Commons Sitting of 2 June 1964

Preamble
The House—after the Adjournment on 15th May, 1964, for the Whitsun Recess—met at half-past Two o'clock.
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
NEW WRIT
Mr. Speaker acquainted the House, that he had issued, during the Adjournment, a Warrant for a new Writ for Liverpool, Scotland, in the room of David Gilbert Logan, esquire, C.B.E., deceased.
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  WELSH SHIPPING AGENCY BILL [Lords]
  To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.
  WORCESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    Television.(Feature Films)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Postmaster-General what conditions he will lay down regarding the fulfilment of a British quota in the showing of feature films on experimental pay-television.
    The Postmaster-General (Mr. Reginald Bevins): Any pay-television operator who shows registered cinema films will be required to include British cinema films at least at the prevailing rate of cinema exhibitors' first feature screen quota, at present 30 per cent. Any film which has been registered with the Board of Trade as a British quota film will count towards the quota requirement.
    Mr. Swingler: That is not a very satisfactory Answer. In view of the
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    decline in cinema attendances and the need to stimulate the British film industry, and as the pay-television companies are being given this important concession, ought they not to be required to fulfil a much higher British quota than the ordinary cinemas?
    Mr. Bevins: I appreciate the considerations which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but at the same time I do not think that it would be fair to have the same provisions applying to pay-television as to cinemas. After all, cinemas can show the newest of films whereas pay-television cannot, and, of course, we have to consider the interests of the local exhibitors. That is why we have made the special provisions for the pay-television companies.
    Mr. Mason: Can the Postmaster-General say what proposals he has in mind for limiting the cinema film proportion of total programme content of pay-television stations, and, secondly, is he satisfied that after a film has been on the major circuit the subsequent-run exhibitors will be safeguarded by this new innovation of allowing six-month-old films to go on pay-television?
    Mr. Bevins: The latter part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question was, I think, answered before the House rose for the Whitsun Recess. We are providing that at least the prevailing rate of the cinema exhibitors' first-feature screen quota of 30 per cent. shall be observed.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Postmaster-General if he will now have discussions with the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Independent Television Authority, and interested bodies in the film industry and cinema trade about the general principle governing the showing or feature films on television, in the light of his decision about experimental pay-television.
    Mr. Bevins: The procurement of programme material, including films, is a matter for commercial negotiation both for pay-television and for the B.B.C. and The only reason I have laid down certain conditions about the possible use of films in the pay-television experiment is to safeguard the interests of exhibitors in the few areas concerned during the experimental period.
    Mr. Swingler: Does not the Postmaster-General think that it is time that this whole matter was reviewed round the table by the interests concerned? Would it not be ridiculous, as the right hon. Gentleman has made the concession to the pay-television companies to allow them to show feature films six months after general release, that they should be doing that while the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. go on showing this ancient stuff at the weekends? Is it not time that all the interests concerned, especially as the Minister has incorporated provisions for compensation to cinema exhibitors while they suffer competition from pay-television, should now confer and try to reach a new basis of agreement?
    Mr. Bevins: I think that there are two points there. The first is that, unlike the B.B.C. and the I.T.A., pay-television, certainly in the early stages, is bound to rely largely on films. I do not think that it would be appropriate to treat pay-T.V. and the broadcasting organisations in the same way.
    As regards the six-month provision, as the hon. Gentleman knows there is the film defence organisation which prevents most films from being sold to television, on the score that the interests of the exhibitors would be damaged. The activities of F.I.D.O. are not a matter for me.

    B.B.C. 2 (Programmes)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Postmaster-General if he will give a direction to the British Broadcasting Corporation, under Section 14(4) of the Licence and Agreement, to refrain from transmitting on its second television network programmes of mass appeal which, its opinion, would discourage commercial television companies from maintaining their present number of programmes with a specialised appeal.
    Mr. Bevins: Programmes are a matter for the B.B.C. In authorising B.B.C. 2, however, the Government's overall purpose pronounced in the first White Paper on Broadcasting, was that the viewer should have a choice of different types of programme including more programmes of an educational or informative nature, or drawn from regional sources. The B.B.C. has made it plain in a number of public statement that it is
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    planning the use of the two networks on this basis. The I.T.A. is, of course, under a duty to see that the programmes it broadcasts maintain a proper balance in their subject matter.
    Mr. Allaun: Whilst very much welcoming that Answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees that it will give the commercial companies an incentive to discontinue such specialised programmes as they put on at present if they know that they will inevitably be competing with mass appeal programmes on the other channels? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is a real problem which needs to be solved?
    Mr. Bevins: I understand what the hon. Gentleman has in mind, the danger that if the B.B.C. were to put out two popular programmes they might have the effect of detracting from the balance of the I.T.A. transmissions. I do not think that there is any serious risk of the B.B.C. manipulating its programmes in this way, but I agree that this is a situation which requires watching.

    Pirate Radio Ships and Local Sound Broadcasting
    Mr. Liptonasked the Postmaster-General whether, following the example of Sweden, Denmark and Belgium, he will introduce legislation to ban pirate ship broadcasting.
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Postmaster-General whether, in considering legislation concerning offshore radio stations, he will take into account the need for an adequate all-music radio programme to serve the eastern half of England.
    Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the Postmaster-General (1) what plans he has for the licensing of commercial sound radio;
    (2) what representations he has received in the last six months concerning the possibility of the licensing of commercial sound radio; and if he will give an assurance that no step will be taken in this direction in the lifetime of the present Parliament.
    Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General when he will publish the terms of his Bill to illegalise the support of off-shore private radio stations.
    Mr. Boydenasked the Postmaster-General (1) if he has received the report of the working party on local sound broadcasting stations; and when he expects to permit the British Broadcasting Corporation to start local experimental stations;
    (2) if he will permit the British Broadcasting Corporation to establish a local sound broadcasting station in the North-East as an experiment in local educational broadcasting.
    Mr. Bevins: As the answer is rather long I shall, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, make a statement after Questions.
    Mr. Lipton rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. As far as I can see, nothing could arise out of the Postmaster-General's Answer.
    Later—
    Mr. Speaker: I must consult the House, as I am not sure how to deal with the matter. In view of the form of the Answer which the Postmaster-General gave to Question No. 8 and others, I think that I should call other hon. Members whose Questions were answered then, in the hope that they will not be able to invent a supplementary question.
    Mr. Hamilton: Question No. 11.
    Mr. Bevins: As the Answer is rather long, I should like, with permission, to make a statement after Questions.

    Educational Television, Scotland
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Postmaster-General if he will make a statement on the plans for educational television in Scotland.
    Mr. Bevins: As I indicated on 19th February in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) the discussions I am having with my colleagues about educational broadcasting cover a whole range of proposals; and raise important questions of general principle such as, who should produce, who should transmit, and who should pay for. Educational television in Scotland is covered by these discussions.
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    This study is bound to take a little time, but it is going ahead as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Hughes: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of the numerous complaints about the lack of educational content and inspiration in Scottish television on the grounds that the choice and treatment of the subjects presented are unworthy of the viewers? Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this question again to make its standard more worthy of the viewers?
    Mr. Bevins: That is precisely the object of the study which is at present being undertaken.

    Reception, Port Talbot area
    Mr. J. Morrisasked the Postmaster-General whether he will inquire into British Broadcasting Corporation reception in the Port Talbot area.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Ray Mawby): The B.B.C. tells me that, provided suitable outside aerials are used, reception of its sound and television services should be satisfactory in most of the Port Talbot area.
    Mr. Morris: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that there is general dissatisfaction in many parts of Wales because of the television reception, and that that includes Port Talbot in my constituency? Many parts of Port Talbot are not able to receive the new B.B.C. Wales service at all. Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that within the last few days Red Dragon Relays has been concerned about the construction by the Central Electricity Generating Board of transmission lines which may well obliterate both B.B.C. and I.T.V. reception in this area? In view of the seriousness of the situation, will the hon. Gentleman investigate the possibility of the construction of a low-power station in the area and, secondly, undertake a survey to discover how many people receive the new B.B.C. Wales service in the whole of Wales?
    Mr. Mawby: The B.B.C.'s information is that there is quite widespread opportunity for obtaining this station. The B.B.C. has been made aware of the fact that many viewers are trying to obtain the new Channel 13 service on an existing Channel 10 aerial, which obviously will not give perfect reception, and it is

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    trying to publicise the need for fitting the right type of aerial, although it admits that there is a certain amount of ghosting in certain parts as a result of hilly ground, and so on. Nevertheless, I shall notify the B.B.C. of the points made by the hon. Gentleman.

    Distant-Water Fishermen (Sports programmes)
    Mr. Croslandasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the difficulty experienced by distant-water fishermen in receiving, owing to wave-band difficulties, the Saturday afternoon sports programme now that it has been transferred from the Light to the Third Programme; and what proposals he has for improving reception of this service.
    Mr. Mawby: It is true these fishermen will be able to receive the Light Programme on long wave, but not Network Three. However, the B.B.C. tells me that it broadcasts in its General Overseas service on short waves, a sports programme, "Saturday Special", from 3.15 p.m. to 5.0 p.m. and from 5.15 p.m. to 5.45 p.m. British Summer Time. This programme should be receivable at the distant-water fishing grounds on good equipment.

  POST OFFICE

    Mail Bag, Tamworth (Loss)
    Mr. Snowasked the Postmaster-General if he will make a statement concerning the loss of a mail bag dispatched from Tamworth, Staffs., on 27th February, containing cheques deposited with a local bank; and on what date the loss of this mail bag was notified to the Tamworth bank in question.
    Mr. Mawby: The mail bag in question was dispatched to London on the evening of 27th February, and contained unregistered letters, including five packets posted by different banks in Tamworth and reported to have contained cheques. I regret that, in spite of the fullest inquiries, we have been unable to trace how the loss occurred. As the packets were unregistered we had no details concerning them and
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    could not notify the senders before they informed us, at various dates, that the packets had not been delivered.
    Mr. Snow: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that that is an extremely unsatisfactory Answer? Why was there a ten-day delay before the bank in question was advised about the loss? Why does postal control in Birmingham persist in regarding this as ordinary unregistered mail when these cheques were dispatched in official pouches and, therefore, presumably were subject to special control? What special tightening up has followed the raising of this sort of issue in the House three months ago?
    Mr. Mawby: The hon. Gentleman has given me some information which I did not have before. He suggests that the cheques were in pouches. That is a matter at which I shall have to look, because at the moment I am not aware of that. So far as I know, these were sent as normal unregistered mail, and therefore it is impossible to know what was contained in those bags when they disappeared, but I shall consider the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Snow: I am much obliged.

    Letter-Box. St. Olave's
    Mr. Priorasked the Postmaster-General if he will reconsider his decision not to replace the letter-box at St. Olave's, Great Yarmouth, in view of the inconvenience this will cause to holiday-makers and the fact that no saving will result to the Post Office.
    Mr. Mawby: We have reconsidered this matter and decided in the special circumstances to have the box replaced.

    Shakespeare (Special Stamps)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Postmaster-General when the Shakespeare sets of stamps were sent to Mr. P. N. Bulivant, who, as a stamp dealer, paid£81 in response to his Department's advertisement stating that they would be delivered on 24th April; and why, for over four weeks, inquiries have received the explanation that the stamps would be delivered in a few days without the stamps being sent.
    Mr. Mawby: I very much regret that this order was wrongly filed amongst

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    those which had been met or were being met and that Bulivant's inquiries were incorrectly answered on this basis without adequate verification. An apology has been made to him and his stamps were delivered on 28th May.
    Mr. Dodds: But is not the whole case one of inefficiency and misrepresentation? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Wait for it and I shall give the details. Will the hon. Gentleman explain how, when it was known that preparations were not made to complete the orders on 24th April, for weeks after stamp dealers were told that they would receive them in two or three days, yet the delay lasted for a month or five weeks? Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this sort of thing has created a good deal of ill-will with the customers, and having got them out, they are sticking to the material of the packs, thus damaging many stamps. This is an example of in-efficiency. Will the hon. Gentleman ensure that if this sort of thing is done again better preparations are made for it?
    Mr. Mawby: Certainly mistakes have been made in regard to this issue. The matter to which the hon. Member refers is the issue of a first-day cover which we provided. This is the first time that we have sought to provide a first-day cover. We made a calculation of how many would be required, and we were grossly out. In fact, we calculated that about 20,000 or 30,000 would be required, whereas, at the end of the day, it was nearer 100,000. Mistakes were made in the Department, but we are making certain that they will not occur again. This was a teething problem, in respect of an issue which we had never offered before. I can assure the hon. Member that next time an issue of this kind is made we shall have learnt from the mistakes we made this time.
    Mr. David James: Is my hon. Friend aware that this mistake is made by every publisher in the United Kingdom, all the time?

    Peterlee
    Shinwellasked the Postmaster-General if he will state the result of his inquiries into the organisation of postal arrangements in the area covered by the Crown post office in Peterlee.
    Mr. Bevins: I arranged for incoming mail to continue under periodic observation and as a result special instructions have been issued to those post offices where correspondence for the Peterlee area may have been delayed. I should be greatly helped in improving the service by a reduction in the amount of incorrectly addressed mail for the area. One of the main faults has been the omission of the post town of Peterlee. I am considering whether any further publicity measures in the Peterlee area would assist, and meanwhile I should be very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman if he would discuss this with me personally.
    Mr. Shinwell: What is the point? I recognise the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman in inviting me to have a discussion with him, but is he aware that I raised this matter more than two months ago? I then asked why this Crown post office was sited without any plan about the method of delivery and the nomenclature for the area. Surely this is a matter which could be settled in five minutes. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot do it himself, can I go to Peterlee and discuss it with the postmaster? Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the failure to solve a simple matter of this kind is an example of the inadequacy of the Post Office?
    Mr. Bevins: I realise that there seems to be an aversion in the North-East to using the word "Peterlee" as a postal town. Since February of this year we have examined about 1,400 letters intended for Peterlee, and have found that about 40 per cent. were wrongly addressed, and that consequently quite a number were held up in the post. I agree that there was no trouble before the new office was opened in Peterlee. Clearly there are local associations here which the right hon. Gentleman could help me about. That is why I should like to discuss the matter with him.

    Postal Deliveries, Lichfield Area
    Mr. Snowasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the continued slowness of postal deliveries in the Lichfield, Staffordshire, area, which has been the subject of previous complaints by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth, is causing inconvenience to both private and commercial interests;

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    and why letters posted from Westminster by 10.30 a.m. are not delivered by first post the following day in Lichfield.
    Mr. Mawby: I am sorry that staffing difficulties at Lichfield are still causing delay in the delivery of mail there. We are doing our best to overcome these.
    Letters posted at Westminster by 10.30 a.m. should be delivered by first post the following day in Lichfield. If the hon. Member would let me have details of any cases of delay I should be glad to look into the matter.
    Mr. Snow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have already referred this to the Postmaster-General in the House of Commons? I did this as a test to corroborate the many complaints that I have received about this bad service. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that his Department, like certain other Government Departments, does not seem to understand the problems confronting the area because of its being an overspill receiving area, with a greatly increased population? Will he accept what is intended to be a constructive suggestion? Why cannot the mail for this area be sent on the express train which leaves London in the late afternoon and which would at any rate provide a delivery first thing in the morning, without any delay? Why must the mail go via Birmingham?
    Mr. Mawby: I will consider this point, but it is important for the hon. Member to remember that this is a rapidly growing area, which makes it more difficult to recruit the right type of labour. This is one of our problems. Nevertheless, we are doing everything we can to put the matter right.
    Mr. Snow: Pay them better, and you would get some more staff.

  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    S.T.D., Scotland
    Mir. Hector Hughesasked the Postmaster-General if he will make a statement on the progress of the telephone conversion to subscriber trunk dialling in Scotland; and when he expects to have it completed and in full working order in all regions.
    Mr. Bevins: Forty per cent. of telephone subscribers in Scotland now have S.T.D. I expect that the introduction of this facility will be substantially completed in all regions and available to well over 90 per cent. of subscribers by 1970.
    Mr. Hughes: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he realises that that is an extremely unsatisfactory Answer? Why should Scotland lag behind England in this matter? Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that Scotland is brought up to at least the level of England?
    Mr. Bevins: There is not a great deal in it. The percentage covered in the United Kingdom as a whole is 45, the percentage in Scotland is 40, and, anyway, Aberdeen has it.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Dawley New Town
    Mr. W. Yatesasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when he expects to publish the master plan for Dawley New Town; and what have been the results of his discussions with the New Town Corporation and the Secretary of State for Education and Science concerning the idea of creating a new university town and including it within the master plan.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): The Development Corporation hopes to publish its master plan towards the end of the year, and it is open to it to reserve land for a university site. The proposal for a university at Dawley will be considered in the first instance by the University Grants Committee, and until provisional conclusions have been reached discussion; on the lines suggested would be premature.
    Mr. Yates: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that already on two previous occasions he has said that the University Grants Committee is considering the matter? Is he aware that the master plan is supposed to be ready in September? In view of the Robbins Report, can he intimate to me, the House and

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    the country when a decision will be taken to include the university in the new town plan?
    Mr. Corfield: I cannot give an indication of the date of the decision of the University Grants Committee, but I can assure my hon. Friend that I have no reason whatever to suppose that any delay by the Committee will in any way prejudice the proper planning of Dawley New Town.

    Litter Act (Penalties)
    Mr. Longdenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware that the maximum penalties under the Litter Act are inadequate; and if he will take an early opportunity of asking Parliament to increase them.
    Mr. Corfield: No, Sir. I have no reason to think that in general the penalties under the Litter Act are inadequate for the purposes for which that Act was designed.
    Mr. Longden: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the intentions of the Litter Act are being implemented? If he is, he must be the only person in the Kingdom who is. If not, what does he propose to do about it?
    Mr. Corfield: As my hon. Friend is aware, the great problem in connection with an Act which attempts to deal with the question of litter is enforcement. I know that my hon. Friend has in mind such matters as discarded motor cars, and so on, but I do not think that that is a reason for an increase in the penalties imposed under the Litter Act, as a general proposition.
    Mr. MacColl: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that when we last met, in the last hour, on the Adjournment, his right hon. Friend the Minister was saying that the Litter Act could be used to deal with the problem of discarded motor cars? If the penalties are not in line with the great commercial profits derived from dealing with this kind of scrap, is it not making a mockery of the whole idea of using the Act for this purpose?
    Mr. Corfield: The point that I wish to make—and I am sure that this is in line with the general thought in the House—is that for the ordinary offence under
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    the Litter Act £10 is probably an adequate penalty.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: Can the Minister say how many prosecutions have been brought under the Litter Act and what penalty, broadly speaking, has been imposed.
    Mr. Corfield: That is another question. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will put it down I shall do my best to answer it.
    Mr. David James: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the whole of England, from Loch Ness to Ditchling Beacon, is becoming increasingly nauseating, and that it is high time that either the existing Act were enforced or stiffer penalties were imposed?

    South-East England (Migrants)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs from which overseas countries he expects that migrants will come to settle in the southeast of England between now and 1981; and how many migrants he estimates will come from each country.
    Mr. Corfield: For the purpose of the South-East Study our broad and necessarily tentative breakdown was that round about a quarter of the net migration into the South-East over the period 1961-81 was likely to be migration for retirement; that a further quarter was likely to be migration for work from the rest of Great Britain; and the remaining half migration for work from elsewhere. This last would come from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth and foreign countries.
    These figures were based on our judgment of the total situation and did not simply project past trends. For the purposes of the Study it was unnecessary to be more precise about individual countries and regions. The main object was to estimate the total population of the South-East.
    Mr. Lipton: As these figures envisage an increase of something like 550,000 people coming into London and the South-East Region from overseas, have the Government taken the trouble to discuss this problem with the London Standing Conference on Regional Planning

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    which consists of 15 local authorities in the area, all of which are concerned about the additional strain which will be placed on housing, transport and other social services?
    Mr. Corfield: That, with respect, is another question, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the proportion of the total migration, based on the estimates of the Government Actuary, which has been allowed for from overseas is considerably less than it has been in the past.
    Mr. Woodburn: In the figures for migration from other countries has the Minister included the exodus from Scotland to the south-east of England, or does his Answer refer to foreign countries or to different parts of this country which are losing population?
    Mr. Corfield: If the right hon. Gentleman will read what I said, he will find that I have attempted to regard the figure in three parts: migration for retirement; migration for work from other parts of Great Britain and migration for work from countries outside Great Britain.
    Sir C. Osborne: On what grounds does my hon. Friend base his estimate that only 500,000 Commonwealth immigrants will come in to that area during the next 20 years, since my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department said recently that at least 300,000 are waiting to come in from India alone at the present time? Is he aware that on that basis the number would be 1 million?
    Mr. Corfield: My hon. Friend will be aware that I have to rely to a large extent on the Government Actuary. How many people are waiting to come in from India or Pakistan, or anywhere else has, with respect, no relevance to this estimate.
    Sir C. Osborne: Of course it has.
    Mr. Pentland: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have received a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour proving that in 1963 there was a net loss of 12,000 insured workers from the Northern Region who migrated to the Midlands and the South-East? Is he aware that many thousands of insured workers are migrating already to the South-East? Can he tell us what he intends to do about that?
    Mr. Corfield: If I did not quite hear what the hon. Member said, I apologise, but I must stress that these estimates take account of our estimation that the Government's efforts to reinstate or increase employment in the North-East, the North-West and Scotland will be successful.

  HOUSING

    Compulsory Purchase Orders
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will extend his policy regarding the approval of compulsory purchase orders for residential accommodation to include cases where colour discrimination is exercised by landlords in contracts for the sale or lease of houses or flats.
    Mr. Corfield: The powers of compulsory purchase under Part V of the Housing Act, 1957, are concerned with the provision of housing accommodation and not with questions of colour discrimination which of course we greatly deplore.
    Mr. Brockway: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of the case—particulars of which I have for warded to him—of a property company in London which not only forbids property being sublet to a coloured person but even to the employer of a coloured person? If he cannot introduce legislation on this matter, will he at least use his influence among his colleagues on the Government Front Bench, and on the back benches opposite, who are shareholders or directors of this company, to try to end this practice of gross discrimination?
    Mr. Corfield: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises the great difficulty of formulating legislative provisions which would be enforceable in a matter of this sort. I can assure him that I and my colleagues—including the ones he has in mind—very much deplore this practice.
    Mr. Fletcher: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the Islington Borough Council takes a very serious view of this matter and regards it as one which can be dealt with only by legislation of a national character? Will the

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    Minister therefore reconsider the reasons why it is not possible to introduce legislation on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that this matter has been considered on a number of occasions and I have no reason to believe that it would be easier to draft provisions now than in the past. I will continue to keep the matter under review, but I cannot hold out any hope that this is a matter which should, or could, be dealt with by legislation.

    Subsidies (Review)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what is the outcome of his review of housing subsidies; and when he intends to introduce his proposals.
    Mr. Corfield: The review is still in progress and it will not be possible to introduce proposals during the present Session.
    Mr. Allaun: Is not it true that this review has been going on for many months and that meanwhile the councils and their tenants have had the heavy burden of interest which they bear further increased because of a rise in the Bank Rate and the interest rate of the Public Works Loan Board? Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that to meet the same proportion of the annual deficit on a new house as was met 10 years ago would require the present rate of subsidy to be trebled?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that this relates to the total cost of new houses. He must also bear in mind that the working party which has studied this has had to collate a great deal of information which is not uniform throughout the country. Only when that information can be put together and the result discussed with the local authority associations would it be right to make a firm proposal.
    Mr. Peter Emery: Does my hon. Friend realise that certain authorities which had introduced differential rent schemes, in order to spread the subsidy to those on their housing waiting list
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    who really needed it, are now considering doing away with the schemes purely for political ends? Will he do everything in his power to discourage this?
    Mr. Corfield: I can assure my hon. Friend that, so far as my information goes, no local authority is unable to relieve genuine need by means of the existing system without over-burdening the rates.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there are hundreds of thousands of houses in the country in respect of which no rent is paid at all and that these are in the control of the Government? What do the Government intend to do about them?

    Mutual Households Association Limited
    Mr. J. Wellsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what sums of money his Department has paid to the Mutual Households Association Limited; on what dates this was done; and what conditions were involved.
    Mr. Corfield: From the financial year 1958–59 to date grants of £2,880 towards the cost of providing board and lodging in four of the Association's properties have been paid annually to local authorities to be passed on to the Association under arrangements made by the authorities with the Association and approved by my right hon. Friend. These arrangements incorporate a number of conditions, including conditions that the Association shall provide the apartments in respect of which the grants are made, and that they shall be let or kept available for letting.
    Mr. Wells: Is my hon. Friend aware that this Association has recently served notice on one of my constituents in most unjustifiable circumstances? Will my hon. Friend look into the recent new rules of management set out by this body, and will he investigate its affairs generally in so far as he can?
    Mr. Corfield: I am aware of the case which my hon. Friend has in mind and his concern is shared by my right hon. Friend and myself. Nevertheless, matters of complaint regarding associations of

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    this type are for the Registrar of Friendly Societies, who has not as yet heard both sides of the case, and I think that it would be wrong to prejudge the issue.
    Mr. MacColl: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that when we were discussing these kind of matters in the debates on the housing legislation which is being dealt with by the House, the Minister expressed great confidence that the existing provisions were strong enough to prevent this kind of thing from happening? Is he aware that if it does happen, it will greatly weaken the appeal to tenants of housing associations generally?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman has forgotten that under the proposed new legislation the Housing Corporation will have greater powers of mortgage than have ordinary local authorities under the existing arrangements.

    Old People's Home, Wembley
    Sir R. Russellasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when he expects to reach a decision on the size of the old people's home to be built near The Vicarage, Tokyngton, Wembley.
    Mr. Corfield: I assume my hon. Friend is referring to an appeal to my right hon. Friend by the owners of this site against a certificate from Middlesex County Council which would determine the price to be paid for it. The appeal is being conducted by written representations, the exchanges of which have taken some time. My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to give his decision very soon after one of his inspectors has visited the site on 4th June.
    Sir R. Russell: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask if he is aware that negotiations for this home have been going on now for about three years? Will he do everything possible to speed up the building, which is badly needed?
    Mr. Corfield: I appreciate that, but I have checked the dates when various representations were sent in and the fault of delay does not rest with my right
    910
    hon. Friend's Department, but, in part at least, with one of the local authorities concerned.

    Compulsory Purchase Order, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
    Mr. Popplewellasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware of the difficulty the local authority is experiencing consequent on his delay in reaching a decision on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Slum Clearance Parker Street Compulsory Purchase Order 1963, on which the public inquiry took place on 10th December, 1963; and when he expects to announce his decision.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend is aware of the corporation's anxiety and he expects to issue his decision within the next fortnight.
    Mr. Popplewell: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this application was made last August and that the Minister held an inquiry last December? Will the hon. Gentleman do something to see that such extensive delay does not take place in future? We are grateful for the fact that the Minister will give a decision within a fortnight.
    Mr. Corfield: I should point out that there were 75 objections to the scheme. There are limits to the extent to which these things can be speeded up without completely overruling the rights of interested parties.

  WELSH AFFAIRS

    Circular "The Welsh Survey"
    Mr. Watkinsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what is the purpose of the circular issued by his Welsh Office on 13th April to local authorities in Wales headed The Welsh Survey; aid to what extent authorities within the area of the Mid-Wales Industrial Development Association are affected by it, in view of the Report on Rural De-population for this area which he has had since May, 1963.
    Mr. Corfield: The circular was designed to give local authorities in Wales and Monmouthshire, including

    911
    Mid-Wales, an opportunity to contribute views and information which might be of help in carrying out the survey.
    Mr. Watkins: Is the Minister aware that seven Reports on Mid-Wales have been issued since this Government have been in office? Surely to goodness this kind of information is not required after the last Report which was published last week? What is the purpose of it all? Cannot we get some action instead of Reports?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman would be the first to agree that Mid-Wales should not be left out of the general regional studies. I am equally certain that if this opportunity had not been offered to the local authorities in connection with this survey, the hon. Gentleman again would have been the first to complain. I can assure him that this further and wider survey will not prejudice action which may be taken under the Reports he has in mind and on which my right hon. Friend will make a statement very soon.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Beef Supplies
    Mr. J. Morrisasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a further statement on beef supplies.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): Beef is short partly because Argentina is unable to send us her usual supplies and partly because of the demand on world supplies from Continental countries. On the other hand home supplies should be well maintained and there are good supplies of other meat available.
    As regards the prospects for the rest of this year, I cannot add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) on 11th May, when I indicated that I do not anticipate a further fall in imports of fresh and chilled beef and that there will be a rise in frozen beef supplies.
    Mr. Morris: Does the Minister recall that two years ago he had to come to
    912
    the House to ask for a Supplementary Estimate for £78 million, principally for beef? Does he agree that his present policy still results in uncertainty as to how much the housewife will have to pay week by week for the meat which she buys; secondly, how much the Exchequer will have to provide; and, thirdly, how much the farmer will eventually get for the calf which he raises? Has not the time come for a thorough inquiry as to where the subsidies go and what effect they are having, and should there not be some co-ordination between home supplies, home needs and overseas trade?
    Mr. Soames: The difference between the year to which the hon. Gentleman referred and this year was that there was a total difference in the world supply and demand situation. No policy devised by Her Majesty's Government could influence the output of beef from the Argentine in any one year following upon a drought, or indeed the level of demand or the level of output on the continent of Europe.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the number of beef cattle imported into this country in the first four months of this year was more than treble the amount of beef cattle exported from it and, further, that the increase in the number of beef cattle imported over the number imported in the corresponding period last year was more than half as much again as the increase in the number exported in the same period?
    Mr. Soames: I would not without notes give exact confirmation of the figures my hon. Friend suggests, but the figures of imports were infinitely greater than any figures of exports.
    Mr. Peart: Surely the Minister must accept some responsibility? His failure has led to rationing by the purse of a very important commodity, and the price of beef has increased considerably. Is not the Minister aware that the crisis in the Argentine should have been known months ago and he should have acted much more quickly? Will he give an assurance that he will stimulate production over the next two years? Can he say what will be the extent of supplies from the Commonwealth?
    Mr. Soames: The reason for the rise in the price of beef on our market in recent months has been the fact that we pursue here a free market from which the people of this country have drawn enormous benefit over the years. What the hon. Gentleman means by "rationing by the purse" is that the price of beef has risen because of the alteration in the balance of supply and demand. We look forward to the opportunity when he will tell the House and the country what he will do—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—when he will tell the House what arrangements he would make other than allowing the price of meat to rise, which inevitably happens in the workings of a free market when the supply and demand balance has changed.
    Mr. Turton: Would my right hon. Friend agree that a great deal of damage is being done by exaggeration of the shortages of supply and, still more, by exaggeration of the increases in price, which in many cases have not happened at all?
    Mr. Soames: I know that my right hon. Friend will have noticed that, although the prices rose over a matter of some weeks earlier in the year, in the past couple of weeks they have in fact been falling.
    Mrs. Slater: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement this afternoon will be small comfort to the housewives who have continually been paying increasing prices? If the statement of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) is true, does it not mean that the people concerned in selling beef use the housewife as a pawn in the game to get more profits from the so-called shortages? What assurance will the Minister give to the housewife that she will be able to buy beef at reasonable prices in the future?
    Mr. Soames: I disagree profoundly with the hon. Lady. I believe that housewives appreciate the great advantages they have gained and do gain from the operation of the free market in this country they would not like it to be interfered with.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: We have much to do. We cannot debate this matter now.

    CYPRUS
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the present situation in Cyprus.
    The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): With permission I will make a statement at the end of Questions.

