Commons Sitting of 21 January 1964

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

PRESIDENT KENNEDY
Mr. Speaker:I desire to acquaint the House that Her Majesty The Queen has received from the President of the United States of America the following letter:
December 23, 1963.
Your Majesty:
I am deeply grateful for Your Majesty's kindness in conveying to me the Addresses of both Houses of Parliament, and your reply, upon the occasion of the tragic death of President Kennedy. The warmth, sadness and sympathy expressed in the messages are deeply moving. I shall transmit them to Mrs. Kennedy, to the family of our late President, and to our Congress.
While the tragedy of President Kennedy's death remains with us, we take comfort from the deep and close ties which bind this country to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
Sincerely,
Lyndon B. Johnson.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Refuse Collection Services
    Mr. Templeasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will make a statement regarding the progress of the working party which he set up to examine local authorities' refuse collection services under the chairmanship of Mr. H. H. Browne; and when the report from this working party will be published.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): The working party has a big job to do in
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    assembling the facts on which its conclusions will be based. It is still engaged on this and it will be some time before it is in a position to report.
    Mr. Temple:Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a growing practice of people taking their motor cars to the countryside and dumping from them junk of all descriptions in ditches and gateways? Will he bring that matter to the working party's attention?
    Mr. Corfield: I agree with my hon. Friend that this dumping is becoming a major problem. However, it is only one aspect of the subject with which the working party is dealing. I have no doubt whatever that the working party will report as quickly as it can.

    Woolwich Arsenal (Land)
    Mr. Turnerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when he expects to receive confirmation that the London County Council wishes to purchase the 500 acres of Woolwich Arsenal land released by the War Office.
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph): I understand that the Council has already indicated its interest in the purchase of this land and that it is negotiating with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.
    Mr. Turner: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind in any large-scale development of these 500 acres or additional land in the near future the necessity of providing houses for all sections of the community, not only in the London County Council but in the Woolwich Borough Council, and for housing associations and private enterprise?
    Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir, but I must state that the prime need in London at the moment is for land to enable the public enterprise programme, which includes, to some extent, the housing societies, to make headway.
    Mr. Marsh: Would the Minister accept that there is also a need to provide somewhere for people to work when they go to the area and that it is not possible to increase the population by 85,000 without providing some way for

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    people to go backwards and forwards to work? Many local people are becoming extremely worried by the complacent comments on this matter of members of the Minister's own party, including the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath).
    Sir K. Joseph:I do not understand the hon. Member's reference to my right hon. Friend, but clearly the need for work as well as homes will be borne in mind by all the authorities which are interested in this, particularly the London County Council.

    Local Authority Members (Council Houses)
    Mr. Loughlinasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will introduce legislation to enable members of local authorities to vote upon issues relating to the terms of tenancies of council houses when they are tenants of such houses.
    Mr. Corfield: No, Sir. The existing law enables my right hon. Friend to give such members a dispensation to vote in appropriate circumstances. But I think it is generally accepted that a member should not, if it can be avoided, vote on matters which manifestly affect his own pocket.
    Mr. Loughlin: Has the hon. Gentleman conferred with the Prime Minister on this issue? Is he aware that the Prime Minister has repeatedly justified to this House Ministers, including himself, initiating and voting on policy from which they have themselves received vast sums of money in the form of subsidies? Why should there be a higher standard of public conduct for councillors than for the Prime Minister and other Ministers?
    Mr. Corfield: I think that the operative words in my Answer were "if it can be avoided". The hon. Gentleman will realise that most of us here hope one day to retire and to get an old-age pension, but we would be very pushed to do so if we could not vote on it.
    Mr. Loughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that he will discuss this matter with the Prime Minister and let us have the Prime Minister's views on it?
    Mr. M. Stewart: May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that these rules sometimes create very real difficulties, and would not it be simpler to enact that any councillor may vote on any issue, provided that if he has a personal interest he declares it so that his fellow councillors and the whole electorate know?
    Mr. Corlfield: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the broad principles both of Section 76 and the policy of granting dispensations are accepted by the local authority associations, and dispensation is readily granted to speak, though not to vote, on matters of specific individual interest.
    Mr. Loighlin: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Employees (Training Schemes)
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs how many local authorities organise training schemes involving clay release for their industrial employees under 18.
    Mr. Corfield: No figures are available. I understand that apprenticeship schemes are widely supported in local government and that the nationally agreed conditions of service for industrial employees provide for a full range of training facilities, including financial assistance and day release.
    Mr. Boyden: May I ask the Minister whether he recollects that last week he said that he was working on the survey of 1960 in relation to clerical workers? Does not the Minister think that he ought to get the figures up to date so that his Department knows what is going on, and so that he can encourage and develop schemes with the laggard authorities? I agree that they are not in the majority, but those that are bad ought to be pulled up to the standard of the best.
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman should not assume that any figures given are based on the same report of the same date.
    Mr. Hoydenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and

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    Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will list the local authorities which have officers engaged full time in organising training for their council's employees.
    Mr. Corfield: This information is not available. Local authorities organise staff training in the way that best meets their own needs and those of their employees.
    Mr. Boyden: May I ask the Minister whether it is possible for a big county council, or a big county borough, to organise training properly unless it has a training officer? Will the Minister consider extending the functions of his own training officers in his Department by adding staff to stimulate this sort of development?
    Mr. Corfield: I shall certainly consider any suggestions made, but I think that the hon. Gentleman really takes the wrong examples. The big authorities are in a better position to organise training. It is in the smaller authorities that difficulties are likely to arise

    Smoke Control Areas
    Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what advice he has given to local authorities about the extension of smoke control areas, in view of the possible shortage of smokeless fuel.
    Sir K. Joseph: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a circular issued to local authorities on this matter last month.

    Water Charges
    Sir G. Willsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (1) whether, when a consumer has installed a water meter, he will take steps to ensure that, if the cost of the water consumed is less than the standard minimum charge, the consumer will not be penalised by having to pay the difference between the cost of the amount of water he has consumed and the standard minimum charge;
    (2) whether he is satisfied that the present method of charging water rates as a proportion of the general rate is equitable; and, in view of the fact that
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    the provision of meters wherever possible would be an advantage in assessing charges for the actual amount of water consumed, whether he will recommend this policy to water authorities.
    Mr. Corfield: Both matters are dealt with in the report on water charges prepared by a sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee. My right hon. Friend is at present considering the report and I would ask my hon. Friend to await the statement on it which he hopes to make soon.
    Sir G. Wills: Does my hon. Friend realise that the first question is a matter of "Heads I win, tails you lose"? Does the method referred to in the second Question lead to the conservation of water supplies, which we all realise should be pursued?
    Mr. Corfield: Certainly the first Question was very much one to be considered by the sub-committee, and I think the second was also, although I am a little less certain about that. But they are matters which will be very much in my right hon. Friend's mind in considering his statement.

    Interest Rate
    Mrs. Slaterasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what was the amount of interest rate paid by local authorities for 1950–51. 1961–62 and 1962–63.
    Sir K. Joseph: The average rate of interest paid by local authorities in England and Wales on their outstanding debt in 1950–51 was 3·4 per cent., and in 1961–62 4·9 per cent. Final figures are not yet available for 1962–63, but I estimate that the rate will be about 5 per cent.
    Mrs. Slater: Can the right hon. Gentleman follow that up and tell me what will be the difference to local authorities, in terms of millions of pounds? In view of the Answer he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), in reply to a previous Question, does not he think that he ought to have another think about the effect that these interest rates are having on local authorities who are particularly concerned with his own Department?
    Sir K. Joseph: The answers to those two supplementary questions are. "Not without notice", and, "No".
    Mrs. Slater: Cannot he confirm that the difference in the amounts is the difference between about £17 million in 1950–51 and £200 million at present? If that is true, does it not show at least what the period in office of this Government has done to local authority spending?
    Sir K. Joseph: Yes, but during that same period the subsidy from the taxpayer has trebled.

    Regional Development Schemes
    Dr. Brayasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what steps he proposes to take to finance the increased expenditure falling on local authorities in regional development schemes.
    Sir K. Joseph: Substantial grants of varying proportions are of course already available to local authorities for much road work, all housing, and much land reclamation. This is in addition to general grant and, when payable, rate deficiency grant. I have no reason to think that authorities are inhibited by financial difficulties from taking their full part in the plans for regional development from which they stand to gain so much.
    Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that in schemes like that contained in the Report on the North-East, when the Government propose massive road development schemes, new bridges and the rest, without any suggestion of how these projects should be financed, or what the total cost will be, it is a little imprudent, if not downright nonsensical? Is he aware that it is thought locally that the Government are merely window-dressing for the General Election, and have not the least intention of carrying out this programme in the foreseeable future?
    Sir K. Joseph: On the lowest ground of political self-interest, it would be a very wrong policy to ascribe to my party. We have put forward realistic proposals, and I have no evidence that the financial resources are not available. But the grants in some of these fields are being re-examined, and the financial implication of the Buchanan proposals in particular is being studied.
    Mrs. Castle: Will the Minister help local authorities such as that of Blackburn to prepare the way for new industries and to develop their areas properly by paying them the 85 per cent. grant for the clearance of derelict industrial sites which at present only a few development districts enjoy?
    Sir K.Joseph: I think that the hon. Lady will agree that in all spending of public money priorities must be taken into account, and the Government are giving priority above all to the areas needing employment.

    Lavender Hill Allotments, Enfield
    Mr. Mackieasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs why he gave a decision on the Lavender Hill allotments, Enfield, against the advice of his own inspector, the Middlesex County Council, and the Enfield Borough Council.
    Sir K. Joseph: I had to decide the basis of compensation for land to be compulsory acquired by the local authority; my reasons were given in the decision letter of 4th July 1963, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Mackie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has also ignored the advice of the Minister of Agriculture, in the answer that he gave to the Council and the other bodies concerned, of which I have a copy? If the other areas were built up it would be more reasonable to leave this urea as an open space. Is not he ashamed to have legislation put on the Statute Book by his party which allows him, by one stroke of the pen, to put £250,000 from the public purse into private pockets, for doing nothing?
    Sir K. Joseph: It is my responsibility to administer the Act, and that required me to decide in this case whether the land—which is being retained in allotment use—should be given a housing or an open space designation for compensation purposes. I explained in the letter to which I have referred that after considering all the evidence I decided in the way that the hon. Member knows.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Does the Minister realise that, as a result of all this, if the public authority is to get this land it

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    must pay £150,000 or £200,000 when, two years ago, it changed hands for £7,500? If, as the Minister maintains, that is the result of the law as it now stands, does it not underline the case for an alteration in the law?
    Sir K. Joseph: That is a far broader subject, but it does not make sense to require that any subsidies needed to provide open space should fall on the backs of certain landowners.
    Mr. Mackie: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

  HOUSING

    Finance
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what has been the fall in the Government-paid proportion of local authority housing costs since 1951.
    Sir K. Joseph: The proportion of local authority housing expenditure on revenue account met by Exchequer contributions was 25 per cent. in 1950–51 and 21 per cent. in 1961–62.
    Mr. Allaun: I thank the Minister for that information, but may I ask whether he is aware that, thanks to the Government's interest policies since they came to power, the raising of the interest rate from 2¾ per cent. to 5¾ per cent, on house loans has added £3,804 to the interest repayment on a £2,500 council house? In the light of that, can the Government really claim that they are doing all they can to help councils to meet the tremendous demand for new houses?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is tireless in pursuing the wrong problem. Subsidies have trebled in the last 10 years, earnings have risen, and subsidies are now being reviewed. More and more authorities, including Socialist ones, are adopting rent rebate schemes. The general result is that I have no evidence that any citizen is being precluded from occupying, with great pleasure, a local authority dwelling.
    Mr. Allaun: Can the Minister claim that the subsidies can in any way meet this tremendous increase in interest?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman was disappointed with the Answer I originally gave, which showed that there was a fall of less than one-fifth in the contribution made by the present subsidy, and we are reviewing it despite all the other factors that I mentioned.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Is it not the case that, whatever rent schemes local authorities have, they are always worried about the steady increase in the total amount of money they have to raise in rates? It is not much good having a tiny little interim relief Bill if the Government pursue policies which continually increase the total volume of money which councils have to raise, which is what happens if the proportion of Government help is reduced.
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is widening the question. General grant and rate deficiency grant have soared, and, as I say, we are now reviewing the subsidy on housing.
    Miss Lee: May I ask the Minister whether he seriously stands by his statement that any person who wants a council house can apply for one? Is not the Minister aware that although council houses are fully occupied, nevertheless there are many families who dare not apply for a council house at present because they cannot afford to pay the rental?
    Sir K. Joseph: That shows the extreme cruelty of the local authorities concerned if they do not adopt rent rebate schemes.

    Vacant Houses
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if, in view of the housing shortage, he will introduce legislation permitting local authorities to levy rates on houses vacant for more than three months or alternatively to acquire and let them.
    Sir K. Joseph: The rating of empty properties will be considered as part of the general review of the rating system, though I do not believe that it would have any significant effect on the period

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    for which houses remain vacant and there are considerable practical difficulties. Local authorities already have power to acquire and let houses.
    Mr. Allaun: I am grateful for that reply, which does not fully close the door on the subject. May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that tens of thousands of houses have been vacant for more than three months, mainly because the owners are holding out for higher rents or higher selling prices? If this proposal were introduced, would not it provide an incentive to these owners to sell or to let at more reasonable rents? May I ask the Minister whether he is aware—I must admit that this is a very strange business—that some of these houses are going to rack and ruin despite the fact that the owner is suffering as a result?
    Sir K. Joseph: I think that we want to distinguish between houses left empty in towns where there is not overpopulation, compared with dwellings and houses in the crowded areas. I do not want to prejudge this issue. There are relatively few houses where the owners are waiting for a better market, and I do not believe that those owners would be deterred by higher rates. In most cases the houses are empty awaiting a change of occupation or while alterations and improvements are being carried out.
    Mr. MacColl: While it does not follow that this situation arises in areas with low populations, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that in Paddington, the most densely populated borough in London, the number of empty properties is one of the highest? Does not this show that something must be wrong?
    Sir K. Joseph: I have no evidence that the number of empty properties in Paddington is one of the highest in the country, but it could happen to be an area also where a great deal of improvement, alteration, and conversion is going on.

    Local Authority Houses (Exchange of Tenancies)
    Mr. Marshasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will
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    take steps to set up a national exchange service for local authority housing in order to facilitate multilateral exchanges by council tenants in the interests of increased labour mobility.
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. I am not satisfied that the results from such a service would justify the expenditure of money and effort involved.
    Mr. Marsh: May I ask the Minister whether the agrees that there is some evidence that there are a large number of people in local authority houses who would like to change their employment—and it would be in the national interest if they did—but who are prevented from so doing wholly and solely because they are unable to take their council house accommodation with them? Would it be such an expensive organisation, in view of the possible benefits to the national economy, to have a central exchange service which would enable two, three, or even four-way transfers of council houses?
    Sir K. Joseph: I accept that it is desirable, but I believe that it is best organised on a bilateral basis. The Central Housing Advisory Committee reported that a central exchange would be unwieldy, and, more important, would be largely inaccessible to those who would need it.

    County Court Cases, London Area
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will send an observer to attend the proceedings on all county court cases in the London area involving claims for arrears of rent or possession which may assist the investigations of the Milner Holland Committee.
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir.
    Mr. Lipton:When will the Government show a little more vigour in rooting out some or these spiv, crooked, mystery landlords who are now operating without any restrictions whatsoever? Will he at least undertake to send someone to investigate a case the details of which I cannot no to give him, but which I have already send to him, in connection with which one of these mushroom landlords, operating in the Brady-Waters slum empire, is suing one of my constituents

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    for six years' arrears of rent? Will he go along himself and see what is happening?
    Sir K. Joseph: The Question concerns the provision of assistance in the investigations of the Milner Holland Committee. This is a Committee which I take extremely seriously, and which I shall do all I can to help, if that Committee asks for any assistance. But I must leave it to make its own inquiries.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Is that Committee taking steps to observe some of the county court cases of this nature? One would think that this was an obvious source of information to it.
    Sir K. Joseph: When housing Questions were last asked the fact came out that the Milner Holland Committee had asked the clerks of county courts to send it the answers to a certain number of questions.
    Mr. Lipton: Then why not say so?

    Standard Grant
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what are the conditions with reference to time in the making of an application for the standard grant.
    Mr. Corfield: An application for grant must be submitted to the local authority and approved by it before the improvement works begin. This is the only statutory requirement in regard to the timing of an application.
    Mr. Browne: I obviously worded my Question badly. What expectation of life must there be for a house before it obtains a standard grant? Is my hon. Friend aware that a constituent of mine who wanted to sell a house was told, when a search was made, that the Ministry of Transport would want it one day because it was on the line of a road improvement? Is he aware that the prospective purchaser then disappeared, the county council then withdrew its proviso concerning this House, and my constituent then wished to live in the house himself and applied for a standard grant, whereupon he was told that although it was off the list he could not have a standard grant because at some stage the house would be knocked
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    down? Is it not ridiculous to allow such a house to crumble away when it could have a reasonable expectation of life?
    Mr. Corfield: The answer to the real question asked by my hon. Friend is "Fifteen years". The answer to the question whether I was aware of all these things, is "No". It is a matter for the local authority to assess the probable life of a dwelling, in relation both to its physical condition and to what development plans there may be, either on the part of a highway authority or for slum clearance.

    Heat Insulation (Standards)
    Dr. Brayasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will set minimum standards for heat insulation in new houses.
    Sir K. Joseph: Such standards are already set by building byelaws.
    Dr. Bray: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that they are not high enough and that, for example, the cost of double glazing very much depends upon the volume of production? If manufacturers could be sure of a mass market the cost of this undoubtedly extremely useful provision would be reduced enormously.
    Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Works and Buildings and I are awaiting the Report of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee on which we shall base the national building code which is to replace byelaws later this year.

  UNIVERSITIES

    Capital and Recurrent Grants
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science if he will now make a detailed statement on future capital and recurrent grants to universities.
    The Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science (Mr. Quintin Hogg):I hope to be able to make a full statement shortly.
    Mr. Swingler: What has happened to the crash programme? Did not the right

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    hon. and learned Gentleman, when he was in another place, hear Lord Robbins himself say that it was absolutely urgent for the Government to give an assurance to universities that they would get the finance if we were to have immediately, this next year, the increase in university places and the expansion which his Committee wanted? Is it not clear that the dilly-dallying and failure of the Government to make the necessary decisions immediately means that there will probably not be the expansion in the number of places needed next year?
    Mr. Hogg: The assurance has been given. What the hon. Gentleman asked for in his Question was a detailed statement.
    Mr. Swingler: Does that mean that the Government have said to the universities that they can have a blank cheque for whatever expansion they require to increase the number of places as advised by the Robbins Report and that the Government assure them that they will have the necessary finance for the purpose? Is that the position?
    Mr. Hogg: When one says that resources will be available for a given target, one does not sign a blank cheque.
    Mr. Crossman: Can the Lord President of the Council give us a little more information? He said that he would be able to tell us more at an early date. Does that mean a matter of days, of weeks or of months?
    Mr. Hogg: If I had been able to give more precise information in my original Answer, I should have done so.
    Mr. Crossman: Does that mean that, although the Government welcomed the Robbins Report and the crash programme, after more than three months, owing to a bicker between two Ministers, no statement of Government policy can be made?
    Mr. Hogg: It means nothing of the kind. The universities were asked to put in their preliminary proposals, in the light of the Government's acceptance of the Robbins Report, by the end of November last. These were prepared by each university individually, and co ordination between individual statements is necessary. This work is pro-
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    ceeding urgently. I do not think that the time taken is excessive.
    Mr. Swingler: In view of the answers given, I beg to give notice that I shall urgently seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Electrical Engineering (Post-Graduate Studentships)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science what plans he has to increase the number of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research post-graduate studentships in electrical engineering.
    Mr. Hogg: Special consideration will be given to engineering and applied sciences, including electrical engineering, in the allocation of the substantially increased number of post-graduate studentships planned for the next academic year.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is it considered satisfactory that the proportion of electrical engineers should be only 197 out of 4,036?
    Mr. Hogg: No; and I have repeatedly said so. But, of course, the number of studentships awarded must depend on the number of candidates with suitable qualifications coming forward.
    Dr. Bray: Has the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research considered the forecasts made by the Committee on Scientific Manpower, and is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Committee forecast a very great shortage of electrical engineers in the next five years?
    Mr. Hogg: Yes, Sir.

    D.S.I.R. Scholarships
    Mr. Wainwrightasked the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science if he will give the number of post-graduates who obtained Department of Scientific and Industrial Research scholarships for the years 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963, respectively.
    Mr. Hogg: 1,179, 1,293, 1,482, 1,610 and 1,932, respectively.
    Mr. Wainwright: Has the Lord President of the Council taken into account

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    that the numbers are insufficient, even though they are rising? Is this because the amount of scholarship grant is insufficient? Further, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that these students on research do not contribute to the National Insurance scheme, so that, if anything happens to them, the widows of those who are married are not allowed to claim benefits? Does not he agree that the total amount of the scholarship awards should be increased so that students could pay towards National Insurance benefits?
    Mr. Hogg: The number of scholarships depends upon the number of students with the right qualifications coming forward. The terms are constantly under review; but, of course, they must bear a relationship to scholarships and awards granted by other Departments. I shall look into any particular aspects of the terms of the awards which the hon. Gentleman brings to my attention.
    Mr. Wainwright: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that students employed on research by the National Coal Board have a sufficient scholarship to ensure that their National Insurance contributions are paid? Does he not think that he ought to bring these students into line with those employed by the National Coal Board?
    Mr. Hogg: The amount of these awards bears a relationship to postgraduate studentships of all kinds and they are a particular type of award. I am not sure that, without notice, I can discuss their relationship to the National Coal Board studentships. But they certainly bear a relationship to those given by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Education.
    Dr. Bray: Would the Minister draw attention to the awards available to mature students who have been in industry for some years to enable them to return to university to do research? In view of the great need for a large increase in the number of university teachers, will the Minister review the scale of awards to mature students to encourage more to return to university for a period of research to equip them for university teaching?
    Mr. Hogg: I will bear the suggestion in mind. I cannot answer the question on it without notice.

  SCIENCE

    Smoking
    Mr. Pavittasked the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science if he will initiate research into the compulsive urges to smoke, to find out what people get out of smoking, and to examine ways whereby any real needs which may emerge can be satisfied in a less harmful way; and if he will authorise a generous allocation of funds for these purposes.
    Mr. Hogg: No, Sir. I am satisfied the Medical Research Council is fully aware of the social relevance of this matter and is not prevented by lack of funds from entertaining any scientifically promising project of research in this field.
    Mr. Pavitt: Is not that an appallingly complacent Answer, in the light of the 72 deaths a day now from lung cancer as compared with only five deaths a day 20 years ago? In preparing his complacent Answer, has the Lord President of the Council taken into consideration the fact that the American evidence shows that the death rate for the smoker is 70 per cent. above the average for the non-smoker, and that for people smoking 40 cigarettes a day it is 120 per cent. above the average? Is not this an indication of the importance of the subject, calling for immediate study by the Medical Research Council? Should not the right hon. and learned Gentleman seize this matter with the urgency with which the Minister of Transport has seized the problem of road accidents, fatalities from which are less than one-third of those from lung cancer?
    Mr. Hogg: I do not think that anyone is more closely aware of the danger of cigarette smoking than I am or has done more to make his awareness apparent to the public. But the hon. Gentleman has put forward a particular project for research which I do not think would commend itself to the scientists.
    Mr. Crossman: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that the motivation of smoking as distinct from the

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    medical aspects of the subject is something not worthy of study? Is that really his considered judgment?
    Mr. Hogg: No, Sir; but, in order to justify a particular project for scientific research, one must put forward one in which the leads are promising and in which satisfactory experiments can be devised. Naturally, I inquired of the Medical Research Council what it thought of the hon. Gentleman's proposal, as I always do when these individual projects are put forward, and I am bound to say that I concur in its scientific judgment that this is not a correct approach.
    Mr. Crossman: Is it not possible that, because of the rather narrower view of the Medical Research Council, a wrong decision can be reached? Is not a study of the psychological causes of smoking precisely what doctors are not interested in, but may it not be of very great interest and importance to non-doctors and people concerned with psychological factors rather than the purely medical aspects?
    Mr. Hogg: If the hon. Gentleman has followed both the Report of the Royal College of Physicians and the recent American report, which I expect is over here by now—I have a copy—he will have found that a certain amount of work has been done in this field. It is not want of interest but the inherent difficulties of ascertaining the truth about the matter which makes it so difficult to devise experiments.
    Lord Balniel: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who would like him to look at his answer again? Is he completely convinced that there is adequate impartial research into the motivation of smoking?
    Mr. Hogg: I am quite satisfied that there is adequate research. What I am not sure about is that there are adequate answers.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the Lord President of the Council have a word with the Minister of Health about it? Having said that he is anxious to make the public aware of the dangers of cigarette smoking, will he consider, with the Minister of Health, the very inadequate
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    resources devoted by the Government to advertising the dangers of lung cancer as compared with the millions of £s spent by the cigarette companies on their advertising? That is, at least, a concrete proposition which he could very usefully consider.
    Mr. Hogg: The Question related to the psychological motivation of smoking.
    Mr. Pavitt: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the replies, I beg to give notice that I shall seek leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    British Ship Research Association (Grant Terms)
    The Earl of Dalkeithasked the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science whether new grant terms have now been agreed between the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the British Ship Research Association; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hogg: New and improved grant terms for the five years beginning 1st April, 1963, have been offered. Provided industry raises a minimum grant-earning income of £600,000 a year, the new terms provide grant aid of 50 per cent. of industrial income up to £1,000,000; that is, a maximum of £500,000 a year. In addition, there will be a grant of £1 for every £1 contributed by the shipowners and ship managers, subject to a maximum of £200,000 a year.
    The Earl of Dalkeith: How do these new terms compare with the old ones?
    Mr. Hogg: As compared with £200,000 a year under the old terms, the new terms permit a maximum total grant of £700,000 a year.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Public Trustee Office Staff (Salaries)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will authorise an increase in the salaries of the senior staff of the Public Trustee Office.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): No, Sir. As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, the

    907
    salaries of the Public Trustee and his most senior staff were increased substantially as from 1st August, 1963.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: I do not wish to enter into the discussions between the Lord Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Sir M. Lindsay); but may I ask whether my right hon. and learned Friend would agree that to get the best results we must pay salaries which are more than a little over half of those paid by large private institutions?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As my hon. Friend says, one does not wish to get involved in a matter which is the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor. But the salaries of the senior members of the Public Trustee Office were very substantially increased only a few months ago and I do not think that any further increase is appropriate at present.
    Mr. Bence: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman inform the House of the percentage of the increase given?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It varies, but it followed the recommendation of the Franks Committee on the Higher Civil Service. Over a period of between four and four-and-a-half years it averaged about 4 per cent. per annum.

    Bungalows (Rating Assessments)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why some valuation officers make an addition of 10 per cent. when valuing bungalows, compared with houses with similar accommodation and to what extent this is done.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The rating assessment of any property is statutorily based on the rent at which it might be expected to let. Generally speaking, the rating assessments on bungalows are higher than those on houses with similiar accommodation because bungalows fetch higher rents. The relation between the rents of houses and bungalows varies from place to place, and the relation between the rating assessments varies accordingly.
    Mr. Swingler: Would the Minister consider the desirability of altering this practice, or amending the law on this subject if necessary? Is he aware that this would seem particularly unfair on
    908
    a person who, for health reasons, is advised to live in a bungalow and then finds that if, instead, he had taken a house his property would have been rated lower? Is it desirable that such people, advised for medical reasons to live in bungalows, should find themselves hardly treated with regard to rate assessment?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No, Sir; the basis of the rate assessments, as I said, is the rent—subject to certain conditions—which is obtainable for the property. If it is a matter of fact, as in general it is, that bungalows attract a higher level of rent, it is right that the assessment should follow.
    Mr. J. Wells: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the factor of 10 per cent. mentioned in the Question is far outside any comparison between houses and flats of the same accommodation, and that the discrepancy would appear to be more like 100 per cent.? Will he look into the matter particularly in respect of this comparison?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that my hon. Friend is right and that flats attract a proportionately higher rent than houses with the same accommodation. But the principle is the same and I think it is a sound one.

  CHEMICAL AND BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE
  Mr. T. Dalyellasked the Prime Minister how many technical advisers, expert in the problems of chemical and bacteriological warfare, will be travelling with him to the United States in February, 1964.
  The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): None, Sir. I do not consider this necessary. I have recently consulted the Americans and the other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Powers represented at the Geneva Conference on these matters and shall continue to do so as necessary.
  Mr. Dalyell: What serious preparation is going on at the highest level?
  The Prime Minister: A lot of preparation, and all of it is serious.

