Commons Sitting of 23 June 1964

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
  Read the Third time and passed.
  SAINT PAUL, PORTMAN SQUARE, SAINT MARYLEBONE BILL [Lords]
  Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

  WEST RIDING COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
  [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

  WORCESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
  Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [Lords]
  As amended, to be considered upon Thursday.
  NATIONAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time and committed.
  SAINT DIONIS BACKCHURCH CHURCHYARD (AMENDMENT) BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time and committed.
  CUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL (BRIBERY)
  Mr. Masonasked the Attorney-General if he has now received the report of police investigations into bribery in professional football; and if he will make a statement.
  Mr. Dalyellasked the Attorney-General what report he has now received of police investigations into bribery in professional footballers; and what action he proposes to take.
  The Attorney-General (Sir John Hobson): Police reports were received by the Director of Public Prosecutions yesterday and are now under consideration by him.
  Mr. Mason: Would the Attorney-General agree that it is true to say that only one-third of this iceberg has really reared its head, that there must be more revelations to follow and that this will make a farce of the piecemeal investigations that the police have already made, especially when there was a revelation after they had allegedly completed their investigations recently? Will he impress upon the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Home Secretary the need for a national public judicial inquiry so that this matter can be cleared up once and for all, because I warn the Attorney-General that if this is not done some of the aggrieved players may, as the arch villain of the piece, Gauld, did, reveal more to the Press and consequently there could be a fresh outbreak?
  The Attorney-General: As to the investigations already made by the police, they have, of course, had to be very extensive, but they are, I think, on the matters that have been investigated complete. Fresh matters have been raised recently, and these also are under investigation. I am bound to say that if these matters are to be dealt with by the police, as I would think is the proper way, all those with information ought to supply such information to the police at the earliest possible opportunity. As to the question of a tribunal under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, that, of course, is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: I am qualifying what I have to say because, as police court proceedings may take place, it would not be right to make any comments here, but, at the same time, will the Attorney-General now use his influence in order to treat this matter as one of extreme urgency?
  The Attorney-General: Yes, I am aware of the urgency of the matter and I am anxious that the consideration of the report should be as expeditious as it can be.

  HIRE-PURCHASE AGREEMENT (MRS. WRIGHT)
  Mr. Spriggsasked the Attorney-General if he will refer the complaint sent to him on behalf of Mrs. May Wright, a constituent of the hon. Member for St. Helens, about the illegal use made of minors by door-to-door salesmen employed by New Era Electrics of Blackpool, and the wrongful removal of property from her home, to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
  The Attorney-General: No.
  Mr. Spriggs: Is the Attorney-General aware that this case is about a widowed old-age pensioner who has been robbed of her goods by the agents New Era Electrics of Blackpool during her absence and that the signature on the hire-purchase document is that of a minor, a relative of this old lady who is a constituent of mine, and was signed during her absence, that I have made every endeavour to get this matter settled off the record and without publicity, but that the firm preferred to go to court even though it used the document knowing it to have been signed by a minor? Is it not the case that the Attorney-General is refusing to use his powers as a deterrent to stop these rogues from invading the homes of people throughout the country and making a fat living out of poor people? Will not the Attorney-General make a further statement as to his approach to this matter?
  The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman was good enough to send me the papers that he had. I looked at them with great care. I could not see that they revealed the commission
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  of any criminal offence. Had there been evidence to show that one had been committed, I would certainly have been willing to consider what ought to have been done, but I cannot launch criminal proceedings when there is no evidence. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence that a criminal offence has been committed, the facts ought to be investigated by the local police, and they can no doubt deal with this matter.

  MAGISTRATES (TRAINING SCHEME)
  Mr. Fitchasked the Attorney-General (1) if he will include compulsory visits to open and closed prisons, Borstal institutions, approved schools and detention centres in the training scheme to be introduced for newly-appointed magistrates;
  (2) if the compulsory training scheme for new juslices of the peace will include a refresher course for those magistrates already serving on the bench.
  The Attorney-General: My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has appointed an Advisory Council to advise him with regard to the training of magistrates. It will be for the Council to consider what facilities for training should be provided for those magistrates who are already serving on the bench. Visits by newly-appointed magistrates to the institutions to which the hon. Member refers will obviously be among the matters which the Council will have to consider.
  Mr. Fitch: Would not the Attorney-General agree that he and his noble Friend in another place could certainly bring before the Council the desirability of newly-created magistrates visiting places where they are likely to send offenders so that they at least have the practical knowledge of what open prisons, closed prisons and detention centres are like?
  The Attorney-General: I have no doubt that this point has not escaped the notice of my noble Friend, nor will it escape the notice of the Advisory Council, but I will certainly draw the attention of my noble Friend to what the hon. Gentleman has said.
  Mr. J. Wells: I recognise the wisdom of training magistrates, but may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to go very slow before there is any introduction of a procession of visitors to prisons and borstals? Although one has no desire to keep things secret, is he aware that it is very difficult for the staff of these institutions if there is an endless procession of half-interested and partly-interested individuals?
  The Attorney-General: There are already voluntary schemes under which magistrates and others visit these institutions. They are useful, but I quite recognise that it does create problems for those who are running, and those who are incarcerated in, such institutions.
  Dame Irene Ward: As a magistrate, may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether at the same time as these courses are arranged he will advise his right hon. Friend at the Home Office that magistrates' duties would be very much easier if remand homes, detention centres and proper courts for other things were provided, so that magistrates would know where they are when they are pronouncing sentences?
  The Attorney-General: My experience is that magistrates usually do know where they are. I recognise that there may be the necessity for the provision of some remand centres, but that is entirely a question for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

  PERSONAL INJURIES (LIMITATIONS OF ACTIONS)
  Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Attorney-General if he is aware of the hardship and injustice which is being caused because men and women suffering personal injuries who do not make claims or issue court proceedings within three years of an accident lose their right to claim under the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions) Act, 1954; and if he will introduce legislation extending the period of limitation to six years.
  The Attorney-General: No. Save in exceptional cases, there is no reason why an injured person should not start proceedings within three years. In those exceptional cases where he cannot reasonably be expected to know within
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  that period that he has suffered an injury that would justify proceedings, the Limitation Act, 1963, enables him to obtain leave to sue after the three years have expired.
  Mr. Allaun: Is the Attorney-General aware that this question arises out of the case of a constituent of mine who, having been knocked down by a van and having been off work for a fortnight, accepted £7 from the firm's insurers? Five years later she had to have a leg amputated, with no compensation except an ex gratia payment of £100 from the firm. Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman noted also the case in the Court of Appeal last week where a woman sunbathing in her hotel garden was run over by a car, again without the payment of any damages? Will the Attorney-General examine the 1954 and 1963 Acts and the Davies Commission's recommendations?
  The Attorney-General: I am, of course, aware that there are occasions when people are unlucky enough to accept a sum which is not in the end full compensation; but usually, if they act on sound advice, they will not accept sums at such times. If they take the advice of experienced solicitors, they will usually find that their interests are well protected.
  Sir B. Janner: May I ask the Attorney-General to reconsider this matter? Is he aware that a large number of decent people do not want to bring actions, unless they are compelled to do so? They wait for a considerable time. They eventually discover that there is an injury for which they should have claimed compensation. I appreciate that there are very exceptional cases in which a court will grant an extension, but does not the Attorney-General think that in these cases there should be as much right to sue within a six-year period as there is for a simple debt?
  The Attorney-General: This raises a difficult question. It was considered by the Tucker Committee, which reported in 1949 before the 1954 Act was passed. In general, I would not have said that people who suffered a personal injury were in a situation in which they could not make up their minds whether they ought to issue a writ only—only no

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  more, not to pursue it—within the period of three years from the time when they were injured.

  MR. ANDREWS AND MR. BLOOM
  Mr. Grimondasked the Attorney-General if he will instruct the Director of Public Prosecutions to take proceedings for perjury against Mr. Andrews and Mr. Bloom, who have made sworn statements that Mr. Lonsdale and Mr. Blake had frequent conversations together when in prison.
  The Attorney-General: No.
  Mr. Grimond: Does not the Attorney-General agree that this matter has been left in a very unsatisfactory state? Considerable doubt seems to have been cast on the veracity of the memory of these two gentlemen, yet, so I am told, though they have rendered themselves liable to prosecution, no prosecution has been started. Why is not the Attorney-General prosecuting them, if they are liable to prosecution? Have any inquiries been made of the Sunday Times, which apparently holds the sworn statements made by these men?
  The Attorney-General: The reason why I am not directing the Director of Public Prosecutions to institute any prosecution is that I have no evidence that the offence of perjury has been committed by either of the makers of the two statements. Mr. Andrews is reported to have conceded that the special instructions may have been issued to keep Lonsdale and Blake apart. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has confirmed that such strict instructions were given. As my right hon. Friend has already informed the House, he has had inquiries made by those who were at the prison at the time, and to the best of their knowledge and recollection Blake and Lonsdale did not meet. Therefore, there is not any available evidence in that case to show that the statutory declaration was false, or at any rate one cannot say with certainty that one can prove the falsity of that statutory declaration. Mr. Bloom's statement is purely a matter of hearsay of a conversation which he alleges he had with Lonsdale. The only way in which it could be proved that his statu-
  206
  tory declaration was false was, first, if he admitted that it was false, and, secondly, if Lonsdale were available to give evidence confirming that fact. Neither of those events has happened or seems likely.
  Miss Bacon: Is the Attorney-General aware that lie and the Home Secretary cannot have this both ways? I have asked questions on two occasions of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. At first, the Home Secretary said that instructions were given to keep Lonsdale and Blake apart. Afterwards, the Home Secretary tried to imply that in fact they were kept apart. Is the Attorney-General aware that, although he might have no information, this statement was made in the Sunday Times by Mr. Andrews, and I have a letter from Mr. Bloom, which I can pass on to the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he would like it, staling that in fact what the Home Secretary said did not conform with the facts as he knew them. If these two men are making false statements—both of them have made affidavits—why is the right hon. and learned Gentleman so loth to take them to court?
  The Attorney-General: The only question I am concerned with is not to administer the criminal law for the purpose of discovering facts that hon. Members may want to know but whether either Mr. Andrews or Mr. Bloom should be charged with a criminal offence. I am not prepared to operate the criminal law except upon the basis that there is satisfactory evidence upon which proceedings should be started. That is the sole question for me. There may be other questions which other hon. Members may want to ask, but I certainly do not consider that I have sufficient evidence to put either Mr. Andrews or Mr. Bloom on a charge of perjury.
  Mr. Grimond: Will the Attorney-General answer my second question? Have inquiries been made of the Sunday Times, which holds these sworn statements?
  The Attorney-General: No. The Sunday Times has published substantial extracts from them, but if it wishes to submit any of the evidence to me I will certainly consider it.

  ACCIDENT CLAIMS (CONSULTANTS)
  Mr. Abseasked the Attorney-General whether he is aware that firms holding themselves out as accident consultants are behaving as ambulance chasers, are seeking out victims of motor and other accidents and inducing them to sign agreements to pay over a high percentage of any damages that may be recovered; and whether he will cause proceedings in maintenance champerty or barratry to be initiated against such firms.
  The Attorney-General: I have no evidence that would justify the institution of proceedings.
  Mr. Abse: Does that mean that the Attorney-General is totally unaware of the activities of a considerable number of firms, including Swann & Moore (Assessors) Ltd. of 33 Great Queen Street, London, and G. Wheeler of 119 Oxford Street, London, firms which are communicating within 24 hours of an accident taking place with the victim or relatives and inducing them to enter into signed agreements that they will pay over a substantial portion of any damages they may recover? Would not the Attorney-General, if I gave him more evidence—since he apparently is unaware of it—consider taking some action against these predatory firms which have been behaving like vultures, taking money away from people who could get good advice from their trade unions or free legal aid from solicitors without having taken away from them these substantial sums in a way which, unfortunately, appears to be happening on a very wide scale?
  The Attorney-General: I have not seen any evidence about the two firms named by the hon. Member, but if he will give me any information I shall be delighted to consider it. The only firm about which I have been informed and about which I have made inquiries of the Law Society was a firm which agreed to take a percentage of anything recovered without litigation. That, as the hon. Member will understand, creates some difficulties; but if he has any information which he considers is relevant to the commission of a criminal offence I shall, of course, be delighted to consider it.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Foreshore and Inshore Coastal Waters
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will advise the setting up of a. Royal Commission to investigate the ownership, control and development of the foreshore and inshore coastal waters similar to that on common lands.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Reginald Maudling): No, Sir.
    Mr. Harrison: Will the Chancellor look again at this matter, because with the increased use of the inshore waters and coastal areas for recreational purposes, along with the shortage of moorings and so on, it is becoming a real problem throughout the coastal areas trying to find out who owns and controls any area?
    Mr. Maudling: I understand that the present system is working quite satisfactorily, but if my hon. Friend has any evidence to the contrary I shall be glad to examine it.

    Decimal Currency System
    Mr. Lubbockasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what criteria he will employ in deciding the priority to be given in the public investment programme to the introduction of a decimal currency system.
    Mr. Maudling: The greater part of the public investment programme comprises continuing requirements such as housing, health, roads and education. For the rest we look at all relevant factors, including, in particular, costs and benefits.
    Mr. Lubbock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while he said in reply to a Question on 12th May that the costs and benefits of decimalisation must be weighed against those of many other things involved in modernising Britain, on 2nd June, replying to a Question asked by me, he said that the Halsbury Committee had described the benefits of decimalisation as incapable of being measured? If that is so. how can we possibly decide what the priorities should be for decimalisation in the public investment programme?
    Mr. Maudling: The hon. Member raises an ingenious point, but the real point is that we cannot measure exactly many of these things. We can, and do, form a judgment as best we can about the relative costs and benefits of particular projects.
    Mr. Proudfoot: Will my right hon. Friend use his influence to ensure that in the next Conservative Party manifesto decimal coinage is mentioned, and will he challenge the parties opposite to declare their policy in regard to decimalisation, just as the parties in Australia did?
    Mr. Maudling: That is hardly a matter of Ministerial responsibility.

    Cost of Living
    Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the fact that the cost of living is now at a record high level, what new policies Her Majesty's Government are now pursuing designed to reverse this trend.
    Mr. Maudling: The Government's financial policies are designed to combat the danger of cost and price inflation which is always present at a time of vigorous economic expansion. But success will depend also on co-operation by management and unions, especially in the matter of incomes policy.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is the Chancellor aware that, whatever the policy might be, it has been a shocking failure? Is he not aware that during both stop and go periods throughout the lifetime of this Government the cost of living has gone steadily up and that, since January 1962, food prices have gone up by Is. 8d. in the £, while housing rents have gone up by 2s. 9d. in the £? When might we expect a reissue of the poster, "Mend a Hole in the Purse"?
    Mr. Maudling: While not accepting the hon. Gentleman's statistics—which I doubt are entirely accurate—I must say that we have made considerable progress, and are continuing to make progress, towards keeping prices stable, both in absolute terms and relative to other countries in Europe.
    Earl of Dalkeith: Is it not a fact that during the lifetime of this Parliament prices in Britain have risen less fast
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    than prices in Holland, Germany, Italy and other European countries, and less than half as fast as in France and Japan, thereby making our rise in the cost of living the envy of our European rivals, which reflects a great deal to the credit of successive Chancellors in the last few years?
    Mr. Maudling: Certainly our prices recently have performed very well compared, for exmaple, with prices in other European countries. What is very important is that while our prices have risen, wages, salaries and social benefits have risen very much more.

    Eye Baths (Tax)
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that eyeshades and patches are exempt from Purchase Tax as are also certain non-proprietary eye lotions; and if he will arrange to extend such exemptions to include eye baths.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Alan Green): Some kinds of eyeshades and eye lotions are chargeable with Purchase Tax. Eye baths are chargeable as domestic toilet-ware, and I see no sufficient reason for altering that position.
    Sir B. Janner: What on earth is the use of exempting certain eye lotions if the right hon. Gentleman is not exempting the eye baths by which those lotions are to be applied? Is there any reason why an eye bath, which prevents or is intended to prevent and to cure eye difficulties, should not be exempt? Is this not all eyewash?
    Mr. Green: There is probably some eyewash about this on both sides of the House. Eye baths always have been taxable.
    Dame Irene Ward: Why?
    Mr. Green: They just always have been. I might ask hon. Members—who, I believe, first included eye baths in the Schedule—Interruption.]—I am merely stating the historical facts. It is a fact that eye baths always have been taxable. I see no particular reason for altering the position, but, of course, one will always look into these matters when they are

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    raised by hon. Members. However, I must repeat that at the moment I see no sufficient reason for altering the position.
    Dame Irene Ward: Silly.

    Balance of Payments
    Mr. Oramasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he made, when formulating his Budget proposals for 1963–64 and 1964–65, of the balance of payments surplus on an annual and a quarterly basis; and how the actual performance so far compares with these estimates.
    Mr. Maudling: The hon. Member will find in my Budget speeches what I can tell him about the balance of payments estimates which I took into consideration in formulating my Budget proposals. The out-turn for 1963 was published in the March issue of "Economic Trends" and that for the first quarter of 1964 will appear about the end of this month.
    Mr. Oram: Is it not a fact that during the first three months of this year the trade deficit was running at an average annual rate of about £360 million a year, and is not this a very serious situation indeed? Will the Chancellor avoid the habit, which some of his supporters in the Press and the House adopt, of spreading sunshine stories when there is an isolated good month? Is it not the case that the good months are good only compared with the others, which are atrocious?
    Mr. Maudling: It is a mistake to be either too cast down by the bad months or too elated by the good ones. As to the first quarter of this year, the figures will be appearing in a few days' time. We have never disguised the fact that in the early stages of a programme of expansion, as we are now experiencing, we shall have some difficulties with our balance of payments.

    Commonwealth Economic Conference
    Mr. Oramasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the next Commonwealth Economic Conference to be held and, in view of the conflicts which have been revealed between the developing and developed countries attending the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, if he will take the opportunity at the Economic
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    Conference to raise the role which the Commonwealth can play in helping to resolve such conflicts.
    Mr. Maudling: There will be a meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council in Kuala Lumpur shortly before the Bank and Fund meetings in Tokyo in September. It is customary for the host Government to propose the agenda, but if the United Nations Conference is discussed I will certainly bear the hon. Member's point in mind.
    Mr. Oram: Despite his right hon. Friend having had success at the eleventh hour at Geneva in finding a formula which brought a good deal of unanimity in the final declaration of U.N.C.T.A.D., were there not revealed during the course of the conference very deep differences indeed between the developing and developed nations, and is not the Commonwealth in a unique situation—in combining both developed and developing countries in one organisation—and in a very good position to take the right sort of initiative in solving this fundamental problem?
    Mr. Maudling: I am inclined to agree with the hon. Gentleman, and he will have observed that the success which my right hon. Friend had at the conference was very much attributable to the way in which he worked from the very beginning, and even before, in consultation with the Commonwealth countries.
    Mr. Turton: Would my right hon. Friend make it clear that these subjects will, we hope, be discussed at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference at the beginning of July?
    Mr. Maudling: I cannot comment on the agenda for that conference or on that for the Kuala Lumpur conference, but these are obviously such important matters that I would be surprised if they were not discussed.
    Mr. Bottomley: The Chancellor has rightly said that it was for the host Government to suggest the agenda. This will be the case at Kuala Lumpur, but why cannot Her Majesty's Government suggest that an item on the agenda at the forthcoming Prime Minister's Conference should be this subject?
    Mr. Maudling: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and not for me, but I think the right hon. Gentleman can be certain that these matters will not be overlooked.

    Government Securities
    Mr. Duffyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will introduce a security, in the form of a national equity, which would contractually commit the Government to pay an annual dividend which would be determined by the gross national product.
    Mr. Maudling: No, Sir.
    Mr. Duffy: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is great scope here for imagination on the part of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who wants to diversify the range of stock now available to investors, and especially Government stock, which is his responsibility? Is he aware that there is a special need to offer small investors in Government stock some measure of protection against current inflationary tendencies and at the same time offer them some hope of a share in future national prosperity?
    Mr. Maudling: These are very wide subjects, difficult to deal with in Question and Answer. The Question referred to a national equity. This is a misconception, because equity involves an element of risk which is not present in a Government-guaranteed security.
    Mr. W. Clark: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that savings are now 20 times higher than they were in 1951 and that these savings will increase, but only with the continuance of a Conservative Government?

    British Industry (Foreign Investment)
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is satisfied that his powers are adequate to control foreign investment in British industry when the public interest requires that it should be so controlled; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Eldelman: But will the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider whether he is effectively exercising powers under
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    the Exchange Control Act which was introduced by a Labour Government? Is he aware that in his statement on 8th June ho said that the Rootes family and their associates will continue to hold 50 per cent. of the voting shares, but is it not the case that the Rootes family and its associates held only 56 per cent. of the voting shares and as Chrysler has now already acquired 30 per cent. of the shares, does not this suggest that Chrysler will become very shortly the dominant shareholder in the Rootes company?
    Mr. Maudling: No, Sir. I think that the hon. Member will find that the facts as I set them out are quite accurate.
    Mr. Callaghan: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether under the Exchange Control Act Chrysler is prevented from acquiring further securities because of a legal sanction, or is it because it has entered into an undertaking with the Chancellor or with Rootes not to do that?
    Mr. Maudling: Chrysler entered into an undertaking with me. Before I gave my Answer of 8th June I had required an undertaking of that kind, which was part of my sanction of the deal.
    Mr. Callaghan: Is it not a fact that if this undertaking were not kept through the sale by Rootes of shares to someone else there would be nothing in the Exchange Control Act to prevent Chrysler from purchasing shares and so acquiring control of Rootes?
    Mr. Maudling: I had thought of that one. I asked for and obtained an undertaking that the Chrysler Corporation would not acquire any more Rootes shares other than by means involving Treasury consent.
    Mr. Gordon Walker: If this kind of investment is such a good thing, why does the right hon. Gentleman impose any restrictions on it at all?
    Mr. Maudling: Of all the questions that have come from the Opposition, that is about the silliest I have heard.

    Geologists
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will set up a committee to investigate to what extent

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    the size and distribution of the staff of geological experts at the disposal of Government Departments and publicly-owned industries and services are adequate and effective.
    Mr. Alan Green: No, Sir.
    Mr. Swingler: Is the Financial Secretary not aware of substantial evidence that if more geologists were employed, and if surveys were better co-ordinated, the Government and local authorities might save a substantial sum of money by avoiding mistakes in the construction of roads, hospitals, houses and other buildings, especially in areas of mining subsidence? If the hon. Gentleman is not acquainted with this fact, will he have a survey made of these areas to put himself in possession of considerable information?
    Mr. Green: I believe that the hon. Gentleman has a specific Question down to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, but I have no reason to believe that the existing numbers and distribution of geologists give cause for concern, and I cannot accept the implications in his supplementary question.
    Mr. Swingler: Will the hon. Gentleman consult those responsible for organising, say, the Geological Survey and obtain their opinion on the matter?
    Mr. Green: Concern has already been expressed about this matter and consultations have been taking place. I see no reason to believe that there is a shortage or a maldistribution of these people.

    Post-War Credits
    Sir W. Teelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to revive the machinery of post-war credits to collect sums from young people under 20 to be held for them until they are either 25 or are getting married, whichever is the earlier, in view of the fact that they are earning money which they do not know how to spend.
    Mr. Alan Green: No, Sir.
    Sir W. Teeling: Why, Sir?
    Mr. Green: Well, Sir, we do not believe that this is the correct way of getting young people to save.
    Mr. Snow: Is not the proposal in the Question a gross infringement of private rights and are not the vast majority of young people perfectly responsible?

    Private Industry and Agriculture (Subsidies, Grants and Loans)
    Mr. Whitlockasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of financial assistance provided in the form of subsidies, grants, and loans to private industry and agriculture since 31st March, 1951; and what sums have been returned to Her Majesty's Government in capital or interest.
    Mr. Alan Green: I am afraid that this information is not available in full. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the total annual figures which have been published in the Financial Secretary's Memorandum on the Estimates for payments of financial assistance from 1958–59 onwards, and for receipts of capital and interest from 1961–62 onwards. The figures of receipts for the years 1958–59 to 1960–61 are not immediately available, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman and let him have them as soon as I can.
    Mr. Whitlock: Is not it a fact that something like £4,500 million in subsidy have been handed over to private enterprise in the last 13 years and that something like half that sum has been handed over since the last General Election? In view of the fact that this staggering sum of national assistance benefit has been handed over to private enterprise without any kind of control, does not the hon. Gentleman think it is time that the State had a voice in the affairs of concerns which are so heavily subsidised by taxpayer's money?
    Mr. Green: The hon. Member no doubt will like to know that the vast bulk of the money provided in this way has gone to agriculture. I have not heard any suggestions from hon. and right hon. Members opposite that agriculture should not be supported, and supported strongly. Perhaps the hon. Member would care to have a look at the figures before he comments so acidly on them.
    Mr. Prior: Is my hon. Friend not aware that these sums which go to

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    agriculture provide Britain with the cheapest food in Western Europe, give considerable help to our balance of payments position, and offer great social benefits to the country as a whole? Are we to understand from the supplementary question of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) that the Labour Party would do away with these subsidies?
    Mr. W. Hamilton: In view of the Government's declared policy that State financial assistance should go only to those who need it, what steps do they intend to take to ensure that before farmers claim their subsidies they definitely need them? [AN HON. MEMBER: "Means test."] Of course, a means test. Is the Financial Secretary aware that this means test is applied to all National Assistance recipients, that it is applied to all recipients of welfare foods and all recipients of council house subsidies? Why should it stop there instead of being spread much further?
    Mr. Green: I admire the hon. Member's capacity to compare unlike with unlike.
    The figures are as follows:—

    £m.

    Payments

    Receipts

    1958–59

    …

    …

    262

    —

    1959–60

    …

    …

    301

    —

    1960–61

    …

    …

    358

    —

    1961–62

    …

    …

    465

    20

    1962–63

    …

    …

    380

    28

    1963–64

    …

    …

    444

    26

    1964–65

    …

    …

    437

    32

    Unearned Income
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total number of persons who have any unearned income; and if he will express this figure as a percentage of all taxpayers.
    Mr. Alan Green: I regret that this information is not available.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Would my hon. Friend agree that approximately 4 million people, or about 20 per cent. of the taxpayers of this country, have an unearned income? Is not this a satisfactory and growing increase? In view of the large number of people having an interest in this matter, would my hon. Friend consider circulating "Signposts for the Sixties" to the taxpayer through the Inland Revenue?
    Mr. Green: I am not sure that I can justify spending taxpayers' money in that way.
    Mr. Callaghan: Will the hon. Gentleman ask his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) to stop using this term "unearned income" when he is referring to the savings of a great many small people and they find the use of this term by Tory Party propagandists very offensive?
    Mr. Green: I cannot help it if the hon. Member is offended by certain phrases which may be used in the House, but if he prefers the term "investment income" I do not mind.

    Lightship Crews (Duty-Free Tobacco)
    Mr. Priorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will cease to collect duty on cigarettes and tobacco consumed on lightships.
    Mr. Maudling: No, Sir.
    Mr. Prior: Will my right hon. Friend take another look at this matter? Is he aware that men who work on lightships work under very arduous and difficult circumstances, and that tobacco is almost part of the job—to keep them awake and happy? Would it not be possible, through Customs reliefs, to bring about an easy scheme to allow these men to have a certain amount of duty-free tobacco each time they go out to the lightships? Would he reconsider the question?
    Mr. Maudling: It is very hard to draw the line in these cases. No doubt these men have very arduous duties, but so have many others in different occupations. The line is drawn, at the moment, at ships going to foreign ports and to distant fishing-grounds. I will certainly look at the matter again, but I should not like to encourage my hon. Friend to think that I will make any move.

  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Applications
    Mr. Gowerasked the Postmaster-General how many applications for domestic telephones remained unsatisfied

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    at the latest convenient date in England and in Wales, respectively; and how those figures compare with those of a year ago.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Ray Mawby): Excluding those under inquiry or being met, the numbers of unsatisfied applications for telephone service in England and Wales at 31st March, 1964, were approximately 40,000 and 1,600, respectively. I am sorry that separate figures are not available for residence telephones. These waiting lists have remained virtually unchanged during the past year despite the record level of demand, which rose from 372,000 to 489,000 in England and from 16,000 to 20,000 in Wales. As the plans outlined in the recent White Paper "The Inland Telephone Service in an Expanding Economy" gather momentum, these waiting lists will steadily shrink until, by March 1966, they will have virtually disappeared.

  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    Educational Broadcasting (Discussions)
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Postmaster-General what has been the result of the discussions between Ministers on educational television experiments of the kind devised by the Independent Television Authority and Queen's University, Belfast; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Mawby: As my right hon. Friend said on 2nd June in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), the discussions on educational broadcasting are still continuing.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Independent Television Authority has authorised quite a large amount of money for an experiment in this field? Can he explain why it is that if an experiment for pay television is allowed, perhaps for a less worthy cause, there should be such delay in authorising an experiment like this for educational purposes?
    Mr. Mawby: The inquiry that is being made has to look into many different points to decide what will be the whole
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    point of educational programmes. As one has to decide the aims" and purposes, who would produce the programme, who would transmit it, who would pay for it, one needs a little more time to come to a final decision on the matter.
    Mr. Lubbock: Cannot the Assistant Postmaster-General consider encouraging the Independent Television Authority to plan a series of programmes in Northern Ireland to show that the idea of basing political controversy on religious differences is foreign to British ideas of democracy?
    Mr. Mawby: The hon. Gentleman could probably do that better himself by paying a visit to Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Is my hon. Friend aware that one can rehearse a joke too much?

    Housing Estates (Piped Service)
    Mrs. Slaterasked the Postmaster-General if, in view of the high cost of a television aerial to obtain the new services and the extent of aerial required, he will introduce legislation to enable him to provide a piped service, especially on new housing estates, operating from a central British Broadcasting Corporation aerial.
    Mr. Mawby: No, Sir. I understand that the cost of a UHF aerial (including installation) is on average much the same as the cost of installing a VHF aerial. Piped services can, of course, be provided by relay companies or local authorities.
    Mrs. Slater: Does the hon. Gentleman know that this problem is facing every local authority because of the high cost of these aerials, which is between £30 and £40, and that we are handing to two large companies, in the main, Telefusion and Rediffusion, the monopoly of piping television to these people on housing estates? Does not he realise that this method of doing the work is taking away the freedom of the people in those houses to choose whether they want it or not and that Is. 2d. a week on their rent is a considerable charge for this service? Should not the G.P.O. be getting the profit rather than private enterprise?
    Mr. Mawby: I see the hon. Lady's point, because there will obviously be an increasing demand for a piped service or need for more and more aerials as more and more stations develop. It may be, therefore, that many more people will not want a complete Christmas tree on top of their houses. The difficulty is that we in the Post Office must, with our present resources, concentrate on developing the public telecommunications services. We are prepared to license both private companies and local authorities where they feel that there is a need to provide a piped service.
    Mr. Proudfoot: Has my hon. Friend worked out any estimate of by how much the licence fee would go up if this suggestion were taken note of?
    Mr. Mawby: No, Sir.
    Mrs. Slater: Does not the Assistant Postmaster-General realise that this is definitely a service which the G.P.O. should be giving to the public? Would not the profits which are obviously being made from this help in the other work which the G.P.O. is so anxious to do?
    Mr. Mawby: If there were any profits—
    Mrs. Slater: There must be.
    Mr. Mawby:—that might be so. But, as the hon. Lady knows, the difficulty in many spheres of public activity is that we are using all the capital that we have available, and at present we feel that with the capital that we have available in the Post Office we are more justified in developing the telecommunications services so that the nation gets the service which it really deserves.

  POST OFFICE

    Postage Stamps (Special Issues)
    Dr. Broughtonasked the Postmaster-General why a charge of 5s. 9d. is being made for the first day covers service by the Philatelic Bureau for the International Geographic Congress special issue of postage stamps when the value of the stamps is only 2s. 8½d., in view of the fact that the recent similar service for the Shakespeare Festival cost only 7s. 2d. for stamps to the value of 6s.
    Mr. Mawby: Because the standard of service we gave for the Shakespeare first-day cover was not as good as our customers wanted and what we should have liked to have given. With the new charge we expect, this time, to give them the service they want. For people who do not wish to pay the new charge, we are making the official envelope available unstamped at the price of 6d. so that they can prepare their own first-day cover.
    Dr. Broughton: Is it not the case that if postage stamps are bought from the Philatelic Bureau, the Postmaster-General is content to receive payment amounting only to the face value of the stamps, plus 3d. for postage, whereas if stamps of the forthcoming special issue, together with envelopes and the first-day-issue postmark, are bought, the charge for the envelope and servicing appears to be exorbitant? Is it not the case that the Postmaster-General is turning this very useful service into a profiteering racket?
    Mr. Mawby: No, Sir. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this was the first time we issued a full first-day cover where we were prepared to type the address and do the whole service, and all we endeavoured to do was to get a return that would cover our costs. In fact, with the demand there was for this new issue, the return did not cover our costs. This new figure we are now charging will, we hope, just about cover the costs on a normal issue.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Russians have a far better stamp than ours and do Shakespeare far more justice? Why is that?
    Mr. Mawby: I do not know

    Postmen (Injury by Dogs)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Postmaster-General how many complaints both of injury caused by dogs and of difficulty in delivering mail he has had from postmen during the last five years.
    Mr. Mawby: These matters are dealt with locally and central records are not available but we estimate that there are about thirty cases of sick leave a year due to dog bites.
    Mr. Sorensen: Has the hon. Gentleman taken any steps to inform householders

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    that unless they keep their dogs in order and prevent the postmen from being injured or frightened mail will not be delivered?
    Mr. Mawby: Our postmasters have full authority, after due warning, to withhold delivery to the premises of any householder who takes no notice of warnings that are given.

