HC Deb 09 April 1964 vol 692 cc1304-19
Sir K. Joseph

I beg to move Amendment No. 22, in page 13, line 18, to leave out "a quarter" and to insert "one half".

We are now moving on to Part II of the Bill and reverting to something which occupied the Committee for quite a long time, namely, the proper balance in an improvement area of houses capable of full improvement as opposed to improvement to a reduced standard.

To remind hon. Members of the position at the moment, improvement grant is payable only where a house has a minimum 15-year life ahead of it and where it can be brought up by improvement to possess all the five standard amenities. This Bill makes it possible for a proportionately lesser grant to be payable where it is only possible for three standard amenities to be provided, always on the condition that the house for which the grant is made must have a minimum life of 15 years.

The Bill rests heavily on the definition of improvement areas. The definition of an improvement area requires that of the houses within an improvement area capable of improvement, at least one-half should be capable of improvement to the full standard. This was how the Bill was originally presented to the House. In order to enable discussion in Committee to be free and unfettered, I myself introduced a manuscript Amendment to reduce one-half to a quarter, but I gave no undertaking at that time that I would not put the original drafting back at this stage. The Amendment that we are now discussing restores the Bill to its original draft.

Mr. Bruce Milan (Glasgow, Craigton)

The manuscript Amendment surely was a drafting Amendment. I thought, as a matter of fact, that the figure of a quarter was an Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington). I am only speaking from memory, but surely that was the position.

Sir K. Joseph

I hate to recall an episode which found me in some confusion. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I think it was creditable confusion. What happened was this. At the time I pointed out a certain ambiguity in the drafting of one line. I proposed to correct that drafting, though I was assured—and, of course. I accept from the Parliamentary draftsman—that the line did carry out the intention of the Government. Nevertheless, from the layman's point of view there was a certain ambiguity in it. But I found that, in order to be able to present a manuscript Amendment to correct what I thought was the ambiguity in one line, it was, for procedural reasons, necessary to accept the Amendment which either had been or was to be proposed by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. It was all perfectly honourable, and I think that we all accepted the position as, on the whole, helpful.

8.0 p.m.

We return now to what may well be a clash of principle or, at least, of priorities. May I remind the House of the situation in its starkest form? It would be practicable, under the Bill as it is proposed to amend it, for a local authority to take an area containing 1.000 houses in which only ten tacked all modern amenities, but if of those ten houses out of the 1,000 which were capable of improvement six were capable only of improvement to the reduced standard because there was not room, let us say, for a bathroom, it would not then be possible, under the Bill as it is proposed to be amended, for the local authority to declare those 1,000 houses an improvement area.

I have put the case in its extreme form and, of course, no local authority would dream of declaring an improvement area of 1,000 houses if its interest was, in fact, in only ten houses. Local authorities will proceed by way of a systematic marshalling of their houses in greatest need and most susceptible of improvement in groups where the largest number of houses both need and are capable of improvement.

The issue, therefore, which developed between the parties in Committee was whether, when the local authorities do this, they should be free to choose an improvement area in which as many as 75 per cent. of the houses could be improved only to the reduced standard. The Government's attitude is that at least 50 per cent. of the houses should be capable of improvement to the full standard. The reason for the Government's attitude is that, with the limited amount of management energy available in any local authority, the limited number of plumbers, craftsmen and small builders available, it only makes sense to deploy this great administrative machine if we are to get a large output in terms of full-standard improved houses. It does not make sense to use all this effort in order to get a relatively large number of houses improved to the reduced standard, without even a bath in a bathroom or without a bath at all, for instance. That is the issue, as it happens, between the two sides of the House.

I still maintain that the Government are right in stressing the need to go for full improvement wherever possible There will be the occasional house in any improvement area which, because of its design or its size, does not lend itself to full improvement. The Bill enables grant to be paid for that house to be improved to the reduced standard. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept that the Government's view of the priorities is right anti will accept this reversion to the original drafting, that is, that the improvement area must contain, of the houses which can be improved, at least half which can be improved to the full standard.

Mr. MacColl

I do not think that it is fair to say that the right hon. Gentleman has in any way gone back on a pledge in This matter, but J think that his somewhat intense searching of his conscience was justified. It is a great pity that he has not taken this opportunity to start off our consideration of this part of the Bill in a rather more amicable and co-operative atmosphere so that we could hope to reach agreement about something which is welcomed by everyone.