  SOUTH ARABIAN FEDERATION

    Conference
    Mr. Bottomleyasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonies if he will make a statement about the proposed constitutional conference for the South Arabian Federation.
    Mr. Sandys: The conference of which I gave particulars to the House on 14th May will open at Lancaster House on 9th June.
    Mr. Bottomley: Is it intended to invite the political leaders of Aden Colony, particularly remembering that possibly after the election they will be in control?
    Mr. Sandys: I think that the right hon. Member will have seen the statement I made a little time ago on this question explaining why we were confining the conference to the representatives of Governments.
    Mr. Bottomley: As a result of representations made from this side of the House, will the right hon. Gentleman give the matter further consideration with a view to inviting the political leaders of Aden Colony?
    Mr. Sandys: I am always happy to receive representations from the party opposite.
    Mr. W. Yates: What were the reasons my right hon. Friend advanced for not holding an election in Aden and the area to decide who are the proper political leaders? What made him decide not to hold a general election in advance of the conference? What advantage is there in having a conference of people who are not properly elected?
    Mr. Sandys: That, of course, is quite a different question.
    Mr. G. M. Thomson: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider raising the state of emergency in the Colony of Aden while his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is there holding consultations with the various political groups?
    Mr. Sandys: I was in Aden myself the other day. I must say that no one would know that there was a state of emergency there. It does not interfere with normal life. All the people who would wish to be consulted or invited to such meetings are freely available to express their opinions.
    Mr. Brockway: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision to limit representation at this conference to representatives of Governments? Would it not be possible to bring to the conference representatives of the very popular People's Socialist Party in Aden? [Interruption.] Yes, the dominant party. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he believes that any solution of this problem is possible unless he confers with the representatives of the popular movements in the area?
    Sir C. Osborne: As they do in Ghana?
    Mr. Sandys: We have already to accommodate around the table the representatives of 14 different States. That is going to be quite difficult enough. If we enlarged the conference and included outside elements from all those States we should have a conference which would be quite unmanageable. When I was in Aden the other day I had a long meeting with representatives of all the main political parties, including the P.S.P., in which the hon. Member is interested. I am fully aware of their views on all these questions.
    Mr. Bottomley: Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) that it is possible for political meetings to be held in Aden? If not, why not?
    Mr. Sandys: The position is that while the state of emergency is on political meetings are not permitted. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] When I said that I had
    916
    a meeting I meant a private meeting. As the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) knows, that would not fall within the terms of the restrictions on movement and political assemblies under the emergency.

  MALTA

    Talks
    Mr. Bottomleyasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonies if he will make a statement about his talks with the Prime Minister of Malta.
    Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonies if he will make a statement on his recent talks with the Prime Minister of Malta, and on the results of the recent constitutional referendum.
    Mr. Sandys: I am at present having talks with the Prime Minister of Malta and I will make a full statement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Bottomley: We shall await this statement, but in the meantime may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether any further consideration has been given to the suggestion that perhaps the referendum has shown that elections before independence are desirable?
    Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman will not press me to anticipate my statement.
    Mr. Driberg: Can the right hon. Gentleman say roughly how long we shall have to wait for that statement? Is it a matter of weeks or a matter of days?
    Mr. Sandys: More than days—weeks; or a week, maybe. But perhaps I could make this clear, to avoid any misunderstanding: the British Government's offer of early independence to Malta naturally stands, but the constitutional question remains to be resolved, and it is on this that I am having these talks with the Prime Minister of Malta.

  BECHUANALAND

    Constitution
    Mr. G. M. Thomsonasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth

    917
    Relations and the Colonies if he will now make a statement about constitutional changes in Bechuanaland.
    Mr. Sandys: As a result of discussions initiated by the Resident Commissioner during the second half of last year representatives of all political parties and other important groups in Bechuanaland formulated unanimous proposals for the revision of their Constitution.
    The British Government are in general agreement with these proposals and have decided to introduce a new Constitution on these lines. The details are set out in a White Paper published today.
    This represents an important step towards independence of Bechuanaland which we have no wish to delay any longer than is necessary.
    Mr. Thomson: While thanking the Minister very much for that statement, and while wanting to read the White Paper before making a final comment, may I ask whether he can give some indication of when the general elections are likely to take place which are to follow these constitutional changes?
    Mr. Sandys: Next March.

  REGENT LION INVESTMENTS LTD.
  Mr. Parkinasked the Attorney-General if he will instruct the Director of Public Prosecutions to initiate proceedings for fraud against Regent Lion Invesments Ltd. for causing, in co-operation with Grosvenor Estates, a lady to exchange her controlled tenancy for alternative accommodation by inducing her to sign a document represented to her as being a standard lease for her new accommodation, but which was a receipt for £100 for the surrender of her controlled tenancy.
  The Attorney-General (Sir John Hobson): No.
  Mr. Parkin: In view of the unchecked continuation of this kind of chicanery and in view of the fact that the measures introduced by the Government to cover such matters as plumbing do not cover the main menace of Rachmanism, which was intimidation, victimisation and swindling people out of their homes, will
  918
  the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an undertaking that in this Session of Parliament, as part of the Government's modernisation plan, he will introduce new legislation to deal with landlord and tenant relationships to cover this kind of trickery by which people are still losing their homes?
  The Attorney-General: I can find not the slightest evidence in this case that there was either any trickery or any swindling, and in the evidence which the hon. Member submitted to me there seems to be nothing to indicate that Mrs. Knight was induced to leave her fiat or to give up her controlled tenacy or to sign a receipt by reason of misrepresentation or any fraudulent or criminal activity. She has expressed gratitude for all that hat, been done for her by those who arranged the new tenancy.

  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (SPEECH)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of Stale for Defence on Wednesday 13th May at Rutherglen on foreign affairs and defence represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that on polling day the Glasgow Herald said that the Secretary of State's two-day canvassing visit had been a great fillip to Tory hopes, but that the Labour vote went up by 1,200 and the Tory vote went down by 2,000, showing a swing to Labour of 7½per cent.? In view of this magnificent result, will he send the Secretary of State for Defence to the other two pending by-elections forthwith? Is he aware that the Secretary of State said in his speech that conventional defence is not possible for Britain? As this country has no independent nuclear deterrent without help from America, is not this a doctrine of despair?
  The Prime Minister: If we are to get into questions of political results of by-elections the hon. Member might have a look at some other recent results—[Horn. MEMBERS: "Which ones?"] Hon. Members will see in a moment. The hon. Member asked whether I agreed with my

  919
  right hon. Friend's speech and I said, yes. I think that the hon. Member would be wise if he took account of the Secretary of State's advice and had a look at the possible defences of our island, because the nuclear deterrent is the only effective defence.
  Mr. Shinwell: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Defence, during his speech in the Ruther-glen by-election, charged the Labour Party with wanting to return to conscription? Is the Prime Minister aware that there is no justification for any such charge? [HON. MEMBERS: "0h."] If the right hon. Gentleman has any evidence to that effect, will he produce it so that we may debate the subject? May I ask whether he agrees with his right hon. Friend that the Labour Party wants to return to conscription? If he will not dismiss him from his post will he at least reprimand him?
  The Prime Minister: On the question of conscription, so far as I know the Front Bench opposite is always saying that we ought to have more conventional arms. I have continuously asked how hon. Members opposite would get them unless they are prepared to introduce conscription.

  BANK HOLIDAYS
  Mrs. Butlerasked the Prime Minister if he will discuss with the interests concerned the desirability, under modern conditions, of replacing the traditional Bank Holidays with five days statutory holiday with pay to be taken at such times of the year as may be agreed by individual managements and employees.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. This would not offer the same opportunities as the present arrangement for family and communal recreation, and I do not think that it would be so widely appreciated. Her Majesty's Government are however taking steps to relieve some of the congestion caused by the timing of the present Whitsun and August Bank Holidays.
  Mrs. Butler: In view of the appalling accident figures and the disturbances which have marred recent Bank Holidays, is it not increasing folly to continue this build-up of people and vehicles concentrating on a few week-
  920
  ends in the year? Since the Government are already considering the staggering of holidays and discussing this with the interests concerned, would it not be appropriate to discuss at the same time the replacement of Bank Holidays by some modern holiday?
  The Prime Minister: There is quite a lot in what the hon. Lady says, but we had better have an experiment first. We propose an experiment with August Bank Holiday next year.
  Mr. Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman may not be here.
  The Prime Minister: Again, I think the hon. Member is rather rash in his predictions. I think that we had better have an experiment next year with August Bank Holiday and possibly with Whitsun Bank Holiday, and then we shall be in a better position to judge what action to take.

  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDUSTRY AND TRADE (SPEECH)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade at the opening of the British Week in Dusseldorf on Britain and the Common Market represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade said that he regretted the failure of the negotiations to get Britain into Europe and that he told the Germans during his speech that Great Britain belongs to Europe and that her policies are those of a good European? Is not this a wholly parochial outlook in view of Great Britain's Commonwealth and worldwide responsibilities? If the Prime Minister agrees with him, does it imply that the Conservative Party are preparing to take Britain into Europe again on the same humiliating terms? Will the Prime Minister do some straight talking on this with the electorate?
  The Prime Minister: A short time ago I offered to have a gramophone record made of my reply for the benefit of hon. Members opposite. My reply—and I repeat it once more to hon. Members

  921
  opposite—is this: we do not know what conditions there will be and we cannot anticipate whether any opportunity will come in future years to associate Britain more closely with the Six. Anyhow, Parliament would have to decide, if it did.
  Mr. Ridley: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the so-called five conditions of the Labour Party would, in fact, make it totally impossible for this country ever to join the Common Market?
  The Prime Minister: I think that that is true.
  Mr. Shinwell: Since the right hon. Gentleman has made an offer to produce a gramophone record of his speeches, may we in future have the gramophone instead of the right hon. Gentleman's presence?
  The Prime Minister: I know that this is a machine age, but I think that is going too far.
  Sir C. Osborne: Will the Prime Minister confirm that the more intelligent members of the Labour Party were great supporters of the movement for this country to join the Common Market?
  Mr. G. Brown: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), will he tell us which of the five conditions he rejects?
  The Prime Minister: Not without notice.

CYPRUS
The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): With permission, I will now answer Question No. 35, which was asked earlier by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson).
Since the serious incidents in Famagusta, three weeks ago, there have been fewer acts of violence in Cyprus. The arrival of further troops from other countries has enabled the British contingent in the United Nations Force to be reduced to about 2,000 men, in addition to the important logistic support which
922
we continue to provide. Britain is thus still supplying the largest element in the peace-keeping force.
Our British troops have endeavoured to discharge their difficult task with complete impartiality; but this has not always
been appreciated by the two communities, who have at different times accused us of favouring the other. At present, anti-British feeling among the Greek-Cypriots is, unhappily, running very high and is being actively stimulated by newspapers and speeches.
This situation has recently been aggravated by the case of a British airman, who has been charged by the Greek-Cypriot police with carrying arms to the Turkish-Cypriots. Since the matter is sub judice, I will not comment upon it, except to inform the House that our High Commissioner has protested strongly about the statement made by the Cypriot Minister of the Interior, in which he publicly condemned the accused man, thereby prejudicing the prospect of a fair trial.
I do not know whether the charge against this individual is well founded. But it is not necessary for me to say that the British Government would be deeply distressed at any failure on the part of its Service men to live up to the high reputation which they have rightly earned throughout the world.
For some time we have been much disturbed by the build-up of arms and military forces in Cyprus by both sides. As guarantors of the Constitution, the Governments of Britain, Greece and Turkey have made representations to President Makarios about his decision to introduce conscription. At the same time, the British Government and the Governments of other countries which are contributing to the United Nations Force have expressed to the Secretary-General their concern about the reported intention of the Cyprus Government to import substantial quantities of heavy armaments.
The three-month mandate given by the Security Council expires in about four weeks' time and will no doubt have to be extended. We remain anxious to do all we can to help the United Nations Force to fulfil its mission. However, before entering into a commitment for a further period, we shall wish to be

923
satisfied that our continued participation is necessary and is generally desired by the other countries concerned.
The sole reason for our participating in the United Nations Force is our desire to help restore peace in the island and create conditions in which a settlement acceptable to both communities can be negotiated. While they are performing this thankless task, we feel that our troops and their families have a right to be treated with respect and courtesy by those who, in the crisis of last December, so readily accepted our offer to come to their aid.
Mr. A. Henderson: Is it not intolerable that British women should have to experience the indignities which have been reported in the Press in the last two or three days? Are any steps being taken to prevent such treatment? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that adequate arrangements exist to ensure the safety of British nationals in the event of a further deterioration in the situation in Cyprus?
Mr. Sandys: The first matter to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred is being taken up with the authorities concerned. We have for a long time had arrangements in preparation to deal with any deterioration in the situation, should it arise.
Mr. Biggs-Davison: Are not some of the actions of the Cyprus Government, particularly towards the Turkish-Cypriot minority, placing in doubt their whole validity under the Constitution, of which we are guarantors? Will Her Majesty's Government ensure that all member-States of the Commonwealth, N.A.T.O. and the United Nations are fully aware of the constitutional position?
Mr. Sandys: I think that the constitutional position is well known.
Mr. Bottomley: We all join in the tribute to the traditionally high standard of conduct of British troops overseas. Is it not a fact that British troops are in Cyprus at the invitation of the Cyprus Government and now form part of the United Nations contingent? In the circumstances, ought not Her Majesty's Government to make it quite clear that they will not tolerate the continual humiliation of British troops and nationals whose only job is to try to keep the peace?
Mr. Sandys: I can assure the House that I feel no less deeply on this question than the right hon. Gentleman.
Sir A. V. Harvey: If anti-British feeling continues against our troops and their families, will my right hon. Friend make it absolutely clear, not only to the Cyprus Government but to the United Nations, that we will not continue to give the full strength we are at present giving unless the situation changes?
Mr. Sandys: I think that I dealt with that point in my original Answer.
Mr. Grimond: Everybody will agree with what the Secretary of State said about our troops in Cyprus. If it became apparent that we should withdraw them, has the United Nations indicated whether it would be able to maintain adequate forces in Cyprus to keep the peace?
Mr. Sandys: That is the point with which I was dealing when I said that, before entering into a commitment for a further period, we would wish to be satisfied, first, that our continued participation was necessary, and, secondly, that it was generally desired by the other countries concerned.
Mr. Berkeley: Would the Secretary of State not agree that the most urgent and immediate task is that of pacification? To achieve this end, will Her Majesty's Government press for a larger United Nations Force and, thereby, a smaller United Kingdom contribution? Will Her Majesty's Government also press for a greatly strengthened United Nations mandate, giving the United Nations Force full control over all military and police operations on the island?
Mr. Sandys: That is a matter for the Secretary-General. We have already expressed our views on some of these points at different times.
Mr. Driberg: If British troops are to be withdrawn from the United Nations Force, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can say what steps are being taken now, through the United Nations, to prepare other nations to send contingents to replace them? If British troops are to continue to serve in the United Nations Force, will the right hon. Gentleman look into a matter which has been

925
raised before—perhaps a secondary matter, but not altogether unimportant—the comparative pay and allowances of British and other contingents in the United Nations Force?
Mr. Sandys: The hon. Gentleman's second question should be put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.
To answer the hon. Gentleman's first point, I did not say that British troops were to be withdrawn from the United Nations Force. I made it quite clear that we have not been at all happy about the situation and that we would be very pleased to be relieved of this obligation. On the other hand, we have a sense of responsibility in this matter and we have no wish to do anything which would result in wrecking the effectiveness of the United Nations Force.
Sir G. Nicholson: Cyprus is not a rich country and arms cost a great deal of money. Can my right hon. Friend say how this threatened importation of arms is to be financed and who will be paying for it?
Mr. Sandys: I am not Minister of Finance for Cyprus.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must pass on. We have much to do.

TYPHOID OUTBREAK, ABERDEEN
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): With permission, I should like to make a statement to the House on the outbreak in Aberdeen of typhoid fever.
The number of patients at present in hospital is 249, of whom 241 are confirmed cases. This is, in fact, the most serious outbreak since 1937. The first indications of an outbreak appeared on 19th May, and the probable source of infection, in a supermarket in Aberdeen, was traced on 20th May. The speed with which the focal point of infection was established reflects great credit on the Medical Officer of Health of Aberdeen, Dr. MacQueen and his staff.
926
According to the information with which I have been furnished, the cause of this outbreak has not been finally established. There have been suggestions that the organism causing the epidemic was present in canned corned beef, and this cannot be ruled out. However, there is no foundation for the suggestion that the infection originated in canned corned beef from former Government stocks. No canned meat which investigation has shown could have been in the shop, could have come from these stocks.
Investigations made revealed that some 6 lb. cans of corned beef from a certain establishment—not from Government stocks—were in the shop at the material time. The establishment at which this corned beef was produced did not for a period of 15 months use chlorinated water in the cooling process. This could conceivably have been a source of infection. The Government are, therefore, advising that 6 lb. cans produced at this establishment during this period should be withdrawn from sale for the time being.
As an additional protection, we are also advising that corned beef in 6 lb. cans produced at another establishment where unchlorinated water was used for cooling should be withdrawn. I should add, however, that there is no evidence that corned beef from this plant could have been involved in the Aberdeen outbreak.
Medical officers of health are being advised how they can assist in this operation. We are in touch with the trade and I am sure that they will co-operate with us as they did last year.
Although we are taking these precautionary measures, there is no positive evidence at present that the brands to be withdrawn were responsible for the infection; and it must be accepted that many doubts remain unresolved. Because these uncertainties exist, the Government have decided to hold an inquiry, under an independent chairman, to discover the cause of the epidemic. The report of the inquiry will be published in due course. But I should point out that there is no doubt in my mind that the first priority must be to contain the epidemic which is now in Aberdeen.
I should like to take this opportunity, and I am sure that the House will join

927
with me, of expressing my profound sympathy with the townspeople of Aberdeen in their misfortune and my admiration for the public services of the city for the way in which they are confronting it.
Mr. Ross: My hon. Friends and I and the whole House will wish to join with the right hon. Gentleman's expression of sympathy for the people of Aberdeen, a city which has one of the proudest records in Britain for health and cleanliness. We will also wish to be associated with his tribute to the local services.
Can the right hon. Gentleman say why we have had to wait 12 days before getting an authoritative statement from the Government? Is he aware that there has been much speculation and a considerable amount of rumour, along with conflicting statements, which might have been avoided? Is he also aware that only half an hour before he spoke, telling us that there is doubt about the source, there has appeared on the tape a report from the Medical Officer of Health of Aberdeen to the effect that he has no doubt at all as to the source; indeed, that he again mentions that one of the possible sources was a can of meat which emanated from Government stocks?
While agreeing that the right course is now not to hold a post mortem but rather to ensure that the outbreak is contained, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the Scottish Health Department has been participating in and guiding the battle for the containment of this epidemic? When did the Scottish Health Department come into the picture? Was that Department consulted and did it have anything to do with the decision not to publish—although many people have argued that it should have been published—the source or suspected source and locus of that source?
Has guidance and help been sought on the question of the need for workers, realising that the Medical Officer of Health has spoken today about the "terrific efforts of our over-small battalion of workers"? Surely one must leave nothing to chance in a matter of this kind, but ensure that everything that can be done is done, particularly to see
928
that the Scottish Office gives all the help that is required.
Mr. Noble: I shall try to answer all the points put by the hon. Member. First, he asked why there was a wait of 12 days before a statement was made giving the facts as I have just given them. Part of the facts in the statement were only finally confirmed yesterday afternoon. In a problem of this sort, where there is no certainty what the cause of the epidemic may be, one has to follow all the leads.
The Medical Officer of Health confirmed that in his view—and, I believe, rightly—it started from a shop that had a counter from which cooked meats were supplied, but the cooked meats were of many different sorts, and all of them had to be checked. So I do not think it remarkable that it should take a number of days of very intensive work to bring the facts properly to light.
The hon. Member's second point related to the statement made by the Medical Officer of Health—which the hon. Gentleman has seen on the tape—that this supply came from a can of meat of 1951 vintage—two cans of meat—
Mr. Ross: The statement was that the source was reduced to the possibility of one of two cans; and that one of those cans came from Government stock.
Mr. Noble: Again, this is something that we have been checking with the greatest possible care, for very obvious reasons.
The shop had been opened for eight weeks before the epidemic—it is a new shop. Every single consignment of cooked meat came to this shop from one depot in Dundee. Every single consignment has been checked with this depot, and the people there assure my officers that not one single can came from anywhere except these recent establishments of which I have spoken in my statement.
I should like to assure the hon. Gentleman that the officers from my Department have been in very close touch with the Medical Officer of Health in Aberdeen, and have given him all the help they could and all the help that he has asked for. The hon. Gentleman quoted a reference by the Medical Officer of Health to an "over-small" staff. I should like to assure the hon. Gentleman

929
and the House that the Medical Officer of Health in Aberdeen has been offered, on more than one occasion, any staff that he would like to ask for—the staff is available—but, up to date, he has turned down any offer of extra help.
Mr. J. Harvey: While I appreciate that my right hon. Friend is not answerable for the one case reported this morning from my own constituency, would he agree with me that soap and water and clean hand-towels are the first line of defence against the spread of typhoid infection? Would he and his colleagues who are responsible see that this simple fact is brought home as a matter of urgency to all those who have any sort of responsibility for the maintenance of toilet facilities in local authorities, factories, schools, and the like?
Mr. Noble: I thank my hon. Friend for making that suggestion. These are exactly the points to which Dr. MacQueen has been giving the widest possible publicity in Aberdeen, and through the Scottish Press.
Mr. Hector Hughes: Will the Secretary of State allow me to join with him in paying tribute to the devotion, skill and energy with which Dr. MacQueen and his staff have tackled this unexpected emergency? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the contamination arose from an outside source, and not in Aberdeen, and that the burden put on Dr. MacQueen was, therefore, thoroughly unexpected? Will he see that the inquiry to be set up is sufficiently wide in scope to take into account the points I have just referred to, with a view to preventing any recurrence of this sort?
Mr. Noble: I am very glad to repeat my confidence in the way in which Dr. MacQueen, the health and hospital staffs and other people in Aberdeen have dealt with the outbreak.
The bacillus identified from this outbreak is normally found in Spain, South America and the southern part of the United States. It is not one that is indigenous to Great Britain, so I do not think that Aberdeen need fear in any way that the city was responsible for the start of the outbreak.
Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: In view of the urgent need to contain this terrible epidemic, and as vans and other vehicles are still leaving the city in order to trade, and so on, in the countryside, what further steps do the Government propose to take to protect the countryside around the city from the spread of infection?
Mr. Noble: I do not think that it is possible, from all the inquiries I have made, at the moment to think of any extra steps which the Government can take, and which they have power to take, beyond those that Dr. MacQueen has already taken, either by direct action or by advice, in the area round Aberdeen, but we will certainly watch the position as it develops.
Mr. Grimond: Are there any other cases outside Aberdeen, either suspected or confirmed? Further, what exactly are the steps currently being taken—are there restrictions on travel in and out of Aberdeen, or on gatherings in Aberdeen?
Mr. Noble: There are no definite restrictions on travel, and I think for a city of this size and importance it would be impossible to impose them. But the Town Council itself has given a lead by closing the Beach Pavilion, which is a very big restaurant and dance hall, as the sort of step that is reasonable at times like this.
As to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, there are one or two other cases. There is one in Glasgow, I think, and one in Edinburgh—suspected, but not yet absolutely confirmed. I believe that I am right there. And there are one or two in London. But this is not untypical in a normal year. None of these cases that we know of at the moment has any connection with Aberdeen, and the House probably knows that in a normal year we do have isolated cases of typhoid—perhaps 50 or 100.
Dr. Bennett: While it may be early days yet, can my right hon. Friend say whether any of the cases so far confirmed can be traced to infections other than the at present unknown primary source; in fact, whether any cases have been traced to other people who have already contracted the disease?
Mr. Noble: As far as I know at the moment, the answer to that question is "No." Dr. MacQueen's view as expressed today is that this is still the primary stage of the outbreak, and, though each new case as it comes in will be tested to see whether there are any other causes, as far as I know at the moment, there are not.
Mr. G. Brown: There is obviously no difference in any part of the House in the seriousness of the approach to this matter. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us when he will be able to announce the name of the independent chairman and the names of the other members of the inquiry committee, and when he expects them to start work?
Further, following on the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) earlier, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the probable source of infection was traced the day after the first indication of the outbreak, will the Secretary of State say why it has taken 12 days to decide to withdraw certain cans, or brands of cans, of corned beef from circulation?
Does he not think that his statement that another brand that is being withdrawn could not have been in Aberdeen will cause a lot of worry elsewhere in the country? Can the right hon. Gentleman say where else in the country this brand has been available, and whether we might now worry about other cases being already incubated from that?
Mr. Noble: I will announce the name of the chairman as soon as I possibly can.
The right hon. Gentleman asked why, when the source of the infection was discovered the day after the first cases were concerned, there was yet a period of 10 or 12 days before action was taken. The answer is that the source of infection was the food counter in this particular shop in which there were cans of cooked meat, but before we knew, or could possibly tell, which kind of cooked meat, and where those supplies came from—not only the name on the label, but which establishments they came from—a con-
932
siderable amount of research and hard work was needed, which went on continuously.
As soon as we discovered that they came from an establishment which had been using unchlorinated water in the cooling process of the 6 lb. cans, which could be, as I say, the source of infection, we decided to withdraw them.
We then asked immediately whether there were any other establishments—not necessarily firms, because they have many different clients—where the same conditions apply, and we found one other. We thought that it was right, at least until the inquiry has pronounced whether this is the likely source, to withdraw these cans as quickly as possible from the public in case, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it might be conceivably possible that somebody would be incubating the disease from them.
But I should explain to the House that the consumption of corned beef in this country is in the region of 70,000 to 80,000 tons a year. Last year was the first time in history that any question of typhoid could be proved to have emanated from corned beef.
Mr. G. Brown: May I ask—
Mr. Speaker: There is so much to do and it is after four o'clock.
Mr. Brown Mr. Brown rose—
Mr. Speaker: Great difficulty is created—
Mr. Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is a point which, with respect, I submit emerges, and to which all the country would like to know the answer. Have all these tins already been withdrawn, or are they still available?
Mr. Noble: The question is one which certainly will be worrying people. These are 6 lb. tins, so that they are not likely to be found in the ordinary household. The trade and the medical officers of health of England, Wales and Scotland are being asked today to co-operate with us in having all these withdrawn from circulation.

PIRATE RADIO SHIPS AND LOCAL SOUND BROADCASTING
The Postmaster-General (Mr. Reginald Bevins): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about pirate radio ships and local sound broadcasting.
In order to ensure good reception both here and on the Continent, broadcasting frequencies are agreed by the International Telecommunication Union. Pirate radio ships select their own frequencies. This is an infringement of international agreements.
If no action is taken against pirate radio, such transmissions from ships outside territorial waters may increase, with the result that radio communications with ships and aeroplanes would be interfered with and human life endangered. Also, such transmissions could well lead to massive interference with the reception of existing radio programmes both in Britain and Europe. As it is, protests of interference Lave already been received from Belgium and France.
The Council of Europe has been study-nig this problem and a draft Convention is now in an advanced stage of preparation. What is required to deal with the problem is concerted international action. The Government, therefore, propose to await the conclusion of this Convention and then to consider legislating on lines proposed by the Convention.
The Government cannot accept the establishment of pirate radio ships as a reason for making precipitate decisions on local sound broadcasting in this country. To legislate for a national service of local sound broadcasting and to establish the necessary machinery for supervision during the remaining months of this Parliament is, clearly, not practicable. In the next Parliament the Government will undertake the review of the situation foreshadowed in the White Paper on Broadcasting published in 1962 (Cmnd. 1893).
Mr. Mason: While agreeing wholeheartedly with the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, may I ask whether he is aware that we view with some apprehension the delayed action against the offshore radio stations? Is he not aware that meanwhile these law
934
breakers appear as champions? It conveys the impression that the right hon. Gentleman is bowing before the pressure of the commercial lobbyists, and in addition, in spite of his appeal, advertisers are already feeding these offshore radio stations.
Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that five other countries have already legislated quite effectively against these radio stations and have banned them from their shores? He appeared to have this intention in mind on 5th May. Why, therefore, the delay?
Mr. Bevins: The position is that the Convention of the Council of Europe will probably be signed towards the end of the year and legislation will then be considered. The hon. Gentleman has asked the pointed question: why, if it is possible for certain other European countries to legislate, is it not possible for us to do so? It is perfectly true that some of the Scandinavian countries and Belgium have already legislated against this sort of thing, but we take the view that concerted legislation is the only effective way of getting rid of this sort of thing.
It is the only effective way, because until legislation is concerted it would still be possible for other European sources to provide support, by way of finance, advertising, and so forth, to these ships. It is because the deliberations of the Council of Europe are now at an advanced stage that we think it right to await the final Convention so that legislation, when it comes, will be effective and will cover all loopholes.
Mr. Lipton: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that by awaiting the decision of the Council of Europe he is creating the impression that the Government are somewhat cowardly in their approach to tackling this problem of the pirate ships? Is there any reason why, in order to deal with this menace, emergency legislation should not be passed through this House before the House rises for the Summer Recess, following the example of Sweden, which has tackled the problem very successfully? If, after that, some further action is required in the light of the decision of the Council of Europe, we could take it later.
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that by allowing the situation to drift as

935
he is, he is playing right into the hands of the very powerful commercial radio lobby on the benches opposite?
Mr. Bevins: That is, of course, a matter of opinion, but the Government's view here, quite firmly held, is that it would be wrong to introduce legislation at this stage when it could be evaded because of the absence of corresponding legislation in other European countries.
Mr. B. Harrison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the fact that he is not to take precipitate action will be welcomed by those people who listen to and enjoy these programmes? Will he ensure that if any action is taken some form of continuous music programme will be available for those who want to listen to it?
Mr. Bevins: I realise as much as my hon. Friend what the demand is in certain parts of the country for continuous music of a certain kind. I have, of course, discussed this with the B.B.C. The question of an all-music service, whether it be wholly "pop" or not wholly "pop", raises questions which are not confined to East Anglia, and probably the most efficient way to transmit an all-music programme would be on the long-wave nationally.
I have already authorised extended hours for the B.B.C. Light Programme to enable the Corporation to provide more light music, but to do this it needs permission to broadcast more gramophone discs and so far it has not been successful in getting this permission. It is at a very early date taking this matter to the Performing Right Tribunal. This is an important matter and I shall certainly bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.
Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the Postmaster-General aware that he has not answered, as he said he would, Question No. 12, which asks specifically what representations he has had from the pressure groups which are now agitating for commercial radio? Is he aware that this greedy, money-grabbing lobby is exactly the same kind of lobby to which the Government succumbed in the case of commercial television? Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman himself promised legislation against pirate radio ships and that many people think that the reason why
936
the Government are now retreating from that position is that they hope to give that same lobby much richer pickings later on?
Mr. Bevins: No, Sir. What I and my hon. Friend said in the House was that the Government were considering the desirability of early legislation. We have come to the conclusion which I have stated. In reply to the hon. Member's particular point, I think that I have received just under 50 letters from people who wish to have commercial local sound broadcasting in this country, and fewer than half of those letters are from people interested in setting up stations.
I think that the hon. Gentleman and, for that matter, some of his hon. Friends are very unwise to take a doctrinal stand on this sort of subject. After all, some of the hon. Gentleman's predecessors took the very same line against commercial television and later had to eat their own words.
Mr. Boyden: Why does the right hon. Gentleman leave out of account the possibility that he can provide of the B.B.C. setting up four or five experimental local sound stations? There are certain areas where no interference would take place with other broadcasting and reception. Why does he not pay attention to this and let us have one or two, or four or five, local sound broadcasting stations with a very heavy local and educational content?
Mr. Bevins: The case for B.B.C. local sound broadcasting will be considered in the review which takes place towards the end of the year, but I should like to say to the hon. Gentleman and to the House generally that there are some very serious questions which must be resolved before we embark either on experiments or on a national service. I do not want to detain the House, but there are, for example, questions of programme standards, advertising controls and, perhaps most important of all, the influence of local sound broadcasting on newspapers, both national and provincial, and the participation of national and local newspapers in this possible medium. Until we have settled these questions, we should really be most unwise to rush into early decisions.
Mr. Ian Gilmour: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a poll was taken

937
among the people who can hear Radio Caroline as to whether they would approve Government action against pirate ships? Fourteen per cent. said that they would approve Government action and 74 per cent. said that they would not. Should not my right hon. Friend pay more attention to the opinion of the people affected than to the ideological prejudices of the party opposite?
Mr. Bevins: I do not know who took the poll, but I am not disposed to quarrel with my hon. Friend. The important thing that a poll of that sort illustrates is undoubtedly the fairly widespread demand, not only in East Anglia, but in other parts of the country, for more music on sound radio.
Mr. Callaghan: May I ask a question about safety of life at sea? Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information about how close to the frequencies of Trinity House pilotage service some of these stations are operating? Has he made any inquiry as to whether of the five frequencies on which Trinity House operates one of them is being interfered with or at least is very close to the band on which some of these stations are operating? Will he inquire how far this is affecting questions of safety of life, including communication between ship and shore and pilotage, before he comes to any conclusions along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Mr. Ian Gilmour)?
Mr. Bevins: As I think the hon. Member knows, in the main, the frequencies
938
used for radio communication with ships are, to put it very simply, at the end of the medium wave band, and at least two of the pirate ships are using frequencies which are comparatively close to the ships' frequencies.
At the same time, I think that it is only fair to say that, while there was a little interference with ships' radio communications—it was not serious—during the early days of the Caroline venture, there has not subsequently been any complaint of interference with ships at sea. But I entirely agree that the medium band, especially in this sector, is very congested. If there were any evidence that life at sea was being imperilled, the Government would not hesitate to review the position.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate this matter without a Question before the House.