  THE PRESS
  Sir C. Osborneasked the Prime Minister in view of the danger that national daily newspapers will soon be reduced to three in number, if he will establish an official inquiry into the cost of newspaper production, and the possible reduction and limitation of circulation, so as to prevent the extinction of further newspapers; and if he will make a statement.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The matters to which my hon. Friend refers were inquired into by the Royal Commission on the Press.
  Sir C. Osborne: Is not there something wrong in the newspaper production world when a newspaper like the Daily Herald, which has 2 million devoted political supporters, is losing £1 million a year? Since freedom depends on every point of view being read, ought not something to be done to stop further newspapers going bankrupt?
  The Prime Minister: Had my hon. Friend asked was there something wrong in the newspaper world, I dare say that my answer would have been, "Yes". But that is not the Question on the Order Paper. He asked for an inquiry. There has been one. The trouble is that no one has found the answer on how to deal with the trouble.
  Mr. Wilkins:Is the Prime Minister aware that some of us are concerned about the nonchalant way in which he has dismissed the Question put by his hon. Friend? Is he aware that it is not only a case of huge redundancies in this industry, serious though they are, but that also it is a case of closing up avenues of publicity and propaganda? Surely he would himself have wished that the silly speech which he made yesterday could have had a wider circulation.
  The Prime Minister: I have no complaint about that; but I wish that we could find an answer. I was asked a Question about this the other day and I have been looking again at the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press. The Royal Commission looked for all sorts of economic remedies and found itself, at the end of considering every sort of economic remedy, bound to say,
  910
  in effect, that it rejected all the propositions. No one has yet come forward with an answer.
  Sir C. Osborne: Surely my right hon. Friend will agree that democracy requires that there should be the fullest expression in the newspapers of every point of view? Since this cannot be done unless we have a widely diverse type of Press, ought not this to be looked at again?
  The Prime Minister: It is very difficult. This is a genuine difficulty, as I think the whole House would find. We might be able to stop the acquisition of one newspaper by another, through, let us say, an amalgamations court. But how? If an amalgamation is stopped, we cannot say that the newspaper we wish to save will continue to exist. That is the difficulty.
  Mr. Mayhew: When rereading the Report, did not the Prime Minister also read the suggestion of a minority of members of the Commission for economic reforms of the newspaper industry which would lead to the reform suggested by the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne)?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I did, but it was a minority Report. The majority could not find an answer.

  NUCLEAR POWER PROGRAMME
  Mr. Albuasked the Prime Minister when he now expects to receive the report of the Committee considering the future of the Nuclear Power Programme.
  The Prime Minister: I am informed that the Committee is likely to submit its report within a few weeks.
  Mr. Albu: In point of fact the Prime Minister has already said that the Report will not be published. Can he say in what way Parliament may be informed of the difficult technical and economic arguments which are bound to be brought in by the Committee in making its recommendations to the Government?
  The Prime Minister: The Government, having considered the Report, will in

  911
  due course report the Government's conclusions to the House and we hope to be able to make certain proposals.

  SKYBOLT MISSILE
  Mr. Healeyasked the Prime Minister if he will publish a White Paper on the circumstances in which arrangements with the United States administration for the supply of Skybolt missiles broke down.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave last Thursday and to the detailed account given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) on 30th January, 1963.
  Mr. Healey: Quite apart from the doubts cast on the veracity of the Minister of Aviation by certain unofficial accounts of these negotiations, would not the Prime Minister agree that the misunderstanding which arose between the British and American Governments on the Skybolt issue revealed a very serious failure in communication between the Governments which might well be repeated on some other issue like the Polaris Agreement? Would not it be a good thing to have an official account precisely to ensure that no such failure takes place on another occasion?
  The Prime Minister: No. I shall not accept any suggestions that the Minister of Aviation has not in this matter told the truth. The other day I quoted to the House a statement made by the President and Mr. McNamara. What right hon. and hon. Members opposite suggest is that the President and Mr. McNamara were involved in a calculated deception of Congress.
  Mr. Healey: Leaving aside entirely the question of the Minister of Aviation's behaviour, surely the Prime Minister cannot deny, because he was directly involved in these negotiations, that there was a total breakdown of understanding between the British and American Governments in the later stages of the Skybolt affair? Is it not desirable that all of us on both sides of the Atlantic should know why this breakdown in
  912
  understanding took place and ensure that no similar breakdown occurs on another occasion?
  The Prime Minister: All discussions between Prime Minister and President and Foreign Minister and Secretary of State must be kept confidential. From the statement that I made and the account that I gave of the statement of President Kennedy, it was quite clear that the American Government told the American people that they had full confidence in Skybolt. The Minister of Aviation merely repeated that five days later, after the President had made his statement. I cannot see that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have any interest in pursuing this further.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, if a White Paper were published, there would be representatives of the British Mission, experts from Farnborough who were at the Douglas Plant collaborating on the Skybolt project, who would be very happy to give evidence to the effect that the project could have worked if the Americans had wanted it to? The Americans did not want it to and they scrubbed it merely for their own convenience.
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  The Prime Minister: I am answering for the responsibility of the Minister of Aviation and the British Government. My hon. Friend's supplementary question is a speculation of what the American Government may or may not have thought.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Since the Prime Minister must be aware that the late President took this problem of the breakdown of communications so seriously that he appointed, and announced that he had appointed, Professor Neustadt to conduct an inquiry into what went wrong in the matter of communications, does he not agree that this matter ought to be taken a little more seriously than he is at present taking it? Whatever may have been said to Congress on 7th March, will the right hon. Gentleman state categorically that there were no warnings until Nassau from the American Government to the British Government about the unlikelihood of Skybolt being delivered? Would the right hon. Gentleman further say whether he

  913
  rejects the account which we have all recently read about what actually happened in the talks between the American and British Governments?
  The Prime Minister: The Question asks if I will
  "publish a White Paper on the circumstances in which arrangements with the United States administration for the supply of Skybolt missiles broke down."
  I am always ready to consider with the Americans and anybody else the arrangements between Her Majesty's Government and the American Government so that we may proceed efficiently. I think that Professor Neustadt's mission may have contributed to it. I hope so. I am always ready to repeat that process. What I am now saying is that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation said nothing inconsistent with what the President of the United States had said a few days earlier.
  Mr. Wilson: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen either the Neustadt report or any conclusions arising from it? Does he intend to ask whether he can see these conclusions? Will he make it his business, since after all there was something of a crisis of confidence between our two countries which led to the appointment of Professor Neustadt to find out whether that report does contain any statement about the earlier information given to Her Majesty's Government by a high American source?
  The Prime Minister:In no circumstances will I reveal the private conversations between the President of the United States and the United Kingdom Government. I say this for a reason which must be perfectly obvious to right hon. and hon. Members opposite. The Prime Minister of Britain and the President of the United States can carry on these conversations only in private if they are to be useful to both countries. Of course I will consult the President of the United States about the organisation and efficiency of the machinery which between us we work.

  COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE
  Mr. Brockwayasked the Prime Minister if he now proposes to seek to convene a conference of Prime Ministers of Commonwealth Governments in 1964.
  Mr. G. M. Thomsonasked the Prime Minister what consultations he is now having regarding the holding of a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference in 1964.
  The Prime Minister:No plans have yet been made for the next meeting, the timing of which will, of course, be a matter for joint decision by the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth.
  Mr. Brockway:Will the Prime Minister consider an early decision on this matter and call a conference this year, in view of the tensions which there are in the Commonwealth and to which his Government have very largely contributed? Will he consider whether it is not desirable to have a Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers on such subjects as Southern Rhodesia, Cyprus—[Hon. Members: "And Zanzibar."]—yes, and on Zanzibar—on all these issues which are disturbing to the continuation of the best feeling in the Commonwealth.
  The Prime Minister: I will certainly consider with the other Prime Ministers the case for a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference this year. It is a matter on which all Commonwealth Prime Ministers wish to express an opinion. However, I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's implication that our country is responsible for a number of the situations which now exist.
  Mr. Bottomley: Have Her Majesty's Government made approaches to other Commonwealth Governments with a view to convening a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference at an early date?
  The Prime Minister: I am considering whether I shall take an initiative myself in this matter.

  DR. ERHARD (VISIT)
  Mr. Warbeyasked the Prime Minister what discussions he had with Dr. Erhard about what concessions the German Federal Republic is prepared to make in order to conclude an early peace treaty ensuring a durable peace settlement in Central Europe.
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will now have seen the joint communiqué issued at the end of Professor Erhard's visit.
  Mr. Warbey: That is not the point of my Question. Did the Prime Minister take the opportunity of these discussions to impress upon Dr. Erhard that, in the interests of a peace settlement in Europe, it will be necessary for the West German Government to give up two of their aims—first, the aim of being accepted as the sole political authority for the whole of Germany, and, secondly, the aim of becoming a dominant military power in Central Europe?
  The Prime Minister: I do not think that the German Government have any such ambition. Their ambition is to be a loyal member of the N.A.T.O. alliance, completely co-operating with it.
  Mr. Bellenger: If we are to achieve a durable peace settlement, is not the Prime Minister aware that concessions must be two-sided? Therefore, will he extend the scope of this inquiry beyond the rather limited one mentioned in the Question?

  GHANA (FORMER OVERSEAS OFFICERS' PENSIONS)
  Mr. Callaghanasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that a letter from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, enquiring about the prospects of a double taxation agreement with Ghana in relation to Ghana pensioners, was passed by the Treasury to the Commonwealth Relations Office and later by the Commonwealth Relations Office to the Department of Technical Co-operation; and if he will arrange for better co-ordination in these matters to achieve clearer definition of departmental responsibilities.
  The Prime Minister: I am sorry about the hon. Member's letter. I agree that it ought to have been passed direct to the Department of Technical Co operation.
  In general, I think the arrangements for co-ordination work well.
  Mr. Callaghan: I am much obliged for the Answer and for the acknowledgment of the responsibility. Will not the Prime Minister inquire into the reason why the Chief Secretary in the first place passed the letter on? Is he aware that it contained two simple questions which are essentially the responsibility of the Chief Secretary, namely, whether there is a double taxation and, if there is, what effect the Government's proposals would have on United Kingdom pensioners? That was what I was concerned with. I was aware of the representations. Why could not the Treasury answer it instead of playing postman's knock?
  The Prime Minister: None of the hon. Gentleman's questions is quite as simple as he makes out. This is not very easy. Some Questions ask for representations to be made to the Government of Ghana. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Some ask about taxation and the application, perhaps, of our standards to Ghana. Those are matters for the Treasury. Some ask about the substance of pension arrangements. When the question is one of substance, I think that on the whole it is probably better dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Technical Co-operation.
  Mr. Wade: Is the Prime Minister aware that certain Ghana pensioners are faced with a very real hardship and that, if the British Government are able and willing to do anything about it, the sooner an answer is known the better?
  The Prime Minister: I am aware of the hardship.

BILL PRESENTED
  INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
  Bill to enable effect to be given to a resolution of the board of governors of the International Development Association, presented by Mr. J. Boyd-Carpenter; supported by Mr. R. A. Butler, Mr. Sandys, Mr. R. Carr, and Mr. M. Macmillan; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 64.]

TITLES (ABOLITION)
3.31 p.m.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish certain titles in Great Britain.
I hope that this Motion will be found to be non-controversial and will be welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I propose to take titles completely out of politics. Following the exchanges last week, may I say that I hope that this is a bipartisan approach, and that I am prepared to enter into consultations with the Prime Minister so that he may put my Bill into his programme for the Conservative Party at the next General Election.
My Bill would apply to all titles created by all Governments. I raised this question at the time of Sir Anthony Eden's Premiership, but then it was not regarded as a popular proposition. However, we move with the times and there is now a new attitude towards titles. The Prime Minister has said that we must modernise ourselves—and my Bill is an attempt to modernise some of our ancient institutions, some of them dating back many centuries.
Last night the Prime Minister reproached the Labour Party for being Victorian in its outlook. The previous Prime Minister was reproached for being Edwardian, but the present Prime Minister's connection with titles, I understand, goes back to 1635. If I may be allowed to borrow an adjective from the former Leader of the House, he is a right of centre Jacobite. He will certainly go down in history as the first Prime Minister to renounce an earldom. My only complaint with him is that he did not go far enough.
Mr. William Hamilton: He will soon.
Mr. Hughes: There is, I believe, a new outlook towards titles. This has been expressed in several organs of public opinion, particularly in newspapers owned by titled people. I have in mind for example, the Observer, the proprietors of which, I understand, have been peers. The Observer said in an editorial on 27th October:
"It would be far better for this nation, including its upper-class families, if titles were to be abolished. They encourage unrealistic thinking and living. And they add needlessly
918
to confusion. Although the House of Lords has had its value over the centuries there is no sense in an hereditary Second Chamber today. And the Monarchy—which still has a genuine political value in limiting political ambitions and acting as a symbol of communal unity—can get along perfectly well without an aristocracy, as is shown in Scandinavia and the Netherlands".
Another organ of public opinion—although I do not quite know how to classify it—is the Sunday Express which, in a leading article by its columnist, Mr. John Gordon, stated, on 5th January:
"Another Hood of' honours' pours over the nation. Coronets are set on new heads, baubles hang around new necks. If you can justify most of the selections as the cream of the nation, then you're a better man than I am Gunga Din. Is it not time we either put more imagination into this biannual fiesta, or abolished it altogether?"
I will not take up the time of the House by asking hon. Members to exercise their imagination as to how it can be improved I am in favour of a scrap-the-lot policy. I do not wish to do this vindictively, but painlessly. For compassionate reasons I do not propose to abolish the titles of ladies and gentlemen who now hold them, but there is no excuse these days for the hereditary principle.
On this, the Observer is right. The hereditary principle is not in favour in selecting Prime Ministers, because no one suggested, when the former Prime Minister gave up his appointment, that it should be transferred to his son. No hon. Member opposite would agree with the working of the hereditary system in such a way that the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) would automatically have become Prime Minister. Indeed, if that principle was accepted, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill)—whom we are all glad to see in his place this afternoon—gave up his Premiership we would have had at the Dispatch Box, instead of the present Prime Minister, Mr. Randolph Churchill; but I will not comment on that.
I suggest that the time has come when we should look at the whole question of honours and that we should abolish the Honours List. We should rationalise and modernise this whole business of titles.
Naturally, the office of the Patronage Secretary would go. [Laughter.] I notice

919
from the laughter that this would be welcomed on both sides of the House. I am sure that the Patronage Secretary would be glad to be relieved of this honours business, because when we look around at hon. Members opposite, and realise that some have been given honours for political service while others have not, we are bound to think that there is apt to be jealousy. Indeed, I cannot understand the discrimination.
I hope that I have said enough to convince hon. Members that my Bill should come before the House for consideration. I shall be very ready to consider all Amendments in Committee in the hope that the Bill will mark a step towards making this country a real democracy.
Sir Thomas Moore: Before the hon. Member sits down—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Our practice does not permit interventions in a speech in proceedings under this Standing Order.
Sir T. Moore: On a point of order. I wish only to ask the hon. Member—
Mr. Speaker: Which is exactly what our practice does not permit.
Sir T. Moore: While not seeking to oppose the request by the hon. Gentleman, may I still ask him a question? [Hon. Members: "No."] Well, may I ask—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can speak to the Question if he desires.
Sir T. Moore: Yes, Sir. What I sought to inquire was whether, if these proposals were carried into effect, it would not prove somewhat embarrassing when we next had the pleasure of welcoming Hero of the Soviet Union Khrushchev to our shores.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Emrys Hughes, Mr. Manuel, Mr. Ellis Smith, Mr. Loughlin, Mr. S. Silverman, Mr. W. Hamilton, and Mr. Baxter.

TITLES (ABOLITION)
Bill to abolish certain titles in Great Britain, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 14th February, and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  PLANT VARIETIES AND SEEDS BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.42 p.m.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames):I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Good seed is one of agriculture's essential raw materials, possibly the most important of them all, and in this Bill the Government are putting forward a number of complementary measures with the common theme of "better seed, better crops"—a saying borrowed from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, at Cambridge, whose rôle in seed and plant improvement will be well known to the House.
  It is more than 40 years since the last major legislation on seeds. The present Bill is based on the two Reports made by the Committee on Transactions in Seeds. This was a representative Committee of plant breeders and seeds men, farmers and other interests which made a thorough study of the Seeds Act, 1920, in the light of the needs of the present day.
  The Committee reached unanimous conclusions and the industry as a whole is, therefore, entitled to describe the Bill as very much its own, inasmuch as it participated in the work of the Committee. It is for this reason that the proposals now under consideration are assured of a very wide measure of support among all the interests concerned.
  The first part of the Bill is a scheme for encouraging plant breeding by giving breeders rights in their new varieties which will safeguard them against exploitation. This is an entirely new provision. It has been the law in this country for a great many years that inventors, designers, artists and many other creative workers should be protected against exploitation and the principles of patent and copyright protection are well established and need no justification from me. But the plant breeder, up to now, has been excluded from these arrangements and it can be

  921
  argued that this is wrong merely in equity. But, more than that, it has had a discouraging effect on the breeding of new varieties by plant breeders.
  A properly balanced plant breeding industry needs the private breeder as well as the plant breeding done by research institutes financed from Government funds, and the purpose of Part I of the Bill is to establish conditions in which the private breeder can flourish and make the best possible contribution to the agricultural industry's continuing need for improved new varieties of seeds.
  Many countries, including most of those in Western Europe, already give the plant breeder some form of legal protection. The methods have differed in the past, but there is now general agreement that the best system is to grant the breeder a proprietary right in his new variety for some fixed period of years. During this period he can commercialise the variety and, if he is successful, and if there is a demand for it, he can recover his outlay on breeding work together with some profit to himself.
  This international agreement on principles and methods has been worked out in great detail in the Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, in which we participated. Seven countries have already signed the Convention and we have also done so, subject to ratification on the passage of the Bill.
  It is a matter for satisfaction, as I think the House will agree, that the Government have been able to join with other countries in working out an international system whose principles accord so closely with those recommended for this country by our own Committee on Transactions in Seeds.
  The method adopted in the Bill is to give the plant breeder a form of proprietry right in his new variety which will enable him to control its commercial development. Whereas new varieties are now commonly grown, bought and sold without the breeders' knowledge or consent, under the Bill, generally speaking, anyone who wishes to grow a seed crop for sale as such, or to sell seed of a variety while it is protected, will need to have a licence from the breeder. Varieties which are produced vegetatively are also covered by the Bill.
  922
  The breeder will have to apply for a grant of rights and there are certain conditions which must be observed. When a grant of rights has been made it will be a matter for the breeder, in the first place, to decide how he should make use of those rights. The rights are wide enough to enable him to require payment of a royalty on reproduction or sale and also to include in his licence conditions for maintaining the quality of the product of the seed.
  Provided that he does not use these powers too restrictively, the arrangements between breeders, growers, and the seed and nursery trades will be left to be settled by discussion and negotiation in the ordinary way in what is a highly competitive industry. We think that this is the normal way in which this should proceed. If, however, there are complaints from growers and merchants who cannot get licences or get them on reasonable terms then, to protect the industry as a whole against such a situation, the Bill provides a means of settling the dispute and, if necessary, overriding the breeder who is being unreasonable.
  The Controller of the Plant Variety Rights Office—the office which will be set up under the Bill—will have power to issue compulsory licences with the intention that a new variety should be widely available to the public at reasonable prices, and without deterioration in quality, in these cases where it is proved that a breeder was unreasonable.
  The grant of compulsory licences will be only one of the functions of the new Plant Variety Rights Office. Its main task will be to consider applications for the grant of rights in new varieties—that is to say, where a new variety is sufficiently different from existing varieties to warrant the rights being given for this variety—to issue decisions, if necessary, after hearing the applicant and objectors, and to keep a watch on the maintenance of the varieties once rights have been granted.
  The controller of the new office and the rest of its staff will be civil servants. The office will not be a large one. Hon. Members will have seen from the Explantory and Financial Memorandum that the cost, together with the expenses of the tribunal which, to fit in with our legislation on other equivalent types of

  923
  matters, will be set up to hear appeals, altogether is not thought to amount to more than £50,000 a year.
  Mr. F. J. Bellenger: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how the import of any new varieties would be affected, if at all, under the Bill?
  Mr. Soames: Imports will be affected. This is one of the reasons why it is so necessary to get the Bill.
  Other countries having this type of legislation and having acceded to the new international arrangements, would hesitate to let us have their varieties unless they themselves could be empowered, as this legislation will enable them, to get royalties on their new rights. If we did not get this I think that we would run a serious risk of new plant varieties being developed in similar climates to ours and not being available to our growers.
  The Government intend to press ahead as quickly as possible, once the Bill is enacted, with the making of schemes to bring Part I of the Bill into force over as wide a field as possible. As announced in another place, we hope to make schemes in the first instance, for wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and roses. These will be the first group and other schemes will follow in due course.
  Part II of the Bill is complementary to Part I, although it approaches the problem of plant improvement from a somewhat different angle, but an equally necessary one in our view. Part II is based on the principle that the seller of seeds should give an adequate reliable description of his goods to the buyer. Up to now we have rested on the 1920 Seeds Act, which, we claim, has worked well within its limits and has helped the industry over the last 40 years to bring about a very marked improvement in the quality of seed offered to farmers.
  After so long a time, however, there is a good case for strengthening and improving the existing conditions and the Committee on Transactions in Seeds has indicated the lines on which we should proceed. Part II, when it comes into force, will replace the existing 1920 Act. It gives Ministers power to make regulations prescribing such things as the descriptions under which seeds may be sold and preventing the sale of untested
  924
  or deleterious seed. In the regulations which will follow the Bill the details of seed control in future will be found. There is an obligation in the Bill to consult the interests concerned before making regulations. These are to be laid before Parliament and to be subject to negative Resolution procedure.
  At this stage the main point in the regulation-making powers of the Minister to which I should like to draw the attention of the House is that which relates to civil warranty. The use by many seed traders of a non-warranty clause in their conditions of sale has been a source of dissension between the farmers and seed trade organisations for many years. The Committee on Transactions in Seeds condemned this practice and the Government have accepted its view that the matter requires to be regulated by legislation. Accordingly, the Bill contains power, by regulation, to require certain statements given by sellers of seeds to take effect as statutory warranties.
  As with other regulations, these will be drawn up in close consultation with the trade and with other interests concerned. In other words, if it is said of a packet of seed that the rate of germination should be such-and-such a rate, that is a statutory warranty that it should be and it will not be possible for the seller to opt out of it.
  Among the other provisions in this part of the Bill, Clauses 20 and 21 empower the agricultural Ministers—there are three Ministers involved, the Secretary of State for Scotland, myself and the Home Secretary in relation to Northern Ireland—to prepare an index or list of names of distinct plant varieties. The ultimate aim of the index will be "one variety, one name", the name always meaning the same thing and conveying an assurance to the buyer that seed of that variety has certain constant distinctive characteristics.
  Such lists are essential for the operation of plant breeders' rights as well as being of great value to farmers and growers. The first step in preparing sections of this index will be to set out the existing varieties, some of which are at present sold under the various synonyms, but, in fact, are the same variety of seed. This will be done in consultation with the seed traders and

  925
  other interests concerned. Having done this, the next step will be to add new names to the index only if they can be shown to represent distinct new varieties, using, if necessary, growing trials to prove this.
  I should point out that we shall not be doing trials to find whether varieties are better or worse than others before they can be added to the index. It is not our intention, in the Bill, although I am aware that certain countries have adopted the system, to prepare restrictive lists of varieties which are the only varieties seedsmen will be free to sell or farmers will be free to grow. The index will not itself restrict the farmers' choice. It will still be up to the advisory services, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and other bodies, to guide farmers and growers in making a wise and informed choice among the available varieties.
  I believe that Parliament attaches great importance to the present voluntary system of advice and I hope to see it extended to other crops as facilities become available. There is, under present circumstances, a risk that new varieties may be put on the market and given much favourable publicity without their qualities being properly and adequately assessed in advance.
  Clauses 22 and 23 therefore authorise the Ministers to arrange performance trials and to issue reports with the new variety meanwhile temporarily held off the market so that growers may have the advice which will stem from those trials before purchasing the variety. It is proposed that the National Institute of Agricultural Botany should undertake much of this work. Once the report on a variety has been published, the variety can be marketed irrespective of whether the report is favourable or unfavourable, but there will be the report on it for farmers and growers to see.
  The only other provision to which I draw attention is Clause 24, which confers limited powers on the agricultural Ministers, acting jointly, to control seed imports for the purposes specified in the Clause. There is already a quality control of herbage seed for these same purposes under general powers vested in the Board of Trade. The Clause does not extend the Government's powers, but merely defines them more closely. While
  926
  we need to draw widely on Commonwealth and foreign countries for some of our seeds and will continue to do so, it is important to guard against damage to our own seed stocks by cross-pollination and some sources are quite unsuitable for climatic and other reasons. Seeds from those sources will not be allowed to come into the country under regulations which will stem from this Clause. We shall, of course, operate them in accordance with our international obligations.
  The Bill has come to us with the approval of another place—
  Sir James Duncan: Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether the Government Departments which are undertaking research into new varieties—for example, the strawberries at Auchincraird, or the potatoes at East Craigs—will have the benefits of the Bill? Will they get the royalties?
  Mr. Soames: Yes, exactly the same thing applies to varieties produced under private or public auspices.
  I hope that the House will give the Bill a welcome equal to that accorded it in another place. Many of my hon. Friends have pressed hard for this legislation for some time, appreciating its value to the industry as a whole. It seeks to strike a fair balance between buyers and sellers; between plant breeders and the users of seeds.
  Agriculture and horticulture owe a great deal to the improvements in plants and seeds which our research institutes and private breeders have achieved. Better varieties mean higher yields, easier cultivation, lower costs and a higher-quality product. It is reasonable that the breeder should procure a proper reward from his skill and inventiveness. In return, the grower is entitled from this to expect high quality, consistency and known characteristics in the seed he buys.
  The Bill is designed to achieve both of these objectives, and will be of considerable benefit to the agricultural and horticultural industries. I commend it to the House.
  4.2 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Peart: This Bill deserves our support. It is not a party Measure—many hon. Members

  927
  on both sides have pressed for such legislation for a long time, either by Parliamentary Questions, or by seeking to amend the existing law; and this is the result of all that work.
  We on this side of the House will in no way seek to delay the proceedings, but we shall have to discuss how best we can debate the Bill in Committee, as many of its provisions are very detailed. It is, in fact, a two-part Bill. The Minister in charge of it in another place said that it was really two Bills in one. That seems to be a common procedure of the present Administration, although I do not complain about this Bill. Part I deals with plant breeders' rights, Part II with seeds and seed potatoes, and the third part embraces provisions common to both Part I and Part II.
  We know that this legislation is a result of much thought, and results very largely from Reports made in 1957 and 1960. We are seeking to improve the quality of our crops, and to encourage crop development. The farmers, growers and agriculturists will benefit from the improved varieties resulting from this Measure, and so will the country.
  Although this is a small Bill, it is an important one, its aim being efficiency in agricultural production. I pay tribute to plant breeders, whether in Government research stations or other institutions, or those working for their private profit. By their work and skill they have produced new strains, new breeds, new varieties which have eventually increased production. Partly because of my own humble connection with science in the past, I have thought of names like Galton, Bateson, Mendel—names mentioned by a distinguished geneticist when the Bill was in another place—and those applied scientists whose work has brought tremendous benefits to the agriculture industry.
  These remarks apply not only to scientists, but to many farmers who are, in a sense, technologists and scientists. Many humble people have in many ways notably contributed to the improvement of our plant varieties and seeds. The Bill endorses their work and, above all, it seeks to protect the breeder who, through years of effort, has brought in
  928
  new seeds or plants. As the Minister has rightly said, we are legislating for what applies in the copyright and patent laws, which protect the author and the inventor. I want the Bill to be quickly enacted.
  The Minister has said that this legislation is partly the result of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants drawn up two years ago; and that we are seeking to conform with European practice. I hope that all the countries concerned will ratify the Convention without delay, but what about those countries that have not signed it? Will the Government take the initiative at a higher level to get international agreement in the widest sense? We are glad that they intend to ratify the Convention as soon as the Bill becomes law.
  The right hon. Gentleman has described the various new institutions that are to be set up. The office of the Controller of Plant Variety Rights will be an important one. It need not be large, but it will be responsible to the right hon. Gentleman's Department, to the Home Office and to the Scottish Office. Added to that, there will be the Plant Variety Rights Tribunal, and I am certain that this is the right way to go about things. The amount of money to be allocated to the work is rather small—about £50,000 a year—but it will, in the end, benefit agriculture generally.
  Part II deals with the consumer. This is a very complicated set of provisions, which we will have to examine in great detail. We do not disagree with the principles, but in all we have 40 Clauses, including those setting up the Gazette and other regulations, and that is a formidable list which will demand close attention in Committee. All these complicated provisions are designed to protect the consumer, and no doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) will have something to say about them later.
  The first group of Clauses in this part of the Bill replaces earlier legislation in respect of seeds and seed potatoes. The Seeds Act, 1920, is not being amended, but we are bringing in regulations. In other words, the Government are seeking some flexible method to protect the consumer. I do

