Harold

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Bryan, Paul

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Buck, Antony

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Bullard, Donys

  Doughty, Charles

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Duncan, Sir James

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Chataway, Christopher

  Duthie, Sir William

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Hendry, Forbes

  Maddan, Martin

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

  Hiley, Joseph

  Maginnis, John E.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Russell, Ronald

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

  Marten, Neil

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Matthews, Cordon (Meriden)

  Shaw, M.

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Mawby, Ray

  Shepherd, William

  Holland, Philip

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

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Hopkins, Alan

  Mills, Stratton

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Morgan, William

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Morrison, John

  Tapsell, Peter

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

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

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Teeling, Sir William

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Temple, John M.

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Turner, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Kimball, Marcus

  Partridge, E.

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Kirk, Peter

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Peel, John

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Lambton, Viscount

  Peyton, John

  Walder, David

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Walker, Peter

  Leavey, J. A.

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Wall, Patrick

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Pitman, Sir James

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Pitt, Game Edith

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

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

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Ramsden, James

  Wise, A. R.

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  McLaren, Martin

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

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Ridsdale, Julian

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Mr. Pym and Mr. Ian Fraser.

  Macpherson.Rt.Hn.Niall (Dumfries)

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

  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 2, line 43, to leave out subsection (2) and to insert:
  (2) In any enactment—

  (a) any reference to a sentence of imprisonment as including a reference to a sentence of any other form of detention shall be construed as including a reference to a sentence of detention in a young offenders institution; and

  (b) any reference to imprisonment as including any other form of detention shall be construed as including a reference to detention in a young offenders institution.

  This is purely a drafting Amendment. This subsection, which was originally one unpunctuated sentence of 54 words, attracted a certain amount of criticism in Committee. I have sought to amend it, but at some cost to brevity. The subsection now contains 66 words, but I hope that hon. Members will feel that it is better.
  Mr. Willis: There was a certain occasion in this House when an hon. Member opposite was holding forth with great vigour. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) could not see the hon. Gentleman because the sun was streaming through the west windows. My hon. Friend thereupon asked Mr.
  1364
  Speaker, on a point of order, whether the blinds could be raised. The blinds were duly raised, whereupon my hon. Friend, seeing who was speaking, on another point of order asked whether they could be lowered again.
  I feel somewhat in that position to night when I compare the original subsection with that proposed. I certainly criticised the original subsection in Committee, but when I first read the proposed wording I wondered whether I had been wise in raising the question of length and lack of punctuation, and might not have been wiser to have said nothing. However, having considered the proposed new subsection in rather more detail, and having weighed the pros and cons, I think that it is an improvement on the original subsection, and we are grateful to the hon. Lady for having accepted our suggestion that the subsection should be put in more simple language.
  Mr. Ross: I am very grateful that we have agreement at last because, on this point, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and I had a very wordy battle. After all, someone has to provide the opposition in these

  1365
  things—or should I say that someone has to support the hon. Lady at times? We have not heard a single Scottish Tory voice today. However, this is a very reasonable Amendment.
  I must correct my hon. Friend. On the occasion to which he refers it was the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) who was speaking, the person who could not see him was my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), and it was only one intervention—as usual, a short one—from myself.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 7.—(DETENTION IN A DETENTION CENTRE.)
  9.0 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 4, line 20, at the end to insert:
  (3) Where it appears to the Secretary of State that a person detained in a detention centre is unfit for such detention by reason of his health, without prejudice to any other powers he may have in the matter, he may, after consultation where practicable with the judge by whom or the presiding chairman of the court by which the sentence was passed, release that person; and he shall then be required to be under supervision in accordance with section 11(1) of this Act.
  This is the first of a series of four Amendments, all with the same purpose. In Committee there was discussion of the detention centre training and of the admitted difficulties which result from having in the centre persons who were not subject to the full training of the centre, whether because of unfitness or because they were in the centre on recall from supervision for a breach of requirement.
  We think that this difficulty cannot be entirely removed. In some cases there is no alternative to the detention of persons of this kind, but this series of Amendments is intended to reduce the difficulty to the minimum. The S.A.C.T.O. Report on the Treatment of Offenders recommended in paragraph 43 that the Secretary of State should have the power, for use in exceptional cases, to release from a detention centre a young person who was not mentally or physically suitable for continued detention.
  The Royal prerogative of mercy is a power which enables Her Majesty to order such a release and the Bill as introduced made no statutory previsions on the lines
  1366
  of the S.A.C.T.O. recommendation. However, in Committee it was argued that the exercise of this power was important to minimise this difficulty to which I have referred. The Royal prerogative is of course an extraordinary instrument, and if it is the intention that the power of release should be used as an instrument of policy to minimise the difficulty, it is appropriate that statutory provision should be made for it. This is a fairly narrow point but on consideration the Government accept the case for having a stautory power and, as recommended by S.A.C.T.O., the Amendment provides that the power can be used only after consultation, where practicable, with the sentencing court.
  Mr. Steele: We are now reaching a very interesting stage where the noble Lady is saying that some of the things which we said in Committee are after all desirable. On this occasion we ought to thank her for doing something at least along these lines.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 9.—(TRANSFER BETWEEN INSTITUTIONS.)
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 5, line 49, at the end to insert:
  (4) The powers conferred upon the Secretary of State by the last foregoing subsection may be exercised in the case of a person who has not attained the age of seventeen years if the Secretary of State is satisfied, having regard to the character and development of the person, that it is appropriate that he should be detained in a young offenders institution."
  This is the second of the Amendments the general purpose of which I have already explained. It is to reduce as far as possible the number of persons detained in detention centres who are not undergoing the full detention course.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 11.—(SUPERVISION OF PERSONS RELEASED FROM DETENTION CENTRES.)
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 7, line 8, after "State", to insert:
  "shall review each case at the end of six months and".
  The Amendment refers to the supervision of persons released from detention centres. We now lay down that a person going to a detention centre shall go for the fixed period of three months but

  1367
  that part of the original sentence shall be supervision, after release from the three months, for one year. In Committee I thought that one year was far too long, I thought that it would be quite punitive and would lead to resistence on the part of the person concerned, bearing in mind the nature of the sentence and probably the nature of the offence and the implication that a short sharp sentence would bring the young person to his senses and that specialised treatment at a detention centre was designed to do that. I felt that to add to that supervision for 12 months thereafter was really punitive and might well not have the desired effect.
  We on this side do not treat these as party matters. There is room for differences of opinion, and I think that differences of opinion were expressed on this subject in Standing Committee. Nevertheless, I still hold to my original view, although I do not urge it on this occasion. What I do suggest, however, is that there should be a formal review of each case at the end of six months to see whether or not one could dspense with the other six months or, indeed, with any further supervision. I regard this as reasonable.
  No doubt, the noble Lady will say that the matter is constantly under review. I do not need to wait to hear her read her typescript message to know that that will be the reply. Nevertheless, I feel that there should be a formal. consideration of each case. We do something very similar after a certain period in mental health cases. It was another Undersecretary of State who dealt with that legislation so, perhaps, the noble Lady does not remember it. It is essential in these cases, too. We should give a person something to work towards so that he may feel that there is a chance of being freed from supervision as a result of his behaviour and response to treatment and supervision. This can, I am sure, be beneficial. In any event, it will relieve my mind of the feeling that the consequence of maintaining the inflexible period of 12 months will be the building up of resistance among persons being supervised so that there will not be that co-operation with the supervising officer which is essential for the success of supervision itself.
  1368
  In Standing Committee, the noble Lady gave us some statistics. She was able to tell us that at present supervision is voluntary and that here had been voluntary co-operation in all the cases she could cite. I fear that what we now have under a voluntary system may be marred if we make it an obligation and that young people sentenced to detention will regard it as an unjustified punishment. Any such feeling will be mitigated if we make possible a formal break at six months.
  Even so, I hope that if the Amendment is accepted it will not have the result that there will not be consideration in particular cases of the possibility of ending supervision at a stage even earlier than six months.
  Mr. Steele: I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said that there could be a difference of opinion. I take the view, as he did in the first instance, that six months might have been better. Indeed, this is what was recommended. Nevertheless, the fear I have is that if the Amendment is accepted six months might be regarded as the minimum period before a review can take place. I agree with my hon. Friend that six months' compulsory supervision might well be sufficient, but I feel that to stipulate in the Bill that a review should take place at the end of six months may mean that the first review does not take place until then.
  I am convinced that it is much better, in all the circumstances, to keep open the possibility of a review at some earlier stage. An offender sentenced to three months in a detention centre serves two months, in fact, and, on his release, the person supervising him may find that even after only six weeks' or two months'supervision—this is probably the most difficult period—it would be an advantage to say that supervision was no longer necessary. This might be helpful in appropriate cases. I suggest, therefore, that it might be dangerous to put the period of six months in the Bill as the time for a review.
  9.15 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The speeches of the hon. Members for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) show that in Committee upstairs

  1369
  we certainly expressed individual views. I am afraid that on this occasion I must take the view of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West and not accept the Amendment put forward with his usual eloquence by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock.
  I appreciate and understand the reason behind the Amendment—that no offender released from a detention centre should be kept under supervision longer than is absolutely necessary. I think that in Committee upstairs we were all agreed on that. However, I do not accept that a review of each individual's case at a stated time will be any more effective than a frequent review of his case carried out as a matter of administrative practice. That point was put very well by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West. A review at a fixed period might tend to make reviews before or after that period not so frequent or so thorough.
  As I explained on the previous Amendment, regular reports, probably monthly, as at present for borstal boys, will be made on released detention centre inmates and they will deal specifically with the point as to whether the person has progressed well enough to have his supervision lifted or the conditions of supervision modified.
  A consideration highly relevant to this proposal is contained in the Report of the Committee on Children and Young Persons, the Ingleby Committee. The Committee found that the statutory six-monthly review of the cases of persons on probation required to reside in a hostel or institution for twelve months from the date of the order led the probationer to expect that he would be allowed home at the end of that time. The period after six months was regarded as a further sentence. Therefore, the Committee recommended against a statutory review at six months.
  I should have thought that a detention centre inmate whose supervision was not cancelled after six months would feel just the same way, and therefore I suggest that the less formal but more continuous review is, perhaps, the best way to treat this problem.
  Mr. Ross: On the, understanding that there will be this administrative review
  1370
  over the whole period, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 7, line 12, at the beginning to insert:
  "Subject to the provisions of the next following subsection."
  Perhaps we may take with this Amendment the following Amendment, in page 7, line 32.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: These two Amendments are the last in a series of Amendments intended to reduce to a minimum the number of persons detained in a detention centre who are not undergoing the full detention centre training course. As the underlying reasons for these Amendments are very much the same as those for Amendments which have been already moved, I shall not trouble hon. Members with a long explanation.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 7, line 32, at end insert:
  (3) The power conferred upon the Secretary of Stale by the last foregoing subsection to recall an offender to a young offenders institution may be exercised in the case of a person who has not attained the age of seventeen years if the Secretary of State is satisfied, having regard to the character and development of the person, that it is appropriate that he should be detained in a young offenders institution.—[Lady Tweedsmuir.]

  Clause 14.—(SUPERVISION OF CERTAIN PRISONERS AFTER RELEASE.)
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 9, line 1, to leave out lines 1 to 8 and insert:
  (2) Subject to the provisions of subsection (4) thereof, this section applies—

  (a) to any person serving a sentence of imprisonment for a term of three years or more;

  (b) to any person serving a sentence of imprisonment for a term of not less than six months, but less than three years, who is under the age of twenty-six years at the commencement of the sentence.

