Commons Sitting of 10 December 1964

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  GLASGOW CORPORATION CONSOLIDATION (WATER, TRANSPORT AND MARKETS) ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Glasgow Corporation Consolidation (Water, Transport and Markets), presented by Mr. Ross (under Section 7 of the Act); and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 48.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  COURT ORDERS FOR DEBT (ENFORCEMENT)
  Mr. Abseasked the Attorney-General what are the results of the discussions being conducted between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Lord Chancellor relating to the operation of the law empowering imprisonment for non-payment of commercial debts; and if he will make a statement.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): It is the intention of my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor that there should be a comprehensive review of the methods of enforcing orders made by the High Court and the county courts as soon as possible. Other commitments make the undertaking of such a review difficult at the present time, but my noble Friend proposes to do so as soon as he can.
  Mr. Abse: May I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General for that reply and ask that in the review he will bear in mind the continual growth of debt-buying companies which
  1792
  at the moment are exploiting the coercive powers of the court so that they can, having bought debts at a cheap price, make large profits at the expense of the taxpayer who pays to keep these men in prison and who pays to keep their families outside on National Assistance while the debtors are in prison?
  The Attorney-General: Evidence to support allegations of that kind would, no doubt, be considered in the review.
  Sir J. Hobson: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give any estimate as to when this review is likely to be embarked upon? Secondly, can he explain whether Questions about the law reform activities of the Lord Chancellor ought to be addressed to him or to the Minister without Portfolio? It is difficult to know which one is responsible for Questions in the House.
  The Attorney-General: The answer to the first part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary is "As soon as possible". The answer to the second part is that on this occasion I am answering for my noble Friend.
  Mr. Shepherd: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say, whether, in fact, there is such a thing as imprisonment for debt?
  The Attorney-General: Technically it has been deemed that imprisonment is by way of punishment for contempt of court, but it is an interesting academic question.

  ADOPTION ACT, 1958
  Mr. Abseasked the Attorney-General how many prosecutions have taken place in the last five years for breaches of Section 40 and Section 50 of the Adoption Act, 1958, requiring prospective adopters of children to give notice that they have received a child into care and prohibiting any reward being made in consideration of an adoption; whether he is aware that private nursing homes are arranging adoptions in breach of Section 50; and whether he will cause prosecutions to be initiated in such cases.
  The Attorney-General: Information about the number of prosecutions brought in the last five years under Sections 40

  1793
  and 50 of the Adoption Act, 1958, is not available. I have no evidence that would justify the institution of proceedings under Section 50 in connection with adoptions arranged by private nursing homes. I f my hon. Friend will let me have any evidence in his possession which suggests that offences have been committed against this Act, I will, of course, see that it is considered by the appropriate authorities. In view of the terms of my hon. Friend's Question, I should add that Section 40 of the Act does not require prospective adopters of children to give notice that they have received a child into care.
  Mr. Abse: When considering the material to which I will direct the Attorney-General's attention, would my right hon. and learned Friend note that prominent officials and responsible officials of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child have emphasised that there are in existence in London nursing homes which are charging unmarried mothers uneconomic prices in order to attract them into these homes so that they can transfer the children to third parties? Therefore, would my right hon. and learned Friend give special care to this type of offence in order to prevent the traffic in babies which the Adoption Acts are designed to prevent?
  The Attorney-General: I will give very careful attention to and require any evidence of breaches of the Act which may emerge from the information available to be dealt with by the appropriate authorities as soon as I am in receipt of the information.
  Mr. Paget: If this brings about successful adoptions and happy homes for children, what is wrong with it?
  The Attorney-General: What is wrong with it is that there should be no trafficking in the processes of adoption. The mischief is in making money out of the arrangements for adoption. There is nothing wrong whatsoever in adoptions so long as they are not done for reward.

  STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE, MANCHESTER
  Sir R. Caryasked the Attorney-General if he is aware that the City of Manchester has been without a stipen-
  1794
  diary magistrate since the retirement of the previous stipendiary magistrate on 6th September, 1964; and what is the present position with regard to the appointment of his successor.
  The Attorney-General: Yes. Under the provisions of Section 29 of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949, no new stipendiary magistrate for Manchester can be appointed, except on a petition presented by the Manchester City Corporation, after consultation with the Magistrates' Courts Committee, to my right hon. and learned Friend, the Home Secretary. I understand that no such petition has yet been received.
  Sir R. Cary: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that legal opinion, both inside and outside the city, thinks it quite disgraceful that so great a city should have been without a stipendiary magistate since 6th September? Is he aware that the backlog of work is enormous, and will he make it his personal responsibility to see that an appointment is expedited?
  The Attorney-General: If those matters are accurately stated one would expect the legal opinion to be brought to bear on the local authority because, as I said, unless the local authority presents a petition nothing can be done under the arrangements which presently exist.

  ANTIQUE DEALERS (GLOUCESTERSHIRE SALE)
  Mr. A. Royleasked the Attorney-General if he is aware of the illegal activities of certain antique dealers on 28th September, 1964 at Northwick Park, Gloucestershire, and afterwards at the Swan Inn, Moreton-in-Marsh; and if he will instruct the Director of Public Prosecutions to initiate proceedings.
  Mr. Ridleyasked the Attorney-General whether he will instruct the Director of Public Prosecutions to initiate proceedings against a number of antique dealers who were engaged in illegal activities at a sale in Gloucestershire and afterwards at an inn on 28th September, 1964.
  The Attorney-General: Police inquiries are still in progress.
  Mr. Royle: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware of an Independent Television programme last Thursday called "This Week" in which two antique dealers, one named Wolf Mankowitz, took part and in which they stated that they had taken part in illegal practices in the past and intended to do so again in future? Will he ask for a transcript of that broadcast and instruct the Director of Public Prosecutions to take immediate action?
  The Attorney-General: My opportunity for watching television programmes has been rather reduced in recent weeks and I confess that I did not see the programme. But I will certainly have the matters mentioned by the hon. Gentleman looked into.
  Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but is he aware that there is very profound public disquiet about this whole question? Is he aware that there is public disquiet about the taxation position? Will he, therefore, get in touch with the Inland Revenue to make certain that there is every opportunity to investigate whether there has been any flouting of the tax laws in this and other similar instances?
  The Attorney-General: I am aware of the public disquiet and I am grateful for the actions of the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members in this matter. All I can say is that police inquiries are in progress. To answer the second part of his supplementary question, if any evidence becomes available of fraud on the Revenue this will be one of the matters that will be considered and dealt with.
  Mr. Chichester-Clarke: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take the opportunity to discuss this whole matter on the taxation side with the Treasury?
  The Attorney-General: If the hon. Gentleman has any material dealing with that aspect of the matter, perhaps he will take it up directly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Happily, he is responsible for that and not me.
  Mr. Speaker: Mr. Abse.
  Mr. Ridley: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reply, I beg to give
  1796
  notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment.
  Mr. Speaker: In strict fact, I had called the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) before the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) gave notice.
  Mr. Abse: Would the Attorney-General, in the material which may be placed before him by the police, see to it that, if it is relevant, it is passed to the President of the Board of Trade, since everything seems to be pointing to the fact that officers of the antique dealers' association, certainly in the past, have been guilty of actions in breach of the objects of their association, which include the intention to suppress all malpractices, so that the President of the Board of Trade may consider whether an inspector should be appointed to investigate?
  The Attorney-General: As that supplementary question indicated, that is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade and my hon. Friend will, no doubt, wish to direct that question to him.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. I did not raise this before the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) had asked his supplementary question, but since the announcement by my hon. Friend that the matter would be raised on the Adjournment had been made and apparently accepted, is it now the practice that one can go on asking supplementary questions after notice has been given?
  Mr. Speaker: I do not think that the hon. Baronet could have been listening. I indicated that I called the hon. Member on my right, the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), before I was aware that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was seeking to give notice, so an injustice would have been perpetrated had I taken any other course.

  CIRCULAR (POLICE INQUIRIES)
  Mr. Cordleasked the Attorney-General if he will refer to the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a view to instituting proceedings against the publishers, the publication and circulation

  1797
  of the obscene document, Penthouse, a copy of which has been sent to him.
  Mr. Liptonasked the Attorney-General whether the Director of Public Prosecutions has now decided, on the ground of obscenity, to prosecute the publishers of a document, Penthouse, a copy of which has been sent to him.
  The Attorney-General: Police inquiries are being carried out on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions about the publication of a circular advertising the magazine called Penthouse.
  Mr. Cordle: While thanking the Attorney-General for that reply, and while welcoming it, may I ask him whether he proposes to take any steps to prevent further circularisation of such undesirable literature as this and whether or not he can recommend to the Government and the Home Office any additions to the Indecent Publications Act as it now stands?
  The Attorney-General: As I said, police inquiries are now being carried out on behalf of the Director. I do not think that it would be proper for me to say anything further at this stage. Any suggestion that the law needs amendment must be directed to the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Lipton: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say for how long these inquiries will go on, since all we have to consider is the circularisation of a leaflet, about which it should not be too difficult to come to a conclusion?
  The Attorney-General: The inquiries will go on as far as is necessary to enable a right decision to be made.
  Mr. Burden: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that this was a disgusting circular? In view of the possible time that may be taken to institute proceedings, would he consider discussing with his right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General the possibility of refusing any further material for postage from this company unless an undertaking is given that it will not include circulars of this type?
  The Attorney-General: I fear that I can go no further than I have done in the answers I have given to previous questions.

  BOARD OF TRADE

    Scotland
    Mr. Benceasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he plans to take to create opportunities in Scotland for the employment of skilled Scottish manpower.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Douglas Jay): I am glad to say that the demand for skilled manpower of many kinds in Scotland is at a high level at present; but more science-based and other industry requiring a high content of skill is needed. In our efforts to encourage firms to set up in the development districts in Scotland, we shall continue to have this need in mind.
    Mr. Bence: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him if he is aware that we have lost 73,000 men in the last five years from Scotland, many of whom were highly skilled? Will he take some crash action, because the difficulties now arising from the past failures of the previous Administration will make it increasingly difficult in the next few years?
    Mr. Jay: I am aware of that, but I think that the solution is first to bring more industries to Scotland, and secondly to extend training facilities. Both of those actions are being taken.

    Shipbuilding (Credit Facilities)
    Mr.Benceasked the President of the Board of Trade what consideration is being given to extending credit facilities to British shipowners to finance the building of ships in British shipyards; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Roy Mason): I have nothing to add to the Answer which I gave on 3rd December to the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor).
    Mr. Bence: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the heavy burdens borne by British shipbuilding and shipping, often in excess of the costs borne by competitors abroad, is the provision and the cost of credit? When my hon. Friend is examining the shipbuilding industry will he also look into the costs of credit provided by foreign Governments to their

    1799
    shipping lines in competition with ours, and will he do something to help ours to meet that form of competition?
    Mr. Mason: Yes, Sir. That is already under consideration.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Is the Minister of State aware that the Shipbuilding Advisory Committee made it clear in its last Report that credit was urgently required by the British yards to put them in an equal trading position with competitor nations? Is he also aware that, following his announcement last week, there has been a wave of depression in the shipbuilding industry, and that many yards have been taking on jobs at unremunerative prices in anticipation of continued sympathetic treatment from the Government?
    Mr. Mason: I am aware of the Report which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. What was suggested in the second part of the supplementary question is not strictly true, and if the hon. Gentleman had observed the comments of the shipbuilders following my statement last week he would have seen that the more enlightened of them reacted favourably to that statement and said that at this stage this was reasonable while the general appraisal was being carried out.

    Kelty (Advance Factory)
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that, following recent pit closures, the community of Kelty in Fife is now without any form of employment, he will announce the building of an advance factory there, in addition to ensuring that alternative industry is speedily provided.
    Mr. Jay: A programme of nine advance factories for Scotland was announced on 18th November. It is too soon to add to that programme: but we shall certainly encourage firms to develop in this area.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we were greatly disappointed that there was not one advance factory for this area? One can appreciate that all areas cannot have advance factories, but is he aware that this is a community of 89,000 people, that there were at one time eight or nine collieries, but that not
    1800
    one will be left there by the early part of next year? Can my right hon. Friend say what has happened to the hundreds of firms which the previous Administration said were falling over themselves to get into Scotland, and cannot we have one or two of those in Kelty?
    Mr. Jay: I am glad to say that two advance factories from the previous programme are just about to start, and other developments are going on.

    Bideford and Appledore
    Mr. Peter Millsasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will give an assurance that there is no change in Government policy towards the firms which are establishing themselves at Bideford and Appledore with the help of the Local Employment Act.
    Mr. Jay: Assistance under the Local Employment Acts will continue to be available to firms establishing themselves at Bideford and Appledore as long as these remain in a development district.
    Mr. Mills: I thank the President of the Board of Trade for that assurance, which will bring great satisfaction to the people of North Devon. Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that without adequate rail and road services these industries in North Devon may be starved? Will he urge his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to keep open the line from Bideford to Exeter, so that industries may be encouraged to go there? Will he also take into account the fact that if we subsidise a local employment area it is as well to subsidise the railways also?
    Mr. Jay: That is a point that the party opposite might have thought of before, but my right hon. Friend is well aware of it.
    Mr. du Cann: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that, thanks to the activities of the local authority in the Bideford employment exchange area and the assistance given by the Government, unemployment in this district has fallen recently by no less than two-thirds, and does the right hon. Gentleman expect this progress to be maintained in a situation in which the Government have deliberately created disinflation?
    Mr. Jay: I think that this is an area which has always had an unemployment problem. That problem is not serious at the moment, but it is certainly one we must watch carefully.

    United Nations Trade and Development Board
    Mr. Longdenasked the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been made by the United Nations Trade and Development Board which his predecessor proposed should be set up at the United Nations conference at Geneva in June.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Redhead): The recommendation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development that a Trade and Development Board should be established is expected to be adopted at the 19th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, which has just begun.
    Mr. Longden: Will Her Majesty's Government do all they can to ensure that the initiative shown by the United Kingdom delegation, which contributed a great deal to such success as the conference had, is not allowed to peter out?
    Mr. Redhead: The hon. Member can be assured that the present Government will follow up the initiatives that have been taken, and which have been welcomed, and that we shall do so vigorously.
    Mr. Dell: Will the Minister of State tell the House whether any consideration has been given to the establishment of the Trade and Development Board in London?
    Mr. Redhead: I am not able to say with certainty where the Trade and Development Board will be located, but it is expected that the first meeting will take place early in 1965.
    Mr. Heath: Will the Minister bear in mind the desirability of the Trade and Development Board concentrating on matters of trade and aid, and avoiding, as far as possible, the political complications of international affairs; and therefore, the desirability of its being established, perhaps, in Geneva, near the other economic authorities, rather than
    1802
    in New York, which is politically dominated?
    Mr. Redhead: The right hon. Gentleman's observations will be duly noted.

    Shipping (Nuclear Propulsion)
    Mr. Wallasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the progress of official negotiations with business firms interested in constructing the first British nuclear-powered merchant ship.
    Commander Courtneyasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his policy with regard to co-operation with the shipping, shipbuilding and engineering industries on the design and construction of a prototype nuclear-powered merchant ship or naval auxiliary vessel for experimental purposes.
    Mr. Mason: The Government are undertaking a review of the subject of nuclear ship propulsion. Discussions with the various interests concerned will be arranged as appropriate.
    Mr. Wall: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many groups of firms are interested in this project? Can he also assure the House, as it is likely that a prototype nuclear ship will not be economic, that the Government are prepared to make a reasonable contribution?
    Mr. Mason: Apart from the interest of Her Majesty's Government, two consortia are interested. As to the future interest of Her Majesty's Government, I think that we shall have to wait until the review is complete, and then we can decide whether any public money should be spent on a research and development programme, or whether there is the possibility of an economic nuclear marine propulsion unit.
    Commander Courtney: Will the Minister of State recall all the modernisation promises on this subject given by his party at the General Election? Does he appreciate that the Americans and Russians have had nuclear marine ships for years, that the Germans have launched one with an American reactor, but that we ourselves show not the slightest signs of following them—we, an island nation?
    Mr. Mason: The hon. and gallant Gentleman would have been wise to apply a little more pressure on his right hon. Friends who, in spite of 12 months questioning by him, never made a decision. We intend to examine this matter a little more thoroughly before making up our minds.
    Mr. Rankin: Will my hon. Friend also assure us that the Government will proceed with some speed in this matter, since probably within two years the shipbuilding industry may be facing a serious crisis?
    Mr. Mason: We have that very much in mind.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Will the Minister state when this further review of reviews is to be completed?
    Mr. Mason: I cannot see any reason why Her Majesty's Government should apologise for taking a little time over this very important matter. Public moneys may have to be spent on the project, and we want to review it very thoroughly before a decision is taken.
    Commander Courtney: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Import Surcharge
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the President of the Board of Trade what consultations with the United States Government took place prior to the imposition of the 15 per cent. surcharge on imports.
    Mr. Redhead: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answers given on 24th November by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys).
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: In view of that reply, can the hon. Gentleman explain the distinction that is drawn in paragraph 11 of the Government's White Paper on the economic situation, between the earnest consideration which the Government said they had given to the interests of E.F.T.A. and the Commonwealth— [Interruption.]—countries and the continuous communication which they
    1804
    claimed to be engaged in with the United States Government? Can he further explain the reason for Sir Eric Roll's visit —[Interruption.]—to Washington over the weekend of 25th-26th October—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] Can he assure us that on the next occasion on which the Government find it desirable to renege on their international agreements—[HON. MEMBERS: "Special."]—they will not give the appearance of preferential treatment for the United States—[Interruption.]—over countries with which we have special contractual obligations?
    Mr. Redhead rose—
    Mr. Speaker: That supplementary question is too long altogether. Mr. Loughlin.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Speaker: No, I intervened. The Chair has no remedy to the matter of over-long supplementary questions unless on a flagrant instance, or a serious instance, it declines to allow the question to be answered. My action was taken, in my belief, in the interests of the House.
    Mr. Heath: Would it not be possible, Mr. Speaker, to ask supplementary questions in a rather shorter time if hon. Members on this side of the Chamber could be heard? [Interruption.] It was quite impossible to hear what my hon. Friend was saying because of the interruptions and rowdy behaviour on that side. In any case, should we not have a reply from the Minister of State?
    Mr. Speaker: As to the latter part of what the right hon. Gentleman said, I have indicated my view already. With what he said before that I desire to express the most complete agreement. It is in the general interest of the House, if we are to make good progress with Questions, that there should not be so much noise as to interfere with proper hearing. I hope that we can all combine to get on with Questions. Mr. Loughlin.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: On a point of order. Is it not the case that the Minister had risen and was preparing to reply to my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Speaker: Yes, but it is also true that I was rising to stop him doing so.
    M. Hirst: On a point of order. While I am sure the House has the utmost sympathy with you, Mr. Speaker, and the difficulties you have mentioned, are those difficulties to deny the House opportunities for hearing—if the House wants to hear—answers to questions? I appreciate your difficulty, but would it not be better, whatever those difficulties—[Interruption.] I am speaking on a point of order to Mr. Speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "Time wasting."]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must allow me to hear a point of order addressed to me.
    Mr. Hirst: On that point of order I was inquiring whether, while the House appreciates the difficulties you are in, those difficulties are to deny the House the opportunity of hearing an answer to a question. How can we as individual hon. Members pursue a matter if difficulties arising out of one hon. Member's supplementary question deny us answers from the Minister?
    Mr. Speaker: The question will not have been answered. I do not stop to consider the effect of that on seeking to ask it again. One way of getting answers is not to put such long supplementary questions.
    Mr. Ridley: On a point of order. Would progress be facilitated if you allowed my hon. Friend to ask his supplementary question again so that we might have the benefit of hearing the answer?
    Mr. Speaker: What will facilitate progress is if I decline to hear further points of order on this. Mr. Loughlin.
    Mr. Loughlin: Question No. 16, Sir.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: On a point of order. I thought I heard you say that you declined to allow the Minister to answer the supplementary question put by my hon. Friend. Did you therefore intend to rule that, if a supplementary question is put which is within the order of the House and the Minister decides to answer it, you might nevertheless decline to allow him to answer it as a rule of order?
    Mr. Speaker: Yes, because I thought it was too long.

    Industrial Development Certificates
    Mr. Loughlinasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will review the conditions under which industrial development certificates are granted by his Department so that firms operating in areas of high unemployment or pending high unemployment are not allowed to transfer production to another area.
    Mr. Jay: Our arrangements are already designed to ensure that the needs of the areas of high unemployment are given first priority. But we must take into account the particular features of each case.
    Mr. Loughlin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is something in the nature of a farce if in the issuing of industrial development certificates for areas of high unemployment factories are drawn from areas of pending high unemployment? Is he aware that in my constituency A.E.I. has closed a factory with 850 jobs and there are two pits—
    Mr. Ridley: On a point of order. Is not this a rather long supplementary question?
    Mr. Speaker: I am waiting to pounce again. In the general interest I hope we can make supplementary questions shorter.
    Mr. Loughlin: On a point of order. I am very sorry, but I think my question will prove to be very short. May I complete it, Sir?
    Mr. Speaker: Yes.
    Mr. Loughlin: In my area there have been two pit closures, with 720 unemployed. Does not my right hon. Friend think it better to impose conditions on the issuing of such industrial development certificates?
    Mr. Jay rose—
    Lord Balniel: On a point of order. In view of your last Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and in view of the length of this supplementary question—which clearly was longer than the last—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."]—are you going to rule the Minister out of order if he attempts to answer it?
    Mr. Speaker: I do not propose to try to conduct Question Time with a stopwatch. I shall do my best. I quarrel with the noble Lord only on the use of the word "clearly". It is terribly difficult to estimate the length of a supplementary question when it is so much interrupted.
    Mr. Heath: Following that point of order, may I submit to you very respectfully that we find ourselves in a somewhat difficult situation as a result of your Ruling? May I ask that, in order not to take up further time at Question Time, you might perhaps consider the Ruling you gave a few moments ago and inform the House whether you consider it an authoritative Ruling for the future or not. It would appear to some of us that to instruct a Minister not to reply because a supplementary question appears to be long is a new development in our procedure. We should like it to be given further consideration.
    Mr. Speaker: Of course, I shall reconsider it. In the last Parliament we got into the habit of having long supplementary questions. I do not know what remedy the Chair has, but I shall certainly consider it and I hope that by general good will we can make shorter supplementary questions and make better progress.
    Mr. Jay: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) wants some questions to be answered.
    I am very sympathetic to the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin). I have studied these circumstances, but fortunately unemployment in that area which he represents is lower than in other areas.
    Mr. Loughlin: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Company Law (Jenkins Report)
    Mr. Grantasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take to implement the recommendations of the Jenkins Report on Company Law.
    Mr. William Clarkasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce legislation implementing the recommendations of the Jenkins Report; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Jay: Proposals for new company legislation, in which the recommendations of the Jenkins Committee will be taken fully into account, are in preparation. The legislation will not be introduced during the current Session.
    Mr. Grant: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for what is a rather limited encouragement, may I ask if he will agree that in view of the great increase over the last 16 years in small investments and in the light of the new corporation and capital gains taxes, an early reform of the 1948 Act is very necessary?
    Mr. Jay: Certainly. But we must take time to get the right answer to these very complicated questions.
    Mr. Heath: In view of the fact that the Queen's Speech contained reference to legislation on only one aspect of company law, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he will be dealing with the whole broad field of company law and that he will press ahead as far as possible with it?
    Mr. Jay: Certainly we are doing that, but I cannot promise legislation in the present Session.
    Mr. Clark: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether in the next Queen's Speech mention will be made of the Jenkins Report? This is an urgent matter in view of the introduction of corporation tax. Will he look at this question again?
    Mr. Jay: I cannot anticipate future Queen's Speeches.
    Mr. Lubbock: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how much preparatory work was done by the previous Administration for the reform of company law?
    Mr. Jay: Not as much as we propose to do in the next few months.

    East Croydon Station (Rebuilding)
    Sir R. Thompsonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the rebuilding of East Croydon Station will be permitted to proceed in the light of the resrtictions announced on office building in south-east England.
    Mr. Jay: As explained in the Government statement of 4th November, no office development permits will be granted in the Greater London Council area except in very special circumstances. I cannot yet say whether any particular project, requiring a permit, will be allowed to proceed.
    Sir R. Thompson: Will the right hon. Gentleman regard this as a very special circumstance? Does he realise that up to a few weeks ago thousands of my constituents daily using one of the busiest stations in the country believed that they would soon have a new station? While the uncertainty continues they feel sure that this will not be so. Will he look at this matter again favourably?
    Mr. Jay: If and when we get a detailed application in this case we shall, of course, consider it very carefully.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the statement made by the chairman of the Location of Offices Bureau is Government policy in relation to the building of offices in the greater London area?
    Mr. Jay: I should have to look into the content of that statement.
    Mr. Frederic Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the strength of local feeling that this very important development should go forward as soon as possible?
    Mr. Jay: Certainly I shall not ignore that.

    Light Industry, South-West
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the need for light industry in small towns in the South-West; and what steps he is taking to encourage firms to move there.
    Mr. Jay: I must concentrate first on getting new industry to the develop-
    1810
    ment districts, where the need is greatest. Other places, in Dorset and elsewhere, are, however, suggested to industrialists seeking sites in the South-West for projects which cannot go to a development district.
    Mr. Digby: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's 15 per cent. surcharge has weighed particularly heavily on some of the industries we already have and it is therefore all the more necessary that he should pay attention? May I thank him for a comparatively sympathetic Answer?
    Mr. Jay: Without applying the full development district treatment, it is possible to grant I.D.C.s in these areas more readily than one would in a really congested area.
    Mr. du Cann: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that ordinarily no I.D.C. would be refused in the sort of cases to which he has referred?
    Mr. Jay: I should like to see a rather clearer definiton of "the sort of cases" before giving that assurance.

    Industrial Development, North-East Scotland
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade what account he proposes to take of the future development of Dounreay scientific station for industrial development in the north-east of Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Jay: I should be glad to consider any ways in which the future use of Dounreay, when this is determined, might help the industrial development of northeast Scotland and the development districts in particular.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister realise that the essence of my Question is directed to relating the scientific work at Dounreay to the industrial development of north-east Scotland, which is very badly needed? Will he take steps to ensure that the scientific efforts or potentialities of Dounreay are directed towards assisting north-east Scotland in this way?
    Mr. Jay: Yes. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that this is extremely important, and I will consult my colleagues who are more immediately concerned with the future of Dounreay.
    Mr. George Y. Mackie: Is the Minister aware that the greatest service to industrial development he could make would be to persuade his right hon. Friends to make up their minds about whether they intend to go ahead with the prototype fast breeder reactor and where they are going to place it? Would he try to persuade them to place it at Dounreay where the skills are assembled to make it work well?
    Mr. Jay: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is very important that this decision should be taken reasonably soon.

    Japan (Import Licences)
    Mr. Snowasked the President of the Board of Trade what special conditions imposed by the Japanese Government on importers impose disadvantages on United Kingdom exporters.
    Mr. Redhead: The Japanese Government impose non-discriminatory import restrictions on certain products. Import licences are granted freely for other products, but a percentage of the value of the goods has to be deposited by the importer as collateral when applying for the licence. The length of credit which may be accepted on imports is restricted to conform with credit conditions in Japan.
    Mr. Snow: First, are collaterals in conformity with international law and agreements? Secondly, is my right hon. Friend aware that this bears most heavily on those nations which would export to Japan manufactured goods as opposed to raw materials?
    Mr. Redhead: I know of no offence against any international agreement in this respect. The restrictions apply to imports from all countries, and we have no evidence that they bear more heavily on British exporters than on others. Nevertheless, we shall continue to keep a close watch on these restrictions and take them up with the Japanese Government when opportunity occurs.
    Mr. do Cann: Is the Minister of State aware that there are certain practices on the part of Japanese manufacturers which still regrettably give rise to great concern in the British textile industry? Would he very kindly give these his personal attention with a view to renewing representations on the subject to the Japanese Government?
    Mr. Redhead: I shall be glad to take into consideration any representations of this kind we receive.
    Mr. Snow: If my hon. Friend's Answer means that he is not aware of the distinction between the import of manufactured goods into Japan and the import of raw materials, would he please have another look at this?

    Capital Plant and Machinery (Export Orders)
    Mr. Snowasked the President of the Board of Trade by what method trade commissioners, commercial ministers and equivalent appointments analyse and report to his department on all cases of failure on the part of British industry either to quote for, or to secure orders for, substantial capital plant and machinery requirements notified by overseas Governments or private businesses.
    Mr. Redhead: In so far as the information is obtainable, trade commissioners and commercial diplomatic officers report on these matters whenever they consider it necessary or are requested to do so.
    Mr. Snow: Does not my hon. Friend agree that such an analysis should be a routine matter? If we are to find out why we are not exporting to countries, surely we ought to have the information to see whether British industrialists are doing all they can to earn exports?
    Mr. Redhead: In some cases the reasons why British industry could not get a particular order are obvious, but, wherever it appears on representation that inquiries are requisite, they are made and reports are considered.
    Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: If statistics of this nature are provided, could we also have statistics about the delays on the docks, which are frustrating very vital exports from this country?
    Mr. Redhead: I cannot see that that supplementary question arises out of the Question on the Order Paper.

    WATER RESOURCES AND RIVER AUTHORITIES
    Ql. Mr. Templeasked the Prime Minister which Ministers will be responsible for water resources and river authorities both in England and in Wales.
    The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. George Brown): I have been asked to reply.
    I would ask the hon. Member to await the detailed statement promised by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Temple: Would the First Secretary of State inform the House whether the Secretary of State for Wales is to take over the functions of the Minister of Housing and Local Government with regard to water resources in Wales?
    Mr. Brown: I should be very surprised if he did, but I still think that the hon. Gentleman should await the detailed statement.

    ECONOMIC SITUATION
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of recent economic developments, it is still the intention of Her Majesty's Government to carry out the policy contained in the White Paper, "The Economic Situation".
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Ridley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's economic policy has been shot to pieces? Does he really believe that the Government have consulted the interests of our partners in the European Free Trade Association? Do the Government still maintain that they have rejected any solution of our problems based on stop-go policies after what they have done in the past seven weeks?
    Mr. Brown: It was because the hon. Gentleman made exactly that type of speech when he was recently on the Continent that our difficulties have been greater than they should have been.
    Mr. Hirst: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the policies to be carried out in the next 50 days are anything like as damaging as those already carried out in the first 50, our economic position cannot hope to recover?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman should cheer up. We shall be out of
    1814
    this trouble very soon as a result of the Government's policy.
    Mr. Heath: Can the acting Prime Minister say whether the lecture delivered yesterday to the American Chamber of Commerce by the First Secretary really represents Government policy? What on earth did he mean by saying, as he was reported as saying, that the letter sent round by the Governor of the Bank of England was the same as that which is always sent round at this time of the year? This was not a Christmas card or a New Year greeting sent round by the Government. Has not the First Secretary looked back and seen that this was exactly the same letter as was sent round in 1961 and 1957, with exactly the same request, phrased in almost exactly the same terms, and that whether he knows it or not he is in fact enforcing the credit squeeze?
    Mr. Brown: A lot of midnight oil went into that one, but, unhappily, one premise is wrong. What the right hon. Gentleman hopes I said yesterday I did not say.
    Mr. Ridley: Is the First Secretary aware that I have made no speeches on the Continent on economic subjects since the election? Therefore, will he withdraw the statement he made about me earlier?
    Hon. Members: Withdraw.
    Mr. Brown: The phrase "It is not British but it is good business" is now being rewritten the other way round.
    Mr. Heath: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the letter which he was discussing yesterday in his speech to the American Chamber of Commerce is the same as was sent round in 1961 and 1957 and is, therefore, the imposition of the credit squeeze? Why, when he is doing something to strengthen confidence in sterling, does he have to deny it?
    Mr. Brown: If the right hon. Gentleman had wanted to ask me what I said yesterday, I would, of course, have informed him. Before he asked this question he might have done me the courtesy of having a look at what I said. I repeat that he has got it all wrong.