    London Postal Districts
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Postmaster-General if it is his intention to modify the numbering of postal districts when the London Borough of Waltham Forest is fully established; and what action he intends to take in respect of postal confusion arising from similar road names both in the area of that new borough and of other new London boroughs.
    Mr. Mawby: No, Sir; postal and local government boundaries do not necessarily coincide and we have no plans for altering the numbering of postal districts when the new Borough of Waltham Forest comes into being. I am not aware that similar road names are causing confusion at present; and we have no intention of making changes which would give rise to such confusion.
    Mr. Sorensen: Would not the hon. Member look at this again? Is he aware that in the Waltham Forest area there are six or seven different postal regions? In those circumstances, would it not be better to try to make the postal regions co-terminous with the boundaries of the new borough? Is he not aware that both here and in other new boroughs there are roads with exactly the same names and that in spite of differences of postal designation, confusion arises? Should he not, therefore, take steps to try to avoid it?
    Mr. Mawby: Our main aim obviously is to give a good postal service at a reasonable cost. There will be many occasions on which the postal and local government boundaries do not coincide. We do not feel that it is necessary always to make them coincide when it would mean many people changing their addresses on envelopes without getting a better service as a result. If the hon. Member could give me the names of the streets which are confusing, I will certainly look at the point. He
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    asked my right hon. Friend last year to look at it He has done so, and this Answer is based on the further consideration which he gave to it, following the promise to the hon. Member.

  HONOURS (POLITICAL SERVICES)
  Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister whether he will advise the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the procedure and practice of awarding official honours, and to make recommendations.
  The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): No. Sir.
  Mr. Hamilton: A very disappointing reply. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is now a considerable degree of hilarious cynicism as soon as his own list is produced? If he will not set up a Royal Commission, would he not be well advised to scrap the whole disreputable procedure of giving political awards to party political hacks?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman think about this matter again? It is really rather unfair to those isolated Scottish Tories who are not members of the "night shift".

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS
  Mr. Zilliacusasked the Prime Minister what agreement he has reached with President Johnson on a joint Anglo-American policy to preserve peace by maintaining nuclear superiority over the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
  Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Prime Minister what agreement he has reached with the President of the United States of America on a joint Anglo-American policy to preserve peace by securing nuclear superiority over Russia.
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentlemen's summary of Anglo-American policy is oversimplified and even misleading. Our agreement was most recently set out in the joint communiqué issued after my talks with President Johnson in February, and circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT on 18th February.
  Mr. Zilliacus: Does not the Prime Minister recall that in his speech during the weekend of 1st June he announced that in order to maintain peace it was necessary to preserve Anglo-American superiority in nuclear weapons? Is that the right hon. Gentleman's own unilateral doctrine? If so, how is it proposed to achieve it? Secondly, how does he propose to get the Soviet Union to agree, in a disarmament treaty, to accept the superiority of the West in nuclear weapons?
  The Prime Minister: What happens at the disarmament conference is to work out balanced arrangements with the Soviet Union. That is what we are trying to get.
  Mr. Hughes: As the Prime Minister told us last week that it is nuclear balance of power that keeps the peace, does he think that Russian possession of the atomic bomb has contributed to the maintenance of peace? Will he explain that to the Chinese when they say they want an independent nuclear deterrent to get them to the conference table?
  The Prime Minister: There is no need to explain to the Chinese. The Chinese are in process of acquiring a nuclear weapon at some time—I do not know when. But we have now reached the point where there is, I think, a nuclear power that each side recognises could do unacceptable damage to the other. The sensible thing then is to get together at Geneva to try to strike a balance which is agreed.
  Mr. Lubbock: Does the Prime Minister think that the possession of nuclear weapons by the Chinese will enable them to have a seat at the conference table, and what arguments would he use with the Chinese to persuade them not to develop nuclear weapons if that is the result of possessing them?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, if he does not mind my saying so, should read the American and United Kingdom disarmament plans which make provision for a seat at the conference table for the Chinese.
  Mr. M. Foot: Does the Prime Minister think that his continued insistence that nuclear weapons have kept the peace
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  encourages people to believe that he is sincere in wanting to get rid of them?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I see no inconsistency between the two attitudes. I think that almost everybody recognises that it is the nuclear balance which has kept the peace. The question is whether we can achieve that balance at a. lower level.

  OFFICIAL HISTORIANS
  Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Prime Minister how many official historians he has appointed.
  The Prime Minister: None, Sir. The last appointment was in November, 1962.
  Mr. Hughes: Why is the Prime Minister so prejudiced against history and historians? Does not he think that he has a splendid chance to show that the Tory Government have nothing to fear and nothing to apologise for about Suez by letting us have the truth? Does he not believe that, even if he has no place in politics after the next election, he will have a place in history?
  The Prime Minister: I am beginning to think that the hon. Gentleman wants the job; but I think that it would be a very biassed history that he would write.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend consider paying historians on piece rates rather than by time? Is it not a fact that a great many of these official historians were appointed a long time ago and are happily soldiering on year after year without producing very much? Could my right hon. Friend bring some urgency into the matter by making their method of payment more attractive?
  The Prime Minister: I had not thought of that, but I am willing to consider any suggestions.
  Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend appoint a special historian to write how the Labour Party managed to produce the nuclear bomb without coming to Parliament?

  CYPRUS
  Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister if he will invite the Turkish and Greek Prime Ministers to London for discussions on the Cyprus situation, following their visit to Washington.
  The Prime Minister: I have invited the Turkish and Greek Prime Ministers to visit London. They have both accepted. Mr. Inonu expects to be here between 27th June and 29th June. The date of Monsieur Papandreou's visit has not yet been fixed.
  Mr. Henderson: In view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government are parties to the treaty of guarantee and the treaty of establishment of Cyprus, may I ask him whether he intends to have consultations with President Johnson on the proposals that the President is putting forward with a view to achieving a settlement of the Cyprus problem?
  The Prime Minister: I think that we had better see what proposals the President puts forward before answering that supplementary question.

  ABERDEEN, TYPHOID OUTBREAK
  Mr. Clark Hutchisonasked the Prime Minister if he will ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Labour and the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development to report to him on the effects on the Scottish economy of the typhoid epidemic.
  The Prime Minister: The outbreak of typhoid has been confined to the city of Aberdeen, where less than 3 per 1,000 of the population have been affected. In the few cases outside Aberdeen, the infection in all except two cases was contracted during a visit to Aberdeen and not passed on to others.
  Mr. Hutchison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many holidaymakers and, indeed, some businessmen have been cancelling their bookings in Aberdeen and elsewhere in Scotland? Does he agree that such cancellations are entirely unnecessary from the point of view of public health?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I hope that the reply which I have given will do something to restore confidence.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: Does the Prime Minister realise that the Scottish economy, particularly in north-east Scotland, has suffered grievously from the epidemic, which was through no
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  fault of its own and which was not indigenous to Aberdeen? What plans has the right hon. Gentleman to provide compensation for the business people and workers in hotels, boarding houses and shops who have suffered so grievously from this epidemic?
  The Prime Minister: I think that it is premature to make up my mind about this question yet. I gather that that is the view taken by the City of Aberdeen.

  CHURCH OF SCOTLAND TRAINING CENTRE
  Mr. Rossasked the Prime Minister when he received a communication from the Governors of the Carberry Tower Youth Leadership and Training Centre of the Church of Scotland on the subject of Government assistance to it; and what reply he has sent.
  The Prime Minister: I received from the Chairman of the Governors on 12th June a letter which was evidently sent to a number of hon. Members. I have asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to deal with it.
  Mr. Ross: Will the Prime Minister use his influence as Prime Minister, if not as a Scottish constituency Member, to ensure that this matter is dealt with sympathetically? Will he bear in mind the concern which he expressed last Thursday and the anxiety which he seemed to evince then to get a chance of doing something constructive? Will he also bear in mind mat the youth work of the Church has not been made very much easier by the willingness of Governments of which he has been a member to make more readily available to young people facilities for drinking and betting, and, now, by the unrestricted spread of gaming clubs?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman asked for a particular matter to be examined, and I will certainly have it examined. But, apart from the church organisations, there are many secular organisations, and we have to treat them equally.
  Mr. David James: Is my right hon. Friend aware that hon. Members opposite opposed the Obscene Publications Bill?

INDUSTRIAL INDEMNITY (NATIONALISATION)
3.30 p.m.
Mr. Neil McLean: I beg to move.
That leave be given to introduce a Bill to protect from future nationalisation those private industries which are in receipt of State subsidies or loans under the Cotton Industry Act 1959, the Shipbuilding Credit Act 1964 or the Fort William Pulp and Paper Mills Act 1963.
The purpose of my proposed Bill is to reassure those industries that the fact that they have received grants and loans from the Government for certain purposes in the national interest will not be used as a reason, should there be a Labour Government in power next time, for nationalising them or for the State taking control of them. It is generally agreed on both sides of the House that money given under these Acts to these companies has been of great benefit both to the industries and to the areas in which they are located.
These Acts are the actions of government in this country in which we have a mixed economy. Private capital and public money, or State capital, both have an essential part to play. This is so not only in this country, but in almost every modern country today, except in the Socialist world. Both State and private capital have to play their full part if the economy of a country is to flourish. This country is no exception to the rule. Whichever Government we have in office, it will have to deal both with State and private enterprise and to co-ordinate the activities of the two in the best interests of the country.
An important factor at this stage in our history is that although both parties face the fact that we have a mixed economy there is a fundamental difference between the two parties in approach to the running of the economy. If I understand it correctly, hon. Members opposite believe in Socialism. Going back over the years, the record of the Labour Party is a mixture of Christian humanitarianism and Marxism and of great service according to its beliefs, but the essential core of that philosophy is a belief in Socialism; and if the Labour Party abandoned its Socialism it would abandon its spirit and inner
230
drive. That is why the Labour Party, in spite of whatever economic reasons may arise, cannot abandon Clause Four. It is a fundamental fact of the situation.
I go further and say that I think that the Labour Party, when and where possible, would like the State to take control of various enterprises and industries and would like an extension of public ownership for its own sake. I do not accuse the Labour Party of being idiots. Where this approach is impossible, the Labour Party will come to terms with private industry. But by and large, and where-ever it can, it will extend public ownership and State control. That is its attitude, and there is nothing in this attitude about which it need be ashamed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I said about which the Labour Party need be ashamed, according to its ideas.
On our side, we believe that private enterprise functions in a beneficial way for the development of our economy. At the same time, when necessary, we have never been afraid of the State intervening in support of private industry and—here some of my colleagues will disagree—even of the State starting up an industry. On the other hand, hon. Members on this side of the House would do this only where we feel that it was really necessary. By and large, we believe that as much of the economy as possible, for economic, social and other reasons, should be left in private hands. That is the best and fairest way of developing our economy.
As far a 5 I understand, members of the Liberal Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?"]—say that this fundamental difference in approach to our economy and to the whole social outlook is completely unimportant. They say that it does not matter whether one believes in Socialism and in the State running things or whether one believes in private enterprise and wishes private enterprise forces to run the economy of the country. They say that that is quite unimportant—and this is a good example of the contribution which they have to make to our philosophy.
Speaking as a Scottish Member, I would say that the Acts in respect of shipbuilding and the Fort William Pulp Mill have been and will be of great benefit to the Highlands in particular and to

231
Scotland in general. Hon. Members opposite are equally as keen to see them successful as we are. Perhaps I may add a word about the Fort William Pulp Mill, which is in my constituency. I hope that I shall be forgiven for doing so. This great project, which has been welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, will be of immense benefit to the whole of the Highlands. The Government have agreed to make available up to £10 million in loan and grant and another £3 million for houses and ancillary services. The company has gone into this great project, both for its own advantage and profit and, at the same time, for the benefit of the Highlands and the economy of the entire country.
There have, however, been a number of remarks by hon. Members opposite which have cast doubts about the future relationship between the State and these companies. The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), in the debate the other day, said that if the taxpayers were being asked to put up their money for the Fort William Pulp and Paper Mill project they were entitled to a stake in the industry. On the face of it, that is a very reasonable statement, but it must be seen against the background of statements made many times by the Leader of the Opposition, who has made his views clear in the matter, which is that "State finance means State participation in the ownership and control and in the profits." If the remarks of the right hon. Member for Belper are taken in conjunction with those of the Leader of the Opposition, who goes a stage further, it means that the State would seek control of these industries both in the running of them and in their profits. Nevertheless, if hon. Members on both sides of the House support the Bill, we can reassure these industries that they will not be taken over by the State if the party opposite comes to power. I hope that they can be reassured.
These remarks about these industries must be seen against the background of the various statements made by the Labour Party in the past and in the present. I should like to ask the Labour Party one question. If the Leader of the Opposition becomes Prime Minister, does he intend, as many hon. Members of his party undoubtedly think, to seize the
232
commanding heights and to carry the revolution one stage further forward? Will he do that? Many people in his party support him because they think that he will. Is it his aim to seize the commanding heights and to carry the revolution one stage further politically? Or, on the other hand, will he act according to what he tells his friends privately in the City when he reassures them that he will not nationalise their industries and that they will be all right under the Labour Party? Does it mean that the men in the City are being fooled or that the back bench Members are being fooled?
Today, I am more concerned with the narrower subject of the Bill, in which we seek to reassure those industries under the three Acts I have mentioned that they will not be taken over, should there be a Labour Government, just because they have received Government funds and loans, and that State control would not be made a condition of any further funds and loans. I ask my hon. Friends on this side of the House and hon. Members opposite to support the Bill.
3.40 p.m.
Mr. Bruce Millan Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton) rose—
Mr. William Hamilton: Congratulate the hon. Member on his "maiden" speech.
Mr. Millan: I rise to oppose the Bill.
I am not sure that the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. N. MacLean) made out an effective case for his Bill, but it requires some kind of answer. In the first place, the Bill is misconceived in principle. I do not believe that it is constitutionally sound for one Government to bind the actions of the next Government. Indeed, I do not think that that is possible. Even if the Bill were passed, I do not believe that it would be effective.
But I do not want to rest my case on that. The Labour Party's view on giving assistance to private enterprise has been repeated on a number of occasions. It is simple. Our view is that if large sums of public money are given in assistance to private industry, then the taxpayers, the Government, have the responsibility and, indeed, the duty to see that there is public

233
accountability. If profits are made from this enterprise, then the whole of the profits should not go to private enterprise, but the taxpayer should get a reasonable return. That is what is said in "Signpost to the 'Sixties", and it was made clear in the debate on nationalisation, which we had last week. In fact, the hon. Member has not addressed his mind to that question at all.
In his Motion the hon. Member mentions three Acts of Parliament. I shall say something briefly about each in turn. First, the Cotton Industry Act, 1959, was debated at great length in the House, and all the HANSARD references to the debate are available. Yet the hon. Member did not attempt to prove at any time during the debate on that Act that any hon. Member from this side of the House said that the cotton industry should be taken into public ownership.
We did not say that. That was not a commitment that we made and we have not made the commitment since. Therefore, again, as to the cotton industry the Bill is misconceived. What we said on the Cotton Industry Act was that if it were taken by itself, without other measures by the Government, it would not have the effect of reorganising and re-equipping the industry in the manner that the Government said they intended.
We have had confirmation of that view in the conclusion of the Fourth Report of the Estimates Committee, which reported in May, 1962, which, in its last paragraph, mentioned the purpose of the Cotton Industry Act and said that large sums of money had been voted by Parliament. It went on to say that the Committee
"feel bound to record their conviction that, failing a speedy and satisfactory solution to the related problems of imports, marketing, and the fuller use of plant and machinery, much of the expenditure incurred will have been to no purpose."
At the time when the Bill was going through, we said nothing about taking part of the cotton industry into public ownership.
As to the Shipbuilding Credit Act, again I challenge the hon. Member for Inverness to produce a quotation from HANSARD showing that we on this side at any time suggested that we were
234
committed to taking part of the shipping industry into public ownership. We did not say that. Again, therefore, the Bill is misconceived.
What we did say was that the assistance under the Shipbuilding Credit Act, 1964, came far too late and, what was more, was far too restricted. I am glad to see the hon. Member's interest in the shipbuilding industry which is associated with the Bill. I am not sure that he has ever expressed an interest in it before. The number of people employed in shipbuilding in Scotland went down from 54,000 in 1957 to only 38,000 in 1963. During that period, hon. Members on this side were pressing the Government to do something for the shipbuilding industry.
It is, however, the Fort William Pulp and Paper Mill that I want specially to mention, because, as the hon. Member has said, this project is in his constituency. The project is to cost £19 million and the Government are to provide about £10 million. What we on this side said, and I moved an Amendment to this effect in Committee on the Bill, was that the Government's participation in the project at Fort William should not be on a debenture basis at a fixed rate of interest, but that they should participate in the profits.
An Amendment to that effect was moved from this side of the House on the Report stage of the Bill. The hon. Member for Inverness, however, whose interest, again, I am glad to see in the project, was not present on that occasion. His interest was so intense that he was not present on Second Reading and he was not a member of the Committee which dealt with the Bill, even though the project was located in his constituency.
That whole project depends upon Government money. Who is supplying the timber? It is being supplied by the Forestry Commission, a State-owned enterprise. The water is being provided by the local authorities, by whom the roads are bring provided, also. The rail services, which Dr. Beeching was on the point of closing down just when the venture came forward, are also being provided by nationalised industry with public money.
I go further. It is an impertinence of the hon. Member for Inverness, of all

235
people, to seek to introduce his Bill. If it were not for State enterprise and public money, his whole constituency would collapse into economic depression. Not only does the hon. Member's constituency depend upon the very public services which I have mentioned, but it depends also upon hydro-electricity. Some of us on this side of the House have been fighting for the Hydro-Electric Board against the Government's treatment of it which we have had over the last two years. I do not recollect one occasion on which the hon. Member for Inverness gave us any assistance, although his constituency is vitally interested in the development of hydro-electricity in Scotland.
As an example of the dependence of the Highlands on State enterprise, I ought finally to mention that one of the first Bills which the Government intro

Division No. 113.]

AYES

[3.51 p.m.

Agnew, Sir Peter

Dance, James

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Anderson, D. C.

Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Arbuthnot, Sir John

Doughty, Charles

James, David

Ashton, Sir Hubert

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec

Jennings, J. C.

Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

Drayson, G. B.

Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

Barlow, Sir John

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

Barter, John

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

Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

Batsford, Brian

Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith

Bell, Ronald

Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

Kershaw, Anthony

Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

Farey-Jones, F. W.

Kirk, Peter

Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Farr, John

Kitson, Timothy

Biffen, John

Fell, Anthony

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Biggs-Davison, John

Finlay, Graeme

Leavey, J. A.

Bingham, R. M.

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

Foster, Sir John

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Bishop, Sir Patrick

Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

Lindsay, Sir Martin

Black, Sir Cyril

Gammans, Lady

Litchfield, Capt. John

Bossom, Hon. Clive

Gardner, Edward

Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'dfield)

Bourne-Arton, A.

Gibson-Watt, David

Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

Longbottom, Charles

Box, Donald

Goodhew, Victor

Longden, Gilbert

Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

Gower, Raymond

Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Grant-Ferris, R.

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Braine, Bernard

Green, Alan

MacArthur, Ian

Brewis, John

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

McLaren, Martin

Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

Maddan, Martin

Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

Harris, Reader (Heston)

Maitland, Sir John

Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Marshall, Sir Douglas

Bryan, Paul

Harrison, Col. Sir

Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)

Harwood (Eye)

Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)

Cary, Sir Robert

Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Channon, H. P. G.

Harvie Anderson, Miss

Mawby, Ray

Chataway, Christopher

Hastings, Stephen

Maxwell-Hystop, R. J.

Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

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

Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

Mills, Stratum

Cleaver, Leonard

Henderson, John (Cathcart)

Miscampbell, Norman

Cooke, Robert

Hiley, Joseph

Montgomery, Fergus

Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)

Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

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

More, Jasper (Ludlow)

Cordle, John

Hirst, Geoffrey

Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Corfield, F. V.

Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John

Morrison, John (Salisbury)

Coulson, Michael

Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin

Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

Holland, Philip

Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

Hollingworth, John

Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

Crawley, Aidan

Hopkins, Alan

Page, Graham (Crosby)

Cunningham, Sir Knox

Homsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

Curran, Charles

Hughes Halls", Vice-Admiral John

Percival, Ian

Dalkeith, Earl of

Hulbert, Sir Norman

Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

duced into the House after 1959 was the Highlands and Islands Shipping Services Act, 1960, the purpose of which was to provide Government money for building ships to maintain shipping services to the Highlands. That is another matter in which the hon. Member for Inverness has a vital constituency interest, but on that one, also, he did not speak on Second Reading, he was not on the Committee which dealt with the Bill and he did not speak on Report.
For the general reason that the Bill is misconceived, and, particularly, considering the quarter from which the Bill comes, the House should reject it.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—
The House divided: Ayes 191-Noes 135.

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Spearman, Sir Alexander

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Pitman, Sir James

Stalnton, Keith

Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

Pitt, Dame Edith

Stanley, Hon. Richard

Vickers, Miss Joan

Pounder, Rafton

Storey, Sir Samuel

Walker, Peter

Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

Studholme, Sir Henry

Wall, Patrick

Prior, J. M. L.

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Ward, Dame Irene

Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Teeling, Sir William

Whitelaw, William

Pym, Francis

Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley

Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)

Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

Ronton, Rt Hon. David

Thompson, sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

Wise, A. R.

Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

Woodnutt, Mark

Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

Tilney, John (Wavertree)

Yates, William (The Wrekln)

Seymour, Leslie

Turner, Colin

Sharples, Richard

Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

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

Tweedsmuir, Lady

Sir F. Maclean and

Mr. Neil McLean.

NOES

Abse, Leo

Hayman, F. H.

Oram, A, E.

Ainsley, William

Healey, Denis

Owen, Will

Aldritt, W. H.

Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

Paget, R, T.

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Herbison, Miss Margaret

Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

Hill, J. (Midlothian)

Pargiter, G. A.

Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)

Hilton, A. V.

Pavitt, Laurence

Bacon, Miss Alice

Holt, Arthur

Peart, Frederick

Barnett, Guy

Houghton, Douglas

Pentland, Norman

Beaney, Alan

Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

Prentice, R. E.

Benn, Anthony Wedgwood

Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Probert, Arthur

Benson, Sir George

Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

Rankin, John

Blackburn, F.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Redhead, E. C.

Blyton, William

Hunter, A. E.

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

Boston, T. G.

Hynd, H. (Accrington)

Rhodes, H.

Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

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

Janner, Sir Barnett

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

Braddock, Mrs. E. M,

Jeger, George

Robinson, Kenneth (St. Paneras, N.)

Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)

Ross, William

Callaghan, James

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Short, Edward

Castle, Mrs. Barbara

Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

Skeffington, Arthur

Collick, Percy

Kelley, Richard

Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

Kenyon, Clifford

Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

Crosland, Anthony

Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

Small, William

Cullen, Mrs. Alice

King, Dr. Horace

Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

Dalyell, Tarn

Lawson, George

Snow, Julian

Davies, Harold (Leek)

Lee, Frederick (Newton)

Sorensen, R. W.

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

Deer, George

Lipton, Marcus

Spriggs, Leslie

Diamond, John

Lubbock, Eric

Steele, Thomas

Donnelly, Desmond

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

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

McCann, J.

Stones, William

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

MacColl, James

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

Evans, Albert

Mackenzie, Gregor

Swingler, Stephen

Finch, Harold

MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

Symonds, J. B.

Fitch, Alan

MacPherson, Malcolm

Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

Fletcher, Eric

Mapp, Charles

Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

Foley, Maurice

Mason, Roy

Thornton, Ernest

Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

Mayhew, Christopher

Wainwright, Edwin

Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

Mellish, R. J.

Warbey, William

Ginsburg, David

Mltchlson, G. R.

Weitzman, David

Cordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

Monslow, Walter

Whitlock, William

Gourlay, Harry

Moody, A. S.

Winterbottom, R. E.

Grey, Charles

Moyle, Arthur

Woof, Robert

Gunter, Ray

Mulley, Frederick

Hamilton, William (West Fife)

Oliver, G. H.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Harper, Joseph

O'Malley, B. K.

Mr. Millan and Mr. Carmichael.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. N. McLean.

INDUSTRIAL INDEMNITY (NATIONALISATION)
Bill to protect from future nationalisation those private industries which are in
238
receipt of State subsidies or loans under the Cotton Industry Act, 1959, the Shipbuilding Credit Act, 1964, or the Fort William Pulp and Paper Mills Act, 1963, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed [Bill 169.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  MALICIOUS DAMAGE BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.1 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This is the Bill which I said that the Government intended to introduce forthwith when I made a full statement to the House earlier this month on the "mods" and "rockers" disturbances which broke out at Whitsun at three seaside towns in the South of England. I made it perfectly clear then that such happenings cannot be prevented by alterations to the law alone. They go much wider and deeper and I have had valuable talks about it with more than one of my hon. Friends whose constituencies were concerned, including my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) who, I see, has some suggestions of his own on the Order Paper.
  Though there is much else which needs doing, too, it is a primary responsibility of the Government to make sure that the courts have sufficient powers—powers to maintain law and order and powers to protect persons and property. This Bill is a short and simple Measure to strengthen those powers in the one direction where I think that they are not already fully sufficient. Governments alone cannot control or direct the behaviour of the young, nor would anybody wish it so. Governments can see that there are deterrents to irresponsible actions which hurt and harm others, and can see that appropriate methods of treatment and punishment exist, but the moral outlook of the society in which young people grow up is something for which each one of us must answer.
  We should all ask ourselves, the whole nation should ask itself, whether we grown-ups are setting the best example. Those of us who are parents must recognise the directness of our responsibility. Everybody who read the remarkable article which was published in The Times, shortly after Whitsun, must have been deeply disturbed by it. The Times, enterprisingly, interviewed many of the parents whose sons appeared in court after those Whitsun scenes. The article
  240
  revealed how little some parents knew about what their children were doing that weekend and how deeply shocked they were, when they found that their sons had been charged with hooligan offences and convicted.
  I know that parents do not want to interfere as their children grow up, and there is good sense in that. There is also good sense in saying to parents, "Do not cut yourselves off from your children's activities and interests as if they were things that no longer concern you once they leave school." The year or so after boys and girls have left school is very often a time when they really need the support of their parents most, though they may think otherwise. It is a turning point in life, a time of new strains and possibly new temptations. The connection between delinquency and the special strains and difficulties of adjustment at that time is one of the first subjects on which my Advisory Committee on Juvenile Delinquency has decided to concentrate.
  It is not enough for older people merely to condemn that Whitsun behaviour. We must try to understand the causes and find the remedies. We can also, I suggest, see what each of us personally can do to provide part of the answer. There are so many ways locally in which men and women, young or old, can help; through voluntary bodies and voluntary efforts; with youth clubs and sports clubs; by seeing that there are more opportunities for boys to do adventurous things without breaking the law and, perhaps most important of all, by trying by personal example to improve the image of the society in which these young people are growing. We should show that as a nation we have the will and intent to take constructive steps to fight and win the battle against delinquency.
  At the same time—and this is Parliament's job—we must not fail to make certain that irresponsible behaviour can be dealt with severely by the courts and that those who damage the property of others can be made to pay for the damage they cause. The Bill will strengthen the powers of the courts at a key point, the power to exact restitution from the causer of the damage, who may find himself having to pay a substantial fine as well.

  241
  I have thoroughly considered all the other possible measures which have been urged on me since Whitsun from one quarter or another. I am not going to reintroduce corporal punishment; to do so in the face of its unanimous rejection by my very strong Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders would be a strange line to take. It has been suggested that these young hooligans should be disqualified from driving, or that their motor cycles or scooters should be confiscated. I treated that as a serious suggestion and considered it seriously, but, for one thing, I saw formidable difficulties for the courts in deciding whether there was a relation between the offence and the use of the vehicle, when the vehicle might be parked a couple of miles away from where the offence took place. One could not confine anything like that to offences of hooliganism, because hooliganism is not defined in the category of offences known to the law.
  There is, in fact, a wide variety of offences with which these young people may be charged; under the Public Order Act, where we wisely increased the penalties by legislation last Session; or the Prevention of Crime Act; or the Malicious Damage Act; or the Offences Against the Person Act; as well as the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, which the Bill seeks to amend. The Bill proposes to amend Section 14(1) of that Act so as to increase from £20 to £100 the limit on cases of malicious damage that may be dealt with by magistrates' courts. Section 14(1) of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, provides that a person who commits malicious damage to an amount not exceeding £20 may be prosecuted summarily.
  If the amount of the damage is £5 or less, the maximum penalty is two months' imprisonment or a fine of £5. If the amount of the damage is more than £5, but does not exceed £20, the maximum penalty is three months' imprisonment, or a fine of £20. In either case, the court may, in addition, order the offender to pay reasonable compensation for the damage caused up to the amount of the damage. In view of present money values, this £20 limit is unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory not only because the maximum fine is
  242
  limited to £20, but, more especially, because the power to award compensation is restricted to cases in which the damage is £20 or less.
  The effect of Clause 1(1) of the Bill is to amend Section 14 of the 1914 Act so as to permit proceedings under this Section in cases where the amount of the damage runs up to £100. This automatically raises the limit for compensation which the offender may be required to pay to £100; and the Bill also raises the maximum fine to £100. The Schedule to the Bill shows exactly how the provision in the 1914 Act will read if Parliament approves the Bill.
  It is intended that the Bill should come into effect immediately on receiving the Royal Assent. I hope that, with the help of the House, it will be in operation before the August Bank Holiday. It will apply only to offences committed after the Bill comes into force, as is secured by Clause 1(2).
  I believe that public opinion will approve the Government's resolve to deter the irresponsible types who go in for hooliganism by exposing them not only to fines up to £100, but to the likelihood, also, of being ordered by the magistrates to pay for the damage they have done up to £100. Their pockets will be at risk up to £200. This may make both them and their parents think.
  I want the Bill also to be a reassurance to the long-suffering public. They were long-suffering at these holiday places, for many of them had their Whitsun holidays or their Whitsun trade spoiled by these young fools. I want to reassure them by showing that the Government mean business. I can tell the House that the police have all their plans co-ordinated in case there is further trouble. The youths who were sent to detention centres because of their part in the Whitsun disturbances are up at six o'clock each morning and go to bed each night thoroughly tired out by hard work. At the detention centres they are being taught good behaviour and proper manners as well as discovering what physical exercise does. The Bill will enact the one change which is needed in the law to nuke sure that the courts have full powers.
  In the foreword I wrote to the Report on the work of the Children's Department

  243
  of the Home Office, which was presented to Parliament in March, I set out my longer-term views about delinquency. I repeated some of them in our debate on 27th April. I shall not lengthen my speech today by going over them again for they are on record. My Advisory Committee on Juvenile Delinquency has already set to work, and the Royal Commission on the Penal System also has a big task before it. Both of these bodies, I have no doubt, will have important contributiont to make on the long-term problem. But we must think responsibly about what we should be doing in the short run as well as the long run.
  The Bill represents the one change in the law which, I believe, it is right to recommend Parliament to enact here and now.
  Mr. Speaker: The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) is not selected.
  4.14 p.m.
  Miss Alice Bacon: As the Home Secretary has said, this is a small Bill. It is also a hurried Bill, though a necessary one, in an effort to prevent on August Bank Holiday a repetition of the events on Easter Monday and Whit Monday of this year. At that time, some of the magistrates did fine very heavily, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is a gap in the law which the Bill will fill.
  Even if there had been no trouble at Easter and Whitsun, it would be right for us to have this Bill before us, because it amends the 1914 Act and, as we all know, the value of money today is nothing like what it was in 1914. The Bill merely brings up to present-day values the fines which could be imposed under the 1914 Act. Twenty pounds then is about the same as £100 today.
  I hope, as the right hon. Gentleman hopes, that these increased fines will deter young hooligans from a repetition on August Bank Holiday of what happened on the two previous occasions. The House must do all that is possible to prevent such behaviour, to see that ordinary people can enjoy their holidays in peace and quiet as they wish to do, and to prevent young people from doing harm to both people and property.
  244
  I know that there are hon. Members who consider that there ought to be remedies other than the one proposed under the Bill. Some think that there should be a return to corporal punishment. Some think that the best thing to do with these young people is to put them in prison, in borstal, or even in the Army. Others think that a longer period on probation would probably do them some good.
  Like the right hon. Gentleman, I do not believe that corporal punishment is the answer. There is no evidence from the past to show that it has been a deterrent. When flogging for robbery with violence was brought to an end, the number of offences went down, not up. Moreover, I believe that there is a danger that, if we returned to corporal punishment for these offences, having regard to the type of person with whom we are dealing, there might be a tendency to show some sort of bravado; a flogging or a birching might even become a status symbol among these young people.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the article in The Times, on 22nd May last, reporting interviews with the parents of some of the young people who had been before the courts. I shall refer to some of the other matters in the article later, but I wish at this point to remind the House that one father said, according to the report:
  "I tried thrashing my boy a year ago when he came in very late. It hurt me more than him, and I thought it disgusting and degrading. At the end of it he went out again. He did not come back until about 4 o'clock in the morning. For weeks after that he was much worse."
  There we have an example of one of the fathers saying that he had tried corporal punishment and it had failed.
  What about prison, borstal and detention centres? It is true that some of these young people would benefit from a short period in a detention centre, but I hope that we shall not be sending them to prison or borstal. The young people whom we are now considering, the ones who go about as young hooligans, are not quite the same as the people who go about stealing and committing crimes of that kind. It would be utterly wrong to put this kind of person in prison, especially in company with the type of older prisoner who has committed crimes. I