  929
  not disagree with this and I accept the view of the Minister in another place that this is the right way to it. Although we say that the1920 Act must be brought up to date in respect of the first part of the Bill, there is no reason why part of that legislation should not be applied through new regulations under the Bill.
  The new powers in Clauses 20 and 24 meet our approval and we trust that the regulations will be flexible. Although the 1920 Act has not been amended in detail, we accept that this is necessary. We are establishing the principle that the seller of seeds should give an adequate and reliable description of his goods to the buyer and in protecting the consumer in that way the Minister has the support of the Opposition.
  I agree that Clause 24 dealing with imports is necessary. I understand that the Minister has to make appropriate regulations to conform to G.A.T.T. We also accept the necessity for the index provided for in Clauses 20, 23. Part III deals with the administration of Parts I and II.
  We welcome the Bill in general and do not think that we should waste much time on the Second Reading today, although we shall have to go into much greater detail in Committee. In principle, it is a good Bill giving proprietary rights to plant breeders and ending an anomaly in that respect and protecting the consumer of seeds and seed potatoes. It has the approval of the seed trade and the industry generally.
  We welcome the Bill and trust that it will have a speedy passage.
  4.13 p.m.
  Mr. Denys Bullard: I am not so wholeheartedly behind the Bill as is the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). The second part of the Bill deals with relations between the seller and buyer of seeds and, in general, I welcome it. Some changes will have to be made in Committee, and particularly to Clause 24, which deals with the import of seed. It does not prevent all unnecessary seed from coming into the country. For instance, it refers to seed produced in climatic conditions different from our own and seed which may be used for adulteration. But there is also seed which is produced in climates simi-
  930
  lar to our own and which is not to be used for adulteration which could well be prevented from coming here.
  I have some doubts about the index. My right hon. Friend made, relatively light of the compiling of the index, but I have been interested in farm and garden plants for many years and I can assure him that he is in for quite a job when it come to a detailed description of varieties of many plants if he wants to get an agreed list with universal approval for the distinctions.
  I think that the index is to be introduced so as to make the granting of plant breeders' rights and the running of the system easier, and it is to that side of the Bill that I want to address my remarks. The granting of plant breeders' rights arises out of the consideration of the Committee on Transactions in Seeds. The Committee produced two Reports, the first reviewing general conditions in the sale of seeds and the second on the rights of pant breeders. However, whether the granting of plant breeders' rights was the best method of setting about the problem was never really examined by the Committee.
  I make it clear that I wholeheartedly agree with the proposition that the breeder of new varieties does not get sufficient reward and I join in all the tributes which has been paid to such people. They have given great service to agriculture and horticulture and have not had sufficient reward for their pains. They should have their full and just rewards but I object to there being no inquiry into whether this was the best method of dealing with the matter.
  The Committee dismissed other methods, such as a direct Government grant, because, so it seems to me, it had already decided that the granting of plant breeders' rights was the best. This is an interesting commentary on the way in which legislation is apt to go through Parliament—a committee is set up to examine a problem; reports are produced; international conventions are agreed; and a Minister presents a Bill and it is liable to be regarded as almost a crime, regressive and reactionary to suggest that some other method should have been used in the first instance. But that is the position with this Bill.
  Mr. Peart: I hope that the hon. Member will carry that logic into the discussion of another Bill in Standing Committee.
  Mr. Bullard: I should not be in order in doing that. I have a little grievance here and I would like to have it aired.
  My second objection is to the basic philosophy underlying the granting of plant breeders' rights as against other methods. There is no real comparison between breeding a new variety of plant and making a new invention. Something stirs deeply within me when I read what the Committee had to say on this issue. The Committee states that the breeder
  "breeds new characters into existing varieties by changing or widening the genetical basis in terms of gene composition. We do not think there is any essential difference between this process and, for example, the work of the chemist in producing new insecticides. We take the view that the breeder produces or creates his new variety in just as true a sense as the chemist is said to create his new product."
  In my opinion, anybody who is capable of saying that is committing such a grave philosophical error as immediately casts doubt upon the basis of the whole proposition.
  Is it suggested that the breeding of a new variety, for instance, of rose is comparable with creating, or whatever the right word is, a new insecticide? Is there no distinction between the living object and the dead chemical? There is a fundamental philosophical error here to which I heartily object, and this error runs through the Bill.
  Mr. John Brewis: Is my hon. Friend aware that one can get a patent, called a selection patent, for making a selection out of a class of chemicals and finding one which is useful although no invention is involved?
  Mr. Bullard: My hon. Friend's intervention does not help me. The fundamental distinction seems to me to be between a living and, in general, rather beautiful and commendable object and, of all things to choose, an insecticide. I content myself with registering my objection to the underlying philosophical basis of the Bill.
  Mr. Peart: Vote against it.
  Mr. Bullard: I wish that the hon. Member would allow me time to
  932
  develop my thesis, which is rather more fundamental than some of his comments on the Bill appeared to be.
  To ensure that the true plant breeder gets his reward from the Bill, it would have been far better had the Government set up a body to which people engaged in plant breeding could go to obtain a grant—and, I hope, a generous one—for their work in furthering their plant breeding efforts. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) seems to be amazed at this, but the principle underlying it is well accepted. This is scientific work of a high order for which a grant would be readily justified. The money then would go direct to the person doing the job, whereas I have a feeling that under the Bill a great deal of the money may go in litigation and perhaps in quarrels and in many other ways rather than direct to the plant breeder himself.
  I come now to a matter which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend in answer to a question about whether breeds of plants which originate in Government research stations would be eligible for plant breeders' rights. It is entirely proper that they should be if we are to have plant breeders' rights at all. The Bill, however, could create quite a difficulty in the plant breeders' world.
  If I am a scientist employed in a Government plant-breeding station and I have sufficient ability and good luck to produce a variety which proves to be extremely popular and circulates throughout the agricultural world, and if great sums are to be claimed in plant breeders' rights, these, presumably, go to the institution by which I am employed. I do not know how hon. Members generally would react to that. I should be very much inclined to say that I might be tempted to go off to some private institution which was claiming the rights and could pay me some kind of commission or bonus on my discoveries. The provisions of the Bill might react unfavourably upon people employed in the Government service. This would be a great mistake. I do not know that that will be the effect, but there is the danger of it.
  It would have been much better if, in accordance with our other methods of assisting plant breeders, we had adopted

  933
  the method of direct grant for this work rather than the institution of plant breeders' rights.
  I have said sufficient to indicate that it is the basic principle underlying the Bill with which I differ, and I conclude as I began. I accept completely the need for giving to the true breeder of plants proper recognition in the way of financial assistance for his work. I believe that this principle of giving copyrights and royalties is not a valid one from a basic philosophical viewpoint and I believe that the object could have been obtained by other measures with a greater proportion of the rewards seeping through to the person who deserves them rather than being lost on the way.
  It is too late for this alternative now to be considered. It is a pity that the Bill has come to us by the way in which it has done, by way of the various reports and the international Convention, and it is, I fear, too late a stage for the House to consider the underlying merits and demerits of the principles upon which the Bill is founded.
  4.27 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I have read a little about this subject, as well as the Bill and some of the comments concerning it, and I have a certain impression from what I have read and from what the Minister has said. If my impressions are correct, I am amazed at the speech of the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard).
  What led me first to support the Bill was that if we did not introduce the granting of certain rights to plant breeders and seed developers, we might be by-passed by the activities of breeders and developers in other countries in whose products we might be deeply interested and which we might like to have in this country but which, under our existing system whereby the plant breeder receives no material recognition for his work, we might not be able to get. My impression might be wrong, but that was what led me to support what I consider to be an important Measure.
  I support the Bill mainly because, in all matters such as this, we should keep in step with agricultural processes in other temperate climates like our own, so that if benefits are given by legislation
  934
  to plant breeders and developers in other countries, we should do the same so that we may enjoy the benefits of development in-those other countries. That is a legitimate reason why we should all support the Bill.
  I was amazed again at the hon. Member for Kind's Lynn suggesting that we should not bother about the rights of individuals. I should regard the Plant Variety Rights Office as the main central institution which should always concern itself with the rights of individuals.
  Mr. Bullard: I did not say anything of the kind. I emphasised, and I began and finished my speech with, the proposition that the person who was doing work towards breeding a new variety essentially requires recognition, but I said that I did not regard the Bill as the proper method of dealing with the matter.
  Mr. Bence:When the hon. Member reads Hansard—I made a note of what he said—he will see that he said that it was not the function of this House to grant rights to individuals. I may be wrong, but that is my impression. The hon. Member considered that the wrong way to deal with the matter and felt that the House was acting too hastily in granting rights to individuals instead of examining some other method.
  The hon. Member made the comparison, and he has made it again in his intervention, between invention in industry and the development of plants in the horticultural industry. Engineers in the development departments of large industrial undertakings often invent by accident. The man who does it does not know he has done it, but the chief engineer or someone else sees the core of an ides, and this is evolved and patented. This may lead to a major patented invention in some mechanical process.
  This happens in industry and it will happen in any economic activity in which man indulges. New ideas often spring by accident from people who are not consciously seeking to evolve them. I am sure that this often happens in agriculture and horticulture. The comparisons made by the hon. Member for King's Lynn is no reason for opposing the Bill and saying that its proposals are not this best way of doing the job

  935
  we have in mind. There will be horticulturists working for private enterprise and in Government institutions who will be required by their supervisors to pursue some line of research activity as part of their job.
  If I am employed by an engineering company as a development engineer it is my duty to pursue that course on behalf of my employers. I cannot say that when I reach a certain stage in the development I shall claim the idea as mine and rush off to patent it privately. The person who is employed for this purpose accepts a salary for it, and any institution, private or governmental, which employs a man on this work will see that he is adequately rewarded.
  It is absolute nonsense to suggest that those who are engaged in the universities or, for instance, in the Rowett Institute may indulge in private work and patent that work. The hon. Member said that they were entitled to patent their work as individuals. I completely reject that.
  Mr. Bullard: The hon. Member continues to put an interpretation on my speech entirely different from that which I gave or intended. I never said that there was any wish on the part of individuals in these institutions to appropriate any rights to themselves. I said that they might find as a result of the operation of the Bill that private employment was more lucrative to them than employment at the institutions at which they were now engaged, and I thought that that would be a disturbing factor.
  Mr. Bence: I did not understand the hon. Member to suggest that he was criticising the Bill because it would result in research workers moving from public to private institutions. I find it difficult to imagine that as a result of the Bill a company might set up an institute to compete with the Rowett Institution.
  Mr. Bullard: That is not a plant-breeding institution.
  Mr. Bence:No, but it is engaged in other agricultural research and the same principle applies. I do not think that the Bill will result in research workers moving from public institutions to private institutions.
  936
  The Bill also deals with the importation of seeds. A few years ago I came into possession of packets of seeds which bore beautiful pictures. They were exported from the United States to voluntary organisations for distribution over here. I had about 40 or 50 of these packets. I planted a few seeds, but had no results. According to the directions some had to be sown in Wyoming and others in other parts of the United States. The hon. Member for King's Lynn suggested that the people who would benefit from the provisions of the Bill would be those who marketed the seeds.
  Mr. Bullard indicated dissent.
  Mr. Bence: I made a note of it, and I am particularly clear that the hon. Member thought that these provisions would benefit those who marketed the seeds rather than those who developed and bred plants.
  One point which has always struck me about the marketing of seeds is that as a consumer I cannot buy the quantity I require. I have to pay 9d. or 1s. for a packet of seeds which contains many more seeds than I wish to use. I wonder sometimes whether the value of the seeds in the packet is equal to the value of the pictures. Packets of sweet-pea seeds, for example, bear beautiful pictures which are just "out of this world". I have never been able to reproduce them in my garden.
  Mr. John Hollingworth: The hon. Member must be a poor gardener.
  Mr. Bence: I suppose that I obtain average results and that different conditions lead to different results. I find that seeds sold are rarely up to the standards laid down. I know that testing must be difficult and I wonder whether enough testing is done. Have we sufficient personnel, or can we obtain them, to carry out adequate testing? We are short of manpower and expertise in so many spheres. Are steps being taken to create a force of inspectors throughout the country to ensure that we give the consumer the protection which we seek to give him when we introduce Measures of this kind?
  Bills such as this become law, but, because of the lack of manpower resources for testing and examining, we

  937
  often fall short of achieving what we intend by our legislation. In that failure we are apt to think that the legislation is inadequate to do the job when, in fact, the inadequacy is brought about because of the failure to recruit sufficient forces.
  I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not deal with the question, posed in another place, whether a potato was a seed or not. One reason for my coming to the House this afternoon was to hear that question answered. I hope that we shall be given a clear definition of a potato.
  Clause 24 refers to seeds that are not for sowing. I presume that means rice seeds, or caraway seeds, or canary seeds. I hope that this, too, will be dealt with by the Minister. What does one regard as seeds which are not for sowing? Clause 30 says that a seed potato is classed as a seed. How does one define a seed potato? Is it done by means of a grid? If I harvest a sack of potatoes, may I call them seed potatoes?
  Mr. Hollingworth: A seed potato is a tuber which produces a seed, which, in turn, produces a tuber.
  Mr. Bence: I am none the wiser. That may help the Minister, but it certainly does not help me. That definition was given in another place, and it did not make sense then, but, of course, I am not a farmer or a horticulturist. I am an engineer. Nevertheless, there is no reason why I should not take an interest in this subject. Gardening is one of my hobbies, and I intervened in the debate because the hon. Member for King's Lynn criticised this Measure, which is obviously in the best interest of the horticulturist and farmer in this country.
  4.42 p.m.
  Mr. Brian Harrison: I must add my welcome to the Bill which, for a number of years, I have been pressing the Minister to introduce. I particularly welcome it at this time, because I realise that, with a crowded legislative programme before us it has been necessary to recognise the importance of this Measure to bring it before the House at this stage. I was particularly glad when, in November, 1962, we decided
  938
  to sign the Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, and it is out of that Convention that this Bill has emerged.
  Though I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) that there are other ways of protecting the rights of plant breeders, I think that, on balance, the method proposed in the Bill is the best one. There is, of course, the possibility that the better way of doing it would be by merely copywriting names, and that the reputation which attached to the name would ensure that a variety brought a benefit to the breeder or to the person who was exploiting it.
  Though there will be some difficulty in enforcing the rights of the individual breeder, I think that, on balance, this is the soundest way of dealing with the matter, and is the one which will give the most benefit to those who have been developing new strains not only of agricultural produce, but of horticultural plants and shrubs.
  I think that the need for legislation to encourage the plant breeder is obvious when one considers that, in the last two decades, other than those produced by Government institutions, hardly any agricultural cereals of economic significance have been produced because private breeders have not found it possible to indulge in large plant breeding programmes due to the enormous expense involved in investigating all the various genetic possibilities and combinations before producing a new type of seed.
  I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn has left the Chamber, because this is particularly important. When one wants to introduce possibly just one characteristic into a plant, one has to go through an enormous number of processes and produce an enormous number of individual plants, which, of course, means that one is involved in great expense.
  I hope that as a result of the Bill—and I feel confident that it will be so—some of the seed firms in this country will be able to turn their attention to producing even better seeds for horticulture and agriculture crops so that we will have seeds with higher yields, better disease

  939
  resistance, and more suited to this climate, about which words fail me.
  I think that it would be remiss of anyone to discuss the Bill and the Report from which it emanated without referring to the co-operation that has existed between the Ministry and various persons in it and the trade itself. Representing, as I do, an area with a large seed growing acreage, I have been privileged to be on the periphery, but, nevertheless, kept well informed, of some of the negotiations and discussions that have taken place, and from the trade I have heard nothing but credit and praise for the co-operation which it has received from the Ministry in all the stages of the development of this legislation.
  I hope that the granting of patent rights will create the incentive for exporting more seeds from this country. When one thinks of the excellent work that has been done by plant stations like the one at Aberystwyth, it seems a great shame that the varieties developed there are not further exploited in countries overseas. I feel that by getting a commercial injection into the industry we shall be able to go ahead still further in developing strains for countries overseas, and I hope that the opportunity will be taken to do so.
  In general, I like the Bill, but I am concerned about one Clause which was discussed in another place, but about which no conclusion seems to have been reached. I am referring to the responsibility, which is legally enforceable by this Bill, for ensuring the genetical purity of the varieties which a merchant advertises on the packet. Many different types of plant can be cross-pollinated by wind or by bees within a radius of about 1,000 yards. I know from personal experience how serious such cross-pollination can be.
  For many years a voluntary scheme of zoning has been in operation. Living in a seed-growing area, I have been very conscious of this. Nine times out of ten we have been able to arrange between various farmers to grow only a certain type or series of seeds, so that those which are likely to cross-pollinate will not be on the flower at the same time. But it is extremely difficult to carry out this operation if there is just
  940
  one awkward customer in a parish, or even a larger area. This point must be considered further.
  I want to give an example of what can happen because of the difficulties of isolation. Inquiries have been made through a number of seed growers concerning the tops of brussels sprouts, which are a biennial crop if harvested for seed. During the six-year period from 1957 to 1962 inclusive, 153 individual crops of brussels sprouts were entered for a certification scheme, and 13 were rejected because the isolation was not satisfactory.
  The trouble about this or any biennial crop is that all the work that goes into it—fertilisers, and so on—during the two years when the land is used for this purpose can finally be wiped out, with no return at all, unless some form of compulsory zoning is introduced, or—and I do not think that this would be satisfactory—the onus in respect of purity which it is intended to place on the grower were removed from the Bill.
  I referred earlier to the amount of co-operation that had gone on between my right hon. Friend's Department and the various associations that are concerned with the matter. Before the Bill goes to Committee I hope that it will be possible for further discussion to take place between the associations concerned, the N.F.U. and the Ministry to see whether a workable scheme can be evolved.
  I welcome the Bill as a charter for the plant breeder and for those who are involved in this tremendously important industry. Although, in a small way, I have used and propagated other people's new varieties—roses and other shrubs—without paying any fee, and although, in some cases, I have sold the products, which it is quite legitimate to do, I would welcome paying a small royalty on new varieties which I propagated if I knew that the money would go towards the production of still further plants and crops which would later become available. I am sure that all growers would ultimately come round to this point of view.
  I am equally sure that although there may be a minute rise in the cost of seeds for the farmer and horticulturist the benefits—especially considering the comparatively small proportion of the outlay of an agricultural holding which goes to

  941
  seeds—will be much greater, because we shall be making sure that the industry is able to produce varieties suitable for English or United Kingdom conditions. In the long run the farmer and the horticulturist will benefit immensely.
  I sincerely welcome the Bill, both in respect of Part I, which refers to plant breeders' rights and also Part II, which provides a method for bringing up to date the regulations concerning seeds. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  4.56 p.m.
  Mr. John Brewis: I am glad to have an opportunity of raising a few points on the Bill, since I have had a little experience of patents, and this seems to be a cross between patent law and copyright law. First, I should like to know what rights importers will have. When patent law first developed, in the Middle Ages, it was very important to get hold of inventions coming here from abroad. For that reason an importer of an invention, who might not himself have been an inventor, was able to obtain protection here.
  Clause 2 provides protection for someone who discovers a variety. I presume that this is meant to cover the discoverer of a rare wild flower, but would people who import potatoes, for example, be able to obtain protection here, on the general analogy of the patent law? Secondly, there is the question of novelty in new varieties. A new invention is examined very carefully for novelty before a patent is granted. If this examination is not carried out, people who have used a so-called invention which is not novel are put to immense inconvenience if proceedings for infringement are brought against them.
  In the Report on Plant Breeders' Rights, paragraph 204 states:
  "The numbers of existing and potential varieties, and of strains and selections claiming to be varieties, are very large. Fears have been expressed that they may be so numerous, and the differences between many of them so small, that it would be impracticable to devise a workable scheme for plant breeders' rights which depended on establishing the difference between one variety and another. Certainly, the potentialities of plant breeding are very great indeed, and if a breeder could claim rights in his new plant on the basis of any difference, no matter how small, confusion would result and it is probable the scheme
  942
  would fail. In our view, it is essential that a new variety should show some minimum difference in order to qualify for protection. We do not propose to attempt to define this minimum qualifying difference,"
  If plant breeders' rights were granted to something that was not novel, people who had used the variety before would be put to considerable inconvenience, and conversely, it would make it very difficult for the holder of plant breeders' rights to establish those rights against an infringer. As I understand, it is extremely difficult to prove what is the parentage of a variety and, if it is not very distinct indeed, it seems likely that the plant breeder's rights may be worth very little and not really be enforceable.
  On the analogy of the copyright, I am much attracted by the idea of an index, provided that we do not have far too many varieties on the index. I think that I am right in saying that, for instance, there are today no less than 30,000 different named varieties of daffodil—I know that it is not one of the selected plants at present—in the Daffodil Society's "herd book", or whatever it is called. It seems to me that there is a good deal of value in, for instance, the name "Peace" for a particular variety of rose. Having a name such as that, with copyright in it, so that one would have a right to have a variety listed in the index, plus the name attached to it, could be extremely valuable.
  A question arises here, however, with reference to what happens abroad. In this country we have such things as the rose named "Gloire de Dijon", which comes from France. In France, on the other hand, one very seldom finds that roses are called by English names. Are we to take any action in an effort to give names, on the index a sort of international copyright so that a breeder in this country could sue someone in France for using the same name? I see a difficulty here because some of the names we use, for instance, Mrs. Sam McGredy, would not be acceptable abroad. Have we thought out any system by which we could enforce what I think might be a valuable copyright system under an index?
  With those few words I give the Bill a warm welcome. It has been needed for a long time, and I shall certainly vote for it.
  5.3 p.m.
  Mr. Marcus Kimball: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison), I give a strong welcome to the Bill. My right hon. Friend has been very clever in persuading the Patronage Secretary to fit it into the programme, although, as many of us know, the Patronage Secretary has a strong constituency interest in this particular Measure. It is remarkable, too, that in this last year of a Parliament we should have succeeded in getting two major agriculture Bills.
  I hope that, in all our discussions, we shall not forget the very important human element in plant breeding. An eye for a good plant is still one of the breeder's most valuable assets. The breeder's task in sorting out the more desirable plant characteristics and combining them in a new variety is very complicated. Despite all the laws of inheritance and all the science of genetics, much depends on the skill of the individual breeder. He has to make many crosses with different parents and examine a very large number of plants in order to produce one new and improved variety.
  I could not follow the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard). I felt that he approached the whole subject from entirely the wrong angle. The Committee on Transactions in Seeds, in its Report, deposed the theory that a plant is essentially a product of nature, the inheritance of us all, the discovery of which cannot confer rights on any particular individual. The modern plant is produced by controlled hybridisation and is essentially a man-made article.
  Mr. Bullard: I must object to that. The modern plant variety is a man-made article?—in my opinion, it is heresy to say anything of the kind. It was exactly that point in the Report of the Committee which I objected to. Now, my hon. Friend rubs salt into the wound and makes it ten times worse.
  Mr. Kimball: I hope that the House will treat my hon. Friend's intervention in the same way as I should like to treat the rest of his argument when he suggested that all the good people now working there will leave the Government plant research establishments and go
  944
  and work for private firms. He will realise that those private firms could not possibly afford to pay them unless they have the royalties which the Bill gives and which are so essential.
  The modern plant is man-made. A new variety, once established and proved, can be acquired by anyone, multiplied and sold. Such varieties are regularly sold at a price which the breeder himself could not possibly afford to sell them at if he is to recover his costs. The breeder is quite defenceless against the pirating of his own new varieties.
  It is significant how very few of the people still managing to do a little original plant breeding manage to make a living by breeding and selling alone. The financial rewards to these pioneers today is much too small to enable them to carry on that alone.
  Now, the future. What are we to get in the agricultural community in exchange for the granting of these royalties? What future improvements can we expect from the seed breeding industry? There is great scope for the development of varieties which are resistant to pests and disease. Large sums of money are spent every year now on putting one toxic chemical after another on the land, and many of us in the House are very disturbed about the way things are going.
  I very much hope that the money which the plant breeding industry receives from the royalities will be used, above all, to reduce the need for spraying and chemical treatments in all farms and gardens and that a vast amount will now be spent on producing plants which are really resistant to pests and diseases. I am sure that the whole House will readily agree that this is the subject on which the industry should concentrate and use the money which we are voting by passing the Bill.
  We are all very well aware of what has been achieved during the past 20 years. The yield of wheat is up by one-third. The improved malting barley, particularly Proctor barley, has been of enormous value to the malting industry and the brewers. We now have improved varieties of other kinds of soft wheats which have been of tremendous value to biscuit manufacturers and millers.

  945
  Who has done all this? Who has helped to give these increased yields and improved varieties? A great deal has had to be done by the State. As I have said, there are very few private plant breeding establishments left. It would not be out of order here to pay tribute to the private plant breeding establishment, one of the few still managing to keep going, in my constituency. Many hon. Members interested in the subject appreciate what has been done by that particular firm through the publicity it has directed to this issue and the success it has had in keeping it alive and before the Government during the past two or three years. Noteworthy also is the important initiation which the firm has undertaken, with good success, for the survival of the partridge in our countryside.
  The position abroad does not justify the theory that modern breeding is too complicated, too long-term and too expensive for the private establishment. This point was dealt with in the Report of the Committee on Transactions in Seeds, and the Agricultural Research Council, which controls and directs the allocation of public funds to our national State-supported stations, favours this measure of support for our private breeders.
  I stress the importance of this whole subject from the point of view of exports and the need to bring money into this country. Foreign breeders have been particularly successful in recent years in selling into Britain, wheat, oats, barley, vegetables, flowers and roses. I do not for a moment imagine that the plant breeding industry in this country is aiming at being self-sufficient.
  We accept that many of those things have to come to this country. But we hope that steps maybe taken to build up a stronger breeding industry here, because surely it is very unwise that the whole of our agricultural industry should have to rely on new varieties being brought in from abroad. We want action to give us a strong and efficient home market, on which I hope that we may expand and build up a really good export trade. People may say that, if we decide to export these varieties, what protection is there in the foreign markets against piracy? That is the significance of the Convention on Plant Breeders'
  946
  Rights in Paris in 1961. I understand that if we export a variety suitable for growing on foreign soil there are safeguards against it being pirated.
  I do not wish to say more as hon. Members have stressed the need for speeding up the passage of the Bill, and the sooner it is on the Statute Book the sooner the new varieties which our breeders have in store will be available to the agricultural industry. Ever since the Committee came out in favour of some kind of royalties for plant breeders people have not made public the new varieties which they have. They have kept these back and will do so until such time as they receive royalties. It costs large sums to secure new varieties, so I hope that we shall hasten the Bill on its way to the Statute Book and that royalties will be available for varieties of wheat, oats and roses immediately. Then we may benefit from the varieties which will be made available to our farmers.
  5.12 p.m.
  Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: So far as I know, I have no one in my constituency who breeds plants, or would benefit as would a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball). I speak, therefore, purely as a consumer.
  For some years I have been doing what little I could to encourage successive Ministers to take some action on the lines which we are considering today. Two days go I received a seed catalogue from the merchant with whom I deal, containing information about the seeds which he suggests I might find I required this spring.
  I thought that it might be interesting to look it through to see how many varieties had been bred at home. Out of 15 various spring cereal seeds, 13 had foreign parents. Most hon. Members might be able to identify almost at once, the remaining two, Proctor and Marris Badger. Proctor has had the most remarkable success of any home-bred seed. It produces 78 per cent. of the barley sown in this country.
  According to the report, 95 per cent. of the what we plant on our farms comes from foreign sources and 61 per cent, of the total of our cereal seed comes originally from abroad. As the result of the work we are doing today I

  947
  hope that we may be able to encourage our own breeders to provide us with seeds which would improve this situation.
  I have had the good fortune to visit a number of establishments for breeding seeds and plants on the Continent of Europe and elsewhere, and anyone who has seen the money put into breeding these plants and seeds will realise that without the support offered by the Bill there can be that little done in this country to compete with the sort of work found abroad. If good seeds and good plants are produced abroad, there is no real encouragement for the breeders to allow them to be sold in this country unless some protection is afforded. I think that one of the results of enabling importations to take place under the provisions in the Bill will be that the protection offered will allow us to have varieties a little earlier, and perhaps better varieties than have been, available before.
  I have good friends who farm in France and in other parts of the Continent and I have noticed for a number of years that they have used varieties of seeds which are unknown in this country. I have also noticed that it is not so long before we find that these seeds are being imported into this country. One of the results of the Bill may be that better varieties will be available sooner as the result of breeding carried out abroad. Two things may arise from the Bill, therefore. First, it will provide our own breeders with financial strength and protection and, secondly, it will enable us better to profit from what is done abroad.
  My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) criticised the method selected for dealing with this problem. It would be of great interest to many people to have an indication from the Minister as to why we have rejected various systems which appear to have been successful in other countries. Since 1930, over a somewhat limited field, a Plant Patent Act has operated in the United States. A number of people say it would not work in this country. But it has worked in the United States since 1930.
  Doubtless the Government have good reasons for not adopting it, but it would
  948
  be interesting to know why it has not been accepted. A much wider scheme was introduced in Holland, in 1941, and seems to have met with great success. There are many people in this country who would like to know why that scheme was rejected. There are, also, others in Sweden, Germany and elsewhere.
  It was indicated in another place that there were five main varieties which might be covered by the scheme. They were potatoes, barley, oats, wheat and roses. There is one major exception that springs to the mind. It is rye—[Laughter.] The alliteration had not occurred to me until I saw the smiles on the faces of my hon. Friends. It would be interesting to have an indication why rye, so far, has not been considered as one of the possibilities.
  Further, if it should so happen that one of our hon. Friends decided to devote some years of work, and a great deal of money, to breeding, shall we say, some edible variety of bracken, or a new variety of rice, it would have a great impact on the history of the world. Can anyone present imagine what success I, for example, might have if I knocked on the door of the Ministry and said that I wanted Ministerial support for my efforts to breed edible bracken?
  It seems to me that we must persuade the Minister, first, that any great advance which it was proposed to make was something which ought to be put on the list. Alternatively, we should have to wait, until the Minister concluded the new advance, to include it on the list, which would mean that we should have to wait a long time.
  I put the suggestion to the Minister that there may be some important things which could be done if encouragement were given to people in respect of research carried out on other than the five varieties of seeds which have been indicated at the moment as possibilities for inclusion in the list. With those suggestions I give my wholehearted blessing to the Bill.
  5.20 p.m.
  Mr. John Hollingworth: I want to support the Bill and make a short speech which, I hope, will be acceptable to the House. I speak,

  949
  first, as an enthusiastic private gardener, one who likes to wander round the garden during the summer months, as does the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), comparing the pictures on the packets with the results I have been able to produce. I speak, secondly, as one who, prior to coming to the House, had considerable experience of the professional side of horticulture.
  The Bill will help to improve the quality of plants made available in this country for private and commercial use. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) made the important point that, at the same time, it will put into the horticultural economy a certain degree of extra capital which will be of great use in the highly expensive business of producing new plant life.
  Before I move on to more specialised aspects of my speech, I want to pay tribute, because it is only fair that someone should do so, to the work which has been done in the past, without much help from the Government, by our plant breeders. One has only to go at the right time of the year to some of the great horticultural institutions, whether they are privately or publicly owned, in England, Wales and Scotland—and, indeed, two in Northern Ireland—to see the results there of many years of hard steady work in both horticulture and agriculture.
  I, having been associated with some plant breeders employed by companies that I worked for over a period of years, know of the hard work which has to be done and the fact that out of possibly 1,000 new plants grown there is the prospect that only one or two will ever end up on the commercial market.
  It has been said several times this afternoon that one small weakness in the Bill is the fact that this may involve a slight increase in the price of the various commodities produced by plant breeders. I disagree, for this reason. As things stand, with no form of copyright or assistance for the breeder, he knows full well that within two years of putting a new variety on the market he will find himself price-cut by other people's lists. The form of copyright envisaged in the Bill—I put it in that way, loosely—will allow people to put
  950
  new varieties on the market at a much lower price than is the case at present, for the simple reason that they will know that from now on they will have some form of security in regard to similar plants which may be produced by their competitors.
  Over the years I have been associated in horticulture with the breeding of a selection of the Russell lupin family, phlox and delphiniums. Here again, I pay immerse tribute to the work done by those almost unknown gentlemen who have produced the galaxy of colour and abundance that we see in our own gardens and on the commercial market. I welcome the Bill as one who, on the retail side, is involved in the sale of flowers for decorative purposes.
  Anything which will improve the quality of the goods that I or my staff have to buy in Britain's markets for resale in my shops will be not only to my benefit but to that of my customers. One great weakness in horticulture today is that it is one of the few trades or professions that defeats its own object by flooding its own markets with second-rate goods. We should welcome the Bill enthusiastically if it will help in an indirect way to overcome this weakness.
  I am not sure that many of us have not suffered in the same way as the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East from the pretty picture on the packet. I jump to the protection of the seed trade, because I know that many people buy seeds at the wrong time of the year; they probably plant them upside down, and then months later grumble and say that the seeds were no good.
  Mr. Bence: There is one exception. I can always reproduce from Scottish seed the picture I get of the products of Scottish seed potatoes.
  Mr. Hollingworth: If the hon. Gentleman requires a good sweet pea, perhaps he will let me know and I will see what I can do.
  I believe that I am correct in saying that, although there is today a substantial decree of control over the resale of vegetable seeds, there is little control over the sale of flower seeds. I know that the quality of flower seeds is sometimes not up to the standard which I, as a grower, would like.