    PRESIDENT TSHOMBE
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Prime Minister whether he will extend an official invitation to President Tshombe to visit London.
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    We have no such intention at the moment, Sir.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Will Her Majesty's Government not be too hesitant about doing the right thing? Do not British lives and the chances of keeping the cold war out of Africa depend upon the making of peace in the Congo? Is it not therefore a British interest to seek to give all the help, whether technical or of other character, which it is possible to give to President Tshombe's efforts?
    Mr. Brown: I take account of all that, but my answer to the Question on the Order Paper remains as I gave it.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that he is in consultation with the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister and the Government are in consultation with our allies on how best we might help Europeans in the Congo should the occasion arise again? That might easily happen.
    Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman can not only take it, he knows it.
    Mr. Warbey: Will my right hon. Friend undertake to do nothing to facilitate a meeting of the new African Fascist Internationale in London?
    Mr. Fell: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer this question? In view of the fact that British lives and the lives of other nationals depend now, since the Belgians left, entirely upon Congolese troops under President Tshombe, did the Government do anything to try to see President Tshombe when he was in Paris recently?
    Mr. Brown: That is precisely the kind of question that I find offensive—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—because if hon. and right hon. Members opposite really believe that they are the only people who care—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—then hon. Members must listen. If they really believe that they are the only people who care for our fellow-citizens
    1816
    in trouble, I find it very arrogant. We, of course, take every step, and I repeat that the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) knows what we did.
    Mr. Fell: On a point of order. It will be in your recollection, Mr. Speaker, that the question I asked was certainly not an arrogant one. Is there no protection against the sort of twisting that is going on from the Deputy Prime Minister?
    Mr. Speaker: This is not a matter for me. Do let us make progress. Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
    Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order. Is it possible, or within your province, Mr. Speaker, to explain how any of these supplementary questions arise out of the Question on the Order Paper which has been answered and which asks whether the Prime Minister will extend an official invitation to President Tshombe to visit London?
    Mr. Speaker: Following precedent, in the circumstances the questions are within the range of what arises.
    Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The right hon. Gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister is unnecessarily touchy and noisy today. Is he aware that all I wanted to do was to allow him on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Government to assure the House that they were in touch with our allies about the situation which could be extremely dangerous to British citizens? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will do that.
    Mr. Brown: I respond entirely in that case. I misunderstood the terms in which the right hon. Gentleman put his question. As surely the House must assume, and as the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have of course been in touch all the way through and have been influencing what happened all the way through to help our fellow-citizens in this difficult situation.

    GOVERNMENT REVIEWS
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Prime Minister how many reviews have been started or promised on matters for which Her Majesty's Government are responsible; on what subjects these reviews are taking place; who is the chairman in each case; and when the report will be presented.
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    As many as are necessary to overcome the problems we inherited.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I hardly know whether to thank him and whether or not he is going to give me information? Is he aware that every day we hear about one or two reviews until it seems apparent to me and most of the country that Government policy is going to be one whole big review?
    Mr. Brown: For once I was completely right. I thought that would be the supplementary question.
    Lord Balniel: Can the right hon. Gentleman say something about the review of social security? Is he aware that there is a very widespread feeling that an internal Departmental review is inadequate and that what is needed is a wide-ranging review by outside persons to whom outside bodies can submit evidence?
    Mr. Brown: This does not arise from the Question, but I will take it into account and think about it.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Merlyn Rees.
    Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order. I quite honestly do not know what the right hon. Gentleman means. Is he going to print the answer to my question in the OFFICIAL REPORT?
    Mr. Speaker: I accept the hon. Lady's honesty in every way, but I doubt my ability to help her in this matter.

    PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT JOHNSON (TALKS)
    Mr. Merlyn Reesasked the Prime Minister when a statement will be issued on the current talks in Washington.
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Prime Minister whether he will discuss with President Johnson Western defence problems outside the North Atlantic Treaty area.
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    I would ask hon. Members to await my right hon. Friends return.
    Mr. Rees: Arising from these talks, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the urgent need to review our defence commitments in the light of the needs of the 1960s and not the 1940s, and the urgent need to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Brown: The answer to my hon. Friend is that surely he will await my right hon. Friend's return.
    Mr. R. A. Butler: Will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the Prime Minister to make a statement as early as possible in the week in which the proposed debate will take place?
    Mr. Brown: I understand that discussions are going on about this between the usual channels, and of course I will make representations.

    NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES (IMPORT SURCHARGE AND FUEL TAX)
    Mr. Burdenasked the Prime Minister if Her Majesty's Government will arrange that general directions are given by the appropriate Ministers to ensure that when the 15 per cent. import surcharge and/or the increased fuel tax increase the costs of nationalised industries, the increases are absorbed by them and are not passed on to the public in the form of extra charges.
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    No, Sir.
    Mr. Burden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the whole of the debate in Committee on the Finance Bill Ministers opposite stated that these increases should be absorbed by private firms? Would it not be setting a really good example if the Government were to issue a directive to nationalised corporations telling them to do precisely what the Government are saying private organisations should do?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Member no doubt noticed that in answer to a Question on Tuesday, I said that I did not think that in principle one could exempt one area or one operation from another, and of course this we will have in mind when we come to discuss the setting up of any price review body we might agree upon.
    Mr. Burden: But what exactly does that mean? The right hon. Gentleman's Answer was that the Government would not issue any such directive. Why cannot they issue such a directive if it is their intention to keep down prices, as they said it was during the election campaign?
    Mr. Brown: I gave a clear Answer to the first Question and I gave what I hoped was a sensible, interesting and encouraging answer to the second question.

    CHEQUERS (MILITARY GUARD)
    Brigadier Clarkeasked the Prime Minister why there were 20 corporals, two sergeants and a staff sergeant of the Royal Military Police at Chequers during the week ending 22nd November.
    Mr. George Brown: I have been asked to reply.
    To keep the hon. and gallant Gentleman, among others, out.
    Brigadier Clarke: Is that what the right hon. Gentleman really thinks—my view was that it was done to keep the Labour Left wing away from Chequers—or was it just a bit of "Wiggery-pokery"?
    Mr. Brown: Having long been one of those who believe that the world is round, I know that left and right sometimes come up on the wrong side, and one has to look after the whole thing.
    Mr. Boston: Will my right hon. Friend consider offering his deepest sympathy to the hon. and gallant Gentleman because of his obvious disappointment at not being given command of the detachment?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): Yes, Sir. The business for next week, which takes account of changes announced during yesterday's sitting, will be as follows:
MONDAY, 14TH DECEMBER—Consideration of the Motions on the Army Act, 1955 (Continuation), and the Air
1820
Force Act, 1955 (Continuation) Orders, which, if the House agrees, will be taken formally to allow a wider debate on the Services on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Motion on the Immunities and Privileges Order
TUESDAY, 15TH DECEMBER—General Orders for England and Wales and for Scotland.
Motion on the National Assistance Regulations.
WEDNESDAY, 16TH DECEMBER—Supply [2nd Allotted Day]: Committee.
If the Committee agrees the Winter Supplementaries will be passed formally to allow a debate to be opened on Foreign Affairs.
THURSDAY, 17TH DECEMBER—Conclusion of the Debate on Foreign Affairs.
Motions on the Double Taxation Relief (Southern Rhodesia) and (Sweden) Orders.
FRIDAY, 18TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Ministerial Salaries and Members' Pensions Bill.
Motion on the Remuneration of Members of this House, and Expenses of Peers.
Remaining stages of the Superannuation (Amendment) Bill, and of the Remuneration of Teachers Bill.
MONDAY, 21ST DECEMBER—The proposed business will be: Second Reading of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill.
It may be convenient for the House to be aware that while the date of adjourning for the Christmas Recess must depend on the progress of business, it will be proposed that the House should resume on TUESDAY, 19TH JANUARY.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the General Grant Orders were laid only yesterday and that copies are available only today, which gives us very little time? I make this point so that, in future, he may protect us a little more and give as much notice as he can, as this is a complicated matter.
May I echo what was said just now by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). I

1821
hope that the usual channels will be able to arrange for a statement by the Prime Minister so that it is given in good time for the foreign affairs debate.
Mr. Bowden: I appreciate that the usual amount of notice has not been given of the General Grant Orders, but, as the right hon. Gentleman realises, it helps local authorities in the preparation of their rate fund for next year to have these Orders before Christmas.
On the right hon. Gentleman's second point, my right hon. Friend has not yet returned from Washington, but I shall convey the right hon. Gentleman's remarks to him.
Mr. Wilkins: Has my right hon. Friend now given full consideration to Motion No. 27 on the Order Paper, standing in the names of 62 of my hon. Friends and myself? Will he treat this as a matter of urgency and, in so doing, bear in mind that Parliament, which is, or ought to be, the nation's workshop, is dependent for its service very largely upon back bench Members who are alleged to be professional politicians? Will he take into account the requirements of these Members as distinct from, and perhaps without consideration for, the interests of professional people who do their work outside and come here as a spare-time occupation?
[That this House, appreciating the fact that Parliamentary work is now a full-time occupation for back-bench Members as well as Ministers, urges Her Majesty's Government to consider the introduction of more appropriate hours of sitting, and suggests that the House should meet daily at 10.30 a.m., take Parliamentary Questions for one and a half hours and proceed with normal business until 7.0 p.m.]
Mr. BowdenI promised last week to look at the Motion, since which time an Amendment has been put down. I would not attempt to decide between full-time or part-time professional politicians. We have both. But this is an important matter. It is a matter for the House, not for the Government, and it must be considered by a Select Committee on Procedure at some point. I hope that a Committee will be set up fairly soon, when this would be one of the priority items.
Mr. Maudling: As the Chancellor's recent statement about the corporation and capital gains taxes seems to have left the situation even more confused, will the Government take an early opportunity for this matter to be clarified, preferably by a debate?
Mr. Bowden: The right hon. Gentleman knows probably better than anyone else in the House that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot make his next Budget speech now. As the right hon. Gentleman will also appreciate, there are many precedents for making statements of this sort before a Budget. If there is a real demand for such a debate, there are plenty of opportunities on Supply between now and April when it could be raised.
Mr. Wilkins: Did my right hon. Friend's reply to me mean that he proposes to refer this question to the Select Committee on Procedure?
Mr. Bowden: Yes, Sir.
Mr. R. Carr: Is the Leader of the House aware of the frustration we suffered yesterday in trying to obtain basic information about the functions of the new Ministry of Overseas Development and its relations with other Government Departments? Does he know that the Government spokesmen could not even reply to a request for publication, in due course, of a White Paper setting out the functions? In the circumstances, will he find time for an early debate on the subject of overseas development, allowing his right hon. Friend the Minister to come to the House to explain these matters and have them discussed?
Mr. Bowden: I cannot make any firm promise for between now and the Christmas Recess, but I note what the right hon. Gentleman says.
Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Is the Leader of the House aware that export consignments sent from Birmingham to London are now being returned to Birmingham after a wait of three or four fruitless days in the queue at the docks and that the sense of frustration among Birmingham exporters is rapidly mounting to a sense of desperation? Will he find time for an urgent discussion of this critical situation?
Mr. Bowden: Not before the Christmas Recess, but I shall speak to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport about it.
Mr. Warbey: With reference to next week's foreign affairs debate, will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that hon. Members are in possession of the necessary documents, including the official text of the Washington communiqué? Is he aware that I have made inquiries in the Library and that the Library has been informed that neither the Foreign Office nor the Cabinet Office has official copies available so that they can be passed to hon. Members? Further, is he aware that the only official text which I have been able to obtain is one supplied by the American Embassy in London and dated yesterday?
Mr. Bowden: I shall look at that point.
Mr. Fell: The Leader of the House will recall that he courteously but firmly suggested last week that it would not be in the interests of British subjects in the Congo to press for an immediate statement, on the situation there and that he was backed in this, quite obviously, by the Prime Minister and by other right hon. Gentlemen. Has not the time now come to make a statement, particularly as there is to be a foreign affairs debate next week, although the Government have refused a debate on this specific matter? May we have an early statement setting out just what the Government have done throughout, whether they tried to see President Tshombe in Paris, and all such matters?
Mr. Bowden: There is a point when it is dangerous to hostages to make statements of that sort in the House. I have already spoken to my right hon. Friend about it and he has given me an assurance that, as soon as it is possible to make a statement, he will be prepared to do so.
Mr. Wall: When can we expect a statement on Aden? I was informed that Question No. 85 would be answered today.
Mr. Bowden: I understand that a statement is to be made tomorrow.
Mr. Alfred Morris: My right right hon. Friend will have seen on the Order Paper
1824
the Motion about the detention by the Burmese authorities of Mr. Kyi Nyunt. Can he say when there will be an opportunity to discuss it?
[That this House notes with deep disquiet the detention, on unspecified political grounds, of Mr. Kyi Nyunt by the Burmese authorities; and urges the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to use his good offices to press for Mr. Nyunt's immediate release.]
Mr. Bowden: I cannot promise any opportunity to discuss it. Much as some of us may regret the detention of this gentleman, he is, after all, a Burmese citizen and this is a matter for the Burmese Government.
Mr. Wiliam Clark: Reverting to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), has not the Chancellor's recent statement anticipated the next Budget, and has not the uncertainty arisen for this reason? Will the Leader of the House explain why representations can be sent to the Inland Revenue at Somerset House yet Parliament is not, apparently, to have an opportunity to debate the matter? Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the question urgently and consider whether we could have a debate on both the corporation and capital gains taxes?
Mr. Bowden: If the hon. Gentleman reads HANSARD he will see quite clearly that I have not said that we shall not debate the matter. I have said that the official Opposition might agree to use one of its Supply days.
Mr. Maudling: As the confusion is damaging both the Stock Exchange and the foreign exchange markets, and this arises from the exceptional action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is it not the responsibility of the Government to get the matter cleared up?
Mr. Bowden: We cannot move from the position I have taken on this. I do do not think that there is any value whatever, at this stage, in further debating my right hon. Friend's statement, which was detailed and very long.
Sir F. Bennett: Reference was made at Question Time about a statement by the Prime Minister on the Washington talks. Will that be made before the

1825
foreign affairs debate? There are, obviously, important matters to be cleared up, particularly the widespread American suggestion that we have agreed to commit troops to Vietnam?
Mr. Bowden: The Prime Minister returns tonight. I have not spoken to him, but it depends whether he makes a statement before the debate or not.
Sir. F. Bennett: That is what I was asking.
Mr. Lagden: Can the Leader of the House say when we are likely to have a statement or a chance to debate the position in Gibraltar with regard to the border practically being closed?
Mr. Bowden: Certainly not next week.
Mr. Emery: Would the right hon. Gentleman use his good offices to ask one of his right hon. Friends whether, early next week, we could have a statement on the apparent decrease of credit facilities for industry and private individuals, since it appears that we are starting on a new credit squeeze?
Mr. Bowden: I cannot promise a statement next week.
Commander Courtney: We quite realise that the Army and Air Force Acts must be debated for legalisation purposes, but can we have an assurance that the terms of Monday's debate will extend wide enough to include questions touching on the Royal Navy?
Mr. Bowden: The whole purpose of taking these Orders formally is that the Navy can be included in these debates.
Mr. Lubbock: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the assurance given by the Prime Minister to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Liberal Party that matters affecting Ministers' and Members' salaries would be subject to discussion in advance of any published proposals in this House? Can the right hon. Gentleman therefore say why it is that the proposals for Ministers' and Members' salaries include payments to persons who have never been named hitherto? Why were we not consulted about that?
Mr. Bowden: I cannot recall any promise having been made in terms that the House would be consulted beforehand, but I recall that my right hon.
1826
Friend said that he would accept Lawrence in principle. I agree that these proposals were not contained in Lawrence, although they were mentioned.
Mr. Ogden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, if some hon. Members opposite abandoned their tactics of deliberate obstruction, the House would get a great deal more done in much less time?
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is difficult to relate that question to the business for next week.
Mr. Hirst: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not good Government policy to dismiss the pleas of the Opposition with reference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement on the ground that it was long and detailed? It has made confusion worse confounded. The Government have a duty to the nation and the world to make their position clear.
Mr. Bowden: These representations ought to be made to the Opposition Front Bench. I have already said that we will make a Supply day available if the Opposition say so.
Mr. William Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Select Committee on Procedure will be set up before the Adjournment for the Christmas Recess? Is he aware that there is a great volume of opinion on this side of the House that the procedure of the House must be modernised and modernised immediately, and that it must be done within the next three or six months? Will my right hon. Friend take note to the pressure of opinion on this side to prevent the kind of tactics that we have had from the Opposition during the last two weeks?
Mr. Bowden: I can promise that the Select Committee on Procedure will be set up before the Recess. I cannot promise that it will start its work before the Recess.
Mr. Marten: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the Motion on the Order Paper, standing in my name and the names of some of my hon. Friends, calling upon members of the Government who were previously against the establishment of the Polaris missile base in Holy Loch to "come clean" about it? Does

1827
not he agree that they should now make a statement in order to help our allies? Will a statement be made next week?
[That this House welcomes the Prime Minister's statement that the United States Polaris base should remain in Holy Loch; and calls upon those Ministers in Her Majesty's Government who signed the Amendment to the Address in November, 1960, opposing the establishment of the base to declare forthwith their wholehearted support for this clear statement of Government policy.]
Mr. Bowden: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already made a clear and concise statement about Holy Loch. There will be further opportunities to debate it and of enlightening the hon. Member next week, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Captain Orr: Has the right hon. Gentleman any more to tell us about the prospects of a debate in Government time on the affairs of Northern Ireland? Is he aware that his predecessors always gave us a firm assurance that, some time during the Session, we would have at least one full day or two half days for that purpose? There is considerable anxiety about the effects of the Government's deflationary policy on our employment and expansion and we would welcome an assurance that we shall soon be able to debate the situation.
Mr. Bowden: I can give an assurance that, some time during the present Session, there will be a debate on Northern Ireland.
Mr. Driberg: Can my right hon. Friend say whether there is any possibility some time of a debate on the Crathorne Committee's Report? Can he repudiate the suggestion which is being put about that this fairly valuable Report is being shelved because it is controversial, since, clearly, any debate on it would culminate in a free vote?
Mr. Bowden: The Report has only very recently been made and the House and the country should have the opportunity to study it before we decide on the debate.
Mr. Box: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the Motion, standing in my
1828
name, which discloses a serious difference of opinion between the Minister of Power and his Parliamentary Secretary about the timing of steel nationalisation? Will the right hon. Gentleman allocate time so that this matter can be debated and the Government can express their intentions definitely, or, better still, will he advise the Prime Minister to withdraw this contentious legislation, for which the Government, quite obviously, have no clear mandate?
[That this House notes that the answer given by the Minister of Power in a written reply indicating that a bill to nationalise the steel industry will be introduced as soon as practicable appears to conflict with the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power at a press conference at Port Talbot on Saturday 5th December that such a bill will be introduced within a year and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to clarify the position.]
Mr. Bowden: There is nothing at all inconsistent between the two statements to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I can assure the hon. Gentleman—and no doubt the House is very interested—that the necessary legislation will be laid as soon as practicable.
Mr. Awdry: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider extending by two hours the time allotted to the debate on the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill, since so many hon. Members would like to speak?
Mr. Bowden: I have not received any representations on that at the moment, but I am quite prepared to consider it.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: With regard to the question about the capital gains and corporation taxes, would the right hon. Gentleman make the helpful suggestion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he could clarify the situation if he would introduce a second autumn Budget next week?
Sir F. Bennett: With regard to the question on the economic situation, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Emery)—I could not hear the reply, if there was one—are we to have no Government statement at all about why this new credit squeeze is not a credit squeeze?
Miss Quennell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether we may expect a statement about Channel Island milk before the House rises?
Mr. Bowden: I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture is seeing both producers and distributors next week.

REGIONAL ECONOMIC PLANNING
3.50 p.m.
The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. George Brown): With permission, I will make a statement on the Government's proposals for the organisation of regional economic planning, and I apologise in advance for the length of the statement.
The purpose of the regional councils and boards which the Government intend to establish is to provide effective machinery for regional economic planning within the framework of the national plan for economic development. Regional economic planning has two main purposes: first. to provide for a full and balanced development of the country's economic and social resources; and, secondly, to ensure that the regional implications of growth are clearly understood and taken into account in the planning of land use, of development—in particular, of industrial development—and of services.
The economic planning councils will be concerned with broad strategy on regional development and the best use of the regions' resources. Their principal function will be to assist in the formulation of regional plans and to advise on their implementation. They will have no executive powers.
The economic planning boards, on the other hand, will provide the necessary machinery for co-ordinating the work of Government Departments concerned with regional planning and development, but their creation will not affect the existing powers and responsibilities of local authorities or existing ministerial responsibilities.
Since regional economic planning must be on a broad scale, the number of planning regions should be kept as few as possible. Special attention will be given to those areas within each region
1830
which have particular economic problems, and neighbouring councils and boards will co-operate on problems which cut across regional boundaries.
Separate economic planning boards will be established in Scotland and Wales, whose chairmen will be officials appointed by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State, who will also appoint the economic planning councils.
In England, there will be the following regions:
Northern, covering Cumberland, Durham, North Riding of Yorkshire, Northumberland, Westmorland.
North West, covering Cheshire, Lancashire, and the High Peak District.
Yorkshire and Humberside, covering the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and Lindsey.
East Midlands, covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Holland, Kesteven, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland.
West Midlands, covering Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire.
South West, covering Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Wiltshire.
No decisions will be taken about regional organisation for the rest of England until we have completed our review of the policies set out in the previous Government's White Paper on South-East England.
A map showing these areas is now available in the Vote Office.
The offices of the English economic planning boards will be in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Bristol. The chairmen of these boards will be officials of the Department of Economic Affairs, and other Departments will make suitable arrangements to enable them to make a full contribution to the work of the boards. Steps will be taken as soon as possible to house in the same building the regional planning staff of the Departments concerned.
The members of the economic planning councils will be appointed as individuals and not as delegates or representatives of particular interests, but they will be widely representative of different types of experience within the region. I and my

1831
right hon. Friends propose to discuss the procedure for the selection of members of the councils with the local authority associations and other organisations concerned. I hope to make an announcement about the membership of some of the councils early in the new year.
In some of the planning areas, development councils are in active existence, drawing their finance from local authorities and from industry in the regions. The Government see a continuing place for such councils to complement the work of the economic planning councils. We shall continue, therefore, to contribute financial help towards the valuable publicity work done by the Scottish Council and the North-East Development Council under the arrangements made by the previous Government.
In due course the economic planning councils will take over the responsibilities at present carried by the regional boards for industry. I propose, therefore, to discuss with the T.U.C. and the employers' organisations the best means of ensuring that the new machinery, when it is set up, profits from the valuable experience built up by these boards over a period of years.
Mr. Heath: From the right hon. Gentleman's definition of the functions of the planning councils, namely, that they will have no executive powers, he appears to be setting up further advisory bodies to replace the regional boards for industry, and threatening, in the North-East and in Scotland, to overlap the work already being done by the Development Councils. I should like to pay tribute to the work done by the regional boards for industry. The new machinery is really replacing one existing advisory body with another advisory body, and formalising what has been done informally in the North-East by a study group. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind that the membership, and particularly the chairmanship, should not be made for political reasons, but on a basis which will secure broad support from the whole of the region?
The planning boards, again because of the remark that this will not affect the existing powers and responsibilities of local authorities or Ministerial responsibility, are only another name for the
1832
group which has already been set up in the North-East and is carrying out study group reports on the rest of the country. Will the chairmen work exclusively in the towns and cities which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, or will they operate as at present both in the regions and in Whitehall?
The regions proposed by the right hon. Gentleman appear to be broadly the same regions as those on which we were working hitherto, but it is not a pity that he should apparently have come to a firm decision already that Cumberland and Westmorland should remain in the northern region where, already, there is a north-eastern organisation? Ought not this to await the findings of the study group for the whole of the North West which is working on Cumberland and Westmorland?
Finally, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will carry on with great urgency the review of the South-East England Study, because it is holding up a large number of decisions and, at the same time, some of his colleagues, like the Minister of Housing and Local Government, are already taking independent decisions before a final review has been made, which appear to run across the general trend of that plan. I therefore ask him to act on this with urgency.
Mr. Brown: I do not think anybody can say that we are not acting with urgency on a whole range of problems left for us. We are doing our best to catch up on the vacuum left behind by the previous Administration.
I think that if the right hon. Gentleman consults opinion in Cumberland he will find that the view which he offered is not the one taken there.
It is not true that this is a similar machine to something which already exists. The right hon. Gentleman knows better than anybody that that is not true. He knows very well that outside the north-east development group nothing existed at all; and even that was not a planning arrangement.
On the question whether we should appoint chairmen because they are good, competent, and capable of doing the job, and not for political reasons, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that our practice will be totally different from that which he and his right hon. Friends employed during the last 13 years.

1833
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the chairmen of the boards would operate for the cities in which their offices were located, or for the whole region. They will operate for the whole region.
Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman denying that such groups have already been working—that there is the North-West plan, the West Midlands plan, and that a joint local authority and study group for the South-West has already been set up and is working? He says that nothing existed. This is completely untrue. I ask him to withdraw that statement.
Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman is fighting his little war for the leadership. That, again, was not what I said. If he will listen I will repeat it. The past has been papered with surveys and studies. What did not exist when we came in was some planning machinery, but it will now exist.
Mr. Grimond: I want to ask the First Secretary two questions concerning the planning boards. First, as their creation will not affect the existing powers of local authorities and Ministerial responsibilities, will they have any executive powers at all? If so, what will they be? Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman previously said that the work of the economic planning board in Scotland will be carried out by the Scottish Development Group. Has he changed his mind about this? Are we to have a separate planning body in Scotland? If so, what is to happen to the Scottish Development Group?
Mr. Brown: My right hon. Friend is to make the decision about the planning board in Scotland. As I said in my statement, there will be a separate planning board for Scotland, which my right hon. Friend will be setting up, whose chairman will be regularly meeting the chairmen of the English boards, and who will participate in the policy discussions which will go on for the United Kingdom as a whole.
As for the question of executive powers, since the boards will consist of officials of the Departments—chaired, as is the situation now in Whitehall, by the Department of Economic Affairs—they will have the executive powers which Ministers delegate to them, within the
1834
overall policy decision which must be taken nationally—because for those policy decision Minster must be answerable to Parliament—and, within those decisions, all the range of decisions which flow from them will be taken by the boards. We want to get the utmost decentralisation without spoiling good administration, and without derogating from Parliament's ultimate right to control policy decisions.
Mr. Heffer: In view of the special circumstances that exist on Merseyside, will not my right hon. Friend consider the question of the boundaries of the regional planning boards, and bear in mind the possibility of establishing such a board for the Merseyside area, which is a natural region? If not, can he say whether there will be a special subcommittee of the overall committee which will deal with Merseyside problems? Further, how far will local authorities be drawn into the work of the regional boards, and how far will they have actual representation on them?
Mr. Brown: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that question. I have given a tremendous amount of attention to the question of the regions, but I do not think that I can hold out much hope of being willing to change the number. I must put this to my hon. Friend and to the House, because many other individuals rightly have localised feelings about this matter. We have to get the utmost spread, or delegation, or decentralisation of authority to get real democracy, but if we go too far clown the line we find that we cannot provide the offices, or the planners, or the staffs, and that while such an arrangement may look perfect on paper, in practice it does not work. All decisions would come back to Whitehall, which in my view—as a provincial Member—would be wrong.
We have, therefore, tried to make the best division we can which will be as near to the regions as we can get, while also making them substantial enough for us to be able to staff them and carry the plan through. As for special areas, of which Merseyside is one, in the North-West, as is Sheffield and the surrounding part of Yorkshire, as I said, special attention can be given to those. The councils can meet where they like and the boards can set up such internal organisation, such as sub-boards, as they

1835
think are required to make sure that all the problems within their regions are taken care of.
Mr. J. H. Osborn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has made an irrevocable, drastic and hasty decision, and that there are many hon. Members in the House and people throughout the country who will regret that he is not putting the arguments in favour of this decision in a White Paper which can be debated in the House and in the country? Is he aware that the decision in respect of Sheffield cuts right across an autonomous region? The Sheffield area is now to be in two regions. What arrangements has he for a situation such as that?
Mr. Brown: If the hon. Member thinks that my decision was drastic or hasty he had better see me, and I will show him my diary for the last few weeks. It was not that. It is a decision that I have taken, in the exercise of my responsibilities, after a great deal of consideration. I am well aware that this is my judgment against that of other people. I am very conscious of this fact. If the Opposition wish to put this subject down for debate on a Supply day, I shall be very willing to explain the question as fully as I can, and to give the answers.
Mr. Winterbottom: Will my right hon. Friend say whether or not a measure of elasticity is to be allowed within the regions so that that which is a homogeneous whole may be kept intact, that is to say, where the boundaries of the councils cut through an economic whole there can be slight variations to take account of that, and that in those districts sub-committees of the regions can be set up to consider the special circumstances that exist there?
Mr. Brown: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I thought I had made that clear just now. Certainly, I envisage that that may well happen.
Mr. Noble: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said about the Scottish Council, and that it will continue to have power and authority to complement, as he says, the work of the new planning board and the authorities.
1836
I have listened to his statement, and I have no doubt that he has read the Question and Answer given yesterday in the House of Commons, but I still do not see a single practical change in what he has suggested now from what was happening under the previous Administration—except that the Scottish Board for Industry is to go. I hope that this is not due to the fact that Mr. George Middleton has made some very outspoken comments—as reported in the Press—about Government economic policy.
Will the right hon. Gentleman now tell us what is the significance of these executive powers? A great deal of comment was made by hon. Members opposite about the lack of executive powers of the Scottish Development Group. As I understand from the right hon. Gentleman, it is in exactly the same position as it was in before. Exactly the same responsibilities could be delegated to the Group by my right hon. Friends and myself.
Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman will find that it is quite different, in that there will now be not only a plan for the United Kingdom as a whole but a plan taking account of the advice, help, and involvement of Scotland. There will then be authority in Scotland to implement it. He will find the situation totally different—and if he goes back to Scotland and asks about it he will find many people up there who are pleased that we are to change what he left behind.
Mr. A. J. Irvine:Will my right hon. Friend take note of the fact that there will be considerable disappointment on Merseyside at his statement? Although note will be taken of the answer which he has given to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), none the less it is seriously and earnestly felt that insufficient attention has been paid to the distinctive character of the problems confronting Merseyside.
Mr. George Brown: I understand that, not only from my hon. and learned Friend but from hon. Members on both sides of the House. There will be some disappointment at the decisions I have had to make. It is difficult, but, being in this position, one has to make decisions, and there it is. I must try to

1837
explain them and to carry my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite with me.
On the question of Merseyside the Joint Under-Secretary of State—my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. William Rodgers)—who has played a large part in this matter, and knows a great deal about it, will be in Manchester and Liverpool on Monday afternoon.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: May I ask what is the position with regard to a region which has not yet been mentioned, namely, Northern Ireland?
Mr. Brown: I have already had discussions, as the hon. Gentleman knows, with the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and other Ministers at the very beginning of all this business. The officials of my Department and those in Northern Ireland are in close touch. The situation is not quite analogous, but consultations are taking place.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: It is impossible not to recognise how wide ranging geographically is this matter, but it is quite impossible that we should seek to debate it without any Question before the House.
Mr. Gibson-Watt: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would not it be possible to put questions with regard to the particular planning problems which apply to Wales?
Mr. Speaker: If I am to go round the United Kingdom, we shall invade time that the House will need for other business.
Sir Rolf Dudley Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman the First Secretary of State has made a statement which will result in considerable changes in the way we conduct our affairs. We have
1838
asked him for an opportunity for a debate and the right hon. Gentleman will not give us time for a debate. He is to start implementing this new organisation.
May I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that if the House of Commons is to be treated like this it will be unfair not to allow Members of Parliament to put points to the right hon. Gentleman in order to elucidate what is in the rather confused mind of the right hon. Gentleman?
May I request, with great respect, that in view of this we should be allowed to continue with our questions which are of a probing nature, and have some further time to try to find out whether this is a subject where we should put down a Motion of censure. I hope that in these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, you will allow the questions to continue for a little longer.
Mr. Speaker: It is traditionally a difficult problem for the Chair while the House maintains its existing procedure and custom about statements. It is a matter about which I have to do my best in my own judgment. I think that the House must find an opportunity to discuss this when—
Mr. Tilney rose—
Hon. Members: Sit down.
Mr. Speaker: Order—when there is a Question before the House.
Mr. Tilney: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have accepted two questions on Merseyside from hon. Members opposite. Is it possible to have one from this side of the House?
Mr. Speaker: I made a geographical slip. I cannot allow questions to continue. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman, who has made it so clear how necessary it is to be firm.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT BILL
  Considered in Committee [Progress 9th December].
  [Dr. HORACE KING in the Chair]
  4.13 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): May I, Dr. King, with your leave and that of the Committee, mention a matter for, I hope, the convenience of right hon. and hon. Members?
  Several Amendments to Clause 2, providing for the discontinuance of the Office of the Secretary for Overseas Trade, were moved by the Opposition in the early hours of this morning and accepted on terms that the Government would seek the leave of Mr. Speaker to move certain Amendments, if and when the Report stage is reached, to deal with certain technical omissions arising from the Opposition Amendments.
  I had intended in those same small hours to inform the Committee that manuscript Amendments had been placed in the Vote Office. I apologise for having neglected to do so. The Committee will find that they are there now, and have been there since the small hours of the morning.