PIRATE RADIO SHIPS AND LOCAL SOUND BROADCASTING

  NEW MEMBERS
  The following Members took and subscribed the Oath, or made the Affirmation required by law:

  Charles Andrew Morrison, esquire, for Devizes.

  Rear-Admiral Morgan Charles Morgan Giles, D.S.O., O.B.E., G.M., for Winchester.

  James Gregor Mackenzie, esquire, for Rutherglen.

  Eldon Wylie Griffiths, esquire, for Bury St. Edmunds.

FARM AND GARDEN CHEMICALS
4.20 p.m.
Mrs. Joyce Butler: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the labelling of farm and garden chemicals, and matters related thereto.
There is widespread public uneasiness about modern chemicals which are used on the land and their possible effects upon animal and human life and on the balance of nature. While recognising the benefits of modern science, we are all, experts and laymen alike, working in a field in which little is known about the long-term and chain reaction effects of what is being done. Happily, we have not yet reached in this country the situation set out in Silent Spring, the book by Rachel Carson, but I believe that largely we have been protected by the vigilance and the devoted work of the wild life and conservation and other interests which have pinpointed the danger signs as they have occurred and have enabled a limitation to be placed upon the use of certain chemicals.
The chemicals which are particularly suspect are the organo-chlorine pesticides and their danger lies in their persistence and in the residues which they leave behind. In 1963, of 333 bird bodies which were examined by the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 304 were found to contain these residues. Since then, the evidence has continued to come in. Only in the last few months there has been increasing evidence of residues in marine species. Residues have been found in sea birds such as shags and guillemots, which feed on fish, indicating an extensive contamination of the sea by these chemicals.
Research and study is continuing on this subject all the time. It is being increased as a result of the Government's statement in the House before the Recess and an evaluation is now being undertaken as far as is possible of what all this really means and the effect of it upon domestic animals and human beings. We may, however, rightly suspect that similar residues are in some degree beginning to affect our own health and well-being.
940
Public opinion has had its fears somewhat stilled by the ban on chlorinated hydrocarbon seed dressings, by the partial ban on aldrin and dieldrin, which comes into effect at the end of the year, and by the other proposed restrictions and by the Ministry's review of safety requirements for agricultural chemicals generally which is now being undertaken.
It was good news to see on television news only a few days ago that a rare pair of ospreys have managed to hatch out the eggs which, it had been feared, might be sterile as a result of chemical contamination. We would, however, be unwise to be lulled into a false sense of security because of any action which has been taken. We are using a vast sea of these chemicals on the land, on farms and on gardens every year, and we are all the time making fresh discoveries about the dangers of some of them.
For example, one organo-chlorine pesticide which is much used and has been so for almost 20 years—DDT, which is so widely used that it has become a household word—is suspect and is being specially studied for its effects. It is important, therefore, not to relax our vigilance and to provide means by which our 300,000 farmers, who are under pressure all the time from salesmen, and the 19 million gardeners, who have very little knowledge of the pesticides which they use, are given guidance on this subject. We have to recognise that most of them are not experts in this field and that when they use certain insecticides or pesticides, they do not know whether they could be harmful to species other than the insects which they destroy.
Even the horticultural advisers in the Press and on sound radio and television are not experts in this subject. The user has, therefore, to rely upon the small amount of information which is now provided on the labels of the chemicals he buys as to whether they might be harmful to domestic pets and what safety precautions should be taken. In some cases, some of the chemical contents of the bottle are mentioned on the label.
At a recent conference, the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Solly Zuckerman, said that we must not only

941
collate and pool our knowledge as to how far we have already contaminated the environment and the ultimate effect of that contamination, but that the information is of little value unless it is put in the right form, known in the right places and acted upon at the right time. One of the right places in which that information should be found is where the chemicals and the pesticides are used: that is to say, in the home, in the garden and on the farm. The right form in which the information should be given is that it should be clear and unambiguous and should indicate the nature of the substance which is used. To be acted upon at the right time it should be available on the container or on the label.
That being so, I ask the House to give me leave to bring in a Bill which would ensure that the active ingredients of all chemicals used in farms and gardens are clearly stated either on the label or on their container and which would ensure the placing of a simple mark upon the label, preferably a coloured marking, which could be seen at a glance and would indicate the degree of toxicity of the chemicals concerned.
I know that the Ministry is working on this subject, but what is being done will take a considerable time. In the meantime, the information which I have received from allotment associations and all kinds of other relevant sources shows that conscientious farmers, gardeners and manufacturers would welcome such a measure and the help that it would give in preventing further damage to birds and wild life and the building-
942
up of residues in food, soil and water and the possible danger to ourselves and to our children from these chlorinated hydrocarbons and other farm and garden chemicals.
The slap-happy user of these chemicals will always, unfortunately, be with us, giving overdoses to plants for quick effect, leaving half-used containers lying about or carelessly disposing of waste when the job is finished. The marking of containers would, however, reduce the harm that these people do and would help to protect those who are conscientious. So anyone handling a container of chemicals, from the retailer right through to the refuse disposer, should have a clear guide as to the danger, or possible danger, and be able to take the necessary precautions.
It is because I believe that the Bill would help, in the interim, while we are awaiting further Government action, to protect us from some of these dangers, that I ask the leave of the House to bring in the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Butler, Miss Quennell, Mr. William Yates, Mr. Lubbock, Mrs. Slater, and Mr. Hilton.

FARM AND GARDEN CHEMICALS
  FARM AND GARDEN CHEMICALS
  Bill to make provision for the labelling of farm and garden chemicals, and matters related thereto, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 19th June, and to be printed [Bill 142].
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  WAYS AND MEANS [12th May]
  Resolution reported,
  WAYS AND MEANS [12th May]

    INCOME TAX (CASE VIII OF SCHEDULE D)
    That it is expedient to authorise charges to Income tax arising from amendments of Chapter II of Part II of the Finance Act 1963 (taxation of rents, etc.) relating to payments made or deemed to be made for any period in which a sale of the property, or some other transaction or event, takes place.
    Resolution read a Second time.
    Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions), and agreed to.
    Instruction to the Committee on the Finance Bill that they have power to make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution.

  FINANCE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]
  4.33 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I beg to move,
  That the Bill be considered in the following order: Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedule 2, Clause 3, Schedules 3 and 4, Clause 4, Schedule 5, Clauses 5 and 6, Schedule 6, Clauses 7 to 18, Schedule 7, Clauses 19 to 22, Schedule 8, Clauses 23 and 24, new Clauses, Schedule 9, new Schedules.
  This Motion has been the normal procedure now for several years. It enables us to take the relevant Schedules along with the Clauses to which they refer.
  Mr. James Callaghan: It is, of course, a convenience to attach to the Clauses the Schedules which apply to them. I remember the days, some years ago, when we used to return to the Schedules after we had discussed the Clauses, and one of the reasons for departing from that old practice was not only that the new course gave rise to a more coherent discussion, but also that there was a tendency, on reaching the Schedules, to forget what
  944
  we had talked about on the Clauses, and to start all over again.
  That excuse is less necessary this year than it has been before. We have on this occasion a highly truncated Finance Bill. There are only 24 Clauses. Some of them will not tax our memories to any great extent, and some of them will be disposed of very quickly. I cannot imagine any undue excitement over the Government's stock entered in the Dublin register or much cheering or booing over the exemption of service contracts for Stamp Duty, and I do not suppose that the Amendments to the Sugar Act will cause much excitement, either.
  Altogether, I think that there is less reason for this Motion on this occasion, for we have this time a Finance Bill which is less than half the normal length. Obviously, from its length, it was designed for a June election, which did not come about. I have no doubt that the Chancellor wishes that it had. This is a dull Bill; it is a tedious Bill; it is unenterprising; it is unimaginative, and it is unexciting. I doubt whether it will detain the Committee overlong. I think that what the Chancellor has proposed may shorten even further the length of our discussion and, considering that the Bill is nasty, brutish, and short, we shall not oppose the Motion.
  Question put and agreed to

  FINANCE BILL

    Clause 1.—(SPIRITS.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Callaghan: I hope this is not to be a solo.
    Mr. Maudling: It is up to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Callaghan: I looked around, but I did not notice any great desire on the part of anybody else to discuss this Clause, yet I think that perhaps a word or two might be said—if I may continue what I was saying before, though putting it in a different key.
    I noticed that the Prime Minister yesterday, discussing taxation, which is the purpose of this Clause, said that the Socialists will bring in higher taxation. Well, it was Aneurin Bevan who said, "Why peer into a crystal when you can

    945
    read the book?" It may not be a bad idea to remind the Committee, if this is to be the burden of the Prime Minister's song, that in this Clause we are raising this taxation not for the first time, but for the second time during the course of the present Parliament. The plain truth is that the duty on spirits is higher today than it has ever been in the whole history of these duties. It is a record which I am sure the Government will be proud to publicise among their records—that they have raised the taxation on spirits to the highest level ever.
    I thought that it would be worth while to look up the figures. When this Parliament began its life in 1959 the duty on spirits was £10 10s. 10d. per proof gallon. Under the Bill it is now proposed that it should be put up to £12 17s. 6d. Excise duty, or £13 Customs duty. More is being drunk despite
    this discouragement by the Chancellor. The combination of this considerably higher duty, an increase, as I say, from £10 10s. 10d. per proof gallon to £12 17s. 6d., means that in the lifetime of this Parliament the Government have raised the tax on spirits—whisky, brandy, gin, vodka, and the like—from £145 million to £226 million.
    The Socialists may be going to raise taxation in the future—I do not think that that is true, and certainly the Prime Minister has no occasion for saying it—but at least we can say that the Government have raised taxation to record levels in this field. During the last three years the price of a bottle of whisky has gone up by about 5s. 6d. Either the nip has got smaller or the price has got higher, or there has been a combination of both. That really began from 1961 and the pay pause and although I know that the Government are acting purely in the knowledge that there is nobody left who wants to drink their health, they are now making it more expensive for us to drown our sorrows.
    I suppose that this is what we must expect from the Government, but I am sure that those who attend the Derby tomorrow and lose their shirts in the process will not throw many hats in the air and cheer the Government when they take a nip of whisky or brandy afterwards, and find that it will cost them a little moue, thanks to what we are doing today.
    946
    I do not want to put it too highly, but I think it worth while for the Chancellor to think about this, that this extremely high level of duty is having an effect on making other stimulants more accessible and cheaper. We have had a lot of discussion recently about drugs. I was interested to see that Professor Capps, a professor of forensic medicine, said that as many people take drugs in this country today as drink. I do not know what he includes among the drugs. Some, I have no doubt, are very benevolent drugs. It is an astonishing thing that while a bottle of whisky costs 45s. one can buy "purple hearts" in the black market for 6d. a time.
    I raise this point in a serious way. There is undoubtedly some tendency to get one's stimulant in the cheapest market that one can find, and it is a social point which the Government ought to take into account in these matters. If we are in a position where people can get the same effect from half-a-dozen "purple hearts" at one-tenth the price as from half a bottle of whisky there is a question I ere for consideration. Those members of temperance organisations—and I speak as one whose trembling hand, at the age of 5, signed the pledge in the Band of Hope—and those who have been directing their attention against alcohol might ask themselves whether we have now reached a situation in which they might transfer their activities.
    This is all against a background of a record high-level of taxes on spirits, beer and tobacco. I make these observations because I think that there is here a social point which is worth considering. Although we cannot deny the Chancellor his revenue, because he says that he needs it and we cannot say that he does not and we must, therefore, give him the Clause, we had better understand that under a Conservative Government the revenue from duty on spirits and the rate charged on spirits are higher than they have ever been in the history of our civilised community.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster-General (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I do not know whether I should thank the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) for preventing my receiving a pair of white gloves in debate on this Clause. I

    947
    assume that his intervention was intended to express his gratitude to us for helping to reinforce his intention to keep his pledge made at the age of 5.
    When we come to a later Clause I shall be able to correct what the hon. Member said about beer, but it is perfectly true that the duty on spirits is higher than ever before. On the other hand, it is necessary to put this into perspective. In comparison with 1951 the duty will be 22 per cent. higher, but industrial earnings are 99 per cent. higher. We must consider the burden of an admittedly heavy tax on the community against the background of the changed means of that community to bear that tax.
    This is particularly relevant to the suggestion, which I do not think the hon. Member intended very seriously, that the effect of the tax was to drive people to consume "purple hearts". In truth, the tax, though great, is one which the great mass of our population can more easily bear than was the case 12 years ago, because their earnings have risen far more in proportion than the tax has increased.
    I was amused to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he did not think that a Socialist Government, if we were to suffer that misfortune, would raise taxation. It is extremely interesting to note that. It casts an interesting light on pledges of increased expenditure given not in the House of Commons, but on television.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule 1 agreed to.

    Clause 2.—(BEER.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    4.45 p.m.
    Mr. Callaghan: I offer myself again. In view of what has been said, I might follow up on this Clause the remarks made earlier. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is, of course, quite right. The Beer Duty is not at a record level. That distinction belonged to the last and not the present Conservative Government, but it is at its highest level since this Parliament began its
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    life. According to the Report of the Customs and Excise the duty on beer was £5 11s. 9½d. per barrel. Now, under the Bill, it will become £7 7s. per barrel. The revenue, again taking the two comparative years, was £218 million when we started this Parliament and it is estimated that it will be £291 million for 1964–65.
    Again, therefore, I say that this is the highest rate of duty in the lifetime of this Parliament. The Government have twice managed to raise the duty on beer since 1959–60. It is true that they lowered it in 1958 and 1959 for the purpose of helping them to win the General Election. Presumably they are now raising it for the same purpose.
    It should be taken into account that the increased tax enters into the retail price index. I have constantly made the point about various actions of the Government in this connection. By their own acts they make their own incomes policy more difficult. The cost of wine, beer, and spirits enters into the retail price index. I have looked up the weightings, which are constructed on the basis of 1,000 points. Food is highest at 314 points, but beer is by no means low. In the alcohol content of the index it comes out at 63 points. It is nearly as high as fuel and light, surprisingly enough, and they are placed at 66 points. It is higher than household goods, at 62 points, and it is higher than the miscellaneous group of services, on which I thought people were spending more money, at 56 points.
    The Chancellor, therefore, by means of this Clause, is helping to raise the cost of living. Every pint of beer drunk in clubs and "pubs" will affect the cost of living. Only yesterday Mr. Frank Cousins pointed out in a speech the difficulty which he and his executive will find, because of the increased cost of living, in moderating wage claims. Here the Government, as they have done with rents and general interest rates, are operating against them. The Government's left hand does not know what its right hand is doing.
    The Government will make life more difficult for themselves during the summer. The increased Beer Duty will be reflected in due course in the retail price index. It is true that 2 million or 3 million workers have their wages automatically adjusted up or down according

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    to the state of the index. In my young days it always operated downwards. There was a period of four successive years when the increment of £5 which I received was obliterated by the fall in the cost-of-living index. The Government, by this and similar actions, are helping to precipitate a rise in wages and earnings over the next few months.
    There is another point in this connection which I made in the Budget debate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that he must have his revenue. I take the Chief Secretary's point that we cannot deny it to him in these circumstances and that this may be one of the least offensive ways of raising it, but this affects quite sharply a comparatively small group of elderly people, the old men and women who like a pint of beer. We all know the kind of man who comes into the club. He is the first one there in the evening and he sits over a pint for an hour. He then has two or three more pints and makes them last for four or five hours while he sits there talking. This duty affects him adversely.
    This is a point which has been put to me more than once. I very much regret that the Chancellor has done nothing to offset in some way or another—I cannot, on this Clause, suggest how he can do it—this hardship, which affects a relatively small group, but, nevertheless, a group who can least afford any increase of this sort. I regret that the Chancellor is asking the Committee to agree to raise this duty in this way, at this time.
    When the Government are proclaiming their record and saying, "Why trust the Socialists? You can be quite sure you ought to vote Conservative", they ought to state, "Once again, we are getting more revenue and a higher rate of duty than we have had, and in the lifetime of this Parliament we have managed to put the Beer Duty up twice during the last four years."
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said, the effect of this Clause will be that the Beer Duty will have been put up twice in the last few years, but it is material to point out that the effect of so doing will be to put it at the identical level at which hon.
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    Members opposite left it in 1951–8½d. on the pint.
    The Committee will appreciate that, although nobody underrates the dislike that many people feel at any extra imposition in this direction, all sections of the community are in a very much better position to pay this rate of duty today than they were in 1951. It represents a very much smaller proportion either of earnings or of social benefits. I mentioned on the last Clause the fact that since 1951 industrial earnings had risen by 99 per cent. Therefore, this burden, obviously represents for those in industry a great deal less than precisely the same rate of duty represented in 1951.
    Mr. R. J. Mellish: That is not the whole argument. Since 1951, apart from the increased tax which the present Government imposed, the price of beer has been increased by the brewers themselves. If we are to argue about the price of beer in 1951 and what it is today, we might get a more realistic figure. Even in London, only yesterday, it was announced that the price of beer is going up even further to make more profit for the brewers.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is a perfectly reasonable point, but it does not bear on the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, to which I was replying, which was the effect of these duties on the citizen, for which, of course, the Government and this Committee are directly responsible. The fact remains that set against the far higher money incomes and substantially higher real incomes of today, this rate of duty—the same as that of 1951—must represent a very much smaller burden on the citizen than it did.
    The hon. Gentleman referred to the example with which perhaps the Committee has most sympathy of all—the old gentleman who likes his pint of beer. But if one is to get the matter in proportion the fact remains, as the Committee knows, that the general level of the National Insurance retirement pension is now in money terms 125 per cent. more than what it was in 1951, when we had the same rate of duty.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: And what is the price of beef?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Therefore, for

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    them this duty represents a much smaller proportion of their income than when it was thought right to impose it in 1951. I hope that the Committee will get this into proportion.
    The hon. Gentleman also referred to the fact that as beer appears in the retail price index the effect of increasing the duty is to affect the index. That is perfectly true, but I think, again, that we must get it into proportion. The effect of increasing the beer duty is one-fifth of a point—a variation which quite a minor fluctuation in the price of vegetables can produce. It is a valid point, but I think that it is a mistake to exaggerate it. The hon. Gentleman has accepted that it is necessary in the circumstances of this year to obtain some increased revenue, and I suggest to the Committee that this is not an unreasonable way of obtaining, as this Clause will obtain for us, £25½ million this year and £29 million in a full year.
    Mr. Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman really does not know what is going on outside. He has said that this tiny little tax makes not the slightest difference. To the vast majority of the people of whom my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East, (Mr. Callaghan) was talking, it is a tremendous hardship. To the dock worker who is in work it of course makes very little difference. He can absorb the extra tax; it may be only a fraction of some overtime he has earned. But in a constituency such as I represent, where one in every five is an old-age pensioner, every one of whom to the best of my knowledge is in receipt of the National Assistance, the main pleasure of the men, is to have a smoke and a drink. As for the old ladies, certainly most of the pleasure they can get is in visiting the local "pub" of an evening.
    When the right hon. Gentleman talks about this being an infinitesimal tax and says what nonsense it is to suggest that this is creating a difficulty, I assure him that in areas where I come from they say, "Why is it that when a Government are in power for as long as this one has been and impose new taxes they always seem to be put on those who can least afford them? "To impose this as a form of indirect taxation is grossly unfair. Some of the dock workers going into a local
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    public house may not even know that the price of beer has gone up, but the vast majority of old people certainly would and on them it would be a hardship. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept that the arguments put up by my hon. Friend are quite realistic and not to be scorned at.
    Mr. A. Lewis: I support my hon. Friend's argument, which is a statement of fact. I interjected while the Minister was speaking when he made reference to the fact that pensions had gone up by 121 per cent. since 1951.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: One hundred and twenty-five per cent.
    Mr. Lewis: Whatever the figure, it is immaterial. My interjection was: what about the price of beef? Some hon. Members opposite sniggered at that, but my object was to make the point that old-age pensioners, whether the pension has gone up by 125 per cent. or not, have long since lost the opportunity of ever affording beef, not only because of this last doubling and trebling of the price. They know that everything they touch is increasing in price, directly attributable to the actions of the Government.
    The Minister made an attack upon my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) on what the next Labour Government were going to do about taxation. I would remind him that this Government in the last election and in each election since 1951 said that they were going to reduce taxation, make the £ worth something, and reduce the cost of food. It is true that old-age pensioners in my constituency and in most of the industrial constituencies are in the position that possibly the only pleasure they get out of life is their pint of beer and packet of cigarettes. The Government have consistently increased direct and indirect taxation and what I would term the type of taxation that the old age pensioners cannot avoid as in fact others do. I am referring to the way in which rents have been doubled, trebled and quadrupled. I am referring to the way in which the Government have brought about the increase in rates. In fact, every action of the Government—. There is no need for the right hon. Gentleman to look at you, Sir Samuel. I am only mentioning these things in passing. The fact is that this is another

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    example of the Government not attempting to keep taxation down but deliberately increasing it. I hope that, when the election comes, it will be remembered that this Government have gone out of their way to increase taxation, and to increase it particularly against those least able to afford it.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I shall not attempt to emulate the adroitness of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis) in opening up general questions of taxation policy, but perhaps I should say a word or two in reply to the two hon. Members who have addressed the Committee since I did.
    First, in reply to his reference to pensioners, I ask the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) to reflect on what I said in my earlier remarks in response to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) on the point that a beer duty at the same rate as it was in 1951 must represent less of a burden to someone on the pension today than it represented then. It must represent a considerably smaller burden. It is certainly not to suggest that it is trivial or unimportant—nothing of the sort—to point out that it is a smaller burden, and I think that this is an argument to which the Committee might feel disposed to give some weight.
    The hon. Member for Bermondsey went rather far in describing generally the increased duties on tobacco and alcohol as being imposed on those least able to afford them. However much we may argue on this Clause about who is the consumer of beer, it is surely a sound general proposition that taxes on alcohol and tobacco are pretty fairly borne throughout the population. They are not the kind of tax upon basic necessities of life against which the sort of charge which the hon. Gentleman made could, perhaps, properly be levied.
    As I say, I shall not enter upon the general issues of taxation which the hon. Member for West Ham, North raised. I say only that faced, as my right hon. Friend was, with the necessity, which, on the whole, the Committee accepts, of obtaining a moderate increase in revenue this year, it seems right that alcohol and tobacco should be the commodities to bear the increase. The position of those
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    who like their pint of beer and would feel a deprivation if they lost it is one which most hon. Members, at least, fully understand and sympathise with, but, as I said before, one must keep this in proportion. It is a proportionately smaller burden in this direction than was previously thought right to put upon people, and, all things being considered, I put it to the Committee that this is a reasonable and sensible imposition.
    Mr. Callaghan: I would not have risen again except that I take exception to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about putting this increase in proportion and about everyone paying very much less than he did in 1951. This is absolute rubbish. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has referred to his own tables. I referred to mine as he was speaking. According to the Report of Customs and Excise, the duty for all years up to 1958–59 was 155s. 4½d. on a barrel of 36 gallons. There was then a very substantial reduction for the period of the General Election. It was introduced in April, 1959, and the duty on beer went down substantially to 111s. 9½d. The Chancellor has now by instalments put it back to 147s. per barrel of 36 gallons. Although the right hon. Gentleman talks about a substantial saving, in fact, the saving amounts to 8s. on 36 gallons. That is the substantial saving, and he has steadily climbed back to the present figure which he suggests was wrong all the way up to 1958–59. This is putting the matter in proportion, I suggest. It is not a substantial saving at all; it is only 8s. on 36 gallons.
    As my hon. Friends have pointed out, when one takes into account the other burdens put upon the pensioner, it means that there is a further small burden put on the shoulders of those who can least afford it. Living in an affluent society as we are, if the Chancellor thought it right, for whatever reasons, to put the duty down substantially by about 40s. early in 1959, it is not a very good defence now to tell us that he has put it back to just under what it was in 1958–59 and no one need worry very much.
    I agree that it is small in relation to the total amount and it is small in relation to what a man at work and earning good wages might spend. On the other hand, it is a significant figure,

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    as my correspondence shows and as the right hon. Gentleman's correspondence must show, among old people, and I think it right that a voice should be raised on their behalf in this Committee today.
    Mr. John Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman compels me to say a word because he has made two statements which are not quite correct. The first was that the tax on beer and spirits is more easily borne today than it was years ago due to higher wages. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, this is not strictly correct. They cited examples to show that the tax is not, in fact, more easily borne.
    The right hon. Gentleman said also that the tax on beer, dealing with that particularly, was pretty fairly borne. I dispute this. I doubt that the tax is more fairly borne. Its incidence is unjust because the amount of tax which is paid in different parts of
    the United Kingdom is not necessarily the same because of the different methods of dealing out the commodity. In the case of spirits particularly, measures are used which have no statutory endorsement whatever, and they vary according to the whim of the retailer. In language which is not uncommon, one of the results of asking for a measure of spirits is simply to get a "dirty" glass. I believe that one distinguished person who used that expression is now a member of the Government in another place, and, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to follow the point a little further, he will find out who that noble Lord is.
    The tax is not fairly borne. I remind the right hon. Gentleman of a practice which is very common in Scotland but not, I think, so common in England. In Scotland, the glass of whisky is always accompanied by a chaser.
    Mr. Mellish: We cannot afford the whisky anyway.
    Mr. Rankin: I do not mind my hon. Friend interrupting me, but I think he may take it that I am not wrong in what I say about Scotland. I said that this example might well not apply in England.
    In Scotland there is the feeling that before one has a glass of beer one wants
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    something to go down in front of it. So the phrase "a glass and a chaser" has become accepted parlance in certain parts of Scotland. That means that the tax is not just the penny on the beer but also the penny on the whisky. So it becomes a double tax.
    The Temporary Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): The Clause deals only with beer and not whisky. This is the "chaser" to which the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. Rankin: I realise that, Sir Samuel, but owing to an engagement which detained me a little longer than I expected, I missed the opportunity of joining with the Chancellor on the first Clause, and now I am trying to link the two. I always felt that in debate it was useful to establish a link between the past and the present. Whatever I may do to try to avoid your Ruling, Sir Samuel, there is nothing I can do to separate the "glass" from the "chaser"; that will still continue because the two are linked. As a result of this link, the Chancellor is doing double the damage to my Govan constituents who like a drink. This is another reason for taxing what I refer to as "the sins of the community" because then the Government know that a great many good people will support them in saying that we do not want others to drink or smoke or do things which they regard as not being very good.
    The right hon. Gentleman should realise that he is doing a little more harm than he realises and that in some cases he will be doubling the tax—unless he tells Scotland that it has to stop this ancient practice of having "a glass and a chaser", and if he does that he will be in terrible trouble when October comes along.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I will not attempt to join the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) in the "chaser". I will stick to the beer, which is probably wise advice in general terms but is also what the Clause provides for. As to what he said about "the dirty glass", I recall the observation in another place with some interest. But that is plainly relevant only to the question of the duty on spirits, and I am sure that the hon. Member would not argue that it had anything to do with beer, unless the public houses in his constituency are very unusual ones indeed.

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    I am afraid that I must bring the Committee back to beer. I do not want to detain the Committee into licensed hours on the subject but I must make a further reference to what was said by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). The hon. Gentleman missed the point. He does not often do so, but he did on this occasion. I was not talking about savings at all. All I was saying—I must leave the hon. Member with this thought—was that the rate of Beer Duty as it now is in the Budget is the same as was thought right in 1951, although the resources of all sections of the community obviously make this rate of duty much less significant and much less burdensome now than it was then.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule 2 agreed to.

    Clause 3.—(WINE AND BRITISH WINE.)
    5.15 p.m.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 4, line 6, at the end to insert:
    Provided that the last-mentioned rates of excise duty shall not be charged on British wine berg such intoxicating liquor as is mentioned in subsection (1) of section 2 of the Finance Act 1956 (excise duty on strengthened cider and perry) and that the rates of excise duty set out in Schedule 3 to the Finance Act 1962 shall accordingly continue to be charged on such British wine.
    The Temporary Chairman: It will be convenient to discuss at the same time Amendment No. 2, in line 22, at beginning, insert:
    "Subject to the proviso to subsection (1) or this section";
    Amendment No. 41, in Schedule 3, page 27, line 9, at end insert:
    "not applicable to such intoxicating liquor as is mentioned in section 2 (excise duty on strengthened cider and perry) of the Finance Act 1956";
    new Clause No. 17—(Excise duty on British light wines)—
    and Amendment No. 30, new Schedule—(British Light Wines (Rates of Excise Duty)).
    Mr. Mitchison: The Amendment which I move is designed to insert a proviso the effect of which would be to save from the proposed increase what is
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    called in a side note the 1956 Act "Strengthened cider and perry", and this means liquor in the nature of cider or perry over 15 per cent. spirit content and so described.
    The present rate of duty on British wine is 11s. 6d. The Bill proposes to increase it by 2s. to 13s. 6d. The question is whether that increase ought to be extended to the beverages which I have mentioned. The difference between the tax on light wines and that on heavy wines is a question of alcohol content. This, too, is a question of alcohol content. From that point of view it seems reasonable that there should be some distinction between the 15–25 per cent. range and the higher range covered by British wines and the still higher range covered by British heavy wines.
    There is a further reason for this. This is British wine in a sense that no other British wine is. It is grown in England. The apples come from our apple-growing counties. They are the product of a pretty considerable acreage. Cider is a drink that has been in this country for centuries. Strengthened cider may be more recent—I do not knew whether it is or not—but it is still substantially cider. It is a simple sort of drink. It is good; indeed, it is excellent. It is made not entirely of apples but mainly of apples.
    The effect of letting in this increase with regard to strengthened cider will be to put on something which is considerably heavier in the case of a fairly cheap beverage, a relatively cheap beverage, than it is in the case of most wines. Therefore, on the ground that the alcohol content is lighter, on the ground also that the beverage itself is rather different in character from the still wine which we are generally considering, and on a third ground which I shall now proceed to put, I hope that the Government will be able to see their way to make this small exception to the increase.
    The third ground is the smallness of the exception. When strengthened cider was brought into the duty on British wine in 1956—it was then called "a sweet"—figures were given by the Treasury indicating the extremely small quantity of the total of cider that it represented. It was surely a reason for not differentiating it from other cider rather than for imposing a duty on it.

    959
    At any rate, the Government insisted on bringing it in.
    The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine), who has his name to one of the Amendments that we are discussing, at that time introduced an Amendment to protect cider made from British apples—fortified or strengthened cider in this case. Looking back at that short debate, I think that the hon. Member had a very strong case, but he spoilt it a little by going into the Lobby afterwards as a dutiful follower of the Government and voting against his own Amendment.
    I hope that we shall not see that situation repeated today and that we shall have his support, even if, as is the case, his Amendment goes a little further than we would go. He proposes to reduce the present rate of tax on strengthened cider, whereas we would merely keep it at its present level. We offer a reasonable compromise to him between his constituency views and our views, and he might perhaps be willing to support that compromise if and when the question comes to a Division. However, I hope that we shall not divide. This is quite a small matter. It is obviously fair that there should be a rather lower duty on this beverage than on imported wine and that this is a convenient occasion for making a small concession which would be welcomed by those who grow apples for cider all over the southern counties of England.
    There is little more to be said about this. However, as we have been referring to the history of these duties, it is interesting to note that the duty on wine, British and other, has been reduced only once in its history. This was by Sir Stafford Cripps when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope in these circumstances that the Government, without going quite so far as that, will at least refrain from increasing the duty further in this case. The Tory achievement in this matter appears so far to have been confined to a reduction, introduced when Lord Amory was Chancellor, only in respect of sparkling wine and port. Now the Government have an opportunity to reconsider their proposed increase in respect of a humbler beverage, and to do so in the interest of many growers.
    Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: After eight years of using more or less the same words as those just used by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), I have the privilege of finding allies on the Opposition Front Bench, which does not often happen. However, I am delighted to accept support from wherever it comes. The only thing I would add concerns differences between Schedule 3 and Schedule 4. On page 26 in Schedule 3 there is a division between "light wine" and "other wine", whereas in Schedule 4 there is only one category.
    I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that certain differences are alleged to exist between foreign wine, Commonwealth wine and even British wine. He must also know that British wine at least comes out in varying strengths. Perhaps he will tell me why the reference to British wine in Schedule 4 suggests that there is no difference between light and other wine.
    I have a constituency interest to declare in this matter. One result of the 1956 Act was that the company producing fortified cider was so heavily affected that it turned to producing wines from British fruit, and these wines are competing with light table wines from abroad. In these circumstances, it seems equitable that Schedule 4 should make a distinction between light wine and other wine. It would be reasonable for my right hon. Friend to accept the point that there is a difference between alcoholic strength, even if in the past there was perhaps no light British wine.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Amendment seeks in substance to reverse the decision this Committee reached in 1956. Hon. Members may recall that the basis of that decision was that a particular kind of fortified cider and perry was then coming into sale, deliberately fortified by the addition of sugar to produce fermentation and very substantially stronger than the ordinary cider brewed—if that is the word—in the normal and traditional way.
    After some discussion, it was felt by the Committee then that it was unfair to the British wine industry that this product should be at a lower rate—indeed, I think I am right in saying that it carried

    961
    no duty at all then—compared with other British wines paying a substantial excise duty. It was also felt, from the Revenue point of view, that to allow the British wine industry to be exposed to competition on this basis would undermine the return to the Excise of the duty on British wines and, therefore, that the right thing to do was to place the two duties on the same basis.
    That position remains, except that ordinary cider and ordinary perry are now subject to Purchase Tax in the soft drinks category. But the idea behind the 1956 decision is still right. I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) perhaps exaggerated the scope of his proposal. He said that the Amendment
    would be welcomed by the cider apple growers of the southern counties. I think he exaggerated because, of course, ordinary cider is not touched by this duty or by the increase provided under this Bill. It is and remains under the Purchase Tax as a soft drink.
    Indeed, even in 1956, when this strengthened beverage was being introduced, it represented only 3 per cent. of the cider and perry output of the country. Therefore, very few cider apple growers would receive any benefit whatever from this Amendment, which would not touch the ordinary production of apples for cider. It would, indeed, affect what must be now considerably less than 3 per cent. of the production.
    That being so, I think we must take another look at the merits of the matter. What we are concerned with, as I have reminded the Committee, is a beverage founded on apples but fortified with sugar so as to induce higher fermentation and thus a beverage comparable with wine. It is not only I who make that comparison. The principal manufacturer in this country is marketing one of his brands of this product "Apple wine"—perfectly fairly I think. But surely that in itself suggests that, if it is to be marketed as wine in competition with wine also produced in this country, it should, as a matter of ordinary fiscal good sense and fairness, bear the same rate of duty. I cannot, therefore, recommend the Committee to accept the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Kettering.
    962
    5.30 p.m.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) asked me why British wine was subject to the same rate of duty regardless of strength. He is, of course, quite right in pointing out that we treat imported wine in two different categories, whether it is heavy, above a certain specific gravity or below it. There is also a further complication in respect of duty in that we treat sparkling wines differently.
    The Committee discussed this point a number of years ago—I am sorry that I cannot recall in which year—and there was then, according to my recollection, very considerable argument because the standard British wines were, in fact, of a strength very close to the point of division, and very real practical difficulty was being encountered in classifying them in one category or another. It was therefore thought right to put them all into one category regardless of strength.
    I think that that was a right decision and that, on the whole, it was received satisfactorily by the public and the
    trade. So we really come back to the question as to whether in these circumstances we should now reverse the decision of 1956 and in respect of a very small proportion of the cider output of this country and in respect of a beverage deliberately fortified in order to strengthen it in respect of a beverage, the principal makers of which advertise it as apple wine, we should introduce a discriminatory and lower rate of duty. I could not advise the Committee to do that, because, as I was saying a moment or two ago, if we discriminate in that respect we are unfair to the producer against whom we discriminate and from the revenue point of view we undermine the receipts of duty. At the moment when, as the Committee knows, we are seeking to increase the revenue, that is a consideration which must be of some importance to us.
    Mr. Mitchison: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. If he is going to develop that argument, perhaps he would let us know what the concession would cost.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The net cost would be very small indeed, but I am not resisting it on grounds of immediate loss to the revenue, even though, of

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    course, if, as we fear, the effect were to undermine the receipts from the British wine industry the figure could become substantial. It is not, as I say, a point of the direct revenue which is at issue. The amount involved would be small, but it could, of course, become large. I put the matter to the Committee more on the basis of fairness between the industries, that these are comparable products. They are marketed as comparable and competitive products and I should have thought it reasonable in these circumstances that they should pay the same rate of duty.
    Mr. Mitchison: I only wish to say that if we are going to compare fortified cider with anything, the reasonable thing to compare it with is unfortified cider. That is what was done for a very long time indeed up to 1956. We are not asking the Committee to reverse the decision of 1956. We are not saying that there ought to be no duty on fortified cider but are simply asking that the Government should maintain the decision of 1956 which was to charge a certain duty on fortified cider. This is the whole point. I must say that I find it unconvincing to be told that we are going to undermine the duty on something else.
    This is one of the Chief Secretary's undermining days. He has been undermining matters or finding them undermined all over the place. I do not see how we are going to undermine duty on British wines to a greater extent than our loss of duty by the change here proposed, and the direct loss of duty, as the right hon. Gentleman is pleased to admit, would be so small that he cannot calculate it or even see it. In these circumstances, I think that the least that the Government could have done would have been for once to extend a proper and friendly gesture to the people engaged in this trade, whether as growers or manufacturers, and let them have this very small concession. But the Government are not going to do that. It hardly seems to be a matter on which it is worth dividing the Committee. There is no deep question of principle involved. It is just another case of Government stinginess.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. and learned Gentleman has put the matter
    964
    in his usual agreeable way and I respond, I hope, with similar agreeableness. It is, of course, a little ingenuous of the hon. and learned Member to say that we are not departing from the 1956 position to maintain the present rate of duty on fortified cider when we are increasing it on British wines. The essence of the 1956 decision, of course, was that these commodities should bear the same rate of duty. The purpose of the Amendment is to separate them.
    On the other point, I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is really as disingenuous as he seems. To allow a competing commodity to pay a lower rate of tax than another commodity would mean a shift of consumption from the one at the higher duty to the one at the lower duty and we should lose the revenue at the higher rate on the more heavily taxed commodity. I do not think that that is too difficult a proposition for the hon. and learned Gentleman even at five and twenty to six in the evening.
    Amendment negatived.
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Mitchison: There is less in a way to be said about the social effects of increasing the duty on wine than there is as regards the other commodities which we have been discussing, but I rather regret this increase. The consumption of wine, at any rate as far as I am concerned, is a pleasing and relatively harmless occupation, and I cannot really see the call for this increase at the moment.
    As I pointed out in connection with the Amendment, the Tory Government record is that at about the same time as they were remitting a large amount of Surtax they also remitted the duty on wine, but only on champagne and port. Let us never forget the over-ripe pheasant and the old port in which, I think, one of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues was found to be pleasantly and playfully indulging. He may be able to afford the increase, but a great deal of this wine is sold nowadays in small "pubs", off-licences and so on, and though I appreciate the broad reasons for the increase I am not at all sure

    965
    that I agree with them. I therefore dislike the Clause.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Schedule 3.—(WINE (RATES OF CUSTOMS DUTIES).)
    Dr. Reginald Bennett: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 26, columns 2 and 3, to leave out lines 30 to 38, and to insert:

    "£

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    14

    0

    12

    0

    16

    6

    13

    6

    1

    6

    6

    1

    4

    6

    1

    7

    6

    17

    6

    1

    10

    0

    19

    0

    2

    1

    6

    1

    11

    6".

    I think that this Amendment is bound to meet with the sympathy of most of those in the Chamber at the moment. That sympathy has already been very generously expressed from the Front Bench opposite. I am also in no doubt that it is sympathised with or supported by many hon. Members who are not present to debate it today.
    Perhaps I should start by declaring an interest, as I happen to be a member of the committee of the Co-operative Wine Society. Many hon. Members, on both sides of the Committee, are among the society's 30,000 members.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: There are many who are not.
    Dr. Bennett: I wish that they would give the society the support which it is their duty to give.
    The wine co-operative is one which we know to be great. It has its 90th anniversary on 4th August, this year, an anniversary a good deal more felicitous than the anniversary of 40 years later.
    I was not surprised when certain duties were increased in this Budget. Without applauding in any way, I am bound to admit that I felt that it was most probable that there would be an increase in the duty on spirits. The trade was very buoyant and it seemed likely that the duty would be put up. But I was surprised and pained that the duty on wine was increased. I thought that if my right hon. Friend wanted to increase income from various commodities,
    966
    table wines at least and possibly fortified wines would not bring him much. Their trade seemed scarcely sufficiently buoyant to justify a further imposition.
    As we know, in 1949 Sir Stafford Cripps reduced what was a swingeing tax on table wines to a more reasonable level of 13s. a gallon, approximately half what it had been. But now we have the second of two what might be called insidious increases by which the duty has been raised to 15s. 6d. per gallon. My Amendment seeks to reduce it to the previous level of 14s. a gallon.
    This slight increasing of the duty on table wines seems to be becoming something of a habit in recent years. I enter a protest and seek to have the duty reduced. I am obliged to the Top People's newspaper this morning for having given attention to this plea and for the almost medical solicitude which it showed for the people of this country in their consumption of table wines.
    However, there are other beverages and fluids which are equally mild and not particularly strong and which could at least be classified with table wines as deserving of taxation, if table wines are so deserving. Professor Camps, Professor of Forensic Medicine at London University, said recently at a seminar for magistrates at Keele University that today as many people were taking drugs as were taking drink. Indeed, I am surprised that the wine trade does not counterattack, as Sir Alan Herbert, a former hon. Member of this House, has started to do. We need not think only in terms of "purple hearts", but of certain milder but almost universal addictions, from the old chewing of coca leaf in South America to the indulging in possibly mild administrations of cocaine and caffeine, not so much as the product of a leaf which is regularly chewed, but as infusions of such leaves.
    These caffeine and cocaine derivatives are direct cerebral stimulants, not mildly gentle depressants like wine. Having a directly exciting effect, they are far more likely to contribute to the maniacal driving of which so many people complain than are the wines which are so widely blamed.
    There is also the Cola group, which is very powerful and habit-forming. Only shortly before this Committee met this afternoon I was told of one woman who

    967
    was a great indulger in these Cola drinks which she used to suck through a straw, directing the stream from the drink on the same tooth all the time, until it all but disappeared. When there are these other possibly dangerous compounds it is a pity that my right hon. Friend should "take the Mickey" out of wine.
    5.45 p.m.
    I have been able to discover these figures for the wine trade: in the middle 1920s, the total of imported wines ran at about 18,500,000 gallons a year; in 1963, the figure was 24,300,000 gallons a year. In 40 years the consumption of imported wines rose merely by six million gallons, about one-third, while the population increased by 10 million, slightly less than a quarter. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is a booming trade in wine which would justify this extra imposition. Nor do the figures I have quoted take account of the additional affluence of which we are all so proud.
    It is also a pity because there will be international results from this extra imposition. This is a nasty blow for Portugal, which I personally much regret, and it is bound to be a setback for our trade with France, which might invite retaliation, undoing as it does the good work which Sir Stafford Cripps did in this connection.
    Perhaps I may take this opportunity to quote from a page of the Wine Society's wine list of 1880. Lafite was 31s. a dozen, Volnay was 37s. a dozen and Pommard, the most expensive Burgundy, was 50s. a dozen. Even allowing for the fact that the £ today buys only what 4s. would have bought then, these prices are fairly reasonable. It is a shame that such a kindly and well-disposed Treasury should seek to do this to these admirable and much appreciated wines. I hope that my Amendment will be treated with the sympathy and consideration which it so obviously deserves.
    Captain Walter Elliot: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett). I should like my right hon. Friend to give us some detailed information about why it was decided to increase the duty on
    968
    wines. I suppose the time has long passed when the purpose of a Budget was only to raise revenue. It is now generally recognised that an extremely important reason for the Budget is to govern the economy generally. My impression from the Chancellor's Budget statement and from the comment on it was that the reason for increasing taxation was largely to keep the economy under control. If that was so, and I believe that it was, this increase in the duty on wines will not help.
    The wine trade is not responsible for any overheating in the economy. It has a good record of steady prices. The prices of moderately good wines now are much the same as before the war. Other industries are responsible for this overheating by disregarding the appeals to them to keep their incomes policies within bounds. Yet they get off scot-free this time, and no doubt in due course will repeat their performance, while the wine trade takes the knock for heeding the Chancellor's appeals and keeping prices steady.
    We have already heard that alcohol is included in the cost-of-living index, which will rise as a result of this increase. The great pressure groups will then swing into action, not only to compensate for the rise in the cost of living, but to get ahead if they can, as they have so often done before. Once more we are going to face the same dreary spectacle of rising prices, rising incomes, and so on.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will seriously consider this Amendment and give recognition to those industries which pay heed to exhortations to keep prices steady, as the wine trade does. If my right hon. Friend wants to raise revenue, or to control the economy, he should knock those industries which disregard his appeals and as a result lead to the overheating of the economy and the general checks which we have so often experienced in the past.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) began by declaring an interest, and I must declare a similar, though smaller, one to his. I am also a member of the Society whose committee he adorns, and I can tell the Committee that I was one of my hon.

    969
    Friend's electoral supporters at
    the contested election at which he was elected. I hope that he will remember that.
    As one would expect, my hon. Friend made a powerful plea for wine, and he will certainly not find in me any doctrinal opponent of this beverage. I share very much the views which were agreeably expressed about it by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). Indeed, this short debate might well be included in the collected works of literature which are often published under the heading "In praise of wine".
    In fact, the consumption of wine in this country has risen very substantially over the years. My hon. Friend referred to the 'twenties compared with now. Then, the average consumption of wine per head was 0·35 gallons. In 1963, which is the latest year for which we have figures, it had risen to 0·6 gallons, an increase of about 70 per cent., which is the more remarkable when one reflects on the fact that the age composition of the population is now different, with a considerably larger proportion today of younger people.
    I think that what misled my hon. Friend was that, as he said, he took the figures for importations and ignored the substantial increase in the production and sale of British wines. At any rate, this is a commodity, the consumption of which, taken over the years, has risen substantially, and I do not think that it will be seriously affected by this impost.
    In reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot), who referred to the effect on prices, I can tell him that the effect of this Clause in respect of wines on the retail prices index is negligible.
    Speaking on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, and to some extent my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham, asked why we had included wine in the increased alcohol duties provided for under the other Clauses. It is true that the additional revenue to be obtained, though significant, is nothing like as much as from beer or spirits—it is about an additional £2½ million in a full year—but I cannot help speculating about what the hon. and learned Member for
    970
    Kettering would have said if we had come to the Committee with proposals to increase the duties on spirits and beer, and had left the duty on wine as it is.
    The hon. and learned Gentleman, and some of his hon. Friends, would have said, with perhaps greater justification than they did on earlier Clauses, that we were hitting at the beverages of the less well off, and sparing the very champagne and port which the hon. and learned Gentleman twitted by noble Friend Lord Amory for having reduced.
    Mr. Mitchison: The right hon. Gentleman is making a false point, and I am sure that he would not wish to do that. I made it clear that in my opinion this Clause has not the social attractions which the other two Clauses about beer, and to a lesser extent spirits, have. I said at the beginning, and I never said anything else, that I dislike the Clause. So I do, but I dislike the others even more.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It is fair to say that it follows from that that the hon. and learned Gentleman would have disliked the general provisions of the Bill even more than he does had we excluded the additional tax on wine while including the others, and I thank him for making that clear. I think that, on reflection, the Committee will feel that that is right.
    Whatever view one takes of wine as a beverage, and of its social or medical qualities, I think that it would strike opinion generally as being somewhat unfair to tax additionally the beer and spirit drinkers and to leave the wine drinker wholly unscathed. I think that it would be thought that the considerations which led my right hon. Friend to decide in favour of an increase in the alcohol duty instead of the alternatives which he canvassed in his Budget speech of an increase in Purchase Tax or petrol tax, point equally to wine as they do to beer and spirits. I think that we should have been subjected to the charge of exempting the very champagne and port to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, while increasing the tax on the pensioner's beer.
    I think, therefore, that the alcohol duties should on this occasion move to-

    971
    gether. Though many of us in our personal activities should regret it, I think that wine should go with them.
    Amendment negatived.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Schedule 4 agreed to.

    Clause 4.—(TOBACCO.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Michael Foot: I wish to say something about tobacco, which, I think, comes in a quite different category from the other commodities which we have so far been discussing, and I think that everyone would appreciate the reasons why that is so.
    I also wish to make some constructive suggestions to the Treasury on the matter, although I must say that I do so with considerable diffidence. The Treasury is a most extraordinary Department. Apparently one can make any accusations one likes against it, but it never takes them to heart. Earlier this afternoon one of my right hon. Friends accused the Treasury of stinginess, and the Chief Secretary bounced to his feet and thanked my right hon. Friend for the great courtesy with which he put his point.
    Another hon. Member said that the Treasury had behaved in a most mean and contemptible manner. Once again, the right hon. Gentleman bounced to his feet and said that he could not have put the point with greater grace or accuracy. Several of my hon. Friends accused the Treasury of showing its incompetence and incapacity, and the right hon. Gentleman then said that the argument had been presented with tremendous force.
    Try as we may, it is very difficult to insult the Treasury. The point is underlined by one hon. Gentleman opposite who congratulated the Treasury on its kindly and well-disposed manner and the right hon. Gentleman could not have been more startled than if somebody had let off a pistol next to his ear. One cannot dent the Treasury's thick hide, however one tries.
    I propose to make a constructive suggestion for dealing with a serious problem, and that should startle the Treasury.
    972
    Tobacco is a different kind of commodity, and the question that we should consider is whether the House of Commons is to take seriously the warnings which have come from the medical profession about the dangers of smoking. What we shall be doing by passing this Clause is to raise the tax on tobacco to a higher level than ever before; to make the amount of money which the Treasury receives through the tax higher than ever before, and, therefore, to make the revenue more dependent upon tobacco than ever before. Nobody can dispute that.
    6.0 p.m.
    In view of the reports which have been presented to the nation, some of them recently—the American report on smoking was presented to the world fairly recently; at any rate, since our last Budget debate—we should examine the matter carefully. I do not say that the allegation that smoking produces lung cancer is proved up to the hilt; some doubts still remain. But nobody can question the assertion that those doubts are certainly much less than they were a few years ago. Anyone who has taken the trouble to read what the medical profession, both in this country and in the United States, has had to say on the matter must have come to the conclusion that, as far as can be ascertained in our present state of knowledge, it is extremely dangerous for people to go on smoking and extremely undesirable that young people should be encouraged to smoke.
    This is accepted not only by the medical professions of this country and United States, but, in the main, by the Ministry of Health. The Ministry has not shown great alacrity in acting on the reports, but it has moved some way in the right direction. It is spending a few thousand pounds on trying to prevent the encouragement of smoking by young people. But it is not much good the Ministry's spending a few thousand pounds on that when, at the same time, the Treasury is taking action which makes the revenue of the nation more and more dependent upon people's smoking.
    Nobody can dispute that if the whole nation were to take seriously the warnings that have been issued by the medical profession about smoking, and were

    973
    to stop smoking completely, this country would soon be facing a first-class financial crisis. I can put the matter another way. The Treasury has a vested interest in trying to sustain the procedure by which people are encouraged to get lung cancer. It is no good hon. Members smiling; this is a fact. The question is whether it is a desirable thing.
    When the Chancellor imposed the extra tax he did not do so to discourage people from smoking. He would not claim that. He put on the extra tax because he thought that people would go on smoking and that he would get more revenue from it. He is not the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who has acted in that way. I am not discriminating between different Chancellors in this respect. Although people may not treat the matter seriously at the moment, they will do so in years to come.
    This Committee has a responsibility to people who will probably be killed by being encouraged to smoke, and it should decide what it intends to do about it. If all that we do is to go on raising the tobacco tax, thus making our financial structure more and more dependent upon people's smoking, we are doing something most reprehensible.
    I do not say that people should be stopped from smoking compulsorily, by Act of Parliament, but the Committee should show that it is taking seriously the warnings which have been issued by the most weighty medical information available to the world. As Members of Parliament we should do everything in our power to discourage young people from smoking. It is absolutely outrageous that advertisements should appear on television every day encouraging people to engage in a pastime which will help to give them lung cancer, especially when those advertisements are largely aimed at young people. We should stop the advertising and we should increase the amount of money which the Ministry of Health spends on propaganda against smoking.
    At any rate, we should increase the amount of money which the Ministry spends on telling the people the facts about smoking, as they are revealed by the medical profession. But it is not
    974
    much good our doing that if, by its deeds, the Treasury shows itself to be quite content with a situation in which our whole financial structure should become more and more dependent upon more and more people's smoking.
    How are we to solve the problem? I want seriously to suggest to the Committee how we should deal with it. In the light of the reports of the medical profession it is quite improper to allow a situation to continue in which we are so dependent upon tobacco taxation. It is irresponsible for the Committee to say, "We do not care about these reports. We do not care if it is proved, as conclusively as such things can be proved, that smoking causes this disease. We shall nit take any notice of it. We shall go on as if these reports had never been produced at all." That is what we shall be doing if we allow the dependence of the Government on this kind of taxation to continue.
    It is a difficult situation for the Government. I do not suggest that any Government could say, "We shall abandon the £600 million or £700 million a year which we derive from tobacco taxation." No Government, of any complexion, would like to do that. Therefore, I do not propose that the tax should be removed. That would make smoking easier, rather than more difficult. But we should see whether there is a way of solving this dilemma. We should not be content to go on passing legislation which makes us more and more dependent on spreading this kind of disease. Hon. Members, and the Treasury, should apply their minds seriously to the problem.
    It is impossible to think that any Government would abandon, in one go, the £600 million or £700 million a year which they receive in this way, but I suggest than if the Committee wants to treat the subject seriously it should decide that each year over the next 10 years we should make the country less dependent upon tobacco taxation. Let us suppose that it was agreed that the level of tobacco taxation should remain at the level at which it will be established if we pass the Clause. It should then be arranged by the Government, if they wish to treat the question seriously, that each year for the next 10 years we should reduce, say, by £100 million a

    975
    year, our dependence on the money raised from that source to meet our overall expenditure.
    We could maintain the tax at its present level, but we could disregard some part of it, each year, for the purposes of our overall expenditure. If a certain amount was lopped off each year in this way, although the same sum would be collected by way of taxation it would not be counted as part of the normal revenue to meet our total expenditure. To my knowledge this is an absolutely original proposal. At least, it tries to deal with the situation, and I have never heard of any other proposal which seeks to do so. I therefore hope that it will be seriously considered.
    Mr. Mellish: How will it stop anybody from smoking?
    Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend has not followed me with his usual acumen—or maybe he has. I am not saying that we stop anyone smoking by compulsion; of course not. A person has the right to do himself to death by the method of his own choice and I should not prevent him from doing so—there may be a few exceptions to that rule, but not in this case. I am not proposing to stop people from smoking by force, compulsion or by legislation. I leave the choice to them. I am concerned that the Government should not have a vested interest in the maintenance of smoking.
    I have made a concrete suggestion for dealing with the situation. If my plan were adopted, instead of having a crisis over this matter, in 10 years' time or so the country would no longer be dependent on this source of revenue. Hon. Members may think this is a bizarre proposal, but no alternative has yet been presented. It is up to other people who treat seriously the reports made by the medical profession to offer their alternatives. This is a novel idea and, therefore, I do not expect the Minister to get up and say, snap, right away, that the Treasury will accept the idea immediately.
    I expect the Government to consider the matter and that in about four years they may do something. We should bear in mind that in four years' time something else may have happened. It may
    976
    well be that further reports made by members of the medical profession will be even more conclusive than those presented recently. What will the Government do then? Suppose we get a report from the doctors of this country, or America, saying that they have now solved the medical problems which
    they had the honesty to admit were not fully solved when their previous reports were made, even though they may have reached a general verdict. Suppose they have solved the problems and that it is absolutely certain, without any shadow of doubt whatever, that smoking does greatly increase the perils of lung cancer.
    Suppose that is proved without anyone being able to contest it. What do the Government do then? Will they go ahead cheerfully and say, "We shall not worry about that. All we are concerned with is the revenue. We can easily raise money without getting into political difficulty"—which is all the Government are doing this year; everyone knows that—
    Mr. Eric Lubbock: Statistically, this has already been proved, and it remains for the medical profession to demonstrate the causal connection between smoking and lung cancer.
    Mr. Foot: I understand that. I did not put the case in the strict medical terms which have been used by the hon. Member. They have not proved the cause or connection, although their verdict is well-nigh conclusive.
    I am saying that it is quite possible that we shall have more reports in the next few months or years in which the members of the medical profession will go further and say that it is absolutely certain, and that there is no possible remote question of doubt about it. What will the Treasury do then? Will it say, "We are going gaily ahead as if nothing had happened. All we are concerned with is raising revenue"? In the face even of the reports we have already received, and even more so in the face of reports we may soon receive, I think that the Treasury, if it took that kind of attitude, would be utterly immoral.
    I suggest, therefore, that it is the duty of this Committee to relate the medical reports which we have received to the practice of the Treasury and see how it

    977
    can marry the two. When that conjunction is made, so far it has not been made, I think that the Committee will come to the conclusion that, somehow or other, we must reduce the dependence of the affairs of this nation and the conduct of our whole finances on revenue of this character.
    If that is to be done, the Committee will have to decide whether this form of taxation should be abolished altogether in one go—which would cause a financial crisis of the first order—or whether we should adopt my solution, or something along the lines of the solution which I have suggested, which is that we should make up our minds here and now that over the next 10 years we shall remove the dependence of this country on such a source of revenue. If that proposal were adopted, I believe that it would be much healthier for the country.
    Once the Treasury had revealed that it was no longer dependent on such a source of revenue we might get from the Government action in other respects such as they ought to have taken already for dealing with this menace. We might then get a Government which had the guts to stop all smoking advertisements on television. That would not be interfering with the free choice of anyone. It would interfere with people encouraging others to smoke themselves to death. We might then get a Ministry of Health which, instead of spending a miserable sum—about £25,000 a year on this subject, to counteract the tens of thousands of millions of pounds spent by commercial companies—on persuading people to stop smoking, might do its duty in this respect.
    We might then get from the Government a different attitude altogether to this problem. So long as the matter is not tackled as I have suggested, the Government approach this question as a corrupt body. They are corrupted by their own interest in raising tobacco taxation. Only when the Government have freed themselves from that impediment shall we have a Government which faces honestly the facts presented to them by the medical profession.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. Donald Wade: The effect of this Clause is to increase the Tobacco Duty as from 15th April. I propose to approach the subject from a slightly different angle than that
    978
    of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot). I think that many people have accepted this increase philosophically, but among the elderly there is some sense of grievance and I think it only right that it should be aired.
    I do not propose to dwell on the health aspect, except to say that it seems inconsistent that vast sums of money should be expended on advertising cigarettes, for example, and, at the same time, an effort be made to dissuade people from smoking. However it is not the Government's policy to ban smoking and I am not suggesting that they should. We are at present dealing with the subject of raising revenue, and a very large amount of revenue. If this tax acts as a discouragement, I think it much more important to discourage young people, particularly cigarette smokers, rather than the elderly person who enjoys a pipe of tobacco.
    I should like to make my own position clear. On another occasion when I spoke on this subject I was described in the Press as an anti-smoker. My family of six consists of my wife, four grownup children and myself. Out of the six, five are voluntarily non-smokers. I am the odd one out. So I cannot say that I have a strong prejudice, but I smoke very little. I have considerable sympathy with those elderly people who have limited incomes. I think that there is a feeling of injustice among them and I speak with some first-hand knowledge. Surely the art of taxation—if it be an art at all—is to keep a sense of injustice to the minimum, and I do not think that the Government have succeeded in relation to the elderly.
    As the Committee knows, originally old-age pensioners had tobacco vouchers. These were introduced because the duty had been increased. When they were withdrawn in November, 1957, it was felt right to increase the pension to make up for the loss of the vouchers. I have been reading what was said then by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who was then Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. He said:
    "Therefore, for some time we have held the view that this concession should be brought to an end, but it could in fact be fairly and sensibly brought to an end only at a time when substantial increases were being given in the rates of benefit, and that is the process we have followed. Among other factors we

    979
    have taken into account in considering what should be the proper level of benefits is the fact that, so far as retirement pensioners are concerned, about half the total were losing vouchers which, if used to the full, were worth 2s. 4d. per week. We have taken that into account in deciding the level of benefits…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1957; Vol. 577, c. 982.]
    I should have thought that a similar principle might have applied here. Some elderly people feel that the Government have been rather "too clever". When the vouchers were withdrawn the pension was increased, but now that the tax has been increased there has been no corresponding benefit.
    I understand that in Eire, in this year's Budget, the duty on tobacco has been increased by 3d. for 20 cigarettes, but the pension was raised by 2s. 6d. per week. More important to my mind is that a distinction was made between the tax on cigarettes and on pipe tobacco. I understand that the Government there were able to find a way of dealing with this matter so that the increase did not apply to pipe tobacco. The answer of the Government here has always been that it is not practicable to distinguish between pipe tobacco and cigarette tobacco—that people would buy pipe tobacco and use it in the form of cigarettes—but for some reason the distinction has been made in Eire. I should have thought that it could be considered here.
    I certainly am not an advocate of cigarette smoking. I fully agree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale about the serious dangers, but we should give some thought to the problem of the elderly, to whom a pipe of tobacco is quite an important item of expenditure from a very limited income. I thought it only right to express a word of protest on their behalf before we part with this Clause.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) in his very original and, as he said, bizarre idea of reducing the dependency of the State on tobacco tax. I cannot go all the way with him. I gave up smoking three years ago and as a result I have put on extra weight. I
    am assured by my doctor that if I do not reduce it I am likely to die from
    980
    overweight. It is difficult to know what to do in modern society when one gets so much different advice.
    In view of the dangers possible from over-eating or excessive smoking the increased revenue we expect to get from tobacco duty might be used in a more efficient educative campaign in the schools by the Department of Education and Ministry of Health to bring home the dangers of smoking, especially to young people. I think that there are other things, such as diesel fumes and had ventilation of factories, which contribute to the possibilities of getting cancer as well as heavy smoking, but I support my hon. Friend in saying that we should reduce the dependency of the Revenue on income from smoking and use the money in a campaign—
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but on this Motion he cannot stray into talking about what money could be used for. It is perfectly legitimate to argue that the Treasury should not be so dependent on the amount received from Tobacco Duty, but it is not in order to go into other questions about how that money could be spent.
    Mr. Bence: I was using it as an example in the same way as we talk about the Road Fund being used to prevent death on the roads. I made the suggestion in passing and was about to leave it.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That may well be, but it is not in order to discuss that on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Bence: I suggest that increasing the tax on tobacco will by no means cause a drop in smoking because of the higher price. What happens is that people's purchasing power is reduced in other directions. People spend as much on tobacco, but less on other things. We are attacking the subject in the wrong way. Statistics show that from time to time when the tax on tobacco is increased there is a fall-off in consumption, but after a short time it creeps up again and, unless incomes are raised, people reduce their consumption of other commodities which may be more desirable. In general, the tax is a bad thing.
    Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) for drawing attention to the way in which this tax might affect health hazards resulting from smoking. When the Budget was first mooted there was considerable interest in the question whether the Chancellor would introduce a penal tax on smoking because of the lung cancer interest which, perhaps, would have had greater consequence on the smoking public. He chose not to do so although we have a mild increase in the tax which will affect smokers.
    The question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale is pertinent for the Committee to consider. It is the whole problem of how future Chancellors of the Exchequer will arrange policy in relation to tax on tobacco. The point was brought out very thoroughly on the health side that if there is an increase in taxation it may be that youngsters will not smoke quite so much. I think that the whole Committee is agreed that in all our discussions about the impact of smoking on health we have sought to aim not so much at those who are already smokers—certainly not the old-age pensioner for whom, in the evening of his life, the hazard is not great—as to concentrate on young people and the present generation at school, 250,000 of whom, the medical profession estimate, will probably die from lung cancer as a result of smoking.
    The whole problem was highlighted by the previous discussion in the House today which we were very much concerned about the 240 cases of typhoid, most of whom will recover, arising in the last 10 days about which the whole nation is considerably concerned. Yet in the same period, according to Ministry of Health statistics, at least 230 people will have actually died from lung cancer. My hon. Friend has raised this matter against a background of stark reality about which something needs to be done. The Chancellor needs to be aware of these things in shaping his policy for taxation on tobacco.
    I looked carefully at the Clause with the idea of consulting my hon. Friends to see whether it would be possible to move an Amendment, but, owing to the
    982
    intricacies of the tax, I found that impossible. I am not an anti-smoker, but I am deeply concerned about what is happening to the health of the nation through cigarette smoking. Both the report by the Royal College of Surgeons and the report of the United States Surgeon General say that the hazard is much less to those who smoke pipes and cigars. I looked for a way of making cigars purchasable at 10 for ld. and cigarettes at £1 each, but I found that impossible, so I must confine my speech to the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill. If my hon. Friends can help me in framing such an Amendment for a later stage of the Bill, I shall be much obliged to them.
    We have to bear in mind that there is no doubt among the medical profession about cause and effect. We are concerned not only with lung cancer, but with 31 million days lost to production through chronic bronchitis. Richard Doll, whose latest report was discussed in the Press last week, pointed out clearly that each year there were 10,000 cases of coronary thrombosis and 15,000 cases of people who died from respiratory diseases—people who would not have died but for the fact that they were smokers. In those circumstances the Chancellor has a responsibility not only to the Treasury, but to his colleague at the Ministry of Health and to all of us who are engaged in seeking to promote the health of the nation.
    6.30 p.m.
    It must be difficult for the Chancellor. In the Treasury, do officials sit around a table and say, "We can raise £800 million from taxes on tobacco and we shall spend £750 million on hospitals, so that one more or less equals the other"? Do they work out how many deaths they can afford from the one in order to provide the service in the other respect? Is there a computer or some other electronic device which works out the hazards and which calculates one against the other? Not being well versed in financial affairs, I cannot tell. But I plead that the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale is one which any serious Chancellor must study, because unless the Government are wholeheartedly behind these campaigns, and all Ministers are working together, nothing will be achieved.