  245
  hope, therefore, that magistrates will reflect carefully before sending them to prison.
  The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) suggests in his Amendment, which is not to be called, that there might be some other kind of day centre to which these people could be sent. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we have already in various parts of the country attendance centres run by the police, notably in Liverpool, but also in London, Leeds, Manchester and many other towns. As I said in our debate on juvenile delinquency on 28th April, I was very disappointed that this attendance centre system had not developed nearly as much as I thought was necessary. In 1960, there were 41 attendance centres. By the end of 1963, the number had grown to only 52, and the number of orders made had risen from just over 4,000 to 5,800. I believe that we should have far more of these attendance centres and that those which we have should be expanded.
  For one thing, attendance centres are much cheaper. The cost per order in an attendance centre is less than £5 10s., very much cheaper than putting a young person in residential accommodation. In any case, as I have said on many occasions, taking young persons from their homes and putting them in some kind of residential accommodation should only be a course of last resort when the home is utterly unsuitable. I believe that this kind of residential accommodation for young people does more harm than good.
  As for the third course, probation, I do not think that the probation service, which is already overworked, ought to have these added duties.
  I disagree very much with the Amendment which the hon. Gentleman has put down, although on the principle of it, that he wants more than there is in the Bill, I agree with him, because, while I hope that the Bill will go through, I know very well that the problem will still be with us. As the Home Secretary pointed out, there is a short-term problem and a long-term problem. The question goes far deeper than the Bill now before us.
  On 27th April, we had a debate on the whole subject of hooliganism and
  246
  juvenile delinquency. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I have no intention of repeating what I said in that debate, when I and many others emphasised that parents had a responsibility, that society must set an example, and that events of this kind were to some extent a reflection of the kind of society we had as a whole. In my view, as I said then, there is not one cause and not one remedy. We can only try a variety of measures and see what will work.
  The hooliganism which takes place today, although it has reared its head in rather unusual ways in Bank Holiday assaults on seaside towns, is not a new problem. It is being expressed in a different way today, but this, I suggest, does no more than reflect the changed pattern of life. Yesterday, everything was much simpler than it is today. A few years ago, if there were any young hooligans, they ran around the streets where they lived, making a nuisance of themselves to their immediate neighbours. Today, they have motorcycles and scooters. Young people can move farther away, and they have much more money. The whole pattern of life has changed in this respect.
  The right hon. Gentleman has told us what the Government are doing. Committees and commissions are considering these questions and are advising him. I noticed that he gave an interview to the Daily Mail last week, which, on 17th June, reported what he had said about his long-term measures for combating hooliganism The article was headed:
  "Thank Heaven for Henry Brooke!"
  I must say that that is going just a bit too far. However, I read the article very carefully, and all I could see in it was that a committee was considering this, a commission was considering the other, an advisory committee was about to advise him on this and that. It is time that we had the results of some of the efforts which these bodies have been putting in.
  The problem of juvenile delinquency has been with us a long time. It is not something we have known about only in the past few weeks or months. The right hon. Gentleman, according to this article, went on to say that he was having a survey made of the kind of young

  247
  persons who had been making a nuisance of themselves at Whitsuntide and Easter.
  The article said:
  "It is astonishing that these questions have not been asked before. But, at last, the steps are being taken."
  It is indeed astonishing that these steps have not been taken and these questions not asked before. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, The Times had already interviewed a great many of the parents of the children who were before the courts at Easter and Whitsun. It did so very quickly. The article underlined something that I said in our debate on 27th April. I told the House then that I thought parents were not taking sufficient interest in what their children were doing in their spare time. If we read the interviews quoted in The Times we see that, time and again, that is the case.
  The article said:
  "From parents' stories it would seem that these youngsters used their home as a lodging house—for meals and sleep only.
  Parents seemed surprised when asked if their children ever accompanied them on their outings.
  A mother trying to rear her family single handed, said: ' Sometimes my boy doesn't get in until 3 a.m., but I've never asked him where he has been. He wouldn't like that.'
  Another mother, who said that her son had always had everything he wanted, added: 'He has had three cars since he was 17. His Dad helps him to buy them.'"
  Of course, all these young people were not like that. Another boy's mother told the Daily Herald that she hoped she would never see him again and that when he came out of prison he would go into "digs". This boy and his brother were sent to a children's home when they were babies because their mother could not house them. They did not see her again for 15 years. Now she was hoping that she would never see her son again.
  Thus, one cannot generalise about these young people. Some have been deprived and have had no chance at all, while others have perhaps been over-indulged by parents who thought it right to give them all the things they wanted including, in one case, three cars. We now have a shorter working day and more leisure. Work itself, with automation, is not physically so hard as it used to be, I am glad to say. A great deal of the work that these young people perform is mono-
  248
  tonous—sitting down doing one process all day long—and when they finish they look out for any enjoyment that they can get.
  I would like to emphasise that only a very small proportion of young people behave in this way. The overwhelming majority are making a very useful contribution to society and filling their leisure time with useful pursuits. But we must see what we can do to help those who cannot see anything better to do than make a nuisance of themselves by giving them alternative outlets for their energy and high spirits.
  Yesterday, we had a debate on leisure and sport. I believe that the Government have not done nearly as much in this respect as they might have done. They have not done as much as they should in the implementation of the Wolfenden and Albemarle Reports. I have a report here about girls climbing mountains. People are organising climbing expeditions to Snowdonia and other places. It is interesting to see that in Liverpool, which used to be perhaps the worst city for this kind of hooliganism, the situation is much better because of the growth of the "beat" groups. Instead of throwing stones through windows and damaging people's property, the youngsters are busy beating drums and strumming electric guitars. The answer has been found quite accidentally in that way. Perhaps Mr. "Billy" Butlin might be able to come forward with a bright idea for healthy competition for these young people.
  Although the young people involved in this trouble form only a very small percentage, the trouble they cause is out of all proportion to their numbers. I said on 27th April—and I believe this to be very important—that we should do much more to ease the break between school days and working days. I believe that it is at that point that one of the right hon. Gentleman's committees should be looking.
  Last week, a committee set up by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition under the chairmanship of the Earl of Longford, produced a report entitled "Crime—a Challenge to Us All". In this report the committee—I was a member—dealt at length with the problem of juvenile delinquency and how to

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  try to prevent it, because we realise that juvenile delinquents of today can so easily become criminals tomorrow.
  We suggested the setting up of a family service, with family centres and family courts, because we believe that we cannot separate the child from the family of which he is a member and that the Home Secretary and the local authorities ought to look at the family as a whole and not just at the child. That is why we set such great store on the family service, which would embrace the education, welfare and health authorities and the children's departments.
  Our proposals have been discussed seriously in most papers, with only one or two critics. One writer asked how we could be sure that our proposals would succeed. Of course, we cannot be sure that they would. No one could be sure. People who think that they have the answer to these problems are extremely foolish. Nevertheless, I believe that our report is a very valuable contribution.
  The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran)—whose articles I see twice a week, because a Yorkshire paper publishes them following their appearance in London—wrote last week about our proposals. His article was entitled "Pamper or Punish". I think that the article was very unfair, and the title particularly so. In many quarters there is a discussion of this problem of punishment and reform as if the two were opposites. I do not believe that they are.
  I am not against punishment. Small children have to be punished by their parents. Perhaps for bad behaviour they may be deprived of a little outing. They are not being punished for the sake of punishment, but so that they can know right from wrong. In other words, they are punished so that they can grow up in the right way. One can regard this punishment as a kind of reform of the young person. So I believe that punishment can be a part of reform, but punishment without any hope of reform, especially for the young, is purposeless and defeatist.
  I believe that a term of custodial treatment of any kind which is merely to punish the individual and which sends him out of the institute no better than when he went in is absolutely useless.
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  I therefore do not think it right to talk about punishment versus reform. Reform is the aim, but sometimes it can be brought about by punishment.
  The important thing is that, if parents need help in bringing up their children and young people, then the help should be there for them and that children and young people should receive the treatment best suited for them to make them useful members of society. I was very much struck by the words of Professor Radzinowicz, in a lecture to the Howard League for Penal Reform on 7th May. He said:
  "I sometimes wonder how far, in this sort of context, we should pursue arguments about the principles of punishment. What use is it to discuss exhaustively the relative weights to be attached to the various elements in punishment, when we can never really assess individual culpability or its equivalent in individual pain, when we have little idea of how far we are really deterring offenders, let alone others; when we know we often do not know how best to bring about reformation?"
  We do not really know all the answers to this.
  We on this side of the House support the Bill, but in doing so we recognise, as I know the right hon. Gentleman does, that much more is needed. We need to see that our young people grow up in the way we would like them to, but we must also remember that the way they grow up is a reflection on our society as a whole and that we have a responsibility not only to punish them where necessary, but to see that they do not do these things again. It is the responsibility not only of the parents, but of everyone in the community, not only to punish them, but to reform them and lead them on to be better members of society.
  4.35 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Morrison: It is with considerable trepidation that I ask the House to extend its customary indulgence to an hon. Member addressing it for the first time. I speak with mixed feelings, because one of my ancestors, a Member of this House, rejoiced in the nickname of "Old Morality". I hasten to add that I am not referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison).
  During the recent Devizes by-election many hon. Members will have discovered that I am now privileged and honoured

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  to be the representative of one of the loveliest constituencies in the south of England. For the past nine years this constituency was represented most ably by the late Mr. Percivall Pott. He was a modest and unassuming man, but his wide experience of agriculture and his great knowledge of local government earned him respect in the constituency and, I believe, in this House. His sudden death on the eve of his retirement came as a great shock to a very large number of people.
  It is my belief that the problems of delinquency and the necessary measures to prevent it vary considerably according to the basic environment. In the Devizes constituency we have a diversity of environment. We have the social problems of the industrial towns. Many of my electors live on the perimeter of Swindon, a fast-expanding industrial and residential area. In contrast, there are the rural areas of the Kennet Valley and the Vale of Pewsey. In further contrast, there are the historic Boroughs of Marlborough and Devizes. Thus, my constituency provides a fairly typical cross-section of modern England.
  I feel certain that my constituents in all these varying districts will welcome the Bill. They will do so because they share my anxiety at the increasing number of crimes of violence in which malicious damage occurs. There are, perhaps, two separate aspects worthy of consideration in examining the Bill. First, there is the effect of the Measure in protecting the potential victim, and, secondly, there is the effect in deterring the potential criminal.
  In considering the victims, the House should not for one moment underestimate the fear of many people, in particular the elderly and the lonely, when they read of the increasing number of crimes and of gangs of young people bent on wilfully damaging property and injuring people all to no purpose. There is a general feeling that penalties have not been severe enough, and there will be corresponding relief that they are now to be increased.
  I am delighted that the penalties which it will be possible to impose are linked with the principle of the criminal being made liable for compensating the victim for damage which he has sustained. Not
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  only does the person suffering damage gain retribution, and this is important, but the wrongdoer is struck by an embarrassing sense of personal responsibility which has a far more salutary effect than the normal payment of a fine.
  What of the Bill's effect on the potential criminal? The Bill has been provoked by the irresponsible behaviour of a small section of young people, and I emphasise again that it is an extremely small section. As someone who has been closely connected with education and who has taken a great interest in the Association of Youth Clubs in my own County of Wiltshire, in recent years I have seen a great deal of the age group which is associated with "mods" and "rockers", and I say without hesitation that I am full of admiration for the general fervour and spirit of these young people.
  I should like to remind those who harshly criticise the younger generation of the words of William Pitt in the House on one occasion, when he said:
  "The atrocious crime of being a young man … I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny."
  Freedom from Hunger, World Refugee Year, and more locally, the close ties which Devizes Youth Club has with a home for crippled children, and the Christmas parties and treats arranged by other clubs for old folk, all have as their driving force young people applying their natural energy in fine and honourable work.
  Nevertheless, the fact must be faced that this generation has new problems and, at the same time, enjoys greater freedom than any generation before. The majority are better housed and better fed, healthier and endowed with greater energy, and they can earn a wage, almost from the day they leave school which allows them to cast off family ties and go their own way in life untrammelled by any economic worries. Freed from the enforced discipline of school, suddenly they have to rely entirely on self-discipline. I believe that in the long term this will breed a more responsible and mature society, but in the short term these young people are suddenly subjected to the pressures of modern life.
  It may be that many of them have never properly distinguished, or for that matter been instructed in, the boundaries

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  of good sense and it is not surprising, therefore, that some of them will overstep the mark and that some will cross the narrow line which divides high spirits and exuberance from hooligan behaviour unacceptable to society.
  It must be accepted that there is a hard core of delinquents, but next to these there is the fringe who are inclined to commit the same crimes as the persistent delinquents, but who react much more quickly and more favourably to common sense measures of prevention and cure. This fringe misbehaves not because it is basically criminal, but because it has nothing better to do and because it is easily misled. This is the section of the community which provides the greatest challenge to authority and which authority must do its utmost to contain and guide.
  These are the individuals who will find difficulty in solving the mental problem, either consciously or subconsciously, of what is right and what is wrong. I believe that their final decision is motivated to a great extent by the expectation of punishment or personal disaster. There is, therefore, a need for a powerful deterrent to influence the mind of the individual, and I think that one of the main additional causes of the increase of crime over the past years is that the deterrent power of the law has not been strong enough.
  Undoubtedly, this is the negative approach to the problems of the young, but on the positive side great advances are being made and better facilities for young people are being provided throughout the country. But a youth organisation will be far more successful if it has the facilities of a purpose-built centre, and as yet these are far too rare. One such centre at Stratton St. Margaret, in my constituency, is to be opened shortly, but it will be the first in Wiltshire. The Churches, too, are facing this problem and it is greatly to the credit of one of my local Methodist churches, that in Highworth, that it is investing more than £10,000 in a youth centre. Local authorities, churches and employers must all combine to improve facilities and to make more facilities available at an increasing pace.
  The advances which have been made are welcomed, but enlightened thought and theory take time and money to put
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  into practice in all areas, and those parts of the country which are covered by clubs and youth centres where young people can amuse themselves socially or constructively among their own age groups are strictly limited. The great diversity of youth organisations is sometimes forgotten. There are the Scouts and Guides, Red Cross, St. John's Ambulance Brigade, Y.M.C.A., youth clubs and young farmers, to mention just a few. All these are doing very fine work, but they greatly need more facilities and, even more important, more leaders.
  I only wish that some of the people who grumble and grouse about the younger generation would devote a little of their resources and money to help to provide these young people with a relief from that great creator of the delinquent—boredom. It should be remembered that there are many people who would be prepared to come forward if they knew where there was a need, or where they could get basic instruction in youth work. I urge the Government, therefore, to improve their publicity to attract the many volunteers whom I believe to be available.
  I welcome the Bill. I believe that it will be effective, that it is just and that it will deter. But it is not merely by strengthening the law that the problems of young people can be overcome. It is only by education and positive measures that young people can be helped to deal with the problems which assail them. I say with even greater enthusiasm that I shall welcome positive aid, for it is only with positive aid that legislation such as this will be less necessary.
  4.49 p.m.
  Mr. Alan Fitch: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison) on his pleasant, humorous and well-informed speech, delivered with such quiet confidence. I am very pleased, and I am sure that other hon. Members are, that he is so interested in penal matters which many of us find so fascinating. I hope that we shall have the opportunity to hear him many times.
  As the Home Secretary has so aptly said, the Bill is short and simple and I hope that my speech will be short and simple in this best possible sense.

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  I think that the Bill is timely for two reasons: first, there is a great need for fines to be brought up to the general value of present-day currency; secondly, these fines must be severe enough to act as deterrents. I believe that the Bill will meet both cases.
  As the Home Secretary rightly said, we have a problem which cannot be dealt with by fines alone. It is a far more complex problem than that. It is to be hoped that if the Measure does not eliminate vandalism altogether in our parks, on our railways, at our seaside resorts, and indeed, at some of our inland towns, it will go at least some way towards decreasing it.
  One of the problems with which we have to deal today is that of an affluent society, which has given our young people more money titan any previous generation of young people had, and rightly so, but, unfortunately, some of them have not been able to find the best means of using this money in a period of ever-increasing leisure.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) said that only a minority of people engage in acts of vandalism. That, of course, is true. It would be very serious if the majority of people engaged in the sort of behaviour which we have witnessed recently, but I think that people are sometimes inclined to take the view that because it is only a minority, the problem is not very important. In fact, sometimes the term "minority" is used in a mitigating sense. I suppose that it was only a minority of Germans who persecuted the Jews, but the effect of that persecution was extremely serious and, indeed, evil. The fact that only a minority of our young people engage in this sort of conduct does not lessen the effect of that conduct on society itself.
  I am sure that it was only a minority of people who, on 7th September last year, while travelling in a train in the north-west of England, and in which there were more than 1,000 passengers, caused damage to British Railways amounting to £341. The damage was done by a small minority, but the effect was very serious. Again, no doubt it was only a small minority who, on 5th October last, caused damage to the
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  extent of £30 to another train in the North-West.
  On 16th November, damage to the extent of £19 was caused by these people. On 26th December, similar behaviour resulted in damage amounting to £25. I could go on quoting examples. It would be very interesting to know just how much damage has been done to British Railways' rolling stock since the railways were nationalised. It is wrong to say that because vandalism is carried out by a minority only we should not take it seriously.
  The pre-war youngsters—I was a teen-ager in the years leading up to the war—had very little money. It was impossible for most of us to buy motor cycles and rush off to the seaside. In fact, it was impossible for most of us to travel very far. But we had one thing which is not so evident today. We had a sense of purpose. I am not claiming any credit for the pre-war generation by saying that. I think that the issues which faced us in those days gave us a sense of purpose. Mass unemployment and the rise of Fascism, to mention only two things, gave most young people, however poor they were materially, something to fight against. Many of the energies and enthusiasms of the generation for which I speak were canalised against the menacing things in those pre-war days. I do not think that the issues are quite as clear-cut today, with the result that in some respects we have the reverse situation of young people with plenty of money but with very little purpose.
  One of our jobs is to find a purpose for our young people. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling), whose Amendment is not to be called, wants some kind of centre to deal with these young people. I shall be interested to hear how he would run such a centre, because I believe that the present set-up of approved schools and detention centres covers what is envisaged in the Bill. I agree with the Home Secretary, on this occasion at least, that what many of these young people need—because I do not believe that they are criminals at all, but are misguided—is a period in a detention centre where they can learn what discipline, good manners, and hard work mean.

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  I am not sure of the definition of a "rocker" and "mod." I should like to see groups of these "rockers", who, I understand, are the people who race off to the seaside on motor cycles, rushing off on the same motor cycles, to the same sort of places, not to engage in acts of vandalism, but rather to take part in such things as the Freedom from Hunger campaign. I believe that if we could infuse into our young people a sense of purpose which would enable them to make use of their enthusiasms, their energies, and even their motor cycles, we would go a long way towards solving this problem.
  Finally, I think that the magistrates ought to be a little more imaginative than they sometimes are. I am a magistrate myself, and I, too, probably suffer from the same shortcomings. Magistrates can, of course, impose heavier fines, which I agree are often necessary, but sometimes something more than a fine is needed. I am thinking of the Glasgow magistrate who ordered a youth who had been causing a lot of trouble at a football match—or perhaps it was on a football train—to report to his office every Saturday afternoon at half-past three, thus depriving him of doing something that he wanted to do. I think that punishments of this kind are well worth considering in addition to the fines which a court can impose.
  This is a timely Bill and I think that the public will welcome it. I hope that it will deter young people, or go some way towards deterring them, but that is only a negative attitude. Ultimately, we must instil into our young people a sense of purpose which, if I may say so with modesty, was more apparent in the prewar generation that it is today.
  5.1 p.m.
  Sir William Teeling: I should like to take the opportunity, as the first hon. Member speaking from tins side of the House since the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison), to congratulate him on a first-class speech and one of great thought. It is very encouraging for one of the older brigade like myself to see younger people taking an interest in this subject. It is easy to select one of the more glamorous debates for a maiden speech, but for my hon. Friend to choose this occasion is immensely encouraging.
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  I was also delighted to see out of the corner of my eye my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison) sitting here and listening to it. I can remember three occasions since I have been in Parliament when either fathers and sons, or mothers and sons, have been present when their sons made their maiden speeches. I am sure that no one could have been more pleased than my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury. I think that all of us on this side of the House agree that if my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes becomes as popular and as successful in this House as his father is he will certainly have done something very worth while.
  I asked my hon. Friend whether the great Lord Shaftesbury's family did not live somewhere in his neighbourhood, and they did. We must not forget that it was the great Lord Shaftesbury who took a great interest in those days in the youth movement and in the development and care of youth. That is something which is vital to us at the present time and will be a tradition from his neighbourhood.
  I think that we all realise that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has brought this. Bill in now because of the immense urgency of this subject. The Whitsun problems and troubles were particularly noticeable in areas such as my own, in Brighton, and that of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. David James). We have both suffered a lot from this problem. Immediately after the events at Brighton I went to see my right hon. Friend and I was immensely struck by his up-to-date information and full knowledge of what was going on and of this problem. I explained to him how worried we were, especially from a financial point of view in a seaside resort such as Brighton, with the August Bank Holiday coming on fairly soon, and that we should like some kind of security there for the older generation who spend then-holidays in a town such as ours, and some protection for the hoteliers and boarding-house keepers. Not unnaturally, whatever is being done of an effective nature should not necessarily be shouted from the housetops, and there will be an unpleasant surprise, I hope, for any of the "mods" and "rockers" who go there on August Bank Holiday.
  On the other hand, this is not just a question of the police and of fines.

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  Later, other Bills must be brought in—probably not in this Parliament—which will do more to deal with this problem. In the meantime, I would warn my right hon. Friend that "mods" and "rockers" are not all fools. They know about the Bill. My right hon. Friend may think that the Bill will prevent them from going to Brighton on August Bank Holiday, but why should they not go there before the Bill becomes law? I do not think that they will come to Brighton, because we are ready for them; but they might go elsewhere.
  I have not forgotten that at the beginning of the war we were able to get a Bill through within a day or two. I am asking my right hon. Friend to see whether he cannot do something to get this Bill through more quickly than before the end of July. I am sure that he can with a little effort. I shall return in a moment to the question whether this Bill goes far enough. I think that something on these lines should be done. As this is such a narrow Bill it may go through all the quicker. If that is so, no one will be more happy than I shall be.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Fitch) and the hon. Lady for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) on many of the points that they raised, but to say that we are concerned only with a very small proportion of the youth of the country is not very helpful to us. There were no fewer than 5,000 young people at Brighton on the Bank Holiday morning and on the Sunday there had been only 2,000. The number of police there was extremely small in comparison. We tried to get police from other areas, but that was not possible because other events were going on in those places.
  It was very alarming for many people to know what was going on and to wonder whether something frightening might happen. Nothing frightening did happen. That was possibly due to two reasons. One was because the police were absolutely marvellous. Some of them were aged only 19 and they had to work for 14 or 15 hours without a stop. There was not one really dangerous incident during the whole time.
  The other reason was damage. In the main, the Bill deals only with
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  damage. There was practically no damage done at Brighton. I was in two or three of the different crowds and I listened to the conversation. I came to the conclusion that many of these youths were earning good money, in some cases as much as their parents—certainly far more money than they knew what to do with. Due to the Welfare State, or never having it so good, they do not have to pay for those things which, in former days, they would have had to pay for themselves, and they do not know quite what to do with their money. They go out and buy scooters or motor cycles, or get them on hire purchase, and that is about all that they can run to.
  They go to Brighton and other places and, having arrived, they have no more money left. There is nothing for them to do. They cannot afford to go to the cinema, or to this, that or the other. They probably have girl friends with them and they are absolutely foxed as to what to do. They are not criminals; they do not break anything up. They are not drunks, they go along the front. I saw one or two of them doing silly things to which their friends objected and their only answer was, "What the devil are we to do? There is nothing to do here." Then they all rushed off to the beach, not unlike the Gadarene swine, jumped into the sea, pushed others in and thought it all a great joke. They knocked down a number of old people. That is the kind of problem with which we are faced.
  Because I appreciated that it would not be in order in Committee on the Bill, I purposely framed my Amendment to include a reference to the question of increasing fines for attacking the police. To my mind it was the action of the police at Brighton which really saved the situation, yet the police receive very little in the way of compensation. I have a list dating right back to the 1880s in some cases and to well before the First World War in others, from which I gather that punishment for damage has always been roughly as follows: for wilful damage amounting to under £5, a fine of £20 or a sentence of three months' imprisonment; for being drunk and disorderly, a fine of £10—and, oddly enough, very few of the people of whom we are speaking are drunks; that is what is worrying the

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  brewers so much—and for possessing an offensive weapon, a fine of £50 or three months' imprisonment, or both. Under the Public Order Acts, insulting behaviour merits a sentence of three months' imprisonment, or a fine of £100, or both—and that sounds too much, in comparison with the others—obstructing the police, a fine of £5; throwing missiles, a fine of £2; obscene language, a fine of £2; and attacking the police, a fine of £20 or two months' imprisonment in default of payment of the fine.
  We must not forget that many of these youngsters are the sons or daughters of comparatively well-to-do people. All that is necessary in their case, once they are fined or threatened with a fine and placed on remand, is to get their parents to pay the fine, so that their little darlings can go free. There is no punishment for those youngsters at all. This is extremely unfair on the police. As I have said, there is a fine of £5 for obstructing the police, and that dates back many years. There are only three examples of such fines I know of. The first is pulling the communication cord on the train, in respect of which the fine is £5, and the second is spitting in a bus, in respect of which the fine is £2. The third is obstructing the police. None has been increased for over 50 years.
  We should do something for the police as well as dealing with the question of wilful damage, especially in view of the fact that, generally speaking, not very much damage is done. The hon. Member for Leeds, South-East mentioned Liverpool and the North. There we have had a particularly interesting development. As a result of the coming into existence of the Beatles and similar groups of musicians, the type of unruly behaviour of which we are speaking has been much reduced. It is very much less than in the South.
  The hon. Member for Wigan asked for my suggestions about camps. My original idea was that for a certain period these young people could be sent to some form of national camp. They would undergo something like the training that our National Service men went through in the old days, but there would be no military service. The desirability to avoid that sort of thing has been brought out by various hon. Members, and I was never one who thought
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  that these youngsters should go into the Army, in any case. My idea was that they should be formed into training camps and be trained for six months or a year.
  However, many theories are being put forward, including sending these young people in ships to different parts of the world. This has all happened before. I was interested in this subject before the war. I remember The Times sending me out all over the country and to the Continent to study the situation and to see what was being done in various camps. As far back as 1924 we had labour camps. They were voluntary camps, but people went into them because in those days we had many unemployed and there was a great need to help the young.
  Today, exactly the reverse situation exists. The young have too much money, and they do not know what to do with it. Something could surely be thought out on the lines of earlier projects. These schemes were tried out in Austria, and also in Germany and Italy. I know that many people would think of Nazism and Fascism in the case of the last two countries, but I must point out that these schemes were tried out before Nazism or Fascism began. They were very useful in that they enabled the youth of the country to help in various job which would benefit everybody. In my constituency there is a project known as "self-help building" the object of which is to enable poor people who have just got married to build their own houses, at a much cheaper rate than normal. Why not help these?
  I am against sending to prison the sort of people that were arrested in the Brighton disturbances. They are not evil boys and girls, and I do not think that they should be sent to prison, where they can mix with criminal types. We must try to work out schemes which will help these youngsters in the manner that I have suggested. On Saturdays, the Metropolitan Police give youngsters healthy physical training and drill, which does them a lot of good. I read in the Daily Express today of a magistrate who had the bright idea of making a boy who had stolen a lot of milk bottles go to all the people from whom he had stolen

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  them, pay back the money, and apologise. These punishments are not in the rules and regulations, but they are imaginative, and I am sure that many more magistrates could impose them.
  The other day I asked my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to instruct some of our labour attachés in foreign embassies to see what is happening abroad, because this problem is almost as bad in Sweden, France, Germany and other countries. If we found out what those countries were doing about the problem it might be a great help to us.
  As I said earlier, we already fine fairly heavily for damage, and under the Bill we shall fine even more heavily. But a great deal of damage is not being done. What has developed is a hatred on the part of these young people for the police. That hatred exists throughout the south of England, and we must do all that we can to stop it. It it a great danger. Money is another problem. Youngsters between the ages of 15 and 24 are earning over £1,000 million a year. What steps, if any, are we taking to teach them how to spend that money?
  The Cardiff National Savings Society is very keen on this sort of thing and has had great success throughout Wales. It is doing everything it can to help solve this problem. My right hon. Friend has suggested that we should do little things among ourselves to help. I can remember that in the days before the last war one of the greatest encouragements in this matter was given by the then Prince of Wales. It is only appropriate to mention him on his 70th birthday. He did a tremendous amount at that time. There was an immense rally at the Albert Hall at which he presided and where he coined the phrase "doing the nearby thing".
  The nearby thing is just the sort of thing that we ought to be doing today. We know that Prince Philip is working very hard to try in every way to help youth movements in the country. It might well be that instead of suggesting that politicians, or civil servants, or people who might be considered by some to be as dry as dust, should run these things, we should, possibly, ask the Duke of Windsor to come back—he is not too old at 70, and his mind is very clear and active—to help us with this problem, which is not too big a one.
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  Someone has said that 90 per cent. of all youth are quite all right. Only 10 per cent. are in trouble, but most of these are not really wicked; but they are not quite certain what to do.
  If only we could try and get this out of politics. We know that from now up to the General Election it is unlikely that any other Bill on the subject will be introduced. At the moment, we are only raising the amount of money that can be provided if damage is done, but we know that in most recent cases very little damage has been done, although there is the danger of attack on the police; and that bitterness is felt against the police. Let us try and raise the amount of money, which has not been raised since 1912, that can be asked in fines from anyone who obstructs or assaults the police.
  There is the alternative of paying a fine or going to prison, and, therefore, the parents come along and pay the fines so that the boys and girls concerned, receive no punishment. We should remember, as I have said, that some £1,000 million is being spent by young people every year, and no one is really guiding them on how to spend it. All these are serious problems, much more than this Bill can help to solve, so, therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend please to think out a bigger one for later on.
  5.23 p.m.
  Mr. R. E. Prentice: The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) has made a very large number of suggestions, into which I do not intend to follow him. However, I should like to take him up on the phrase he used towards the end of his speech, when he said that this matter should be taken out of politics. It is a phrase that is so often used about many problems, and, in my view, it is absolute nonsense.
  Any major social problem is a matter in which the Government and Parliament must be concerned. It may not be a party political matter, but it is a political matter in the wider sense, which is why we are debating these matters today. I think that it is an overworked phrase. It is a test of this Government and future Governments as to how they meet the problems with which we are

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  concerned. Most of us are groping among problems that we are only beginning to understand.
  I had not intended to take part in the debate, but I welcome the opportunity to do so after having listened to it so far. First, I should like to join those who congratulated the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison) on his maiden speech. I was one of those who went to his constituency in an effort to see that he did not come here as a Member of Parliament. Although we were disappointed in the result, I think those of us who have listened to his speech have been recompensed in that he spoke so clearly and with such knowledge on the subject.
  The hon. Gentleman said that his was a beautiful constituency. My mother was born in it and my grandfather worked ah his life in it as a farm worker. I have also many uncles and cousins working on the land there at the moment. Most of them, I believe, voted against him. I speak with some knowledge of the area and have memories of many pleasant times spent there.
  I join with those who welcome the Bill as far as it goes. It is a very modest Measure, as the Home Secretary said. It is welcome from the point of view of putting up the penalties and particularly for what it has to say about payment of compensation. I should have thought it was clear that one element that we want to increase in sentencing policy is that, where practicable, the offenders should be made to compensate the victims. That is a good thing from two points of view. The first is that it may help to bring home to the offender the seriousness of what he has done, and the second is that it provides some element of justice for the victim.
  I would point out that the victim in these cases will only get the benefit if the offender is caught—in far too many cases he is not caught—and if his arrest is followed by a sentence of this kind. The problem is that of compensating victims of crimes of violence. We are still waiting to hear from the Home Secretary about the amendments which he made in his tentative White Paper which we debated a few weeks ago. I hope that we shall hear more about this White Paper soon, including the date on which it is to come into effect.
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  I should like to join other hon. Members in venturing a few ideas on the wider issues involved, and I do that with a good deal of trepidation. There are more pompous speeches made and more pompous editorials written on the subject than on almost any other subject. It is a subject on which so many people think that they are experts. Some subjects are debated in the House, and outside, about which Members start by saying that they know very little or nothing at all and that it is a specialist subject. But this is the sort of subject on which everybody seems to think that he knows the answer We get people in the pub or in the bus queue pontificating on the answer.
  This is very foolish because that sort of approach fails to recognise how difficult and complicated these matters are and how difficult it is to arrive at the right answers. I agree with those who say that there is need for more discipline in the bringing up of some young people who lack discipline. This is one of the causes of the increase in juvenile offences. I feel sorry for children who do not get enough discipline and who suffer from a lack of it, but to say that children reed discipline is only to mention one of the many things that they need. While we could agree as a generalisation that there is need for more discipline in some cases, I think that concentration on that one aspect of it may draw attention away from others.
  Above all, what children need is to be brought up in a home where they will be loved and disciplined and where the parents will care enough to set them the kind of example and give the guidance which will help them to learn the difference between right and wrong and to make the right decision for themselves without difficulty as they grow older. This, of course, is what is lacking in so many cases. Here I wish to emphasise what my hon. Friend said in opening the debate about the proposals made by the Committee presided over by the Earl of Longford for family service units and family courts to help in these matters. I also was a member of that Committee I was brought on to it rather late because of the problem which it was discussing and, therefore, I can speak on the proposal without having been responsible for fomulating it in any way.