  Clause 3.—(NUMBERS OF HOLDERS OF MINISTERIAL OFFICES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS.)
  Mr. Nigel Birch: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 2, line 34, to leave out subsection (2).
  The Chairman: I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if, with this Amendment, we discussed the Amendments No. 15, 17, 24, 25, 26 and 30.
  Mr. Birch: As we have maintained throughout, this Bill is one of very considerable constitutional importance and I think that Clause 3 is perhaps the most important of the Clauses. It has become known as the "Placemen Clause". The question of placemen in the House of Commons is something which has exercised this House for a
  1840
  number of centuries. The first agitation was in the first part of the seventeenth century. It was not, I think, until Danby, towards the end of the seventeenth century, that the system of placemen was really highly developed.
  Under this system the idea was to get into Parliament as many men as you could who were in the pay of the Government and who held real or sinecure offices and were paid for them. Then it was made perfectly clear to these men that unless they voted the straight ticket they lost their jobs. It was, of course, an effective way of managing Parliament. In the reign of Queen Anne there was some reform, but as late as 1741 there were still 200 placemen in the House—so that, in fact, the Prime Minister has not got quite as far as did Walpole. One remark was made by Walpole to which I shall advert later. He said that he only used his pecuniary powers over place-men to induce them to vote in accordance with their consciences.
  There was a further reform under Rockingham and then the whole matter of placemen was cleared up and has not seriously arisen in this House for many years. But the thing has been at the back of everyone's mind, as was clearly shown by the Report of the Herbert Committee which has been so often referred to. The Herbert Committee was acutely conscious of the danger of too many placemen in the House and made that position perfectly clear.
  In the Bill there is a change which is really a very startling one because the number of placemen rises from 70 to 91. As The Times justly pointed out, if we add the P.P.S.s and the hangers-on we have a situation in which there are between 130 and 140 people attached to the Government, making very nearly half the voting strength of the Government. As I say, that is a very startling change. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster murmured "Four and a half per cent." at one stage, he was using statistics a little roughly. It is a very startling change.
  I was rather rattled by the words of the Attorney-General during the Second Reading of the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
  "The figure of 91 … is … the number of Ministers whom the Prime Minister wishes to sit in the House of Commons today. That

  1841
  is the beginning and end of the matter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th November, 1964; Vol. 702, c. 649.]
  This seems to be a claim that, contrary to precedent and contrary to parliamentary practice, a Prime Minister has the right to have any number of Ministers in the Commons that he likes and to increase the number of 91 today. That is a very bold and distressing claim. What a masterful little thing the Prime Minister is! What we have to decide in the House of Commons is whether the Prime Minister is acting rightly, or seeking to be a sort of utility Danby.
  There are certain things which ought to give us pause. The first is the size of the Cabinet. The Prime Minister denounced my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for having a Cabinet of the exact size which he then produced. The Cabinet was clearly inflated by the Prime Minister above the number he thought suitable in order to bring in more people for more offices, to balance all the various claims and to make his own position more secure.
  The next worrying thing is the subject of the new Ministries. It would have been just possible, before last night, to think that there was something in these new Ministries, but after the performance of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, one hardly knows what to think. He must have had a brief, I suppose, and if he had a brief, I presume that he could read it, and if he could read it, he could speak to it. But we had no clear explanation at all of the functions or division of powers, or how the new Ministries are to work. For that reason, these new Ministries cannot be taken very seriously.
  We did not even discuss all the new Ministers last night. Except very cursorily, we did not discuss the Secretary of State for Wales and his two minions, both sitting in the House of Commons. I hope that we shall have a debate on that subject. These appointments are most damaging to the administration of Wales and quite unnecessary, and the new system will work far less well than the previous system. One of the oddest appointments of the lot is the Minister without Portfolio, a sort of modern Groom of the Stole. He may have been put there to protect the police; I do not know.
  1842
  Looking down the list of Ministers, thoughtfully produced separately from HANSARD, one gasps every now and again as one goes through the names. The aged Parliamentary Secretaries and the extremely Left-wing types are put in simply to maintain the balance. Of course, there are many C.N.D. or ex-C.N.D. members who are put in. One flattering unction which the Prime Minister will not be able to lay to his conscience, to his soul, is that he put in these people in order to persuade them to vote according to their consciences. The situation must be very slightly different.
  The Prime Minister has attached to his Ministry very many people to whom he would not have been able to give office without increasing the number of offices. If we are to take the Attorney-General seriously, the Prime Minister reserves the right to create more and may well soon need to create a few more. What about the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson)? He may be given the job of assisting the Paymaster-General in his arduous duties. I think that he could tell the Paymaster-General a thing or two about security. Then there is the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo). He may have a job. He may choose the acid test of the sincerity of hon. Members opposite and be given the job of assisting coloured settlement in Hampstead Garden Suburb. I suggest that the Bishop of Southwark would be only too willing to leave his own "Dead See" to assist him.
  There is an almost infinite variety of things which can be done at public expense to hold together a party which is disintegrating. It is already being done in this Clause. I believe that to be wrong. From the way the Bill was introduced by the Attorney-General, I believe that the Prime Minister clearly reserves the right to go further in this way. He has already gone too far. I believe it is wrong and evil to go further and I therefore hope that the Committee will accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Michael Foot: I was taunted by the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) last night for not having participated in the discussion on the Bill, although having listened to most of the debate. It is an extremely odd situation in which I find myself that when I speak

  1843
  I am rebuked and when I do not speak I am rebuked. I must, therefore, choose the best course to follow in order to win the favour of the Committee, which, of course, is always my pursuit.
  To enlighten the hon. Member for Ormskirk, I did not speak on the three propositions which we were discussing yesterday—whether there should be a separate Minister for land and natural resources, whether there should be a separate Minister for overseas development and whether there should be a separate Minister for technology—because I happened to agree with all three propositions, and it seemed to me that it would be trespassing too much on the indulgence of the Committee if I spoke on a matter about which I entirely agreed with the Government.
  I am not in entire agreement with the Government on this Clause, which is why I am exercising this opportunity to speak. I hope that that will relieve the hon. Gentleman of his anxieties on this score.
  Sir Douglas Glover: The hon. Gentleman has returned to the path of virtue.
  Mr. Foot: I was in the path of virtue yesterday and again today. Sometimes the path of virtue leads us to support the Government, occasionally to make constructive criticisms, but always the narrow path of virtue is where I seek to tread.
  It is extremely difficult to do so after having been provoked by the right hon. Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch). He is a very strange person to lecture Prime Ministers on whom they should choose and whom they should not choose to have in their administrations. He made some reference to those excluded from the present Administration. I agree that it is a lonely privilege in a sense, but I do not mind the rebuke from those quarters. If I am excluded from an Administration, it is because of a hypothetical assessment of my abilities which may be made by the Government, but when the right hon. Gentleman is excluded from Administrations it is because of soundly based and broad experience.
  The right hon. Gentleman was excluded from the Government, or he excluded himself, and every subsequent
  1844
  Conservative Prime Minister took great care not to have the right hon. Gentleman in his Administration again. He is not the best person to lecture us on these matters. If I can give any advice to the present Leader of the Opposition —and I do not have any particular eagerness to assist him—it is, when I see the right hon. Gentleman sneaking back to the Front Bench, not to take that viper to his bosom, because he may be treated by the right hon. Gentleman with the same degree of loyalty which the right hon. Gentleman showed towards the previous right hon. Member for Bromley.
  We do not need lectures from the right hon. Gentleman about how Prime Ministers should select Governments, particularly when we know of the circumstances in which he was excluded. The right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), when he was excluded from the Government in 1957, during a previous balance of payments crisis, was described as "a local difficulty". How immeasurable must be the insignificance of the right hon. Member for Flint, West, if his leader was a local difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman does not speak with quite the authority in the House of Commons that he pretends.
  The right hon. Gentleman gave us a rather selective lecture on the history of these matters, going back to Queen Anne. I do not mind the Government sweeping away Measures operating, introduced or embellished in the days of Queen Anne, but, looking over the history, as I did somewhat to equip myself for this debate. I found one Measure which existed in the days of Queen Anne which I would like my right hon. Friends to reintroduce. In the days of Queen Anne, there was the very agreeable system by which, in order to deal with the delinquencies of their predecessors, incoming Administrations impeached. It would be very agreeable to have that.
  Knowing that my right hon. Friends have many other things on their minds, it would be a very good thing if they resurrected the idea of a full-scale impeachment, when we could deal with this situation even more skilfully than we have. I say that especially to show right hon. Gentlemen opposite that I am not in any way prejudiced against

  1845
  Measures introduced or modified in the days of Queen Anne, because that was certainly a Measure which would have come in very handy in October, 1964.
  4.30 p.m.
  Having said that, there are, in my own opinion, some defects in the Bill. The setting up of the new Ministries is, I think, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Despite all that was said so tediously yesterday—and it was repeated so that we got the point of what they were trying to say—I seem to recall some important occasions in history when a new Ministry was set up, even though it caused difficulties in enlarging the numbers that had to be brought in to the Government, and even though it caused difficulties with the Civil Service. We were told by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday that the Civil Service was aghast at the consequences of the Bill before us, although, when I interrupted him and asked him to give one single instance of how they were aghast, he said that it was his opinion and that he had no evidence.
  There have been cases when the Civil Service has been aghast at what has been done—when all the orthodox people have thought that it should be done in a different way, when everyone has said, "You must not set up a new Ministry", because that would upset the whole patern and mosaic which they like to preserve in Whitehall—but when, in fact, the setting up of such a new Ministry has had beneficial consequences for the nation.
  Such an example was the establishment in 1940 of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Of course, the rest of Whitehall was up in arms. They said that it was outrageous to set up a new Ministry; that it had to be defined carefully. But when that Ministry was set up, there were no explanations given to the House of Commons such as hon. and right hon. Gentlemen were asking for throughout yesterday. They set up that Ministry to get on with the job.
  The Chairman: I think that the hon. Member is getting a little wide of the Amendment 'that we are discussing. He cannot cover the whole traverse of the policies of various Governments.
  Mr. Foot: I quite understand, Dr. King. I was amazed at your moderation.
  1846
  I thought that you might have interrupted me much earlier. I just wanted to put the argument I wish to present exactly in its proper perspective. I find that when one is to criticise one's own Government, it is always a good thing to say something nice about them at the start—it puts them in an unsuspecting mood.
  The main propositions for the Bill are perfectly legitimate. Some of us had the good fortune to listen to the right hon. Gentleman the previous Patronage Secretary yesterday. He made a very large hole in the Bill. I think that his criticism of the payment of Whips and the scale of payment of Whips is perfectly correct—not because I have anything against Whips. I think that they are perfectly well in their place. They perform a reasonable function and we all know that the House of Commons could not function without them.
  Therefore, I am not making a gibe at them, but I think that the Government should have been more careful in considering the extension of the number of Whips who were to be paid. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is a strong case for saying that although it would be proper for the Government to extend the number of Whips who were to be paid, it also would be proper to combine that with a system of a number of Whips who were not paid. That is a question that I should like the Government to consider further. There again, Dr. King, I was merely setting the question in its proper perspective.
  I come to the question of the so-called numbers of placemen. The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech, quite truthfully, that there had been cases when there were many more Members of the House of Commons who were subservient to the Executive because of the payments they received, or were supposedly subservient on that account. There have been occasions when the proportionate numbers were much greater than they will be under this Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman was fair enough to say that that had happened in the latter days of Sir Robert Walpole. But, of course, there have been many more recent occasions when the numbers of Members of the House of Commons who were receiving incomes, or who were in other ways subordinate to the Executive, were much greater than is proposed under this Bill.

  1847
  When we examine the situation that occurred in the wartime Parliament, when we had a Coalition Government after 1940, and when we had representatives from all three parties in the Government and add together all those in the House of Commons who were, in one way or another, attached or beholdened to the Executive, the numbers were very much bigger. All this was tolerated with very little protest from hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn), I think, protested sometimes, and a few others, but in the wartime Parliament there were only a very small number of Members on either side who protested against the exorbitant growth of the Executive control over the House of Commons as a whole. Therefore, it makes me a bit sceptical about accepting at their face value some of the protests that hon. and right hon. Members opposite make, because when the power of the Executive was allowed to grow much greater they made no protest at all.
  Of course, they could argue that that was all due to the war and that was the reason why it was tolerated. But I think that it is as necessary to maintain the rights of Parliament in war time as it is in peace time. Indeed, the powers of Parliament and of the House of Commons that were retained in war time had, I think, an extremely beneficial effect on the conduct of the war, on the surveyance of the Executive generally, and in the preparation for the peace.
  Therefore, right hon. Gentlemen opposite, particularly the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who have been participating in the debates on this Bill, did not make any protest on this score during the wartime Parliament. Indeed, the right hon. and learned Gentleman supported, during that period, the Measures taken by the Executive to enlarge its authority. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and several others who were supporters of the Government at that time, not merely supported the proposition that many more Members of the House of Commons should be subordinate to the Executive—which is what they are criticising today—but they even passed the House of Commons Disqualification Act, which enabled the Prime Minister of that time to give a certificate to anybody he wanted, who was a Member of the House of
  1848
  Commons, to serve the Government somewhere else and cease to represent his constituents.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member's excellent speech. I am not fundamentally quarrelling with his description of my support for the Government during the war, but he will bear in mind that for two years and, in particular, the two years to which he was referring, I was a serving officer in the Middle East.
  Mr. Foot: I was not referring to the period when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was serving, I am sure with extreme gallantry, in the Middle East. I was referring to speeches which he made in this House, and I assure him that, however notable his services to our military victory, he was hardly making a military contribution when he made those speeches in the House.
  I read the speeches which the right hon. and learned Gentleman made on this subject, when strong protests were made by a tiny minority in the House against the enlargement of the power of the Executive. All I am saying is that the influence, the power and the oratory of the right hon. and learned Gentleman were thrown in the opposite scales in the debate yesterday.
  The right hon. Baronet, to whom I will give way in a minute, has a very long record in this matter, but, as far as I recall and from what I have read of the debates, his influence was thrown in a different direction. He was almost as critical of the Executive extending its power then as he is today, but if he wishes to correct that statement I will be glad to give way to him.
  Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: I am glad to have that testimonial. I was not the only righteous person. It is fair to remember the immense difficulty in conscience as well as in practical application of opposing a wartime Government, especially when, plainly, we were not winning the war. There was opposition, and there were modifications. The Bill to which we are referring, the "Winston" Bill, was opposed. A considerable number of people—almost all Tories, I think—opposed it. There are other instances, including the instance of Yalta. It is an unfair history of the war which has been given.
  Mr. Foot: I cannot give the whole history of the Second World War in a single sentence. However, anyone who listened to what I said will, I think, agree that I did not misrepresent the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman. I went out of my way to be fair to him. I did not say that he was the only righteous member of the House. I do not mind an occasional barbed compliment to him, but I will not talk such nonsense as that. He played his part, but there were several others, who did the same.
  It is not the case that it was only Conservative Members who played a part. The leading part taken in opposing the exorbitant power of the Executive in those days was taken by the previous Member for Ebbw Vale. The right hon. Gentleman, if he looks it up, will see that more persistently, although not more garrulously than himself, the former right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale opposed the Government on these matters.
  As it was not mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone, or even hinted at by the right hon. Member for Flint, West, in his attempt at a historical survey of the situation, it was perfectly proper for me to recall that there has been an occasion in recent history when the Executive enlarged its control over the House of Commons much more extensively than is being proposed by this Government; and it did it without a squeak of opposition from those who were so raucous yesterday. That is one argument.
  It does not mean, however, that because a previous House of Commons approved a larger number of people being subordinate to the Executive in the war-time Government we should approve the figures proposed today. Personally, I do not like this enlargement. I understand the reasons why it has been done. If one goes through the different Ministries which have been established, one can see why they have been set up. As I have said, although I cannot elaborate this matter on this new Clause, there is a very good case for the establishment of all the individual Ministries and for their being provided with Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministers of State.
  However, I think that the Government, although they will get the Bill, and
  1850
  although they have increased the numbers, should apply themselves to the problem of how they can reduce the numbers. They should not imagine that the extension in numbers is accepted readily on both sides of the Committee. This is something which should be conceded only to deal with the emergency situation which the Government came to power to deal with. Personally, I hope that steps will be taken over the months and years ahead to reduce the number of Ministers, to overhaul the whole position of Parliamentary Secretaries and to ensure that we do not have the vast proliferation of Parliamentary Private Secretaries, which is also unnecessary for the conduct of the affairs of the House of Commons.
  4.45 p.m.
  The reason why I object to this is the same as that which the right hon. Gentleman stated, although he has not a very good record in the matter. It is necessary that the independence of back-bench Members of the House of Commons should be protected. I want to see it done, but I am very doubtful whether right hon. and hon. Members opposite want to see it done, not only because in recent history they took no steps to sustain the case which they have been advancing in the past two days, but because the Government's proposal in the Bill, although it enlarges the number of Ministers as against back bench Members in the House of Commons—and I regard that as reprehensible—is coupled with a reform which should be accepted, approved and welcomed by those who wish to sustain the authority of the House of Commons.
  The Bill also restores to the House of Commons some of the authority which, by previous Measures, was, in my opinion, improperly transferred to the House of Lords. Previous Bills of this kind have insisted that a certain number of members of the Government shall be members of the House of Lords. Hon. Members opposite who pretend that they are so enthusiastic about protecting the rights of the House of Commons have never raised any squeal about this. They do not mind Clauses being put in a Bill which insist that there must be a certain number of Ministers in the House of Lords, however dunderheaded they may

  1851
  be. They never raise their voice on behalf of the House of Commons against the House of Lords. They are quite prepared to tolerate that. They never objected to the appointment of a Foreign Secretary in the House of Lords. They have never objected to the lack of balance in our Constitution whereby more powers were left in the House of Lords.
  Therefore, although I have criticisms of the Bill, which I have stated, I hope that the Government, over the next year or two—they will be in power for many years, so they can look to the future; I do not say that they can do everything in their first Parliament, but they must consider this in their second Parliament—will take steps to reduce the number of Ministers and the number of subordinate Ministers in different Departments. It would be good for the House of Commons and for the health of the country that they should do it. But I will not support those who, under cover of protecting the rights of the House of Commons, are seeking to protect the privileges of the House of Lords. If the right hon. Member for Flint, West had said one word in criticism of previous Measures which insisted that a certain number of members of the Government must be members of the House of Lords—if he had said one word in condemnation of that system—his argument would have been more powerful.
  Mr. Birch: The hon. Gentleman must have noticed that his own Prime Minister has just sent a number of his most priceless pearls to another place.
  Mr. Foot: I understand that. Because, like previous Prime Ministers, my right hon. Friend uses the House of Lords as a political convenience, it does not mean that I have to support him. I am opposed to that. What I am trying to unravel is the political principles on which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite oppose the Bill. I have stated the political principles on which I oppose it; they are quite clear.
  I want to sustain the authority of the House of Commons. But right hon. and hon. Members opposite do not want to do that. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the Prime Minister sending people to the House of Lords. Why does not
  1852
  he pluck up his courage and say one word in criticism of the provisions in previous Statutes which insist that a Prime Minister must have a certain proportion of Ministers in the House of Lords?
  Mr. Hogg: Will the hon. Member cite those Statutes in detail?
  Mr. Foot: I shall not be caught out on a silly old lawyer's trick like that.
  Mr. Hogg: I may be a silly old lawyer, although whether that is an exactly Parliamentary description the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General are better qualified to judge than I. The point is that I was not aware of that particular statute. As I understand, the whole of this series of Measures are designed to specify not which Ministers, or what number of Ministers, should be in the House of Lords, but only that no more than so many should be in the House of Commons.
  Mr. Foot: I hope that if I were indulging in direct abuse of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, which is often very tempting, I would call him something more apt than merely a silly old lawyer. I did not call him a silly old lawyer. I said that it was a silly old lawyer's trick, which is a very different matter. It applies to all lawyers. William Hazlitt, the greatest journalist ever to sit in the Press Gallery of the House, said that the one thing that gave him respect for the House of Commons was its contempt for lawyers here. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention fortifies me in that view.
  Everyone knows that one of the main reasons why the Government had to go ahead with this Measure was because, as the practice operated—I do not care about the language or which Statute it happened to be in—it insisted that a certain number or proportion of members of the Government had to be in the House of Lords. That was the practical effect of the Measure which is being partly altered by the Bill.
  If right hon. Members opposite had had the slightest interest in genuinely protecting the rights of the House of Commons, they would at least have welcomed that part of the Bill. Therefore, their opposition on this Clause is as hypocritical as was their opposition

  1853
  on the previous Clauses. It may be a sad disillusionment to them that they can expect no support in the Division Lobby from me in this matter. They must make much a better case than they have done so far to win such a prize as that. I hope that this relieves their minds, because we all know that the last thing they want is a General Election. I have, therefore, put them out of their misery by the same stroke as I put the Government out of theirs. I have delighted the whole Committee.
  I hope, however, that despite the utterly frivolous and incompetent manner in which hon. Members opposite have conducted their opposition to the Bill, despite their blundering from one mare's nest to another, despite their utterly contemptible attacks upon my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who yesterday put the case brilliantly and skilfully and who gave right hon. Members opposite exactly the retorts they deserved—despite all this, I hope the Government will not be distracted from listening to the still, small voice of reason which urges them to understand that the enlargement of the numbers of the Government is something which they should watch carefully and that, as soon as they have been able to put our balance of payments crisis in order and deal with all the other disasters that were left on their doorstep, they will turn their minds to this matter, look up the speech which I am now making, remove the parts of it which I had to interpolate to squash the Opposition, but recognise the wisdom of what I say.
  Mr. J. Grimond: I can only presume that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) is looking forward to being a Minister of State in the Duchy when new Ministers of State are appointed. If he does not want the company of his own side of the House of Commons or, I gather, of the Tories, we will be delighted to have him. It was unwise for the Prime Minister not to have found a nook or cranny in the Administration for the hon. Member. There must still be jobs to be given away. I can only think it must be because the Prime Minister desires to have one member of the ruling Labour family on the back benches. Or it may be that the hon. Member will find
  1854
  himself in the other place. There have been some remarkable appointments there, including members of the hon. Member's family and, indeed, of mine who have lately arrived there.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has put us in great difficulty over the Bill. For my part, I am more than willing to consider changes in the machinery of government, I am more than willing to consider an overall increase in the number of members of the Government, but I am terrified by the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman. Yesterday, many of us came here very much in favour of the Ministry of Overseas Development, but by the time that the Chancellor finished with it, it was extremely difficult for even the most passionate upholder of it to vote for it. Today, therefore, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is in better form after a long night's rest and will return to his usual precision and general attitude that any Government should be examined when they are in any way paving the way for vast expenditure of public money and a considerable increase in personnel.
  I must return again to the justifications as given on Second Reading for this increase in the number of Ministers. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was
  "to provide concentrations of activity and responsibility".
  Many of us think that the result may be to do exactly the opposite, that so far from concentrating activity and responsibility it may actually dissipate it. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was
  "directed to the objective of providing modern government to deal with the complexities of modern life … As I remarked the other day, we are the Government now. The frame-work of Government and the reorganisation of the machinery of government, subject to the approval of this House, must meet the desires of the Government of the day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th November. 1964; Vol. 702, c. 751.]
  With all respect to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, that is not the only criterion. Certainly, the desires of the Government of the day and what they want to do are one criterion, but it is also important to realise that any changes of this sort affect the relationship of the Legislature to the Executive and have effects throughout the structure of Government. Therefore, it is not enough

  1855
  for the Government simply to say that they want jobs for these people and that they will create them. They must take into account the effect upon the House of Commons and upon the whole structure of our political life.
  Furthermore, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is a bad principle of administration first to find the people whom they want to employ and then to discuss the jobs for them. There needs to be first some sort of job specification as to what these people will do. In fact, however, the Government have set about it the other way round. They have made these appointments under the Prerogative and, even now, we are told that only at a future date, when Orders are laid, will we have any opportunity of discussion.
  The effect upon the House of Commons has been touched upon. The objection is not the old one that the Crown would send people to the House to exert direct influence upon it. That is not the objection which weighs with us today. The objection is that 130 Members on the Government side are now subject to Government control, that this upsets the balance within the House of Commons as a whole and, saving the presence of many distinguished Members opposite who are not in the Government, that a great concentration of talent on the Government side is muzzled. We saw that clearly yesterday. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is the first Member from the Government side who has spoken in the whole of this debate upon the substance of this important Bill, which is important not only to the Opposition, but to every hon. Member.
  I agree that this is a serious matter. On previous occasions when there has been a big increase of this nature, it has been customary often to set up a committee to discuss either particular aspects of the machinery of government or the whole matter. It is time again for further consideration of the whole relationship of the House of Commons to the Government and of the machinery of government in general.
  At the moment, however, all we can do is to look at the list of offices and make up our minds whether the increase is justified. Glancing down the list quickly, we have a Secretary of State for Wales. My party advocated such an
  1856
  appointment and we are pleased to see it, but the holder of this office seems to have extremely little to do and it is difficult to ascertain his functions.
  There is a Minister without Portfolio, who is to do something about legal matters. Again, I am wholly in favour of legal reform, but we have four Law Officers already in the Government. Over the page of this document concerning the Government we still have a Secretary of State for the Colonies and one for Commonwealth Relations as well as the new Department of Overseas Development.
  5.0 p.m.
  I would feel now that these Departments might well have been reduced to two, if not one. Further, there might be some Departments of Government which could be abolished. The Chancellor of the Duchy, in his Second Reading speech, drew my attention to remarks made by the Prime Minister over the air. I thought that there was something familiar about this, and then realised that I had taken part in this discussion.
  The Prime Minister, who was then Leader of the Opposition, at one point said:
  "We should, of course, be saving in one or two Ministers—"
  and the interviewer. Mr. Norman Hunt, said, "Such as?". The Leader of the Opposition said:
  "I do not think that a Labour Prime Minister would want to have a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster."
  No wonder the right hon. Gentleman has been fighting so hard.
  This is not quite the whole story. He described the Chancellor of the Duchy as
  "… doing nothing at the taxpayer's expense but looking after the Conservative Party, or even the Labour Party, in a Labour Government."
  Then he went on to deal with Cabinet Ministers dealing with information and said:
  "You would save two Cabinet Ministers right away on that."
  The Chancellor has drawn our attention to this statement. He described it as constructive and sober. I wonder how it appears to him now.
  I should have thought that there may be some saving to be made. There seems

  1857
  to be a sudden inflation in the offices of Government. The Office of Minister of State was, until lately, very little used at all. There were 11 in the last Government and there are now 19. For a time, I understand that the Government thought that there were 18, but they discovered another one, so there are now 19. This seems to be very much like upgrading upgrading of members of the Diplomatic Service to be ambassadors. It will probably continue until practically the whole Government are Secretaries of State. I should have thought that this, too, is something the House of Commons should watch.
  Again, during the Second Reading debate, the Chancellor of the Duchy said that it did not very much matter that the Herbert Committee had said that if only 10 per cent. of Members of the House were members of the Government this was all right. The Government were only proposing 14½ per cent. It is the effect upon the Government side of the House which matters and it is, as has been pointed out, the number of private secretaries and the other people who, today, even if they are not active Members of the Government are closely associated with it, they cannot bring independent criticism upon its doings.
  The Attorney-General was described late last night as a "would-be dictator". I have never taken that view of the Attorney-General. I do not think that it is strictly true. In their treatment of the House, however, over the Bill, the Government have certainly given me the impression that they did not think that the House of Commons should be informed. I am not talking about details of policies of Ministries, but I do not believe that either the Attorney-General or the Chancellor of the Duchy have gone out of their way to inform the House of Commons why these Ministeries are necessary. Not even a reasonable case has been made out.
  I certainly came to these debates agreeing that some reform of government was necessary, agreeing that there were new functions to be proposed, but feeling that there may be old functions which are no longer so important, and feeling, too, that while we are creating new Ministers we might well streamline the whole process of Government. It might well be that, so far from creating new Ministries, we might bring some old ones under a common umbrella. I do not think that
  1858
  this has been dealt with by the Government at all. I hope that today we are to get from the Chancellor rather more than he told us in the debate on Second Reading. I do not believe that the House of Commons should accept the steady increase from 47 Members of the Government at the time of the Herbert Committee's Report—60 were said to be permissible, but there were only 47—to 70 to 91. If it is to be 91, I do not accept the Chancellor's view that the House must accept 91, merely because the Prime Minister has 91 people for whom he wants to find jobs. What the House should be concerned about is that there are 91 jobs to be done, not that this Administration is creating jobs and then finding people to do them.
  We are coming to the end of the Bill. The whole argument has run right through it that the House has no desire to thwart the Government in any legitimate job, but the Government have to explain to the House of Commons that there is a job to be done. If they say that there is a job to be done in this way, they must take not only the wishes of the Government into account but their effect on the House and, finally, that it is the job, and not the people for the job, which is the first consideration.
  Mr. Ian Percival: I want to invite the Committee into some rather narrower fields than those through which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) so entertainingly cantered a short while ago. They are, none the less, directly—I would say even more directly—connected with the limit which we are discussing. I am afraid that in view of the hon. Member's contempt for lawyers he may find it hard to bear, but I hope that he will suffer it with fortitude.
  On a number of occasions the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General has assured the House and the Committee that all that has been done has been done lawfully. Of course, I do not doubt for a moment that that is his view, but, equally, I do not doubt that he would readily agree that there are some difficult questions of law involved in this Bill.
  I want to seek some information and guidance on some of the points which, I suggest, are relevant to the question of the limit with which we are now dealing. As these points are technical and time is

  1859
  short, I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I make frequent reference to notes in the interests both of precision and speed. The starting point is this. The Attorney-General told the House on Second Reading that there are 87 Ministers now sitting in this House, whereas the limit as previously understood was 70. He explained that, of these, 22 did not count, leaving 65 who did. Of these 65, 26 were in part I and 39 in part II of the Schedule to the Act of 1957.
  As to the 22, the Attorney-General said on Second Reading:
  "At present there as 87 Members of this House holding office in the Government, but I shall endeavour to explain why it is not an infringement of the limit of the 70 prescribed by the Act. It is because 22 of them hold offices which are not specified in the Schedule and 18, including the Assistant Whips, have agreed to serve without remuneration."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th November, 1964; Vol. 702, c. 647–8.]
  As I understand, those two points are directly related. The Attorney-General is saying that there are 18 who, if they were paid, would come within the definition of Ministers of State and would be included in the Schedule, but, because they are not paid, those 18 are not included. As to the other four, he merely says that they are not specified in the Schedule and the question of payment is not relevant to them. We hope that he will answer questions asked about these four. The Attorney-General has been kind enough to answer in full a very detailed request for particulars which I delivered to him. He sent me an answer in a document which looks very much like a football pool, though I mean no disrespect to him in saying that.
  The Attorney-General: I think that that is how I described it in my letter to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
  Mr. Percival: That is how the Attorney-General described it and I can think of no document so like a football pool which I have understood so well. I am obliged to him for it, because it is very clear and I will base what I have to say upon it, but, for the sake of brevity, I will not refer to it in detail.
  I should like to draw attention, first of all, to the position of the four Ministers in respect of whom no point is taken on the question of remuneration. These are
  1860
  the Minister of Overseas Development and the Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry and the Minister of Land and Natural Resources and the Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry. I take these from the Schedule given to me by the Attorney-General.
  First, may I say a word about the Minister of Overseas Development. We learned last night that functions have in fact been transferred to this Minister. This has been done under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act, 1946, which provides for such transfers to be by Order in Council. The Act also provides that the Order in Council may provide for the modification of Schedule 2 to the Act of 1957 to allow for the change which has been brought about by the Order.
  In every other similar case in which I can find that this has been done, in the Order in Council transferring the functions there is a common form provision which makes sure that on the change of name which usually results, that name is added to the Schedule. I therefore looked at the Minister of Overseas Development Order (No. 1) expecting to find that common form provision or similar in it. Of course, if that common form or similar provision had been in it, adding the Minister of Overseas Development and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Schedule, that would have increased the numbers to whom these limits applied to 27 in the case of part I and 66 in total. It is, therefore, surprising to find no such provision whatever included in the Minister of Overseas Development Order (No. 1)—and this is the only Order of this kind which I can find where such a provision has not been included.
  I should like to ask the Attorney-General these questions: was that an oversight or was it deliberate? If it were an oversight, how did it come to be left out in this one case when it is so plain that the very subject is under discussion in the House and is of such importance? If it were deliberate, was it done so that these two Ministers should not be added to the numbers to which the limit applies? If it were not for that reason, what was the reason? Is it intended that this should be only temporary and that, as soon as the Bill has been passed, an Order will be laid bringing these two Ministers into the