  Would it be convenient, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if we considered with this Amendment that in page 9, line 14?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: These Amendments are purely drafting Amendments. They

  1371
  make no change of substance. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) made a number of criticisms of the drafts of the Clause in Committee upstairs. As I said at the time, I thought that the Clause read reasonably clearly. I have had it examined, however, to see whether the drafting could be improved and I hope that the hon. Member will agree that these Amendments are an improvement.
  Mr. Ross: For clarity, lucidity and simplicity, these words could not be bettered and I am glad that the hon. Lady has at least listened to some of our criticism from this side of the House.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 9, line 14, leave out from beginning to first "in" in line 17 and insert:
  "(4) This section shall not apply to persons serving a sentence of imprisonment commencing before such date as may be prescribed by order of the Secretary of State under this subsection; and any such order may prescribe different dates in respect of sentences described in paragraphs (a) and (b) respectively of subsection (2) of this section, and,"—[Lady Tweedsmuir.]

  Clause 17.—(AMENDMENT OF FIRST OFFENDERS (SCOTLAND) ACT 1960.)
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 10, line 2, after "made", to insert:
  "after the passing of this Act".
  We now come to what I regard as one of the continuing blemishes of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) is one of the few Members of the House who, within about a year of arriving in this place, got a favourable place in the Ballot and had a Private Member's Bill accepted by the House. That Bill extended to first offenders in Scotland a considerable degree of protection in respect of prison sentences.
  The Clause withdraws the benefit of that Act that absolute discharge and probation were not to be treated as convictions. In Committee upstairs, we tried to persuade the Government to change their minds about this, but we failed. We recognise the failure and the limitation that on Report we cannot go over exactly the same ground. The purpose of the Amendment is that the change which the Government now propose should start with the passing of the Bill
  1372
  and that the benefit which the House openly and knowingly conferred upon people who were dealt with by the courts, and whose offence was such that they were given an absolute discharge or put on probation, whereby they would be treated as first offenders, should be continued for those people who have been so treated up to the present and that the disadvantage which the Government propose should fall upon first offenders should start from the passing of the Bill and should not apply to orders made by the courts from the passing of the 1960 Act until the present time.
  I regret this Clause probably more than any other in the Bill. It indicates a rather mean cleansing of the 1960Act and the wiping out of an anomaly by removing a benefit, whereas we could have been generous and worked it the other way, which would have had our support. To do it in the way that the Government propose is bad and we can only hope that the House will mitigate the evil that will be done by limiting it to orders which are made after the passing of the Bill, when courts will know exactly the implications of what they are doing.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The effect of this Amendment would be to limit the effect of the change in the law which we made in Committee about orders for absolute discharge or probation made by Scottish summary courts.
  As I understand it, the suggestion is that in respect of past orders for absolute discharge or probation we are amending the law and affecting those orders retrospectively.
  If this effect were part of the sentence I would agree with this suggestion. For instance, Clause 14 applies compulsory after-care to prisoners undergoing sentence and qualifying the sentence, but it limits the liability to persons sentenced following the commencement of the provisions. I think it would be wrong, if the court did pass a sentence of imprisonment, radically to alter the nature of that sentence.
  The case here is different, because while it is true in one sense that the persons who in the past were placed on probation or given an absolute discharge by Scottish summary courts would be affected by an amendment of the law, it would not be a

  1373
  change in the nature of the sentence itself. Could it be suggested that it was a consideration in the mind of the court in making such an order that the next time the offender committed an offence he would be treated as a first offender? In fact, the First Offenders Act does not concern itself with the nature of past sentences but contains a definition of a type of person who is to be treated as a first offender for the purposes of that Act, and naturally enough, bearing in mind the Title of the Act, it is governed by previous offences.
  The trouble was that there was a drafting error in the 1960 Act, and for present purposes—the question whether or not the offender now standing convicted before the court is a first offender—an unjustified distinction is drawn, not by the nature of the sentence but by the type of court concerned. The defect could be remedied only by saying that the Act applies to all persons dealt with by absolute discharge by Scottish summary courts as it applies to such persons dealt with by other courts, and this can be achieved only if Clause 17 applies to both past and future orders. Therefore, I must advise the House not to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Willis: This is most unsatisfactory. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has said, it is this Clause which, apart from the original Clause 32 of the Bill, attracted more attention, probably, than any other Clause. It called for more adverse comment on the part of interested bodies than any other Clause, with the exception of the original Clause 32, which the Government dropped.
  We tried in Standing Committee to get the Government to accept our ideas about this, and this Amendment simply seeks to undo some of the damage the Government are doing. According to the hon. Lady, this is a merely technical matter. There had been an error made in the First Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1960, and it was sought to rectify that technical error.
  But that affects quite a number of people who have been before the courts and been discharged or put on probation, and it applies no matter what their ages are, or anything else. It means that for the purposes of the Act of 1960 these things are to be treated as convictions.
  1374
  I think that is a bad thing. All we seek to do by this Amendment is to limit the effects of that to the cases following after the passing of this Bill.
  Why should we affect cases which have come before the courts during the past 14 years? There must be quite a large number of cases. This applies to people who have been given an absolute discharge or probation under Section 1 or Section 2 of the 1949 Act—in other words, people who for 14 years have been subject to the provisions of those Sections. If they now come before the courts they will, instead of being treated as not having been convicted, now be treated as having been convicted for the purposes of the 1960 Act. Therefore, this affects a large number of people. I should have thought that the hon. Lady could at least have accepted our Amendment and left the position relating to these individuals alone.
  I do not know that any great damage was being done. What great harm was being done by the provisions? This is, in effect, retrospective legislation. It is applying to these people something it was never intended to apply. The hon. Lady should have left the position as it was and accepted our Amendment. That would have been a much happier solution and would have given a great deal of satisfaction to many people who have expressed very deep concern about the effect of the Clause.
  Mr. Millan: As I see it, if the Amendment is not accepted, Clause 17 will be retrospective legislation. I am not absolutely clear whether it will be retrospective to the First Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1960, or as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) thinks, to 1949. My view would be that it would be retrospective only to 1960, but I may be wrong.
  I found what the noble Lady said completely unintelligible. She read her brief on the Amendment with great rapidity and not in a very convincing manner. This was the only Clause where we got the same treatment from her in Standing Committee. I know that it is an extremely complicated Clause although it consists of only five lines and that it is very difficult to explain it in non-technical laguage, but in Committee the noble Lady definitely tried to baffle

  1375
  us by reading a long unintelligible brief relating to the 1949 Act and all sorts of other Acts, and has done the same tonight.
  If I understand the Clause correctly, a person who has had an absolute discharge will be treated as a first offender. I should have thought that prima facie that was an absurd situation, because an absolute discharge ought to mean what it says; it ought to be a clearance of the record so far as the offence is concerned. Important safeguards are involved for persons over the age of 21 who are first offenders. There is, for example, the necessity for the sheriff, before he can pass sentence, to call for a probation officer's report. If an absolute discharge is treated as a conviction, a person coming before a sheriff who has had only one offence proved against him before that occasion and has had an absolute discharge in respect of that offence will not be treated as a first offender and will not have the protection afforded to first offenders that the sheriff must call for a probation officer's report before sentencing them. This is absolutely wrong in principle, as we argued in Committee.
  9.30 p.m.
  But, even if the hon. Lady does not accept that, it seems equally absolutely wrong in principle to try to remedy in this retrospective way what the Government consider to be a defect. The Government have set their faces in many other instances against retrospective legislation. For example, in the Finance Act each year, where there is discovered to be a defect by which people can avoid taxation, the House nevertheless considers it reprehensible if the Government introduce retrospective legislation, and the Government do so only where some individuals have done something which is almost criminal in their use of the loop hole.
  That kind of consideration does not apply here. Even if there were a defect in the 1960 Act—and some of us do not accept that there was—all that has happened is that certain individuals have had a certain individual protection given to them. It is reprehensible that the Government should attempt to introduce this retrospective Clause. It is a very serious matter that she has not given a
  1376
  much more convincing reply to the Amendment.
  I agree that this is an extremely technical matter, but I do not get the impression that the hon. Lady really comprehended our point of view or was really convinced of her argument. I hope that even now she will reconsider the Government's attitude and say that this reasonable and minor Amendment should be accepted.
  Mr. Thomas Fraser: I hope that the hon. Lady will have another look at this Clause, which seems a monstrous proposal. There has been a little confusion in the House as to whether the orders covered by this Clause are those made in the last three years, since the passage of the First Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1960, or those made since the 1949 Act. I believe it to be the latter, so that a person who was granted an absolute discharge even as far back as 1950 will now have that counted as a conviction.
  The hon. Lady says that this is in the interests of justice. Is it just to amend the law so that a person granted an absolute discharge in 1950 can have that treated as a conviction when he comes before a court in 1964? That, however, is what the hon. Lady is suggesting.
  It is a great pity that the Clause is in the Bill at all. I would have liked the opportunity to vote against its inclusion, but as it seems that we are not able to take it out, at least the House can do one decent thing and accept the Amendment to ensure that a person who has had an order made against him granting him an absolute discharge in respect of an offence for which he was prosecuted in the past—
  Mr. Willis: And of which he might have been innocent.
  Mr. Fraser: I do not want to go into this too deeply, but I understand that there are plenty of occasions on which a person charged has been advised that if he pleads guilty, he will be granted an absolute discharge. If a person has been prevailed upon to plead guilty, notwithstanding that he might have been able to defend himself and get a "not guilty" verdict, preferring not to go to any trouble and not to incur expense—and I understand that there are many

  1377
  such people—it would be an absolute disgrace if we were now to provide that such an order made between 1949 and 1963 would be counted as a conviction against him, so that he could not have the benefit of what we all regard as the beneficial legislation of 1960.
  Any hon. Member who has taken the trouble to listen to our brief discussion would agree that to accept the Amendment would be the humane thing to do. We shall not let off any thugs or hardened criminals by making this little Amendment. We are saying merely that those people who have never had a conviction, except an order granting an absolute discharge, or who have been put on probation, should be treated as first offenders if they come before a court again. Surely that is not asking the House to go too far.
  I hope that the noble Lady will think
  again and will accept, the Amendment as reasonable and sensible and as one which those who try to make the administration of justice a little more humane would welcome and applaud. They would not wish the House at this time to legislate retrospectively as the Clause proposes. Anyone hearing our discussion would find it difficult to go into the Lobby against the Amendment. I plead with the noble Lady not to require any of us to go into either Division Lobby to vote for or against the Amendment. Let her do the decent thing and let the House of Commons unanimously decide not to make: this legislation retrospective. The only way to do that is to accept the Amendment.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill: —
  The House divided: Ayes 143, Noes 181.

  Division No. 173.]

  AYES

  [9.40 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Pentland, Norman

  Ainsley, William

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Probert, Arthur

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Harper, Joseph

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Baird, John

  Hayman, F. H.

  Randall, Harry

  Barnett, Guy

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Redhead, E. C.

  Bence, Cyril

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Reynolds, G W.

  Benson, Sir George

  Holman, Percy

  Rhodes, H.

  Blackburn, F.

  Holt, Arthur

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Blyton, William

  Hoy, James H.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Boardman, H.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

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

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Ross, William

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Hunter, A. E.

  Short, Edward

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Silkin, John

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Jeger, George

  Small, William

  Chapman, Donald

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Cliffe, Michael

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Kelley, Richard

  Steele, Thomas

  Dalyell, Tam

  Ledger, Ron

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Stones, William

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Swingler, Stephen

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Lubbock, Eric

  Symonds, J. B.

  Davies, s.o. (Merthyr)

  McBride, N.

  Taverne, D.

  Deer, George

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Dempsey, James

  McLeavy, Frank

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Diamond, John

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

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

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Wade, Donald

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

  Manuel, Archie

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Mapp, Charles

  Weitzman, David

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Mason, Roy

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Whitlock, William

  Fernyhough, E.

  Millan, Bruce

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Finch, Harold

  Morris, John

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mulley, Frederick

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Forman, J, C.

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

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

  Willis, E. G (Edinburgh, E.)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Oliver, G. H.

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  George,LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Woof, Robert

  Gourlay, Harry

  Oram, A. E.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Grey, Charles

  Parker, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Mr. Lawson and

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Mr. Charles A. Howell.

  NOES

  Aitken, W. T.