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  When we say so easily that parents should do more and that they are to blame, we assume too easily also that the parents themselves know what to do about it. After all, the young people whose conduct we are deploring are themselves going to be parents very soon—indeed, some are parents already—and very often it is the parents who need help and guidance where these can be made available to them. Therefore, constructive ideas for bringing together a number of welfare questions that already exist in the localities and for co-ordinating them as a family service can help with this kind of problem as well as with many others, and can help in many cases to provide a more stable home background which is obviously one of the needs in the situation that we are discussing.
  The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said that this problem exists also in many other countries. It is one of the paradoxes of our times that in modern industrial societies, as they become more prosperous and as many of the old problems are beginning to be solved, there is an increase in the crime rate, particularly among young people. The United States, which has the highest standard of living the world has ever known, has had the most spectacular increase of all in juvenile offences.
  It is very difficult to get to the causes, but we must. There is a need for more research into these problems, not merely into the more immediate problems of sentencing and what policy should be adopted to deal directly and immediately with offenders, but also research into the social background and the reasons why modern industrial society, becoming more affluent, seems to have this trend.
  I venture only three suggestions to the House, and I do so very tentatively. I think that one reason is that modern affluent society has had as one of its features the relative decline of the influence of the Churches. I do not say This to start a theological argument. I merely say that the kind of conduct we are discussing is the antithesis of the Christian ethic, and many people have departed from the Church without finding any other kind of moral code to replace the kind of guidance mat their forefathers had from religion.
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  It is becoming commonplace in our society for some people to preach selfishness as a good thing in itself, even for parents to tell their children as they are growing up, "You must look out for yourself in life. You must make sure you are all right. You must not worry too much about others". That is the kind of advice we hear given. Criminal behaviour is merely the extreme example of it If one acts on that advice and takes it to its logical conclusion, it is logical to commit any crime one can get away with if one thinks that one can avoid being caught. What we need in society is a far greater emphasis on loving our neighbour and a far greater degree of kindess, courtesy and consideration and everything mat goes with it This is something to which a large number of people who are in no way criminals can contribute by improving their own conduct.
  Secondly, modern industrial societies have become societies in which people live their private lives. The hon. Member for Devizes spoke of people who could give some of their time helping to solve social problems. I wonder whether if this is not to some extent an aftermath of the war. I was a Service man myself during the war, and I remember that so many of my contemporaries were so "fed up" with the demands which were made on them through being taken away from their homes and families to become soldiers that a common expression amongst them was, "When I get out of this lot they will not get me to join even a stamp club".
  People coming home from the Services wanted to live their lives bound up with their jobs and their families. They wanted to be concerned with their homes and gardens, not with the outside world. It is those people who came back from the war in mat frame of mind who are the parents of many of the young people whose conduct we are discussing.
  What is needed is for a far greater number of good citizens to spend some of their time outside their homes and families in all kinds of voluntary movements. They could engage in such things as helping with youth clubs, helping a local church, or helping the Freedom from Hunger Campaign. One of the failings of our modern society is

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  that there is a lack of people to take part in all kinds of voluntary work. If more were prepared to engage in voluntary work, we should create a new ethic in society which would help to conquer this problem.
  The third thing I feel about our modern society is that, as we become more and more of a meritocracy, as we achieve in some ways more freedom of opportunity, life is often more unsatisfactory for those who get left behind. We are moving away from the old class divisions, and when we have a Labour Government, shortly, we shall move even faster from the old class divisions. That will be a good thing. Under the old class divisions, the man who did not do well ill life could often console himself with the thought that he did not have a chance.
  As our means of selection become more and more sophisticated, I think that life has less meaning and less attraction for those who fail to meet the tests. The boy who, at the age of 11, fails the 11-plus and goes to a secondary-modern school, who then, when he leaves school at the age of 15, fails to get an apprenticeship and drifts into unskilled work, is already, at a very tender and sensitive age, being labelled as someone who has failed to meet the requirements either of academic or skilled work.
  He leaves school at a time when he is energetic and has natural exuberance. He has very little opportunity for sport and physical recreation, compared with those who stay on at school. Educational inequality means inequality in sporting facilities also, a point which the House debated yesterday. Therefore, any rebellious tendencies the boy will have—most young people have some rebellious tendencies, and this can often be a healthy thing—are aggravated by being left behind to some extent at a very early age.
  Only a minority of young people go on from that to become delinquents. I am worried about those who do not become delinquents, those who, nevertheless, suffer frustration and a feeling of injustice from the causes I have mentioned. Some will become delinquents, and will be encouraged towards it by this sort of social atmosphere. In the argument whether one should be a "mod" or a "rocker", one of the feelings held
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  among "rockers" is that "mods" tend to be the rather goody-goody types, the ones who will dress well, the ones who will be more conventional and be in youth clubs, and that it is rather a brave thing to be a "rocker".
  One can understand how certain social pressures will work on young people and encourage that frame of mind, although I hasten to add that I am in a sense rather sorry that I introduced the terms "mod" and "rocker", because they have become so overworked. It is important to remember that many young people use these names for groupings among their friends without having any sort of criminal tendency.
  I have made these observations merely to show that I think that much more research is needed into the causes of these things and that the Government of the day—this is one reason why this is a political topic—should devote more resources to research, research into the more immediate questions of treatment and sentencing and into the deeper question of the social conditions of our time.
  I join in the argument which has gone on about the rôle of the Press. The Press has been condemned for the publicity it gave to the events at Easter and Whitsun at seaside resorts. I should have thought that the Press was bound to report those events. They were news, they were serious, and the Press was right to report them. I know that it is easy for people to lecture the Press on this, but I think that to some extent the Press should expect to have its faults pointed out, because it is very good at pointing out other people's faults. One of the things that the Press should do, I believe, is to give more attention to the exciting and constructive things that young people can do in so many other spheres.
  I have in mind the work done by local youth clubs which help elderly people, very often helping them with their gardening, or decorating the front parlours of elderly people who cannot manage to do that themselves. I have in mind the type of work which was done by young volunteers in cleaning up the Stratford Canal. I have in mind the work done by those young people who go overseas with Voluntary Service Overseas, International Voluntary Service, and other such bodies. This work is exciting and challenging. I

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  should have thought that it was also news and something which people would like to read about; It is important that this work should be publicised as well as other activities in which young people engage.
  I repeat that we are all merely groping with these problems. I think that it is probably a good thing that in the debate on the Second Reading of this rather narrow Bill we should venture a few tentative thoughts, in the knowledge that we have much more to learn.
  5.39 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Gardner: I wish to add my personal and warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison). All hon. Members on this side of the House admired the way he ran his by-election campaign. We also admired the way he ran at that campaign—with house to house canvassing, and so on—although some of us doubt whether that is an example which we should follow. I am sure that the whole House admired, without qualification, the excellent speech which he made this afternoon and the common sense which he applied to this subject.
  I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) that it is necessary, when looking at this subject of what to do with the person who goes out and commits malicious damage of the kind at which this Bill is aimed, to make up our minds that this sort of person is not necessarily—and, one prays, is far removed from being—a criminal as such. One must distinguish between dishonesty, which is the fundamental character of the criminal—be he a small-time criminal or someone who devotes his whole life to evil ways—and the sort of person who goes out in high spirits, undisciplined and irresponsible, and commits the sort of damage that is the grave subject of displeasure when young people go to seaside resorts and break up deckchairs, damage buildings and make hooligans of themselves.
  Every generation—indeed, every century—has had to deal with this problem. It is right that we should recognise that this is, in time, something that is timeless. Indeed, in the Victorian years the people who, no doubt,
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  were our great-great-grandfathers, or beyond that, had to deal with this problem. People went out and broke up sea walls, went into public parks and cut down and otherwise destroyed trees, went into people's gardens and damaged plants and trees and some of them rioting, demolished farm buildings and damaged churches.
  The Victorians took a very grave view of this. For throwing a stone on the railway line or putting a piece of wood in front of a train, for damaging trees in public parks and for damaging sea walls, such a person who committed these offences would expose himself or herself to a penalty of a lifetime of imprisonment. Even for tearing up plants in someone's garden there was a likelihood that a person would be sent to prison for as much as five years.
  Today, we must deal with the high spirits of youth. There is, I suppose, implanted in almost everyone, whether or not they like it, a spirit or a desire to destroy. One seized with this impulse is in some way catered for commercially and, for example, at fairgrounds one can throw as many wooden balls at as many pieces of crockery as one likes. However, when this impulse is undisciplined, added to the high spirits of youth, something goes wrong and one gets the sort of damage with which this Bill is designed to deal.
  How do we deal with it? Naturally, these young people can be sent to prison, but I do not believe that that is the way to punish them. I do not believe that imprisonment, by itself, is the proper answer. They should be treated by something that amounts to punishment, something that will deter others from following their example and something that is likely to reform them. I see great merit in detention centres and I am sure that this is a way of punishing these people which will not only make it an unpleasant example for others, but which will correct the people who are subject to this punishment and make it unlikely that they will again enter this type of folly.
  I see great advantage in fining them and I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) that fining them does not do much good because the parents will probably pay the fine. I do not mind

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  if the parents pay. Indeed, I sometimes think that it would be a good idea if the parents could be fined separately and that punishment could be imposed on them. I see no harm at all in thinking that possibly the parents will be giving the money to satisfy the fine.
  The feature of the Bill, which I applaud, is the ability it gives to magistrates to make an order for compensation to be paid to the person aggrieved. This is by far the most effective way of teaching a person who commits damage that he has done something wrong, something that must be put right at his discomfort and to his personal cost. It is because I am so anxious to see this principle of the Bill exercised as often and as effectively as possible that I have one small but, I hope the House will consider, important reservation about the present form of the Bill.
  If a magistrate is to impose a fine on someone who merits such punishment, then to make certain that that fine is paid and that that form of punishment is not avoided, he can impose as an alternative a sentence of imprisonment. This, I should have thought, in almost every case ensures that the fine will be paid. But what happens in the case of magistrates who make an order that compensation should be paid by the defendant who has caused malicious damage to the person who has suffered from that damage?
  How is the court to be certain that such an order will be fulfilled? How is the money to be recovered if the defendant decides, having got out of court with a fine of, say, £20 or £50, that he will only pay the fine—we know that he will pay it because if he does not he will probably go to prison for six months or more—but will not pay the compensation to the person aggrieved? I can see nothing in the Bill as it is framed that will make certain that the compensation is paid in the same way as the fine.
  I would be very happy to know from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that I am mistaken in this, but it seems to me that at the moment all that can be done is to institute civil proceedings against the defendant and recover by way of civil proceedings the amount of compensation ordered by the magistrate, in the same way as if a magistrate, having
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  imposed a fine with an alternative of imprisonment, makes an order that the defendant should pay the cost of the prosecution. These costs can be recovered only by civil proceedings.
  I should like to see some machinery in the Bill whereby a magistrate ordering compensation to be paid to the person aggrieved can order as an alternative that it that sum of money is not paid within a time at the discretion of the magistrate the person against whom the order is made should suffer a term of imprisonment, in the same way as he would have suffered if he had not paid a fine. Apart from that one criticism, I approve wholly of the Bill and welcome my right hen. Friend's initiative in bringing it before the House.
  5.49 p.m.
  Mr. David James: Except for the General Election prognosis made by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), I find myself in complete agreement with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have delivered sincere speeches on this subject.
  Like everyone else, I am particularly glad to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison) on his maiden speech. He and I have suffered from the disadvantage of having our maider. speeches listened to by our fathers, although I was one up on him in that my father, as an ex-Member, was on the other side of a wall, as it were, under the Public Gallery. Incidentally, the late Mr. Percival Pott was good enough to congratulate me on my maiden speech four years ago. Therefore, although this is a melancholy occasion in some senses, I am glad to congratulate his successor.
  I was no in Brighton during the weekend to which references have been made, but I arrived there later to find a sense of horror and outrage felt by the people who live there. It was almost as if one had been to a city which, at least emotionally, had been recently hit by an earthquake, and as if all the conventions and values of life had been completely flouted. This was deeply felt. Consequently, this Measure will be welcomed by the people of Brighton.
  There are, nevertheless, silver linings to the cloud. One was the immediate and spontaneous outburst of gratitude to

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  the police for the remarkable job that they carried out. This was referred to in the magistrates' court within 48 hours and has been referred to today by hon. Members. I make no apology for referring to it again. There are 12,000 teen-agers in Brighton, but only a couple of handfuls of them were involved in any way and, therefore, it is right that we should continue to emphasise, even at the expense of boring each other, that this is a problem which concerns relatively few young people and that there is no greater disservice that we could do to young people in this country than to dissociate ourselves in some way from them and not regard them as a part of a living, growing organic community.
  I was in the Navy and was, fortunately, removed from these distinctions, but I was told during the war that when the Eighth Army went on leave in Cairo if an infantryman was found to be having a jolly evening in a "pub" it was considered a bad show, but if members of a well-known cavalry regiment were involved they were deemed to be "showing form". I hope that we shall not fall into the error of making that kind of distinction. The distinction that we can make, however, is that the only alarming aspect of the episodes in Brighton at Whitsun was the large number involved, because, if no one knows the cause, everyone knows that there are psychotic elements which enter into the behaviour of a crowd which do not arise, for example, after an ordinary rugger club supper.
  Many people fear the possibility that if this were to go unchecked we could have a situation like that appalling affair in Lima after a football match a few weeks ago. We like to believe that in this country we have temperamental advantages brought to bear upon us, presumably by our appalling climate, which prevent us from showing these emotions, but we cannot ignore the brute facts of human nature. We cannot forget that if a large group of young people are allowed to congregate then, sooner or later, a powder trail might be lit which would do far more damage to life and property than we have seen hitherto.
  It is for these reasons that I should like to see the mobility of young people
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  cut down where they cause trouble. In this connection, a most useful step was proposed by the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon). I am sorry that she is not here, if only because I should have liked to congratulate her on an outstandingly thoughtful and constructive speech on this subject. Certainly, the greater use of attendance centres would be an enormous disincentive and would go far to keep down the possibility of large numbers of young people getting together.
  Although we may not be able to do anything within the ambit of the Bill, I should like my right hon. Friend also to look more carefully once again at the suggestion that the driving licences of young people who get involved in this type of episode should be removed from them. My right hon. Friend has pointed out, quite rightly, that there is no connection between the commission of an offence and any sort of vehicle which may be parked some distance away, but this presupposes that the right to drive a 30 cwt. vehicle on the highway is absolute provided that one is 17 years of age, mechanically competent and sober at the time.
  We should not regard this as so little a matter of cause and effect that nothing should stop the relationship between the motor car owner and the highway. I should have thought that the one thing that a person to be considered competent to drive any vehicle should be expected to be these days is to be emotionally mature and not the sort of person who will get excited and be led astray and be persuaded by a "ton-up" character who passes him on the road, with a rush of adrenalin in the system, to go faster still.
  I ask my right hon. Friend to consider that there should not be an absolute relationship between the nature of the offence and the existence of the motor vehicle. First of all, this would keep down mobility and, as my right hon. Friend knows very well, there is a great deal of professional evidence to suggest that it is this mobility angle that most worries police authorities. It would cut down mobility and it would mean yet another test of whether someone is competent to drive a motor vehicle and that

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  is whether he is emotionally stable and old enough to do so.
  To deprive a person of his driving licence is a penalty which is particularly hard to bear. While I entirely agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East that reform and punishment should not be considered contradictory concepts and that they are convergent, nevertheless if we exclude hanging, transportation, or sending to prison, or any of the other eighteenth century and early nineteenth century methods, it is difficult to think of penalities that can be applied.
  I am sure that increasing the fine and making people responsible for damage hurts them in a way which will prove effective, but experience shows that there is nothing that inconveniences the average man more than the possibility of losing his driving licence. Whether the offence is directly connected or indirectly connected with consuming purple hearts on the beach and breaking up property, I should like my right hon. Friend to re-examine the question of whether these offences can be kept down by hurting the offender in the place where it hurts most.
  I do not want to air any other views, although I think that many of the views that have been put forward from both sides of the Chamber have been extremely valuable. In the Bill we have all that we can possibly get in the short time which is available to Parliament. A more controversial Bill would certainly not have got through all its stages in time, and I would very much rather have a bird in the hand, politically speaking, for the August Bank Holiday, than even three or four birds in the bush in a Parliament of the future whose shape, unlike an hon. Member opposite, I shall not venture to predict.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Daniel Awdry: I am sorry that the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) is not in the Chamber at the moment, because I am sure from what he said that he would agree that there is no place for party politics in a discussion on criminal law—party politics are best left out when we are discussing this subject—but I should like to make one small political point.
  The hon. Member said that he was a member of the committee that produced
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  the Labour Party's pamphlet "Crime—A Challenge to Us All". With very much of the thinking in that pamphlet I heartily agree. Hon. Members on both sides would like to see more done to temper justice with mercy, and to improve and modernise our criminal law practice.
  But in Chapter I, headed "Justice with Mercy", the following words appear:
  "The imbalance in our mixed economy, between the private sector (constantly reinforced and encouraged in the years of Conservative Government) and the far smaller public sector, combined with the exaltation of acquisitiveness already noted and the constant sneers at the nationalised industries, may well excite an immature mind to regard all property, public or private, as legitimate loot."
  That is complete and absolute eyewash. Is it really seriously being suggested that because half the country does not wish to see an extension of State ownership this encourages people to steal? It is nonsense. It reveals a background of political prejudice which, I hope, will not run through that party's thinking on this important matter.
  In the same chapter, one reads:
  "Of these evils, the external ones—poverty and squalor—are much less extreme than in the days of Dickens, but the gulf in living standards between the poorest and the best-off. is hardly more tolerable … This is relevant to our theme because the poor are more vulnerable to some obvious temptations than the better-off are; for the strain of their living conditions must tend to weaken their resistance to such temptations."
  The problem we are discussing now—malicious damage—is caused by young people who are not so poor; in fact, they are reasonably well off. Part of the problem is that they have not learnt how to spend their money sensibly or to use their leisure wisely.
  Having said that, I accept that our attitude to crime should be one of a balance between enlightened sympathy towards the conditions that cause the existence of criminals and, at the same time, sensible but fairly strong punishment for those who are selfish and do not respect other people's property. We must not be carried away either by over-sentimentality or by the extreme views of those who wish to bring back corporal punishment and other severe measures. I therefore welcome the Government's thinking on this matter.

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  My final word is this. In many magistrates' courts today, when defendants are fined they are given considerable time in which to pay. Immediately a fine is imposed a defendant will ask for time to pay. The court will ask him what obligations he has—what hire-purchase agreements he has, and then, in many cases, will give him considerable time to pay. A fine as a punishment would be far more effective if the method of payment were not made too easy by the courts. I hope that courts will explain to young people who have caused this considerable hardship that the punishment is meant to hurt, and that hardship is intended to be caused to them, so they will understand that this petty crime simply does not pay.
  6.5 p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I am sorry not to have been present at this debate for an hour—I had to do something else—but before I went I had the pleasure of hearing a delightful maiden speech from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison)—a speech in which we all shared his father's pleasure. He came to this House after winning a by-election against the stream, and his doing so was, I think, a tribute to the great services both of his family and of his wife's family, if I may say so, in Wiltshire.
  I deplore the amount of hysteria engendered by the scraps that took place between the "mods" and the "rockers". These young people are not criminals; they are not criminal types. There is nothing either particularly modern or particularly shocking in the fact that young men do today—and have, I think, as long as history is recorded—sometimes find that it would be rather fun to go out and have a fight. That certainly happened on "rugger" nights at universities. On 5th November, at Cambridge, people went out because they thought that it would be fun to have a fight—and did so.
  Earlier on, in the Middle Ages, this proclivity to go out and have a fight for fun was organised on what seems to me to have been rather sensible lines. On public holidays, an area would be declared a tournament area, and to that area those who wanted to fight could go. Battle took place with the first comer,
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  the loser lost his steam, was stripped of his armour and vestments and, at the end of the holiday, an auction of trophies took place outside the tournament area. I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman would consider fixing areas of beach as tournament areas in which these young chaps could work off their high spirits—I am afraid that it is an idea too sensible for adoption.
  What struck me about these particular occasions was, basically, the gentleness of what happened. In all these scraps, I do not know that anybody was entertained in hospital for even a couple of days. Was anyone seriously hurt? I believe that the casualty rate after a "rugger" night was much more serious, and much more severe. Indeed, my own impression of the modern generation is that they are far kinder, far gentler than we were, and they are much kinder to each other, both in the school age and in the adolescent age.
  We really should not mistake this sort of performance with criminality, any more than one mistakes a "rugger night rag" for criminality. Certainly, it is something that has to be controlled, and these young chaps must pay for the damage they do. In the sense that this Bill enables the courts to see that these people do pay for the damage they cause, plus something more, I am in favour of it. But I deplore the idea adopted by some magistrates and canvassed and applauded in the newspapers of sending young men of this sort to prison. That is a lamentable answer to this sort of performance. We have also had hysterical observations about sawdust Caesars. These people are nothing of the sort.
  Certainly there is a criminal element among young people. Certainly this is a serious and difficult problem. There is probably a higher percentage of criminality among young people today than there was in the past, but these young delinquents, or whatever we may like to call them, should not be confused with exuberant types on holiday. They are in a different class and need to be dealt with differently. The delinquent element is a major problem, and the question of how we are to deal with it requires a great deal more observation and imagination than is being shown. This problem is different from the problem created by weekend scraps.

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  That was what I wished to say, largely because of the exaggerated statements which have been made.
  6.11 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Miscampbell: Like every other speaker, I welcome the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in making the fines more realistic and making provision for proper compensation. We have listened to a number of views. As the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said, everyone has a view about this matter, but it is very difficult to know the answers.
  When we consider the problem as a national problem, the most perplexing aspect of it is why very little of what happened in the South has happened in the North. Why is it that Blackpool was not visited by the same mobs which went to the southern resorts? Is this due to housing differences, as was suggested in an immediate reaction by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown)? That can hardly be so, because I think we all agree that housing conditions in the North are worse than they are in the South.
  It has been suggested that in Liverpool the groups have taken up part of the slack. That again may be partially true. It may be true of Liverpool, but it cannot be true of other towns in the North. Is it due to a more affluent society in the South? Are there marginal differences in the income of people in the North and the income of people in the South? Is it due perhaps to the Liverpool "mum" or northern family life which appears to be holding together better in an age when it is being attacked? The trouble is that we simply do not know the answers to these questions and until we know them attempts to change the law are simply guesses or jumps in the dark.
  I agree that the most likely way of dealing with the present outbreak is the one which has been suggested today, namely, to increase the fines. Anyone who goes to the police courts must know that this is a long needed reform, but one's experience in the courts leaves one very much in the dark. We think that fines are the right way of dealing with this matter, but do we know how they are paid within the family? Are they
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  paid by the person who is fined? What is the effect of the fine? What is the capacity to pay of the person who is fined, not simply in the way in which the probationer officer tells the court that the defendant has a certain income? What is his job record? That may be known in part. It would help if there were research in depth into the background of these people who are getting into trouble We must learn the background of the people we are trying to reform. Without conducting a real inquiry into their family and financial background and the social effects which fines have on them and their attitude to the fines, we are only guessing at the answers.
  I urge my right hon. Friend to add to this excellent and correct step forward a determination to inquire into the background of these people so that when we debate this, matter again, as no doubt we shall, we shall have more knowledge and be more certain that what we are doing is right and realistic.
  6.17 p.m.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: This has been a very interesting debate. I speak principally because I do not agree with some of the observations made by certain of my hon. Friends. I do not for a moment agree that matters relating to crime, the law and punishment are anything other than political matters. They are political, and strongly political. Secondly, I think that we are approaching an era when to quite a substantial degree they will be matters of partisan politics. That emerges strongly from the reasoned pronouncement of Lord Gardiner and his Committee—
  Miss Bacon: To which Committee is the hon. Member referring? Or is he confusing Lord Gardiner's Committee with Lord Longford's Committee?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: No, I am not I am concerned with Lord Gardiner, and I have in mind the Society of Labour Lawyers and other institutes of that kind which are helping him, as a member of the Labour Party, and his Committee. I am not thinking of Lord Longford's report, which is of an infinitely more limiting nature. I see a clear endeavour to make party politics out of this

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  matter. Far from making a complaint about it, I think that there is probably a divergence of view.
  I think that we on this side would be almost unanimously of the view that law reform and matters relating to it are matters of evolution rather than revolution. It may well be that that is not a view which would be subscribed to by Lord Gardiner. In matters of a more emotional nature—and they may be very important matters, such as the question of homicide—we may see quite a sharp divergence of view. Therefore, it cannot be said that matters of crime and punishment and conscience are not political matters. They are the stuff and heart of politics.
  Miss Bacon: I must put the hon. Gentleman right. When matters like capital punishment, corporal punishment and many other things have been debated in this House over the last few years, we on this side have had a free vote, whereas hon. Members opposite have had the Whips on to take them into the Division Lobby.
  Mr. Rees-Davies: That is not true. I tabled a number of Amendments to the Homicide Bill of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). I was campaigning for the retention of the death penalty when he was campaigning the other way. The votes went across the Floor of the House. Although it is predominantly true that members of the Labour Party were in favour of abolition, there was an entirely free vote. I think the hon. Lady is justified in intervening to this extent—that this matter has been the subject of very little partisan politics in the past. Little was done by the Labour Party about law reform until the Tory Party came into power. The Home Office, the present Home Secretary and others have campaigned vigorously for many of these matters of law reform and of changing the attitude towards crime.
  I see this Bill as fitting into a pattern of a far wider measure of reform by evolution which the Home Secretary and his colleagues are pursuing. It is a small Measure in itself, but it is part of a much wider pattern for those of us who have been closely associated over many years with the work which the Home Office
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  and successive Home Secretaries have been doing. My right hon. Friend's eminent predecessor was probably one of the greatest Home Secretaries, and my right hon. Friend has himself been undertaking great work in pursuance and furtherance of work done earlier.
  The important feature of the Bill is that it makes the criminal repay. It is not merely a question of the fines being increased, although they are being increased. What matters is that if somebody goes out to do damage by wanton behaviour he will have to repay the damage, to pay the compensation, himself. I entirely share the view of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner)—I discussed the point with him—that it is of great importance that the repayment of compensation should be absolutely clear. It must be part of the penalty. It may be so in the Bill, but, if not, I hope that we can amend it to make sure that it is so.
  The purpose is that these people shall be fined so as to hit them in the pocket, and, secondly, that they shall pay for the damage which they have done. At the same time, we propose to compensate the victims of crimes of violence. Those who suffer through going to assist the police in the apprehension of someone else will receive compensation. In this we show a lead to the world.
  But what will happen when people go into detention centres or prisons? Since I last spoke on the matter, before the "mods" and "rockers" went to Margate, in my constituency, there has been a change. I know that Brighton, which is a much bigger place, had all the damage and that we had relatively little, with much talk and not very much harm. Be that as it may, the point which I want to stress is that there should be a repayment in respect of the damage done.
  This is all part of the direction in which we are trying to move—that when people go to prison they shall work in prison to repay the damage which they have done. I understand that trade union views are changing and that we shall be able to put people to work in prison and to train them properly. For years the trade unions would not accept this attitude, but at last they have begun to see the light—and I am delighted.