  1861
  Schedule? Unless such an Order is made they will never be brought into the Schedule.
  Finally, would the Chancellor of the Duchy and the Attorney-General not think that the most appropriate form would be for an Order in the common form, as adapted to this case, to be laid immediately so that these people who are Ministers, and who are exercising functions which have been transferred to them, are in the Schedule?
  Sir D. Glover: Ought it not to be done before Report?
  Mr. Percival: I have not asked for it to be done for Report. I asked the Attorney-General to consider laying such an Order immediately. If that can be done before Report, so much the better. It would be a short Order. I am suggesting for the consideration of the Government that it should be laid as speedily as possible. I agree with my hon. Friend. If that cannot be done in time to have it before us on Report, at least the Government ought to consider whether the Report stage ought to be deferred just long enough for them to take this step.
  Next, I want to say a word about the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. Here, again, the Attorney-General does not seek to exclude them on the ground of non-payment. They are excluded on the ground that they are not specified in the Schedule. No point has been taken on remuneration so far. If we are seeking to exclude these people on the narrower ground that they are not specified in the Schedule, it is necessary to have a better look at the position.
  I suggest to the Attorney-General and to the Chancellor of the Duchy that if one excludes the question of payment it is plain that both these gentleman are within the definiton of Minister of State; neither is in charge of a Department and neither holds an office specified in the Schedule. One therefore cannot exclude them, as the Government have attempted to do, simply on the ground that they are not specified in the Schedule, because they are in fact specified by definition. This brings the numbers up to a total
  1862
  of 67 and 28 in Part I, which is over the limit of Part or, if the Minister of Overseas Development were brought in, to a total of 67 and 29 in Part I.
  May I next invite the Committee's attention to the question of the 18 who are said to be excluded because they are not paid? I suggest to the Government that in respect of these 18 they have their figures wrong and should look at them again. First, I draw attention to the fact that the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy has been excluded. I dare say that is because in the House we regard him more as a Minister of State, but the line which has been taken on the Bill by the Government is that it does not matter what one thinks a Minister is; one must look simply at the Schedule and at the precise wording of it. If a person is within those precise words, he counts, and if he is not, then he does not count.
  5.15 p.m.
  Further to that consideration, I suggest that the Government cannot have it both ways. I submit that the Minister of Defence is plainly within the terms of the Schedule. All it says is "Minister of Defence"; it does not say "The Minister of Defence". It is clear that if I appoint a Minister of State and call him Minister of State "for Foreign Affairs", the fact that I include the words "for Foreign Affairs" does not have the result that he ceases to be a Minister of State. If I appoint a Minister of Defence, the fact that I add the words "for the Royal Navy" makes no difference; for the purpose of the Act he does not cease to be a Minister of Defence.
  In any of these references to Ministers one could, of course, have any number of Ministers. One could have two Ministers of Science and two Ministers of Agriculture, if the Prime Minister saw fit to appoint them. If there were two Ministers of Science or two Ministers of Agriculture they would both count, because those are generic terms. There is no "the" or "a" in front of them.
  Here, the short fact is that the Minister of Defence for the Army and the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy come clearly within the wording of "Minister of Defence". If this addition is made the total becomes 69, and 29 in Part I of the Schedule; or 70 and 30 in Part I, if we

  1863
  include the Minister of Overseas Development.
  Finally, I want to ask one or two questions about the position of the Minister of State. Here, again, if the Committee forgives me, I will refer frequently to my notes. Precision is required here, and I am trying to be both quick and clear on the points on which I am seeking guidance. It has been said from time to time that Section 13(1) of the Act of 1957 is the statutory authority for paying a Minister of State. It has been said that this authorises payment of an unlimited number and an unspecified and unlimited salary. It has been said many times, and I need not refer to the occasions on which it has been said.
  I do not challenge what the Attorney-General said at 3 a.m. or thereabouts this morning—that this is how it has always been regarded by Parliament. But one can only assert, and accept that by putting upon Section 13(1) and the references to Minister of State a construction which leads to that result. In saying that Section 13(1) is the authority for payment, does it not follow of necessity that the Government are saying that these provisions are to be construed as meaningless and that if a person has been appointed Minister of State he has by definition been appointed at a salary, and that that is the Parliamentary authority for the payment of that salary?
  I am interested to know what other construction leads to the suggested result. I tried early this morning to have the opportunity to listen to another construction which would produce the result. I am suggesting that if Section 13(1) is to be treated as the statutory authority one must put that construction upon it. I say again, is that not the only way of construing this definition for payment as the authority for payment, that is to say, by construing it as meaning that the appointment as a Minister of State is automatically an appointment at a salary, in fact that an appointment at a salary is mandatory? There is nothing surprising about that, because Clause 2(1,b) of the Bill itself makes the payment of the salary mandatory, in more specific terms it is true, but the only way that I can see at the
  1864
  moment of construing Section 13(1) as being the authority for payment is by construing it in that same way.
  It is to be observed that in most cases one might perhaps ask, "How could you have a mandatory payment of a salary the amount of which is left to the discretion of someone else?" That is not my problem but the Government's problem. That is exactly what Clause 2(1,b) of this Bill does. It makes the payment of salary mandatory and leaves someone else to fix it. I suggest that the only way that one can construe Section 13(1) as authority for paying Ministers of State—and paying an unlimited number an unlimited amount—is by placing that construction on it.
  If that is so, will not the right hon. and learned Attorney-General agree that a Minister of State cannot cease to be a Minister of State merely because he agrees to serve without remuneration? Is that not trying to balance the coin on both sides at the same time? I respectfully suggest to the Government that this matter needs to have another careful look taken at it, and it may be that if the Government were inclined to lay the Order for which I have asked either before Report that would give the opportunity to consider these points as well.
  Even that, however, is not the only point which arises on Ministers of State in the context in which we are discussing them, because, even if that were wrong, it would still be necessary to know the precise terms on which each Minister of State was appointed before one could form an opinion as to whether they exclude him from the Schedule or not. There are no documents available to give us guidance on the matter. I understand that the only documents referring to appointments are HANSARD and the records kept at No. 10 Downing Street. There is no record available to Members of the House. Therefore, I think that the Committee should be given a little more information on the point, and I will endeavour to assist in that by defining the information which I have in mind.
  First of all, it has often been said in the course of our debates that Ministers of State can be and are to be appointed at different rates of pay. Therefore, I would like to ask one of the Government

  1865
  spokesmen whether those Ministers of State who are said to be excluded were informed at the time of their appointment what would be the rate of pay applicable to them and for how long they agreed to serve without receiving it. Were they told, in effect, "You will have to serve without that pay until we can authorise it, but we will put through a Bill as quickly as we can to authorise it."? If they were not told that, what were they told?
  The Chancellor a the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Houghton): What the hon. and learned Gentleman says seems to be the common sense of the matter.
  Mr. Percival: I rather think that they must have been told the rate which was to be applicable to them and that it would be paid to them as soon as it could be authorised.
  Mr. Houghton indicated assent.
  Mr. Percival: The right hon. Gentleman says that that is what happened, that they were told the rate which they were to be paid and that it would be paid to them as soon as it could be authorised. Perhaps when the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General replies he will say whether he considers that that is not an appointment at a salary, because, I suggest to him, that if a person is told that the rate of pay applicable to him is, say, £4,500 and that he cannot have it for the moment because the Statute does not authorise it, hut that as soon as a Bill has been put through he will, that is an appointment at a salary.
  I should be interested to hear why that is not an appointment at a salary, because if those were the terms of appointment then the Government really may be in trouble. If they were—and I have recited the terms as indicated to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and he has not indicated any dissent from my summary of them—then these people, I suggest, were plainly appointed at a salary. If so they are all within the Schedule and the "excess" of Ministers appears to run into double figures.
  I would only add that even if they had not been appointed on those terms and even if there had not been any reference to salaries, it would only be if we
  1866
  could be assured that there was not even an implied obligation to pay them that one could seek to exclude these persons by saying that they were not appointed at a salary.
  In view of the understanding as to time, I have endeavoured to put these points as briefly as possible. I hope and believe that it will be plain, from the attention which the Chancellor of the Duchy and the Attorney-General have both kindly and courteously given to them, that these points were put forward only after prolonged consideration of the statutes in question. I hope that I have done justice to them, although I have tried to run through them far more quickly than I should like to have done, because I think it of great importance to the Committee and the House that when we are considering a new limit we should have some idea of how the present limit has worked in practice so that we can form some assessment of the effect of the new limit which is proposed.
  Also, I respectfully suggest to right hon. Gentlemen on the Government Front Bench that this point raises some very serious questions as to the qualifications of a substantial number of Ministers who sit and vote in the House. We all accept that anyone can make mistakes. Let us accept for a moment that this was done in good faith—I do not question that—but I would suggest that if it appears at any stage that there is some doubt whether some Ministers are entitled to sit and vote in the House that is a matter which the Government should take time to consider carefully rather than simply try to hustle the Bill through.
  I hope that we shall receive today some answers on these points. The right hon. Gentleman has kindly given me the answer to one of the questions, but even now the Government might think it right to take time to consider these questions and whether there are not, in fact, a substantial number of Ministers in the House who are not entitled to be here.
  5.30 p.m.
  The Attorney-General: I will first deal with some of the matters of law which were referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival). The point which must be emphasised in the approach to this

  1867
  problem is that the numerical limits which are imposed by the 1957 Act apply only to holders of the Ministerial offices listed in the Second Schedule of that Act. Consequently, any appointment to a Ministerial post not listed in the Schedule does not count against the statutory limits.
  That means that the Government do not exceed the statutory limits if they appoint, firstly, Ministers in charge of Departments which are not specifically named in the Schedule—that is, the new Ministries in this case—and secondly, Ministers who are not in charge of, or in, Departments named in the Schedule, so long as they are not appointed at a salary. Of the Ministers with whom we are concerned, it is not correct to say, as the hon. and learned Member for Southport said, that there are 18 Ministers of State who are unpaid. The total number of Ministers not being paid, and if they were paid would be Ministers of State, is 20. These 20 Ministers were appointed without salary. They were not appointed at a salary. They have drawn no salary. They are today drawing no salary. Therefore, they are not Ministers of State within the definition of that term in Section 13, which in turn governs the reference to the words "Minister of State" in the Schedule. I am satisfied that no illegality has been committed by the Government in this matter.
  On the question of the Statutory Instrument, the Transfer of Functions Order only amends Schedule 2 of the 1957 Act when it is a necessary consequence of the other provisions of that Order. The Minister of Overseas Development (No. 1) Order, to which reference has been made, does not transfer all the functions of the Secretary for Technical Co-operation to the new Ministry. His office continues to exist and, therefore, there is no need or justification for substituting a reference to the Minister of Overseas Development for references to him in Schedule 2 of the 1957 Act. In my submission, there is no question of illegality in regard to what the Government have done, and the statutory limits have not been exceeded.
  Mr. Grimond: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman clear up one
  1868
  point? I understand his contention to be that Ministers of State are not Ministers of State for the purpose of the 1957 Act because they were not paid. Can he say what they were, because I can find no other definition of "Minister of State" except as someone who draws a salary? Were they Ministers of State or were they not Ministers of State?
  The Attorney-General: They were Ministers but not Ministers of State within the meaning of the 1957 Act. They are Ministers appointed under the Prerogative as Ministers. They were and are Ministers, but they are not Ministers of State within the meaning of Section 13, first, because they were not appointed at a salary and, secondly, because they are not in charge of any public Department. They are, consequently, Ministers within Departments. Therefore, these two categories of Ministers—those in charge of Departments which, because they are new, are not specifically named in the Schedule, and, secondly, Ministers not in charge of Departments and not paid—do not count against the statutory limit.
  Sir Peter Rawlinson: If these Ministers are not Ministers of State, what has been the position in regard to their Parliamentary salaries during the past two months? Have they been paid £750 as Ministers or have they received their salaries as Members of Parliament?
  The Attorney-General: I will take instructions on that because I cannot give an immediate answer. At any rate, what is certain is that they have not been drawing salaries as Ministers. Indeed, it may be that they have been drawing a lesser sum than they might be entitled to as Members of Parliament. I asked for assistance and have been told that they have been drawing their Parliamentary salaries in full as Members of Parliament. I am happy to receive that answer because there might have been some difficulties in an applied admission of a different status. I am reassured to hear it because, if I recollect aright, that is the advice I gave at an earlier stage in this matter.
  In view of the time I have been asked to try to speed up my observations.
  Mr. Percival: I, too, tried to speed up my observations. The trouble is that things keep emerging to change the situation. Is it not a fact that Parliament provides that a Minister shall draw only a proportion of his salary? Thus, if these Gentleman have been drawing £750, by Statute the £750 paid to them can be regarded as Members' pay while the rest must be regarded as pay for something else.
  The Attorney-General: They have been drawing salaries as Members of Parliament. They have been performing their duties as Ministers without salary and they have been merely drawing the income to which they are entitled as Members of Parliament. They have in recent weeks been engaged in heavy labours on the basis of merely drawing their salaries as Members of Parliament. I should have thought that all hon. Members would be grateful to them for the sacrifices they have been making.
  I will move on to what I have understood to be the points of substance. When moving the Second Reading I ventured to suggest that this was a technical Measure involving no question of constitutional principle. I adhere, without apology or withdrawal, to that view. The provision which the Opposition Amendment we are discussing seeks to delete does two things. It is a provision which removes the limit of 27 on the number of senior Ministers who may sit in the House of Commons and it raises from 70 to 91 the limit on the number of Ministers of all grades who may sit here. I submit that there is no question of principle involved in either of those operations.
  As to the limit of 27, we have heard practically nothing about it in the course of either the Second Reading or Committee debates. It first appeared in our law in 1957 and nothing was said about it in the debates in the House of Commons at that time. It was not canvassed in the Herbert Committee Report and if it is a constitutional principle of importance, it has indeed come into being in a very strange way.
  It has been said that the object of the provision in regard to the limit of 27 is to ensure that a certain number of senior posts shall be held by Ministers who sit in another place. As I pointed out on Second Reading, the Statutory provisions
  1870
  in the 1957 Act certainly do not achieve that result, and my hon. Friends and I do not recognise any constitutional principle which makes it desirable that that result should be achieved; namely, that a certain number of senior posts shall be held by Ministers in another place.
  I indicated that the existing law was defective to achieve that result, if that was intended. In our view, the right constitutional principle is that, as far as possible, the heads of the great Departments of State should be members of this House, where they can be answerable for what they have done, and for their Departments, to the elected representatives of the people. We deem that to be the overriding principle.
  The right hon. Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch) engaged in some curious arithmetic over the limit of 91. He contended that about half the members of the Labour Party in the House of Commons are now members of the Administration. His intellectual brilliance is known to and admired by us all, but it does not extend to simple arithmetic. There are 317 Members on this side of the Chamber, and the totality of members of the Government, paid or unpaid, Ministers or P.P.S.'s is 116. How 116 is made a half of 317, I do not quite follow.
  The fact is that if we approach the matter from the point of constitutional principle we are confronted with two of the three principles dealt with by the Herbert Committee. The first is undoubtedly the principle that there is need to limit, by preventing an undue proportion of office holders from being members of this House, the control that the Executive may have over the House of Commons. We accept that, which is why, instead of simply abolishing altogether the statutory limit of 70 in the 1957 Act, as we might have done, we have altered it to 91.
  We have, however, to balance against that principle the other emphasised by the Herbert Committee, namely, the provision that a certain number of Ministers should be members of this House so as to ensure the control of the Executive by Parliament. When one looks at all the facts and realities of the matter one finds that, in practice, the situation we have in the new Administration differs very little

  1871
  from that which existed in the previous Administration.
  The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) is with us merely in the body but not in the mind at the moment, enjoying a no doubt well-earned repose on the Opposition Front Bench, and I find it really a cruel act to disturb him—I do now apologise to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but as I was about to refer to some of his weekend observations upon this matter, I thought it as well that he should hear me.
  The right hon. and learned Member is an occasional contributor to the Sunday newspapers, writing articles no doubt intended to make the flesh of the public creep. He made the point in a weekend article recently that the control exercised by the Executive by virtue of its patronage is also effective over those who hold unpaid office. Indeed, he put it almost on a parity of potential control and influence; that unpaid hangers-on, or whatever other elegant language he used, are just as susceptible to influence and control as the paid ones. If that is so it strengthens my point, because the following is the factual numerical position.
  The number of members of the previous Tory Administration in the House of Commons holding paid and unpaid offices—and I include in the number the Parliamentary Private Secretaries—was 110. The number now is 116. So the area of great constitutional principle that we have been debating all night is the difference btween 110 and 116. It is, of course, 116 out of 317 as long as this Parliament lasts but, of course, that proportion will be rectified in the next General Election. In any case, is it really to be said that the size of an Administration should depend on the numerical strength of the Government party in the House of Commons? That is a very remarkable constitutional doctrine.
  5.45 p.m.
  I submit that the true basis of the whole constitutional approach should be for the Government to decide what Ministers they require for the machinery of Government to be properly operated—for the Government to work efficiently—and then to ask for full Parliamentary authority for any changes in the machinery of Government.
  1872
  While we are dealing with this matter, I should like to make a further factual point. The overall totality of office holders in the present Administration—Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in this House and in another place—is 137. The total in the Tory Administration was 133. The country has therefore been treated to massive humbug in the approach that there is some tremendous departure from a basic democratic principle. There is nothing of the kind.
  This is nothing more than a piece of machinery. This Bill is no more than a piece of machinery, and it has never even begun to be anything else in spite of attempts by right hon. and hon. Members opposite to make a great constitutional issue of it—
  Mr. Ian Gilmour: Can the Attorney-General say definitely, in relation to his figure of 116 in this House, that all Parliamentary Private Secretaries have been appointed, or do a good many more remain to be appointed?
  The Attorney-General: I am told that all have been appointed. As I speak for the Government in this matter I do not need to say by whom, but I am told that particular care has been taken to avoid enlargement of the numbers of Parliamentary Private Secretaries in order to avoid any realistic basis for a complaint that something different is being done in this Administration as compared with the last one.
  I submit that there is a certain element of insult in the Opposition's approach to the matter. The suggestion of the corruptibility of Members of this House in this year of 1964 that is implicit in the criticisms that have been made is an unwarrantable one but, in any event, the Government accept the principle that there should be a limit on the numbers of Ministers in this House, and that limit has been placed at 91 in this Bill. The difference between 91 and 70 constitutes no difference of principle. I submit that the Government have throughout acted in this matter both lawfully and constitutionally, and I accordingly invite the Government to reject the Amendment.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I think what we have just heard must at least suffice to persuade the Committee—

  1873
  I could have wished that it were a more numerous Committee—to persuade the Committee that it would be very wrong to part with this Bill this day. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and his right hon. Friend were given ample warning of these points on Second Reading. At that time they waved them away as inconsiderable. They have been reminded of them since. They made no attempt whatever to answer them.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman simply begged the question about whether the use of a name not appearing in the old Schedule sufficed and had nothing whatever to say about these other categories which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) said ought to have been deducted from the legitimate Ministerial strength in this House. If I may say so without appearing to patronise my betters, my hon. and learned Friend's speech was a model of succinct completeness and of continuous clarity. It deserved a continuous argument in answer. It has had nothing of the sort.
  If I were to criticise my hon. and learned Friend, it would be for being over moderate, because even if it were provable that none of these Ministers—the Ministers of State is the point I am on now—enjoyed as a result of appointment any emolument direct or indirect, or any hope of emolument, even if all that were proved, it would be a very long way—the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows this perfectly well—from showing that they were not holding offices of profit. This is an enormously difficult, Byzantine and metaphysical question. What is an office of profit at the moment? I would not explain it to the Committee. I have heard it explained by experts, incidentally before both Select Committees referred to today, but I would not dare without special briefing to explain it. It is a very difficult question indeed, and to enter upon this Bill without having found out absolutely certainly about this seems to be a constitutional outrage which is almost unprecedented.
  The Attorney-General: Will the right hon. Member allow me to remind him of the fact that the 1957 Act substituted for the conception of an office of profit a list embodied in the Schedule of Ministers who were described, described pre-
  1874
  cisely and clearly, so as to eliminate this agonising appraisal—which, I entirely agree, was a difficult one—of what constituted an office of profit. That exercise has been done, and what has been done by the Government is in full accord with consideration of the Ministries listed in the Schedule.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I fully understand that. I fully understood it at the time of the Select Committee and when we passed the Bill. I have fully understood it throughout, but it does not meet my point. Why does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think it necessary to persuade the Committee that Ministers of State have received no payment? Unless it is in some sense some vestige of the old verbiage, it means nothing at all. Why are they not being paid?
  The Attorney-General: Because if they had been paid they would be holding an office listed in the Schedule and would count against the limit. That is the simple answer. I have given it many times.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: Exactly, and that is what I am saying. Whether they have been paid for that purpose is as difficult a question and a closely similar and connected question as I would be willing almost to argue, if I had provided myself, with time and reference as nearly identical with that question which the right hon. and learned Gentleman rebuked me for getting wrong. Either they are paid or they are not paid. Either they are Ministers of State or they are not. We were told that they were Ministers of State. When did they cease to be Ministers of State? Why did they take oaths? How do they perform their duties if they are not Ministers?
  The Attorney-General: If the hon. baronet is seeking assistance such as I can give, they are not Ministers of State within the meaning of the phrase, "Ministers of State" in the 1957 Act. That is the simple and clear position.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: The simpler and clearer position is that the Statute of 1957 said that if one wanted to be a Minister of State one had to fulfil three conditions—two of them negative and irrelevant at this moment—one positive, which was to be paid. That is what the Statute tells us about what makes a Minister of State—he has to be paid. And

  1875
  I say that I guess a man who is appointed by a Prime Minister to be Minister of State is a paid Minister whether or not he is taking the money at that moment or not.
  The only point on which I criticise my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport—the only other point—is that he very kindly did not emphasise the effects if he is right. I do not promise that he is. Throughout this matter I have been interrogative. I have known that these are very difficult things to understand, but if my hon. and learned Friend is anything like right the Government have not anything like a majority in this House. If that is so, what happens next? I do not know which hon. Members have looked at this. It is such a pity that we have abolished the common informer. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman who is so much amused have been so sure and confident in his law if there were a common informer in the bar downstairs?
  The Attorney-General indicated assent.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I hope so. I am not sure whether it will be outside the bounds of Parliamentary order if I were to say, I hope so with difficulty.
  There was some slight consolation given to those of us who had a tender feeling for the common informer in the provision for consultation with the Privy Council. I mentioned this on Second Reading. I can see that it would be difficult for a Government to do it, but I cannot believe that legal ingenuity would make it difficult for a Government to do it. I still do not feel that the Committee could possibly with decency accept the argument we have heard this afternoon as making it clear that those Ministers above the number that the old Statute prescribes for sitting in this House are doing so not improperly and are capable of voting and have not in effect have strictly speaking, not voted yet and cannot until something more is done. This seems to be the situation into which we have got ourselves.
  Admitting that I—and, what is far more important, that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport who understands the law better than I do and has taken infinite trouble over this—admitting for argument sake that we may be wholly wrong and admitting that
  1876
  legally speaking, or legalistically speaking as he prefers, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General is wholly right, who could have listened to these debates, who could have read the Bill and heard the whole debate and then doubt that this was carrying legal chicanery far beyond the bounds of what one with the most ingenious vocabulary could utter in public?
  There are two Select Committees' Reports to be read. The assumption is that the object is to make a limit, and a limit which a ministerial sie volo cannot get round, to the number of placemen sitting in this House; there is that assumption over and over again. I could give lots of Socialist quotations to this effect. Over and over again that was admitted to be the purpose. When it comes to construing not only the Bill but the law as it was, and is, before the Bill, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's picture on Second Reading of what the law then was I will undertake to say bore no relation whatever to anything which anyone, including the present Home Secretary, had previously thought was the law.
  I need not remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman of Heydon's case in 1584. It is a very old and settled principle of the law that, if it is desired to make up one's mind what an Act means, one begins by seeing what the law was before, what was the mischief or defect for which remedy was sought, and then examine the remedy provided by Parliament. According to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the law as it stood before Second Reading was nothing whatever like we thought it was. According to him, the law is now going to be nothing whatever like we think it ought to be, because, according to his argument, there is no reason whatever why this Prime Minister or any other Prime Minister should not under their Bill's direction, whenever he chooses, appoint as many Ministers as he chooses.
  6.0 p.m.
  Sir Martin Redmayne: I am sure that the Committee is ready to come to a decision on the Amendment. Nothing that the learned Attorney-General said will keep my right hon. and hon. Friends out of the Lobby. What I want to concern myself with for a

  1877
  few moments is the position of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). He made an entertaining and cogent speech largely in support of the Amendment. Since at the same time he is falling over backwards to support the Government, I feel that he must still be firmly upright. I hope in a very few words to persuade him to swing that little bit more which would bring him happily into our Lobby.
  The feature of the subsection which has not had enough attention is not the one which limits the total number to 91 but that which prescribes a limit of 27 under Part I. This was abandoned by the Prime Minister. As a result, it has given him a most subtle range of rank and pay throughout the whole scale of the 91 Ministers. This runs, therefore, right the way through without any sort of barrier from the Assistant Whips, through the traditional Whips, through Parliamentary Secretaries, through Ministers of State of a infinite variety, both of pay and rank, through heads of Department and Cabinet Ministers.
  To illustrate what I mean by the infinite variety of Ministers of State, I return for a few seconds to the point I made last night on another Amendment about the Deputy Secretary of State for Defence. We elicited from the Attorney-General the information that this Minister of State was to be paid £5,000 a year, which is the normal rate for the head of a Department or Cabinet Minister, despite the fact that he is neither. This, to my mind, is an example of a devious placemanship in detail which should be examined.
  There is only one Deputy Secretary of State now, but the way is fully open for there to be a Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs or a Deputy Secretary of State for the Home Department. These are very powerful carrots for further loyalty, both the promise of promotion in status and the promise of promotion in pay. One can foresee that there might well be a Deputy First Secretary of State. This would be a very interesting position. He could not have a higher rate than £5,000 a year, but I do not doubt that by some means he would have danger money.
  The point so cogently made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) has not been
  1878
  satisfactorily answered. I do not doubt that it will have very careful exploration before the Bill is through in another place. Indeed, I think it is a pity that exploration cannot take place now, although these subjects, as I understand it, are relevant to the next group of Amendments.
  It comes back again to the point so well made by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. Whatever the Attorney-General may say about the relationship of the number of Ministers to the size of his party, he cannot get away from the fact that this Government will have the greatest number of Whips for the smallest back bench party in modern history, or indeed, in any history. As I said last night, one paid Whip to 16 Members is an extraordinary proportion, rivalled only, through misfortune of circumstance, in the Liberal Party.
  I well recollect, when I served in a different kind of organisation from this, that one used to hear talk of a small number of men almost entirely surrounded by officers. I would describe the back benches of the Labour Party as being small numbers of Members almost entirely surrounded by Whips. This should have its effect on independent Members like the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. The hon. Gentleman referred to the narrow path of virtue. He has always found this path very narrow. He will find it unbearably narrow under this regime. I therefore advise him to break away from it now and come and vote with us.
  My next point is a very serious one, and I address it most particularly to those back-bench Members of the Labour Party who have in the past been so hot in defence of private Members' rights. The more Ministers there are, and after all Ministers are very closely under the control of the Chief Whip in any party—
  An Hon. Member: Does the right hon. Gentleman speak with knowledge?
  Sir M. Redmayne: Certainly with knowledge. I am sure my right hon. Friends will agree with that. They are at least far more under control than the fine independents. When we come to private Members' time, Private Members' Bills, Private Members' Motions, it will be a little too easy for the Patronage

  1879
  Secretary to call out these large reserves of paid men to stifle the fruitful initiative of his own back benchers.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Edward Short): Is the right hon. Gentleman teaching me a lesson?
  Sir M. Redmayne: I shall be happy to teach the right hon. Gentleman many more lessons during the short time he will hold his office. I shall watch with slightly malicious joy the Patronage Secretary, who has in his time been such
  a healthy champion of the rights of back benchers, stimulating all 14 of his paid hands to shout, "Object".
  I will not waste the time of the Committee any longer. My right hon. and hon. Friends will certainly divide the Committee. I call on the workers below the Gangway opposite to unite with us. They have nothing to lose but their chains so deviously forged by their Leader.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 222, Noes 175.

  Division No. 42.]

  AYES

  [6.9 p.m.

  Albu, Austen

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Mclnnes, James

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Ford, Ben

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Alldritt, W. H.

  Freeson, Reginald

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Garrett, W. E.

  McLeavy, Frank

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Garrow, A.

  MacMillan, Malcolm

  Atkinson, Norman

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Ginsburg, David

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Beaney, Alan

  Gourlay, Harry

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

  Binns, John

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Manuel, Archie

  Bishop, E. S.

  Gregory, Arnold

  Mapp, Charles

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Grey, Charles

  Marsh, Richard

  Boardman, H.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mason, Roy

  Boston, T. G.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Maxwell, Robert

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

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Boyden, James

  Hannan, William

  Mellish, Robert

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Millan, Bruce

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

  Hazell, Bert

  Molloy, William

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & Fbury)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Monslow, Walter

  Buchanan, Richard

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Holman, Percy

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick (SheffieldPk)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Horner, John

  Murray, Albert

  Chapman, Donald

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Newens, Stan

  Coleman, Donald

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Howarth, Robert L. (Bolton, E.)

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

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Norwood, Christopher

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline)

  Ogden, Eric

  Grossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.

  Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham, S.)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Orme, Stanley

  Darling, George

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Oswald, Thomas

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Owen, Will

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n&st.P'cras,S.)

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Dell, Edmund

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Paget, R. T.

  Dempsey, James

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Dodds, Norman

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Doig, Peter

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Park, Trevor (Derbyshire, S. E.)

  Donnelly Desmond

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Driberg, Tom

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

  Kelley, Richard

  Pentland, Norman

  Dunn, James A.

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Dunnett, Jack

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Edelman, Maurice

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Lawson, George

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  English, Michael

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Redhead, Edward

  Ennals, David

  Ledger, Ron

  Rees, Merlyn

  Ensor, David

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Richard, Ivor

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  McBride, Neil

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McCann, J.

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. K. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  MacColl, James

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Foley, Maurice

  MacDermot, Niall

  Rose, Paul B.

  Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  McGuire, Michael

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Rowland, Christopher

  Storehouse, John

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Sheldon, Robert

  Stones, William

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Shore, Peter (Stepney)

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

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)

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

  Wallace, George

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)

  Summerskill, Dr. Shirley

  Warbey, William

  Silkin, John (Deptford)

  Swain, Thomas

  Watkins, Tudor

  Silkin, S. C. (Camberwell, Dulwich)

  Symonds, J. B.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Taverne, Dick

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Thomas, George(Cardiff, W.)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

  Small, William

  Thornton, Ernest

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Tinn, James

  Woof, Robert

  Solomons, Henry

  Tomney, Frank

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank

  Tuck, Raphael

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Urwin, T. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Steele, Thomas

  Varley, Eric G.

  Mr. Howie and Mr. Harper.