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    The figure which my hon. Friend sought was £32,000 spent on campaigns to persuade against smoking and £10 ½million to £l1 million spent on advertising cigarettes, a matter in which the Chancellor must be extremely interested. How can we expect the Ministry of Health and the Central Office of Information—strangely enough, the only people at the moment conducting research into the matter—to be fully seized of this without Treasury support?
    At the moment, there is a vested interest in the Treasury to maximise income from this source. I plead with the Chancellor and the Treasury to consider this matter again to see whether there is some way in which, in the Clause, it is possible to convey to the nation the Government's serious concern, which was put forward by the right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan) as long ago as 1957, when he announced Government policy. Between 1957 and 1964 they have not done very much about it.
    I am not simply anti-smoking. But if we are to take seriously preventive medicine and the promotion of health rather than the cure of illness, we must take positive action. One of the people most capable of taking positive action is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of the places in which it would have been possible to take such action is this Clause. It is very much to be regretted that the Clause does nothing about it.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I apologise to the Committee for not being present in the early stages of the debate. I was otherwise engaged. But I am interested in the matter before us, although I think that the arguments to which I have listened in the last few minutes, particularly those of my hon. Friends the Members for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) and Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) are irrelevant to the Clause. I have not yet heard any Minister argue in defence of the new taxation that it was imposed to discourage the smoking of cigarettes or tobacco or these noxious drugs which are supposed to kill so many people.
    I should be out of order in trying to discuss the merits of the medical arguments, because the only arguments which
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    I have heard from any Government spokesman during the earlier stages of the Bill is that this is £100 million of extra taxation to mop up surplus purchasing power. This is a variation of what we used to call Boyle's Law—not in the sense in which physicists use it, but in the sense in which one member of the Administration, now performing in a different Department, used it to mop up surplus purchasing power, to put a brake on inflation and to stop the spiral from going any further.
    These are economic arguments which can be defended rationally by people who believe in them. Let us not confuse the economic arguments with the medical arguments; let us not suggest that by putting penal, excessive taxation on cigarettes, in particular, and on other forms of smoking the Government have the medical object in mind. It may be incidental to the object which the Government stated for this new, heavy taxation, which was to stop some of the leak in the purse, if I may use their terms in another way. Too much money, they say, is being spent on all kinds of frivolous luxuries; therefore they must stop this by extra taxation.
    It is all very well for my enthusiastic friends below the Gangway, whose opinions I respect very much, to give qualified approval to this taxation because it makes it more difficult for people with limited incomes to buy the number of cigarettes which they bought in the past. That may be incidental, but the fact is that this very high level of taxation on smoking is having a very uneven effect on members of the community. The high price of cigarettes and other smoking materials represents no problem to the man with a big expense account who charges his cigarettes up to the firm. Such people represent a numerous section of the community. This high taxation is no deterrent whatever to the man who has the money to buy as many cigarettes as he likes. He may belly-ache a little about having to pay 5s. a packet for cigarettes. I suppose that we all do. But it will not deter him.
    To put this sort of taxation on one band of the community, particularly old people, of whom my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) was speaking as I

    985
    entered the Chamber, is wrong. It is putting tie brake on people who have the least to spend and not on those who have the most to spend. It is therefore wrong and inequitable to do it in this way.
    If the Government have reached the stage of accepting the evidence which has been provided about the ill-effects of smoking on many members of the community, they ought not to impose this sort of taxation; they should deal with cigarettes as they do with Indian hemp cigarettes, which are prohibited by law. This is the argument which must be considered. It is no use fiddling about with a fiscal remedy if it is necessary to prohibit a practice which is causing a great many people to die before they should.
    I must not go outside the rules of order, and I will try not to do so, but I feel that before we put any further penal taxation on smoking we should pay attention to the fact that many quite moderate smokers, particularly the old-age pensioners, and others with small incomes, who smoke only in moderation, are being penalised to an extent which means nothing whatever to many of us who can afford to buy cigarettes even if they are £1 a packet. Sooner or later the country will wake up to the fact that it is only the people who are not quite virtuous who are producing the large share of the revenue, while those who are very virtuous are getting away scot-free and are making no contribution to the Chancellor's Budget. To that extent I support very warmly my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, East, but I am a little sceptical about the comments made by one or two other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate.
    Mr. H. Rhodes: My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) has done a service by raising this matter, because he has introduced another element into the debate. He may not be able to carry it to a conclusion during the course of the debate, but it will cause people to think very seriously about the future. If an increase in the price of tobacco leads people to criticise the Treasury for having a vested interest in the sale of tobacco, then if at some future time the Government of the day want to reduce
    986
    the price of tobacco there will be an even bigger indictment of the Government, especially if it is proved during the next 'new years that smoking cigarettes or tobacco induces cancer. The Treasury is in an even bigger dilemma than my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), who confessed that he had experienced great difficulty in making his decision about smoking. When he gave it up he immediately became fat. The Treasury is n that dilemma.
    The Treasury knows all about this. We are not talking to somebody who is doing this thing in a hit-or-miss fashion. There is not a single facet of smoking which the Treasury does not know. Years ago when we were having great difficulty with our dollar purchases, because we could not afford the dollars anyway and because the content of cigarettes was so dependent on the American Virginian type tobacco there was a terrific argument about the effect on the revenue of a small amount of adulteration.
    The producers of tobacco in the Commonwealth said that "adulteration" was a horrible word. An argument on scientific lines was deployed by the Board of Trade and the Treasury about the impact there would be on the revenue if even 1 per cent. of Commonwealth tobacco—Empire tobacco, as it was known in those days—was added to the mixture. This is all known. There is no more scientific branch of the Departments levying taxation than that which is concerned with tobacco.
    The advertising facet is important. I sometimes hear my hon. Friends condemn the advertising of tobacco because of tobacco's deleterious effect on the community's health. This is known in the Treasury, too. The Treasury knows precisely what effect advertising in the Press and on hoardings has on sales.
    Tobacco is a pawn in the economic game. The Treasury has a vested interest in the raising of revenue from tobacco. It could not care less about the effect tobacco has on the community's health, because it is obvious from what has happened in the Budget that when the Chancellor wanted £110 million to increase his discipline on the community's spending power lie immediately whacked an extra tax or tobacco, irrespective of its incidence on old people or on youth.

    987
    6.45 p.m.
    There is another aspect of this levy which is not considered by the Treasury. Both in America and in England there is a growing practice of studying the relative competitiveness of commodities of all types. The Americans know from their research into markets the type of competition they are likely to meet, the amount of money which is available for the commodity they are pushing, and the chances they have, in a market where there is, say, a limited income, of getting a fair share of the available income for their commodity. This type of taxation weighs in favour of the use of tobacco in this country against the ability of people to spend as much of their income on wool or footwear, or even on the necessities of life.
    If there is any type of taxation levied by Parliament which needs a thorough appraisal as to where it will lead us, it is the taxation on tobacco and drink. A decision on the ethics of this tax will have to be made at some time. If we could get a crumb of comfort from the Treasury Bench as to the way in which Ministers are thinking, the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale will have been of some avail.
    Mr. Diamond: The whole Committee will agree that we are indebted to my hon. Friends who have made contributions on a matter which obviously affects many people, both as to its fiscal and its moral and health aspects. This is a Clause which none of us on this side of the Committee likes. It was, therefore, very valuable that my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) should have made it supremely clear that, whatever the Government may argue in favour of the Clause, they cannot argue that this is part of a responsible attempt to reduce excessive smoking. There is no element in this which can prove that.
    The evidence indicating the relationship between smoking and cancer, if not proving cause and effect completely, proves conclusively that some kinds of smoking produce less cancer than other kinds of smoking. There is no attempt whatsoever by the Government to put more weight of taxation on, for example, unfiltered cigarettes than on filtered cigarettes and pipe and cigar tobacco, which clearly cause less damage. There
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    is no attempt by the Government to cover their responsibility in that way.
    Neither are the Government claiming that this is done to reduce consumption, because we know that that does not happen. Consumption has apparently reached its peak, but it fell when the tax rate remained constant. There is no clear correlation between increase in taxation and fall in consumption.
    Surely no Government would attempt to say that their attitude to collecting tax is so immoral that, if there is something
    which they are satisfied is wholly against the interests of the country, they should allow it to continue so long as tax is paid and the revenue can be collected and the Treasury profit. We do not manage our affairs in that way. In the case of harmful drugs we do not say, "These drugs are harmful. Either they should be made illegal, or we should charge a duty every time a drug is taken". If we do not like prostitution, we do not say that prostitution shall be permitted so long as a licence fee is
    paid by every prostitute. That is not the way in which revenue is raised.
    I repeat, there is nothing whatever in the Clause which is an attempt by the Government to shoulder such responsibilities as they have for reducing excessive smoking. Indeed, in my view—and I say frankly to the Committee that I am expressing a personal view—I do not believe that this is exclusively a Government responsibility but one which every parent must bear.
    My hon. Friend does not so much object to the right of an adult to eat, smoke or, by excessive speed, motor his way to death. He objects more to advertising which encourages young people who have not yet acquired the habit to acquire it. It is, at this point, that the responsibility of the adult and of parents comes in. With due deference, that is the responsibility of every parent. Every parent should not ask what the Government or Opposition are doing, but should ask, "Am I doing the right thing? Am I setting the right example to my children?" I repeat, I am expressing a purely personal view, one which does not affect my hon. Friends in the slightest.
    I have expressed this view, first, because I wanted to clear the ground before saying that our dislike of the

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    Clause is not based on any attempt the Government might be making to reduce smoking because, clearly, they are not in this Clause attempting to do that. Our objection to it is that it bears too heavily on those who can least afford to pay the tax.
    This was recognised by the Labour Government who, when in office, provided tokens so that old-age pensioners and people of minimum means were able to have the impact of the tax lessened and to continue to smoke when they might have been unable to do so because of the increased duty. That system of tokens ran from October, 1947, until January, 1958. There is no reason at all why the present Government could not have given thought to such a system. They could certainly have mentioned it and have explained the arguments against reintroducing such a token system.
    There is a matter to which I have already referred, but to which we have not yet received a reply. A publication of the Central Statistical Office, entitled Economic Trends, gives some interesting statistics for February, 1964. It is, in effect, a Government publication, so the statistics that it contains may be relied upon.
    As we suspected, but now know, there is no indirect tax which bears more heavily on those who can least afford it than the Tobacco Duty. To give two examples: an average family of two adults and two children with an income of between £1,750 and £2,000 a year, a well-off couple, pay at the old rate 1·8 per cent. of their spendable income in Tobacco Duty. The same family, but with an income of between £11 and £13 a week, pay not 1·8 per cent. but 5 « per cent. of their spendable income in Tobacco Duty, or three times as much. This shows that the burden on such a family is three times as great.
    Then, consider an old couple, two adults, with an income of between £4 and £11 a week. They spend between 6 per cent. and 7 per cent. of their spendable income in Tobacco Duty. It should be emphasised that this is not about 7 per cent. of the couple's spendable income on tobacco, but on the duty. It is a fantastic proportion.
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    There is no attempt by the Government to help people bearing such a burden. On the contrary. Their burden will be increased because the disproportion will be increased and there has been no attempt whatever by the Government to answer this argument. This is not a question of indirect versus direct taxation. We are not entering the realms of arguing whether the proportion of indirect taxation is too great as opposed to the proportion of direct taxation, or vice versa. This is a question of what is inequitable versus what: is equitable—of whether something bears too heavily on those who are least able to afford it. It is for these reasons that we dislike the Clause intensely.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Maurice Macmillan): I hope that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) will not think I am proving his point that Treasury Ministers, even junior ones, have thick skins when I say how grateful I am to him for introducing the important—although slightly side element in the Finance Bill—question of the incidence of lung cancer and the dependence of the Treasury on the Tobacco Duty.
    Before I deal with that important side of the argument I will deal with a point made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) and developed later by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond), who quoted statistics from Table VI of the document to which he referred on Second Reading.
    If one takes any item of expenditure it is true to say that the lower a person's income the higher the proportion of it that item will tend to represent. In saying that the Tobacco Duty bears most hardly upon old-age pensioners and others who can least afford to pay it one is saying that their expenditure on tobacco is a higher proportion of their total expenditure than other, richer people. The coupon system was abandoned in January 1958 in conjunction with an increase in pensions. It was abandoned for the same reason that it has not been reintroduced—that it bears unfairly between pensioners, not all of whom smoke. There is no reason why a pensioner who smokes should be favoured over one who does not, but on the more general side of the argument—
    Mr. A. Lewis: On a point of order. The Economic Secretary is adducing a wonderful argument and more hon. Members should be present to hear it. I therefore call attention to the fact that 40 hon. Members are not present.
    Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;
    Committee counted, and, 40 Members being present—
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. Macmillan: As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary pointed out when discussing a similar argument which developed on the whisky, beer and wine duty increases, industrial earnings have gone up by about 99 per cent. and retirement pensions by about 125 per cent. The hon. Member for Gloucester quoted some figures from the lower end of the income scale. I will quote some more from the same table from which he quoted.
    Taking the figures in Table VI of the document from which he quoted, a family of two adults in the income range £315£382 a year spends up to 6 per cent. on tobacco—that is to say, about 8s. a week. If it continues to smoke the same amount, the Budget increase will amount to approximately 8d. a week. This is admittedly a more serious increase than that on families with a larger income, but it is not reasonable to say that, over the field as a whole, increases in indirect taxation on items which cannot, except in very rare instances, be considered necessities, bear more hardly than the alternatives to which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor referred on Second Reading—increases in Purchase Tax or petrol duty.
    The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes)—
    Mr. J. T. Price: I am getting a little baffled by the hon. Gentleman's argument. In effect, he is denying the generally accepted opinion in the Committee, regardless of where we sit, that all indirect taxation is regressive by its very nature. The hon. Gentleman says that it is nothing of the kind. But it is regressive, and if one puts a steep increase in regressive taxation it is obvious that it will bear more harshly on those with the least money to spend.
    Mr. Macmillan: I was only saying that I personally regard the taxation of necessities as tending to bear more hardly on the great run of the population than taxation of what might be classed as luxuries. As indirect taxation, Purchase Tax is neither regressive nor progressive; technically, it is neutral, on most forms of analysis. Tobacco Duty is certainly regressive. On the other hand, Income Tax is extremely progressive, and becomes more so the higher the rate of money income rises, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
    The dilemma mentioned by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne is really not a dilemma at all, although he is quite right in referring to the balance of payments compensation to which the Treasury could look with any decrease in the consumption of tobacco. The very fact that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose this particular form of indirect taxation shows that neither he nor the Treasury is dependent on it because, as he pointed out on Second Reading, it was chosen as an alternative to increases in other indirect taxation such as Purchase Tax and petrol duty. In so far as it absorbs purchasing power from elsewhere—such as wool textiles, to which the hon. Gentleman referred—it is fulfilling an economic, as opposed to a fiscal, function at a time of pressure on the economy.
    The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale developed the argument that the Treasury had a vested interest in the consumption of tobacco, and therefore had some interest in maximising that consumption. With respect, I suggest that the place to deal with the problem of smoking and lung cancer is not in a Finance Bill, though, with respect, his proposition is not in any case valid. I agree that we do get a very large proportion of our indirect taxation from tobacco—by a paradox, which I think some hon. Members quoted, it is about the amount we spend on the Health Service itself—but we are not dependent on it in the sense that a trader is dependent on a market or a producer on maintaining the turnover on which he makes a set rate of profit, because what we are taxing is expenditure rather than a commodity, although it is expenditure on a particular commodity.

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    Even if, as the hon. Gentleman and many of his hon. Friends would like, the consumption of tobacco were seriously and progressively to be reduced, I think that he would accept the unlikeliness of its coming to an abrupt end at any moment. This would mean that the money not spent on tobacco was being spent on something else, in which case, if it came within Purchase Tax, it would be taxed; if it did not, it would be open to the Government of the day to extend the scope of indirect taxation to cover whatever the money was going on. If it was not spent, but saved, it would not present an economic problem in this context—
    Mr. M. Foot: Does the hon. Gentleman say that it does not matter what is done, because if one does not spend it on one thing one must spent it on something else? If so, it is a most extraordinary argument.
    Mr. Macmillan: No. The key to it is that we tax expenditure, and provided we have an obvious adjustment of rates of taxation to balance out the economic system, what expenditure is taxed is irrelevant. It is the amount that is raised. I do not say that other considerations do not come in, because they do—
    Mr. Rhodes: With respect, I think that the Economic Secretary has the wrong attitude towards this matter. If he thinks that in some way the mopping up of money by putting on this duty will be effective, let him come to his own constituency in the north of England and see the wage drift that is going on at the moment. Whereas it was calculated at 1·5 per cent. last September, I am sure that he will be surprised, and I shall be surprised, if it is not more than 3 per cent. today. They will have more money to pay for what they want.
    Mr. Macmillan: With respect, the hon. Gentleman says that the Tobacco Duty is ineffective economically, and I was saying that, if a tax on expenditure raises the same amount, for fiscal purposes what that money is spent on is irrelevant.
    This is really the clue to our problem, tee to think that I was taking lightly because I should not like the Commit-
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    the hon. Gentleman's suggestions, or those of the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), for dealing with the problem of smoking and lung cancer, particularly among children. I thought that the hen. Member for Willesden, West quoted to great effect what we have already been talking about earlier today. We must keep some sense of proportion in these matters. We get very upset, and rightly, over outbreaks of typhoid, but accept the incidence of lung cancer without much concern. In the same way, it has often seemed paradoxical to me that we get extremely worried about the deaths of children on the roads, and yet accept the fact, apparently without much fuss, that as many are killed by accidents in their own homes.
    I suggest to the hon. Gentleman and to his hon. Friends that a Finance Bill is not the most effective way of discouraging smoking or dealing with the problem of smoking. I emphasise that the Treasury has no particular interest in maximising the consumption of tobacco and that the argument that the economy would come to a standstill without the Tobacco Duty is not a valid one.
    Mr. Diamond: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to add to the argument by making clear, as I am sure is the case, that if the tobacco were not consumed at all it would not be imported and this would have a beneficial effect on our balance of payments.
    Mr. Macmillan: I made that point earlier and I emphasised that it would make our balance of payments situation considerably easier.
    The hon. Member asked why we have not attempted to make any differentiation between filtered and unfiltered cigarettes and various forms of smoking which are less harmful medically than others. The hon. Gentleman explained this later himself when he said that there was little correlation between tax and consumption. Experience in Denmark and in other countries where the Customs and Excise has made inquiries shows that the addictive nature of cigarette smoking means that it is

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    not particularly reduced as compared with other forms of smoking, because other forms are not a substitute for the cigarette smoker. Incidentally, I should like to express on behalf of the Customs and Excise my gratitude for the tribute paid to the expertise of that Department in these matters by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne.
    The hon. Member for Willesden, West also raised the question of a differential between different forms of tobacco. I hope that the answer which I have given will have explained our motives to him. The Clause is part of a general increase of indirect taxation for the Chancellor's purposes, as my right hon. Friend explained in the course of the Budget debate. I would emphasise to the Committee, and I hope to the country outside, that the Government are taking the problem of the dangers of lung cancer, especially among young people, very seriously and are not trying to minimise that problem by paying no attention to it, or appearing to pay no attention to it in this Clause. It is simply that, having considered the matter, and for the reasons which I have tried to explain, including the addictive nature of cigarette smoking, it was not felt right to try to deal with the problem by means of a penal tax. The tax therefore has remained in line with other increases of indirect taxation and we look to other methods of propaganda and to public opinion to deal with the problem of lung cancer. The problem is not to make the country less dependent upon tobacco taxation but to make people less dependent upon tobacco.
    Mr. M. Foot: I shall try not to repeat myself, and I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his reply, but I do not think that he has answered the argument. The hon. Gentleman says that the Treasury is not interested in maximising cigarette or tobacco smoking, but one could put the proposition in a slightly less strong form and say that if every member of the community became convinced tomorrow morning by the reports of the medical profession it would be a bad day for the Treasury. The revenue would take a sudden nose-dive and we should be in difficulties.
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    7.15 p.m.
    I am trying to prepare the Treasury against that day and to deal with the
    situation which will arise in two or three years' time when we shall have a financial crisis because people will understand what the medical profession is saying. The financial position of the Treasury in a few years' time is a supremely academic question for the hon. Gentleman, but I think that the situation will arise when a sufficient number of people will believe what the medical profession is saying. Therefore, the Treasury should take precautions well in advance to reduce its dependence on this single form of tax, which is being piled ever higher.
    The hon. Gentleman says, "On, no, this matter should be dealt with by various forms of propaganda." He should consider who the contestants are in this battle. We have the Treasury, with a huge vested interest in the sale of tobacco. We have the advertising profession with a huge vested interest and the newspapers with a huge vested interest in the sale of tobacco. We have all these powerful vested interests interested in or actively trying to persuade more people to smoke, and on the opposite side we have the Ministry of Health spending £32,000 and the still small voice of the medical profession.
    My secondary argument in introducing the matter was to remove at any rate one vested interest from the battle, that is the Treasury, so that increasingly by my arrangement of setting aside £100 million out of revenue collected by taxation each year and putting it in a separate fund, which would not deal with the normal expenditure of the nation, we should decrease the vested interest of the Treasury in seeing that tobacco smoking was maintained.
    I do not think that the hon. Gentleman answers that argument by saying that this is merely a tax on expenditure and that if the Treasury were not taxing this form of expenditure it would collect the tax on some other form of expenditure. That amounts to saying that it does not matter how one taxes and that if the Treasury did not have the tobacco to tax for revenue it would find something else to tax. This position is highlighted in the Budget, in particular,

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    because more and more the Government have to concentrate their taxation on fewer and fewer objects, and one of the commodities on which the Government concentrate their taxation is a commodity which has been exposed as highly dangerous to the community that consumes it.
    I do not believe therefore that the hon. Gentleman has answered the argument. It is not a sufficient answer to say that each individual must make up his own mind in this situation. Each individual makes up his mind whether he is going to smoke partly because of the influence brought to bear upon him, and the influence of the most powerful vested interests in the country is brought to bear upon an individual to try to persuade him, and particularly the young person, to smoke. I ask that that individual be given a better chance to make up his own mind on the evidence instead of having the pressures of vested interests apply to him.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I think that this matter is sufficiently important for me to try to reply to the last point made by the hon. Member. I hope that he will forgive me if I deal only with vested interest in so far as it is alleged to concern the Treasury. If people stopped smoking overnight it would, of course, cause great administrative difficulty, let alone the question of longterm economic or fiscal problems. The same would apply if people overnight stopped buying motor cars or if there were any other violent economic change, but I suggest that the measures which the hon. Member advocates are not as practicable in dealing directly with this problem as he argues.
    To set aside £100 million which is raised but is not required is the same economically as taxing and having a surplus of £100 million, or decreasing Government expenditure by £100 million. The effect of the tax on the economic system must be taken into account. It is not the same sort of operation as that of a private person setting aside something for a reserve fund. Therefore, much as I admire the hon. Member's attempt, and grateful as we all are to him for bringing the point before the Committee, I hope that if I do not answer him in greater detail he
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    will acquit me of not having any interest in the incidence of lung cancer. If he likes, he can condemn me of being more sceptical than he is about the Government's capacity to deal with the problem by means of a Clause in the Finance Bill.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule agreed to.

    Clause 5.—(HYDROCARBON OILS: INCREASE OF EXCISE DUTY.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Douglas Houghton: This Clause is worth a few minutes' consideration. It proposes to increase the excise duty on light oils produced in the United Kingdom and to bring up the excise duty on home-produced light oils to the level of taxation imposed on imported oils of a similar kind.
    Although the Clause is very close indeed to the one that we have just considered—raising the Tobacco Duty—and comes very close to it in the Bill—the two things were a long way apart in the Chancellor's Budget statement. He mentioned the proposal in Clause 5 in the first minute of his Budget speech and the proposal in Clause 4 in the last minute of his speech. That illustrates the wide difference of effect and of the public interest between them.
    The amount of additional duty raised by the Clause is £1½ million this year and £71½ million in a full year, which is very small beer compared with most other taxes in Clauses in the Bill. The interest in this Clause to me is the calm with which the Committee is taking the implementation of the Convention of the Seven, our E.F.T.A. partners. I suspect that had we been doing this by Convention of the Six, the Committee would have been very bitterly occupied in a debate on whether the supremacy of Parliament had been lost.
    I do not want to touch any exposed nerves on either side of the Committee, but we are taking this very calmly—yet it is exactly the same in principle. We have reached agreement in E.F.T.A. to abolish the Excise preference to home-produced light oil, so we throw it out of the window. The truth of the matter

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    is that we would be no more free to reject Clause 5 and remain in E.F.T.A. than we would be able to reject any other proposal and remain as a member of the Six.
    I am always fascinated by contradictions, and this, I suspect, is one of them. However, this is what it is all about. It is interesting to note that this is in fulfilment of our obligations to our E.F.T.A. partners and that we accept the fulfilment of those obligations like men, taking it calmly, with a stiff upper lip and all that, without feeling in any degree that we have lost the sovereignty of Parliament. That is an extraordinary position. It is one which I feel very happy about, because I think that it augurs well for the future, whatever it may be. That is all that I have to say on this Clause.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I have very little to add to what the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has said. This is purely a consequential Clause to meet our obligations to our E.F.T.A. partners to abolish the preference. The only point of detail which I think the hon. Gentleman did not mention was the reason for having to put the increase on the home duty rather than to do it the other way round. That, of course, is due to the impossibility of segregating imported oils of different origins. It is not physically possible to separate in their passage through our industrial system oils coming from E.F.T.A. or from other parts of the world, and, therefore, the only practical method of abolishing the preference is by raising the duty on the home-produced oils.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 6.—(HYDROCARBON OILS: RELIEFS.)
    Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 6, line 21, to leave out "furnace".
    This Amendment has the virtue of brevity. The brevity of an Amendment is always in in-verse proportion to its importance, at least to the person who is moving it.
    This is an Amendment to Clause 6 which is the Clause setting out the cases in which Customs or Excise duty on
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    hydrocarbon oils is not to be payable. The duty is not to be payable when the oil is used as a material or a solvent in an industrial process. The Clause sets out two schemes for dealing with such cases. If I have understood the Clause correctly, the first scheme is where the oil is free of duty when one adds a chemical additive to it and if one cannot do that one reclaims the duty afterwards, but that is not the part of the Clause with which my Amendment is concerned.
    My Amendment is concerned with the second scheme under the Clause, that of a particular use of light oils. Perhaps I might explain it in this way. There are considerable advantages in certain industrial processes, particularly in the steel industry, in using light oils as an alternative source or an additional source of furnace fuel. By light oils I mean the light petroleum distillate which is akin to motor spirit. Any industrial concern
    which desires to gain advantage of these
    modern processes of using light oil in that way is faced at the moment with the duty of 2s. 9d. a gallon as opposed to the duty on the ordinary fuel. Subsection (4) seeks to remedy that by turning those light oils, for duty purposes, into ordinary fuel oils provided that they are used, as the subsection is phrased, as "a furnace fuel."
    Obviously, the Chancellor should in this way encourage technical progress in industry. Subsection (4) as it stands will not only encourage that technical progress in industry, but it will also benefit the British refineries by giving a better balance of demand of the different types of oil and, therefore, a better balance of production in the British refineries.
    But subsection (4) does not go quite far enough if it is to take advantage of technical progress. By referring specifically to "furnace" fuel, it makes an invidious distinction between two very beneficial industrial processes, exempting one process and not another; it is the other which is really the advanced one, but which is not, as the Clause stands, within the exemption granted by this subsection.
    7.30 p.m.
    The process to which I refer is this. Light oils are used for the enrichment of flue gases from blast furnaces. Those flue gases can be used beneficially in the

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    furnaces themselves, and the process of returning the gases, as it were, to the furnace is included within subsection (4). On the other hand, the gases may also be used, and better used, in gas engines, but if they are used in gas engines they cannot, I understand, be regarded as being used as "furnace" fuel.
    This is where subsection (4) falls short of taking advantage of present technical progress. The presence of gases in the furnace flue is something different from the use of those gases as a furnace fuel, and the process which I now have in mind would not be covered by subsection (4) as it stands.
    If the purpose of subsection (4) is, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said on Second Reading, to enable the potentialities of these fuels to be explored, it is most unwise to make this distinction between whether the gas is returned to the furnace or used in a gas engine. It is quite certain that, if the Clause were amended so as to omit the word "furnace", the steel industry, and other industries, too, probably, would be encouraged to develop the process of using enriched flue gases in gas engines. If the subsection stands as it is, on the other hand, it will have the sort of effect that the old predecessor of Schedule A tax, the window tax, had—it reduced the number of windows by making people block up window apertures.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: Do I understand my hon. Friend to refer to the use of the gases after they have been burnt in the furnace for other purposes? I am not quite clear. Is he referring to a byproduct rather than the direct product?
    Mr. Page: As I understand, the gases are produced from the use of light oils and are returned again, but not reburnt by the furnace; they are used in gas engines.
    My hon. Friend may say that subsection (5) allows for regulations to be made which might cover this proposition, but I do not think that regulations could be made to cover the particular process to which I am referring if the word "furnace" remains in subsection (4). I am not a technical man and I do not find it easy to explain processes of this kind, but I think that it is fairly simple to understand. I sug-
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    gest that it would be entirely in accordance with Government policy for the modernising of industry and for taking advantage of technical advance, encouraging industries themselves so to advance, to amend this subsection as I have proposed. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I much regret having, to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) that I cannot accept the Amendment as it stands because its effect, as I see it, would be to exempt from duty petrol used as an ordinary fuel for engines. This, of course, would go extremely wide.
    Like my hon. Friend, I am no technician in these matters, but, as judge the point, his argument is that the Clause as it stands does not fulfil the full range of purposes for which it was designed. It is a Clause which was to some extent governed by the technical considerations put forward by the steel industries concerned, and it was largely to encourage technical advance and more modern methods in these industries that the Clause was drafted. The enrichment of flue gases to be burnt in furnaces was a process of which a point was made, and this is the first time I have heard from private sources, from the industry or from anyone else about flue gases used to drive engines. No request for the inclusion of that process was made.
    I should like to go into the question. The object of the Clause is quite clear, and I can say, without encouraging my hon. Friend to hope too much, that if we find that we have, in effect, drafted it so that it does not fulfil its object entirely, we shall look at it again and bring the matter forward at a later stage.
    Mr. Graham Page: I am very grateful for those words. I shall endeavour to provide my hon. Friend with technical information on the particular process which I have in mind. In the light of the assurance which he has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule 6 agreed to.