  951
  I was interested in the philosophical view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard). I can see considerable merit in his view. I cannot agree, however, with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that the plant is a man-made object. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn is not here. The greatest weakness in his argument is that, by giving some form of grant as opposed to some form of copyright, the whole situation would become almost administratively impossible. This country has so many potential plant breeders, just as it has so many potential politicians, that from the administrative point of view the doling out of grants would make things far too complicated.
  I have expressed sympathy with the Bill's objects. I reiterate that anything that can improve the quality and standard of horticultural produce, which is the aspect in which I am particularly interested, will, in the long term, be for the benefit of all aspects of the industry.
  5.28 p.m.
  Mr. George Darling: This short debate has shown that there is general agreement that we want this Bill, and want it quickly, perhaps with some amendment in Committee. I was surprised that we are to deal only with wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and roses in the Regulations to begin with. I should have thought that we want to go much wider as quickly as possible.
  To take up the point made by the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine), instead of talking about edible bracken, the possible development along these lines will be to take the protein out of grass and work it up to some kind of digestible food. I gather that researches are going on into this problem in various parts of the world. It may therefore be necessary to put grass seeds into the list as quickly as possible, because if we are to get food from grass by some extractive process, it must be grass from selected special strains, otherwise we might poison ourselves.
  The only comment I have on the excellent and informative speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Hollingworth) is that I have noted for future reference that he is
  952
  opposed to the abolition of resale price maintenance.
  We want to see the Bill passed into law speedily, not only because it is good in general terms but to limit as much as possible the period of indecision to which the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) referred. I accept that a number of plant breeders are anxious about this. If anyone has developed a new plant in recent months he must be in a serious quandary. Should he put it on the market now and keep ahead of his competitors—but lose the protection of the Bill, which cannot be made retrospective—or should he hold it back until he can have the protection of the Bill, perhaps thereby finding that a foreign competitor has beaten him?
  Because of the congestion of Committees upstairs, might it not be possible to take the Bill on the Floor of the House, when each day we could consider it for six or seven hours instead of the two and a half hours' consideration it would have in Committee upstairs—that is, providing it could be got into Committee, which at the moment looks extremely doubtful?
  I, too, am sorry that the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) is not in his place, for I profoundly disagreed with him on the question of copyright for plant breeders. I believe that they should have the same protection as any other inventors. When the hon. Member for King's Lynn attempted to disagree with the comparison made in the Report between insecticides and roses, I thought that I would be glad if someone stopped producing insecticides and allowed us get on with the roses. They are much safer. On other occasions the hon. Member for King's Lynn has suggested that many other agricultural problems could be settled by handing out Government grants. That always seems to be his general solution. This is in contradiction with the view he takes when speaking on behalf of the sturdy independent peasants of this country who, from his remarks, seem to be wanting more and more money from the Government to remain independent.
  The hon. Member for King's Lynn made a good point when he suggested that individuals employed in Government research stations and who more

  953
  or less personally produce new varieties might, under these royalty terms, get some financial recognition for their work. I appreciate that this could not be written into the Bill, but I hope that that suggestion will be considered by the Government research authorities. This is important because, as the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) pointed out, most new strains and varieties in recent years have come from the Government research stations.
  Although this may seem somewhat strange coming from this side of the House, my hon. Friends and I would like to make it more profitable for private enterprise to produce more than they have because the more development that takes place in this business the better. Lack of protection has prevented the development of new varieties from the private sector, and if we can do anything to correct that position so much the better.
  The hon. Member for Maldon raised an important point which had occurred to me when I began to read the Bill; that the first part of it might have been dealt with under patent law while the second part, which deals with consumer protection, might have been handled by writing a new law of contract, particularly since one is greatly needed to take the place of the out-of-date Sale of Goods Act. However, we cannot wait for a new law of contract and we shall have to accept the Bill, although from the point of view of copyright the patent law approach would have accomplished more easily what we want achieved.
  Clause 16, which is almost a Statute in itself, is one of those provisions which we sometimes find in proposed legislation and which we say has been so clearly drafted and presented that we wish to congratulate the Minister and his draftsmen on doing such a good job. It is a curious thing that Statutes dealing with the law of contract between seller and buyer invariably look like models of Parliamentary draftsmanship. This is true of the Sale of Goods Act, which was drafted about 70 years ago, and of Clause 24 of the recent Weights and Measures Act. The same can be said of Clause 16 of this Bill, which to some extent is the modern version of the Sale of Goods Act, bringing it up to date in ways which some hon. Members have been suggesting for some time.
  954
  I invite hon. Members to read Clause 16 substituting the word "goods" for "seeds" where this is appropriate. They will see that we would then have a basic measure of consumer protection which could be put into other legislation. One would have to delete the references to "regulations", and I would like—although I doubt whether it will be possible for us to press this in Committee—to delete references to "regulations" to provide us with this basic measure. For example, we might slightly alter the opening of Clause 16, delete the first paragraph and substitute these words:
  "In all transactions between sellers and buyers reliable and adequate information shall be afforded…"
  and the remaining words of subsection (1,a) could continue, our having deleted the references to "regulations" where-ever they appear. If this were done one would have a basic measure to which all sales of seeds would have to conform.
  I do not believe that it would be necessary to introduce any regulations at all, because the Clause would apply to all transactions. This is a matter on which I feel strongly. It bears on consumer protection, and I am always looking for ways and means of having a new law of contract. Perhaps this is not the right time to begin writing such a contract.
  In Committee we shall need to clear up a number of questions which are in the minds of hon. Members, if not move Amendments. For example, what kind of royalties will be paid to those entitled to them under the Bill? Will the sums be laid down in the regulations, or will the plant breeder entitled to royalties have to negotiate trade contracts to get royalties? The hon. Member for All Saints referred to packeted seeds and the fact that a number of queries will need to be answered. We are laying down in the Bill the provision that sellers of seeds must place on their packets descriptions of the contents which are honest and straightforward. How will a complaining customer take action—and in this instance I am referring to the ordinary gardener and not the farmer—if the seeds do not run to type or if the result is not like the picture on the packet? This may be an important point.

  955
  The farmers, of course, can—or rather they already should—have the help of the N.F.U. if they find that they are getting seeds which are not true to the description given at the time of sale, but the little man, the ordinary gardener, seems to be left high and dry. He will have protection in law, but it will be very difficult for him to get the law applied.
  Then there is the question of dealing with packeted seeds and protection for imports of deleterious seeds from abroad. I understand that the protection will operate where consignments of seeds come in through the ordinary trade channels, but what about those packets picked up abroad in the shops? A year or two ago I brought quite a lot of seeds back from California—I do not know whether I was breaking the law—and planted them in my garden. Some came up all right and some did not. The Californian sweet-peas were a complete wash-out. That, of course, may have been the result of how I planted them.
  I do not know whether we could bring the private enterprise of individual gardeners who go abroad under any type of control. Of course, this is important when we deal with the point the hon. Member for Maldon made about cross-pollination. It may not be really important for gardeners but I do not know how, under the terms of the Bill, we are to arrange for a defence on the part of the seller of the seed against a complaint where the cause of the trouble is cross-pollination, for which he is not responsible. It will be difficult in these circumstances for any one to prove the defence.
  Mr. William Ross: Especially after two years.
  Mr. Darling: Then, of course, we have the problem of arrangements which might have to be made to prevent cross-pollination. I do not know whether we can include this in the regulations or not. Indeed, there are several other problems and queries about the Government's intentions that we must pursue in Committee.
  I hope that the Minister has consulted the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip on the prospects of
  956
  getting this Bill through Committee. Perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can tell us whether they have considered any arrangements to help us get the Bill on to the Statute Book quickly, because the congestion upstairs makes the prospect of the Bill becoming law before the General Election not too bright.
  5.45 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): It is generally recognised on both sides of the House that the Bill is welcome not only to hon. Members but to the industry, to which it will be of advantage. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) asked why my right hon. Friend had mentioned only five schemes. That point was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine). My right hon. Friend was only giving examples. He is anxious to press ahead with further schemes as soon as possible and consultation with private breeders and the industry will be welcome.
  I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) found difficulty in the Bill because, philosophically, he cannot accept it. I do not agree with his view. One point he raised was that perhaps we had not considered various alternative methods. They were very carefully considered when the Report of the Committee was published in 1960. We have fully consulted the industry and a statement of the Government's general policy of acceptance of the Report was made in 1961. That is sometime ago and no dissident voice has been raised until now. All these points have been gone into and, indeed, the Committee itself in Chapter V of its Report went into the various alternative methods.
  My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) both mentioned the case of Government employees in the various research institutes. My hon. Friend made the point that their work belongs in part to the employing firm or Government Department. That is understood by the employees in these institutes. I am sure that the reference made by the hon.

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  Member for Hillsborough to this will be taken into consideration as well.
  My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn also thought that compilation of the index would be too difficult. I do not think that this will be so because much work has already been done over the main field which my right hon. Friend intends to include in the scheme. I think that it may be a little tedious to compile the index but a lot of work has been done and is ready to be published.
  Mr. Bullard: I was thinking of particular ranges of plants which might have to be included in the index. Surely ranges of plants will have to be covered which will be far outside the ranges likely to be covered by Part I of the Bill. When one comes to deal with the more unusual plants, if one is to make an index of one type one must make an index of the lot. If one starts to compile an index of varieties of sweet peas, for instance, one might come across some very profound difficulties. It was this that I had in mind.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I accept that in the the case of sweet peas—and, indeed, of daffodils—one might well run into difficulties over the varieties. But my right hon. Friend is considering starting with more well-known types of products and, in consultation with the industry, we shall be extending the types of products for which the index will be compiled as soon as we can. But that will not be until all the difficulties and problems have been fully considered. In reply to the hon. Member for Hillsborough, I would not say that packeted seeds for gardens have high priority in the mind of my right hon. Friend.
  The basic difference between my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn and the Government is that my hon. Friend does not want plant breeders to get the rewards which he and we accept that they should have by the method proposed in the Bill. He would prefer out right grants. But that would be by far the most difficult way. The method proposed in the Bill is much better and more equitable.
  The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East, raised the question of the definitions of seed and seed potatoes. A definition of seeds is included in the Bill to make it clear that the breeder cannot,
  958
  for example, claim a royalty on a crop which does not go for sowing but which goes to they mill. Seed potatoes count as seed for the purposes of the Bill except where special provisions apply to them. They are specially mentioned in Clause 26(4). I think that is a rather small point and I hope that the hon. Member is now with me on it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) made an important point, which was taken up by the hon. Member for Hillsborough about the difficulties which breeders find because of cross-pollination from other stock. He made particular reference to his part of the world. My right hon. Friend accepts that difficulty exists in this matter and he is giving very sympathetic consideration to seeing what can be done to get over the problem. Perhaps at a later stage something might eventuate.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) raised three points. He spoke first about the rights of importers. I should make quite clear that it is only the breeder of a variety which has been bred who is to be empowered to register his right. An importer of a variety may apply for rights from the office only if he is acting as the agent of the breeder and not as the importer of that new variety. Other than that, foreign breeders will have just the same access to registration here as ordinary home breeders have to registration of their rights if necessary.
  The second point raised by my hon. Friend was about novelty in new varieties. I must admit that this is one of the difficulties about the distinctness of variety in a new kind of plant which has to be established. This may well lead to difficulties later, but we intend to do the best we can, although I accept that it is one of the difficulties of definition.
  The find point made by my hon. Friend was on action concerning the index to make it internationally accepted. We are not ourselves proposing an international copyright for plant names, but there will be international machinery for consultation on names if the convention comes into force and the member countries adhere to it. One would hope that when all the member

  959
  countries have ratified it, the variety name will be the same or suitably translated into the appropriate language.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rye asked if we had looked at systems operating in other countries, particularly the United States of America. He said that the system in existence there is very restricted. Although basically it is the same as the one we propose, it is of a more restricted type than is envisaged in the Bill. He also mentioned Holland, which is a member of the Convention and is in process of changing existing regulations to bring them into line with the convention and with the objects of this Bill. Regulations which follow the Bill will, I think, be generally accepted as right in the light of the international Convention. I hope that when the time comes we shall find this form adopted on a very wide front throughout the world, and that the international Convention will be adopted by a large number of countries.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Hollingworth) was correct about the present position over the control of vegetable and flower seeds. The Bill we are considering covers flower seeds. Therefore, when it becomes law, the position will be rectified.
  That covers most of the main points, apart from the one made by the hon. Member for Hillsborough in relation to Clause 16. I am very glad that he supported this as an example of good drafting. I think it is, although I do not go along with him in his desire to make it more rigid. I think the flexibility by which it gives my right hon. Friend power to make regulations is necessary to make it a really worthwhile Clause.
  On the whole, I think it fair to say that there has been little dissension on the wide purposes underlying the Bill. I am certain that if we can get the various parts of the Bill on to the Statute Book in a reasonably short space of time it will
  960
  be of great advantage in the agricultural industry for the reasons my right hon. Friend gave when opening the debate. I think I have answered all the points raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I recommend the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second Time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  PLANT VARIETIES AND SEEDS [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the granting of proprietary rights to persons who breed or discover plant varieties, it is expedient to authorise—

  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  (a) the remuneration and allowances of the members of any tribunal or other body established under the said Act and of any officers or servants appointed under the said Act;

  (b) the expenses of any body established or officer appointed under the said Act, including any fees paid by any such body or officer to any other person in respect of that person's services and any grants so paid towards the expenses of any other person in maintaining any reference collection of plant material;

  (c) any expenses incurred by any Minister in the execution of the said Act;

  (d) any increase attributable to the said Act in the sums payable under any other enactment out of moneys so provided;

  (2) any payments into the Exchequer.—[Mr. Soames.]

  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.
  INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BILL

    Clause 6.—(POWER TO OBTAIN INFORMATION FROM EMPLOYERS.)
    5.58 p.m.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. William Whitelaw):I beg to move, in page 5, line 8 to leave out from "industry" to first "to" in line 10.
    Would it be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if we also considered the Amendment in page 5, line 16 to leave out from "industry" to "to" in line 17.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): If that is convenient to the House, so be it.
    Mr. Whitelaw:These two Amendments arise from an undertaking I gave during Committee in reply to an Amendment moved by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). As the House will appreciate, under Clause 4(1) a small firm can under certain circumstances be exempted from paying the levy. As the Bill stands, a similar exemption would be applied under Clause 6(1) to the provision of information.
    The hon. Member for East Ham, North argued in Committee that, although it might be right under special circumstances to exclude small firms from paying the levy, nevertheless it might inhibit industrial training boards if they could not get the information they wanted from those small firms. As I undertook, we have considered the point very carefully since the Committee stage and agree with the conclusion of the hon. Member. I think he will notice that these Amendments are in exactly the words he proposed in Committee.
    Mr. R. E. Prentice: In supporting these Amendments, I point out that we want the whole scope of the Bill to apply to all firms, large or small. Although we concede that there may be circumstances in which certain units in some industries are so small that they might reasonably be excused from paying the levy, we would regard that exemption in itself as some-
    962
    thing which should be used very sparingly. We think that that should happen in all cases where the firms are so small that the cost of collecting the levy would be greater than the yield of the levy itself. Further, we think that the board should be given the fullest possible information by all firms, as we originally moved in Committee.
    6.0 p.m.
    We are glad that the Government have accepted our ideas. If I may say so, this is a good example of how the vigilance of the Opposition has helped the Government out of their difficulties. There are further examples in the Notice Paper of ways in which we are trying to help them, and we hope that they will meet us on those points as well.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In page 5. line 16, leave out from "industry" to "to" in line 17.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

    Clause 11.—(CENTRAL TRAINING COUNCIL.)
    Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 10, line 1, to leave out "eight" and insert "twelve".
    The purpose of this Amendment is to increase the number of independent members on the Central Training Council from two to six. We discussed this point in Committee, when it was suggested mat it might be most helpful to the Central Training Council to have members from, for example, the professional institutions, technical examining bodies, universities and research institutes. It was argued that the two places initially prescribed in the Bill for independent members would be insufficient, and I agreed then that we would consider whether the number should be increased, and how we should do it.
    We feel it right to increase the number. We do not feel that, even after this increase, the maximum number of 33 members will be so high that it might in any way inhibit the Council's usefulness. We think that this is a worth-while and proper increase. It will enable us to get the benefit of the experience of some valuable people.
    Mr. Prentice: Once again, I welcome the fact that the Government are

    963
    meeting a point made in Committee, but I should have been happier had the Parliamentary Secretary given us a little more information about how the Government now see the position. We specifically discussed in Committee various organisations that some hon. Members thought ought to be consulted, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and various other professional bodies.
    Although I welcome this proposed change, some slight confusion may have arisen from the fact that if the Amendment is carried there will be 12 extra members, six of whom are to be appointed after consultation with the Minister of Education and the Secretary of State for Scotland. In a sense all 12 are to be what might loosely be called "educational" members of the Central Training Council—six of them, presumably, rather more educational than the others; in other words, I suppose that six of them will be people actually practising education, or teaching in universities, or principals of technical colleges, or people working in C.A.T.s and other institutions, while the other six will be presumably those at one stage removed, such as the representatives of the various learned societies and institutions that have been mentioned.
    I should also like to know to what extent teachers' organisations will be directly consulted when these appointments are made either by the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Education, who is involved in this group of appointments. All hon. Members will recently have had a memorandum from the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, which makes some very valid points about the way in which the Bill should work. Among other things, the Association claims as a weakness in this Measure that there is no provision for representation on the Central Training Council or on the industrial training boards of the A.T.T.I. or other organisations representing those actually engaged in technical education.
    We do not want to press for direct representation because, on the whole, we do not see this body as consisting of representatives but of people appointed on their own individual merits after
    964
    consultation with interested parties. Whether they come from among the employers, the trade unions or any other body, it is important that they should not be just the big guns of those organisations but people appointed by the Minister simply because he thinks that they have the necessary qualities for this work, and, once on the body, they should not be representative but should all be engaged in a training operation.
    We therefore did not feel able to go all the way with the A.T.T.I., but we certainly think that that Association along with other organisations, should at some stage be involved in consultation, and we think that the Association is right in believing that the people appointed should be those with experience in education, and not just people who may have a reputation based on former experience only. Therefore, the views expressed by the Association have some validity, and should be taken into account in making this attempt. While we welcome the Amendment, we should like a little further information from the Minister.
    Mr. Whitelaw: I can probably answer the hon. Member best by saying that in all this it is our determination to obtain the best possible people, as individuals, to serve on this Central Training Council. Both my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friends the Minister of Education and the Secretary of State for Scotland will naturally seek to ensure that they get the best possible individuals. The hon. Member is quite right in thinking that we, as well as he, do not wish to have these people as representatives of particular organisations, but wish to have them on the Council for the individual contribution they can make. At the same time, that contribution will be particularly valuable if it comes from people who are engaged in work in particular aspects, such as technical education.
    In order to ensure that we get these people on the boards, it will be the intention of my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friends the Minister of Education and the Secretary of State for Scotland to have the widest possible discussions with the various organisations concerned, but we do not think it right to write into the Bill that we must have consultations, because the moment

    965
    we do that people will believe that they have the right in consultation to suggest a certain person, who then becomes their representative. We think it right to consult all concerned, but in the final event, my right hon. Friend will wish to ensure that he appoints the individuals whom he feels will be best qualified to give the Central Training Council the benefit of their advice.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. Harold Finch: I beg to move, in page 10, line 3, at the end to insert:
    "and one of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the Institute of Youth Employment Officers".
    The Amendment will provide that at least one member of the Central Training Council shall be a member of the youth employment service. It is already specified in many apprenticeship schemes in engineering and agriculture and horticulture that the authorities operating the schemes shall act in periodic consultation with representatives of the youth employment service. In a Bill of this kind, which seeks to widen and improve apprenticeship schemes, it is only right to provide that such an officer should become a member of the Central Training Council.
    I fully appreciate why industrialists continue to act in close co-operation with the youth employment service. Years of experience have taught them that youth employment officers are essential to the working of an efficient apprenticeship scheme. It is part of the duty of these officers to give vocational guidance. They are there to prepare young men and women for their entry into industry. The years have long since passed when I was a young man and when one finished school on a Friday and on the following Monday was thrown into industry, into the mine or factory where we had never been and where we found strange men and strange faces and where we had to go without any idea of what was before us. Such education as we had had stopped at school and any knowledge of the industry which we had was purely theoretical.
    In recent years, the youth employment officer has become the key man in this process. He consults headmasters and
    966
    other teachers. Not long ago I had the interesting experience of visiting a South Wales switch gear works where boys and girls who would be leaving school in about six months were being shown round. There was a very good apprenticeship scheme and these boys and girls were able to see how the industry worked and what sort of industry it was before they left school. They were given an insight into the sort of work which they might be doing. When they returned to school, they were able to consult their teachers and their parents with some idea of what it would be like in such a factory or office or workshop.
    The recruiting of young men and women for industry must be made as smooth and as efficient as possible. Ministers come and go and it is all very well to say that it is intended to consult youth employment officers. In a later Amendment, the Minister proposes that the Iron and Steel Board should be able to appoint a representative to the Council. I do not object to that, but if it is essential to specify the Iron and Steel Board, it is surely essential to specify youth employment officers.
    6.15 p.m.
    Youth employment officers consult headmasters, teachers, parents and employers and they know what grants are available and what preparations have to be made for a given course of training. If the Bill is to be a success and is to work as smoothly as possible, these officers should be represented on the Council. The youth employment officer is an intermediary between the school and the employer, he is an adviser, the third man in the partnership between industry and education. He has to know the nature of the training and to be able to give general advice. If the Bill is to be made a success, there will have to be consultations between employers and education authorities and the youth employment officer ought to know what is going on.
    We are passing through a second industrial revolution and I know that hon. Members opposite are as anxious as we are that these new technical and scientific changes should occur as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. One of the most important aspects of that will be to ensure that youth

    967
    employment officers are represented on the Central Council as well as the local boards.
    Mr. Whitelaw: I agree with the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) that the youth employment service is an essential feature of these training proposals and I also agree with him about the extremely valuable part which it plays in the life of young people in their very important transition from school to industry. We cannot over-emphasise the importance of its task.
    At the same time, the hon. Member will have appreciated what I said earlier—that we do not think it appropriate to write into the Bill a specific consultation with any one organisation. The hon. Member referred to a later Government Amendment which mentions the Iron and Steel Board. I hope that I shall be able to show him that there is no connection between that Amendment and this, that there is a special reason for that Amendment and that there is not the parallel which he sought to draw.
    The Amendment would put youth employment officers in a unique position, for they would be the one organisation specifically named as having to be consulted about membership of the Central Training Council. I am the first to recognise the value of their contribution, but we are convinced that it would not be right to write into the Bill that any one particular organisation should have to be consulted on the choosing of members for the Council. We believe that it is right to have a wide measure of consultation, as the Bill provides and which will be undertaken by my right hon. Friend, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. Finch: The Parliamentary Secretary will appreciate that some youth employment officers are not directly under the Ministry of Labour nor directly under the Ministry of Education. They are a sort of go-between and it is because of their unique position that they should be represented on the Council.
    Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member is substantially correct although, as he will
    968
    appreciate, some youth employment officers come directly under my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour as in certain parts of the country our Department runs the youth employment service. Generally, however, they are the responsibility of the local authorities. This, however, does not invalidate my point.
    I was saying that a wide measure of consultation will be carried out as is provided in the Bill. We do not think it right to name any one organisation as having to be consulted. We recognise, of course, the value of the contribution which can, and will, be given by the youth employment service to the Central Training Council and in my right hon. Friend's decision as to whom finally to appoint to the Council he will remember the important contribution which can be made by the youth employment service. I must advise the House that it would not be right to write the Amendment as such into the Bill.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary is unable to accept the Amendment, which has been so ably proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), but he was quite right in saying that the youth employment service is unique. This bridge which we have constructed is in its infancy, but in the technological age into which we are passing it will be the most important link between the formal education of the schools and technical colleges and the ever-changing industry and technical and scientific curriculum of a dynamic society. The placing of our boys and girls in positions in industry, commerce and trade fitting their education or character will depend more and more upon the efficiency of this bridge. Therefore, all along the line, from the Central Training Council to the training boards, the bridge should be used at every stage to ensure that the youth officer acts as a link between the educational curriculum, general educational training and the employer.
    The Central Training Council is to include six members representing employers' organisations; the Clause specifies that these people are to be represented. There will be six members representing employees or trade unions, two from the nationalised industries and

    969
    not more than six chairmen of the industrial training boards. Provision is also made for the appointment of other members by the Minister.
    "after consultation with the Secretary of State and the Minister of Education".
    One institution which is left out is what I call the bridge.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty has put forward an important point and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend will reconsider it. We are all agreed that in the next decade we must make a drive to modernise Britain. This bridge is probably the most important link of all. When we start the process at the beginning, let us ensure that we include this bridge in our discussions in bringing together our educational system and industry and enabling the youth officers to give better advice and our children to have confidence. The Amendment would ensure that we start in the right way by using this important link between the school and the factory or industry.
    When I left school in 1917, we were merely "thrown into the pot". Our parents and teachers knew little about it and those who received us knew little. The age of the amateur way in which we were placed in professions and trades and were trained has gone and is dead. For goodness sake, in creating a new attitude let us begin right and bring in the youth employment officer, giving him his right status and the right relationship with both sides of the industry. The Amendment proposes a step in the right direction.
    Mr. Austen Albu: I support my hon. Friends. There are a number of arguments for making an exception about consulting the youth employment officers. They are a body without vested interests, apart from the fact that they form a bridge between education and the various sectors of employment. They are very much outside the vested interests of the other bodies to be represented on the Central Training Council. They have a special knowledge of young people, but there are one or two other reasons why they need a special position.
    First, in some industries there is danger that the training boards, and, therefore, the views expressed on the Train-
    970
    ing Council, may be dominated by federations of employers or firms who are members of federations, and perhaps, on the other side, by the trade unions also, whereas if the Bill is to be successful it must operate over a quite large area of firms which are not federated and some of which may not even be union organised. Here, the youth employment officers will play a valuable part.
    Then, there is the increasing number of occupations for which, up to now, there has been no scheme of training, certainly no apprenticeship. There is the danger that in the early days the operation of the Bill will be dominated by the apprenticeship trades, but, as we agreed in Committee, the number of non-apprenticeship trades and occupations which will be learned in a quite different way from apprenticeship will grow. In this connection, the youth employment officers will have a special contribution to make because they will have knowledge of the wide variety of occupations which fall outside the accepted arrangements between employer and employee for training in trades which have a tradition of training.
    It may be that hitherto the Youth Employment Service has not had the status that it should have, but it is bound to have increasing status in the future as we take more seriously the movement from education into industry and try to narrow the gap between the two. This might not be necessary in the highly-organised firms or industries with long apprenticeship traditions, however bad they are—presumably, they will get together and modernise themselves—but a large number of occupations do not fall within these categories and it will be important to have somebody to speak for them.
    6.30 p.m.
    Mr. Ede: I support the Amendment. The most important part of a youth's preparation for his life's work consists in making a smooth transition between the school and whatever his occupation may be, so that it shall not be the plunge into a bath of cold water that it too often is now, in which the youth gets discouraged by finding himself in completely new surroundings having little connection with what has gone before in his life.