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  What is our aim? In the Bill it is to put up the fines, to encourage increased fines and also to encourage repayment. Thus, it begins to fall into the overall pattern—and we have another Bill for Second Reading shortly which follows the same general pattern that we begin to see.
  The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), in a speech full of charm and intelligence, fell into this trap: he said that this was all a matter of politics but not of partisan politics. I am sorry that the hon. Member has left the Chamber. He pointed out that we have not pursued methods of research. That would have been true if said some time ago, but today the picture has completely altered. First, we have the advantage at Cambridge University of the Criminological Institute and the valuable work being done by that study. My right hon. Friend is setting up a Royal Commission. A number of excellent working parties are going on in almost every field. There is an advisory committee on law reform and another on criminal law reform. There is a plethora of first-class committees, including one on juvenile delinquency. It cannot be said that we have not at least got all these parties working on the various forms of research we can possibly want to arrive at a conclusion. I agree that we have not yet received the outcome of all this work.
  Hon. Members know that if we ask lawyers to report on matters of law reform it will be a long time before we get the answer. A circular has to be sent to all the associations, such as the Bar Council and the Law Society, and other organisations, and their reply awaited. It is six months before we get it back, and after having received replies from the various associations there must be a report to the Minister and then to the Home Office for their conclusions before the matter ultimately comes to the House.
  Mr. Elwyn Jones: But where we have a unanimous recommendation of the Lord Tucker Committee on the taking of evidence in committal proceedings as far back as 1957 and no action taken to implement that recommendation even to this day, is not that an example of the need for some machinery of reform to be con-
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  tinually in existence to bring about change?
  Mr. Rees-Davies: No, I do not agree, because we had a report only six months ago which was implemented by a Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir H. Ashton). It is a question of where there is a will there is a way. In the matter to which the hon. Member referred there is no doubt that there were two views about that recommendation. There was no difference of view about the matter covered by the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, and consequently it reached the Statute Book expeditiously.
  Provided that it follows the general theme that the criminal shall repay and the general rule of evolution rather than revolution, I am content. I want it to be on the record that if the Labour Party say that they believe in all these radical changes with a completely new machinery, then it will undoubtedly become a party political matter. I have no doubt that we should have continuing evolution in a modern society rather than revolutionary methods when we are dealing with matters of law reform.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Curran: I suppose that we can all welcome the Bill for two reasons. First, it is based upon affirming the principle of personal responsibility. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) that it is this part of the Bill much more than the increase in the fines that matters. We are seeking to make the people who engage in these disturbances personally responsible for what they do. It seems to me highly desirable that we should do that and that we should continue to do it in dealing with lawlessness in general.
  Secondly, the Bill is to be welcomed because it recognises, at least to some extent, the one new fact about post-war crime. I am not here to offer either blanket theories or blanket remedies for crime, but it is common ground that the one new fact about post-war crime is that, for the first time in our history, it is possible for young people to obtain incomes which make them independent of their parents. There has been a weakening of the family since the war

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  simply by the pressures of affluence and full employment. After all, the family never existed in a vacuum. Parental authority was always based ultimately on the economic foundation that the parents provided for the children and that the children had to go to the parents for support. In our post-war society, for the first time this is not the case with a great many teen-agers. They are able in the labour market to command incomes big enough to put them outside the control of their parents.
  That is something which the Bill makes an attempt to deal with by increasing the fines. It may well be a question of how much further we should go in coping with this new fact. It seems to me to be very much a question of whether we should allow young people who are not old enough to be citizens to enjoy the unfettered control of incomes on a scale which makes them economically independent while they are still in a state of immaturity. This, however, is a question which is marginal to the Bill. We are dealing with one aspect of the breakdown on parental control. There are other aspects of it which we should deal with, but we need not deal with them or discuss them here.
  There is behind this matter the larger question of whether crime among young people is increasing. There is no doubt that it is. However we may argue about the statistics, it is a fact that in spite of the removal of the social conditions which in the past were blamed for crime, crime continues to multiply. Nobody now can argue that crime is the product of poverty, slumdon, illiteracy or bad social conditions. Even since the war we have seen that as social conditions improve, so lawlessness increases. It is idle for anyone to suppose that the way to get rid of crime is to improve social conditions.
  Mr. Elwyn Jones: Does not the hon. Member have experience from the courts that obsolescent centres of cities are notorious breeding grounds still, particularly of juvenile delinquency? In any city where I have had the burden of responsibility on the bench, it has emerged at almost every sessions that centres of decay and slumdom inevitably breed crime. There is no doubt about it.
  Mr. Curran: I wonder whether the hon. and learned Member would be prepared to show that the incidence of crime can be correlated with slumdom. Would he be prepared to argue that in the areas where prosperity is high, there is little or no crime? It would be an interesting argument if the hon. and learned Member would care to make it.
  Mr. Emlyn Jones: What I venture to say is that areas of great poverty and slumdom are more likely to produce crime than areas of decent living conditions.
  Mr. Curran: I hope that the hon. Member does not suggest that I am trying to argue that poverty and slumdom are socially desirable and provide either a model gymnasium in which people behave well or the opposite of a gymnasium in which they behave badly. It cannot be argued in 1964 that having got rid of bad social conditions, we thereby reduce the volume of crime. I think that I can carry the hon. and learned Member with me to the extent that there is no correlation between rising prosperity and diminishing crime. Equally, it is not possible to blame the acquisitive society for the rise in crime.
  I do not know whether the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) is prepared to support some of his colleagues at least who tend to suggest that they can no longer blame poverty but that they can blame prosperity, who ask, in effect, how anyone can be surprised that crime increases when we live in the dreadful candyfloss world of "I'm all right, Jack" and who say that the development of acquisitive appetites by society is a process which produces crime.
  That explanation will not hold water either, because when we look across the Iron Curtain we see that although there is no acquisitive society in the Soviet Union, where the motives on which society is based are radically different from our own, the Soviet Union nevertheless appears to be facing a crisis even greater than ours. The Soviet Union has now been forced to introduce the death penalty, not only for murder but for a whole range of other offences, including forgery, arson, burglary, rape and even currency speculation. Faced as it is with the growth of crime, the Soviet Union has been obliged to go

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  back to methods which make it resemble England in the eighteenth century. How long is it since England put men to death for forgery? The Soviet Union is doing it now.
  I cite that simply to support my assertion that it does not hold water in logic to argue that the acquisitive society can be blamed for the growth in crime. I suggest that the experience of the totalitarian planned economies, which are run on a radically different basis from our society, demonstrates plainly that the causes of crime cannot be explained quite as simply as is suggested by people who think that the acquisitive society can be saddled with the responsibility. Any explanation of this kind—the explanation either of poverty or of the wickedness of the acquisitive society or any such explanation—is necessarily superficial.
  I invite the House to agree that, on the whole, there is a certain amount of evil in human beings and that the amount of evil in the world is rather like the amount of matter it is constant. The utmost that we can do by any kind of social change is to change the forms in which evil expresses itself. I do not believe that we shall ever be able to eliminate evil. That we shall always have to cope with it is a permanent fact, and the utmost that we can hope to do by any kind of legal or environmental change is to make the volume of evil in the world more manageable and less of a nuisance to society in general. What is possible is not anything like the exalted aim which some people preach of supposing that we can ultimately eliminate evil or eliminate crime. It is difficult for anyone nowadays to believe either in the perfectability of man as an individual or still less in the perfectability of society.
  We must content ourselves with a much more modest aspiration. We must seek only to ask, granted that the amount of evil in the world is constant, how we can arrange matters so that the evil causes the minimum amount of nuisance to other people. I suggest that if my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is able to devise methods whereby the volume of crime is made less of a nuisance to other people, he will be doing all that can be expected of him. I regard this Bill as a step in that direction because it insists upon personal responsibility for lawlessness. I wish that it had gone
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  further and had done something to insist on parental responsibility also.
  It seems to me highly desirable—I use the word "desirable" in the sense of wishing to maintain order and resist disorder—that when young people who are not old enough to be citizens get into trouble, responsibility for their delinquency should be placed not only on their shoulders and in their pockets but on the shoulders aid in the pockets of their parents.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: Up to what age would the hon. Gentleman suggest that that should be so?
  Mr. Curran: As the law now stands, we do not regard anyone as a citizen until he or she is 21 years of age. I shall not argue it now, though I should be glad to on some other occasion, but there may well be a case for lowering that age. Nevertheless, so long as we run our society on the basis that people under 21 years of age are not competent to take the burdens of citizenship, we have the right to say that their parents must take those burdens for them.
  Mr. Fletcher: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that parents should in some way be responsible for the delinquencies of their children up to the age of 21?
  Mr. Currann: Certainly. As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, this is, to a large extent, a class matter in this country. A parent who has children who are university undergraduates would be quite prepared to say that he has some responsibility for what they do. He would be quite prepared to accept that responsibility because they are economically dependent upon him. I am suggesting that we ought to consider whether the sense of parental responsibility should be intensified in this country by means of making parents answerable for the damage or delinquencies committed by their children.
  Mr. Paget: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that he would make the parents automatically responsible for any damage that their child did, or does he mean merely that he would give the magistrates a discretion to order a payment from the parents?
  Mr. Curran: Obviously, one cannot make a blanket assertion that, in all circumstances, parents should be held liable.

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  I agree that one must have reference to the circumstances, but it seems to me that it would be a very good thing if we imported into our legal treatment of the matters we are discussing this afternoon the general notion that when damage is done by young people there are circumstances in which the courts can make the parents as well as the offenders financially responsible. I am not asserting that this should be so in all cases, but I am saying that it would be highly desirable to bring it in as something which the courts could do if they thought fit.
  Basically, the Bill is to be welcomed because it re-establishes and reinforces the principle of personal responsibility. If it is to be criticised at all, it is to be criticised because it does not go further, because it does not strengthen in the same way parental and family responsibility. I believe that, ultimately, if we want to re-establish the authority of the family in this country, we shall have to tackle the question whether we can allow young people to have incomes which make them economically independent of their parents. I believe that we shall have to tackle also the question whether we are prepared to impose upon fathers and mothers responsibility before the courts for the delinquencies and illegal acts of their children. I wish that we had done this in the Bill, but, so far as it goes, the Bill is to be welcomed and I shall support it.
  6.44 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: Bearing in mind the slender scope of the Bill, we have had a very instructive and interesting debate, covering a wide field. With all respect to the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), I do not regard this as a partisan issue at all, and I am glad that most hon. Members have approached the problem in a bipartisan spirit, considering its national importance.
  I wish to add my tribute to those which have been paid already to the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison) on what, I know, the whole House regarded as an admirable maiden speech. I thought it most refreshing to hear the authentic voice of youth dealing with these problems of juvenile delinquency and to hear what the hon. Gentleman said in such engaging and
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  attractive terms. I was particularly impressed by what he said about the need to adopt a positive as well as a negative approach.
  The hon. Member for Devizes referred to the number of youth clubs and other organisations in his constituency, some run by the Churches, particularly the Methodist Church to which he referred. Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I thought that, if those youth clubs are of importance in a predominantly rural constituency such as his, how much more necessary it is in urban and suburban constituencies that there should be other avenues for healthy activity by adolescents. Those who live in rural constituencies have opportunities to engage in healthy activities and pursuits in their leisure time which are denied to many of our young people who live in the congested areas of urban centres.
  I cannot help feeling that the general problem of juvenile delinquency stems to some extent from the artificial conditions in which many young people are condemned to live by modern society, without adequate opportunities for amusements, sporting activities and other worthwhile diversions. In considering this whole subject of juvenile delinquency, we should put in the forefront of our minds the national need to provide for our youth much more abundant opportunities to enjoy useful and healthy occupations in the leisure time which our affluent society offers them.
  I do not share the view that this is a great national problem. There is a danger of exaggerating its extent. On the other hand, I am sure that we all listened with great admiration, sympathy and agreement to the constructive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). He pointed out, with complete justice, that one of the serious defects of modern society, which has a bearing on juvenile delinquency, is that the Churches now have a diminishing influence. My hon. Friend referred to the decline in the efficacy of the Christian ethic.
  Regrettable though a great many of us feel it is, it is a fact that the demands and disciplines of the Christian ethic have ceased to have the appeal or to evoke the response which they did in

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  this country until comparatively recently. It is very sad that no alternative ethic that one can point to has taken its place. The Christian ethic is not the only ethic. The Greeks had a standard of values. Other non-Christian societies have had their standards of values. The Communist countries have standards of values. It is a sad reflection on our society that it is not particularly easy to say what has replaced the Christian ethic as the obvious standard of values to which young people can look for guidance.
  Mr. Curran: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with a good deal of interest and a good deal of agreement. I do not dissent from what he is now saying, but may I put this question? If it is the fact that we have not substituted any sort of humanist ethic for the Christian ethic which we have lost, is not the hon. Gentleman forced to the conclusion that, if the only sanction which the mass of people accept is fear of the law, it becomes imperative that society should maximise this fear, whether it really likes to do so or not?
  Mr. Fletcher: I should very much hesitate to draw that conclusion. It is a truism that the most immediate and most important thing we can do in Parliament is to pass Bills of this kind in order to strengthen the penal remedies available to the courts in dealing with delinquency, but I could not agree with the hon. Gentleman that Parliament completely discharges its duty to the nation by passing Measures of penal reform.
  It may well be that the day has passed when anyone regards it as the duty of Parliament to give a moral lead to the nation. I should myself like to think that that day has not passed, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North pointed out, the decay in the influence of the Churches in giving moral guidance to the nation has, in a sense, left a great void.
  It may or may not be the duty of Parliament to fill this void. I should like to think that Parliamentarians could regard it as part of their duty to give a moral lead to the nation, apart from their function as legislators on matters of penal reform. However, I emphasise also what has been said by several hon. Members on both sides, that there is a
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  particular duty on parents and, perhaps even more important, on school teachers in this matter.
  Inasmuch as the State is today very largely responsible for education—I suppose that it was almost entirely responsible for the education of those who engaged in the delinquencies at Margate, Brighton and Clacton—I myself consider that it is worth while examining in that context, perhaps in a debate on education rather than on this Bill, whether our school teachers are sufficiently prepared and encouraged to give moral guidance to the children coming within their care. It may well be that, in the stress of competition among children for the passing of examinations, there is less emphasis in our school than there used to be on principles and on moral values generally.
  If this is so—I believe that it is, from my own rather limited experience in visiting some of our schools—I regard it as a sad reflection on our society today and a subject calling for just as much consideration as the desire to increase parental responsibility, whether by making parents responsible for the delinquencies of their children, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) suggested, or otherwise.
  Having said that, and having expressed the hope, in agreement with the hon. Member for Devizes and others, that we in this House should do all within our power to urge a positive approach to the removal of the causes of juvenile delinquency, I must express disagreement with the hon. Member for Uxbridge when he suggests that the amount of evil in any society is necessarily always constant.
  Nor do I think that it is true to say that, whereas in Victorian times one could perhaps point to crime largely as the result of poverty, today one can point to crime or juvenile delinquency as being largely the result of affluence. For example, from reports I have read, most of the young people brought before the court at Clacton had no more than about 10s. or £1 at the most in their pockets at the time of the Bank Holiday escapade.
  The truth is that one cannot really judge the moral standards of our youth by the behaviour of those eccentrics who

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  produced the hooliganism at the seaside resorts which resulted in the introduction of the Bill. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Bill is necessary. Where young people pass over the borderline of youth exuberance, either as the result of boredom or of the desire for excitement which is generated by so many activities in our social life—the Press, television, and so forth—it is the duty of Parliament and society to see that effective remedies are imposed on those who indulge in behaviour which not merely satisfies their own desire for exuberant outlets, but causes malicious damage to others and hardship, fear and disorder of the kind that occurred at Easter and Whitsun. But I do not think that one can escape either the desire for excitement among young people or condemn them for wanting excitement.
  Therefore, like every other hon. Member who has taken part in the debate, I support the Home Secretary in desiring that the courts should have increased penalties made available to them for dealing with those guilty of these misdemeanours so that the offenders will know and fear a really serious deterrent to their activities.
  Something has been said in the debate—the right hon. Gentleman himself referred to it—about the kind of penalties which are appropriate. Speaking for myself here, I share the views of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. David James). I hope that the Home Secretary will give further thought to the desirability of giving the courts power to impose alternative penalties on young adolescent offenders. A case in point is the withdrawal of a driving licence.
  On 4th June, announcing the introduction of the Bill, the Home Secretary said that he had considered various suggestions for giving the courts new powers to deal with hooligans. He gave as examples the suggestions that the courts should have the power either to confiscate their vehicles or disqualify them from driving or to inflict corporal punishment. He added that he did not think any of these suggestions provided the answer.
  I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider. I think that the majority of us regard corporal punishment as being barbaric. Some of us regard imprison-
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  ment for hooligan offenders of this kind as being, if not barbaric, at any rate something not very suitable. It is obviously important that these young offenders should feel that there is an effective deterrent. Certainly, one effective deterrent would be to take away their driving licence or suspend it.
  It is no answer to that suggestion to say that the offence we are considering has nothing to do with driving, or to say that such a penalty would be capricious because some might have a licence and some might not. When we are considering juvenile delinquency and alternative methods of legitimate punishment by modern society, there is no reason why we should not regard it as appropriate to deprive an offender of a privilege granted by the State. It seems rather reactionary and rigid to think that the State should be confined to the old punishments of corporal punishment, imprisonment and probation.
  It may not be a complete analogy, but when undergraduates engage in hooliganism, as they often do, they are exposed, very sensibly, to other penalties. They may be sent down, or gated, or deprived of privileges. All of these penalties in such cases no doubt have a deterrent effect and are thought to be reasonable. Equally, why should not the State, in dealing with juvenile delinquents who have overstepped the mark, deprive them of a privilege?
  Mr. Curran: How far would the hon. Gentleman take that argument, from which I am not dissenting? He is saying that we have substantially two methods of dealing with offenders against the law—fining and imprisonment. He suggests that we introduce a third penalty for juveniles—deprivation of driving licences. Would he be prepared to introduce such a new penalty for adult offenders, irrespective of whether the offence was connected with the use of a car?
  Mr. Fletcher: I hope that the House would consider the whole idea of introducing an additional variety of new forms of punishment in order to replace forms of punishment, such as hanging, corporal punishment and imprisonment in overcrowded prisons, which experience shows are completely out of date and are repulsive to the modern mind and do not produce the consequences which society wants to bring about.

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  I suggest that the Committee which is considering penal reform should go into the question, as a matter of principle, of what is wrong in giving the courts power to impose alternative forms of punishment which would have a deterrent effect. Whatever might be said about such forms of punishment, they could not be more serious in their operation than imprisonment. If one imprisons a man, one deprives him of liberty. If one deprives him of a licence, one is taking away a privilege. In these days of the State conferring privileges of various kinds, it is not beyond common sense that we should give the courts powers to deprive offenders, either juvenile or adult, of some of those privileges which have only been exercised by them by grace and favour of the State.
  Nor does it seem an answer to the proposition to say that such punishments are only appropriate to those who commit motoring offences. That does not seem a logical argument. It may well be a more obvious case for depriving someone of his driving licence if he has offended against the motoring laws of the country, but one is doing that as a punishment and not merely in order to prevent him committing the same kind of offence again. If a youth offender has a car or a motor bicycle, then, whether or not he uses it to go to Clacton, or Margate, or Brighton, a more useful form of punishment in many cases would be deprivation of his licence to use that vehicle. Such an alternative form of punishment would also, incidentally, ease the strain on our prison service, borstal and the probation officers.
  Having made this suggestion, I express my hope that the Bill will have a speedy passage through the House.
  7.6 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Mervyn Pike): We have had an interesting debate and all hon. Members who have spoken have done so with sincerity and a great understanding of the problem. I am very tempted to follow some of the more interesting byways and paths of thought, but it is my task to try to answer as many points as possible.
  I am sure we all agree that the most enjoyable highlight of the debate was the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morri-
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  son). He brought freshness, vigour, sound common sense and understanding to the debate. We are grateful to him and look forward to hearing him again on many future occasions.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon), in a very thoughtful speech, rather under-estimated the value of the work of the committees and inquiries which are, among other things, at present investigating the problems under debate. I know that we are all impatient about this. We all want to know the results of the researches and inquiries and to find as quickly as possible some solution to these problems. But the fact remains that the greatest danger is that of acting on preconceived ideas and of not giving sufficient weight to valuable long-term research and scientific evaluation.
  It is tremendously important that we should all recognise the very wide cross-section of experience and knowledge in such committees as the Advisory Committee on Juvenile Delinquency which my right hon. Friend has recently set up and that the problem we are debating is a fairly recent one. We all know that the incidence of crime in pre-war days was caused, we believed, by very different factors and certainly in the 1950s we were led to believe that possibly the immediate post-war peak in crime was going down.
  It was only when we recognised that this problem was not the result of the war that we instigated so many of the valuable researches that are now taking place. Many of these were only started in the late 1950s and, of necessity, it will be some years before we can get the full results. Meantime, we have had the advantage of reports from committees like the Albemarle and Wolfenden Committees and the Government have taken certain action.
  The hon. Lady also referred to the necessity, in her view, for a family service which would have more specific statutory functions than at present.
  In this talk of the family service, no mention was made of the very important step forward which we took quite recently in this Parliament in the Children and Young Persons Act, which the House passed in 1963 and which puts on local authorities the responsibility to set up and co-ordinate a service to deal

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  with the prevention of juvenile crime by strengthening the family and for the first time puts a positive responsibility on families. We believe it is from the way in which this service has been founded that the variety comes from different approaches by different local authorities, the marrying of voluntary efforts and the distinctive approach which one gets in different parts of the country, that we shall get the richness and diversity to enable us to advance more firmly to some of the solutions.
  Hon. Members have remarked in Liverpool that it is the "beat" which has done a great deal to absorb the energies of young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) mentioned that in the North Country, the area where I come from, these difficulties do not appear to exist to the same extent. I would say to all those who want to support the family service that, if we go ahead on the present lines, with the diversity of approach which comes from different people in different localities trying to weld together the different strands of voluntary and statutory effort, this is possibly one of the most valuable fields in which we can work.
  The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), who has apologised for not being able to stay for the rest of the debate, made a very valuable contribution in this direction of thought, and he also mentioned the necessity of strengthening voluntary effort. We talk a lot about strengthening voluntary effort, but possibly we do not give sufficient thought to the ways in which this can be done. The Children and Young Persons Act is one of these ways because we shall direct the focus of the problem down to the local authority. All of us, however, want to examine fresh ways in which we can quicken the imagination of young people.
  I think that we all welcomed last night's Adjournment debate, when we heard of a very valuable voluntary effort now taking place among young people in London. I think this effort concerns 1,500 young people who are helping to alleviate the problems of older people, and we heard my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary for Education and Science say that the Government were
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  giving £3,000 this year to help that effort and that it hoped to be able to do so in the next two years.
  Efforts of this sort are very valuable. We are watching this effort in particular, and, more generally, we are helping wherever we can to stimulate voluntary effort. However, do not let us ever have the dead hand of centralisation trying to organise these things, which of necessity must spring up of their own volition. We can help and guide them, but we cannot give them imagination nor initiate them by central effort.
  The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Fitch) echoed the feelings of all of us when he said that to a great extent the present set-up of approved schools, detention centres and attendance centres very well meet the needs of rehabilitation in our society, but, of course, we are not satisfied that we have all the answers. This, again, is where the Royal Commission under Lord Amory will be of such tremendous use to us. It will enable us to look at these things again to see whether there are other ways in which we can go forward with rehabilitation.
  He also mentioned—and this was echoed by other hon. Members and was inherent in what the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said—the need for greater imagination in sentencing. The magistrate can often find more imaginative ways in which to bring home to young people the nature of the crime which they have committed and possibly to provide a greater deterrent. I do not want to follow the hon. Member for Islington, East too far in any discussion of new ways of achieving this, because this, again, is a subject which the Royal Commission will be considering in the very near future, and this, too, underlines the value of the Royal Commission.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) had some interesting things to say, and we particularly welcomed his tribute to the police over the Whitsuntide weekend. The disturbances at Margate, Brighton and Bournemouth over the Whitsun weekend put a very severe strain on police resources, which were already under pressure from the large holiday crowds. Despite the numbers involved,

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  which at Brighton reached a peak of 4,000 or 5,000, the police did not lose control. We know that they will be able to contain—at least, we believe that they will—any future outbreaks which may occur. We believe particularly that the firm line taken by the courts together with this Bill will have a helpful deterrent effect.
  Of course, the maintenance of public order is an ordinary police responsibility, and outbreaks of disorder on a large scale may always necessitate police from neighbouring forces providing assistance. A regular machinery for this exists and has been very valuable in the past. Nevertheless, as my right hon. Friend has said, the chief constables in the areas likely to be affected if similar outbreaks occur next Bank Holiday weekend have been in touch with each other to streamline their arrangements.
  The hon. Member also mentioned the penalties for assaults on the police. The answer to his question of why the Bill failed to provide increased penalties for assaults on the police is that penalties for this offence have already been revised by Section 51 of the Police Act, 1964, which comes into force on 1st August, this year. But it is not correct to say that the maximum penalty under provisions now in force is a fine of £5.
  Among the provisions at present in force and relating to the offence of assaulting a constable are Section 38 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861, which carries a maximum penalty, on indictment, of two years' imprisonment, and Section 12 of the Prevention of Crimes Act, 1871, which has a maximum penalty, on summary conviction, of a fine of £20 or six months' imprisonment, or, if the offence is repeated within two years, a maximum of nine months' imprisonment.
  As my hon. Friend said, the maximum penalty for obstructing a constable is at present a fine of £5 or two months' imprisonment under Section 2 of the Prevention of Crimes Amendment Act, 1885, but this and other provisions in the Special Constables Act, 1831, and the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, and the Metropolitan Police Acts and the City of London Police Acts are replaced, in so far as they relate to the offence of assaulting or obstructing a constable,
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  by the provisions of Section 51 of the Police Act, 1964, which, as I have said, comes into force on 1st August.
  This will make the offender liable for an offence of assaulting a constable on summary conviction to up to six months' imprisonment, or, in the case of a second or subsequent offence, up to nine months' imprisonment, or a fine not exceeding f 100, or both and, on conviction on indictment, up to two years' imprisonment, or an unlimited fine, or both. The same provisions increase the penalty for the offence of assisting the offences or obstructing a constable, to a maximum of one month's imprisonment, or a line of £20, or both.
  I apologise for giving hon. Members the whole history of this matter, but it is very important for the record that it should be known what the fines and other penalties for assaulting the police are at present and what they will be as from 1st August, this year.
  My hon. Friend also put forward the idea of non-military centres where these young people could have more rigorous training. In fact he was describing detention centres as we have them at present. Ws have power to send young persons to these detention centres where the régime is very brisk and very firm and where they get the maximum of physical exercise and physical fitness and where they have good discipline which builds up their own self-respect, as well as their own physical condition. There are 15 detention centres already provided for boys and one for girls, and there are more on the way. As I have said, in all these centres the régime is based on hard and useful work and one of the senior centres, the North Sea Camp near Boston, provides training in open conditions for inmates employed on farm work and land reclamation. The primary purpose of this centre is to receive committals from the courts in the North-East, the Midlands and East Anglia. Boys committed to other centres may be transferred to the North Sea Camp if they are suitable for open conditions. About 20 boys committed to other centres following the Whitsun disturbances have been transferred to this camp.
  I think that all hon. Members who have seen (he results of the detention centres will recognise their value, and

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  the fact that about 5,000 boys are going through these detention centres at the present time will have a deterrent effect in society, because they talk to their friends and there is no desire on the part of many of them to go to these centres.
  Sir W. Teeling: Does the hon. Lady think that we have enough of these detention centres, or are we hoping to have some more?
  Miss Pike: There are more on the way. When they were in the experimental stage, doubts were expressed about whether they would fulfil a useful purpose, but we believe that they have proved themselves, and we are building more. In this context it is interesting to note that people in Europe who in the first instance were somewhat sceptical about this scheme are now coming to us to learn from our experience because they recognise the value of the results that we have had from the centres. The results will improve still further from this year onwards, because from 1st January last there was compulsory aftercare, so that all young people coming from these centres from April onwards will have the benefit of after-care. This again will help to rehabilitate them into society. Allied to that, there is the provision of attendance centres. The hon. Lady said that we need more of these. I think that most of us in the House would agree that they play a valuable part, and that their use can be extended in many areas.
  Many hon. Members spoke about the need for research into the social backgrounds of people who cause these disturbances. As I said at the outset, we have instigated research on these lines, and I think that we are playing a valuable part within the Council of Europe in the co-ordination and the extension of our research into these problems. As we have all recognised in the House today, this is not just a United Kingdom problem. It is a problem which is facing all industrialised nations, and with the mass communication of the present time something that happens in Brighton can have effects in Italy or Sweden. We hope that the effects of what happened recently in Sweden will not be felt in this country.
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  It is important that we should have this co-ordination of researches in this important field. We can never do enough research. There are never enough research workers in this new field of research, but all the time we are giving more and more support to new projects which are coming forward.
  I think that it was the hon. Member for Islington, East who referred to the effect of different schools on children, and the example which school teachers can provide. Research is going on to try to assess why different schools have different delinquency records. We do not as yet know the results of this valuable research which is going on in co-operation with the Ministry of Education.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), and many other hon. Members, talked about the breakdown of parental control and suggested that parents should be answerable for the misdeeds of their children. I think that my hon. Friend was talking about young people over 17. Under Section 55 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, the fines of children and young persons under 17 years of age can be paid by their parents, but I think that my hon. Friend wished to extend that provision to young people under 21.
  Mr. Curran: Would my hon. Friend care to say anything about the Home Office view of making parents financially responsible, in some circumstances, for damage done by their children when breaking the law?
  Miss Pike: If my hon. Friend is talking about children and young persons under the age of 17, that power exists. If my hon. Friend is asking about young people over 17, I can only say that until the Royal Commission has looked into this matter there is no Home Office view on it. That does not mean that we are not thinking about it, but this is something which will be looked at by the Royal Commission.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) raised an important point about the power to enforce the payment of compensation. The answer to that is that if the compensation is ordered by a magistrates' court, under the provisions of the Bill, it will be enforceable in the same way as the fine. The money is paid in the first

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  instance to the court, and the court has power to commit the offender to prison in default of payment of the compensation. My hon. and learned Friend can therefore rest assured that that point is covered.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. James) and the hon. Member for Islington, East referred to the question of driving licences and disqualification. It perhaps would be useful if I were to repeat the substance of my right hon. Friend's remarks. My right hon. Friend has given consideration to a number of suggestions for strengthening the power of the courts, but he has come to the conclusion that none of them provides the right answer. My right hon. Friend gave particularly careful consideration to the suggestion that a court should have power to deprive of his licence any offender who was proved to have driven to the scene of the offence, but, as he pointed out, there would be difficulties in framing legislation to meet that point because of the question of the definition of the circumstances under which that power should be available. There would be difficulty in defining the offence of hooliganism, and it would be equally difficult to differentiate between those offenders who went to the scene of the crime by train or by public transport and those who went by scooter and parked it some distance away.
  I was only repeating some of the arguments, and I was going to end by saying that this would be looked at again, but, I think, particularly in the context of what is being looked at by the Royal Commission. We have not closed our minds to it, but, having looked at the matter, we find that the complexities of it rule it out from being dealt with at the present time. I do not think that hon. Members would wish me to go through all the arguments. My right hon. Friend has given great consideration to this point and has decided that the difficulties which exist at present do not justify him bringing forward legislation to deal with this matter.
  Mr. David James: I do not think that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) or I suggested that the culprit need have gone to the scene of the crime by car. What we are suggesting is that
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  people who are so immature as to behave in this manner might well have their licences withdrawn, as these are a social privilege which they are not mature enough to enjoy.
  Miss Pike: I appreciate my hon. Friend's argument. I was trying to show that the case was so complicated that it would be difficult to resolve it in this Parliament, and the category to which he referred raised a bigger problem and was one which we could not resolve at the present time, but should leave to the Royal Commission to consider along with the more imaginative approach which we all want to see. As the hon. Gentleman suggested, it might then prove possible to consider providing varying penalties for people who indulge in delinquency and hooliganism.
  Mr. Fletcher: I would be happy if the hon. Lady would emphasise that, while we know what the Home Secretary said on an earlier occasion, this is still an open question, and that the Home Office will preserve, a completely open mind on this and related questions until the Royal Commission has reported.
  Miss Pike: I gladly give the House that assurance. We are anxious to do all that we can to get the right penalties.
  I hope that I have answered most of the points raised by hon. Members. Tonight's debate has inevitably ranged over a very wide field. Although this Bill is important, it deals with only a very small part of a very broad and complex problem. It is a problem in which the main themes are the prevention of crime, the punishment and reformation of the wrongdoer, restitution to the injured party, and the protection of society from lawlessness and violence.
  This is essentially, of course, a field for specialists and experts, but it is one in which most of us have a fund of experience and in which we have very strongly held views. I, like most people, have my favourite hobby-horse, but I shall not delay the House tonight in developing my own ideas or by reiterating the important points which have been made in this and other debates on allied subjects. These debates have shown that in recent years we have made important progress in our more

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  enlightened attitudes to punishment and reformation, and advances have been made in the practical measures which are essential to progress in this matter. It is a world wide problem, and we are making a significant contribution to the co-ordination and the extension of criminological thought and understanding in other European countries.
  We have attempted to quicken the pace of our own research, inquiry and training, and we have sought to reinforce those forces in society which strengthen the community and encourage self-discipline, self-reliance, vigour and responsibility to the individual. All these things are of supreme importance, and we must always be seeking new ways, new ideas and a greater sense of urgency and a much wider recognition that it is the responsibility of individuals in society.
  At the same time, we must not fall into the error of thinking that our desire to strengthen society, prevent crime and reform the wrongdoer will meet with an instant response from the irresponsible and evil elements in our community.
  Reformation and prevention must take place within the strong framework of effective protection of the public, and the Government always puts this protection first. The importance of the Bill is that it seeks to strengthen this protection by giving added powers to the court, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Hugh Rees.]
  Committee Tomorrow

  REFRESHMENT HOUSES BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  7.35 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  As this is essentially a Home Office day, I hope that I shall not be ruled out of order if I take this my only opportunity of saying what a splendid maiden speech I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. C. Morrison) made in our last debate, I hope that it gave as great a pleasure to his well-loved father as it certainly did to all the rest of us who listened to it.
  I am sorry now that I have to turn a long way from my hon. Friend's special interest and experience, because this Bill deals with near-beers, or clip-joints. They are places where foolish people get milked of their money by fraud. The record known case is where three foreigners, visitors to London, after 15 minutes in a near-beer and having consumed nothing but fruit juice, were faced with a bill for £27. There are now about 40 of these establishments in London and with rates of profit like that it is hardly surprising that their numbers are growing.
  I am sure that it is better to legislate about this now than to let the scandal grow. There are three reasons for legislating about them. First, they are barefaced fraud; secondly, there is evidence that they are harming our reputation in the tourist trade; and, thirdly, an altogether disproportionate amount of police time is taken up in dealing with complaints about them.
  The technique is this. If any hon. Members have been preparing to take part in the debate on the Bill by gaining personal experience, I hope that they will bear with me if I describe what happens. Late at night, particularly after the public houses are closed, a woman stands just outside in the street and sees whether she can induce passers-by to come in. A vague idea is created of night club entertainment, seductive company, drinking and perhaps something more exciting than all that at the end.
  Once inside, the customer sits down at a small table with a hostess, who