    Clause 7.—(POOL BETTING DUTY AND BOOKMAKERS' LICENCE DUTY.)
    Mr. Mellish: I beg to move Amendment No. 46, in page 8, line 33, at the end to insert:
    Provided that this subsection shall not apply to ante-post bets on horse races or greyhound races; and for the purposes of this proviso the expression "ante-post bets" means bets made in respect of named entries at odds agreed upon between the parties negotiating the bets.
    This Clause introduces a new form of betting tax, and it is understandable that such a change is likely to produce anomalies. This simple Amendment is designed to make quite clear that the Pool Betting Duty which is introduced by the Clause shall not be applicable to the ordinary ante-post betting carried on by bookmakers on horse races and greyhound races.
    In introducing his Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he wished to apply the Pool Betting Duty now applied in respect of football pools to other forms of coupon betting. This seemed clear enough on the face of it, but it is by no means clear from a reading of the Clause itself. Subsection (3) purports to specify what bets shall be chargeable to the pool betting duty, and it provides that
    "for this purpose bets shall be deemed to be made by way of coupon betting where they are made in pursuance of an invitation which offers up to a time fixed by the invitation or by the circumstances of its issue stated odds for a choice of bets."
    What all that jargon means, I gather, is that, by implication, ante-post betting, which is a common feature of betting in this country, will be liable to be taxed because, unless there is a clearer definition, it would come within that ambit. The Customs and Excise officials, who have been very friendly about this matter, did suggest to those who raised the point that, if they could draft a suitable set of words which would not destroy the purpose of Clause 7, the Chancellor might be prepared to look at it.
    I will try to put the point in simple terms. It is common practice, particularly on big races, for example, the Derby tomorrow, for people to have an ante-post bet. It is not the Chancellor's intention to tax such bets, but, as the Clause now stands, they could be taxed.
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    It is as simple as that. I ask the Minister to accept the Amendment, at least in principle, if the words are not satisfactory, and give an assurance that new wording will be found by the Treasury so that the anomaly can be removed.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I can assure the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) that we have no intention of bringing ante-post betting within the scope of the betting tax. The hon. Member stated his case with great moderation and great fairness, and I am grateful that he and his hon. Friends have recognised that the Customs and Excise attempted to deal with the problem—and several others of a different nature which we have solved—in a spirit of common sense.
    I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we could not accept the Amendment as it stands for two reasons. One—perhaps not as important as the other—is that the Amendment, for the first time in the history of betting, appears to try to give some legal definition of ante-post betting. This could lead to several difficulties in related fields. But the main reason is that the Amendment goes very wide. The purpose of the Amendment is not to make evasion of the coupon betting duty easier, but we fear that the effect of the Amendment as it stands would be to make it possible for certain types of coupon betting to escape duty.
    The real difficulty is in finding a form of words which defines coupon betting but which does not include the presentation in a newspaper advertisement of the ante-post odds of a big race like the Derby and an invitation to fill in a coupon and turn it thereby into a coupon bet.
    We shall have a little while to consider this between now and Report, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance that we will do everything we possibly can, after consultation and listening to everybody concerned, to find a method of accurately defining coupon betting, which does not allow those who wish to try to evade the duty to do so by taking advantage of an ill-drafted definition, but which, at the same time, does not make it impossible for perfectly legitimate advertisements of ante-post odds to be sent through the post or put in the Press.
    Mr. Eric Fletcher: I welcome what the Economic Secretary

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    has said. I think that he has met the spirit of the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) in the way that we all hoped he would.
    As my hon. Friend said, this is a real problem. My hon. Friend did not pretend that the drafting of his Amendment was accurate. I appreciate that it is difficult to get the right form of words. I think that all of us who saw an attempted definition of ante-post bets on the Notice Paper felt that my hon. Friend had a great deal of courage in attempting this very difficult definition.
    However, the Economic Secretary has accepted the principle of the Amendment, and we are grateful to him for saying that between now and Report he will give thought to an appropriate form of words to meet the grievance which my hon. Friend has in mind.
    Mr. Mellish: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    7.45 p.m.
    Mr. Mellish: I beg to move Amendment No. 47, in page 8, line 33, at the end to insert:
    Provided that—

    (i) in relation to bets made at fixed odds on football matches, the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall apply only to bets on draws; and

    (ii) in any case in which the amount of pool betting duty payable in respect of the bets on draws on football matches made by way of any coupon is less than 12½ per cent. Of the stake money paid in respect of all the bets made by way of that coupon there shall be added to the pool betting duty payable in respect of such coupon such sum as represents the difference between the amount of such pool betting duty and 12½ per cent. of the stake money paid on all such bets.

    (4) For the purposes of the foregoing subsection the expression "a bet on draws" means a bet whereby the person making the bet forecasts that, in the case of a certain number of events specified on the coupon by which the bet is made, the result of each event will be a draw and the expression "bets on draws "shall be construed accordingly.
    This is a much more serious Amendment and takes in the major part of the intentions of the Clause. I ought to put it on record that the Amendment has been considered in some detail by the Treasury and the Customs and Excise and that they have already declared against it. I would also say that it is
    1006
    not my intention to take the Amendment to a Division. I recognise that I should lose anyway, and, in any case, I have tabled the Amendment to ensure that we have a discussion on the principle which is involved.
    When the Chancellor introduced this tax in his Budget—this is where the fixed-odds football coupon is brought in for the first time—he said that the income from the present tax of 33⅓ per cent. which was applied to pool betting had been so substantially reduced—about £12 million—that he was advised that a great deal of it had been attracted from the normal pool betting and had gone to fixed-odds betting. He also said that it was right and proper that there should be some equity about it and that the tax should be applied in respect of both the pools and the fixed-odds coupon. He reduced the tax to 25 per cent. and applied it to both forms of betting.
    From my knowledge of these matters, I think that the Chancellor is making a mistake if 'le thinks that he will get the £12 million by imposing this tax on fixed-odds betting. Indeed, it may destroy this form of betting, and I think that something ought to be said about it here. I am sure that it is not the intention of the Chancellor to destroy this form of betting. If it were his intention to do so, [would hope that he would say so here. If he said that, he would be honourable, but if he is not saying that, I hope he will not mind my saying that I do not think that he will get the money by this means. I shall show why that is so.
    First, there is all the difference in the world between the sort of gambling which takes place on football pools and that which takes place on fixed-odds coupons. The majority of people who bet on the pools go in for the treble chance. Millions of people bet on this type of pool, and a colossal sum of money is involved. At the end of the day the whole thing is a lottery. Those who win a big prize have probably done so by making use of birthday dates which happened to turn up lucky that week. If a great many of those taking part won, the prize would be infinitesimal. Therefore, it is a lottery. Between 85 and 90 per cent. of the income of the pools comes from the treble chance. The

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    punter betting on the treble chance has no knowledge what he will draw. He can have no idea what the amount will be. Whatever he happens to get, whether it is a large or small amount, he is very grateful.
    When we turn to fixed-odds betting, it is quite a different gamble. There is a coupon on which odds are laid to certain results, and those taking part have to decide which teams they want to back and make a definite bet. In other words, it is a gamble as opposed to a lottery. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is here. On the Second Reading of the Bill he made a speech which spelt this out in some detail. He was right when he argued that there is all the difference in the world between these two forms of gambling.
    If the Chancellor wants to tax gambling—I am sure that it will be taxed as the months and years go by—let us do it properly and not mess about with it. I do not believe that he will get the £12 million which he says he will get from the tax on this form of betting. The right hon. Gentleman also dreams that if he does not get it this way the punters who have been betting on the fixed-odds pool will go back to the ordinary football pool. I believe that he is wrong again. They are not the same sort of gamblers.
    The most popular feature, of course, is picking out certain matches which the punter on a fixed-odds coupon favours on form, and so forth. The only similarity between the normal football coupon and the fixed-odds coupon is in the draws. The purpose of the Amendment, which is supported by responsible people who understand what the Chancellor intends to do and want to cooperate, is to ensure that the revenue which can be obtained from this source should be obtained in the easiest possible way.
    The Amendment would safeguard both the bookmakers and the Chancellor from the effect of the Bill's proposals for the taxation of fixed-odds betting. It is felt that the imposition of such a heavy duty as 25 per cent. Of stakes will provide the strongest possible inducement for an unscrupulous collector to stand fixed-odds coupon bets himself. Another variation of the difference between the two coupons
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    is that the fixed-odds coupon goes out to collectors and is returned to the original bookmaker.
    If a tax is imposed there will be a tendency for some of these people to stand the bets themselves and so evade tax. An agent who is a bookmaker on his own account will not risk the loss of his permit, but there are hundreds of part-time collectors who may be willing to take this risk. We believe that much of the tax which the Chancellor
    hopes to get from this source will not reach the Inland Revenue at all and that it will be difficult to trace. I am informed that about 2,000 operators of these different fixed-odds coupons are in being at the moment. If the right hon. Gentleman and his officials in the Customs and Excise Department can trace them, all they will be doing well but they will certainly have a very busy time in trying to do so.
    The object of the Amendment is to put this tax on a realistic basis. It is felt that, in this way, the tax would be collectible, but the Chancellor has already said that the Amendment would have the effect of reducing the amount that he wishes to collect by about 50 per cent. I advise him to settle for what he can get out of this source and put the tax on a realistic basis. He is taking a gamble with his present proposal. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is taking another gamble as well. He is not handling the betting laws and taxation in general in the proper way, and he and his staff face a very difficult problem as it is. Unless he deals with this situation in a more rational way there will be more trouble.
    When one talks in this Committee on behalf of these people one always faces the argument, "Why are people like you arguing for people like them? Why not tax all bookmakers and gambling to the hilt?". Gambling, however, is part of the British way of life, whether we like it or not. In 1948, I said that we should legalise it and I was applauded by some bookmakers and yelled at by others. The present Government had the courage to introduce the Betting and Gaming Act, 1960, and I applaud them for their courage. I do not think that my party would have done it. I believe that it would have "ducked it". For the first time the Government put the bookmaker in the High Street, and that was a courageous thing to do.

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    I have always been anxious to establish that if people want to gamble—as they undoubtedly do—the Government should recognise it. I am tired of those humbugs who turn their heads away and say that it is not really going on. But if there is to be a tax on gambling let it be done honourably and decently and not by hole and corner methods.
    In this case, the Chancellor has chosen the wrong way. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley supported my ideas on Second Reading and I hope that he will speak in this debate. I do not want a reversion to what I call the" 1960 era" in betting and gambling. Everyone knows what was going on then, including the vast amount of corruption in our police. We all knew that this was happening in my own area. I was glad then that the Government recognised gambling as inevitable. I hope that they do not intend to introduce methods now which will push us back to those hole and corner days. That is why I have put down this Amendment for discussion.
    If the words of the Amendment are not satisfactory, then I will willingly withdraw it. I move it mainly as a vehicle for debate. I want a clean and above board way of taxing these people, a way that will give the Government and the tax dignity and effectiveness. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley was on a substantial point in arguing that we should make this proposal permissive. By November this year we shall know whether this tax is to be collected, but I have a shrewd feeling that we shall find that it cannot be. If that is so, we must await another Finance Bill in order to make a change.
    The Chancellor's present proposal surely means the abolition of this form of betting. If that is what he wants, let him say so and I will admire his honesty. But if that is not his purpose then let him accept the advice of those who know something about the subject and realise that, if he wants £12 million, he will not get it this way.
    Mr. Alan Hopkins: It is appropriate on the eve of Derby Day to discuss betting.
    Mr. Mellish: Put your money on Oncidium.
    Mr. Hopkins: I would not necessarily accept the hon. Gentleman's tip about that but I would accept his invitation to discuss the Amendment. This seems to centre on one matter. It is the intention of the Chancellor to raise some taxation in the form in which it has been expressed in the Bill. My right hon. Friend estimates that the yield is likely to be about £12 million. I wonder whether that claim is justifiable in the light of trade experience.
    I believe it is true that the football pools have suffered a decline in turnover over the last few years but that, at the same time, there has been a rise in the amount bet by the public as a whole upon fixed odds, promoted in the main by three large bookmaking firms with very many collectors and sub-agents throughout the country. It is, therefore, natural that my right hon. Friend should look to these bookmakers for a source of revenue.
    I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has made a justifiable assumption. Is it likely that the money at present in the fixed-odds pools will revert to the football pools and thereby increase the revenue from that source? Or is it likely that the fixed-odds pools will be able to absorb a tax of this nature and still carry on in business? I think it probable that the amount of money bet on fixed odds football pools will decline substantially and that it is not likely to go back into the hands of the football pool promoters. If this is so, it appears likely that my right hon. Friend will not get the amount of money he is hoping to obtain from this form of taxation. It may well be possible so to do, however, and the case for the Amendment is to see whether or not it is possible to devise another form of words which will take care of the practical difficulties of the bookmakers in making this tax workable.
    I would not be prepared to press this to a Division, but, if the discussion results in my right hon. Friend considering whether there is an alternative form of words which will achieve his object while making it workable from the point of view of the bookmakers, it will have served a useful purpose.
    8.0 p.m.
    Mr. George Wigg: I will not weary the Committee by continuing an argument which started on Second

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    Reading, except to say that there is clearly a difference of opinion between me and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is quite confident—he said it in columns 1530–33 of HANSARD for 7th May, 1964—that his estimate in his Budget statement will be justified and that the money being spent on fixed odds will pay duty, or tend to go back to the football pools. He has also expressed his confidence that there is no danger of evasion. All I can say—and I say this as a compliment—is that he has the faith of the early Christians, a faith which in this respect I do not share. However, he has access to highly competent advice and he has taken it, and I hope very sincerely that he is right. I do not think that he is.
    First, I believe that he fails to understand one or two things about this business. He has listened rather too easily to what the football promoters have to say. He has tended to regard the football pools operators in the same category as, say, William Hill, Copes, or Ladbrokes. I hasten to say for the benefit of the charitably-minded that I am in the pay of none of those gentlemen. I have no interest in them at all, except in so far as I can occasionally win something from them. There is a world of difference between those gentlemen and the football pools operators. The football pools operator never loses. He is on a winner from the word "Go".
    However, the fixed-odds bookmaker does lose. I do not guarantee my figures, and I have no doubt that the Chancellor has access to this information, but I am sure that in the last two years the fixed-odds bookmakers have had a pretty thin time. That is one of the reasons why I repeat my advice to the Chancellor that he should be careful. If in the first six weeks of the next football season I am right and fixed odds have gone, that is to say, if the punter has refused either to pay 25s. for a £1 bet—and as a punter I am sure that I would not do this, and I do not know of anyone outside a lunatic asylum and even inside who would pay 25s. for a 20s. bet—or the punters have refused to accept odds of 45 to I where they had been getting 60 to I—there will be a great increase of illegal betting.
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    I remind the Chancellor that there are many punters, members of Conservative clubs, who are Tories and who have votes and who will not get paid. The Labour punters have only one vote, and they will vote Labour anyway, but the Tory punters will wake up to find that the bookmakers have gone. It is the existence of the big firms which gives any stability to betting. The small operator who is pirating someone else's coupon and running someone else's coupon through the means of a local printer is all right so long as he is winning and is able to buy his second Bentley and the second mink coat for his wife or a few more diamond rings. When William Hill or Mr. Ladbroke or Copes or any of the other big operators are winning, they put something against a rainy day.
    Many bookmakers have been offering odds of 65 to 1. This is a part of the business which they do not like because it does not pay. Offering 65 to 1 is dodgy, and half of the business of fixed odds is on draws, something they do not like. If in the first six weeks of the next season there is a succession of weeks when there are draws, the number of bookmakers who will "knock" and the number of punters who will not get paid will run into millions. This is something which the Chancellor does not begin to understand. He has approached this matter with the attitude of the early Christians—"Everything in the garden will be all right; I have been given some estimates and they will work out."
    If it does not work out and there is a run of successful draws on two or three successive weeks, not only will there be trouble, but the Chancellor will not get his revenue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) put his finger on it—the boys who operate on the fixed odds are the discerning punters, the people who have tried a succession of birthday dates or a succession of coincidental dates in the family and who have tired of paying out 5s. a week on the pools and who, through a process of trial and error, have gone to the fixed odds. I do not believe that those who have graduated—if that is the right word—from the pools to the fixed odds will return from fixed odds to the pools. They are completely different beings. In fact, the popularity

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    of pool betting is waning, and never mind how much propaganda the pool owners may put out. I do not believe, with all the help of the Chancellor, that he will ever again collect from the pool promoters anything like he collected in the old days.
    In these circumstances, it becomes an argument about fixed odds. It is perfectly clear that the bookmaker would like to get rid of draws. As I have said, they have offered odds of 65 to 1 on draws only because the public have demanded it. If the Chancellor puts on a tax of 25 per cent. and says that the existence of betting shops is a guarantee that people will get their coupons—which is what he told me—he knows little about this business.
    What he does not realise is that a vast number—I believe that there are some 14,000 betting shops—of these chaps are not bookmakers in the strict sense of the word, especially those dealing with football betting, but are operators on commission, Since Second Reading, I have spoken to one or two who operate on a very big scale. They have told me that they gel 3s. 6d. in the £, out of which they spend 1s. 6d. sending in the coupons, leaving themselves with 2s. profit. If that 3s. 6d. in the £ cannot be paid because of the operation of the tax, the punters will go where they can get 3s. 6d. in the £, and that is round the corner where the same coupon will have been Roneoed. If the Chancellor thinks that this will not happen, all I can say is that I hope that he is right and I am wrong.
    I underline, emphasise and back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey said and what I said on Second Reading: the present Foreign Secretary performed an act of great political courage when he introduced the present betting legislation. When it came up in the last Parliament, I did not believe that any Government would tackle it. But the right hon. Gentleman did, and it has been a very important step forward, and I pay my tribute to his courage in getting rid of not all but 95 per cent. of illegal betting.
    What the Chancellor now proposes can take us back to square one. He is re-creating illegal betting just at the time when we have moved away from it and when the habit of legality and respect-
    1014
    ability has begun to grow. This is at a time when he or his successor might have begun to think of the steps which could be taken to tax betting as a whole, because it ought to be taxed. It is a non-productive undertaking, and, as an act of social justice, it ought to be taxed. It ought to be taxed because of the great pre-emption of capital and the number of people employed in the industry at a time when the labour market is starved, and for the Chancellor to gamble in this way seems to show a touch of confidence, or overconfidence, in the face of all the evidence and of past experience.
    If the Chancellor is right and I am wrong, I shall give three cheers, and no harm will be done, but if I happen to be right and he is wrong, we shall be stuck with it. The country will be stuck with it. All that I ask the Chancellor to do is to make this permissive. If by the first week of October he finds that fixed odds have gone—and those who operate this business are confident that fixed odds are finished because they cannot bear a tax of 25 per cent. and because of the price that the punter will have to pay—the position can then be put right.
    Let us not leave it to be dealt with at the next Budget. The Chancellor can then say, "My estimates were wrong, and I shall introduce a Statutory Instrument to restore the situation". I do not want the Chancellor to say that he was wrong. All that I want him to do is to prevent the growth of illegality, because I do not want to waste another two years before we find ourselves in the position when gambling in all its forms bears the tax which it ought to bear in the interests of the community as a whole.
    For many years I have laboured to try to get some sense into this matter. The Chancellor has now taken this step. If he is right, he will be able to go on from there, as will others who follow him, but it is not right that he should gamble on being right and make no provision for safeguarding the position if he happens to be wrong. I am not saying that he personally will have made a mistake. The mistake will have been made by his advisers whose life's work does not give them the necessary experience in this field to enable them to be certain about what will happen. Nobody can be certain about this matter.

    1015
    The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) was wrong, and it is therefore a little surprising that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be so emphatic in saying that he is right, so right that he proposes to smash the lifeboats, throw away the lifebelts, and make sure that the wireless does not work. He is throwing away all the safeguards which will enable him to put the position right should he be proved to be wrong.
    I do not understand why an intelligent man should be so stubborn. I am not warning the Chancellor, but I repeat for the umpteenth time that in the interests of the country as a whole, he should take steps to ensure that if the situation envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and by myself should arise, there will be an opportunity to put the matter right. This matter could be dealt with by a simple Amendment on Report, and I shall be very glad to hear that the Government have had second thoughts on the matter.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I hesitate to oppose the formidable body of expertise which was presented with a persuasiveness worthy of Epsom Downs tomorrow afternoon, but I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) that this is not really a question of finding a form of words which is suitable to achieve a mutually agreed purpose, as it was in the case of the last Amendment put forward by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). I must oppose the Amendment as a matter of principle because, as the Committee will realise, it is, in effect, asking that the proposed duty on fixed-odds coupon betting should be halved. It is therefore an argument not about a form of words, but about an overall rate of duty.
    8.15 p.m.
    Inevitably the arguments put forward by hon. Members on both sides must be of a rather speculative nature, perhaps suitable for a rather speculative business. It is not possible in this case to say with certainty what is going to happen, although one must admit that a fall in the wagering on football pools, accompanied by a rise in the wagering on fixed odds, does not seem to be prima facie evidence that different types of people bet on the two different forms of gambling. The
    1016
    argument put forward by the hon. Member for Bermondsey, and by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), is that really only the mug punter puts money on football pools and that the discerning better wants better odds and the chance of beating the handicapper, which the fixed odds coupon gives him.
    I have a greater faith than has the hon. Member for Dudley, not only in the rightness of the Chancellor and his advisers, but in the capacity of the bookmaker to find a form of arranging his coupon and the gamble he offers to the public which will succeed both in satisfying those who regard themselves as discriminating gamblers, and in not weighing the odds too strongly against himself.
    The second part of the argument was that because of this difference between the two types of people who gamble in this way, the Treasury would lose revenue, and that because the pools are a lottery and the fixed odds are a gamble we would destroy one form of betting without getting a compensating increase in revenue from the other. I could not possibly refute that argument with any definiteness, but one must admit that the balance of evidence—and certainly the balance of evidence which we have been able to accumulate—shows that the traffic can bear the overall duty of 25 per cent.
    The hon. Member for Dudley suggested that we might be wrong—and I suppose that we might be—and that, therefore, it would be better to make the duty permissive. At one stage in his argument he hinted that the bookmakers were willing to pay the duty in relation to bets made at fixed odds on draws, not only because this was competitive with football pools, but because it was a part of their business which did not pay, and that they would not mind very much if it were destroyed. I do not think there is anything in that argument. I think that the hon. Member will agree that he cannot expect the Chancellor to encourage evasion by saying, "If you can evade the tax successfully enough at the beginning we will take it off. "That is really what the proposal amounts to.
    Mr. Wigg: I am not advocating any course of action. What I am trying to indicate is what will happen. I am not going to do the evasion.
    Mr. Macmillan: I accept the hon. Member's reassurance on that point. I can only point out to the Committee that the Customs and Excise authorities feel confident that they will be able to collect the revenue due to them, and that whatever may be the administrative difficulties in respect of those who organise fixed odds betting and also the Customs and Excise authorities, we believe that they can be overcome, that by the imposition of this tax we shall not destroy those who operate fixed odds betting, and that we shall collect from it the duty we have estimated. Even if the imposition of the tax tends to make people move away from this form of betting, it is only equitable that the two forms of betting on football, dissimilar though hon. Members say they are, should be taxed in the same way.
    In the circumstances, I can only recommend the Committee not to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Mellish: This is a flat rejection of the Amendment. I am not surprised, because we had an earlier indication that it would be rejected. But the hon. Member did not deal with the point that I made, that some people will produce illegal coupons which the Customs and Excise authorities, with all their ingenuity, will not be able to trace. The hon. Member has not mentioned that point. I do not think that he cares about it. I think that all he is concerned with is that if he can get EX hundred million he will be satisfied. The amount of money is a matter for the Chancellor, but I hope that he will not ruin what the 1960 Act has been trying to do. That was the only thing that I was pleading for.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) referred to the fact that some of the big firms lost money on fixed-odds betting. The accounts of these firms are subject to constant audit by the Customs and Excise authorities, so that there is no chance of a fiddle. I am told that the books of one firm which have been examined show that in 1961–62 it lost £80,000 and that last year it lost £606,000. If the Chancellor imposes a 25 per cent. tax on top of this such a firm will be very foolish if it carries on. Anyway, we shall see.
    1018
    I do not intend to press the Amendment, but I shall not withdraw it.
    Amendment negatived
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 8.—(SURCHARGES AND REBATES UNDER SECTION 9 OF FINANCE ACT 1961.)
    Mr. Anthony Crosland: I beg to move Amendment No.5, in page 10, line 1, to leave out subsection (2).
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. F. Blackburn): With this Amendment we can take Amendment No.7, in page 10, line 14, leave out from "to" to end of line 16 and insert:
    "any duty or group of duties of customs or excise (including purchase tax as such a duty) without: applying 10 other such duties".
    Amendment No.8, in line 16, at end insert:
    "or to the duties on one or more of the chargeable goods within any of the said groups without applying to the duties on the remainder of tie chargeable goods within those groups or any of them"
    Amendment No.10, in line after "the", insert "duty or".
    Amendment No.11, in line 21, leave out subsection (5).
    Amendment No.13, in line 42, leave out "groups" and insert "duty"
    Amendment No.14, in line 45, leave out "group" and insert "duty".
    Mr. Crosland: Yes, Mr. Blackburn. It is not surprising that in order to understand the Amendments we must understand the purpose of the Clause. Its purpose, as explained by the Chancellor in his Budget speech, is to make the regulator more flexible by dividing Customs and Excise duties into four large groups—broadly speaking, tobacco, alcohol, oil and Purchase Tax—giving himself the power to increase the use of the regulator for one or more of these groups without necessarily having to do the same for all. We are sympathetic to the idea of making the use of the regulator more flexible, if it is possible. The reason for our putting down this group of Amendments is that we have serious doubts whether the Clause, as it stands, gives a sufficient additional degree of flexibility, particularly when it is considered together with Clauses 1 to 4.

    1019
    We have two or three serious doubts in the matter. In particular, we doubt whether this provision increases the amount of flexibility in the use of the regulator. In a sense, the reason why the Chancellor has introduced the Clause is that he thinks that he might have to use the regulator in the autumn, and since he presumably does not think that he can increase drink and tobacco duties any further he wants to give himself power to use the regulator in respect of the remaining two categories only.
    Nominally, one might say that this was an increase in the flexibility of the regulator. The trouble is that the fact that he has already increased the duty on drink and tobacco in Clauses 1 and 4 makes the whole regulator very much less useful than it otherwise would be. Suppose it is true that in the autumn he can increase only Purchase Tax and oil duties. If the Chancellor had to do something—or if some other Chancellor had to do something—and if he could not do anything more with the duty on drink and tobacco, it has been estimated that the use of the entire 10 per cent. regulator on everything except drink and tobacco would bring in only about £100 million. The Minister will correct that figure if it is wrong. If that figure is right, it suggests that the Chancellor has very much weakened his reserve weapon. He may easily need to try to raise more money than that, which is the first reason why we doubt whether he has increased the flexibility of the regulator in the Clause as it is drafted.
    The second reason—this is a point dealt with implicitly, at least, in our Amendments—is that the additional flexibility created by subsection (2) appears to be largely nullified by the provisions of subsection (5). Subsection (2) gives the Chancellor power to use the regulator for some of these groups without having to use it for the others. Subsection (5) makes clear that, for whatever groups he uses the regulator, he must either increase or decrease taxation by precisely the same amount. Subsection (5) rules out the possibility of having, say, a 10 per cent. increase for two groups and a 5 per cent. increase for the remainder. It is not at all clear why the Clause intends to increase flexibility by one subsection and at the same time reduce it seriously by another subsection.
    1020
    The third of our doubts relates to the division of these duties into four groups. If there is an argument for dividing them into groups, would not it be sensible to go further and give the Chancellor power to use the regulator for individual duties and not simply for the four major groups? The basic object of the Amendments is to increase the flexibility of the regulator by saying that the Chancellor should have power to use it on certain individual items and at the same time not be compelled to use it for all the other items covered by the various groupings. That, basically, is the object of our Amendments; to try to do what we think that the Chancellor has failed to do by the provisions of this Clause, to make the regulator a great deal more flexible.
    We feel strongly—at least I and some of my hon. Friends do—that it is desperately important to try to make the regulator more flexible. Even since the Chancellor introduced his Budget, evidence has been increasing—I should have thought—that the right hon. Gentleman or someone else would have to use the regulator in the autumn. All the
    statistics which we have had since the date of the introduction of the Budget indicate that the pressure of demand is building up heavily in the economy and we may be running into serious inflation by the autumn. Let us be frank. The chances that the regulator will have to be used by the present Chancellor, or his successor, are getting very high indeed. For that reason we attach importance to trying to make the regulator as flexible and as efficient as we can.
    8.30 p.m.
    Mr. Maudling: I am very interested in the point raised by the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland). We are discussing a group of Amendments, several in the names of hon. Members opposite and one in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Cleaver), on the question of the regulator. It is a rather unusual situation in that the Committee is proposing to give to the Chancellor greater powers than he is seeking.
    The history of this matter is on these lines. Traditionally all changes in

    1021
    taxation take place at the time of the Budget, but that, as the late Aneurin Bevan once said, is following the traditions of a pastoral society, and I accept the view that under modern conditions we should try to get away from the purely annual Budget context. This first happened on Purchase Tax when the Committee gave flexibility in raising and lowering rates to the Chancellor That proved of advantage in the reductions made on motor cars. It was followed by the regulator: this was specifically designed for economic purposes so that one could make an immediate impact on totality of demand by putting up or down the general level of indirect taxes.
    I think it was felt at the time that it would not be very readily acceptable to the Committee to go beyond that in the discretion given to Chancellors. There are two objections to giving too much power to change particular duties between Budgets. The first is that when we get pressure or claims for individual tax changes we should weigh the competing claims against one another and one can do that only at the time of the Budget. This is a sensible in-built reason for not having too great ability to exercise that power at a time when by its nature it probably should not be exercised.
    The second reason is parliamentary control. Quite clearly parliamentary control over a change of taxes by order is of its nature less complete than parliamentary control over changes of taxation that have to be brought into being by the whole machinery of a Ways and Means Resolution and a Finance Bill. Therefore, in expanding the flexibility of the Chancellor's taxing powers in the case of the regulator it has so far been the view that this should be kept as a very general power, so that in using the regulator the Chancellor should be operating on the economy generally and that detailed provisions on relative tax rates judged on the basis of equity, and considerations related to particular industries, are better left to be dealt with in the Budget by the detail of particular tax changes.
    That was the situation I faced this year. In looking at the regulator and deciding what to ask the Committee in the way of reviewing these powers, I
    1022
    thought it wise to ask for more flexibility, very much for the reason which the hon. Member has suggested. Having raised duties on alcohol and tobacco, it might be desirable at some stage to operate the regulator and yet difficult to operate the regulator if it involved a second increase in duties already increased in the Financial Bill. Therefore, I am asking the Committee to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoever he may be—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—coming events do not cast their shadows that often—authority to exclude from the use of the regulator one of the main four groupings of indirect taxation.
    Frankly, I considered going a little further, but I felt that the Committee might be unwilling to grant me such latitude. I am interested to find that the opinion, as shown in the Amendments and in the speech of the hon. Member, is rather inclined to give me further latitude than I thought the Committee would be willing to give. With the permission of the Committee, I should like to consider the question further. There are two matters before the Committee. One is the splitting up of the individual blocks of duties into rather smaller compartments. The other is the power, which would be given by the Amendment to eliminate subsection (5), to vary the rate of duty. For example, it might be put up or down by 10 per cent. On one section and 5 per cent. On
    another. Taking the two suggestions, I am not sure that in practice the first would yield very great benefit. Take the question of duties on alcohol. There is a balance always between beer and wine and spirits. It is unlikely that one would want to use the tax regulator on one without using it on the others.
    Tobacco also is a homogeneous subject, and I think that within the hydrocarbon oil duties there is unlikely to be scope for making changes in one part of the block and not another. At first sight it seems that the scope for using regulatory powers within the four individual blocks of taxation is probably small, and I doubt whether the advantage of having additional power in that field would counter the rather serious arguments about Parliamentary control and about the need for considering comparative individual tax rates, as opposed to general economic changes of taxation,

    1023
    which only a Finance Bill can carry out. But I will consider this again, although I think that its advantage is rather doubtful.
    On the second point, there is a strong argument for saying that one should have the power of introducing a regulator, whether up or down, of a character which does not necessarily impose the same rate, say 5 per cent. or 10 per cent., over the whole field. The argument has been rather well made for this power by those who have said that we should not bind ourselves, as subsection (5) does, to imposing the same rate of duty over the whole range of articles affected by the regulator.
    With the permission of the Committee I will undertake between now and Report to consider the proposals before us. I am pretty certain that in principle I shall wish to accept the suggestion that there should not necessarily be uniformity of rates; in other words, in practice subsection (5) would be eliminated as suggested in my hon. Friend's Amendment. In principle I shall probably wish to accept that.
    I am not so convinced about the other suggestion for having flexibility within the main blocks of taxation, because I feel that Parliamentary control ought to be a little closer than that. But I am interested in the attitude taken by the Committee and I am encouraged to find that the Committee, so far from being jealous of traditional privileges in the matter, has been inclined to give the Chancellor of the day a little more flexibility in these matters. I do not think that any Chancellor would be wise to spurn this opportunity of greater flexibility.
    Mr. Leonard Cleaver: I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say that he would look at the matter again. My two Amendments simply try to give him more flexibility, as I strongly feel that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have that flexibility when dealing with an economy which is on a knife edge, as our economy is. The two Amendments would give him power, if he wished, to make increases in some of the categories under subsection (2) and to leave out others or to make increases in different groups
    1024
    while leaving one chargeable section of goods out. This would give him more flexibility.
    The right hon. Gentleman would use the regulator only in times of crisis, and at such times he should use it as a rapier rather than as a bludgeon. To give an example of the way in which he might use the regulator, he might feel it wise to increase the petrol duty, but if he did that under the powers of the Bill as they stand he would have to increase the duty on hydrocarbon oil and diesel oil. That would undoubtedly put up costs, which would affect exports as well as the home market, and he might not wish to do that. Similarly, he might wish to alter the duty on imported wines, but under the Clause the increase must apply to beer, too, and that might be unnecessary and undesirable.
    Purchase Tax covers a very wide range, and it applies to necessities as well as to luxuries. Some of the goods to which it applies go for export. He would therefore be wise, if he had the power, to differentiate between one Purchase Tax class and another.
    I am encouraged by what my right hon. Friend has said. I hope that, on reconsideration, he will decide to accept my Amendments. I believe that he should have the extra power. I ask him to take all these considerations into account.
    Mr. Diamond: The Chancellor of the Exchequer is adding to his other manifest qualities the quality of undue modesty. He is being offered by the Committee the possibility of using existing powers—not additional powers—with greater precision. He doubts whether he is the man to accept this responsibility. We on this side have no doubt that he is the man to accept this responsibility, because this was the only argument when the regulator was first discussed.
    The argument from this side was not whether this was a wise addition to the armoury of government. We questioned whether it was a wise addition to the armoury of government having regard to the complexion of the Government. At that time we on this side came to the conclusion that the arguments in favour of additional flexibility were far greater than the natural hesitation we had about

    1025
    entrusting further powers to a Government of the complexion they had held hitherto.
    Those arguments are, perhaps, a little weaker now than they were at the time they were considered. Nevertheless, those were the arguments at the time. They are still the arguments. Nothing that has been said from either side of the Chamber supports the Chancellor's view that he should hesitate. This is not the first time the Chancellor has seen the Amendments. They have been on the Notice Paper. He has had an opportunity to consider them. While the rest of us have been enjoying our well-earned and temporary respite, the Chancellor has been busy at his desk every day reading the Amendments and considering his attitude to the Finance Bill. Therefore, he has had ample opportunity to consider whether he should accept the Amendments.
    Both sides are anxious to give the Chancellor the power to use—the possibility of using—existing powers with greater precision, holding the weapon, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Cleaver) said, as a rapier rather than as a bludgeon. It was only a question of having a period of trial before these powers inevitably came to be more precise.
    We on this side cannot see why the Chancellor should not now make up his mind. He has had plenty of time to consider the matter. We sympathise with him in his new rôle of a modest, retiring, withdrawn individual. We find it difficult to recognise him, but we sympathise with him in his new attitude. We do not know what occasioned it other than such things as public opinion polls. We take the view that there has been ample opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to consider this matter. The Amendments are clear. The Chancellor has not said that they are drafted inaccurately or inadequately. He has not complained about a single word. It would have been surprising if he had, because my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has drafted them with his usual expertise.
    Therefore, we can only take it that the Amendments are verbally adequate and correct and serve their purpose. We find it difficult to believe that there is any reason to avoid reaching a conclusion. We like to get on. We do not like to dilly-dally and have a second and third bite at a simple cherry. It is a simple preposition which has been put forward by both sides of the Committee. We hope that the Chancellor will accept the argument. If he will not accept the argument which has been put forward in the Chamber, we will have to rely on the argument in the Division Lobby, but we believe that is completely necessary. We feel sure that the Chancellor will accept the argument which has been advanced.
    8.45 p.m.
    Mr. Maudling: To comment on the wording of the Amendments, I am advised that despite the extremely distinguished nature of their origin, they would not be entirely satisfactory in every detail.
    I turn to the principle of them. I have been interested in this reaction because I have been concerned that the Committee should feel that I should not ask for too much and escape parliamentary control. I wanted to consider, therefore, not only what the Amendments were designed to do, but also to listen to the arguments adduced before forming a view on what would be the best sort of proposal to make on Report and how far it should go. I did not want to press the Committee further. I wanted to consider how far this degree of flexibility would be consistent with our tradition of parliamentary control.
    I did not wish to make up my mind until I had heard the arguments, and I wanted to ask for time between now and Report to decide how far—and I will go a good way—I could go in this direction and how far I could recommend hon. Members to go.
    Question out, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 212, Noes 161.

    Division No. 96.]

    AYES

    [8.46 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Arbuthnot, Sir John

    Barter, John

    Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Batsford, Brian

    Allason, James

    Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Anderson, D. C.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin

    Peel, John

    Bidgood, John C.

    Holland, Philip

    Percival, Ian

    Bingham, R. M.

    Hollingworth, John

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Bishop, Sir Patrick

    Holt, Arthur

    Pitman, Sir James

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Hooson, H. E.

    Pitt, Dame Edith

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Pounder, Rafton

    Box, Donald

    Hornby, R. P.

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

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

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Braine, Bernard

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Pym, Francis

    Brewis, John

    Hurd, Sir Anthony

    Ramsden, Rt. Hon. James

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. Sir Peter

    Buck, Antony

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Bullard, Denys

    Jennings, J. C.

    Renton, Rt. Hon. David

    Burden, F. A.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

    Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Russell, Sir Ronald

    Chataway, Christopher

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Chichester-Clark, R

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Seymour, Leslie

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Kirk, Peter

    Sharples, Richard

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Shaw, M.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher

    Cordle, John

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Corfield, F. V.

    Leavey, J. A.

    Speir, Rupert

    Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Stainton, Keith

    Critchley, Julian

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Dance, James

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

    Longden, Gilbert

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Summers, Sir Spencer

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    Lubbock, Eric

    Talbot, John E.

    Drayson, G. B.

    McAdden, Sir Stephen

    Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

    Duncan, Sir James

    MacArthur, Ian

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

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    McLaren, Martin

    Temple, John M.

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute & N.Ayrs)

    Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Farr, John

    Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Finlay, Graeme

    Maginnis, John E.

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Maitland, Sir John

    Turner, Colin

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

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Marshall, Sir Douglas

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Freeth, Denzil

    Marten, Neil

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Gardner, Edward

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

    Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Mawby, Ray

    Wade, Donald

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Walder, David

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

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

    Walker, Peter

    Goodhew, Victor

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

    Green, Alan

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Webster, David

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J,

    Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Grosvenor, Lord Robert

    Morrison, John (Salisbury)

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Gurden, Harold

    Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Neave, Airey

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)

    Worsley, Marcus

    Hay, John

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Hiley, Joseph

    Page, John (Harrow, West)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Mr. Hugh Rees and

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

    Partridge, E.

    Mr. R. W. Elliot.

    NOES

    Abse Leo

    Bowles, Frank

    Cronin, John

    Ainsley, William

    Boyden, James

    Crosland, Anthony

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Crossman, R. H. S.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Bray, Dr. Jeremy

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Dalyell, Tam

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Burnett Guy

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Bence, Cyril

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Benson, Sir George

    Callaghan, James

    Deer, George

    Blyton, William

    Carmichael, Neil

    Delargy, Hugh

    Boardman, H.

    Cliffe, Michael

    Dempsey, James

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Collick, Percy

    Diamond, John

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

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Dodds, Norman

    1028

    1029

    Doig, Peter

    Lipton, Marcus

    Rhodes, H.

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Loughlin, Charles

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Driberg, Tom

    Mabon, Dr. J, Dickson

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

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

    McBride, N.

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    McCann, J.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    MacColl, James

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    McInnes, James

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

    Evans, Albert

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Ross, William

    Fernyhough, E.

    MacKenzie, J. G.

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Fitch, Alan

    McLeavy, Frank

    Short, Edward

    Fletcher, Eric

    MacPherson, Malcolm

    Silkin, John

    Foley, Maurice

    Mahon, Simon

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Manuel, Archie

    Small, William

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Mapp, Charles

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Ginsburg, David

    Marsh, Richard

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Grey, Charles

    Mason, Roy

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Steele, Thomas

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    Millan, Bruce

    Stonehouse, John

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Milne, Edward

    Stones, William

    Hannan, William

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Stress, Sir Barnett, (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

    Harper, Joseph

    Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Morris, John (Aberavon)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Hilton, A. V.

    Mulley, Frederick

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Holman, Percy

    Neal, Harold

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

    Houghton, Douglas

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

    Thornton, Ernest

    Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

    O'Malley, B. K.

    Warbey, William

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Oram, A. E.

    Weitzman, David

    Hunter, A. E.

    Owen, Will

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Hynd, H, (Accrington)

    Padley, W. E.

    Whitlock, William

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Parker, John

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Paton, John

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Jeger, George

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Williams. Ll. (Abertillery)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Peart, Frederick

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Kelley, Richard

    Pentland, Norman

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Woof, Robert

    King, Dr, Horace

    Probert, Arthur

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Lawson, George

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Randall, Harry

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

    Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

    Mr. charles A Howell and

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Mr. Redhead.

    Mr. A. Lewis: I beg to move Amendment No.6, in page 10, line 14, after "may", to insert "(a)".
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. F. Blackburn): We can also discuss Amendment No.9, in line 16, at end insert:
    "and
    (b) notwithstanding anything in the said section 9 apply to the pool betting duty in the case of bets on dog races made by means of a totalisator on a licensed track without applying to any other of the duties included within the aforesaid group (d).
    In this subsection 'dog race' 'licensed track' and 'totalisator' have the same meanings respectively as in the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963".
    and Amendment No.12, in line 37, at end insert:
    "or the provisions of subsection (3) of this section under which an order may be made with respect to the pool betting duty therein referred to without applying to any other of the duties included within the group (d) specified in subsection (1) of this section".
    Mr. Lewis: When I put these Amendments on the Notice Paper, with the support of my hon. Friends and some hon. Members opposite, I was not too
    1030
    sanguine of the Chancellor accepting them, but after listening to his remarks on the last batch of Amendments I feel quite hopeful. These Amendments are somewhat similar to those, but whereas the others were of a general character these deal with a particular point.
    The purpose of the first Amendment is to enable the Chancellor to apply the regulator to the duties embraced in Clause 8(2,d) which, as framed, includes Pool Betting Duty in the case of bets placed on the totalisator and other forms of betting on greyhound racing without necessarily altering the amount of Pool Betting Duty, which is now 5 per cent., as fixed under Clause 7(1,a).
    I pay tribute to the Chancellor and the Treasury for the fact that the percentage duty is reduced in the Bill to 5 per cent. from the previous 10 per cent. This is a courageous and correct step. Unlike my hon. Friends who spoke earlier, I am not against the taxation of gambling, betting and gaming. I am in favour of it, but I feel that all forms of 'letting, gambling and gaming should be dealt with on an equitable

    1031
    basis. This has not been the position in the past and is not even the position now.
    The second Amendment is consequential on the first and is necessary to overcome the provisions of Clause 8(5), which provides that the orders made shall apply uniformly to all the duties in the groups set out in subsection (2). The Chancellor mentioned earlier that he would like some flexibility in the application of the Clause. Here is a case where, if he can make the same sort of speech as he made a few moments ago, I can promise that we shall not press the Amendment to a vote. We would willingly accept his promise to look at the matter further between now and the Report stage.
    9.0 p.m.
    Clause 7 deals with the Pool Betting Duty separately from the duties mentioned in the group. We feel that it is, therefore, appropriate that that particular type of duty should be separate and dealt with separately from the other duties in respect of the use of the regulator under Clause 8. We also feel that pool betting on greyhound racing is better dealt with under Clause 7.
    The Amendment, in effect, gives power to the Chancellor to deal with pool betting duty on dog racing, for example, as entirely separate from all the other types. We have put down these Amendments in this form only for reasons of drafting. We want to give the Chancellor the opportunity of dealing with this matter on a flexible basis. It is obvious that if he wants to alter or amend the regulator to deal with pool betting on dog racing, it is a little stupid that he should have to deal with the whole of the other types of taxation within that group. It is equally stupid that if he wants to deal only with tobacco or whisky he should find that he is dealing under the regulator with pool betting on dog racing.
    Greyhound attendances might be declining and totalisator takings dropping and it might be necessary for him to deal with these individually on their merits. We feel that if, as appeared to be the case, the Chancellor was considering the possibility of accepting the principle of the previous Amend-
    1032
    ment, here is an opportunity for him, by accepting our proposals, to put it into operation.
    For many years the sport of greyhound racing, which is followed by many people, has been the only one to be taxed. Tomorrow, the House will have rather a slack day because a number of hon. Members opposite will be going to the Derby, but no Member will be taxed on his bets at Epsom. On greyhound racing the tax would be 5 per cent, which is much better than the previous 10 per cent. In again thanking the Chancellor for what he has done, I ask him to go one step further and accept these Amendments. These would provide for a more flexible operation of the regulator, which, I understand, the Chancellor desires to do.
    Mr. Godfrey Lagden: I do not intend to keep the Committee for more than a few moments, but I should like, on behalf of many of those who are engaged in greyhound racing, to say that the Chancellor's action in reducing the tax from 10 to 5 per cent. has not gone unnoticed or without praise. At the same time, this resembles perhaps the modest punter who had hoped for a large win and had to be content with a place bet at considerably reduced odds. I think that the greyhound racing business really hopes that it is only a question of when the day will come when it can say, "Any to come?", and that the Chancellor's next effort will, perhaps, prove an all-time winner.
    I join in what has been said by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis). It is most unusual for me to agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that I shall not often do it.
    Mr. A. Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is trying to increase his majority.
    Mr. Lagden: On this occasion, however, I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman's appeal will not have been wasted. My right hon. Friend is the first Chancellor for many years to show that he understands something of the predicament in which this form of racing has found itself.
    Earl of Dalkeith: I express my appreciation to my right hon. Friend for the reduction from 10 per cent. to 5 per cent. which he has made

    1033
    in the duty. I am one of those who have taken part in this argument for some years, and I congratulate him on what he has done.
    The arguments now are the same as they have been for many years. I only hope that my right hon. Friend will bear these arguments on principle in mind when, next year, he thinks about the matter again and, perhaps, knocks off the remaining 5 per cent. If he can do it sooner, so much the better. On behalf of those whom I represent in my constituency, I congratulate him on what he has done thus far.
    Mr. Marcus Lipton: I associate myself with the plea which has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis), the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) and the noble Lord the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith).
    I have now lost count of the number of time5, on which I have been on deputations to see Chancellors of the Exchequer about the injustices from which the greyhound organisations have been suffering for years. It must be said to the credit of the present Chancellor that, at long last, he has recognised the validity of at least some of the arguments which have been put to him. I hope that he will be able to go just a little further and accept the Amendment which has been moved. It will do no harm if he does.
    Mr. Maudling: I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who have said that the provisions in the Bill will be of help to greyhound racing, which has, I think, been suffering under a weight of taxation which was unfair and which, therefore, ought to have been reduced. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) hoped that there might be more to come at some time. I think that I should remind him of the old maxim, which is not a bad one, that no one ever went "broke" taking a profit, and I think that the present profit should be helpful. It was generally agreed that the position of greyhound tracks called for some attention.
    But this, of course, is not the point of the Amendment before us. This Amendment is an example of the general principle which was covered by the previous
    1034
    Amendment, and it is, therefore, covered in principle by what I said earlier, which I shall not seek to repeat verbatim now. It is an illustration of the difficulties which could arise. I believe that the regulator should be used for the purpose for which it is designed, that is, for regulating the movement of the economy and not primarily for the purpose of changing the incidence of duties between one subject of taxation and another. This, as I said before, must remain the function of the Finance Bill as such, when we can look at the whole picture of demand and the various claims and source s of revenue.
    I wanted more flexibility in the regulator because its use without variation could, in certain circumstances, be unfair and difficult. I wanted, therefore, to have a situation in which the Chancellor of the day could use the regulator but had the power to exempt certain forms of taxation from it. My proposal was that there should be four blocks. It has been suggested that the size of the blocks should be reduced. It is now suggested that greyhound racing taxation, for example, should be capable of being excised from the fourth block in which it is at present included along with the Purchase Tax.
    Clearly, the undertaking which I gave on the previous Amendment to consider all these possibilities covers this possibility as well, and I shall certainly consider it along with the others. I must make clear, of course, as I am sure the Committee will understand, that I can give no undertaking beyond that.
    Mr. A. Lewis: I am much obliged to the Chancellor. It seems that he, too, is helping to increase my majority. Every time we ask for anything the Chancellor may not go the whole way, but he goes most of the way with us.
    However, I would remind the Chancellor that on the last group of Amendments he spoke generally. But here is a particular question. In Clause 7 there is reference to the Pool Betting Duty. Surely it is strange to deal with the Pool Betting Duty for greyhound racing in Clause 8 when there is already a Clause dealing with the duty. Also the regulator is for a group of things which cannot be tied up with general industry.
    I ask the Chancellor to bear in mind that this subject is most definitely different

    1035
    from any of the other subjects in the regulator group on which there may be some discussion if he wants to alter the tax. This is not tied up with anything else except the Pool Betting Duty such as fixed-odds and ante-post betting mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). Surely that should be the category in which the Chancellor should deal with this group.
    I thank the Chancellor for what he has said, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Diamond: There is very little more that need be said, because the essence of the matter has already been discussed on an Amendment. I am sure that the Chancellor is aware of our views, that his existing powers could be improved by greater precision and greater sharpness in the tool which has been designed for "the Chancellor of the day", a very pleasant phrase which the Chancellor used and which I am only too glad to accept.
    I noted with gratitude that the Chancellor said that he was still considering the precise form of an Amendment that he would no doubt introduce on Report. This is a very important Clause, and the only reason why I speak so shortly is that we have considered the essence of it on an Amendment.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 9 and 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 11.—(EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE DUTY OF VEHICLES MODIFIED FOR INVALIDS.)
    Mr. Wade: I beg to move Amendment No.48, in page 12, line 10, after "vehicle", to insert:
    "and whether or not the disabled person would have qualified for a grant at the time when the controls were fitted".
    This may seem to be a comparatively narrow point. On the other hand, it may be an important one. I welcome the relief that is to be granted to disabled persons
    1036
    under Clause 11, and I am anxious that it should be clear to whom it will apply. There is a later Amendment, which I intend to support, which seeks to widen the scope of the Clause.
    My Amendment seeks to add some words. Under the Clause relief is granted in the first case where the disabled person
    "…caused the controls to be fitted to the vehicle and obtained in respect of the cost thereby incurred a grant paid by the Minister of Health…or"
    secondly,
    "whether or not he caused the controls to be fitted to the vehicle, his disability is of a kind in the case of which grants in respect of the fitting of such controls are so paid".
    The question is whether the test is the nature of the disability or the eligibility for grant. There may be a distinction there. Before 1948, there probably would have been no eligibility at all for a disabled person. I understand that since then, each application is considered on its merits and that one of the circumstances taken into account is the need for the person to get to and from work.
    9.15 p.m.
    Let us consider the case of the housewife stricken with polio who has to have a special vehicle fitted with these controls but who does not apply to the Ministry, or perhaps might not succeed in an application because she does not work. I say "might not succeed" and I would put it no higher than that, but that type of person is an example of those who might not be eligible at the time when the controls are fitted.
    On Second Reading, the Financial Secretary said:
    "If one of the two Health Departments would have done the job, but it has been done privately, the invalid is still entitled to receive a certificate."—[OFFIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1964; Vol. 694, c. 1468.]
    Does that mean that the test is whether the invalid would have received a grant? This point has been put to me by a body in which I am interested and which is concerned with disabled people. It may be that the Economic Secretary will be able to satisfy me that the wording of the Clause is adequate to cover the kind of case I have in mind.
    I have my doubts, however, and that is why I move the Amendment. I hope that either it will be accepted or that I shall be satisfied by the reply.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: This Amendment turns on the question of timing, and on that I can assure the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) that it is redundant. Any driver who would be eligible at any time under the Ministry of Health test of disability for an invalid carriage will qualify under the Clause as it stands. For instance, where a disabled driver who is eligible for the provision of transport and who qualifies on medical grounds has bought a secondhand car with controls already adapted, he will qualify. Again, where a disabled driver has received help with the adaptation of a vehicle within the preceding five years—which would not entitle him to further help directly from the Ministry—he will qualify provided the medical qualifications are present.
    I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member will withdraw the Amendment. I thought at one stage that he was getting on to the point of whether the disability qualification was wide enough. This is covered by further Amendments, however, and could perhaps be more conveniently discussed then.
    Mr. Wade: In view of the hon. Gentleman's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Dr. Horace King: I beg to move Amendment No.37, in page 12, line 12, at the end to insert:
    "or
    (c) he has been granted a disabled driver's badge by a local authority, being a badge the renewal of which has not been refused".
    The Chairman: With this can also be taken the Amendment No. 15, in page 12, line 18. at end insert:
    (2) A mechanically propelled vehicle registered under the Vehicles (Excise) Act 1962 in the name of a person to whom a disabled driver's identity badge has been granted by a local authority on conditions specified by the Minister of Health shall not be chargeable with any duty under that Act by reason of its use by or for the purposes of that person, or by reason of its being kept for such use.
    Dr. King: The House of Commons is always very sympathetic when considering the claims of disabled persons, and the spirit of the Financial Secretary's reply just now makes me think that in
    1038
    this debate we shall probably get a little nearer to what some of us have in mind in suggesting the various Amendments to this Clause.
    First, I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the concession which he is granting in this Clause. It is the second of what I hope will prove to be a series of reliefs through the years for disabled drivers as inventions and methods of coping with the disabilities of disabled motor drivers develop.
    In Section 6(9) of the Vehicles Act, 1962, we exempted from motor duty mechanically propelled vehicles not exceeding 6 cwt. if they were used by disabled persons. That was the first step, and that concession helped disabled persons who had what we now call the old invalid tricycles, the first motor propelled vehicles for disabled people.
    The invalid tricycle is now being superseded by the small car, and usually—and this is the point of the Clause—such a sir all car is adapted in some way. It has some kind of special controls for the man who has lost an arm or leg, or the use of one or both of his upper or lower limbs.
    Last year, at the Report stage of the Finance Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), probing this problem, suggested that we should advance the limit of 6 cwt. to 15 cwt. and in that way bring in the mini car which disabled drivers were using. It was perhaps too crude an approach and the Financial Secretary pointed out that it would bring in several other types of car if we had this weight qualification and might be open to abuse. However, he expressed great sympathy with the motives and promised to do something about it. This Clause does something along the lines of what we were asking for last year. Exemption from duty is now to be provided for small motor cars which have special devices to enable disabled men to drive them. The Amendment goes further, and the Liberal Amendment which we are also discussing is also an attempt in the same spirit to go further. I support either.
    It is worth pointing out that most disabled drivers will not benefit from the Clause. If they receive grants as ex-Servicemen who are disabled or in some other respect as disabled men, and

    1039
    receiving a grant is one of the qualifications of the Clause, they also have their tax paid by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, or the Ministry of Health. The only people who will benefit from the Clause as it stands, or as amended, will be those who do not have their tax already paid by some Ministry.
    My disabled friends in the various associations of disabled men, B.L.E.S.M.A. in particular, point out that more and more disabled men, even severely disabled men, are managing and preferring to drive a car without the hand or special controls which the Ministry fixes. With automatic gears it is possible for a severely disabled man to drive a motor car if his disability is of a certain kind. Very often he would prefer to do that rather than use the clumsy and difficult apparatus which is provided by the Ministry as a substitute for the ordinary controls when fitting mini cars. Would not it be possible to give the concession which the right hon. Gentleman is giving in this Clause not to the car but to the disabled person?
    Two years ago we began by a weight of vehicle qualification. Now the qualification is the kind of motor car being used. The tax exemption will be given in only two cases: first, if the car has controls fitted by the Ministry, and, secondly, if the disabled driver has himself fitted controls which, in the opinion of the Ministry of Health, might have been fitted by the Ministry. From the debate which we have just concluded I believe that that will be interpreted as generously as possible, but this concession is tied to the controls which exist on the car.
    The difficulty of taking the tax off the car is that all other motor taxation is on the motor vehicle itself, and nobody, least of all the disabled men for whom I am pleading tonight, would want a situation to arise whereby a car which was not fitted with controls could be exempt from motor tax and some able-bodied man could drive it around the country.
    I accept that the Clause as it stands ties the benefit to those two cases: first, controls on the car, and, secondly, entitlement to be supplied with controls on the car by the Ministry. What we are seeking to do is to add a third alter-
    1040
    native, and for this we go to the local authorities who issue disabled drivers with badges, which are very useful as they are a kind of protection for disabled drivers. There are three qualifications for the issue of those badges, two of which the Government have adopted. The first is that mechanical improvements have been made to the car. The second is that the driver qualifies for mechanical improvements to the car. The third is that local authorities issue such a badge
    "to drivers with amputations which cause considerable difficulty in talking, or who suffer from a defect of the spine or the central nervous system which makes control of the lower limbs difficult."
    On that broad basis local authorities issue disabled driver's badges, and from time to time they check on the degree of disability to see whether it has disappeared or whether the man has become fitter than he was. If he has, his disabled driver's certificate is taken away. Every year when he applies for his disabled driver's certificate, local authorities check on his circumstances, so we need have no fear that this provision would be abused.
    The Amendment would extend the concession which the Government are generously and gladly giving to all disabled drivers who have a degree of disability which conforms to those degrees of disability set out in the local authority regulations. We could then have one single badge which the police would recognise as a disabled driver's badge, and which all authorities in the country would recognise as qualifying a man for exemption from the motor tax on his vehicle.
    There will be no administrative difficulties about adopting this provision. The work is already being done by local authorities and by medical officers of health. I would leave it to the disabled man to decide whether to use the kind of apparatus which is fitted to these small cars for the disabled driver. I pay tribute to the inventors of the various aids which have been provided, but if the disabled man finds that he can get about better without those aids, he should not be debarred from the benefits of this Clause. The Amendment would achieve the object that I have in mind as would the Amendment that we are discussing with it, which tackles the

    1041
    problem in another way and whose explanation I will leave to those who have put it down.
    9.30 p.m.
    Mr. Lubbock: My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) and myself, who have put down Amendment No.17, would be prepared to back the Amendment that has been moved by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). Amendment No.17 has exactly the same object. The difference between the two Amendments is purely a matter of wording. I shall not go over the ground that has been covered by the hon. Member for Itchen. I merely want to emphasise a point which has been put to me by the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association, on whose behalf I have tabled the Amendment, which is that a number of disabled drivers are now using cars with automatic gear changes which need no modification for their operation by those drivers.
    As I read the Clause, those drivers would not be entitled to the valuable but limited concession granted by the Bill. We cannot see any reason, in principle, why the concession should not be extended to cover the newer types of cars which are coming into increasing use. The Government must surely accept that smaller and smaller cars are being fitted with automatic gear changes and that their use by limbless people, or people with substantial difficulties of locomotion, is increasing all the time. That is one important technical reason why one or other of the Amendments should be accepted.
    The yellow badge scheme which is operated by local authorities provides a satisfactory means of tying together this concession in respect of licences with the other advantages which the badge scheme gives to limbless people and people with substantial difficulties of locomotion. It is a rigidly controlled scheme. Before issuing the badges local authorities must be satisfied not only that applicants suffer from a permanent and substantial disability, but that it causes severe difficulty in walking. That is the criterion laid down, which must be interpreted by the medical officers of local authorities.
    1042
    We have included in our Amendment a provision that the disabled driver's identity badge shall be granted by a local authority on conditions specified by the Minister of Health. This would enable the Minister to bring into the scope of the concession any people who may not be covered strictly by the wording quoted by the hon. Member for Itchen, namely, drivers with amputations which cause considerable difficulties in walking, or who suffer from a defect of the spine or of the central nervous system which makes control of the lower limbs difficult. We would like to include anyone covered by the more general grades that I mentioned earlier. On the basis that these conditions are laid down by the Minister and have to be observed by the medical officers of local authorities in awarding a disabled driver's badge, there need be no fear of this concession being given to people not strictly entitled to it.
    I hope that the Government will accept one or other of the Amendments, or that if the wording is not satisfactory they will move their own Amendment on Report.
    Mr. Pavitt: I support the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), and I also commend the Amendment of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock). Both Amendments seek precisely the same objective. I am sure that the Treasury has a considerable amount of sympathy for this objective and that it is not far divorced from the case that is being made. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that have been put forward, because every possible point was covered in the speech of my hon. Friend.
    I wish to add just two points. The first refers to the anomaly which arises when two disabled men, equally qualified, have two different vehicles. One has a car in which the controls have been altered and the other a car where the controls have not been altered. This means that one man would be exempt and the other would not. I should like to quote the case of a Mr. Adrian Weitzman who, because of polio, has a leg disability. He had a Ministry vehicle for a number of years. About four years ago he was able to change it and received a grant from the Ministry in order to