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Morrison, John

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Cower, Raymond

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Barter, John

  Green, Alan

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Batsford, Brian

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Bennett, F. M, (Torquay)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Bidgood, John C.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Biffen, John

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Partridge, E.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Harvie, Anderson, Miss

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Peyton, John

  Bossom, Clive

  Hendry, Forbes

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Hiley, Joseph

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Box, Donald

  Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

  Pitman, Sir James

  Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

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

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Braine, Bernard

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Holland, Philip

  Pym, Francis

  Bryan, Paul

  Hopkins, Alan

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Buck, Antony

  Hornby, R. P.

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Bullard, Denys

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Gary, Sir Robert

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

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

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Chicheater-Clark, R.

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Russell, Ronald

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Iremongsr, T. L.

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Shaw, M.

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Shepherd, William

  Cole, Norman

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Cooke, Robert

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Kanerry, Sir Donald

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Cordle, John

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Corfield, F. V.

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Coulson, Michael

  Kimball, Marcus

  Tapsell, Peter

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Kirk, Peter

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Lambton, Viscount

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Crawley, Aldan

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

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

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Leavey, J. A.

  Teeling, Sir William

  Curran, Charles

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Temple, John M.

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Turner, Colin

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Turton, Rt, Hon. R. H.

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Mac Arthur, Ian

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Doughty, Charles

  McLaren, Martin

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Drayson, G. B.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Duncan, Sir James

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Walder, David

  Eden, Sir John

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Walker, Peter

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  MacPherson,Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries)

  Wall, Patrick

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Maddan, Martin

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Farr, John

  Maginnis, John E.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Fell, Anthony

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Marten, Neil

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Mawby, Ray

  Wise, A. R.

  Fraser-Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Gammans, Lady

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

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Gardner, Edward

  Mills, Stratton

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Mr. Feel and Mr. Hugh Rees.

  Morgan, William

  9.45 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 10, line 5, at the end to insert:
  (2) For the purpose of determining whether a person is a first offender within the meaning of that Act, a previous conviction shall be disregarded after the expiration of a period of ten years from the date of that conviction, being a period exclusive of any period spent by him in custody under sentence in respect of the conviction.
  The purpose of the Amendment and the consequential Amendment to Schedule 5 is to amend the First
  1380
  Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1960. The Amendment, although somewhat different in form, carries out a proposal made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) in Committee. The First Offenders (Scotland) Act, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) fulfilled a recommendation of S.A.C.T.O. to provide certain safeguards against the undue use of imprisonment by summary courts. I need not go into the Act again, because we have discussed it at some length in Committee.

  1381
  The proposal was made in Committee that even if the offender had committed an offence punishable with imprisonment after the age of 17, if more than 10 years had elapsed since that conviction or since his release from custody following the sentence imposed upon him, the first offender's safeguards should also be applied to him. Although the Government were, for a number of reasons, unable to accept the Amendment at the time, I did undertake that I would consider what could be done and see whether there were any snags and if not I would put down another Amendment. This Amendment is the result and I hope that it will meet the point put forward by the hon. Member for Craigton.
  Mr. Millan: May I once again thank the noble Lady for introducing this Amendment. During the Committee stage she promised that the Government would consider putting down an Amendment which would have the same effect as an Amendment which I moved at that time. I think that this represents a real step forward and on an occasion when we have little for which to be thankful to the Government it gives me particular pleasure to thank the noble Lady for introducing the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to

  Clause 23.—(MAXIMUM FINES AND CAUTION.)
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 13, line 32, to leave out "two hundred and fifty" and to insert "one hundred and fifty".
  Mr. Speaker: On the face of it, there are good reasons to ask the House to discuss with this Amendment the next Amendment on the Notice Paper, which is in identical terms, in page 13, line 32, leave out "two hundred and fifty" and insert "one hundred".
  Lady Tweedsmuir: There is also a consequential Amendment to Schedule 5, in page 39, line 30, leave out "two hundred and fifty" and insert "one hundred and fifty".
  I am glad that we may discuss with this Amendment the next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), and I hope that
  1382
  we may also discuss the consequential Amendment to Schedule 5.
  Mr. Speaker: Yes, if the House wishes
  Lady Tweedsmuir: During the Committee stage there was general acceptance that there was a case for a general increase of the fines to be imposed in the summary courts in common law cases on the lines proposed in Clause 23. But considerable anxiety was expressed about the new level of fines, which follow the recommendations of S.A.C.T.O. in its report on short sentences. Particularly, there was concern expressed in the case of the sheriff summary court where the power of fine was proposed to be increased from £25 to £250. I do not think I need repeat the arguments for a general increase in these powers of fine because, apart from the fall in the value of money since they were first enacted in 1908, there is evidence that substantial fines have been underrated and there is a risk that if the powers of fine are too low the court may feel obliged to use imprisonment because the maximum fine is an insufficient deterrent to the offender of means. But, of course, it is also true that the amount of the increase cannot be determined by any exact mathematical calculation. It is a matter of judgment.
  I felt that the anxiety expressed in Committee on this point arose from the fear that the new powers might be used unwisely and result in hardship, or even imprisonment, in default of payment, for persons who genuinely had not the means to meet the fine. The Government have no fear that this would in any way be a common result of a maximum power of fine of £250, and I think we all have regard for the very careful way in which sheriffs examine these cases. But one cannot guarantee that this would not happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen shire, West (Mr. Hendry) referred to cases in which a high monetary fine was in his view appropriate.
  In the light of what was a general anxiety expressed in the Committee, the Government felt it right to consider to what extent it was possible to reduce the new powers of fine in the sheriff summary court while still achieving the purpose to which I have referred.
  As I have said, this is not a matter of exact mathematical calculation. But we think that a maximum of £150 instead

  1383
  of £250 meets the case. I hope therefore that the House will accept this Amendment and feel that it is more appropriate than the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock.
  Mr. Ross: You said, inadvertently, Mr. Speaker, that this Amendment could be discussed with the next one which, if I recollect your words, you said was in "identical terms".
  Mr. Speaker: I apologise. My error is obvious on the face of the Paper.
  Mr. Ross: Your error is, of course, obvious to anyone who reads the Notice Paper, because my suggestion, which is a repetition of the suggestion I made in Committee, is that the £250 should be £100, but I am not going to argue about £50.
  Mr. Bence: I would.
  Mr. Ross: We are grateful that, belatedly, the Government have seen the force of our arguments and are prepared to reduce the maximum in relation to subsection (2) of this Clause from £250 to £150. Although I think they have more or less met our argument, I am not entirely happy about some of the things the hon. Lady said. Her fears were once again about the sheriffs' discretion. It is no good putting in £250 if we do not want the sheriffs to use it. A fine of that magnitude might determine whether or not a case would be dealt with by the sheriff under summary proceedings or dealt with in a different way. Considerable anxiety was expressed by the Glasgow Bar Association that it might mean that the sheriff would deal with much more serious cases with all the implications that would have on the individual, particularly in view of the discussion we had about legal aid.
  When we are arguing about and discussing S.A.C.T.O. Reports, and concerned about the number of people going into prison because they cannot pay fines, it seems rather inconsistent to raise the maximum in this Section from £25 to £250. We felt that was rather high. We did not press the Amendment in Committee but withdrew it in order to allow the Government to give further consideration to the matter. It is easy for the hon. Lady to take refuge in the fact that there is no mathematical certainty in relation
  1384
  to this matter. How could there be? The penalty of £10 is raised to £50, a fivefold increase. In the same subsection the amount of caution is raised twenty-five times and in subsection (3) penalties are raised four times. In view of this, we could not agree to an increase of tenfold. I am prepared to accept this Amendment, however, and not to move the one which I originally preferred.
  Amendment agreed to.
  It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.
  Proceedings on Government Business exempted at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]
  Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

  Clause 25.—(RESTRICTION ON POWER TO IMPOSE IMPRISONMENT FOR FAILURE TO PAY FINE, ETC.)
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 14, line 20, to leave out paragraph (c).
  In order to meet the possibility of people going to prison because of not being able to pay fines, the Clause enables the difficulty to be overcome by their being given time to pay, but it makes certain stipulations as to how and when the court may refuse time to pay. There are circumstances in which the court may refuse an offender time to pay the fine
  "and if the offender fails to pay, may exercise its power to impose imprisonment…"
  One case to which this applies is where the person
  "fails to satisfy the court that he has a fixed abode".
  More than one hon. Member in Committee expressed the view that we were not entirely happy about this. The provision is not mandatory; the court "may" refuse time to pay. But we feel that this provision could have been left out of the Bill without any loss of discretion to the court. Even without it, we have subsection (d),
  "the court is satisfied for any other special reason that no time should be allowed for payment".
  We feel that to particularise the reference to a fixed abode may well mean that the provision will apply to anyone who

  1385
  does not satisfy the court that he has a fixed abode. We can think of cases in which it would not be easy so to satisfy the court and yet there would be no disrepute on the person concerned. The provision does not strengthen the Clause and detracts from its original beneficial intention in providing for time in which to pay a fine.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: When I first saw the Amendment I thought that it seemed very reasonable, because the words in paragraph (d) might to some extent cover paragraph (c). But I find that this is a re-enactment of existing provisions in Section 42(1) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954.
  It is necessary that the court should have power, where it considers its exercise necessary, to order the detention forthwith of a person with no fixed abode for non-payment of a fine instead of allowing him time to pay, because the orders of the criminal court must be carried out. Where an offender has a fixed abode, the authorities have a link with him which ensures that in most circumstances they can trace him and bring him before the court if he fails to pay by the due date. To avoid this he would have to take the much more serious step of bolting from his own home.
  But with an offender of no fixed abode the position is different, because he can move on if he wishes to avoid payment of a fine, and it might well be impossible for the authorities to trace him again. The result could be that he successfully escaped the consequences of non-payment.
  It is not the case that the court must order detention forthwith. If it thinks that the offender will make a sincere attempt to pay the fine, it can allow time to pay. It is the Government's view that it is necessary for the court to have this power in order to deal with cases in which an offender with no fixed abode is before them and they have reason to suspect that if they give him time to pay he will attempt to avoid the ends of justice. It is for that reason that I cannot accept the Amendment.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. Millan: I beg to move, in page 16, line 30, to leave out "undesirable or".
  1386
  This Amendment refers to the new provisions that are being introduced for supervision pending payment of fine. Subsection (4) provides that
  "Where an offender under twenty-one years of age has been allowed time for payment of a fine…"
  the court shall not send him to prison or order any other form of detention for him if he is default of the payment of that fine, unless he has been placed under supervision pending payment of it. There is a qualification to this provision that the supervision does not need to take place where
  "…the court is satisfied that it is undesirable or impracticable…"
  to place even a young person under supervision.
  It must be difficult to find cases where it would be undesirable to place a person under twenty-one under supervision pending payment of a fine. Indeed, I cannot imagine the circumstances in which it might be undesirable. Acceptance of the Amendment would mean that where it was impracticable to place a young offender under supervision the court would not have to place him under supervision but, except in those circumstances, supervision pending payment of the fine would be compulsory for offenders under twenty-one years of age or, at least, compulsory in the sense that where the young person was in default of the payment of the fine it would not be possible to send him to prison or give him another appropriate sentence of detention until the supervision order had operated.
  To some extent, this is a probing Amendment, as the noble Lady may produce very cogent arguments that there are circumstances in which it would be undesirable to place such a young person under supervision, but unless there are very strong reasons for the present wording I hope that she will accept the Amendment.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) will, perhaps, be glad to hear that I am delighted to accept his Amendment. I agree that there is a difference between "undesirable" and "impracticable". The hon. Member may recall that in Committee I gave: various examples of where it would be impracticable, but I think that that is quite sufficient to give us the power we need here.
  Mr. Millan: May I thank the Undersecretary for being so sensible as to accept this very sensible Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to

  Clause 28.—(INCREASE IN FINE WHICH MAY BE IMPOSED INSTEAD OF IMPRISONMENT ON CONVICTION ON INDICTMENT FOR STATUTORY OFFENCE.)
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 18, line 15, to leave out "less than" and to insert "not exceeding".
  Mr. Speaker: It might be convenient to discuss with this Amendment, the Amendment in page 18, line 16—leave out "£400" and insert "£300"—and the starred Amendment in line 17—leave out "One year or over" and insert "Over one year".
  Mr. Ross: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that it would be convenient to take the three Amendments together.
  We are here dealing with increase in fine which imposed instead of imprisonment on conviction on indictment for statutory offence. Once again, we revert to 1908. Once again, we have £25 and now relate it to terms of imprisonment. We increase to £100 the fine alternative to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months. The three months to six months may be substituted by a fine of £200, but then there is a change of wording. We have the words:
  "Exceeding six months but less than one year"
  and the fine is doubled and becomes not exceeding £400. In logic, to take the sum of money first, as the noble Lady has seen fit to reduce the original maximum in respect of the previous Clause I think that she could reduce this maximum from £400 to £300. If she wishes to stick to these words she must do something about it because "exceeding six months but less than one year" takes us into the realms of the sentencing policy of Scottish courts.
  What is the kind of sentence we have between six months and one year? I have heard of people being sentenced to nine months but never to eleven months and ten more days, despite the song. Therefore it means that there is an element of considerable doubt as to what the new maximum of £400 will apply. There is no doubt about the first
  1388
  item because the period is not to exceed three months, and in the second item it is not to exceed six months. There has been some slipshod thinking on the part of the draftsmen here. In order to keep their "one year or over" in the last line they have slipped into a considerable realm of unjustifiable terms, which makes it much more difficult to determine what is included, and makes it much more difficult for the noble Lady to justify an increase to £400 in the discretionary maximum.
  I sincerely hope that the noble Lady has appreciated the points, which were fairly obvious from the Amendments, after the nature of my argument, and I hope that she will be prepared to accept them. It is unfair to say that it was unusual to hear the noble Lady accept one of our Amendments. She has done very nobly today. I have almost forgotten what the Secretary of State looks like, although we saw him this moping. I do not know whether he is coming here at all tonight. This is the most important Scottish Measure we have had this Session. I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to come along and spoil it now, though it would be only fair to the noble Lady if someone came in and allowed her to have a cup of tea. The Amendments are all reasonable and are put forward for a constructive purpose. I am sure that this will be a better Clause if the noble Lady accepts them.
  Mr. Speaker: In suggesting that we should discuss these three Amendments together, I should have said that I would, of course, call the Amendment in page 18, line 16, for a Division, if required.
  10.15 p.m.
  Mr. Willis: I am not happy about the Amendment to reduce the figure from £400 to £300. I am always amazed to find that, in spite of the very detailed consideration which we give to Bills in the Scottish Standing Committee, there are very important matters which we never discuss at all. Clause 28 is a Clause which we did not discuss in Committee, yet it does something very important. It changes the provisions of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1908, which laid down that a fine not exceeding £25 could be substituted for imprisonment on conviction on indictment for a contravention of any enactment which provided no penalty other than imprisonment.

  1389
  The change made here, extending the alternative of being able to pay a fine in place of imprisonment, should have been examined closely in Standing Committee, and I am sorry that it was not. The effect of it is that a man with money convicted of this type of offence can escape imprisonment every time, whereas the man without money will have to go to prison. There might have been a case for substituting a fine of £25 in place of a short sentence of imprisonment and for offences which were not so serious, but when we come to substituting £200 for six months' imprisonment and, going even further, substituting monetary fines for a year's imprisonment, we make it possible for a person to buy himself out of going to prison if he happens to possess £400. I very much doubt the wisdom of the Amendment to alter the figure to £300, and on this I disagree with my colleagues.
  I have never regarded this as a political Bill, although the Government have treated it as such. In fact, it is non-political; it deals mainly with the treatment of criminals. Nevertheless, these provisions undoubtedly favour the person with money. This is not a political point. It is the plain truth. I am sorry, therefore, that we did not consider it closely in Committee. I should certainly oppose any reduction of the amount to be paid as a fine in lieu of one year's imprisonment. I am all for the £400. If a person is to get off prison because he is well-to-do, then let him pay through the nose for it.
  Sir James Duncan: Make it £1,000?
  Mr. Willis: I do not mind making it £1,000. I am definitely against reducing it. Indeed, I am inclined to be against the principle of the Clause as a whole, namely, the extension of the payment of fines in lieu of imprisonment.
  Mr. Manuel: I think that my hon. Friend is being too lenient in his criticism. It could be £400 for seven months' imprisonment, and it could be £1,000, £2,000 or £3,000 for a year.
  Mr. Willis: No, it is "not exceeding" a year.
  Mr. Manuel: It is "one year or over".
  Mr. Willis: I had in mind the other Amendment which we tabled to delete lines 17 to 19 which probably influenced my argument. It is true that the fine could be £400 in substitution of imprisonment for seven months, but I assumed that it would be graded up from £200 to £400 in respect of sentences of imprisonment between six months and one year.
  We discussed earlier the facility with which St. Andrew's House appears to be able to draw up scales of payment for almost anything, but we did not notice that it was busily engaged in drawing up a scale of payments to enable people to escape imprisonment. I certainly do not agree with that. It is wrong in principle and is something which we should watch very carefully.
  For the reasons which I have given, I must oppose my hon. Friends on these Amendments.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: I support these Amendments on principle. It is entirely wrong that a malefactor should be able to buy himself out of prison by paying a sum of money. I only regret that my colleagues have not proposed to increase the amount which the malefactor should have to pay. Instead of the amount of fine not exceeding £100, it should be £1,000. If a malefactor is to be entitled to buy himself out of prison, then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said, let him pay through the nose for it.
  It is entirely wrong to emphasise the class system in this way by enabling people who have money to buy themselves out of prison. If the principle is accepted, the amount which the malefactor should have to pay should be extremely large.
  Mr. Millan: I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said. If the Amendment to leave out lines 17 to 19 had been selected, it would perhaps have been in order for us to discuss this question in greater detail. After all, we are in this Clause making a quite radical change in the law, because, if I understand it correctly, the offences with which we are dealing under it can be quite serious. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will give us some idea of the kind of offences which may be dealt with under the Clause.

  1391
  If we have a situation in which the maximum fine does not exceed £25, what it means, in effect, is that if the offence for which a man is convicted is serious and justifies a substantial sentence of imprisonment, then imprisonment will be imposed because the maximum fine of £25 related to the sentence of imprisonment would be so low that it would not be reasonable to substitute a fine.
  However, once one raises the level of the fines, one also raises the kind of offences for which it will be possible for an accused person with money to buy his way out of a sentence of imprisonment. Although in other parts of the Bill we have been trying to reduce the number of short sentences of imprisonment by the substitution of fines and other means, there is a difference between the substitution of a fine for a short sentence of imprisonment for a minor offence and the substitution of a substantial fine for what is an extremely serious crime.
  For an offence for which it is possible to impose a sentence of a year or more, there is something inherently wrong in principle in allowing a fine in substitution for that sentence of imprisonment. Either the offence is so heinous that imprisonment for a year or more should be imposed, or it is a comparatively minor
  1392
  offence for which a fine should be appropriate. I cannot think that the making of this kind of choice for more serious offences is reasonable and it obviously does not give justice as between one offender and another.
  If we have to accept the principle of the Clause—and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East, I regret very much that we did not discuss it at length in Committee, we have to make the penalties, perhaps, high. Although the number of people who escape by paying fines would thereby be reduced, it would also mean that only the very wealthy would be able to buy their way out of a sentence of imprisonment. The whole thing is objectionable in principle and all we can do now is to try to make the best of a bad job, either to accept the Clause as it is or to accept my hon. Friend's Amendments.
  I consider neither the Clause nor the Amendments to be particularly satisfactory. On balance, the Clause as it stands is probably slightly better than if the Amendments were accepted. Therefore, I would rather accept the Clause. I regret it very much, however, and I regret that at an earlier stage we did not take the opportunity of discussing the whole principle at far greater length.
  Mr. Steele: I am in doubt where we are going on this argument. When my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) disagrees so violently with my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craig-ton (Mr. Millan) then raises his voice in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East, I feel that I must defend my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock.
  There is a point of substance on which I should like the Under-Secretary to speak. In effect, the Clause increases the fines from £25 to the amounts specified in the Bill, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock takes exception. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East suggests that the sums are not high enough, because he thinks tht people should not pay the fines but should go to prison.
  Nowadays, I understand, what we are trying to do is to prevent people from going to prison and to try to find another method by which they can be penalised, thus avoiding the State having the responsibility of handling them in those establishments. We are trying to ensure that when people go to prison, it is for the purpose of rehabilitation.
  If my hon. Friend the Member for Edinbrugh, East, who says that the figures are not sufficiently high, would look at some of the White Papers and reports of some of the committees, he would see that too many people are in prison for failure to pay fines, low as they are.
  10.30 p.m.
  Mr. Willis: My argument was that it is no punishment for a Rachman to pay a fine, even if it is £1,000.
  Mr. Steele: I hope that a court, when dealing with a man of that kind, would not give him the option.
  Mr. Millan: If my hon. Friend considers offences of tax evasion—either Income Tax or Purchase Tax—he will find that it is quite common for serious offences to be dealt with in this way—which some of us think is very undesirable—whereas comparatively trivial offences are often, relatively speaking, dealt with extremely harshly.
  Mr. Steele: My hon. Friend is now confusing the judgments made in the
  1394
  courts with the legislation which we pass in this Home. What we are attempting to do is to lower the penalties and hope for the best. As my hon. Friends and I have already said, there are sheriffs and sheriffs. My hon. Friend is now saying that we ought to pay some attention to the sheriffs, and I agree. I say to the noble Lady that if we are going to get the benefit of all the provisions, including this one, we have got to have some method whereby the sheriffs, magistrates, justices of the peace and others can be brought together and enabled to understand the implications of what we are trying to do.
  On this issue I am with my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock. At least, he shows some indication of good sense in this respect. My fear is that by accepting the increases in fines in this Clause, we may be going against the Report of the other Committee. There are too many people in prison today because of failure to pay fines, and there are other provisions in the Bill whereby this situation might be eased. I must confess, however, that I support my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock.
  Mr. Peter Walker: In view of the fierce and savage attacks which have been made upon the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), I should like to say a few words in support of his case.
  Mr. Willis: That has torn it!
  Mr. Walker: I was shocked to hear the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) say that he wishes to raise the fine so that only those who can afford £1,000 or £2,000 can avoid going to prison, whereas those with more modest incomes should have to go to prison. There is a contradiction in his argument when, in one breath, he says that the option between a fine and imprisonment is one which benefits the rich—with which I agree—
  Mr. Willis: What I said was that it was a pity that we had not discussed the whole principle of the Clause.
  Mr. Walker: I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman on the principle. Where I suggest he is completely wrong is in stating that the principle is benefited by raising the limits of the fine. In fact,

  1395
  this is to the disadvantage of those in the lower income groups.
  Mr. Manuel: I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) has participated in the debate. At least, it is one speech from the back benches opposite. I wish to pay this tribute to the hon. Gentleman, that it is noticeable how he attends Scottish debates and listens to them. I am sure that his stature will grow as a result of that exercise. I am pleased that tonight he has been impelled to his feet.
  I must say I was intrigued by the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele). He wants to support something because somebody else supports it. I hope I am not approaching this Clause because of anything which my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) or my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) or my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said. I want to approach the Clause to have a look at what it does.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order—
  Mr. Manuel: As proposed to be amended, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, but I hope that the hon. Member will not go too far in his approach to the Clause because it is only the three Amendments with which we are concerned.
  Mr. Manuel: I was coming to that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because all we can deal with is the substitution of the amounts specified in the Amendments for the amounts laid down in the Clause. That was what my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West was dealing with, but what in effect he was saying was that it was all right for a man to pay the sums mentioned in the Amendments, say £300 instead of £400, but he forgot the ordinary working-class fellow whose income is not such that he could pay any of these sums.
  While my hon. Friends have been trying to improve the inequity of the Clause they have overlooked the difficulty of applying the law equitably because the man with plenty of money undoubtedly
  1396
  will be able to buy himself out of a pretty serious sentence while another fellow, earning a wage of £12 or £15 a week, will automatically go to prison. It is a serious business indeed where the sentence would be a year or more in prison, and the sum can be any amount which the court in its discretion may decide. It could be £2,000, if the offence were a serious one, but the court could decide he could escape imprisonment by paying a heavy fine.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: To follow out his argument, does not my hon. Friend think that this table should be combined with a provision for an investigation into the fortune, the income, of the malefactor, so that the amount he would have to pay would be graded according to his assets?
  Mr. Manuel: While I appreciate what my hon. and learned Friend has said, I think that if I were to enter into that Mr. Deputy-Speaker would quickly pull me up, because that is not in the Amendments.
  Although the Amendments lessen the severity of the Clause they do not give to the lower wage earners, in whom I am interested, any opportunity to escape imprisonment which those in the higher income groups can escape.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I have been interested in this debate. It was like fielding a football team. I was not sure which side anyone would be on. As I listened to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) I still could not decide which side he was going to be on, so I put him in the middle. I think that on balance he supports the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross).
  Mr. Manuel: No.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: Oh, he does not. I apologise to him. It must be the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). I think the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) were against the Amendments and the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) and, I am glad to say, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), who, alas, has left us, all supported the hon. Member for Kilmarnock.

  1397
  After listening to the debate and having considered these tables with some care beforehand, I have taken into account what has been said and also what I really think would make the best result of the table. I feel that the best solution would be to accept the first and third Amendments but not to accept the centre Amendment because it would distort the progress of the table. Perhaps I should explain this a little further.
  The hon. Member for Craigton in particular asked me whether I would say a little more about the table as a whole. I realise that I cannot discuss the whole Clause, but it has been established law since 1908 that the court can substitute a fine for imprisonment, as it has subsequently been empowered to impose other sentences, such us probation. The rich man cannot buy himself out of a difficulty, because the court has to decide between the sentence and the fine. So the court can send the rich man to prison rather than let him buy himself out of his trouble, as one hon. Member seemed to think was possible.
  Mr. Willis: Surely the hon. Lady is missing the point. Of course the court can decide. In fact, the court does decide whether it is to be a fine or prison sentence. What we are arguing is that the person who has not got the wherewithal cannot pay a fine of £500 and in that case it has to be prison. We do not believe in extending this principle.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The third Amendment seeks to amend the last part of the table. If one accepted that—it says "Over one year", which normally, I am told, would in practice mean two years—then the court also would have the power to fine in its discretion.
  Surprisingly, the maximum fine that can be imposed at the moment is the same as the existing limit on the power of the sheriff summary court in any common law offence—that is, £25. This is, clearly, inadequate if the higher courts are to have a real alternative in appropriate cases to impose imprisonment rather than a fine. Therefore, the table sets out the maximum powers of fine in relation to the relevant maximum periods of imprisonment.
  The three Amendments propose two different adjustments to the table. The first and third propose that the last stage,
  1398
  the stage at which there is no limitation on the powers of the court, should apply to sentences of over one year instead of to sentences of one year or over. In practice, since it is almost unknown for Parliament to prescribe a maximum sentence intermediate between one and two years, this really means in effect that the last stage would start at two years. The second Amendment proposes to reduce the maximum fine for the second last stage from £400 to £300.
  I am well aware that many arguments can be produced for or against the details of any scale, including the £300 or the £400, but if it is felt that the £400 maximum should apply to one year's imprisonment, then I think we should leave that as it is. But we could accept both the first and the last Amendments. We could not accept all three because they would rather distort the table. In view of the way in which the debate has gone and the different views expressed, I think that this would be a compromise between the varying views.
  Mr. Ross: I want to express our gratitude to the hon. Lady. The Amendment she is not accepting was not intended to go along with the other two, but if she had turned down the one moved, I would have insisted on its application. This is a reasonable compromise, despite the confusion which arises from the fact that we did not get time properly to discuss this in Committee.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 18, line 17 leave out "One year or over" and insert "Over one year".—[Mr. Ross.]

  Clause 30.—(PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS.)
  10.45 p.m.
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 18, line 35 after "person" to insert:
  "other than a first offender within the meaning of the First Offenders (Scotland) Act 1960".
  Clause 30 makes a very radical alteration in the law in relation to the libelling of previous convictions. At the moment the limitation is on laying convictions for cognate offences in aggravation of an offence. That is being wiped out and it will be open to the court, in considering sentence, to be given by the procurator fiscal a list of what he thinks are relevant previous convictions.

  1399
  I suggest that this should not apply in relation to a person who is a first offender. The Clause dealing with first offenders has been amended, so that a person who has been convicted but whose conviction has taken place 10 years ago is to be treated as a first offender. I wonder whether we could not give such a benefit in this case as well. If we are to say that a man can have the slate wiped clean after 10 years, so long as he has not meantime been before the courts, surely we can make the appropriate change here as well.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I must advise the House not to accept the Amendment because it would prevent, as the hon. Member said, previous convictions being laid where the offender was a first offender under the terms of the 1960 Act. But cognate previous convictions can at present be laid against first offenders. I have heard no criticism of this procedure, but the Amendment would prevent it and limit the information which could be given to the court merely as a result of the fact that the convicted person was, under the terms of the Act, a first offender.
  I do not really see any particular merit in that limitation in such a case. The purpose of the First Offenders Act is not to be soft to first offenders or to treat them lightly but to ensure that the court does not make undue use of imprisonment and that, before imposing imprisonment, it is fully informed of the offender's background and circumstances.
  Under the Amendment, if the court is considering imprisonment, it will have full information about the offender's previous convictions because it will have the probation officer's report, but in the great majority of cases it will not be considering imprisonment and it will be deprived of information which may well be of value to it in deciding what is the best treatment. Therefore, I hope that on consideration the hon. Member will withdraw the Amendment.
  Mr. Ross: After that explanation, I am very happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 18, line 39, at the end to insert:
  (3) Where there is laid before the court any previous conviction which but for the passing of this section would have been precluded, there shall accompany the laying of any such conviction a report from the probation officer on the person concerned and regard shall be had to it.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) is not in his place—he has not been here all day—because he raised this matter in Committee. He was concerned that if we were to get all the information about the person convicted to help the court to select the appropriate sentence, the court should have a report from the probation officer as well as all the previous convictions, the idea being that the court should know about possible good things as well as bad. To fulfil the purpose of the Clause, it is essential to have that information. Having been convinced by the hon. Member that this provision was desirable, I drafted an Amendment, and as he has not put one forward himself, I now advance mine.
  I hope that the hon. Lady has been seized of the concern expressed on both sides of the Committee and will appreciate that the Amendment more or less meets the case. No harm will be done to the Clause—in fact, it will be strengthened—by the availability to the court of additional information which may fill some of the gaps and prevent action which would not be in the interests of the individual, justice or the community. If the Government really mean what they say about this radical change, that they want not further to penalise the convicted person but to get the appropriate treatment for him, the court wants all the information it can get, not just previous convictions, but how the man has behaved and lived and reacted since his last conviction.
  Sir J. Duncan: If the offence occurred eight or nine years ago, would it not be rather difficult to get this information from the probation officer?
  Mr. Ross: The probation officer would know that it was eight or nine years ago. What is the purpose of libelling the previous conviction if the fact that it occurred nine years ago is meaning less? That is the essence of the hon. Member's intervention. That is what related to the previous Amendment, and

  1401
  I accepted the argument put forward on that. But the probation officer could that it occurred nine years ago is meaning look into a man's antecedents. That is the very argument that was put forward in Committee. I was convinced that the hon. Member for Fife, East had a point. I am sorry that he has not persistence as well as persuasion. It is no good arguing about these things in Committee; one has to be prepared to use the Parliamentary processes to get one's way. In spite of the defection of the hon. Member, I hope that the hon. Lady has more sense of duty and responsibility. Here she sees something that would strengthen the purpose of the original Clause 30 and would probably make many of us feel much happier about the change being made in Scottish law.
  Many Scottish people are concerned about this change. Some feel that we are merely following the English procedure and they are not entirely convinced that it is to our advantage, after all these years, to make this change. It would be evidence of the bona fides of the Government—evidence that they are doing this for the best purposes—if they were prepared to accept the Amendment, thereby being prepared to take into account not only previous convictions but a full report from the probation officer in relation to the person convicted.
  Sir J. Duncan: I am not sure what the hon. Member's argument is. I was not a Member of the Committee. The probation officer's report is on the person concerned, in respect of a conviction which may have taken place eight or nine years ago. That is what I do not understand.
  Mr. Ross: What has happened is that up to the present there could not be libelled against any person convicted, prior to his sentence, any previous convictions other than those which are in aggravation of that offence—in other words, cognate offences.
  That is now being wiped out, and all previous convictions may be libelled. There is no mandatory provision that all shall be libelled; they may be. That is what we were told in Committee by the hon. Lady. She said that the procurator fiscal will decide which ones are relevant. The argument was that when a person
  1402
  has been convicted but not yet sentenced, in order to get a proper treatment account should be taken of the whole criminal history of the individual. What I am saying is that to that should be added the social history and background, and all that has taken place; since his last conviction to balance the whole thing and get a proper picture. There may be matters which could be made available to the court by the investigations of the probation officer, and put in the report he would now be required to lay, that would assist the court in deciding what was the appropriate sentence.
  That is what the Amendment provides. The probation officer's report is not related to the man's last conviction but to the man himself and to his life. It may include his last conviction, but it will be much more likely to state why the man has behaved as he has since his last conviction. In other words, we say that if we want to get a picture which will enable us to create the right sentencing policy it must be a complete picture, and not a picture of all that is bad. There may be some good. There may be something in a man's recent life that could affect the court in its determination what sentence should be awarded—and if there is, the court should know about it.
  I am very glad that the hon. Member for Fife, East has come into the Chamber. I have been battling for him and his ideas, trying hard to persuade the hon. Member for South Angus exactly what he meant and what I have tried to put into words in the Amendment. I hope that when the Under-Secretary is explaining why she thinks it is good, the hon. Member will also look at the Bill and at this Amendment. If she turns it down, I hope that he will come to our support and rescue.
  11.0 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I am glad that when the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) moved this Amendment he made reference to the point made in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour). My hon. Friend was concerned that under Clause 30 only adverse facts about the accused would come before the court, but I said to him at the time that it is always open to an offender to have included in his plea in mitigation anything he thinks is favourable to himself.

  1403
  I do not think this Amendment is practicable, and I shall try to explain why. The effect would be that before a non-cognate conviction could be laid before the court it would be necessary for the probation service to be informed of the intention, for the probation officer to prepare a social inquiry report and for that report to be laid before the court. At present the probation service provides reports to the courts in 20,000 to 30,000 cases a year. The number is steadily rising. The Government are glad to see that, apart from cases where a probation report is obligatory, the courts are making steadily increasing use of the probation service to get information to help them to decide how to dispose of cases.
  None the less, the number of cases in which a probation officer's report is called for is still a comparatively small proportion of the 180,000 or so cases prosecuted each year in Scotland. There are a large number of cases, such as the all too frequent ones of illegal parking or minor road traffic offences, where calling for a probation officer's report would seldom, if ever, be justified. Among these cases—the great majority—in which no probation officer's report is obtained, there would be many in which the offender has previous convictions of a non-cognate nature. The Criminal Statistics do not show how many, since the figures do not distinguish between cognate and non-cognate convictions. Among those cases there will be a substantial number in which the existence of non-cognate convictions would be information of which the court should not be deprived.
  Even if this arose in only 15 per cent. of the 150,000 odd cases in which no report is at present obtained, the effect would be more or less to double the work of the probation service in providing reports. There is no reason to suppose that when and if the necessary expansion of the service can be made the provision of reports of this kind, perhaps in comparatively straightforward road traffic cases, would be the best use of the service's manpower. For this reason, I suggest that the hon. Member might consider withdrawing the Amendment.
  Mr. Willis: This is a very interesting situation. Once again the chairman of the Tory Party in Scotland is turning down the vice-chairman. We have a
  1404
  widening of the breach in the Tory Party. I am sure that hon. Members opposite must be seriously concerned about the situation of the party in Scotland.
  Sir J. Duncan: On the last Amendment the party opposite was completely split.
  Mr. Willis: We have all treated the Bill as a non-political, non-party Bill, and hon. Members opposite have insisted on treating it as a party Measure. That is why I am rather surprised at this open display of disunity. We were trying to assist the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour). We thought that as a result of his lack of experience in the House he might not know how to put down an Amendment to the Bill, and judging by the activities of hon. Members opposite apparently many of them do not know how to do so. This is an elementary lesson in Parliamentary practice. Hon. Members opposite should be expressing some appreciation to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) for so generously placing at their disposal his valuable services in that respect.
  The hon. Lady has placed some practical difficulties before the House, but I suggest that the Amendment nevertheless has some value. What is disappointing is that she has not tried to devise a means whereby what the hon. Member for Fife, East wanted and what my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock is supporting could be incorporated in the Bill without leading to the complications which she suggested.
  An interesting feature of the figures with which the hon. Lady provides us is the extent to which crime continues to grow under the Tories. This, too, should make members of the Tory Party think. I am only offering a few remarks and a few thoughts—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Member, but I hope that he will keep his remarks and his thoughts as close as may be to the Amendment under discussion.
  Mr. Willis: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I appreciate that I was tending to get rather wide of the Amendment but these thoughts arise out of it and out of the hon. Lady's reply. One of the reasons offered for the rejection of the Amendment was the work

  1405
  involved, and I simply point out that this increasing work in the criminal courts is arising under the Tory Government. I shall certainly draw the attention of many of my friends to this aspect of the Government.
  We appreciate the difficulties but we are concerned that the hon. Lady and her advisers have not tried to devise a method by which the justifiable aim of the subsection could have been achieved, and to that extent once again, I am sorry to say, the hon. Lady has let me down. I thought rather better of her than this. I thought that she would have applied her mind to the problem and would have produced a solution and have made it possible for the person concerned to obtain such a report, not in the larceny type of case but in the type of case in which it would have been of value to the person appearing before the court.
  Mr. A. R. Wise: I really cannot allow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) to get away with those remarks. He read us a long lecture on being able to put down Amendments but, since then, he has been complaining bitterly that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has not produced an Amendment which would make one of his Amendments make a little sense. Surely to goodness, the hon. Member, with that Parliamentary skill to which he has been referring, could have devised an Amendment that did what he wanted it to do. It is only too bad that he has not—perhaps even worse that he could not. It is only fair to point out that all political wisdom does not exist slightly north of the Border and south of the Highland line.
  Mr. Ross: Does not the hon. Member recall that, earlier, two out of three of our Amendments were accepted?
  Mr. Hector Hughes: I am afraid that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) has misunderstood not only the Amendment but the Clause. If he understood the Amendment, he would realise that it is designed to give, and does give, balance to the Clause. The general principle applying to offenders, as I am sure the hon. Member will agree, in testing whether an earlier conviction should be used against the offender is whether or not he has purged his former
  1406
  offence; whether the penalty then inflicted has had a good effect.
  The Clause as it stands does not deal with that. The Amendment does. It says:
  "(3) Where there is laid before the court any previous conviction which but for the passing of this section would have been precluded, then shall accompany the laying of any such conviction a report from the probation officer on the person concerned and regard shall be had to it."
  Who would be in a better position than the probation officer to indicate whether the previous penalty had had its effect—whether it had improved the offender, whether the offender had purged his offence? That is the design, the purpose, the object, and that is what would be the effect, of this Amendment. I am sure that if the hon. Member realised that, he would support the Amendment. I ask the hon. Lady to bear my observations in mind, and accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Millan: We are now in an extraordinary position because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has said, the Amendment was put down to cover a point raised originally by the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour), yet the hon. Member—who came into the Chamber after the Amendment was moved—does not seem to be taking any initiative in supporting it. Indeed, I have been here during most of our proceedings but have yet to hear one back-bench Conservative contribution on any Amendment. This is meant to be a non-party Bill, and it is extra ordinary that there should be such a complete lack of interest among Scottish Conservative Members. We have had one or two interlopers, including the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise)—I am not sure that his contribution took us very much further—but we have heard nothing from a Scottish Conservative Member.
  The hon. Lady's argument for the laying of non-cognate offences—which, incidentally, some of us object to in principle—was that the court should have the maximum amount of information about an offender. I should have thought that this Amendment was absolutely consonant with that principle. It would increase the amount of evidence that a court would have about an

  1407
  offender by providing that where a non-cognate offence was libelled there should also be a report from the probation officer.
  11.15 p.m.
  I agree that there may be a practical difficulty in having the report from the probation officer made simultaneously with the libelling of the non-cognate offence, but it seems to me that where the laying of a non-cognate offence will make a difference to the kind of sentence that the court will impose there ought to be a probation report. If this cannot be done at the time of the laying of the previous non-cognate offence it presumably would be open to the court to have the probation report brought forward following that procedure.
  There is an important principle here and the Government ought to try, if not to accept the Amendment, at least to meet us half way by doing what is open to them in further proceedings on the Bill and making some Amendment which will go some way to meet the point originally made by the hon. Member for Fife, East and now made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock.
  Sir John Gilmour: I apologise to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) for not being here when he was kindly referring to me. I have come in as an afterthought as a result of someone mentioning that this matter had come up. In Committee I raised this point and my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State allayed any suspicion that I had at the time as to what it was necessary to do to safeguard the situation. I was worried then as to whether it was possible that only the ill would be recorded before the court and that there would be no opportunity for the person presiding over the court to hear the good as well. If hon. Members will read the debate I think that they will find that my noble Friend allayed my fears and suspicions and that it is not necessary to add to the words of the Clause because there is sufficient safeguard to ensure that the good is heard as well as the bad.
  Mr. Ross: What is the safeguard?
  Sir J. Gilmour: It was said at that time that it is always open to the defence,
  1408
  and indeed it does so all the time, to bring in what is good in mitigation of the offence in making its case.
  Amendment negatived.

  Clause 45.—(AMENDMENT OF S. 4 OF THE SUMMARY JURISDICTION (SCOTLAND) ACT 1954.)
  Mr. Millan: I beg to move, in page 23, line 27, to leave out "fifty" and to insert "twenty-five".
  When we came to this Clause and this part of the Bill in Committee we were on the last day allocated to us for the Committee stage. We rushed through the Clause without any discussion. This was unfortunate because the Clause is quite important. It provides for certain changes in the powers of the summary courts other than sheriff courts, and that means the burgh police courts and J.P. courts. Under paragraph (a), it will be possible for the courts to deal with rather more serious offences than they can now.
  The three categories of offence are set out in Section 4(1), paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954. They are, so far as the increase in limits is concerned, theft or reset of theft, falsehood, fraud and wilful imposition, breach of trust and embezzlement. For these offences at present, summary courts other than sheriff courts have been able to deal with offences only if they were in respect of amounts not exceeding £10. It is now provided that the same categories of offences will be dealt with by the lower summary courts but the new limit set is not exceeding £50.
  This is a considerable extension of the powers of the burgh police courts. We are entitled to have an explanation from the Government of why this increase in powers is being granted. If for this category of offences a limit of up to £10 was reasonable in 1954, one wonders why, only nine years later, it is necessary to raise it five-fold. The Amendment to reduce the limit from £50 to £25 represents something much more reasonably in line with the fall in the value of money under this Government.
  The interesting feature of the whole Clause is that, whereas paragraph (a) increases the powers of the lower summary courts, paragraph (b) restricts them. There is a contradiction in the Clause as

  1409
  a whole, and one has difficulty in understanding whether the Government wish to give an improved or a reduced status to the lower summary courts.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: This is one of a number of provisions in the Bill designed to bring up to date the financial limits of one kind and another which are contained in earlier legislation and which have fallen out of line with changes in the value of money since they were originally fixed. Section 4 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954, imposes certain restrictions on the powers of courts of summary jurisdiction other than the sheriff court. The provisions with which we are here concerned are to be found in subsection (2) paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) which provide that, where the value of stolen goods or goods obtained by fraud or false pretences exceeds £10, summary prosecution may take place only in the sheriff court.
  This financial limit goes back to 1908, since the 1954 Act was a consolidation Measure, and the increase to £50 proposed in the Bill is designed to take account of the change in the value of money since the present limit was fixed 55 years ago. The hon. Gentleman argued that the increase to £50 is unjustified and has suggested instead an increase to £25 as being more reasonable. I think the House will agree that from debates we have had earlier on monetary changes this cannot be, in fact, an exact mathematical calculation. What we are trying to do is to maintain broadly the distinction between the burgh and J.P. courts, on the one hand, and the sheriff courts on the other as provided in the older legislation. If the level is too low the burgh and the J.P. courts are prevented from dealing with cases which they might otherwise be able to dispose of, and an additional burden is imposed on the sheriff court.
  We had thought, in drafting the Bill, that an increase from £10 to £50 was a reasonable recognition of the change in values since the figure of £10 was originally fixed. But, as I say, this is not an exact science and, therefore, I am quite prepared that we should recommend the House to accept the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.
  Mr. Millan: May I once again—this is the third time today that I have been
  1410
  able to do this—thank the hon. Lady very much for accepting the Amendment?
  Amendment agreed to

  Clause 48.—(PROVISION FOR ADDITIONAL JUDGES.)
  Mr. Speaker: I think it would be to the convenience of the House to discuss with the Amendment in page 23, line 45, the next three Amendments: In page 23, line 46, leave out "eighteen" and insert "seventeen".
  In line 46, after "eighteen" insert:
  "after approval of an order to that effect by the Commons House of Parliament".
  In page 24, line 3, leave out "eighteen" and insert "seventeen".
  If that be acceptable to the House I will save the second, third and fourth and call, ii; necessary, for Divisions the second and third.
  Mr. Willis: I understand that we are to discuss all the Amendments on Clause 48. The only point of clarification that I should like to ask for is that if I move to leave out Clause 48, and if that is agreed to, does that mean that none of the three following Amendments can be made?
  Mr. Speaker: What I propose would be to leave out the words to "eighteen" in line 46. That saves the others. Anyhow, we will look after the mechanics of the matter if the hon. Member will move the first Amendment and we discuss the group.
  Mr. Willis: I beg to move, in page 23, line 45, to leave out Clause 48.
  In doing so, I am bound to object to the very subtle form of intimidation to which the Opposition are being subjected by the Government. I refer, of course, to the intimidation in that we are being compelled to deal with the hon. Lady who has not been allowed to get a cup of tea for 7½ hours. Naturally, we are rather upset about this, and we do not like to discuss these matters too long. It is really intolerable on the part of the Government that they cannot manage to provide the hon. Lady with a relief in order that she may get a cup of tea.
  I had intended to make a longish speech on this matter, but I feel that I am being restricted and intimidated by

  1411
  virtue of the fact that I do not like to see the hon. Lady sitting there so long. However, I made two or three very long speeches on this matter in Committee and I will therefore confine my remarks to a very limited compass.
  In the first place, I do not think that the Government have made out any case for the appointing of additional judges at all. The second point I wish to make is that the present judges do not seem to me to be properly occupied. In other words, we have increased the number of judges in Scotland in the higher courts from 13 to 16 and now we propose to increase the number to 18, and that within a very short time indeed, I cannot believe that the work of the courts has increased to that extent.
  11.30 p.m.
  I also made the point during the Committee stage, which I will repeat, that I believe Scotland has far too many judges in its various courts. I pointed out, giving the figures, that Scotland, with one-tenth the population of England, has one-quarter the number of judges, and that seemed to me to be far too many. I suggested during the Second Reading and in Committee that the whole of the procedures of the Court of Session ought to be examined. What is the position in the Court of Session at present? The court does not sit on Mondays. It sits on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but Fridays and Saturdays are devoted to undefended divorce cases—business which, incidentally, some of us think ought to be dealt with in rather a different fashion, but it would be out of order to discuss that point now. Nobody can suggest that this is a very weighty programme.
  I also pointed out to the hon. Lady that during the summer term last year the Inner House did not sit at all. We had no Lord Justice Clerk at that time. He unfortunately died, and the Government had not plucked up the courage to appoint the then Lord Advocate to that position. They took three months to do that because they were afraid they might be defeated in Glasgow in a by-election.
  Mr. T. Fraser: As they were.
  Mr. Willis: Yes, they were. I suggest to the hon. Lady that in the light of the evidence that has been placed before her in debate and at the Scottish Office, there ought to be some consideration of the practices and procedures in the Court of Session—that is a perfectly reasonable demand—before any additional judges are appointed.
  The only argument adduced during the Committee stage of the Bill which seemed to me to be a valid reason for seeking powers for appointing additional judges was the argument that, arising out of applications for legal aid in criminal cases, there might be a considerable increase in the number of appeals. That would appear to have been borne out by a Clause—Clause 32, I believe—which was later dropped by the Government. I would accept that as being a reason why it might be necessary to appoint an additional judge, if it were not for the fact that that particular section of the Court of Session appeared to have less to do than the Outer House. The Inner House, I understand, has less to do than the Outer House. Therefore, I am not prepared to accept that argument. If the hon. Lady examines the situation as it has been placed before her, I think she will hesitate before wishing to appoint two additional judges.
  I have tried to compress the main points of my argument into a very small compass indeed. I could speak at length on this subject, but I have compressed my arguments in order to save the time of the House. I think the Government have justified the necessity for having the powers asked for in this Clause, but before proceeding further they should examine the whole procedures and practices of the Court of Session.
  Thanks, I think, to a great deal of criticism from these benches during the past year or two the Government are in process of examining the sheriff courts and their practices. It may be inappropriate to examine the Court of Session position till that review has been carried through, but what is being done in the case of the sheriff courts ought to be done in the case of the Court of Session, and the Government should not seek powers to appoint additional judges till that has been done. I hope that the hon. Lady will tell us tonight that the

  1413
  Government are considering this, and that after the inquiry into the sheriff courts there will be one into the Court of Session, and I hope she will have some better news for us now than she had in Standing Committee.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I understand that we are discussing with the Amendment to leave out Clause 48 the Amendment to alter the number of judges from 18 to 17, and if that is so I hope that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) will be glad to know that I am prepared to advise the House to accept that latter Amendment, and, of course, the consequential one in page 24, line 3. I must confess that I do so advise the House not only because of the eloquence of the hon. Gentleman, to whom I always listen with great attention.
  We argued this in Standing Committee, when I suggested that I felt that we should keep the power to appoint two additional judges. Since the debate in Standing Committee, as the House will recall, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced, on Wednesday, 19t.h June, the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry under the Chairmanship of the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Grant, to review the functions of the sheriff courts in the administration of the civil and criminal law of Scotland. The Committee's terms of reference do not refer in terms to the jurisdiction of the Court of Session and the High Court, but it is at least possible—I put it no higher than that—that the Committee's recommendations as regards the proper functions of the sheriff court may lead to changes in the volume of business in the High Court and the Court of Session.
  In these circumstances, it does seem sensible to take power now to appoint the additional judge who is likely to be required within the next year or so as a result of the introduction of criminal legal aid, but to leave over the appointment of the second judge till we see the outcome of the sheriff courts inquiry, because I have little doubt that inquiry will lead to legislation, and therefore the question of further judicial appointments could, if necessary, be dealt with at that time. Therefore I am prepared to accept the second Amendment.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. Willis: I beg to move, in page 23, line 46, to leave out "eighteen" and to insert "seventeen".
  I thank the hon. Lady for going some distance to meet us. I hope that the committee set up to inquire into the sheriff courts will consider the possibility of the sheriff courts doing certain work at present done by the Court of Session which would affect the work to be done by the Court of Session and make it possible for us not to have to increase the number beyond 17.
  As I said, I accept the argument that the introduction of legal aid for criminal cases might involve greater work. Because of that, I am probably happier to accept the compromise offered by the hon. Lady than I might otherwise have been. I thank her for having met us partly.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 24, line 3, leave out "eighteen" and insert "seventeen".—[Mr. Willis.]

  Clause 52.—(EXTENSION TO ENGLAND, NORTHERN IRELAND, THE ISLE OF MAN AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.)
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 25, line 22, to leave out "40 and 41" and to insert "39 and 40".
  The purpose of the Amendment is to correct an error made in the editing of the Report stage print of the Bill following its amendment in Committee. The Clauses which should be extended in their effect to England and Wales are Clause 39, dealing with cross-Border enforcement of warrants, and Clause 40, dealing with the service of certain English prosecution documents in Scotland.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Schedule 5.—(MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS.)
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 37, line 4, to leave out "sections 53 and 69" and to insert "section 53".
  If I might, Mr. Speaker, deal at the same time with the next Amendment, these two Amendments are designed purely to tidy up the drafting of the Bill consequential on a change in the English law which is being effected by the Children and Young Persons Bill.

  1415
  The first Amendment relates to Section 69 of the English Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, to which reference is made in Section 11 of the Family Allowances Act, 1945. This is being repealed and replaced by a Clause in the Children and Young Persons Bill. Therefore, the reference to Section 69 of the 1933 Act here is unnecessary, and the Amendment deletes it.
  The second Amendment relates to Section 73 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, the Scottish counterpart to Section 69. An amendment to the Family Allowances Act, 1945, in Schedule 3 of the Children and Young Persons Bill includes references in Section 11 of that Act both to the English new Clause and to the Scottish Section 73. The reference to Section 73 here therefore becomes unnecessary, and the second Amendment deletes it.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 37, line 6, leave out "sections 57 and 73 "and insert" section 57".—[Lady Tweedsmuir.]
  Mr. Speaker: We now come to the need for a consequential Amendment. I understand that a manuscript Amendment is to be moved.
  11.45 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: Thank you for consent, Mr. Speaker. This manuscript Amendment is necessary and consequential upon the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) to Clause 45, page 23, line 27.
  I beg to move, in page 39, line 24, to leave out "50" and to insert "25".
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 39, line 30, leave out "two hundred and fifty" and insert "one hundred and fifty".
  In page 41, line 37, at end insert:
  (3B) For the purposes of subsection (3) of this section, a previous conviction shall be disregarded after the expiration of a period of ten years from the date of that conviction, being a period exclusive of any period during which the offender was in custody under sentence in respect of the conviction.—[Lady Tweedsmuir.]
  Lady Tweedsmuir: I beg to move, in page 42, line 5, to leave out "12, 13 and 15" and to insert "11, 12 and 14".
  The purpose of the Amendment is to correct an error made in the editing of the Report stage print of the Bill following its amendment in Committee, and, in particular, the disappearance of the original Clause 9. The references should be to the three Clauses dealing with the extension of compulsory after care to new classes of offenders—Clause 11, 12, and 14.
  Mr. Ross: We are very grateful to the hon. Lady for correcting this error. She has been meticulous to the last. If we had had the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor-General here we should have taken very much longer and have had far more errors to correct.
  But I was hoping, on the last lap of this very important Bill, that we might have seen the Secretary of State, whose name has appeared at the head of all the Government Amendments and whose voice we have not heard at all on this Measure since his speech on Second Reading. So we have only her word that this is an essential Amendment.
  Having heard the hon. Lady in Committee dealing with these matters so ably and well, and noting the absence of the Secretary of State and the two other Under-Secretaries, who were not even here to relieve her to give her a cup of tea during the whole day, and having heard only one speech from a Tory back bencher—it was dragged out of him—I think we are entitled to say "thanks" to her and give her her last Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

  PROCEDURE
  Third Report from the Select Committee to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. lain Macleod.]
  Considered accordingly.
  Resolved,
  That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

  PROCEDURE (DEBATE ON MATTERS AWAITING JUDICIAL DECISION)
  Resolved,
  That, subject always to the discretion of the Chair and to the right of the House to legislate on any matter.

  (1) matters awaiting or under adjudication in all courts exercising a criminal jurisdiction and in courts martial should not be referred to—

  (a) in any motion (including a motion for leave to bring in a bill), or

  (b) in debate, or

  (c) in any question to a Minister including a supplementary question;

  (2) matters awaiting or under adjudication in a civil court should not be referred to—

  (a) in any motion (including a motion for leave to bring in a bill), or

  (b) in debate, or

  (c) in any question to a Minister including a supplementary question from the time that the case has been set down for trial or otherwise brought before the court, as for example by notice of motion for an injunction; such matters may be referred to before such date unless it appears to the Chair that there is a real and substantial danger of prejudice to the trial of the case.

  (3) Paragraphs (1) and (2) of this Resolution should have effect—

  (a) in the case of a criminal case in courts of law, including courts martial, from the moment the law is set in motion by a charge being made;

  (b) in the wise of a civil case in courts of law, from the time that the case has been set down for trial or othewise brought before the court, as for example by notice of motion for am injunction;

  (c) in the case of any judicial body to which the House has expressly referred a specific matter for decision and report, from the time when the resolution of the House is passed.

  (4) Paragraphs (1) and (2) of this Resolution should cease to have effect—

  (a) in the case of courts of law, when the verdict and sentence have been announced or judgment given, but resumed when notice of appeal is given until the appeal has been decided;

  (b) in the case of courts martial, when the sentence of the court has been confirmed and promulgated, but resumed when the convicted man petitions the Army Council, the Air Council or the Board of Admiralty;

  (c) in the case of any judicial body to which the House has expressly referred a specific matter for decision and report, as soon as the report is laid before the House.—[Mr. Iain Mncleod.]

  MALAYA (GIFT OF A SPEAKER'S CHAIR)
  Resolution reported,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented, on behalf of this House, a Speaker's Chair to the Malayan House of Representatives, and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good The expenses attending the same.
  Resolution agreed to.
  To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

  OUTER RING ROAD, CHESTER
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
  11.50 p.m.
  Mr. John M. Temple: There are very few people in the whole of the Western world who have not heard of the ancient and historic City of Chester. For some 2,000 years it has been a garrison town and administrative centre and the focus of roads coming from the towns of North-West of England and moving into Wales. Originally, Chester was the site of the ford across the River Dee and now that river is crossed by the old Dee Bridge, which is an historic monument, and by the Grosvenor Bridge completed in 1830. Perhaps one might say that the answer to the traffic problem in Chester would be another bridge across the River Dee at Chester, but I submit that the very charm of Chester is that it should be available to the tourists and inhabitants of the city and that the object of any new traffic arrangements in the area should be to diminish the amount of traffic going through the city and to move that traffic round the outside.
  The City of Chester has quite rightly embarked upon the construction of an inner ring road which will facilitate the traffic moving within the city, but it will not lessen the traffic in our city. Quite clearly, the objective must be another crossing of the River Dee combined with a by-pass road which will take a great deal of the traffic outside the city.
  This problem was recognised quite clearly some 40 years ago. Plans were made for an outer ring road and the