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  orders drinks for them both. The drinks are, in fact, cheap fruit juice concoctions. The charges for all this spurious entertainment are enormous. As soon as the hostess finishes her drink she orders another round. She has every incentive to do so, because her pay from the management depends on the speed of drinking.
  The customer's welcome lasts as long as his money holds out, and no longer. If he is hoping for something to come after, he is completely frustrated and disappointed. He finds himself out on the pavement, with nothing in his pocket but with a lot of fruit juice effervescing in his stomach. He feels himself cheated, and he has been cheated. He may create a row in the street and the police may have to be called to move him on, or he may go to the police and complain. That very often happens. He says that he has been defrauded, but there is absolutely nothing that the police can do to help him.
  If hon. Members would like independent evidence of these curious goings on, without the rather heavy expense of a personal test, they will find an excellent account of an obviously first-hand experience in the Sunday Telegraph of 14th June.
  This form of exploitation is possible because there is at present no power to attach conditions to a refreshment house licence. A refreshment house licence is an Excise licence granted under the Refreshment Houses Act, 1860. The greater part of that Act has by now been repealed by various licensing Acts, but its provisions, that are still in force, require the keeper of a refreshment house which is open at any time between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. to take out a licence.
  Refreshment houses are defined in the Act as
  "All houses, rooms, shops or buildings kept open for public refreshment, resort and entertainment between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., not being licensed for the sale of beer, cider, wine or spirits …"
  Other provisions of the 1860 Act create the offence of keeping a refreshment house without a valid licence, refusing admission to the public, and permitting unlawful gaming or the assembly of prostitutes, thieves or drunken and disorderly persons. In addition, of course,
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  the licensing law would apply to any offence of selling intoxicating liquor without a licence. It is no use going to a near-beer if one wants alcohol.
  The Refreshment Houses Act applies only to England and Wales. In Scotland, I imagine, no place would stay open all night for non-alcoholic refreshment. The Act is useful in England and Wales as n means of maintaining a measure of control over the establishments kept open at night for the sale of food or drink—non-alcoholic—and of ensuring that there is an available record of them. There are about 1,800 of these late-night or all-night refreshment houses in the county of London alone. They range from the big Corner Houses to little all-night cafes and coffee stalls.
  These are not what the Bill is directed at. It is aimed at the few which are exploiting a weakness in the present law. The 1860 Act gives no power to attach conditions to a licence before it is granted. What the Bill does is simply to enable conditions to be attached to a refreshment house licence when it is granted or renewed. That power can then be used to curb the undesirable features of the near-beers.
  But the licensing authority cannot impose conditions in any and every case. Subsection (3) provides that the restrictive powers can be exercised only where this appears; to the licensing authority desirable to prevent customers from being misled as to the nature or cost of the entertainment provided.
  I should say that the licensing authorities are county or county boroughs. In London, from next April onwards, they will be the new London borough councils.
  Where the conditions of subsection (3) are satisfied, and the licensing authority finds itself dealing with an application for a licence from a refreshment house where the sort of practices take place that the Bill is designed to curb, then the other subsections apply and it will be possible for conditions to be attached 1o the licence.
  These conditions can render it unlawful to make charges in that particular refreshment house between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless a visible and legible tariff is displayed and the charge on the bill is not greater than what the tariff specifies. It can also, if desirable, be

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  made a condition that the tariff shall be displayed where it can be read by the customer before going in.
  Another condition that can be imposed would prohibit soliciting for custom outside or in the vicinity of the refreshment house between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. This should deal with the practice of touting in the street which causes a lot of complaints and can be a scandal. The reason for specifying the hours between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. is that it is only in respect of those hours that a refreshment house licence is required at all.
  The other Clauses are subsidiary. Clause 2 requires all holders of refreshment house licences to notify changes of address to the licensing authority. This is a useful provision of general application, but it will particularly help to deal with refreshment houses of the kind aimed at in the Bill.
  The main effect of Clause 3 is to increase the penalties for offences against the existing provisions in the Refreshment Houses Act, 1860, or against the relevant provisions of licensing law: at present, the maximum fine is £20, or £50 if there has been a similar conviction within the previous five years. The new penalty is in line with that in Schedule 12 to the London Government Act, 1963, for the operation of unlicensed premises for music and dancing; it is a fine not exceeding £200 or imprisonment not exceeding three months, or both.
  The near-beer that I visited when I went round Soho did not seem to have been doing much business that evening. Perhaps I was a bit too early. It passed my comprehension how anyone who had once been fleeced in one of these grubby places could ever come back another night for a second dose. But some do. One cannot wholly save fools from their folly, but that does not mean that Parliament should never take a fresh look to see whether the laws of past years have gaps.
  The Dangerous Drugs Bill, which got its Third Reading last night, to deal with the current "purple hearts" racket, is a case in point. So is the Obscene Publications Bill, about to be reported back to the House from a Standing Committee—I believe the first Obscene Publications Bill to be introduced by a Government
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  and not by a private Member in the last 100 years.
  Then there is the Young Persons (Employment) Bill which will be coming up on Friday, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) to close a gap by extending the prohibition of the employment of young people under 18 to night clubs and the like.
  All these items of legislation have the common motive of protecting the innocent or the unwary against unscrupulous exploitation, making more difficult the piling up of easy money by preying on the worst weaknesses of human nature, and cleaning up scandals which are a blot on a city and a burden to the police.
  There is nothing grandmotherly about all this. Nobody believes that the near-beer fraud, any more than drug-taking by youngsters, is in any conceivable sense a good thing. Nothing will be done, so far as I am concerned, to interfere with all the honest and well-conducted establishments where people can get entertainment and refreshment and pleasure; but there is trash about too, and people cashing in on it in a big way.
  In some respects the trash has managed to get the better of the law. I want to see that the law is strong enough to have the better of the trash.
  7.47 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: The Home Secretary has given us a very engaging account of the activities of "near-beer" clubs, or "clip joints", as they are called. From what he said, I gather that the Bill, introduced to deal with what is no doubt a serious but very small problem, is the result of one of his nocturnal visits to the West End of London which he told us about when he was bent on discovering something about the trade in "purple hearts". I gathered that that led him to discover the existence of 30 or 40 clip joints, or sleazy clubs, as they are described in the Press, which he is anxious to suppress.
  I need hardly say that my hon. Friends and I cordially support the Measure. However, in view of its somewhat sudden introduction, as the result of the Home Secretary's visit to the West End, there are one or two passages which need careful examination.

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  The right hon. Gentleman said that there are about 40 clip joints at which the Bill is aimed, and about 1,800 refreshment houses of a legitimate character to which the Bill either applies or may be made to apply. I suppose that our duty is to see that the Bill will be effective in its object of closing down or clipping the clip joints and, at the same time, will in no way impair the activities of those refreshment houses which carry on legitimate trade in London and the provinces for the benefit of those whose occupations require them to partake of non-alcoholic refreshment between the hours of 10 o'clock at night and 5 o'clock in the morning.
  For information about these clip joints all hon. Members will be dependent on what they have read in the Press. The most enlightening comment in this respect is that contained in the Daily Telegraph of 1st June, which, I suppose, is as authoritative a description of what happens as any. It says that these clip joints
  "are so-called because their conductors join in clipping the purses of unsophisticated visitors. In the characteristic clip joint a flamboyantly attired siren lures the midnight stroller in, ostensibly to quench his thirst, but very frequently with promises of more seductive pleasures. Once seated with him at a table she reveals an insatiable appetite for a beverage which to an untutored palate may pass for diluted beer, but which is charged for at double the price of vintage champagne. When his funds are exhausted, so are the young lady's affections."
  A correspondent in the Sunday Telegraph described in great detail what happened when he visited one of these clubs a few hundred yards from Piccadilly underground station and was accosted from a doorway by a plump little blonde, who said "Hello, darling. Looking for something?" He answered, cautiously, "What have you got to offer?" She beamed a broad, disarming smile and answered, "Me!"
  If that is the evil which we are attempting to remedy by the Bill, we must examine the content of the Bill and see whether it effectively deals with the case of those who frequent these places. I think that we should all agree with the Home Secretary that it is almost impossible to imagine a person who has once been the victim of a fraud of this kind wanting to indulge in the same experience a second time.
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  Incidentally, I do not think that anyone need have very much sympathy with those who are so foolish as to fall victims of this kind of stupidity. I suppose the case that the Home Secretary makes for the Bill is not on that ground so much as on the ground that, as he said, this practice does harm to our tourist trade and takes up a great deal of time of the police.
  The Home Secretary ventured at the end of his speech into what I thought was a very pious but, I have no doubt, well-intentioned intimation of what steps he is proposing to take towards the improvement of some of our great cities. The right hon. Gentleman referred to various other Bills which are passing through the House. Desirable though this Bill may be, it is relevant to remind the right hon. Gentleman that it deals with a very small matter compared with some of the far more serious scenes and activities in the West End that many people regard as a perfect disgrace to this great metropolis. I refer in particular to some of the striptease clubs and the garish and seductive advertisements outside them. I do not know whether the Home Secretary has yet had an opportunity of visiting any of those establishments which seem to me to be springing up in increasing numbers and which constitute a much greater disgrace and cause much greater offence to decent, well-meaning citizens than does this handful of sleazy clubs.
  One reason the Home Secretary gave for closing down the sleazy clubs is that tourists complain because, they say, they are defrauded when they go in. He meant that they are defrauded in the sense that they go in thinking they will get some seductive entertainment which they do not get. In that connection, the Home Secretary should tell us what his attitude is with regard to all the striptease clubs which are growing up all over the place. He cannot close those down because tourists complain that they are defrauded. Can he defend them on the ground that they are an attraction to the tourist trade? Do not the right hon. Gentleman's principles, which he has been telling us about, require him to take far more energetic steps in that direction than he is taking in the two Bills which are before the House

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  today to deal with malicious damage and clip joints?
  I want to consider whether the Bill will produce any injurious effects on the 1,800 or so respectable refreshment houses that exist. We do not know how the local authorities will operate the Bill, but, as I understand it, the Bill gives local authorities power to require any refreshment house to exhibit a tariff outside the premises. I suppose that will apply to a Lyons Corner House in the same way as it will apply to a coffee stall in any part of the suburbs? Is it reasonable—is it practicable—that Lyons Corner Houses should have to exhibit tariffs? If they are to exhibit tariffs stating what refreshments they serve inside them, what is the position if a customer reasonably asks for some kind of refreshment which is not contained on the tariff? One's experience at some of these perfectly proper and respectable refreshment houses which do not sell alcoholic beverages is that they often have tariffs inside them; they have a menu on which prices are listed; but from time to time their patrons ask for something which is not on the menu and not on the tariff, and a charge is made.
  If these conditions are to be attached, does it mean that in future, unless everything that is listed on the tariff is priced, the refreshment house will be unable to serve a customer with something, even at a reasonable and legitimate price, merely because it is not included in the tariff? The House should be assured that there is no risk of a Bill designed, quite properly, to close down a relatively small number of nefarious sleazy clubs being used to interfere with the legitimate trade of coffee houses and refreshment houses, both in London and in the Provinces.
  Perhaps the Under-Secretary, who will presumably reply, will also tell us whether, in the case of legitimate refreshment houses, Clause 1(2), which makes it unlawful
  "to obtain custom by means of personal solicitation outside "—
  those words seem reasonable in the context of a sleazy club—might not operate to prevent, for example, a commissionaire standing outside a perfectly respectable refreshment house. Presumably there is nothing wrong, in the
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  case of respectable refreshment houses, in custom being solicited. This is a matter for the Government to explain.
  I gather from the Press correspondents who have been studying this question that those who run sleazy clubs contend that the Bill will not have the effect it is thought it will have and that they will be able to operate in some other guise. It may be that they will still be able to operate in their present guise, despite the Bill. Would the Home Secretary consider what is meant by Clause 1(1,a), because, as I understand it, the operative words are that
  "it shall not be lawful to make any charge for or in connection with the entertainment of persons in the refreshment house … whether for the supply of food or drink, for admission, for service of any description or for any other matter, except any reasonable charge for the use of cloakroom or toilet facilities, unless—

  (a) a tariff of charges made in the refreshment house is … kept displayed …"

  Judging from the experience of those who have visited these sleazy clubs, what the victims pay for is presumably the opportunity of having the society, either for a short time or for a longer time, of somebody who either entices them into the premises or whom they expect to find in the premises. If that is the inducement or enticement, perhaps the Home Secretary will consider whether it would not be possible for these sleazy clubs to continue, despite the provisions of the Bill.
  True, the Bill will prevent deliberate solicitation, and it may prevent any charge being made except for refreshments advertised on a menu outside, but will that, in itself, prevent clip joints of this kind, with suitably seductive advertisements, continuing to trade and continuing to provide opportunities for extortion of visitors who are attracted by this kind of inducement?
  While my hon. Friends and I support the Bill, which is of a very meagre character and which is intended to deal with a very small evil, but not less an evil that should be stopped, in the West End of London, my concern is to express some doubts about whether it will have the desired effect, about what will happen to the patrons of these clip joints and, more particularly, to wish that the Home Secretary would direct his attention to doing something about some of the other clubs in the West End which are such a disgrace to London's society.
  8.2 p.m.
  Mr. William Shepherd: I appreciate that there is not uniformity of opinion on the series of Bills which my right hon. Friend is bringing forward. There are those who believe that this kind of legislation is unnecessarily grandmotherly, that we cannot dictate the moral standards and prudence of people by legislation. I confess that I do not share these views because I believe that it is the duty of Parliament to try to maintain higher standards, particularly in the large conurbations.
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the initiative that he has shown in so many directions in trying to clean up what are some very unsavoury activities in the West End of London. I said that this was not the universal view because I recall listening a few weeks ago to an extraordinary speech made by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), who believes that if one left everybody alone and abandoned all attempts at restraint, one would arrive at an idyllic situation in which all that was bright and beautiful would prevail. That is either an attempt at self-deception or incurable naïveté, because it is not so.
  I recall once going to a club to see what was one of the most nauseating spectacles I have ever seen in my life. The man responsible for it was subsequently sent to gaol for a number of years. The most appalling aspect of it was a statement made to me by one of the people running the spectacle, an assistant, who said that men came along week after week to see that sort of thing. I have drawn the conclusion that the veneer of civilisation is so thin that we have a moral obligation to improve and maintain standards, however much criticism we get from people like the hon. Member for Pontypool and his colleagues.
  While I welcome the Bill for many reasons, I have some serious misgivings about the extent to which it will prove to be effective. Consider a small point to begin with, the question of the prohibition of soliciting outside or in the vicinity of premises. As I understand it, these unalluring women stand in doorways and I am not exactly sure whether the words in the Bill would cover standing in a doorway. Such a place would
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  not seem to be either outside premises or in the vicinity of them, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will further consider this matter.
  It is not to this limited point to which I wish to draw attention. I am more concerned with a possible greater danger arising from the Bill. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said something about the danger I have in mind, but he did not quite get to the point. Is there not a real danger that establishments at present known as clubs—and there is no legal definition of a club of this kind—will arise in greater numbers as a result of the Bill?
  I have in mind the sort of club which has no real significance. If it is a licensed club then it has, and there are plenty of means of discovering what is happening, but if it is a club which does not sell alcoholic refreshments it is perfectly open to any individual or group of people to call the establishment a club. If it is so called, it does not require to have a refreshment licence and, obviously, in those circumstances the police cannot enter the premises.
  I wish to direct my right hon. Friend's attention to a real danger that might arise as a consequence of the Bill. This danger is that places that now operate not as clubs will assume the mantle of clubs so that they will have no requirement to have a refreshment licence and will, of course, be able to prevent the police from gaining access to the premises.
  This illustrates the extreme difficulty of dealing with this problem and I have in mind the possible result of this Bill being an increase in the number of strip clubs to which the hon. Member for Islington, East referred. If, for example, it will become rather difficult—to put it no higher than that—to have touts on the door, will it be as easy to put up some striptease advertisements and run a striptease inside a so-called club, and get customers into the establishment by those means?
  This might be a more effective method of luring the public into these establishments than the present method of having these doubtful-looking females lounging in doorways. I see the prospect of the Bill being calculated to increase the number of undesirable clubs of this nature

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  and intensifying the attraction to striptease, particularly if touting is difficult, and if, as I say, they are simply called clubs, they will not need refreshment licences. Although I agree that if they conduct themselves in this way it will be possible for the police to take steps to prove that they are not clubs in the sense that we know clubs, that will be a long way round for the police. In view of the way that these places open and shut so frequently, we must try to devise methods by which the police can be save the trouble and time of exposing these places.
  What can we do to prevent the people who are now running these establishments calling themselves clubs and defeating the object of the Bill? We must, first, deal with the basic issue of what is or what is not a club. We must try to cause people to have a licence for selling refreshments, whether or not they call their establishments clubs. If they are selling refreshments for the purpose of gain, perhaps we need a definition such as "purpose of gain" and to make a licence mandatory, whether it is a club or a place which does not call itself a club.
  The same consideration should be applied to entertainment, whether the place calls itself a club or not. If the purpose of the entertainment is for private gain, a music and dancing licence ought to be necessary. Unless we have these alterations in the Bill I have some anxiety that its main purposes will not be attained. I know that my right hon. Friend is desperately anxious to deal with this difficulty, and, having privately tried to do something about these places over many years, I have no illusion about the problems in dealing with this class of person. It is easy to deal with a respectable man in the entertainment world, but it is exceedingly difficult to deal with the sleazy gentleman who is in one day and out the next.
  If we have to stretch matters a little far to catch these people, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have the support of the House, because I am satisfied that not only do these places tend to depreciate the level of entertainment in the Metropolis, because bad entertainment tends to drag other entertainments down with it to a lower level, but that
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  they give our city a bad name. I do not say that it is as bad as Hamburg's, which is a warning to all of how bad a reputation one can get with these entertainment establishments. I hope that between now and the Committee stage my right hon. Friend will look at the difficulties which I have tried to point out and will do something to strengthen the Bill so that we can get at these objectionable near-beer establishments.
  8.12 p.m.
  Mr. George Thomas: I apologise to the House that I was not here at the beginning of the debate. I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) has just said. I believe that all people with a sense of social responsibility are disturbed at some of the changing values of our time. The very fact that the Bill has to be introduced is a sad commentary on the habits of some of our people. We always have had, and I am beginning to think that we always shall have, people who will seek to exploit sex and the weaknesses of people so that they can make money.
  I congratulate the Home Secretary on introducing a Measure to tackle the problem. I cannot speak with authority on these refreshment houses, as they are politely called, because I have not the right hon. Gentleman's experience. I always bow to a man with greater knowledge than myself, though I realise that his knowledge is limited—at least I trust it is—to an official or surprise visit. When I read of the right hon. Gentleman's tour I was pleasantly surprised—I hope he will not take that offensively—that he had taken the initiative. Secretly I would have liked to have been with him, because my eyes might have been opened as well as his, though I have a very good imagination.
  The hon. Member for Cheadle referred to the need for restraints. I believe that self-discipline is a cornerstone of civilisation and that imposed discipline is essential in any enlightened country. Therefore, if people will not behave properly it is our duty and responsibility here to seek to impose restrictions upon them. I would go further than the hon. Member for Cheadle, because I believe that we could do with a good dose of Puritan standards back in this country.

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  I happen to believe that we owe an enormous debt to our Puritan forefathers for the values which they laid down for probity, honesty and sincerity.
  I believe that one of the reasons why we are having this mushroom growth of undesirable clubs is that it is associated with the swing away from religion in the life of our country, and that the day will come when the House of Commons will have to realise that there are terribly dangerous consequences which reveal themselves in any community that refuses to accept the restraints and the disciplines of a religious code.
  I realise that sometimes we are criticised if we are what are called "do-gooders". I do not claim to be a do-gooder, but I have a great respect for those people who seek to reform and to raise standards. I am anxious, however, lest this little Bill will fail, as the Street Offences Act has failed.
  Mr. Shepherd: It has not.
  Mr. Thomas: The hon. Member is more innocent than I thought if he does not realise that what that Measure did was to direct people's energies into finding other ways of exploiting prostitution and that there are new clubs and institutions exploiting what was once on our streets. I am glad to see our streets cleaned up, but this evil is now finding an outlet in other ways. If the hon. Member believes that that Act stopped prostitution and cleaned it up, he will believe anything.
  Mr. Shepherd: The hon. Member is repeating what the opponents of the Act have been saying for so long, but it was immensely successful in its prime purpose of preventing our streets being squalid and noisome. Anyone knows that if one does not put the goods in the shop windows one does not sell as many.
  Mr. Thomas: I believe that there is as much of this prostitution now as ever there was. The fact that it is not under our noses merely means, if we are not careful, that our hypocritical sense that as long as we do not see it it does not matter will be satisfied.
  If the Home Secretary is to be able to tackle this problem he ought to be able to do something about the opening hours
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  of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. I grew up in a Nonconformist home in a small community in South Wales where we used to think that nobody was up to any good if he was out after a certain hour.
  Mr. Ede: Half-past seven.
  Mr. Thomas: Evidently my right hon. Friend had even a stricter home than I had.
  These places should not be tolerated throughout the night. Where the police know that a place is undesirable for the type of person whom it is attracting, the police should have power to apply to the licensing authority either to have it closed altogether or to make it close earlier at right. I know that the Home Secretary will correct me if that power already exists.
  The penalties in the Bill are not severe enough. I would not give the option of a fine to people who are found guilty of breaking the provisions of the Bill when it becomes an Act. There should be imprisonment for people who are deliberate flouting the law in order to make money regardless of how they make it and of who is damaged in the process. The time has come when we must make the law more severe for people who have no moral standards and no regard for the rest of the community. I gather from the Press that much soliciting has gone on inside these places, but I am very glad that by subsection (2) of Clause 1 it will be an offence to solicit for custom outside, or in the vicinity of, the refreshment houses. The hon. Member for Cheadle may have warned us in time about the strip-tease advertisements that can drive a coach-and-four through this Bill. I hope that the Home Secretary will, in the ordinary course of the Bill, look again at what his hon. Friend has said, and see whether it is necessary to include a reference to advertising in subsection (2) of Clause 1.
  Whatever criticisms I have expressed, I am very glad that the Home Office Ministers have shown themselves aware of the problem and have brought forward a Measure that seeks to reduce it. For that they will earn the gratitude of many people outside this House.
  8.21 p.m.
  Mr. Alan Brown: I support the Bill, which my right hon. Friend has so ably explained. The problem that is rearing its head is not by any means as small as the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) may think. His constituency may have been lucky, but these so-called all-night cafés are being opened in many parts of North London, including Tottenham. I am surprised that Islington has so far been missed; if it has, I do not think that it will be for long.
  I am authoritatively informed that in the London boroughs covered by my own police division there are no fewer than 20 of these establishments. The problem is not confined to Soho, as so many people think. To illustrate the point and, perhaps, explain some of the difficulties to the House, I should like to read a letter, dated 3rd June, 1964, from one of my constituents who conducts a most respectable business in the area of one of Tottenham's main shopping centres. She writes:
  "I have a matter of great importance which I should like you to take up. The above address"—
  it is her address, of course—
  "is shop premises and living accommodation, and we have been here for 13 years. About last March the shop next door, namely "—
  I will say No. X—
  "changed hands, and was taken over by a Greek Cypriot calling the place "—
  such-and-such a café.
  "He appeared to have no set hours, six only pints of milk being left daily, no kitchen in use. He sells cups of tea and coffee only, opened in the afternoon and stayed open all night every night of the week.
  Rumours that the place was to be used for gambling in all rooms all night long, and that the man had previously come from Camden Town and had been closed down there for running a brothel sent me hurrying to the town hall, where I saw "—
  a gentleman in the planning department.
  "There I was assured that no licences of any description had been issued, and after examination of my own premises to show the close proximity of next door and the thinness of the walls, I was assured that no licence would be allowed for noise during the night. However, the place opened, and soon attracted most unsavoury characters who made themselves a terrific nuisance to all the premises round about, the noise from the jukebox being terrific throughout the night"—
  and noise was complained of from gaming machines.
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  "My forecourt and store were used as a urinal, fighting amongst the customers next door disturbed the peace, and many complaints were made to the police. The back rooms of the premises are used about five nights a week for gambling. The people who visit there are either Nigerians, Greeks, or Irish mainly, a different night being for each type of game. These rooms are very close, being only about 10 ft. from my own living-room and the bedroom of myself and husband and my two little girls aged four years and nine years."
  The letter goes on:
  "The town hall assured me again that the premises were not authorised for this use, but they did nothing else to help me. I therefore made an appointment with"
  the superintendent of police at Stoke Newington.
  "He told me to wait for a month. It has been the most terrible month; the attached copy of notes I made at the superintendent's suggestion I enclose herewith."
  Those notes have already been sent to the Home Office. My constituent says that she was unable to get any satisfaction from the town hall, and feared that she would get little help from the police. Prostitution was taking place in these premises. She says that the people at No. 53, on the other side, have done all they can to have this nuisance stopped. Finally, the police suggested that she should get a solicitor to make application for an injunction. She adds:
  "I feel that the local authority have let me down in this matter. It should not be necessary for me to have to take legal proceedings in this matter. Although the police have been helpful their hands are tied considerably. Your immediate help will be a godsend."
  This is not by any means the first so-called all-night café of this nature that has opened in Tottenham; to my knowledge, it is the third.
  I made inquiries at the town hall and was there told, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, that the authorities had no powers whatsoever under existing legislation to help this woman, or the neighbours who were complaining. I also communicated with the superintendent of police. The police have to act through certain procedure, which means watching the premises for a very considerable time. They then have to get a search warrant to enter, by which time, with look-outs and everything posted, it is almost an impossibility to do anything about it or secure a conviction.

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  I ask the House to support the Bill, because, clearly, it will give the police, and certainly the local authorities, power to stop the functioning of these disgraceful kinds of businesses.
  Miss Alice Bacon: No.
  Mr. Brown: The Bill will be instrumental in doing that.
  Mr. G. Thomas: The gambling to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, which must be a dreadful nuisance to the people next door, will not be stopped by the Bill. The hon. Gentleman had better try to change the Betting and Gaming Act, which made this sort of thing possible.
  Mr. Brown: As I read the Bill, these places will be controlled by night. It is during the night that the main nuisance, and certainly the prostitution, takes place.
  8.31 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: The Home Secretary is to be congratulated in bringing this matter before the House. It is one of great difficulty, and if anything effective is to be done it will need very careful handling.
  I should not like to see the right hon. Gentleman lured by the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) into trying to turn the Bill into a Measure to deal with the status of clubs which exist merely to defeat the law, because there are many quite respectable clubs, including those associated with the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, which would watch such a Measure with great and meticulous care to ensure that they were in no way affected by it. I am sure that no Home Secretary, for a good many years to come, will embark on anything which might arouse hostility in that quarter.
  I hope that the Home Secretary will be able so to get the Bill through as to leave him with sufficient power to deal with the evils which he described and that he will be wary of Amendments put forward by well-meaning people wishing to extend the Bill, which would put him in very considerable difficulty with responsible elements in the community who should not be confused with the kind of people of whom he has
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  spoken. I wish the right hon. Gentleman success in what he is endeavouring to do, but warn him that he will be travelling along a very narrow path and that a slight deviation to the right or to the left may involve him in great difficulty.
  8.33 p.m.
  Mr. R. M. Bingham: Like all hon. Members, I think, who have spoken, I welcome the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) referred to the danger of pseudo clubs. I agree with the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that ft. is not opportune to attempt to modify or alter the law in that respect in this Bill, particularly as the definition of a refreshment house' in the 1860 Act is:
  "Any place of public refreshment, resort or entertainment".
  If the mischief which the Bill is aimed is the soliciting for custom and the charging of excessive prices, it is hardly possible for an institution of that sort to pretend with any hope of success that it was a members club if at the same time it was using persons outside the premises to solicit for custom.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) said something which, in principle, probably commended itself to everyone. He said that the police should have power to deal with the goings on inside premises such as those which we are discussing, which are obviously undesirable. Again, I suggest that this is not a Measure in which that type of regulation could be introduced. I suppose that we can only see how the Bill takes effect when it is enacted. If the mischief which the hon. Member apprehends takes place, I suppose that we should have to consider bringing refreshment houses into the licensing code because only in that way could we apply a discretionary regulation such as the hon. Member had in mind. Obviously, it would not be possible to give such a power to the police, but to give it to licensing justices and to allow the police to carry out on their behalf the day-today supervision in between the annual applications for renewal would be an effective way of dealing with the matter. However, that is well outside the scope of a Measure such as this.

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  I wish to draw the attention of the House to a most inelegantly drafted set of provisions. It was my unhappy lot not long ago to draw attention to another Bill in another context whose drafting seemed to me to be abysmal. I can hardly exempt this Bill, as drafted, from that criticism. If it is possible in the scheme of this Bill to complicate and obscure what is intended, that has been done. One needs only to look at certain isolated cases to realise that. The point is clearly illustrated by line 8 on page 2 of the Bill. Subsection (4) reads:
  "Where subsection (1) applies "—
  and the reader has to look back to subsection (1) to find out what it is about—
  "the tariff of charges must be able to be read before entering …"
  I have always understood that the active voice is preferred to the passive and that if one is to use the passive voice it should be used so that what is meant is fairly clear. But it continues
  "by any person frequenting the refreshment house if it"—
  another passive voice—
  "is so stated by the condition applying the subsection".
  I cannot understand why some simple phraseology is not used, such as "the conditions may require that the tariff or charges should be legible to persons entering …" I produce that as I am on my feet, and it may not be the most apt phraseology, but it illustrates what I have in mind.
  The whole of Clause 1 could be compressed into a comparatively small and intelligible Clause if the scheme of the Licensing Act, which gives justices power to impose conditions and which provides penalties for non-compliance, were followed. Clause 2 could be halved and made more intelligible as could Clause 3.
  The only Clause which seems to me to read at all easily is Clause 4, and even that ends by saying
  "This Act shall come into force at the beginning of April 1965".
  I had hoped that it would be possible to bring it into force, at any rate for new licences—in view of the fact that these refreshment houses are apparently springing up all the time—on the Act receiving the Royal Assent. I see no reason why that should not happen, although I can
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  see administrative difficulties in bringing it into force before April in respect of existing licences.
  With these comments, which I feel must be made when I find drafting which offends many of the canons of intelligible English, I naturally welcome the Bill and hope that it will be on the Statute Book as soon as possible.
  8.42 p.m.
  Miss Alice Bacon: Perhaps it is because I am a woman that I have been so impatient with nearly every one of the speakers I have heard tonight. I cannot take the Bill very seriously. It seems to me rather a silly Bill, in fact one of the silliest little Bills I have ever seen.
  We had a long speech from the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. A. Brown), who read out a long letter from a constituent of his about a club in his constituency. But the Bill will not affect that kind of club at all. We are talking about refreshment houses, which serve only lemonades. The right hon. Gentleman called them "near-beers". I suppose that he means lemonade. All that the Bill does is to ensure that the prices are put up outside the refreshment house and that there is no touting for custom outside.
  It seems to me that the Bill is a man's Bill for the protection of foolish men. Introducing the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said that in these places foolish people are milked of their money by fraud. I have not been in one of these establishments. Indeed, I might even be turned back at the door. It seems to me that it is not the young who are going to these places, but those we call the tired business men—the middle-aged or the elderly, who go into the sleaziest parts of London.
  There they see women of doubtful character, who invite them into these refreshment houses, where they are overcharged for fruit drinks. We are tonight giving a Second Reading to the Bill to protect them from this over-charging. What do they expect when they go into a place of this kind? Do they expect to get orangeade or lemonade at Is. a bottle? If so, I think that they are very foolish and deserve all they get.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) quoted the

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  Sunday Telegraph. I have here the Sunday Telegraph of 14th June. One of its journalists went into one of these refreshment houses under the name, I think, of Fletcher—with apologies to my hon. Friend. He described what went on in several of them. I will quote only one of his experiences. He said:
  "My wallet had been lightened of more than £5 in 20 minutes. Just across Wardour Street, a tall, sultry brunette stood framed in another doorway. Was I looking for a girl? she asked. In this club, a tiny cellar that could have served as a Turkish bath, I was served orange squash in a plastic mug while my new friend had double 'cocktails'. Each round cost £3 16s."
  He went on to say:
  "Each drink she consumed yielded a cocktail stick, and I gathered that when she had collected sufficient I might enjoy her undivided attention until the following evening.
  When I announced, 15 minutes and more than £10 later, that I had come to the end of my resources, Doris was quite upset. She gave me a card in case I wanted to return later, and even made sure I had enough money to pay my bus fare. I was rather touched.
  The whole technique of emptying my wallet was so skilfully performed it was almost artistic. At each round of drinks the victim is led to believe himself a step nearer his goal, and the more he invests, the less willing he is to abandon what he has already invested."
  Then he added:
  "Soon, we are assured, Soho's clip joints will be squeezed out of business. So, farewell ladies. For hundreds of lonely salesmen at least, it will be a duller, if a cheaper, world without you."
  I am wondering what is really wrong with these places. People appear to drink lemonade in them and the women send the men home to go to bed. There are lots of places to which the Home Secretary might pay his attention which are not nearly as innocent as these. I cannot take the Bill seriously.
  From time to time we have talked in the House about women who have been taken in by slick salesmen on the doorstep who sell washing machines and refrigerators. I have heard hon. Gentlemen get up in the House and say that we ought not to legislate to protect women, because women know a bargain when they see one and they can look after themselves in that respect. And yet tonight in the House of Commons we are seriously giving a Second Reading to a Bill to protect men who knowingly go into the worst parts of London
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  and who are invited in by women to drink lemonade. We are ensuring that they do not pay too much for their lemonade. It seems to me that we are legislating to protect men who really should now better. If these men go in for immoral purposes, as I feel they do, and are taken in by these women on the doorstep, and when they get inside find that they get an expensive lemonade instead, I have no sympathy with them.
  The Home Secretary has said that the tourists should be considered. Even tourists are not so silly as to go into places like that and be taken in in this way. I am sorry, but I cannot get excited about the Bill. If it can be improved and made sensible in Committee, I will be willing to help to improve it. As it is, however, the right hon. Gentleman will not have done very much if the Bill goes on to the Statute Book.
  8.48 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Wood-house): Reading between the lines of the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon)—and many of them were extremely good lines—the House can detect that the hon. Lady is not entirely averse to the Bill, although she has taken the opportunity of striking a blow in the battle of the sexes which has gone some way to redress the balance. I almost feel inclined to congratulate the hon. Lady on a brilliant maiden speech.
  The hon. Lady expressed scepticism about the Bill. I will return later to the points on which she had doubts, although, if the hon. Lady will not think it ungallant of me, I should like to take the gentlemen first and answer some of the questions which have been raised by earlier speakers in the debate. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said confidently that he assumed that with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, we were all dependent upon the Press for our knowledge of the subject. I confess that I myself, in the jargon we are learning to use, have been touted though not clipped. The hon. Gentleman raised the question whether that evil will continue despite the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd)—who has told me that he is unable to remain for

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  the conclusion of the debate—raised a somewhat similar point.
  I can assure both hon. Members that so far as the specific examples which they mentioned go—the hon. Member for Islington instanced the case of the blonde described in the Sunday Telegraph article and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle spoke of the lady standing in the doorway whom he thought to be neither in the establishment nor in the vicinity—such cases will, in fact, be effectively curbed by the Bill.
  I can tell the hon. Member for Islington, East also that the provisions of the Bill will have no effect at all on respectable houses of the kind he mentioned, whether the Corner House at one end of the scale or the coffee bar at the other, because, provided they are properly conducted, the local authority will not have any occasion to impose these conditions upon them. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the crucial point in Clause 1(3), under which the power of the local authority to impose such a condition is restricted to
  "any case where it appears to them desirable in order to ensure that persons frequenting the refreshment house are not misled …"
  The word "misled" is crucial and, obviously, is not applicable to the respectable establishment which the hon. Gentleman had in mind. I think that this answers his point both about the tariffs in such places and about the commissionaire at the door who, we are assuming in this context, is not committing the offence defined in Clause 1(2).
  The hon. Gentleman raised the question of establishments where "striptease" and similar performances take place. Of course, in the nature of things, these are outside the scope of the Bill, but I gladly respond to his request for some comments on the legal position as it affects them. The provisions of the law applicable to striptease performances are to be found in Schedule 12 to the London Government Act, 1963, and, where the performance takes place in a theatre, in the Theatres Act, 1843. Control over striptease and other such performances is, in our view, tolerably satisfactory, so far as this matter can be entirely satisfactory, in licensed theatres and in premises licensed for music and dancing. In the latter case, it is a con-
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  dition of the licence that striptease is not allowed. The maximum penalties for breach of the licence conditions were very recently increased by the London Government Act from £100 to £200.
  We shall give careful thought to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle about clubs and also to the cautionary reservations put by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). Genuine clubs serving only members and their guests are not required to obtain a music and dancing licence and there is, therefore, no prohibition on striptease entertainment as such in them. But this is not to say that they are entirely outside the law. In fact, a few years ago an obscene type of striptease entertainment was provided at some such clubs and was stopped by prosecutions for the common law offence of keeping a disorderly house.
  Our view on this difficult matter is that there is not at present any need for amending legislation, and there is a reasonable prospect that the police will be able to control the situation by use of the existing powers, particularly bearing in mind that the London Government Act comes into force fully on 1st April next. It is primarily in London that the problem exists, and we believe that the London Government Act will provide an effective reinforcement of control. Nevertheless, a close watch is being kept on the working of the law and on any new developments.
  Mr. Fletcher: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Government are satisfied with the way in which striptease clubs are at present conducted and advertised in the West End of London?
  Mr. Woodhouse: In our view, the law is at present satisfactory, especially with the reinforcement recently introduced under the London Government Act. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the London Government Act is not yet fully in force. However, it is a matter which we shall continue to watch closely and, if necessary, we shall introduce amending legislation. The hon. Gentleman will agree that this particular matter is somewhat outside the scope of the present Bill. We shall certainly pay careful attention to the other points which he raised.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Bingham) and my hon. Friend the Member

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  for Cheadle referred to certain other types of offences which are outside the scope of the Bill. Perhaps I might recapitulate to show that we are not breaking entirely new ground here and that there is a substantial body of law affecting such establishments. There is already the offence of keeping a refreshment house without a licence. If I followed the description given by my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. A. Brown) of the case referred to in his letter, it seems to me that, if the place he was describing was operating between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. without a licence, an offence was, without doubt, already being committed. Second, there is the offence of refusing to admit the police. Third, there is the offence of permitting unlawful gaming or the assembly of prostitutes, thieves, drunks and disorderly persons. There are also the offences of selling alcohol without a licence and supplying it at parties organised for gain. All these provisions of the law already apply to the refreshment houses with respect to which we are now making a small amendment of the law.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), with whose puritanical sentiments I have a great deal of sympathy, went a little far, I thought, in his harshness in one or two respects. He referred to the hours of opening and seemed dissatisfied with the hours of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The reason that these are written into the Bill is that they are already the hours defined in the 1860 Act and it is only the establishments that open between those hours which require any licence at all.
  These hours have been in effect for over 100 years, and it would be a severe thing to limit them any further, particularly when one remembers that the establishments we are legislating for include most reputable concerns and coffee bars and other places which provide not only for people seeking refreshment and entertainment but for those working at night or in the early morning.
  The hon. Member also thought the penalties insufficient. The Bill substantially increases them. The present maximum fine is £20, or £50 if there has been a similar conviction within the previous five years. The new penalty goes up to £200 or three months' imprisonment or
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  both, and the prison sentence is a new penalty. I will also give attention to the point raised by the hon. Member about advertising.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham also raised the question of noise and nuisance caused by establishments of this kind. There have from time to time been representations on this subject. This main difficulty in attempting to control noise and nuisance in a Bill of this kind is that, in practice, the noise occurs not so much on the premises as in the street when customers are arriving and departing.
  That is clearly beyond the control of the licensee and in any case would be outside the scope of the Bill. It has sometimes been argued that planning conditions affecting the location of all-night cafes could ensure a minimum of disturbance to other people in the neighbourhood. That may be so, but, again, it is not a point for consideration in this Bill. It is rather a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and I will see that this is brought to his attention. It will not be entirely new to him.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Garston also referred to the date of operation of the Bill—1st April, 1965. From every point of view, it is a practical and a reasonable date, especially is that is also to be the date of operation of the London Government Act. My hon. and learned Friend will see in the first line on page 2 of the Bill one of the better drafted phrases:
  "… before or after the commencement of this Act …"
  I am sure that these words will cause no great perplexity to the House.
  Licences are granted with effect from 1st April each year and run for 12 months. They may come up for renewal before expiry in February or March and when the licensing authorities early next year consider applications for renewals they will have power under this Bill, even though it will not yet be in full operation, to attach conditions to any licence granted or renewed regarding the matters defined in Clause 1(1), (2) and (4).
  They will be able to do this before 1st April next year, and it will take effect automatically upon that date. I will nevertheless take a careful look at the point my hon. and learned Friend raised

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  on the question of drafting. I am bound to say, however—and I am sure others will agree—that this is a matter in which it is much easier to suggest improvements when one is not responsible for ensuring that the law is foolproof.
  The fundamental question of whether such legislation is necessary was raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, Southeast and the hon. Member for Islington, East. The hon. Lady asked whether it was necessary merely to protect men from the consequences of their own folly and weakness. I entirely agree that their folly and weakness is entirely unadmirable, and if protection from it were the sole object of the Bill I would be inclined to agree with that criticism, although, at the same time, I would also strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West that it is not inappropriate for the law to intervene in questions of morality of this kind.
  But there are also weightier reasons for the Bill, and my right hon. Friend referred to them. In the first place, the Bill will relieve the police of a time-consuming burden. From representations we have had from the police, I can assure the House that an exasperating amount of work is laid on them by the present situation.
  It will also remove a discreditable incubus on the legitimate tourist trade in London, and on this matter again we have had many and increasing representations from people making use of tourist facilities in London. Finally, it would remove a stigma which tends to bring London into disrepute as a centre of entertainment. I think that those are cogent considerations, and I hope that the House will be impelled by them to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Mr. G. Thomas: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me why the Bill does not extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland? Is it because of the special virtue of those parts? If not, why is there no reference to Wales?
  Mr. Woodhouse: Because the principal Act which is amended by the Bill does not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland. Unluckily for the hon. Member
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  for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), England and Wales are customarily taken together in legislation.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. J. E. B. Hill.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

  SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act 1932 to the Rural District of Cranbrook, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd June, be approved.—[Mr. Woodhouse.]
  9.1 p.m.
  Mr. George Thomas: Has the customary action been taken in this case? Has there been a poll of people interested?
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): It was not necessary for a poll to be taken, because in this case there was not the requisite number of objectors, or people demanding a poll.
  Question put and agreed to.

  SOFT DRINKS
  9.2 p.m.
  Mr. George Darling: I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Soft Drinks Regulations 1964 (S.I., 1964, No. 760), dated 21st May 1964, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1st June, be annulled.
  I think that it will be convenient if we also take the second Prayer, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, which deals with the Scottish Regulations.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): If that be the wish of the House, so be it.
  Mr. Darling: These Regulations have some association with the Bill which we discussed a short time ago. I suppose that the intention of the Regulations is to make sure that the lemonade sold in these sleazy refreshment houses is up to standard.

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  This is where we came in a year ago, on 17th June last, to be precise, when we discussed the Soft Drinks Regulations then introduced by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He warmly welcome and commended those Regulations to the House. Although they were not complete—they did not cover the semi-sweet and low calory drinks—nevertheless, he felt that it would be wrong to delay their introduction.
  The operation was not to be exactly marked with speed, because those Regulations were not to come into operation until this month of this year. Despite the Parliamentary Secretary's plea that the Regulations should not be delayed, as I understand it he is now asking us that they should be delayed for another year, so that they will not come into operation until June next year. We want to know why. What is the reason for this further incredible and inexcusable delay? I am sure that it cannot be because the semi-sweet and low calory drinks are now to be included, because the Parliamentary Secretary is on record as saying that the Regulations should not be delayed for that purpose.
  I hope that we shall get from the Parliamentary Secretary the reasons for the delay, and that we shall get a convincing explanation. I hope, too, that he will not tell us that the new rules for the composition and labelling of these drinks, which he so warmly commended to us last year, are being held up as a result of further representations from the manufacturers. After all, the Regulations have been under discussion since 1959 when the Food Standards Committee recommended them, and, goodness knows, that Committee does not work with very noticeable speed. In fact, its examination of the soft drinks business had been going on for some time before it made its recommendations. My calculation is that the Ministry has had five years in which to consult all the trade interests involved, and I should have thought that that was more than enough time in which to take the manufacturers' views into consideration
  Incidentally, the law in this regard calls on the Minister to consult consumer interests as well, and I shall be glad to know whether during the last year the
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  delay, the reasons for it and the Regulations themselves have been discussed with the Consumer Council, because it is the Council's job to look after this side of things.
  If the Parliamentary Secretary is going to tell us that manufacturers of semi-sweet and low calorie drinks must be given adequate time to alter the labels on their bottles, and perhaps alter the composition of their drinks to bring them within the Regulations, may I tell him that that argument will not go down with us, because I repeat that he rejected that argument last year when he said that the Regulations should not be held up to accommodate these two types of drinks.
  I do not think that that can be the real reason for the delay. I shall listen to what the hon. Gentleman has to say, but I suspect that there has been some pressure from the manufacturers of other soft drinks too who will be quite pleased to have another year's grace before they have to adapt their drinks and their labels to the new Regulations. Quite frankly, though, I do not see what they have to worry about, because, as I said last year, and I say it again, these Regulations are in my view disgracefully inadequate. They will allow manufacturers to foist off what I call synthetic chemical drinks on the market under misleading labels which are designed to deceive customers into believing that they are buying drinks that are made wholly or mainly of fruit juice.
  Last year the Parliamentary Secretary evaded some of the criticisms and questions that I put forward about these Regulations This time I intend to be a little more specific, and to put some pointed questions to him. I should like to begin with the permitted fruit crushes, the drinks that are not going to be diluted by the customer. The Regulations say that orange and barley water, and lemon and barley, and lime juice and soda need contain no more than 3 per cent. of fruit juice and that all the other so-called fruit drinks need contain no more than 5 per cent. of fruit juice.
  Let us take the higher figure. Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that a drink with only 5 per cent. of fruit juice m it should be described as a fruit drink and labelled in such a way as to give the customer the impression that he is buying

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  a bottle of fruit juice? Is the hon. Gentleman really satisfied with the low standard of 5 per cent.?
  I admit that we have to distinguish between two issues here. The first is whether the permitted fruit content is too low or not. Secondly, if we reluctantly accept this very low standard, we have to ask ourselves how the drink should be labelled and advertised.
  Let me take the first point. A drink which consists of nine-tenths water and some sweetening agent and about one-twentieth of fruit juice, would be terribly insipid to drink, and, in fact, almost undrinkable. As we know, it is made into a saleable drink by the addition of chemicals. In fact, it is the chemicals and not the fruit juice which gives the drink its taste, its appearance and whatever qualities it may possess. In my view, these drinks ought to have more fruit and fewer chemicals in them. If we reluctantly accept these standards, surely we ought to insist that the labels and the advertising clearly explain what is in the bottle. Surely that is a proposition that ought to be accepted generally by now. If we do not do this, we are conniving at misleading advertising.
  Look what is going into the bottles. First, let us look at the permitted sweeteners that are described, if I can use that term, under Schedule 1. There is saccharin calcium. We are told here that saccharin calcium
  "is the calcium derivative of 2-sulphobenzoic imide with 3½ molecules water of crystallisation and contains not less than 98 per cent. of (C7 H4 NO3 S)2, Ca calculated with reference to the substance dried to constant weight at 105°C."
  It will be appreciated that this is an important matter. This is what is going into the drink. Frankly, I have not the faintest idea what it is—I do not think anyone else has either. Then we have another under paragraph (4). I cannot pronounce it, but we know what it is because it is described here as an acid which contains
  "not less than 98 per cent. and not more than 102 per cent."—
  I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to explain how one gets 102 per cent. of this substance inside whatever it is—
  "of C6 H12 NO3S with reference to the substance dried to constant weight at 105°C."
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  Curiously enough, it must not have more than 1 per cent. ash. I should like to know what happens if someone finds out that there is more than 1 per cent. ash. Does that mean that all the substances in the bottles have to be destroyed? I also notice that these acids must not smell of ammonia.
  Another one is calcium cyclamate. I shall not describe it, except to say that in certain regards it must not show any turbidity—I am sure that is an important point, too—and it must not smell of ammonia. The next one cyclohexylamine must not show any turbidity or smell of ammonia. I should like to know what all this business is about ammonia. Are they putting ammonia into these bottles, provided that it does not smell?
  Then we turn to the acids that can be put in. These are only the sweeteners. Regulation (6) says that
  "any soft drink may contain ascorbic acid, citric acid, lactic acid, malic acid, nicotinic acid, tartaric acid "
  and any acid that is permitted to be used under the Preservatives in Food Regulations or the Colouring Matter in Food Regulations. Certain soft drinks can contain acetic acid and phosphoric acid.
  These are the substances that are going into these so-called fruit drinks. It is a combination of acids and sweeteners with all these peculiar descriptions that people are going to drink. It is this stuff that gives the drinks whatever quality they possess.
  Incidentally, there is a weakness in these Regulations. The artificial sweeteners are carefully explained. Their various constituents are set out, but there is no such explanation of the contents of the acids. I have a feeling that these may contain lots of things that people should not be drinking.
  Under these Regulations we are allowing manufacturers to put all these chemical concoctions into their drinks and quite misleadingly label them as fruit drinks. If this is the sort of stuff that customers want they can have it, but we have a duty to make sure that these chemical drinks are properly and honestly labelled. Why should not we insist that the amount of fruit juice and the various chemicals used in its manufacture are clearly stated on the labels?

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  Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that these drinks should be honestly labelled? Further, where do Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and 7-Up come into this? Are they fruit drinks? If they are not, and are therefore outside the scope of these Regulations, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell us what they are made of, and why we have no Regulations to cover them. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell us whether he thinks that drinks should be honestly labelled. If he thinks they should not be, will he tell us why?
  Will he- also answer a question which he failed to answer when we were discussing this question last year? The Regulations contain no mention of advertisements. The only references are to labelling. Do the rules about labelling also apply to advertisements, including television advertisements? This is an important point. Last year I mentioned what I regard as a thoroughly dishonest advertisement for an orange drink, which used the words "whole orange drink". The labels and the advertisements for this drink are deliberately designed to give the wholly false impression that the drink is made from oranges and nothing but oranges. In fact, it is largely a chemical concoction of the kind of which I was talking a short time ago.
  The words "whole orange drink" are used because a small proportion of the fruit juice is comminuted. According to the Regulations a comminuted citrus drink
  "means a soft drink produced by a process involving the comminution of the entire citrus fruit".
  In other words, all the pulp, the pith and the skin are squeezed together, and not merely the juice from the centre of the fruit. Will the Regulations, as drafted, allow manufacturers of these drinks to go on using the words "whole orange drink" in their advertisements and on their labels? If the Regulations do allow this, their labelling is almost worthless as a protection against deceptive advertising.
  Has the Minister considered the fact that the persons who put out these misleading advertisements are probably committing an offence under Section 6 of the 1955 Food and Drugs Act, and that his Ministry should have taken
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  action long ago to stop this? If they are offences under the Act we should be doing wrong to permit offences under the Regulations. Section 6 of the 1955 Act is one of the most perfectly drafted Sections that I have seen in any legislation, and by quoting it I can get over my point quite simply. I will leave out all references to drugs, because they do not come into our considerations. It says:
  "A person who gives with any food of drug sold by him, or displays with any food or drug exposed by him for sale, a label, whether attached to or printed on the wrapper or container or not, which … falsely describes the food or drugs, or … is calculated to mislead as to its nature, substance or quality, shall be guilty of an offence …".
  That is the labelling.
  The same words are used, but I want to quote them, in regard to advertising:
  "… a person who publishes, or is a party to the publication of, an advertisement … which—

  (a) falsely describes any food, … or

  (b) is calculated to mislead as to the nature, substance or quality of any food … shall be guilty of an offence."

  I could go through all the advertisements and all the labelling for this range of fruit drinks. The kinds of advertisements about which I have been talking are, in my view, calculated to deceive. They come within the terms of Section 6 and are
  "calculated to deceive as to the nature, substance or quality "
  of the food that they attempt to describe. This is misleading advertising and labelling. We passed an Act of Parliament in 1955 to stop it. We are now producing Regulations under that Act of Parliament which, as far as I can see, will permit this same misleading advertising and labelling to go on. This is the point which the Ministry should very seriously consider, because if action is taken by somebody—the time is coming when action should be taken under Section 6 of the Food and Drugs Act against misleading advertising—we shall find ourselves in difficulties by agreeing to Regulations which are contrary to the provisions of the Act.
  The criticisms I have made about undiluted drinks could be applied equally to squashes, drinks that can be, and are, diluted by the customer. I will not

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  comment on the new Schedules referring to semi-sweet soft drinks and the rules about low calorie drinks. I should be glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation of their inclusion.
  I must tell the Parliamentary Secretary that we on this side think that the Regulations are inadequate, that they set standards for these drinks which, in our view, are far too low, and that the labelling and advertising rules are far too weak and will permit deceptive advertising and labelling to go on. Above all, we deplore this further year's delay in applying these new Regulations, weak and inadequate as they are. We await with some interest the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation of this inexcusable delay.
  9.28 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Doig: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling), I believe that it is a good thing that these Regulations are being delayed. This is not because I do not believe that there should be much stricter control. It is because I believe that the Regulations are so bad that they will make matters much worse.
  A firm in my constituency which was the inventor of carbonated food drinks as long ago as 1924—I refer to Robertson Fruit Products, Ltd.—registered one of its main brands over 40 years ago and has been trading with it ever since. These Regulations were supposed to clear matters up and make it much simpler for people to know just what they were buying. In the opinion of this firm, and in my own opinion after having studied the matter, they will do the exact opposite.
  I raised this matter with the Secretary of State for Scotland some time ago. In reply to my inquiry I received a letter from his Department saying:
  "The object of the regulations is to bring some order into the hitherto confusing welter of names and descriptions of soft drinks, and tile term ' crush ' as defined in the regulation fits well into the general pattern described."
  We find, however, that as a result of the Regulations a pure orange drink must be described now as "crush" while a drink that is made from crushed oranges, including the peel, is described
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  as an "orange drink". Could anything be more confusing?
  The firm in my constituency has been selling a pure fruit drink, described as "orange", for a very long time, but once these Regulations come into effect it will not be allowed to continue to do so. I was interested to note that it has been said that these firms were consulted, because later in the reply I received from the Secretary of State's Department I read:
  "The regulations were made after consultation with the soft drinks industry and after full consideration of representations from individual firms, including Mr. Robertson's".
  Meanwhile, Robertson's says:
  "This is absolutely untrue. We were never at any time consulted. We did write letters of protest, and enclose copies, but consulted, no!"
  Probably the oldest firm in this industry has never been consulted. This is what it means. It would seem that these Regulations have been designed to try to make things simpler, but by pressure from certain firms they have had exactly the opposite effect; and well-known firms which have been trying to give a pure fruit drink and which have been doing this for more than 40 years—and doing a good trade not confined to Dundee, for Robertson's has factories throughout Scotland—are being placed in difficulties. It is wrong that they should have to suffer because of bad regulations. This is exactly what will happen to the firm in my constituency, after 40 years of building up a reputation for providing a pure fruit drink. Although it has labelled its product "orange", it can no longer call it that, but must call it "orange crush".
  The people who do not produce pure fruit drinks, but who include the pith of the orange as well as the skin and the juice, can call their products "orange drink". This is not clarifying the position, but making it more confused than ever. An interesting point which has been brought to my notice is that Robertson's states:
  "As regards lime cordial, the Minister decided that as the clear product, made from lime juice, and requiring dilution, had been sold under the name ' Lime Juice Cordial ' for very many years, there were sufficiently good reasons for permitting that description …"
  There can be no doubt that when the Regulations were first drafted it was

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  definitely decided that that name would not be allowed. Presumably, because of pressure from influential producers, the Regulations were changed to suit the very influential producers of this cordial.
  The firm in my constituency about which I am speaking has, as I have said, used the name it has been using for its product for more than 40 years. Is that not a long time? It is strange that exceptions are made for some firms but not for others. So we have this farcical situation that one can now sell what is by no stretch of the imagination a pure orange drink as an orange drink, but one cannot sell a pure orange drink as an orange drink but must call it "orange squash".
  This seems very strange. The last time I raised this matter it was pointed out by way of explanation that we should see how the Regulations would work out. That is a very irresponsible attitude for a Government to take, because these firms have laid out vast sums of money on advertising a product in a certain way and they have built large stocks of labels. To say now that they must change all that in order to try out an idea which any sensible person would regard as a poor one seems to me the wrong thing to do.
  The Government ought not to delay the application of these Regulations, but scrap them and start all over again and consult all the firms in the industry and not merely one or two selected ones. They should draw up much better regulations after fuller consideration of all the interests in the trade. I hope that they will undertake to do this between now and the time when the Regulations come into operation. The Government have confused the issue to such an extent that I believe that they should delay the application of the Regulations for at least a year and, during that time, prepare and bring in new ones.
  9.36 p.m.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: I have no doubt that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is an expert on soft drinks, will be able with his customary eloquence to hold the House spellbound with his explanation of what these Regulations, and particularly the Scottish ones, seek to achieve. Here is a Statutory Instrument of 19 pages,
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  excluding the Explanatory Note, laying down in great detail what must be or must not be done in making a soft drink. I cannot help thinking of the amazing lengths to which we have to go to protect the consumer against private enterprise.
  This is a great tribute to private enterprise. I hope that hon. Members opposite when they speak of the virtues of private enterprise will realise that one of those virtues is that we spend hours and hours in the House seeking to protect ourselves against it. Indeed we spend so much time that private enterprise is cribbed, cabined and confined, and has been even since about 1850, until today it is doubtful whether there is any such thing as private enterprise left in the country.
  These Regulations are particularly interesting because they tell us which artificial sweeteners are to be permitted in soft drinks. They are not content simply to name them but they specify them at great length over one and a half pages. They describe the degree of solubility and they lay down requirements for the composition of fruit juice and "potable fruit content". I look forward to hearing the Joint Under-Secretary on the potable fruit content of these drinks and the quantities of added sugar or permitted artificial sweetener and other requirements which are laid down in great detail in the Regulations.
  The acids that can be used in these drinks are specified. The labelling of drinks mad; from citrus fruits and the juice of citrus fruits is specified. It is interesting to look at the labelling instructions. Even the size of the lettering has to be specified; it must not be less than one eighth of an inch, because we have become accustomed to private enterprise using such small type that no one can read it. That is the honesty of private enterprise. The initial letter may be larger than the others. We even tell these people how it is to be done, and the size of the lettering.
  We also provide
  "… that where no words appear on any label on the said container, and no words appear on the container, other than any … printed on a cork, stopper or cap closing that container, or … embossed or fired on the container, being words which do not conflict with the requirements of these regulations …"

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  and refer those concerned to Regulations 8, 9(2), 10, 11, 12 and 14—what an array of Regulations to specify the type of word that can be put on. We are not content just to state the kind of word and the size of the words to be used; we specify
  "… the use of pictorial devices and words suggestive of fruit …"
  The manufacturers are told what they can and cannot do in that respect. These Regulations are, indeed, most illuminating.
  I only hope that hon. Members opposite, who are such great protagonists of the virtues of private enterprise, will ask themselves why it is necessary for ordinary folk to have to go to these enormous lengths to protect themselves against private enterprise, to ensure that what they get is what they are supposed to get, that it will not do them any harm, and is of a quality that measures up to what it is supposed to be.
  There is a lesson to be learned here. Although the Regulations are confined in this case to soft drinks, what I say applies to private enterprise generally. The more I looked at some of these details the more I was amazed that we should have to do this sort of thing. It would be much better to look on these matters in a different light. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will take note of the important lesson contained in this little exercise. It is a forlorn hope, of course, but I hope that when next they speak with such great enthusiasm about private enterprise, they will remember these things; and what we have to do to protect ourselves from it.
  9.45 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): We have had a short but interesting debate, and I am glad to have the opportunity of trying to answer the various points which have been put to me by hon. Members opposite.
  As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) said, this is virtually an identical debate to the one which we had last year. Most of the questions which he asked tonight he has asked me before. I answered them last year, and I shall endeavour to give him as good an explanation as I did then. I doubt whether I can give him
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  a better explanation than I gave last year. The first criticism concerned delay. He said that he turned up the speech which I made at the Box last year and he will see that I explained how, at a late stage after the consultations had taken place, it was suggested that the Regulations should specifically provide for two new classes of soft drinks—the semi-sweet ones and the low calory ones. I saw no reason for holding up the Regulations last year because of the new types which were liable to come forward
  I went on to say, however, that we had agreed to consider the proposal and, if necessary, to make further Regulations to provide for those particular categories. We have concluded the consultations, and the result is the Regulations before the House.
  It would have been possible to deal with the matter by way of amending Regulations, but the result would have been extremely complicated and difficult to understand. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), experienced though he is, found great difficulty in understanding these Regulations. If we had introduced amending Regulations to the 1963 Regulations, the result would have been so complicated and complex that it would have been extremely difficult for anyone, even the experts, to understand and operate the Regulations.
  There are two other points which I must ask the House to remember. A great many labels are used in a year, and I think that it is only right that reasonable time should be given to dispose of labels which are already in circulation before the new Regulations come in requiring a new type of label to be put on all products. Time must also be given for printing.
  Also, it is desirable, as far as possible, to have one operative date for all the Regulations to facilitate their administration by the local food and drug authorities. In addition, the House will recognise the need to synchronise the introduction of the compositional and labelling requirements. On those three counts it is necessary for the Regulations to come into force on a date which will enable a reasonable time for printing, and so on, and the adaptation which is necessary because of the new Regulations.

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  It is not unreasonable to say, therefore, that the Regulations should come in during June next year.
  There are changes in these Regulations, as I am sure the hon. Member for Hillsborough will realise. We have taken the opportunity to deal with further types of drinks, namely, those with mixed fruit juice and fruit bases. In addition, the sodium and calcium cyclamates may now be used as sweeteners. The requirements in the 1963 Regulations for accurate and informative labelling to protect customers are extended under the 1964 Regulations to the new types of drinks, and vending machines will have to bear a means of informing the consumer of the nature of the drink being offered for sale. Slight modifications have been introduced to allow the users of bottles with fired-on and embossed declarations, which do not normally use labels, to comply with the new labelling provisions in these Regulations. Obviously these are considerable changes, and it was right and proper that there should be this delay.
  May I turn quickly to the points raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) about consultation. Full consultations with all the interests concerned have taken place. I am informed that lengthy correspondence took place between the firm in his constituency—I think that it is Robertson's—and my right hon. Friend's Department concerning the Regulations, and about the various difficulties which Robertson's foresaw and the views which they held about the proposed Regulations.
  Mr. Doig: The firm claimed that this correspondence took place after the Government had decided what the Regulations were to be and that they were not previously consulted. I have a letter signed by the managing director of the firm saying that this was so.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The hon. Member realises that these are the Regulations before the House now. The Government cannot have finally decided what the Regulations were to be until they were drafted and laid. Consultations were going on until that time, and the firm in question had an opportunity of making representations about the problems and difficulties which they foresaw. I am informed that they did in fact do so. I am sorry that the hon. Member feels
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  that this was not adequate to meet the needs of his constituents.
  Mr. Darling: Will the hon. Member clear up a problem about consultation? Is the method that there are consultations around a table with the appropriate trade associations and that if any individual firm feels, for its own reasons, that it wants to make representations, those representations are made by correspondence and there is no discussion with the firm?
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The Act obliges us to follow a procedure of consultation with all the interested parties. These include consumers and manufacturers, such as the firm in the constituency of the hon. Member for Dundee, West. They are given every opportunity of putting forward their comments and suggestions, both on the reports made to us by the Food Standards Committee and also on our proposals for Regulations. How they do this is a matter for them. We take into account not only the consumer interests but also the problems which manufacturers may have to face in complying with any new legislation. I accept that these problems are considerable, particularly in some cases.
  May I turn to some points made by the hon. Member for Hillsborough. He asked me whether there had been discussions with the Consumer Council, and the answer is that there were consultations with the Consumer Council before the Regulations were laid. Next, he wanted information about what he called synthetic drinks. Those to which he is referring are. called lemonade or orangeade, for example—with "ade" at the end. If they do not have any fruit in them, they are not allowed to use the appellation which is laid down in the Regulations for the other types of drink. They must have the syllable "ade" behind the name, so there is no question of misrepresentation.
  Mr. Darling: The question which I put was whether he thought that the fruit drinks with only 3 per cent. fruit could honestly be described as fruit drinks.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I was coming to that point. I am trying to deal first, however, with the point made by the hon. Member about synthetic drinks.