  NOES

  Agnew, Commander Sir Peter

  Farr, John

  Mawby, Ray

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Fell, Anthony

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Fisher, Nigel

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Astor, John

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'ford & Stone)

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Balniel, Lord

  Gardner, Edward

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Barlow, Sir John

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Monro, Hector

  Batsford, Brian

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Bell, Ronald

  Glyn Sir Richard

  Mott-Radclyfle, Sir Charles

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Murton, Oscar

  Bennett, Dr, Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Grant, Anthony

  Neave, Airey

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Gresham-Cooke, R.

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Nugent, Rt. Hn. Sir Richard

  Biffen, John

  Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Page, R. Graham (Crosby)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Gurden, Harold

  Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Peel, John

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Percival, Ian

  Blaker, Peter

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Peyton, John

  Bossom, Hn. Clive

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Pickthorn, Rt, Hn. Sir Kenneth

  Box, Donald

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maccles'd)

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Braine, Bernard

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Hastings, Stephen

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry

  Hawkins, Paul

  Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Sir Martin

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hay, John

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Buck, Antony

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Bullus, sir Eric

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Burden, F. A.

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Hiley, Joseph

  Roots, William

  Carlisle, Mark

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

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Sharples, Richard

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

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

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Hooson, H. E.

  Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Hornby, Richard

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Cole, Norman

  Hornsby-Smith, nt. Hn. Dame P.

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Cooper, A. E.

  Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)

  Temple, John M.

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Contain, A. P.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon,S.)

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Crawley, Aidan

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Crowder, F. P.

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

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

  Walder, David (High Peak)

  Curran, Charles

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr)

  Longbottom, Charles

  Ward, Dame Irene

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Longden, Gilbert

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Dean, Paul

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Webster, David

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Lubbock, Eric

  Whitelaw, William

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Mackie, George Y. (C'ness & S'land)

  Wise, A. R.

  Drayson, G. B.

  McLaren, Martin

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  McMaster, Stanley

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Eden, Sir John

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Younger, Hn. George

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

  Marten, Neil

  Emery, Peter

  Maude, Angus

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. Ian Fraser and Mr. Pym.

  Deputy-Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): The next Amendment selected is Amendment No. 9, in page 2, line 31.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: On a point of order, Sir Samuel. I wish to ask leave to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I am not prepared to accept that Motion at present.
  I have said that the next Amendment selected is No. 9. I think that it will be for the convenience of the Committee to discuss with it the following two Amendments, Amendment No. 10, in page 2, line 41, at the end to add:
  (3) In section 2 of the said Act of 1957 the holders of offices referred to as Ministerial offices shall include in addition to those specified in the Second Schedule to the said Act the holder of any other office under the Crown not so specified who is a member of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom whether or not appointed at or paid a salary.
  and Amendment No. 16, in Schedule 2, page 4, line 46, at the end to insert:
  In section 13, in subsection (1), the words "appointed at a salary" shall be omitted.
  I suggest that it will be convenient also to discuss Government Amendments Nos. 12 to 14.
  Mr. Percival: I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 2, line 41, at the end to add:
  (3) In section 2 of the said Act of 1957 the words "Ministerial offices" shall be deemed to include every office specified in the Second Schedule to the said Act whether or not the holder thereof is appointed at or paid a salary.
  I have been in some doubt as to the choice of terms in which I should commend this Amendment to the Committee. Having, as I hope is apparent to lawyers at least, given more than a little time and consideration to the points which give rise to the Amendments which we have proposed so far, and having, I hope, advanced my arguments in moderate terms, I have had to listen to the Attorney-General depart for once from his usual courtesy and include these in the all-embracing term "humbug". The temptation to do likewise is great, but, on the whole, I think that I shall not.
  The Attorney-General: I should never address such language to the hon. and learned Gentleman. What I was suggesting was that the attempt to make out of the difference between the set-up
  1884
  of the present Administration and that of the last one a situation giving rise to a departure from great constitutional principle was humbug. I hope that I shall never use language of that kind about the hon. and learned Gentleman.
  Mr. Percival: I am much obliged to to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. In any event, I had decided in advance that I should move this Amendment in placatory terms, sincerely hoping that it and the two which go with it will be accepted.
  It is plain from our last debate that the Government take the view—I state this purely as a matter of fact and not with any malice—that, as the law stands at present, the Prime Minister can make a nonsense of the figure 91 or of any other figure which might appear in Section 2 of the 1957 Act. It is equally clear now that this applies not just to the question of "payment". It is the Government's view that it can appoint a new Minister and transfer functions to him under the Transfer of Functions Act, but avoid the consequences which would otherwise arise under Section 2 of the 1957 Act by omitting from the Order in Council any provision adding the new Minister to the Schedule to the 1957 Act. This is not purely theoretical. It has been done in the case of the Minister of Overseas Development. I hope that the Government will agree that it is an opportunity which should not be allowed to remain part of the law.
  As to "payment", there are many who find offensive the idea that a Minister of State can be, and is if so appointed, a Minister of State for every purpose except the one which is of interest to the House as a House of Commons matter but cease to be one for that purpose simply by agreeing to serve without remuneration.
  In this instance, the Government have adopted not one or other of these methods but both to bring about the situation which we have had for the past six weeks. Plainly, it is doubly important that both should be stopped now when the limit has been increased by such a substantial amount. I need say no more about the need to do so because the Attorney-General himself, on Second Reading, was good enough to describe as a mischief the loophole which allows the creation of extra Ministers

  1885
  without their counting towards the Schedule provided that they are not paid. The word was his own. I adopt it. Now that it has become apparent that there is another effective way of getting round the provisions, I expect that he will probably regard this also as a mischief which ought not to be allowed to continue.
  Amendment No. 9 is in clear and simple terms and I need not take the time of the Committee in reading or explaining its words. It goes to the question of payment in relation to Ministers of State and makes its purpose clear in words which are self-explanatory. This, I suggest, is an added attraction. So much of our law is not self-explanatory, and one has to look at half a dozen other provisions to find out what it means. The people who dislike this most are lawyers. Curiously enough, it is the lawyers who are the ones who so often want to put things in simple terms which mean what they say. Amendment No. 9 is designed to do just that. Its terms are simple. It would make perfectly clear that the question whether or not a Minister is appointed at, or is paid, a salary is wholly immaterial for this purpose.
  Amendment No. 16 is bound up with it—that is to leave the words "appointed at a salary" out of the definition in Section 13(l)—and, of course, it follows that, if a new subsection were added by Amendment No. 9, those words would have to go from Section 13(1). It is to that extent consequential.
  You indicated, Sir Samuel, that it might be convenient to consider Amendment No. 12 at the same time, and this may be the appropriate moment for me to make some observations about that. It is to be noted that its first purpose is to remove the words "appointed at a salary". My right hon. and hon. Friends and I think that this might probably deal with the question of payment with reference to Ministers of State, but what we say is that, even if it did cover that point, the way we propose is much clearer. It would appear then, in the body of the Statute, that payment is to be immaterial.
  Further, the Government's Amendment is defective in that it contains no provision which would block the other loophole which has been revealed by
  1886
  our discussions during the past two days. Because of the possibility which occurred to us that there might be another loophole, namely, appointing new Ministers who were not heads of Departments, we felt it desirable to insert another new subsection by Amendment No. 10. At the time when we drafted the Amendment, the point was really a matter of theory, but we considered that, while trying to block loopholes, we should not necessarily limit ourselves to loopholes which we have actually seen used. Let us make a real attempt to block every possible loophole, and certainly let us block both of the loopholes which have been revealed.
  As I said, at the time when Amendment No. 10 was drafted, the question of appointing new Ministers who were not heads of Departments and thus not specified in the Schedule was treated as rather theoretical, but it has emerged during the Committee stage as being very far from theoretical. We have first hand evidence now that it has been used on this occasion. We suggest, therefore, that to amend the Bill in the terms of Amendment No. 12, although it would probably deal with the question of payment of Ministers of State, would not in any way touch the other loophole which has now been shown to be not merely a theoretical possibility but a very practical one. It has been used and could be used again if it be not stopped.
  6.30 p.m.
  We suggest, therefore, that our solutions, or at least some similar provisions, is necessary. We are not wedded to any particular form of words. We are concerned with the object. But the Committee will observe that the wording in our second Amendment is very clear and simple and has the advantage that even a layman would appreciate that every office, whether paid or not, comes within the prohibited class. The method adopted is similar to that adopted in the Department of Technical Co-operation Act, 1961, which says:
  "Section two of the Rouse of Commons Disqualification Act, 1957 … shall have effect as if the office of Secretary for Technical Cooperation were included among the offices specified in Part II of that Schedule."
  It is a "deeming" provision, and, likewise, the effect of our Amendment would be that, without one having to take

  1887
  any steps to add it, by Order or otherwise, every office would automatically come within the class to which the limitation applies. That would meet both the needs and the wishes of the Committee. As I say, we are not wedded to the form of words, but for the reasons I have given we do not believe that the Government's Amendment goes far enough, whereas our Amendment would close both the loopholes.
  There is another point arising on Amendment No. 12 which concerns the words that the Government wish to add at the end of the definition of Minister of State, Section 13 of the Act of 1957. We presume that the intention of those words is to make sure that the five offices here referred to, usually held in another place would not come within the definition of "Minister of State". They must be added for one of two reasons—either to bring them within the definition so that the increased salaries shall apply to those offices or to exclude them from the definition so that the term "Minister of State" does not apply to them.
  We find it difficult to believe that the Government could be asking to introduce a provision to increase the salaries of these offices in another place by adding these words to the definition, so we assume that the purpose is to exclude them from the definition of Minister of State. We do not quarrel with that but would suggest for consideration that it may be achieved with even more certainty by inserting the word "nor" instead of "or", this is not theoretical, in this Committee, we have heard some fine reasoning about the meaning of words, if the word "nor" is put in, there can be then no doubt.
  To conclude, for the reasons given, I again suggest that the Government Amendment No. 12—indeed, there is no doubt about it—does not adequately cover the loopholes. Our Amendments are, however, appropriate to do that. We do therefore hope that the Government will see fit to accept them.
  Sir P. Rawlinson: Perhaps it might be convenient if I leave it to the Solicitor-General, whom I should like to welcome, to reply on these Amendments. I cannot help thinking, in view of the objections there have been to the Bill, that, in the hearts of the
  1888
  Law Officers, there lurk the gravest and deepest objections to it. I have no doubt that when this decision—and one can see the reasons why it was decided upon by the Prime Minister—was taken, it was left to the Law Officers to advise on a device to meet the situation.
  This Bill, although they say it is a technical Bill, is one which, in normal respects, and certainly without the Amendment we propose, would offend practically every member of the hon. and learned Gentleman's profession. It is the device of advising the Crown, by use of the Prerogative, to appoint unlimited numbers of Ministers of State provided they are not paid, and so attempting to avoid the limitation imposed in law on the number of Ministers who can sit and vote in this place.
  Leaving aside the battles of party politics, there was good reason to impose a limit in law and this Bill is a device to avoid that. The Bill as presented does nothing to prevent a limitless creation but the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in tabling a later Amendment, has at least foreshadowed the closing of this loophole.
  Can we have a Minister of State who is unpaid? We know that there are persons calling themselves Ministers of State who are driving around, quite rightly, in large black automobiles, who are carrying out the duties of Ministers of State, answering for their work and carrying responsibility for it in their Departments as Ministers of State. It is said, because of this device used by the Prime Minister, that because they are unpaid they are not Ministers of State. It means that the Prime Minister could say that every single hon. Member opposite could be appointed a Minister of State and could be given a black Humber motor car and occupy an office provided he was not paid. Those who are called Ministers of State are being paid, we now know, only their Parliamentary salaries and are carrying out Ministerial duties. It may be right that they should carry out these duties but this is a shabby device that has been imposed upon us.
  Is the position entirely free from doubt when one comes to consider Section 13 of the 1957 Act? If the Prime Minister appoints a Member of Parliament as a Minister of State, using the Prerogative,

  1889
  and that hon. Member has the style and title of Minister of State, performing the duties and carrying the responsibilities of a Minister of State, answering in the House to the House as a Minister of State, can it be said even then that he is not "appointed at a salary" if, in fact, on his appointment, he was told that he would carry out his duties of Minister of State until such time as he would receive a salary, which would be given to him shortly?
  The advice offered on that, and the device worked out to achieve it, is not entirely free from doubt. What about a Minister of State who declines a salary? Supposing an hon. Gentleman enjoys a private fortune and is not interested in a salary as a Minister of State. Supposing he refuses to accept a salary but still carries out the duties of Minister of State? These are matters which may be said by some hon. Members to arouse the interest only of constitutional lawyers or historians but they are nevertheless of the greatest importance to the House of Commons. We learn that these Ministers of State receive their Parliamentary salaries with £750 more which they would be receiving as a supplementary to their salary as a Minister.
  Now by what right do these Members of Parliament call themselves Ministers of State? By what right do they enjoy the transport which is provided for them? They do so because they have been appointed by means of the Prerogative, but, as right hon. and learned Gentlemen know perfectly well, when the Prerogative conflicts with Statute or is cut down in any way by Statute, it is the Statute which prevails. If there is this conflict, in some way it must be decided.
  There could be the nonsensical position when the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, who is not a Minister of State, in connection with his duties has to look at and be in possession of official documents. He may be committing an offence under Section 1(2) of the Official Secrets Act, because it is a misdemeanour for a person to have possession of any official document without lawful authority. His authority for doing that he may have got from the Prime Minister who can say that anybody in the Department can look at the document, but he is able to look at the document not because he is Minister of State, but because he has been told
  1890
  by the head of the Department or the Prime Minister that he can do so.
  The evil of this provision—and I ask the Committee to appreciate that it is an evil—is that it is a device which is a complete ignoring of the purposes and intentions of Parliament in the 1957 Act, because the principle should always be that we should change the law first and then appoint the people to the posts which have been created under that law. If this position were challenged elsewhere outside the House of Commons, it would be a misfortune not only for the Administration, but also for the House of Commons if the challenge should be successful because the right hon. and learned Gentleman's interpretation of the law was not correct. There might be a declaration or injunction or some other process, so that these gentlemen who have been carrying out these duties were found to be not entitled so to do.
  The Government have listened to the Attorney-General and have accepted that there is a mischief. In respect of the complaint with which this Amendment deals. It is a mischief which we should never tolerate again. It is the mischief of the system of creating Ministers without a salary so that they have this absurd portion which is undignified for them and wrong for the Government and the country. That mischief will now be corrected, but when the Bill was brought before Parliament, it was there for everybody to see. We should do this task once and for all and with certainty, and our Amendments do it more definitely and certainly than the Government's Amendments.
  This is because we fill two loopholes which should be stopped. The first is the appointment of Ministers without salary so as to avoid the purposes of the Act, and the second is the creation of new offices not specified in the Schedule. It is right that Ministers should come to Parliament to say that new Ministries should be created—as well they may—and then the House then decides whether to give leave. The legislation having been passed, the person concerned can then be appointed to the office. There is not an hon. Member who does not know that that is the right way of doing it.
  I am satisfied, and I have so advised my hon. Friends, that the Government Amendment would stop the first of the

  1891
  two loopholes but would not deal with the second. We should make it quite clear that we prefer the system of creating the post first and then appointing the man. If that is so, I commend the acceptance of our two Amendments and suggest that there is no necessity to consider that which may subsequently be moved by the Government.
  6.45 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Dingle Foot): May I first thank the right hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Sir P. Rawlinson) for his welcome to me? I suggest that he was playing with words in the distinction which he drew. Of course it is part of the Prerogative that a Minister can be appointed at any time. It does not matter whether he is called a Minister with some particular title or a Minister of State. "Minister of State" is not a term of art. The statutory limitation is that contained in the 1957 Act, an Act for which right hon. Gentlemen opposite were responsible. It is there provided that in order to be a Minister of State within the meaning of the Act, the Minister concerned has to be appointed at a salary.
  There is very little dispute between the two sides of the Committee about this group of Amendments. The Government entirely sympathise with their purpose, but I suggest that the form of words is not apt to achieve that purpose. The purpose is to have a limitation on the number of Ministers who can sit in the House of Commons.
  The Ministerial offices set out in the Second Schedule of the 1957 Act fall into two categories. In the first there are the holders of Ministerial offices to which particular functions attach. For example, there are the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Defence, and so on. The second category consists of the Ministers of State. As I pointed out earlier this morning, under the law as it stands, the number of Ministers of State who can be appointed is unlimited. That is one of the changes we propose to make. We have already proposed that the number of Ministers of State should be limited to 19.
  For the purposes of the 1957 Act, it does not make any difference whether the holders of specific offices are paid.
  1892
  For example, if there were a Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed without a salary, he would still be one of the holders of the offices specified in the Second Schedule to the 1957 Act and he would count as one in the present maximum total of 70 and in the proposed total of 91 entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons. It follows that the first Amendment can apply only to Ministers of State.
  If this Amendment were passed by itself, without any further Amendment of the 1957 Act, there would be an obvious absurdity, because in Section 13(1) of the 1957 Act a Minister of State is defined as a member of the Government who is appointed at a salary.
  Mr. Percival: It is the purpose of Amendment No. 16 to remove that absurdity. It is only to be rather legalistic that the two are taken separately.
  The Solicitor-General: I was about to refer to that and to the effect of the Amendment if taken alone and then the effect when combined with Amendment No. 16. Taking the Amendment alone—and we have to deal with the Amendments seriatim—under Section 13 of the 1957 Act, a Minister of State is defined as a member of the Government who is appointed at a salary. Unless he is in receipt of a salary, he cannot be a Minister of State within the meaning of the Act. It follows that Amendment No. 9 taken by itself is, therefore, unnecessary in relation to the holders of specific offices and meaningless in relation to Ministers of State as the law now stands.
  As I anticipated, the hon. and learned Gentleman says that this must be read together with Amendment No. 16. It is proposed in that Amendment simply that the words "appointed at a salary" shall be omitted from Section 13(1) of the 1957 Act. That would produce a result which I am not quite sure whether hon. Members opposite have foreseen, because the Section as it is proposed to be amended by Amendment No. 16 would not only cover the Ministers of State as we now know them, but; also the five Household Officers in the House of Lords. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman agrees with me that in the new definition it would include the five Household Officers, but since in this Bill we are introducing a limit of 19 to the

  1893
  numbers of Ministers of State who may sit in either House it would follow that if we adopted the Amendment proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the five Household Officers in the other place would need to be included in the total of 19. That would leave us with only 14 effective Ministers of State. That is less than the Government require and it is indeed less than the total required by the last Government. After all, the difference is not very great. What is proposed is that we should have 19 Ministers of State as compared with 17 comparable appointments under the last Government.
  Therefore, I suggest that if we pass these two Amendments in the form which the hon. and learned Gentleman has proposed, we should create an absurdity. I suggest to the Committee we should do better to prefer Amendment No. 12 and we should then get rid of this complication about the Household Officers.
  I come to Amendment No. 10. The question which arises is to whom, if it were passed, would this Amendment apply. The same criticisms that I have directed toward the other two Amendments, Nos. 9 and 16, would of course, apply to this Amendment. But under this Amendment we have again two categories—the specific office holders and the Ministers of State. They are already covered by the provisions that have been made. Who else would be caught if we were to pass this Amendment? I submit to the Committee that this Clause could have any effect only if a Minister were appointed to some new office—an office which had not already been created. I say at once that that may happen. It may happen under any Government. It is something which does happen from time to time. It has happened in the experience of almost every Government that I can remember.
  I see in his place the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). He and I were Members of the House before the war. I remember when the then Mr. Anthony Eden was appointed as Minister for League of Nations Affairs. The right hon. and learned Member will recollect another occasion when, after fierce controversy, in the summer of 1939, it was thought necessary to appoint a Minister of Supply to discharge functions which had
  1894
  never been discharged before. Even in the last Parliament we had the appointment of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) whose title was Minister without Portfolio. He was—I do not intend this as a sneer—a kind of public relations officer for the Government of the day. It would be very easy to think of other examples.
  From time to time it happens that some new function has to performed and it is necessary or desirable to appoint a Minister to do it. Let us suppose that this happens in the future after this Bill becomes law. We would have 91 Ministers of this House who received salaries and it was then thought desirable to appoint a new Minister to discharge a new function. It may possibly be a matter of considerable urgency. It may even happen while this House is in recess. The effect of this Clause would be that we could not appoint a Member of this House. We could appoint anyone else. We could appoint someone outside Parliament altogether—someone who is in the position of Mr. Cousins at the present time—or, alternatively, we could appoint a Member of the other place. But the only people who would be disqualified for such an appointment would be the Members of this House of Commons. That is a disqualification which I do not believe that the House would wish to impose upon itself. It is for that reason that we, invite the Committee to reject Amendment No. 10.
  Sir P. Rawlinson: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman not accept that the House should have control over the Ministers who sit in it? Is it not really more preferable that this House should first of all decide upon the office and then make the appointment rather than that there should be the appointment made before it is brought to this House?
  The Solicitor-General: I think that all depends upon the circumstances of the time. It may very easily happen that a new appointment is called for. After all, the requirements of different Governments vary. The last time that I had the privilege of being appointed to serve in the Government was in 1940. I think that I am one of only three survivors in this House who was appointed by Mr. Churchill when he formed his Government in that year. After 1940 we had a very substantial increase in the number

  1895
  of Ministers. They went up from 68 to 81 and later there was an increase, in 1943, to 94 Ministers and there were 93 in 1944. It was a very considerable increase in the number of Ministerial posts because there were more functions which needed to be performed.
  In those days the difficulty was removed by temporary war-time legislation covering the appointment of the Ministers. But supposing a situation was to arise—I repeat that it might arise during a Parliamentary recess—when it was a matter of urgency to appoint a particular Minister to a new post, then I suggest that the Government should not be inhibited from appointing a Member of the House of Commons. No doubt there would have to be legislation at a later stage—there is no possible question about that—and there would have to be legislation no doubt to create the new Department, to provide for its functions, to provide for the payment of salaries and so forth. But we do not think that the hands of the Government should be completely tied in the way that they would be—I am speaking of any future Government and not merely of this Government—as the result of this Amendment.
  7.0 p.m.
  We accept that there should be a limit on the number of Ministers. For the first time, we are proposing a statutory limit on the number of Ministers of State who may sit in either House. We also propose in the Bill and in Amendment No. 12 that there should be a limit to the number of paid Ministers who can sit in the House of Commons. As I say, I do not think there is any difference in principle on this group of Amendments between hon. Members opposite and the Government, but for the reasons which I have given we think that it would be better achieved in the way that we propose in Amendment No. 12.
  Mr. Percival: I think that what the Solicitor-General said on Amendments Nos. 9 and 16 can be summarised in this way. The acceptance of Amendment No. 9 on its own or Amendment No. 16 without these additional words might result in the unintended consequence of bringing the five offices in another place into the Schedule. I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. I said so when I was proposing the
  1896
  Amendments. I said that we were not absolutely wedded to any particular wording. The point can be covered by accepting Amendments Nos. 9 and 12 instead of Nos. 9 and 16, subject to my suggestion that the word should be "nor" instead of "or". The Government seek to cover a dilemma by adding the words in Amendment No. 12 at the end. The difficulty of accepting Amendments Nos. 9 and 16 can be resolved very easily by accepting Nos. 9 and 12 instead. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I would be happy to accept that compromise.
  However, the Solicitor-General's observations on Amendment No. 10 were rather more serious. Although he, in his usual expert way, wrapped up the matter so as to make it more attractive, what he said, in effect, was, "We cannot accept Amendment No. 10 because we want to keep a loophole open for the appointment of more Ministers without being limited in the number we can have in the House of Commons". That, in simple plain English, is the objection which he put forward in rather more legalistic terms.
  I ask the Government to reconsider this matter. The limit is being increased to 91. The Government already have four in hand, even with the six paid Assistant Whips. It is true that they have bespoken two of those four vacancies—Mr. Cousins and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—but there are still two left. [Interruption.] The Solicitor-General probably appreciates that I have studied the figures. I have not been here long, but in nearly six years I have never seen two Scottish Law Officers in the House of Commons. It may be that we shall have the pleasure of seeing one it is not suggested, apparently, that one of the priceless pearls", as they were called earlier, who have gone to the Lords will be replaced by a Scottish Law Officer. No indication has been given that those two places will be occupied in the immediate or near future.
  The Solicitor-General has said, "We want to keep a loophole open because we never know when we will want another Minister or two". With great respect to him, that is showing disrespect, for this House in what is a House of Commons matter. When we fix a limit

  1897
  the number of Ministers who should sit in the House, which is a House of Commons matter, for the purpose of this House is to control the Executive it is nonsense if that limit is not adhered to. It is nonsense to fix a limit and say, "We have been clever. It does not mean that we are limited to 91. We can get round the difficulty by appointing a Minister under another name, transfer functions to him but in the Order in Council we will not add these Ministers to the Second Schedule of the 1957 Act".
  The Solicitor-General wrapped it up very nicely, but I think that the word "shabby" which has been used is equally applicable in this case. When one looks at it in simple terms, it is shabby to say, "We will raise the limit to 91, but we will not agree to proposals which would have the effect of making that an effective limit. We are determined to keep a loophole." I invite the Solicitor-General and the Government to reconsider this matter and to let us have their further views on it. If my summary of what the hon. and learned Gentleman said is correct, perhaps he would care to state in terms that the reason why Amendment No. 10 is not acceptable is because the Government desire to keep a loophole open to increase the number. While he is thinking about that, may I suggest, as a compromise, to the other occupants of the Government Front Bench, that Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 12 would avoid completely what the Solicitor-General called an absurdity whilst blocking both loopholes.
  The Solicitor-General: I hope that I have made the point clear. One can always appoint a new Minister to a new post by exercising the Prerogative. If a Minister is so appointed, we do not see why Members of the House of Commons alone should be excluded from such appointment. That would be the effect of the Amendment. However, in any case, Parliamentary control would be fully secured because after the appointment of such a Minister, before a fresh Department could be set up, before it could be clothed with the necessary powers and before the necessary salaries could be paid, the approval of the House of Commons would have to be given. It may well be that this situation will never arise.
  1898
  The hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) called this a loophole. I do not really quarrel with that. We say that it is a loophole which should be left in existence. It should not be beyond the power of any future Government in any emergency to make a fresh appointment if the circumstances require it, knowing always that that appointment would very soon come under the scrutiny of and would require the approval of the House of Commons.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 5.—(CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS AND REPEALS. 1957 c. 20.)
  Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, in page 3, line 8, at the end to insert:
  (2) Subsection (2) of section 5 of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1957 (reprinting of Schedule 1 as from time to time amended) shall apply to provisions of that Act other than Schedule 1 as it applies to that Schedule.
  The Chairman: We can also discuss Amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 8, at end insert.
  (3) In section 13(1) of the said Act, in the definition of "Minister of State", the words "appointed at a salary" shall be omitted, and at the end there shall be added the words "or any office in respect of which a salary is payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under section 2 of the Ministerial Salaries Act 1946".
  Mr. Houghton: I am sure that I shall carry the Committee with me on this Amendment. It is what is called the printing Clause of the 1957 Act. Section 5 of that Act provides for the amendment of the First Schedule of it. The First Schedule sets out the offices which are held to be offices disqualifying persons from membership of the House of Commons. Under Section 5 of the 1957 Act it was thought convenient that the First Schedule to it should be kept up to date and that additions to it or deletions from it should be incorporated in a revised version so that any citizen, any candidate for Parliament or any Member of Parliament could see by looking at the Schedule whether he occupied, or might be offered, a post which would disqualify him from membership of the House of Commons.
  The provision for keeping Schedule 1 up to date did not, however, extend to

  1899
  Schedule 2. It seems to us now to be convenient for Schedule 2 to the 1957 Act to be kept up-to-date as revised in accordance with the Bill which is now before us, and that when the 1957 Act is reprinted both Schedules should be up-to-date. That will be for general convenience. I hope, further, that the Committee will agree that in reprinting the 1957 Act we should make a good job of it, do it all and not confine it to Schedule 1 as provided for in Section 5 of the 1957 Act.
  Amendment agreed to:
  Further Amendment made: In page 3, line 8, at end insert:
  (3) In section 13(1) of the said Act, in the definition of "Minister of State", the words "appointed at a salary" shall be omitted, and at the end there shall be added the words "or any office in respect of which a salary is payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under section 2 of the Ministerial Salaries Act 1946".—[Mr. Houghton.]
  Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, in page 3, line 9, to leave out "2" and to insert "3".
  This is a purely drafting Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 6.—(INTERPRETATION AND SHORT TITLE.)
  Amendment made: In page 3, line 13, at end insert "including this Act".—[Mr. Houghton.]
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

  Schedule 3.—(ENACTMENTS REPEALED.)
  Amendment made: In page 7, line 28, at end insert:

  5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 20.

  The House of Commons Dis-qualification Act 1957.

  In section 5(2), the words "the First Schedule to", the word "in" (in the second place where that word occurs), and the words "the said Schedule".—[Mr. Houghton.]

  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Question proposed, That the Bill, as amended, be reported to the House.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I feel it necessary to say something more by way of protest if it is in order at this juncture. If it is not, I should like to be advised when I may.
  The Chairman: The Chair has always deprecated the debating of this Motion. Secondly, I venture to remind hon. Members that in the early hours of this morning, I understand, both sides were of opinion that we should complete the Bill by about 8 o'clock tonight.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: Nobody could be more fully conscious of those things than I am. I do not think I was out of the Chamber for 20 minutes yesterday and I have not been out of the Chamber for ten minutes today. The matters which excite me I drew to the attention of the Chair informally and in every way I could to the Treasury Bench from Second Reading onwards and even before.
  7.15 p.m.
  It is quite plain—I do not think that anyone who has heard the debates today doubts it—that with very few exceptions, there is no feeling of certainty on either side, either about what the law is which we are purporting to amend or about the effect of the purported Amendment.
  The Chairman: Order. I have told the hon. Member that the Chair deprecates the debating of this Motion. If, however, it is to be debated, the hon. Member must argue why we should or should not report the Bill, as amended, to the House. He cannot now talk about the merits of the Bill.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I am arguing that we should not report the Bill, as amended, because I do not see how, if the Bill, as amended, is reported to the House, it will be possible ever to get any kind of justice or sense into this law. We are entangled here in a kind of incestuous intertwining of vicious circles in about 15 dimensions—
  The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member must not discuss the merits of the Bill. There have been opportunities for that and there will be further opportunities in accordance with Parliamentary procedure. What the hon. Member must seek to argue if he proposes to continue

  1901
  this debate—which, I have pointed out, the Chair deprecates—is reasons why the Bill should not be reported to the House.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I will do my best, Dr. King. I have been thirty years in the House of Commons and no one has ever been more anxious than I have been not in any way to offend or even to cease to help the Chair. I am not arguing the merits of the Bill. I am arguing that the attempt to use the discussion of the Bill to get into the heads of Members of the House of Commons and others who study its debates any understanding of where we are, legally, has been completely muddled and wholly unsucessful.
  The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member will have an opportunity of making that kind of observation at a later Parliamentary stage of the Bill. What he has to seek to do now, if he proposes to continue the debate, which the Chair deprecates, is to urge a reason why the House should not perform the traditional procedure that it has followed for 100 years of reporting a Bill from Committee to the House.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I will not endeavour to exercise my ingenuity further.
  Mr. Marcus Lipton: None left.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I do not know who interrupted or what he said. If the Chair does not want time wasted, I had better not be interrupted. I have no wish whatever to be tiresome to the Chair, or even to right hon. and hon. Members opposite or to my own Front Bench, but I believe this to be a mess of a kind which is unprecedented.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered.