    1043
    acquire an ordinary Vauxhall car in which the controls were adapted to suit his disability.
    Such is the speed of invention in the car industry that Mr. Weitzman now finds that he can drive a modern Morris car with automatic gears without the necessity for any adaptation. If this Clause remains as it is drafted, does it mean that Mr. Weitzman can get some slight adjustment made at the Minister's expense to meet the technical point behind the wording of the original Clause, which would cause the Ministry to pay for some alteration to the vehicle and thus enable him to qualify for exemption? Or, alternatively, is he to leave his car as it is and pay the tax?
    If the Clause is left unamended, it will be a direct incentive to disabled men to seek to get their vehicles adapted at the expense of the Ministry rather than pay tax and so obtain a grant under the provisions in the Clause. In view of all the arguments which have been put more forcibly by my hon. Friends than I can put them, I hope that the Economic Secretary will not resist the Amendment or that the Government, if they cannot accept the wording of the Amendment, will Rive an undertaking to incorporate the principle behind it into the Bill. In the event of the Government being unable to do so, I hope that my hon. Friends will press this Amendment, because it involves an important point of principle affecting a large number of our constituents.
    Mr. Wade: The Amendment takes to a logical conclusion a point which I made during the discussion on an earlier Amendment. In effect, relief would be granted to a disabled person and under the proposals in the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) the test would be the provisions in the yellow badge scheme and that would be a fair test. The
    conditions which would have to be satisfied have already been indicated and I merely wish to add that in their administration of the badge scheme the local authorities confirm by physical examination the extent of the disablement in individual cases. There is a review at least annually when the applicant applies for a renewal of his badge and I think, therefore, that the conditions are reasonable.
    1044
    We must foresee that in the future more and more small cars will be made available and suitable for disabled persons without special controls having to be fitted. I think it only reasonable, therefore that proposals such as have been made should be accepted.
    Mr. Mitchison: I should like to get quite clear what we are considering. There are several Amendments on the Notice Paper and I refer to them only for the purpose of pointing out that some would involve definitions which might present considerable practical difficulty, but this Amendment does not wholly rule out the vehicle element in this matter. Indeed, it leaves it untouched. The mechanically propelled vehicle has still to be "fitted with special controls", and so on.
    What it does is to deal with the second class of Amendments which are already personal ones and appear in paragraphs (a) and (b) on page 12. They require that the claimant should have
    "caused the controls to be fitted to the vehicle…or whether or not he caused the controls to be fitted"
    to have a disability of a kind which would have carried the right to a controlled vehicle.
    This Amendment adds a third qualification in no way detracting from the other two, the third qualification being that if he is a man who has been granted a disabled driver's badge by a local authority and if the badge, which though renewable annually, has not been refused he need not necessarily be the person who has caused the controls to be fitted or has a disability of a kind which would have carried the right to a controlled vehicle.
    This is a very narrow Amendment and would make a very small extension. It leaves the vehicle side of the matter untouched and it is a single alternative qualification to the personal side of the matter. I can see no possible objection to the present Amendment in the form it is put forward. There is no real administrative difficulty. The class of people covered by the proposed paragraph (c) are a great deal easier to identify than the class of people covered in the Bill by paragraph (b), because that paragraph involves an inquiry into the man's or woman's disability—the kind and quality

    1045
    of the disability. All that this Amendment does is to provide an absolutely objective test from the point of view of the Revenue in the grant by a local authority of a particular badge under its powers to do so and its continual renewal year by year.
    Nothing could be easier to administer than the addition now proposed. I earnestly hope that without any qualification the Treasury Bench will accept this Amendment. I can see no possible objection to it. It is asked for by responsible organisations, at least they ask for something to this effect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) pointed out in clearly and succinctly moving the Amendment, this Committee is always sympathetic in cases of this kind.
    There is, however, a further point to which I refer only because the answer of the Government may be, "We are prepared to accept this in principle, but we do not like the wording". I cannot remember any occasion on which the Treasury has accepted anyone's Amendment in the form in which it was put forward, unless the Government fathered it on him in the first place.
    I have little doubt that in these circumstances they will be reluctant to accept this Amendment, but I hope that they will accept it in principle. If they say that, I hope they will look also at Amendment No.32, in page 11, line 41, after "vehicle", to insert "whether or not". That would make the personal condition we seek to introduce a substitute for the controls.
    I feel that the drafting on the Notice Paper is too wide, but I must not discuss it at any length, because we are not considering it now. Nevertheless, it falls to be considered in the broad interests of these people whether there ought to be, in the case which we are putting forward, anything but the grant of a disabled driver's licence by the local authority as a condition of getting the remission of duty which is proposed.
    I hope that the Government will show in a matter of this sort, which surely does not involve any very substantial question of revenue, the generosity which successive Governments have always felt that they were bound and
    1046
    glad to show to disabled drivers. I imagine that every hon. Member here has had representations from B.L.E.S.M.A. about this point and perhaps about others, too, with which all of us, however we may view any part of the recommendation, have had in broad terms the deepest sympathy, the sort of sympathy which any person in full possession of his faculties must feel for people who by no fault of their own are disabled.
    I therefore trust that the Government will give not only a favourable but a generous answer and that, if they have to consider the whole matter, they will do so in that spirit.
    9.45 p.m.
    Sir Douglas Glover: I intervene for only a moment or two because of a case which I had in my "surgery" last week and which will not be covered by the Amendment. It concerns a constituent who has had poliomyelitis since the epidemic of 1917, when he became paralysed in one leg. Ever since then he has had it in irons. He has been to the Department concerned and has been offered a certain amount of money for the conversion of a motor car.
    In considering the Amendment, my right hon. Friend ought to take into account the fact that the motor industry has made considerable development through scientific knowledge and that cars today are very much more efficient for disabled drivers than they were 10 years ago. My constituent tells me that he does not need a motor car for a disabled driver; all he needs is a car with automatic gear change. As he points out, he has to pay a higher price for such a car than he would normally pay for a car.
    My constituent is, therefore, not asking that he should qualify as a disabled driver for the conversion of a motor car. What he says—and there is much power in his argument—is that there ought to be a system whereby he can receive a grant towards the purchase of a car which provides all the conditions of a disabled driver's car because it is virtually automatic.
    The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going further than the two Amendments which we are debating.
    Sir D. Glover: I apologise, Sir William. I realised that I should have to rely on your good nature in allowing me to state the case. I think that I have said enough to show my hon. Friend that there is another case, apart from that concerning the conversion of a car for a disabled driver.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I am sure the Committee appreciates that I and the Treasury have every sympathy with the cause of disabled drivers and I will therefore go with some care into the points of detail and principle which have been raised. It is worth looking back at the history of this Clause, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) did. I am grateful for the kind words which, for once, came towards the Treasury. It was a very limited proposal deriving from the idea that the weight concession should be extended from 6 cwts. to 15 cwts. for vehicles broadly coming under the title "invalid carriages". I think that the Committee must accept that the Amendments carry this concession a very great deal further. I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong or that it should not be done, but it introduces a new principle and extends the concession on vehicle licence duty to a new putative class of disabled drivers.
    The first question is the technical one to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) referred. He said that for the purposes of vehicle licence duty the automatic gearbox should be considered as an adaptation for the disabled driver because in many cases it is nowadays adequate. I am afraid that at the moment we could not possibly accept this because of the necessity, which the hon. Member for Itchen accepted, of being able to police this concession effectively. One of the methods of so doing is to have a vehicle which is clearly visible as having been adapted and therefore used by a disabled person. It seems extremely difficult to find any method of identifying a car itself which has been adapted for a disabled driver from one which merely has an automatic gearbox in any case. To elaborate, it is because there is a medical criterion of the degree of disability that one of the main difficulties arises. It is possible for a car to be driven by a disabled driver whose disability has been judged as not sufficient and yet for him
    1048
    to be seen when getting out of the car to be disabled.
    Dr. King: Such a disabled man, when he is stopped by the police, will, if the Amendments are carried, have to produce the certificate not only that he is disabled but that he is the kind of severely disabled man that the local authority registers as disabled. The only abuse we are afraid of is, not the disabled man driving in a motor car, but the able man driving with a disabled man's motor car.
    Mr. William Yates: Surely my hon. Friend will ask the other Ministers concerned to examine the possibility of having the Excise logbook formally registered at the County Hall or licensing authorities?
    Mr. Macmillan: My hon. Friend's intervention brings me to the second point, which is the need to have the vehicle registered in the name of the disabled driver, which has been accepted by the Committee as a whole. The point made by the hon. Members for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) and Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) and by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) was that this scheme could be extended to people who were identified by being in receipt of a badge entitling them to park under the local authority scheme. The difficulty here is two-fold. First, these additional criteria, if accepted, would do one of two things. Either they would create a new class of disabled persons who did not qualify necessarily under the Ministry of Health Regulations for an invalid carriage but who did qualify under other Regulations for exemption from Vehicle Licence Duty, or they would, in effect, be tending to extend to a less disabled person the Ministry of Health qualification.
    I can inform the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) that the case of Mr. Weitzman is a somewhat exceptional one. It is know to us and we are examining it. There might have to be a slight Amendment to the Clause to take account of the circumstances, but if there is it will follow the present spirit of the Clause as it stands.
    The other disadvantage of identifying those who qualify for exemption from the Vehicle Licence Duty by reference

    1049
    to the scheme for parking is that at the moment this is a collection of local authority schemes and not one scheme in itself. The criteria at present for issuing these badges is wider than the Ministry of Health criteria; and that would lead to the creation either of two separate classes or an extension of the Ministry's criteria. The scheme would have to be adapted to bring a degree of uniformity y into it to make it suitable for the purposes of the Amendments. It is a fairly new scheme which has got off to a good start, and I do not think that it would be wise to interfere with it in the way necessary to make it possible and practical to provide the extra criteria which the Amendments suggest.
    There is also the difficulty of identification, to which I have referred. For these reasons I must recommend the Committee, with considerable regret, to reject the Amendments. It is fair to remind the Committee that the proposals put to the Finance Bill last year were rejected, but the then Economic Secretary said that he would look at the matter. We have taken one more step and the existence of the comparatively new scheme of badges for parking has led hon. Members to suggest that we should take yet another step. This would itself involve reconsidering the criteria laid down by the Ministry of Health for invalid carriages.
    Also raised has been the whole question of the advance in the techniques of building motor cars, making cars used by normal drivers sufficiently easy for
    disabled persons to manage without further adaptation. Having posed these difficult problems, I suggest that the Committee give us a little longer in which to consider these matters. We must also see how the scheme in the Clause works out in practice, whereupon we can reconsider the matter in the light of that experience.
    Mr. Mitchison: What is the Treasury estimate of the cost of accepting the Amendments?
    Mr. Macmillan: I cannot give an estimate of the cost at the moment, but that is not the main point. The main point is the effect it will have in either creating two separate classes of disabled person or of extending the Ministry of Health's criteria for the provision of invalid carriages.
    Mr. Mitchison: It was the intention of those who moved the Amendments and supported them to extend the category of disabled persons. That is the whole and obvious intention of them and I am afraid that we cannot accept the assurance of the Government of good intentions, an assurance which we believe is a substitute for doing something in this matter. I must, therefore, advise my hon. Friends to divide the Committee.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 136, Noes 182.

    Division No. 97.]

    AYES

    [10.0 p.m.

    Abse, Leo

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Ainsley, William

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Delargy, Hugh

    Hilton, A. V.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Dempsey, James

    Holman, Percy

    Awhery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

    Diamond, John

    Houghton, Douglas

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Doig, Peter

    Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

    Barnett, Guy

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Hunter, A. E.

    Bence, Cyril

    Driberg, Tom

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Blyton, William

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

    Jeger, George

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

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

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Jones, J. Idwat (Wrexham)

    Bowles, Frank

    Evans, Albert

    Jones, T. W, (Merloneth)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Fitch, Alan

    King, Dr. Horace

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Foley, Maurice

    Lawson, George

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Callaghan, James

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

    Carmichael, Neil

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Loughlin, Charles

    Collick, Percy

    Ginsburg, David

    Lubbock, Eric

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Grey, Charles

    McBride, N.

    Cronin, John

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    MacColl, James

    Crosland, Anthony

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    McInnes, James

    Crossman, R. H. S.

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Hannan, William

    MacKenzie, J. G.

    Dalyell, Tam

    Harper, Joseph

    MacPherson, Malcolm

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

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

    Manuel, Archie

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Thornton, Ernest

    Mapp, Charles

    Rhodes, H.

    Wade, Donald

    Mason, Roy

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Warbey, William

    Millan, Bruce

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Milne, Edward

    Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Ross, William

    Whitlock, William

    Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

    Short, Edward

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Neal, Harold

    Silkin, John

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

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

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

    O'Malley, B. K.

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Oram, A. E.

    Small, William

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

    Padley, W. E.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Woof, Robert

    Peart, Frederick

    Steele, Thomas

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Pentland, Norman

    Stones, William

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

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

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Probert, Arthur

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Mr. Charles A. Howell and

    Randall, Harry

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Mr. McCann.

    Redhead, E. C.

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

    Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

    Morgan, William

    Allason, James

    Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

    Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

    Anderson, D. C.

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Morrison, John (Salisbury)

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

    Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Neava, Airey

    Barlow, Sir John

    Goodhew, Victor

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Barter, John

    Grant-Ferris, R.

    Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)

    Batsford, Brian

    Green, Alan

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

    Grosvenor, Lord Robert

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Gurden, Harold

    Page, John (Harrow, West)

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Bidgood, John C.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Partridge, E.

    Bingham, R. M.

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Percival, Ian

    Bishop, Sir Patrick

    Hay, John

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Hiley, Joseph

    Pitman, Sir James

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Hill Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Pounder, Rafton

    Box, Donald

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

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

    Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin

    Ramsden, Rt. Hon. James

    Brains, Bernard

    Holland, Philip

    Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. Sir Peter

    Brewis, John

    Hollingworth, John

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hornby, R. P.

    Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

    Buck, Antony

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Renton, Rt. Hon. David

    Bullard, Denys

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Hurd, Sir Anthony

    Roberts, Sir Peter(Heeley)

    Carr, Rt Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Chataway, Christopher

    Johnson Eric (Blackley)

    Seymour, Leslie

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Sharples, Richard

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Johnson Smith Geoffrey

    Shaw, M.

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Stainton, Keith

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Kirk, Peter

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Corfield, F. V.

    Kitson, Timothy

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Critchley, Julian

    Leavey, J. A.

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Summers, Sir Spencer

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

    Talbot, John E.

    Dance, James

    Longden, Gilbert

    Tapsell, Peter

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmith, Sir Henry

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

    Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

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

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    MacArthur, Ian

    Temple, John M.

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    McLaren, Martin

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Duncan, Sir James

    Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N.Ayrs)

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

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

    Macmilllan, Maurice (Halifax)

    Turner, Colin

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Maginnis, John E.

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Maitland, Sir John

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Farr, John

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Finlay, Graeme

    Marshall, Sir Douglas

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Marten, Neil

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Walker, Peter

    Freeth, Denzil

    Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)

    Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

    Gammans, Lady

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Gardner, Edward

    Mawby, Ray

    Webster, David

    Gibson-Watt, David

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

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    1052

    1053

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Woollam, John

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Worsley, Marcus

    Mr. Peel and Mr. Pym.

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Maudling: I beg to move,
    That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Maudling: Seldom have I heard such unanimity in response to a proposal of mine. I think that we have made very good progress today, and I hope that it will be repeated on subsequent occasions.
    Mr. Callaghan: I wish only to echo the Chancellor's remarks and to ask whether we can have a guarantee that, if the rôles are reversed next year, we shall have such co-operation from the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  RAILWAYS (BANGOR-AFON WEN LINE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pym.]
  10.11 p.m.
  Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I am grateful for this opportunity of raising a matter which is causing my constituents a good real of anxiety, namely, the proposal of the Railways Board to close the Bangor-Afon Wen railway line.
  I raise the matter for the following reasons. The public hearing of objections to the Railways Board's proposal was held in Caernarvon on 8th April. The Transport Users' Consultative Committe for Wales heard some very strong arguments for the retention of this line, and on 5th May it issued a statement containing the following passages:
  "It Was found that closure of this through line during the holiday season would cause substantial hardship to those engaged in the tourist and holiday industry in Caernarvon and South Caernarvonshire. Certain local and off-season hardship would also arise. The comprehensive report
  which has been submitted to the Minister of Transport includes
  1054
  references to the possibility of alleviating some of the hardship".
  Here is in admission of hardship, of substantial hardship, followed by a suggestion not for its avoidance but only for its alleviation. As the decision regarding the future of this line rests squarely with the Minister of Transport and the Government, it is vital that they should understand that this is a case in which the substantial hardship, which the Minister's advisers admit, cannot be alleviated to any marked extent once the line is closed and that the real answer is to retain the line.
  As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the line runs for about 28 miles southward and westward from a point near Bangor where it leaves the London-Holyhead line. It is important to realise that this is not a branch line but a link line. It is part of the railway connecting Caernarvonshire with Liverpool, Merseyside, Chester and Manchester, a region with which we have very close commercial, industrial and, indeed, medical relations. A great many of our people have to go to Liverpool and Manchester for hospital and out-patient treatment.
  The line is also part of the rail link between North Wales and South Wales along the western seaboard. It is the only connecting line in Wales; otherwise, one has to make a long detour deep into the Midlands to proceed from North Wales to South Wales or vice versa. Finally, it is part of a unique circular rail system which runs right around North Wales. Its closure, therefore, would be a matter not of lopping off an end branch but of fracturing a continuous system which, once broken, might be impossible to restore.
  I shall only very briefly mention the general case against the closure. It is a case which is common against all such proposals for closure—the hardship to the elderly and infirm who depend on rail transport, the hardship to people who have no cars and live far from bus routes as is often the case in the area which the dine serves, and the hardship to families coping with luggage, perambulators and children. I might mention in this connection that for various reasons the proportion of elderly folk

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  in the county of Caernarvon is higher than the national average.
  Turning to the specific case for the retention of the line, my first point is that its closure would mean an injection of additional traffic into roads which are already seriously congested, especially during the tourist and holiday season, which is from about Easter until the end of September. According to the county council, the average weekly number of passenger journeys on this line in winter approaches 5,000. To be exact, it is 4,728. The average number each week in summer is 12,128. These are average figures. At the height of the season the figures are very much higher.
  The roads, or, rather, the road which would have to take this added traffic—there is really only one road—is a narrow and twisting one beset by natural and built-up obstacles, S-turns, over-bridges and under-bridges, and as a result we sometimes have in summer queues two miles long at each end of the town of Caernarvon, and long, costly and frustrating delays at many points along the road.
  Nor is it easy to see how this road could be greatly improved without the expenditure of vast sums of money. There are geographical even geological, and built-up reasons. The village of Port Dinorwic will come to the mind of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. P. Thomas), as being a major problem confronting our road engineers. What to do at that point on this road no one really knows. If these geographical, geological and built-up difficulties were tackled, it would certainly send the cost of really improving the road to astronomical heights.
  We consider that it would be the height of folly to scrap the railway line in these circumstances, and that, indeed, the height of wisdom would be to retain it, to improve it, and to extend its use as much as possible. The traffic, particularly during the tourist season, is growing every year and will inevitably grow in the future. This is part of the Snowdonia National Park, and during the past five years the tourist influx to central and south Caernarvonshire has more than doubled and almost trebled, and the signs are that in the next few
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  years it will again double and even treble.
  Indeed, the tourist and holiday industry is already the largest single industry in the county and in the area that this line serves—broadly speaking, my constituency—it employs as many as 35 per cent. of the insured population. The area includes some of the top sight seeing attractions in the United Kingdom. Caernarvon Castle, for instance, was top of the list last year, being visited by 231,000 people who got there by road and rail and were most welcome but whose presence contributed to major traffic difficulties and hazards.
  The area also includes one of the biggest holiday camps in Europe, if not in the world, and one which is continually expanding. This is Butlin's holiday camp, at Penychain. Last year the camp attracted 111,000 campers, 22 per cent. of whom came by rail. These campers come and go on Saturdays and at present they are able, if they wish to do so, to make the whole journey by rail between Lancashire or the Midlands and the camp, which is a boon to families coping with luggage, prams and children.
  The closure of this line w ill inflict particular hardship on those people who come into the area in their increasing thousands every year. If the line is closed at Bangor they will have to complete the last 30 miles of journey by the road which I have tried to describe and under the conditions I have indicated.
  The Railways Board has put forward an extraordinary proposal. It proposes that people should detrain at Bangor station, climb a stairway, cross a bridge, go down another stairway—luggage, prams, children and all—and then board a fleet of buses in the forecourt of the station. The county planning officer tells me that as many as 30 double decker buses would have to be deployed somewhere in the vicinity of the forecourt at the same time in order to cope with that traffic.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. I. Davies) is familiar with the forecourt of Bangor station. It is a small place used by private cars, taxis and pedestrians for which there is hardly enough room already. Yet it is in this restricted area that a fleet of double

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  decker buses is supposed to be deployed. The forecourt is reached through a narrow entrance provided with traffic lights because it gives access to the busiest road in North Wales, the A.5. This suggestion by the Railways Board is a fantastic one which should kill stone dead the proposal to close the line.
  Another suggestion being mooted and which I want to dispose of is that the closure should be effected not at Bangor, but at Caernarvon station, nine miles, down the line—in other words, that the amputation should be made about one third of the way down. The argument is that Caernarvon town is the county administrative centre and is, indeed, a regional centre for certain purposes, such as the provincial police force and the river board, while it is also a royal borough where, in due course, the traditional ceremony of the investiture of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales will take place.
  It is farther suggested that the forecourt at Caernarvon station is somewhat larger than that at Bangor. It is a little larger—not much. In any case, this forecourt also opens into a road where the longest traffic queues in Caernarvon-shire build up. It is quite possible that these hapless campers will have to start camping out earlier than they intended without being able to break out into the stream of traffic before next morning. Proposals such as these will not alleviate the hardship, but only intensify it.
  I now briefly turn to the question of economics and social hardship. This is an area which has long suffered high and persistent unemployment. This had led to serious depopulation which we are only now beginning to arrest by attracting new industries. There is no doubt that loss of the railway line would seriously discourage new industries from entering the area and give pause to existing industries planning to expand. It is true that most of the raw materials which are imported into the
  county and most of the finished goods which we export are carried by road at the present time, but some of our industries use the railways and use the passenger goods facilities for this purpose. As the congestion on our roads reaches the point of recoil, increased use of this railway line is bound to come about.
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  We are also concerned about the hardship to the men who will be displaced. One hundred men and their families now depend upon this railway for their livelihood. There is practically no alternative work for them in an area of high unemployment such as this. They will either go on the dole or migrate, as so many of their fellows have had to do in the past, to Birmingham or London. There it is again, the same sickening technique, 100 families recruited from the land and community they love and thrown into the seething conurbations of South-East England. What sort of planning is this? All this hardship for the elderly and infirm, the people without cars living far away from these roads, the tourists coping with luggage, all this new stimulus to depopulation and unemployment are designed, we are told, and justified by the need for economy.
  We are told that the line costs too much. How much does it cost in fact? All over the country people are affronted by the tendentious and selective way in which the Railways Board seeks to prove its losses on these lines. We are told that this line loses £70,000 a year. No one outside the Board believes that. What is quite certain is that the cost of unemployment benefit and National Assistance to the displaced railwaymen would cost half as much as this alleged loss in a year, and the cost of the vast fleets of double-decker buses to take the place of the trains will account for the rest. Where is the saving?
  How does the Railways Board count its receipts on lines which it wants to close? Does it include in this case, for instance, a proportion of the fares to the Butlin camp travellers, or a proportion of national and local rover type tickets, or a proportion of receipts for through tickets, or receipts from mail and newspaper traffic and passenger trains, or a proportion of paid travel warrants, or receipts from agencies?
  A hearing in the north of England revealed that the Board had conveniently ignored the yield of paid travel warrants in one case and that that was a very substantial omission. Are all these items totally credited to the lines which the Board
  wants to retain and no part of them credited to the lines it wants to close? Before a line of this importance is closed on the grounds of economy, full

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  and frank figures of income and cost should be made available.
  Finally, there is no doubt that, given a real effort to publicise and popularise the present services on this line and to meet the needs of the public by sensible adjustment of timetables, this line could be made to pay very substantially. I urge the Minister to keep this line open. Its retention is vital to the future development of Caernarvon as a major tourist and holiday centre and to the rest of the area to which new industry is increasingly being attracted. The decision is in the hands of the Minister.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): The hon. Gentleman the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. G. Roberts) has presented his case very clearly tonight. I am grateful to him not only for doing that, but also for his kindness in telling me in advance about some of the points which he wished to raise. Normally, when an hon. Gentleman does this, it is an advantage, because it gives the Minister opportunity to get at the facts and for providing a useful answer, but I am afraid that tonight, if the hon. Gentleman is looking for a detailed reply to much of what he has said, he has, as it were, jumped the gun, because while the future of this line is under consideration by my right hon. Friend I really cannot comment on many of the points the hon. Gentleman has raised, though, of course, I recognised the relevance and importance of them to the case for preserving this railway line which he has championed.
  I think the hon. Member knows the procedure with regard to railway closure. First of all, the railways, on their own initiative—I cannot stress that too often: it has nothing to do with the Minister or the Government—decide in the light of their commercial judgment which railway lines they wish to close and that is what they have done here, and the proposal we are now discussing affects, as the hon. Gentleman said, the closure of railway passenger services running from Bangor, on the Chester-Llandudno-Holyhead line, via the historic town of Caernarvon, which the hon. Gentleman represents, to the junction at Afon Wen with the Cambrian
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  coast line not far from Pwllheli. Here I ask the hon. Gentleman's indulgence—indeed, I think I should ask the indulgence of the whole House—if should mispronounce any of these names. Like the hon. Gentleman and others here, I also come from the Celtic fringe, but it happens to be a different part of Celtland, and I hope that they will bear with me in any mistakes I may make.
  The service we are discussing therefore carries three kinds of traffic, local traffic mainly to Caernarvon and Bangor; traffic via Llandudno to London and Merseyside; and traffic from Pwllheli and Portmadoc to North-West England. The longer distance users, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, include a substantial number of tourists in the summer—I do not think there is any doubt about that—including 17,000 to and from Butlin's camp at Penychain, and though this is a very substantial number—17,000—it still amounts to 13 per cent. Of the total number of visitors who go to the camp. Therefore, the rest of the proportion must find some other way of getting there. I think that is a relevant point to remember.
  The railways having made a proposal to close this line, what happened next was that objection was lodged; in fact, several objections were lodged; and because they were lodged, they set in motion the special machinery devised by the 1962 Act to protect the interests of passengers, and the case came before the Transport Users' Consultative Committee on 8th April at Caernarvon, where the objectors amplified their written evidence on hardship. At that hearing the hon. Gentleman represented his constituents' difficulties, and did so very ably. I know this because, though I was not there, I had the benefit of seeing a transcript of what he said in making those representations before the Committee. The hon. Gentleman did the right thing, because the Transport Users' Consultative Committee has been set up to consider whether or not a proposed closure would impose hardship and whether or not the alternatives were satisfactory. This, after all, is the only thing that a passenger is concerned with: how to get from one place to another if the railway line is closed, and what sort of additional burden faces him if the closure takes place. Financial matters

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  and other considerations are utterly irrelevant to the passenger. He is only concerned with movement, not with cost, and that is why there is no wide-ranging discussion at the committee, and why there is no cross-examination on the financial figures, because whether railway lines cost £5 or £500,000 does not affect the hardship issue. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about this, and I hope that from what I have said tonight I have made clear what is the function of the T.U.C.C. It is to report on hardship, and on nothing more.
  As the hon. Gentleman told the House, the T.U.C.C. has already reported to my right hon. Friend. While the details of the report are confidential, the main finding was published, and this indicated that in the view of the T.U.C.C. closure of this through line—whether it is called branch or through does not matter; it is the same procedure for them all—would cause substantial hardship to those engaged in the tourist and holiday industry in Caernarvon and South Caernarvonsh ire, and that certain local and off season hardship would arise as well.
  In addition to that general view, the T.U.C.C also indicated how far certain possible courses of action which had
  also been suggested would relieve the hardship. One of these possibilities—of which the hon. Gentleman did not think mach—was the idea referred to at the hearing of retaining the service as far as Caernarvon and not stopping at Bangor, and another possibility was the provision of certain additional bus services which the Railways Board and the local operator had suggested would be necessary to cater for the traffic from Chwilog and from Butlin's camp.
  The position, therefore, at the moment is that the railways have made their proposals for closure, in accordance with their statutory duty to operate with due regard to efficiency and economy. That is their job, and that is what they have done.
  The T.U.C.C. has examined this proposal and the possible alternatives which have been suggested from the point of view of hardship to the passenger. It has made a report on that, and that is its duty. Now it is up to the Minister
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  to come to a decision, but in doing this he has to take a very much wider view than that taken by the Railways Board or even by the T.U.C.C. because it might well be that though a line was losing money, and though no hardship was caused to passengers, it would still be wrong to dose the line or at least to dispose of it, perhaps because of possible future industrial development, or because of defence considerations, or because of the prospect of the growth of the housing population, or because of the condition of the roads—to which the hon. Gentleman referred—or because of the pattern of the traffic on them—to which the hon. Gentleman also referred. All these different considerations which I have mentioned have in fact weighed with my right hon. Friend in some of the decisions which he has taken on closure proposals in different parts of the country, and they will certainly weigh with him in this case.
  In reachnig his decision on these important matters, wide-ranging as they are, the Minister of Transport does not work on his own in a glass case insulated from every consideration except the economics of transport. He does not do that at all. He has the help and advice of his colleagues who have to deal with other matters of State than transport, such as, in this case, the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade and the Minister for Welsh Affairs. The hon. Gentleman will see, therefore, that the points which he raised with regard to the tourist industry and employment, and in fact all the non-hardship points which he raised are considered in conjunction with the Departments which are responsible for their welfare, and not by my right hon. Friend alone.
  I mention that because it is too often assumed that the Ministry of Transport is a mere rubber stamp to Dr. Beeching's proposals. I am sure that Dr. Beeching does not find that, because once details about hardship have been clarified by the T.U.C.C., the whole Government machine becomes involved in the process of working out the right decision, taking into account the various conflicting interests, the financial implications for the Railways Board, possible hardship to passengers, and tee social and economic consequences in the districts affected, and the possible economic consequences may well,

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  in some circumstances, be enough to tilt the balance in favour of not closing.
  This process of weighing up the pros and cons is not done haphazardly, and is not done as an impersonal financial exercise. It is carried out with the greatest care and with a deep sense of responsibility in respect of all the issues involved.
  There is not time for me to answer the other questions which the hon. Gentle-
  1064
  man raised. The difficulty is that this matter is sub judice—that we are having a shadow boxing match—and all I can say is that the points that the hon. Member has raised will be considered carefully by my right hon. Friend when he makes his decision.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.