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  The fruit crushes are drinks which are ready to be drunk by the consumer on the spot. There seems to be some confusion in hon. Members' minds with fruit juice, which is described on page 2 of the Regulations:
  "' fruit juice ' means the clean, sound, undiluted juice of the fruit or fruits from which it is obtained".
  Pure, undiluted fruit juice is not covered by the Regulations at all. The crushes are a drink which should be compared with squash. If the hon. Member for Hillsborough refers to the definition of squash, he will see that it must contain at least 25 per cent. fruit-juice. He will find it in Schedule 2 on page 12 of the Regulations. I am comparing squash—the undiluted drink, which is made to be diluted—with crush, the drink which has been diluted.
  I am informed that squash is diluted by about five times, so that in the end one gets approximately the same juice content of 4 or 5 per cent. The crush is a drink which is meant for the consumer to drink straight down, and it compares as nearly as possible with the squash which needs to be diluted. The fruit content is quite adequate if one takes the squash as a basis.
  Mr. Darling: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive my interrupting so much, but he has not answered my question. I agree that we have perhaps, used certain phrases a little too loosely. When a drink which contains only 3 per cent. of fruit juice is described as a whole orange drink, does the hon. Gentleman regard that as honest labelling?
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That is not the point I was dealing with. I was dealing with the description laid down in the Regulations, and contending that a juice content of 3 per cent. or 5 per cent. for a fruit crush was adequate and does not deceive the public, particularly if one makes comparison with squash, which must contain at least 25 per cent. fruit juice in its undiluted state before dilution by the consumer. There is no misrepresentation or misleading of the public by this kind of labelling.
  The hon. Member asked about Coca-Cola. This comes under the category
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  of any other soft drink in the last item of Part I of Schedule 2 on page 11 of the Regulations. It comes under this heading only for the purposes of the sugar content. It must have a minimum sugar content.
  Mr. Darling: So the hon. Gentleman does not know what it is made of.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That is its position as far as these Soft Drinks Regulations are concerned.
  The hon. Member made a point about advertising and labelling and said that the Regulations did not cover the advertising of these soft drinks. Advertising is not covered by the Regulations, which deal only with what can be put on the label or embossed or fired on to the bottle.
  The hon. Member found difficulty in understanding the definitions of artificial sweeteners. It has been extremely difficult for my Department to deal with this aspect, but I think that a good job has been made of it. The difficulty is that the British Pharmacopoeia lays down no specifications for the new artificial sweeteners which we have excluded in these Regulations. I except saccharin, the definition of which, as the hon. Gentleman will see from the first item of Schedule 1, refers directly to the definition in the British Pharmacopoeia. But for the other substances there is no specification in the British Pharmacopoeia.
  The whole purpose of these Regulations is to ensure the purity of the products to be used in drinks as artificial sweeteners, so, obviously, one has to go into detail to make quite clear to those qualified to deal with these matters, chemists, and so on, exactly what the artificial sweeteners are. The descriptions in Schedule 1 of the various substances to be used as artificial sweeteners correspond in type and form, as near as possible, to the British Pharmacopoeia definitions of like products of a different nature. I am sure that the House will agree that an extremely exhaustive job has been done so that very little doubt can be raised by expert chemists, and those dealing with these matters, about the purity of the substances concerned.
  The hon. Gentleman raised a point about the figure of 102 per cent. This is related to the method of analysis and

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  the possible error involved, which can be of the order of about 2 per cent. That is the explanation there.
  The hon. Gentleman also raised the question of safety, and he referred particularly to the acids permitted to be used under Regulation 6. He will have seen that these are covered by the Preservatives in Food Regulations, 1962, or the Colouring Matter in Food Regulations, 1957. The descriptions are fully set out there.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, West raised a point which, I think, goes back to what I was saying just now about the pure fruit juice and the difference between crushes and squashes. He spoke about the comminuted drinks, and I understand that the firm in his own constituency has been making a non-comminuted drink which will now have to be called a crush.
  The hon. Gentleman will have seen the definition of a comminuted drink in the Regulations. As he rightly says, such a drink includes the entire fruit, pips and everything, all chopped up in a mechanical process. It is a different kind of drink, and I think that we have here to provide a different name for it. The hon. Gentleman was, I think, confusing the point a little. He kept speaking of pure orange drink, pure fruit drink, and so on, which are referred to on page 2. These do not come under these particular Regulations. They are a separate article which is labelled "pure fruit juice".
  The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East paid a great tribute to private enterprise manufacturers inasmuch as they had made the Government bring in Regulations of this kind. He seems to forget that our tastes become more sophisticated and that science advances at a great pace under Conservative Government, as it has done over the past 12 years. I find it rather remarkable that hon. Members opposite seem to be having great difficulty with the chemicals and other technical matters covered by these Regulations, yet the image they are trying to project at the moment is all supposed to be "science based", and so on. I find it rather difficult to match the two images. They seem to be shying away from anything to do with new scientific advances in this matter.
  Of course, as science advances and our tastes become more sophisticated, it is
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  only right that the Government should accept as their duty—
  Mr. Willis: All this is very interesting and amusing, but what has it got to do with the printing of these things on the labels in letters which people can read?
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I was trying to answer the hon. Gentleman's point. As I understood him, he was making an attack on private enterprise. Perhaps I was wrong. If he has now been converted to the virtues of private enterprise, I am delighted. I was explaining that, when these developments occur, it is right that the Government should take notice and do what is necessary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on."] I do not want to prolong the debate unnecessarily on this point.
  These compositions and labelling Regulations are sufficiently clear and detailed to cover the entire range of soft drinks. I know that problems have been raised by certain manufacturers, but I trust that it will be possible for these to be overcome I am certain that the interest of the consumer is being properly safeguarded by these Regulations, taking into account all the advances which have been made over the years, and I commend them to the House. I hope that the hon. Member for Hillsborough will see fit to ask leave to withdraw his Motion.
  Mr. Willis: Why is it not necessary to protect members of Her Majesty's Forces? If this is not an improper question, is it that they have less sophisticated tastes than civilians have?
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman will realise that this all comes under the control of the Food and Drugs Act, and the administering authorities are the local authorities. The purpose of the Regulations is to enable local authorities to enforce our food and drugs laws. This naturally does not apply to the circumstances of our Forces overseas.
  10.7 p.m.
  Mr. William Ross: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) on the way in which he has mastered these Regulations. I was very surprised that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary seemed to tike my hon. Friend to task for having slipped up on one very small

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  matter. I noticed that there were about three or four matters on which he himself slipped up.
  In his concluding remarks the hon. Gentleman suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), was quite wrong in drawing attention to the fact that we are here laying strict Regulations upon private enterprise to ensure that food and its labelling shall be such as to comply with the requirements of the Ministry in the interests of the health and well-being of the public. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think this amusing. Then he talked about the Labour Party and science. We often talk about the need for science-based industries in Scotland but I never thought that we were really talking about fruit juices.
  The more one reads these Regulations the more one can appreciate the concern of the Government that this has become a science-based industry. It is more science-based than nature-based. Many people enjoy soft drinks. Dare we call these drinks "squashes"? Or are they "crush" or "cordial"? All these seem to be interchangeable terms. Or shall we just call them soft drinks? People buy them under the impression that they are buying fruit. Many of these drinks are at a considerable price. If anyone reads these Regulations I doubt whether he would drink any of these things again.
  As a good Scotsman I was interested in the definition of "soft drink". How difficult that is can be judged by the amount of time it takes to define a soft drink. I am glad to note that "soft drink" does not include water.
  Mr. Willis: Except as aforesaid.
  Mr. Ross: This matter is sufficiently confused without my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East suddenly remembering that he is not a Scotsman but an Englishman, and trying to confuse me.
  At one time the Government went as far as to say that a soft drink must not be an intoxicating drink. That was a staggering discovery. Then they discovered that an alcohol could be a soft drink provided that it was a certain type of alcohol. It has not been clarified by these Regulations.
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  We have seen some of this before. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary has not referred to the case of the Dundee firm which claimed that it was not adequately consulted. It is not enough to say that there were consultations up to the time that these Regulations were printed. The implication that the delay between the information my hon. Friend got and the hon. Member's knowledge when these Regulations were printed may be that consultations took place, but that claim is marred by the fact that we are returning to this subject after an interval of months.
  We have been here before and the Government have made changes which may well have arisen out of our discussions and criticism last time. Surely the Government had time to get in touch with the Dundee firm and discuss the matter with it. On this score, I am talking not about the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, but about his "Tam o' Shanter"—the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland has a set of Regulations almost exactly the same as the English. There are one or two differences. As we are taking these two Statutory Instruments together, I think that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary might have referred to those differences. He decided to say nothing about them.
  The obligation to discuss the matter with the Dundee firm was not his and if he had said he knew nothing about it he could have deferred to the superior knowledge of the Under-Secretary of State, who will give us later the full explanation of the Scottish Order. We could have understood that. Has anything been done about this firm's case? It has been manufacturing and selling very successfully for 40 years and has been offended by not being consulted and having its interests adequately considered by the Scottish Office.
  These Regulations were made on 26th May. The English Regulations were made on 21st May. Scotland was a little bit behind. They are to come into force as follows:
  "regulation 19(1) shall come into force on 7th June 1964;"
  So we are, in fact, already protected. But what is in force? That is shattering.
  "The Soft Drinks (Scotland) Regulations, 1963(a) are hereby revoked."

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  What comes into force is the revocation of previous Orders. The Order goes on:
  "The Food Standards (Soft Drinks) Order 1953(a), and the Food Standards (Soft Drinks) (Amendment) Order 1954(b), are hereby revoked but without prejudice to any proceedings in respect of any contravention of the Food Standards (General Provisions) Order 1944, as amended, construed as one with the Food Standards (Soft Drinks) Order 1953, as amended."
  Earlier, it is stated:
  "in all oilier respects, these regulations shall come into force on 2nd June 1965."
  There is action to be admired. A whole year is to pass before we receive protection from this modernised, science-based Government.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that this is quite a normal form for Regulations. One makes the general Regulations to come into force on a certain date, in this case, as he rightly said, in Regulation 1(b). If he reads through the Regulations, which I understand he has not had time to do yet, he will find in other parts, for instance Regulation 10, that a date is given for the diabetic provisions to come into effect, in this case, 1966. This is quite normal. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing sinister or misleading.
  Mr. Ross: I am sure that there is nothing sinister and it may be common form for the Government, but it is misleading for anyone to read that in all other respects the Regulations are to come into force when they do not come into force, because that relating to the change in diabetic fruit drinks does not come into force on 2nd June, 1965. I am talking about the Scottish Regulations.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: They are exactly the same.
  Mr. Ross: They are not exactly the same, and the hon. Gentleman knows it quite well. He has suggested that I have not read the Regulations. I can assure him that I have. I have nothing else to do but read these things. The Scottish Standing Committee has been in session every Tuesday and Thursday since November, but we find time to do our work. I do not see any Scottish Tories here, but I would be very surprised if I did. No doubt in a fort-
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  night there will be a Question on the Order Paper asking the Government whether we now have Regulations covering soft drinks. This will be just to show how fine a Government we have. This will be after someone in the Scottish Office has provided hon. Members opposite with a Question, but forgotten to say what the answer will be, or to explain what difficulty the Government have got themselves into.
  I should like some information about these two important matters. There has been not only this year's delay, but a further year's delay. Anyone who knows anything about diabetics knows that it is desirable that they should be protected very quickly and fully about what purports to be something specially made to meet their needs. Admittedly, there is a continuing Regulation until 1966 giving a description—according to the Parliamentary Secretary I have not read it, but, speaking from memory—dealing with the manufacture of these drinks for the use of diabetics.
  There is a stipulation about the size of the lettering, but why cannot the phrase "diabetic drink" be introduced before 1966? There may be some difficulty about vending machines, but I doubt it. Manufacturers would no doubt put up prices and make changes to enable them to collect the extra money involved. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not gone forward with that.
  The Regulations surprise me. They appear to give something, but in fact they do not. One Regulation says that no soft drink shall contain any acid. That is fine, but it then goes on to say that
  "any soft drink may contain ascorbic acid, citric acid, lactic acid, malic acid, nicotinic acid, tartaric acid, and any acid inasmuch as the use of that acid in that soft drink is permitted by the Preservatives in Food (Scotland) Regulations, 1962, or the Colouring Matter in Food (Scotland) Regulations, 1957."
  Could there be any more misleading way of doing things than to start by saying that no fruit drink shall contain acid, and then to provide that it may contain the various acids to which I have referred? I think that Departments sometimes go out of their way to deceive. These Regulations are bulky and one's eyes are tired by the time one gets to

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  page 5. One assumes that the point about the addition of acids to soft drinks is covered, but there is considerable confusion.
  Sugar is not really sugar at all. It can be sugar added. Sugar means any soluble carbohydrate sweetening matter. Can the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland give us a list of what is included in that term? According to the Regulations, "sweetened" means
  "containing any added sugar or added polyhydric alcohol or any permitted artificial sweetener."
  To safeguard the public with regard to the composition and content of these fruit drinks, the label must bear a declaration of what is in the container, such as "x added" or "contains x" or "x and sugar added" or "sugar and x added", and so on, and the Regulation goes on to say that
  "the declaration shall be completed by inserting at 'x' the words 'permitted artificial sweetener' or "—
  they are given the option—
  "the name of the permitted artificial sweetener which has been added to such soft drink".
  The Schedule sets out the permitted artificial sweeteners. I am not given to gambling and betting. In fact, I tend to frown on such practices, but I do not think that many manufacturers who are given the alternative of putting in sugar plus an artificial sweetener, or using the actual name of the artificial sweetener, will write in such names as 4—sulpha-moylbenzoates, saccharin sodium, cyclohexylsulphamic acid, and all the others. There is then a full description of all these things such as ash, sulphate, and the rest.
  Why was it that the Government set out to try to tell purchasers of these drinks what they were drinking and then said that they could not ask the manufacturers to provide such an indication because the public would not purchase the drinks if they knew what was in them? We are now provided with a new formula, under which we have a list of so-called artificial sweeteners, and we are told that what we would regard as sugar need not be sugar, according to the definition, and that there will be permitted artificial sweeteners.
  This is not good enough, taking into account the facts which my hon. Friend
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  produced in relation to the often quite tenuous connection which fruit has with soft drinks, quite apart from the 25 per cent. about which the Minister held forth on the question of squash. There is definitely a question of the public's being misled.
  Apparently the Government are to take this matter seriously in 1965 or 1966; so much so that one Regulation deals entirely with penalties. The Government will ensure that if these Regulations are contravened the person who so contravenes them will be dealt with. But I warn all Scots that once again the Government are being unjust to Scotland. The Regulations for England and Wales provide that
  "If any person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the foregoing provisions of these regulations he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to both, and, in the case of a continuing offence, to a further fine not exceeding five pounds …"
  The Scottish Regulations provide for the same fine—not exceeding £100—but for a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. It appears that either we look on money as being cheaper in Scotland, or we regard these offences much more seriously.
  The Minister chided me, saying that the Regulations for both countries were the same. He seemed to suggest that I had not studied them a great deal. I can assure him that I have studied this point. I am surprised that he did not mention it, because I drew attention to it when we last discussed similar Regulations. The fact is there, and I want the Under-Secretary—junior though he may be in that tripartite office—to tell us exactly why there should be this difference. If the idea is that there shall be parity of treatment in England in respect of the gravity of an offence, I would remind him that even today we were dealing with a Bill about malicious damage, and that we might have been able to provide in that Measure for increased penalties for this kind of offence. The Minister of Agriculture might have used the legislation for this purpose.
  The Parliamentary Secretary may say that the two countries are governed by different Acts, and that Scotland has more recently overhauled its criminal justice legislation and has brought certain

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  penalties up to date. But it is surely unsatisfactory when manufacturers who supply the same materials to both England and Scotland should be subject to greater penalties in Scotland than in England if they offend against the Regulations.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. A. Stodart): I am sure that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) will remember that we did—if my memory serves me correctly—discuss this matter on Regulations relating to meat contents just after the New Year, when he had explained to him, I think, that although at first sight it does look as though the penalties in Scotland are more severe the net result probably comes to the same effect in the end, because it is the practice in Scotland to treat several related contraventions as part of a single complaint or charge which attracts a single penalty.
  Under Scottish law several contraventions can be taken together and one penalty imposed, if that is so decided by the court, whereas in England and Wales such contraventions are treated as separate charges, each attracting a separate but similar penalty. Therefore, I think that at the end of the day the net result is almost certainly the same.
  Mr. Ross: Whatever else it may be, the net result will not be exactly the same. I do not think there is any doubt at all about that, when we bear in mind that in England and Wales the fine shall not exceed £5 for each day during which the offence continues after conviction, whereas in Scotland it is a further fine not exceeding £10 for each day during which the offence is continued. The permitted maximum in Scotland is double what it is in England and Wales. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would stop juggling with words about this kind of matter. Whether the basis is a single offence or group of offences taken together, if there is a continuing offence,
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  that is, one offence continuing per day, then there is a different penalty for it.
  This is something which ought to be sorted out. It may be that for food and drugs it is wrong to have different standards applying. I should be the very last person to say this, because I remember very well that when we were considering the Food and Drugs (Scotland) Bill we had at that time a Secretary of State for Scotland who was prepared to listen to pleas which were made about it, and we got a better Act. One of the great arguments was whether local authorities should be able to register and license restaurants and eating premises. This was taken out of the English Bill, but the then Secretary of State for Scotland, who has gone to another place—not the one who most recently went there, but Lord Stuart of Findhorn—insisted that it stay in in Scotland.
  I think that we should try to get satisfactory legislation for this. When we are giving powers to Ministers we ask for far better regulations than these Regulations, regulations which are more comprehensible, regulations which meet the very considerable needs of this country to ensure that what we purchase bears some relation to the descriptions which are given of it and to the names. We have not gone all the way yet to satisfy the public need and the public interest in that respect. But these Regulations are better than nothing, and that is all we can say favourably tonight about them.
  Mr. Darling: Although we are very dissatisfied with the Regulations—and I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) that the best thing would be to let go so that we can try to knock them into shape later—in view of the fact that they are an improvement on the Regulations we had before, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  COMMERCIAL ROAD VEHICLES (SAFETY REGULATIONS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pym.]
  10.35 p.m.
  Mr. W. T. Rodgers: I am very grateful for the opportunity of raising on the Adjournment the question of the enforcement of goods vehicles licence regulations, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport is as grateful to me as I am to you, Mr. Speaker, because this seems to me to be a subject which has been proved to be too substantial to be usefully pursued in Questions but might be regarded as peripheral to a major debate on transport policy.
  Since I indicated my wish to raise this matter on the Adjournment, we had yesterday a statement by the Minister of Transport about roadside spot checks of heavy goods vehicles. I should like to congratulate the Minister on having sensitive antennae, and I would like to believe that this was because of the powerful advocacy which he knew would be exercised this evening in persuading him to take action. Whatever the Minister may have promised to do, there is certainly no indication that it is adequate to deal with the problem as I see it. In any case, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will say a little more in expansion of yesterday's statement.
  I was particularly struck by one phrase used by the Minister when he said
  "that a lunatic fringe of operators fail to maintain their vehicles."
  As I hope I shall show, and as I think the Parliamentary Secretary will know, this is a very big fringe indeed, and that is why the problem is so serious and why it should be looked into.
  I am not concerned with the overall question of the enforcement of "A", "B" and "C" licences. Nor am I concerned this evening with the overloading of goods vehicles; this is most important but, as I understand it, this
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  is really a question for the local authorities' weights and measures inspectors. I am mainly concerned with excessive hours of work and with maintenance. I am concerned for two different reasons—first, the most obvious one of public safety, and secondly, because of the need for fair competition. This is a problem which has caused a good deal of public attention lately.
  I refer, for example, to an article in The Times of 5th November last, the title of which—"Lorry driver was happy to pay a £10 fine"—tells part of the story. Another article in the same newspaper of 11th February was entitled: "Motorway Cowboys Need Curbing."
  There was also a rather interesting B.B.C. "Panorama" programme recently, and I should like to refer to one or two of the things which were said in the course of that programme because they indicate the nature of the problem. The programe dealt with checks on road vehicles, and I should like to quote from a transcript of it:
  "In two hours here Ministry of Transport inspectors pulled 67 lorries into the side of the road. Their inspection of this random harvest revealed that more than half of them were defective. Two of them were considered too dangerous to travel another yard."
  In the same programme, when a lorry driver was asked what happened when he declined to take out a vehicle which he thought was inadequately maintained, he replied:
  "I got my cards the same night."
  Later the commentator said:
  "In a savagely competitive industry it's the honest driver and operator who are being hardest hit by undercutting, overloading, and drivers working longer than is safe."
  That gives a fair picture of the position and of the great public concern about it.
  This problem has been mentioned in evidence presented to the Geddes Committee. In particular, I would refer to the evidence presented by the T.U.C. where, among other things, they say:
  "There is extensive evidence that the regulations governing hours of work, period of rest and maintenance of vehicles are widely disregarded. This is mainly because of the intense competition and rate cutting which is still going on despite the efforts of the more responsible type of haulier to prevent it."
  I hope that the fact that the Geddes Committee is sitting will not be used as

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  an excuse for inaction. In recent years the Minister of Transport has established a number of Committees. We have had Beeching, Hall, Buchanan, and Smeed. Each has from time to time been used as an excuse for postponing taking action.
  I am not concerned with the overall question of what the licensing system should be, so whatever the Geddes Committee might recommend and whatever the Government of the day, enforcement will remain a problem. I want to refer to the annual reports of the various licensing authorities, particularly those covering 1962–63. I hope that the Minister will undertake to look at the form in which these reports are presented to discover whether it would be possible to have more comparable data in future. Each of the licensing authorities presents its report in a different way. The Northern Traffic Authority, for example, finds space for 20 headings, Yorkshire for five and the North Western four, but un-numbered. It is difficult to compare one report with another. One has a large number of paragraphs thanking people who helped him when he was a licensing authority because he is due to retire.
  It must be remembered that these are serious documents. Indeed, in many respects they are the basic documents available for a study of the ways in which the present licensing system works. Without saying precisely what can be done, I hope that the Minister will look at the form of these reports and try to find a way of improving them in future.
  Despite this, and despite the lack of comparable data—including the lack of information and statistics about persistent offenders, about which I asked a supplementary question in the House recently—together with the lack of information about the penalties that have been imposed, I want to look in more detail at these reports to see what they tell us about whether or not the present standards of maintenance are adequate.
  The Report of the North-Western Traffic Area stated:
  "The continued high percentage of defective vehicles indicates that there is no noticeable improvement in the standard of vehicle maintenance …"
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  The West Midland Traffic Area stated in its Report:
  "… offences relating to hours and records show no signs of decreasing."
  The Report of the East Midland Traffic Area stated:
  "The fact that 1 in 4 goods vehicles are still found to be sufficiently defective to warrant prohibition leaves no room for complacency".
  Meanwhile, the Report of the Metropolitan Traffic Area stated:
  "…five years ago … I reported that 12,160 goods vehicle inspections had been carried out and that the general run of examinations revealed that 10·1 per cent. were defective to the point of prohibition."
  The Report stated that 33 per cent. of vehicles had been found defective to the point of prohibition in the period under review. Thus the percentage of defective vehicles is increasing.
  On several occasions my hon. Friends and I have pressed the Minister to say where there are adequate inspectors to do this checking. We have been led to believe that there are sufficient. But considering these reports and the evidence available, one sees that the authorities concerned are unanimous in complaining that they cannot do their job properly because they do not have sufficient staff. Either the Minister has been right in the past—in which case the licensing authorities are not telling the whole truth—or the authorities have been right, and the Minister has been concealing something from us. But these reports of the licensing authorities are a powerful indictment of the lack of enforcement and the failure of enforcement to achieve its purpose.
  To summarise, of the total vehicles on the roads only one in 15 has been examined this year, and of that number about one-third have been found defective—33,903 defective vehicles out of 97,067. That seems to me to be a serious position. I would particularly like the Parliamentary Secretary to say something more about the spot checks which will take place and to make clear whether these can be conducted by the inspectors of whether the inspectors will require police assistance in the stopping of vehicles. Secondly, will the hon. Gentleman say something about the effort to recruit further enforcement officers? I understand that their pay

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  varies from £913 to £1,532. Does the hon. Gentleman regard these rates as adequate remuneration for people who are charged with these heavy responsibilities?
  Thirdly, could the hon. Gentleman say, particularly in relation to hours of work, whether the examiners are free to inspect the wage sheets as well as log sheets? This would be one way of making sure that drivers are not working overtime, because we know that these figures can be concealed in other ways. It is often said that the penalties imposed are regarded as normal business expenses. Does the hon. Gentleman take that view? If he does, can anything be done to emphasise the importance of causing penalties to be imposed which produce the results intended? Are steps taken to publicise those penalties which are adequate and severe enough in the hope that some operators will regard it as worth while keeping within the law?
  In the present circumstances, if each of the inspectors that we have tested 10 vehicles a day for seven days a week it would take three years to test the whole of the goods vehicle fleet, by which time a further 150,000 vehicles would be coming on the road. In the "Panorama" broadcast to which I referred one of the drivers commented at the end on the position as he saw it. It seemed to me to be a fair commentary on the position as it seems to be. He was asked whether anything could be done about pirate operators. He said that it was a hard point to answer and added:
  "I mean it's gone on and gone on and I suppose it will go on, no matter what we say and what we don't say. It will still carry on."
  Is that the Parliamentary Secretary's view? If it is not, what is going to be done about this serious problem?
  10.49 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): On the face of it, tonight's debate should be rather narrow in scope, because goods vehicle licensing regulations in the strict sense are concerned only with minor matters, such as the procedures and forms to be used in applying for carriers' licences, the fees to be paid, and so on. It has never been suggested, as far as I know, that
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  the enforcement of these regulations set major problems. As I expected, the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. W. T. Rodgers) is not really concerned with the procedural details but is concerned with the wider matters involving the enforcement of much of the Road Traffic Act and the subordinate regulations as they affect goods vehicles. I think that I can say that the theme of the hon. Member's speech was safety in the operation of commercial vehicles. I am glad that he has raised the matter tonight and given me the opportunity of saying something about it. It is a subject in which the public are considerably interested.
  I admit at once that the enforcement of safety sets us difficult problems. This is at least partly because in matters of safety, where safety of life and limb is concerned, one can never be fully satisfied with anything less than the highest standards. Nevertheless, it is necessary to maintain a sense of proportion, and I should like to repeat, as has been pointed out on a number of previous occasions, that goods vehicles over 1½ tons in weight have less accidents per mile than any other class of vehicle on the road. Whatever, therefore, may be the defects of some goods vehicles, or the misbehaviour of some of their drivers, as a class they achieve better results, from the point of view of safety, than anyone else, even including private cars. Statistics show that the average heavy goods vehicle travels between 300,000 and 400,000 miles without being involved in an accident.
  That is a good record, but it gives no ground for complacency. There are some owners who misuse their vehicles, and there are some drivers who exceed their hours. Our task must be to find out these people and make them adopt the high standard of the rest of the industry, and so improve the accident record still further. In this task, what is often forgotten is that there are agencies other than the licensing authorities which are doing a good job.
  First and foremost, there are the police. They have the responsibility for enforcing, for example, the general traffic laws, checking speeding and preventing dangerous driving—two of the most fertile causes of accidents. Then there are the highway authorities, which

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  also have an important part to play in regulating the safe use of commercial vehicles. For, as the law is at present drafted, it is mainly their responsibility to check overloading. I know that the hon. Gentleman did not want to spend much time on that aspect, so I will not do so, either, but I must say that normally, the highway authorities appoint their inspectors of weights and measures to do this for them.
  I should, perhaps, say that, contrary to the impression gained from an article in The Times of 5th November, 1963, it is wrong to suppose that a carrier can be convicted repeatedly for overloading and only suffer a nominal fine. Second offences—and I must say a word about fines in general—are subject to fines of up to £50, and a persistent offender could have his licence revoked under paragraph 1(b) of the Fourteenth Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, which is something that I am sure the licensing authorities and the highway authorities are alive to.
  In some cases, indeed, if there is a conspiracy between an employer and his men, for example, to breach the hours requirements, penalties may be much higher and, for some offences, driving licences may be forfeited. The fines imposed by magistrates vary widely, according to the circumstances of the case, from a few shillings to hundreds or even thousands of £s, and it is difficult to give an average that would be meaningful, but, undoubtedly they are a satisfactory deterrent—
  Mr. W. T. Rodgers: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that suspensions are very rare, as the report shows, and does he not feel that this instrument might be used more by licensing authorities in the case of very persistent offenders?
  Mr. Galbraith: If the hon. Gentleman will wait for a minute or two, I hope to deal with that point. It is an important point.
  There is another way of dealing with overloading which is, perhaps, not far round the corner. The hon. Member asked what we were doing. One thing is the new plating scheme which my right hon. Friend's Department will develop shortly and which has already been the subject of discussion with represen-
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  tatives of the industry. Not only will this make much closer control of overloading possible, but it will determine power-to-weight ratios for goods vehicles. It will also help to reduce one of the most irritating and dangerous features of motoring, namely, the lorry which goes uphill much too slowly for the rest of the traffic. I will not say more than that about overloading.
  A matter in which the hon. Member was particularly interested was driving for an excessive number of hours. As he said, there have been several recent articles in the Press on this subject. Public anxiety was highlighted by the multiple crashes on motorways in January. It was suggested in some quarters that the cause of those crashes was tiredness due to the drivers being too long at the wheel. As, however, my right hon. Friend pointed out, police investigation failed to find evidence that those lorry drivers had been driving for excessive hours. Undoubtedly, however, some drivers drive longer than they should.
  But to supervise every one of the 600 million journeys undertaken annually by goods vehicles is clearly out of the question for any inspectorate, whatever its size. Licensing authorities carry out this side of their duties of checking hours with the aid of non-technical traffic examiners, of whom there are about 140. Their number has been increased to keep in step with the growth of the number of commercial vehicles. They are not a specially recruited grade but are men with an aptitude for the work selected from other grades. At the levels at which they are paid, we have not found any lack of men willing and suitable to do the work.
  The hon. Member suggested that we should, perhaps, have more examiners. He will be glad to know that we are taking a fresh look at the whole problem and, clearly, would not wish to rule out the need for more traffic examiners. As I have said, however, the size of an inspectorate to cover every vehicle would be legion. The real problem, therefore, is to know how many we should regard as being enough. One idea which is sometimes mentioned for dealing with this problem of hours, and by which) am not very attracted, is the suggestion that special Government forms should be used. This shows a misunderstanding

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  of the checking procedure. The main method of enforcement is to watch vehicles on the road and then to check against a driver's records. If the two do not tally, an offence has clearly been committed and can be seen to have been committed.
  The hon. Member asked about traffic examiners and whether they should have acess to wages records as distinct from the statutory records of hours. The examiners do not have this access and it is a point which we are bearing in mind in our current studies of enforcement. It is not, however, clear that an extra power would in the end be very helpful, as there are various ways of disguising the reasons for extra payment to drivers. It is, however, a matter which we are considering.
  I turn now to the problem of vehicle maintenance. The licensing authorities have a staff of highly-qualified vehicle examiners to carry out inspections. They are specially recruited through the Civil Service Commissioners and they are trained automobile engineers of high standard. As the hon. Member said, these examiners have found a high proportion of the goods vehicles which they have inspected to be defective, and the licensing authorities have referred to this fact in their annual reports.
  Perhaps at this point I might take up the hon. Member's suggestion that those reports should be more highly standardised. The main statistical returns are, of course, in standard form. I am not clear what more could be done, but I will look at the matter again in the light of what the hon. Member has said. I must, however, point out, as, I am sure, the hon. Member will be aware, that these authorities are independent statutory bodies and it would clearly be wrong for my right hon. Friend to attempt to bind licensing authorities in detail as to what they may or may not say in their reports. I do not think that my right hon. Friend could prevent them from making the sort of remarks of which the hon. Member complained. These reports show that results vary in different parts of the country; but, on average, about one-third of the vehicles checked are found to have some defect, and 8 to 9 per cent. to have defects which render them potentially dangerous. It must be remembered that checks of this kind are usually arranged to catch the likely offender, so
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  these figures may not represent the state of the vehicle population as a whole. Nevertheless, they give no cause for satisfaction, and we have already taken action to try to put matters right.
  As I said, the vehicle examiner force has been increased, and, as my right hon. Friend announced yesterday, an intensive campaign of roadside spot checks is to be mounted during the summer months.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me to say a few words about this campaign. These spot checks will generally be carried out by inspection teams operating on every working day in each of the 12 traffic areas. There are also to be a series of two-day "blitzes" around large towns where co-ordinated teams will examine a high proportion of the heavy goods vehicles using the approach roads. The teams will serve prohibition notices on all unfit goods vehicles which they find. The essential purpose of serving these notices, of course, is to prevent the use of a vehicle in a dangerous condition. However, the sudden banning of an unfit vehicle may very well cause the owner a great deal of commercial inconvenience, so that it is also a useful weapon of enforcement.
  I should, perhaps, say that our primary aim in this campaign, as, indeed, in all enforcement, is not to punish bad behaviour but to deter it. For this reason, we are giving full and fair warning of our intentions and the areas which will be affected, including the large towns, and I have no doubt that this will lead to a very considerable improvement.
  Ultimately, of course, we aim to supplement, but not to supersede, roadside checks by regular annual testing of heavy goods vehicles on similar lines to the tests already applied to the older vehicles of unladen weight up to 30 cwts.
  Mr. Charles A. Howell: Will the teams have the right to stop vehicles on the road?
  Mr. Galbraith: No; it is necessary to have the co-operation of the police to do that. I am sorry I did not mention that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me.
  It is not always realised that this scheme of annual testing covers light goods vehicles as well as private cars, and light vehicles constitute well over

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  half the goods vehicle fleet. Comprehensive testing of heavy vehicles requires special equipment and techniques beyond the scope of most existing test stations, so that it is not possible to extend the existing scheme as it stands. But even with things as they are, the traffic and vehicle examiners are a pretty formidable enforcement body. In numbers they equal the police force of a city such as Cardiff, and they exceed in number the total factory inspectorate of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. They secure about 20,000 convictions a year, and they serve prohibitions on over 30,000 vehicles as well.
  As I have explained, the licensing authorities have power to revoke or suspend carrier licences, but they use these powers sparingly, partly because revoking a licence is a serious step affecting the livelihood, possibly, of both employer and employee, and partly because the Road Traffic Act restricts the use of revocation to cases involving repeated or serious offences. Last year, as the hon. Gentleman knows, there were 13 revocations and 19 suspensions. But
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  perhaps the main reason for not revoking is that the licensing authority often finds that for operators whose conduct is marginally bad a warning, with the threat of ultimately losing the licence, is enough to produce markedly improved behaviour.
  The hon. Gentleman did not wish to deal with the economic aspects of the licensing authorities' functions, so I shall say nothing about that. As he knows, the whole system is being surveyed by the Geddes Committee, and what will come out of that, nobody knows at present. One thing I can say—I want to say this very firmly—is that, though the future is uncertain, as always the licensing authorities are carrying out the enforcement procedure with the highest sense of public service.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at five minutes past Eleven o'clock.