    971
    The first employment should be a continuation of the education process and should be approached in the spirit of an educational process. The requirement on the school is that the child should be educated having regard to his age, ability and aptitude. I have always contended from the first time that the word appeared in what is now the Education Act that "aptitude" is the most important of the three things which the teacher has to consider in dealing wih the child. Aptitude is the re-endowment of the world which comes from the recruitment of a new individual to the life of the community. It is what marks off that individual from every other of the persons who may be in the community in which that young person is being brought up.
    Too often now too little regard is paid even by parents to the child's aptitude. How many boys move into occupations in which they are bored stiff because of the failure to recognise that the boy's temperament is not attuned to that sort of occupation? Within our limited population every thwarted and distorted life is a terrible loss to the industrial efficiency of the nation. I hope that there will be between the schools and the people who are responsible for having the first contacts with boys and girls moving into industry a close relationship and an effort to study the needs of the individual child.
    I recollect when I was a teacher having a pupil who was gifted in certain directions. I arranged for him to be taken to a municipal electricity works at a time when I was chairman of the municipal electricity committee. He turned up for three days but on the fourth day he did not arrive. After he had stayed away for two days I went round to find out what had happened. His mother said, "He is not going there again. He is to have a job where he can keep his hands clean". There were a good many mothers like that. I am not at all sure that they are the right sort of people to bring up boys of 14 to 16 years of age. The boy was to keep his hands clean, and so the mother made him a stockbroker's clerk. I hope that he kept his hands clean, but I have heard some stories which have made me think that he might have been sub-
    972
    jected to certain transactions which would get his hands dirty in ways that would not be removable by the application of soap and water.
    It is a serious thing when a human being endowed with certain attributes fails to secure the opportunity to apply them throughout his working life because of stupid conventions about what are regarded as respectable occupations. I sincerely hope that in the working of these measures we shall be able to take some steps which will ensure that these attributes, which represent the individual, will be able to receive development in a sympathetic atmosphere. I hope that in that atmosphere the knowledge which has been acquired of the individual in the school will be at the disposal of the people who are responsible for his first training in industry so that the transition can be as easy as possible and will not represent too great a break in a life which ought to be continuous.
    Mr. Prentice: My hon. and right hon. Friends have made a powerful case for the Amendment. I appeal to the Minister to have further thoughts on the matter. All I need do is to try to reply to what the Parliamentary Secretary said when he accused us on this side of the House of wanting to put the youth employment officers in a unique position. It was true that in previous discussion his view and ours was that we did not want to think in terms of representatives. In a sense, I confess that the Amendment is therefore a little out of step with what we then said, but for the reasons given by my hon. and right hon. Friends there is a case for regarding the Youth Employment Service as being in a unique position in relation to this function.
    I would emphasise first that there is nobody else on the Central Training Council to represent the young people themselves. The Bill is a major operation to affect the lives of young people as they leave school. We are going to provide a Council representative of employers, trade unionists and other people, most of whom in the nature of things left school a long time ago. It would be an interesting and unorthodox experiment if one thought in terms of putting a couple of 16-year-olds on the Central Training Council. As

    973
    none of us has been bold enough to suggest that, I suggest to the Minister that youth employment officers are the people who are in contact with young people before and after they leave school. They know their hopes and fears and they ought to be in close touch with developments which will affect industrial training programmes for these young people. They have a unique opportunity therefore to represent in some measure the views of young people themselves.
    In the light of what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said, there is in addition urgent need to expand the Youth Employment Service, and that expansion should come in step with the operation of the Bill, if the Bill is to have the effect we all warn, a great deal more careful attention will require to be given to problems of vocational guidance. At the moment the Youth Employment Service has the function of giving vocational guidance up to the age of 18. Generally it does that tremendously well, but in some parts of the country the service is under great stress and is understaffed for this task.
    We feel that this function needs to be improved and expanded beyond the age of 18. We should like to see the limit raised by stages to 21 years, and some would like to see it go even further than that. If we are to regard it as a necessary corollary to the Bill, it is important that the Youth Employment Service should be represented at all levels, on industrial training boards, on the committees to be established under Clause 3, and at the top, on the Central Training Council, which is the immediate purpose of the Amendment.
    I urge the Minister to consider this and see whether he can accept the Amendment or, if he cannot accept it on the spot, think about it again before the Bill goes to another place, because I think we have made a unique case, which has not been answered, for the direct representation of the Youth Employment Service on the Council.
    Mr. Whitelaw:I do not think I would disagree with anything that has been said by any hon. Member about the value of the Youth Employment Service, the importance of its task or the importance of the contribution which it has to make to this Industrial Training Bill. We
    974
    must always take—I certainly did—very great note of the valuable contributions made by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who speaks from very great experience in these matters.
    However, despite all that has been said I come back to the position very clearly put forward by the hon. Member for East Ham. North (Mr. Prentice), who agreed that we did not wish to have representatives on the Central Training Council from particular organisations, or, in general, to have these particular organisations specifically mentioned in the Bill for consultation. But he suggested that the Youth Employment Service was in this respect in a unique position. Honestly, despite all that has been said about its importance, I cannot see that the case has been made out. If it is to be mentioned, then I think there are other organisations which would promptly press a very strong claim to be mentioned also. Therefore, I do not think it is right specifically to mention it in the Bill.
    What I should like to say is that in making their appointments to the Central Training Council my right hon. Friends would take very careful notice of what has been said on this Amendment about the value of the contribution that can be made by the Youth Employment Service, remember the views which have been put forward and take very proper and full account of them.
    I believe that that is as far as we can go in this matter. I believe that it would create a difficult precedent if we were to mention any one organisation, no matter how valuable the contribution that it might have to make.
    Mr. Finch: I regret that the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to go the whole way in this matter. If there is objection to consultation with the Institute of Youth Employment Officers, would he not agree that at least a youth employment officer should be on the Council, leaving aside any question of the organisation or of consultation. It has been pointed out that these people are in an important position. It is not an organisation like the Iron and Steel Board or the mining industry. These people are already engaged in this work and doing this job. Surely it is not

    975
    asking too much from the Minister that we should have an assurance that a youth employment officer will be on the Central Training Council. It is monstrous that when these officers are engaged in this work the Minister is not prepared to put a representative of them on the Council. It is an amazing situation.
    Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman has gone a little further than any argument I put forward. He has suggested that because I said we did not feel that we could write into the Bill that the Youth Employment Service would be consulted before the appointments were made, it meant that we were not prepared to appoint a youth employment officer to the Central Training Council. That goes very much further than anything I suggested, and it certainly would not be any part of my case. Indeed, I should have thought that when I said that in making the appointments my right hon. Friends concerned would take very careful account of all that had been said in this debate, I was arguing in exactly the opposite direction; and I think that should give considerable comfort to the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch).
    Amendment negatived.
    6.45 p.m.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. J. B. Godber): I beg to move, in page 10, line 3, at the end to insert:
    (3) The Central Training Council shall from time to time, and whenever directed by the Minister, make to him a report of its activities.
    This Amendment seeks to take account in some degree at any rate of the requests which were put to me in Committee in relation to the report of the Central Training Council. I will not pretend that it goes altogether as far as hon. Members opposite ask me to go, but I think they will acknowledge that I have given some thought to the arguments they put forward at that time. It seemed to me that it was valuable to make some change, but at the same time I wanted to preserve a degree of flexibility. That is what I have tried to do in putting forward an Amendment in these terms.
    I would call attention particularly to the exact wording, because it leaves the
    976
    opportunity for the Central Training Council, if it so wishes, to put in annual reports. The wording does not prevent that. Indeed, if it felt very strongly, it could put in reports more frequently. Also, it leaves to the Minister of the day the opportunity to call for a report at any particular moment. This gives the degree of flexibility that I wanted.
    I did not want it to be purely on an annual basis. Perhaps we do too much on an annual basis. I remember being very much interested some years ago listening to the late Aneurin Bevan speaking at the Government Dispatch Box and saying most vehemently that he could never understand why everything had to be done on an annual basis just because we were once an agrarian society—why, just because we had an annual harvest, everything had to be done on an annual basis. He was warmly cheered from the other side of the House on that occasion, and I thought it was a most interesting argument. I do not argue quite so strongly or so heatedly on this occasion as Aneurin Bevan did then. I merely indicate that an annual basis is not always necessarily the right one to have.
    I have tried to meet the Opposition by providing facilities so that the Council may, if it wishes, put in an annual report and so that the Minister would at any time be in a position to call for reports. Although this is really a compromise between the position which I took up and that which hon. Members opposite urged on me, I hope they will feel it right to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Prentice: I express our appreciation that our points have been partly met. As I said earlier, we feel that we have made some modest improvements to the Bill and done some of the Government's homework for them. We wish that some of the other improvements we suggested had been accepted. However, the Government still have opportunities to do that later on.
    I hesitate to argue strongly for an annual report in view of the illustrious support that the right hon. Gentleman has called in aid, but I hope that the Council will, either off its own bat or at his request, make fairly frequent reports, because hon. Members and people outside the House ought to have the opportunity

    977
    to check what is happening. The right hon. Gentleman did not say to what extent he thought reports should be published. Perhaps that comes more in conjunction with the next Amendment. At any rate, we want to provide in the form of our next Amendment or by some other means hon. Members and people outside the House with an opportunity to see what is happening, to help and to create public opinion on these matters.
    Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, at the end to add:
    "and the Minister shall lay a copy of every such report before Parliament".
    Although we may have the best will in the world, we are entitled to have some doubts about the scope and character of the Central Training Council. We may contend at this stage that it should be no more than a central co-ordinating authority. But I think that even this modest rôle is bound to lead to the establishment of certain standards of training which in turn will give some indication of the lines of research that are necessary, which in its turn will lead to the provision of a nucleus of an inspectorate. Moreover, the impact of technological advances will compel the continuous adaptation of training services as well as drawing the Central Training Council more and more—in collaboration with the Ministry's new manpower research unit—into forecasting future requirements of manpower not only in a given industry but in a given occupation.
    Who is better placed to comment on these trends and developments than experts and specialists of the kind whom we hope it is proposed to recruit to the Council? Who is better placed to comment on these developments than a chairman of the calibre the Minister said in Committee he was seeking for the Council? The reports from such men and women deserve the widest possible audience. In other words, the reports should be discussed in this House.
    These reports should be presented to the House not merely for the information that they will provide, not merely for their statistical value, nor merely for the purpose of comparing what happened the year before: they should
    978
    be presented to achieve what in the early stages may be the greatest requirement of all, namely, the widest possible publicity.
    We have ample precedents for annual reports to Parliament. The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and other Departments which deal with social problems present such reports. These reports contain statistics which can be compared with what happened in previous years. They have a genuine value, and I think that an annual report in this case would be especially welcome.
    During the Committee stage I asked the Minister whether he would be kind enough to ask the Council to make a report on its activities, and he agreed to do so. I am now asking him whether he will be gracious enough to publish a copy of such a report in the House.
    Mr. James Boyden: I support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy). I am grateful to the Minister for coming as far as he did with us or this question, as I think he conceded the substance of the case. But, as the Minister will recollect, during the Committee stage there was general agreement with my sentiments that this scheme must be accompanied by a massive propaganda effort to interest the whole community in it, and this report would be one way of achieving that object.
    I cannot see why the idea of an annual report has been discarded. It will be a discipline for the Central Training Council, and I am sorry that the Minister and his Department have discarded it. It is all very well for the Minister to say as he has done about his Department's work, that the material appears in other places, but the fact is that the absence of an annual report by his own Department detracts to some extent from publicity for the work it does.
    We are getting a new scheme under way, and the professional public, who study these things closely, get into the habit of looking for a report on certain occasions. If the right hon. Gentleman does not agree to publish it automatically annually, I hope that he will

    979
    at least publish a report at regular intervals so that the professional world can see what is happening.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We are talking about whether the Minister should lay a copy of every such report before Parliament.
    Mr. Boyden: I hope that that will be done. Putting it before Parliament will be one way of providing the information in a way that the public will take up. Hansard is followed fairly carefully by professional bodies, and if a report is not laid before Parliament it will not receive the wide publicity that we consider it should receive. I cannot stress too strongly that unless the Minister takes this simple way of increasing the amount of publicity given to the Council he will not be able to do some of the things that he wants to do, because he has to carry the community with him. Annual reports to Parliament are therefore essential.
    Mr. Bence: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) that from time to time we should have laid before this House a report on the proceedings of the C.T.C. and the training boards. The right hon. Gentleman referred to what was said by the late Aneurin Bevan. On that occasion he was criticising the annual Budget and saying that we might have two Budgets each year instead of one, because the pastoral habit of sowing and reaping from one season to another did not necessarily coincide with what happened in financial matters and in the Treasury.
    It is important that the report from the C.T.C. should be laid before Parliament. If such a report is not laid before the House, I take it that we, as the Opposition—though it may well be the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends at the time when the report is published—will have to provide a Supply Day to debate it. If, however, a report is presented to the House, the Government of the day will have to provide time to debate it. I therefore think that it is to the right hon. Gentleman's advantage to accept our Amendment.
    Our modern society is advancing very rapidly, and I do not think that we can afford to take the risk of not having a
    980
    report from such an important institution as the C.T.C. We are creating as it were a new State institution. We receive reports from the nationalised industries. We receive reports from various Departments. We receive reports from the Public Accounts Committee, and from the Estimates Committee. The receipt of a report from the C.T.C. will give us an opportunity to discuss what I consider will be an increasingly important institution, concerned as it will be with education, industry, and youth employment services. Unless our Amendment is accepted, we may not have an opportunity to discuss the work of this important body, and I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will give us an assurance that all the reports he receives from this body will be presented to the House.
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. Godber: I have listened with interest to the points put forward in relation to this Amendment. I thought that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy) put it very well when he talked of the need for publicity, and I thought that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) in following up the point made by his hon. Friend, put forward a logical argument in this regard, namely, that if we are to get the full value from these reports, they must be made available as freely as possible.
    I also listened carefully to the point made by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). The hon. Gentleman must not provoke me too far along the lines of who is going to be in opposition. Then I might say something to him about the need for the retraining, and, possibly, the rehabilitation, of some hon. Members opposite, if they were to seek to take over the immense duties of office which have been so brilliantly carried out by the present Government. This Bill might be just in time. But I do not think that there will be any need for that for some time to come.
    A good case has been made out for the Amendment to the proposed Amendment. I can endorse what hon. Members have said, and I therefore propose to accept it as it stands. I shall certainly

    981
    see that these reports are made available, and I hope that the fullest advantage will be taken of them, even if we do not get them exactly at annual intervals.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.
    Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

    Schedule.—(INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BOARDS.)
    Mr. Prentice: I beg to move, in page 14, line 16, at the end to insert:
    "and may include such other persons as may appear to the Minister to have relevant qualifications"
    We are here returning to a point that we raised in Committee, and on which we hoped that the Government would have further thoughts. Apparently they have decided not to accept our idea. It appears to us that, as it stands, paragraph 3 in the Schedule is not flexible enough for the purpose which the Government ought to have in mind. It says:
    "An industrial training board shall consist of a chairman…and an equal number of persons appointed after consultation with"—
    and it goes on to mention manufacturers' and trade union organisations and—
    "persons appointed after consultation with the Secretary of State and the Minister of Education."
    It makes no allowance for any other appointments. We shall have the employer members, the trade union members and the educationist members, and that is all.
    In Committee we said that if they wished the Government should have the power to make other appointments, and we suggested various types of people who might be appointed to these boards. One such group was youth employment officers. We had a debate about their appointment to the Central Training Council, and we cannot see why there should not be a case for appointing them to membership of the boards.
    I suppose that there would be a possibility, under paragraph (b), of a youth employment officer being appointed
    "after consultation with the…Minister of Education"
    982
    but this is lot clear, and I should like some further information on it. For reasons that we gave in our previous discussion we feel that it would be a good thing for these officers to be members of these boards. The Government might wish to appoint a distinguished scientist to a board. A scientist might be working in one of the research associations connected with the industry, and he might be in a position to give the board information about the probable future shape of the industry and the way in which scientific advances would alter techniques in that industry and therefore affect the types of training programmes which should be started now in order to provide for manpower requirements in five or ten years' time. That kind of advice might be extremely valuable to an industrial training board, and the possibility of making such an appointment should be there.
    Thirdly, there might be a distinguished training consultant who could give valuable help in relation to the activities of a certain board, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House could think of other examples. We simply suggest that as the paragraph stands it is too rigid. It does not seem to allow for the possibility of any appointments to the memberships of these boards except from the rather narrow categories laid down.
    We were told in Committee—and no doubt we shall be told again—that the boards have power to establish advisory panels, and that they could make any appointments they thought fit to those panels, but I suggest that the Minister himself should have the power to make such an appointment to a board, so that persons in the categories that I have mentioned would have the maximum influence upon policy making.
    One argument advanced in Committee worried me a little, and I should like further comments from the Government Front Bench on it. It was suggested that our proposal was not welcome because it would upset the balance of voting on these boards. Hon. Members on this side of the House hope that the deliberations of these bodies will not be dominated by an atmosphere created by people thinking of themselves as sitting on one side of the table, and obsessed with the relative votes on the

    983
    other side. This would be wrong. The members of these boards should think of themselves as having collective responsibility for training in their respective industries and not as representing employers, trade unions or educational institutions. The Government have been rather too sensitive about this voting argument.
    The last-minute Amendment put down by the Government to introduce proxy voting was a symptom of an attitude of mind that worries some of us, as did their insistence that the educational members of the boards and the chairman should be excluded from voting on the levies. The Government should get away from this point of view, and should provide themselves with power to make appointments to the boards on the merits of the people concerned. They should not tie themselves to this rather rigid formula.
    The membership of the Central Training Council, as contained in Clause 11, is now a good deal more flexible than the memberships of the boards themselves. This is a contradiction, which needs remedying. There is no reason why there should not be the same flexibility in the appointment of members to the boards as there is in the appoinment of members to the Council.
    Mr. Bence: The Schedule refers to the appointment of industrial training boards by the Minister, in consultation with the Treasury. Why should it not be in consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland? Scotland is an important nation. These training boards will be important institutions in Scotland. My hon. Friend's Amendment provides that a board
    "may include such other persons as may appear to the Minister to have relevant qualifications."
    A person in Scotland who had relevant qualifications would be better known to the Secretary of State for Scotland and his minions than to the Minister of Labour, in Westminster.
    I hope that we shall be given an assurance that the Minister will consult not only the Treasury but the Secretary of State for Scotland. I am glad to see that on this occasion a Minister from the Scottish Office is present.
    Mr. Whitelaw: I shall reply first to the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). I wonder whether he has a different copy of the Bill from that which I have. If he looks at paragraph 3(b) he will see that persons shall be appointed
    "after consultation with the Secretary of State and the Minister of Education."
    The Secretary of State there referred to is the Secretary of State for Scotland, so Scotland's position is clearly safeguarded.
    Mr. Bence: It does not say so.
    Mr. Whitelaw: I think it does. That is its implication.
    I now turn to the Amendment, which was very persuasively argued by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). We discussed this point in Committee, when the hon. Member and I approached it somewhat tentatively. I noticed that at the end he said that
    "now that both the Parliamentary Secretary and I have argued against our original proposals, with a certain amount of success, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 12th December, 1963; c. 183.]
    There is no doubt that on that occasion we both saw that this was a point which needed further consideration. That was the result of our discussion, and I did agree to consider the point very carefully again.
    Mr. Prentice: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the Amendment I have now moved is rather different from the one which I moved in Committee. It has the same general purpose, but it is drafted much more skilfully, as I have since taken advice from some of my hon. Friends on the best wording. All the doubts I expressed on that occasion were about whether my Amendment then would achieve the right purpose. I am quite sure that this Amendment does, and I invite the hon. Gentleman to have his second thoughts and accept it.
    Mr. Whitelaw: That particular point had not escaped my notice. I knew that the hon. Gentleman had modified his original Amendment, and I was well aware that he argued on this occasion very persuasively in favour of it. As I said, I agreed that we would consider very carefully what I accepted was an

    985
    important point. We have just done that. As the hon. Gentleman has, equally rightly, divined, we decided against amending the Bill in the way proposed and accordingly did not put down an Amendment.
    The reason which finally decided us in favour of this course is that we believe that the main boards are executive bodies and that they should not in any circumstances be too large. We believe, therefore, that it is right to keep them small and to allow them to draw on the experience and opinions of the various people to whom the hon. Gentleman referred through the committees which they will set up. We agree that there is a great deal to be said for the boards being able to draw on the knowledge, experience and advice of such people. However, we have concluded that the right way for them to do this would be through the committees which undoubtedly, they will appoint. This will mean that the boards themselves will be small executive bodies and that they will be able to get all the expert advice they need through the committees which they will appoint to consider the various and very different detailed points which will arise. We have decided that this is the right way to proceed, for the reasons, which I have given, and, therefore, persuasively though he argued, I could not agree to accept the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 14, line 29, at the end to insert:
    (2) If the Minister thinks fit in any particular case he may authorise the Iron and Steel Board to appoint one person under this paragraph in addition to the persons so appointed by the Ministers mentioned therein.
    I hope now that I should be able to meet the point which I mentioned earlier in response to the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). This Amendment will enable my right hon. Friend to authorise the Iron and Steel Board to appoint a representative to attend the meetings of any industrial training board. Such a representative would be entitled to take part in the proceedings of the training board and to receive copies of documents but not to vote.
    The Amendment is necessary because, under Section 3(1,d) and Section 12 of the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, the Iron
    986
    and Steel Board has the statutory duty both to keep under review the training arrangements of the iron and steel industry as defined in the Act and to promote training if the existing arrangements appear to the Board to be inadequate. At the present time, the Board discharges this responsibility by appointing one of its members to attend meetings of the industry's training and education committee. If an industrial training board were set up covering part or all of the iron and steel industry as defined in the 1953 Act, the Iron and Steel Board could then fulfil its statutory duty only if it were able to obtain full knowledge of what the training board was doing. We suggest by the Amendment, therefore, that the Iron and Steel Board should be given non-voting representation on such a training board in order that it may fulfil its statutory duty. We believe that this is the most appropriate way of doing it.
    The Amendment leaves it to my right hon. Friend to decide on which boards the Iron and Steel Board may be represented. The intention is that the Board should be authorised to appoint a representative to any training board which covers a substantial part of the activities for which the Iron and Steel Board is responsible, but, of course, by implication, not the other training boards. I think that this is a reasonable Amendment in order to ensure that the Iron and steel Board can carry out the statutory duty laid upon it by previous legislation
    Mr. Prentice: The Parliamentary Secretary has made out a case for this Amendment, which is probably acceptable to the House. I add only that, of course, the situation which he describes is temporary. He will be aware that, early in the next Parliament, the steel industry will pass into public ownership again and the present functions of the Iron and Steel Board will be changed. However, there is the possibility—I do not know the actual timetable of our legislation—that there might be meetings of a training board before the iron and steel industry comes under public ownership. Therefore, the Amendment may, for a little whole, fulfil a useful purpose.
    Mr. Godber: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what other plans his party has for nationalisation?
    Mr. Speaker: Not on this Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. Godber: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
    This is a very important Measure, and I am very grateful to hon. Members on both sides for the help and support they have given in enabling us to get it through the House so expeditiously. I am particularly grateful for the constructive spirit in which the debates have been conducted.
    The Bill marks a significant advance in our thinking about industrial training. It recognises the importance of a real partnership between industry, the education service and Government. It lays particular stress on the need for effective development of our manpower if industry is to expand at the rate which we should all like to see; and it will lead to a definite liability on every firm in an industry to make a positive contribution, in some form, to training.
    We all recognise that the important thing now is to give practical effect, with the least possible delay, to the plans embodied in the Bill. We are agreed that the Bill provides the powers which are needed. Once it becomes law, it will be my responsibility to use those powers to good effect. I intend to press ahead as fast as possible towards the establishment of training boards for some of the leading industries. My officials will be ready to extend to the boards all the help they can in formulating and carrying out training schemes. It was quite clear to me from what was said at Question Time yesterday that the whole House is with me in this and is anxious to get progress as fast as we can. I welcome this very much.
    I must emphasise, however, that it would be a great mistake for individual firms or whole industries to do nothing to improve their training arrangements until training boards are established. It is vital that we should not lose the momentum which has been gathering pace in the last few years. The more firms and industries "wait and see" the longer will it take a board in a particular industry to become fully effective. It will not be possible to get all the boards going at once. We shall
    988
    get what we think are the most important ones started, but there are bound to be some industries in which we shall not get them going as quickly as we should like. It is important in all industries that employers should use this as an occasion for going forward rather than holding back. The firmer are the foundations on which boards, once established, can build, the more quickly can the schemes of training become fully operative.
    There is one particular way in which individual firms and industries can usefully prepare themselves for the establishment of boards, and that is in recruiting and training more training officers and instructors. I mentioned in Committee the vital need for many more training specialists equipped to advise management on, and to implement, effective training programmes. Hon. Members will recall that I have announced already that my Ministry will be prepared to pay the lion's share of the fees of those attending the course for training officers, sponsored by the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education, the Institute of Personnel Management and the Industrial Training Council, which is to be held at Coombe Lodge, near Bristol, in May. I hope that industry will not be slow to support this course, and I would remind the House that the last course was not very well supported.
    As for instructors it is surely most important to prepare those who, in turn, will have the responsibility of instructing apprentices and others in industry. The best of craftsmen often lack the ability to pass on their skill to others, and that is something which has to be faced from time to time. Thousands of instructors from industry have been helped by the training at my Ministry's instructor training college at Letch-worth. But I believe that there are thousands more who would benefit from a short intensive course such as is provided there. It does a great deal of good and does not take long. I hope very much that a lot more people will take advantage of the course.
    In anticipation of an increase in the demand for instructor training, I have expanded the college at Letchworth and opened a new college in Glasgow. The courses offered there last only two weeks

    989
    and provide instruction in teaching techniques. Now, I suggest, is the time for employers to take advantage of these expanded facilities, and I strongly urge them to do so. They will find it of great use in the development of plans as their boards come into being. The manager of the nearest employment exchange would be glad to give any individual employer the full details.
    Some fears were expressed about the tax position of levies and of grants of industrial training boards. I should like to repeat the assurance which I gave when this matter was raised during the Committee stage. Section 140 of the Income Tax Act, 1952, has no application, but the levies would be allowed in the ordinary way as deductable expenses for both Income Tax and Profits Tax, being wholly and exclusively expended for the purposes of trade within Section 137 of the Act. Similarly, grants paid by the boards will be a trading receipt for Income Tax and Profits Tax purposes. I think that the position is quite clear. But I wished to reinforce it as this point has been raised on one or two occasions since the Committee stage discussions.
    As I said during the Committee stage, I want to see training boards set up for the major industries as soon as possible. At the Ministry we have done a lot of work in anticipation of the Bill reaching the Statute Book in order to prepare the way for the establishment of boards for the engineering and construction industries. These two industries are, of course, of vital importance. The engineering industry is responsible for nearly half of our exports and the construction industry will be fully stretched in carrying out the Government's modernisation programme. It will have to carry out our programme for some years to come. Of that I am quite confident.
    Not only are these the two most important industries, they are also likely to be the most difficult for which to set up boards. The problems of definition alone are formidable. But we are making good progress. My Ministry is also having discussions with a number of other industries though these are at a less advanced stage. Among them are the iron and steel and the wool textiles industries. Others are coming along
    990
    and we are having discussions with them.
    The welcome which the Bill has received in the country is, I believe, a clear indication that its principles and objectives are generally accepted. It is also an indication of how far public thinking has moved in the last few years in relation to this matter. The degree to which people have moved forward in their thinking since the publication of the Carr Report is surprising. It indicates considerable disquiet about the amount and quality of the training now given. The comments of the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has brought to my attention are typical. The Council looks to the Bill to make possible an increase in the provision of training opportunities in Wales, and hopes that the Bill will be brought into operation as soon as possible. I have instanced the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire's comments but, with geographical variations, this has been the burden of the representations which I have received from many other sources.
    It would be most ungenerous of me were I not low to express my genuine appreciation of the reception which the Bill has received from all quarters in this House. I am most grateful to all hon. Members for the help which I have been given. It would be invidious to single out any particular hon. Member. Almost without exception the contributions have been constructive and helpful. Clearly they have emanated from a firm desire not only to help the Bill on its way but to ensure that this major step forward in the sphere of training will accomplish our common aim, to give a major stimulus to training in every aspect of our industrial life.
    Here we have a Measure which can play a major part in the developing and deploying of this country's manpower in a way best calculated to advance our position in the world-wide competition in industrial development. It is this which lies behind our constant endeavour to maintain and improve Britain's position as a major exporter of industrial produces in the markets of the world.
    This Measure is of course, an important step forward. But its full success

    991
    will depend on the ability of those who man the industrial training boards and on the vigour with which they pursue their objectives. It will be my task to see that we get the right individuals on these boards and to assist them in any way that I can. But it is on them that the major burden of implementing our hopes will lie and I am confident that as each board is set up, it will carry with it the good wishes of all those who have participated in our discussions. It is on that note that I commend the Bill to the House and confidently ask for its renewed support.
    7.27 p.m.
    Mr. Prentice: The Minister referred to the support which has been accorded to the Bill from hon. Members on both sides of the House. We on this side were anxious to do nothing during the Committee stage which would have retarded its progress. We co-operated in getting it through its various stages speedily. At the same time we suggested a number of Amendments, some of which the Government were wise enough to accept, but about others they were accountably stubborn.
    The Minister also said that informed opinion in the country has undergone a considerable change in the last few years and is now ready to accept a Measure of this kind. I cannot resist saying that for some time the Government were lagging behind informed opinion. There was a period when a number of people on both sides of industry, particularly in the educational world, were anxious to see a strategic intervention in this matter by the Government and a departure from the old concept of leaving training as something to be decided within industry alone. Hon. Members on this side of the House were in tune with that advanced opinion. But until recently the Government had lagged behind. Therefore, although we are ready to give this Bill a Third Reading with unanimity, as I anticipate, there remains a considerable difference of emphasis between the way in which hon. Members on both sides of the House regard these problems.
    We on this side look at them as being a great deal more urgent than the Government have so far indicated. We have been pressing for such a Measure as
    992
    this for some years, and we visualise the task before us as being greater than has so far been indicated by the Government. The fact is that this country faces a training crisis. There is a chronic shortage of skilled people in certain spheres. The statistics from the employment exchanges show that at many points in the engineering industry there is a shortage of skilled workers. There is a shortage in some of the crafts in the building industry and other industries, and we lack trained workers in the professions and jobs ancillary to the professions. This position has been chronic for many years. It has not been tackled with sufficient energy.
    We face the shortage in relation to the present levels of production. Any serious intention to achieve a 4 per cent. growth rate or something of that kind in the years ahead will demand a much bigger expansion of training facilities to avoid the creation of bottlenecks even more acute than those which have occurred in recent years.
    I remind the House of the deliberations of the conference called by B.A.C.I.E. in the spring, at which papers were read giving the results of studies by Professor Stone and his colleagues, who had applied their economic model to our manpower requirements in the years between now and 1970. I remind the House of two figures in particular which occurred in the paper read to the conference by Mr. Colin Leicester.
    He said that the outstanding figures which emerged from applying this study were that we should need a net addition of 155,000 craftsmen each year in the period under review and a net subtraction of 151,000 unskilled each year. This is the scale of the problem facing us. The Bill is a step in the right direction, but by itself it will not produce an additional skilled worker or an additional trainee. Everything depends on the way in which it is implemented and on the kind of Government policies followed, both in relation to the Bill itself and to related problems.
    At the same time as we face this chronic shortage of skilled workers we face a growing problem of youth unemployment in many parts of the country—a lack of jobs and a lack of training opportunities for young people. This is an absurd state of affairs and a chronic