  Clause 2.—(PROVISION FOR SALARIES OF CERTAIN MINISTERS.)
  Mr. Houghton: I wish, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to move three manuscript Amendments of which, I understand, notice has been given to you. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General remarked earlier this afternoon that copies of the three manuscript Amendments were available in the Vote Office, it was hoped that right hon. and hon. Members would avail them-
  1902
  selves of copies so that we could deal with them without inconvenience on Report.
  The three manuscript Amendments which I ask leave to move are to fulfil a promise made at 3 o'clock this morning to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and to the Committee as a whole that we would assist him and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite in finally disposing in a clean and proper manner of the Secretary for Overseas Trade. The Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 which were accepted on behalf of the Government in the early hours of the morning did not, unfortunately, make a clean job of it. I said so at the time and I had available at that hour 500 copies of the manuscript Amendment in the Vote Office in case we were going to deal with it at a later hour this morning. Therefore, with leave, I would beg to move, in Clause 2, page 2, line 10, after "Treasury" to insert:
  "and section 1(2)(b) of that Act (salary of the Secretary for Overseas Trade)".
  I will also move, in page 5, line 10—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): Order. The right hon. Gentleman must move only one Amendment.
  Mr. Houghton: Very well, Sir. I will move them one at a time and the other two will be consequential. This covers the point which was omitted in Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 which were before the Committee earlier today. The Opposition Amendment was directed only to a consequence that would follow if the office were discontinued. It did not dispose of other provisions for a Secretary for Overseas Trade, nor did it go back to the 1937 Act. I can assure the Committee that this Amendment has been drafted solely to do the job which the Committee wishes done.
  The office of Secretary for Overseas Trade ceased to be filled 11 years ago. There has not been a Secretary for Overseas Trade for 11 years and yet provision for him has been made in the Schedule to the 1957 Act and in the Schedule to this Bill. The Amendment moved was to get rid of him and we all joined in the chorus. Despite the looks of perplexity on the brow of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd)—who is probably not concentrating on this matter at all—I

  1903
  hope that I carry him with me, and that the House will approve of this Amendment.
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman commented upon the expression on my face, allow me to explain what it was. It was one of disgust and nausea that this honourable office should be put an end to by a manuscript Amendment. It follows from the action of the Government in insisting on having the Report stage immediately after the Committee stage that the right hon. Gentleman has to deal with this by a manuscript Amendment. I think that we must protest very strongly at this procedure. I think that it is an abuse of the spirit of the procedure of this House, and that is why I was looking as I did when I did.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Schedule 2.—(THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION ACT, 1957.)
  Further Amendments made: In page 5, line 10 after "Treasury" insert:
  "and the entry relating to the Secretary for Overseas Trade".
  In page 7, leave out line 5.—[Mr. Houghton.]
  7.15 p.m.
  Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I was somewhat indignant at the outburst of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) a moment ago. After all, we have tried to meet the convenience of the Committee in doing a job which was moved by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee). However, we will let that pass.
  We now have the Bill before us in its completed state and it is difficult, after the debates which we have had for many hours yesterday and today, to add much about the detail of the Bill or about its purpose. I said through the debate, and it seems to me now, that underlying the opposition to this Bill has been the deep resentment of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite at having a Labour Government. That really is what all the row has been about. [An HON. MEMBER: "Rubbish."] It is not rubbish. The real mischief in the minds
  1904
  of many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite is that it is a Labour Prime Minister who is making the appointments for the first time for 14 years. I can only say, in justification for that remark, that loopholes which have remained untouched for years and other alleged defects in the law which have been fully exploited in the course of our debate over the last two days were unnoticed by hon. Gentlemen opposite or else they were indifferent to them while there was a Conservative Government in office. But as soon as we come to power we get all this mischief raised as if we were in breach of the Constitution or acting unlawfully.
  No one looks back and sees what has happened under existing legislation. One is amazed at the effrontery of right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they criticise steps which have been taken by my right hon. Friend, and which this Bill will sanction to form an Administration which, in his view and in the view of the Government, is now best poised and equipped to discharge the job which is urgently waiting to be done on behalf of the nation. Complaints have been made about the appointment of Ministers without legislative sanction and without prior Parliamentary approval, but that has been done by previous Administrations.
  The office of Central African Affairs was created without any statutory authority. It began to draw on funds which had been voted to other Departments and went on for quite a time and had spent nearly £2 million without the slightest authority from this House—and not only for the payment of salaries but for other expenses which that Ministry was incurring.
  This Bill improves the law in several respects. It will be a comfort to the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn) and other hon. Members that we have at least put a limit on the numbers of Ministers of State of any kind. We have closed the loophole which enabled Ministers of State to be made without a salary. Neither of these things had been done before, and in that respect I think we have improved the complicated law in these matters. The Schedule of Ministers has been brought up to date

  1905
  to bring it in accordance with the framework of the Administration which a Labour Prime Minister believes is needed to meet the challenges of the days ahead. This is what any Prime Minister must do.
  The charge of excessive patronage has been amply disposed of by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. We have seen that, in total, there are only several more Ministers in this Administration than there were in the last. It is true that there has been a change in the disposition of Ministers as between this House and another place, but that, I suggest, is also in conformity with contemporary thought about the importance of this House—the elected House of Commons—and the need in modern times to have Ministers here answerable to Members of Parliament and not tucked away in another glace not so answerable to the elected Legislature. All this, surely, is only a shift in opinion as to the need for a difference in the deployment of Ministers and the reallocation of duties to meet new tasks that have to be done.
  I submit that in all the circumstances there is no validity in much of the criticism, the noise and the fuss created about this Bill. All I can say is that if this is a Measure of grave constitutional importance, if it is one of the most important Bills that have ever been before this House, if some hon. Members opposite feel distressed in there being something done that is wrong, it is astonishing that the party opposite should have failed to rally all its members in opposition to the Bill.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: Mr. Speaker, I did rise at the beginning. I think that your predecessor did not see me.
  Mr. Speaker: I do not know about that. I am calling Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Making every allowance for the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—and we know that he had a hard day's night—I have been very surprised by the
  1906
  difference between him in Opposition and in Government. In Opposition, he was good tempered and reasonable; he made his points with courtesy and consideration. In Government, he is ill-tempered and quarrelsome, and his last remark about the rallying of our members for this debate is typical of this.
  He knows quite well that because of the unreasonableness of the Government and their arrogance in trying to get this Bill through in one day, the Committee was put in a difficult position last night. It was clear that people were working too late and tempers were getting frayed, so, in an extremely reasonable way, we tried to help the Government to get these matters discussed at a reasonable time of day. That meant a considerable sacrifice on our part, because the right hon. Gentleman knows that the business previously arranged today was not controversial and many of our Members did not expect to have to come here to vote. We did that to help the Government, who had got themselves into difficulty by their flagrant disregard of Parliamentary decencies—and that is all the gratitude we get from the right hon. Gentleman.
  Our first reason for objecting to the contents of this Bill is that, as one of my hon. Friends has said, it is a Balkanisation of Whitehall. We think that the whole tendency should be the other way; that we should rationalise, as we did with the Ministry of Defence and the other Ministries dealing with the Armed Forces, and not have this Balkanisation and the creation of more and more Ministries, each with specialised functions, treading on the toes of other Ministries, creating complications and divisions of responsibility. As another of my hon. Friends has said, the Government's approach has been to identify a problem and then set up a Ministry. We think that to be the completely wrong approach, so our objection to the Bill is, first of all, that it shows quite a wrong tendency towards the machinery of Government in Whitehall.
  Our second objection is to the way in which the Measure has been explained. Yesterday, after saying that he had advised his colleagues not to attend the debate to defend their existence, the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "We are thus dealing with machinery, with Ministers and Ministries, the boundaries of

  1907
  their activities, their functions and their responsibilities. We are not dealing with detailed questions …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1964; Vol. 703, c. 1564.]
  That is precisely what he did not deal with. He did not deal with their boundaries of activities and their functions—that was our complaint against him again and again.
  Our complaint has been that we have not had a really clear statement of what the Bill means in fact. We understand that the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources will diminish the power and authority of the Ministry of Housing—it is bound to have that effect. Equally, we think that it is bound to interfere with the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture; the very constitution of such a Ministry must do that. But we have had no explanation as to the boundaries of activities to be drawn between Ministries.
  Next, we have technology. In case anyone present did not hear what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said yesterday, he told the Committee:
  Now we are to have one Minister to be responsible for technology, advised by one scientific council; one Minister responsible for science, advised by another scientific council; and somewhere swinging in the trees by its tail on the outside a third—the Ministry of Aviation, which employs more scientists than either."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1964; Vol. 703, c. 1647.]
  What attempt did the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster make to describe the boundaries of the activities and the functions of the Ministry of Technology in relation to education and science?
  Mr. Houghton: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will remember that statements on the functions of all the new Ministries were made in the House.
  Mr. Lloyd: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman referred to
  "… the boundaries of their activities, their functions and their responsibilities."
  We interrogated him for a very long time, trying to get from him some statement on the boundaries and functions of responsibilities, but did not get it.
  Mr. Houghton: That was all stated by the Prime Minister.
  Mr. Lloyd: The Prime Minister was making a series of statements which were
  1908
  demonstrated yesterday to be very vague and imprecise, and not clearly stated. I still have not the slightest idea whether the Ministry of Overseas Development is to be responsible for policy in regard to aid, and responsible for the decision of whether and how much aid should go to Asian or African countries. Is it to be the Department responsible for making recommendations to the Cabinet on that? Up to now that has been the function of the Foreign Secretary or the Commonwealth Secretary, or both acting together in the case of a group of countries some in the Commonwealth and some not.
  Who is to have that policy job now? Is it to be the new Minister of Overseas Development That was not made clear by the Prime Minister, nor was it cleared up by the right hon. Lady in the House of Commons, nor by the right hon. Gentleman in the course of this debate. That is why we have grave misgivings about Clause 1 and these new Ministries, although, as we have said again and again, we are, on the whole, sympathetic to the idea of the Ministry of Overseas Development.
  Our next main objection to the Bill is the enlargement of the administration. I was very sorry that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) was not in the Chamber to hear his hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). The hon. Gentleman spoke for half an hour—a splendid speech about the dangerous path that the Government were beginning to tread. He said that he was not yet quite prepared to cast his vote against them—that might come later—but wished to give them a stern warning that he thoroughly disapproved of the increasing number of placemen, Ministers, in the House. He was prepared to allow them to be on probation for just a little longer, but the time would come when he would throw his weight—surely carrying the hon. Gentleman with him—against this monstrous power that he felt the Government were seeking to create. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale accepted our point of view but did not vote with us on it.
  Oddly, it was clear that the Government had a very guilty conscience about

  1909
  the matter, because they said that they had not increased the numbers, as there were fewer Parliamentary Private Secretaries. That is very hard on Ministers. It means that they will get more and more out of touch with the House of Commons. I am not sure that this slaughter of potential P.P.S.s is in the interest of good Government. It certainly showed the guilty conscience and realisation of the Government that they had started on the downward slope.
  I described this on Second Reading as a "placeman's charter". I still think that this is a matter of great constitutional importance, for this steady increase in numbers must carry on the process of increasing the power of the Executive, which cannot be good for the membership of the House of Commons.
  The third matter which has come out in debate is this. I confess that I am left by what has been said by all the learned lawyers who have spoken in the position of some doubt as to what the law is and what action has been taken to alter it. It seems that the Attorney-General agreed that there was a mischief—in other words, he agreed that it was quite wrong that the Prime Minister should be able to multiply the number of Ministers of State, and appoint his hon. Friends from behind him to the position of Minister of State, without giving them salaries. There having been a mischief, he has put forward an alteration so that the Bill corrects the position.
  At the same time, there was a plea by the Solicitor-General—not the Attorney-General. He did not dare to do it—to leave a loophole. There is one loophole now filled but it appears that another is left. At least I do not know whether one is left or whether the Government have created a new one. Nevertheless, the interesting feature of this discussion is that it has shown again the monstrosity of the procedure which has been adopted.
  Time and again it was said that there should be a reasonable interval to consider and re-examine the matter between Committee and Report. There should have been that interval. Because the Government have sought to railroad the Bill through in this way it means that the only interval for consideration is the time between the Bill leaving this House and its arrival in another place. I hope, therefore, that the Attorney-General will
  1910
  look again at what has been said, particularly by my hon. Friends, because we have not yet been given a satisfactory solution to the points which have been so well put forward from this side of the House, particularly by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival). I hope that these matters will be looked into during the interval between now and the Bill going to another place.
  We are debating the Third Reading, but there remains a legitimate sense of grievance among hon. Members, as to the functions of the new Ministries, set up without legislative sanction, using the House as a rubber stamp, the question of so many more Ministers and the unsatisfactory treatment of the loophole involved. The Government have made a hash of this situation and of the Bill because of their over-confidence and cocksuredness. Let them beware.
  7.45 p.m.
  Sir K. Pickthorn: I do not wish to repeat the words and arguments adduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) which I admired and wholly accept. I wish to raise only one point—the paradoxical and vicious circle element involved in all this.
  I do not think that any hon. Member will say that the Treasury Bench's exposition of either the law as it stands, or as the Bill is intended to make it, carried any conviction. As a rule, however much one dislikes the legal authority of the Attorney-General, one takes it for granted. I do not want to overdo this but usually, one assumes at best that it is five-to-four that he is right. Very few hon. Members are left with that impression today.
  Here is where the paradox and vicious circle comes in. What can we do about it? We can settle anything only by the voting power of the Chamber. If there is any uncertainty in any part of the Attorney-General's argument, at least 26 hon. Members are not qualified to vote, and I suppose that all of them, certainly some, have, without qualification, given a good many votes already. This seem to me to make much worse a very bad Bill, since on the basis of a dubious composition of the House, this method of passing a Measure is, if not challengeable, then, certainly dubious.

  1911
  I have never been sure that my view of the law is wholly right, but I assert that it is impossible to take it for granted that the Treasury Bench's view of it is wholly right either. If it is not, then anything up to 26 or more of the votes which might be cast in any division, or which have already been cast these last seven weeks, have been or may have been unqualified.
  It appears to me that a Bill which has been passed in this way—apart from all the disadvantages and defects in the Bill which have been stated by my hon. and right hon. Friends—is not fit to be sent any further on its journey.
  7.48 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Gilmour: My right hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn) has spoken about one paradox. There is another: that hon. Members opposite, from the Prime Minister down, have suggested that the Bill is taking us away from the days of Queen Anne. It is, I suggest, taking us straight back to Queen Anne—and the only hon. Member opposite who has realised this is the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot).
  We were all somewhat surprised that he did not speak in the debate yesterday. I had the rather unworthy and unjustified suspicion that his silence was caused by the onerous nature of his duties as the illustrated biographer of the Prime Minister, the "Crawfie" of the Prime Minister, one might say. This suspicion was certainly amply dispelled by the brilliant speech which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale made this afternoon.
  It is not only that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster seems to have misunderstood the Bill. The Attorney-General has also completely misunderstood our constitutional history. I will quote a paragraph from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech on Second Reading. He said:
  "The basis of this provision"—
  which was the 1707 Act—
  "was the wish of Parliament to restrict the Executive's power to control the Legislature. But it was soon found that in achieving this object the power of the Legislature to control the Executive was very greatly diminished if Ministers were not there in the House to answer for their misdeeds, and, as a result, the provisions of the 1707 Act were gradually eroded "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th November, 1964; Vol. 702, c. 643]
  1912
  That is a complete travesty of English constitutional history. The precise opposite happened. It was the Commons which were always trying to pass Place Bills to reduce the number of placemen. It was the Executive which was trying to stop the Commons doing so. In fact, the Commons often passed Bills of that type, which were only defeated by what were then the most effective brute votes in the country: those of the bishops in the House of Lords. It was the bishops who kept the Commons from reducing the number of placemen—today the Government's own placemen are helping them in this matter.
  On the point I take issue with my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch). He pointed out that in 1741 there were about 200 placemen in this House—there were even more in 1761. He said that the Prime Minister had not yet gone as far as Walpole. I think he has, because with the growth of the party system it is the control of the majority party which is fundamental.
  As a result of this great number of placemen—the patronage extension which we now have the Prime Minister has far stronger control through placemen in the House of Commons than Walpole ever dreamed of having. We have, therefore, gone very far indeed.
  We know that as the result of the Economic Reform Act of 1782, and other acts, placemen were greatly diminished in number and that, after a short interlude, from 1867 onwards the number of jobs in Parliament has been steadily increasing: as a result, the Bill we are discussing today has gone so far that it has virtually nationalised the House of Commons. No wonder hon. Members opposite—that dwindling band of Government back benchers—are thoroughly bewildered by what they find in the House.
  Mr. Manuel: The hon. Member is making a positively bewildering contribution in talking about placemen. Does he not know his history? He runs the Spectator to try to justify his existence. Does he ever ask himself why he joined the Tory Party and how many placemen there are in the Tory Party looking after interests and placed there deliberately to do so?
  Mr. Gilmour: It is unusual for the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) to interrupt while standing. I

  1913
  therefore welcome his intervention, and I am not in the least surprised at having bewildered him.
  Mr. Manuel: And bewildered yourself.
  Mr. Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman has resumed his normal method of interruption, which is while sitting down.
  It is not surprising that the Government back-benchers are bewildered by what they have to do. Normally in a nationalised industry one is at least allowed a consumer council, but hon. Members opposite are not even allowed to meet once a week—not even in order to be told what to do.
  Sir D. Glover: In fact they meet only to discuss important business and, as far as I can make out, that means increased "lolly" and shorter hours.
  Mr. Gilmour: No wonder the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) started talking about a shift system last night, although I notice that he has not been working a shift today. No doubt he is hoping to be the shop steward, as he failed to get into the management. Hon. Members opposite plainly realise that the House of Commons has been turned into a factory conveyor belt for all the legislation which is being churned out by the Government.
  May I put to the Attorney-General a point concerning another, to me, extraordinary proposition which he put forward on Second Reading? This is reported in c. 649 when, unless I misunderstand him, he seemed to think that a placeman is somebody who is not paid. The primary characteristic of a placeman is that he is paid or hopes to he paid. The Attorney-General seems to think the opposite.
  It is true that in order to keep to the letter of the law, possibly—although certainly breaking the spirit—the Prime Minister has not paid the large number of new Ministers of State since he came into office. Perhaps I may quote Byron, who seemed to put it very well.
  "And as a high souled Minister of State is Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis."
  That is what the right hon. Gentlemen have been doing: certainly ruining the country although it is too much to expect that they should ruin it gratis. Our funda-
  1914
  mental objection is that this intolerable Bill brings us back to Queen Anne, with all the evils of those days of patronage, prerogative and privilege.
  7.53 p.m.
  Sir D. Glover: We have reached Third Reading, and I thought to ask the permission of the House to explain the Bill, because the explanations from the Government Front Bench have not been designed to make the Bill clearer. They have been designed to cast a shadow of doubt and cloudiness over our proceedings, because the Government know that the truth is that the Bill is a far more squalid Measure than they dare to admit. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If I am challenged, I could give chapter and verse for my statement, but I was trying to make a short speech.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) is not in his place. If anything I said last night persuaded him to relight the fire in his belly by his speech today, I feel that I have made a worth-while contribution to the debate. It is a shocking commentary on the attitude of the Labour Party to the House of Commons that on a Bill designed explicitly to reduce the power of the legislature and to increase the power of the executive only one hon. Member opposite—the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale—has made a speech in the slightest degree critical. It was the only speech from the Government back benches through the whole of Committee, Report stage and Third Reading—and even the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale had to be forced by a challenge to do what he did.
  I thoroughly agree with the speech which the hon. Member made this afternoon. I do not go all along the line with my Front Bench, whether in Government or in Opposition. This is very largely a House of Commons matter. The tendency in all States is for the executive to get more powerful, but the protector of the rights of the people is not the executive. It is the back-bench Member of Parliament, and particularly the backbench Member on the Government side of the House. Under the Bill, with these placemen, we shall have nearly half the Government side of the House as Ministers and with a vested interest in the continuation of the Government, not on a legalistic or idealistic basis but purely on

  1915
  a placemen basis. This reduces the independence and the ability of the House of Commons to do its job to a considerable extent.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Nonsense.
  Sir D. Glover: It is no use the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne muttering "Nonsense" because on similar subjects he has talked more nonsense in the House than any other hon. Member. If he has not the courtesy to get up—
  Mr. Silverman rose—
  Sir D. Glover: I will not give way. If the hon. Member had had the courtesy to get up when he wanted to interrupt, I should have given way to him, but I do not propose to give way now, for he has been muttering all the time.
  Now that I have been challenged I will explain the Bill. It is a much more sordid Measure than people think. The Prime Minister, having a majority of five, realised that Mr. Frank Cousins could not be allowed to go gambolling around the country like a bull going into industrial china shop after industrial china shop breaking all the china. He had to do something about it. The Prime Minister had to provide him with some great office of State with very little power—the sort of position which looks great but in which he has very little influence and power. He made him Minister of Technology.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: What a squalid filthy mind the hon. Member has.
  Sir D. Glover: The right hon. Gentleman, Mr. Frank Cousins, played a dreadful political game. He played, "Heads I win, tails you lose". He does not stand before the electorate in the General Election putting his views and policy as a candidate trying to enter the House as an elected Member. He waits until he finds out whether the Labour Party has won, and when he finds out that it has won he decides to become a politician. If the Labour Party had lost he would have gone on being a trade union official. He could easily have stood in the last election. I am sure that the Labour Party could have found him a constituency. If he intended to go into Parlia-
  1916
  ment and to be a Minister, he had a duty to present himself to the electorate during the election like everybody else in the House.
  Mr. Manuel: He is seeking election.
  Sir D. Glover: After he got a job, but not before. Why did he not do it before? That is what the democratic process demanded. It is not many years ago that a person on being given ministerial rank went back to the electorate for a new mandate from the electorate. Mr. Cousins is doing it in the reverse.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Is the hon. Member saying that what it is right for a Member of the House of Lords to do is wrong for a trade unionist to do?
  Sir D. Glover: I did not want to enter into these details, but the Postmaster-General brought about this procedure, not anyone on our side of the House. It was a Labour Party Amendment which made it possible. The Measure was brought in as a result of the activities of the present Postmaster-General.
  We have another Ministry, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. Is the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the natural resources, coal, iron and all the basic materials which exist in the country? No, he is not; he is in charge of land, water and forestry. I think he will spend most of his time in the forest. As soon as he begins to operate the Land Commission he will get so many thousands of appeals against compulsory purchase that he will be sunk without trace under the volume of paper which comes to his Department.
  Mr. Ernest Popplewell: What a lot of tripe!
  Sir D. Glover: I come to that great Department of State, the Ministry of Overseas Development. I agree with the title. In 1955 I tried to get the words "Colonial Office" altered to "Department for Developing Territories". I thought for many years that it was an absurdity to flaunt the word "Colonial" when all those territories were working towards independence and self-government and we were needlessly making the position more difficult. I wanted to change the name to, "Office for Developing Territories". We now have three Ministers of Cabinet rank.

  1917
  There is one for Commonwealth Affairs and one for Colonial Affairs. The correct title there should be, "Minister for the Outlying Islands", because the colonial possessions which are left are small islands which hon. Members in both parties find difficult to group together in order to give them independence. There is added a third Cabinet Minister and we have three Cabinet Ministers dealing with what in the last Parliament was rightly dealt with by one Minister.
  If that is not finding placemen jobs, what is it? Anyone can see the reason why the right hon. Lady is the Minister now in charge of this Department. She could not be left on the back benches. She was the most highly-trained political guerrilla in the Labour Party, trained for midnight attack and the most vitriolic speaker. She could not be left out of office; an office had to be found for her. This is a case of providing important offices of state with little power in order to keep vitriolic critics quiet in the months ahead.
  I shall not delay the House for much longer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] If hon. Members continue interrupting, I shall do so. In Clause 3 of the Bill we have a direct building up of the executive needlessly against the legislative assembly.
  Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Look at the clock.
  Sir D. Glover: If hon. Members keep interrupting—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): Order. I hope, for the benefit of the House, that hon. Members will not shout things across the Floor at each other.
  Sir D. Glover: I apologise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I shall try now to make my speech short. I did not intend to make a long speech, but I said that if I was interrupted I should have to do so. I feel very strongly about this matter.
  Mr. Manuel: The hon. Member does not.
  Sir D. Glover: I do. 1 am a House of Commons man before anything else. I believe that this Bill is an attack on the authority of the House of Commons.
  Mr. Manuel: The hon. Member is an old shocker.
  Sir D. Glover: No. If the hon. Member keeps interrupting, I shall go on for longer.
  Inevitably if we get more and more Ministers as placemen who have a vested interest in the continuation of the Government, we shall reduce the power of this House. I regret that this Bill has come on at this early stage. I am not criticising the Government for doing this because I understand the position, but I am sorry that the Bill has come early. I am sure that if many new hon. Members opposite had been in Parliament for a longer time they would realise the weakening of their position which will come about. I criticised my own side of the House also. The growing power of the Executive is all the time whittling away the powers of this forum, whereas in the ultimate this forum looks after the freedom of the people.
  It is not the Executive that does that. The Executive always wants to get its business, but the fundamental place where the freedom in a democratic society resides is in the lower House in a bicameral State such as we have. Anything that the Executive does to increase its power should be approached critically by ordinary Members of Parliament. I regret that during this debate, which I think is important to Parliament, there has been so little comment and so little criticism from the Government benches. From the occupants of those benches only the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale has had the courage to stand up for the rights of Parliament.
  8.7 p.m.
  Mr. George Jeger: We have heard an awful lot of nonsense in speeches this evening and some of it has been bedevilled by squalid personal protest against the new Ministers proposed in the Bill which we are considering. I think the debate has shown more solidly than anything else the narrow outlook of the Opposition and the way that they cannot look to the future. The whole outside world in banking, commerce, journalism and industry, is crying out for ex-Ministers. The hon. Member

  1919
  for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Ian Gilmour) grabbed himself an ex-Minister as editor of his journal. Ex-Ministers are in great demand. I have a list of a dozen ex-Ministers who recently obtained lucrative appointments in the City and various financial, banking, commercial and industrial undertakings—
  Mr. Hogg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am being addressed on a point of order.
  Mr. Hogg: On a point of order. I had always understood that on the Third Reading of a Bill is was the custom and order of this House to confine oneself to the contents of the Bill. I would not have addressed this point of order at this stage had it not been for the fact that I understood there had been something in the nature of an agreement between the two sides of the House, but, if the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) is to pursue this line of approach, I cannot see an early end to this debate. I therefore ask for your Ruling on my point of order.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Further to that point of order. May I ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to bear this in mind when you rule on the point of order which the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) has raised? We have listened this afternoon to speech after speech from hon. Members opposite not content to question the constitutional validity of what the Government propose but to attack personally the Government, every Minister and almost every hon. Member on this side of the House on the ground that everything the Government did had a sinister intention, that everyone who accepted an office was doing so merely in a corrupt sense and that we are less concerned about any constitutional criticism. They made purely personal attacks of the squalidest and meanest kind on everything connected with it. If this is done without protest from the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone, my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) is entitled to say that all the corruptness is not on this side of the House.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) has raised two points. The second one is a point for the House. I understood that both sides of the House had come to some agreement that the Bill would pass all its stages round about 8 o'clock. That is not a matter for me. It is a matter for the House.
  On the point of order the right hon. and learned Gentleman raised, he is absolutely right in his premise that Third Reading debates should deal only with matters which are in the Bill, but I permitted earlier speakers to refer to the principle of placemen which they think is involved in the Bill and I take the remarks of the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. George Jeger) to be an endeavour briefly to counter those references to placemen.
  Mr. Jeger: I was fully cognisant of the agreement that the proceedings on the Bill should end at 8 o'clock. If the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) had not spoken for so long, we could have concluded by 8 o'clock. I had intended to speak for only two minutes. I was provoked by the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central into making that reply to him.
  I assure the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) that I have no intention of going into any squalid personal details about the dozen placemen of whom I have a list. I am surprised that his mentality and quickness of brain have deserted him on this occasion. Probably he was up too late last night after that very brilliant speech he made rather late last night.
  Mr. Ian Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman has brought me into his argument. He said that ex-Ministers are in great demand. Is he defending the Bill on the ground that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) is easing the future of his present Ministers for when the Government are defeated?
  Mr. Jeger: There cannot be a corps of ex-Ministers available to the City, to journalism and to business unless they are Ministers first. They must be Ministers before they can be ex-Ministers. Therefore, if right hon. and hon. Members opposite are patriotic, if they are thinking of the future development of this country, they will want to see as

  1921
  many Ministers being made as possible, thinking of the future of the country when those ex-Ministers, with the training they have had as Ministers, will be in great demand for the benefit of the country. In other words, we are expansionist. The Opposition are restrictionist. In opposing the Bill they are resorting to restrictive practices.
  8.12 p.m.
  Mr. Hogg: I certainly do not want to delay the proceedings of the House on the Bill. I hope that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to whom, through you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the main burden of my remarks will be addressed, will not take amiss what I have to say. I would not have risen had it not been for what we on this side of the House regarded as a deliberately provocative and insulting speech by the right hon. Gentleman in moving the Third Reading. He accused us of opposing the Bill because of our distaste for a Labour Government. He said that in terms. I do not conceal from the House that many of us, including myself, view a Labour Government with distaste. We believe that that view will be shared by the country as the consequences of a Labour Government become more and more obvious.
  Commander Harry Pursey: Bonkers!
  Mr. Hogg: There is absolutely no truth in the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that our distaste for a Labour Government has anything whatever to do with our opposition to the Bill. Indeed, I would much rather be discussing and opposing the Government on their economic and general policies. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman frankly that what has gone wrong with the Bill was his own grotesque mismanagement of affairs last night. He was bailed out by the very wise and statesmanlike action of the Leader of the House who, on second thoughts, thought it right to come to an understanding with the Opposition, for whom the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had shown no consideration in his handling of Amendments, otherwise we would probably not have got our business today and would still have been discussing yesterday's business up to 11 o'clock this morning.
  Mr. Houghton: May I tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I was threatened by one of his right hon. Friends with what the Opposition would do if we persisted with all stages of the Bill yesterday, and that promise was amply fulfilled? We had the filibuster, and it was only because the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends threatened to wreck the Bill by going on indefinitely that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council came to some understanding about progress.
  Mr. Hogg: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is doing his right hon. Friend a grave injustice. The Lord President of the Council is the Leader of the House and not simply an officer of a party or even of a Government. The Leader of the House did very right to understand the depth of feeling which the Chancellor of the Duchy, with his mismanagement of the debate, had aroused in the Opposition. Hon. Members opposite must awake to the fact that this country does not have an elected dictatorship. It is the business of an Opposition to probe and criticise legislation and to present arguments which occur to them as reasonable. It is precisely because the right hon. Gentleman grossly misjudged the genuineness of the feeling and the misgivings to which the Bill has given rise that we have had so many protracted debates and tempers have to some extent become frayed.
  That is the first reason to explain what has gone wrong on the Bill. The second is the genuine feeling of distaste we have for the contents of the Measure. I do not repeat the arguments, which we believe are absolutely conclusive but which have not been answered, as to the totally unnecessary introduction of two or three new Ministries in Clauses 1 and 2. We think that to be a retrograde step in Government machinery.
  Let me remind the House that the Opposition represent just as large a segment of the electorate as those who sit on the benches opposite and our views have been very largely shared by the Liberal Party in the criticisms we have made. I see absolutely no reason either why we should not have presented those arguments or why they should not have been answered with better temper and