  1419
  northern section was completed in the 1930s. The southern section, of which I am speaking tonight, was commenced. My desire tonight is to impress upon the Parliamentary Secretary the urgency for the completion of this outer ring road plus the bridge, and I submit that the responsibility lies clearly with the Minister of Transport, because it is the Minister of Transport who provides funds for the construction of trunk roads.
  The southern section of this road would be some seven miles long and it has recently been estimated by the Minister that the cost of building this road would be about £3,500,000.
  Since 1957, I have been pressing successive Ministers of Transport, in Parliamentary Questions and in correspondence, to bring this matter forward. My file on this matter is almost six inches thick!
  The position today is that the line of this road was statutorily laid down some two years ago and, recognising the very big local feeling on this matter, I was instrumental in organising a conference of local authorities and other interested parties which took place on 4th October, last year, under the chairmanship of the Chairman of the Roads and Bridges Committee of the Cheshire County Council in Chester. Subsequent to that meeting, the Clerk of the Cheshire County Council wrote to the secretary of the Minister of Transport on 13th December, 1962, saying:
  "Whilst fully conscious of certain high priority road schemes to be carried out in Cheshire and Flint shire and Chester, the Authorities are of the opinion that the need for the completion of the Southern Section of the Chester outer ring road is such as to warrant consideration of the allocation of additional funds."
  The need was clearly recognised by the authorities in the area.
  Additionally, the Chester and District Chamber of Trade, in a very powerful memorandum, stressed the importance to Chester of the completion of this ring road. The Chamber of Trade mentioned that Chester was an important administrative centre. It is the headquarters of Western Command, the seat of the county government and the seat of the government of the city and of two rural district councils.
  1420
  Chester has the area offices for the electricity and gas undertakings, the Post Office, National Insurance, and the Inland Revenue, covering a wide area. It is also a cathedral city and the seat of the diocesan offices for the diocese of Chester. Chester is a shopping centre with a shopping population of 250,000, almost five times the population of the city itself. It is a professional centre, with its own law courts, and many professional bodies are based upon it. It is a tourist centre almost without equal in the country and possibly only second in importance, to tourists coming from abroad, to Stratford-on-Avon.
  Representations in this matter have been made to me by industrial companies such as the de Havilland Aircraft Company and the Shell Oil Company, with big factories and installations close to Chester, and public service companies, one of which is the Crosville Motor Services. I should like to quote an extract from a letter, dated 27th November of last year, in which the secretary of this company, which operates a wide network of motor services in the area, says:
  "We now look upon Chester as the blackest spot in the whole of our operating area which, as you know, extends over seven counties…the result of this traffic congestion is catastrophic."
  This speaks volumes for the case that I am putting forward tonight. The case on general grounds is strong and extraordinarily well supported by all the local interests.
  Now I turn to the purely technical position. The present northern section is, I understand, carrying 14,000 vehicles per day, and the Ministry estimates, on the basis of a 1962 traffic survey, that the southern section would carry about 8,000 vehicles a day. No one will claim that 8,000 vehicles a day is a high figure for a by-pass road, but it is a high figure to pass through the centre of an historic city.
  A large proportion of that traffic comprises vehicles which are carrying sand and gravel from North Wales and passing through to the industrial centres to the cast of the city. Oil tankers, chemical tankers, and the like use the streets of Chester, which are quite unsuited today for heavy traffic, and residents have told me that at a week-end the fire

  1421
  brigade is frequently unable to cross from one side of the city to the other because the bridges are so congested by the traffic. Only last Saturday I was in conversation with a local doctor who told me that only in cases of extreme urgency could he go outside the city, or contemplate doing so, on a Saturday morning, the traffic congestion in the city being so great.
  I have had a lot of correspondence and help from our county surveyor, and he has sent me a message of encouragement for tonight. He tells me that on the technical side the centre line order has been made; that surveys and cross-sections have been done; that no properties need to be demolished, and that work could be commenced within 12 months. He states further that there is public works capacity in the Chester area which would readily get on with the work on this by-pass.
  I now turn to the question when the work is likely to start. On 23rd August, 1958, the Liverpool Post—and here I pay tribute to the great interest that that newspaper has always shown in the traffic problems of the North-West of England—contained a very informative article, entitled "Faster Routes for North-West in Sight. Chester By-Pass the Link." I communicated with the then Parliamentary Secretary—now my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent)—who, replying on 10th September, 1958, said:
  "The article forecasts the possibility of the scheme starting in two years' time but this of course is pure speculation and in present circumstances may be optimistic."
  It certainly was extremely optimistic. Nothing has happened since that time. I was in touch with the Parliamentary Secretary again on 4th December, 1961, when he wrote to me:
  "I still cannot say precisely when it will be possible to make funds available for the construction of this road."
  The Parliamentary Secretary could not be precise about the matter, but at least we were extraordinarily hopeful.
  On 11th February this year my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport himself wrote to me. After saying that he could see no possibility of a meeting achieving anything—I had asked him to receive a deputation from all the interests concerned—he said that a meeting such as I proposed would be of no avail and went on:
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  "I cannot offer any hope of my being able to carry out the construction within the next few years."
  I regarded this as a very great set-back and this is one of the reasons why I have asked you, Mr. Speaker, if it would be possible for me to raise the matter tonight.
  This then is the present position. All the interested parties are agreed on the need for this road. Cheshire County Council is ready and willing to carry out the work. Traffic congestion is throttling the economic life of our city. Chester streets and river crossings are quite unfitted for the heavy traffic at present using them.
  In the autumn of last year I had the privilege of visiting Canada, a country with a small population, but a very large land area. I travelled across many of the stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway. That country has completed this highway of 5,000 miles in the last few years. I was privileged to visit the Rogers Pass Section of the highway, an immensely impressive feat of traffic engineering through the Rocky Mountains. I am not asking my right hon. Friend tonight to constructed a Rogers Pass Section in the County of Cheshire. I am not asking for anything difficult to be constructed through difficult terrain. All I am asking for is seven miles of by-pass road, a simple engineering operation. All the details of construction are ready and to hand. The job could easily be carried out.
  I believe we want an imaginative approach to this matter. I call upon my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary tonight to announce the starting date for the completion of this ring read which is so vitally needed in the interests of the population of the North-West and of the City of Chester in particular.
  12.3 a.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport(Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett): My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Temple) has quite rightly drawn attention tonight to the state of traffic congestion which exists in that city. No one would dispute that the traffic situation there is bad and must be remedied. My hon. Friend has suggested that the remedy we should adopt is to build the

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  southern section of the ring road, the eastern part of which was begun before the war. He has said, in effect, that a whole generation has gone by since the building of this road was first considered and that it is about time we got on with it.
  I do not think I need explain to any hon. Member that there are many worthwhile schemes all over the country which have had to wait their turn for inclusion in the road programme. There is an inevitable and sometimes long delay between recognition that a new road is necessary and its inclusion in the road programme. We also have to watch carefully whether changing conditions and traffic patterns affect or alter the priority of a scheme in this intervening period. It does not follow that a scheme which was the best solution to a problem when it was first suggested will necessarily continue to be the best solution for the future.
  When one studies the problem of traffic congestion in a city like Chester, one must first consider whether the congestion is caused mainly by through traffic or mainly by local traffic to and from the city. In the case of Chester we know from recent traffic surveys that the major part of the traffic using the city centre has business there. The first point I make, therefore, is that to divert the through traffic would not of itself solve the problem, although it would of course afford some measure of relief.
  It is, therefore, clear that the first necessity is to cater for the traffic in the centre of the city itself. To this end, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the city council proposes to construct an internal relief road encircling the city centre, partly within the ancient city walls. This is a bold scheme and one which we support. The southern link from Grosvenor Street to Bought on has already been much improved by the widening of Pepper Street. The council is now preparing a £1 million scheme for the dual carriageway section linking Grosvenor Street with Upper Northgate and hopes to start work on it next January. As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, it is the view of the city council that these schemes should have higher priority than the proposed southern section of the ring road. We agree with this.
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  This still leaves the problem of the river crossings, to which my hon. Friend referred. The main crossing at Grosvenor Bridge carries only one line of traffic in each direction. The Dee Bridge is narrower still. I agree with my hon. Friend that these are inadequate to cope with the peak demand. But I should point out that very often in these cases it is not so much the narrowness of the bridge which causes difficulty as congestion on the approaches. The city council has therefore put in hand a scheme for improving the southern approach to the Grosvenor Bridge, which has nearly been completed. It involves the reconstruction of the roundabout at Overleigh and the widening of the Grosvenor Road to provide four traffic lanes between the new roundabout and Grosvenor Bridge. I will not pretend that this will solve the problem completely. Nevertheless, by clearing traffic to and from the bridge more quickly, it should increase its capacity by 10 to 15 per cent. Although work has not been finally completed, the improved approach is already open to traffic. First reports on the operation of the scheme are most encouraging.
  In saying so much about what is being done for traffic in Chester, I do not, of course, want to belittle the problem which is created by through traffic. That, too, must be dealt with. The southern section of the ring road would run in an arc about 1½ miles from the city. It would undoubtedly provide a good route from the North Wales—Manchester traffic. Nevertheless, its value would be limited and local. We estimate that about 8,000 vehicles per day would use it. This is not a large number, especially in relation to the cost of the scheme, which would be about £4 million. There are many schemes all over the country for which there is a more urgent need. We have already this year, and last, earmarked £1 million of our limited funds for grants for roads within the city. I must therefore tell my hon. Friend quite frankly that we cannot agree with him that the southern section of the ring road warrants a high priority in the national programme.
  Fortunately, the southern ring road is not the only way of relieving Chester of some of its through traffic. It is not always necessary to build a road physically round a city to provide an effective

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  by-pass. It is often possible that a road at some distance from the point of congestion will provide a more convenient and quicker route for through traffic. Such a road may well be of benefit over a wide area and give relief to a number of congested points.
  When the southern section of the ring road was first planned, it seemed to be the right answer for Chester's east-west traffic. Since then, traffic studies have shown that it is only one possible answer. There are others which may be as good or even better.
  One possibility is the replacement of the A.56 trunk road by a new high-capacity dual-carriageway road linking Manchester with the M.6, which will be opened later this year, carrying on to A.5117 across the southern part of the Wirral and on into North Wales across the new Queensferry Bridge. This would benefit the whole of North Cheshire and, not least, Chester itself. It would free the A.56, which is an industrial route, of traffic congestion and provide a good link with the Runcorn—Widnes bridge. It would by-pass places like Helsby and Frodsham which, while not having the same historic interest as Chester, suffer as much traffic congestion and are accident blackspots. We estimate that some 17,500 vehicles per day would use this route, by-passing Helsby and Frodsham—just over twice as many as would use the southern section of the Chester ring road.
  My right hon. Friend has decided that this proposed new road should be given a high priority in the programme. The first two major stages will together cost some £10 million, and will provide eight miles of new road from Hapsford to Preston-on-the-Hill, and six miles from Manchester to the junction of the A.56 with the A.556. Preparatory work on the scheme has already begun, and construction is due to start in about five years' time—
  Mr. Temple: Before my hon. and gallant Friend leaves that point, can he say whether that will give another crossing over the River Dee?
  Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: No. I think that if my hon. Friend looks at the map he will see that that would not arise in this case.
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  This new route across North Cheshire is of regional rather than local significance. In national terms it is a good investment. But I do not wish my hon. Friend to be left with the impression that we under-estimate the value of the southern ring road, or that we intend to abandon it. On the contrary, it has a definite place in our ultimate road pattern. But there is a question of priorities. We simply do not have the funds to build it and the regional route at the same time, and since the ring road will be of less value to traffic it will have to take second place.
  The crux of this problem, like so many of our highway problems, is that the funds available for road development are limited. We simply cannot undertake at once all the schemes that both we and others would like to see carried out. There are many desirable schemes which have to wait their turn, and the Chester southern ring road is one of these.
  I hope that I have said enough, however, to show that we are far from being indifferent to the traffic problem in Chester. We have worked, and are working, in close co-operation with the city and county councils. But we must be clear what it is they are asking of us. They are not asking that the southern ring road should have preference over the other schemes I have mentioned; what they ask is that additional funds should be made available, and that the ring road should be added to the existing programme. The hard fact is that all our available funds are committed for four or five years ahead. To grant this request would be to exclude from the programme other schemes which are more urgent for reasons alike of safety, economy and traffic.
  We are confident that the city council is right in expecting that the schemes now in hand for improving roads in the city will go far towards relieving the traffic problem in Chester. We are satisfied that the new road to be built across North Cheshire will go further in improving conditions there. The question is whether, on top of all this, we should build the southern section of the ring road as well. I am sure that hon. Members representing other cities and

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  other parts of the country would be rightly upset if we were to do so at the expense of attending to their urgent needs. I must, therefore, ask my hon. Friend to be patient and wait a little longer. The road will be built, but it must await its proper turn in the future programme.
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  Nevertheless, my hon. Friend has put forward a powerful and persuasive case, and I can at least assure him that we shall study most carefully what he has said.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Twelve o'clock.