    993
    waste of human talent when seen side by side with the shortage of skilled workers. If only the Bill had been in operation before the bulge started leaving school, we could have provided far more opportunities for these young people in the north of England and in Scotland, many of whom have lacked any job at all. Many others have lacked jobs with training opportunities in recent years.
    Thirdly as a background to the Bill, we face in years ahead a growing problem of men who have been skilled becoming redundant through technological change. This again is part of the Bill. In our discussions on the Bill we have naturally concentrated—I have done this along with other Members—very largely on the problem of school leavers. However, the Bill also provides power which can be used in relation to the retraining of people for new employment. This is a problem we already face and one which we shall face to a growing extent as the pace of technological change quickens.
    Replying to a recent Question of mine, the Minister said that at the moment in the Government's training centres he has just over 1,000 adult males in the whole country undergoing retraining courses, leaving aside special categories such as disabled men and ex-Service men being rehabilitated from the Regular Forces. In its Report on Conditions Favourable to Faster Growth the N.E.D.C. said this:
    "…in 1960–61 about 15,000 persons took part in the Swedish adult training programme and in 1961–62 the figure was 20,000. The aim of the adult training programme"—
    that is, in Sweden—
    "is to provide courses for 35,000 adult persons a year, about 1 per cent, of the labour force. The training programme envisaged under United States Manpower and Development Act of 1962 would provide instruction for about 750,000 workers (just under 1·4 per cent. of "the non-agricultural labour force) over a three-year period."
    This is what is being done in other industrial countries facing problems comparable with ours. So far our efforts have been absolutely puny by comparison with theirs. That is why we return to the point we have made several times, that in welcoming the Bill we do not exonerate the Government from having dithered about with the problem over the last 12 years. The Bill should have come, earlier. The proposals the Minister outlined just now should have
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    been in operation some years ago. The Minister said that he would face certain problems and would make appointments to the industrial training boards. He must forgive us if at this stage we think that he probably will not for very long be facing these problems himself. They will be faced by a successor from the Labour Party.
    In welcoming the Bill we should say why we welcome it and how we see it being used to face the problems this country will have to meet in the years ahead. First, we would stress that Clause 11, which deals with the Central Training Council, is a crucial one, because under this Clause we have to consider the way in which a central thrust will be given. It simply will not be good enough to appoint industrial training boards and tell them to get on with the job. A great effort will be needed front the centre if the whole operation is to succeed.
    A great effort is needed for these reasons. First, there will be a need to co-ordinate the work of the industrial training boards and fill in the gaps between them. Secondly, there will be a need to keep them up to scratch. Under the Bill the Minister has powers to review what the boards are doing, to exercise some control over them, and, indeed, as a last resort, to dismiss a board and appoint another. If he is to do this adequately, he must have the technical advice within his Department to enable him to understand the operations of all the boards. This will obviously require a variety of technical advice. Yesterday, replying to a Question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), the Minister said that at the moment he had a staff of eight officers who had been working for some time on this, that there had been one fresh appointment, and that some others were being considered. This seemed to us to represent a totally inadequate staff compared with the staff which will be needed to deal with the problem.
    On the technical side the Minister will need not just one technical adviser but a variety of technical advisers with experience covering a number of industries. Great effort in publicity and propaganda in favour of training will be needed from the centre. The job we face is not merely that of establishing

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    machinery. We must make the whole country training-conscious. The need is to convince managers in industry and commerce that they ought to see work situations as training situations, that they must not wait for a new board to be appointed to give them instructions, that what is needed is a totally new outlook.
    The passage of the Bill ought to become a catalyst for a new state of public opinion. I am not sure that this is happening. I am disappointed at the moment in the publicity the Bill has had. To some extent the Press has not given it as much attention as it should have done. What is dealt with in the Bill is at least as important as the abolition of resale price maintenance, certainly in the long-term effect it could have on the working lives of the people, if it is used adequately.
    A tremendous effort will be needed at the centre in manpower research and looking ahead and trying to estimate the requirements in terms of skilled manpower in industries 5, 10 and 20 years hence. The Minister has started to do something in the last few months. At last he has a manpower research unit which will be at work in connection with these problems. He still has a staff of 14, I understand, which is almost certainly inadequate, but it is better than it was a year ago when there was no one in the Ministry working on this job. This is another example of where machinery should be built up quickly.
    Training boards should be appointed quickly, particularly in the engineering and construction industries. None of us is likely to quarrel with the Minister's priorities here. Too much of the discussion about training has been in connection with training within the traditional industries where there are apprenticeships for certain craft skills. We should not be thinking just of these industries. We should be thinking ahead to industries which have not played much part so far in the discussion about training. We are concerned here not merely with traditional skills but with the whole spectrum of skills in the construction industry, the engineering industry, and others.
    I have here a letter from some people interested in the Bill relating to the
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    standard of training in the fishing industry. I do not know what discussions have been held so far, or if any discussions have yet been held, about the establishment of a training board for this industry. I am told that there is a grave lack of training facilities in the industry, with no national scheme. I am told that certain ports such as Hull, Lowestoft and Aberdeen have their own training schemes to serve their own immediate needs. But this situation is peculiar to these ports. There is no national scheme, although one does work well for the Merchant Navy. The suggestion made to me is that a training scheme for the fishing industry might work in conjunction with the Merchant Navy's training scheme.
    Let us remember that the fishing industry is the third biggest industry in Britain. It is one of the many industries requiring a training revolution, which, in turn, will present problems if we continue to think traditionally in terms of apprenticeships.
    The Minister said nothing in moving the Third Reading about the great expansion we require in technical education to fulfil the training side of this operation. After all, the Bill is designed not merely to expand training on the workshop floor but, as was made clear in the White Paper which preceded the Bill, to improve the content of training and to enable people to spend more time in organised instruction.
    Naturally this will make a greater demand on our technical colleges, which are already facing growing demands and which are finding it difficult to keep pace in many respects. We should see alongside an acceptance of the need for the Bill new proposals for the expansion of our technical colleges. My hon. Friends and I would attach great importance to this, because we see it not merely as an industrial and economic operation but as a way of improving the education of those who leave school without going on to further education.
    If the Bill is to have the impact we desire, everyone concerned with the imposition of the training levy under Clause 4 must think in bold terms. I have already heard of firms in which it is being said, "We do no training now. If necessary we will pay the levy rather than go in for the costs of organising

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    our own training scheme." If the levy is small that is exactly what will happen. For this reason the levy must bite if it is to have an impact on these firms.
    The intention of the levy should be stated clearly. We can no longer tolerate in industry the sort of firm which is not prepared to do its own training but is content to poach away skilled workers who have been trained by other firms. The operation of the Bill, particularly the imposition of the levy, must impose on firms a financial punishment so heavy that they will in their own interests take part in training.
    Equally, the imposition of the levy must be accompanied by an inspection system under the operation of the boards so that training will mean real training. This will necessitate ensuring that training is kept up to the standards of the inspectors. We can, equally, no longer tolerate firms which employ apprentices as a form of cheap labour and do not provide genuine apprenticeship training for them.
    The theme about which my hon. Friends and I have spoken on many occasions—and we make no apology for doing so again today—concerns the Minister's statement that he sees the first task of the training boards in terms of categories of skill. A great deal of the discussion has been about apprenticeships, but the right hon. Gentleman's remarks seem to imply, particularly in the engineering and construction industries, that he, too, is thinking largely in terms of apprentices. We certainly need to expand the number of apprentices and the standard of apprenticeship training. I do not quarrel with that, but my hon. Friends and I would add to that that we see this as part of a much larger operation, for we need to improve all training for all entrants in industry and, at the same time, to improve the standard of retraining of people who at various stages in their careers may find it necessary to adapt to new skills.
    I hope that at an early date the boards will look at the standard of management training in Britain. Most of our competitor nations are taking management training more seriously than we are. They have more organised courses for management, from junior to senior levels, and a great deal of discussion is going on about this abroad. Discussion
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    is also taking place here on this topic and Lord Franks's proposals are an interesting example. However, the training boards must consider this matter of management training as of vital importance and must intervene if an industry is lagging behind, as many industries are.
    Equally, the boards must look at all forms of training above the apprenticeship level—the training of technicians, technologists and others who will provide the mere advanced skills which our economy will need at an ever-increasing rate. I hasten to add that many of the existing training schemes are very good. Many of the sandwich courses and CA.T.s and doing excellent work, as good as anywhere in the world, but participation in this rests mainly with the best firms, usually the larger ones, while little provision for this kind of training is being made on a sufficient scale to cover the whole of industry. Thus the boards will have the task of considering not only duality but quantity. They should look at the requirements in their respective industries and, if necessary, use their powers under Clause 2(2) to improve the position.
    As well as talking about training at that level we need to undertake a growing amount of training for those below the apprenticeship level. In this instance I use the word "below" to refer to operators; people who are at the moment receiving very little training indeed. I appreciate that in recent years some firms, particularly the larger ones, have been going in for new kinds of training schemes lasting, say, six months to two years for what have previously been called the unskilled or semi-skilled occupations, although that is often a misleading description. The boards must do everything they can to stimulate the growth of training schemes of this kind.
    They must not think too much in terms of the traditional types of training. Although we may talk of training for engineering operators and other craftsmen, let us also think of training girls as well as boys. Let us think of training in terms not only of the engineering and allied industries, but of office employees, shop assistants, farm and dock workers and so on, because the changes we shall face in industry in the years ahead will require amore highly-skilled working

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    population than ever before at all levels and in all occupations. We need a more highly-skilled and more flexibly-educated population to enable people to change their jobs as technological changes overtake what they have been doing.
    We see the Bill as providing the basis of what will be needed in the years to come. It will be used by the next Labour Government as part of our planning for economic expansion. We must think in terms of economic expansion as not merely demanding from the country greater capital investment, but a more imaginative manpower policy. The Ministry of Labour should grow in the next 10 years and take on other functions. It has the job of manpower planning, which is just as important as the one undertaken by Ernest Bevin in the war-time Government, but on this occasion undertaken on a voluntary basis.
    The training of entrants to industry and the retraining of workers is an important part of this function. We also see it as part of the educational revolution which we need. A great deal of discussion has taken place in recent weeks about the Robbins and Newsom Reports, but the subject before us today is at least as important as the subjects raised in those Reports. It is part of a process of expanding education during a person's working life so that education is not something that finishes on the day he or she leaves school. It must be organised and stimulated in the early years of work, and people should be encouraged to continue educating themselves through their lives. This is the spirit in which we welcome the Bill and the spirit-in which we shall operate it when, very shortly, we get the chance to do so.
    7.50 p.m.
    Mr. Arthur Jones: I listened with great attention to the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). It was interesting to follow his train of thought on the Bill and on the part he thinks it can play. The part of his speech dealing with that aspect was far more valuable than his venture into political prophecy, since he was on much surer ground. I am sorry that he fell for the temptation.
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    The hon. Member dwelt on what he might have called the "sins of omission" in the Bill. I was glad that he referred to my right hon. Friend's comment in Committee that the success or otherwise of the Measure would depend upon the calibre of those serving the Council and the boards. I regret, however, that he did not give us his views on the part that the trade unions will have to play in implementing this great Measure.
    I hope that this does not mean that he will not do everything he can to ensure that they play their full part. I am confident that he will, however, for I have been very impressed by the broadmindedness and fairness he has displayed on those occasions on which I have hadthe pleasure of listening to his views. We must have the full co-operation of the unions. They must show a sense of realism towards this problem, help to break down restrictions on apprenticeships schemes and also deal with the problem of demarcation.
    I welcome the Bill as a very valuable contribution in the difficult and often disappointing field of industrial relations. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his lucidity and thank him for the very careful consideration given to points raised by hon. Members during the proceedings of the Bill. As far as I can see, there is no material dispute or disagreement on the aims and the means which the Bill provides, and I know I speak for hon. Members on both sides of the House in expressing hopes for its early implementation and effectiveness.
    The two matters with which I wish to deal concern the constitution of the Central Trading Council and are of such importance as to justify, I believe, reconsideration by my right hon. Friend. I was encouraged by his Amendment to the provision setting out the constitution of the Council, and I recall his reference to the greater flexibility which the increase of membership from 8 to 12 will give.
    I want to draw attention particularly to the position of the local authorities. On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend said that the Bill
    "…includes local authorities in so far as they or their employees may be engaging in activity of industry or commerce. It does

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    not apply to the activities of local government as such…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th November, 1963; Vol. 684, c. 1003.]
    Will the local authorities, as employers, be eligible for membership of the Council? I feel that it is unlikely that they will be considered under Clause 11(2,a). Subsection (2,c) refers to the membership of two persons from the nationalised industries and I cannot see that the local authorities come under that heading either. Nevertheless, I cannot see why they should not be given the same consideration as nationalised industries.
    The local authorities employ no fewer that one and a half million men and women in a whole range of skills in many trades. Some of these are exclusive to the local authorities. In the building and contracting trades alone there are 150,000 local authority employees, probably a greater number than is employed by any other single employer.
    Many local authorities have their training schemes, but I was surprised to learn today from my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in reply to a Question put by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), that he was unable to give any details of organised training schemes by local authorities or give us any information on local authorities which have officers engaged full time in organising training schemes for their employees. Surely that reply is confirmation of my suggestion that there may be a lack of informed opinion between the activities of the local authorities on one hand and the Ministry on the other.
    A large number of local authorities are progressive in the introduction of new machines and have, in fact, led the way with new techniques. In this context, the success or otherwise of our efforts in industrialised building lie in the hands principally of housing and education authorities. As such large employers, and being of such calibre, surely the local authorities have every right to a place on the Council. I accept the Government's view about representation of various other organisations, but surely some prominent member of the Council with wide experience in local government could play a very worthy part on the Council, since such know-
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    ledge and experience would be valuable to its deliberations.
    I now turn to the question of the Youth Employment Service. The change made by my right hon. Friend in the constitution of the Council enables a wider choice to be made. The Youth Employment Service is primarily part of education and is administered, over most of the country, by the local education authorities. What more effective and practical link is there between education and the industrial and commercial world?
    Will my right hon. Friend consider recognising this service and these facts by an assurance that a place on the Council will be found for a person with practical youth employment experience? I say this with no intention of questioning the value of the excellent work of the Institute of Youth Employment Officers. I am sure there will be many of its members with the attributes I seek—practical experience.
    This is a Bill which all opinion in this House will welcome on to the Statute Book. Its success in the educational and industrial spheres will depend on the hard work and dedication of able men and women who will be called upon to man the Council and the training boards. I feel sure we shall find such men and women able and willing to serve so that this Bill may fulfil the high hopes we all have for its effectiveness.
    8.1 p.m.
    Mr. Tom Bradley: During our discussions on this Bill, there has been a remarkable and wide amount of agreement on both sides of the House. A great deal of that agreement has centred on the fact that industrial training has been grossly neglected in the past.
    There is throughout industry only a patchwork of unrelated private decisions. That is why both sides of industry and the educational interests involved have welcomed the Bill, although I appreciate that many educationists have serious reservations about their rôle and status on the boards. After all our discussions in Committee, the Bill today is substantially in the same form as when it was published. We are left in the position in which very much

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    will depend on the intentions of the Minister.
    In itself, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) pointed out, the Bill will not add one new trainee to industry. Everything will hinge on the speed and effectiveness with which the Minister acts to set up the boards and the financial sanctions he decides should be levied on industry. Even then, I do not doubt for a moment that many firms will prefer to pay the levy and forfeit the grant than to initiate a training programme of their own. That is why some of us greatly regret that there is no provision for compelling firms to see that young people in their employment receive appropriate training.
    On the question of the boards, I once again—of course, for the last time—implore the Minister not to afford a low priority to clerical workers, who are an increasing proportion of our working population. Throughout the Bill and in all the discussions and comment which has appeared in the Press and elsewhere, the emphasis has been on the skilled manual trades and apprenticeships, but there is a great need for the pattern of clerical and commercial training to be unified. A great deal of automation and mechanism is creeping into office procedures.
    There is need for people to be taught how to use computers and for programming their operations. These matters of skill and training requirements must be extended if we are to have the kind of mobility of labour which N.E.D.C. has said is a necessary condition for growth. There are available in colleges of further education many courses in office and business studies. Some have been only recently introduced. I believe they fill a very big gap in the training arrangements which hitherto have existed for clerical workers.
    What is needed is a board for clerical workers, since their skills cut across many industrial classifications. A board covering clerical workers throughout the whole field of industry would underline their importance and make recommendations to employers to arrange adequate day-release facilities for young office workers. I am quite convinced that no
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    industrial training can be effective without compulsory day-release for appropriate further education. I fully expect the Henniker-Heaton Committee to arrive at that conclusion when it presents its Report. We are now relying on exhortation to employers, but with the industrial training facilities there should be a little more direct encouragement backed by the levy.
    When the Act comes into force, success will depend to a large degree on the size of the levy and the weight which the Central Training Council will carry. The Central Training Council should be set up quickly. In addition to its work of reviewing industrial training needs, it should concern itself with a massive propaganda directed to many firms which are wayward in training matters. The gap between the very good and the very bad throughout industry is very large. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North, who indicated that a great public relations job remains to be done throughout industry and real efforts must be made from the centre to make industry more training-conscious.
    Industries should not wait for these boards to be created. I agree with the Minister that they should begin now to expand and improve their schemes. Given the right kind of co-operation and a definite drive from the centre, I am sure that this Bill will help to improve industrial relations and create further opportunities for young people within industry.
    8.7 p.m.
    Miss J. M. Quennell: So far this Bill has enjoyed a very smooth passage through its stages. I believe that is a tribute to the anxiety which both sides of the House have expressed and to keenness and eagerness to do the best for youngsters rather than to make propaganda points.
    It is certainly a matter of some satisfaction to me that my maiden speech in this Chamber was on employment and training apprentices. Many of the points I raised then have been covered by this Bill and in the Newsom and Robbins Reports. Then—three years ago—it was not so widely recognised that this country would have to make a radical alteration in its system and method of training industrial workers.

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    Now it is widely recognised and accepted that we shall stand or fall by the quality and volume of our industrial production, and that quality and volume will depend on training.
    Almost daily we see a fresh advance in the application of science to industry and an almost bewildering procession of new materials and new machines accompanying them. Even the concept of skill itself has changed radically in the last three years. In this context, the old empirical method of industrial training simply will not do. We have to provide our workers with a basic knowledge and understanding which alone enables a man to adapt himself throughout his working life of 40-odd years to a succession of technological changes and even more to accept change with confidence.
    I hope that this Bill sees out the old-fashioned idea which allowed the main functions of an apprentice to be sweeping the workshop floor or fetching the tea. I think, too, that it will probably see out the old concept that envisaged that an apprentice could pick up knowledge of his work as he went along. I do not intend to criticise the methods of apprenticeship. That has now become the problem of the training boards. It would be unrealistic to expect that the completion of all stages of this Bill will see a miraculous and overnight change. It will take time for the changes envisaged to be effected. Nevertheless, that time can be greatly reduced if, wherever possible, industrial and educational bodies make preliminary arrangements in anticipation of the Bill becoming an Act. The time can also be reduced if my right hon. Friends do likewise.
    In his Second Reading speech, my right hon. Friend declared that for the purpose of establishing the training boards he would define industries by reference to another Act, passed in 1947. I accept that it is difficult to define industries, but definition is crucial to the Bill's success. I was therefore perturbed to learn from a Parliamentary Question this week that, during the 16 years since the Industrial Organisation and Development Act was passed, only four Orders designating industries by activities have been made. My right hon. Friend has just said that he in-
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    tended to establish the training boards with the "least possible delay". Had he not dons so, I would have had to urge him to apply a rather more realistic sense of urgency to the Bill; otherwise the outlook for the training boards would not have been very bright.
    Further, the effectiveness of the boards will depend on the calibre of those appointed to them. My right hon. Friend has said that he will seek the right individuals. This, as we all accept, is an enabling Measure, and has been widely criticised outside the House on this score. It has been said that because it lacks power to compel industries to undertake a raining schemes, its whole purpose is vitiated. In a free society, it is hard to she how compulsion could be enforced without recourse to powers to direct workers to participate also—and that is detestable.
    Industrial training is already divided in three ways— among local education authorities, unions and employers. In the past few years, the search for the perfect form of industrial training has produced a wide diversity of ideas. Various schemes have been tried. The boards will have quite enough to do to harmonise the unco-ordinated habits, practices and decisions of a large number of private, semi-public and advisory bodies over the whole range of training, and establish a reliable and recognisable pattern of skilled craftsmanship. In this, the boards' success will largely depend on the good will of the industries concerned, and it is therefore important that those appointed should be of the highest calibre, widely recognised in then: particular fields, and respected as such.
    Again, it may prove helpful to the boards if at an early stage there is consultation between them and the various area advisory councils and committees for further and technological education, which must by now have almost unrivalled knowledge of the facilities already existing for industrial education. Liaison between the boards and the education authorities is essential; the boards must know what the L.E.A.S have to offer, and the L.E.A.S must know what the boards want them to provide.
    Hon. Members opposite and my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) pressed in Committee

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    for the addition to the C.T.C. of a representative of the Youth Employment Service. I am not convinced that their aim would have been achieved by such an appointment. It seems to me far more important that the boards should work most closely with the Youth Employment Service— they will fail if they do not. So there must be the closest possible liaison between my right hon. Friend and the Minister of Education. I raised this point at the very first sitting of the Standing Committee, and do not apologise for repeating it.
    All too often, discussions about a youngster's post-school career are left to the last term of his school life. The careers master then brings out whatever literature he may possess, tenders such advice as he can, and the youth employment officers give a talk to the school. No wonder there is the problem of wastage! I should like to see the youth employment officer coming into consultation as a matter of course with the careers staff of a school— and this applies to boys' and girls' schools, and it does not make any difference whether they are grammar, secondary modern, comprehensive or bilateral, or what the school-leaving age may be—before the pupil's last school year begins. I should like to see the youngster's post-school life discussed, not only between them, but with his parents. His last school year can then be purposefully directed towards his chosen career, and he will find that year full of meaning and direction, and not, as so often is the case now, a period to be got through.
    Next, there is the problem associated with the opportunities of training open to the country child. The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) said that in his constituency young people were taken by the careers staff to see what industry was all about—how fortunate that there should be industry for them to see what it is all about.
    Let us consider the position of the country youngster living, perhaps, five miles from a market town of 10,000 population, or under. The opportunities for employment are severely restricted, if they exist. Then there is the great distance he has to travel to a recognised craft centre. Railways are remote from rural villages and the bus companies
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    are tending to reduce their less remunerative services. The youngsters' first expenditure invariably has to be on a motor bicycle so that he may travel 20 or 25 miles to his craft centre—if he has the temerity ever to think that he will become an apprentice. He has to make that journey once a week or twice a week for several years to acquire a craft qualification that a town youngster can get by walking down the street. I trust that my right hon. Friend will invite the C.T.C. to address itself to the solution of this disparity between youngsters caused purely by the chance of geography.
    We accept that every child has a right to secondary education, and I believe that every youngster has a prescriptive and equal right to obtain a craft qualification, whether he is living in the town or in the country. The C.T.C. may eventually advise my right hon. Friend that the first, and, perhaps, the second year of apprenticeship should be devoted to a full-time course. If that is accepted, provision for this change would be the responsibility of the boards. But for those apprentices or trainees travelling considerable distances, residential apprentice centres would provide the solution. Alternatively, the C.T.C. may conclude that since training is a continuation of education, departments in existing secondary modem schools could be expanded and adapted to serve rural areas. The provision of additional equipment and staff could enable them to be recognised as craft centres for an area.
    Local education authorities already possess the means of transporting to these schools, and I see no reason why this transport should not be used for industrial training as well.
    As I said, I do not expect miracles overnight, but the Bill makes the chance of a miracle possible. I give it god-speed in its passage. I wish it well and I trust that my right hon. Friend has every success in the difficult, intricate and complex task which he has ahead of him.
    8.20 p.m.
    Mr. J. Idwal Jones: I welcome the Bill not because I am completely satisfied with its terms, but because here we have a Measure which is at long last a major step forward and

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    which acknowledges the magnitude of the problem with which the country is faced.
    Industrial training in this country has been grossly neglected and where training has taken place it has been patchy geographically and industrially, some areas having training schemes and others being poor in training schemes. It has also been patchy in time because of fluctuations from year to year.
    Contrasted with academic education, we can see where we have been failing in the past. With all the shortcomings of our academic education, we can say that we have a national educational structure, by which I mean that boys and girls can go from the primary through the secondary school to higher educational institutions and to the colleges and universities. But this has not been so in industry where there has been no such structure. It is because the Bill is an attempt to set up some form of structure that it commends itself to me.
    Industrial training has been unduly left to industry and to industrial firms. It has been left to industrial firms to decide whether to have an educational policy. Some have training schemes; others have not. It has been the firms which have decided not only whether to have schemes of industrial training but also the nature of the training—whether it was to be day-release or a sandwich course, or a more ambitious university training.
    Even now, under the Bill, employers are not to be obliged to train the young employee. Most young people—and I hope that the Bill will correct this to some extent—have entered employment without any training. Nationally there has been no comprehensive structure of industrial training and this has been to the country's great disadvantage. In practice, training has varied from firm to firm, from place to place and from year to year. It is because the Bill seeks to meet this unsatisfactory situation and to try to improve upon it that we commend it.
    It is generally agreed nowadays that we are in the middle of the greatest industrial revolution that the world has ever seen. Developments of new techniques of production are taking place at a speed which threatens to overtake us. Hence the need for a Measure which will enable us, if possible, to
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    catch up with these changes. The range of training from now on will have to be very much broader than hitherto. At one end it will be necessary to train in the mechanical skills and dexterities. At the other will be the opportunity for the technician and the theorist.
    But manual skill and manual dexterity will not be enough. Of far greater importance will be adaptability. The nature of in mechanical skills will change rapidly and will change more rapidly with the passing of time. As changes in mechanical skills occur, the need for adaptability will increase more and more with the passing of the years. Therefore, industrial training must be broad. I do not want to attach too much importance to certificates. This country is in danger of becoming examination-ridden. Industrial training must be broad and not confined to a single industry or single process within an industry. Nor should it be confined to a select few or small proportion of our people. The entire working population needs to be trained in some form of dexterity and adaptability and unless we can trail all our working people, the country has no real future.
    I regard industrial training as a type of educational training. I know that it is not academic education, but it is education. Education in skill is education as much as education of the mind. That is why industrial education should form an integral part of our educational system. Perhaps I speak with a lonely voice, but that is my conviction. It should form part of the educational structure and just as a youth can pass through the secondary schools to the colleges and universities, so those boys and girls who do not go to colleges and universities should be able to go through the secondary schools to industrial training. Until we reach that position, we shall never find the solution to the problem of the industrial training of the people of this country.
    Not only should this be mere training in dexterity and mechanical skill, but it should have a touch of further education, because we want a nation of working people able lot only to turn screws and to function machines, but to have the ability to think and to take an interest in the spiritual, cultural and moral affairs of the nation.
    8.28 p.m.
    Mr. John Page: Since I did not have the honour to serve on the Standing Committee which considered the Bill. I had not thought of speaking tonight. In case, however, my constituents might think that I was not doing my job, I should say that I have been on the Standing Committee considering the Police Bill, which we have been enjoying and with which we hope to continue until towards July, if not the end of the year.
    Despite the new aspect of the Bill, the speeches to which I have listened this evening have followed very much the pattern of speeches on labour affairs of the last three or four years. I always feel that the speeches from the Opposition Front Bench on labour matters appear to suggest locking the stable door not only after the horse has bolted, but also after it has been brought back again.
    Perhaps I may make two short points in connection with the Bill. The first takes up the point raised by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) about how the country can be made training-conscious. In all matters of industrial relations—and industrial training falls into that general category—the important man in any industrial firm to be converted to the idea of industrial training is the managing director. Unless we get the chap at the head of the firm intensely interested in training, fringe benefits, longer holidays and new methods of production, we will not get quick action for any voluntary industrial ideas which the House of Commons may produce.
    If we are to get a quick change, industrial training must become smart. Computers these days are smart to the manager. Europe used to be smart. The idea of shorter working hours is becoming smart. How is my right hon. Friend the Minister to make the ideas contained in today's excellent Bill those which industrial management wishes to embrace because they are the right thing to do?
    I can make only two suggestions. The first is that my right hon. Friend should try to get himself invited to the next large meeting of the Institute of Directors and start propagating his ideas
    1012
    there to an audience which, we hope, would be fertile to them. Secondly, he might ask hon. Members on both sides to take up particular points of industrial training in industries in their constituencies and to follow them up for him. If I have any further ideas, I will let my right hon. Friend know.
    As to the second point, which concerns the important aspect of apprentice training, there is a real shortage of capable instructors to instruct apprentices in industrial companies. There are many skilled craftsmen and workmen who can do their job efficiently but who are quite unable to instruct others and impart their knowledge to them.
    I was interested to hear about the new course which my right hon. Friend has arranged at the Government Training Centre at Letchworth, but the fact that the last one was not exactly a success and there were insufficient applicants points to the fact that the penny has not yet dropped and employers do not realise that they have an excellent opportunity to have instructors trained for them.
    I do not believe that anything like enough is known throughout industry of the work of the Government training centres, and until a fortnight ago I knew nothing about their work either. However, after the visit which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary arranged for me to the Slough Government Training Centre, I am now completely converted. I was most impressed by the efficient programme and the great opportunities that training in a Government training centre can give to an apprentice, to a disabled man and to somebody undergoing retraining.
    I only put the idea to my right hon. Friend that the Government training centres throughout the country might run from time to time short courses for instructors. It seems to me that they are a ready-made organisation to which skilled men should be sent from various firms to learn under absolutely ideal conditions the task of teaching. It was said of Archbishop Lang by someone that he was not much of a fisher of men, but someone else replied, "Maybe not, but he is a very good fisher of bishops." I believe that the Government training centres should be used for training a large number of those who will instruct