The issue is not whether or not one likes reduced standards. The right hon. Gentleman himself made this clear. We are all agreed that it would be much better to have full-standard rather than reduced-standard improvements where-ever possible. The issue is not whether we should have any reduced standards at all because, when it comes to the question of grant, as the right hon. Gentleman reminded the House, it is possible to obtain a grant for a reduced-standard improvement. The point is whether the local authority should have a discretion to use compulsory powers where there is a substantial number of houses capable of reduced-standard improvement.

This is essentially a question for the local authority to make up its mind about. The local authority knows the ground locally. It knows the possibilities. It knows the particular problems which may arise because a certain area of houses may have weaknesses which make it impossible to bring them up to the full standard. But, because of this, they are debarred from enforcing these improvements.

I do not for a moment pretend that I like all this talk of reduced standards. Of course, it would be very good if we could say, "All right. Write these houses off, demolish them and rebuild". But even the Minister in his most emotionally electoral moods prophesying the future progress of the slum clearance programme never hides the fact that there is an enormous amount of property which is really awfully mucky stuff to live in but which will have to remain for ten years or more. This is the kind of stuff which the local authorities are continually urged to improve. Therefore, I should have thought that the sensible course here would be to accept what appears in the Bill now, which is a compromise reached in exchanges—dramatic exchanges, as the Minister says—in Committee. Let us accept that and get on in that kind of spirit to examine the rest of this part of the Bill. It is really a question of local authority discretion, not of the absolute comparative virtues of reduced or full standards.

If we are to have all this elaborate machinery of improvement areas, and if we are to introduce, as I think it right that we should, the valuable principle of coercion to get improvement, this discretion ought to be given to the local authorities to deal with areas which can be brought up to tolerable standards. It should not be forgotten that just one or two improvements can sometimes be of very great value indeed to the tenant. If this can be done, it is well worth doing.

There is not much in the argument that it might be a waste of resources. The whole improvement operation would in many cases be a waste of resources if we could find a more fundamental way of dealing with the problem. But we accept that we have a desperate situation in which we must adopt this particular method, for what it is worth. Therefore, it should be left to the local authority, which knows the local situation and knows what are the locally available resources, to decide the balance between reduced and full standards in an improvement area. I should have thought that everybody would support giving the local authorities some initiative and discretion in tackling the problem and would welcome the provision as it is at present in the Clause. I hope that my hon. Friends will resist the Amendment.

Mr. Cole

On this occasion, I strongly support my right hon. Friend. Indeed, unless I completely misunderstand the position, which is quite possible, I think that my right hon. Friend did not state his case at its strongest. As I understand the Bill as it stands at present, it could be that an area of 1,000 houses could be declared an improvement area although 750 of the houses were not capable of any kind of improvement whatever. Because 250 were capable of improvement to the full standard, that would be an improvement area of 1,000 houses. That is an even stronger position than if 750 could be improved to the partial standard. That seems to me all the more reason why, with our limited national resources, we should improve at least one out of two of the houses to the full standard, which is what 50 per cent., or one-half, means.

The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) spoke about leaving local authorities with their autonomy. But this is not a local authority matter only. We are dealing with the utilisation of the resources of the nation, not in money but—I was going to say in bricks and mortar—in all the things which go to make up these amenities. We must make a thorough and proper start to deal with the millions of houses still in this category.

It is right that we should make a large incursion first by insisting that at least one out of two houses should be amenable to improvement. Once we have got rid of this first barricade against improving the housing situation—it may take a year or two, possibly more—we can get down to more detail and have a lower proportion of improvable houses in the improvement areas. But if we start off by allowing only one out of four houses to be amenable to improvement—and the other three may well be entirely outside the possibility—we are taking the risk of dissipating our resources in all sorts of areas. It would be much better to start dealing with those areas in which there is some possibility of improving 50 per cent. of the improvable houses.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will insist on putting back one-half into the Bill. What we do in two or three years' time is anybody's guess at this stage, but I am sure that at the moment one-half is the right figure.

Mr. Milan

I hope that the Amendment will be resisted. I think that the Minister misunderstands his own Clause. I say that with considerable diffidence, but, if I recollect correctly, I made the same point in Committee. I thought that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) would comprehend what the Clause said, but even he came to the wrong conclusion, although he got a bit nearer to the right conclusion than the Minister.

The Minister says that, as the Clause stands, of the houses which would be improved under the Clause, only 25 per cent. of them need to be improved to the full standard and the other 75 per cent. would be improved to the reduced standard. With respect to the Minister, that is not what will happen under the Clause. The first condition required for the signifying of a development area is that there should be some dwellings in the area lacking one or more of the standard amenities. The requirement is not that all these dwellings are capable of improvement even to the reduced standard. Many of the dwellings will not be capable of improvement to either the reduced or the full standard.

To give an example, there may be 100 dwellings in what is to become an improvement area lacking one or more of the standard amenities. Eighty of them may not be capable of improvement even to the reduced standard, but the other 20 will be capable of improvement to the full standard. In those circumstances, the improvement area would just not be designated. Even so, if there were an improvement area, there would be no waste of resources in improving houses to the reduced standard, because all the improvements would be to the full standard.

Mr. Cole

As an accountant, the hon. Member will realise that what he has just sad would be outside the Bill. Incidentally, the hon. Member said 20 out of 100; he meant 25 out of 100. Does not he realise the effect on the local authority of having three-quarters of the houses in the area not within the full standard and the temptation to do something with them and thereby dissipate resources?

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Millan

If the houses are not capable of improvement to either the reduced or the full standard, the Bill does not affect them at all. Therefore, there is no waste of resources, because there is no power under the Bill to do anything with the houses. If the hon. Member looks at an Amendment which has been tabled to Clause 23, he will see that some of us on this side of the House appreciate the point and would like the Bill to be rectified in that respect. However, houses which are not capable of being improved even to the reduced standard are not affected by the Bill, although they come within the definition in line 16 en page 13 of the Bill, namely, that they are dwellings lacking one or more of the standard amenities. If I understood the Minister correctly, he was concerned with the balance of effort in improvements which are done to get a sufficiently high percentage of improvements as improvements to the full standard. My figures were not inaccurate as the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South intimated. The example which I have just given would be an improvement area where the whole effort could be directed towards improving 20 houses out of the 100 to the full standard. There would be no effort at all in respect of the other 80 because they were not capable of being improved even to the reduced standard.

In circumstances like those, the Minister's argument falls completely to the ground. He has argued for a different kind of Clause from the one with which we are dealing. He did so in Committee upstairs, and this was pointed out to him. I hope very much that we shall stick to the figure in the Bill, namely, a quarter. If the Minister wants to define the qualifying dwellings from the point of view of designating an improvement area as being dwellings capable of being improved either to the full or reduced standard and then apply the proportion to that, we can argue intelligibly. But we cannot do that at the moment because that is not what the Bill says. As the Bill is drafted, a large number of dwellings will not be capable of any kind of improvement. Therefore, it is impossible to argue intelligibly about a fraction of a quarter, a half, or any other. But, in view of the determination on this side at least to get as many dwellings as possible improved, we should stick to a quarter. However, I hope that the Minister will consider the point that I have made.

Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)

rose—

Sir K. Joseph

I have intervened deliberately knowing that I am deferring the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) because I should like to have us all arguing about the same thing. If I have misled the House, let me try again. Let me put the matter as sharply as I can.

Local authorities, when they try to administer Parts II and III of the Bill, will have to look at the housing map of their area, and they will know their administrative and craft resources. They may well at a certain stage have a choice between two areas next door to each other each containing X houses in total, of which in one case half X and in the other case a quarter of X can be improved to the full standard regardless of what can happen to the houses which cannot be improved to the full standard. It must be common ground at this stage, in 1964, whatever may be the case in 1967 and 1968, that any sensible local authority will decide to deploy its resources in the area where half X can be improved to the full standard. I am attracted here by the argument of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who suggests leaving it to the discretion of the local authority. That is an attractive argument. I hope that so far at least, however, we are all at one on what a sensible local authority would do.

But there is more to it than merely leaving it to the local authority's discretion. We are all at one in believing that the improvement area concept means more than the aggregate of the improvements of the individual houses. It means that the local authority will contribute a great deal to the environment in those areas. We want local authorities to clean up and improve their environment. We want them to be able to say to owner-occupiers, "We are insisting upon the landlords improving their houses subject to a certain right of deferment of the tenants. We will contribute an improvement of the street scene. We will go ahead with clean air. We want you, the owner-occupiers, to keep pace."

All that means that we should guide the local authorities clearly in the Bill. Hon. Members opposite often point out that what I am saying is sensible but, they ask, why not put it in the Bill. This time, they must accept that from me. If what I am saying is sensible, let us put it in the Bill.

Mr. Manuel

The Minister will appreciate that the Clause applies to Scotland and that, under subsection (6), what he is saying as to application to Scotland is not being put into effect, because the proportion will apply to either the full or the reduced standard, while in England the Minister applies it only to the full standard.

Sir K. Joseph

I shall not presume to cross swords with the hon. Member. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will, I hope, speak later, and I am sure that he will be able to explain this. I hope that I may be allowed to finish the argument.

I intervened to put this as clearly as I could before the hon. Member for Salford, East sought to rise. I hope that I have gone some way to justify to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) why I believe that this is right, but I leave it to the House.

Mr. Frank Allaun

My main interest, and that of hon. Members on both sides, in the Bill is to provide as many as possible of the 15 million men, women and children who are without a bath, and many of them without hot water and a lavatory, with these amenities. This is the vital part of the Bill. Experience, as I am sure the Minister will agree, has shown that improvement areas are the way—in many towns, the only way—to get this job done. I see that the Minister agrees, because he knows that whilst many owner-occupiers sensibly use the grants, the individual landlord will not. If it is to be left to individual tenants to go to their landlord and ask for the grant to be used to install a bath and hot water, it will take another 100 years to do the job. Therefore, the Minister has been convinced by experience in Leeds and elsewhere that improvement area schemes are the only way to get the job done if, like a military operation, it is to be done quickly. I am sure that all who study this matter will accept that viewpoint.

My main opposition, however, to the Minister's proposal is precisely that it will drastically reduce the number of improvement area schemes. A 50 per cent. proportion is far too high. My own City of Salford is going ahead with an improvement area scheme. It so happens that in the area about 50 per cent. of the houses are lacking these amenities and can be given the full standard grant. When we have done that scheme, however, we will move to another area where, possibly, the percentage is not as high. Under the Minister's Amendment, we would not be able to do this, because it insists upon a 50 per cent. basis.

Sir K. Joseph

The hon. Member forgets that the local authority can design the area as small as it wishes. If necessary—I am carrying the argument to the extreme—x would be 3, provided that two of the houses could be improved to the full standard. That is carrying the matter to a caricature.

Mr. Allaun

I understand that to be possible, but it might be more convenient to have a larger area. The Minister's proposal would negate the possibility of a larger and possibly more suitable area being chosen.

Why is the Minister putting forward this proposal? He has said that we have limited craft skill and, therefore, that it should best be concentrated upon houses where the fall improvement can be made. I agree that there are areas where this should, and will, be done. In Liverpool, however, thousands of skilled building workers are out of work. Surely, the Minister will not say that the whole of that force must not be used. That is what his case means.

The Minister then states that we have a limited amount of craft resources and that a local authority may have to choose between two areas; in one of them 50 per cent. can be improved to the full standard, and in the other area 25 per cent. can be improved. Therefore, the Minister says that the local authority should, naturally, concentrate upon the area where 50 per cent. can be improved.

When that area has been given priority and has been done, however, why should not the local authority be able to proceed to the second area, where the percentage is not as high?

Sir K. Joseph

Because it does not make sense, with the scarce management resources of local authorities, to ask them to undertake all the effort of improving the streets, promoting clean air, children's play spaces and all the rest if only 25 per cent. of the houses in the area can be made decent.

Mr. Allaun

We have left craft resources behind and now come to management, which the Minister has not mentioned previously.

Sir K. Joseph

Yes, I have.

Mr. Allaun

I am sorry. Then we will deal with management. Suppose that only a limited amount of management skill is available. Naturally, the local authority would not assume a bigger burden than it was capable of handling. The Minister speaks about guiding local authorities. He is not guiding them, however, but is restricting them, which is a very different proposition.

It may be that I have a suspicious mind, possibly with good reason from past experience, but I cannot help feeling that this change is being attempted not for the reasons the Minister has given, but because it will suit the landlords, who will be less subjected to improvement grant schemes. I hope that I am mistaken, but the Bill will certainly have that effect.

Why not lessen the standard in areas which are not short of building labour? I agree that where there is only a limited amount of skilled labour it should be concentrated on improvement to the full standard grant, but in other areas houses can often be given limited improvement. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) that local authorities are the people who know best in these cases. They know better than the landlords and certainly better than the Government, and I hope that the Amendment will be defeated.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. G. Campbell

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) pointed out that there was an exemption in subsection (6,a) but that refers only to an improvement area comprising only tenements. In this case half the houses need be capable of improvement to only the reduced standard. The reason for this is that in Scottish tenements the individual houses are usually too small to allow space to be set aside for a bathroom, and so it would be unrealistic to require more than the reduced standard which, as defined in Clause 39, requires a hot water supply, lavatory and food storage facilities, but not a bath.

That standard will at least provide individual lavatories and hot water, which would be a substantial advance in many tenements. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that there is a certain exemption in the case of tenements in England which comes under subsection (5). They are also treated rather separately.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

Will the hon. Gentleman justify the Amend- ment in relation to the already reduced standard? I did not have the privilege of being on the Committee and listening to the Under-Secretary's explanations at that time. However, as I read the Clause it now says: If a local authority are satisfied any area in their district contains dwellings lacking one or more of the standard amenities… This is a standard to which we might well be striving with the reduced standard which we are now to permit in Scotland. If there has been confusion about the 25 per cent. and 50 per cent. in relation to the full standard, there will be even more confusion when we start by accepting a reduced standard. According to the Amendment, at least one-half of the houses would have to be so constructed that it was practicable to improve them up to the full standard, although I gather from subsection (6,a) that in Scotland it is not the full standard but the full or reduced standard. How many standard amenities is that?

Sir K. Joseph

Three.

Mr. Ross

We are getting ourselves into a pickle. Perhaps it is as well that I was not a member of the Standing Committee, or it would not have finished yet! The right hon. Gentleman is arguing that he wants to conserve resources for concentration as much as possible, but in some areas it may be worth having discrimination for an improvement area of a reduced figure. Some local authorities might otherwise be cut out because of the nature of their housing, and yet tenants of the 25 per cent. lacking one or more of the standard amenities would still want them and would still not get them unless the local authority took action. It would be desirable to have discretion to have a lower proportion.

I do not think that any local authority will jump to the point of doing the worst kind of job first. A local authority has no obligation to do anything. It "may" define an area and "may" pass a resolution. I am sure that if it does it will not go out of its way to get the least affected area. It is desirable that it may be the most affected area and that the local authority should have the power to act on the basis of one quarter.

Surely this could be left to the good sense of the local authorities. I am sure that we would have been able to persuade the Secretary of State for Scotland about this if we had had him on the Scottish Grand Committee. But it is a big effort to get him to any Committee or indeed to the House. Some of us are beginning to wonder what he looks like.

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will look at this again. It is not a matter of far-reaching importance but one of testing the good sense of the local authorities. Surely at this stage, with his influence, the local authorities will be so tar improved that they will not dare do anything wrong. If he will not think about this again, I hope that the tripartite Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will give us the benefit of his opinion on the merits of the Amendment as it applies to Scotland.

Mr. G. Campbell

I will try to explain further. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government explained at some length about specifying one half or one quarter. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) asked about special exemptions for tenement areas in Scotland covered by subsection (6,a).These exemptions

should be helpful in such areas in Scotland because of the point about reduced standards, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, although he was not on the Committee upstairs, his hon. Friends from Scotland gave the Bill most searching inquiry and a very good account of themselves. My understanding was that they recognised that these exemptions helped in tenement areas.

Mr. Ross

I do not want to usurp the authority of the Chair, but the hon. Gentleman is surely out of order. We are not talking about the reduced standard. We are talking about one-half of one-half and I wanted him to deny the discretion implicit in the Clause as it stands and to insist that the discretion be reduced by putting in the fraction one-half.

Mr. Campbell

The argument put by my right hon. Friend applied to Scotland in areas where there are not only tenement blocks, and I see no reason to make a change in relation to Scotland.

Question put, That the words "a quarter" stand part of the Bill:—

The House divided: Ayes 75, Noes 121.

Division No. 66.] AYES [8.40 p.m.
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Hannan, William Manuel, Archie
Bence, Cyril Hayman, F. H. Millan, Bruce
Blackburn, F. Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis) Mitchison, G. R.
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G. Herbison, Miss Margaret Moody, A. S.
Bowles, Frank Hilton, A. V. Mulley, Frederick
Boyden, James Holman, Percy O'Malley, B. K.
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. Houghton, Douglas Peart, Frederick
Brockway, A. Fenner Howle, W. Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) Rhodes, H.
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) Robertson, John (Paisley)
Chapman, Donald Hynd, H. (Accrington) Ross, William
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Hynd, John (Attercliffe) Silkin, John
Darling, George Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) Small, William
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Janner, Sir Barnett Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Dempsey, James Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) Steele, Thomas
Diamond, John Jones, Dan (Burnley) Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Ede, Rt. Hon. C. Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) Thornton, Ernest
Evans, Albert Kenyon, Clifford Wainwright, Edwin
Foot, Dingle (Ipswich) Lawson, George Whitlock, William
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) Lee, Frederick (Newton) Wilkins, W. A.
Galpern, Sir Myer Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. Lever, L. M. (Ardwick) Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Grimond, Rt. Hon. J. Loughlin, Charles Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Gunter, Ray MacColl, James
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) McLeavy, Frank TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Hamilton, William (West Fife) MacPherson, Malcolm Mr. McCann and Mr. Ifor Davies.
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter Black, Sir Cyril Chichester-Clark, R.
Allason, James Box, Donald Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Atkins, Humphrey Braine, Bernard Cleaver[...], Leonard
Batsford, Brian Buck, Antony Cole, Norman
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay) Burden, F. A. Cooper, A. E.
Biffen, John Campbell, Gordon Corfield, F. V.
Bishop, Sir Patrick Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham) Critchley, Julian
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F. Lambton, Viscount Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
du Cann, Edward Lindsay, Sir Martin Renton, Rt. Hon. David
Duncan, Sir James Linstead, Sir Hugh Robertson, Sir D. (C'thn's & S'th'ld)
Elliot, Capt, Walter (Carshalton) Litchfield, Capt. John Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)
Farr, John Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral) Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Finlay, Gracme[...] Longbottom, Charles Russell, Sir Ronald
Fisher, Nigel Lucas, Sir Jocelyn Scott-Hopkins, James
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) Lucas Tooth, Sir Hugh Sharples, Richard
Freeth, Denzil McAdden, Sir Stephen Shaw, M.
Gammans, Lady MacArthur, Ian Shepherd, William
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central) McLaren, Martin Skeet, T. H. H.
Glover, Sir Douglas Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax) Smyth, Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John
Goodhew, Victor Maddan, Martin Speir, Rupert
Grant-Ferris, R. Maitland, Sir John Stainton, Keith
Green, Alan Marshall, Sir Douglas Stevens, Geoffrey
Grosvenor, Lord Robert Marten, Neil Studholme, Sir Henry
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) Summers, Sir Spencer
Harris, Reader (Heston) Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon) Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon) Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) Maydon, Lt. Cmdr. S. L. C. Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Hastings, Stephen Mills, Stratton Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk) Miscampbell, Norman Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Hirst, Geoffrey Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard Tweedsmuir, Lady
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin Page, Graham (Crosby) Vane, W. M. F.
Holland, Philip Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) Walker, Peter
Hughes-Young, Michael Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) Ward, Dame Irene
Hulbert, Sir Norman Peel, John Whitelaw, William
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Johnson, Eric (Blackley) Pitt, Dame Edith Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Woodhouse, C. M.
Joseph, Rt. Hon, Sir Keith Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho Worsley, Marcus
Kerans, Cdr. J. S. Pym, Francis
Kerr, Sir Hamilton Quennell, Miss J. M. TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Mr. R. W. Elliott and Mr. More.

Proposed words there inserted in the Bill.