  1923
  with better reason than have been displayed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
  The other feature of the Bill to which we have taken exception is the very large increase in the number of Ministers. It is not simply a question of the payment of Ministers. Those who sit on the Front Bench on this side of the House know just as well as those who sit on the Front Bench opposite that the freedom of action of those who accept Ministerial office, whether it is paid or unpaid, is very greatly curtailed. We are proud to serve our country through our parties, in ministerial office, but in doing so we accept a very real curtailment of our liberty as Members of Parliament. We limit the subjects upon which we can speak. We limit the votes which we can give.
  Mr. Manuel: There are always plenty of volunteers for the job.
  Mr. Hogg: There always ought to be volunteers for the job. Let us make no bones about this. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) has interrupted me, because he is prolonging my speech beyond what I intended. Of course there ought to be volunteers for high office. High office is an honourable calling for those of us who engage in public life, and none of us should be ashamed of volunteering for high office. None the less—this is the point I make to hon. Members opposite—it involves a very real curtailment of the liberty of Ministers to exercise their freedom of speech and their freedom of voting in the House.
  The Attorney-General made a point which I thought was a false one in this connection. He said that there was a direct or implicit allegation of corruption about this. I think that he misunderstands the nature of at any rate my objection to the Bill. It is the simple fact that, although nobody doubts the integrity of either Front Bench, I hope, in public life in this country, the conventions of public life to which I have alluded, coupled with the efficiency of modern organisation, make Ministers just as reliable and just as automatic in their support of decisions of the Executive as the old placemen under Walpole who were actuated by less worthy motives.
  The fact is that if the majority party in the House becomes composed of too
  1924
  large a proportion—I will not call them placemen because that is a derogatory term—of hon. and right hon. Members who accept office, they are losing to a very high degree the freedom and independence which the public expects of this Parliament.
  The Attorney-General attempted to get round this objection, which I think he saw, by alluding to an article of mine in which I had said that for certain purposes, and I repeat that it is for certain purposes, the class of Member known as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to some extent adds to the number of people whose freedom of action is curtailed. I do not think that anyone would deny that as a fact.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say that, adding the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the number of Ministers, there was not all that difference between the size of the present Administration and the size of the past one. That was a stage in the argument which, with respect, he was not entitled to make. There is all the 'difference between a Minister and a Parliamentary Private Secretary, whether the Minister is paid or unpaid.
  The Attorney-General: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me, if he is not seeking to castigate those on the Government side as placemen, can he explain why this hysterical article of his ended with the words:
  "Meanwhile, this may well become known as the placemen's Parliament"?
  Mr. Hogg: I said that I would not in this connection and in this speech, precisely because I did not wish to raise the heat of this debate, refer to them as placemen, but of course placemen is exactly what they have been. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman cares to prolong my remarks by causing me to read at length from the article, he will see that I said in it precisely what I have said in this House, namely, that the honour of right hon. Gentlemen who accept office under any Administration is in no way in question. The purity of our public life is higher, or at any rate as high, as that of any country, and high office is something to which Members of Parliament can legitimately aspire as a form of service to their country. This is what I said, as the Attorney-General

  1925
  knows if he has read the article from beginning to end.
  I made it plain that whether one calls them placemen or one does not, the freedom of members of an Administration is very greatly curtailed—even their freedom to abstain from a vote—and it is not a desirable thing to multiply them. I endeavoured to say that with as little offence as possible. The whole history of the series of Statutes, of which this is the last, has been the recognition by the House of the danger implicitly in the fact that we in this country, unlike many others, including our allies in the United States, have our Executive right here on the Floor of the House. This is something of which I heartily approve, but there are dangers implicit in the arrangement and I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has not given us the credit for drawing attention to a real constitutional danger when facing the criticisms that we have made.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

  SEVERN BRIDGE TOLLS BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  8.25 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The main purpose of the Bill is to empower my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to levy tolls on the new Severn Bridge. The principle of charging tolls on public highways is something which undoubtedly gives rise to strong reactions among hon. Members. The arguments for and against it were discussed at some length during the debate on 1st December when the Ways and Means Resolution was considered in Committee.
  The principle of levying tolls on this bridge was then accepted by the Committee, but perhaps I should now repeat the principal reasons why we have decided to proceed with the proposal embodied in this Bill. This is not a new proposal. The previous Government announced in 1960 their intention that tolls should be charged on the
  1926
  Severn Bridge. This was in accord with their declared policy that tolls should be charged on costly new river crossings. They are already charged on the Dartford Tunnel, the Forth Bridge and the Tamar Bridge, all of which have been completed within the last few years, and legislation has been passed under which tolls will be charged on the Tay Bridge and the Tyne funnel when they are completed.
  Up to the present, the Severn Bridge is the only toll project to be financed entirely from central Government funds. We have at present in mind no other trunk road projects on which we think it will be appropriate to charge tolls, and our decision to go ahead with the proposal to charge tolls on the Severn Bridge does not in any way imply that we are considering levying tolls on motorways or other long stretches of new roads.
  Large river crossings are a special class. First of all, they are exceptionally costly. The Severn Bridge project will cost more than £13 million for a 2frac34;-mile length of road. Secondly, they provide substantial savings in time and in fuel costs for those who have the advantage of using them. For example, on a journey by car between Bristol and Cardiff use of the new bridge instead of the existing route via Gloucester will cut the journey by 45 miles and will save something like 8s. in petrol costs alone for somebody using a medium-size car.
  Savings of this magnitude and the corresponding savings in time are produced only by major river crossings of this kind. One does not achieve anything as spectacular as this by using the M.1 instead of the A.5 on a journey from London to Birmingham. The Severn crossing, therefore, will provide considerable savings to a well-defined group of road users, and it does not seem unreasonable that they should share some part of the saving with the national Exchequer, which is paying for the construction of the crossing. As long as toll charges do not outweigh the savings, users will derive immense benefits and will not be deterred in any way by the existence of tolls.
  The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum attached to the Bill indicates the order of expenditure

  1927
  required if tolls are to be collected on the bridge. The capital cost of the necessary buildings, equipment and so on for collection is estimated to be about £320,000. This covers such things as the provision of toll booths, collecting and recording equipment of the most modern type and an administration building. Annual expenditure of about £40,000 will be needed to cover such things as staff and administration costs and the maintenance of the toll buildings and equipment. If toll revenue were required to recover these costs plus the maintenance cost of the bridge itself, together with amortisation of the capital cost of the whole project—more than £13 million—an average annual toll revenue of about £1,100,000 would be needed. We have provisionally in mind amortisation over a period of 30 to 40 years.
  It is not sought by the Bill to specify toll charges or to impose any obligation on the Government to secure toll revenue sufficient to cover any particular costs, or to set any time limit on the power to charge tolls. As the entire construction cost is being met by the national Exchequer, there is in this case no loan to be repaid. So it would be inappropriate to lay down that toll revenue must be devoted to particular purposes or that the power to levy tolls should cease at any particular time. As the power under the Bill to levy tolls will be permissive, any Government will be free to cease levying tolls whenever they choose to do so.
  The House will probably not wish me to go through the Bill in detail Clause by Clause, but I wish to draw attention to the principal provisions. I have already mentioned the main points in connection with the levying of tolls themselves. It is my right hon. Friend's intention to appoint a local authority as his agent for the collection of tolls, and provision is made for this in the Bill.
  There are provisions for preventing obstruction to traffic and damage to the structure of the bridge. The most important of these are contained in Clause 6, where there is provision for making regulations for preventing obstruction to the motorway on the Severn and Wye Bridges. On this section of the motorway there will not be the usual hard shoulder to which broken-down vehicle
  1928
  can be removed. Any vehicle which breaks down on this section will be a potential cause of serious congestion and danger because the carriageways will have only two lanes each. It is essential, therefore, for the police to have power to order the removal of broken-down vehicle and that arrangements should be made for a removal service to be immediately available.
  The Bill deals also with the ferry which operates across the River Severn at the point where the bridge is now under construction. The ferry rights are derived from two ancient franchises. The owners of these wish them to be extinguished after the bridge is open to traffic. Therefore there will cease to be any duty to continue the ferry. The Bill accordingly includes in Clause 9 a provision whereby they could apply to my right hon. Friend for the extinguishment of the franchises.
  The ferry operators to whom a lease of the franchise has been granted have asked that provision should be made in the Bill for compensating them. Clause 10 provides for the payment of compensation if certain requirements are satisfied, in accordance with the principles there set out.
  The House will appreciate that the Bill has been found by the Examiners to be a Hybrid Bill. Therefore, in accordance with usual practice, it may decide to commit the Bill to a Select Committee, to which any petition against the Bill would be referred. In this case, questions of compensation would fall to be considered and to be argued in detail during later proceedings before the Select Committee. At the present stage, hon. Members might think it inappropriate or improper for me to discuss such matters in detail. I say only that, although there have been negotiations with the ferry operators, these have been on a confidential basis and without prejudice on both sides.
  I need not at this stage go into the remaining provisions of the Bill, many of which are consequential. Broadly, they provide for matters which are incidental and supplementary to the points which I have already mentioned.
  This great new river crossing over the Severn and the Wye will bring enormous benefits to the area which it serves, particularly south-west England and South

  1929
  Wales. It is a fine example of modern engineering and it will form an important link in the national motorway system.
  The proposal to charge tolls on the bridge has for a long time been an integral part of the project and it will not, I believe, prejudice the part that the crossing will play in the future prosperity of the areas it is intended to serve. Therefore it is in that spirit that I submit the Bill for the approval of the House.
  8.35 p.m.
  Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: I do not want to detain the House for too long, but there are one or two remarks I should like to make. First, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Tom Fraser) on what I think is the first Bill of his term of office as Minister of Transport. Basically, it is our Bill almost as much as it is his. When we formed the Government we intended introducing a Bill to legalise the payment of tolls on the Severn Bridge. Indeed, as the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) announced this as long ago as November, 1960.
  Naturally we are delighted that the Government are giving effect so soon to one of our provisions and we welcome the Bill in principle for this reason. But I must admit that, while I am delighted by the Government's action, I am a little surprised at what I can only describe as as complete about-turn—although, I suppose, we ought to be getting used to this sort of thing by now.
  In introducing the Bill, the Government are again showing that what they said at or before the General Election has little relevance to what they do when they have achieved office. The right hon. Gentleman himself is a notable example. I am glad that he is here so that I can say this in his presence, although, if he had not been, his Joint Parliamentary Secretary no doubt would have defended him. As I say, the right hon. Gentleman is a notable example of the tendency to say one thing and do another. He wanted to nationalise the North Sea and spoke vehemently about it before the election. He is now a member of a Government who are encouraging private enterprise in North Sea developments.
  The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser): What is the reference?
  Mr. Galbraith: The reference is what I read during the election in the Glasgow Herald.
  A few years ago the party opposite made vicious criticism when, in order to strengthen the economy, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) introduced a 7 per cent. Bank Rate. We were told that this was not the sort of thing that the Socialists would ever do. Now they are deflating as fast as they can possibly deflate with stop-go-stop.
  We now have exactly the same unprincipled about-turn regarding tolls. The right hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the document "Signposts for Scotland", published by the party opposite for the election and for which he himself, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, a former Opposition Front Bench spokesman and now a member of the Cabinet, must accept responsibility. We have these incredible words in that document
  "The Government's"—
  the Conservative Government—
  "projected imposition of tolls … is indefensible."
  That was one of the issues on which right hon. and hon. Members opposite fought the election in Scotland. They said, in effect, "Vote for us and there will not be any tolls." How many votes they gained through that I do not know.
  Mr. Tom Fraser indicated dissent.
  Mr. Galbraith: It is no good the right hon. Gentleman shaking his head. The statement is on page 10 of "Signposts for Scotland".
  Mr. Fraser: Read it all.
  Mr. Galbraith: If I did, I would keep the House longer than hon. Members and, indeed, I myself would want. A few weeks after the election all this is forgotten. Tolls are no longer indefensible but become indispensable, hence this Bill.
  I am not against tolls, but I protest most strongly against this rather unprincipled conduct of the Labour Party which fought the election on what amounts to a false prospectus. That is shocking. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter. Hon. Members opposite

  1931
  ought to have the guts to stick to what they say.
  The only good thing is that they seemed to have learned quickly that they were wrong about tolls. I hope that they will learn equally quickly the folly of their ideas on other transport subjects, such as their hostility to Dr. Beeching's reshaping report on the railways. I do not know when we shall hear about Dr. Beeching's position, but I hope that it will not be too long.
  The Government may be learning the wisdom of following the path which we have marked and mapped out for them, but some of their supporters, as was evidenced by the remarks of the hon. Members for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) in the debate on the Financial Resolution, seem to have their own views. Indeed, the reply by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland to the hon. Member for West Lothian does not exactly encourage me to believe that the Government are speaking on the subject of tolls with one voice. What the Secretary of State said was:
  "I will keep under review its effect"
  that is, the effect of the toll
  "on the development of the area served by the Bridge".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 11th November, 1964; Vol. 701, c. 81.]
  There is no doubt that the Secretary of State for Scotland thinks that it is the development of the area which counts.
  But that is quite different from what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said when introducing the Financial Resolution. There was nothing in his statement about the effect of the development on the area served by the bridge. He said:
  "We think that … there is a clearly defined category of people who derive the benefit and who can, without great administrative cost, be made to pay for it, it is right that they should be the ones to pay, rather than the general taxpayer or the ratepayer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December, 1964; Vol. 703, c. 412.]
  That is absolutely first class. That sort of stuff is good Conservative doctrine—that the people who benefit are the people who should pay.
  However, that does not seem to be entirely accepted by the Secretary of State for Scotland and I wonder whether
  1932
  there is a split on this subject of tolls in the Labour Party, because we know that hon. Members opposite specialise in splits of this sort. It is not a matter where Scotland and England are to be treated differently. Either hon. Gentlemen opposite believe in tolls, or they do not. I ask the Minister of Transport to state categorically the policy about tolls and to assure us that hon. Gentlemen opposite are not at sixes and sevens on this as they are on so many other subjects and that the reason for the toll is not that the bridge is due to be completed next year and that they have not had time to think up anything else, but that they genuinely believe that tolls are a proper way to finance bridges of this nature across rivers like the Severn and the Forth.
  Our view on tolls is well known. It is that where there is a bridge or tunnel of an exceptional nature which creates great saving in time and distance, as is the case with the Forth and Severn Bridges, it is perfectly proper to make a toll charge, particularly if that will help to finance and hasten the work of construction. This principle was announced by my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Transport as long ago as 1955 and it has been my party's policy ever since. I am glad that policy is now being followed, even if faintheartedly and not with entire unanimity, by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  What is almost as important as the principle is the application of the principle in practice. There will be an opportunity to examine some of the practical details in Committee, but there are one or two questions which I want to raise now and to which I should be grateful if the Minister would give me some answers. First, there is the question of the amount of the toll and what it is likely to be. The Financial Secretary, moving the Financial Resolution, and the Parliamentary Secretary whetted our appetites by mentioning some figures for the overall cost—£1,100 million per annum—but there has been no indication of how much it is likely to cost the driver of the car, lorry, or other vehicle, and it would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could now give some indication. I should also like to be assured in the light of experience of the amount of traffic that is generated by the bridge

  1933
  that the Minister will keep the charges under constant review to make certain that the traffic neither makes a profit for the Exchequer nor becomes a burden on the taxpayer, but that, in so far as it is practicable, it pays its way, and also that the rate of the toll is adjusted regularly to ensure that this is achieved.
  Clause 2, in the way I interpret it, refers to charges for different kinds of vehicles. Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us how he intends to evaluate the appropriate charge for different types of vehicle? There seems to be a good deal of difference of opinion on this, if the evidence submitted to the Geddes Committee is anything to go by, as to the extra cost, for example, that a heavy lorry imposes on the constructional cost of the bridge. I should be interested to know how the right hon. Gentleman will reach figures for different types of vehicles.
  Another point on which I should like some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman is with regard to Clause 11, which provides for a removal service in the case of accidents or breakdowns. I do not believe that it is the intention of the Minister to provide this service himself, and presumably someone will get a licence to do it for him. I imagine that this licence will be in the nature of a monopoly, and, if it is to be a monopoly it is very important that the Minister should make certain that overcharging does not take place. Can he tell us how he envisages that the charge for these removal operations will be fixed?
  Finally, there is the question of com-pension under Clause 10, to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred, payable to the ferry owners. He told us that this was to be discussed in the Select Committee. I do not know whether the Minister can tell us whether he is the judge in his own case—whether, in the event of there being a difference of opinion as to what is fair compensation between the Minister and the ferry owners, he will judge it, the Select Committee will judge, or whether there will be some other body to make certain that a fair figure is reached.
  These are mainly points of detail and there may be others that we shall want to discuss in Committee. For example, I am not quite certain about the extent
  1934
  of the fine mentioned in Clause 12. But I do not wish to delay the House because in principle we on this side welcome the Bill, not only because the idea of it is basically our own, but because it is an indication that the Government realise that the coffers of the Treasury are not a bottomless pit out of which to get money the whole time and that people who receive special benefits should be prepared to pay for them. That is the only way, we believe, in which we can get things moving, and not by regarding everything as a kind of social service. In the past that has been too often the trouble with the party opposite. They have believed in putting everything on the Exchequer. If the problem of paying for bridges, like the Severn Bridge, has removed the scales from the eyes of hon. and right hon. Members opposite, and if it has made them realise that it is not always right to burden the community with all expenditure, then this Bill will have fulfilled a dual purpose. In welcoming it, I wish it well on its journey to the Statute Book.
  8.50 p.m.
  Mr. Ernest Popplewell: On the whole, one welcomes the proposal to build this bridge. It has been discussed for many years and it has been needed for more years than people care to remember. I am sure that the people in the area must be very pleased to see their hopes realised. I have a fellow feeling for them, because in my part of the country we wanted a Tyne tunnel years before the war, just as people in the South-West wanted a Severn Bridge.
  First, I should like to compliment my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on his performance on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. To use the usual jargon of congratulation to maiden speakers, my hon. Friend acquitted himself very well.
  Having said that, I want to adopt a much more critical attitude. The Bill is the legacy of the Tory Party. It is part of Tory philosophy on transport matters. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) has just referred to the decisions on tolls by the Tory Party way back in 1955 and repeated in 1960. Hon. Members opposite have said that for any of the new crossings of our large waterways a toll must

  1935
  be imposed. My right hon. Friend had no option but to introduce the Bill because of the promises given and the negotiations and agreements entered into long before he took office.
  I can visualise exactly what took place, because in my part of the world we know how the local authorities and the people were prepared to face a considerable financial burden in the building of a Tyne tunnel free of tolls. I know that the people in the South-West were prepared to do the same, but the Tory attitude was: "Tolls or nothing".
  I was a little alarmed when my hon. Friend—and I hope he will not use this Tory attitude too much—said that the justification for tolls was the considerable saving of time and fuel which they effected. It is only a short step from saying that the same thing should apply to many motorways.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: And trunk roads. too.
  Mr. Popplewell: Yes. It may be said that because trunk roads and motorways reduce the mileage and time of a journey, the same principle should apply.
  This principle is dear to the Tory Party's heart. There was a strong suspicion on this side of the House that the Tories were near to adopting a policy of tolls for motorways and various other forms of road. My right hon. Friend must justify the Bill in one way or another. As the hon. Member for Hillhead said, the Bill was prepared before the Tories left office and it was inevitable that it should be introduced. However, I hope that, unless we cannot withdraw without losing honour, we will not introduce tolls for future projects. It is archaic, going back to the ages long ago. One can almost imagine that famous ride—
  Mr. Strauss: Dick Turpin to York.
  Mr. Popplewell: He ignored the toll. The one I had in mind was Gilpin when he had fun at the toll. We are going back almost to that stage.
  We have got to learn to live in the motoring age. It is with us. We cannot ignore it. It is part of our way of life. I am not noted too much for defending lorries on the roads, especially to the extent that they are on the road today. The motoring industry, however, pays a
  1936
  tremendous sum in road tax. It is argued that that tax should be used for road development. I cannot share that view. The tax is something upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer must depend to assist in meeting his expenditure, in the same way as with other taxes. Having said that, however, I feel that the motoring industry is entitled to expect service roads of the necessary type in this modern age.
  My City of Newcastle is undertaking a large development programme. We are attempting to turn an old industrial city into a city to meet the needs of the motoring age. It is a costly venture but it is something which it is essential for the nation to face. The imposition of tolls is not a fair basis of assessment. Transport is essential. It is necessary for getting goods from one part of the country to another. It is necessary for our people to move with speed in this modern age and it is totally unfair to continue any question of tolls.
  I know that the economic situation of the nation is such that we must look carefully at every penny of expenditure. I do not think, however, that my right hon. Friend the Minister requires a great deal of prodding from this side of the House. I am certain that he will to a large extent share my feelings and will ensure that transport is lifted to the proper level and plays a higher part in the priorities of our national plan.
  8.58 p.m.
  Mr. W. A. Wilkins: As I listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith), it occurred to me that no case gains by exaggeration. We often hear the hon. Member in the rôle of an attacking Member of the Opposition. I sometimes wonder why he does not bring his bagpipes and play them to us instead of speaking.
  What would the hon. Member have said tonight if my right hon. Friend had come with a proposal to abolish the tolls? He would have accused my right hon. Friend of breach of faith. We had to accept the position which the hon. Member's Government laid down for us before we came to power. Surely, we would not have had the Severn Bridge, by the authority at least of the Treasury, unless we in this House had agreed that it should be a toll bridge. I suppose

  1937
  that probably all of us in this House object fundamentally and basically to tolls on bridges, on roads or anything else. The hon. Member for Hillhead shakes his head. It must apply to his side of the House, but I am sure it applies to the majority of my hon. Friends on this side.
  Mr. Galbraith: It obviously does not apply to his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who enunciated a perfectly acceptable Conservative doctrine.
  Mr. Wilkins: Not everyone objects to paying tolls for the use of roads or bridges. I always pay a bob to go up the toll road at Porlock, because I prefer it to going up Porlock Hill. That is my own free choice.
  We have to look at this realistically. There has been an almost constant demand in the West Country for a bridge across the Severn. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) referred to it. I can tell him exactly how long we have been asking for this bridge in the West Country. It is over 40 years.
  That is why I interjected. We ought to have had this bridge over the Severn before either the Tyne Tunnel or the Forth Road Bridge was built. I have the report in my filing cabinet in the House to show that I actually sat on the Committee considering the proposal that there should be a hydro-electric barrage on the Severn which would combine a road transport bridge. I represented the local authority in Bristol. I was an interested party: I was chairman of the municipal electricity undertaking and our generating station at Portishead was likely to be affected by the proposal.
  Because of technical reasons the proposal was eventually turned down. This whole story goes back as far as 1922 when the Committee was first sitting to examine the possibilities of the Severn, which is a tidal river of great strength. It had to give it detailed examination. We have asked for this bridge for a long time. I can assure my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport that we shall be only too delighted when this bridge is open. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary underestimated the saving of mileage, and, consequently, of transport costs, which the use of this bridge will mean. It could not possibly be less than
  1938
  50 miles for every journey, and remembering that the journey would probably be a double journey, there and back.
  The people this bridge will affect, and who have been clamouring for it for years, are largely the industrialists and the distributors in the south-west of England, as far west as Devon and Cornwall. This will be an immense saving of transport costs to them. We can only hope that with their patriotic instincts they will pass on the saving represented by the reduced charges for the goods they transport to the people who buy them. I doubt, however, whether they will do so.
  My principal criticism—and it is a restricted one; I am not going to be too violent about this—is that there is no suggestion in the Bill of any possible period of duration of the tolls. I believe that this was also the case with the Forth Road Bridge. In this connection, I believe that we could learn something from the Americans. I understand from the Minister of Transport that the toll charge on the Forth Bridge is 2s. 6d. In the United States, where they have built many bridges of this kind over much wider rivers and at very much higher costs than we do, their costing system for the building is to charge, shall we say, the peak toll on the opening of the bridge and then gradually, as the capital costs are reduced, to reduce the amount of the toll. I see that the hon. Member for Hill-head has been joined by one of his hon. Friends. It has saved him from glorious isolation. Those who know America well will know that they gradually reduce the charge until it is, literally, a small maintenance charge.
  I believe that this idea of paying tolls for road bridges or for turnpike roads, as they are called in the United States, would be more acceptable to our people if they knew that the money would be used simply to meet the original capital cost and that at some time the tolls would either be abolished or would be reduced to a comparatively small maintenance charge for the purpose of maintaining the bridge.
  My right hon. Friend advised me that a toll of 2s. 6d. is being charged for the Forth Bridge. When the nation lays out a huge capital sum, such as has been required for the Forth Bridge and the Severn Bridge, the charge to the user of the bridge should be commensurate with

  1939
  the use made of it. I am inclined to disagree with the principle of charging, say, 2s. 6d. irrespective of the type of vehicle which will use the bridge. For example, industrialists will take 20-ton lorries across the bridge, if it is strong enough. Perhaps I should say 10-ton lorries.
  Mr. Popplewell: There are 20-ton lorries.
  Mr. Wilkins: I do not know whether there is any load limit on this type of bridge.
  We have statistics from the Road Research Laboratory into these matters. We know that the amount of licence duty paid for lorries is quite incommensurate with the duty paid by the driver of a private car. A mini-car is charged motor tax at £15 a year. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp), who is very knowledgeable on these matters, told me the other day that the charge for a licence for one of these huge lorries is about £125. From its experiments with these vehicles, which average about 930 miles a week, the Road Research Laboratory knows that they do 66 times more damage to a road surface than does a small motor car. Yet the motor car licence fee is £15 compared with £125 or £130 charged for the heavy lorries. The lorry is estimated by the Road Research Laboratory, as I say, to do 66 times more damage.
  It is about time we started to reexamine the taxation system of road vehicles and to take into account the amount of damage which they do to the road surfaces. If these industrialists and distributors were called upon to pay their due share of the charges required to meet the cost of these bridges, they would have to pay far more than 2s. 6d. If they paid very much more they would only then be in fair competition with the railways. If they had to pay the right dues to meet the cost of the damage which they did to the roads, I doubt whether they would be as successful as they are today in competing with railway freight.
  We ought to get down to this business, and this may be a very valuable opportunity to do so when the Minister of Transport is using the authority which he is seeking in the Bill to decide about tolls. This is an opportunity for him to
  1940
  get down to the business of what the charges ought to be for a bridge of this kind.
  9.10 p.m.
  Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison: I did not anticipate speaking in this debate, but I hoped to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. However, I cannot remain seated and allow that attack on my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith) to go by unmentioned, for my hon. Friend made an extremely good speech and did a good deal of work on the Bill when he was at the Ministry of Transport.
  I can well understand the dislike of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) of tolls. Has he realised that there is nothing compelling the Minister of Transport to leave the charges on and allow them to remain in the Bill? After all, what is a change of heart to the Labour Party? They have been doing nothing but tearing up past agreements ever since they took office. Obviously, if they wished to remove tolls they have the power to do so.
  The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West seemed to imply that tolls were something archaic and dated back to the Middle Ages. I hope that he realises that many other industrialised countries have tolls on their bridges and roads, as the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) indicated.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, South implied that industrialists were going to have a great deal of money put into their pockets as a result of this bridge. Not industrialists as such but industrial firms, which will get their goods not only to the people of this country but to our vital export markets, will be the ones to benefit. He went on to imply that these firms would make larger profits as a result of the bridge, but would not pass them on to the public. Do they not need some easier means of transport to make up for the additional tax on petrol, remembering that a great part of our export costs is made up of transport charges?
  Mr. Wilkins: So it was when the hon. and gallant Member's party put 1s. 1½ on petrol after Suez.
  Sir H. Harrison: But only a quarter of what the hon. Member's party put on.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. We are talking about the Severn, not Suez.
  Sir H. Harrison: I certainly did not put anything on petrol at the time of Suez. My remarks obviously got under the skin of the hon. Member for Bristol, South, judging from the way in which he sprang to his feet.
  We are debating something which will provide an opportunity for our export trade to be helped. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead and my right hon. Friend who was then the Minister of Transport had this in mind when they did so much work on the Bill. All hon. Members are grateful for the work they did for better transport facilities, and I welcome the Bill.
  9.14 p.m.
  The Minister of Transport (Mr. Tom Fraser): I am grateful to hon. Members for the reception they have given to our Bill. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) began his speech, after my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary had so lucidly explained the Bill's provisions, by having a little fun and commented that the Bill was the first I had been able to introduce since taking office. The hon. Gentleman must have a very short memory, because this is, in fact, the second Bill I have introduced. I distinctly remember the hon. Gentleman being in his place throughout the Second Reading of the first one. Indeed, he made a speech on it, although he has forgotten all about that.
  The hon. Gentleman went on, charging his very undistinguished memory, to assert that during the summer I had made some ridiculous speeches begging that the North Sea should be nationalised. Had he consulted Parliamentary records he would have discovered that when the relevant Bill was before Parliament I made it clear that the resources lying under the North Sea were just as clearly nationalised by the last Tory Government as was the coal that lies under our soil. That was all done a long time ago.
  What happened during the summer and early autumn was that, as we moved forward to the General Election, one of the
  1942
  hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friends granted concessions to applicants to exploit the North Sea in circumstances in which I thought he should not have done so. I still think that he was wrong to have done what he did.
  Mr. Galbraith: Then the Minister cannot charge me with being unfair to him, because he wanted this concession to be run by someone other than private industry. To that extent, my charge was perfectly justified.
  Mr. Fraser: We are getting a little way from the Severn and its toll bridge, but I did not at all claim that all this exploitation should be undertaken by the State. Never at any time have claimed that, and again I challenge the hon. Gentleman to produce references to show that I did so.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that I had referred to tolls in the past in a way that made it quite inconsistent for me to introduce this Bill. Once again, he will find it very difficult to produce his references—they do not exist, not even in the document he now holds. He also quoted the reply the other week of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) about tolls. If he looks at the Labour Party's election literature, let alone our election speeches in Scotland, he will see that my right hon. Friend said exactly the same before 15th October as he has been saying since about the tolls charged on the Forth Bridge.
  Mr. Galbraith: I do not complain in any way of the right hon. Gentleman contradicting himself, but there seems to be a difference in interpretation in what his right hon. Friend said in reply to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and what the Financial Secretary said in moving the Financial Resolution that enabled the Bill to be introduced.
  Mr. Fraser: I am not aware of there being any inconsistency between what my right hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend said; it is just possible that the fault lies in the mind of the hon. Member.
  He asked me to say what the toll charge would be—a question that was

  1943
  repeated in some measure by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins). It would be wrong of me at this stage to say what I think the toll should be. The amount of the toll, and whether it will differentiate between one type of vehicle and another will, when I get the power, once the Bill is enacted, be contained in a draft Order. That draft Order will be published in the local newspapers at either end of the bridge, and in the London Gazette. There may be objections to it, and there may well be a public inquiry. Following on all that, it will then be for me to present an Order to the House. If I were now to guess what the toll might be, I do not think that it would be very helpful to an objective consideration of the draft Order, as and when it is produced. It would be much fairer if I were not to make any guesses at the present time.
  The hon. Member for Hillhead also asked about the removal operations, for which provision is made in Clause 11 of the Bill. It is my intention that arrangements shall be made by a contractor, a firm, or probably a garage owner, to clear stationary vehicles which have broken down on the bridge, but probably it will be necessary to give the police authority to use other garages also. Again, in this connection the charges which will be imposed will be laid down by Regulation subject to negative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament, and it is a little early to say what the charges should be.
  The hon. Member further asked who will be the judge of what compensation will be paid under Clause 10. He asked if I would be judge in my own cause. As the Parliamentary Secretary explained in moving the Second Reading, this Bill has been considered by the Examiners to be a Hybrid Bill. Therefore, there will be a Motion to commit it to a Select Committee. The Select Committee will then be free to consider any representations made by those who feel that they are suffering injuries under its provisions, and those are the people who might get compensation under Clause 10. In the course of consideration of those representations it is conceivable that the Select Com-
  1944
  mittee will give some advice to the House as to what the compensation should be.
  So it is possible that I shall be advised and the House will be advised by the Select Committee as to the precise amount of compensation. It is also possible that the discussions which are under way at present with the operators of the ferry will result in agreement being reached. If agreement is reached, before the Select Committee has any need to consider any such representations, the amount of compensation would be settled by agreement. I think it likely that the amount of compensation will be determined either by agreement in the consultations now going on or ultimately by the Select Committee.
  There has very properly been some discussion as to whether or not tolls should be charged on this bridge. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell) very properly called attention to the difference between major river crossings, of which this is one, and motorways or trunk roads. I repeat what the Parliamentary Secretary said in moving the Second Reading. We have no intention whatever of introducing legislation to enable tolls to be charged on motorways or trunk roads.
  When my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South was talking about experience in the United States of America, I recalled that in the United States on their turnpike roads, freeways or express ways—they give different names to them in different States—it is not uncommon to charge tolls. I rather thought that my hon. Friend suggested that it would be a good thing to follow their example in this.
  Mr. Wilkins: Oh, no.
  Mr. Fraser: He wanted us to follow their example, but that was in another respect. He said that in the early years the toll charge could be high and then it could be run down. I wish to bring out the fact that we shall not follow the United States in every respect because we shall not impose tolls on motorways or trunk roads. There is a difference between a major river crossing and a motorway or a trunk road. If I were to put it in its most crude way, it would be this. When a motorway is construc

  1945
  ted, the Government of the day have it constructed with a view to easing the flow of traffic. There is always an alternative road to the motorway—the alternative from which the traffic has just come. If a toll charge were to be imposed on those trunk roads, it might well be found that the traffic would be diverted from the motorway back on to the road from which the traffic had just been taken.
  A major river crossing which will save the road user a very long journey indeed, as is the case here, is a very different matter. In this case everyone who uses this major river crossing will be saved very considerable expense. It is fair to say that those who campaigned over a great many years for this river crossing did so on the assumption that when it was built tolls would be charged.
  Another consideration which I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West to take into account is that the railways pay for their river crossing over the Tyne and for going through the Severn Tunnel. The railways have to pay for all of their very expensive estuarial crossings. Inasmuch as road bridges are used to a considerable extent for the conveyance of freight—if they are to be used to a considerable extent by road haulage—the railways would have a perfect right to complain if the taxpayers in general were to pay.
  Mr. Popplewell: This is shocking!
  Mr. Fraser: My hon. Friend may think that it is shocking, but it happens to be the fact that we give road haulage a very great advantage over the railways if we provide a road crossing for which the road haulier does not have to pay, although the railways and the railway users have to pay the whole cost of the railway crossing over the same river and very near to the same point.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South said that the Bill made no mention of the duration of the tolls. This is true. As my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said, we did not think, and we still do not think, that we should put any provision in the Bill about the duration of the tolls. We think that another Government and another Parliament at any time should be perfectly free to reduce, vary or dis-
  1946
  continue the tolls. We think that the proposed tolls in relation to this river crossing are very different from some of the others which have been mentioned. The others, such as the Tamar Bridge and the Forth Bridge, are bridges financed partly from local funds. They are controlled by local authorities. The money to build them has been raised by way of loan which is to be repaid over a set period—30 or 40 years. That consideration does not apply in this case, although if we had decided not to charge tolls in the case of the Severn crossing it would have been very difficult indeed to withstand the claim that tolls which have already been imposed on other crossings should be removed.
  Mr. Wilkins: How would this be achieved? Would it be achieved by a variation of the draft Regulations? As I read the Bill, I do not find any authority for a succeeding Government to make any change. Does my right hon. Friend rest his case on the fact that another Government could bring in a new set of Regulations? Has he given any consideration to my suggestion that we should think in terms of a gradual reduction in the charges over a number of years?
  Mr. Fraser: I had not previously thought in terms of providing for a gradual reduction in the tolls over the years, but I take note of what my hon. Friend has said. I think that it would be difficult to put it into a Statutory Instrument in the first place, but I believe that the Bill gives me power to bring in varying Regulations in the future. If it does not, I will endeavour to see that before it goes on the Statute Book it does, because I want the Minister of Transport from time to time to be able to reduce or to increase the charges. I want him to be free to vary the charges falling on certain classes of vehicles using the crossing. I want him to be free to do what my hon. Friend asks, that is to say, to provide that a very heavy vehicle would not necessarily be charged the same as a mini.
  Mr. Wilkins: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not pursue that idea when we come to later stages of the Bill. I would not object to writing into the Bill something that would enable charges to

  1947
  be reduced as the capital charge is met, but my right hon. Friend will create a dangerous precedent if he writes into the Bill powers enabling the charges to be increased, because we all remember what hon. and right hon. Members opposite did with the Health Service prescription charges.
  Mr. Fraser: I hope that my hon. Friend has more confidence in the good sense of the electorate. We are going to be here in office for a long time.
  I think that I have answered all the points raised in the debate. I know that the Bill is not strenuously opposed in the part of the country where the tolls will be paid. I also know from my few weeks in office that there are a good many other parts of the country with a demand now for major river crossings, and they have been at me telling me how anxious they are to get on with the projects. All of them, without exception, tell me that they will charge tolls when the major crossings are provided.
  Mr. Popplewell: Surely not.
  Mr. Fraser: Yes, this is true.
  Mr. Popplewell: I do not argue that it is not true, but I feel that my right hon. Friend is placing too much reliance on his brief and his Department's approach in this connection. There are areas in the country which certainly want these crossings. They want them but they feel that they have been unjustly held to ransom by the requirements to impose a toll, but just as our people on the Tyne have had to agree to a toll, they would agree to a toll to enable a bridge to be built. I think that that is a fair summary of the position. I know that my right hon. Friend's Department has a particular slant in this direction, guided by Tory philosophy in the past. I hope that he will give serious consideration to this matter.
  Mr. Fraser: My hon. Friend is quite wrong in thinking that in what I was saying I was relying on a brief from my Department. I assure him that I was not misinforming the House when I spoke of representations made to me—and they were made to me personally and not to the Department—in favour of my giving sympathetic consideration to the inclusion in the highway programme of two major
  1948
  river crossings. The case being made for them was that the local authorities concerned would raise the money for them by way of loan and pay for them by way of tolls. This being so, I thought that I had not only the right but the duty to inform the House of Commons of the position when it was considering this Bill.
  I hope that I have replied to the points which have been raised in the discussion and I now commend the Bill to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Select Committee.—[Mr. Lawson.]

  HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS SHIPPING SERVICES
  9.35 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I beg to move,
  That the Undertaking between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the North of Scoland, Orkney and Shetland Shipping Company Limited, a draft of which was laid before this House on 27th November, be approved.
  We move from the severity of life in the West Country to the most northerly part of these islands. There will be those who will wish to read how the subject of their communications in the Shetlands is dealt with in the House of Commons, and I wonder how they will react to the debate about a bridge over the Severn which they will have the chance to read in the same copy of HANSARD. We are now considering people to whom communications mean life, who live in a place where communication has always been by sea and where the prospect of having a bridge and the comforts of a bridge, with or without toll, is absolutely nil.
  The draft Undertaking deals with the sea service between Lerwick and the North Isles of Shetland, that is the islands of Yell, Unst, Fetlar, Out Skerries and Whalsay. The names trip off the tongue like poetry, but, having had the privilege of being there and knowing the islands with some familiarity during the war, I can assure the House that life is not always quite so poetic up there.
  The North of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Shipping Company operates this service with the motor vessel "Earl of Zetland", and to do so it has received

  1949
  assistance since 1960 from the Scottish Office. The company's main services between Leith and Aberdeen and the Orkney and Shetland Islands are not in any way assisted by Government subsidy.
  In 1960, the company intimated that it was not prepared to continue to run its subsidiary service between Lerwick and the North Isles beyond that September unless it received Government assistance towards its losses. We were thus faced with the situation that, unless Government assistance was available, the people of these islands would be completely cut off. The Government of that day, the Conservative Government, used the Highlands and Islands Shipping Services Act, 1960, to bring the necessary help to this service. Incidentally, that Act had only just been passed, and passed shortly after they had said that there was to be no more nationalisation, but it was an Act by which they gave power to the Secretary of State to build ships, to own ships, to charter ships and to run ships. Indeed, I appear tonight in the rôle of one of the ship owners of Scotland.
  It was calculated at that time that about £2,000 a year would meet the deficit, hut, since then that has proved to be a gross underestimate. Shore and handling charges, wages and repair costs as well as a proportion of overheads of the other service have made this figure quite unrealistic.
  One of the reasons for the loss is the transfer of passenger traffic—it is mainly such traffic and not so much freight traffic—through the use and development of what is known as the Shetland overland service between the Islands and the mainland of Shetland. This service is by converted fishing boats about 25 ft. long. They go between the Islands and then there is bus and other transport. If we could develop this service, it might well be that in the end we should have something much cheaper and perhaps more efficient. But that prospect is years ahead and I am sure that, if we are to maintain these communications, we must give the necessary support to the North of Scotland company.
  Section 2(3) of the 1960 Act provides that the Secretary of State, where the amount given in subsidy in any one year exceeds £10,000, must bring a draft Undertaking to the House. It became
  1950
  clear by the latter half of last year that the payment for 1964–65 would exceed this limit. That is why I have brought this Undertaking before the House.
  Subject to the incentive Clause—Clause 13 of the Undertaking it provides for the whole deficit of the "Earl of Zetland" service to be met by the Secretary of State. This service does not bring in business to the company's other services which it could not otherwise get, nor does it help to cover its overheads. We have had this confirmed by specialist examination.
  The draft Undertaking makes arrangements with the company on similar lines to the other agreements that have been concluded under the 1960 Act with MacBrayne's and the Orkney Islands Shipping Company for the North Isles of Orkney. It will enable the Secretary of State to meet the North of Scotland Company's deficit this year of over £10,000 and, if necessary, to deal with the position in future years. For the most part, the detailed provisions repeat, in effect, what the House has already discussed and approved in relation to the other Undertakings.
  Clause 1 provides that the agreement is to run for three years. After three years we will be able to have another look and if there is development of the "overland" service we can, of course, make the necessary changes. Part II of the Undertaking sets out what the company is to do. It must provide such transport services as may be approved by the Secretary of State. Any changes in services are made subject to his consent. This is really controls run rife and an Act of Parliament passed by the Conservatives is responsible.
  The Secretary of State may also require changes to be made, as he thinks fit. The company is also to provide information required by him in relation to its services. It must provide suitable vessels and crews; it must connect up with other public transport services and observe the fair wages clause. This is common form and has been in all these agreements.
  In return for all this, the Secretary of State undertakes, in Part III, to pay an annual grant sufficient to meet the company's losses. The Undertaking sets out how this will be calculated. Clause 12

  1951
  deals with details of accounts and insurances and Clause 13 provides an incentive to efficiency.
  Clause 13 is rather complicated. It really means that, if there is an additional loss of up to £1,000, the company will meet half and the Secretary of State the other half. If there is an unexpected gain then 50 per cent. goes to the company and 50 per cent. to the Secretary of State. In this way we hope to ensure a certain amount of concern for efficiency. It is a small but very important incentive. If, of course, the company went on making extra losses or extra profits year after year, this would show that there was something wrong with the original estimates and the capital grant may be recalculated.
  Clause 14(2) deals with charges. Changes in rates and fares require the consent of the Secretary of State and he is empowered to require changes if he thinks fit to do so. The Secretary of State, however, must have regard to certain considerations in exercising these powers. They are, first, the general level of other transport services; secondly, the financial results of the company and the amount of grant payable and, finally, the effect on the economy of the area to be served. This is very important, because the economy of the area concerned would just collapse without these services. In fact, one of the serious reasons for the increase of the grant is depopulation and the fact that the service has not been used because the people are not there to use it.
  Clause 14 provides that if rates and fares are changed, the grant must be reviewed. Alternatively, the grant may be changed instead of putting up rates and fares. All this again repeats provisions which the House has approved in the agreements for MacBrayne's and for the North and South Isles of Orkney.
  Part IV contains formal matters dealing with summary determination and the Secretary of State's default powers. We hope that we shall not have to use them.
  I hope that I have given a sufficiently clear account of the agreement to enable the House to approve it. The agreement is of great importance to the people of these areas where life cannot be sustained without these services and where these services cannot be sustained without this Undertaking.
  9.47 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: As the Secretary of State has said, these services are essential to the North Isles of Shetland even though Yell and Unst can be reached by a system of ferries and buses. The Isles of Fetlar, the Skerries and Whalsay are almost entirely dependent on the "Earl of Zetland" and in addition all heavy freight has to be carried by sea. I noted with approval what the right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech about the importance of sea routes and how glad we should be to have some bridges, even if we had to pay tolls on them. We do not even have trunk roads and the sea is our trunk route.
  As the right hon. Gentleman said, the undertaking enables the Government to make a comparatively small subsidy to the North of Scotland Shipping Co., small in comparison with the subsidy paid to MacBrayne's in the Western Isles. As he also said, it covers only the inter-island services of Shetland and not the trunk route from Leith and Aberdeen to Lerwick.
  We are trying to increase the tourist traffic and the shipping company has shown enterprise in conjunction with the local hotels in providing facilities for tourists. However, the "Earl of Zetland" has a limited life. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will not be able to give me any information about this now, but I want to put it on the record that we ought to be considering a replacement and that when we do we must consider the type of ship and whether it is to have accommodation for tourists or to be largely devoted to cargo. In Orkney we suffered from delaying consideration of ship replacement too long. This cost the taxpayer money in the end and affected the services.
  As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is a great deal of consideration about the development of the overland route and there have already been inquiries into how the services should be conducted. All I will say tonight is that there is a tendency to feel that these matters are not urgent. They are becoming urgent and some decision about the services to the North Isles will have to be made fairly soon.

  1953
  There is no doubt that the overland route is extremely convenient for passengers and light parcels, but if we were to extend it so that we had a system of vehicle ferries and at the same time the roads were improved, it might well carry heavier freight. Within the foreseeable future, however, the steamer will be needed, especially for the Skerries and Fetlar and probably Whalsay. It is also difficult to see, in the near future anyway, that heavy freight and livestock will be entirely carried by road, especially in the winter.
  Further, there is the question of piers. We are still awaiting a decision about the repair and improvement of one or two piers. This is obviously tied up with the sort of service that we are to have, how far we are to rely on the overland service and how far we are to rely on the sea service. Therefore, the replacement of the "Earl of Zetland" and the future form of the services, related to the question of piers and roads, are matters upon which we hope decisions can be reached fairly soon.
  Turning to the draft Undertaking, it is in fairly common form. We have had several of these Undertakings, and, to my mind, this one is acceptable for the purposes for which it is designed. The Secretary of State has power under paragraph 5 to request the company to maintain services. I think that I am right in saying that, although the Undertaking refers to the North Isle Services, the right hon. Gentleman could direct the company possibly to maintain at least temporarily some other service and take in some other island if he thought it necessary.
  The Secretary of State drew attention to paragraph 13, which I welcome. It is right to give the company an incentive to make some money if it can, or to keep down losses to the minimum.
  Paragraph 14, particularly subparagraph (1,d) is very important. Here we come to the question of freight and transport charges. They form a perennial complaint in the whole Highland area. Charges went up once again last summer, and it made people feel that talk of development was rather empty when they were continually faced with rising freight charges. I realise that this is not the occasion for debating the whole question of freight charges in the Highlands, but I would make this point.
  1954
  The Government are to set up a development authority in the Highlands. We believe that this is one of the first matters to which it will have to attend. When it looks at paragraph 14 (l,d,iii) and the equivalent provisions in other Measures, it will find that one of the matters to which the Secretary of State shall have regard is the effect of transport charges
  "on the economy of the area served by the Company".
  When it looks at that, I hope that it will realise that it is not only a question of trying to keep the existing population from disappearing too quickly.
  The Secretary of State is right. The great trouble with these services is that we are in a vicious circle, to some extent. The population is always falling, and as it falls the charges go up and that takes more people away. If the development authority is to do a development job, it must reverse that spiral. It must not merely prevent charges from rising too quickly, but try to reduce charges as part of the general development policy for the Highlands. Therefore, it is not so much a question of looking at the state of the economy as it exists, but of looking forward a bit. As it is bound to direct its attention to ways of increasing the population and trade, it must consider the transport charges.
  I do not want to delay the House over this draft Undertaking which, as I say, my constituents welcome. It has given me the opportunity to draw attention to the decisions which will face us concerning the servicing of this area and to impress on the House and the Secretary of State that transport should be considered not by itself but as part of a development policy.
  I should like to close on this note. This is a matter which may affect a small number of people, but it affects them very deeply. They are people who are deeply devoted to their islands and homes. They want to make a living there. Recently, great efforts have been made to rehabilitate the Island of Yell. I hope that the House will be sympathetic to this draft Undertaking and will approve it. It will be the better for directing its collective mind to the problems of people who may be far from London but who are not, for that reason,

  1955
  any worse. Many of them have given long service to their country, and they are glad to think that the House of Commons gives as much attention to them in their islands as it does to the less fortunate people who are jammed up in this great wen of London.
  9.55 p.m.
  Mr. Ross: The important point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) was the question of the land route and the future of the "Earl of Zetland". I assure him that one of the questions which I immediately asked when I heard about this was how old the ship was, and I was told that it was over 20 years. There is, therefore, no doubt that it has, as the right hon. Gentleman says, a limited life. It will, of course, be appreciated that the nature of a replacement will depend entirely on the development of the overland route. That depends, first, upon the car ferries, their size and design and what they can carry apart from passengers; for the question of freight and livestock arises equally.
  From there, one thinks naturally of the physical needs of the landing places. The right hon. Gentleman rightly spoke of the need for piers. The type of pier will depend upon the type of car ferry. An aspect which the right hon. Gentleman did not mention but which we appreciate is that of cost. A tremendous amount of work will be entailed.
  As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Shetlands are not exactly teeming with civil engineers. We cannot, therefore, think of all this being done within a year or two. I do not need to assure the right hon. Gentleman—he already knows—that the Highland Transport Board is looking into the question. I have had a long talk with the Chairman of the Board. The Board has been examining how this is done in other parts of Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. The county council has been doing a lot of work as well. I have certainly come to the conclusion that it is a very good scheme if we could get it developed. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, however, there will still be islands that require steamer services. We take note of the point.
  I am glad that the House has seemingly given the Undertaking a welcome.
  1956
  There is no doubt about its importance. I wish that we could find all the time and money that is necessary for the trunk roads and the rest. I know the roads only too well—in fact, I helped to build some of them. The H.L.I. got lots of jobs to do during the war. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Shetlands continue to have the strong support of this House. What we are affording to the Shetlands on this occasion is very little compared with what we vote on other items. The present limit here is about £20,000 annually, but we hope that in addition to holding the position with the Undertaking we can look forward to a much improved and more satisfactory service from the combination of the ferries and the land route, as well as from roads and transport on the roads. One of the difficulties is that that is not always entirely dependable.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Undertaking between the Secretary of State for Scotland and the North of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Shipping Company Limited, a draft of which was laid before this House on 27th November, be approved.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Bill referred to the Scottish Grand Committee.—[Mr. Ross.]

  SCHOOL TRANSPORT (RURAL AREAS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lawson.]
  10.0 p.m.
  Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison: I am glad to have the opportunity to raise the subject of school transport in rural areas, from the standpoint, first, of the safety factor on our roads, which is so important—we have just seen the last figures and they are getting worse—and, secondly, of the concern and anxiety of parents. I am raising it for rural areas only. I am not speaking of urban areas, where there is public transport in the form of buses—it used to be trams—where parents who live nearly up to the two-mile limit can pay if they so wish

  1957
  to put their children on that public transport. The present limit of two miles for children under the age of 11 and three miles for children over 11 is the limit within which they must get themselves to school, and it was laid down 20 years ago in the Education Act of 1944.
  It is due to the successful working out of this Act that conditions in our schools have changed, by the separation at the age of 11. Now, the elder children leave the village school, now called the primary school, and go off to secondary modern and grammar schools. We also have the vast increase in traffic on our roads, big lorries going down our small lanes delivering essential goods to many of our farms, cars also going down these narrow roads, many of which are without footpaths. As the House well knows, these small children from the age of 5 have to find their own way to school when living within the two-mile limit. As I said earlier, for those over the age of 11 a three-mile limit was laid down by the Act.
  I referred to these children going to the primary schools where there are no children over 11. These are the schools which have succeeded the village school of years ago, the all-purpose school where, formerly, girls aged 12, 13 and 14 took charge of the younger children who were walking there in their first or second year from the outlying houses in the village and they were able to look after them. That was all right in those days when there was less traffic on the roads. In Suffolk, as in other parts, this is no longer so. I speak of my own county of Suffolk because I have more knowledge of it. Our villages are not compact. They are very scattered, with a number of outlying houses which always seem to house the largest families. I am sure that this applies in other counties as well.
  So many of these houses seem to be within one or two miles from the school, so what do we find happens? The mother, when her first child reaches the age of 5 and has to attend school will, more than likely, have a second child. She has either to walk or push the children there in a pram or, as very often happens, she bicycles there with the children on the bicycle. She has to do this journey four times a day—there with the elder child and the younger one
  1958
  in the morning, taking the younger one home in the morning, and again in the afternoon. There is even another complication if she and her husband—very naturally—want to have a further increase in their family.
  I have spoken to many of these mothers outside the schools when they have come to collect their children. They all tell me of the strain it is with traffic conditions today. They are worried as to how their children are to go to school unless they personally take them there. It is true that money is rightly spent on traffic wardens, but these are employed only just outside primary schools and not on the rest of the journey back, which sometimes, although rarely, involves crossing a class A road and often involves crossing a busy class B road.
  In the countryside we have good relations and neighbourliness. There may be one neighbour with a car, and other children from the houses around are put into the car. But one cannot rely on this always happening. Where it is possible at no extra expense—and where they can do it—the county council will allow a child to travel on a school bus or taxi which is collecting children from beyond the two-mile limit. But this concession may last for only one or two terms for a child, say, one-and-a-half miles from the school, as the taxi may then be filled by a new child travelling from beyond the two-mile limit.
  Many Members with rural constituencies meet these human problems. We have mothers at their wits' end in considering how to get their children to school. We find that local authorities are very sympathetic, but they say that they have not the money to do more to help. I am not pressing tonight for a general reduction in the two-mile limit because of the public transport available in the towns, but I am pressing on behalf of parents in these isolated districts.
  Perhaps the following true story from my own experience illustrates the point. There was a family in a house on a drift-way by a farm in Suffolk. They wrote to me and said that they could not get their child on the school bus or taxi and yet they were sure that they lived more than two miles from the school because a neighbouring farmer had measured it with his car speedometer. Very kindly the education authority had the distance

  1959
  correctly measured. From the house to the gate on the road into the school the distance was one mile and 1,755 yards, so that the child could not get on the school bus. A few days later a neighbouring farmer was passing the school and saw that the gate of the school on to the road was locked and that for safety purposes all children were using a side gate up an alleyway. The position was again put to the county council, who measured the distance from the gate which was locked to the other gate. The distance was 10 yards, and this made it two miles and five yards from the child's home—and the child was allowed transport by bus!
  I speak here for my hon. Friends from rural constituencies, including Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) and Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths), when I say that the problem exists in many areas. We have had to modernise our secondary modern and our grammar schools, and the next stage will see the development of more central primary schools. The problem will grow when the children of three or four villages are gathered together so that one central school will accommodate all the children.
  I do not dispute that this centralisation is a good thing for education; I am sure that it is. These children will be more than two miles away from the new central primary school—we have already one or two of these schools—and they will immediately have transport provided for them. The money will be available. Secondly, we must remember that by having primary schools more centrally located there will be an even greater number of children living up to two miles from those central areas. This is a problem which will grow rather than diminish.
  I suggest, therefore, that the time has come when a next step in education should be taken by making an extra limited sum available—or the county councils making it available with the Minister's approval—to meet this transport problem for school children in rural areas, particularly in view of the hardship and difficulties caused to parents.
  Even where transport is provided I have found that children are not always sent to the nearest schools, to which their parents would prefer them to go. Often they are sent to schools further away, on
  1960
  the ruling of the county council. This is sometimes an arbitrary ruling and, while there may be good reasons for it, those reasons are not always understood by parents.
  Many children go to secondary modern and grammar schools by bus from beyond the three-mile limit, but in certain cases instead of going by bus they are given a bicycling allowance and are equipped with waterproof capes and leggings for bad weather. I have watched them bicycling to and from school and I can assure hon. Members that their standard of behaviour is very good, due to the road safety lessons given in schools.
  Nevertheless, when children bicycle along or across important trunk roads, as often happens, on their way to secondary modern and grammar schools, there is bound to be some danger from traffic, and I suggest that more consideration should be given to the possibility of transporting them by bus. The county councils say, and rightly so, that the provision of buses is more expensive than giving bicycle allowances. Many children who live within the three-mile limit also bicycle to school, and perhaps this is a good reason why the standard of our roads should be reconsidered.
  I must be fair. Headmasters have told me that children who bicycle to school have as good an attendance record as those who go by bus. Nevertheless, much anxiety is caused to parents by the present situation and we should not accept that a law which was passed more than 20 years ago, under quite different circumstances, is adequate today.
  This is a problem concerning the safety and well-being of our children. Their safety is particularly important. In view of the amount of money that is spent on education, surely this safety factor should be borne particularly in mind. I urge the Minister to consult with the county councils about this rural problem to see if they can find a formula by which an increased grant or some other means of finance can be made available to meet these difficulties. I am sure that the county councils would administer such a scheme with great sympathy and care and provide extra transport in these cases.
  10.14 p.m.
  Sir Richard Glyn: I support the remarks of my hon. and

  1961
  gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison), and although this is an extremely important matter, I will speak for only a moment. I would not like the Minister to think that this problem is confined to the eastern part of England. It applies with equal force to the south-west, particularly to the area of Dorset, which I know so well.
  My hon. and gallant Friend touched the very key to this problem when he pointed out the great change there has been in the last 20 years, since these Regulations were brought in. They are indeed outmoded. There has been a complete change in the school structure. The great reduction in the number of all-age schools has made it no longer possible for the older children to escort the younger ones to school in a sort of convoy, as used to be the practice, for the older children now go to different schools.
  The difficulty of getting younger children to school is the source of real anxiety and danger in the country districts. The suggestion that in the country now many people have cars is not entirely correct. Many people may have cars but, when they do, the purpose is ordinarily to enable the husband and father to get to his work, and not at all to enable the wife, who probably has no driving licence, to take the younger children two double journeys a day to and from school.
  Could not the Minister in some way encourage local authorities to use their discretion to allow children, especially in cases of hardship, to take the empty places on the buses and taxis that pass their very doors—empty seats that they are not at present allowed to make use of because they live just within a specified limit? This situation is a real hardship, it causes the utmost anxiety, and in some cases definitely adds to the danger on the roads. It would be very well received if the Minister were to take some steps to allow the best use to be made of places in the public vehicles that are well known to be empty by relaxing the regulations where circumstances permit.
  10.6 p.m.
  Mr. Clive Bossom: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Sir R.
  1962
  Glyn) have put forward a very strong case, and I just want to emphasise that this problem arises all over the country in different degrees. At one time I was a county councillor in Kent, and I know that the needs there are completely different from those in rural Herefordshire which I now have the honour to represent. I feel that the time has come to make these limits more flexible. Surely, the Government was to provide a better system for transporting children to school, especially the very young ones. I know that the Minister explained to me only a few days ago that local education authorities have power to make special provisions if they consider conditions justify it, but local authorities often prefer to play safe and stick rigidly to the letter of the law.
  I suggest that in order to make this entire set-up more flexible he initiates a county to county survey. The problems are different but exist in all counties. Parents consider that this Government are not moving with the times in this respect but are clinging on to the "Spartan age". Further, having talked to many parents, I believe that in nearly all cases they would be willing to pay the extra cost, as they are so concerned about the safety factor. I therefore hope that he will look again at this pressing problem and have a survey made in each county.
  10.18 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): The hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) has raised a matter of very great human importance and one that he has obviously studied in great detail. Had I had any doubt about that, his story about the child who was first two miles minus five yards from school and later two miles plus five yards away was sufficient indication of his interest in and his study of the problem. He and his hon. Friends have put their case very fairly. They have addressed themselves to a very serious matter, but I must put it in the context to which reference has just been made.
  This is one of the many problems in education where a statutory minimum is laid down, and then local authorities have the power to add higher standards. I am sure that both sides of the House would defend the general concept that

  1963
  education is a service that involves in very large measure all local authorities, and those authorities have to make a range of decisions. We may think that their decisions are good or bad, but they make the decisions, and should be pressed locally to make improvements where appropriate.
  As the House is aware, in this case the statutory walking distance is two miles for children under eight, and three miles for others, and under Section 55(2) of the 1944 Act a local education authority is empowered to provide transport, and to pay either all or part of the cost of the transport for children living nearer to school than that. We have not yet in the Department made any attempt to get a detailed picture of how this provision is implemented; we do not keep a record of what each local education authority does.
  On the other hand, naturally we collect a certain amount of information directly and it is clear that a number of local education authorities are providing transport for children who live within these limits and, in some cases which are not the subject of our discussion tonight, individually for children who are disabled or need transport for health reasons. Transport is also provided collectively where the authority considers the road conditions dangerous or where the area is bleak and exposed and it is undesirable for children to have to walk to and from school for that reason.
  In addition, local authorities often do what has been suggested by hon. Members tonight, provide transport for those who live outside the limit but allow those who live nearer to take empty seats in buses or hire-cars. That, of course, depends on whether empty seats are available. A situation might arise in which they are available for one term but not for the next. In general this must depend on local circumstances. Parents who think that a local education authority should do more should bring this to the attention of their elected representatives on the county council—or, in towns, on the county borough council, for this to some extent is an urban problem as well as a rural one.
  I agree with all three hon. Members that since the 1944 Act was passed many things have happened which have made
  1964
  it clear that standards suitable then, or even 10 years ago, are not necessarily suitable now. I should have thought there were three main factors in this problem. One is the factor which has been mentioned that now numbers of children in rural areas live further from school than previously was the case. The all-age schools have been largely replaced by separate primary and secondary schools. Secondary schoolchildren who went to a school in their own village now have to go somewhere else and they cannot take younger brothers or sisters to school as they were able to when they went to a school in their own village.
  There is also the unmistakable trend in primary eduction all over the country for smaller primary schools to be replaced by larger ones. Often there is one primary school for three villages each of which at one time had a school. When there is a closure it is resented in the village concerned and people want to have their own schools. The county council provides transport partly perhaps to deal with the doubts which people have about the suitability of their children having to go to the next village, which may be a mile away. Here is a real problem and I take the point which has been made about the strain on mothers who have to make the journey four times a day sometimes with a child under school age in tow.
  The second reason why there has been a change since 1944 is the spread of private motoring. I agree with the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Sir Richard Glyn) that this does not always mean that a car is available to take a child to school. The family as a whole get used to travelling by car and then people do not expect children to walk as far as they were expected to walk even only 10 years ago. Whether it is right or wrong I would not like to say. I personally think it a good idea that one should have the walking habit. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Bossom) will regard me as "Spartan".
  Then there is the problem of the increase of traffic and the danger which that involves. Here I believe there is clearly in many cases reason for providing transport where there may not have been reason in the past. As an extra 10 per cent. of vehicles come on to our roads every year, this is clearly a prob-

  1965
  lem which is being aggravated. It is not confined to rural areas. It is a problem in towns as well in many cases, and perhaps new thinking is needed on this.
  I return to the point that each of these situations is essentially local. Each of them applies to the surroundings of a particular school and, therefore, the decision ought to be made locally on local grounds. The question then is whether the Government should do more about it. There are three possibilities. One is that we should try to lower the limits of the statutory walking distance. If we were to do that, there would still remain the local problems within whatever limit we set. If we were to do this, it would require legislation. I need not remind the House that there is the question of Parliamentary time. We should also be imposing on all local authorities a very large extra cost which in some cases would not be justified by local facts.
  I think that on the merits this is a matter in which we are entitled to say that local education authorities—I say this quite deliberately from the Dispatch Box—ought to be thinking in many cases more flexibly and more generously than they have, and this should be a local decision which they must make because of the way situations vary.
  Then it has been said that they should get special financial help because it is lack of finance which holds them back. Hon. Members opposite will not expect me to defend the present financial relations between the central and local government. This situation of local authorities is clearly made worse by the general grant provisions, because local authorities have to bear the whole burden of anything they spend on this. Indeed, that consideration applies to a whole range of things. Local authorities get no percentage grant towards it. This was imposed on local authorities by hon. Members opposite and opposed by us. As hon. Members know, the Government have this matter under review now, for reasons very much connected with many aspects of the education system.
  1966
  I should also point out—I do not make a big point of it—that within the general grant formula at the moment there is an element for areas of low density population—in other words, rural areas. They get some extra grant for that, taking account of extra transport costs, an-long other things. Therefore, to that extent they are getting an element of financial help for this already. If it is unsatisfactory, it is the general grant formula as a whole which is unsatisfactory because it is not flexible enough to deal with the whole range of problems, including this one. I hope that it will be replaced in due course.
  I was also asked whether within the existing framework I would do something more. The hon. and gallant Member for Eye said that we should have consultations with the county councils. The hon. Member for Leominster said that there should be a survey county by county. I will consider this very carefully in the light of what has been said in the debate. I think that there may be something in it, but I would not hold out any hope of it at this moment, because if we gather any information we could do that and the Department could give general advice, as it does on many matters. But it would still have to be within the general context. This is so much a local problem by its very nature that the authorities must look at this problem school by school, whatever advice is given from the Department of Education. I must return to that point at the end.
  I dare say that all three hon. Members were addressing their remarks perhaps indirectly to their county councils as well as to me. No doubt their remarks will be noted in the right quarters. This is a real problem. I will very carefully consider whether something ought to be done to stimulate further action along the lines suggested.
  Sir H. Harrison: I should like to thank the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for his most helpful reply.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.