    1013
    Others, I hope that the various training boards and my right hon. Friend will bear this in mind in future.
    8.36 p.m.
    Mr. Albu:I am sure that the House has been interested to hear what must have been the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) on this subject, but I have no doubt that his right hon. Friend will have taken note of what he said.
    Mr. John Page: My maiden speech followed that of the hon. Member three years ago on the same subject.
    Mr. Albu: I am afraid that I made my maiden speech much longer ago than that.
    The hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell), in an interesting speech, said that after three years of efforts since her maiden speech she was gratified that the Government now recognised the degree of training and skill which the country's industry would need. This made me think back over the long weary years, three or four times as long as that, during which some of us have been pressing the same point. Nevertheless, we are glad that it has been recognised at last—whether the Bill is tardy, just at the right time, ahead or behind, or just parallel with public opinion; and we all know the difficulties about public opinion in this matter.
    The Bill, as has been said, is permissive. It will depend entirely upon the vigour with which the then Minister of Labour operates it. I have some doubt about the Central Training Council, which I expressed in Committee. I believe that the responsibility for getting the Bill launched and getting the training boards going on the right lines will be with the Ministry. I do not believe that part-time advisers, unless they are supported by very strong and adequate expert professional teams, can do jobs as large as the job which is required to be done in this area of activity. But the final execution of the intentions of the Bill will rest with the boards, and it is on the composition of the boards that some of us have doubts.
    I am sorry that the Minister was unwilling to accept some of the Amendments put forward from this side of the House to enlarge the membership of
    1014
    the boards. In view of the history of British industry, there is a serious danger of the development of a degree of cosiness within the industrial training boards which would be a hindrance and a handicap to any vigorous action. The policing of the boards by the Ministry will have to be the answer to that. I wish that there could have been broader representation and that there could have been representation of technical college teachers as well as youth employment officers.
    I want, mainly, to see the introduction on to the training boards of any persons who have particular skills connected with training or with the forward look about the shape that industry will have in the future. The danger may be that the boards will be composed of people who are conservatively minded and develop training schemes for industry as it is today. I hope that the boards will produce, as some industrial training schemes already have done, regional and area training committees with adequate authority within their areas to carry on the work.
    The levy has been referred to by several hon. Members. I was a little worried about what the Minister had to say about the tax position, which I am sure is correct—that the levies will be business expenses and, consequently, relieved of tax, and that the grants will be income and, therefore, taxed. This emphasises the importance of both the levies and the grants being large enough. If they are lot large enough, they will not bite, as one of my hon. Friends said, and if in one case they are relieved of tax and in the other are subject to tax, they will have to be very substantial indeed.
    The need for high quality of training staff has been emphasised and it is very important. How shall we get people to take up the occupations of industrial training officers and training instructors? I believe that people will enter these occupations if they see that the Ministry means business about getting this Bill going or that the boards insist, before they give grants for training, that whichever organisation is doing the training has properly trained staff to carry it out, and that no firm or organisation will be allowed to undertake training and receive grants for

    1015
    doing so unless it has a training officer in charge of the training and unless those who are carrying out the training are properly trained and instructed.
    Here is the usual problem of the market and the supply. However, if it is seen very clearly that training boards will insist on high standards in their training officers and instructors, and that they will be supported by the Ministry in doing this, I think we can start to recruit people to train for these jobs.
    I am glad to hear that the staff college for further education will be used. It has been developing fairly slowly. Obviously, a great deal of publicity will have to be given to the courses and to what is intended. It is not enough just to provide publicity for the courses if people do not think that there will be jobs for them after they have completed the courses. It is essential that men and women who would be inclined to take the courses should realise that by Act of Parliament there will be jobs for them in industry afterwards.
    The responsibility of both the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education is to plan the training not only for the jobs which are available now and the occupations which are available now but for the years ahead. My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) referred to the very interesting forecast which has been made of the changes in skills which will be required—as far as I know, it is the only estimate of this type which has been made—by the department of applied economics at Cambridge, a group under Professor Stone. Reference was made to the great annual increase in the number of skilled workers and the great annual decrease in the number of unskilled workers which will be required over the next few years. Perhaps I may give some further figures which will break the situation down even more.
    If one takes the managerial, professional, and technical classes, the proportion of the working population which they will represent over the ten years1961 to 1971 will rise from 21·6 per cent. to 26·6 per cent. There are problems here, because many of these occupations, particularly the engineering and technical ones, require practical training in industry, and there is increasingly a
    1016
    shortage of practical training places. If one considers those of the professional level, particularly those going to what are at present colleges of advanced technology—shortly to become technological universities—the National Council for Technological Awards, which has been responsible for the Diploma in Technology, has recently issued a statement drawing attention to the serious shortage of training places, particularly for those taking sandwich courses, and this is something to which the industrial training boards will have to pay attention.
    However important it is to raise the academic level of training for engineering—and I am one of those who believes that this is very important—it will still be necessary for those people to have adequate practical training. I believe that the technicians will get a higher degree of academic training in future, but they will still need a substantial amount of practical training, and something will have to be done for these people, too.
    The number of craftsmen is also going to increase. I have some doubts about the figures which have been given, because I think that they are too high and include a lot of people who are not strictly craftsmen. In this case the increase in the proportion is from 38 per cent. to 44 per cent., although in the case of the 44 per cent. is only a return to the 1951 figure.
    We have to consider not merely the increase in numbers, but the higher standard of training required. This is one aspect of the Bill which we must keep in mind. The Bill is designed not merely to increase the numbers of those trained, but also to increase standards, particularly in those industries which have all along undertaken apprenticeships, but the standard of which has been far too low.
    One hon. Gentleman opposite referred to the trade unions. The unions will play along with this Bill provided that their young members are not treated as cheap labour. They will play along with it if they feel that if their young members go into an apprenticeship they will get proper training, as they do in many firms, but there are far too many firms in which they do not.

    1017
    To continue with the figures about the changes in the proportions of the workers, I have given those that will rise in the next few years, I think that the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) was wrong in what he said about clerical occupations, because the forecast is a fall from 13·3 per cent. to 10·1 per cent. of the working population, and if one takes operatives and unskilled workers, the fall is from 27·6 per cent. to 19·3 per cent.
    That faces us with difficult problems indeed, because this trend—and the figures that I have given are only to 1971—will continue and will accelerate with the growth of mechanisation of all sorts—automation, to use a misleading and rather horrible word—and the new devices that are coming into use in industrial and commercial activities. We shall be faced with a very serious problem indeed; the problem of a new sort of class division. We shall need an increasing number of people—in fact the majority of the population—with a much higher degree of education and training than they have ever had before, and unless we are careful we may find ourselves left with one-third of the population—a declining proportion, but still a substantial one—consisting of unskilled workers who will find it more and more difficult to get jobs.
    I believe that a larger proportion of the population is capable of receiving a good secondary education and of receiving training to a greater degree of skill than has so far been thought possible. We can bring many more people into various forms of skilled occupation, but we must not forget that we shall then still be left with what in future will be a minority—perhaps a declining minority—who will be virtually unskilled.
    The thought of what might happen is slightly frightening, and there are two responsibilities here. The first is for industry, which has to so organise its activities, its operations, and its jobs that it can provide employment for the whole strata of abilities within the population. It is no good creating an industry which is capable of using only honours degree candidates, or those with three A levels or very high degrees of skill. Industry must so organise itself
    1018
    as to be able to employ the whole distribution of abilities within the population.
    Secondly, the Ministry of Education has to develop a system of education and training in which more responsibility is put upon education than on training for those who will not go into very highly skilled occupations. I have only begun to think about this problem, which will be a growing one, and which, unless we are very careful, may lead not only to difficulties in respect of shortages and surpluses in employment but to very severe social tensions. The gap will grow between those with a very high degree of skill and the unskilled, and we must think of this very seriously.
    8.50 p.m.
    Mr. Boyden: If I am critical of some parts of the Bill, it is not because I do not wish it well. I speak more in sorrow than in anger. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the general atmosphere in Committee was constructive and that we all hope that the Bill will be a success, but this framework to the training scheme is so constructed that there is written into it discrimination against the educationalists. This is where I hope that we shall have action rather than words.
    In Committee the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour have sat shoulder to shoulder. The provisions of Clause 1(4) provide only for consultation between employer organisations and trade unions; other consultations are permissive. Then there is the extraordinary entrenchment in the Bill of the rights of vested interests. Paragraph 5 of the Schedule provides for voting on a levy to be confined to employers and trade unionists, and in paragraph 7 we have the most extraordinary provision, which was popped in at the last minute, under which the industrialists are allowed to vote by proxy.
    I see that in the circular they have sent to us manufacturers are boasting of having achieved a triumph. I am sorry that they feel it to be a triumph. I would have thought that the success of this scheme depended entirely upon the co-operation of the three partners—employers, employees and educationalists in the two fields; those who teach and

    1019
    those who administer. By writing into the Bill this extraordinary provision the Government are doing damage to this partnership. From conversations that I have had with educationists, it is clear that they are very upset about this point. I know that the A.T.T.I. is.
    I wish the Bill every success, but the two Ministries have to convince us in the next few weeks that they are sincere in their intentions that the educationists shall be equal partners. It may be slightly outside the scope of the Bill to say this, but one of the clearest ways of demonstrating this would be the announcement of a date for raising the school leaving age to 16. Such an announcement would help to satisfy educationists that the Government mean business. Much more important than the provisions of Clause 2 are the methods by which the Government deal with day release and block release. On Second Reading, the Minister of Education said:
    "I think that I shall receive it"—
    that is, the Henniker-Heaton Report—
    "before the Bill is passed through the House".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Official Report. 20th November, 1963; Vol. 684, c. 1120.]
    I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will now be able to tell us that he has received it and that the Report establishes and recommends—I am quite sure that it will—that day release or some form of release in working time for apprentices must be compulsory. It would be something of a sensation, and very acceptable to this side of the House, if the Parliamentary Secretary said that the Minister accepted such a recommendation.
    There is a marked contrast between the eagerness with which the Government have accepted the general recommendations of the Robbins Report and the pace with which this particular industrial scheme is being pushed forward. Only today, the Minister of Labour was quite pleased to tell us that he had appointed an extra member of his staff on it and that he had got eight people working full time. He seemed quite smug and complacent about it, thinking that this was adequate for the great movement which is required from his Ministry, The indications are that the scope of activity which he envisages
    1020
    is far more restricted than we on this side feel that it should be.
    He gave another indication of his attitude when he said that instructors need training and he hoped that lots of firms would send instructors to the next course, which, he said, does not take very long. A two-week course to instil into an instructor the art of teaching is really a very small thing indeed. At the height of the war, all the Armed Forces had courses for training instructors. For about three years, I was concerned with a three-week course to train flying instructors in some of the techniques of ground instruction. They were already instructors, well seized of the basic principles of instruction, yet the Royal Air Force, at the height of the battle, thought it necessary to devote at least three weeks to converting flying instructors into ground instructors. Yet the Minister of Labour now is pleased with a two-week course for converting quite raw people into instructors for this scheme. He will have to do very much better than that.
    In Committee—I was very pleased to hear it—the Minister said that one of the purposes of the Bill is not only to increase the quantity of training but to raise the quality. I beg him to look at this key point in the situation. The quality of instructors should be raised as soon as possible by more attention being devoted to the actual methods of their training.
    The Robbins Report said that there is no system of higher education in this country. It has been said several times that there is no system of industrial training either. One of our hopes is that a system will evolve out of the Bill. I put it quite squarely to the Government. If it should happen that the "flyers" in our education system, those who go to university and to the C.A.T.S, have more money and more care and attention devoted to them than is devoted to the rank and file in industry, this will make a mockery of democracy and do serious damage to the credit of the Government.
    An announcement about the educational provisions and day-release ought to be made very quickly indeed. The Minister of Education has had two months since the Second Reading debate. He knew from the tone of that debate that we should do all we could to assist in furthering this Bill. It is extraordinary

    1021
    that we have not yet had these announcements in the realm of education to go parallel with the industrial training scheme so that we can construct a system of industrial training and education. I hope—Iam sure that both sides of the House are determined on this—that we shall construct a system of higher education. We must now proceed as fast as we can to construct a system of industrial training and education so that the three partners to which I referred earlier can march side by side.
    I turn now to another basic theme to which neither Minister has, as far as I know, paid very much attention. I shall be corrected if I am wrong, because I wish to quote something said by the Minister of Education. I have referred to the importance of training the technician. Naturally, the first priority in this Bill is for the apprentices and those leaving school. That is right. But there ought to be a very close second priority for the training of technicians. During the Second Reading debate, on 20th November, the Minister of Education said:
    "I am not sure that we yet give the technicians proper status in our scheme of things."
    A little later he said:
    "…there is still a widespread failure in industry to recognise the importance of the technician and the need to give him education and training specially designed to meet his needs."—[Official Report, 20th November, 1963; Vol. 684, c. 1120.]
    By a coincidence, the very next day one of our leading people, I suppose the leading person in technology and technician training, Sir Willis Jackson, said, on the occasion of the Tenth Fawley Foundation Lecture at Southampton University, much the same as the Minister said in that debate. Perhaps I may be permitted to quote the most important part of it:
    "The effects and the demands of technical change in industry and elsewhere are emphasising the growing significance of the category of manpower lying between the technologist and craftsman and operative—a category which in engineering is coming to be described collectively as that of the technician engineer."
    This is the heart of the matter:
    "Regrettably, in our concern for our shortage of scientists and technologists, we have been inclined to overlook somewhat the importance of their supporting contribution and their needs in education and training, so much so that our greater present shortage may well be at this level."
    1022
    The Minister of Education was speaking along those lines, and I hope that we shall have some indication tonight that this problem, which is so fundamental to our future is being given more attention than we were led to believe during the Committee stage discussions.
    Sir Willis Jackson went on to talk of the need for public opinion to be pushed forward in this field. He said in relation to the television authorities and the B.B.C that very often when exemplifying matters of science they attributed to the research scientist what in fact had been achieved by the technician. He thought that the B.B.C. and the independent television authorities could make a contribution in this sphere of education and industrial training and the need to advance our industry by stressing the rôle of the technicians.
    I know that the Lord President's Department is conducting a survey into the technicians' needs and the nature of their training. One of the things that this Bill will give us is an opportunity statistically to sort out the problems which beset us in industry and so provide industrial training to that end. The priorities of the Government in relation to the engineering and construction industries are right. But after that, there are a great many things which need to be established in order to get the right priorities.
    I hope that any attempt to push forward apprentice and technician training, and all the other kinds of training which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice)—management training, retraining of adults and so on—will be given the support which it deserves. Nothing would be so fatal as to get the scheme so lopsided that it left out some of these elements. While we agree with the main priorities of the Government I hope that there will be formative schemes in all these fields. It is not a matter of spreading the effort too much. We on this side of the House have been criticised for that. But here that is not the case. It is necessary to establish growing points—a word which is popular in these days—in all these spheres of activity and to get the priorities right.
    In being critical to this extent, I would say that those of us on this side of the House who have been active in these

    1023
    matters will do all that we can to further the cause of industrial training. If we can help with conferences and things of that sort, I am sure that we will. I should like to compliment the Ministry of Labour on some of the industrial relations conferences which have been held. I have had the privilege of taking the chair at conferences and have managed to keep the balance between the contending forces. This is the kind of work in which if we can help, we will, because we are all anxious in this field of industrial training to get the best quality and the maximum quantity.
    9.5 p.m.
    Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Some Bills take an interminable time between Second Reading and Third Reading. By the time we reach the Third Reading of such Bills, all who have sat through the proceedings are bored to tears after having gone through Clause after Clause and Schedule after Schedule. This Bill has been a very pleasant exercise. It has had the virtue not possessed by many Bills, that there has been a great deal of agreement on both sides of the House about it. Those of us who had the pleasure of being members of the Standing Committee have thoroughly enjoyed it. We have come away with the feeling that we have provided something constructive in industry which in the future will be looked upon as a progressive Measure in keeping with the Government's programme of modernisation of the economy.
    I want to deal with three points—the need for speed, the need for the right leadership at the top, and the need to give sufficient punch to this effort through publicity. On the need for speed, I hope that the Ministries of Labour and Education working together will be able to get this Measure working quickly so that within a few months industry will feel the impact.
    This will require the right leadership. It will require leadership in three places. The first place is at the Ministry, for the enthusiasm and the punch that the Minister and his team of civil servants give to this will set the trend for what happens throughout the country.
    1024
    Secondly, it will require the appointment of a dynamic chairman of the Central Training Council. We want in many ways a Beeching for training. He must be someone who can galvanise both employers and trade unions. There has been much holding back on training development by both employers and trade unions. He must be someone who can get them to co-operate, for the days of talking about training are long past.
    We can judge what is required from the fact that in the engineering industry, with about 4,500 firms, there are less than 400 training schools. My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said that this country has had a failure on training because many small firms have not made a contribution. This is an old criticism. To some extent I agree with it, but not entirely. I am not sure that small firms are the right firms to initiate training programmes.
    The Bill will provide something which has been lacking—the opportunity for the larger firms, the Ministry and the L.E.A.s, through the technical colleges, to help the small firms so that they can make a contribution through their personnel and by providing the levy. Many small firms have not been able to train apprentices. It is not a question of a lack of will but, fundamentally, a lack of resources. British industry is to a large extent made up of small firms and this has led to a burden being placed on the larger ones. I hope that the Bill will put that right.
    I agree that publicity and a general pushing of the objectives of the Bill will be required at employer and trade union level. It has been suggested that we have not seen a great deal of publicity in the national Press for the Bill. We tend to sometimes overrate the value of publicity in the national Press. Perhaps this is a common failing of politicians. I want to see more publicity given to the Measure, the work of the training boards and so on, through the technical Press. I hope that my right hon. Friend will use this section of the Press to its full extent.
    I should also like to see employers co-operating by giving the fullest information of what is happening through their works journals. The trade unions, through their excellent magazines, which

    1025
    reach right across industry, can also do much to publicise the need for training and the opportunities that will be made available.
    I spoke on Second Reading about the need for co-operation between the L.E.A.s, the technical colleges and Government Departments. I have in mind a new type of team effort that will be required on the education-industrial front. This is something new, although I appreciate that there is always the danger that something new is slow to develop. The leaders of industry, chairmen and managing directors of industries and firms, can play a considerable part in this. Some of them will doubtless be appointed to the industrial training boards. Some are already members of local employment committees. I hope that some of them will play their part educationally, both on local education authorities and as managers of technical colleges.
    The same kind of co-operation will be required from some trade union leaders. It is only by getting educationists, industrialists and trade unionists together that we will get the kind of sharing of opinions that will set the pattern of the future of industrial training aright and give it the best that is available in terms of organisation and brains on both sides, industry and education.
    There is a great need for more apprentices and there will also be a need for an increase in the number of people who can train them. One will not easily man the Government training centres unless the right people can be found. Industry will have to provide some of these people. It will have to be prepared to sacrifice some of its best foremen and supervisors who, in turn, will need to be trained either through short, crash courses—and my right hon. Friend mentioned that one of these is already available at Letchworth—or through longer courses to enable them to train apprentices.
    If there is a belief in the objectives of the Bill I am sure that it will make a considerable contribution to both an increase in the efficiency of British industry and a greater opportunity being available for our young men and women to become craftsmen and well-trained.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: Like the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis), I, too, am glad that I was able to play a very modest part in the passage of the Bill, not merely because it afforded me my first experience of Committee work here, but because I relieve we have laid the foundations of a system of occupational training which in years to come may be without rival in the world.
    However it will be developed in this direction—and here I part company from the hon. Member—only if we approach it in the spirit expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and if we recognise its limitations as well as the very real advance it represents.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North said, of itself, the Bill will not guarantee that provision for industrial training will be improved. It is an enabling Bill, and I do not believe that that can be said too often. It creates machinery for inaugurating industrial training boards and confers certain powers on them. But upon too many important issues of industrial training it has nothing to say simply because it is an enabling Bill.
    The onus for the success of the Measure will devolve largely on the boards and the committees which they will be required to set up. They will be required to impose a levy so that those employers who have evaded their responsibilities in the past will be able to do so no longer. They will be empowered to approve training courses, to apply tests, to undertake research and to obtain information.
    Clearly, the Bill has more bite than the White Paper. There is also the inducement of £50 million in grants. Finally, the Minister has reserved to himself certain powers. But are those sanctions sufficient. Has the Bill been given enough teeth? For example, the boards will consist in the main of representatives of those employers and unions who have partially failed in the past. They will, however, have the responsibility for fixing the levy. What a cosy arrangement! I wonder if it has occurred to the Minister that the size of levy may be an inarticulate premise in certain industries

    1027
    in the process of collective bargaining. Certainly some employers and union leaders have more in common than is generally supposed. Is it likely that they will always fix a levy large enough to compel attention?
    Provided a firm pays its levy, it can still go on ignoring the responsibility to provide training. It is to be regretted that the Bill does not make provision for any form of compulsion of firms to see that young people in their employ receive training. The payment of a levy should not be allowed to excuse a firm from responsibility for permitting its young employees to be trained.
    I cannot see how industrial training can be provided on the scale our economy and society require without compulsory release for appropriate further education. Moreover, the Minister has given no indication as to what he regards as a desirable minimum figure for a levy expressed as a percentage of the wages bill for a particular group of craftsmen.
    There is great concern in education circles over this matter of restricting the voting of the levy to the employer and worker representatives, despite the Minister's assurance. There is also fear elsewhere that, with equal numbers of employer and worker representatives and no casting vote by the chairman, there is very real danger of constant deadlock—again despite the Minister's reserve powers.
    Another widespread reservation about the boards is that the representatives will be made up only of employers, trade unionists and educationists. Are there not others, such as consultants, who could make a valuable contribution at this level? I appreciate the Minister's desire to keep the boards as small as possible but his present intention seems unnecessarily restricted.
    If the composition of the boards is to be an exercise in balance between the employers and the unions, and if we are to see representatives of education achieve parity in the committees, then I fully expect to see the early dynamism coming from the educational members.
    Years ago there should have been a pilot scheme of this nature in an appropriate town—for example, Huddersfield. The hon. Member for Huddersfield,
    1028
    West (Mr. Wade) would not, I think, disagree with me when I say that it would have been a perfect town for such a pilot scheme. It is not merely next door to my constituency, but it is famed for its engineering, chemicals and textiles—a nice spread of industry.
    It has a well-established tradition of trade union organisation which goes well back to the nineteenth century, but it is distinguished also for its technical teacher-training. I have no doubt that it would have been on the latter group that the success of such a pilot scheme would have depended. This takes nothing away from the employer and trade union representatives.
    They may well recognise that it is from the teachers that the requisite thrust and imagination for the launching of a scheme of this kind must inevitably come. It is on the teachers and educational representatives that the responsibility for a balanced approach to training will largely devolve. It will be up to them to see that the functions of the training boards are not carried out in terms of minimum and narrow technical requirements. I welcomed the Minister's recognition that training and education are complementary, just as I was partly reassured by the presence of the Minister of Education during Second Reading.
    I still do not think, despite my complaints during Committee, that the importance of further education, both on industrial and further educational grounds, can be over-emphasised, given the Minister's forgivable anxiety—which is widely shared—to get some kind of scheme started. On industrial grounds there is an urgent need to give young people that training which will help them to acquire a sufficiently high degree of adaptability to face the industrial future. This will call primarily for imagination in order that they can see the relevance of new techniques and designs and patterns of work as they affect them as workers and bring a changing demand for their labour.
    On this point one has to bridge the gap between technical and liberal studies, not merely because of the inherent danger in the widening gap between the two cultures, but because of the type of people with whom we are dealing. The workers are whole men and need to be treated as such.

    1029
    The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Idwal Jones) said that he felt he was a lone voice in this respect. I wish to assure him in his absence that he is not alone in his concern. It will not be easy to bring the need for liberal studies in technical education home to our young workers. I fully recognise that just as it will not be easy to convince them that mastery of a subject requires critical thinking as well as knowledge of a craft. The achievement of both will call for breadth of interest and sympathy as well as experience on the part of the teachers.
    I hope that when the Minister is setting up the boards and Central Training Council he will consult various bodies such as the A.T.T.I. which have long experience in this matter. Some, such as the A.T.T.I., were mentioned on Second Reading. Some, such as the Workers Educational Association and the extra mural departments of our universities, were not mentioned. Yet they have a lengthy experience in teaching liberal studies in the context of technical education, as well as in the development of seminars helping young and older workers to think critically. I do not know of any bodies in this country which have done more research into the theory of adult education and which have shared more genuine concern for education than some of the extra-mural departments of the universities.
    The Bill is certain to prove inadequate unless the Minister gives the Central Training Council a more positive rôle. It is difficult to resist the thought that it was forced on the Minister and now he does not know what to do with it. He may be content that it should be limited to advising him on industrial training functions. He may think it is enough for it to be confined to co-ordinating, collecting and disseminating information. But if it is to assist in the establishment of standards of training—if it does not who will?—it will have to indicate possible lines of research and provide the nucleus of an inspectorate. If it is to provide the Minister with advice of the requisite quality, he will have to bring together those specialist and experts able to deliberate on the total training problem for all industry at all levels. If it is to have made available to it the findings of the
    1030
    Ministry's new Manpower Research Unit, it will have to help to lay the foundations of a national manpower policy.
    If it is to remain independent of the Ministry, as the right hon. Gentleman desires, he will have to attract to its chairmanship a person of such calibre that, taken with the other requirements of the Central Training Council, it will be very difficult to deny it a growing number of initiatives. By then, the Central Training Council will have evolved into an organ fundamentally different from that now envisaged.
    Nevertheless, everything considered, the Bill is probably as much as the Minister can get away with at the moment. That does not mean, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said, that it should not have come years ago, and especially before the school-leaving bulge reached its maximum. Nor does it mean that it will prove adequate in its present form for very long and that stronger powers will not be needed. Nevertheless, I wish the Measure well, and I am grateful for having had the opportunity of playing a very small part in its passage. I hope that it receives the speediest possible implementation and the widest possible publicity, for I understand that the number of school leavers recently entering apprenticeship has fallen substantially compared with last year. Presumably, industry is also waiting for this legislation.
    9.28 p.m.
    Dr. Jeremy Bray: I was not a member of the Standing Committee, but I was quite happy the Bill should have been in the capable hands of those who were. It has been said that opinion has moved on this subject in recent years, and I have certainly seen it move in the eighteen months that I have been in this House. I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) for his part in shaping opinion on this side, and amongst these whom we represent in the country.
    We are all very anxious to see this Bill get going and, in getting it going, nothing will be more important than securing the co-operation of the unions. This co-operation has been secured in

    1031
    the agreement on principles on which the Bill is based, but it will have to be secured in much greater detail as the boards and committees in the regions, areas and districts get to work. One essential in securing the co-operation of the unions is to give them a credible basis for seeing what the future demands for their trade will be. This point was raised in Committee, and the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with it by referring to the Manpower Research Unit.
    A great deal of weight has been put on the importance of this unit, which it cannot at present bear. It is rather as though the accounts department in a firm were suddenly convinced that it would be good to start preparing a budget, and that budget was hived off to a separate section of the department which was told to get on with the job on its own. The Manpower Research Unit has sent out questionnaires on two different subjects. One—perhaps rather a sideline—was on the impact of computers on office employment. This is a very valuable and well-conceived investigation, and has obviously been put in hand by someone who knows something about the subject. The results will certainly be very interesting.
    The much more difficult inquiry has been on future demands for employment in the metal-manufacturing and metal-using industries. This is a very much larger problem. Forecasts have been asked for in very considerable detail of employment, by trade, for May, 1968, with retrospective records for May, 1958. and May, 1963. Following up these forecasts, an account is asked for, only in the broadest terms, of the assumptions upon which the forecasts are based. That is to say, having been asked for firm figures for its labour requirements by trades, five years ahead, the firm is asked very broadly on what major assumptions the forecast is based. I very much hope that the firms will do their best with these forecasts, but I am sure that the Minister does not need to be told that if a lot of bad guesses are added together, one does not necessarily get a very good answer.
    Perhaps it was wrong to ask firms for forecasts in this way. If the Manpower Research Unit had had a little more time in which to do its work, the Minister might have been advised that the proper
    1032
    question to ask was, "What manpower will you require if in five years you are asked to increase production from your present industrial plant by an appropriate unit, say, 5 or 10 per cent,? What would be the requirements for manpower for additional production with a particular new investment? Firms should be asked to state what those investments might be.
    In dealing with the metal manufacture and metal-using industries we are dealing with enormous things like blast furnaces, or the steel mills in which my constituents work. At present the steel industry is not asked for the labour requirements of particular units of plant. But this affects questions such as the employment or unemployment of thousands of men. It is not a very big advance in method nor a lot of fiddly detail for which one is asking. In those industries where it is, this must obviously be dealt with on a sample basis.
    The relating of production to manpower requirements is a matter of putting together the Census of Production form, and the manpower forms which are sent out by the Ministry of Labour, and to do the job properly a reorganisation of the statistical machine, not only in the Ministry of Labour but in other Ministries, is necessary. The Minister may feel that it is probably better to leave this until we come to power, but it is a matter of urgency and I hope that his advisers, if not the Minister himself, will undertake the study of what would be involved in putting Professor Stone's projections on to a sound measure of present data. At present Professor Stone has achieved interesting results with the inadequate data available to him. If inside the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour there was a supply of the basic data from industries on which such projections could be based, we would have the beginnings of a sound manpower policy.
    This is important and it is not a sideline. If the Minister gets down to talking details with the men on the shop floor and with trade union branch secretaries and the district organisers and the others on whom will depend so much of the practical implementation of the Bill, he will find that they will respond to this kind of physical approach, relating actual production which they can achieve in the plants which they know so well with the prospects of their

    1033
    own employment and that of the young men coming into their trades. I hope that we shall see these major advances in the thinking of the Ministry of Labour in the implementation of the Bill.
    9.34 p.m.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Christopher Chataway): Every hon. Member who has taken part in the debate has given the Bill a welcome I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) that the Report stage was a pleasant one in which to work. There has been a broad measure of agreement and on that account one may not have seen as many fireworks as on occasions in Committee. It has undoubtedly been an interesting experience for those of us who have been privileged to serve on the Bill. Clearly, improvements have been made as a result of the contributions made by hon. Members, on both sides.
    On Third Reading, however, criticism has been directed at a number of points. I do not take as gloomy a view of the Bill as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Duffy) seemed to do until he said at the end of his speech that he supposed that the Bill was as much as the Minister could get away with at present, which I took to be at least a grudging tribute. The hon. Member is, however, unduly pessimistic when he envisages that training boards may not set sufficiently high levies. The fact is that if the levy proposals of the training boards were not satisfactory, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour would not approve them.
    The hon. Member showed undue gloom in taking it as a bad sign that my right hon. Friend had not yet stipulated what should be the cost of training in different firms. At this stage, it would be impossible to specify the scale of the levy that industrial training boards should set.
    The hon. Member for Colne Valley, together with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), referred again to day release and block release. I must tell the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland that in view of the excellent progress which has been made with the Bill, it is not now the case that my right hon. Friend has re-
    1034
    ceived the report of the Henniker-Heaton Committee. He knows that the Report is expected shortly, and I assure the House that my right hon. Friend will be considering the recommendations of the Henniker-Heaton Committee and recommendations that may be made irrespective of the Bill. Having said that, I must again stress that one of the very welcome results to which we look forward from the Bill is an increase in the numbers taking day release and block release.
    Mr. Prentice: The hon. Gentleman has said that it the report of the Henniker-Heaton Committee is expected shortly. How soon is "shortly"? Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication of the date and when the Minister will be able to tell the House the Government's conclusions or the subject?
    Mr. Chataway: All I can say at this stage is that my right hon. Friend would hope to make a statement before Easter, having received the Report of the Henniker-Heaton Committee. One effect of the Bill will undoubtedly be an increase in the numbers taking day release and block release, irrespective of any action that may also be taken as a result of the Report of the Henniker-Heaton Committee.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Peters-field (Miss Quennell) expressed concern that the problem of training facilities for rural children should be considered as well as those of urban children. In that respect, I would be surprised if some industrial to training boards do not recommend block release instead of day release. It may well be that those in seasonal occupations in agricultural areas will have block release recommended for them, because experience seems to show that in many of these occupations block release is more suitable than day release.
    Another criticism which was levelled against the Bill by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and others was that the consultation required by the Bill is not sufficient with the educational interests. I, too, have had the opportunity of recent discussions with the A.T.T.I. I would not claim that I was able entirely to alky their fears, but I stressed to them, as I do again to the House, that my right hon. Friend will consult the educational interests very fully.

    1035
    Hon. Members should not attach too great importance to the different wordings that appear in this respect in Clause 11. If there is reference to consultation with organisations representing employed persons and to consultation with the employers, whereas in the other parts of the Clause one finds only a reference to consultation with the Secretary of State and the Minister of Education, this is not meant to imply that there will not be the most thorough discussions with educational representatives. There will be. The form of words in the Bill, after all, is primarily concerned to describe the type of people who will be appointed to the Central Training Council and to boards under these different categories.
    A number of hon. Members have referred to the importance to our economy of the training of technicians. I would certainly underwrite the comments that have been made on that score. I should like to say something about technicians and technician training, both because a good deal of discussion resulting from the publication of the Government's proposals in the Bill has concentrated upon the improving of craft training and because considerable steps forward are now being taken in the education and training of technicians to which technical colleges would have a major contribution to make.
    Apart from the larger electrical engineering companies, few firms even now recruit people specifically for education and training as technicians. Technician posts sometimes tend to be filled in a haphazard way by promoting craftsmen and craft apprentices who have done well academically at technical college. But, as is said in the interesting publication by the A.T.T.I. of which the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) spoke, it cannot be argued that all technicians must first have served an apprenticeship. It is not at all certain that apprenticeship is the best training for this kind of work. A great many firms have not reached the stage of distinguishing technicians as a separate category from craftsmen and technologists and therefore giving to them special education and training.
    As a result of the reconstruction of technical college courses which has been
    1036
    carried through in recent years, we already have several of the diagnostic general courses which ought to help distinguish those youngsters best fitted for training and education. No doubt the education members of the boards will have a valuable part to play in ensuring that the boards are fully aware that facilities are available for this category of employee who, I entirely agree, is of growing importance. It is worth noting that the Fielden Report on Mechanical Engineering Design recommended that boards should consider the training of technicians as soon as possible. I have no doubt that the appropriate boards will take note of that recommendation.
    The Bill will undoubtedly be of the first educational importance. A firm duty is laid upon the boards by Clause 2 to make recommendations about the further education that is to be associated with training. The numbers in the technical colleges have, of course, been increasing very rapidly in recent years, and the House will know that my right hon. Friend has recently announced a 50 per cent. increase in building starts for the technical colleges in 1965–66, with a figure of £24 million.
    I do not believe that, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has charged, the education representatives upon the boards will be seriously inhibited by the fact that they may not vote upon financial matters. All members of a board will be entitled to vote on the boards' proposals for the exercise of its powers. That means that the education members will have an equal voice with others in deciding such basic questions as the number of training courses needed, the relationship of further education to training and the standards of training to be recommended.
    Mr. Boyden: If this is so, why put it in a Bill at all?
    Mr. Chataway: The hon. Member will probably accept the notion of no taxation without representation. I put to him the thought that in a very real sense the employers and the trade unionists will be footing the Bill since it will be the firms which will be paying, and if "no taxation without representation" is an acceptable slogan, it is hardly distorting that principle or carrying it

    1037
    too far to suggest that where there is no taxation there may not be the right to vote upon financial matters. I give the hon. Member one further thought. The training boards will not be able to dictate to local education authorities—which will, of course, continue to be ultimately responsible for the education that is given under these courses—on financial matters. Therefore, I do not believe that the education world will on this account be in any way under-represented.
    Mr. Boyden: Who represents the £50 million of public taxation which is involved?
    Mr. Chataway: The Minister, and in the Bill the Minister's powers are considerable. As I have already suggested, some of the fears that have been expressed by the Opposition should be allayed by the powers which the Minister has.
    The Bill will undoubtedly be of importance to young people in many different jobs. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) regaled the House with one of his anecdotes. If he were here, I would tell him that I hope that the Bill will be of value to the stockbrokers' clerk in time as well as to the electrical apprentice. The Bill may be of especial importance to many young people whom the Crowther Report described as being in the second quartile of ability.
    Discussion in the education world in recent months has centred, very naturally, on the Newsom and Robbins Reports. I happen to think that it is a happy thing that the two Reports were published so closely together, because they have been considered together. We are at the moment embarked upon the routes of educational advance that were mapped out by those two important Committees. But it should be remembered that they do not cover the whole educational spectrum.
    The Bill may be of most immediate help to many who fall outside the terms of reference of either Committee. There are those of above average ability who will not go on to institutions of higher education. For them, as for many others, the Bill will produce training and further education in greater quantity and of a higher quality. The
    1038
    Robbins-Newsom discussion has served to emphasise the inter-dependence of education at all levels. It has been stressed that what we need is a balanced educational advance, and in that respect the Bill will make a most important contribution. It is with the educational implications as well as the economic and industrial reasons which have been stressed in this debate in mind that I commend the Bill to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  BRITISH SUBJECTS (ILLNESS ABROAD)
  Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]
  9.50 p.m.
  Mr. Donald Wade: In raising the problem of British subjects taken ill abroad, I should like to say at the outset that I am well aware of the value of our consular services. There are many occasions on which the British consul is of great value to British subjects when they find themselves in difficulties, and with the increase in the number of people going abroad for their holidays, this may create a growing problem for our consular staff. I recognise that, and I would do all that I can in my power to urge those going abroad, either on holiday or on business, to safeguard themselves so far as possible against the hazards of living or travelling abroad.
  At the moment, many people are looking at attractive brochures and beginning to make their plans for the summer holidays. They are enjoying in anticipation happy days in the sunshine in some foreign country, but it is as well to remember that when going abroad one does not leave behind the ordinary risks of life, and these risks may be greater rather than less.
  For that reason I would advise everyone to take out some kind of insurance against illness or accident. For example, one can take out a policy covering oneself against medical expenses. I believe that £100 is the normal cover, but it

  1039
  could be more. One can also take out a personal accident policy, and the insurance companies which deal in motor insurance will no doubt advise on policies covering the risk of accidents on the road.
  I think that one has to recognise that there are exceptional misadventures against which one cannot expect people to insure, or at any rate which people do not normally anticipate. As a result of falling ill, a British subject may find himself in a very serious predicament and involved in expenditure far beyond his means. That situation may arise from the heavy cost of a long spell in a foreign hospital, or from the equally heavy cost of transport home.
  I propose to illustrate this with some specific examples, because I think that it is better to deal with particular cases rather than generalities. The three examples which I intend to refer to tonight are of people stricken with polio when abroad. This happens to be a subject about which I have some knowledge.
  The first case is that of Bryan Thomas, whose parents live in my constituency. I shall give only a brief résumé of the facts. He is a young school teacher who was educated at Huddersfield College and Leeds University. He was teaching at the East Ham Grammar School. At the end of July last year he went on holiday to Rome via Strasbourg. He arrived in Rome on 9th August and shortly after his arrival became ill. Polio was diagnosed and he was taken to the Policlinico Hospital in Rome. On 18th August the British consul cabled Bryan's father informing him of his son's illness, and Mrs. Thomas flew out to Rome the same evening. Mr. Thomas, senior, who is a Post Office employee and is due to retire this year, borrowed the money to enable his wife to go out to Rome.
  As a result of this unfortunate attack of polio, Bryan Thomas was paralysed and had to be put in an iron lung. His mother remained in Rome and visited him daily. The hospital charges, which included the cost of an English night nurse, were £38 a week, a staggering amount for a family of modest means.
  But even more serious was the problem of getting the boy home. The longer he remained in Rome the greater
  1040
  the amount of the hospital charges which would have to be met. On the other hand, the cost of transport was prohibitive. Bryan's mother was extremely worried, as I learned when I was approached by his father, who was even more worried when I received a letter in reply to one that I had written to the Foreign Office, informing me that the Italian doctors had said that Bryan might have to remain there "for weeks or even months". The letter that I refer to now is dated 1st October, 1963—and Bryan had already been there since August.
  I will not trouble the House with the full story of my correspondence with the Foreign Office, the numerous telephone calls, and the efforts made to bring Bryan home. At first I was advised that it would be essential to have a British iron lung flown out if Bryan was to be brought back to England, and that the cost would be about £1,000. Later I learned that he could be brought home with the aid of a Cuirass respirator—which, for technical reasons, makes the journey easier—but that it was still essential that he should be brought back by aircraft and that a medical team should be flown out. The most up-to-date figure that I now have for the cost involved in this journey is approximately £550—not as much as the original forecast but nevertheless a considerable sum.
  The point is that no progress could be made until the money was raised or promised. Somehow the cost had to be guaranteed before the Foreign Office could ask the Air Ministry to go ahead with the arrangements. I shall always remember one entire day that I spent at the telephone, trying to find a solution and knowing all the time how worried Bryan's parents had become. Meanwhile, I learned that Bryan was getting depressed, and that this was adversely affecting his progress.
  I come now to the solution of this case. Eventually I was able to arrange with the National Fund for Polio Research to underwrite the cost, although the amount at that time was uncertain. The British Polio Fellowship, in co-operation with the Huddersfield Polio Fellowship, undertook to raise the necessary funds to meet both the cost of transport

  1041
  and the hospital charges. I should like to pay tribute to the trouble taken in making the arrangements and, in particular, to the Royal Air Force in flying Bryan Thomas home. A medical team was flown out and an aircraft was diverted specially to Rome in order to bring him back.
  He is now in hospital in Sheffield, and I understand that he is making slow but satisfactory progress. Both he and his parents were very thankful that he was able to get back, and since his return there has been a most generous response to the appeal made by the British Polio Fellowship, The whole cost of the hospital charges and transport will be covered, and I am grateful to the individuals and organisations who have helped in this way. The only reason I do not mention names is that I am afraid that I might leave somebody out. I stress, however, that great gratitude is felt for what has been done. But it is fair to point out that if no one had taken up the case Bryan might still be in hospital in Rome, with the bills continuing to mount. There is apparently no Government fund, or intergovernmental arrangement, for dealing with this kind of situation.
  Since the Bryan Thomas case, two other cases have been brought to the attention of the British Polio Fellowship, and it has been able to come to the rescue. The Reverend David Howe was returning from Spain with two friends when he taken ill in Tours, in France. A very severe form of polio was diagnosed, and his widowed mother flew out to Tours. At first Mr. Howe was too ill to be flown home. In this case the hospital expenses amounted eventually to £400, and the estimated cost of bringing Mr. Howe home was about £500. This is a very substantial sum for anyone to have to raise. Someone heard of the British Polio Fellowship and, through the aid of the Consular Department of the Foreign Office and the Royal Air Force, transport arrangements were made.
  It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]
  Mr. Wade: A guarantee was given by the Fellowship. A medical team was flown out, and, in December last, Mr. Howe was brought back to England.
  The third case is that of a Mr. Turner, a business executive in his late twenties. He contracted polio in Singapore. He was out there with his wife. Like Mr. Howe, he had a widowed mother in this country. I need not go into all the details. A friend heard of the Polio Fellowship, which got in touch with the Commonwealth Relations Office. Again, a guarantee was obtained. The C.R.O. approached the Air Ministry, and Mr. Turner was flown back to London by the Royal Air Force. Perhaps I should explain that one reason for using the Royal Air Force is that it is better equipped for bringing home a polio victim.
  What worries me is that there could well be other British subjects who have been taken seriously ill abroad and who do not know of any voluntary body which might be willing to assist with the extremely heavy cost of hospital and transport charges. What happens then? I do not know.
  Reverting to the case of Bryan Thomas, I find that, whenever I mention it to people, they say something to this effect, "It is a mercy flight. Surely, the R.A.F. would be only too willing to do it free. "I do not know the answer to that. Presumably, the Minister has to consider the interests of the taxpayer. But, be that as it may, there are three other relevant questions.
  First, if there is delay in bringing a patient home, while those concerned wait until the money has been found or a guarantee is obtained, may not this, in some cases, have serious consequences for the health of the patient? Second, what happens if a patient has no money and no relatives who can help? Does he just have to stay indefinitely in the foreign country, and, if he is in a fee-paying hospital, is he turned out, or what? Third, is this not the kind of circumstance in which there ought to be reciprocal arrangements at inter-Governmental level?
  I have been examining the existing reciprocal arrangements. I understand that, if a British subject is taken ill in New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden or Yugoslavia, whatever the

  1043
  purpose of his stay, if his need for treatment arises during his visit, he is eligible for treatment under the particular country's national health service. Presumably, this does not cover any fee-paying hospital, and there is no provision for transport home.
  In the case of Belgium, France, West Germany, Luxembourg and Holland, British subjects employed there are eligible for treatment under the country's national health service, but British subjects on holiday or in transit are not eligible, and, again, there is no provision for fee-paying hospitals or for transport home. In Italy, there is no reciprocal arrangement for health benefit, although British subjects who are both employed and insured in Italy are eligible for treatment under the Italian health service. If a British subject is taken ill on holiday in Italy, he should, no doubt, get in touch with the British consul, but, as I have explained, no fund is available to help him and, if a loan were made, I understand, no part of it would be met by our own Ministry of Health.
  Obviously, there are some very large gaps in the health benefits which a British subject may expect to obtain when abroad. Could not an effort be made to negotiate reciprocal arrangements to deal with the exceptional cases, covering both medical expenses and the cost of transport home? If thought fit, it could apply only to expenditure above a specified sum. Many foreigners benefit from our own National Health Service. I do not object to this, but it seems only reasonable that we should try to negotiate some improved benefits in return.
  Meanwhile, I wish to put forward a practical suggestion. The cases to which I have referred have shown that there are some voluntary bodies wishing to help, if they are asked to do so; but they cannot do anything if they do not actually know of the cases. Could not a list be compiled of organisations willing to help either on account of the nature of the ailment or because of the occupation of the patient? If some arrangement could be made whereby a voluntary body was informed this might prove very valuable. I suggest that the Ministry of Health be asked to compile a list, and the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office should be responsible for the distribution of the
  1044
  information. I do not think that this would involve any great administrative work and I think that it would be well worth while.
  I hope that my suggestion will be considered and in any case I trust that, as a result of my raising the subject, other unfortunate British citizens who may in future be taken ill in some foreign country far from home will reap some benefit.
  10.6 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I am sure that the House and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) has raised an extremely important subject. I agree with a great deal of what he said at the outset. It is, of course, wise for any British subject going abroad, either on business or for a holiday, to take out an insurance policy. But we may all know of cases where illness has followed, and involved a person in expense far beyond what even a prudent person would have been likely to cover by an insurance policy.
  The hon. Member outlined three particular cases. They were sad examples, all involving polio, but for that reason all the cases were in a sense fortunate in that a particular voluntary body, the Polio Research Fellowship, was able to help and refund part, if not all, of the expense incurred. But every hon. Member at some time or other must have had a case of a constituent who found himself in some difficulty of this kind and faced with expense totally unexpected and beyond his capacity to meet.
  I appreciate that there are great difficulties for the Minister. There is no provision in the National Health Service Act for meeting expense incurred outside the British Isles by a citizen of this country. As the House will know, and the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West reminded us, for some time the National Health Service Act has offered facilities for foreign visitors to this country who fall ill.
  I well remember the late Aneurin Bevan explaining the motives which led him to include this provision in the original legislation. He said that the reasons were two-fold. He thought it a simple good-neighbour policy. At the same time, he said that he hoped that it

  1045
  would encourage other countries to offer similar facilities to British citizens living and travelling abroad. I know that over the last 15 years or so there have been efforts to bring about these reciprocal arrangements. On the whole, the results have not been very encouraging. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West listed the reciprocal arrangements which have been achieved. But even these do not give the same facilities as are available to the national of the country concerned and they do not meet the bill. They do not constitute genuinely reciprocal arrangements.
  I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question which is additional to those asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West. I wish to know whether any attempts have been made to negotiate an agreement with a foreign country which did offer to the British visitor the same sort of facilities that a national of that country would obtain if he fell ill in this country. The difficulty is that almost no country offers its own citizens anything like the benefits that we offer our citizens under the National Health Service. Although I do not think that any hon. Member would want to curtail the benefits we offer, we think that the time has come after 15 years to get a slightly better quid pro quo than successive Ministers of Health and successive Governments have been able to achieve in the past. I hope that we shall have a few encouraging words from the Parliamentary Secretary.
  10.10 p.m.
  Mr. A. E. Oram: I support what the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) has said and thank him, in particular, for having raised the case of Mr. Bryan Thomas. I feel involved in this case, because Mr. Thomas was at the time of his illness a teacher at the East Ham Grammar School and many people in East Ham and the Borough Council have joined in the charitable funds to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We are glad to know that there has been a sufficient response to cover all the expenses involved. My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and I were in correspondence with both the Foreign Office and the Air Ministry about the great difficulty in this case. We were
  1046
  glad that the expense turned out in the end to be rather less than we feared at one time.
  Nevertheless, the points raised by the hon. Gentleman are most important. He put forward some practical suggestions. I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give a very sympathetic reply to the points which have been made. I want to put forward one argument in my own behalf. We as a country accept responsibility for the safety of or citizens in civil disturbances overseas. It seems to me that there is a parallel between the calamity of very serious canes of illness—I do not mean every ordinary illness, but serious illnesses such as that suffered by Mr. Bryan Thomas, who was struck down with polio—and the calamity of a civil disturbance. I hope that we shall get a sympathetic reply from the Government to the very formidable case put forward by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West.
  10.12 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernard Braine): First, I would like to thank the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) for giving us the opportunity this evening to consider a question which is of widespread interest to people everywhere. Indeed, I welcome the opportunity to clarify what I recognise is a complicated matter. It might be helpful first to look at the arrangements which we provide for visitors to this country, as there is a great deal of misunderstanding on this subject and also because it has some bearing on what I shall say later.
  Steps are taken at all the ports of entry to prevent people who are not resident in this country from entering purely for the purpose of taking advantage of the National Health Service. There have been cases of people being turned back. In other cases people have given an undertaking to pay for treatment. The House may like to know that hospital authorities have been advised of the arrangements they should make for the treatment of visitors from overseas. However, if a visitor to our shores has the misfortune to fall ill, we act on the Good Samaritan principle: we provide treatment. I cannot think that anyone would wish it otherwise. Admittedly it is not possible

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  to identify precisely those cases where treatment has been provided on this basis, and we cannot estimate the precise cost. There is no reason to believe that it is really substantial. Hon. Members will see that it is not practice—as some people still seem to imagine—to provide unrestricted services for anyone who may come to this country. This is a fact which ought to be more widely known and I welcome this opportunity once again to make the position clear.
  The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West and the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) raised the question of reciprocal arrangements with other countries. Those who are familiar with this queston will be aware that the Government are anxious to improve and extend these arrangements. Perhaps I should explain that reciprocity agreements stem normally from the desire to get arrangements to cover insurance benefits in the widest sense, and the major part of this interest centres on cash benefits.
  It may not be generally known that in most countries other than the United Kingdom medical treatment is an insurance benefit available only to insured persons and their dependants, and for these reasons it is my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance and not the Minister of Health who normally negotiates reciprocity agreements and who, when he can, includes in his negotiations arrangements for medical and other treatment as well.
  Let me make it absolutely clear that the Government are anxious to make reciprocal arrangements for medical treatment wherever possible for our nationals abroad, but as I think hon. Members recognise, we are faced in this connection with a major difficulty in that very few countries provide a health service comparable to ours. Most of them have systems of insurance instead, which cannot easily be extended to visitors from the United Kingdom.
  In his negotiations with other countries the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance has been able to make full reciprocal arrangements covering medical treatment for all United Kingdom citizens, whether resident or tourist, with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Yugoslavia and New Zealand. Local conditions
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  are, of course, applied in these arrangements, but they do not differ widely from those which we enjoy under our National Health Service.
  Agreements covering health benefits for United Kingdom citizens resident abroad and insured under local insurance schemes have been made with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Israel, Malta, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the Federal Republic of Germany. Some of these agreements cover also British workers who remain insured in the United Kingdom while they are employed temporarily in those countries. The stumbling block in the way of negotiating reciprocal agreements for medical treatment more widely has been the lack of a health service comparable to our National Health Service in many other countries.
  Most countries outside the United Kingdom which do not have a comprehensive service like ours provide medical treatment, often limited in scope and duration, for specific classes of insured persons and their dependants, who have to satisfy certain conditions, for example as to their financial contributions, which are laid down by local insurance institutes working within a national frame work.
  Most systems of medical benefit abroad do not automatically cover holiday-makers and tourists. Hon. Members will appreciate that we cannot expect insurance institutes abroad to treat visitors from the United Kingdom more generously than they treat their own people, and arrangements of this kind form no part of our National Health Service. The National Health Service is not organized by insurance institutes of this kind and the Minister has no power under the National Health Service Acts to reimburse the costs of any treatment provided outside the Service either at home or abroad.
  The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North asked me whether any attempts have been made to negotiate an agreement which afforded our people who might fall ill abroad the same degree of service that they would have had if they had fallen ill at home.
  I know that the hon. Gentleman will understand when I say that I cannot answer that question authoritatively to night because negotiations for these

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  reciprocity agreements are carried out not by the Minister of Health but by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. It is an interesting point and I should like to go into it myself. If I can get any useful information I hope that he will be content if I write to him.
  We can, therefore, only get reciprocity of treatment in those cases where the other country regards it as practicable to provide a service without regard to insurance criteria and without claiming reimbursement of costs. This applies to the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and Yugoslavia. In other countries with which we have limited agreements—France and West Germany for instance—this is not practicable but reciprocity applies to certain classes of people such as those who go to these countries to work, whether they become insured persons or remain covered by the British scheme of insurance.
  My right hon. Friend has not the power to pay medical expenses incurred outside the National Health Service here or abroad. His duty is clearly laid down in Section 1 of the 1946 Act. It is to
  "…promote the establishment in England and Wales of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvements in the physical and mental health of the people of England and Wales."
  It might be argued that he should take power to pay for treatment abroad but he has not got that power at the moment. We must recognise that this would, in effect, be comparable to paying for treatment given in this country outside the Health Service. It would be illogical for him to meet the costs of one and not of the other.
  Moreover, I suggest that, under an arrangement of this kind, there would be virtually no control over the amount involved and therefore no protection for the British taxpayer. One could well imagine the reaction of Parliament to any suggestion that the Exchequer should meet whatever costs might be involved by anyone who chose to go overseas to any country in order to obtain medical treatment.
  The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West referred to three cases where people who had gone abroad had the misfortune to be taken ill while overseas, I have studied the details and agree broadly with the facts as he stated
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  them. In all three cases the unfortunate traveller was stricken by poliomyelitis and consequently needed to be transported home by air with specialised equipment.
  In each case the Royal Air Force, using its own special techniques, flew the patient home safely. It was arranged that on arrival admission should be made without delay to a National Health Service hospital. In each case the cost to the individual was kept to a surprisingly low level, bearing in mind what the commercial fare would have been. To have brought these people home by civil aircraft would have meant chartering an aircraft.
  The House will recognise from what I have said that when a British subject travelling abroad is stricken with poliomyelitis the Government accept the special nature of the difficulties arising and readily give assistance in bringing the patient safely home.
  In the case of Mr. Thomas, the Royal Air Force flew out to Rome a specialist aero-medical team with respiratory equipment weighing 700 1b. The patient and his mother were brought home safely. I am advised that there was no delay in his case in the sense that as soon as we were told that he could be moved the financial guarantee was forthcoming. The transport and medical arrangements took some seven to ten days to plan.
  The hon. Gentleman asked what would happen if the patient could not pay. We repatriate over 3,000 distressed British subjects every year, a proportion of whom are sick and ill. If there is no money we take a signature and bring them home but, of course, each case has to be judged on its merits.
  I should like to look into the hon. Member's suggestion about the compilation of a list of voluntary bodies and see what we can do. I fully recognise that the need to meet substantial charges of the order the hon. Member mentioned can present a great problem to the individual concerned.
  We are all indebted to the hon. Member and his associates in the British Polio Fellowship for their generous help to those affected in this unhappy way. They may be assured that the Government will continue to give help wherever

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  the need arises and the Royal Air Force with its great fund of technical expertise in these difficult cases will play its part. More than that I do not think it reasonable to expect us to do.
  I should like the House to consider for a moment the scale of the problem. Over 4 million Britons are now going abroad every year mainly for pleasure, partly for business. Their numbers are increasing. Travel agents estimate that they are increasing by about 7 per cent. per year. Thus, we can expect that the numbers of those who fall ill or have accidents while abroad will increase; certainly they will not diminish. We are already responsible for repatriating a large number of distressed British subjects. Quite apart from the additional financial burden which would fall on the Exchequer, the administrative burden of repatriating great numbers of sick or injured travellers who at present take care of themselves would impose an intolerable and unreasonable strain on the resources of the Foreign Service.
  Where should we draw the line? Suppose a British tourist injures himself while practising a dangerous sport in some country where we have not negotiated a reciprocity agreement. Should he be brought home at the taxpayer's expense? Suppose an export salesman is taken ill in similar circumstances and is not covered by insurance by his firm. Should the cost of bringing him home be borne by the taxpayer? One has only to ask such questions to underline the difficulties.
  We all feel sympathy for anyone who suffers the misfortune of being taken seriously ill while abroad. I have said that the Government are anxious to make reciprocal arrangements wherever possible with the health services of other countries. I look forward to the day when travellers will be able to move freely across the world without having to concern themselves about difficulties which might arise should they fall ill. Such a desirable state of affairs, however, is still a very long way off. In the meantime, there is clearly scope for the kind of voluntary help which in this case has been given so freely and so generously.
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  This does not mean that nothing can be done now. On the contrary, as the hon. Member recognises those wishing to travel abroad ought to make prudent arrangements to ensure against the risks in foreign travel, among which are the high costs which may be incurred in illness or accident. In many foreign countries the normal scales of medical fees and hospital charges go far beyond what we in this country can possibly imagine, and intending travellers should be alerted to this. The Government do what they can to draw people's attention to the problem. With every British passport there is issued a pamphlet entitled Essential Information for travellers. This specifically draws attention to the fact that the National Health Service does not extend overseas. It states that:
  "Treatment under the National Health Service is available only in the United Kingdom. You are therefore advised in your own interests to take out a comprehensive insurance policy before leaving this country. This should cover medical and hospital treatment in case of illness or injury, the loss of money or effects, and death."
  I have made inquiries and I am told that it is becoming standard practice for travel agencies to include in their quotations for tours the cost of a comprehensive insurance policy which includes among its benefits cover for medical expenses incurred up to a limited amount. I understand that it is also quite common for travel agents to supply their clients with proposal forms which they can use if they wish to increase the amount of cover provided by the basic package deal insurance arrangements.
  I am glad of this opportunity to urge anyone who may intend to travel abroad to ensure that he has protected himself against the risk of accident or illness. This is a course which I have always taken myself, and I am sure that hon. Members will join me in stressing the importance of making sensible insurance arrangements in these circumstances.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock